Mission- Outback Read online

  “What are you doing?” a cry came from the side, and Lee recognized the angry sounds of Heung Sha Tsui, back in the land of the living. “He’s taken a vow never to kill! Even with the gun, he’ll only wound you! A million dollars for the man who gets him!”

  Lee sighed inwardly, even as he watched the Chinese staff members take their first few tentative steps forward.

  Damn.

  And then Lee moved, swinging the gun back toward Heung and pulling the trigger, hitting the gang boss high in the shoulder. The man screamed and reeled backward, and a collective gasp hit the gathered crowd of would-be attackers as Lee waved the gun toward them, backing up toward the windows as he moved.

  “Stay back!” he warned, knowing that at least some of the men would think Heung was dead, that it had been a kill-shot aimed at the chest. The doubt in their minds gave Lee the time and space to back all of the way up to the windows; and then he twisted and smashed one of them open with the pistol, quickly turning it back to the waiters and cooks and opening fire above their heads, making them all dive to the ground, the terror outweighing the huge financial reward for Lee’s head.

  While they were all distracted, Lee reached out of the window, finding one of the long lines that stretched across the street, Chinese lanterns hanging from it every couple of yards. He aimed the Glock across the street at the opposite side of the line, and shot once, twice, and the second shot hit, blasting away at the line’s mooring and bringing it swinging across the street until it rested underneath the window, leading straight down to the street below.

  “Go,” Lee told Phoenix.

  “What?” she said, eyes confused, barely comprehending.

  “Climb down,” Lee urged, and slowly, Phoenix nodded, understanding what she needed to do; and then she clambered out onto the window frame and started to descend the line. She was a good climber, Lee knew, and he had no doubt she would manage the thirty-foot descent; and so he turned his attention back to the room, wanting her safe before he followed.

  The men were starting to get back to their feet, the promise of a million dollars a huge motivation, and Lee fired again, once more aiming high; he pulled the trigger again, but only heard the dead-man’s click, and he knew he was out of ammo, and out of luck.

  And as he saw the heads rise up, faces grinning, he knew everyone else in the restaurant had realized too.

  The attack came immediately, giving Lee no time to follow Phoenix out of the window, everyone racing toward him en masse, all eager to be the one to claim the reward offered by Heung.

  The first man was almost upon him, and Lee picked up the nearest chair and held it high, intercepting the downward blow from the wide-bladed meat cleaver. Lee’s left leg moved at almost the same time, the knee rising high as the foot snapped out in a high roundhouse kick that caught the white-suited chef flush on the right temple.

  As the body fell to the floor, Lee pivoted to the right and caught an oncoming arm in the gap between the chair’s seat and back; he saw the glint of a blade in the attacker’s hand, and twisted the chair, knocking the knife clear and making the guy squeal in pain from the broken arm.

  Lee pivoted again and smashed the chair down onto the head of another attacker, taking him out of the picture immediately, the chair shattering as it made contact.

  Lee looked at the chair legs that remained, saw that he was holding one in each hand, and immediately raced forward into the room, laying waste to everything that he came into contact with, using the Filipino double-stick techniques of Escrima. His hands were a blur of motion as he blocked knife attacks and responded with deadly accuracy, the chair legs smashing into arms, legs, faces and heads.

  But then someone grabbed one of the legs and, before Lee could react, ripped it from his grasp. Lee jerked back as the same man tried to hit him with the wooden leg, whipping his foot up into the guy’s face in a snapping front kick that shattered teeth and sent him reeling backwards.

  Lee judged the positions of the remaining men and stepped up onto a chair, then onto a table, kicking another man square in the jaw and bringing the remaining chair leg crashing down onto the skull of another.

  He saw movement in the corner of the room then, and his eyes flickered across, senses on high alert.

  Two men had come in, had raced over to Heung, were handing him something . . .

  Oh no.

