WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller (10 page)

5

‘We’ve got him!’ Chae said confidently. Traffic was clogging up outside the station, and soon even a
Bajaj wouldn’t be able to get through.

Park grinned and leaned further out of the window, gun arm steady, waiting for the kill shot. He’d take the American out, and would then move in to grab Wong Xiang. It was even providential that it would happen outside the station; they could get Wong away from the area
nice and quickly by just taking the train. By the time anyone thought to follow them, they’d be long gone.

But then Park saw the little
Bajaj turning, cutting sharply across traffic, across pedestrians, across the
sidewalk
; and then the American and Wong Xiang were gone completely, the little vehicle having been driven inside the train station itself.

‘Are you crazy?’ Wong called from the rear, people’s screams reverberating off walls and ceilings having told him they were now driving indoors. ‘You’re fucking crazy! Let me out!’

Cole ignored him as he piloted the
Bajaj past stalls and ticket desks, in and out of startled onlookers, looking for the escalator.

He saw it moments later and drove the three-wheeler straight towards it. He revved it hard and the front end shot up and mounted the steps, the escalator’s motors pulling the lightweight vehicle right onto it.

Screams came from all quarters, but again Cole ignored them, keeping the revs high to ensure that the Bajaj didn’t fall down backwards to the foyer.

And then they were at the top, the little vehicle’s front tire bit down, then the rears, and it catap
ulted forward onto the platform, waiting commuters jumping out of the way and running for their lives.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Park spat as Chae mounted the curb and they both got out at a run. What was the American thinking? What did he hope to achieve?

A security
guard, alerted by the screaming and running crowds, stood in the foyer. A look of confusion and panic was on his face, but a gun was in his hands and Park shot him on the run, passing him and mounting the escalators.

But then he heard the high whine of an engine behind him and moved to the side as Song mounted the moving staircase on his bike, accelerating up past Park and Chae onto the platforms above, in hot pursuit of the wild
Bajaj.

Cole gunned the little auto rickshaw along the platform, people jumping out of the way left, right and center. A security guard drew a gun, but Cole veered close and clipped him with a wing mirror, knocking him to the ground.

Behind him, Cole could hear the sound of the bike accelerating up the escalator and found himself being impressed; if Cole was determined to win, then so were his pursuers.

Cole drove parallel to a stationary train, which began to move away from the platform, passengers wide-eyed as they watched him from their windows.

He saw the biker in his mirrors, raising his gun and firing, and again Cole hunkered down, hoping that the thin metal of the
Bajaj would protect him.

And then the train left the station completely and Cole veered across the platform and accelerated towards the edge.

The orange three-wheeler left the platform with a less than graceful leap, plummeting hard to the tracks below; but the Bajaj got traction and pulled away after the train, puttering over the railway line.

They were only doing thirty miles an hour, the
Bajaj all but incapable of doing any more, but in the damaged, semi-open three-wheeled rickshaw, it felt much faster.

As Cole turned to see the bike perform a superb jump off the platform onto the train tracks, he knew that the motorcycle
was
fast, and would be on them soon.

But at least he had narrowed his pursuers down to just one, the other two left behind to watch uselessly from the platform as their lone comrade continued the chase.

Song accelerated down the railway line towards his prey. He would have to kill the American for sure; the skill would be in capturing Wong Xiang safely.

As the bike bounced up and down on the metal pilings, Song was forced to pocket his Browning; there was no way he could control the bike with only one hand. But he was catching the Bajaj rapidly now, and would soon be in a better position to attack.

Song was there within half a minute, revving the bike hard and taking the bone-shattering impacts of the rutted sleepers as they passed under his narrow tires. He pulled alongside, close now; he knew that the driver would be reluctant to ram him again, as the sideways movement might put the
Bajaj off the track completely.

Holding tight with his hands to the handlebars, Song
balanced on his far leg and shot his near-side boot through the open cockpit, connecting with the American’s face, rocking him back.

Song grinned as he swiftly retrieved hi
s leg, checked the track ahead – saw it curving in a gentle bend – and then lashed out again, steel toe-caps whipping across the driver’s jaw.

