The Prisoner's Gold (The Hunters 3) (26 page)

Garcia just nodded and tapped at his screen.

‘Josh,’ Cobb said, ‘can you get us armed in Lhasa?’

‘It’ll be tougher than Hong Kong,’ McNutt admitted. ‘It’s off the beaten path of the traditional smuggling routes. Plus, when you factor in the political upheaval in the area and combine that with the essentially peaceful Buddhists, the pickings will be slim. Even with Maggie’s translation skills, I might only be able to get us some Chinese hand-me-downs.’

‘It’ll do,’ Cobb said, as he headed for the door. ‘But try to get something that goes boom, too. Just to be on the safe side.’

McNutt grinned. ‘Whatever you say, chief.’

Phoenicia Hotel

Valletta, Malta

Seymour Duggan sensed it was time to run.

He hadn’t heard from any of his colleagues in almost two weeks. That wasn’t just odd, it was downright disturbing. There were certainly days that went by without a source checking in, but a week was suspicious. And two was upsetting. John Sylvester and Jerry Westbrook were trusted operatives, yet neither had reached out to him since the end of March.

Warning bells sounded in Duggan’s mind.

If it had been just one man, he wouldn’t have been so concerned. Covert sleuthing was a cutthroat business, and he wasn’t the only player in the game. Competitors had lured away associates of his on more than one occasion, the promise of shorter hours and larger paychecks too good to refuse. He was used to losing a person here and there; it came with the territory.

But when every agent on a case went dark, it usually meant one thing.

The hunted had become the hunter.

At times like this, he could either hunker down or flee.

Duggan had chosen the latter.

Any doubts he had about his choice had vanished the moment he heard the hotel’s fire alarm. The sirens wailing in his ears only exacerbated the anxious buzzing in his head, reinforcing the decision to keep moving. He reasoned that the hotel’s evacuation might slow his escape, but it would also afford him some cover if his pursuers already knew his location. If they were waiting for him, this might be his only opportunity to sneak past.

To Duggan, it was a stroke of good luck.

He knew it was now or never.

Duggan double-checked his pockets. His most important items – his phone, his money, and a selection of fake passports – were always on his person in a zipped inner compartment sewn into his coat. Satisfied that everything was in place, he grabbed his ‘go bag’, a stylish leather backpack that held his computer and a few days’ worth of clothing, and bolted for the door.

Under normal circumstances he would have taken the time to carefully pack all of his belongings and wipe down the suite before he exited the hotel. He would have taken every precaution, leaving nothing that could be traced back to his real identity. But at the moment he feared that every second mattered. He needed to get ahead of whomever was coming for him.

Besides, he was convinced that they already knew his name.

He swung the backpack over his shoulders as he stepped into the fourth-floor hallway. Guests shuffled toward the exits at the opposite ends of the floor, guided by a bellman who continually shouted directions above the din. Even in the dead of night, the mood of the crowd was more curious than panicked, but it would still serve Duggan’s needs. He quickly waded into the flow of humanity, trying to hide himself in the confusion.

As he reached the stairwell at the end of the hall, his confidence grew. The pace was slow, but steady, and he was surrounded on all sides by tourists with the same goal in mind: to get out of the building as safely as possible. Then he felt someone sidle up next to him.

Not just close,
too close
.

It was followed by the unmistakable pressure of a blade against the spine of his lower back.

‘Seymour,’ the pale man said in a hushed tone, ‘if you scream or look at my face, you’ll never walk again. One push, and you’re paralyzed for life.’

For a fleeting moment Duggan considered challenging the man’s pledge. He imagined that if he could only separate himself by a foot, he could move clear of the man’s thrust and escape injury. He could also yell for help, and he reasoned the good Samaritans surrounding him would pummel his assailant before he could cause any harm.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

The man was close enough that Duggan could suddenly feel the outline of his attacker’s revolver pressing up against him. Duggan knew that he might be able to avoid the knife, but there was no way he could dodge a bullet.

