The Deaths of Tao (43 page)

Once he disappeared around the corner, it would take him nine minutes to make it back around. This should be plenty of time for Roen to get into the building, check it out, and then move on to the next. As long as he stayed just behind the guard’s route, he would be fine. He looked up at the floodlight again.

“Time before it hits that door?”

Forty-six seconds.
 

“That’s cutting it tight. I’m not good at lock picking.”

That is because you usually lock pick with a gun.
 

When the floodlight passed, Roen took off, sprinting along the side of the building to the wall. He took out a set of bump keys and picks. One glance at the lock and Roen knew he was destined to fail. It was an industrial-grade keypad lock and that part of his breaking-and-entering game was weak. He fiddled with the lock for exactly thirty-nine seconds before abandoning the door and going back around the corner.

Do you even know what you are doing?
 

“Yes. Well, no.”

He retreated around the corner with just over two seconds to spare before the high beam swept the building. Roen’s game of cat and mouse with this white light continued for several rounds. Each time it passed the building, he would run back to the door and spend the next thirty-eight seconds trying to work his locksmith magic. Then when he failed, he would flee back to the safety of the corner as the light came back around the building. By his seventh attempt, he was so irritated that he was ready to shoot the lock. Unfortunately, a silencer was not one of the tools his team had deemed necessary to rescue from the original safe house. Roen clenched his fist, knuckles white as he racked his brain for a solution. This delay was proving costly.

Maybe...
 

“Shut up, Tao. Just shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I’m in the first warehouse,” Jim’s voice cackled over the comm.

“How did you crack the door?” Roen whispered.

“Spotted the guard on patrol. Sniped the code as he went in. How else do you do it with a level-six industrial grade lock?” The way Jim said it so nonchalantly made Roen cringe. He felt his ears burn.

Well, that was an obvious and simple solution.
 

“Why didn’t you think of it? You’re the smart one.”

You were so eager to try. I did not want to shatter your confidence.
 

Roen moved off the wall and sprinted across the field to the side of the adjacent building and hid behind a stack of crates. There, with his scope trained on the lock pad, he waited until the security guard came a minute later. Roen watched as the guard punched a few buttons on the key pad, went inside, and then left a minute later.

Did you get that?
 

“3385. Well, that was easy. You have failed me, brain.”

You have your own brain. You just choose not to use it.
 

Roen waited sixty seconds until the guard was out of sight, continuing on his rotations, before he moved in. A few seconds later, he was inside the large cavernous building with a massive door on the north end. On the near sides, two cranes built into the walls like giant arms hovered over the crates. A variety of colored metal crates were stacked in the center of the room, reminding Roen of a giant Rubik’s Cube. Roen did a quick run through the building, opening crates and containers, and checking drum barrels. Most of the stuff here was missile parts: guidance systems, seeker heads, fuel pumps. Nothing you couldn’t find in any second-rate army. He checked the window for the guard and headed out to the next warehouse.

It was a short run to the next building. There he found several pallets of neatly categorized boxes filled with assorted electronics, ranging from high-tech research instruments to parts Tao identified as Penetra scanner modules to what looked suspiciously like the proton packs used by the Ghostbusters. Each of these containers was marked for delivery to exotic locations throughout the region, from Myanmar to Siberia to Russia. There were even some marked for delivery to North Korea via Liaoning in China.

“Somalia, huh? Don’t tell me the Genjix have a facility there.”

It is the perfect place to have a research facility.
 

The next warehouse at the corner of the Punai grounds was the most disturbing. Inside, Roen found rows upon rows of reactive metals, molded into long tubes and conical ends. They stacked on top of each other by the dozens and were marked with orange triangular danger signs and the Taiwanese flag. The design of these particular types was unmistakable though.

“Long-range ballistic by the size of them. Proprietary US military grade. What’s equipment slated for the Taiwanese Defense Force doing here? And there’s enough in this warehouse to blow the planet up. What the hell is going on?”

If this is for Quasiform, now we know their delivery system.
 

“I thought Taiwan and China didn’t get along. How do they even get this across the South Sea?”

The Genjix do not care about human political tensions. And if enough people are bribed, no one sees anything. Their influence over this region is as strong now as it was over Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.
 

Roen found his breakthrough in the last building. There, he found several rows of metal crates that were more fortified than the ones in the other warehouses. Roen pulled out a Geiger counter and checked its readings. Even the most secure container would show traces. Fortunately, it all came back negative. His team was ill-equipped for that kind of stuff. The last time Roen had dealt with radioactive material, he ended up bedridden for two months. It was a great way to diet though. Checking his watch, Roen made his way to the first crate, and with a little muscle and a metal rod he found on the floor, pried it open.

“Think it’s the catalyst?”

The side of the canister says Catalyst Mark II. Take a sample and get a sit rep from the others. It has been over an hour now. Time to head out and go home. Good job.
 

Inside, he found nine silver transport tubes not unlike the ones used to for radioactive materials. Again, feeling the apprehension of dealing with radioactive material, he checked the meter again. Still nothing.

“I feel like Han Solo approaching the Death Star for the first time.” He reached down and gently lifted a tube out of its protective covering.

That is not a moon. It is a space station.
 

Roen stopped, a grin growing on his face. “I don’t say this enough, but I love you, Tao.”

You should say that to your wife more.
 

“Now I don’t love you anymore. Keep my wife out of it.”

Undoing the metal latch and unscrewing the lid of the metal cylinder took an excruciating thirty seconds. He half-expected to discover a green glowing rod that would melt his face off and grow another head out of his belly, but instead, found a cool black metal rod sitting in a bath of clear liquid. He reached down to pluck it out.

I would not do that.
 

