Shadow Catcher

  “Whoa, don’t leave me alone with this guy. He’s crazy,” slurred Nick. The Chinese soldier flashed a twisted grin and picked up the scalpel.

  * * *

  Colonel Walker closed the line with Quinn and looked over at Patricia Heldner. He had known her for longer than they both cared to admit. The motherly redhead had worked as a volunteer in war-torn countries. She had treated injuries from countless covert missions well before the existence of the Triple Seven Chase. She had faced exposed intestines and crushed limbs, and she had witnessed horrifying deaths. But she had never dealt with anything like this.

  Heldner sat at the SATCOM terminal, holding a standing microphone with a white-knuckle grip, trying to make her voice sound rational and calm. Walker knew that she felt neither.

  “Put the knife down, Ma.” Walker could hear Nick’s slur through the mild distortion of the satellite link. “It’s not like you can understand a word I’m saying, so what’s the—” He let out a short grunt of pain instead of finishing the sentence.

  Heldner cringed. Walker touched her shoulder. “How is Baron doing?” he asked.

  The doctor looked up from the comm station, brushing a fiery wave of hair out of her face. Beads of sweat lined her forehead. “He’s holding up, but I don’t know how much more he can take.”

  Over the open line, they heard the distinct crackle of a powerful electric instrument. Nick screamed.

  Tears welled up in the doctor’s eyes. Her slender shoulders trembled with rage. “I don’t know how much more I can take.” She took a quivering breath and returned to the microphone. “It’s a ploy, Nick. I know it hurts, but it’s just a ploy. Ma is the wild card. Remember the wild card from your counterinterrogation training? You know that Zheng won’t kill you, but they want you to believe that Ma will.”

  Walker lifted her hand away from the microphone. “Is that true?” he asked.

  “I think so,” replied Heldner. “It’s a known technique. Nick and this Chinese soldier appear to have a real history, but all of it could be theatrics to cause fear, to make him talk.” She shrugged. “Or Ma could be a truly sadistic killer bent on revenge. That’s the trouble with wild cards. By their very definition, you just don’t know.”

  “I can’t think straight,” said Nick out loud.

  Heldner keyed the microphone. “Take it easy, Nick. They drugged you. Based on our intelligence, the Chinese use a light mix of barbiturates, hallucinogens, and stimulants. They keep the mixture thin, especially on hallucinogens and barbiturates, to keep you from unintentionally creating false information. The effects aren’t permanent. They’re just trying to break down your mind’s defenses. You have to fight to keep your focus. Stay with me, Nick. Help is on the way.”

  Walker straightened up to take a drink of coffee. He glanced over at the command center’s main screen. Scott had switched it to a broad view of the Pacific. A symbol representing the Wraith orbited just outside of Chinese airspace. He frowned. Scott still had not established communications with Merigold. Then he noticed something else, or the absence of something. The Romeo Seven system showed all military traffic, even submarine positions, but the Taiwan Strait was conspicuously empty. He remembered that Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 77 had left the Strait for their regular reconstitution at Pearl. The only thing standing between the Chinese and Taiwan was a small network of Patriot batteries.

  Finally, he understood. The missiles without skin, the trap for Shadow Catcher, Zheng’s comment about “a schedule”—it all added up. Zheng wasn’t after Shadow Catcher just for the glory of stealing an American stealth plane. He had a timeline, and a higher purpose. He was going to invade Taiwan.

  No matter the cost, Walker could not let that happen.

  Over the comm link, they heard Nick scream again. Then he laughed. “That’s good, Ma. You’re really improving. Lots of pain. One small critique, though. You’re supposed to ask me questions!”

  “I see you two are getting along well.” Zheng’s voice could be heard on the link again.

  Nick said nothing. He breathed heavily, his exhalations coming in hoarse grunts.

  “I applaud your resistance, Major Baron,” said Zheng. “Truly remarkable. I am sorry about the blood loss, though. At this stage, we may not be able to save your leg or even your left arm. However, if you volunteer something helpful now, we still might be able to save your life.”

