Page 84 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

“I DON’T LIKE IT,” Tom said. “It’s getting too late. Something’s wrong.”

Serrano looked up from his cards.

“We wait. That’s all we can do.”

“No, I can kick in the fucking door, smash Dvornikov in the face, and drag him out by his neck.”

“Subtle.”

Tom opened his mouth to reply when the phone rang. He snatched it up before the first ring had hit its final note.

“Yeah.”

“We have a problem,” Tran said from the lobby phone one floor down.

“What?”

“I have eyes on our target.”

“Maybe she didn’t have a chance to slip him the powder?”

“Oh, she did all right,” Tran said. “He’s coming down the staircase now and can barely stand, only he’s not with Ella.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s with the security guy he came in with. No sign of El…”

But Tom had already dropped the phone. He picked up the Walther sub gun, pulled the bolt to the rear, and rushed for the door.

Tom dashed down the hallway.

Serrano was on his heels.

“Tom, wait!”

The SEAL brushed past an Asian woman in an evening gown on the arm of an older man in a black tie and ivory dinner jacket.

“Move!”

At the door to room 213, he tried the handle.

Locked.

“Tom, stop!”

Instead, he stepped back, turned, and mule kicked the door just to the left of the lock mechanism. The door flew inward, and Tom crashed into the suite an instant later.

When Serrano entered, he found his friend staring down at a body in a white robe. The Frogman knelt, turned the body over, and felt for a pulse. The front of Ella’s robe was stained with dark blood. He looked up at Serrano and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Tom.”

But the SOG operator didn’t hear him. Tom was on his feet and running back into the hall.

“Dammit, Tom, we need him alive!”

Tom sprinted to the top of the bifurcated staircase and scanned the floor below where a string quartet played Franz Schubert’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” to a well-dressed crowd that had continued to socialize following high tea.

They were paying less attention to the viola, cello, and violins than they were to the two men who had just passed them making their way toward the front of the hotel.

Tom caught sight of a tall, dark-haired man with his arm around Dvornikov, drawing stares as he supported someone people assumed had had too much to drink.

They disappeared into the lobby before Tom could take a shot.

He caught Tran’s gaze. The CIA man had his hand in the small of his back behind his suit jacket and was looking in the direction of the two Soviets. Serrano appeared at the gallery next to Tom, his 1911 in his right hand.

“They’re going for the water,” Tom said, bounding down the stairs. He could hear Serrano behind him.

Tom took the stairs two at a time, a teak banister to his left and white walls adorned with photos of Thai royalty on his right. Green bamboo grew from planters in all four corners of the room rising all the way to the second floor, reminding Tom of his time in the jungle.

The landing was just off the entrance to the lobby facing the river. Halfway down the right staircase, he saw movement to his left. Tran was drawing his pistol. It took Tom less than a second to realize that there were new threats in the Oriental.

He pushed the fire selector on the sub gun to its first setting—full-auto—just as three men in suits stepped through the door, suits that were too dark and thick for Bangkok.

They zeroed in on Tran and were raising what Tom recognized as Polish PM63 RAKs, weapons that were a concealable combination of sub gun and machine pistol.

The metal stocks were extended, but all three had kept the folding vertical grip stowed, which told Tom that they were professionals.

Tom aligned the gutter sights on the top of his weapon and depressed the trigger as he continued moving down the stairs, stitching the closest man up his left side with eight rounds of 9 x 19mm Parabellum.

He moved the sights to the next man, but the room erupted in chaos and confusion with guests obscuring his line of sight as they tried to escape, one tripping over the cello and cracking his head on the marble floor.

Tom heard Tran’s Hi-Power bark. It was followed by a full-auto burst from a PM63.

Tom hit the landing and put two rounds into the head of the man he had hit from the stairs, pushing his way through the crowd yelling “Get down! Get down!” as he searched for the other shooters.

He saw Tran down against the far wall and ran to him. He had taken three rounds across his abdomen and another in his left arm.

“Shit,” Tom said. “Put pressure on it, brother.”

“Get him,” Tran said.

Tom stopped assessing the wounds, looked Tran in the eye, and moved to the side of the door that led to the lobby.

Serrano was across from him, pistol at the ready.

Tom ejected the partially spent magazine and stowed it in his front left pocket.

He reached back to his left for a full magazine and inserted it into the mag well, nodding at Serrano.

“I’m up.”

“What do we have?”

“Tran is down. A security man is carrying Dvornikov. There are at least two other shooters; one’s a thick, stocky white guy, about forty with a crew cut. I didn’t get a good look at the third. I bet they are going for a boat, just like we were.”

“Let’s go. Remember—take Dvornikov alive. He’s our bargaining chip.”

Tom switched his Walther to semiautomatic in case he had to take a precise shot amongst the crowd that he could hear swarming in the next room.

“On me,” he said, stepping through the threshold.

The lobby opened onto a lawn with gardens that led to a dock.

