He twisted the knife, severing tendons and forcing Zheng to release the garrote. Instantly the psychopath fell away, entering a macabre free-fall race with Drake’s bomb, a race to see who would reach the factory roof first.
The five-thousand-pound thermite weapon won.
Time froze. For a fraction of a second, Nick could see the hole where the weapon sank through the roof. He could see the individual drops of rain, like swollen tears, falling onto the forest canopy. He could see China’s newest defense minister on his back, a hundred feet above the factory, his eyes wide with terror. Then, in a blinding ball of white fire, bounded by the glass sphere of the expanding shock wave, all of it was gone.
CHAPTER 65
The shock wave buffeted Nick into a nauseating tumble. He threw his arms and legs out into the spread-eagle pose and arched his back, trying to stabilize. The strain threatened to open every wound on his lacerated frame.
Finally, his body settled into a stable drag position. Without his goggles, he could barely see. The wind blasted his face at 150 knots, forcing him to squint and making his eyes water. Through the teary blur, he tried to assess their location. Drake was dragging him due east, out over the northern end of the Taiwan Strait. In less than three minutes, he would be over international waters. Then he could pull the cutaway line and parachute down to the dubious safety of the open ocean.
When Nick reached to his chest to check the rip cord, a horrible sinking feeling gripped his stomach. He had made a terrible mistake. There was no rip cord.
He mentally kicked himself. The eighties-model Skyhook harness had no reserve parachute. How could it? The pack would have been huge, not like the tiny compact chute in Scott’s state-of-the-art design. He searched his mind for options. He could try to unhook, but even if he could overcome the tremendous force pulling on the D-ring, the fall into the water would surely kill him. Drake might think of docking the Shadow Catcher, letting him ride the top of the small aircraft into the bay, but the Shadow Catcher’s engine intake would likely suck him in as soon as the cable went slack. His only other option was to pull himself in, hand over hand.
Suddenly, Nick felt a jerk on the line, then another, and then a pull that moved him a few feet closer. He wiped his eyes and squinted at the bay, trying to see what was going on. The gray mist had long since cleared, but he could still only see shadows. The line jerked again. He started moving steadily toward the aircraft. Somehow, Drake had made the system work.
The winch pulled Nick into the bay and retracted, leaving him dangling in front of the ladder to the main flight deck. He waited until the doors closed beneath him. Then, with a prayer of thanks, he unhooked his D-ring and started climbing. Drake stood above him, holding a long J-hook like a shepherd holding his staff.
“What magic hat did you pull that thing out of?” asked Nick as he climbed up the ladder.
Drake reached down and helped his friend up onto the flight deck. “Not me. Scott,” he said. “After the failed test, he added it to the Wraith’s equipment. He planned another sandbag test to isolate the problem, figuring one of us could snatch the cable old-school style, but then the mission got in the way.” He hefted the J-hook and grinned. “Turns out, we got to test the system anyway. The problem is with the motion sensor. Once I yanked the cable into the winch, it worked like a champ.”
“Scott will be so pleased to hear it.”
Drake laughed. “He won’t care that this baby saved your life as long as it helped us figure out what was wrong with his system.”
Nick reached into the crew bunk and grabbed a spare flight suit. “Let’s pick up Shadow Catcher and get back to Romeo Seven,” he said. “Katy and Amanda are still in danger.”
“No, they’re not,” argued Drake. “I told you, they’re with the Triple Seven now.”
Nick nodded. “So is the mole.”
CHAPTER 66
Nick had always loved flying over Washington, DC, at night. In the predawn hours, Capitol Hill shined like a white diamond amid the glimmering gold and bronze lights of the city. Now, as Drake lined the Wraith up with the runway at Andrews, America’s capital looked more welcoming than ever.
There had been a lot to discuss during the long flight home. After Nick’s last communication from the cave, Drake had been isolated for almost three hours. He tried every trick he could think of to regain his link with the ground team, but he could not make the SATCOM work. Then he received a strange text through the very same channel. Someone claiming to be the Chinese defense minister threatened to kill Amanda, Katy, and Luke unless he landed the Wraith at the factory.
