Kenin clutched at his bloody hand when this newfound and sharper pain exploded over the pain of his cracked forearm. Blood sprayed the wall behind him while the severed digit landed in a flower bed to their right.
“Next one’s in your heart,” Juan snarled. He was still woozy from the hit but recovering fast. He waved the gun to indicate he wanted Kenin to return to the pool.
The girl remained in the shallow end, clutching the edge, leaving only her dark eyes showing.
Cabrillo tossed a towel to Kenin to staunch the bleeding and closed up the Russian’s laptop. He also pocketed a pair of cell phones from the table where Kenin had been sitting. Juan found another in the girl’s wicker bag. There would be no useful intel on it, so, with an apologetic shrug to the girl, he flipped her phone into the water.
“Let’s go,” Juan ordered. He and Kenin returned to the elevator. As a precaution against being overcome by the gas he’d earlier dispensed, Juan pulled a pair of filter masks from his equipment pouch and fitted one over his nose and mouth and threw the other to the Russian.
The elevator doors were open.
“Sit in the corner on your hands.” He waited to push the button to the thirty-ninth floor until Kenin was in the correct position.
Juan had him stay there for most of the trip, getting him to his feet just as the elevator car slowed. Cabrillo pulled him up by his injured right arm. Kenin sucked in air through his teeth from the pain.
The elevator dinged open. The Chairman studied the room beyond Kenin’s shoulder, the barrel of his FN Five-seveN pushed into the Russian’s spine. There were three guards dressed in matching uniforms. These were tier two protection, not the elites who had been upstairs. Two of them were huddled over a chessboard while the third had his feet on his desk and his nose buried in a magazine. Beyond them were plate-glass windows and the beautiful cityscape.
This floor must have been ventilated with the rest of the tower because these men were conscious. Juan pulled off his mask and bellowed in Russian, “On your feet!”
The three men turned and saw their boss and assumed he had issued the order. They leapt guiltily and stood at attention. It was only then that Juan revealed himself. One man stupidly reached for his holstered pistol. Cabrillo couldn’t afford to take chances now and put two in the overzealous guard’s head.
The remaining guards threw their hands into the air and started begging for their lives. Juan had them give their pistols the old two-fingered toss and then ordered them to cuff each other to the desk with the plastic zip ties they carried.
He used one of the ties to secure his prisoner’s hands as well.
Cabrillo was just pushing Kenin toward the door that would lead them out of this office when all hell broke loose. The door exploded off its hinges, and Chinese men in uniforms, like the one Eddie had described seeing in the lobby, came pouring through. They were armed but also very poorly trained, for when they saw Juan’s pistol, they started firing like madmen. The windows behind Juan cascaded earthward after being ripped to shards by countless bullets. Kenin took a barrage of shots, his body jerked back by the impact. He lurched drunkenly as Juan dropped low. Kenin rolled over Cabrillo’s back as the momentum thrust him through the gaping window frame. They were forty stories above the street, and Juan just managed to see the shock and rage in Kenin’s eyes before gravity pulled him from view.
Yuri would have loved the irony that the evil and malignant man who had ordered his arrest had died at the hands of his own inept guards. This wasn’t exactly the revenge Juan had envisioned, but it was satisfying all the same.
Cabrillo returned fire. He still had more than twenty rounds in the Five-seveN, and he laid down a covering barrage that let him retreat to the elevator. He hit the button and changed out the spent magazine. This new one was his only spare. He could hear bullets impacting the outer door as he was lifted clear. The laptop had been hit in a corner, but it looked like nothing vital had been destroyed.
The guards who’d rushed in must have been stationed outside the main elevators on thirty-nine. They were the cannon fodder should anyone assault the floor via the building’s main elevator. One of the guards in the inner office must have had a way to signal them and had done so without Juan realizing it.
Juan resettled his mask and rode up one level. The door opened to a utilitarian space. The luxury apartment would be upstairs. This area was for the guards and staff. A small side table was against the wall opposite the elevator. Juan dragged it over so it prevented the doors from closing to keep the men downstairs from using it. They wouldn’t have access to this floor via the emergency stairs, but they would have them guarded so no one could come down. Juan was, essentially, trapped.
But had he been Pytor Kenin, he would have a third way, a secret way, out of the penthouse. He searched quickly. He found a few more guards and staff members unconscious in their rooms. And then he found the escape shaft he was sure Kenin would have installed. It was in a specially made phone-booth-sized room. The ceiling was open so he could see into the top floor of the penthouse. Looking down, he saw nothing but a black abyss.
But right in front of him was a fabric escape tube with an inner elastic tube that would allow him to control his descent. Juan climbed into the constricting conduit, feeling a little like he was working his way through a whale’s intestines. He wriggled and wormed his way down, not knowing how far this extended. He finally saw flashes of light down below his feet and, moments later, flopped out of the escape tube into a room with windows lining one wall.
Kenin had thought of everything. On the floor next to the door was a knapsack that would be his go bag, with essentials like spare IDs, cash, and weapons. If Kenin had extra time when fleeing his penthouse above, there were different changes of clothes on a wardrobe rack—a tailored suit, casual clothes, and uniforms for a janitor, a delivery driver, or a security guard.
