Lethal Circuit (11 page)

M
ICHAEL
WASN
’
T
ACCUSTOMED
to Houdini acts. But a Houdini act was apparently what Kate had planned for them from the start. From the moment their bodies hit the hard aluminum floor of the Cessna, Kate made it clear that Michael shouldn’t get too comfortable. As soon as the plane began its slow arc onto the runway, Kate pulled Michael back to his feet, beckoning him to lift his end of the capsule. Before Michael could ask why, a second shot had hit the cowling of the aircraft. Deciding he might live a longer life off of the plane than on it, Michael picked up his end of the load and followed Kate out the far cargo door. Using the Cessna as cover, they made their way across two taxi ways to an ancient propeller driven DC3 revving for takeoff.

A quick heave of the capsule later and they were through the DC3’s open cargo door. It only took another moment for their pursuers to sideswipe the Cessna, but by that time the DC3’s wheels had left the ground. Examining their current conveyance, Michael had to wonder if taking a bullet might not have been a better option. The old DC3’s cabin was no more than a bare shell, hay swirling in the heavy breeze. There was a crate of pigs at the back and a hole in the fuselage where the cargo door should have been. A manufacturer’s plate mounted above the hole indicated that the aircraft dated back to 1942. Michael was about to hazard a guess as to how often it had been serviced since then, when the logical half of his brain told him to stop. If the plane was good enough for the pigs, it would have to be good enough for him.

“Hand me the cargo net!” Kate shouted over the wind.

Michael looked up at the canvas cargo net he held with one hand. He released it from a tie bracket and handed it to Kate, careful to avoid the open door as they secured the capsule in place.

“Good. Now follow me.”

Michael followed Kate toward the cockpit, moonlit clouds visible though the open door below. When they reached the cockpit Michael was surprised to discover that he could see the stars through an open escape hatch in the top of the fuselage. There was a single pilot at the controls. He was Chinese, maybe thirty years old and solidly built, and he seemed to know Kate.

“Almost didn’t make it,” he said in passable English.

Kate responded in Cantonese, then added, “I’ve brought a friend.”

The pilot turned his head to Michael and smiled. Michael smiled back, but his grin faltered as his glance wandered over the pilot’s muscular neck. There was a tattoo inked there: a disturbingly familiar image of a lone tiger wrestling a snake.

“Everything okay?” Kate asked.

Everything was all right, Michael thought. Everything was just fine other than the fact that he might be totally screwed. Because Michael had seen the pilot’s tattoo before. It was the same tattooed tiger and snake worn by their attacker at Chungking. There was no mistaking it. Like Zebra before him, the pilot belonged to one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most brutal Triads. He was a Tiger Snake Boy.

“Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I see you for a second?”

Kate looked to Michael, then followed him out of the cockpit. Once they were out of earshot, Michael got to the point.

“That guy is Triad.”

“I’m a quarter Welsh.”

“The guy who murdered Larry was Triad.”

Wind whipped at Kate’s face through the open cargo door. “Look, I know how this looks.”

“Do you?”

“It’s like this. The pilot is a private contractor. Contracted by my government to provide a service. He no doubt doesn’t know who we are, and I don’t want to know who he is. It’s cleaner that way.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t know who he was?”

“I’m telling you all I did was put in a call for an extraction. I’m NOC. I’m operating under non official cover, get it? Six contracts out my support to the locals. This is Tiger Snake Boy territory. Of course they’re going to get the gig.”

Michael considered her words. He wanted to believe her. But he wanted to know the truth more. And with Kate, he sensed, there was one way to be sure. Physically. In one deft move Michael rotated his hips and swept Kate’s legs out from under her. Unlike Chen, Kate knew how to roll. But she had to expose her back to Michael for a fraction of a second to do so. And that fraction of a second was all it took for Michael to disarm her. Michael had done take down weapons training in his martial arts days. Everybody had. But it was only after his abduction in Peru that he had taken it seriously. Michael regarded it as a personal failure that the kidnappers had been able to abduct him. It was the beginning of the most horrific experience in his life and after rescue had finally come, he had vowed never to allow something like it to happen again. Not ever.