While the American was distracted, Wong too scared to offer any
assistance, Song put both feet firmly back down and reached out for the Bajaj, hoping to pull himself inside to use his knife on the driver.

But then – what the hell? – the American reached out and grabbed
his
hand, pulling it further in and then kicking the inside of his own door.

Song realized the man had been overreacting to his blows, luring Song in closer; and as the door hit him hard, he knew what was going to happen.

His hands came away from the door, the impact of the driver’s kick sending the bike skittering sideways over the tracks, and he was fighting to control it round the bend when he heard it; the sound of a train, approaching at speed.

Song looked ahead, saw that he was on the opposite track now, the flat grey metal façade of a locomotive speeding towards him at over one hundred miles per hour.

Cole pulled the door shut as the train crashed into the biker head-on, sending both the motorcycle and its rider flying back the other way along the tracks before it crushed them underneath a thousand tons of fast-moving metal.

The passage of air as the train whipped past the Bajaj was almost enough to jettison the rickshaw from the tracks; but as soon as it started, it was over, and Cole was past the rear of the train now, heading towards freedom.

It was just minutes later that he heard it – another train, this time coming from the rear; within moments, it would be bearing down right on top of them, crushing the Bajaj beneath it just like the bike before it.

‘They’re on the train!’ Wong called out to him.

Cole looked in his mirrors again, and saw that Wong was right – literally; the remaining two agents were on the roof of the train, riding it towards them. Far from being left behind at the station, they must have simply jumped aboard the next train and followed them, knowing they would be able to catch up.

Cole looked across the elevated tracks, saw the traffic on the road beneath, and yanked the wheel over. ‘Hold on!’ he yelled to Wong.

Moments later the little rickshaw smashed through the side barrier and went flying through the air, Cole’s stomach lurching up into his throat as they seemed to sail out across the streets below.

But then the
Bajaj crashed onto the street, weight crunching down hard onto the tires, the suspension, rocking the vehicle and its occupants with its savage impact.

Cole looked up at the tracks and his jaw dropped open.

The two agents had hurled themselves from the top of the train in an insane final bid to catch their prey.

Park grabbed hold of the limbs of the tree, using them to break his fall, branches lacerating his skin as he tumbled down, his momentum eventually slowing before landing in a parachute roll on the grass below.

He was satisfied when the bloodied but otherwise undamaged form of Chae landed by his side. It might have appeared suicidal, but Park had seen the section of trees planted on the corner of Medan Merdeka Timur and Medan Merdeka Selantan, and aimed his highly-trained body towards them, knowing that at that height, the branches would break his fall sufficiently for him to survive.

He saw that the Bajaj had also miraculously survived the fall from the railway bridge, landing heavily on Selantan. As he and Chae pushed through the trees towards the road, he watched the rickshaw travel a few tentative feet before giving up the ghost completely; the engine blew and the axle snapped in half, depositing the body of the car right onto the hot tarmac.

The American grabbed Wong instantly and took off at a run, leaping a barrier across the road and heading for more trees beyond.

With all parties now on foot, Park could feel victory right around the corner, and he and Chae set off in hot pursuit, guns out and ready.

Cole and Wong broke through the tree line and were immediately taken aback at the sight which loomed before them; a marble-clad obelisk topped by a flame covered in gold foil, the National Monument rose over four hundred feet into the brilliant blue sky above the teeming city of Jakarta, a symbol of the fight for Indonesian independence.

Cole and Wong raced forwards to try and lose themselves in the crowds of tourists, and were soon in amongst people, trying to blend in, to hide and regroup.

Cole saw the gun rising towards him almost too late, the black barrel emerging from a crowd to his left, the muzzle flashing as a shot was fired.

But Cole was already moving, pivoting to the side before snaking back in at an angle, both hands seizing the barrel and turning it upwards, forcing Park’s wrist back on itself until the gun was ripped from the man’s grasp.

Cole quickly aimed it back at Park, but the man’s leg lashed out and kicked the weapon out of Cole’s grasp. Cole responded instantly by launching a solid rear hand punch to the man’s face. He thought he could feel the eye socket fracture, but Park barely seemed to notice, whipping a round kick into Cole’s thigh before looping another towards his head.

