The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (71 page)

“Tyler isn’t here.”

“He will be,” shouted Horvitz. He turned back to the door and fired a burst of bullets at its lock. The wood splintered and sparks showered off the metal fittings. Horvitz kicked the door and it caved inwards, sagging on its hinges. Beyond was a small storage room and concrete steps leading down. Horvitz stuck his head inside but there was clearly no sign of Tyler. He looked at Carmody and shrugged.

“What do we do?” asked Carmody.

Above them the Huey was careering from side to side and backing up like a frightened cat.

“We wait,” shouted Horvitz.

Lewis began to protest when he suddenly fell backwards, blood streaming from his throat. Horvitz and Carmody stood transfixed as Lewis slumped to his knees, the rifle clattering on the roof. Lewis put his hands to his neck and blood seeped through his fingers, running in rivulets down his tiger-striped fatigues. Two more red patches appeared on his chest, ragged, black holes in the material, wet with blood.

“We’re being fired at!” screamed Carmody. He looked around but they were the only men on the roof and they’d heard no shots above the roaring thud of the rotor blades. Horvitz was calmly surveying the apartment blocks which looked down on the racetrack. The nearest was 400 yards away, a thin white tower with small, semicircular balconies. A small puff of dust kicked up near Carmody’s left foot and he jerked it away as if he’d been burnt. “That’s why Lehman’s jerking the Huey round!” he yelled. “They’re firing at us.”

“Back to the slick,” said Horvitz, still running his eyes over the tower blocks. He hefted the M16 in his hands and licked his lips. “Take Bart with you. I’ll cover you.”

“Cover me! You can’t even see where the shots are coming from, how the fuck are you gonna cover me?”

Horvitz didn’t look at Carmody. “Do it,” he said. “Do it or I’ll be the one to shoot you.” He raised the stock of the M16 to his shoulder. He’d seen one of the marksmen, dressed in dark blue overalls, kneeling on a balcony close to the top of the building which gave him a clear shot at the whole grandstand. Horvitz was amazed he’d missed Carmody. Maybe he’d never killed before and the shot at Lewis had shaken him. It was one thing to be a crack shot on the range, quite another to take lives calmly when under pressure. Horvitz still hadn’t heard any of the shots and he knew that the marksman he’d spotted wouldn’t be alone and that even as he stood and focused his mind there was a good chance that his heart was in the crosshairs of another telescopic sight. He concentrated all his thoughts on the man on the balcony, steadied his breathing, and relaxed everything but the finger on the trigger. Four hundred yards was a hell of a long shot with an M16, and he had the gusting wind to allow for. He fired a short burst and saw a line of bullet marks appear in the concrete above the balcony. He saw the police marksman get hurriedly to his feet and Horvitz held his breath and fired again. Three red dots spotted the man’s chest and he fell back. Horvitz brought the gun down and went to help Carmody, who was doing his best to support Lewis. Horvitz gave Carmody his rifle to carry and swung Lewis across his shoulders in a smooth movement, grunting as he took the strain. He staggered towards the Huey which was slowly descending, taking care to keep well away from the tail rotor and the stinger which was swinging to and fro like a deadly scythe.

As Horvitz reached the cargo door, Lehman stabilised the Huey so that Lewis could be rolled inside. A third hole appeared in the Plexiglas, closer to Doherty, and Lehman felt the helicopter shudder as bullets hit the tail section.

“We’ve got to go,” he screamed, but his voice was lost in the sound of the rotors. He turned to see if Carmody was on board and he saw Lewis lying on his back, just behind the co-pilot’s seat, his hand clamped to his neck in a vain attempt to stem the flow of blood. His mouth moved soundlessly and his eyes had a glassy, faraway look about them that Lehman had seen time and time again on the faces of dying grunts. Carmody threw his M16 on to one of the canvas seats and hauled himself in as Horvitz leapt into one of the side seats, firing a burst from his rifle at the tower blocks. More bullets thudded into the side of the Huey and Lehman saw small holes appear in the roof of the helicopter.