Michael tossed Kate’s Glock to the rear of the plane and followed through with an improvised head lock, holding her neck firmly between his forearm and the floor. It was more of a judo style move, but it made the point.

“Jesus Christ,” Kate moaned. “How the hell did you learn how to do that?”

“My father. Same guy who taught me that the gun you were carrying is a Glock 26 with a five-and-a-half-pound trigger and a ten round magazine. Same guy who said if I’m in downtown Seattle and I see a guy with shiny shoes and a snake crawling down his neck, I should probably keep my distance. Same guy I came here to find.”

Michael adjusted his position. His right forearm barred over her neck, her head in the crook of his left arm. He straddled her, a leg on either side of her torso. It was a submission hold from which she could not likely escape. Not if she wanted to keep her head attached to her neck. “Now I have some questions. Some simple questions and I need you to answer them truthfully.”

Kate lay absolutely still. “Shoot.”

“Why did you follow me?”

Michael looked Kate directly in the eye. Straddling her like that, feeling her heart beat below him, he was close, close enough to feel her breath on his face. And as much as this was all about business, he liked holding her tight. He liked it a lot.

“I told you. I was your father’s partner. I want to find him as much as you.”

“The pilot. You know him.”

“He’s done one other pick up for me before. That’s it. Luck of the draw.”

Michael thought about it. “Okay, fine.” He adjusted his position bringing himself even closer, his forearm bearing down just a little harder. Hard enough to make her think about her next answer. “You want to find my father and the pilot thing is a fluke.” Michael torqued Kate’s head to the side with his left arm just enough to remind her that he was in control. He eyed the capsule. “What,” he said, “is that? And don’t give me any shit about you not being sure. I saw your eyes light up when I found it. You know exactly what it is.”

Kate coughed. “The capsule is a marker,” she said. “In addition to the two full-size Hortens hidden somewhere in China, two metal capsules were engraved with relevant information as to their whereabouts. We think the idea was that should the location of the Horten aircraft ever become lost due to the misplacement or destruction of documents, these capsules could fill the gap. Engravings of regional topography would lead the bearer to the Horten’s hiding spot. Flash forward six decades. A badly damaged Horten was located by two Chinese farmers approximately five years ago. They found it with the help of a capsule marker like this one.”

“So what you’re saying is, this saucer thing is going to lead you to the second Horten. The one my father was supposedly looking for? The one they haven’t found yet?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Makes sense,” Michael said. “So why do you need me?”

“What do you want me to tell you? You’re a resource, Michael. You know your father. You know how he thinks. With your help I’ll have a better chance of getting this done. And like it or not, it works for you too. Finding the Horten is your best chance of finding your dad. I want your help to find the both of them.”

Michael was quiet for a long time. The roar of wind in the fuselage seemed to have lessened, but more than likely he had simply grown inured to its pounding. He released his hold on Kate and got up, offering her his hand. Kate took it, cracking her neck as she did so. Then she rose, straightening her blouse before looking Michael in the eye.

“You owed me for that little shove I gave you back at the temple, so I guess we’re even, but make no mistake. If you ever, and I mean ever, pull something like that again, I will not take it laying down. Understood?”

“Lie to me again and I won’t be so friendly. Sound fair?”

“Perfectly.”

Michael reached down and handed Kate back her gun. “Now, where in sweet China are we going?”

Kate smiled. “I’m so glad you asked.”

