Chapter 65

  Twenty-three-year-old Charlie Han hadn't eaten in six hours and was famished. For the past week, Charlie's girlfriend Mai had brought him a hot meal and kept him company, but tonight, she called Charlie and told him she could not come because her grandmother was sick and needed her care. Charlie had a high metabolism, and the thought of spending the entire night without food frightened him. Charlie was one of Master Chong Eng's star pupils who also worked as a bouncer at the Mongoose Club for the past two years. Shawn had never employed a security company to man the gate at his home, but the past week's events changed all that. When Shawn asked Charlie if he wanted the job for a few weeks at twice the pay, he jumped at the chance. As Charlie sat in the guard shack, he was bored, hungry, and lonely. As fate would have it, his hunger and Mai's grandmother would save his life and the life of his girlfriend.

  *****

  After cutting the phone lines to the house, the two men drove by the security gate very slowly and observed the lone security guard sitting by himself. Fifty yards down the road, they killed the lights on their small dark sedan and parked it where it was out of sight from the lightly traveled road. The men got out, set a black box on the car's roof, and activated it. They checked to make sure that it was indeed working, and then they started to make their way down the tall fence line that led to the security gate.

  *****

  Charlie picked up the phone, intending to call the house. The line was dead.

  “That’s odd,” he said to himself.

  Charlie had never used the intercom before. It was connected to the home, and he was unsure how to use it. But how hard could it be? He pushed the talk button and said, “Hello, this is Charlie. Is anyone there?”

  Nothing!

  Charlie tried several more times with the same result, so he finally gave up. He then reached for his cell phone that was lying on a small desk, unlocked it, and lightly touched the phone button. He quickly found Shawn’s cell number and entered it, but the call didn’t go through. He finally looked closely at the screen and found that he had no service. Charlie looked at the clock on the wall. He wasn’t due to check in for almost another hour, so he decided to make a quick food run. Hopefully, by the time he returned, the phone service would be restored. Charlie left the guard shack and locked the door behind him. Seconds later, he was heading down the dark road on his Honda motorbike. He just hoped that he wouldn’t get caught leaving his post.

  *****

  The two men were thirty yards from the guard shack when the door opened, and a young man stepped out, looked around, and then locked the door behind him. The lead man raised his sound-suppressed assault rifle but didn’t have a clean shot through the thick foliage. He quickly made his way forward, and by the time he had a shot, the man was already on his motorbike and turning the corner onto the main road.

  “Lucky bastard!” the point man said more to himself than his partner.

  “Don’t worry about it...he won’t be so lucky if he returns,” the other man answered.

  “Do you think he spotted us?”

  “No way,” his partner said in return.

  The lead man easily kicked in the door and immediately found what he was looking for: the junction box that controlled the gate. Unfortunately, it was padlocked. He stepped back and aimed his rifle at the thin sheet metal hasp instead of the lock. The single shot blew away the hasp, and the lock fell onto the floor. He then bypassed the switch that warned the homeowner that the gate was opening and disabled the security camera that overlooked the entrance. When the man finished, he took out his small two-way radio and keyed the mic. The brief conversation quickly ended, and Mr. Smith was pleased with what he had just heard. A few minutes later, the hum of electric motors spinning filled the air as the dark-colored SUV pulled off the main road and approached the gate. The sun had been down for quite some time when the assault team entered the grounds. Smith turned to look into the back seat where Kim was sandwiched between two big Russians. He grinned at her and said, “Thank you for your patience, Miss Lee; this will all be over soon.”

  Kim didn’t respond; she just glared at him thinking, Yea, it will all be over when your fucking dead asshole.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  *****

  Ken pulled himself forward from the back seat and looked over Jesse’s shoulder. He watched the two figures move on the screen and said, “Whoooaaa… It looks like we might see a little action tonight, boss.”

  Jesse and Ken watched as the guard left on his motorbike, and the two figures converged on the guard house. Jesse’s cell buzzed, and he looked at the caller. It was the Reston operations center that was monitoring Shawn’s home, calling to inform Jesse of the developing assault and the deployment of a strong radio frequency device, probably a Stingray cell phone jammer. After he got off the phone, Jesse tried Shawn’s cell phone and got his voicemail again. He had no way of effectively warning Shawn, and the only thing he could do was to have Chuah drive faster.