He pulled and twisted the collective, pushed the cyclic forward and pressed his right pedal so that the Huey rolled to the right, away from the racetrack.

Doherty clicked his mike on. “It was a trap,” he said to Lehman.

“It couldn’t have been,” said Lehman, increasing power to the rotors so that he could get as much distance between them and the marksmen in the towers. “They couldn’t possibly have known we’d be coming in by helicopter.” He concentrated on flying the Huey, keeping the tail twitching as he climbed over the hills that divided the island. He was so involved in the controls that he couldn’t hear what Doherty said next, but he did hear the radio conversation that Doherty put through his headphones.

He heard an English voice giving a description of a uniformed inspector, close-cropped grey hair and a hooked nose, in his early fifties, driving a white Toyota. The man was answered by a Chinese woman speaking English with a thick accent who told him that the car had false registration plates, as did a Mercedes the man was following.

“What the hell’s that?” interrupted Lehman.

“I’m feeding in what I’ve been listening to on the scanner,” said Doherty. “Does that description remind you of anyone?”

“It’s Tyler,” said Lehman.

“That’s right, it’s Tyler,” said Doherty. “Some police guy over in Kowloon has been calling in his description and asking for information about a bank depository. It’s where one of the big banks keeps all its money.”

“And Tyler’s there?”

“He’s just left it. In the Toyota.”

“And who is the English guy?”

“A police inspector. Coleman his name is, I think. He’s trying to call in police reinforcements but they’re telling him that they’re too stretched because of the robbery. And because there have been two pile-ups in the cross-harbour tunnels. All the cops are stuck on the island.”

“Where we were,” said Lehman, realisation dawning.

Doherty nodded. “Exactly. Where we were. There’s more.”

“More?”

“There’s a major fire out in the New Territories. A warehouse.”

Lehman looked across at Doherty. He clicked his mike on again. “We’re going to have to tell the others,” he said. “They have to know.”

Doherty nodded in agreement.

“I’m going to set this bird down.”

“Not here,” said Doherty. “Take us back to Stonecutters Island. It’s closer to Kowloon and I’ve got a feeling that’s where we’ll want to go next.”

“What about Bart?”

Doherty shook his head. “You saw the wounds, Dan.”

Lehman wanted to protest but knew that Doherty was right. He hauled the Huey into a tight left turn and sped over the western end of the island, back to Victoria Harbour.

Tears were streaming from Phil Donaldson’s eyes, and his ears were ringing from the deafening explosions of the stun grenades. One had gone off just yards from where he had been standing as he was trying to calm people down and get them to file out of the exits in something approaching an orderly manner. Trying to get the excitable Chinese to calm down was an impossible task and he’d been pushed, jostled and ignored by the frantic racegoers. One old woman had elbowed him in the stomach and told him to go fuck his mother, a common Cantonese curse which would have sounded amusing coming from the toothless maw of the wizened face under any other circumstances. The Chinese were reluctant to queue for anything, least of all when they thought they were in danger, and it was every man, and woman, for themselves. He’d seen the Huey fly the full length of the grandstand dropping smoke canisters and by the time he heard the dull crumping thudding sounds it was obscured by the thick smoke. At first he thought the explosions were the sound of cars crashing in the road but they were heading in his direction and getting louder. He’d thrown himself to the ground, thinking that they were fragmentation grenades, and a dozen spectators had trampled over him. He’d put his hands over the back of his head and curled up and when the grenade had exploded close by he thought he’d been killed for sure. He lay where he was for a full thirty seconds after the explosions stopped, then he slowly uncurled and checked himself for broken bones or bleeding. The damp patches on his suit were only sweat, and he got to his knees, staring up through the smoke and trying to see what had happened to the Huey.

Through the irritating white fog he saw Paul Penycate, his superintendent’s cap on the ground, waving at his uniformed men to try to stem the panic and shouting in his radio mike in Cantonese. He was telling the marksmen in the apartment blocks to fire at will. Donaldson heard the crack of high-velocity bullets and seconds later returning machine-gun fire from the roof of the grandstand.