The front of the hotel faced the Chao Phraya River and was conveniently positioned to welcome travelers who had been arriving by boat for close to a century.

It was decorated with elaborate hanging flower arrangements and boasted a large indoor fountain filled with floating water lilies and lotuses.

The lobby was even more chaotic than the high tea room had been.

Inebriated patrons had stumbled out of the Bamboo Jazz Bar and Lord Jim’s Restaurant while screaming revelers scrambled past, desperate to find safety.

Tom and Serrano pushed through the crowd, searching for their targets.

Women in long, colorful flowing gowns and men in beige two-piece suits or white dinner jackets and black bow ties hindered forward progress.

Not seeing the Russians in the lobby, Tom dropped his sub gun to his side in an attempt to not cause further alarm.

Serrano did the same with his 1911. The two men continued to scan as they maneuvered their way through the throngs of civilians.

“They have to be going for a boat,” Tom said. “Keep pushing. I’m going to flank them.”

“How?”

“Not sure, I’m making this up as I go.”

Tom broke to his right, toward the Lord Jim Restaurant. Rushing past diners who flooded past him, he felt like a fish swimming upstream.

Tom freed himself from the crowd and ran past the confused Thai hostess dressed in a form-fitting Chut Thai Chakkri, an elegant sarong of gold and silver.

A few older diners had stayed in their seats, wisely deciding not to run toward the sound of gunfire.

Tom clocked the huge glass window on the far side of the restaurant and, ignoring the shouts from the waitstaff, sprinted toward it, grabbing a heavy jade elephant on a pedestal lit with its own light source.

He hurled it through the window and then grabbed a chair, which he used to scrape the shards away before jumping through and landing in a lush garden.

Weapon up and ready, he moved forward toward the front lawn, staying to the shadows, but now coming at it from a new angle. He heard the rise and fall of police sirens wailing in the distance.

I wish I could communicate with Serrano.

Maybe one day we will have radios small enough to use in situations like this.

If you live that long.

Stay locked-on.

Tom knelt at the edge of the building, looking across the lawn and gardens, tall palm trees swaying in the breeze, the lights of the hotel and the winds causing their shadows to come alive on the manicured grass.

There, he saw a man with his arm around a comrade, struggling to drag him down the dock. The security man raised a pistol and shot a longtail boat driver in the chest, sending him into the river.

Tom raised the sub gun. Below the gutter sights, which were designed for fast sight acquisition and close-in shooting situations, was a second set of sights with a more traditional aperture-type configuration, designed for more precise shots.

Tom pressed his cheek into the wire stock and zeroed in on his target.

At this distance, the front sight post covered both Dvornikov and his security man.

After you failed in Laos, Dvornikov is the only way to get those POWs home.

Tom lowered his weapon and scanned for the other two shooters.

They must be out there providing security.

It was the gunfire that gave their position away.

Tom looked to his left and saw Serrano take a shot from behind a palm tree near the front entrance to the hotel. It impacted the pylon behind which one shooter had taken cover. Both returned fire with full-auto bursts from their PM63s.

Tom saw the security man with Dvornikov shout something in Russian. One of the men stepped from behind the pylon and let loose another barrage at Serrano while the other ran to the pylon closest to the longtail boat.

Tom tore across the lawn, using the shadows as best he could, counting on the fact that they were engaged in a gunfight and Serrano had drawn their attention. As the second shooter took up covering fire, the man closest to Serrano turned to run as his partner fired to provide cover.

Tom raised his Walther and sent six bullets into his back.

He heard the throaty roar of the longtail boat’s engine as the security man gunned the throttle. Tom still didn’t have a good shot. With both men crouched down, there was too much of a chance of hitting Dvornikov.

Dammit!

He heard more shouting in Russian, the last man none too happy about being left behind. As he ran toward the departing boat, Serrano took him with three rounds of .45 to the back, a fourth catching him in the head and spewing brains down the dock.

Tom sprinted to Serrano, putting a security round in the head of the man he had killed at distance.

They both drew down on the departing longtail boat in the distance.

“Shit, no shot,” Serrano said.

Tom took a moment longer and let out a guttural roar.

Their chance at bringing home American POWs in the Soviet Union was disappearing into the night.

“Where’s our boat?” Tom asked.

“That was it,” Serrano said.

They both turned to the left. A longtail taxi was tied off against the other side of the pier. A longtail boat driver in a ragged tunic and dirty ripped shirt was staring at them, an unlit cigarette dangled from his lower lip.

No words were necessary.

He raised his hands and stepped from the boat.

Serrano handed him a handful of bhat and untied the narrow boat from a cleat on the dock before jumping in.

“I hope being a SEAL means you can drive one of these things.”

Tom reached down and opened the fuel valve, hit the battery switch, and turned the key, bringing the engine to life.

“Used one for an op in the Mekong Delta a few years back. Hang on.”

Tom positioned himself on the left side of the long handle attached to the engine and pushed the throttle lever forward.

The boat shot away from the pier, leaving Bangkok’s Grande Dame behind them.