The First End (6 page)

The Chinese man turned to Ali. “You have
it?”

“Yes. It is safe. I know where it is.”

The man turned an unsympathetic gaze back on
Ryobi. “Then I guess I don’t need you.” Before Ali could do
anything, the man pulled one of his hands out from behind his back.
Ali heard a weak, sharp pitched sound emanate from the some object
in the man’s black gloved hand.

Ali turned to Ryobi, confused, but froze when he
saw the look of horror and pain that seemed to be etched in his
friend’s face. “Ryobi? What—Ryobi!” His friend collapsed in a heap.
In the late evening light, Ali spotted dark fluid spreading over
the rubbish from underneath his friend. He leapt towards his
injured friend, thinking to help, but strong hands grabbed him and
yanked him upright. He found himself facing the barrel of a
silencer.

“Your friend is dead,” said the calm Asian
voice. “Give us the object and we’ll let you live.” The man pushed
his face a bit closer. “There is no sense in you dying as well.
Take us to it now.”

Ali could hardly move except for an
uncontrollable shaking that suddenly overtook his limbs. His jaw
clenched so tightly that he felt he couldn’t speak even if he
wanted to. The man who held him, shook him until his teeth rattled.
With incredible effort, Ali managed to point in the general
direction of his stash. “It’s over there,” he stammered out.

“Very good. Take us to it.”

They dropped Ali, who fell face first next to
his dead friend. For a long moment he stared into Ryobi’s open and
sightless eyes. Someone kicked him painfully in the ribs and he
grunted as he felt a rib crack.

“Now boy! Hurry!”

Climbing to his feet, Ali staggered off towards
where he and Ryobi had made their home. He just wanted the men to
go away. Tears blurred his vision, and he almost walked by the
simple shelter of rusty aluminum sheets that served as his home. He
turned into it and fell to his knees. Shortly, he had the black
object out. “Here,” he whispered.

The Chinese man snatched it away and examined it
minutely in the failing light. After several moments, he sighed in
satisfaction. “Beijing will be most pleased,” he said. He turned to
his two companions and rattled off something in Chinese. One of the
men nodded, taking the object from his superior and running off.
The black gloved leader turned back to Ali. “Tell me boy. Did you
find anything else similar?”

“N-no.”

The man seemed to think on that for a bit.
Turning more fully to the boy, he said, “My name is Chen. What is
yours?”

Ali didn’t know what it mattered, but he managed
to mutter his name.

“Ali? A strong name. Maybe in your next life you
will come to something better than this.” He swept his hand around
at the landfill. “Buddha teaches that suffering is the way of all
things. Your suffering is but a means to an end. In this, I shall
help you.”

He brought his gun up. Terrified, Ali just
stared at the black hole in the silencer attached to the end of the
barrel. He never knew when Chen pulled the trigger. He never knew
anything more.

Chen turned from the body of the second boy he
had just murdered. He didn’t care for killing children, but both
boys had seen his face and they couldn’t be allowed to live. The
piece of American technology that they had discovered was,
unfortunately for them, much more valuable than either of their
lives.

He turned to his one remaining subordinate. “Get
me in touch with Wong immediately.” The man bowed and turned to run
off. “Wait.” Chen held up a hand and the man froze. He pointed to
the bodies of the two boys. “Afterwards, come back and burn the
bodies when you are done.” The man nodded and ran off. Chen
followed more slowly, thinking about what they had found and what
it could mean to his nation’s war technology. He should get a
promotion for this. He smiled.

Out on the converted fishing ship, Wong moved
with irritation to the bridge. The communications officer had sent
word that Chen was trying to get in touch with him again. Cursing
Chen’s parentage, he muttered aloud, “If this is another one of his
whimpering demands to return to the ship, I’ll shoot him
myself!”

Entering the bridge, he shooed the
communication’s officer out of room and snatched up the satellite
phone. “Lee here. Chen, this had better—”

Chen cut him off curtly. “I need an immediate
exfiltration.”

“Chen, we are in the middle of a scavenging
operation out here! I can’t just close everything down because you
are in a hurry.”

