Lethal Circuit (28 page)

“What do you know about my father?”

“I know that he was good at his work.”

“What else?”

“I know that he did not choose his friends wisely.”

“And?”

“I know that neither do you.”

Michael was within ten feet of Ester now. He watched her eyes. They were young and dark, but they weren’t focused on him. Not even close. They stared beyond Michael. Through him really, back down the bank to Kate. Michael turned to her. Her gaze conferred a softness he had not yet been privy too.

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

He turned back to Ester. She had taken a step forward and now aimed an antique German Luger straight at his chest. It was an old weapon to be sure, but it still shot standard 9mm rounds. An encounter with it would be fatal.

“What do you want?” Michael asked.

Ester motioned him toward the truck. The plate steel utility box sat nearest the cab, bolted to the I-beam frame of the trailer.

“I want you,” Ester said, “to get in the box.”

Michael, unsure if he had heard her correctly didn’t move. Ester repeated herself.

“I said, get in the box.”

Michael risked a backward glance. The utility box was perhaps six feet in length and two and half in width, a couple of feet deep at most. It was made of forge hardened diamond plate steel and one thing Michael was absolutely certain of was that he would not get inside of it. Not without a fight anyhow. But he needed a plan. He needed to buy time and already Ester was backing him toward the box where it sat welded to the frame of the trailer immediately below the leading edge of the Horten’s wing. As Ester backed him up, Michael noted that in addition to the Luger in her left hand, she carried a double barreled sawed-off shotgun, a twelve gauge by the looks of it, hanging from a leather shoulder loop inside her coarse wool jacket.

“The old man in the village. You shot him before he could talk.”

“Yes,” Ester said.

Michael considered the implication. “Is that what you did to my father?”

Ester smiled. “Your father was a brave man. That is all you need to know.”

“Where is he?”

There was no response.

“Shoot me if you want, but you will tell me where he is.”
 

Michael’s command was answered by a cellular beep. Ester carefully ended the ring with a touch to the phone on her belt.
 

“There is no time. Turn around.”

Michael was loathe to do so, but he didn’t think she was going to execute him. Not if she was still talking about the box. He risked turning ninety degrees and as he did, Ester reached into her pocket, removing what looked like a flash memory card. She held it in the air.

“The account details are saved on the card,” she said to no one in particular. “They will be useless without remote activation which I will provide upon the successful completion of my mission.”

Kate stepped up the bank. “That wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“You were to deliver the aircraft alone.”

Ester stepped to the side and jabbed the barrel of the Luger into Michael’s back. He found himself wishing she’d stuck it in the back of his head. His father had always told him that contrary to popular opinion, the back of the head wasn’t the worst place a gun could go. With a gun to the back of your head, a quick turn to the left or right, dramatically increased the odds of a flesh wound, the bullet skirting your skull mostly harmlessly. With the gun in his back, Michael knew that his soft organs would be vulnerable if he tried to move. An escape attempt now would result in at least a pierced lung. Probably worse. He stalled for time.

“What was it, Kate? Why’d you sell me out?”

“Make it easy on yourself, Michael. Do as she says.”

Michael stood tight against the trailer now, the cold steel utility box at eye level. He still felt the Luger at his back, but he was hopeful. She couldn’t keep the gun parked there forever, not the way he saw it. He placed both hands down and pulled himself up onto the steel frame of the trailer. The semi trailer had no deck, only two long I-beams which composed the length upon which cargo was fastened. The box was welded down where the I-beams met an orthogonal strut.

“Lift the lid.”

Pistol still trained on him, Michael forced any thought of Kate from his mind. If he was going to survive he needed to focus. He knew that. It wasn’t the time to consider how he had gotten into this situation — it was the time to get out of it. Michael reached down for the lid of the box. It was heavy as he expected. Inside was a collection of the tarps and fasteners used to secure cargo. Michael could feel Ester’s gun trained on his back, but he thought if he could leap across the width of the trailer, from one I-beam to the next, he might be able to take cover behind the Horten’s landing gear. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was something. Still, he needed a diversion. Anything to buy him another second.

