Red Ice (12 page)

All four Asians turned and strode past the women, ignoring them and heading up the sloped walkway to the federal building’s front entrance. As they passed, something about the way the men’s coats hung on their bodies warned Naomi that they were armed. “Vess–”

Vessler turned slowly, her hand moving toward her pistol. “I noticed. Trouble confirmed.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
 

Johnny Liao considered himself a member of the new breed.

He’d grown up on the streets, with no father and a mother too busy drinking herself into oblivion. By the time he was fourteen he was leading his own street gang, but he always wanted more. He rejected joining one of the Triads — relics of the past that wanted his unreserved loyalty in return for some crumbs of the pies. Even the Black Dao and that fossil Hong wanted years of bowing and scraping in order to get power.

Screw that.

Liao wanted power, wealth and women, but he wanted them
now
. Lots of people did, but the difference between them and Liao was that Johnny was willing to do something about it, and a little thing like the law was not about to stop him.

When a Mr. Rhee had offered him a chance to carve his own empire, he had agreed and brought his whole gang in with him. They were given clothes, weapons, a place to stay, and of course some drugs, including samples of a new high called Red Ice. There had been friction with members from another gang, but Ko Lee and his boys had been almost wiped out at the pier, leaving Johnny Liao as the go-to guy for Mr. Rhee.

Now the right-hand man, he wanted this done right. He had arrived at the ambush site— the plaza in front of the federal building—a couple of hours before. After spending fifteen minutes walking around and looking at the scene from every angle, he decided to keep it simple: four of his men would come in from Polk Street, while he and three others would approach from Larkin Street behind the mayor’s party. They would hit the target in a crossfire while they were out in the open. Ten seconds of full auto and run. By the time the feds got their act together, Liao and his team would be a couple of blocks away, weapons dumped, nothing more than faces in the crowd.

Right now Liao and Jimmy Wong were inside a small donut shop across Larkin Street from the federal building. Norman Chung and Daryl Lee were across Golden Gate Avenue, inside a coffee shop. All four were armed with compact submachine guns — two Ingram model 11s, a Spectre M-4, and Liao’ Uzi. Over on Polk, Billy Ko and three others, armed with Skorpion machine pistols and a pair of MAC-10s, also waited. All eight men were dressed in dark business suits with long overcoats against the light rain and to hide the firepower.

Through the store window, Liao saw the target coming into sight, along with two security cars and the mayor’s limo, pulling into spots reserved for screening deliveries to the federal building. Liao watched as three men in suits got out of each escort car. Four stood on the sidewalk, establishing a security zone while the other two bodyguards met at the back door of the limo. While one watched the surroundings, the other opened the limo door. A young man in a suit exited first, opening an umbrella as he did so. He turned back to the limo and held the umbrella over the door, allowing the target to come out.

No one would ever accuse Mayor Nicholle Pagliei of being beautiful. She was a hatchet-face woman in her mid-50s with gray-blonde hair cut in a pageboy style, thin framed, wearing a charcoal-gray pantsuit. She said something to the aide carrying the umbrella, and they began walking toward the federal building. The six-man bodyguard team fell in around them, skirting a short wall and walking up a sloping walkway toward the front door. A news van stopped long enough to let a reporter and cameraman team out before driving on. Other media crews already on the plaza immediately gravitated toward the approaching politician, shouting questions as they clustered around her.

Liao knocked back the rest of his coffee and then nodded to Jimmy Wong. Both took out a small piece of paper, peeled off the skin patch stuck to it and slapped it over the right wrist, where the veins ran. Almost immediately, the world sharpened and a surge of confidence flowed through them. Wong, eyes sparkling as the drug’s euphoria hit him, stood and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Let’s do this!”

They strode out of the cafe like two men on top of the world. Looking like nothing more than a couple of businessmen, they stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change. Chung and Lee were waiting for them when they crossed the street. By then, the target was halfway to the front door, slowed by the reporters. They started toward the building, pulling their coats back so they could access their weapons.