“This can’t wait, Wong. Beijing is going to want
what I found immediately.”

“What did you find?”

“American technology. I’ve been able to trace
the part to an essential component to the TACAIR fighter.”

Lee suddenly sat up straight in his chair. “Did
you say the TACAIR?”

“Yes!”

The TACAIR was America’s latest and most
advanced fighter jet. The fighter was expected to use an adaptive
versatile engine technology to allow longer ranges and high
performance. They had proclaimed that it had no rivals, able to
outmaneuver anything in the skies, almost invisible to radar, and
had the ability to penetrate any airspace at will. Beijing would
indeed want this immediately.

“You are certain about this?”

“Very. You know that one of their F-35 Lightning
II had been destroyed six months ago when the pilot inadvertently
tried to fly into a massive storm front. We’ve known for some time
that the Americans never recovered everything from the crash
site.”

“And you think you found a part.”

“An
important
part,” Chen stressed.

Lee fidgeted. He knew his duty, but it irked him
that Chen had found something when he had not. With another sigh,
he said, “Very well Chen. I will give you rendezvous coordinates in
the next hour. I will inform Beijing. I guess they’ll have us sail
to Indonesia, first.”

“Why not go directly out of Iran?”

“Because the Americans monitor everything around
Iran. We will be detected. Do you want to run the risk of being
caught with the part?”

There was a pause over the phone. “Fine. Make it
happen.”

Lee hung up and rubbed his eyes. He hated this.
Chen would get all the credit and a promotion, and inside of a
couple of months, Lee would be right back here, trolling the Indian
Ocean for useless scraps of technology.

But, if something happened to Chen…

Lee grinned. Chen was dispensable, although the
part he had found was not. The only reason Chen had contacted Lee
was because his own avenues of communication with Beijing had
failed. Lee’s ship had been decked out with the latest technology
in communication, although from all outward appearances, Lee
commanded nothing more than a rundown fishing vessel.

He would radio Beijing and inform them of the
find, if not the finder. He would make it sound like he had
discovered the part. The voyage to Indonesia would take time…time
enough for a fatal accident to befall Chen.

Grinning even wider, Lee leaned over and pushed
a button on the ship’s internal comm. “Ho Ningh, report to the
bridge,” he ordered into it.

While he waited for his first mate, he began to
plot. Ho could be counted on to help. He didn’t like this
assignment any more than Lee did. Yes, it would work. It had to
work.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Frank
Vellore said from across his desk.

Bill nodded, none too happy to be back. “It’s
been nearly three months since you broke off negotiations with the
union,” the lawyer began. “I don’t plan on helping you unless you
are willing to make some concessions.”

Vellore hit a button on his phone and spoke into
it. “Rob, make sure we are not interrupted for any reason. I don’t
care if the President calls. Don’t bother me.”

“Yes, sir,” a tired voice sounded over the
speaker. Bill assumed Rob to be the butler of this mansion. For
whatever reason, Frank Vellore had requested that Bill come to see
him at his New York house, a sprawling mansion with security so
tight that it would do the Pentagon credit.

On the way in, he had spotted guard dogs roaming
the grassy premises, laser sensors sensitive enough to detect a
small rodent, guards that roamed the perimeter, and what might be a
sniper loft with a dominating view of the grounds around the house.
Anyone who tried to approach the house would be under watch—and
possibly in a set of crosshairs—for quite an uncomfortable amount
of time.

The house itself rambled over the grounds,
sporting Victorian architecture. Bill suspected that the majority
of the house was deserted and that Frank had his office and bedroom
moved into a different room each week to prevent a pattern from
developing. He would like to meet Frank’s head of security. The man
must be an insufferably paranoid jackass to meet Frank’s
approval.

Sitting back, Vellore regarded Bill with an odd
expression. Bill might have called it fear, but he doubted the
tough old dog ever feared much in his life. Worry. That’s it.
Vellore was worried.

“I didn’t call you here to help with the strike.
I have another job for you.”

