Lethal Circuit (29 page)

What if?

What if he died right there in the box?

What if no one ever heard another word from him?

What if his last breath was here, seven thousand miles from home?

His heart would stop beating. He would cease to be. But what then? Michael didn’t consider himself to be a spiritual person. He had no firm beliefs regarding what would happen to him when he died. He had no idea whether he would encounter a white light or a black void. But what if the cosmic coin flip came up void? What then? If death meant that he would simply cease to be, then there wasn’t a lot to lose. Which meant that there was everything to be gained. And with that thought the steel walls of the chest began to spin a little slower. It was an odd notion, he thought, finding comfort in the void, but Michael appeared to have found it. Michael reflected back on his training; not just the training his father had given him over the years, but everything that had happened since his dad’s disappearance. Closing his eyes, Michael was able to center himself, moderating his breathing inside the cramped space. As his heart rate slowed and his spinning head came to rest, he found that faith. Faith in himself.

Michael took stock of his situation. Survival, he knew, depended on one thing: his ability to stay calm. He reached out tentatively with his fingertips. He hit the walls of the metal box right away. He estimated that he had a little less than two inches play on either side of his shoulders. His legs were bent up slightly at the knee for lack of room to fully extend his six-foot-three-inch frame. Reaching above his head to the top of the box, he guessed he had five inches of space. Not roomy to be sure, but it was something.

Michael took an inventory of his general physical condition. He had grazed the side of his head in the fall, but he didn’t think he was concussed. On the contrary, since the initial panic had subsided he was now thinking clearly. Though his shoulder hurt from the impact of the fall, he also observed that the bottom of the chest was remarkably soft. There were canvas tarps in here. Tarps with hard lumps which Michael guessed to be tools below him. Looking above, he saw a flash of light through the seam in the chest’s lid above the hinge. Like that, Michael knew what he had to do. Now he just had to do it.

56

M
ICHAEL
’
S
FATHER
’
S
GREATEST
lesson to him wasn’t a lesson at all. It was inherited. On the gene. Michael’s father was a man who knew how to take the bull by the horns. When something needed to be done, Michael’s dad did it. No questions. No fuss. And no whining. Like at the accident. They were driving to the grocery store one day. Just a normal day, when a big truck coming in the opposite direction lost its brakes. Michael’s dad was able to swerve out of the way and maintain control of the car, but the guy in front of him wasn’t so lucky. He veered right off the road, rolling down the embankment and into the river. First Michael’s dad asked if he and his sister were okay. Then he jumped out of the car and headed for the guy in the river. The guy’s car was floating by this time, being sucked away by the current, but Michael’s dad was able to jump atop the hood and pull the unconscious driver out. He saved the guy’s life. They waited for the ambulance to get there and then went to the grocery store. Just a normal day. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Michael always hoped that if it came to it, that he had that part of his dad in him. That he could do something like that too.

T
HIRTY
SECONDS
EARLIER
Michael had told himself that getting out of the box might just be possible. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had turned onto his side and reached under the tarp to pull out the hard object he was lying on top of. Extricating it from beneath him, Michael discovered that he now held a tire iron. That was the good news. The bad news was that maneuvering the tool in the tight space proved next to impossible. It was shaped like a cross, each of its arms of equal length, and the harder Michael tried to pull it up and over his body, the harder it seemed to get wedged like an anchor in the corner of the box. Finally Michael changed tack and let the tire iron fall back down to the floor of the metal box, arching his back so that he could fish under his body with his left arm and pull the tool beneath him. This time he was just able to get the tool out of the tight corner and above him.

Michael took a deep breath celebrating his first minor victory. He held the tire iron against the lid of the box for a long moment, resting his arm. Then, the muscle burn gone, he wedged the flat end of the iron into the crack where the lid of the chest met the hinge. He pushed, but he applied too much force and quickly lost purchase, the blunt end of the tool skidding down the seam.

“Damn it,” Michael swore under his breath.

It was then that he heard a sputter, followed by a roar.

E
STER
HAD
FINISHED
applying the last of the Semtex before she hit the switch. She had been explicitly instructed to fire the aircraft’s auxiliary jets prior to completing her operation. To do so she had climbed into the Horten through the bottom hatch and attached a simple booster battery with remote switching device to the leads below the control panel. It was not known if the antique jet engines would operate, but the Society leaders had determined that it would be worthwhile to at least attempt to open the fuel gates prior to detonation. Ester’s understanding was that the open baffles to the fuel reservoir would greatly enhance the initial Semtex charge thus assuring that the destruction of the aircraft would be complete.

The safe operation of the aircraft was of course in no way guaranteed after so many decades of dormancy and Ester had thus retreated a safe distance before she activated its vertical lift jet engines and their integrated afterburners. To her considerable surprise, the vertically mounted jets fired nearly immediately, hot flames shooting out of their exhaust ports and hitting the trailer below.

If one thing was certain, Ester thought, it was that the American wasn’t long for this world. The British spy had already retreated to the shore of the reservoir to verify the integrity of her payment. In Ester’s mind, the Brit was worse than the American. She believed only in money, but the American believed in something more. True, he would never find the father he was looking for, but at least he had tried. Ester almost felt sorry for him, cooking quietly inside that metal box under the hot flame of the afterburners, but she quickly turned her attention to the task at hand. For the good of the Society, sacrifices had to be made.

