Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (74 page)

“Alright, fair enough. Corporal Chong will take down all your details, and we’ll make a few inquiries. Anyone else on the plane? And any idea when the lot in the helicopter are coming back or what they’re doing?”

“No one’s on board, sir. The man who hijacked our jet is Bob Nolan, a CIA officer who—”

“Yes, we bloody well know all about Bob Nolan.”

“Well, Nolan’s traveling with an intelligence officer from China named Yu. They came here seeking to explain the MH370 disappearance. That’s why they were keen to get there.”

“MH370? You don’t say.” Suddenly, Macca’s career prospects might extend beyond running the military archives warehouse in Kununurra. “So what did Nolan find out? What’s his plan?”

“The MH370 hijackers are the same people who flew them out on the helicopter to some place called the Eco-Camp, maybe five or ten miles away. Nolan’s counting on the Australia military to rescue them before they’re killed by their captors.”

“Bloody hell! Chonga, let’s bring up the Black Hawks on the QT. I need to have an in-person with Willbo and figure out what happens next.”

“Right, Macca.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

SELF-HELP

FRIDAY MARCH 14, WEAVERVILLE, CALIFORNIA; SATURDAY MARCH 15, ADMIRALTY GULF, WESTERN AUSTRALIA; TRUSCOTT FIELD, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Just as Joanna had written down, Odd Fellows Avenue was off Main Street. The two-story high-gabled home on the corner of Mormon Lane had seen better days, with the spring grass still uncut and riddled with tufts and clumps. There was a light on downstairs at the back.

They parked fifty yards down the street and walked back. “We aren’t really hurting a ninety-six-year-old woman, are we?” McGirty asked his bald, menacing partner.

“No, but we need her to believe we will harm her to have any leverage over her son. So keep quiet and stop looking like you’re about to wet your pants.”

*  *  *  *  *

Elvis was in the prime of life, forty-four years old, and until his recent incarceration, lord of the Admiralty Gulf. Now he was confined to a cage, fed yesterday for the first time in a week, and it was not enough. Hunger wasn’t the worst of his complaints, however. Imprisonment left him bereft of opportunities to court females and punish any male who dared swim through his territory. Even Elvis’s tiny brain realized something wasn’t right when that pink, faint-smelling mammal suddenly charged him with a loud shout. Elvis backed up as quickly as he could, letting out a hiss and smacking his jaws shut before that stupid animal flung himself onto his snout. The fifteen-foot croc tossed his head and threw the interloper back in a heap. The creature lay on the floor of the cage making low noises.

Another pink mammal opened the cage and dragged out the first mammal. Elvis opened his mouth and hissed at them both. Damned intruders.

*  *  *  *  *

Kaili had wondered how Zhao would rape her without putting down his gun. What he lacked in four-poster beds he made up for in duct tape, having her bind together her own ankles before he had her lie facedown on the bed where he taped her wrists behind her. He next used nylon cord to hogtie her taped ankles to her wrists. For good measure, he gagged her as well. He used his hands to tear her clothes off, his domination adding to his arousal. Given the ease with which he thwarted her writhing, this was not his first rape. He climaxed quickly, his twisted foreplay having brought him to the edge even before his briefs had come off. She knew he would keep her alive only until he was sated.

*  *  *  *  *

Grandma Coulter proved too tough a nut for Bert. Bent by age to barely five feet tall, her clear green eyes sparkled. The old lady exuded hospitality, not even questioning why two young strangers would be knocking on her back door at eight on a Friday night. In short order, she had them seated at the kitchen table with glasses of cold milk and a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. The cookies weren’t bad, Big Duck decided. So much for the Primal Diet this week.

She noticed Bert’s swollen nose and two mildly blackened eyes and wondered how he had injured himself. The police would be here soon, so she might as well be polite. “What may I do for you young gentlemen?”

“Mrs. Coulter, your son is responsible for my injuries. And unless you tell him to stop, he will keep hurting people. Right now Frank has taken my father prisoner in Australia. If you don’t call and tell your son to let him go, my father will be murdered.”

“Young man, do you know that my son is on a secret mission? If he’s doing these things, I’m certain it’s all part of a bigger plan. Your father might also be a bad person, have you considered that?”

“Mrs. Coulter, do you watch the TV news?”