Bill stood up. “Sir, I came as a courtesy,
nothing more. I don’t know how you got enough money to hire other
workers to circumvent the union, and I really don’t care. The city
is happy that the trash is being picked up, so I don’t see why you
need me. Frankly, I don’t really want to work for you anymore.”

Frank pointed at a chair. “Shut up, Bill, and
sit down.”

Bill blinked and felt his eyes narrow
dangerously. “Don’t order me around, sir.”

“Do as I say. You’ll want to hear this.”

“I—”

“Sit down!”

The tone threw Bill’s mind back to basic
training as the order sounded awfully similar to that of an
irritated drill sergeant. He sat down out of pure reflex. Angry
more at himself at his kneejerk reaction, he fixed the CEO of
Wastend with a stern look. “That is your last warning, sir.”

Vellore leaned forward. “I really don’t care
about your warnings, son. You will listen to me because this is a
matter of national security.”

That got the lawyer’s attention. “Fine. I’ll
hear you out.”

“Good.” Vellore took out an expensive cigar and
lit it with an equally expensive lighter. He didn’t bother offering
one to Bill. “Over two months ago, the military contracted me to
dispose of some highly sensitive technology. But while in transit
to the disposal site in the Indian Ocean, the cargo ship slated to
do the disposal was attacked by Somali pirates. The ship and crew
were held hostage for a week before a British warship succeeded in
chasing the pirates off.” With a long puff on his cigar, Frank
paused to see what effect his words were having. Bill sat ramrod
straight as if being debriefed by a general. Satisfied, he
continued his narrative. “The pirates were trying to beach the
cargo ship, but the Brits intercepted her before that could happen.
Most of the pirates got away by virtue of being able to quickly
make landfall.”

Bill understood. “But you don’t know if they
made off with any of the decommissioned technology.”

“Exactly. The captain and three other crew
members were murdered and the manifest list has disappeared. We
have no idea what was taken and what wasn’t…if anything. The rest
of the cargo was disposed of as planned, but I need someone to go
over there and see if there is any danger that some of this
technology could have fallen into the wrong hands.”

A seething rage began to boil inside of Bill. He
couldn’t believe the man’s arrogance. In a cold voice, he said,
“You want me to do this?”

“Look Gardner, this is a sensitive issue. I
don’t really fear those Somali savages getting their hands on any
of it. They wouldn’t recognize any value in it even if they had an
inkling of the importance of what they had. No, I’m worried about
other foreign agencies getting their hands on this. I need a man
who is widely travelled, able to speak several languages,
understands the region, and has the training and expertise to pull
this off. That’s you, Bill Gardner.”

“Why not let the government or the military take
care of this?” Bill asked, his eyes narrowing. He could see where
this was going. “Why come to me no matter what my credentials
are?”

“Because before I involve the military, I want
to make sure there is a real reason to do so. There is no sense in
making this an international incident and - once the military is
involved - wind of the operation is likely to get out. We don’t
want intelligence types from thirty different countries crawling
around Somalia trying to figure out what we’re doing there.” Frank
shook his head. “This has to be done discretely and completely off
the books.”

Bill disagreed wholeheartedly, but he wasn’t
prepared to say so just yet. He wanted the man to hang himself
first. “This is an investigation. By the time I get there, I will
be working a cold case in a hostile environment. You do know that
the Transitional Government is a joke, right? Their influence is
hardly worth noting, so basically it is a messy, anarchist state.
The risk of getting kidnapped is rather high.”

“My file on you says you can handle
yourself.”

“Not against twenty armed mercenaries hoping to
extract money from some rich US citizen. They’ll see me as fish
bait.”

“It’s not going to be all that bad. I’ve already
contacted the Transitional Government. They are anxious to help and
to establish some sort of diplomatic ties with the US.”

Bill snorted, rolling his eyes. The man
certainly was brazen enough. “Like that will happen any time
soon.”

“Agreed, but they don’t know that. They are
desperate. They’ve agreed to give you a dozen men as escorts and
bodyguards for the duration of your stay.”