Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (26 page)

67

Cutler was still clutching his briefcase, his other hand flapping at his thigh like the futile motion of a flightless bird. Eventually he broke the silence.

‘We don’t have much time.’

‘Metzger filled me in on what’s in store. He didn’t specify what you had in mind for Jin Jié.’

Cutler laughed awkwardly.

‘That’s Chang’s play.’

‘And we get the blame.’

‘Too late to stop it now.’ Tiny drops of sweat dotted Cutler’s forehead.

Kovic took a step closer. ‘It was good of you to credit me for the border incident. Metzger practically gave me a Congressional Medal of Honor for it on the spot.’

Cutler sighed wearily. Treason was tiring.

‘Kovic, you know how it is. The job we do . . . as the world gets more complicated, it gets harder. We face difficult choices.’

Kovic felt a tsunami of rage building up inside him.

‘Yeah, guess I wasn’t in on the “choices” bit of that.’

He moved round the table to the door, cutting off Cutler’s exit.

‘Don’t do anything stupid now.’

‘Depends on your definition of stupid. I’ve been doing stupid stuff all my life. It’s too late to change. What’s the plan for Jin Jié?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Kovic closed in on him.

‘Kovic, remember you’re an American public servant.’

‘Don’t go there. The plan – tell me.’

Kovic picked up a champagne glass and tapped it lightly on the
table so the end of it shattered and broke off.

‘What’s Metzger promised you? He gonna make you Director when he hits the White House?’

Glass in hand, he took a step nearer.

‘Kovic, you have a choice. I know you’ve been under a lot of strain. But we have to get out of here before— ’

‘I don’t have a choice, Cutler. You’ve seen to that.’

Cutler reached into his coat but Kovic’s kick came before his weapon was even out of its holster. Cutler’s training should have prepared him, but something, maybe his own hubris, his own belief in his plan, had weakened his guard. As he went down, Kovic pressed his foot hard on his balls and ground them so he arched and writhed like an overturned cockroach trying to right itself.

Kovic bent over him. ‘Jin Jié: just tell me where, and when.’

Cutler’s gasps smelled faintly of vomit. Kovic lowered the broken glass so it pressed against his neck.

Cutler could barely speak. The words came out as hoarse little whispers.

When he had got what he wanted, he reached into Cutler’s coat and pulled out the Sig 226.

‘That’s a big toy for a desk man.’

He straightened up and checked the clip. He was standing over Cutler just like Tsu had stood over the Marines on the border. There was a noise from inside Cutler’s pants as he soiled himself and a sharp sweet smell wafted from him. Kovic aimed.

‘This is how it was for Olsen.’

He fired once, low.

Cutler flinched, tried to haul himself up with a chair but slipped back down.

‘And Faulkner.’

He fired again, higher.

Cutler’s torso arched. ‘You must understand. I did it for America.’

‘Not my America.’

‘And this one’s for Price.’

All the pent up rage welled up inside him.

He fired, and fired again. And again, until the chamber was empty.

68

Continental Conference Centre, Shanghai

Either Hannah’s phone was off or she couldn’t hear it. Kovic cursed himself for letting her go to Jin Jié’s rally. As he descended in the lift, Kovic left a message and sent a text:
Get out now – BOMB.

Wu was waiting outside as Kovic burst through the cordon round the hotel and dashed for the car.

‘Continental Centre – NOW!’

‘Sure, boss.’

He had never seen Kovic like this, tearing towards him, gun in his hand.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘Souvenir. Hit it, Wu! We have about zero seconds to save Jin Jié’s ass.’

The Continental Conference Centre was less than three blocks away but the route was jammed with military vehicles.

‘These all arrived in the last hour. Bi-i-i-ig build-up.’

‘Gimme the satphone.’

Wu threw the car into reverse, inserted it between two army trucks and nosed it into a narrow alley clearly not designed for traffic.

‘This better be the right way.’

Kovic dialled Garrison. He picked up before it even rang.

‘You want to tell me what in hell’s name is happening down there?’

Kovic told him, all of it. There was no point holding back.

‘Cutler knew. What happened on the border, the ambush. He cooked it up with Chang.’

‘Holy mother of fuck. You absolutely sure about this?’

He outlined his encounter with Metzger.

