Eddie clenched his fists and forced himself to stride those last few yards to the bar. There was no bouncer, so he threw open the door and stepped in. The music blared from a pair of speakers mounted behind the bar. The fog of cigarette smoke was as dense as a tear gas attack and just as irritating to his eyes. The wood-planked floor was slick with spilled beer and was moldy in spots. The patrons were mostly young toughs in black leather and overly made-up girls in miniskirts and belly-revealing tops. Despite the infectious beat of the music, the bar’s atmosphere seemed charged with something ugly.
Eddie spotted the problem as his eyes swept the men seated at the bar along the room’s back wall. Three of them wore uniforms. The army had come into the local oasis of Western decadence, and no one seemed willing to do anything about it. Yan Luo, if he was here, wouldn’t invite trouble for his smuggling operation by confronting a trio of drunk soldiers in town for one night. And if the snakehead wasn’t going to evict the soldiers, no one else would, either. The men would remain until they’d had their fill.
No one paid Eddie much attention as he moved to an open seat at the far end of the bar. He ordered a beer, making sure the bartender saw the wad of money he carried. He had the situation figured out and a plan formulated by the time he’d downed half the bottle.
If the soldiers didn’t leave before closing time, Eddie was in trouble. Once the soldier he’d killed turned up missing the next day and the army began to tear the town apart, Yan Luo would fade into the background. He’d close down his smuggling ring until after the body was found and an appropriate number of arrests had been made. It might be weeks before he felt safe enough to resume trafficking people out of the area. Eddie needed to be in the smuggling conduit tonight if he hoped to discover if there was a connection between the snakeheads and the pirates preying on shipping in the Sea of Japan. His solution was simple. He had to get the three armed soldiers out of the bar before closing, which by the sour look on the bartender’s face wouldn’t be too much longer.
Of the three soldiers, only one was drinking heavily. He was a corporal, a couple years older than the two privates flanking him. He regaled his pals with wild stories as he drank beer after beer. His two companions had the look of peasants just off the farm and appeared overwhelmed by everything that had happened to them since stepping from behind the plow ox. The corporal sounded like he was from a city. It was possible that he was a friend of the would-be rapist; maybe they had joined up together. He held his comrades enthralled with tales of sexual excess and debauchery and made boasts that by the end of the evening his companions would have such stories of their own. He said this and leered at the closest girls.
Eddie waited for any of the locals to react. One man at the bar wearing black jeans and a motorcycle jacket made of vinyl glanced at a table in the darkest corner of the room. It was a quick flicker that the soldiers didn’t notice, but Eddie did. At the table were three men and a pair of girls who could be twins. Two of the men looked like muscle, bodyguards. The third had to be the snakehead, Yan Luo. He wore a dark suit jacket over a black T-shirt and impenetrable sunglasses. He gave the barest shake of his head. It seemed he didn’t want trouble with the soldiers.
The snakehead sensed Eddie’s gaze. Eddie did nothing to mask his intentions. He stood. He’d finished his beer and grabbed the bottle around the neck. Yan Luo slid his Ray-Bans down his small nose to watch what was about to unfold. His expression remained neutral, and the bodyguards seemed oblivious.
Eddie moved so he was behind the soldiers and tapped the corporal on the meaty shoulder. The big man didn’t react, although one of the privates shot Eddie a wary look. The din of patrons’ conversations became a muted, expectant silence. Only the stereo continued to play on. Eddie tapped the corporal again, harder.
He whirled around on his barstool and shot to his feet. He was much steadier than Eddie had expected. His small, piggy eyes narrowed as he looked down at the creature who dared to interrupt his drinking.
“You owe those young women an apology, and I think it’s best if you and your friends left the bar,” Eddie said in his most cultured voice.
The corporal roared with laughter. “You think it best.” He laughed again. “I think it best if you piss off.” He put a heavy hand on Eddie’s chest and shoved with all his strength.
