The Escape

History one day will recall when 30 prisoners of conscience escaped from 327 Military Hospital in Chengdu; how they managed to flee certain death and avoid being recaptured. Quite an achievement in an Orwellian state such as modern-day China.

It may not have been a prison but getting out of the hospital was still no easy feat. It was surrounded by CCTV cameras and a 12-foot-high fence topped with razor wire. Its exit and entry points were manned by guards. Beyond the hospital grounds was either the city's outskirts or the airfield.

Not that Quintus knew these details as he ventured out of the building. The others remained inside as he recced for the best avenue of escape.

Carrying the fire extinguisher, he went along the side of the building, which took him towards a hospital exit manned by two bored soldiers at a checkpoint. He made sure he was out of their eyesight when he knocked out two exterior video cameras with the extinguisher.

Satisfied there weren't any more cameras covering their intended escape route, he went back to the building door where the others waited. He told both Tina and the English-speaking democracy activist what he saw and then outlined a plan for them to relay to the others.

'I will take care of the guards, and once I give the signal, everyone has to rush out the gate and get into the city, split up, and do what they can to not get caught from there on,' Quintus whispered to them.

Just after Tina and the activist told the others the plan, Quintus pulled her aside and spoke to her softly.

'I will stick out like a sore thumb here. Tina, you'll have better luck without me if you go into the city and get to the nearest U.S. consulate,' he said.

'What are you going to do?' she asked him.

'I'm going back to the airfield to steal a helicopter.'

'What? Why?'

'It's the best idea I've got right now. It's hard to explain.'

'The security there would be ten times worse than here.'

'Maybe. Probably.'

'If you do get a helicopter, where are you going?'

'It sounds weird, but I need to go to a mountain.'

'Then I want to come with you. I'm okay with weird. I like mountains.'

'No, it will be more dangerous.'

'I can handle that. Weird, dangerous, no problems. It's been an ongoing theme for the past few days!'

For the next two minutes, they debated in hushed tones over what Tina should do. Quintus was right to a point about her chances without him, but behind that — the idea of them splitting and her being alone amid all the danger made him feel uneasy; made them both feel uneasy.

Despite the darkness, he noted tears brimming in her eyes, and he now knew he had no choice.

'Okay, alright, we're sticking together. Let's not worry about the consulate for the time being,' Quintus said. 'Once we're over there and stealing military hardware — you just need to do what I ask of you, okay Tina? Your life may depend on it,' he added.

Tina nodded, and as she wiped away a tear that fell down her left cheek, he patted her on the shoulder. 'After the mountain, we'll get stateside, somehow,' he said.

Quintus next told the activist to inform the others it was time to go, and soon he led them up the side of the building. Upon reaching the corner, they stopped in the shadows. The exit and its checkpoint were just ahead. Quintus indicated to Tina and the others to remain while he went forward. At a crouching run, he snuck up on the checkpoint where one guard was now asleep, and the other was barely awake in a booth.

He had little trouble knocking them both out.

But as he prepared to wave the escapees through, a 4WD military vehicle approached from within the hospital grounds. He signaled to Tina and the others to stay put, and he hid behind the booth just as the vehicle pulled up at the checkpoint's boom gate. The driver inside the 4WD looked around for the guards until his door was yanked open, and he was pulled out by Quintus and given a paralyzing jab.

Quintus half expected alarm bells to start ringing, but none did. The only sound was the 4WD's idling engine. He dragged the paralyzed soldier into the booth and lay him next to the already stunned pair. After taking a flashlight from one of the unconscious soldiers, he checked once more to see if anything was coming their way or if he had been seen, and it seemed all good on both accounts.

He waved to the escapees at the corner, and they knew what to do. As fast as they could, they ran from the corner and through the exit, and into the surrounding neighborhood. Through the fence, Tina saw the Falun Gong women make their way down streets, each of them glowing with kindness, lighting up their surroundings. Then she saw Quintus waving for her to carefully join him, and she did while remaining unaware that they were being watched.