“Only Fox. You can keep the Communist News Network, or whatever CNN is supposed to stand for. Bill O’Reilly is the only anchor I trust since Dan Rather retired.”

“Well, I just saw Fox News this afternoon, and Bill O’Reilly said the innocent passengers on Malaysia flight 370 were probably the victims of a hijacking and already dead.”

“Yes, I saw that, too. That’s an awful shame.”

“Your son was responsible for the hijacking and murder of everyone on that plane.”

“I’m certain you’re mistaken, young man.” Mrs. Coulter’s civility was slipping.

“I have his satellite phone number. Let’s call Australia and you ask him.”

*  *  *  *  *

“Your reputation precedes you,” said Coulter with a note of satisfaction.

Sandy and a second guard entered the interrogation hut, each with two arms under the armpit of a writhing captive. Nolan’s face was twisted in pain as his damaged left forearm was now behind his back, the gash reopened. He dragged his cable-tied feet, ineffectually trying to slow his progress into the hut of horrors. Coulter shut the door behind them, noting the hundreds of hermit crabs feasting on the perfect circle of upchuck he’d deposited before sunrise.

Tony Johnson was on break, using a bloody rag to wipe gore off the acrylic dentist’s shield. He was standing on a green PVC drop cloth next to two waist-high worktables piled with everything from garden tools to surgical implements.

All was covered in blood, starting with Johnson’s butcher’s apron and the veterinary gloves that shielded his arms up almost to his armpits. A video camcorder on a tripod was off to the side, pointed at a man’s bloody body slumped in a chair under a halogen floor lamp. The air conditioning was so cold Coulter had goose bumps.

“Put him down over there,” Johnson said, gesturing to to the cot in the corner of the room next to a handsaw and sledgehammer leaning against the wall. “You can take the mad scientist away. I’m done with him, and in any event he won’t last long. When you transcribe the recordings, I think you’ll find his cross-references tally.” The two sentries tilted the chair back and picked up the unconscious man. Coulter opened the door for them, and then shut it as they carried their gruesome cargo into the heat.

“How do you know he’s dying?” asked Coulter.

“I skewered the second kidney about an hour ago when he wasn’t cooperating. Even with a transfusion, he’ll die without dialysis. Over there’s part of his first kidney, in that pan next to the eyeball.”

Nolan could hear their conversation, but couldn’t bear to open his eyes. Why hadn’t that crocodile killed him? The damned thing backed up like a French poodle facing a grizzly. And now he was tied up with a bona fide sadist preparing to torture him.

Outside came a scream truncated mid-breath. Johnson looked at Coulter with raised eyebrows. Coulter shrugged. “Wilbur wanted to see if there was somethun’ a matter with Elvis. This one over here”—he nodded toward Nolan—“tried to commit suicide in Elvis’s cage a few minutes back. Elvis wouldn’t eat him, so I pulled him out and had the guards bring him up. Wilbur wanted to give Elvis a kebab to see if he was really off his feed. I guess that ole croc jess didn’t like Big Bob for some reason, but didn’t have any problems with a Persian mutton chop.”

Johnson gave Nolan a curious look and turned his attention back to Coulter. “Write down your questions and let’s get a fresh memory card in the camcorder. I’m taking an early lunch, and then Bob and I will have a conversation.”

*  *  *  *  *

Macca raised Air Marshal Finch again on the radio and apprised him of recent developments. Macca’s immediate superior Captain Ben “Willbo” Willard stood next to him. Finch didn’t mince words. “I want you to capture unharmed as many people as you can. I have no idea what’s really happening, and I doubt anyone else here does either. We don’t want a blue-on-blue, but I’ll be buggered if we sit back and let the Americans run amok in our backyard.”

“So we’re no longer to shoot Nolan on sight?” Macca asked, looking at Willbo as he did.

“Hello no!” the Air Marshal thundered. “If anything, you’ll be looking to shoot whoever has taken Nolan captive. Even so, let’s try to keep everyone alive, and we’ll sort it out once we have them in custody. Time is short. I’ll ring your Colonel Jones at SASR HQ. You chaps get on with it. Do the right thing, Lieutenant McCullough. Make Malcolm and the Regiment proud.”

“Yes, sir!” His late father worshipped Finch from his time in Borneo during
konfrontasi
, and then later on in Vietnam. He realized now that the respect was mutual.