  While the young Thai drove like a controlled madman, Ken and Jesse continued to monitor the screen. They watched as one of the figures appeared to work on something in the guard shack while the other man stood and watched. Jesse suspected the men were overriding the gate’s security system and cameras. Jesse knew that these two weren’t the only members of the assault team, and soon, his suspicions were confirmed as a large vehicle approached the gate and stopped. They watched as the first two men attached themselves to the sides of the SUV, and they started to move up the winding driveway. The SUV stopped three-quarters of the way from the home, and the two figures jumped off and began to move up the hill in separate directions. A minute passed before the driver’s door opened, followed closely by two others. Jesse counted three people in all, and he assumed that they were all well-armed. The other soon joined the figure that got out of the driver’s door. The images now were skewed at an angle. They watched as one figure pulled someone out of the back door and threw that person onto the ground. Jesse placed his hand on his forehead, rubbed his brow, and sighed. Seconds later, the screen went blank.

  *****

  Kim’s arms were tied behind her back. She kicked at Rakov after he pulled her out of the Ford Explorer for refusing to get out on her own. Ivan backed away in mock fear and started to laugh at the feisty bitch. To his surprise, she said very little on the journey over. He expected her to plead for her release. Instead, all he got from her was a cold, penetrating, hate-filled stare. Ivan had to hand it to the woman; she was tougher than most men he’d encountered when faced with the same eventual end. His laughter swiftly changed to anger when she got up and started to run. He decided to give her a head start before boring down on her. There was no way this bitch was going to outrun him with her hands tied behind her back. As he closed the gap, he decided to teach her a lesson. Rather than just grabbing and stopping her, he tackled her around the shoulders and drove her face-first into the ground with the entire force of his weight behind it.

  Mr. Smith was pissed after he witnessed the pile driver that the Russian had just administered. He wanted to use Kim as a pawn, not a punching bag. He reminded himself never to work with Russians again after this was over. When Rakov returned with his prisoner in tow, he said, “Now, was that necessary?”

  Ivan shrugged with a smile, “The bitch was trying to escape!”

  Mr. Smith clenched his jaw and shook his head after he looked at Kim’s face. The man was clearly sadistic and would have made the perfect prison guard at Auschwitz. He gave Ivan a hard stair, then pulled out a knife and cut her plastic hand restraints from behind her back. He looked at her bloodied wrists and pulled out a new set of restraints from his pocket. He put the new cuffs on in front this time and not as tight. Kim was surprised by this small sympathetic gesture, although she wasn’t fooled. She knew that he could just as easily kill her without the slightest hint of remorse. After he was finished, he paused and waited for a thank you. After realizing that none was forthcoming, he turned to his men and gave them their orders.

  *****

  Chuah had several near misses and left a whole lot of people scared to death in his wake, but he had closed the gap considerably. They had just finished traversing an unpopulated winding coastal road at speeds twice the legal limit and were now entering an area of beach resorts, local homes, businesses, and shops. They were still just over a mile and a half to Shawn’s house, and it would be much slower going now. Jesse took out his cell phone and tried to call Shawn again, knowing that the jammer was probably doing its job. The phone just rang without an answer again. He was about to end the call when a woman answered. Jesse listened for a moment and was confused. He handed the phone to Chuah and told him to slow down while he talked. Jesse listened as Chuah spoke in his native tongue. He soon ended the call and handed the cell phone back to Jesse without an explanation as he sped back up.

  “Well, what the hell was that all about?” Jesse asked.

  “You got the wrong number. That was one of the women that works in the kitchen at the Mongoose Club. She doesn’t speak English very well and was wondering why you are leaving her messages.”

  “Shit, the contact was written in Thai on Susan’s screen, and I just assumed it was correct. She must have clicked on the wrong contact, and I didn’t confirm it; no wonder Shawn didn’t pick up.”

  Jesse was angry with himself for not double-checking the number. He knew it was useless to try calling Kim, so he did the next best thing. After he redialed the number, he handed the phone back to Chuah and told him to get Susan’s cell number from the woman. If she didn’t have it, he wanted her to track her down and have Susan call him immediately.

  It didn’t take long. Jesse’s phone buzzed again. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Susan Wong. When he answered the call, Susan apologized over and over again for her mistake. The two numbers were next to each other on her list of contacts, and she must have given Jesse the wrong one.