“You’re a coward, Kate.”

“I’m a survivor.”

“Silence!” Ester said.

And Michael seized the moment. He leapt diagonally across the I-beams toward the wing of the Horten. He knew it was hard to hit a moving target with a handgun. Especially at a distance in the dark. For a quarter second, maybe even half, all was well. Michael felt himself sailing though the air. Then he felt a nimble hand take hold of his rear foot, using his momentum against him. Losing his balance, he was unable to stop himself from tumbling backwards the way he had come. He managed a split second glance at Ester on the ground below the trailer before his remaining forward momentum was redirected against him. Then he fell shoulder first into the hard steel utility chest, his forehead grazing the sharp corner as he landed. The heavy lid crashed down and even though he sprung up with all the ferocity of a coiled spring, it did little good. He felt the snug hold of metal on metal and knew that the lid was already latched. Michael found himself alone in the dark. No room to roll over. Stuck in the box.

54

E
STER
MOVED
QUICKLY
over the steel I-beams of the trailer. She had bolted the utility chest shut, but now had bigger fish to fry. Her mission was a simple one
—
to destroy the Horten before it became too late. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. The Horten had remained hidden since the Japanese retreat near the end of World War II. The Dragons wanted it that way. They couldn’t afford to have its technology made public. There was too much at stake. Overnight, massive hydroelectric projects would become obsolete. Oil fields would become no more valuable than desert sand. Wind power projects that had eaten years of capital would have no hope of turning a profit. The Dragons were too heavily invested in the current energy infrastructure to allow a technology like cold fusion to wipe it out. Not before they were ready.

 
Ester had been inducted into the Green Dragon Society by way of her late mother’s sponsorship nearly ten years ago. She knew that outsiders might find it odd that she belonged to a Japanese organization; the Japanese were after all the same people who had brutalized her ancestors, but Ester understood that the importance of the Society easily outweighed any lingering ethnic tension.

Ester’s mother had told her that in the beginning it was simple. Back during the Cultural Revolution the waves of spies had been easy to detect. They hid under the cover of diplomatic missions and covered their tracks poorly. But later, as the years progressed, foreign governments’ appetite for the Horten’s cold fusion technology increased. Wave after wave of foreign agents had come. Even in the relatively short decade Ester had been tied to the Society she had personally dealt with Israelis, Russians, French, even Saudis, all looking for the Horten with her famed propulsion technology, all looking for a leg up in the energy game.

Even Ester had initially thought it absurd — foolish foreigners searching China for an archaic aircraft. She was studying to prepare for university at the time. If not for her mother’s counsel, Ester would have turned down the seemingly harmless, middle-aged Japanese man in an instant. She wanted to earn a degree and move to the city, not keep tabs on the local tourists. But her mother had insisted that Ester give the man a chance and finally Ester had relented. All the man had asked was that Ester keep a lookout for foreigners in the area and report back any behavior she regarded as suspicious. At first she simply sent information about the various tourists poking their heads into the local nooks and crannies, but the more she looked, the better she was able to recognize those visitors whose interests weren’t so benign. With time, she was able to identify the many operatives of foreign governments who came to Yangshuo searching for what her Japanese employer referred to only as the reactor. Though she did not understand its worth initially, as the waves of agents descended upon the region over the years, Ester came to realize that whatever the reactor was, it had to be very valuable indeed.

Her work for the Japanese man went on for years like that. Even her mother refused to tell her more, saying only that she was doing good work. Ester received a monthly stipend that grew with her responsibilities. Then, immediately after the fourth year of working for the Japanese man, she was invited on a trip abroad. The necessary travel documents were secured for her and within a few days she found herself in Tokyo meeting with a man who identified himself as Director of the Society. It was during this trip to Japan that Ester the freelance operative became Ester the believer.