Captain Willard was already on his comms set. “I want the pilots and unit commanders to come here on the double. Bring your maps. We’re going in blind, and we’re going in now.”

Macca used the lull to post two men to guard in the plane proper, and directed the snipers to find a place of concealment from which they could cover any approaches from the northeast. For now, the pilots remained under house arrest, though they posed no threat, and he’d ordered their bracelets removed.

*  *  *  *  *

Coulter liked the latest generation compact satphones: candy bar–sized with outsized folding antennas. It startled him to receive a call, as maybe five people in the world had his number. Teller was dead and Joanna wished he were, too. So that left Posner and . . . oh, hell. He answered, “Hello?”

“Hello? Frank? Is that you? It’s your mother.”

“Momma? I’m fine. Are you all right? How did you get my number?”

“I’m here at home with two young men. One of them tells me you have his father Bob . . . Bob
Nolan
in custody. Now I’m sure you have a good reason for—”

“Momma, don’t
talk
to those people. They are criminals. Did you press the panic button?”

“Yes, of course I did. Right when I fetched them milk and cookies about fifteen minutes ago, but they’re polite young fellows and quite convinced you are up to no good, so I sent the police away, as I wanted to hear your side as well. I told those officers I just wanted to see a human face, while the boys stood quiet in the dining room. You know, son, I do get lonely because no one but you ever visits me. And when was the last time that happened?”

“Momma, I can’t talk—”

“Bob Nolan’s son Bert says that you will kill his father before he exposes you as a mass murderer. He’s right here and would like to speak with you.”

“Bob Nolan is a
criminal
. His
son
is a criminal—”

Bert took the cordless phone and walked back into the dining room where he could speak in private. “I’m Bert Nolan. I’m wanted for maiming two Federal agents and have nothing to lose. I’m sitting next to your mother until I hear my father’s voice telling me he’s safe. So don’t hang up, or your mother dies. Don’t send police to the house again, or your mother dies. Just bring my father to the phone now.”

“Son, don’t you threaten me. Don’t you
ever
threaten my mother. I have a long reach.”

“Hold on a second. Your mother’s in the kitchen, and she’s saying something to my friend.” Bert’s voice was now more distant. “Is that right, Mrs. Coulter? You were supposed to take your high blood pressure and arrhythmia pills at eight and it’s getting late? Gosh, that doesn’t sound good.”

Back on the line, Bert said, “I promise I won’t lay a finger on her, but it won’t make any difference. Maybe we triple up on the dosages, or skip the meds entirely. So stop threatening me, and put my father on the line.”

“I’ll have to call you back. He’s—he’s busy right now. Call me back in ten minutes.”

“Stay on the line. If you hang up, I swear I’ll be the one who shuts your momma’s eyes.”

“I’m walking over.” Coulter seethed, clenching the phone until his forearm ached.

*  *  *  *  *

Kaili’s arms were numb from bearing Zhao’s weight as he gaily raped her for the second time. His body forced enough of a depression in the thin mattress to create slack between her taped wrists and ankles. She’d been able to untie the rope that had her hogtied. And Kaili knew how to free herself from duct tape, an overrated hostage restraint, but first she had to get her hands in front of her. Normally, she would have scooted her bound wrists under her butt and then under her feet, but her arms had no feeling from the elbows down.

She lay naked on Zhao’s bed while he masturbated to try to achieve another erection. Zhao gave up after a last flurry of strokes, his withered stalk hanging limp. He looked down on her and waggled his pathetic cock before turning around to dress. It was now or never. She forced herself to a seated position and rocked back on her arms, yanking down with all her might and rolling forward, knees to her chest. She felt her wrists and hands under her glutes. Quickly she rolled on her back and brought her wrists behind her bent legs and under her feet. Her duct-taped wrists were now in front. She was sweating with exertion, unaware of her captor.

Zhao stood in front of her in his Jockeys with a wide grin and demonic eyes, pistol pointed at her. She moved her hands up and took the gag out of her mouth. In Mandarin, she said, “Not so fast. I’ll give you the best blowjob of your life.”

“Yes, I bet you would. Up to the point where you bit it off. Let’s go. You MSS bitches are all the same: nothing but dry holes.”