Rather than fall back, Eddie twisted so the force of the push made the corporal take a staggering step forward. As he’d anticipated, the two farm boys remained in their seats, though they watched expectantly. The corporal threw a lightning punch at Eddie’s head. Eddie barely had time to duck as another shot bored in, a left jab to his ribs that connected solidly. He had wholly overestimated the corporal’s level of inebriation, or else the man was a natural drunken brawler.
The corporal grabbed up his own beer bottle and smashed it on the bar. The jagged ring of glass he waved at Eddie’s head was as sharp as any knife. Eddie could have broken his own bottle to even the fight, but killing the soldier wasn’t an option. He wanted the men out of the bar, not a police raid.
“I think it best if you bleed a little,” the corporal snarled and swung the broken bottle at Eddie’s throat. Had it connected, the glass would have torn through cartilage and arteries and nearly taken Eddie’s head off. He rocked back and let the broken bottle whisk an inch from his skin. He jammed his own bottle under the soldier’s ribs, digging the neck into the slab of muscle so the corporal had to step back, roaring in pain.
Both young privates got to their feet.
Eddie pegged the farm boys with a hard stare. “You don’t want any part of this.” His warning came in a hoarse whisper, and he refocused on the corporal. He moved into a martial arts stance, his motions so fluid it seemed his body was made of water. He let the bottle drop from his fingers.
The bigger man also crouched down, his hands weaving in front of his face, his eyes locked on Eddie’s.
Big mistake.
Eddie’s upper body didn’t move as he threw three successive kicks: ribs, knee, and a shot to the groin that didn’t properly connect. The corporal should have been watching Eddie’s torso to be able to anticipate his blows.
The soldier staggered under the onslaught, but Eddie gave no quarter. He glided in close, launching a series of quick strikes, his hands almost blurring. Throat, ribs, solar plexus, head, ribs again, nose. By the time he stepped back again, five seconds had elapsed, and the corporal was a bloody mess.
One of the privates made a jerky move as if he were going to defend his comrade. Eddie had a hand to his throat before the boy was even sure he was going to commit.
“He isn’t worth it,” Eddie said evenly, his breathing unaffected by the adrenaline or the fight. He gently pushed the soldier back into his seat.
The corporal was still standing, barely, but there was hatred in his eyes. In his condition, the soldier would most likely return to the bar with reinforcements. Eddie spun like a dervish, firing two brutal roundhouse kicks to the corporal’s head. The first bent him double and rolled his eyes back into his skull. The second drove him to the floor so hard his insentient body bounced off the wood planking. He wouldn’t wake for hours, and at least a day would pass before he would be coherent enough to consider revenge.
Eddie looked back at the privates. “Do yourselves a favor and find a new buddy. This guy’s got a big enough mouth to get you into trouble but no way to get you out. You understand?” One of them nodded mutely. “Take him back to wherever you’re encamped. Tell your sergeant he fell down a flight of stairs, and don’t come back again.”
Grateful they’d been spared, the two privates scooped the unconscious corporal from the floor and slung his limp arms over their shoulders. They dragged him from the bar without a backward glance. Eddie turned to the bartender and indicated he wanted another beer. As if a dam had burst, everyone was talking at once, conversations floating over his head as the youths recounted what had just happened.
Eddie managed to take his first sip before on
e of Yan Luo’s bodyguards ambled over. “Mr. Yan would like a word with you.”
Eddie eyed the bodyguard, took another sip, and got to his feet. Once he committed himself there was no turning back. The snakehead would have complete control of his life. Yan Luo could turn him in for reward money once Eddie made his play as a deserter. He could have him killed on the spot just for the sport of it, or he could pass him along the chain that could ultimately end in a shipping container on the high seas. He squared his shoulders and followed the bodyguard over to Yan’s group.
Yan ordered the teenage twins away as Eddie approached. One of them purposely pressed her backside against Eddie’s groin as she and her sister moved over to the bar. Eddie ignored her and sat opposite the snakehead. Yan Luo removed his sunglasses. Eddie estimated he wasn’t yet thirty, but the smuggler had an aura of world-weary disdain found in someone who’d only known life’s darker side.
