With its banks of touch screen workstations and a massive high-definition screen that dominated the front of the room, the op center resembled a futuristic bridge straight out of Star Trek, so much so that the large seat at the center of the room where Max sat had been dubbed the “Kirk Chair” by Mark Murphy and Eric Stone. The Oregon could even be operated from controls in the chair’s arms, if the need arose. As chief engineer, Max would normally be at his engineering station at the back, but with Juan away on the mission, the Corporation’s vice president was in command of the ship.
Linda Ross, a Navy vet and the Corporation’s vice president of operations, sat at the helm, which was usually Eric’s station. Except for Juan, Eric was the Oregon’s best ship handler, but Linda wasn’t far behind them.
“I’ve got a fishing boat right in our path a mile ahead,” she said, pointing at the screen. Her pixie-high voice matched her petite figure, elfin features, and upturned nose, but having served as an officer aboard an Aegis cruiser, she spoke with authority. Known for updating her hair color and style regularly, she had recently grown out her dark tresses and tinged them with eggplant highlights. “Shall I adjust course toward the coast?”
“Yes,” Max said. “I don’t want to get any farther away from the train than we have to. Give the fishing boat a wide berth, but once we’re past them, get us back to our original distance.”
“Changing course,” she said, and deftly moved the Oregon to its new heading.
“Max, I just got a call from Murph,” said Hali Kasim, the ship’s Lebanese-American communications specialist. He lowered the old-fashioned headset he preferred, but his mop of crushed hair didn’t move. “He says they’ve got a problem down in the hold. He’s on his way back up here.”
“Did he say what kind of problem?”
“No. He sounded out of breath, like he was running.”
“What’s going on with Juan?”
“They’ve run into resistance from the back of the train, but they’re taking care of that. He said they’ve moved on to Plan C.”
“Already? I didn’t even know we’d tried Plan B. Did he say what Plan C was?”
Hali shrugged. “Sorry.”
Max peered up at the screen and saw someone hanging from the door at the rear of the train’s seventh car on the side away from the Oregon. From the size of the man, he guessed it was Linc doing something with the train coupling.
“I can’t tell what he’s doing. Gomez, can you zoom in any closer on the train?”
Seated next to Hali was George “Gomez” Adams, their resident drone and helicopter pilot. Dressed in a flight suit in case his services were needed in the air, his matinee idol looks rivaled MacD’s. The main difference was that Gomez sported the handlebar mustache of a Wild West gunfighter. The nickname stuck after he had an illicit liaison with a drug lord’s wife who was a dead ringer for Morticia Addams, the matriarch on the sixties television show The Addams Family.
“It’s already zoomed in as far as it’ll go,” Gomez said, “but I can fly Drone Two closer.”
“Not too close. We don’t want to take the chance that it will be seen from the train.”
“No problem. I’ll keep it between the train and the sun.”
As Gomez flew the observation drone in for a closer look, Murph burst into the op center, panting from the run. He took his seat at the weapons control station next to the helm and began to furiously type on his keyboard.
“What’s going on?” Max asked.
“One of the NSA guys triggered a password entry screen on the flash drive,” Murph said breathlessly while his fingers continued to fly. “If we don’t get the right one, the flash drive will erase itself. Even with that monstrosity in the hold, they’ll never crack it in time.”
“How long do they have?”
“Two minutes.”
“You mean we’re going to lose the data?”
“Not if I can help it. Hali, get the NSA team on the line.”
Hali tapped on his workstation. “On speaker.”
Max had the urge to ask what Murph was doing, but he didn’t want to be a distraction. If Murph thought he had a solution, Max trusted him.
With a flourish, Murph finished typing. “Done! Abby, the link is established.”
From the hold, Abby Yamada said, “Thanks. We’ve nearly doubled the processing speed. It’s cranking through the possibilities now.”
“Okay,” Murph said. “Let me know if it works.”
“What did you do?” Max asked.
Murph swiveled in his chair to face him. “When we installed their supercomputer in the hold, we added some compatibility software to our Cray so we could test the linkage to our power system. With the connection already made, I just had to hand over control of our computer to theirs so they could draw on its power to crack the password.”
“Will that affect our systems?” Linda asked.
“Nothing vital,” he said with a grin, “but the Internet may be slow if you’re looking to download any videos.”
Max leaned forward. “How will this affect the time to decipher the data?”
“Hard to say. But the minutes we’ve spent cracking the password are delaying the data decryption.”
“Then we might not have as much time as we thought.” Max looked at Linda. “We’ll have to chance them seeing us. Take us within three-quarters of a mile of the coast.”
“Aye, aye,” she said, an old Navy habit, and the Oregon edged closer to the coast.
The plan for the mission wasn’t to steal the flash drive. The goal was to download the data on it and get it back to the Chinese without them knowing it had been read. Learning the identities of the undercover MSS agents operating in the U.S. would be a major intelligence coup, but if the Chinese knew their agents were compromised, they’d pull them out or shut them down. The few that were captured and interrogated might reveal some useful information, but the real value would be lost. The Chinese would send in new agents, and the cat-and-mouse game would start all over.
