‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ Cole said softly. ‘If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go, and I’ll just disappear right back into the jungle and you won’t see me again.’ He let the tip of the blade pierce the wrinkled skin of the scrotal sack, and Khat flinched, panic replacing the fire in his eyes. ‘If I think you’re lying, then Mrs. Narong is going to have to find herself a new man, you understand? No more boom-boom time for you, my friend.’
Sweat poured from Khat’s head, and he nodded quickly, all resistance gone now. He was too weak, too tired, and far too terrified.
‘Good,’ Cole said, all too aware of the shouts coming from nearby, cars having arrived close by, men jumping out, holding guns and flashlights. It wouldn’t be long now.
‘Now tell me who your contact is with Liang Kebangkitan.’
Khat hesitated momentarily, a lifetime of discretion overriding his current terror, but a gentle nudge of the knife turned back his focus in an instant.
‘Wong Xiang,’ Khat whispered, breath caught in his throat.
‘Who is he?’
‘Chinese arms broker,’ Khat said nervously. ‘Acts as middleman between me and pirates, you know?’
‘Where is he based?’
‘You want his fucking address?’ Khat spat, before grimacing as the knife pulled away the skin between his legs. ‘Okay… Okay… I don’ know the address man, really… but he live in Jakarta, okay? He based in Jakarta.’
‘How do you contact him?’ Cole asked, his own pulse rising as the flashlights came ever closer.
There was resistance to the question, and Cole let the knife slip further, eyes burning into Khat’s.
‘I don’ contact him, man! He contact me, okay? But I met him before — two, maybe three times — at a place in east of city, Vietnamese restaurant, okay? Everyone know him there, yeah?’
Cole examined the man’s eyes in the short time he had, and could see no guile in them, no hint that Khat was misleading him; the knife between his legs truly terrified him, as Cole had known it would.
He could hear footsteps on the surrounding steps now, approaching from the other sides.
Cole withdrew the knife from between Khat’s legs, and the little Cambodian gun dealer didn’t even pause to sag with relief. Instead, he instantly screamed out in Khmer, calling to his friends, shouting for help.
Cole plunged the knife into Khat’s chest up to the hilt, the blade striking right through the breastbone and the heart, and the man’s words stopped immediately, head lolling to one side.
Cole sprang away from the steps a moment later as the crumbling stone was illuminated by a high-power torch, and then obliterated by the high-velocity rounds of an assault rifle.
The sound of Cole’s shotgun rang out then, and the shooter was blasted across the temple steps before he had a chance to react. The water hadn’t caused a fatal blockage at least.
Cole was about to make a run for the safety of the jungle when he had another idea; and instead of heading away from the man he had just shot, instead he raced across the steps, picking up the man’s assault rifle as he went.
He heard other men approaching, flashlights bouncing across the vine — encrusted stonework, and tucked himself into a shadowed corner, levering himself up the temple walls.
He scrambled quickly upwards, lost in shadow, until he was high enough to avoid completely the glare of the flashlights.
He stared down as a dozen armed men arrived on the steps next to the body of Khat and their friend, heard them cursing and shouting as they looked around the area for Cole.
Cole steadied himself in the arms of the Cambodian stone giant, aiming the Steyr AUG bullpup rifle he’d taken from the man just moments before.
And just when the confusion was at its peak — some people looking at Khat’s body, others at the second man’s, whilst still more shone their flashlights in big arcs from left to right, weapons tracking with them, looking for something — anything — to shoot, if only to unload their frustrations — Cole opened fire himself, filling the ancient stone enclosure with the staccato blasts of full-auto 5.56mm ammunition.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and Cole watched as men fell one after another, their confusion working against them, unable to see Cole from his position on the giant statue, and firing back at their own comrades instead.
By the time the smoke cleared, they’d killed more of their own people than Cole had.
There wasn’t time to assess the morality of his actions, nor any need — they’d been trying to kill him, and instead Cole had killed them. It was self-protection, plain and simple; survival of the fittest.
And he had just re-learnt the hard way with Boom Suparat not to trust anyone.
As he heard more people approaching, lights once more bouncing through the temple complex, Cole turned and climbed further over the domed pillars of the incredible structure, heading away from the south side.
He slipped down further away, keeping to the shadows as he got to ground level and stepped over the ancient paving, moving smoothly, unseen by the encroaching enemy.
Ahead, Cole could see the headlights of a truck, parked south so it faced the complex, illuminating it with full beam, engine ticking over at idle.
Cole saw that the hood was up, running engine exposed, clips attached and leading to the right, towards…
Cole saw the Minigun, its electric motors needing the power of the truck battery to get going, positioned on the back of a pick-up parked with its rear to the temple; the mounted Minigun had its barrels facing outwards, primed to destroy everything in its path.
Cole slipped through the shadows towards the truck, glad to see most of the men racing forwards towards the Bayan.
Controlling his heart, he crept forward inch by careful inch, keeping close to the ground, until he was close enough to reach out and touch it.
And then he sprang up, shot the driver through the side of the head, his skull exploding across the window; and then double-tapped the center mass of the man in the pick-up stood behind the Minigun, dropping him instantly; and then the two men checking the engine battery connections, only now looking up as Cole fired towards them.
And then he was inside the truck as his rifle clicked empty, kicking the dead driver out the other side and taking immediate control, foot down on the accelerator and hands wrenching the wheel around in a tight circle.
He could feel the tires struggling to get traction, felt the weak impact of rounds being fired at him from over at the Bayan; and then the tires got their grip and he accelerated towards the northern gate.
He looked in the rear-view mirror, saw men struggling to turn the pick-up truck around, get someone else on the Minigun, get it connected to the pick-up’s battery and aimed at the escaping truck.
But by the time they had got themselves organized, it was too late anyway; Cole was through the gateway and blasting north along the jungle road, the electric hum and ferocious power of the Minigun lost and useless behind him.
Even then, Cole didn’t allow himself to relax; he couldn’t.
For now he had a new mission.
Jakarta.
And a meeting with a man called Wong Xiang.
PART TWO
1
‘Destroyers?’ Jeb Richards asked in disbelief. ‘DEVGRU? A whole fucking Ranger battalion?’
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Richards had overall responsibility for America’s domestic safety, and was unable to understand why the kidnapping of three — only three, for crying out loud! — US citizens was resulting in such a large scale commitment of American military forces.