At the corner edge of another building, War and Kristen had just witnessed what occurred. Kristen, by now, was in a state of disbelief close to shock. Her current situation was one she never expected to find herself in; she was fleeing some military hospital in China with an odd man who could draw her dreams and who now warned her that her life was in danger.

On top of that, she just saw someone, the spitting image of the dreamy Roman soldier, take out three Chinese soldiers and then direct a whole bunch of people to flee the hospital. Then that same man and a young Asian woman ran in another direction, into the shadows and out of sight. Again, and not for the last time, Kristen wished she was back with her family in Texas.

A minute after the man and the young woman disappeared, War told her what their next move would be.

'See that vehicle?' he whispered, pointing at the idling 4WD at the hospital's exit.

She nodded.

'That's ours,' he said.

Berating Soldiers at 5.10 AM

As Marx exited the elevator onto the fifth floor, he shouted into his cellphone at Deng, who was elsewhere in the building.

'I simply don't care if you just went to bed, Deng, my men are having issues with security on the fifth floor, this indicates you have not done your job ensuring we're to be treated as expected!' Marx yelled. 'Get here now and sort this mess out,' he said before ending the call.

He turned a corner to find Vacher and Irfan pinned to the floor by the Chinese soldiers, who now numbered around seven. Some of the soldiers looked at the well-dressed Westerner with bewilderment until he started berating them in Mandarin.

'What is this? These men are guests of General Zhou!' he yelled.

Marx managed to spook some of the guards, but the most senior of them — a non-commissioned officer — wasn't so easily swayed, and a noisy argument began. Marx wouldn't back down, and neither would the soldier.

The Fence

Keeping to the shadows, Quintus and Tina ran along the side of the largest building on the northern part of the hospital facility. To their left, the fence line eventually became shared with the airfield, and at that point, they stopped. As she caught her breath, Tina noticed Quintus' attention was fixed on both the fence and the area beyond it.

'So, what now?' she asked.

'The helicopter we need is in there,' he said, nodding at the airfield. He gauged the height of the fence and then looked at Tina, who he guessed weighed around 110 pounds. That's manageable, he thought.

'How are we going to get through the fence?' she asked.

'By hopping over.'

'What?! How?'

'I'll piggyback you.'

Tina had to question if she heard right.

'Sorry, you'll what?'

'Trust me,' Quintus said as he crouched for her to get onto his back.

'Audentes fortuna iuvat ,' he said quietly.

'What does that mean?'

'Fortune favors the bold, it's Latin.'

She still hesitated, so he gave her a subtle reminder.

'C'mon, a deal's a deal.'

And with that, she smirked her way through any anxiety and hopped onto his back. He then stood up straight with her holding on.

'Don't let go or yell as we fly over. Everything is going to be fine,' he said.

Fly? she thought.

'Holding tight?' he checked.

'Yeah, holding tight.'

With Tina securely on his back, Quintus ran a short distance and then jumped and rose in the air, and much to her astonishment, they levitated over the fence, clearing its razor wire by a good two feet. They landed gently on the other side on the grass with the hospital behind them.

'Stay onboard,' he told her. 'It's about a quarter of a mile to those choppers I saw. It'll be speedier if I keep carrying you.'

Before Tina could respond, Quintus began running toward where he thought the helicopters were. True to his word, he could run fast, as fast as an Olympic sprinter, in fact, despite still carrying her. It wasn't long till the shapes of a half-dozen parked choppers emerged ahead of them out of the darkness.

At the sight of them, Quintus sighed in relief. They were Harbin Z-9s, variants of a French model that he'd flown and done mechanics on years before. He knew them like the back of his hand.

The Call

Back inside the hospital, the heated dispute between Marx and the non-commissioned officer was interrupted by Marx's ringing cellphone. He held up his hand to pause the argument and fished his phone out of his pocket. After glancing at the caller's ID, he answered it aggressively.

'Lin, what do you want now?'

For the next several seconds, the Chinese guards, and even Vacher and Irfan on the floor, watched Marx turn beetroot red as he listened to what Lin had to say.