“I suspect there was a reason behind your demonstration,” Yan Luo said.
“I couldn’t speak with you with them in the bar.”
“Why is that?”
Rather than answer, Eddie pulled the stolen dog tags from around his neck and tossed them onto the scarred table.
Yan Luo didn’t pick them up or even touch them. His gaze turned speculative. “Are you with the troops in town for the election?”
“No. I was stationed outside Fouzou.”
“And you came here?”
“You helped a friend’s cousin a while back.”
“I help a great many people. What did I help this person do?”
“You got him to Gold Mountain.” That was the name illegals had given the United States. Eddie let the words hang in the smoky air for long seconds. “I want to go, too.”
“Not possible.”
“Why?”
“I get paid for favors,” the snakehead replied.
At that, Eddie pulled a thick roll of money from his pocket. “I know how the system works. I give you money now and work off the rest when I reach America. Only you have no way to guarantee I’d pay since I have no family here to threaten.” Eddie peeled several yuan notes from the outside of the roll to reveal an inner core of American dollars. “Five thousand right now. Another two when I leave China, and you forget you ever met me.”
The corners of Yan’s mouth lifted slightly, and his eyes narrowed. “And what’s to stop me from taking your money now and forgetting we ever met?”
Eddie spun the table forty-five degrees with a flick of his foot and rammed a corner into one of the bodyguard’s chests, just hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He launched himself to his feet and drove his elbow onto the tabletop, splitting the wood in half. As it collapsed, he kicked the spot where the leg met the top, snapping the three-foot leg free. He had it in his hand and thrust against the second bodyguard’s throat before the man had even thought of going for the gun hidden behind his back.
Yan remained in his seat but couldn’t hide his disbelief at how quickly his two best men had been subdued.
“I could have killed all three of you,” Eddie said just loud enough to be heard over the driving rock beat from the speakers. “I’m making you a fair offer. If you don’t want it, I walk away.”
“I think you will do well in Gold Mountain,” Yan said, breaking into an insincere smile.
Eddie dropped the stump of table leg on the floor and retook his seat. The bodyguard massaged his throat and glowered but made no retaliatory move. “How does it work from here?” Eddie asked.
“I have two others ready to make the trip with you.” The snakehead checked his watch. “I wasn’t planning on leaving until tomorrow night, but things might get hot if that soldier decides to make trouble. I have a truck. I’ll pick you up at the end of the block in an hour. We’ll meet with my contact in Fouzou tomorrow. They’ll have documents made up and take you on from there.” Yan paused, his stare hardening. “Let me give you a little advice. Don’t screw with these people. You pull the kind of crap you did tonight, and you’ll find yourself trying to stuff your guts back into your body.”
Eddie nodded. He knew he could get away with intimidating Yan because he was low on the snakehead chain of command. He was a recruiter, a foot soldier with little clout. He would remain a big fish in the small pond of Lantan, while the people Eddie really wanted were much higher up. From now on he’d pretend to be a model immigrant, compliant, grateful, and a little afraid.
The fear he didn’t have to fake.
15
BY the time the jumbo jet’s tires screeched against the tarmac at Zurich’s airport, Juan Cabrillo had filled in the outline of his plan. Admittedly it was one of the most insane he’d ever thought of, but given the mission parameters and the short timeline his instincts told him he was under, there was nothing left for him but insanity.
He’d spent most of the long flight from Tokyo in communication with the Oregon through a secure laptop. Max Hanley had assembled the team Juan wanted with him in Switzerland as well as the equipment they would need from the ship. The Oregon was running at flank speed for Taipei, the closest anchorage with an international airport. It was a calculated gamble to break the surveillance with the Maus, but at four knots Juan was sure his crew could find the floating drydock again. He and Max estimated that they’d be off-station for less than a day provided there were no troubles in Taiwan. Juan had pulled in an old favor with the harbormaster in Taipei to make sure there wouldn’t be.
