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Behind the scenes, the rest of the team would be transporting Saint and the two CIA-operative hostages out of the country.
The meeting had been scheduled to take place at the Great Hall of the People, a state building located at the western edge of Tienanmen Square in Beijing.
It was understood that the prisoners would be brought there in advance, per Ambassador Steven’s request. What the Chinese were told was that the seven dissidents who had been extradited in exchange for our men, were being held at the U.S. Embassy. The exchange would take place only after the ambassadors were able to confirm our people were all still alive.
Once the ambassadorsand Chinese government officials had completed their introductions, I sent the signal to the Invincible team to proceed. I was escorting the press into the Great Halls’ meeting room when I heard gunfire erupt through my earpiece.
“Go, go, go!”I recognized Rile’s voice shouting.
“They’re in here!”another voice shouted that sounded like my brother’s. I made eye contact with Typhon to confirm he was hearing the same thing I was.
“Got ’em,”shouted Rile, followed a few seconds later by,“We’re out.”
That was my cue to meet whomever from the team was escorting Dr. Benjamin into the hall. I stepped out and made eye contact with first the doctor, and then Grinder. I knew immediately that whatever he was about to tell me, was news I didn’t want to receive.
30
EMERSON
We left the city the next day and went down the Cape. My parents seemed to realize that I had too much on my mind to talk, and left me on my own for the most part.
I took walks on the beach at sunrise, slept on the back-porch daybed, and swam. I spent too much time in the pool cabana, lying on the bed where Lynx and I had last had sex, imagining he was beside me.
That’s where I was when I heard my mother shouting my name. I ran into the house, blood pumping through my veins so hard it was all I could hear.
“Look,” she said, pointing to the television and grasping my father’s hand. There on the screen stood the man I’d grown up calling Uncle Buster—now the U.S. Ambassador to China. On the other side of him stood the woman I recognized as his British counterpart. To her right, stood Dr. Adam Benjamin.
I listened as they thanked the Chinese government for their cooperation in freeing the doctor, mistakenly arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. There was no mention of the other men who had been arrested.
My mother reached out her hand to me, and I sat beside her on the sofa.
“Where do you suppose Lynx is,” she whispered.
Before I could speculate, my father’s cell phone rang. He stood and walked out to the back porch before answering the call.
When he came back inside, his face was ashen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Keon, Lynx’s brother, was shot during the extraction. He’s alive, but his condition is unknown.”
31
LYNX
THREE MONTHS LATER
Ileft Z’s office, no closer to making a decision than when I arrived. He’d asked when I planned to return to active duty; it was a question I was unable to answer.
I’d spent the last three months by my brother’s side, at first in a hospital in Seoul, and then in London.
While the bullet that hit him during Saint and Dr. Benjamin’s extraction hadn’t been life-threatening, it had been damaging. He’d undergone three surgeries and was just now getting full mobility back in his right arm.
It was his mental state that worried me the most. There were many days when my brother’s depression was so great that I refused to leave him alone, even to sleep.
I’d given up my residency suite at the hotel, since it was too small for both of us to stay there, and rented a flat near the hospital so when he was able to leave, he had a comfortable place to stay.
My brother’s spirits improved in direct correlation to the movement he regained in his arm. As much as I was against it, he was insisting on returning to Texas as soon as possible, and I planned to travel with him.