•
 
•
 
•

T
HE
BOX
WAS
hot and getting hotter, but Michael had no intention of being anyone’s sacrifice. The intermittent yellow light that he had seen through the crack of the lid now glowed red, the roar of the jet engines deafening him. Michael smelled an acrid odor and realized only belatedly that it was his own hair, singing where it touched the metal chest. It was now obvious that he faced not one, but two challenges: first, getting out of the box and second, actually surviving once he was out there. To that end he knew he was going to need more than a tire iron. Arching his back, he lifted as much of his body as possible off the metal floor of the box and pulled on the tarp below him. It came slowly at first, but he was eventually able to extract a corner of the thick canvas tarp out from under him and pull it over himself.

Then he reached into his lower cargo pocket and withdrew the compact folded space blanket that he kept there. Unfolding the blanket along its length, he covered himself with this too, careful to keep the shiny side out. Sweat poured off of his forehead stinging his eyes. He knew that even if the afterburners weren’t firing directly down on him, he wouldn’t be able to take much more. Cocking his head to the left, he wiggled the blunt end of the tire iron into the gap again. This time he levered it back and forth gingerly until its leading edge was well within the crack beside the hinge. But just when he thought he had it firmly in place, it slipped out again.

It went without saying that to admit defeat now would spell the end. The way the box was heating up, he was looking at his last chance. This time he had to mean it. With that thought, Michael took a breath, centered himself, and let out a loud karate style kiyah, letting the thought of a perfect hit guide him. It worked. In one solid motion he sent the blunt end of the tire iron directly through the gap. He levered the iron up and down, once, then twice, listening to the hinge creak and groan until on the third down stroke it popped.

Michael wasted no time, sticking both arms under the cover of the tarp and pushing upwards on the lid, bench pressing the hot steel like a strongman. He didn’t know if it was the heat or his overpowering desire to escape that had made the metal soft, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that he sprung up, into the flames, the tarp and blanket covering his body. He took a running step forward leaping out of the box and launching his body through the fire and exhaust.

Blind under the tarp, all that Michael was certain of was that the ground seemed much farther off than he had remembered it. When he finally hit the cool earth, he rolled to a rest several feet down the embankment. Doing a quick check of his motor functions, Michael found that all his body parts were still working; the reflective space blanket together with the heavy tarp had protected him from the searing heat. It did nothing, however, to mask his astonishment when he pulled the smoldering fabric from his eyes.

The Horten was hovering in mid air. It wasn’t just the Horten though; it had taken the entire length of the semi-trailer up with it as it hung there, above the meadow, only the front wheels of the truck still touching the ground. Michael estimated that it was pitched at a fifteen degree angle as it attempted to lift off with its heavy load, jet engines thundering down in the night. Michael quickly returned his attention to the tactical, checking his periphery. As far as he could tell he was alone on the embankment. As he began the climb back up the bank, however, he was able to make out Ester’s figure carefully watching from the other side of the craft. A closer look at the Horten as it hovered restlessly revealed what looked like a faintly glowing red necklace around its cockpit. It took only a moment for Michael to place the red LEDs as the signature glow of the detonators. He now knew that the situation was much more dire than he had initially suspected. A Semtex explosion would likely breach the Horten’s reactor. At that point all bets were off.

57

H
UANG
’
S
MSS
GUNSHIP
was a dozen kilometers to the east and closing fast. The pilot had locked in the GPS coordinates of the suspect truck, but really there was no need; the Horten’s plume of smoke and fire could be seen across the valley. There were still gnawing concerns, chief among them why the Triad gang which had ambushed them would be interested in the Horten, but Huang took the matter in stride. Most likely they were interested for the same reason criminals were interested in anything: money. As to their immaculate timing, Huang had never doubted the sophistication of China’s criminal gangs. He knew that they were quite capable of getting what they wanted. But he also knew that the element of surprise no longer rested with the Triad. It now belonged to him. Huang rose from his crouch and made his way up to the pilot to relay his commands. Already he could smell the burnt jet fuel through the open chopper door. It was time.

•
 
•
 
•

N
EARER
THE
GROUND
, the roar of the Horten’s auxiliary thrusters echoed off the surrounding karsts creating a cauldron of sound. Crouched low, Michael skirted around the front of the truck. Though the deafening jets gave him cover, they also reminded him of how bad things could get. If Ester was allowed to detonate the Semtex there would be no escape
—
for himself or California.

Ester stood arms akimbo, staring up at the Horten as Michael approached. He arced far and wide, approaching from directly behind her, certain that her peripheral vision would kick in if he did anything less. Michael noted that she held something in her palm, undoubtedly a remote detonator. He was only feet away when something deep inside Ester alerted her to his presence. Michael sprung forward in a low tackle, but she sidestepped, firing her Luger as he rolled across the soft dirt. Michael knew she had missed, but not by much. He found himself hoping the antique gun would be slow to chamber a round. It didn’t matter though, because even if running face first into a bullet wasn’t his first choice, he saw little alternative.

Ignoring the weapon, Michael launched his body upward, lodging his left shoulder in Ester’s gut while sweeping her legs out from under her with his arm. Michael’s gamble paid off. Ester fell hard and he turned his efforts to wrestling away her weapon. He managed to palm the Luger easily, but only because Ester’s energy was directed to the remote she held in her left hand. By the time Michael had realized his mistake it was too late. He grappled her left wrist and reached for the device, but the moment was lost. Ester clicked the remote.

The first thing Michael noticed was the relative quiet. The roar of the Horten’s auxiliary jets ceased almost immediately as the hot orange flames were sucked back into the thrusters. The Horten hung there in mid air for a moment before dropping back down to the ground with a bouncing thud. Then, Ester allowed her wrist to go limp, the remote falling to the earth below. Her stoic stare spoke volumes without her lips uttering a single word. Michael looked past Ester to the LED atop the remote trigger. It blinked.