The blast, while not lethal, rocked me to my core and shook me to the ground like a massive earthquake. With my eyes squeezed tight and unable to hear, I couldn’t confirm that Tessa’s prediction was coming to pass, but the fact that I wasn’t dead yet made it likely.
The plan relied on our adversaries being unwilling to risk my life under any circumstances. My three companions might be tortured to death to get me to talk, or discarded without remorse once I had, but I was off the table. At least for now.
So I had created a literal smokescreen for us all, knowing they couldn’t fire blindly into it and risk hitting me.
I felt the concussive blasts of three additional stun grenades delivered by my companions within seconds of the first, all having been tossed into the midst of the enemy force, creating even more smoke, along with disorientation and chaos in their ranks. Tessa had decided against using actual grenades in this phase. While these would have been more lethal, the survivors would have killed us all, no longer worrying about hitting me by accident.
I could barely hear or see, but I was confident my companions were now sprinting away from the warehouse under cover of the smoke these flash-bangs had given off, in three separate directions, forcing the Chinese commandos to split up to go after them. Since I would remain where I was, they’d also likely hold a few men back to babysit their prize.
Meanwhile, loaded to the gills with weapons, Tessa and her SAPS colleagues could pick off soldiers one by one, thin out their ranks, and eventually circle back for me. Or hide, depending on circumstances. All the while frantically trying to flag down a civilian to get access to a phone.
This was the real endgame. Find a way to contact Brad Schoenfeld to send in the Cavalry, and stay at large long enough for the Taiwanese reinforcements to arrive.
The odds of this working weren’t great, but at least we’d have a fighting chance.
The smoke began to clear, and I noted with immense relief that I could see, although with bright stars still dancing on the periphery of my vision. My friends were nowhere to be seen, having darted around the sides of the warehouse and then splitting up from there, looking for high ground or cover.
The Chinese soldiers were pulling themselves off the ground and recovering, and immediately consulting phones and tablet computers.
Crap! I thought in despair. The way they studied these various monitors, it was clear they had launched a number of drones into the air before we exited, making it a simple matter for them to locate my three allies, and making it much more difficult for my side to hide and set up ambushes.
Even so, if one of my colleagues managed to reach a phone first, we could still get out of this.
Two soldiers rushed to where I had regained my footing and grabbed my arms, one on each side, and dragged me back to their base of operations just in front of the two parked trailers, while subgroups of commandos branched out and raced off, presumably to reacquire my friends.
Or kill them.
I was dragged in front of an older, distinguished-looking soldier, who had the distinct aura of command. He was standing at a makeshift plastic banquet table, scanning several monitors that were resting on top and barking orders in Mandarin into his comm.
He glanced up as I approached. “I’m Colonel Lu,” he bellowed in nearly unaccented English, making me suspect that fluency was a requirement for any operative from Taiwan or China assigned a mission within the United States. Both of us were suffering from the aftereffects of flash-bangs, so shouting was the order of the day.
Lu barked another order and then shot me a look of utter contempt. “Is this how you honor your word?” he yelled.
Off in the distance, the sound of automatic fire and exploding grenades rang out, indicating a hellish battle was being waged by my friends. All I wanted to do was to curl up into a fetal position, but I had to continue doing what I’d decided to do for some time now: speak and act the same way I’d have my fictional protagonists speak and act in a similar situation. Fantasize that I was actually competent.
“Come on, Colonel,” I bellowed back, not giving an inch. “Don’t pretend you planned to honor our deal. You and I both know you were going to kill us all when you got what you wanted.”
“No!” shouted Lu adamantly. “There can be honor, even among enemies. When I give my word, I keep it. Unlike you.”
He had me there. Hard for me to try to take the high ground on this one.
Maybe he really would have honored our agreement. But I couldn’t have taken that chance, even if I did have breakthrough knowledge about UFOs and extraterrestrials. Given that I didn’t, I couldn’t honor my promise no matter what, so my betrayal of the agreement was preordained.
I inched my way closer to Lu until I could see the panoramic feed from his team’s low-flying drones, albeit at a sharp angle. Two of the monitors displayed footage of raging gunfights. On the third, Captain Dombkowski was flagging down a rare vehicle that had entered the isolated industrial district after hours, an expensive Ford F-150 pickup. The driver was screeching to a halt, but before the truck came to a stop, one of Lu’s men put a bullet through the side window and into the driver’s neck, killing him instantly. The pickup continued moving forward, not coming to a rest for almost twenty yards.
Dombkowski raced after the runaway pickup, intent on accessing the deceased driver’s cell phone, but one of the Chinese commandos put a hole through the back of the captain’s head just as he reached the vehicle.
I closed my eyes in horror and my body went numb. I stumbled forward and collapsed to the pavement, despite the commandos on either side of me.
Two more lives taken because I had tried to be cute by going on the Mark Russell Podcast and purposely making myself a target. I had never hated myself more, which had the effect of greatly diminishing the immense terror I’d been feeling. If I were killed right now, it was hard to argue that I didn’t deserve it.