LOCKED DOWN: (A NICOLE GRANT THRILLER, BOOK 1) Page 3

  Or that he was here to kill.

  The video cam had what looked to be an elongated, foam-shrouded microphone extending from its front; that was the suppressor. The hidden pistol held five rounds and was rigged to fire whenever he pushed the red RECORD button. He could press the button and the camera / gun would silently shoot a lead bullet with enough velocity to penetrate a human skull, but not with enough velocity to exit said skull. The bullet would, however, bounce around inside the cranium performing terminal damage. A discreetly fired head shot, preferably aimed behind the ear, made a very small entry wound and no exit wound, hence, it was sometimes difficult for a first responder to even determine the victim had been shot. There was usually very little, if any, telltale blood visible.

  Hernandez's dark brown hair was now longish and blond, courtesy of a wig, with a fake blond mustache to match. He hadn't seen Grant for two years, since the drone operation went down. And they had only worked together for ten days, so he doubted that she would recognize him even if he approached her from the front. Anyway, he didn't intend to approach from the front.

  Cantonese pop music blasted from a stall selling CDs. The scent of fried noodles cooking in sesame oil rode the breeze for a moment, until a powerful incense aroma shooed it away. The incense came from a young female kiosk owner who'd just put out cha siu and fresh oranges as an offering to her ancestors on a tiny altar rigged on a pole. For a moment Hernandez watched the smoke carry her prayers aloft. He had his own prayers to say and he intoned them silently, hoping for healing for his family and for help with the Herculean task he'd taken on.

  Grant appeared to be amazingly relaxed; she was clearly one very slick operator. Killing her wouldn't end his troubles, but it would be a step along the path. She had to be in Hong Kong for one reason, and one reason only, so he intended to foil that rendezvous with her Chinese masters. The busy street here was perfect for the hit, as it was filled with bustling locals and tourist crowds.

  A sense of calmness washed over him just as it had in the old days. He took it as a sign to kill her right here, right now. Two rounds to the back of her head would do it. He closed in behind her, held up the camcorder with his right hand, and looked through the viewfinder.

  She'd never know what hit her.

  CHAPTER 2

  13:58

  When Nicole Grant suddenly spun around looking like she'd forgotten something, Ron Hernandez smoothly turned to the left, panning the camera as if he were recording the vibrant street scene. The video camera nicely hid his features as she crossed directly in front of him, and then angled away. From his peripheral vision he saw that she'd returned to the old lady's stall where she'd bought the Celine bag. He felt certain she hadn't recognized him from the quick glimpse she got.

  He didn't want to shoot her at the stall, so he looked through the viewfinder of the video camera as he waited for another chance. Through a gap in the kiosks, he noticed a very tall Chinese man in a lightweight black Polo jacket leaning against a building. The man swept the street with a glance and then spoke into his jacket sleeve. Curious, Hernandez zoomed in and clearly saw that the man wore some kind of earpiece—a communications unit.

  A cold flash of suspicion caused Hernandez to regard the man more closely. The tall Chinese guy wore a jacket, but the print of a weapon was clearly visible.

  It was a warm March day, but a shiver ran up Hernandez's arms. Was the man a Hong Kong gangster, a member of one of the local triads or tongs? Or an undercover cop? Hernandez had to be sure, he needed confirmation and he needed it now, so he casually lowered the video camera and then removed a tablet computer from the fanny pack he wore over his groin. As a Japanese tour group waded into the area snapping photos, he used his tablet to surreptitiously photograph the tall Chinese man, then logged onto a facial recognition database run by the CIA.

  The match came up in seventeen seconds.

  They're here. The Chinese wet team—an assassination team—was here. But were they after him? Or could they possibly be after Grant?

  He might only have moments, so he regulated his breathing and worked to keep the adrenalin down, maintaining his cover by gawking about like a wowed tourist new to the city. He made his way toward a small walkway off Tung Choi Street thick with food carts and cheap electronic gizmos for sale. He bought a keychain gadget and pocketed it. While standing next to a teenage girl roasting sweet potatoes in a converted oil drum, he un-shouldered his backpack, reached in, and powered up two softball-sized drones. It only took thirty seconds to launch both of them into the narrow strip of airspace above the Ladies Market. Few Chinese in the hustle-bustle crowd paid him any attention; people probably thought the units were toys. And the locals were good at minding their own business.