In desperation, Drake had taken a huge gamble. Using an open radio frequency—a frequency that he knew the Chinese might intercept—he contacted a US Navy ground station in Taiwan and requested a phone patch to Washington. He pretended to be the pilot of an Air Force tanker on its way to Japan. His whole plan almost collapsed right after the Navy operator got Romeo Seven on the line. Molly answered the phone. Still trying to maintain his cover on the open frequency, Drake told her that he was a tanker pilot with “Task Force Zombie,” hoping that she would get the hint. She hung up on him. On his next attempt though, he got Scott, and through a lengthy exchange of improvised code talking, the two of them got the Wraith reconnected to the original SATCOM bird. Then they linked Quinn to the same channel.
By that time, Amanda and Katy had made it to Romeo Seven. Drake was relieved to learn that they were okay, but he still had big problems. He thought his best friend was dead, and Zheng still had Novak and Shadow Catcher, so he played along with the Chinese psychopath, keeping him on the hook while Walker came up with a plan. In the end, though, the final rescue scheme didn’t come from the colonel. It came from Quinn.
Convinced that Nick was dead, Walker wanted to cut their losses. He wanted to use the two bombs to destroy Shadow Catcher and the missiles, abandoning Novak and leaving Quinn to fend for himself. But Quinn had hidden inside Shadow Catcher when the Chinese captured the aircraft. When he saw Nick, everything changed. He convinced Walker that he could mount a rescue and destroy Zheng’s stockpile of missiles, leaving one thermite bomb for Shadow Catcher if it all fell apart. It hadn’t gone as smoothly as Quinn predicted, but here they were, almost home.
Drake taxied the Wraith into a dark, empty hangar. Even with the illumination of the enhanced infrared display, Nick did not see a soul. That worried him. He should at least see a maintenance crew. Then the massive hangar doors began closing noisily behind them. Those doors did not operate automatically. Someone was in the hangar with them, someone who preferred to remain hidden.
Nick lowered the entry ladder and cautiously stepped down into the inky void. “Hello?”
A cheer rose up out of the darkness. With an electric clang, the lights flipped on and Romeo Seven’s staff poured into the hangar from every door. Everyone was smiling. Nick smiled graciously in return and shook hands as young technicians and grizzled aircraft maintainers rushed up to welcome him home, but his eyes kept roving the crowd, searching for Katy.
Finally, a small group of techs parted. Katy rushed out from behind them and wrapped her arms around him. Tears streamed down her face. She kissed him passionately. Her embrace crushed his broken ribs, but he didn’t care. He picked her up and swung her around.
“It appears we have a lot to talk about, Mr. Secret Agent,” she whispered in his ear, giving it a shameless nibble despite being surrounded by strangers.
“It appears that we do.” He set her down and looked deep into her hazel eyes. “I’m sorry. I was so afraid of leaving you and Luke alone that I’ve been pushing you away. I know that now.”
Katy wiped her tears away with a joyful sniffle. “I’m sorry too. I’ve been so hard on you. I didn’t know what you were going through.” She wrapped her arms around him again and buried her head in his chest. “Things are going to be better now.”
Nick found Wa
lker coming out of the elevator with Heldner. Another man got off with them, but Nick could not see his face. He disappeared behind the colonel’s oversized frame. Nick waved to get Walker’s attention. “Colonel Walker, I hereby withdraw my consent for participation in the Kharon Protocol,” he said firmly.
The colonel scowled and cast a glance down at Dr. Heldner, who stopped, folded her arms, and scowled right back at him. “There seems to be a lot of that going around,” he said. “I’ll leave it open for discussion.”
