“We can’t let them take Charlie.”
“They’re not taking him,” said Telach. “There are two people who are going to get aboard the helicopter. We want you to take their pictures.”
“Shit.”
“Lia, we need you to try to get pictures of the people boarding the helicopter,” said the Art Room supervisor. “Dean is being brought back downstairs.”
“Where are they taking him?”
“Don’t worry about that. Get the pictures. We need to figure out who these people are,” insisted Telach. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“I have to help Charlie.”
“Dean is fine. Even if they did take him, it’s part of the operation. Don’t let your hormones screw with your brain.”
“Give me a break,” said Lia.
“They should be up there now,” said Rockman.
Lia pushed her handheld and its camera in the direction of the helicopter and crawled back toward it.
“Got it. Two good faces,” said the runner
The helicopter engine revved. Lia scurried back to the sheltered spot, waiting as the aircraft rose and circled the castle before heading back to the east.
“Where is he?” Lia asked.
“We want you to look over the castle. You can get down through the courtyard, that door we pointed out on the right near the corner,” said Rockman.
“Where’s Dean?”
“He’s being carried down the steps by two men. There’s someone else with him.”
“I’ll check it out.”
“No, by the time you get there, they’ll be gone. Go inside the castle,” said Telach. “It’s empty now. Have a look around:”
She hesitated.
“It’s all right, Lia,” said Rubens from the Art Room. “We share your concern. Mr. Dean will be fine. They’re taking great care with him.”
“All right,” said Lia, lingering a second more before going back to the steps.
22
Karr’s bike wasn’t going to be confused with a Harley, and even the dinky Toyota trucks following him soon began making up the distance. As the first rounds of gunfire chipped up the road in front of him, the NSA op hit the brakes and went into a power slide. Misjudging his momentum on the unfamiliar machine, he hurtled off the side of the roadway, losing his pistol in the process. He rolled to his feet, grabbing for one of the flash-bangs — special grenades that produced a loud bang and a flash of light, designed to stun or surprise people rather than kill them — that he’d tucked into his pocket. But he didn’t have a chance to thumb off the tape holding the trigger, let alone throw it — the driver in the lead truck jammed on his brakes and sent the two men with M 16s in the back flying across the pavement.
Karr grabbed his backup Glock from the back of his belt and shot at both, hitting one square in the head but missing the second, who managed to take cover behind the truck. The driver slumped behind the wheel, temporarily dazed.
The other pickup stopped about fifty feet away in the middle of the road on Karr’s right. This one had two men in the cab but none in the back that Karr could see. For a second everyone stood frozen.
Karr tossed the grenade toward the second truck, then spun and fired two rounds through the bed of the other pickup, taking out the gunman. By the time the grenade exploded, he had grabbed his bike, restarted it, and hustled away.
He headed toward a cluster of buildings near the intersection of the road and the highway. Just before the highway Karr found a narrow alley and whipped down it, zipping past a pair of doorways and then a pile of rotting vegetables before running out of alley. He abandoned the motorbike, jumped a fence, and ran into a backyard where several children were playing. The NSA op shooed at them with his hands, trying to get them to go inside or at least run away where they couldn’t be hurt. When they didn’t react, he raised his arms and roared at them like a wounded bear, finally succeeding in scaring them.
He saw another alley and went up it, coming out at the front of a row of small shacks.
“Hey, Chafetz, how we doing?” he asked, leaning against the side of one and catching his breath.
“You tell me.”
“We’re tired but intact. You find out what’s in that building?”
“We’ve gone over and over the feed. It looked empty except for the trucks and two cars.”
“Jeez, Louise, are you sure?”
“You want to check it out yourself?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he told her.
Karr reached back into his pack, taking out two smoke grenades and two flash-bangs. He slipped them into his pockets, then climbed up over the fence and began tracking back toward the warehouse.
“What are you doing?” Chafetz asked.
“I told you, I want to see what’s going on. Besides, I left my Beretta back there.”
“Forget it,” said Telach, coming onto the line.
“Easy for you to say. Rubens’ll make me pay for it out of my own pocket. That’s a five-hundred-dollar pistol — more if I have to pay government prices.”
“We’ll get the Thai military to check out the building,” Telach told him.
“That’s a joke, right, Marie?”
“We have no backup for you,” she hissed. “Come on. Call it a day.”
“You’re just being overprotective,” Karr told them.
“There is a time for caution,” the Art Room supervisor told him.
Rather than arguing, Karr changed the subject.
“Did you know that a lot of people come to Thailand for sex change operations?” he asked.
“Tommy, sometimes your wisecracks just aren’t appropriate,” said Telach. “I’m concerned for your safety.”
“I’m safe,” he told her. “And that was serious. I didn’t know.”
“Are you suggesting you’re coming back here with tits?” asked Chafetz.
“Just giving you a heads-up, that’s all.”
His pistol lay in the dirt at the side of the road where it had fallen, but the truck and the two men he’d shot were gone. There was no one outside the warehouse.
They’d left the garage-style door open. Karr checked for booby traps with his glasses and handheld. He found none.
A wire grid had been used in the building as a protection against bugging devices. It was relatively primitive but still good enough to render Karr’s com system unusable inside. He had to go back outside to talk to Chafetz.
“Hey, I found Pound,” he told the runner.
“We’ll have a chopper there in ten minutes.”
“Uh, hold on a second,” said the op. “Half the back of his head’s missing. Stinks pretty bad in here, so I think he’s been dead awhile.”
23
