Dangerous Grounds Read online

  As he waited, he had time to consider his situation. That infidel houri, Lee Dawn Shun, had had the audacity to order him here now. There was far too much to do for his real mission, the jihad to free his people, to waste so much valuable time and risk capture for such an insignificant task as this. The woman’s drug wars with her estranged father were of no importance to him and his cause unless they somehow aided in the jihad. And her demands threw his carefully structured plan in disarray. This attack was supposed to happen after the major one, not before. He needed it to keep the NBI busy, not stir up a hornet’s nest.

  But, in truth, her money was important, so here he sat. Maybe it was Allah’s will. Tonight’s little adventure might still draw attention to Mindanao, away from events he had planned to the west of Palawan. And it was a chance to test the Russian gas, the fentanyl, before they used it for a far more crucial purpose. The Palestinian arms merchant claimed the stuff was so fast-acting that, once exposed, people dropped in their tracks before they could even take a second step. But, the Palestinian had warned, it also killed fifteen to twenty percent of its victims. Nurizam didn’t really care about the collateral damage, but the reaction time was vital. On the real mission, they would only have a few seconds to take everyone out. Otherwise they would fail. Tonight, at least, would be proof of the Palestinian’s guarantee.

  Sabul u Nurizam raised his right hand. He held it high for just a second before chopping it down.

  Manju Shehab could just see the mullah from his perch atop the prison’s high, peaked roof. The old man was sitting on a park bench across the boulevard from the high, stonewalls that shielded the innocent citizens of Zamboanga from the hundreds of menacing criminals held in the cold, dank cells inside.

  At his master’s signal, Shehab pulled a lanyard and tossed a drab, green canister down the ventilation shaft. He glanced down the line of the roof just in time to see three other canisters disappear down similar shafts.

  That done, he grabbed a rope and jumped over the edge of the roof. It took him less than three seconds to fast rope to the cobblestone courtyard five stories below. His team was there waiting for him. He pulled the gas mask from his belt and yanked it down over his face before waving his men toward the oaken double doors that shielded the prison’s main entrance.

  The Palestinian arms merchant had promised that this gas took fifteen seconds to take full effect. Anyone inside should be quite unconscious by now. Except, of course, for the unfortunate fifteen per cent who would be quite dead. The Russians had developed the opium-based gas as a very fast-acting crowd control agent, but not even they could accept the high fatality rates. Still, it served its primary purpose admirably, particularly when fatal side effects weren’t a concern. And that one flaw had made it much more affordable.

  Shehab swung the heavy door open, dropped to the ground, and rolled inside, his trusty .357 Magnum at the ready.

  He could have saved the dramatics. No one inside was awake to greet them. Ten uniformed officers lay where they had fallen, overcome by the gas. He ran past them without a glance.

  Off to the right, partially hidden by the guard’s high desk, was a small iron door. Erinque Tagaytai motioned Shehab aside and aimed his RPG at the door. The rocket propelled grenade shot across and pieced through the metal entryway. The ensuing blast stunned the ears of everyone in the chamber but the door now hung open, still precariously held erect by one tenacious hinge pin.

  Shehab tossed it aside and charged down the steep, narrow stone stairway into the dungeon below. He had expected a gloomy passageway, probably slippery with moss and lit by guttering torches. Instead, the whitewashed walls were brightly illuminated with florescent lights. The stairs opened onto a hallway that stretched a hundred feet or more, lined with locked doors every ten feet.

  Shehab stopped at the fifth one on the left. This was supposed to be the correct one. His informant had told him the American prisoner was being held here, together with a Filipino named Luna. Shehab had to trust his informant. There simply wasn’t time to make a thorough search. The mullah had said they would only have five minutes inside the castle before Colonel Ortega and his men descended like very mad hornets.

  Shehab yanked the door open and dragged one man into the passageway before going in again to gather up the other inert form. As he exited the tiny cell the second time, he glanced down the passageway just long enough to see his team placing the last of their explosive charges every few feet.