In the month she spent with the Green Dragons she learned of their global energy interests and new world order they were proposing. A world without borders. A world driven by limitless green energy. A world with equal opportunity for all. More importantly she learned why they were protecting the Horten and why the world was not yet ready for its bounty; not until all the pieces were in place. In the space of a week, Ester vowed to protect the Horten not for money, but for the very sanctity of her soul. She knew that many others, even the famous Doctor Jie Quiann, father of China’s Space Program, had also taken such a pledge. It was up to believers such as themselves to protect the others.

Now, nearly ten years later, Ester faced the spear tip of that pledge. She had eliminated Chen, the factory man, who in his foolhardy production of the dangerous trinket had risked exposing the Society. She had eliminated the old man in Yangkok. But despite these things, the Horten had been discovered. Both the American and the British spy had laid eyes upon it. At this point she didn’t know who else might have seen the Horten, but it no longer mattered. All that mattered was that it be destroyed before further damage could be done. To that end Ester removed the three kilograms of Semtex explosive from her shoulder bag.

Ester separated the cellophane wrapped Semtex blocks carefully from each other. The detonators were kept apart, in their own Ziploc bag, to prevent the possibility of an electro-static discharge. The procedure was easy really. She simply had to mold the Semtex blocks into position at intervals around the Horten’s airframe and insert a detonator into each block which would be hardwired to a single timer. The timer would give her ample time to escape to safety, providing all went according to plan, and so far, given that the discovery of the Horten had prompted a worst case scenario, thing were proceeding along remarkably predictable lines. The American had been neutralized and when containment had proved impossible, the British spy had delivered the aircraft as contracted. Now all Ester had to do was place the explosives and her duty here would be done.

Her phone rang, cutting her rumination short. “Yes?” Ester answered.

“Is it done?”

Hayakawa’s strong voice was familiar to Ester. The great Japanese man didn’t have to introduce himself and she could tell he was in no mood to waste time. “I am applying the putty now.”

“The British?”

“Paid.”

“The American?”

“Neutralized.”

“Excellent. Report back to me upon completion.”

The man hung up and Ester reflected that he had not greeted her or said good-bye. This did not bother her though. Only the cause mattered now. The world was not ready for the Horten and its promise of clean green energy. The change would be too swift. Governments would collapse. The social order would dissolve. Capital, the same capital the Dragons would one day use to usher in a better world, would be destroyed. And what would rise to take its place? Chaos. Certainly, a new world order would eventually be drawn along new lines, but the concomitant damage would be horrific. The Dragons’ goal was to avoid this. The Dragons’ goal was to usher in a golden age of limitless peace.

With that comforting thought, Ester affixed the first block of Semtex to the wing of the Horten. She inserted the detonator noting that she had chosen a spot on the wing directly above where the American had been laid to rest. No matter, she thought. It was more merciful this way. There would be time to atone for her sins once her journey was complete.

55

I
T
WAS
THE
nightmare all over again. Michael was back in the mineshaft. Back on the ledge. He couldn’t move more than a few inches in any direction and nobody had come for him. No water, no light, no food. He’d been left to die. Above him just beyond the reach of his fingers was the iron trap door. Below him, beyond the rock ledge, God only knew. Only this time, he wasn’t on a ledge. This time he was in China. In a metal box. And there was no chance of his father saving him. Because he had come to save his father.

Michael beat on the lid of the box, but it did little good. Already he felt the familiar claustrophobia settling in. The way Ester had said “neutralized” had chilled him, the walls of the chest closing in, spiraling around. All in all, Michael thought, his circumstances were dire and were getting worse by the moment. He questioned the decisions that had brought him here. He cursed the fact that he had said yes to the man who had approached him after the terrible news about his father. For what had he come to China, he asked himself? A metal coffin? Round and round he went fighting back panic with the left half of his brain while the right half fanned it on. He was certain that it was over, that he had been too lucky for too long, that he had bitten off more than he could chew, when a single fleeting thought gave him pause.