  It was a machine pistol, an old MAC-10 his boys must have rustled up from somewhere, and there was a sinking feeling in Lee’s stomach as he realized how exposed he was, standing high on the table top. It wasn’t an accurate weapon, but it had an incredible rate of fire, and in such an enclosed location, a hit was more than likely; the look on Heung’s face as he worked the bolt and aimed the weapon in Lee’s direction indicated that he knew this too. Even the other men, who had been trying to attack him, started to back away when they realized what was going to happen.

  Lee started to move before Heung could pull the trigger, jumping across the room from table to table, .45 ACP rounds chasing him all the way, ripping up the wood and threatening to turn him into mincemeat.

  He felt a burning sensation in his calf, ignored it, and found himself once again at the windows; and without hesitating for even a second, hoping his calculations were correct, he leaped from the last table and went crashing through the nearest window, arms up to protect his face from the breaking glass.

  He felt his stomach lurch as he sailed through the air above Gerard Street, hands flailing wildly in front of him, praying that it was there . . .

  And then his hands caught hold of it, another of the lines that suspended the lanterns above the street, and he gripped hard, the line dropping with his weight slightly but holding, and he breathed a sigh of relief; but then the line sagged again, and snapped completely, and he felt himself dropping fast toward the ground.

  He worked quickly, gathering the line in as it swung in a pendulum toward the opposite building; and rather than being dashed into the ground, or against the wall, he managed to gather in enough line to shorten the swing, so that he came to rest against the far wall in a classic abseil position, feet planted squarely, just six feet above the street.

  He let go of the line and dropped to the ground like a cat, eyes instantly going back up to the window, where he saw the furious form of Heung Sha Tsui, trying to shoot down at him with the empty MAC-10, shouting at his men for another magazine.

  That was the flip side of a weapon with such a high rate of fire, Lee thought with half a smile – it didn’t take long to run out of bullets.

  It was then he noticed the crowds around him, eyes wide in amazement, some people taking photos and videos with their phones.

  He moved past them, looking around anxiously for Phoenix; he knew it wouldn’t take long for Heung’s thugs to make it down to the street, and they had to get out of there as soon as possible.

  He saw her then, hiding in a nearby doorway, and he breathed a sigh of relief and nodded at her, and she raced to join him.

  They turned to run, but stopped short just moments later; twenty yards away was a line of armed policemen, and Lee knew they must be specialist officers from the Met’s SCO19 firearms unit, called in response to the gunfire from the restaurant. Even now, other officers were barricading the restaurant.

  “Put your hands over your head,” one of the officers announced over a loudhailer. “Now.”

  Lee considered trying to escape, but knew it was futile; they had him, and he knew it.

  And so slowly, reluctantly, he put his hands in the air, and waited for the cops to place him under arrest.

  3

  Being in a jail cell was a major problem, Lee considered as he took in his bare-concrete, worn-steel, unpleasant little room. And it wasn’t just the thought that the Triads might get to him in there; there was also the CIA and the US military to worry about.

  When Lee had broken down after his last mission for the Special Activities Division, he’d been sent home on leave – a move whic
h had proved to be a near-fatal mistake. It was, he remembered bitterly, definitely fatal for his wife and daughter, who’d ended up dead, punished for the things he’d done. He’d been close too, left for dead with two bullets in his lung, and one in his gut.

  But he’d survived, and had ended up in a military hospital – first until he was physically recovered, and then in the psych ward, where his deeper wounds had started to be dealt with.

  But he’d begged to be let loose, to get his discharge from the Air Force, unwilling to be affiliated to the military anymore, blaming it for what had happened. The military, however – under pressure from Brad Thompson, the chief of the CIA’s paramilitary wing – had consistently denied his request. The man had seen too much, Thompson believed, to let him go racing around as a civilian, especially as his state of mind was “compromised” by what he had seen, what he had done.