  “You’re going to be okay, Nick,” countered Heldner. “They won’t risk it. They need you. Think of Novak. They’ve kept him alive for twenty-five years now. The Chinese are a patient people.”

  Nick said nothing. He continued his labored breathing.

  “Don’t care about life and limb?” asked Zheng brightly. “Then I have something even better to motivate you. I’m certain that you have heard of the concept of yinyáng, the interdependence of contrary natural forces, the ebb of one making room for the flow of the other. I believe that this applies to fortune as well.”

  Nick grunted, and Walker feared that Zheng had set to work with his scalpel again.

  “My father used to warn me that one man’s fortune opened the gate for another’s misery,” continued Zheng. “This hour has been most fortunate for me. You, on the other hand, look quite miserable. I am the yin and you are the yáng.”

  “I’m so confused,” complained Nick in a sarcastic slur.

  “That’s right, make jokes, Major Baron. In the meantime, a stroke of fortune has brought me a gift. An associate of mine has captured your family.”

  “What?” The colonel slammed his hand down on the communications desk, knocking his coffee onto the floor. He searched the room for a face he recognized. “Does anyone know anything about this?” he shouted in desperation, but he only received blank looks in reply.

  “My associate lured your friend McBride into a detour,” Zheng’s mocking voice continued through the SATCOM. “He is dead. If you do not cooperate, your wife and son will die as well.”

  Walker shook his head. “That can’t be true.” He pointed at one of the techs. “You! I want a full accountability check of the Triple Seven Chase and all cleared associates, starting with McBride, and then Navistrova and Tarpin. I don’t care if you have to call the NSA. I want firm locations on everybody.” Then he shifted his finger to Molly. “And you! Get me Baron’s wife on the phone. Now!” He grabbed the microphone from Heldner. “Shadow One, this is Lighthouse. Your family is safe at home,” he lied. “McBride is out on an errand. We’ll put him on as soon as he gets back.”

  Nick spoke quietly between breaths, his words barely coherent. “I . . . don’t . . . believe you.”

  Walker released the microphone. “Is he talking to me or Zheng?”

  Heldner shook her head. Her face had turned ashen. “He’s beginning to blur the line between communicating with us and with his captors. There’s no way to tell.”

  “I thought you might be skeptical,” replied Zheng. “I’m going to put my satellite phone on speaker.” Walker heard the muted static of an open phone line. Then he heard Katy Baron’s unmistakable voice. “No, leave him alone!” she begged. An infant began to wail in the background. “Just tell us what you want. Why are you holding us here?” The phone line went silent again.

  Molly looked up from her phone, her face white with fear. “There’s no response at the Baron residence. It went to voice mail. She’s not answering her cell either.”

  Walker felt Heldner’s small hand gripping his arm. She was shaking. “Please don’t,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  The colonel straightened his sagging shoulders and hardened his expression. “We don’t have a choice. He won’t risk his family, and he won’t initiate Kharon on his own if he thinks he can escape and save them. The drugs are affecting his judgment. Major Baron is compromised. Start the sequence.”

  “No. He can still resist.”

  Walker pulled away
from her grip. He slowly picked up his fallen coffee cup and placed it on the table. “Doctor, you always knew this was a possibility,” he said. “Baron knew it too.”

  Heldner stood up, clenching her fists defiantly. “I never agreed with that program.”

  “You were the advising physician to the Congressional Oversight Committee. You signed off on the protocol.”

  She glared up at him and shook her head. “You didn’t give me a choice. I’ll swear to it during an inquiry.” In desperation, she turned and reached for the other comm link. “Shadow Two, come in.”

  Quinn responded immediately. “Shadow Two is up. Do you have an update?”

  Heldner’s words came out in sobs. “Quinn, you have to go in now. Do you understand? Go in now!”

  “I . . . I can’t. There’s too many of them. We have to wait until dark. If I move now, neither of us will make it out alive.”