Behind him, Nick heard the pneumatic hiss of Shadow Catcher’s stretcher being lowered. Novak lay still, passed out from morphine. A moment later, Quinn emerged from the little craft’s lower entry hatch, fussing at a group of techs to be careful as they transferred his patient to a gurney. He had traded his combat gear for a simple black T-shirt and a medical pouch, although he still wore his XDm in a leg holster.
Over the last few hours, Nick had learned to see Quinn in a new light. The pararescueman had said little after Shadow Catcher recovered to the Wraith’s bay. He had treated Nick’s wounds with the care and skill of an emergency room doctor and then returned to the landing craft’s cramped cockpit, spending the rest of the flight watching over Novak. Now, as Quinn hovered over his patient in his black T-shirt, Nick could see the Angel of Mercy tattoo that he had tried to scrub away after losing Haugen. The wound had left an ugly scar, but the angel still remained.
Nick kissed Katy lightly on the lips and then held up a finger. “I’ll be right back.” He left her side and strode over to Quinn, pulling him away as Heldner took charge of Novak’s care. “We need to talk about what happened at the cave,” he said quietly.
“I know,” Quinn replied. “I’ll pack up my stuff as soon as we’re done here. I’ll submit to whatever punishment Walker decides. There’s no need for a trial.”
Nick subtly shook his head. “That’s not what I had in mind.” He glanced over at Novak. “Without you, Novak and I would still be prisoners in China and Zheng would have Shadow Catcher. Thousands might have died in his invasion of Taiwan.” He smiled. “I think that warrants a reprieve. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to leave the whole cave incident out of my report.”
Quinn’s somber expression cracked into a grin. “So I still have a job with the Triple Seven Chase?”
“If you want it.”
The pararescueman beamed. “Yes, sir.”
“Hey, I could use a little help over here,” called Heldner. Novak was stirring. The doctor began pushing his gurney to the other side of the Wraith, where an ambulance had backed up to the hangar’s cargo entrance. Nick nodded his consent, and Quinn rushed over to take his place next to the doctor.
Drake and Amanda had joined Katy by the time Nick returned. Amanda held Luke in her arms, smiling down at the baby and fawning over him. Drake looked very concerned, and Nick knew his expression had nothing to do with her ordeal the night before.
Before Nick could reach for his son, someone touched his arm. He turned to find Molly, the intelligence tech, looking up at him. Her big brown eyes were puffy and red. She handed him a piece of paper. “I found this on your printer,” she sniffed. “Will—I mean, Sergeant McBride—must have discovered it before he . . . before he . . .” She turned abruptly and walked away.
“She’s sweet,” said Drake somberly. “For someone who had only just met him, she’s taking Will’s death pretty hard.”
Amanda nodded, fighting back her own tears. “They’ve been working together closely for the last few days. I think she developed a crush on him.” Then she looked down at the paper in Nick’s hands and gasped. “I know that guy,” she said, wiping her eyes. “He’s the guy that the CIA sent to help us set up our command center back in 2003, the night before the Dream Catcher mission.” She scrunched up her face. “I thought I recognized him in the old picture of Wulóng. But I couldn’t remember from where. The picture was so fuzzy I thought I was imagining things.”
“I know him too,” said Nick. “At least, I know one of his aliases.” He held up the paper and pointed to the name. “Mitchel Martin.”
“The guy we found under the B-2?” asked Drake.
Nick nodded. “The guy that Walker’s CIA contact sent to beef up the team.” He stared Drake in the eye. “I’ll give you one guess as to which CIA contact that was.”
The two of them spoke the answer in unison. “Tarpin.”
Walker glanced up from a discussion with two of the command center techs. “What about Joe?” he asked.
“We need to talk to him. ASAP,” Nick replied.
“That won’t be difficult. Scott has been calling him all night. He finally showed up. He arrived just as you did.”
“He’s here?” Nick scanned the hangar. There were too many people. Romeo Seven’s small staff of techs, clerks, and aircraft maintainers seemed to have become a small army, noisily bustling around the hangar in their postmission duties. Then he spied movement in the shadow of the Wraith’s huge landing gear. He squinted. A dark figure crossed behind the aircraft. As the man passed through a patch of light, Nick caught a glint of steel in his left hand.
