As if eavesdropping on his thoughts, Pak appeared, smiling broadly as he entered the room. “They arrived as you described, Delgado-ssi. We have them in hand.”
He pictured Guan-yin joining the young woman here. Perhaps that was enough of a bonus for Ju-long’s troubles. With her gone, it would strengthen his position in Macau.
“But now we have business we must finish here,” Pak said, eyeing the room with raw lust. “You say she is an assassin with many criminal connections. We must know who they are, how they might benefit us, and, more important, what her connection is with the two Americans.”
“Were those two with Guan-yin?”
So far, Ju-long had not heard a definitive answer one way or the other from his contacts. Some said yes, others no.
“I do not know yet, but I’ll have answers within the hour.”
The door opened behind Pak. Another man entered, tall, skeletal, his head shaved bald, wearing a long white lab coat and carrying a stainless-steel tray of wicked-looking surgical tools and pliers. His face was impassive as he gave a small bow.
“Nam Kwon,” Pak introduced. “There are no answers he cannot extract with his tools.”
The interrogator headed into the next room, drawing Pak with him.
Pak paused in the doorway. “Do you care to join us? You are welcome. This is your merchandise.”
“No longer mine,” he corrected. “You have paid in full. What you do with the merchandise from here is no longer my concern.”
Or my fault, he added silently.
Dr. Pak shrugged and left.
Ju-long looked one last time into the neighboring room.
All this time, bent on a modern rack, the woman hadn’t cried out once—but she would soon.
7:39 P.M.
“Throw the bus in reverse!” Gray hollered to the front. “Don’t slow down!”
He was instantly on his feet as the military police surrounded the first bus and swarmed from the hotel lobby toward their vehicle. They had moments to react before being permanently trapped in this vise.
Zhuang was enough of a tactician with the Triad to recognize the same. He repeated the instruction to the driver in Cantonese, and the bus lurched heavily backward.
As its speed picked up, Gray dropped to his knees beside the hidden trapdoor in the floorboards and yanked it open.
Gunshots peppered the side of the retreating bus, shattering windows. The front took the brunt of the assault. The driver suddenly fell to the side with a cry of pain. The bus listed crookedly. Zhuang rolled the driver aside, tossing his body roughly into the stairwell and taking the seat himself.
The bus immediately straightened and sped faster.
Gray grabbed the assault rifle strapped to the underside of the trapdoor. It had been readied there in case there was any trouble at the border. He had noted it earlier when he and Kowalski had hidden down there.
“Pass the weapons out,” he ordered Kowalski, pointing to the remainder of the cache below.
If they were to survive this, he needed this bus to become an urban assault vehicle—one with a smiling yellow cat on its side.
But first they had to break free of this closing trap.
He leaped atop the backseat, switching places with Kowalski, and popped open the emergency exit in the roof of the bus. Jumping, he pulled himself halfway through the hatch and braced himself there. He hauled up the assault rifle and aimed it at the pair of jeeps swinging up the circular driveway to cut off their retreat.
He strafed the windshield of the first, sending the vehicle careening off the driveway and into the manicured lawn. The second veered but kept on the road—until the bus, barreling in reverse, struck it a glancing blow.
The jeep crashed to the side, going up on two wheels.
The impact came close to throwing Gray out of the hatch, but at least they had broken free of the closing snare.
The bus reached the end of the driveway and did a 180-degree skid into the six-lane highway, turning the face of the bus away from the hotel. Gears cranked, the engine roared, then they were rolling forward again, gaining speed on the empty road.
Back at the hotel, the remaining military jeeps gave chase.
More vehicles with sirens flashing appeared ahead, racing toward them along the wide street. In the distance, the spearing lights of a helicopter rose into the sky over the darkened city.
So far, the North Korean ambush, though a surprise, had a rushed feel to it. Whoever had planned this attack must have had little time to fully mobilize the Pyongyang police force. But now the city was waking up, preparing to bring all force to bear.
Throughout the bus, weapons were handed out, windows pulled down. Assault rifles poked out on all sides. Still, how long could they hope to hold off the might of the North Korean armed forces?
The answer: not long at all.
Gray ducked back down and called over to Guan-yin. “Can you reach the man scheduled to bring the military transport truck? Get him to abandon it elsewhere for us.”
She nodded, slung her rifle over her shoulder, and took out her phone.
Their only hope of surviving, of reaching Seichan, was to stick to the old adage: If you can’t fight them, join them.
They had to create enough confusion and obfuscation to create a small window to offload the bus and get everyone into that transport truck. With all the military vehicles about to flood the streets of Pyongyang, they might be able to blend in with them during the chaos.
“There’s an underpass near the highway that heads south out of town,” Gray said. “Tell him to leave it there . . . and do it now!”
Leaving the details to her, he shoved up through the hatch again.
The military jeeps from the hotel were closing in on them, firing over the top of their windshields toward the fleeing bus. But the shots mostly went wide, a few pelting into the rear. One lucky round sparked near his elbow.
Gray ducked lower, aimed his assault rifle, and shot back. A windshield shattered on one jeep, and it swerved into its neighbor, bumping and rebounding away. The collision slowed the jeeps enough for the bus to stretch its lead substantially.
At the same time, flashing lights drew down upon the bus from up ahead. A barrage of gunfire erupted from both sides of the bus. Police vehicles scattered to either side. A few tried to barricade the way, but the six-lane thoroughfare proved too wide. The bus careened through them, delivering a merciless salvo of gunfire as punishment as they passed.
Then they were momentarily free of ground pursuit.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the air.
A helicopter swept into view along the road ahead. It banked in a turn and dove toward them. A chain-gun under the nose blazed with fire, chugged heavy rounds, drilling across the asphalt straight toward their vehicle.