'You have to be kidding me. He did what?!' Marx finally yelled, spit flying from his mouth. 'How did he escape? Of course, your father's operation can't proceed, especially if the others have also somehow managed to get free!'

As Marx continued ranting on the phone, Deng arrived on the scene, and he quickly pulled rank on the soldiers who had pinned Vacher and Irfan to the floor. The soldiers freed Marx's henchmen, who got back onto their feet. Meanwhile, Marx ended his call with Lin and glared at Deng.

'Now Deng, you have to really earn what I'm paying you for,' he said.

How to Steal a Chopper

It took Quintus and Tina less than a minute to run from the fence to the concrete square, where six Harbin Z-9 helicopters were parked between the runway and a hangar. After reaching the first camouflage-painted chopper, Quintus let Tina off his back.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

'Why aren't you out of breath?' she asked.

'Shhhhhhh,' Quintus replied with his finger raised to his lips. 'We aren't out of the woods yet.'

From one of his trouser pockets, he pulled out the torch stolen earlier from one of the paralyzed soldiers and shone its light into the helicopter's cockpit.

'Will it get us out of here?' she asked him in a hushed tone.

'Hope so. With full axillary tanks, it should fly around 500 miles, enough to get us where we need to go,' he said just as quietly.

'The mountain?'

'Yeah, and then after that, perhaps, all things going well, as far as the southern border and hopefully into Thailand,' Quintus said.

'Thailand, oh, I like the sound of that,' Tina said.

'Yeah, just thought of it; thought you'd like it. Now standard military protocol is to have helicopters on standby, ready to fly with a full tank. If so, then we are in luck.'

'Don't you need some keys?' she asked.

'No keys required.'

He opened the cockpit door and gestured for her to get in.

'Quickly in you go.'

Quintus carefully shone the light to help Tina climb into the cockpit and take a seat. After she did so, it wasn't long before he was in the seat next to her. He put on a pair of headphones he found and then pointed at another set hanging to her left.

'It'll get noisy. Put them on so we can talk via intercom,' he said and then briefly told her how they worked. Then he gestured outside, which was becoming lighter as an unseen sun rose in the east.

'Now Tina, while I get this thing ready to lift, I need you to keep your eyes open for any security guards,' he said.

As Tina played lookout, Quintus began running through his mental checklist; he first checked the foot pedals, then the cyclic and collective-pitch levers. After that, he checked the circuit breakers were in and then tested if the master alternator was on, etc. As fast as he could, he went through all the procedures needed for lifting the chopper into the air. Eventually — for what seemed an eternity to Tina — Quintus pressed the starter button. The engine began to whine, and soon the rotor blades above them began to spin slowly. It was about then that Tina saw the shape of a vehicle driving their way.

'There's a vehicle coming,' she said.

Damn, Quintus thought. We're still over a minute away from liftoff.

'What are we going to do, Quintus?' Tina said.

'We'll be in the air soon enough.'

Quintus looked in the direction of the approaching vehicle. It was a 4WD, like the one from the hospital. He saw its headlights flashing on and off. His past World War II training told him the flashes were Morse code; the message was S.O.S.

Forty feet from the chopper, the 4WD abruptly stopped. Two people exited it, and despite the darkness, Quintus realized they weren't soldiers and that the person hopping out from the passenger's side was a woman. He slid open a window and waved to them with the torch, indicating for them to approach.

Quintus next flicked a switch that turned on four exterior lights on the chopper's lower fuselage. It was enough to help the two get to the Z-9's slide door, and as they got there, Quintus realized something about the woman — it had to be Kristen, the woman who Marx had told him about. He instantly saw how she appeared like Kaitlyn. Her strong jawline. Her eyes. Even her ears.

War slid the door back for her to enter, and a gush of sentiment hit Quintus as she got in. He quickly suppressed his feelings. Other matters needed doing, importantly getting the Z-9 in the air before airfield security personnel were upon them.

'Tina, ask our new friends to buckle up,' he said.

