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  Ignoring the dancing lights over his vision and the ringing in his ears, Tanner rose and started forward. Naomi was a couple seconds slower to recover, but she quickly followed. On Tanner’s gesture, they split up, the OUTCAST leader taking the door on the right, Naomi taking the one on the left. They stormed through the doors together, Commandos up and ready. Naomi sighted her target first, a heavyset Triad thug with a bald head trying to raise his K2 rifle while blinking rapidly to clear his eyesight. Naomi didn’t give him the chance. She stitched him waist to neck with five 5.56mm rounds. The gunman went down without a sound.

  Tanner caught movement to his left. He spun, dropping into a crouch as an AK-47’s muzzle flash heralded the arrival of half a dozen 7.62mm rounds. As the bullets sped over his head, Tanner returned fire, sending a dozen 5.56mm slugs back. The Triad gunman, using the edge of a storage shelf as cover, pulled back as Tanner’s return volley clanged against the steel supports. Before the 49 could recover, Tanner ran forward, loosing shorter bursts. Naomi followed, her own weapon blasting short, rapid volleys at the same target.

  “Wait!” a voice yelled out from the shelves. “I give up.”

  Both Tanner and Naomi stopped firing. “Throw out your weapon!” Tanner yelled. The AK flew out from behind the shelves and landed on the floor twenty feet away, sliding a ways before coming to a stop. “Now, come out with your hands up!”

  Liam and the others emerged from the aisles at the same instant the last 49 walked out, hands over his head. He looked no older than twenty, with uncombed hair and a cheap suit, his eyes wide in panic.

  “Pistol!” Tanner pointed to the gang member’s waistband. “Pull it out slowly with your left hand.” The kid did it, slowly extracting the automatic from his belt.

  “Toss it.” The 49 chucked the pistol in the same direction as the AK, then put his hand back in the air.

  “Five, cuff him.”

  Dante moved forward, careful to stay out of his teammates’ line of fire. The Triad survivor’s arms were bound behind him with flex cuffs. Dante guided him to the nearest shelves and used another set of cuffs to bind him to the support frame.

  Tanner walked over to the prisoner. “Two things. First, as soon as you can, call Billy Hong and tell him that we want Rhee. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Second, the Black Dao Triad is going down. When it does, don’t be on that ship. This is your only warning.”

  The kid stared up at him with wide, unblinking eyes, then nodded slowly.

  Tanner consulted his watch. “Time’s up. Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  OUTCAST was picked up by Choi and Vessler in a cargo van. The five climbed in and Choi drove away from the warehouse.

  “Nothing yet on the police scanners,” Vessler said from the front passenger seat. “What’s next?”

  “We get some rest.” Tanner removed his NVGs in the back seat. “I think we’ve sent a strong enough message to Hong tonight.” He spoke into his radio. “Base, what’s the latest from the Triad?”

  Danielle’s reply was loud and clear. “Large number of conversations on the Triad’s phone system. All in Chinese. I have translation programs running on them, but it’s going to take a little while.”

  “We’re half an hour out,” Tanner said. “Go to bed.”

  “Not until you’re back.”

  “Is Casey there?”

  “Yes.”

  In a couple of seconds Casey came on the air. “What do you want, you old dog?”

  “I think it’s time to call in the FBI. That’ll put more pressure on Hong and his Triad to give up Rhee, or at worst, to break the alliance.”

  “What’s the federal angle?”

  Liam answered, “I spotted several U.S. Army and Marine Corps cases of firearms in the warehouse. I got photos of their serial numbers. Ready to receive them?”

  Danielle came back on the channel and said that she was.

  Liam sent the photos and then after a couple of minutes Danielle came back on. “Those weapons crates were reported missing over a two-year span from Army and Marine Corps bases throughout the Western United States.”

  Casey sighed. “Okay. I’ll get both the Army CID and the NCIS involved in the warehouse investigation.”