  He'd pulled up an app on his Samsung tablet computer and put the first drone into an automated low surveillance flight pattern, careful to avoid the maze of signage protruding from the buildings. He zoomed in on Grant and tapped her image, which told the drone to stay centered on her. Working quickly, he sent the other drone higher over the street for a more complete layout of the immediate surroundings. He shouldered the backpack but wore it so it rode on his chest, not his back, giving him easy access to its contents.

  Screened by a throng of shoppers, he made an indirect path toward the tall Chinese guy in the black jacket, who had to be working with at least three other killers. The guy seemed oblivious to his presence, but that's exactly how a seasoned operator performing close surveillance would want to appear.

  Hernandez needed to even the odds here on Tung Choi Street. After a few seconds an opening appeared in the crowd. He pressed RECORD twice on the camcorder / gun, double-tapping the tall Chinese behind his right ear from ten feet away. The muffled pops were lost in the tourist din, and he let the camcorder dangle from a shoulder strap looped around his neck. He moved forward with large strides and then pressed his body against the dead man to keep him from slumping to the street.

  He reached under the Polo jacket and removed the man's pistol as he stole looks around the area, hoping no other member of the hit team had seen what just transpired. The gun was a Type 67 integrally silenced semi-automatic, meaning the suppressor was actually built-in to the design of the weapon. He dropped the gun into his open backpack and then pulled the tiny microphone from the guy's jacket sleeve and the radio transmitter from his pocket. Hernandez quickly checked for other pocket litter, and then walked off.

  The dead man slowly slid down to the cement, but with no blood visible, he could just be another drunk or an exhausted worker.

  While moving into the street flow of pedestrians Hernandez slumped, because even though Asians as a race were now much taller than at the close of WWII, at six-three he towered over many of the passersby. Breathing through an adrenalin rush, he caught sight of Grant with her back to him as she examined another knockoff purse. He scanned the crowd as he brought the just-purchased keychain gizmo from his pocket. The inexpensive device, usually bought by females, had a panic alarm, and he pressed the button for two seconds as he held the small microphone from the dead man against the keychain.

  The sharp, shrill alarm caused a dozen people to glance his way, but more importantly, the loud tone was being sent over the dead man's comm-link. Hernandez caught sight of a well-dressed Chinese woman about thirty years-old who winced and pulled an earpiece from her ear. She wore a white silk blouse and had a red jacket draped over her right arm, possibly concealing a gun. Hernandez's eyes darted through the crowd and spotted a man of about forty in a brown shirt and wearing black-framed eyeglasses, rubbing his ear as if it hurt.

  Only two? There has to be at least one more. Video from the second drone, the higher up one, might answer that question, but for right now, the lady in the white blouse was only about twenty feet from Grant. She was looking around as if trying to figure her next move and appeared hesitant to put the earpiece back into her ear. It wouldn't take her team long to figure out they'd lost a man, so he only had seconds t
o act.

  But his certainty of only minutes earlier was now questionable. Yes, it was possible the Chinese were here to kill him. Or they might be Grant's protection detail, for if she were truly in bed with the Chinese, then providing her with security made sense. But now Hernandez wrestled with a third possibility: perhaps Grant was on the Chinese kill list too, just as he was. If so, they were about to wipe her.

  He couldn't be sure why the hit team was here, but he wanted to kill as many of them as possible, so Hernandez hefted the tablet computer and spotted the Chinese female on the video feed. He entered commands and directed the lower drone to target her. This drone had a one-shot .22 caliber gun, with no sound suppressor.

  The woman edged closer to Grant. Hernandez tapped the Chinese woman's image on the screen, then tapped the button to fire. But nothing happened. Damn, a misfire or some other malfunction!