  Without another glance, he lumbered up the ladder, the man’s dead weight barely slowing him. He charged out into the central courtyard and tossed the shape down onto the cobblestones just as Erinque Tagaytai emerged behind him, lugging the other unconscious man.

  Shehab tore off his gas mask and glanced at his watch. Just then, a white Toyota mini-van, driving much too fast, careened into the courtyard, yellow sparks flying as the driver scraped one side panel against the granite wall. It screeched to a stop as Shehab looked up. He tossed his burden into the van’s open side door before hopping in behind it. The rest of the team piled in after him, Tagaytai dragging in the other seemingly lifeless man and slamming the van’s sliding door. The driver stomped the accelerator and the van roared away.

  Shehab checked his wristwatch once more and grunted. They had thirty seconds to spare.

  Colonel Manuel Ortega, Chief of the Mindanao NBI, was in the lead car, pounding his fists against the dash and steering wheel in rage and frustration as the snarled traffic kept him from making any progress whatsoever. It was only five blocks from the modern metal-and-glass agency headquarters building to the ancient stone prison. But even with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing, the early evening traffic would not part fast enough for him and the officers in the two cars behind him to get there.

  The alarm had rung just as he was leaving headquarters for yet another dinner meeting with that insufferable American diplomat swish, Reginald Morris. The man…and he used the term loosely…seemed to need constant attention lately. Tonight would probably be another in the long series of never-ending dinner meetings the man demanded, all allegedly to determine the fate of the American JDIA agents. Morris was obviously under considerable pressure to have them released and Ortega was not being cooperative in that area. As long as Sui Kia Shun told him to hold the agents though, whether it was for another day or for the rest of their miserable lives, Ortega would keep them safely locked away in the old prison cell, and no foppish American envoy could persuade him to do otherwise.

  But right now, he would do just about anything to get out of another dinner with Morris. The guy made his skin crawl. The wailing alarm had seemed like an answer to his prayers.

  Most likely someone down at the prison had accidentally bumped the switch again. It happened often enough. But checking it out would give him a few minute’s diversion and the chance to slap one of the jailers around a bit for show. Maybe he could even prolong the reprimand long enough to beg off dinner with Morris.

  But when no one at the prison answered the voice circuits, Ortega knew he had a bigger problem than an accidentally thrown alarm switch. It took a couple of minutes to get men armed and into vehicles, and then they were ready to head out.

  Ortega’s car had just rounded the turn onto the boulevard when the first charge detonated. The rest went a millisecond later. The blinding light arrived just before the shock wave and deafening noise roared up out of the blast, down the crowded street, through the alleys, followed instantly by a roiling cloud of choking dust and smoke. Ortega jumped on the vehicle’s brakes and stared in disbelief as the three-hundred-year-old prison disappeared before his eyes in a billowing, climbing cloud.

  The loss of four hundred prisoners and two-dozen guards and god-knows-how-many innocent bystanders on the nearby streets didn’t bother the NBI Chief very much. The loss of face, the sheer effrontery that someone would dare to attack him so directly, threw Ortega into a sudden blind rage.

  He jumped from his car, stood in the middle of t
he square, and, as debris rained down all around him, he shook his fist at the smoking hulk that had been his prison only moments before.

  “I will have my revenge!” he screamed, but no one that close to the detonation had enough hearing left to know what he was saying. “You will pay, Nurizam! You will pay!”

  He had no idea Nurizam was only a few blocks away at that very moment, pretending to flee the blast along with the rest of the frightened peasants. Or that two of his more prominent prisoners had not been killed in the vicious explosion.

  He only knew that his carefully held little fiefdom had just been knocked right off its foundation.

  He suddenly sat down hard in the middle of the street, tears streaming down his face as he watched the tower of black smoke reach for the sky. He realized then that he didn’t have the energy to even consider what it would take to rebuild what Nurizam had just taken from him.

  General Kim Dai-jang stopped talking, sat back and smiled. Colonel Jan xi Mung shuddered involuntarily. He had not been in this position long, but long enough to know that when the general smiled, something was afoot. That usually meant someone was in serious trouble. Or soon would be. Mung only hoped it wasn’t him.