With a smile, Tina told War and Kristen to be seated and to put on their belts. As she next indicated to them to put on headphones, she saw how Kristen's glowing aura indicated she was a good person, but she couldn't figure out the bearded man who had neither an aura nor a shroud of darkness. Just nothing. She had never witnessed anything like it before, only the dead had no aura. She did not understand what it meant but, given the circumstances, she had not time to ponder it.

'Okay folks, it's time to go,' Quintus said.

The sound of his calm voice returned Tina's thoughts to more immediate matters, and she resumed looking out for security personnel. It wasn't long till she spotted the shapes of several armed soldiers running towards them from buildings.

'Men with guns over there, coming our way,' she said, pointing.

'Hope everyone is buckled up,' Quintus said. 'Time to get this whirlybird airborne.'

The engine's RPMs hit 2,500. The rotor acceleration was complete. He rolled the throttle, and the Z-9 rose in the air.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Three 7.62mm bullets fired from ground level hit the helicopter as it reached a height of 30 feet. One round punched through the cabin floor's not-so-protective plating, missing Quintus' left foot by mere inches before smashing into parts of the control panel, specifically the satellite navigation system.

'Ignore that, folks, we will be out of range soon,' he said coolly in another bid to soothe any frayed nerves.

Quintus managed to keep the chopper on course and increased its speed. After leaving the airfield and the hospital behind, he steered around the city's edges till he spotted the weaving imprint of a river that shimmered with the first hints of daybreak. He banked the Z-9 towards the river and once he was over it, he kept the chopper low to avoid radar.

When Quintus realized the Z-9's satellite navigation system was knocked out, he knew he had little choice but to fly south via 'human survey.' He was thankful daylight was emerging, allowing him to see better. He figured if he followed the river southwards, it would take him near where he needed to go.

Back in Canada, contemplating a return to China one day, he had studied Google Maps of the area around White Dragon Mountain. He recalled where Chengdu was in relation to the mountain and understood that the waterway he was flying over was most probably the Min River, which eventually passed through Leshan, a city famous for a giant Buddha statue that overlooked the river. The 233-foot-high figure was carved out of an orange-rock cliff face. It was unmissable. For Quintus, the Tang Dynasty creation was important because it overlooked a junction where the Dadu River joined the Min. Once he saw it, he knew he had to turn and go up Dadu River, which would take him in the direction of White Dragon Mountain.

But first, they had to get there, and he now had two more people to take care of. The added responsibilities weighed on him and even had him questioning if he should go to the mountain at all and instead attempt to fly them directly to Thailand or even Myanmar. His train of thought was broken when Kristen spoke over the intercom.

'Okay, excuse me, pilot, my name is Kristen,' she said. 'Thank you so much for helping us.'

Her voice even sounds like Kaitlyn's, Quintus thought.

'Not a problem. Despite our current circumstances, it's nice to meet you, Kirsten. I'm Quintus, and my copilot here is Tina,' he said. Tina turned around and gave her a smile and a hello wave, which was returned.

'Lovely to meet you both, and this is Ivan,' Kristen said, gesturing towards War. 'Can you tell us —'

Kristen was interrupted by Tina, who pointed westwards at the early morning sky.

'Sorry, but jets!' she said. 'Over there!'

Quintus turned his head to see two military aircraft a half-mile away flying parallel with them above a mountain range. They were CAC FC-1 Xiaolongs, single-engine lightweight combat aircraft. He watched their maneuvering, and after several minutes it became apparent they were tracking them. There was no way they'd make it flying to the border. It made his decision easier. They'd go to the mountain.

The Man Who Wanted to be Elsewhere

An agitated Colonel Deng was trying to act like he was in command of the half-dozen personnel inside the airfield's control tower dealing with the theft of one of their helicopters. But more than one of them was giving him a sideways glance. They'd earlier been told Deng was in charge while their commanding officer was away on holiday, but they quickly realized he didn't know what he was doing. To them, the whole thing appeared dubious and certainly not within regulations.

Deng himself also had little faith in his role, and he began to fear for his future. That sense of dread grew as he watched, via a pair of binoculars, the figures of Marx, Vacher, and Irfan board one of two helicopters already carrying 10 soldiers between them. The plan now was that Marx would take the two helicopters to intercept the stolen Z-9 somewhere near Leshan and somehow force it to land.