  The drone hovered no more than five feet in front of and about a foot above the woman in the white blouse. She couldn't help but see it, and stood frozen for a moment as she gawked at the device. He tapped the button again to fire just as the killer flung her red jacket at the miniature drone and knocked it to the ground. Some people stared, and others started to scatter, because the woman in the white blouse was holding a suppressed pistol.

  Hernandez dropped the tablet into his pack. He could only think of one option: kill the woman and the man in the brown shirt. He wanted justice and intended to fight for it to his last breath, and that meant killing as many of the guilty as possible.

  The second, higher drone was not mounted with a gun. The Chinese woman lowered the pistol to her side to conceal it and slowly cut through the throngs and closed to about ten feet away from Grant. Again, Hernandez wasn't sure; were the Chinese guarding Grant, or about to terminate her?

  Screw it! At the moment, it didn't matter. He had a chance to kill a killer and get a little street justice. And maybe he could do it without being seen. Hernandez grabbed the video camera. There were three rounds left in the hidden gun. He needed to make a head shot for a kill, but from this distance, even with a good shot, the bullet might not penetrate the skull due to the slow velocity of the sub-sonic ammo. This was a low percentage play but he decided to take it.

  The Chinese woman kept the suppressed pistol to her side as she moved right behind Grant. He took aim through the viewfinder but couldn't get a clean shot, so he stepped forward, accidentally jostling a couple of tourists from Germany.

  “Schweinhund!” snarled a bald, beefy German man, who gave him a shove. Hernandez took a stutter step away from the Germans, trying to get a clear shot, but bumped hard into two chunky middle-aged Russian women.

  “ёб твою мать!” Go to hell, yelled one of the Russians, who reeked of vodka.

  The slight ruckus caused the Chinese woman in the white blouse to turn in his direction. She registered a shocked look of recognition and then swung her pistol toward him. He aimed the camcorder, pressed the RECORD button, and a bullet soundlessly tore through her eye socket and into her brain. She reflexively held her hand to her eye as her knees wobbled and she stumbled backward. Even in the throes of death, with great determination she fired several rounds; the shots made the softest puffts, quieter than popcorn popping.

  Grant had already moved on, apparently unaware of the terminal drama unfolding all around her. The killer's bullets had torn harmlessly into a pile of cheap Dolce & Gabbana fakes from mainland China. No passersby screamed as the shooter collapsed to the ground, but they cut her a wide berth. Some people moved away, while others looked on curiously.

  He lowered the camera / gun. The Chinese man in the brown shirt had disappeared, so Hernandez walked off as his hands shook. He worked to modulate his breathing and appear calm. Yes, in the last few years, he'd carried out scores of killings and pressed buttons that killed terrorists from thousands of miles away, but what just happened was dirty, up close, and personal.

  Just like his killings in the old days had been.

  Even though he'd taken out two assassins with lots of blood on their hands—killers who were on his personal “disposition matrix”—his kill list—he felt no relief or satisfaction. For if Ron Hernandez was to continue living and breathing, then there were many names remaining on that list that required his immediate attention.

  With the crowd paying attention to the corpse, no one noticed as he reached down and retrieved the drone the female assassin had knocked out of the air with her jacket. He scanned the street, but didn't see Grant; she'd moved on. She'd been on his kill list, too, but as of right now she was the only one who had a question mark after her name.

  He needed to act quickly to dope out her role, because if the Chinese killers hadn't already known of his presence in Hong Kong, they surely knew it now.

  CHAPTER 3

  14:26

  Hong Kong vistas of forest-green peaks, the blue waters of Victoria Harbor, and towering stainless steel-and-glass skylines were simply sublime; close up views of choked, dirty streets much less so. The part of Kowloon Nicole Grant currently navigated didn't have concrete canyons of skyscrapers, but the aging, eight-to-ten-story buildings lining the street radiated penetrating heat. Right now, the temperature felt like it had risen many degrees as she tried to keep pace with the pedestrians on Nathan Road, many of them barking sharp chords of Cantonese into their cell phones.