Before they could bring them up, gunfire from across the plaza indicated that Liao’s plan had gone wrong.

#

Naomi waited until the four suspects walked out of sight before she reached for her pistol. She took out her phone again and hit speed-dial while walking rapidly after the four. Vessler followed, pulling her own Glock-22.

“Code Omega,” Naomi told Tanner over the phone as she reached the corner of the wall. “Four armed suspects, all Asian males, heading toward the front entrance from the Polk Street side of the building. Objective uncertain, but the mayor’s just arrived.”

“Copy. ETA thirty seconds.”

Naomi leaned out and saw the four suspects halfway up the sloping path. As she watched them, they pulled submachine guns from under their overcoats. “We don’t have thirty! I’m engaging.”

“On our way.” Tanner disconnected.

She dropped her phone into a pocket, then looked back at Vessler. “Ready?”

Vessler nodded.

Naomi stepped out and raised her pistol. “Freeze!” she shouted. “Homeland Security!”

As one, all four men spun toward her, submachine guns rising with intent. Naomi aimed and fired twice, both .45 rounds slamming into one of the gunmen center mass as he raised his MAC-10. The double-tap should have knocked him down. Instead, he staggered and opened fire, his face twisted in anger.

Naomi pulled back while Vessler threw herself behind the wall, using it as cover as the corner was chewed apart by streams of slugs.

“What the hell?” Vessler gasped. “I hit the SOB twice in the chest and he didn’t go down!”

“Same here,” Naomi said. “Pretend you’re in a zombie movie—go for the head.”

The gunfire slackened and both women leaned out from cover. Naomi could see the blood all over the front of the man she had shot, but he was fumbling for a fresh magazine for his MAC-10. She aimed for his head and fired twice. Both shots punched through the gunman’s face and out the back of his head in a bloody spray. With the brain destroyed, the body dropped. A few feet away, Vessler’s target was also down from a head shot.

But the delay gave the other two time to reload and they opened fire. Both women pulled back into the safety of the wall, though the corner was obliterated as more slugs ripped through the concrete.

Naomi dropped to one knee, swung her pistol around the corner and fired twice more, then yanked herself back as another chunk of corner was eradicated by a swarm of lead projectiles. Vessler muttered a curse as a piece of concrete gashed her cheek. More gunfire echoed throughout the plaza, and Naomi realized there were more than four attackers.

So did Vessler. “Shit!” Blood streamed from the gash in her cheek, but her concentration remained intense. “Wait until they reload, then we hit them. Head shots.”

“Right.”

When the gunfire stopped Naomi charged out into the open, firing on the run. Vessler was behind her by a couple of steps and to her left, firing her Glock as fast as she could pull the trigger. The gunmen, caught in mid-reload were struck several times. Naomi’s target went down first, a trio of .45s decapitating him as he tried pointing his Skorpion machine pistol at her. Vessler’s target, also armed with a Skorpion, staggered as he managed to raise his arms to shield his head. Vessler’s .40 slugs slammed into his arms, breaking bones and causing him to drop the machine pistol. The shooter’s arms went limp, his face a frozen mask of pain and rage. He stumbled toward them, arms flailing uselessly and blood drenching his arms and torso. Ten feet from the female pair, he keeled over and laid still, copious amounts of his blood draining into cracks in the concrete.

Vessler was nearly in shock. “What the hell? These guys must be on something!”

More gunfire reminded the pair there was still a gunfight going on. Armed people charged out of the building. Naomi saw Tanner and Dante among them. She changed magazines, loading a full one into her H&K as she and Vessler ran up the ramp.

#

Tanner led the charge out of the federal building. The scene in front of him was straight out of a nightmare. A dozen bloody bodies were sprawled on the plaza, and more were still falling. Equipment including TV cameras, digital recorders, notepads and a couple of pistols were scattered around the bodies.

Three Asian men in suits and overcoats were firing into a shrinking crowd of reporters and civilians who only moments earlier had simply been going about their workday. A fourth killer was reloading his Spectre M-4.