The two Xiaolong jets had earlier reported the stolen Z-9 was following the Min River in a downriver direction.

But as the choppers rose and headed south, Deng only had one thing on his mind — how he was going to get out of this mess. As mentioned earlier, he had three plans to fall back on. Deng now recognized he had to take the most drastic choice, which would require a three-and-a-half-hour drive to the U.S. consulate in Chongqing, where he would attempt to defect sometime early afternoon. Deng assumed he could offer the Americans plenty of things they should be interested in, be it Marx's relationship with members of the Chinese Communist Party or the true scale of forced organ harvesting in the country's hospitals.

His greatest concern was that, despite what he'd have to offer them, the Americans would still deny him asylum and turn him over to his own government. Indeed, Deng had found Americans to be unfathomable people.

A day earlier, one of his colleagues told him that the Americans now believed the world was coming to an end and that their population was losing the plot, rioting in the streets, and giving their money away to some cult leader. How they ever managed to become a superpower was beyond him.

Center of Attention

Chuck Goyette wouldn't have expected anything less but a sold-out event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and on that evening, that's what he got. Eager media representatives and curious club members were seated around tables while photographers and TV crews hovered on the fringes. As he answered questions from behind a podium, they hung off his every word. A reporter towards the back raised a hand to ask a question, and Goyette nodded for him to go ahead.

'Frank Flick from KW wire service,' the reporter said, introducing himself. 'There have been calls made for the arrests of those individuals you have named as Famine, Death, and War. How do you respond to such statements?'

Goyette chuckled for a bit before answering.

'Ha, ha, ha, yes, well, look, history has come to the point where what some people say or even do matters very little. The one I have named as Famine is doing his thing Down Under, and Death is on the job, of course, and there's very little you can do to stop her,' Goyette said. 'I can tell you; she is recently arrived in the United States and is well prepared for what she needs to do.'

Despite a murmur of unease from the audience, he continued.

'Then there's War, who's currently in the Far East. He's overseeing the nuclear Armageddon, but that's all I'll say about that. Don't ask me anymore about War or the conflict to come because I won't go there tonight,' he said.

Goyette then felt his on-mute cellphone vibrate in his trouser pocket, but he ignored it, just as he did to several other calls or text messages he had received over the past ten minutes. Instead, he focused on the next reporter's question.

'Can the end of the world, as we know it, be averted?' the reporter asked.

'Well, that truly is the million-dollar question, yet it's something I'm unable to answer,' Goyette said. 'But I can tell you that I will surely discuss such matters with the president later tonight when I see him at the White House.'

Waiting to Intercept

The helicopter that Marx and his henchmen were in had landed on the riverbank opposite the giant Buddha statue at Leshan. Nearby the other helicopter, full of Chinese soldiers, was parked and waiting as well. The engines of both aircraft were left running as they prepared to lift off the ground at a moment's notice.

Seated beside the lead chopper's pilot, Marx was again trying to call Goyette. He desperately needed to speak with the cult leader about how War had gone off-script. As he waited in vain for Goyette to pick up the call, he looked over at the scene of his last death. It was an odd twist of fate that he was now opposite where he had drowned in 1966 — when he was The Hammer — in waters just below the Buddha statue. Now, tourist boats puttered about where he had once tumbled off a ferry he and other Red Guards had confiscated.

For Marx, such memories, at the very least, were mere distractions from the predicament he now found himself in, one that could cost him the very throne he had bargained for. He now feared mission failure could be upon him. He knew if he couldn't play his agreed-upon role by getting War to North Korea, then he would share the fate of every other condemned soul sent to Hell, a prospect that terrified him. If he didn't get War back, all was lost — at least from his perspective.

Having finally accepted that Goyette wasn't going to answer his calls or text messages, he pocketed his phone and began kicking the paneling in front of him out of frustration. His venting attracted the attention of Vacher and Irfan, who were behind him in the cabin with three PLA soldiers.