Equipment that couldn’t pass an international customs inspection would have to be improvised once they were in Switzerland, but Juan didn’t think it would be a problem. He had numerous contacts in and around Zurich from his days with the CIA, and they only needed a couple of guns. They could mix the explosives themselves with household chemicals, and everything else they would need was either available for rental or sale.
With his team twenty-four hours behind him, Juan’s first priority was to find a safe house and reconnoiter the route between Regensdorf prison and the courthouse downtown.
Twenty minutes after clearing Customs, he was behind the wheel of a rented Mercedes ML-500 sport utility vehicle. He doubted he’d need the truck’s off-road capabilities, but it was anonymous enough in the affluent city, and it came equipped with a GPS mapping system. It was a beautiful spring morning, so he had the windows rolled down and the sunroof retracted.
Unlike Tokyo, Cabrillo enjoyed Zurich, with its seamless blend of old and new. Baroque and modern architecture stood side by side, not in competition but in a calming harmony. It was in Zurich that he’d first slept with a contact while working for the Company. She was a low-level Russian embassy employee who couldn’t provide any valuable information, but that didn’t make Juan feel any less like James Bond. The memory brought a smile as he circled the city on the ring road and found the exit that would take him to the prison. The safe house would have to wait until he had found the best spot for what he had in mind.
Just before he reached the turnoff for the prison, Juan turned around and headed back into the city. No sense in showing off the car to the guards at the entrance gate since he was pretty sure he’d have to cover this route a few times before he knew where his team would stage their strike. He drove straight to the courthouse where Rudolph Isphording was playing star witness in the trial of the century.
The streets around the courthouse were cramped and full of traffic, mostly because there was a new building under construction next door, and the trucks hauling materials to and from the work zone blocked intersections. The new building was still just a steel frame with concrete slab floors stacked seven high. A tower crane lorded over the construction site, its horizontal boom arm able to swing far over the plywood and chain-link fence ringing the construction site. Juan paused at a red light to watch it hoist a bundle of I-beams into the air and was startled into motion when the driver behind him gave a polite tap on his horn. The light had changed. He waved an apology and drove on.
He tracked back
and forth between the prison and the courthouse six more times, taking six different routes. If he were in charge of the security team that drove Isphording into the city for the trial, he would select a different route at random each day, making it much more difficult for someone to attack the armored caravan. But the problem was that the destination was the same every time. The closer the van came to the courthouse, the more predictable and vulnerable it became.
Juan found a parking spot a few blocks from the court and spent the next two hours walking the neighborhood, sipping black coffee from a Starbucks. He felt he should have bought his coffee from a local vendor instead of an international franchise, but it had been months since he’d had a taste of his favorite brew. He made a mental note to contact the company’s Seattle headquarters and see if it was possible to buy their special equipment for the Oregon.
While traffic was heavy all around the courthouse and the adjacent construction site, the main street behind the two buildings was relatively quiet. He would need to post people here for a few days to get a better handle on the traffic patterns if this was the location they would use. So far everything looked right. He only needed to make a few changes to his original plan.
A little after noon he rented an apartment in a four-story building about six blocks from the courthouse. He explained to the leasing agent that he and a group of American lawyers were in Zurich for several months as part of an ongoing lawsuit against an insurance company. The apartment had three bedrooms and an office. The furniture was a bit threadbare, but the kitchen had been recently remodeled, and the bathroom contained a tub big enough to swim laps. Most important, it was on the building’s top floor and Juan could tell that, if they needed it, they could gain roof access from the back alley fire escape. He’d been forced into a six-month lease, which meant he’d need to keep the unit occupied well after the job was done in order to deflect suspicion.
Too often a criminal would establish himself in a neighborhood, stay close to the bank he planned to rob, then vacate the area as soon as the crime had gone down. A police canvass a couple days later would reveal the person had left, and the cops had themselves a solid lead. By rotating a few Corporation operatives or outside contractors through the apartment for a couple months, no one would suspect anything was amiss. It was this level of detail that ensured the Corporation’s anonymity as well as its success.