Back in the fight, he thought.
The agent pushed against his hand. “We need to move,” she said.
Li Hu clutched at the bullet wound high on his left shoulder, releasing it only long enough to crank the steering wheel over and reverse the SUV out of the kill zone. It had been a mistake to assume the target was unconscious after coming upon the accident, but his price would only be a nasty scar. His men would never know the price they’d paid.
“Find me a way out!” he yelled, looking over his shoulder as he angled the Tahoe to the curb so he could put it in drive and escape before the police showed up. “Huang Bo! Find me a route!”
When the technician refused to answer, he spun to see half of his technician’s face caved in, the casualty of a lucky shot. He shook away his anger and put the Tahoe in drive, wincing with pain as he pulled out into traffic and fled the scene. Li Hu could barely see through the windshield and would need to ditch the vehicle, but his priority was getting as far away as possible.
“Dammit!” he yelled, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. How had a Navy pilot and a woman in a vintage sports car taken out three of his men? Three of his highly trained commandos? He replayed the scene in his mind, watching the pilot wield the pistol with calm precision, prioritizing his targets and shifting between them with ease. What was Chen not telling him?
He released his grip on the bullet wound and felt the blood oozing down his chest. He was light-headed and ran his tongue along the inside of his dry mouth, but he couldn’t allow himself to be captured. He reached for his phone with trembling blood-soaked fingers and placed an encrypted call to the duty officer at the safe house they used for an operations center.
“Authenticate,” the voice intoned.
“Mandate of Heaven,” Li Hu replied through gritted teeth.
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve got three dead, two on the scene, and I’m wounded.”
“Are they clean?”
His nostrils flared in exasperation. He was on the verge of passing out and trying to let his people know that two of their compatriots had paid the ultimate price and he needed medical attention, and all they wanted to know was whether or not they were clean?
“Of course!” Li Hu snapped. “I need help.”
“Torch the vehicle and find alternate means of transportation. Proceed to Site Bravo.”
The call ended, and he moaned as a fresh wave of pain crested over him. His vision swam and closed in on the hazy street in front of him, but he strained against it and forced himself to stay awake long enough to do what needed to be done. He scrolled to another phone number and tapped on it, wanting to let Chen know that her faulty intelligence had cost him three good men.
But he never got the chance. The last thing he saw before losing his fight to stay awake was a telephone pole rushing toward him.
26
The PIT maneuver had worked better than even Chen expected. The BMW’s rear tires had lost all traction and spun the sports sedan into oncoming traffic, where another commercial fertilizer tender slammed into its passenger side, despite the driver locking up his brakes to try and stop. The silver M5 flipped up into the air and crashed down on its roof, skidding across the road in a shower of sparks.
Chen pulled off to the side of the road and dropped down from the cab.
“Call 9-1-1!” the other trucker yelled to her, as he too jumped from his cab and ran to the mangled car.
Chen ignored him and continued running. “Is he okay?”
The truck driver dropped to his knees and leaned his head in through the shattered driver’s window, reaching in to check for a pulse or unbuckle the seat belt. She glanced over both shoulders, then reached around to the small of her back and removed the pistol she had hidden there. Holding it out at arm’s length, she walked up behind the Good Samaritan, who probably thought he had been to blame for the accident.
“Is he okay?” she asked again.
The man pulled his head from the wreckage and turned to look at her.
Crack!
She squeezed the trigger and shot him in the face. He collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, falling to the side in a grotesque lounging position, but she ignored him and shifted her aim to the man in the car. His head was tilted to the side, pressed against the caved-in roof, but he was alert and staring at her in wide-eyed fear.
“Who… are you?” he asked.
Chen grinned, then used the toe of her shoe to shove the dead trucker out of the way and kneel so she could see the man in the car more clearly. She glanced at her watch and saw that she still had plenty of time to make it to the Santa Maria airport before her ride showed up. Normally, she would have just shot the man and moved on, but he had embarrassed her in a way nobody ever had. She would still kill him, but not before having a little fun first.
“I am a ghost,” she said. “You will never know my name, but the world will know what I’ve done.”
He coughed, and blood sprayed across the sedan’s wrecked interior. “What… will you… do?”
Chen could tell the man was in pain. He probably wanted her to put him out of his misery. She would, but she didn’t mind satisfying his curiosity. At least a little while longer. So, she nodded and said, “You answer my questions first, then I’ll answer yours. Who do you work for?”
He coughed again, and his body sagged under its own weight. “FBI.”
She had suspected as much, though it bothered her that the FBI even knew she existed. “How’d you find me?”
He groaned. “My turn.”
Chen had to admire the man’s grit. He was in pain and had no way out of his predicament, but he still wanted to make her work for her information. That he would never get the chance to do anything with what she told him hadn’t even factored into her decision to give him this one small concession. Warrior to warrior, she would honor the terms of their bargain. She nodded for him to continue.
“What… will you… do?”
“Sink your aircraft carrier.”
“Why?”
She waggled the gun in front of his face, reminding him of their arrangement. “Who else knows about me?”
His mouth clamped shut, and she saw a spark in his eye that told her he had no intention of answering the question.
“If you won’t answer,” she said, pausing to look over both shoulders, “I’m afraid my time is up. Which means your time is up.”
“Punky,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Who’s Punky?”
This time, the FBI agent didn’t try reminding her of their quid pro quo. “The person who’s… going to stop you.”
Chen rocked back on her heels and shot the pistol out like a viper, striking him in the face with it. He grunted but made no move to try to stop her. She wanted to keep hitting him in the face until she had smashed every bone, then keep hitting until his face caved in. But she had tired of playing with him, and this Punky was going to learn the hard way.
Crack!
The bullet entered his right eye, and his body fell still. “Goodbye, Mr. FBI agent man.”
Chen stood in the vacant road and looked in both directions, then she scanned the fields of broccoli on either side. She couldn’t even hear the faint sound of sirens but knew it was time to leave. She slipped the pistol back into her waistband and jogged back to the Kenworth truck she had borrowed. It was a short drive back to Guadalupe to return it and reclaim her Jeep, then a quick sprint to the Santa Maria airport.