Park had obviously hoped his first kick would topple Cole and allow the second to be the coup de grace; but Cole had spent the last eighteen months in the rings of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where leg kicks were the bread and butter of the vicious combat sports practiced there.

He therefore stood his ground and intercepted Park’s second kick, hooking his hand around it and spinning the man further around, launching a strong front thrust kick of his own into the agent’s back which sent him sprawling into the frightened crowds.

Cole could hear police sirens in the streets beyond the square, and police whistles much closer; but he ignored these for now and turned to find Wong.

Seconds later he spotted the man, being marched away by the other agent, a pistol held to his back.

Cole sprinted ahead but the agent must have heard him and turned, pistol aimed at Cole’s chest. Cole was glad when Wong slammed his hands down hard onto Chae’s arms, the gun discharging harmlessly into the floor; and then Cole was there, kicking the gun out of his hands and
grabbing the man’s head, pulling it down onto a powerful knee strike.

But Chae anticipated this and put up his hands to block the blow. Cole in turn
snapped the man’s head down and slipped his arm around his neck in a guillotine choke, sinking his forearm tight into Chae’s throat, arching his back to lift the agent off his feet, cutting off his air supply completely.

Cole felt Chae’s hands pummel at him uselessly from his bent-over position, waited for him to adjust his weight as Cole knew he would, and then wrenched up violently, severing the man’s spinal cord in one devastatingly final motion.

Cole turned to face Park, but a group of policemen had surrounded him, taking him out of the picture for now.

His head snapped back to Wong, but the arms broker was no longer there.

Seeing his chance, the man had simply vanished.

6

Wong Xiang breathed hard as he rode the elevator to the National Monument’s viewing platform.

Who the hell
were
these people? The white guy had been protecting him, but why? It was obvious that the Asians weren’t so friendly, but Wong knew one thing for sure – he was better off without any of them.

At first, the viewing platform had seemed like a good idea; it was far away from all the trouble on the ground. But what if he’d been seen riding it up? Wouldn’t he be followed? But it looked like the police were on the scene back in the square, so maybe they’d all been arrested; maybe even killed each other.

But Wong didn’t believe it; none of the men back in the square looked like the type to let themselves get arrested, and he knew that at least one of them would survive and come for him.

So what were his options? If he waited at the top, someone would find him sooner or later. But if he simply rode the car back down, it was equally likely that there would be someone waiting for him there.

The emergency stairs? If someone followed him up, he could run down while they were taking the elevator. Unless they were coming
up
the stairs the other way, of course.

He
pulled his cellphone out, realizing that he could call some friends to come to the rescue; well-armed bad-asses that would sort out these guys no problem. Except that by the time they got here, he could already be dead. He looked down at his phone. There was no signal in the elevator car anyway.

There was only one option left
.

He looked up at the roof and sighed.

Cole raced up the stairs two at a time, determined to intercept Wong Xiang at the top.

He knew he might soon have company – the last thing he’d seen of Park was a blur of movement from the crowd behind him as he went for the surrounding police officers. Gunshots were ringing out by the time Cole had hit the stairwell, and he hoped that it was the policemen who’d been firing; from what he’d seen of Park already, however, he had to accept that the policemen could all be dead.

Cole burst out of the stairwell into the viewing platform, knocking an overweight security guard to one side as he raced to the elevator.

Yes.
He’d made it in time; the elevator had just arrived, the door opening to reveal a group of tourists. And yet they didn’t pour out of the car with the excitement they would have ordinarily displayed; instead, their eyes were all staring upwards, and Cole poked his head through and looked up too.

The access hatch was open.

And Wong was gone.

Although it was still warm at four hundred feet, the wind whipped at Wong, threatening to rip him off the top of the enormous structure.

It had been crazy, but what else could he do? He was being chased by the most relentless people he had ever met, and he still didn’t know why. He’d be able to buy some time up here, stay here until things quietened down.

He checked his cellphone again, hoping to place that call to his friends. They’d be able to secure the square, escort him back down. Hell, he was in tight with half the local government.

