The two men studied each other for a moment. Croissard nodded. “No. I don’t suppose that you are.” They shook hands.
As they exchanged phone numbers with Smith, Max pulled their laser defeater from the window and packed up the bug detector. He snapped the briefcase closed and handed it to Cabrillo.
“If you hear anything from her, no matter the time, call me immediately,” Juan told Croissard at the suite’s door.
“I will. I promise. Please bring her back to me. She is headstrong and stubborn, but she is my daughter, and I love her very much.”
“We’ll do our best,” Juan said, because he would never promise something he couldn’t deliver.
“Well?” Max asked as they were striding down the hallway heading for the elevators.
“I don’t like it, but what choice did we have?”
“That’s why the face-to-face. To spring Smith on us at the last minute.”
“Yeah. Pretty cagey of him.”
“So, are we going to trust him?”
“Smith? Not on your life. There’s something they’re not telling us, and he’s the key.”
“We should back out of this whole thing,” Max opined.
“No way, my friend. If anything, I’m more interested than ever in what the lovely Miss Croissard was doing so deep into Burma.”
“Myanmar,” Hanley corrected.
“Whatever.”
They exited the elevator and started crossing the busy lobby when Cabrillo suddenly hit himself on the head as if he’d forgotten something and grabbed Max’s elbow to turn them around.
“What is it, did you forget something?” Hanley asked. Juan had picked up his pace ever so slightly.
“I noticed two guys hanging around the lobby when we first entered. Both look local, but they’re wearing long coats. One of them noticed us when we got into view and quickly turned away. Too quickly.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t know, but they’re not with Croissard. If he wanted us dead, he would have had Smith shoot us as soon as we entered his room. And he knows we’re going back to the airport, so what’s the point of following us?”
Max saw no flaw in Cabrillo’s logic, so he just grunted.
They approached the express elevator for the SkyPark. By feel, Juan was able to insert the magazine back into his Kel-Tec automatic. He even managed to cock the weapon against his hip bone without taking it from his jacket pocket. The two men were making their move, coming across the lobby without taking their eyes off the Corporation duo.
The elevator door pinged open. Juan and Max didn’t wait for it to empty before shouldering their way in, all but ignoring the looks of indignation thrown their way. It wasn’t even going to be close. The men had waited too long, and now the elevator doors were closing. It was too public out in the lobby to pull any sort of weapon, so Juan threw them a taunting smile as the doors met with a hiss.
“Now what?” Max asked as they were carried skyward.
Juan took the opportunity to load the ejected bullet into the pistol. “We get to the top, wait about five minutes, and then head back down again.”
“And what will they be doing, pray tell?”
“Splitting up to cover the lobbies of the other two towers. They’ll never think we’d stay in this one.”
“And if they decide to follow us up?”
“Never happen,” Juan dismissed with a shake of his head.
“I still wonder who they are,” Max said as they neared the fifty-fifth floor and the SkyPark.
“My money’s on the local secret police. Something about our plane’s registration or our passports sent up a red flag, and these gentlemen want to ask us a few questions.”
“So how’d they know we’d be here at the—” Max stopped asking his question and then answered it: “They talked to the car service that brought us to the hotel.”
“Elementary, my dear Hanley.”
The doors opened, and they stepped out onto one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world. The hundred-thousand-squarefoot platform sitting atop the three towers was like Babylon’s famous hanging gardens, only these weren’t the exclusive environs of Nebuchadnezzar and his wife, Amytis. Trees provided excellent shade, while the flowering shrubs perfumed the air nearly a thousand feet above the streets. The long swimming pools, with their dizzying infinity edges, were sparkling blue and surrounded by sunbathers.
To their left was an eating area cantilevered off the third tower so that it hung suspended in space. Diners were lounging under bright umbrellas while waitstaff danced between the tables, bearing trays of food and drinks. The view over Singapore Harbor was absolutely breathtaking.
“Man, I could get used to this,” Max said as a woman in a bikini passed close enough for him to smell the coconut in her tanning lotion.
“You ogle any harder, your eyes are going to pop out.”
Juan led them away from the elevator and took up a position so they could see it on the off chance that the two secret policemen had followed them up. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t, but he hadn’t stayed alive in such a dangerous profession for so long by not being cautious.
A moment later the elevator doors parted again. Cabrillo tensed, his hand in his pocket, his finger resting along the trigger guard. He knew he wouldn’t shoot it out with these guys—Singapore had the death penalty—but, if need be, he could toss the pistol into a bush to his right and avoid a major weapons violation. Provided they didn’t find the second, one-shot gun embedded in his artificial leg.
A family dressed for a little time under the sun emerged, the father holding the hand of a little pigtailed girl. An older boy immediately rushed to look over the railing at the miniature cityscape so far below.
The doors started to close. Juan blew out his breath and was about to make a snarky comment to Max when a hand appeared between the gleaming elevator doors and stopped them from closing entirely.
Cabrillo cursed. It was them. They looked out of place with their long dark coats and their darting eyes. He backed a little deeper into the trees. They would have to sneak along the back side of the restaurant to get to the elevator housing for the third tower. To do that they would need to scale a concrete retaining wall and that might attract the attention of one of the servers or pool attendants. It couldn’t be helped.