  She navigated past an herb shop and the pungent, musky tang of the bitter, dried plants nearly took her breath away. She carried on, breaking into a small crowd reeking of perfume, cigarette smoke, and garlic. At a red light she found herself pressed against the steel guard rails that kept pedestrians from spilling out into street traffic. A soft, slow-paced series of clicks from a traffic light pole indicated “Don't Walk,” so Nicole took the opportunity to refer to her print-out of Mong Kok Station as double-decker buses slugged past.

  Although the station was only a couple of blocks from the Ladies Market, she'd already gotten lost once in Hong Kong when she wasn't paying close attention. When the clicking increased in volume and frequency, she looked up and saw that the traffic light had changed and the throngs began to surge across the street. Seeing an opening, she wedged herself forward and stepped into a street crossing painted with dizzying yellow markings. She maintained a brisk pace as she kept snatching looks for station entrance D2. Moist air scented with exhaust found her nostrils as a never-ceasing stream of walkers seemed to come at her from every direction, including above and below when one factored in stairs and escalators.

  Tokyo and Seoul are also crowded, but the feeling was different. Seoul has wide boulevards, far more automobiles, and the crowds at places like COEX are thick but not intimidating. In Nicole's experience, Tokyo's masses behaved politely, even in kinetic Tokyo Station, where the pervading aromas were subdued and the soundscape not so glaringly invasive.

  But the street hordes in Hong Kong were... well, Hong Kong is a very busy city that challenges one's sense of privacy and individual body space. Sensory overload of all five senses is a constant companion if you go anywhere and sometimes even if you don't. As if to remind her of that, she could almost taste the onions as a draft of air from a fried dumpling shop enveloped her and the scent of vinegar and chili oil tickled her nose; an old Cantonese lady strategically pressed against Grant's arm in order to cut in front of her; pop music blared from a shop whose exterior was covered with so much signage it was hard to see what they sold inside. Sight, smell, sound, taste, touch—the street assault proceeded unrelenting. The only option was to keep moving if you didn't want to become part of the pavement.

  It's a city that doesn't let much get in its way, she thought.

  Hong Kong was Manhattan without the street hustles and petty mean-spiritedness, Hollywood but with straight answers and less phoniness, Vegas without the desperation. It was still full of British FILTH (Failed In London Try Hongkong), still retained a Far East exoticism, but functioned with precision and common sense. Its breathtaking panorama
s (to call them mere “views” was a disservice) put San Francisco or Seattle to shame. It had the best Chinese food on the planet, period. Its grand hotels, with a staff-to-guest ratio approaching insanity, stood in a world-class by themselves. Hong Kong was historic and traditional, yet new and fresh, somehow constantly remodeling, rebuilding, and reinventing itself without losing its core identity. Even the iron fist of Beijing had not yet tamed Hong Kong, although the mainland Chinese communist cadres were chipping away at freedoms and the democracy that Hongkongers held so dear.

  There was a palpable sense that anything was possible here, that everyone was running around like they had a stick of dynamite shoved up their butt and if they didn't make a million dollars before dinner it would explode. Meaning, that in Hong Kong, you had to act fast; she picked up her pace, and even practiced making quick moves to cut off the approach of others, to keep them from getting in front of her as she snaked along toward a sign indicating D2.

  ###

  “There's nothing to worry about, Mom. I'm perfectly fine,” said Nicole Grant as she looked at the Web cam on her 10” Samsung tablet. She'd propped the tablet in such a way that her mom would be able to take in the awesome sight of Victoria Harbor that beckoned though the large windows of her corner executive suite at the five-star Conrad Hong Kong in Pacific Place. They were video chatting and she used sign language as she spoke since her mother, Jan, had been voice and hearing impaired from birth. That's why Nicole was such a good lip reader.

  With her dad having passed away, Jan now lived alone in a house Nicole had bought in Las Vegas as an investment. Vegas and Phoenix were close enough that she spent at least one, sometimes two weekends a month with Jan. Nicole was an only child so she understood that her mom was going to worry about her, regardless of her age, regardless of where she traveled to or who she went with. Worry was simply part of the equation in their relationship. The other part of the equation was that Jan meant the world to her. They were close and she truly loved and appreciated her mom. Except for some distant aunts, uncles and cousins who were essentially strangers, Jan was the only family she had.