‘What do you want?’ Duggan asked submissively.

‘Not here,’ the man replied. ‘Keep walking.’

Duggan nodded. ‘Fine. Just don’t hurt anyone.’

When they reached the lobby, the man guided Duggan away from the hotel and into one of the small, secluded courtyards that overlooked the sea beyond the building. Duggan was ordered to sit on a bench while the assailant hovered behind him, close enough to strike but allowing enough separation to dispel any suspicion from passersby.

For his own safety, Duggan kept his eyes focused on the water in front of him. He had no interest in looking at the man, much less studying his features. If he couldn’t identify his attacker, there was still a chance he’d make it through the night alive.

‘Answer my questions,’ the man said, ‘and I promise that I will walk away. Understood?’

Duggan nodded. ‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Good. Now, who hired you?’

Given the disappearances of Sylvester and Westbrook, Duggan knew which case the man was referring to. ‘He is US military. Special Forces. Works with a covert unit. Well-built. Cropped hair. You know the type. Not to be trifled with.’

It was a calculated deception on Duggan’s part. He hoped the mention of the US military would spook his attacker. Facing off against a civilian was one thing, but taking on the inexhaustible resources of the US armed forces was a different proposition altogether.

With any luck, Duggan hoped the implied threat would get him off the hook.

‘What do you know?’ the man demanded.

Duggan knew that lying wouldn’t work. Not this time. He had learned a lot during his days working with the CIA, experiences he would not soon forget. He had seen evil, and he had come to know its traits. He knew that the man holding him hostage would not tolerate dishonesty.

‘I know that Jean-Marc Papineau does not work alone. He is only the puppet; there is someone else pulling the strings. Whoever he is, he protects himself well. Much better than most. We know he lives on the West Coast, and we presume he has unlimited wealth – he has to, given the way he insulates himself. But that’s as far as we got.’

‘
We?
Who is
we
?’

‘My associates,’ Duggan answered. ‘One in—’

‘California. Another in Florida. Yes, we’ve already met.’

Duggan gulped hard. Any lingering doubts that this man had killed his colleagues instantly evaporated. The ghoul had traveled more than six thousand miles just to finish what he had started. Despite his predicament, guilt suddenly washed over Duggan. He felt responsible for their deaths. They were good men who were only doing what he had asked them to do.

‘The soldier doesn’t know?’

Duggan shook his head emphatically. ‘I haven’t given him my report yet. He’s been off the grid on some mission. I haven’t had the chance.’

‘And you won’t,’ the man growled as he shoved Duggan from behind.

The push was so unexpected, Duggan tumbled off the bench and fell face-first onto the lawn. The ground broke his fall, scraping his nose and knocking the breath from his lungs, but it was a hell of a lot better than a knife in his spine. Duggan stayed there for a moment, not knowing what was going to happen next.

A second turned to two and then it became five.

After ten full seconds, Duggan glanced back and realized no one was there.

The assailant had walked away, just as he had promised.

Relieved and exhausted, Duggan rolled over and stared at the dark sky above him. He didn’t know why he had been allowed to live, but he was thankful nevertheless. The pounding in his chest slowly subsided, the thumping of his heart growing quieter.

A second later, it was replaced by a steady beeping from his backpack.

In his last moment of life, Duggan was overcome by a sense of clarity. Even without looking, he knew exactly what had happened. In the confusion on the stairwell, he hadn’t felt the assassin slip a hand inside his pack. In his seat on the bench, he hadn’t noticed the extra pound of Semtex, or C-4, or whatever plastic explosive his killer had chosen to burden him with.

He had spent his life noticing the details that others overlooked.

Yet he had missed the one thing that could have saved him.

