Crossing the eight lanes of traffic at Canal Road, Adam caught up to Chavez and said, “Follow me! There is a pedestrian walkway between those condo towers there, we can head north of Jaffe and come up from a quieter street.”
“Let’s do it,” Ding said.
As they ran on, Yao asked, “What’s the plan when we get there?”
Domingo answered back, “We wing it.” Then he clarified, “We can’t do too much for those boys, but I’ll bet they’ll take any help we can give them.”
The seven surviving SEALs were overtaxed with responsibilities. Two men carried their dead comrade; one man kept a firm gloved hand on FastByte’s collar, pulling the young hacker along, and his other hand on his SIG Sauer pistol. The two operators with serious leg wounds were helped along by the SEALs still able to walk under their own power, even though one of the ambulatory SEALs himself had a broken shoulder. He had dropped all his gear, and now all he was able to do was help the man with the wounded knee hobble along while at the same time doing his best to fight his body’s urge to go into shock from the pain of the broken shoulder.
CPO Meyer helped Reynosa, who had lost a sizable chunk of meat out of the back of his left calf.
Meyer and one other operator were still able to use their small, suppressed HK PDWs as a primary weapon. Two more men had their pistols in their hands, but the other three surviving men could not even get a gun into the fight because they were fully engaged, either dragging someone or dealing with their own injuries.
Meyer’s team’s ability to fight had been depleted more than sixty percent in five minutes.
They struggled along as fast as they could, winding through parking lots and back alleys, doing their best to stay away from police vehicles racing through the streets, and pockets of 14K who gave their positions away by screaming and shouting, wild from the chase.
The rainfall and the late hour kept passersby to a minimum here, a few blocks from the lively restaurant and bar location of Lockhart Road, so Meyer knew that any fighting-age males grouped together were likely a threat.
As they approached a shuttered row of shops at the foot of a skyscraper under construction and cocooned in a latticework of bamboo, Bannerman called out, “Contact left!” and Meyer fixed his laser onto three young men running up a side street with rifles in their hands. One of the toughs fired a wild burst from a folding-stock AK, sending sparks and asphalt off the street and into the air near the SEAL element, but Meyer and Petty Officer Wade Lipinski each opened fire with their MP7s, killing all three combatants in a matter of seconds.
The threat was eliminated, but the gunfire from the AK and the eruption of car alarms on the street were bad news for Meyer and his team. The roving bands of Triads would be able to pinpoint them easily.
They kept moving, heading north toward the water and doing everything they could to stay under cover, as thumping jet-powered helicopters circled overhead and spotlights whipped across the high buildings all around them.
It seemed to Jack Ryan as if every damn siren in Hong Kong was now in operation in or around Wan Chai. Even before the short barking of rifle fire echoed through the canyons of skyscrapers a few seconds ago, Jack’s ears were ringing from police and fire department sirens, as well as from his firing the shotgun back in the alley behind the club.
He ran on through the pedestrian walkway, following Adam, who had taken the lead, and he felt the weight and bite of the Beretta 9-millimeter tucked inside his belt. Without Adam, Ding and Jack would have run straight into police roadblocks and racing gangs of 14K crews every few seconds. So far they had passed only one group of five or six men, whom Adam identified as probable 14K gunmen. Jack wondered if he would see these guys again when and if he made contact with the JSOC operators who had kidnapped FastByte.
From the sound of a new volley of shooting it was clear the American direct-action team was still heading north. They were just a few blocks from Victoria Harbour.
As they ran, Jack asked, “A boat? Should we get them a boat?”
Ding turned to Yao, “What’s closest to us at the shoreline?”
Yao said, “There’s a private marina over there, but forget about it. There will be twenty-five harbor-patrol craft with spotlights ready to stop them as soon as they go to the water, and the choppers overhead will have a perfect line of sight. Those guys aren’t going to Jet Ski out of this shit.”
Chavez tapped his earpiece as he jogged. A moment later, Gavin answered.
“Where are you?” Chavez asked.
“I’m approaching the rear of the club, but there are a lot of people back there. Some of them are going to be Fourteen-K.”
“Gavin, we
“Okay, but no promises. I’m not even sure I—”
“This is life and death! Do what you have to do.”
“But there are police and—”
“Figure it out and call me back!” Chavez hung up.
Suddenly all three men stopped running. Just up ahead they heard a weapon firing cyclic. It was a suppressed HK MP7; both Ding and Jack were familiar with the sound.
The JSOC operators were close.
Jack stepped into a small concrete courtyard between four identical buildings. The only light illuminating the scene was from red Chinese lamps strung across the courtyard over metal picnic tables and a small fenced-in playground. Just on the other side of the courtyard, Jack watched the group of men he saw back at the girlie bar emerge from a breezeway that passed under one of the buildings.
Ryan stepped back around the corner, knelt down, and took another peek.
The men looked like they’d just hit Omaha Beach. Every man Ryan could see was either seriously wounded or assisting someone who was. Two men carried what appeared to be a dead body.
Ding looked out quickly, and then pulled himself and Ryan back around the corner to cover. Keeping himself shielded, Chavez whistled loudly, then shouted, “Listen up! You’ve got friendlies over here! A three-man OGA unit! We’re ready to help if you can use us!” OGA was how CIA personnel often referred to themselves in the field. It stood for Other Governmental Agency, and it was safer than saying “Agency” or “Company,” common nicknames for CIA.
Chavez knew, whether these guys were JSOC or CIA or any other U.S. paramilitary unit, they would understand this term.
Meyer looked down to Reynosa to make sure he had actually heard what he thought he heard. The wounded operator nodded distantly, then propped himself against the wall of the courtyard and raised his gun to cover the area in case it was a trap.
Meyer shouted back, “Step out, one at a time, hands high and empty!”
“Coming out,” shouted Chavez, and he raised his hands and stepped into the dim light under the paper lanterns.
Jack Ryan and Adam Yao did the same, and within thirty seconds the SEALs had help from three able-bodied men.
Meyer said, “We can talk while we move.”
Ryan rushed over to grab the man with the bloody bandages around his left calf, and Adam Yao relieved the ashen-faced SEAL with the broken shoulder from his responsibility, helping the man with the bullet wound in his knee.
Chavez lifted the dead SEAL off the ground in a fireman’s carry, so the two men carrying his body could once again wield their HKs.
Together the ten surviving Americans and the flexi-cuffed and hooded Zha Shu Hai started again for the north. They still moved way too slow, but they were faster now than before.
Police sirens wailed all around and lights flashed in all directions; helicopters flew high overhead and spotlights reflected off windows. Fortunately for the SEALs, the two Campus operators, and Adam Yao, the high apartment buildings kept the helos from getting their spotlights near the action.