But if they could return the flash drive without them knowing it had been read, the Chinese would think the identities of their agents were secure. Then the NSA, FBI, and CIA could not only track their movements and conversations but could feed false information to the Chinese for years. It was a dream scenario for U.S. intelligence, which was the reason for the highly risky, off-the-books operation.
While they waited for news from the NSA people, Gomez was able to get the observation drone close enough to see Linc’s distinctive form clamping something onto a hose linking the seventh car to the one behind it. Max could see flashes of gunfire coming from the eighth car. The train was approaching yet another tunnel.
“Put Juan on speaker,” Max said.
“You’ve got him,” Hali said.
The sound of gunshots came through the speakers.
“Everybody okay?” Max asked.
“No casualties,” Juan replied, “but we’re trying to even the odds a little.”
“I can see Linc working on Plan C.”
“We’re about to say good-bye to three of the MSS agents.”
“Anything we can do to help?”
“Let us know if there’s anyone hanging out a window.”
“You got it.”
On-screen, MacD leaned out and handed a gray block to Linc, who stretched his long arms and mashed it against the coupling. He pulled himself back in and gave a thumbs-up before he disappeared from view.
“Fire in the hole!” Juan shouted.
The coupling disintegrated in a ball of flame. As the train entered the tunnel, the accordion windscreens between the two cars ripped apart as they pulled away from each other. Then they were gone into the darkness.
Static came on the line.
“The tunnel’s blocking their signal,” Hali said.
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Gomez gunned the drone and flew it to the other end of the tunnel.
Max kept his eyes on the screen. When the train emerged, it was missing two cars.
“They’ll be stuck in there,” Juan said when the static disappeared. “The air brakes kicked in as soon as Linc severed the line. And if we’re lucky, their radio won’t work in the tunnel, so their comrades up front won’t notice they’re gone.”
“Nice work for a Plan C.”
“It’s not over yet. How’s the decryption coming?”
“We’ve hit a snag there,” Max said. “Long story, but we’re working on it.”
“That doesn’t sound hopeful.”
Murph, who had gone over to Hali’s station and picked up a spare headset, looked at Max and said, “Got some good news on that score.”
“They cracked the password?”
Murph nodded. “With about twenty seconds to spare. Now do you want the bad news?”
Max frowned. “What?”
“The data is going to take longer than they thought to decrypt, even with the Oregon’s computer helping.”
“How long?”
“They estimate that it won’t be done until two minutes before Juan and the others reach the extraction point at the river.”
“And it needs to arrive at the train a minute before that. Can you fly it back that fast, Gomez?”
Gomez stroked his mustache and grimaced. “From this distance? It’ll be really close.”
Murph took the cue and left the op center so he’d be ready to put the USB drive back in the drone the moment it was available.
Max turned to Linda. “Get us within a half mile of the coast, and let’s hope Juan keeps the Chinese too distracted to notice us.”
11
THAILAND
Beth Anders traveled around the world for her job and she knew all the scams. When a young Bangkok street urchin approached her to beg for money, she politely but firmly declined, knowing he would just take her charity straight back to some scuzzball who took advantage of these poor kids. As she walked down the busy road in the Patpong District, she kept her bag in front of her and her hand on the clasp.
At night, the shops would be lit up in flashy neon, and girls would be standing outside of the clubs enthusiastically advertising their wares. But in the late afternoon, the scene just seemed sad. In addition to many umbrella-topped food carts, street vendors hawked all kinds of magazines and items that Beth didn’t even want to look at. Pharmacies sold nearly any prescription drug you could ask for at a fraction of the cost in other countries. Valium and psychedelic mushrooms were particular favorites. For those who preferred liquid anesthetics, there were bars everywhere. Drunken tourists were getting a head start on their nightlife, weaving their way among the motorcycles and three-wheeled tuk-tuks that crowded the road.
Although Beth knew she was probably safe at this time of day, she was glad she wasn’t alone. Raven Malloy walked next to her, constantly scanning her surroundings. Unlike Beth, she carried no purse, keeping her hands free at her sides.
“Of course, they had to pick one of the sleaziest parts of Bangkok for the meeting,” Beth said.
“They’re drug dealers,” Raven replied in a clipped contralto. “What did you expect?”
“Originally, they wanted this meeting at two in the morning, but I told them that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Smart, but this is still a big risk. If they figure out what you’re doing, they’ll kill us both.”
“That’s why I brought an Army Ranger with me. You’re there to watch my back.”
Raven kept scanning. “I was a military police investigator. I only applied to Ranger School. They didn’t start allowing women in until after I had left the Army.”
“I’m sure you would have passed.”
Raven shrugged. “We’ll never know. Maybe they did me a favor. This job pays a lot more.”
“Your fee is definitely worth it if we’re successful.”
A white man in his thirties, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, staggering in their direction, caught sight of Raven and made a beeline for her. Raven didn’t stop walking, so Beth didn’t, either. The man, who was at least six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than either of them, lurched around to walk next to Raven, matching her pace despite his condition. Beth could smell the gin on his breath from three feet away.