Since they had been in China, Marx's mental state had worried both of his henchmen. They were already familiar with their boss' volatility but now, as they waited in the chopper, they suspected he was on the verge of having a complete breakdown. Their concerns began in earnest after he went into mind-boggling fits of rage at both the hospital and then the airfield in Chengdu. The nastiest explosion occurred when Marx watched the CCTV of War and Kristen leaving the hospital area in the stolen vehicle and then joining the other fugitives in the stolen helicopter that they were now chasing.

During their pursuit flight, Vacher also couldn't help but notice Marx muttering to himself like a madman while sending text messages or trying to make unrequited calls. But as they sat there on the riverbank waiting for their quarry, Vacher actually felt sympathy for his boss. He leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

'Hey, Mr. Marx, no need to worry, sir. We will squash these rats,' Vacher said but got no reply or recognition. Indeed, Vacher was confident that their target had little hope of getting out of China, and he believed they were already one step ahead of them. Given the two pursuing helicopters flew 75 miles in a straight line overland from Chengdu, they were now ahead of Quintus, who was flying low, following the river's twists and curves.

They'd only been sitting on the riverbank for five minutes when the military jets radioed them to say the stolen helicopter was only minutes away.

Giant Buddha

Quintus flew the helicopter some 70 feet above the brown waters of the Min River, now edged on both sides by the beginnings of Leshan city. He glanced at Tina to see how she was holding up. She saw him looking at her.

'Everything okay?' she asked.

He nodded and returned to looking ahead at a bridge and adjusted the chopper's height to comfortably get over it. After flying over the bridge, they passed the confluence of the Dadu and Min rivers to their right, while on their left was the giant Buddha cut into the cliff. Seeing the statue, Quintus banked the helicopter sharply, maneuvering it back towards Dadu River.

'Hold on, we need to make a turn,' he told his three passengers.

As they swung around, he noticed two military choppers — both Z-9s — taking off from the riverbank opposite the statue.

'You see those two helicopters?' Tina asked him.

'Yes, sure did.'

'You think they're after us too?'

'I suspect so,' he said. 'Those two jets still somewhere around Tina?'

'I can't see them; I got a feeling they've gone elsewhere,' she said, looking about. 'I think we might have only helicopters to contend with.'

She was correct. Running low on fuel, the jets had turned back to their base.

Tina hoped she didn't sound alarmed as she spoke, but she was. The lead helicopter following them was cloaked in a dark mist.

With the pursuing helicopters a quarter of a mile behind them, Quintus brought the Z-9 up to a higher altitude of around 2,000 feet. He now aimed to fly in a straight line in what he thought was the direction of White Dragon Mountain.

Behind him, Kristen was taking videos with her smartphone. It could be useful evidence to prove what was happening to them if they survived, she supposed. After a minute of that, she put away her phone and spoke into the intercom.

'Anyone able to tell me our destination?'

'A mountain,' Tina replied.

'Okay, if it helps as another option, I was Googling before, and there's a U.S. consulate in Chongqing, which is kind of near here, or is the closest one to where we are, wherever that is,' Kristen said. 'I don't mean to be rude, but why are we going to a mountain?' she asked.

Before Quintus could answer, War spoke for what was the first time during the flight.

'Because it was foretold,' he said in a deep, soft tone that rose hairs on the back of necks.

By most people's standards, it was an odd thing to say. The remark left them all speechless until Tina decided to break the silence with some humor.

'Well, prophecies seem to be all the rage now,' she said, making Kristen smile.

'Let's hope it's not one from that guy Goyette,' Kristen said.

'No, it's a much older prophecy,' Ivan slowly said, again raising hairs on the back of necks.

Quintus now figured that War knew way more than he should, but it was not the time to ask any more questions, as White Dragon Mountain was coming into view through the dull haze 12 miles in front of them.

'Well folks, prophecy or not, there's the mountain straight ahead,' Quintus told his passengers.

'What are we going to find there?' Tina asked.

'To be honest, I'm not 100 percent sure,' Quintus replied. 'Let's call it a leap of faith.'