Juan helped himself to a fresh shirt that was a little too big but was close enough. He stripped off any tactical gear he still wore. His pants were slightly dirty, but not so bad that anyone would take much notice. He went to the door and cautiously opened it. Beyond was a hallway like any other. It could be in an office building in any city on the planet. Reassuringly banal. On the door he could see that Kenin’s escape chute had dumped him out in room 3208. He’d descended almost ten stories.
He regretted having to leave his pistol behind, so from here on he’d have to talk his way rather than fight his way out of whatever came next.
Carrying Kenin’s laptop, he stepped from the office and let the door close behind him. He walked past several closed office doors and politely nodded to the one person he saw, a middle-aged man who returned the nod and didn’t seem suspicious. Where Kenin had punched him hadn’t starting bruising yet. In an hour the spot would be a hideous shade of puce/black.
He found the elevator and had to wait less than thirty seconds. There were a few people on it when the doors whispered open. Juan got on, turned to face front like everyone else, and waited. There came a chime, and the doors closed. A few stops later, the elevator opened in the lobby. Everything appeared normal at first. Then he saw some of the security team huddled together at their station. They seemed agitated and unsure as they listened to a walkie-talkie, presumably from the men up on thirty-nine. Juan looked away. No need to draw attention. A police car pulled up outside. Cabrillo almost changed direction, but that would have been suspicious. Enough people must have called in about a guy flying up the side of a building that the authorities finally sent a patrol to investigate. He was opposite the two cops in the large revolving door as it rotated on its axis. He was out. They were in. Who knew what would happen when they sorted everything out.
He gave his two-way radio a click to tell Eddie to come. Moments later, their second van appeared around the corner. Eddie read the situation. The Chairman was alone, so there was no need to duck to the curb quickly
so they could toss their prisoner in the back. He found a spot farther down the block and waited for Cabrillo to jog up to him.
“Let’s go,” Juan said as soon as the door was closed.
“What happened?”
Eddie had some bottled water on the engine cover between the two seats. Seeing it, Cabrillo felt his throat suddenly dry and tight. He twisted off the cap and drank a half liter in one throw. “Believe it or not, Kenin was shot by his own guards. Everything was going pretty much to plan. I had just neutralized the men at the bottom of his private elevator when the guards tasked with overseeing the building’s main elevators came at us with guns blazing.”
“The Ruskies are going to be bummed,” Eddie observed.
“When I first got in touch with my guy in the Kremlin and told him I had a bead on Kenin, I got the impression that Moscow will be just as happy with this outcome. Saves them the hassle of admitting what he’d done, putting on a show trial, and shooting him themselves.” Juan held up the laptop. “I just hope Murph and Stoney can get something valuable off this thing so this whole op will be worth it.”
“If it’s on there, they’ll get it.” They drove in silence for a few minutes. Eddie finally asked the burning question. “How was it?”
“How was what?” Juan replied.
“Come on. It must have been amazing.”
The Chairman grinned. “Amazing doesn’t come close. I used to think skydiving was the closest I could ever come to being able to fly. It’s nothing compared to the ride I just had. I think I want Max to build me another jetpack for Christmas.”
They cruised around until sunset and then made their way to the abandoned cement factory. Eddie, MacD, and Mike were all in the country legally and would fly out the next morning, maintaining their covers in case they might ever need them again. Since Juan had snuck into China, this time he would have to slink out too. Eddie kept Juan company until the Discovery 1000 rose in the shadow of the pier. Cabrillo leapt onto the mini-sub’s back and waited for the hatch to open. Hanley himself was piloting the submersible.
“How’d she fly?”
“What’s the old line about having the most fun you can have with your clothes on?” Juan asked. “That’s it in a nutshell.”
They bantered all the way back to the Oregon, both men content in the afterglow of a mission gone right. It was especially poignant for Cabrillo. He counted few men in the world as friends, and Yuri Borodin had been one of them. Now he had avenged that friend. Yuri’s soul could rest a little easier.
The Corporation had nothing lined up at the moment, and if Eric and Mark could crack the laptop, they were due a windfall from the American government along with final payment for The Container affair. Cabrillo thought he should tie up the Oregon for a while and give his people a well-deserved vacation.
Fate was about to intervene once again. Far from vacation, the Oregon and her crew were about to enter the fight of their lives.
Max Hanley was a born pragmatist. He liked Cabrillo’s idea of laying up the ship for a bit and letting the entire crew take a vacation. He also knew where they could get a replacement for the Nomad 1000 submersible and he figured its current location was as good a place as any to let the crew off.
He had been negotiating with a Taiwanese university that happened to have a Nomad they no longer needed. The school had once been a technical training facility for commercial fishing, and the submersible had been an unsolicited gift. Max could have always bought a new one from the manufacturer, but he was not one to waste a penny, let alone several million dollars.
Max choppered in ahead of the ship as it sailed for Taipei, to meet with university staff. His cover was that he was brokering the deal on behalf of a start-up oil exploration company, the industry that snapped up the lion’s share of U.S. Submarines’ yearly production of Nomads and Discos. The Oregon was the freighter he had hired to transport the submersible to the offshore petroleum fields of the Gulf of Mexico.
