Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

Ah well, as Giselle might say: c’est la vie.

The arrival of the helicopter made him forget all his woes.

It had come just after his last check in. He’d been busy drawing a diagram of the compound, noting the position of each building, as well as the exact coordinates for everything: the buildings, the fenced perimeter and even what appeared to be an obstacle course in the northeast corner. With precise enough coordinates, the Delta boys would be able to draw a near perfect map of the compound from just his radioed description.

The sound of voices drifting up from the compound grabbed his attention. He scanned the compound with the binoculars until he found the source of the noise; a small crowd of people—twenty or more—milling around the area he had dubbed ‘the course.’

Everyone in the group had black hair and dark complexions, marking them as native to the region. Most wore simple clothing: dingy t-shirts and what might have been canvas trousers. All appeared to be male, but that was something he couldn’t confirm. What he could determine with more certainty, based on the differences in size, was that some of them were just children.

Shin immediately got the sense that they were all prisoners.

Two men however, were not wearing the “uniform” of the captives. They were also Asian, but they looked like they’d just stepped out of a hip-hop music video—baggy jeans, T-shirts with fashion-designer logos prominently displayed, caps with the visors turned sideways. The effect would have been comical if not for the Kalashnikov rifles they wielded.

Then something truly unbelievable happened. The milling group fell into a neat military-style rank in front of the two ‘gangstas,’ and then, two at a time, they headed into the obstacle course.

They moved with astonishing speed and alacrity, bounding over hurdles and scrambling up ropes like soldiers at boot camp.

Shin realized that was exactly what it was. He assumed the men were conscripts, taken against their will and brought here to be trained and indoctrinated as soldiers, but it was equally possible that they were volunteers.

So what was this place? Headquarters for a local warlord? A secret terrorist training camp?

He wasn’t due to check in for another thirty minutes, but this news seemed to warrant an unscheduled call. But before he could dial Zelda’s number on his satellite phone, the helicopter arrived.

Because he was peering intently through his binoculars, he heard the beat of the rotors and the strident roar of the turbines before he made visual contact, but after only a few seconds of searching the sky, he found it—a sleek black Bell 430, coming up from the south, right behind him.

He huddled under his blind as it passed overhead, then he trained the binoculars on the aircraft as it touched down on the roof of the structure he had designated ‘Building Two.’ As soon as its wheels touched down, the pilot killed the turbines and let the rotors spin themselves out, a process that took several minutes. Finally, when the long airfoil-shaped blades were completely still, the doors were thrown open and the passengers began disembarking.

They were all Caucasian, and although too far away for Shin to distinguish faces through the low-powered binoculars, there were enough clues for him to approximate what was happening. The focus of everyone’s attention was an infirm figure with thinning gray hair—Shin assumed it was a man—who was assisted out of the helicopter and into a waiting wheelchair.

Shin and Zelda had been investigating reports of people—children particularly—disappearing off the streets. There were a number of possible explanations, and all of them represented humanity at its most evil—young girls sold to brothels throughout Asia and young boys turned into infantrymen for warlords and rebel armies. There were even rumors that a Chinese criminal organization, the 14K triad, was abducting people, harvesting their organs and selling them on the black market.

Not just rumors anymore, Shin thought. But the triad wasn’t smuggling the organs out of the country, a time-consuming endeavor that could damage the tissue. Instead, they were bringing the recipients here, to receive their new organs fresh from the unwilling donor.

A paramilitary training camp and a secret organ transplant clinic. The triad had built a one-stop shop for the flesh trade.

He reached for the satellite phone, but before he could dial the number, it started to vibrate in his hand.





EIGHTEEN


At first, King wasn’t sure what would happen. That lasted about fifteen seconds.

Tremblay who had appointed himself referee and timekeeper, had leaned in close as a shirtless King clambered over the ropes. “So, what’s your plan? I mean, you’re not actually going to hit a girl, are you?”