He put his foot on the first tier of the wall and was about to boost himself up when an eagle-eyed lifeguard a dozen yards away shouted for him to stop. He must have been watching them the whole time and suspected they were up to something.
The two agents immediately were on guard and started moving toward them, even though Juan and Max were still out of their direct line of vision.
The time for subtlety was over. Juan heaved himself up onto the wall, climbing the three tiers with the agility of a monkey. When he reached the top, he lowered a hand to help Max. The lifeguard began climbing off his little mahogany tower and blowing his whistle to attract additional security. He either hadn’t noticed or had dismissed the two men in trench coats.
The agents burst into view. One threw open his coat and brought up a vicious-looking machine pistol. Max was halfway up the wall, as exposed as a bug on an entomologist’s lab table. Juan had a split second to make a decision, and he did so without hesitation.
He dropped Max.
Just as the agent pulled the trigger. Cement dust and chips exploded off the wall where Max had been dangling. People started screaming and stampeding away from the chain saw-like whine of the machine pistol as the entire thirty-round clip was emptied against the concrete wall inches above Max’s prone form.
Not knowing what was going on but acting on instinct and adrenaline, Cabrillo drew the Kel-Tec and returned fire. His first rounds were snap shots, just trying to break the gunman’s fixation on perforating Max. The gunman jerked slightly as a more carefully aimed yet still a little wild bullet struck the crown of his head.
The second agent started opening his coat, w
here he doubtlessly had his own weapon. Juan shifted his sights and, to his horror, saw that the “agent” was wearing a heavy suicide vest. He could see the packs of explosives and other bags that would contain metal scrap for shrapnel.
“Allahu Akbar,” the man shrieked.
Juan put a bullet down his open throat, and the man fell back like a marionette with its strings cut.
The first gunman had blood sheeting down his face and was staggering backward, dazed by the .380 caliber bullet that had gauged a trench through the top of his skull. He’d dropped his machine pistol down onto its sling and was fumbling in his coat pocket.
Juan couldn’t get a clear shot at him as people continued to streak past, not realizing they were blundering into the middle of the gunfight. He knew this first guy was probably also packing a vest and made the decision that hitting one of the civilians with a stray bullet was preferable to dozens of them getting mowed down in an explosion.
A hotel guard finally arrived. He’d been on the far side of the platform and hadn’t seen a thing. He noticed the one man down on the ground in a pool of his own blood, paid no attention to the guy with blood on his face, and instead trained his attention on Cabrillo, an obviously armed target.
He started to raise his pistol and nearly had it centered on Cabrillo when Max threw himself across the intervening ten yards and hit him like a linebacker. They crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, bowling over another man in the process.
Juan took a chance and fired again. He hit the bomber in the chest, but the man merely staggered back from the impact. The bullet had hit one of the bags of nails, which stopped it like body armor. The Kel-Tec’s slide was locked back over an empty chamber.
Cabrillo flipped himself around so that his foot was pointing toward the gunman. The barrel of the .44 caliber pistol hidden inside his prosthetic leg made up its central support strut to give it as much length, and thus accuracy, as possible. There was only one round, so essentially the weapon was just a tube with a dual-trigger firing mechanism that ensured it couldn’t accidentally discharge.
When he hit the second trigger, it felt like someone had slammed the bottom of his stump with a sledgehammer. The round punched through the sole of his shoe, and the recoil almost knocked him off his perch. The heavy 300-grain bullet entered the bomber’s body in the abdomen, its kinetic energy lifting him off his feet like he’d been jerked from behind.
He hit the pool, his body parting the water, and sank from sight when the vest detonated. Water geysered in a solid white column that rose forty feet over the deck before crashing back like a torrential rain. The blast had been big enough and close enough to blow out part of the pool’s steel side. Water gushed through the opening, dancing and twisting as it fell over the side of the building on its long journey to the ground. The once-bucolic swimming pool had become one of the tallest waterfalls in the world.
There was nothing left of the bomber, and with the pool absorbing so much of the explosive force and the shrapnel, it didn’t appear that anyone had been injured, at least seriously.
Cabrillo’s hearing was just returning after the sonic assault of the blast. More people were screaming now, running, panicked and unsure of where to go or what to do. Over all this, he detected a high-keening wail, a sound of true mortal danger that cut above the fearful bleating of hotel guests.
There was a little boy still in the pool, his arms supported by plastic water wings. He’d been in the shallow end, playing by himself, when all the adults had scrambled from the water at the opening salvos of the attacks, and apparently his parents hadn’t had the time to rescue him.
As the water drained through the twisted opening, sucked through it like it was a high-speed pump, the floating child was being drawn inexorably toward the shattered metal.
Juan leapt off the eight-foot retaining wall and sprinted across the deck. He threw himself into a perfect dive that would have gotten applause from Olympic judges and struck out for the boy. He could feel the current pulling on his body. It was like trying to fight a riptide. He had been a strong swimmer his entire life and had been able to stroke his way out of some pretty dangerous situations, but nothing had prepared him for the raw power of the pool draining through its blown-out side. The hole was at least four feet in diameter.