  But Lee had escaped from the military hospital he’d been confined to, and thus been declared AWOL by the Air Force. His father had tried to use his influence to end the ridiculous situation, but it still stood; and Lee knew that Brad Thompson was just as anxious to get his hands on him now, as he had been all those years before. The fact that Lee hadn’t told anyone what had happened so far didn’t seem to phase Thompson in the slightest; now that the man was the Deputy Director of the whole damn CIA, he was absolutely terrified that his past would come back to haunt him.

  Not that Lee had any intentions of telling anyone what had happened, back in those last dark, brutal days of his war in the Middle East; Thompson had done what he’d had to do, and Lee had done what he’d had to do, or at least what they had thought they’d had to do at the time. Time and hindsight had changed Lee’s opinion since, of course, but he didn’t blame Thompson for what had happened.

  The fact remained, however, that if Lee’s arrest was entered onto the computer, then it was possible that a connection would be made somewhere, and alarm bells would start ringing back in the United States; and it wouldn’t be long before a request was put in for extradition. Whether he would be brought back to stand trial, or whether he’d merely be faced with a fatal “accident” en route was anyone’s guess.

  It was one of the reasons why Lee hadn’t given his real name to the cops who’d booked him; it would give him some time to maneuver, maybe even to escape.

  But where, he wondered, was Phoenix? Had she been booked too? Under what charge? Lee, after an eternal wait, had finally been charged with various firearms offences, and he knew the Brits took that sort of thing extremely seriously. If he didn’t get out now, then he might be there for the long haul. But could he escape, not knowing if Phoenix was also being held there? But if he didn’t try, what then? If the Triads didn’t get him, then the US military would.

  It seemed to be an unwinnable situation, but –

  A bang on his cell door interrupted his thoughts, and a moment later the door was opened by a large, scowling, uniformed Met officer. “Mr. Richards,” the cop said, using the false name he’d given. “You’re free to go.”

  When Lee exited the police station onto the unusually sundrenched London street, Phoenix was there waiting for him, a Mercedes long-wheelbase S-Class limousine parked right behind her.

  His heart leaped in his chest, and he was surprised at how happy he was to see her, but still, there was something that didn’t seem right. Why had he just been allowed to walk?

  “Phoenix,” he said, “what’s going on?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, and gestured at the limousine. “Looks like we’ve got friends in high places,” she said.

  Lee was instantly tense, wondering if it was the Triads, or Thompson’s men; he was primed for action, and yet Phoenix seemed strangely relaxed.

  “Who –”

  The rear door opened then, and a tall man in a beautifully tailored suit stepped out. “Come on,” he said in a voice that was immediately recognizable as Australian. “Get in. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  Lee hesitated, thought, and then nodded and gestured for Phoenix to get in, climbing in straight behind her.

  After all, he figured, it wasn’t the Triads or the MPs.

  What did he have to lose?

  Part One

  1

  The Gulfstream G550 was, Lee had to admit, a pretty nice way to travel, and he and Phoenix were receiving the full five-star luxury treatment.

  But then again, Lee supposed, they were there under duress, at least of a sort. The owner of the private jet was a man called Tom Taylor, a media mogul that Phoenix assured him was a household name; and not just in his native Australia, but around the world too. He owned several local and national television channels back home, along with multiple newspapers and magazines, and also had quite a large influence throughout the rest of the English-speaking world; influence that had enabled him to pull the strings, even in Britain, that had pulled Lee out of jail.

  As Lee sipped from the flute of champagne, his aching body melted into the wonderfully comfortable leather armchair. He toasted Phoenix with a smile, glancing out of the small porthole window at the receding coastline of southeast England before turning to the other person seated in the cabin with them, the tall, suited man who had greeted him outside the police station.

  “So,” Lee said with a raised eyebrow, “are you going to tell us why we’re here?”

  The journey to Sydney, home to Tom Taylor, would take at least twenty-two hours – even if their refueling stop in Dubai was as fast as promised – and Lee didn’t want to wait that long to find out what the hell he was doing there in the first place.