The inspection went well. The school had mothballed the Nomad properly and had checked on her frequently. The batteries took a charge, although Max already knew they’d need to be replaced. Certain things one didn’t buy used. He had fresh ones aboard the ship. All the electronics and mechanical systems worked, and he found no corrosion or damage to any of the hydraulic lines. The only problem they found was the manipulator hand on the end of the robotic arm didn’t work properly. To Max, it was a simple fix, but he got them to shave a few thousand off the price.
When the Oregon arrived, it captured the attention of hundreds of students. They gawked at the massive vessel that blocked their view of the bay and open ocean beyond. Max had arranged a customs inspector to be here from Taipei and he signed off on the loading.
Juan himself, dressed like a scruffy sea dog for the benefit of the onlookers, was at the controls of the ship’s main crane. Crewmen rigged the lift, using slings under the submersible’s thirty-foot hull, and an hour after arriving it was lying crossways on the forward hold and the ship was ready to sail. Max had to stick to his role as broker, so he would drive to Taipei.
The Taiwanese capital was on the northern tip of the island, and they could have steamed there in about fourteen hours, but Cabrillo took the Oregon out of traditional sea routes, both for coastal vessels and those crossing the Pacific for ports in the Americas. And he needed the cover of darkness. A ship deploying a mini-sub, while uncommon, wasn’t unheard of. The ship leaving the area without seeming to recover the mini-sub would raise questions.
Because the Nomad was untested, Juan would let no one else make the initial dive. In the hours it had taken to reach a secluded spot of ocean, the crew had replaced the old batteries with new ones and had attached a system of inflatable bladders to the hull should the mini not respond to Cabrillo’s control. There were safety divers in the water as well, and the area around the Oregon was lit with powerful spots above and below the surface.
After being lowered into the water and having its shackles removed, the mini-sub’s tanks were slowly flooded by Juan. He blew them as a test when the seas overtopped his viewing bubble. He rose as pluckily as a toy submarine in a bathtub.
So then he went for it, diving down along the Oregon’s steel flank and then rising gently into the moon pool. More crew were in place to secure the lifting cables. In moments, the sub was safely stowed in its new home, and Cabrillo was heading to the dining room for a late supper.
He noted the asparagus he was served had come from a can. It was a good thing they were berthing soon. All their fresh provisions had run out, and he was told, when he asked the mess attendant, that they were down to three rather unpopular ice-cream flavors.
Juan couldn’t sleep that evening, and it had nothing to do with fresh vegetables or butter rum taffy ice cream. Something nagged at his subconscious, some little kernel jabbing into his mind that exhaustion couldn’t nacre over like an oyster encasing a bit of sand with pearl. At midnight, he resigned himself to wakefulness and got out of bed. He slipped on his leg and dressed in the clothes he’d discarded an hour and a half earlier.
He wasn’t in the mood for a drink, and sitting alone in his cabin held no interest. Julia Huxley was one of those remarkable people that needed just a few hours of sleep per night. He sought her out and found her not in her cabin but down in medical. She was on the Internet as part of a service for people who had immediate medical questions but no access to doctors.
“Hey, Juan. Can’t sleep?” she greeted when he paused at the door to her office off the main examination room.
Her office was a small cubical barely big enough for her desk and a spare chair. One wall was covered with framed diplomas and awards. She’d confessed once that her version of the “ego wall” wasn’t for her but her patients. Seeing her so lauded tended to put them at ease.
“Master of the obvious,” Juan smiled back and took the spare chair.
&nbs
p; “Let me just finish up here. I’ve got a guy in Fiji who I think is having an attack of shingles.” She and her patient typed back and forth for another couple of minutes. “There. Done. Poor fellow is in for a miserable time. So, what’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know,” Juan admitted. “Something.”
“That narrows it down,” Julia teased with a grin. “Okay, try this. How long has something been bothering you?”
“Just tonight. I’ve been on top of the world since escaping Shanghai and then when I went to bed tonight, I couldn’t fall asleep. I’m getting this feeling that I’ve missed something.”
Hux suddenly looked grave. “You and I have been through a lot together.” Julia had overseen Juan’s recovery from having his leg blown off. “I know you, and I know when you think you’ve overlooked something that you are probably right. You have.”
“I know,” Cabrillo said. “That’s what’s making this so tough.”
“We can assume this has to do with our past mission, so why don’t we go through it together.”
And they did, from the very top when Yuri Borodin’s aide-de-camp, Misha Kasporov, rang them to tell them about Borodin’s illegal incarceration up to the moment the Discovery 1000’s hatch closed in the Huangpu River for the ride back to the Oregon. She hadn’t realized how close some of the calls had really been and rebuked him for being reckless. He took her remarks the way a lifetime smoker takes the advice of their doctor to quit. Great tip, but it ain’t gonna happen.
“It has to be L’Enfant’s betrayal,” Julia concluded for him. “Everything else about this is pretty straightforward, at least by your standards.”