  “What about the brothel slaves we rescued?” Tanner asked.

  “As of half an hour ago, they were still giving their statements. If even half this stuff gets leaked to the press, the political shockwaves could last for years.”

  “What did the president say about them staying in the U.S.?”

  “He agreed to it. Classify them as political refugees and take it from there. How about Rhee? Any sign of him and his force?”

  “Negative,” Tanner said.

  “Be careful. Rhee’s like an angry rattlesnake. No telling where he’ll strike.”

  “We’ll handle him.”

  “I hope so, for all our sakes.”

  #

  Nob Hill, San Francisco

  8:35am

  After a quick meal, three hours of sleep and a shower, the team reassembled in the Trans-Continental Marsh Hotel’s Presidential Suite. Vessler and Choi joined them, looking a little less rested than the team. After each had grabbed themselves a cup of coffee, the team, Casey, and the DEA agents convened in the suite’s main room.

  The Presidential Suite wasn’t just a title; U.S. presidents, foreign leaders, and the richest people in world regularly stayed there when business took them to San Francisco. As such, it was luxuriously appointed and equipped with all the amenities that the leaders who stayed there were accustomed to, including secure communications. The views of San Francisco from the suite’s windows were only eclipsed by the vantage point of the hotel’s world-famous restaurant two floors above.

  Liam sipped his coffee and leaned back. “We miss anything while we were asleep?”

  “Just the press going rabid.” Vessler stifled a yawn. “ Internet, TV, radio, newspapers— you name it, they are all over it.”

  “I briefed the president earlier.” Of all the people in the room, Casey looked the most refreshed. “He’s already taking flack from all directions over this, especially from this district’s congresswoman. But for now, anyway, he’s leaving this in our hands.”

  “That’s nice of him,” Stephen joked.

  Danielle stared at the screen of the laptop open in front of her. Naomi noticed her friend’s expression. “What’s wrong, Dani?”

  “There were explosions and fires at four different farm supply stores around northern California overnight.”

  “Farm supply stores?” Naomi frowned. “Uh-oh, I just had a nasty thought.”

  “About me, I hope.” Liam grinned like the devil.

  “You wish.”

  “Ammonia nitrate?” Tanner interjected.

  “Yeah. Oklahoma City was a few years before my time, but I worked with some ATF guys who investigated that scene. They had nightmares for years.”

  Dante raised his eyebrows. “Do these stores carry ammonia nitrate?”

  “In fertilizer form? Yeah. Still popular, though strangers buying a lot of it at once will raise a few flags.”

  Tanner nodded “This sounds like Rhee. Hit four different stores, steal the ammonia nitrate, then set a fire to cover the theft.”

  “Sounds like he has something big planned,” Liam said.

  “They also found two bodies at one of the sites,” Danielle continued. “Both shot in the head at close range. Neither one is Asian.”

  “What’s he going to do?” Choi asked.

  “Anything that will help to complete his mission.” Tanner looked around the room. “He and his people are highly trained and capable of extreme violence on their own.”

  A phone started chiming. Vessler reached for her device and glanced at it. “It’s the office.” She stood. “I have to take this.” She walked over to the window and answered it.

  “So back to Rhee’s next move.” Choi leaned forward. �
��What could it be?”

  “I don’t know,” Tanner replied. “I thought protecting the drug lab was his top priority but—”

  “Oh my God.”

  Everyone turned to look at Vessler, who had uttered the oath.

  “How many?” she snapped. She paused, listening. “How many agents are in the office?” Another beat, her face darkening. “Brock, listen to me. Take Meechim, Howes, Daniels and Gonzales. Get over to University, find Gloria Glimsdale and take her into protective custody now. And Brock? I want you and the others in full tactical gear, and don’t take shit from anyone. Until I say otherwise, Gloria is your only concern. Understand? Get going.” She broke the connection, shuddered and took a deep breath.

  Everyone waited for her to speak.

