“Ming’s drone will only show what we decide to let it show. Remember, I’ve been with his group for a while now, and I know all of their control codes. Meaning my comrades in China do also.”
Chen raised his eyebrows. “And I have bad news about the rest of your team, Major. Since Schoenfeld-Allen is one of the top PMCs in America, we made sure to buy a few of its best mercenaries. Our own sleeper agents. We have them in all the top PMCs. We provide generous retainers, even though most of them will never be activated. If they are, we wire huge sums into their numbered Swiss accounts.
“For this job, we paid our mole five million up-front, with the promise of fifteen more when he carried out his mission. A measure of Jason’s importance to us.”
This time it was Tessa who looked as if she might vomit. “Impossible!” she spat. “No one at SAPS would betray us like that.”
“Really? I thought that was the entire point of being a mercenary—or a PMC, if you’d prefer—fighting on the side of the highest bidder. My country has found that in the West, regardless of profession, loyalty can be easily bought for a high enough price.”
“Even if you do have moles in our outfit,” said Tessa, “how could you be sure one would be assigned to this mission?”
“We couldn’t. You wanted your best people, which worked in our favor. Even so, we were lucky that one of our hires managed to get himself on your team.”
“It can’t be,” whispered Tessa in horror, unable to bring herself to face the truth, even knowing that Chen had nothing to gain by lying.
“Just after you brought us here,” he continued, “China’s inside man began eliminating the rest of your team, one by one. So efficiently that none of them even had time to issue a warning. So Taiwan’s drone won’t show us exiting, and your men can’t help you or sound an alarm. The mole in your camp is already on his way to Costa Rica with twenty million in the bank.”
Chen tilted his head, listening to information coming through his comm, and then grinned. “Even better news,” he announced. “My comrades have finished setting up outside. They’re ready for me to hand you over to them whenever I choose. Fifteen commandos, all from our elite South China Sword unit, serving as your escort. You’ll be long gone before Ming’s reinforcements arrive.”
“Is China our final destination?” I asked.
“Of course. You’ll even be getting an audience with the Politburo, so you can tell the leaders of our nation what these UAVs are doing here. I should add that you’re wrong about our government. You paint us as evil. Hitlerian. But that isn’t true. Children raised by a demanding father with an iron fist often turn out to be the most accomplished of all. Children raised by a father who wants only to be their friend, who is afraid of any discipline, often turn out to be complete failures.
“China’s government has long been forced to manage five times your population in a much poorer country. But look at us now. The CCP seeks only order and fairness. It strives for wealth creation. It’s true that our government is a dictatorship, but the CCP doesn’t engage in arbitrary acts of cruelty. Our citizens don’t have your freedom of political thought. But this is a small price to pay to ensure order and prosperity for well over a billion people.”
“Yeah, words spoken by every dictator throughout history,” I said. “Everyone is the hero of their own story. But the truth is—”
A heavy weight suddenly bore down upon me, draping itself over my back, buckling my unprepared legs and driving me to the floor. The man using me as a human shield had collapsed, and I was the lucky one to have cushioned his fall. Now Chen had me pinned as if he were a tree that had been felled across my body.
I squirmed out from under his considerable weight and turned to look at him. He now had the smooth, flattened hilt of a razor-sharp throwing knife sticking straight out of his forehead, and he stared back at me with dead, vacant eyes.
As I stared at Chen’s lifeless body, I had a flashback of seeing Tessa’s arm jerk and return to rest just before his collapse, her movement so rapid it had only registered on a subliminal level. It reminded me of a scene from The Incredibles, in which a boy named Dash placed a thumbtack on his teacher’s seat and returned to his own desk so quickly that his mischief could only be caught in slow motion.
Had Tessa really pulled out a hidden knife and thrown it as quickly and accurately as it seemed? While I was a human shield, leaving her no room for error?
As unlikely as this seemed, it was also the only explanation I could think of. Chen was living proof—well, dying proof to be more accurate.
As this was running through my mind, Tessa reached me and threw herself into my arms. After a relieved embrace, she quickly separated. “Keep speaking,” she whispered softly into my ear, “like Chen is alive. The Chinese team is listening through his comm. Make up a story. Hurry!”
She backed up farther as I gathered my thoughts, her eyes moist with emotion. I love you, she mouthed. She then turned to Dombkowski and Connelly and put a finger to her lips, signaling quiet.
I took a deep breath. “Sorry, Chen,” I said loudly, feeling like an idiot to be talking to myself. “I got a little dizzy there. But thanks so much for your words of concern,” I added sarcastically, hoping to cover for the fact that he hadn’t spoken. “Give me a minute for the vertigo to pass, and I’ll finish what I was saying.”
While I was pretending Chen was still alive, Tessa had hurriedly pulled the bloody knife from his forehead and made quick work of Dombkowski’s and Connelly’s restraints.
The trio rushed over to the patio bench and its hidden storage locker while I continued my filibustering, which wouldn’t work for long. I had maybe a minute before the commandos outside began to wonder why Chen was no longer responding to anything I said.