  Colonel Mung was a new addition to the general’s small staff, sent by headquarters to replace the unfortunate Colonel Kuang il Chung. Rumor had it that the general had actually shot Chung at point-blank range for some infraction, but nothing was ever proven. The whispered stories of Kim’s towering rages were rivaled only by the stories of secret bases he was said to command and nefarious relationships he was said to maintain. When Mung received his orders to the general’s staff, he wasn’t quite sure whether to rejoice at the power of his new position or lament his misfortune.

  Mung really hadn’t had time to learn the full span of General Kim’s operations. And truthfully, he sensed that the general was not willing to divulge much beyond what was absolutely necessary. Not even to his closest subordinates. For example, this was the first time the general had shared with him any information about inserting agents into Saudi Arabia.

  “Colonel Mung,” General Kim was saying with his characteristic growl. “The Americans should be completely confused by now. Dawn Princess reports that she will enter port at Singapore in the morning. Her passage was uneventful. Evening Princess is still two days out of port. Captain Wand and Lieutenant Tak-Ji are flying south from Beijing. They will be traveling as Masu Al-Maturis and Bentu Shubaji, salesmen for El Durad, an Egyptian heavy equipment supplier looking for customers in northern Asia.”

  Mung raised an eyebrow just perceptibly. It was decidedly not wise to question General Kim, but the strength of this cover story meant the difference between the mission’s success or failure, between life and death.

  General Kim sensed the colonel’s question. He continued, “El Durad had two sales agents, a Masu Al-Maturis and a Bentu Shubaji, working in Beijing. They were invited to Pyongyang to discuss possible construction projects for us.”

  “You said ‘had,’ my general?”

  “Yes, they were my dinner guests last night,” Kim answered, his smile becoming slightly broader, his eyebrows rising proudly. “Something they ate didn’t agree with them. My staff doctor diagnosed a sudden fatal dose of lead poisoning. You won’t have to worry about either man suddenly showing up unexpectedly and ruining the cover of our operatives.”

  “I understand,” Mung said quietly.

  “Now, be on your way,” Kim ordered as he waved his hand dismissively.

  Mung quietly closed the heavy steel door behind him. Kim was already dialing the red, secure phone and bending over the chart table, lost in the intricacies of his master plan.

  Mung walked slowly down the dimly lit, gray corridor to his office. He was so deeply lost in thought that he didn’t even notice the hurried greetings from the other staff members as they scurried by. Something didn’t quite add up with the general’s brief. Why would a general officer in the DPRK be trying to insert agents into Saudi Arabia? Even if the Great Leader thought that he needed spies there, wouldn’t it be an assignment for the State Security Agency, not a general who was once in charge of nuclear weapons development? And why send the agents in by freighter? In this day and age, wasn’t a Cathay Pacific 747 passenger jet a less risky maneuver?

  Mung was sitting at his desk, slowly sipping a cup of tea, when it all came together. The china mug fell from his nervous fingers. It fell to the desk, tipped onto its side, spilled its contents, and rolled, unheeded, off the edge before shattering against the concrete floor. The brown liquid slowly spread across the metal desktop, soaking the papers and dripping over the edge.

  Colonel Mung ignored the mess.

  It was so obvious, once all the pieces were in place. He finally began to breathe again.

  Nuclear weapons programs. Secret agents. The Middle East.

  It all added up. General Kim was selling weapons to the Saudis. That had to be it. The Saudis certainly had the money to pay for such armaments. But why would they have need for nuclear weapons?

  Then Mung had another revelation. Of course! It wasn’t the Saudi government to whom Kim was selling the weapons. It was almost certainly some terrorist operation being financed out of Saudi Arabia.

  Then, if General Kim was selling nuclear weapons to terrorists, was he doing it for the DPRK? Or was he only attempting to line his own pockets? Maybe both.