But there was still no signal.

He threw the phone on the floor in disgust. What fucking use was it?

A noise to one side caught his attention and he turned, horrified to see the American hauling himself up onto the roof.

‘Damn,’ he said in resignation, ‘you one persistent motherfucker, you know? What the hell do you want?’

Cole approached, hands raised in placation. ‘I’m not here to hurt you,’ he began. ‘I was sent here to protect you. I’m a friend.’

‘Friend?
Friend of who? Who sent you?’ Wong was backing away, but Cole noticed his body language relaxing slightly. The fact was, Cole
had
demonstrated his desire – and his ability – to protect the man, and had therefore built some measure of trust. Would it be enough?

But then t
he roof access hatch next to Cole burst open and an enraged Park launched himself towards him, unarmed but deadly. Cole was unhappy to see that he’d been right about him taking out the police officers back in the square.

Cole absorbed the man’s energy and turned him over by grabbing the arms and dropping his bodyweight, using a throw common to both
judo
and
aikido
.

Park rolled across the rooftop and regained his feet instantly, rising up into a fighting stance.

Definitely taekwondo
, Cole thought as the two men circled each other, Wong forgotten for the moment. At the top of the four hundred foot National Monument, the city of Jakarta spread out far and wide below them and no barriers to protect them, Wong wasn’t going anywhere.

Cole himself had trained in the martial arts since boyhood; first in boxing and wrestling, and then in the oriental martial arts of
karate
and
judo.
He’d carried on his training in the military, becoming an expert in the Israeli defense system of
krav maga
and the grappling art of Brazilian
jiu-jitsu
, as well as  excelling at the host of specialist unarmed and close quarter combatives courses he had been sent on while training as a covert operative. And then there was the ancient art of
Kalaripayattu
and the death strikes of
marma adi
he had been taught while imprisoned in Pakistan, the supposed mother of all martial arts.

It was a rare occasion when Cole faced somebody as adept as he was, but Cole could see that Park was such a man; his body honed to perfection, his mind razor-sharp.

The two men continued to circle each other, searching their opposite number for an opening of any kind, any opportunity they could capitalize on. In each man’s mind’s eye, a hundred scenarios were thought through and discarded in fractions of a second; moves and counter-moves, actions and reactions.

But taekwondo was an aggressive, attacking art, and Cole could tell from the slight tension in the man’s muscles, the tightness of his jaw, that he
wanted
to attack; it was in his nature, and Cole knew that if he was patient, the man’s attack would be launched as surely as night following day.

The stand-off seemed to last an eternity
, but finally – inevitably – Park’s face contorted into a seething rage and he let out a piercing
kihap
shout to attune his energies as he leapt at Cole with a powerful jumping front kick.

Anticipating the surge, Cole sidestepping and scooped his forearm in and up,
hitting the leg from underneath and turning Park over in the air.

Miraculously, the man performed a full somersault and landed on his feet; but Cole seized his own opportunity and skipped in, punching out at Park’s face with his thumb, pushed in tightly and extended from his fist. The thumb found its mark, jabbing deep into Park’s left eye, half-blinding him instantly.

Enraged, Park instinctively reached out and took hold of Cole, hands clenching around his neck and jerking forwards violently with his head.

The dense bone of Park’s
skull crashed into Cole’s face; he felt the cartilage in his nose give way, and Park reared back to do the same again, his grip still tight around Cole’s neck.

As his battered face rushed towards Park’s head, the bunched-up fingertips of Cole’s right hand ripped suddenly upwards, catching Park in the soft tissue between his throat and his chin.

Park’s grip released instantly as he staggered back, gasping for breath, and Cole rushed forwards, throwing a straight right to Park’s temple.

But Park recovered more quickly than Cole thought possible and deflected Cole’s punch, hands securing tight around his wrist and throwing him across the rooftop in a perfect
hapkido
wrist throw.

Cole rolled across the roof and collided with Wong
, the impact knocking the arms dealer back towards the edge of the roof.

‘
Aniyo!
’ Cole heard Park shout; Korean for
No!
, which confirmed his suspicions about the man. But Cole had no time to fully process this information, as both he and Park raced to the roof edge to save their only source of vital information.