  Walker pushed Heldner away from the communications station. She fell into a chair, her face blank, her mouth open in stunned silence. “Ignore that command, Shadow Two,” he ordered. “Get back to Shadow Catcher. Get her airborne.”

  “What’s happening with Nick?” asked Quinn.

  “You have your orders.” Walker closed the channel and then grabbed the other microphone. “Kharon, make ready to receive.”

  “Kharon ready,” replied the digital voice. “Remote encryption: Lighthouse. Say password.”

  “Password: obolus,” said Walker. The word felt heavy, resistant. He had to force it out of his tightening chest.

  The digital voice showed no signs of remorse. “Obolus accepted,” she said immediately. “Kharon sequence initiated. Detonation in thirty seconds.”

  Colonel Walker sat down. He dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

  Nick gave no reply.

  CHAPTER 60

  Nick waited for the fear, but it never came. Maybe it was the barbiturates. Maybe it was the hallucinogens. He did not feel the approach of death. All he felt was loss. “Dear God, save Katy and Luke,” he mumbled.

  “Praying won’t save your family,” said Zheng, chuckling. “Only you can do that, by giving me what I want.”

  The implant counted down in Nick’s ear. “Twenty . . .” He ignored Zheng and continued his prayer. “Protect them. Help them to forgive me for leaving them alone.”

  A look of understanding suddenly washed over Zheng’s arrogant face. “That is a death prayer,” he said, half to himself. He motioned the doctor closer. “My source told me that he has a comm implant. It is cut off from their network, but it must have a suicide device. Find it.”

  The bewildered Chao just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Zheng rolled his eyes and began shouting in Mandarin. He shoved a scalpel into the doctor’s hand and pointed at Nick’s head.

  “Ten . . .” the cold, digital voice continued. More frantic Mandarin. Nick felt a stabbing pain behind his ear. Then he saw it. Chao held the bloody implant between his thumb and forefinger. Ma and Zheng moved in closer to see it. Hope sparked. Nick began to summon his strength. He took over the count in his head. Three . . . two . . .

  With everything that he had left, Nick pulled up with his biceps, allowing the cuffs on his wrists to cut deeper into his flesh as he pulled against them. When he reached the apex of his pull, he pushed upward, unhooking his cuffs from the stand with a metallic ring.

  Zheng turned at the sound. He gaped in surprise at the sight of Nick dropping out of the air, landing on the cold floor like a cat.

  Nick had just a millisecond to flash a smile at Zheng. Then the implant exploded.

  Dr. Chao died instantly, his hand and part of his head obliterated by the implant. Ma wheeled toward the medical counter, screaming. He held his face in his hands. Blood poured between his fingers. Zheng let out a string of Mandarin curses. His sleeve was on fire, along with the hair on that side of his head.

  Unable to run because of the chains, Nick leapt forward. He targeted the vicious Chinese soldier first, coming down with a heavy elbow strike to the back of Ma’s skull. The soldier’s head slammed through the upper glass door of a standing cabinet. He staggered back and fell to his knees.

  As he struggled to his feet again, Ma took his hands away from his face. It was a bloody mess of charred flesh, and Nick could see exposed bone and cartilage at the nose. One eye was destroyed, but the other was open, glaring in mindless rage. The soldier rushed forward. Nick clasped his hands together and swung them upward, catching Ma under his chin. Ma’s head snapped up, and he reeled backward. The back of his head smacked against the jagged frame of the broken cabinet door. His body slumped to the ground. A shard of glass protruded from his neck at the top of his spine.

  “Novak!” shouted Nick, but the prisoner did not respond. He still lay passed out on his gurney. Something tore into Nick’s shoulder. He whipped around to find Zheng brandishing a scalpel. The defense minister had successfully extinguished his burning hair and clothes. Now he screamed rapidly in Mandarin, threatening Nick with his blade. Nick let disgust fill his expression. Ignoring the weapon, he hobbled toward Zheng, backing him up against the counter. Zheng lunged, but Nick knocked the scalpel away with a two-handed blow. He caught the shorter man by his lapels and swung him around, pulling his handcuffs up under the minister’s chin from behind. He squeezed. Zheng’s constant stream of Mandarin ceased in a pitiful rasp.