Roen retracted his hands. That was probably a good idea. He screwed the lid back on the canister and tucked it into his backpack. Whatever this thing was, it needed to go to a lab to be analyzed. Best-case scenario, it was a new material for glass figurines, though they had better be precious collectibles to justify that packaging. Worst-case scenario was a weaponized material for a bomb or something equally bad.

“God, I hope it’s not biological.”

Doubtful. The Quasing understand the dangers of biological warfare better than humans.
 

“How you guys doing?” Roen asked over the comm as he checked the area outside the door.

“In and out of the processing facility,” Ray’s voice crackled back. “Heavy water generator and micro assembly plant here. Not sure how this all fits together.”

“Ghost town here,” Dylan replied. “Grabbed some interesting plans.”

“And Faust?” Roen asked. No answer. “Faust, you read?” Roen cursed and counted down from fourteen as his spider sense went nuts. The night leading up to now had been so quiet, but it could still go to hell if Faust’s part fell apart.

“Faust here,” the whisper came hurried and breathy. “Extraction ready. Heavy guard presence though. Eyes on six. Avoiding if possible.”

It has been almost an hour. Time to not press your luck.
 

Roen switched over to the team channel as he made his way to the door. “Grant, get your team’s ass back. We’re bugging out. Faust, where you at?”

“Drydock Two. Second from the–” Roen heard a grunt and a squeak of a throat constricting, then the sound of automatic fire, a pause, and then more popping. In the distance, an alarm began to howl.

“Get to extraction. Move, move!” Roen ordered, bursting through the warehouse door and sprinting toward Faust’s last known location. “Jim, you’re closest. Rendezvous on the dock security building. Grant, double time.”

He continued barking orders as he zigzagged around the floodlights and guards, haphazardly staying in shadows only when it was convenient. It was a wonder he wasn’t discovered. He had just about reached the dock entrance when Jim, hiding behind a row of forklifts, beckoned him over. Roen dove into a dark corner with him just as a beam passed near his position.

“You’re making more noise than a stampeding rhino,” Jim muttered.

Roen ignored him. “How’s it look in there?”

Jim pointed at the door of a large building with a massive “2” painted on the walls across from their hiding spot. “Dark.”

“Let’s go,” Roen said. The two moved quickly to Drydock Two. Once inside, Roen gestured to Jim and pointed left, then gestured to himself and pointed right. The two split off and continued down the length of the long rectangular building, always keeping in contact with each other. Halfway down the length of the room, they found Stan’s body sprawled against a drum barrel with two taps, one in his neck and one in his head. Faust appeared out of the shadows.

“Make that seven guards,” he shook his head. We took out five, but the last two got a few shots off. Stan...” He grimaced.

“Get his body to the boat,” Roen ordered.

A moment later, the rest of the team straggled in. Four minutes later, they were on a small tugboat heading out of the harbor. They were a klick out to sea when the entire dock lit up like Vegas during AVN Awards week. It was too late, though. Roen and his team had escaped. Exactly fifteen minutes later, they were standing on
Imelda’s Song
’s aft deck.

Well done. Could not have gone much smoother.
 

Roen stared at the dwindling lights in the horizon. “Hardly smooth. We lost Stan. You know, he could have been a pro golfer, but he felt he had a higher calling. And now he’s gone.”

Stop.
 

“All this death and destruction is starting to mess with my head. With everything that’s happening in the States... I can’t stop thinking about Jill. Damn it, Tao, if I could get on a plane right now...”

Stop it now.
 

“I’m on this goddamn rusty boat in the middle of the goddamn...”

I mean it. Shut up. Listen.
 

“You know, all these years, she’s the love of my life, and I took her for granted...”

LISTEN! That sound. Do you hear it?
 

Roen paused mid-rant and stayed very still. The waves were rolling all around, breaking against the hull of the ship. Below him, he could just make out the low hum and the clicking of the engine. If he listened carefully, he could just make out someone playing Filipino pop music down on the second level of the port deck. Other than that... Then he heard it. It was faint, easily missed, a soft
whup
whup
whup
sound. Roen closed his eyes and concentrated. It was coming from behind the ship, somewhere out in the ocean. He turned and scanned the horizon, watching for anything out of the ordinary. On his second pass through the darkness, he saw it, a large black shadow skimming just above the ocean waves, looming larger and larger.

Large. Transport size. Chinooks or Z-8s. Estimated intercept at rate of incoming is less than two minutes. Carrier capacity anywhere up to fifty. Rally the men. We are about to be boarded!
 

 

FORTY

DESPERATE MOVE

To this day, Sonya’s fate fills me with regret. It was a needless death, caused by a series of events that were completely avoidable. I cannot simply let go for not only was she my host, she was also my daughter.
 

My anger is misplaced, I understand and apologize, but in this sense, I have reacted as any human. Quasing are not perfect, nor do our millions of years of existence protect us from emotions. I still blame Tao to this day, and will do so until the Eternal Sea.
 

Baji

 

The silo was a hive of activity when Jill and Marco came running in. Paula, standing on the coffee table, was directing troops and lighting fires under asses. An hour ago, the room looked like a refugee camp. Now it reminded Baji, who in turn reminded Jill, of the makeshift barricades erected by citizens in Paris during the French Revolution.

Past the barricade, the rest of the room had changed into the furniture version of trench warfare. The agents had moved every piece of furniture and turned the main room into a bizarre maze of lamps, desks, shelves, and couches that the Genjix would have to wade through. Several men pushed by Jill. She watched as they tossed anything from kettles to books to a pinball machine on top of piles comprising the maze, as if growing some monstrous Ikea barrier reef.

“Stack ’em up, boys,” Paula shouted. “No more than waist level. Make them work for every inch. We need every able body. Anyone who knows how to use a gun is fighting.”