Tanner raised his SOCOM and fired twice, striking the reloading gunman in the chest. Instead of dropping, the man finished loading his weapon, though his movements weren’t as sharp.

“Shit!” Liam yelled. “Tanner, Headshots! Shoot them in the head!”

Tanner shifted his aim and fired two more rounds. This time, the gunman dropped without a sound. By the time he shifted targets, another gunman went down due to headshots. The last attacker, swinging an Uzi and already suffering from half a dozen gunshot wounds, went down in a bloody heap as federal officers from the courthouse slayed him in a hail of slugs.

The silence that followed was sudden and startling. Tanner turned to one of the uniformed guards in a shocked state. “Call for paramedics and ambulances! Any of you with first aid experience, help the wounded! The rest of you spread out and secure the perimeter!”

“Tanner!”

He turned and saw Naomi and Vessler appear. “You okay?”

“We have four more downed gunmen over here!”

Two men emerged from the federal building. “We’re medical doctors,” one of them said. “Federal Occupational Health.” He took one look at the carnage. “Holy shit.”

“Tanner!” Dante shouted. “The mayor’s been hit, but she’s still alive!”

Tanner motioned to the wounded. “Go help who you can.”

“Paramedics are on the way!” a uniformed officer yelled. Sirens could be heard in the distance getting closer.

Tanner’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and answered it. “It’s bad.”

“Understood,” Casey replied. “I’m sending the head of the FBI office down to take charge. Think Rhee’s behind this?”

“All the gunmen were Asian, but they didn’t fight like trained combatants. Also, they only went down after we shot them in the head or put a dozen bullets into them. I think they were on something.”

Stephen motioned Tanner toward where he was crouched next to one of the dead gunmen. Tanner walked over and the former CIA agent pointed to the dead man’s wrist. Tanner saw the skin patch at once. “Hold on a second,” he told Casey over the phone.

“All four of these guys have one on their wrist,” Stephen said. “Either all four were trying to quit smoking at the same time or—”

“Or they’re not nicotine patches,” Tanner finished. He turned toward Naomi. “Nay, you and Vess check the men you downed. Look for skin patches on their wrists.”

“No need. We saw them put the patches on just before they attacked.”

Tanner went back to his phone. “We may have something. I’m going to need a full tox screen on every one of these attackers.”

“I’ll expedite it,” Casey replied. “You think the gunmen were on drugs?”

“That seems to be a safe bet.”

Liam walked over. “Better add the guys from yesterday’s attack on the pier for a tox screening. We had the same trouble with taking them down that we had here.”

“You hear that?”

Casey sighed. “I’ll add them to the list.”

Paramedics and EMTs were the first to arrive, followed shortly by multiple police units. More people came out of the federal building, mostly armed and uniformed federal law enforcement officers, and others wearing jackets that displayed their agencies. As the building housed offices for the DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals and the U.S. District Court, there were plenty of armed agents on site.

Tanner signaled his people while speaking to Casey on the phone. “It’s getting crowded here.”

“Do what you need to do. Tell Agent Vessler to come back up to the office. We need to make sure we have the story straight before she gets waylaid by the FBI.”

“Understood. I’ll call later.”

By the time the Special Agent in Charge of the local FBI office took over, the OUTCAST team had vanished.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
 

San Francisco

7:25pm

OUTCAST assembled on the eighteenth floor of the Trans-Continental Marsh Hotel in Tanner and Dante’s suite. The view of the city was stunning, but their enthusiasm for it was tempered by the recent violence. The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast.

But the team wasn’t looking at the scenery. Instead, they were standing around a dining room table along with Sarah Vessler and Danny Choi. Maps were spread out on the table, along with printouts provided by Danielle. An air of purpose permeated the room.

The aftermath of the shooting was sending shock-waves throughout the city and they were moving out across the country, a political earthquake that would only get worse if the team failed in their assignment. In addition to the gunmen, ten people were dead – three reporters, a news cameraman, the mayor’s aide, four members of the mayor’s protection detail, and a woman who had come to the federal building to get a passport. Eight others were wounded, three critically, including Mayor Pagliei, and taken to area hospitals.