He reached the child when they still had about ten feet to go before he would be sucked through. The kid flailed his arms, crying beyond all reason. Juan grabbed him by the hair to get out of the reach of his thrashing arms and tried to tow him clear, but the surge was simply too much to fight one-handed. He looked around in desperation. No one had seen what he was doing.
The hole was a bright spot near the bottom of the pool where sunlight illuminated the eddies and whirlpools that formed and dissolved as the water poured into infinity.
Cabrillo put on a burst of speed, his legs pistoning and his free arm hauling back with everything he had. For every foot he gained, the pool took back two. The vortex was just too strong. He had seconds before he was pulled through the rent in the side of the pool. He did the only thing open to him.
He stopped swimming.
And then twisted around so that he was facing the gaping tear. As they were drawn closer he held the child up in his arms. He would have one shot, one instant, when he could make this happen and save them both. If not, he and the boy would be sucked out of the pool and sent plummeting a thousand feet to their deaths.
They were less than two feet away. The water was still too deep to stand, so Cabrillo kicked hard, raising his upper body out of the water. He threw the boy at the ledge surrounding the swimming pool, sank down to the bottom, and sprang up again. He launched himself partially out of the water and hit the side of the pool directly over the tear in its side. The relentless pull sucked at his dangling legs and nearly drew him back in again before he managed to get a better grip on the cement and haul himself completely free. He looked to his side. The boy was just pulling himself upright, tears cutting through the water on his face, his right elbow bent as he examined the scrape he’d gotten when he hit the deck. Only when he saw that it was beginning to bleed a little did he began to wail like a fire engine.
Juan got to his feet and snatched up the kid so he wouldn’t fall in again. He hooked up with Max, dumped the sniveling boy next to a potted palm, and joined the frenzied exodus off the SkyPark.
Ten minutes later, just as police were starting to arrive at the resort en masse, they hit the lobby. Any attempt at a security cordon at this point was never going to happen, and the cops seemed to realize it. People streamed out of the building like a herd of frightened animals. Cabrillo and Hanley allowed themselves to be borne along with the tide of humanity. Once out of the building, they made their way down to the far end of a line of taxis and hopped into the last cab in the string.
The driver was about to protest that he couldn’t take fares until it was his turn but stopped himself when he saw the three hundred Singapore dollar bills in Cabrillo’s hand.
He didn’t even care that they were wet.
7
MAX BROKE THE MINUTES-LONG SILENCE. IT HAD TAKEN him that long to get his breathing under control and for his normally florid complexion to return from the far end of the crimson color palette. “Mind telling me what just happened back there?”
Juan didn’t respond right away. Instead, he reached into his pocket for his phone, saw that it had been ruined by his time in the pool, and shoved it back in his pocket. Hanley handed over his undamaged cell. Cabrillo punched in a memorized number. On these disposable phones they never preprogrammed the extensions of other team members in case they were ever confiscated.
The line rang once and was picked up. “How you doing, Tiny?” Juan asked. Chuck Gunderson, aka Tiny, was the Corporation’s chief pilot. Though he spent little time aboard the Oregon, he was an integral part of the team.
“As one of my flight instructors told me, if you don’t have patience, you’ll never make it as a pilot.”
Chuck had that peculiar Minnesota drawl made famous in the movie Fargo.
Had the pilot inserted the word “fine” into his answer, it would have indicated that he wasn’t alone and was most likely under duress.
“We’re on our way back right now. Contact ATC and get us a slot out of here.”
Gunderson must have heard something in the Chairman’s voice. “Trouble?”
“All kinds and then some. We should be there in twenty minutes.” Juan cut the connection and handed back Max’s phone. A pair of ambulances screamed past in the opposite lane, their lights flashing and their sirens going full bore.
“Are you going to answer my question?” Hanley asked.
Cabrillo closed his eyes, picturing the scene when they’d first spotted the suicide bombers. He concentrated on the people around them, not on the gunmen. The picture firmed up in his mind, and he studied the faces of the hotel guests and staff who had been in the lobby at that instant. It wasn’t an innate skill but rather something drilled into him during his CIA training so that when all hell broke loose he could distinguish additional threats or identify accomplices. Oftentimes in assassinations or bombings there was an observer nearby to report back on the operation.
“I think,” he finally said, “that we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Hanley was incredulous. “You honestly think that was a coincidence?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Cabrillo replied, hastily raising a hand to stave off Max’s next remark. “Hear me out. As I mentioned earlier, if Croissard wanted to set us up, he could have had his goon, Smith—nice name, that, by the way—shoot us as soon as we were in the suite. Stuff our bodies into some big trunks, and no one would ever be the wiser. With me so far?”
Max nodded.
“That puts him in the clear, which means it’s unlikely he told anyone about the meeting since he really does want us to find his daughter. Right?”
“Okay,” Hanley said, drawing out the word.
“Now, who was around us when the bombers made their move?”
“Hell, I don’t even recall what they were wearing,” the Corporation’s number two admitted.