‘He thought I was in on it as well. I wish I could be there when you tell the Pentagon, sir.’

‘Where’s Cutler now?’

‘I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Sir, that exfil we talked about – how soon can you get airborne?’

‘We’ll need clearance, what with the heightened tension.’

‘I might be dead before then.’

He killed the line.

Wu skidded to a halt outside the Conference Centre. Kovic was out before he had come to a stop.

‘Stick around – somewhere I can find you. Jeez, this guy can pull a crowd.’

The plaza outside was packed with young people watching on two big screens. A line of TV satellite trucks were parked down a side street. Over the cheering crowds, Jin Jié’s voice boomed out from the speakers.

‘. . .
And I believe that for all our shortcomings, we are also full of decency and fellowship, that what divides us is not as strong as what unites us
. . .’

Kovic battled his way through the crowd, which was in a state of mass euphoria, thousands who had turned out to show their support. There was no visible security, even though the city was crawling with police and military. In the foyer, Kovic smashed the butt of the SIG into the first fire alarm he saw. No one took any notice. Jin Jié was in full flow, the audience rapt. Kovic dodged through, into the auditorium.

It was completely packed. People filled the aisles and stood on seats. Some had tears running down their faces. Kovic elbowed his way towards the front.

‘
I see the task of shaping the future as one we can all share. I want our democracy to set new standards for the world. To become the benchmark for this young century
. . .’

He searched for Hannah in the group surrounding Jin Jié but she was nowhere to be seen. The audience near the stage was tightly packed, pressing forward. He tried to fight his way through but there was no way. In desperation he raised the Sig and fired into the air.

‘Get out now!’ he yelled. ‘There’s a bomb.’

The crowd around him shrank back and a path to the lectern opened up. The bullet had hit a chandelier above and showered them with glass. Several people screamed. Well maybe that would get them moving. Jin Jié stopped speaking and glared at Kovic. Who was this madman?

‘Jin Jié, we gotta go. Now. Where’s Hannah? Where is she? HANNAH!’

Kovic grabbed him with both hands, pulled him down on to the stage and dragged him towards the wings; all the time he kept yelling for Hannah.

The giant flash erupted from somewhere close to the lectern, the blast that came with it sweeping them off their feet. Kovic lost his grip on Jin Jié as they took flight. For a second he blacked out, coming to again as he landed in a heap of bodies. The lights went out, plunging them into complete darkness. Blasted by the explosion, his ears barely registered the thousands of screams coming from all around him. He struggled to free himself and tried to take a breath but the air was thick with dust. An emergency light flickered into action, glowing a sickly yellow. Gradually his eyes adjusted. A thick fog of dust swirled around them. Those who could move looked grey, like half-exposed images in an old photo. Kovic took a step and stumbled over a body at his feet, a young woman lying face down, inert. He bent down and turned her over. Two eyes stared up, wide, unseeing, her torso a mass of blood. It wasn’t Hannah. He surveyed the scene around him and caught sight of Jin Jié, bleeding from his shoulder and the side of his head. He was trying to get up.

Kovic grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the mass of bodies piled against the wall. He was moving but his eyes were unfocused. Kovic groped his way towards the flickering emergency exit sign. The sprinklers came on, drenching them and turning the dust that had settled on them into a slippery paste. He slapped Jin Jié’s face but his head lolled to one side. Kovic inspected the wound. It looked deep. Again he looked left and right and behind him, hoping to see Hannah. Surely she would have been here, but that would put her near the blast . . .

‘You fucking naive bastard. You brought all these people here—’

Jin Jié’s gaze wandered his way, uncomprehending. Kovic glared at him, half inclined to leave him where he was and get the hell out. His head jerked up and his eyes came into focus.

‘Please—’

‘No.’

Kovic was damned if Chang was going to get his way.

‘C’mon.’

He hauled him forward until they encountered a stairwell. In the dust it was impossible to tell whether the exit was down there or not. But the walking wounded were now pressing forward and Kovic lost his footing and fell, taking Jin Jié with him. The others, propelled by what was now a surge of fleeing people, tumbled after them, burying them in another human heap.

Winded and suff ocating under the mass of writhing bodies, Kovic felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. This can’t happen, he told himself, not now. He had lost his grip on Jin Jié. His strength ebbed away as he felt himself drowning under a human wave.