  The man, who’d introduced himself in the car as Mortimer Slim, smiled back at Lee. “I think it might be better,” Slim said, “for Mr. Taylor to tell you himself.”

  Slim typed something into his cellphone, acknowledged a reply seconds later, nodded as if to himself, and punched a button on a remote that turned on the huge flat-screen monitor that sat on the cabin wall in front of them.

  A face appeared, one that Lee had to assume was Tom Taylor; but whereas his emissary was immaculately smart and well-groomed, Taylor himself was a disheveled mess. The man was strikingly handsome, but the square jaw was covered in greying stubble, the curly hair seemed unkempt, and his brilliantly green eyes were half-hidden in pools of darkness, almost certainly brought on by exhaustion. Taylor had the look, Lee thought, of a man desperately worried about something, and he began to make an educated guess about what that something might be.

  “Mr. Lee,” Taylor said with a weary attempt at a smile, “I’m sorry to have to get you on the plane like this, but I didn’t know what else to do. My sources told me what had happened to you, I saw a chance, and I took it. I hope you understand.”

  The man’s accent was even broader than Slim’s, but the tone told Lee that he was being genuine, that he must have a good reason to have brought him here like this.

  “It’s okay,” Lee replied. “I appreciate you getting me out of that little situation.” It was true, too; whatever awaited him in Australia, at least he would face it as a free man.

  “Okay,” Taylor said. “Okay. So, here’s the reason I got you out. I need your help. But I’m not asking for favors, I’m gonna hire you, okay? Hire you for a job. A million bucks, right? And if you get them back, I’ll bump it up to five.”

  It was going too quickly for Lee, Taylor was getting ahead of himself. “If I get who back?” he asked.

  “My sons,” Taylor said, a tear appearing in the corner of his eyes. “My twin boys.”

  Lee put the champagne down on the side table next to him, all business now. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It was yesterday,” Taylor said, “yesterday morning, they were on their way to school – a driver was taking them, you know, I thought they’d be safe, they’d always been safe, there’s never been any problems before – but the car was pulled over by these guys dressed as cops, just pulled them over, pistol-whipped my guys, and dragged the boys out of there.”


  The hollow look in Taylor’s eyes told Lee only a partial amount of how terrible an ordeal he was experiencing.

  “Go on,” Lee urged, keeping it professional. Sympathy wouldn’t help get the twins back, but information might.

  “The police were called straight away, of course, they came around the house, we waited for a call, anything, you know? An hour later, there it was – the classic altered-voice thing, like Darth bloody Vader, right? Said they wanted ten million in cash by this morning, or they’d start . . . they’d start sending . . . bits of . . .”

  Taylor started to choke up, and Lee sat waiting, already making plans, deciding how he might play this. What resources did he have in Australia? Not many; but Yukio Mabuni, his equipment specialist, could organize his equipment within hours if instructed, and Markus Hartman, his logistics guy, could make sure it all arrived in Sydney not long after the Gulfstream. While Taylor composed himself, Lee sent off a quick text back to his home base in the Bahamas, telling the two men to be on standby.

  “Well,” Taylor said, wiping his face, “you get the bloody idea, right? So, the feds are called in, the big guns, okay? They assure me everything will go okay, so I made the promises, all the arrangements were made for eight this morning, suitcases full of cash, the works. Eyes everywhere, cops all over the place, the whole area under surveillance, those guys are gonna get caught in the loop, no way they can escape, yeah? No way, not with everything the feds are doing, or at least that’s what they tell me, anyway.”

  Lee already knew how this one was going to end up, but he kept quiet as Taylor told his story.

  “But, guess what? The feds messed it all up, the scene turned into a bloodbath, the kidnappers got away, but nine of the cops got shot, and there’s been no sign of the kids.” He was about to well up again, but caught himself, made himself stop. “So, now the guys are angry, right? Now they want twenty million dollars, and they’ve left Sydney altogether.”