Someone kicked at Sam's head. A rifle came down on her back like a hammer blow, sent her sprawling. She rolled to avoid another aimed at her head, took a foot painfully in the ribs, punched out at a man's groin, knocked him back despite the body armor.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Too many of them.
Kicks and rifles rained down on her. She blocked, blocked, kicked blindly, tried to grab at a gun. Blows kept landing. Pain exploded through her face as a steel-toe boot connected. Her left arm went numb as she blocked a rifle butt painfully with her elbow. Pain shot up from her kidneys. Her hip, her ribs, her chest, she was being pummeled into hell. She couldn't breathe, could barely see.
Too many. Too fucking many. She could not win this fight. She was going to fucking die here.
They killed Mai!
A foot landed on the side of her head and pushed. Two men wrestled her wrists together. Sam raged, almost pushed them off. A rifle butt slammed into her face. Her muscles went limp for an instant. Her wrists snapped together behind her back in plasticuffs. Three rifle barrels pointed down at her.
"Stand down, damn you!" Lee yelled.
She was beaten, she realized. There would be no rescue this time. Now she'd pay for what she'd done.
And then the ceiling above her exploded, something large and heavy fell from it onto the agents below, and someone tall and built like an ox dropped after it, full auto shotguns in both hands, firing as he landed.
Wats scanned frantically. There! That was Kade. He flew out of nowhere, collided with one of the ERD agents. He was trying to save Cataranes.
The agent smacked Kade down as Wats watched. At least six of them down there. No sign of Suk Prat-Nung's men yet either. Nearly hopeless odds.
All that matters is what we do with the instant we are given.
Wats slapped the plastic explosive down, hit the delayed detonator, crouched behind the heavy wooden desk.
The explosion was deafening. Dust fell on him instantly. He heaved the oak desk forward, sent it hurtling down through the hole in the floor, pulled his guns and jumped down after it.
Sam's eyes widened as the towering figure in black leapt down through the hole that the blast had opened in the ceiling above, landing on the wreckage of the massive desk that had preceded him, and the agents buried beneath it. Lee looked up, stunned, tried to bring his pistol to bear. Wats' gun roared at point-blank range, and Lee's head disintegrated in a cloud of red gore.
There was a mind there. Sam felt it. She'd felt it briefly once before. Watson Cole. The one that had gotten away.
The ex-Marine turned, firing in a tight arc in the close space of the combat. One of the agents rolled behind the fallen desk. Another brought his gun up to fire at Cole. The black man's auto shotguns pulverized him.
Another mercenary took aim at Cole. Sam threw herself at the mercenary, arms cuffed behind her back, knocked him to the ground, kicked him in the face until he went limp.
There was one more agent up, the one who'd rolled behind the wreckage of the massive desk. He came around it, tried to take Cole by surprise. Wats was there, waiting for him. The mercenary came up into the barrels of both guns. They erupted, their muzzle flashes burning him , graphene-coated pellets shredding through his armor, opening holes in his chest and groin.
One of the two agents under the wreckage of the desk was stirring, reaching for the assault rifle just out of his grasp. Wats kicked it away from him, bashed him in the face with the butt of his shotgun.
The guns fell silent. Only the screams of the dying and the sobs of the bereaved could be heard.
38
HELL ON EARTH
Garrett Nichols stared at the display in stunned silence. What the fuck had just happened?
"Radio intercept," Jane Kim said. "Bangkok Metro Police chopper en route. ETA… two minutes."
No. This was a nightmare. They couldn't let the local authorities find any evidence. Their rules of engagement were crystal clear on that.
Three men were still alive. Another's radio was offline, his state unknown.
"Bruce, get those men up. They have to get out of there."
Bruce Williams was pounding keys furiously. "Not responding. Two unconscious. One has good vitals but radio's offline, possibly damaged."
"Ninety seconds till chopper arrival," Jane Kim called out. "Aerial news drones en route as well."
"Sanitize," Becker said quietly from the screen. "Protocol Thirteen."
Nichols looked up, horrified. "Sir, we still have three men alive in there, maybe four. And civilians! I need to get them out."
"You don't have time," Becker said. The Deputy Director's face was pale. His mouth was set in a hard line. His voice was resigned. "You have local police inbound and you now have less than two minutes."
"We just need a little more time… get our men out of there, get the civilians out… There's no precedent!"
"There isn't any more time!" Becker snapped. "Those men are unconscious. The Bangkok Police are almost on top of you. You have to sanitize! You know the rules. Protocol Thirteen. Execute."
Nichols couldn't breathe. This was a bad dream – a horrible dream. Kim and Williams were staring at him, ashen-faced.
"Execute, Nichols, or I swear to god I'll have you relieved."
Nichols tapped at his keyboard, pulled up a screen he'd only ever used in war games. Entered the commands. A confirmation prompt appeared, asking for his password. He entered it. A second prompt appeared, on all their terminals. It needed a second person's password.
Kim and Williams stared at their terminals, all blood drained from their faces.
"Bruce, type in your password."
Williams blanched further. "Sir, I… I…"
"Do it, Bruce," Nichols said gently. "It's on me."
Williams trembled as he typed in his password, hit ENTER. The system accepted it. A final confirmation prompt appeared on Nichols' screen. He looked up at the feeds, the tactical display, his casualties, the men on the ground, immobile but still breathing, the sobbing civilians crawling on the floor. He hit ENTER one more time… God save his soul.
Sam crouched by a fallen agent, back to him, yanked a knife free from his belt, sawed it through the plasticuffs, came to her feet a free woman.
Wats reached Kade a second before she did. Kade was coming around. He'd been slammed in the face hard. One eye was swollen bloodily shut and a nasty cut ran from his temple to his cheek. He was groggy, but rising back to consciousness.
Wats holstered his guns, scooped Kade up in his arms. "We've got to get out of here."