Checkmate (2006)

Fisher was determined to make sure that never happened.

He began moving up the canal.

58

ABOUTfifty yards from the monastery, the trees thi

A man was standing in the tower’s rectangular window, gun lying on the sill before him. Fisher checked the other tower: a second lookout. They were watching for the North Korean escorts, which probably meant they were were in touch with Zhao by radio.

He drew the SC-20, mentally tossed a coin, them zoomed in on the loser—the lookout in the left tower—and shot him in the forehead.

HEpicked his way up the canal to the wall, and was about to slip under when that little voice in the back of his head, the voice of instinct, whispered to him. He stopped. He switched his trident goggles to EM.

Twelve inches away, mounted at waist height on either side of the wall, was a paperback-sized emission point. Wall mines.

Fisher dropped flat and crawled beneath the mines. Once clear, he poked his head up and sca

Inside he found a spiral stairwell. He took the cracked steps slowly, pausing to listen each time he placed his foot. Halfway up he heard the scuff of a shoe on stone. He crouched down, drew his pistol, and continued climbing.

Three steps from the top he crouched down again. Ahead was a doorway and through it he could see the lookout standing at the window, silhouetted by moonlight. Fisher holstered the pistol and drew the Sykes. He creeped through the door, then clamped a hand over the guard’s mouth with one hand, pressed the edge of the Sykes to the his throat with the other.

“Good evening,” Fisher said in serviceable Mandarin. “Do you speak English?”

Fisher moved his hand and the man whispered, “Yes, I speak English.”

“Where is Zhao?”

“I do not know.”

Fisher pressed the Sykes into the flesh beneath his chin. “I don’t believe you. Tell me where Zhao is and you live to see another sunrise.”

“Please . . . I do not know. Someone came earlier this evening, but I do not know who it was or where they went.”

“You work for Zhao, correct?”

“Yes.”

“But you have no idea where he is?”

“Yes, please. . . .”

Fisher’s gut told him the man was telling the truth. He pulled back the Sykes, struck the man behind the ear with the haft, then let him fall.

HENG’SiPod beacon was still transmitting. The signal seemed to be coming from the remains of the smallest pagoda, near the north wall. Fisher made his way across the courtyard, then circled around the ruins of each pagoda. He wanted to hurry, to find Heng, but he forced himself to go slow. If Zhao had laid a trap, these ruins were rife with ambush points.

He returned to the smaller pagoda and slipped through a hole in the wall. The interior was partially blocked with chunks of stone from the upper floors, which lay exposed above him. A staircase, neatly cleaved in two, wound up the side of the wall and ended at the top floor.

Fisher picked his way through the rubble, following the signal until he reached a square hole in the floor. A set of steps disappeared into the darkness below. He descended. At the bottom he found a corridor; it was mostly undamaged, with only a few chunks of stone blocking the way. Doorways on each side stretched into the distance; at the far end he could see a square of faint light. He was momentarily puzzled until he oriented himself. This corridor stretched underground to a similar entrance in the central pagoda. He was seeing moonlight streaming in from the opposite entrance.

He checked his OPSAT. Heng’s beacon was twenty feet down the corridor on his right. He moved forward, pistol drawn, checking rooms as he went. Inside each was what looked like the remnants of a wooden bunk. Personal quarters.

As he drew even with the sixth doorway, the beacon symbol on his OPSAT started blinking rapidly. He pressed himself against the wall and peeked around the corner.

Inside, a figure lay curled on the floor. Fisher stepped closer. Next to the body was a white iPod. He flipped his goggles first to infrared, then to EM, checking for patterns that might suggest a booby trap. There was nothing. He reached out with his foot and rolled the figure over. It was Heng.

FISHERstood still for a moment. His first thought was trap. He backed out of the room, glanced up and down the corridor. It was empty and quiet. He planted a pair of wall mines, one on each wall beside the door, then went back to Heng. He clicked on his headlamp and felt for a pulse. It was weak, but there.

The back of Heng’s head was encrusted in blood. Fisher probed with his fingers until he found a serrated hole in his scalp. He’d been shot in the head. The skull bones beneath were shattered and partially pushed inward. Fisher kept probing until he found a hard lump—a .22-caliber bullet, he guessed—beneath the skin above the forehead.

Fisher felt his stomach boil with anger. They’d shot him execution-style, but botched it and then left him for dead. The bullet had entered the back of his scalp at an angle rather than straight on, then flattened itself on the bone, and followed the curve of the skull to its resting place.

Careful to keep Heng’s head immobile, Fisher rolled him onto his back. He opened each eyelid, checked his eyes. The left one was fixed, the pupil blown. Brain damage. The impact of the bullet had caused bleeding and swelling in his brain. It was a miracle he’d survived this long. Fisher checked his ears; both were leaking blood.

He checked Heng’s body for other wounds but found none. He broke open a smelling-salts capsule beneath Heng’s nose. Heng sputtered and his eyes popped open. Fisher held him down, held his head still. “Don’t move,” he whispered.

Heng blinked a few times, then focused his one good eye on Fisher. “You. . . . What are you. . . .”

“I couldn’t find an iPod like yours, so I came to borrow it from you.”

This elicited a weak smile, but only one side of his mouth turned up. “They shot me. . . .” he murmured. “They put me on my knees. I heard the gun’s hammer being cocked. . . . I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

You’re dying,Fisher thought. You’re dying and there’s nothing I can do about it. Heng wouldn’t survive the trip to the extraction point. It didn’t seem fair. To survive a bullet to the head at point-blank range only to slowly slip into death as your brain bleeds into itself.

“You’re alive, that’s what’s going on,” Fisher said. “The doctors are going to call you a miracle.”

Heng let out a half chuckle. His left pupil rolled back in his head and stayed there.

“Heng, I need to find Zhao. Where is he?”

“Not here.”

“What?”

Heng blinked a few times as though trying to gather his thoughts. “We came here yesterday—no, the day before yesterday. The North Koreans were supposed to, uhm. . . .”

“I know about the North Koreans. What happened next?”

“They found my iPod... figured it out. Zhao took three or four men with him and left the others here with me.”

“How long ago?”

“A few hours after we got here.”

Damnit. Zhao had a two-day head start.

“Sam, he’s got more.”