69

USS
Valkyrie
, South China Sea

Garrison climbed the stairs heavily. He’d missed breakfast and his energy levels were dropping. By the time he got to his quarters he was feeling faint with hunger and fatigue. An hour had passed since he sent the communiqué, encrypted and marked with the Secretary of Defense’s codename,
GAUNTLET – Eyes Only,
along with the exfil request. What was taking so damn long?

He patted his tunic in search of the granola bar he thought he remembered pocketing sometime in the night. Then the red phone sounded, and obliterated all sensation of exhaustion. A female voice asked him to confirm his ID.

‘I have
Gauntlet
for you, Commander – please hold.’

While he waited, Garrison flicked on the large LED screen across the table. Furious rioters were setting fire to a Chevy Suburban while a mob cheered them on. Behind them, militiamen were standing by, pointedly not intervening. The shot changed to an image of Admiral Chang in full naval dress behind a bank of microphones. Subtitles flashed up on the screen.

‘
Today we mourn the murdered Jin Jié; tomorrow we will retaliate. The foreign perpetrators will face the full force of our wrath
.’

It was just as Kovic had warned; Chang was blaming America. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a half-flattened pack of Luckies that someone must have dropped. It had been nearly eighteen months but he still felt the magnetic urge.

‘Roland?’

Garrison muted the TV and cleared his throat.

‘Good morning, Mr Secretary.’

His breezy manner sounded horribly false.

‘Are we good to talk?’

‘There’s no one else in the room if that’s what you mean, sir.’

‘Good.’

‘You received my request, sir?’

‘We’ll get to that.’ The Secretary let out a long guttural sound somewhere between a cough and a sigh. ‘What you’re saying – this is fissile material, Roland. Sure you want to put your name on it?’

Garrison watched his free hand curling into a fist. He was damned if he was going to take the rap for delivering news they didn’t want to hear, but he wasn’t afraid to stand by Kovic.

‘You know, sir, I’ve gotten to an age where my own ass is not the first thing I’m thinking of.’

‘Yeah, that’s a fine sentiment, Roland, but no one’s gonna take this sitting down over here, you realise that.’

‘Well, it’s playing out just how Kovic said it would, sir. Chang’s declared martial law, Shanghai’s in uproar and we’re in their waters. If this escalates and Chang tears up the non-aggression pact, we’re at DEFCON ONE for World War Three and no one’s gonna remember how it started.’

‘Okay, okay, let’s not go there just yet.’

Was he getting through? Where was the urgency – the outrage?

The Secretary lowered his voice almost to a whisper. ‘You shared this with anyone else?’

‘Just you, sir.’

‘Keep it that way, okay?’

Garrison tried not to broadcast his exasperation. ‘Sir, do I have clearance to go get our man?’

The Secretary took his time to reply. Garrison reached for the Luckies; there were three left inside, squashed. He pushed them away.

‘This should be Langley’s problem, not ours.’

‘Sir, he’s gone out on a limb for us. We owe him.’

‘Yeah, I know all about Kovic. And your capacity to forgive and forget is all very noble. But right now he doesn’t have a whole lot of friends in this town.’

Garrison could feel the rage rising up his throat like bile. He was
having trouble swallowing. ‘And none of us want any more of our own men’s blood on our hands.’

The Secretary was silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his tone was softer.

‘Roland, we go way back. We’ve both made a lot of tough calls in our time; that’s the job – what they pay us for.’

Garrison didn’t like where this was heading.

‘If you attempt exfil and Chang gets wind of you in his airspace, he’s gonna call it an act of war. You’ll be playing right into his hands. Let’s hold back here for a minute, shall we, and think before we act.’

Garrison’s hand reached for the crumpled Luckies, and felt the willpower drain out of him as he shook one out.

‘We’re way past that point, sir. Chang’s already pinning Jin Jié’s killing on us.’

The Secretary let out a long grumbling sigh.

‘Sorry, Roland: permission denied.’

The line went dead.

Garrison lowered the receiver into its cradle, then because he could hold it in no longer, swept the phone off the table. It crashed against the wall. Then he lit up. It felt like the last request of a condemned man.