Free Beyond all Limits by J. T. Brannan Page A

nobody left to run the country when Wu’s gone.’
    ‘Do we know where they’re being held?’
    Dos Santos nodded. ‘We’ve got a contact in Beijing, he contacted us as soon as this thing broke out. Liu Yingchau, a captain in the Chinese Special Operations Command. Navarone knows him, I believe.’
    Cole nodded. Jake Navarone was one of Force One’s best operatives, Cole having recruited him from SEAL Team Six after an operation at a North Korean prison camp the year before. Liu Yingchau had been one of two Chinese special forces officers seconded to JSOC for the mission, and had been the only one of the two to survive. Navarone had spoken very highly of him, and that was good enough for Cole.
    ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We can trust him. How’s his cover?’
    ‘Well, as part of the military, he’s supposedly behind Wu and the other generals. Luckily he was in Beijing to help train their armed police, and he’s been pulled in, ordered to help guard the government compound. He’s safe for now, as far as we know.’
    ‘Is that where they’re being held?’ Cole asked. ‘The Forbidden City?’
    Abrams nodded. ‘Yes, although Liu is not inside and doesn’t know the exact location.’
    Cole sighed. Beijing’s Forbidden City was enormous, an incredible architectural marvel that harkened back to the heady days of Chinese power, a vast imperial palace used as the center of the Chinese empire from the Ming to Qing dynasties. It covered one hundred and eighty acres, and housed nearly eight hundred separate buildings containing nine thousand rooms.  Cole was going to need much more specific information before he could arrange any sort of rescue mission.
    ‘Will he be able to find out their exact location?’ he asked.
    ‘CIA’s handling him for now,’ dos Santos said. ‘I’ll try and find out, get you in the loop.’
    ‘I don’t want him to get caught, but we need more solid info.’ He paused, frowning, and finished his coffee. ‘And although I trust him, we can’t discount the possibility that he’s being played, and whatever he says is disinformation planted by Wu. We’ll need secondary corroboration at the very least.’
    ‘I know,’ Abrams said uneasily. ‘I know. But we need to act quickly, and you might have to act at a stage where other agencies wouldn’t.’
    Cole shrugged. She was right, at the end of the day; if it wasn’t an emergency, if time wasn’t a factor, if there weren’t a hundred other issues, then other more conventional units could be used.
    But in a situation like this, with next to no useful intelligence and the threat of four thousand US servicemen being killed, then Force One was the only option left.
    ‘How long do we have?’ Cole asked, his mind already going through plans and scenarios.
    Abrams was about to speak when her phone rang. She held up a finger, asking Cole to wait, and answered; not many people were put straight through to the President of the United States.
     
    Ellen Abrams listened to the frantic voice on the other end of the line, and felt her own pulse racing. Japanese Prime Minister Toshikatsu Endo was not given to overstatement or the crowd-pleasing boisterousness of many of his political rivals. He was a refined, quiet, thoughtful man who was a professional in every sense of the word. But the impression Abrams had now was different, and chilled her to the core; he was outraged, frightened, angry and uncertain all at the same time.
    ‘Madam President,’ she heard him say breathlessly, ‘it has already begun; Wu’s done it, he’s already done it!’
    ‘What?’ Abrams asked as calmly as she could. ‘What has he done?’
    ‘Invaded the Senkaku Islands!’ Toshikatsu exclaimed. ‘The Chinese Navy has blown one of our coast guard vessels out of the water, and then landed on the island. When challenged by the Okinawan prefectural police, our officers were shot dead! Dead!’
    Abrams’ blood ran cold. It was happening fast, just too damned fast. She