17

SOMEWHERE IN RURAL GUANXI PROVINCE

T
HE
BLACK
LIMOUSINE
traveled swiftly through the night, its armor plated panels designed to provide the ultimate in peace of mind to the occupant within. Yet despite the safety features of his executive transport, Li Tung felt a growing constriction in his chest, a constriction he hadn’t felt in the entire length of his seventy-six-year criminal career. Li was concerned. One of his key men had just informed him that the pick up at the Shenzhen airfield had been successful, but barely so. The decoy pilot had been hospitalized and would surely be interrogated if he could not be pried from the Ministry’s grasp. The MSS was close behind, closer than they had planned, and Li knew there was too much at stake for events not to unfold exactly as scheduled. But these thoughts would have to wait. The limo had slowed, turning onto a wide shoulder on the side of the road. As the car stopped, Li could just make out the dim outline of a single tractor trailer in the moonlight. Li thought to himself that, regardless of the outcome, the mission was bigger than just him now. It had begun.

•
 
•
 
•

T
HE
AIRFIELD
WAS
little more than a dirt strip beside a country road. There were a few old burnt out military planes and a couple slightly more modern private aircraft, but it was dark and difficult to see much else. Whatever the case, this was no Chek Lap Kok. Air traffic control was no more than a guard at a windsock. Absent a set of stairs, Michael and Kate leapt the few feet down from the open cargo hold to the dirt runway below. Pulling the capsule out behind them, they carried it several paces in silence without drawing any attention, not even from the lone guard.

“Where are we?”

“Guanxi Province. Four hundred miles northwest of Shenzhen.”

Ahead was a ten by ten concrete block shed locked down by a beat-up metal roller door. An outdoor lamp buzzing with insects and the high hum of electricity provided the only illumination. There was a well-used payphone bolted to the side of the building, but little else; no people, no vehicles, not a single sign to remind Michael they were standing in the heart of the most populous country on Earth. A one yuan coin in hand, Kate lifted the receiver of the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Dialing a cab.”

Michael placed a finger on the phone, cutting off the line, the open dial tone just audible above the buzz.

“I need to make a call first,” he said.

“Hold on,” Kate said. “We call a cab, we can get out of here. We start dialing across the country, it’s going to attract attention.”

“Like the attention you brought down on us?”

Kate was silent.

“No more lies, remember? They knew we were at Chen’s.”

“Okay. I put in a call to Six before we broke into his apartment. But my line was at least supposed to be secure. If that was the Ministry behind us, you don’t think they’ve got fifteen supercomputers filtering for our voice prints right now?”

“I’ll be quick,” Michael said, dropping Kate’s coin into the phone.

•
 
•
 
•

T
ED
F
AIRFIELD
WAS
anxious. His evening the night before had been everything he had expected under the circumstances and more. The police had rounded up and questioned everyone at the restaurant keeping him at the Yau Ma Tei police station well into the next morning. Ted was surprised by both the speed and zeal of the police response given that the incident had occurred at Chungking, but when he learned that a fully vested Triad member was also a victim, their interest made sense. Their concern was no doubt part of an ongoing investigation into the gang’s hierarchy rather than any sense of duty to maintain law and order in Chungking.

 
Ted’s anxiety, however, was not a manifestation of the previous evening’s events. He was worried about Michael. Prior to Michael’s arrival in Hong Kong, they had made a clear plan to meet at 9:00 p.m. the next night at the Forum hotel in Shenzhen. Besides being a favorite of Ted’s, it would allow Michael a gentle introduction to the People’s Republic. Ted was well aware that Michael had experienced adversity in the past. His experience had changed him, hardened him to the point that Ted was fairly certain that Michael was quite capable of looking after himself wherever he was. But Ted also knew that this was China. And China presented its own set of challenges.

So far, however, Michael hadn’t shown up and as things stood it didn’t look like he was going to. Ted’s rendezvous with Michael had been very specific. If he couldn’t make the meeting, he was to place a call to the payphone outside the barbershop adjacent to the hotel. That the barbershop was really a brothel disguising its trade with a cheap façade and a striped pole made little difference. It was nearly five hours later and there had still been no call. Ted was about to give up when the brothel’s wizened Madame, with whom he had been sharing the payphone, handed him the line.

“Where have you been?” Ted said.

“Seven-seven-seven,” Michael replied.