Penycate was speaking to someone else on his radio and Donaldson went over to him. “Nothing’s been taken?” the superintendent was saying in Cantonese. “All the money is secure? You’re sure?”

There was a small cut on Penycate’s temple, dripping blood. “There’s been no robbery, no inside job,” Penycate explained. “The helicopter’s on the roof; God knows what they think they can do up there. There’s a maintenance staircase, that’s all. They use it to check the elevator switch gear and the air-conditioning.”

They heard more firing and a Cantonese voice crackled over Penycate’s radio that one of the men on the roof had been shot. The engine note changed and a few seconds later another Cantonese voice reported that the helicopter was leaving, empty-handed.

Penycate spoke to Central headquarters and told them to alert Air Traffic Control that the helicopter was on the move. “We’ve got the bastards now,” he hissed at Donaldson. “What goes up has to come down somewhere, and we’ll be waiting for it.”

The Red Pole named Willie Lee waited until the four men had climbed in the back and settled down among the canvas bags before slamming the door of the van. He jumped into the front passenger seat and nodded to the driver that everything was ready. The gate rattled up and the van drove slowly out into the afternoon sunshine.

Michael Wong watched it go and looked at his watch. There were now only two vehicles in the loading area: the last remaining van and the Mercedes in which he’d arrived. The remaining Red Poles were now loading the last van with canvas bags of cash and jewellery. Wong had pulled his men out of the control room and he’d had them seal the trussed-up guards in the main vault along with Fielding, who was now conscious but blindfolded, gagged and bound.

They were just minutes from leaving. He took the elevator down to the floor containing the safety-deposit boxes and walked to the reception area. Anthony Chung was sitting with his arms tied behind him, a bored look on his face. He grinned when he saw Wong step out of the elevator.

“Finished?” asked Chung.

“Two minutes and we’ll be gone,” said Wong. “Tyler has just left with his money.”

Chung nodded. “Fielding?”

“He’s in the vault below this, trussed up like a chicken.”

Chung stood up and waited while Wong undid his bonds. He rubbed his arms to restore the circulation. “I wonder if it was worth you being tied up like this,” said Wong.

“It made the guards think I was an unwilling hostage, an innocent bystander,” said Chung, shrugging. “And Fielding saw me tied up. He was quite sympathetic.”

Wong grinned. “Such an awfully nice chap,” he said in a mock upper class English accent.

The two men laughed. Wong slid his gun out of its underarm holster. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Chung took off his tie and pulled a large white handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket. “It’s the only way,” he said. “It’s the only way of convincing everybody that I’m not part of this. Just be careful you don’t hit the bone.”

Wong nodded. “Are you ready?”

Chung smiled and stuck out his hand. Wong shook it firmly. “It’s been good, working together,” said Chung. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Wong grinned. “Anthony, you’ve made it more than worth my while.”

Chung transferred his tie and handkerchief to his right hand and held his left arm out to the side. Wong lifted his gun and shot Chung in the forearm. Chung stifled a scream by biting down hard on his lip as the bullet tore through his flesh and embedded itself in the wall by the elevator. Wong helped him take off his jacket and Chung pressed the handkerchief against the wound. Wong made a makeshift tourniquet from the tie and then eased Chung down on to the sofa. The blood flow stopped quickly and Chung nodded that he was okay.

“I’ll call the police in five minutes,” said Wong. “There’ll be an ambulance here in fifteen.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Chung, his face ashen. He breathed deeply, knowing that the pain would get a lot worse when the shock had worn off. “Good luck, Michael.”

The supervisor looked over the controller’s shoulder and studied the small flashing blip on the radar screen. The uniformed sergeant had told him of the attack on the racetrack so they had given up trying to contact the helicopter, their task now to keep tabs on it and make sure that all other aircraft were kept out of its way. The blip was moving to the north-east, heading for the final approach used by aircraft landing at Kai Tak. The controller had already put two Cathay Pacific 747s into a holding pattern and he was preparing to do the same with a KLM jet. The supervisor stood and beckoned the sergeant over. “Tell your boss it looks like they’re heading for Stonecutters Island.”