Board of Supervisors President Norman Kwan had assumed control of the city’s government. He immediately called for calm and sent out a plea for information about the incident.

The FBI was in charge of the investigation and had publicly called it an act of terror. Three of the gunmen, those who still had faces, had been identified as known criminals, but had been found not to be associated with the Black Dao Triad or any other Triad.

Tanner laid out the basics of the operation the team was planning. OUTCAST would strike several Black Dao holdings, shut them down, and leave a message for Hong: give up Rhee and his followers, or suffer even more losses.

Vessler listened, then shook her head. “Won’t work. Hong is old school. He won’t break the alliance without evidence that Rhee’s been screwing him and the Triad in some way. He’d lose too much face.”

“Rhee’s and his boys are on a rampage,” Liam said sourly. “Triads don’t like the attention or the heat, and it’s a sure thing Uncle Sam and the local law enforcement agencies are going to be bringing it in buckets.”

Tanner shook his head. “I think Rhee’s playing his own game, separate from the Red Ice operation, one that Hong isn’t involved in. The question is what game and what is his next move?”

“Chaos is his game,” Stephen said.

Dante nodded. “Yes, but for what purpose?”

“The North Koreans are still technically at war with both the U.S. and South Korea,” Choi said. “And they have the largest Special Forces in the world — two hundred thousand soldiers by some reports. They’ve been sending infiltrators into South Korea for decades. Imagine how much damage just a couple hundred of them could do to this country.”

Vessler frowned. “What I don’t understand are the gunmen today. They weren’t well-trained, but they didn’t go down easily.”

“I think Rhee’s recruiting locals,” Tanner said. “Using money from Red Ice sales to hire local thugs and finance his operations.”

Liam nodded. “Use the locals as cannon fodder, while keeping his own soldiers in reserve for important missions. Also makes it harder to pin down incidents involving him.”

“Rhee’s going to need bodies when he faces off against the Mexican cartels for control of the meth market, so it makes sense.”

Tanner’s cell phone trilled. He saw who the caller was he answered it. “Yeah?”

“I’m calling with an update,” Casey said. “I’m still here at the DEA office and I don’t plan to leave for a while. Preliminary tox screens came through — had to call in a few favors to get it done this fast — but there is definitely some sort of drug in the bloodstream of the people who tried to kill the mayor and the ones Liam and Stephen handled yesterday. And it’s the same substance in all of them. But it’s going to take days, if not weeks, to determine what drug it is. It’s definitely some form of amphetamine, but that’s all they can be sure about at the moment.”

“Has anyone asked the Mori family what she was working on?”

“No. Do you think it might have a bearing?”

“Won’t know unless we ask.”

“I’ll ask.”

“You hear anything on the mayor?”

“Nothing good. She’s still in critical condition, and if she does survive, doctors say she’ll never walk again.”

“I see.”

“I’ll keep you informed if anything else turns up. Good luck.”

After Casey broke the connection, Tanner pocketed the phone and filled the others in on Casey’s information.

Liam frowned. “Rhee and his boys could be anywhere.”

“Which is why we’re going to lean on Hong and
his
boys.” Tanner looked down the table at Danielle. “How is it going?”

Danielle looked up from her laptop. “Wombat and his people cracked the Triad’s database ten minutes ago. I’m waiting on the data now.”

Vessler’s eyes narrowed. “Wombat?”

“Danni knows people in the hacking community,” Naomi explained. “She’s a respected white-hat hacker. She sent out word that she needed help cracking a certain database, and a few of her people responded.”

“The Black Dao’s database?” Vessler asked.

Naomi nodded. “We’re not making arrests or opening cases. We’re looking to hit Hong in the pressure points so that he gives up Rhee.”

“And here we go.” Danielle tapped a few keys and the wireless printer on the sideboard began spitting out papers. “All the data we’ll ever need.”

Tanner nodded. “Let’s get started.”