  “Release him.” Another Chinese officer entered the room, followed by a swarm of soldiers.

  “And who are you?” asked Nick. He shook Zheng, tightening his hold around the minister’s neck.

  The officer’s face remained placid. “You may call me Colonel Sung. Our people have located your stealth plane. A flatbed is on its way to retrieve it as we speak. All we need now is your friend, Quinn. You have run out of leverage. Now please release our defense minister.”

  “I’m gonna have to say no.”

  “I am sorry that you see it that way.” Sung picked up Zheng’s fallen sat phone and dialed.

  The soldiers began to fan out, and Nick backed away, careful to step over the corpses behind him. His vision still swirled from the drugs in his system, but he managed to hold his balance and keep a firm grip on Zheng. Occasionally he relaxed his wrists, allowing the minister to take a rasping breath before he tightened his hold again.

  “How is Baron’s family?” asked Sung, speaking English into the phone. “I see. I am afraid Major Baron has been most uncooperative . . . Yes. It is time for us to make good on our threats. He must understand that we are serious.”

  “I’ll kill him,” threatened Nick. He bore down with his forearms, cinching the cuffs even tighter around Zheng’s throat. The minister began to shake.

  “Perhaps, but it is more likely that we will kill you first. In the meantime, our associate is moving to kill your wife. Do you want to lose your son as well?”

  Nick fought against the drugs, trying to find the opening, the way out. Options lined up in his mind like doors in a dark hallway. He could see them open, but he couldn’t see past the thresholds. He couldn’t see where they would lead.

  Sung’s thin lips curled into a sneer. “Kill them,” he said into the phone. “Kill them both.”

  Nick stretched out his hands, releasing his chokehold on Zheng. “No! Don’t!”

  “I am sorry, Major Baron. Your time is up.” Sung hung up the phone.

  Something hard and heavy smashed into the back of Nick’s head. The lights in the room flashed blinding white. Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 61

  Katy watched the kidnapper slowly fold up his phone and place it back in its holster. He looked up. She could not see the expression beneath the shadow of his hood, but the room seemed to turn cold. Instinctively, she squeezed her son to her chest, covering his face.

  The killer stepped toward her. He raised the gun and pointed i
t at Luke.

  “No!”

  “Come on, soccer mom, did you really think this was going to end any other way?”

  Katy turned, trying to shield Luke from the killer’s gun.

  “I’ll shoot through you if I have to,” he said.

  “Please don’t kill him!” she begged. Luke began to cry.

  The killer sighed. “Have it your way.”

  Katy sobbed as she waited for the pain. Her body jerked at the deafening sound of the gunshot, but she felt nothing. Instead, she heard the killer cry out. The shadows in the room shifted and merged together as something dropped onto the wood floor with a heavy clunk. More shots rang out. Glass shattered. A terrible crash. Then the room went completely dark.

  Katy quickly felt her way around the couch and crouched down. She pressed Luke’s tiny face to her cheek, trying to soothe him. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she took in the bewildering scene.

  The killer’s gun lay on the floor, just beyond her reach, and the sliding door to Amanda’s backyard had been shattered. Several of the vertical blinds had been knocked out. Broken glass covered the patio. Katy stared out into the darkness, utterly confused, thanking God that she and Luke were still alive. Then she caught movement in her peripheral vision. She turned. A dark figure stood at the base of Amanda’s stairs. The killer was still in the room.

  Still clutching her son with one arm, Katy scrambled for the weapon, but she only succeeded in kicking it away. It skittered across the floor, well out of reach. She stumbled and fell, twisting just in time to protect her son and landing hard on her back.

  The shadow slowly extended both hands. Katy thought she could see the silhouette of a small pistol clutched between them. She tried to scream, but the fall had knocked the wind from her lungs.

  Instead of pulling the trigger, the shadow flipped a switch on the wall. Katy squinted against the sudden light that filled the room. Then she gasped. “Amanda?”