“Tarpin!” called Nick, but the man disappeared behind the next set of landing gear.
Drake grabbed his arm. “The ambulance,” he said. “Novak is the only one who can identify Tarpin as Starek.” He pointed toward the cargo entrance at the other end of the hangar, where Quinn and Heldner were still treating their patient. “Tarpin is going to kill him.”
The two of them raced toward the ambulance, dodging roving techs and equipment carts. Nick pulled ahead. He shouted for Quinn to look out, but his words seemed to disappear into the general echo of noise around him. Oblivious to his efforts, a group of maintainers moved across his path. He lost sight of Novak. Suddenly the deafening sound of gunfire tore through the hangar.
Someone screamed. As the maintainers hit the deck in front of him, Nick expected to see Quinn and Novak dead, shot by the mole. Instead, he saw Novak sitting up on the gurney with his arms extended, holding Quinn’s XDm with both hands. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel. “Why, Jozef?” he asked “Why?”
Tarpin stood a few feet away, his eyes wide with shock, his dark gray windbreaker slowly turning black with blood. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words escaped. As he collapsed to the floor, a steel cylinder fell from his hand and rolled across the polished concrete, bouncing to a stop against the wheel of the gurney.
EPILOGUE
“Nerium,” said Dr. Heldner.
“I’m sorry?” said Nick.
The doctor pursed her lips together. “White oleander. One of the CIA’s favorite poisons.”
Three days had passed since the mission to China ended. Walker had been steeped in discussions with the State Department and the Congressional Oversight Committee. The colonel wanted to see justice. He wanted State to make a public indictment of the Chinese for Novak’s imprisonment and Zheng’s thwarted plans to invade Taiwan. State wanted to sweep everything under the rug. Nick didn’t know why the colonel even bothered to fight with them. The politicians would do the wrong thing in the end. They always did.
Everyone had returned to the Romeo Seven hangar for a covert retirement ceremony, Novak’s retirement. The pilot had started his career with the US Air Force, and the CIA never resigned his commission. Thus, assuming regular promotions, Novak would be a colonel by now. After one of Walker’s Pentagon contacts did the math, it turned out that the Department of Defense owed their newest colonel more than two and a half million dollars in retroactive pay and allowances. Colonel Novak elected to retire immediately. The speeches had been mercifully short. Now he leaned on his crutches in front of the Wraith, wearing dress blues and shaking hands with Romeo Seven’s small crew.
Nick and Drake stood off to the side with Amanda and Katy. Nick held his son in his arms. He had hardly let him go for three straight days. Heldner had jus
t joined them, carrying the lab results from the weapon that fell from Tarpin’s hand. “Nerium is slow acting but very deadly,” she continued. “Novak would have gone to sleep at the hospital and never woken up. The cylinder that Tarpin carried was a CO2-powered injector with a micro-thin needle. Used correctly, the victim hardly feels a thing.” She looked over at Katy. “There were two charges. I think the second one was for you.”
A murmur went up from the group. All eyes turned toward the elevator. A slender woman with short, strawberry blonde hair stepped into the hangar. Nick found her age difficult to determine. She walked with the grace of a woman in her late forties, but her angelic face did not look a day over thirty. A few paces into the hangar, she hesitated, unsure of herself.
“Who is that,” whispered Katy.
“Anja,” said Nick. “She has to be.”
One of the techs took the woman’s elbow and guided her toward the Wraith. The small crowd parted. When she saw Novak, she hesitated again. “He told me you were dead.”
Novak smiled at her. There was no blame in his eyes, only love. She broke into tears and ran to him. They held each other for a long moment. Then she took a step back and looked him over. A short laugh escaped her lips. “You look terrible,” she sniffed.
Novak reached up with a trembling hand and gently wiped a tear from her cheek. “You look exactly as I imagined.”
James R. Hannibal, Shadow Catcher
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