  At length, Vessler said, “George Glimsdale’s dead. Him, his wife, and his two youngest kids.” She closed her eyes. “They were all found dead in their home, tied up, tortured, their throats cut.”

  “Rhee,” Tanner rose from his chair.

  “We don’t know that,” Casey said.

  “The local cops think it was Colombians.” Vessler stared out the window as if mulling this over.

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “Hell, no! The Colombians got pushed out of the area a couple of years back by the Mexican cartels and haven’t reestablished a foothold in the local drug trade since then. The DEA has no operations running against them either here or over in Oakland. So them killing George and his family don’t make any sense.”

  “Who’s second in charge?” Casey asked.

  “Bill Derer. He’s on vacation with his family, skiing at Mammoth.”

  “I’ll get him back.” Casey, rose to his feet. “Until then, Agent Vessler, I’m putting you in charge of the local DEA office.”

  Vessler took a deep breath. “Then I better get back to the office. Come on, Danny.”

  “Right behind you.”

  After the two left, Danielle brought up a new screen on her computer and pecked some keys. “I’ve got something. Hong’s calling a meeting of the Black Dao’s senior leadership. It’s at the Black Jade Dragon Restaurant, today at noon.”

  Tanner glanced at his watch. “Three hours.” He looked at Casey. “How fast can you get Derer back here?”

  “We have to find him first.”

  “Black Bear Lodge,” Danielle said. “I have the phone number right here.”

  Casey closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “Give me the number.”

  “What are we going to do, Boss?” Liam asked.

  Tanner exhaled. “No telling when and where Rhee is going to use that ammonia nitrate. So, the gloves come off. We’re going to have a talk with Billy Hong about a drug lab.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  San Francisco, California

  11:31am

  The day would go down in San Francisco history as the Day of Fire.

  It started on the world famous Golden Gate Bridge. Two tanker trucks, filled with a combined 17,000 gallons of gasoline, were being escorted across the bridge by a pair of Golden Gate Security vehicles, heading north. They stayed in the right-hand lane, traveling at the bridge’s posted speed limit of forty-five miles per hour.

  The three-man North Korean team waited until the tankers were on the bridge before they made their move. Driving a blue cargo van, the trio prepared to show the Americans the folly of opposing the Marshal’s Will.

  “Ready?” the driver asked.

  “Ready,” replied the gunner, checking the Type 69’s 85mm warhead. “How’s the wind?”

  “Steady at nine knots,” the third man reported. “Coming out of the west-northwest.”

  The gunner hefted the RPG launcher over his shoulder. “Stand by with the second launcher, in case I miss with this one.”

  “Standing by.”

  “Here we go.” The driver accelerated to fifty, then sixty. The van shot past the trailing security car, then the rear tanker. By the time it reached the lead tanker, it was doing seventy-five, the driver weaving through the late morning traffic in and out of the other two lanes. By the time it flew past the lead escort car, it was going eighty miles an hour before the driver shifted into the right-hand lane and slowed to thirty-five.

  A hundred and fifty yards ahead of the lead tanker, the gunner climbed a step-stool and pushed open a hatch cut into the van’s roof. As he rose, he leveled the RPG launcher in the direction of the tanker, adjusted for the wind, and fired.

  Traveling at over six hundred miles an hour, the four and half pound warhead closed the 130 yards between the van and lead tanker in about half a second, passing over the truck’s cab and striking the trailer tank two feet below the top. As it passed through the steel, the warhead exploded, sending a plume of white-hot molten copper into 8,500 gallons of gasoline.

  The equivalent of twenty-one tons of dynamite exploded, obliterating the tanker, the lead security vehicle and the trailing tanker, which also exploded. The twin fireballs smothered all six lanes, incinerating nine cars, melting the asphalt and super-heating two dozen of the bridge’s steel cables. The shock-wave smashed into another fifteen vehicles, throwing most into death rolls that shattered windows and killed the occupants. Three cars crashed over the side and plummeted into the water below. Cables that were already red-hot snapped under the sudden pressure. Forty people died in a blink of an eye, and another twenty-one were severely injured.