“Hey, baby,” he said to Raven, completely ignoring Beth. “I’ve been looking for a girl like you all my life.”
“To kick you in the crotch?” Raven asked without missing a beat.
The guy’s eyes went wide. “Hey, you’re American like me! I’m from Florida. Name’s Fred. What’s yours?”
“I guess you were too plastered to hear the crotch-kicking part. You think you’re too drunk to feel it?”
“Now, is that any way to talk to a fellow countryman? I just think you’re pretty, that’s all. What’s wrong with telling a pretty girl that?”
“For one, I don’t care what you think. And, two, that’s how I always talk to idiots.”
He finally noticed Beth next to Raven and said, “Wow, you’re smoking hot, too. If she’s not in the mood, maybe you and I can have some fun.”
“Listen, Fred,” Raven said. “I’m giving you one more chance. If you don’t leave us alone, my knee and your privates are going to become mortal enemies.”
“Stop being such a buzzkill,” he said. “You know you want to party, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
And then Fred made the mistake of putting his hand on Raven’s shoulder.
With lightning speed, she grabbed his hand and bent it backward. He let out a yelp as he tried to keep her from breaking his wrist. True to her word, Raven launched her knee into his crotch in a vicious strike.
The breath whooshed out of Fred in an audible gasp, and he collapsed to his knees before keeling over into the fetal position and cradling his groin with a whimper.
Raven continued on, barely breaking stride, as if she had just plucked an annoying pebble from her shoe.
Beth would be surprised if that was her guardian’s first unsolicited proposition. With long jet-black hair tied in a ponytail, high cheekbones, and smooth caramel skin that Beth would have killed for, Raven was a stunner, even without makeup. Her snug T-shirt showed off her buff biceps and shoulders but was loose-fitting around the waist, and her jeans followed the curves of her perfectly shaped legs. Just listening to a recitation of her grueling training regimen made Beth break out in a sweat.
Looking at her again, Beth could understand why Fred had assumed Raven was Thai. She had a look that was hard to pin down. Depending on the angle, she could be Arab, Indian, Hispanic, or Polynesian, but she was actually Native American, a mix of Cherokee and Sioux. Her Irish surname came from her adoptive parents, who had both been in the military. Her features meant she could blend in with dozens of different cultures around the world.
Beth, on the other hand, was so Caucasian she could have appeared in a commercial for Scottish tourism. She was tall like Raven but had a flaming red mane of wavy hair, and her skin was alabaster white. She was in good shape, jogging whenever she could, but she was envious of Raven’s athletic physique. She resolved to hit the hotel gym more often.
Beth could still hear Fred groaning behind them when they reached a club called Nightcrawlers. She stopped and looked up at the sign, which was outlined in neon light beside the image of an impossibly thin woman.
“Remember,” Raven said, “if this goes bad, stick close to me.” She had explained the layout of the building to Beth, including all of the exits, after scouting the club the night before. Raven said she always liked to know how to get out of a building if she had to.
“I’ve dealt with guys like this before,” Beth said. “All they care about is the money.” She didn’t add that these guys
were tougher than most, but it apparently came out in her voice.
“We can still call it off,” Raven said. “We could head back to the car and give Interpol a call.”
Beth may have been apprehensive, but she was also determined.
“And give up a chance for a five-million-dollar payday, not to mention solving the greatest art heist in history?” she said. “No way.”
They entered the club and were met by a huge bouncer.
“Club is closed until nine,” he said in English.
“I’m Beth Anders,” she said. “Udom is expecting us.”
The bouncer nodded and pointed to a flight of stairs at the back.
Udom was the first name of the Thai drug dealer that had set up the meeting. He didn’t give a last name, not that Beth had asked. Surnames had been required in Thailand after a law was passed in 1913, but many Thai still preferred to use just their first names when they could.
They went upstairs and were met by another guard, this one even bigger than the one at the front door. She gave her name again and was allowed in.
A spindly man in his forties, Udom was leaning against a desk. She hadn’t thought a drug pusher would use the crystal meth and ecstasy that he dealt to the tourists on their hedonistic holidays, but now, seeing his rail-thin frame and sunken eyes, she wasn’t so sure.
There were a dozen men in the expansive office. Half of them looked Thai, but the other half, who all looked jacked on steroids, were from some other South Asian country she couldn’t put her finger on.
“Come in, Dr. Anders,” Udom said with a smile. “Who is this lovely lady with you?”
“This is my assistant, Raven.”
“All right. Then let’s get down to business.”
Beth’s heart pounded when she saw what he was casually twirling in his hands. It was a ten-inch-high bronze eagle finial that fit on the top of a flagpole.
The finial she was looking at had been sought after for over twenty-five years, and this drug dealer was playing with it like it was a cheap paperweight.
Beth’s expertise was art history. She’d earned a Ph.D. in the subject from Cornell before attempting to secure a position in academia. But that plan was derailed when she was hired by an insurance firm to appraise a Picasso in a billionaire’s penthouse in New York City. She discovered that it had been replaced with an excellent forgery, and her help in the investigation led to the recovery of the ten-million-dollar painting.