The charge erupted like a volcano, only instead of lava and ash, blood and bone spewed into the air like grotesque fireworks. The parts of Duggan’s torso that weren’t vaporized in the blast rained back down, showering the three-foot crater with globs of charred skin and chunks of viscera. His skull was shattered and his face torn to shreds, yet his legs still twitched despite their lack of a body. His suspenders and bow tie were nowhere to be seen, replaced by crimson and carnage in all directions.

Nearby guests scattered, some even running back inside the possibly burning hotel in retreat from the explosion. Those who were brave enough to investigate the blast quickly regretted their actions. The site was a horror show of barbecued flesh; the smell alone enough to turn even the most iron of stomachs.

Somewhere in the distance, the assassin moved in the shadows.

He pulled his ball cap low to hide his hairless features.

Then he smiled at a job well done.

Wednesday, April
9

Hong Kong

Feng watched from his bedroom window as the sun slowly set on the harbor below. Soon the glowing orb would dip below the horizon of Lantau Island to the west, and the glittering skyscrapers of Hong Kong would light the city for the next ten hours.

Although Feng’s true prowess lay in the business world, he did actually believe whole-heartedly in the stated mission of the Fists. For too many centuries the rest of the world had taken China for granted: intruding on Chinese territory, claiming Chinese property, and imposing their values and ideologies on the Chinese way of life.

The Yihequan Movement of 1898 – the Boxer Rebellion, as it was called in the West – was not the starting point of the Brotherhood of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists. It was merely the Fists’ most well-known public event. The Fists had existed for centuries prior to the uprising, and their stated goal had always been to hold back the forces of industry and imperialism that constantly threatened the empire.

In simpler terms, to keep China for the Chinese.

It really wasn’t until the 1980s that leaders of the organization began to realize the value of capitalism in achieving their goals. Money could move mountains. Mountains of money could move the world. Feng had thrown himself into the world of finance with the ultimate goal of freeing China from foreign oppression. He understood that most saw China, and particularly its communist government, as the problem. But he saw things with a different perspective. It was all well and good for the US and other Western countries to decry China for humanitarian abuses, but to do so while ignoring their own history of slavery and more recent atrocities like the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo was downright laughable.

They were hypocrites, the lot of them.

They were happy to criticize China when the Chinese government wouldn’t give them favorable trading status, and yet they were more than willing to send mercenaries in business suits to rape China’s natural resources and to exploit its best asset – its people – while converting them into mindless consumers in order to keep Western commerce rolling along.

The thought sickened Feng.

So much so he decided to beat them at their own game.

At first, China would manufacture and sell products to Western companies, whose executives all had eyes on short-term profits. These fat cats didn’t care about what would make their companies profitable in ten years, only what would earn them their bonuses this quarter.

And that would be their downfall.

Feng instead chose to focus on twenty years down the road. The shortsighted executives would be long gone, but he would still be around, buying shares here and shares there until he had accumulated so many shares that he would actually own their companies.

Of course, no one in the West was going to buy all of their products from China if they thought the Chinese were getting rich from it. But they were all too happy to shell out cash for products made in China – as long as the perception was that the companies were American.

They would be, but in name alone.

No one would know that he owned the Western companies, and by the time the tree-hugging, petition-signing rabble rousers figured it out, the general populace wouldn’t care, provided he kept making the products that filled their lives with empty joy.

After that, he could move on to the next phase of his plan.

Americans have long discussed a wall to separate the US from Mexico, but Feng would actually have a wall to keep the world out of his homeland. In twenty years he would own most of the largest global companies. In thirty he would shut down the Chinese government and declare himself the new emperor of China. In forty, he would complete the Great Wall of China – and it would stretch all the way around his nation. It would be a symbol to the world: we don’t need you, we don’t want you, and you’ll stay away … or else.

By then strife in American politics and the widening gulf between rich and poor would have caused at least two rebellions – or so the projections told him. Order would crumble, and their military might would wither. China already possessed enough battle-ready satellites to make any nuclear attacks from the US moot.

The great Eagle would finally be declawed.