  Mung thought hard, his elbows resting in the spilled tea. He did not notice it staining the sleeves of his uniform as he kneaded his temples, forcing himself to consider the ramifications of what he had just learned.

  In all his time serving his country in the Peoples’ Army, he had never come across the slightest hint of anyone selling nukes to any other entity. Those weapons, so hard-won and their existence so fiercely protected, were to be reserved for the special defense of the homeland, to be used by the Great Leader against the imperialist Americans and their stooges to the south.

  Was General Kim selling out the homeland? Or was there a bigger game afoot?

  Mung realized he didn’t have a clue. He stood and began picking up the pieces of shattered china from the floor.

  There was one thing he did know for certain. His survival depended on his finding out what in hell was going on.

  Professor Roger Sindhlan, a smile on his face, openly stared as Ellen Ward entered the expansive dining room and gracefully glided across the marble floor. Her chiffon gown was a light yellow cloud gently caressing her curves. Sindhlan couldn’t remember when he had seen a more beautiful sight. She reminded him of one of his prize orchids, in the full glory of bloom.

  “Good evening, Roger,” Ellen said as she approached and eased down into the chair he rather pointedly pulled out for her, the one next to his. “How did my brood behave this afternoon?”

  Professor Sindhlan had spent the afternoon in his lab showing Ellen Ward’s students the intricacies of genetic tracing as it involved the complex orchidacea family structure.

  “They were appropriately appreciative for the intellectual stimulation,” Sindhlan answered. “Especially since the lab is air-conditioned and the jungle trail you first suggested for the day’s activities is decidedly not.”

  Ellen Ward chuckled. The sound of her laughter, rising from deep within her bosom, almost made Sindhlan drop his wine glass. He was so near reaching out and gathering her up in his arms, pleading his undying love, when Sui Kia Shun came into the dining room.

  “Please forgive me, my friends,” the old man said as he greeted the pair. “I was unavoidably delayed. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you too much.”

  Sindhlan couldn’t help but notice that his employer seemed to be in a very good mood. His smile and good cheer fairly radiated about the large room.

  “A call that could not wait,” Sui continued. “Business. Good news. But such boring things are of no interest to you. What of you two? Have you had an enjoyable time so far?”

  Sui smiled warmly as he sat down a
cross from them and took a sip of his wine as he listened to their answers.

  Did these two not know that their feelings were so obvious? That they were working so hard to hide their thoughts behind trivial events that it was even clearer what was going on between them?

  He lifted his glass and offered a toast as he eyed the display of his favorite flowers in the table’s centerpiece.

  “To the beauty of the orchid. Delicate, brilliant, stunning. And to those of us who love them so.”

  “Here, here!” Sindhlan responded, but he was not looking at the centerpiece.

  23

  It took Tom Kincaid several tries before he could force his right eye open. He regretted it immediately. The blinding light sent a spike of searing pain driving through his head. He shut the eye, groaned, and slowly rolled over onto his belly.

  God, he hadn’t had a hangover this bad since the day after his sister’s funeral. Funny, though. This time, he didn’t remember drinking anything. The last thing he did recall was staring at the gray walls of his prison cell.

  He tried to open his left eye this time. Just a slit at first. The blinding glare was almost as bad as before. The pain wasn’t quite so horrendous. He stared down at a rough crushed-stone road. Looked like coral or some other equally white rock. He could feel the morning sun beating down on his bare back. Birds were squawking at maximum decibel level, contributing to all that was making his head throb.

  The drug agent groaned again and slowly fought to pull himself up to a sitting position. Nausea tied his stomach into a sick knot. He fought the urge to retch, swallowing big gulps of air.

  He was sitting in the center of a rough, narrow road. The track snaked out of sight in either direction. Walls of impenetrable green vegetation crowded the deep drainage ditches bordering the road. The bush reached high over his head, forming a canopy. But the sun still found a way through it. The leafy cane only kept out any semblance of a breeze. The air was stifling, impossibly hot and humid. A swarm of hungry mosquitoes buzzed noisily all around him.