Both men’s hands leapt out to grab hold of Wong – his arm, his leg, his shirt,
anything!
– but it was too late and, his eyes wide with terror, shock and simple disbelief, Wong Xiang fell from the rooftop of the National Monument, four hundred feet to the concrete square below; and Cole and Park watched in dejected horror as the body erupted over the sidewalk, shattered completely, whatever information he could tell them about Liang Kebangkitan lost forever.

For an instant Cole wondered whether there was any point in fighting on; their target was lost, why not just
agree to move on? But he knew deep down that this could never happen, that Park’s warrior honor would demand closure; and then he felt the air parting and moved back from the edge of the building just in time, Park’s boot flying an inch from his face.

Cole trotted back to control the center of the roof, keeping Park’s back to the edge, using his footwork to keep to the safety zone.

Park attacked again with a side kick to Cole’s knee, and Cole stepped off to one side and threw a powerful shot into the man’s liver, doubling him up and then lashing out with a Thai leg kick of his own, smashing his hardened shin bone into the side of Park’s knee., shattering the patella and tearing the ligaments.

Pain creased Park’s face and he stumbled, struggling to stand; but his guard was still up, and his eyes were still focused.

Cole threw a hard front kick, but Park intercepted it with his elbow, jamming the point down onto the small bones of Cole’s foot. As Cole sagged forward, Park unleashed a front kick of his own; powerful enough, even with his knee destroyed, to propel Cole back across the rooftop, his feet touching the edge.

Like Wong, he teetered, trying to get his balance, and then went, toppling backwards over the edge.

Unlike Wong, Cole managed to twist his body in mid-air, turning to catch hold of the precipice with his vice-like fingertips. The wind pulled at him, threatening to rip him off the side and send him plummeting to the concrete hundreds of feet below him, and for a second Cole was overwhelmed by a powerful sense of vertigo as he saw the great Indonesian city spread out like a grey urban blanket beneath him.

But then his equilibrium recovered and he tried to pull himself up. He saw the black boots of his opponent come stamping down towards his hands and instead of hauling himself up onto the rooftop he swung one leg up and around above him, sweeping Park’s supporting leg out from underneath him like a scythe.

He pulled himself back over the parapet in one smooth movement, jumping on top of Park, legs either side of his chest trapping the man tightly as he rained down blows on the agent’s head and body.

When Park went to cover up his face, Cole reacted to the opportunity and pulled one
of the Korean’s arms out and up, securing it to his own chest with his hands as he swung one leg over Park’s face, moving his body until it made a right angle with Park’s, his elbow trapped across Cole’s hips.

And then in the same smooth fluid movement, Cole pulled back
on the arm while raising his hips violently upwards, breaking Park’s arm at the elbow with the
juji gatame
armlock of both judo and jiu-jitsu.

Park stifled a scream and turned in towards Cole, unleashing the
fist of his other arm in a frenzied attack as he struggled back to his feet. Cole pushed him away and they were separated again, both men now breathing hard despite their conditioning.

Cole knew the end was near – Park was at the limit and only had one good attack le
ft in him.

It came sooner than Cole
expected, a violent roar that emanated from deep within the center of the Korean’s powerful body. And then – even with a broken knee and arm – Park ran towards Cole – two steps, three, four – then braced his legs and to Cole’s amazement launched himself off his damaged leg, attacking Cole with
twimyo yeop chagi
, the immensely powerful flying side kick of taekwondo which had been used once upon a time to knock armored warriors from their mounts.

Cole knew that if it caught him in the chest or head he would have no chance – the power of the kick would send him sailing out into the void with no hope of grabbing the roof.

But Cole was able to read the passage of the kick as it sliced through the air and grabbed it with both hands, right around Park’s lower leg; and, keeping his center of gravity low, Cole pivoted violently, using Park’s own momentum to turn him in midair, swinging his body around like an Olympic hammer thrower until the point of  . . .

Release.

Cole let go of Park’s leg and watched as the Korean’s body went spiraling off the side of the building, eyes finally wide in panic as he realized that there would be no second chance.