have a red-bead on him all the time, understand? You make a wrong move, and my .338 Lapua Magnum gets to show you what it can do."
Ambler flung open the door and, walking stiffly and unsteadily, took a few steps into the hallway. Again, his face was a study in terror. The commandos would assume that their target was situated in a darkened corner of the room, out of their sight line, holding a sophisticated long-range rifle. The angle would permit him to kill his hostage without exposing himself to danger. Yet the two commandos had no choice but to go along. Time was on their side; their plan, now, was to stall as long as possible, to allow the other members of the team to assemble. Ambler could see it in their faces. Perhaps the hostage's death was an acceptable cost for completing the Tarquin sanction-but that call could only be made by their commanding officer.
Ambler took another step toward the second, larger commando, saw the man's sea-green eyes, dark hair, and second day's growth of beard. The commando considered the hostage to be little more than an impediment and a nuisance-an unknown that could not yet be removed from the equation. He was no longer holding his G36 in firing position; there seemed no point.
Now Ambler allowed himself to quiver with ostensible fear. He glanced back into the darkened room, pretended he could see a rifle trained at his head, conveyed this with a sharp intake of breath. Then he turned beseechingly back to the black-clad operative.
"He's going to kill me," Ambler repeated. "I know it, I know. I can see it in his eyes." As he spoke, words rushed out with mounting hysteria, Ambler began to flail his arms around, with corresponding agitation. "You need to help me. God, please help me. Call the U.S. ambassador, Sam Hurlbut will vouch for me. I'm good people, I am. But please don't leave me with that, that maniac."
As he spoke, he leaned forward, toward the commando, as if to try to speak to him in confidence.
"You need to calm down," the commando said in a hushed bark, scarcely concealing his distaste for the jabbering, panicking civilian, who was coming too close and talking too much as he continued to flail his hands wildly, until...
The opportunities will come. Take them.
"And you need to help me you need to help me you need to help me-" The panicked-sounding words rushed out independent of any sense. Ambler pitched himself forward, even closer to the commando; he could smell the operative's rancid stress sweat.
Grab the weapon by the buttstock, not the magazine. The magazine could snap off, leaving the bullets already chambered in the rifle. His grip on the trigger guard is loose. Grab it now.
With cobra-strike swiftness, Ambler wrested the G36 from the commando and slammed the silencer-cuffed barrel against his head. As the large man slumped to the ground, Ambler trained the assault rifle at the man's startled partner.
He saw a man trying to reassess all his assumptions, utterly bewildered. Ambler flicked the G36 on full fire.
"Drop yours now," he ordered.
The man did so, backing up slowly.
Ambler knew what the man was preparing to do. "Freeze," he shouted.
But the man kept backing away, his hands raised. When an operation had gone wrong, you evacuated. That was the rule you followed before any other rule came into play.
Ambler just watched as the man suddenly turned and ran out of the apartment, raced down the street, and disappeared, no doubt to rejoin his squad and regroup. Ambler and Caston, too, would need to evacuate immediately and regroup in their own way. In the event, killing the gunman would have been pointless.
There were too many operatives waiting to take his place.
Beijing
Chao Tang was an early riser and, like many early risers in a position of authority, compelled those who worked for him to become early risers, too, by the simple expedient of scheduling meetings at dawn. Members of his support staff at the Ministry of State Security had grown accustomed to his ways; little by little, they discontinued the late evenings of drinking rice wine, the sportive nightlife that senior members of the government could afford. The indulgences were not worth the pounding 6:00 a.m. headaches. Little by little, the bleary eyes cleared up to a look of calm alertness; the early-morning meetings no longer seemed like such a terrible imposition.
But the morning's meeting-a review of objectives accomplished and still pending-was now the furthest