  As for the instigators of the attack, they were already off the bridge, moving north at sixty miles per hour. They took the Vista Point exit right after getting off the bridge and parked the van. As the sightseers assembled to watch the thick, dark smoke rising from the smoldering bridge, the three North Koreans walked over to a waiting sedan. They got in, left the tourist lookout and headed north, driving the speed limit.

  #

  11:33am

  San Francisco’s BART system is the fifth busiest heavy-rail rapid transit system in the country, carrying over 400,000 people on a typical weekday. As such, it was easy to miss the two Asian men in dark suits who walked into the 16th Street Mission Station. Both carried briefcases and looked like ordinary businessmen. No one noticed them separating and getting onto different trains.

  One got on the Richmond–Millbrae line, heading south, while the other headed north on the Dublin/Pleasanton line. Both men slid the briefcases under their seats. Despite the dozens of people around them, no one noticed the action, so caught up were they in texting, checking their e-mails or social media, talking on the phone or otherwise not paying attention to their surroundings.

  When they reached the next station, both men exited the train, abandoning the briefcase under the seat. New people boarded and still no one noticed the briefcase.

  When the north-bound train slowed as it entered the Powell Street station, the timer inside the briefcase detonated the ten pounds of Semtex inside with it. The explosion ripped through the train car with lethal force, killing everyone in the car and severely damaging the cars in front and behind it. All of the windows blew out, sending shards of glass and steel into the passengers on the platform like a monstrous shotgun blast. Smoke and flame poured out of the destroyed car. The only sound some people could hear (those whose eardrums weren’t blown out) were the wails of the injured.

  Two minutes later, as the southbound BART train pulled into the Glen Park station, the second briefcase bomb exploded, with much the same results.

  The final casualty toll for both bombs was eighty-three dead and 107 injured.

  #

  11:35am

  The boat was a Robalo R300, designed for fishing and enjoying a day out on the water. Powered by twin Yamaha four-stroke 300 horsepower engines, the thirty-foot vessel left South Beach Harbor a little after eleven, heading south-southeast at a leisurely twenty knots. Deep sea fishing rigs occupied the boat’s brass rod holders. The three men onboard, all Asian and wearing polo shirts and slacks, looked to be nothing more than friends ditching work for some fishin
g.

  But these men weren’t fishing.

  They were hunting.

  One of the men stationed in the boat’s bow shouted back to the pilot while pointing ahead. “Buoy’s coming up. Front starboard side.”

  Muhn nodded and adjusted the boat’s course so that it ran parallel to the line of buoys that marked the water boundary for the San Francisco International Airport Security Zone. This exclusion zone extended a mile and a quarter (2,000 meters) from the shoreline into the bay. Any boats that crossed into that zone were subject to being boarded and arrested by either the U.S. Coast Guard or the SFPD Harbor Patrol. Particularly for these individuals, that was a scenario to be avoided at all costs.

  The third member of the team sat next to Muhn, adjusting controls on a radio. To anyone watching, he looked like just another boater monitoring the VHF marine channels for at-sea emergencies, weather or fishing reports. He was actually using an airband scanner, a legal device used to pick up the radio exchanges between air traffic control and incoming and outgoing aircraft, but not usually found on boats. He suddenly straightened and tapped the scar-faced captain on the shoulder. “Head south! Jetliner approaching from the southeast!”

  Muhn nodded and changed his course even more, taking him away from the security zone. Both the man in the bow and the one listening to the radio moved to the boat’s stern, where what appeared to be additional fishing rod holders sat. They both knelt and worked fast to pull the real contents out and place them on the deck.

  As they made final checks, a commercial passenger plane appeared in the distance to the southeast.