The Tomb of Hercules

by Andy McDermott

  But he had to get to them first…

  His attention was caught by a technician walking along the factory floor towards the stairs. He was wearing a bunny suit, but had pulled down the hood and was taking off his mask. As Chase watched, he fiddled with a card attached to a reel on his suit by a thin wire.

  Chase moved back across the dimly lit room and out into the corridor. He heard a chime come from the bottom of the stairs, followed by a buzz as the electronic lock was released. As he ducked into the men’s room, he heard the man coming up the stairs.

  The technician opened the door and entered, yawning—then stopped in confusion as he saw the unfamiliar figure waiting for him.

  “Ay up,” said Chase with a disarming smile. “Come to read the meter.” He pointed off to one side. The technician instinctively glanced in that direction—

  And took Chase’s mighty fist square in his face. He made an almost comical little squeak, then slumped backwards, eyes rolled up into his head. Chase caught him before he hit the floor.

  “Sorry about that.” He unzipped the white suit. “Now, don’t get the wrong idea…”

  Three minutes later, Chase—wearing the technician’s bunny suit, his face almost totally obscured by the mask and hood—stepped onto the factory floor. The key card snapped back to the reel as he released it.

  There was nowhere to hide his gun in the suit, so he’d been forced to holster it under his jacket. It would take a few seconds to tear down the zip and draw it. He just hoped he wouldn’t need the weapon in a hurry.

  He made his way through the huge room, trying to look purposeful without appearing too urgent. None of the technicians seemed to be paying any attention to him, just another figure in white. A casual glance up at the conference room to check on his target—

  Shit!

  The room was now dark, a cold glow from the far side revealing that it had windows on two walls, looking out across another section of the factory. Yuen had gone—and so had Sophia.

  He increased his pace, no longer concerned about fitting in. He needed to catch Yuen and his companions when they were alone, away from any workers who might raise the alarm—

  The door at the far end of the central aisle opened. Yuen stepped through, marching straight towards him.

  Chase made a sharp turn to stand at the air lock of the nearest clean room. Yuen was accompanied by the suited, goatee-bearded man he’d been talking to in the conference room and a uniformed security guard. An armed security guard, a holstered pistol at his side. Of the man in the lab coat, the two bodyguards and Sophia there was no sign.

  Yuen was approaching fast, eyes sweeping from side to side as he surveyed his domain. He glanced at Chase—and his gaze locked on to him.

  Chase tensed, lifting a hand towards his suit’s zip …

  But there was no shock of recognition in Yuen’s face, no barked orders to the guard. Chase realized why he had drawn his attention—Yuen was wondering why one of his employees was standing around rather than working.

  Chase ran the card through the reader beside the air lock door, not even knowing if the man from whom he’d stolen it had access to this particular chamber. Green light. The door buzzed. Chase gratefully pulled it open and stepped inside, pretending to fumble with his card as Yuen walked past—

  “You!”

  Chase looked around at the shout, audible even through the glass walls. Yuen had stopped, and was pointing an accusing finger at him. His companions stopped as well, the security guard’s hand hovering over his gun.

  Caught, knowing he could never draw his own gun fast enough to beat the guard, Chase did the only thing he could think of—act innocent. He pointed a gloved finger uncertainly at himself, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Yes, you!” Yuen repeated, looking irate. He glared at Chase for a long and uncomfortable moment, then indicated the matting on the floor. “Wipe your feet! Every time you track dust in there, it costs me half a million dollars in ruined silicon wafers!”

  Chase offered an apologetic nod, then made a show of carefully wiping his covered feet on the mat. Yuen jerked his head in exasperation, then strode away, the two other men in tow.

  Relieved, Chase watched until they turned from the central aisle and headed for an enclosed cabin at one side of the room, then swiped his card to leave the air lock. He resumed his course for the door at the far end of the factory. There was another card reader next to it; he slid his stolen ID through it—

  Red light, and a harsh warning rasp. Access denied. The technician he was impersonating didn’t have clearance to enter this part of the facility.

  He looked back at the nearby clean rooms, suddenly nervous. If any of the other workers wondered why he was trying to enter a restricted area, they could raise the alarm at any moment…

  A chime. Chase whipped around to see that the light on the card reader had turned green, the door buzzing as it unlocked. He opened it and hurried through.

  Instantly suspicious. There was no way the computer controlling the lock would deny him access, then change its mind without another swipe of the key card. Someone had let him in.

  He was in a hallway. Directly ahead was another security door, leading into the next section of the factory. Corridors headed off to each side, but the stairs up to the next floor were his first priority. If he had to search for Sophia, it made sense to begin from where he’d last seen her. He pulled off the bunny suit and shoved the key card into a pocket, then drew his gun.

  Chase ascended the stairs, rapidly swinging the Steyr in both directions at the top in case anybody was waiting for him, then jogged to the door of the conference room.

  He burst through it, gun sweeping the darkened room. Empty. To his left was the window overlooking the huge chip fabrication room he’d just exited. Knowing Sophia wasn’t there, he instead went to the window on his right and looked at the industrial facility that lay below.

  It wasn’t making microchips.

  Chase recognized several barrels as being the same kind that he’d seen in the mine in Botswana. Barrels filled with uranium ore.

  They were lined up on a conveyor belt that led into a very large and solid-looking machine. Some kind of furnace; even though it was fully enclosed, the air above it shimmered with heat haze, banks of air conditioners on the ceiling providing cooling. A heavy pipe led off to one side into a thick steel container, seemingly for waste; other pipes went into a second furnace. Although it was smaller than the first, the fact that it was practically buried inside cooling equipment suggested it was far hotter.

  From there, more pipes—thick, carrying high-pressure gas—passed into several condenser chambers, light rapidly pulsing through little inspection portholes of six-inch-thick leaded glass. Laser light, the blue flashes pure and unvarying. At the front of each chamber was another steel compartment, where the end result of the process was collected.

  Chase knew what the process was; what it made. He’d been briefed on it by the SAS as preparation for a secret mission in Iran, partly so that if he encountered it he could identify it… but mostly so that he could sabotage it.

  It was an AVLIS system—Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation—and it had only one purpose: to take uranium ore, vaporize it, and pass the resulting superheated gas through a powerful laser beam of a very specific wavelength. The science had been way over Chase’s head—he was a soldier, not an atomic physicist—but he knew what the laser separated out inside the collection chambers. Enriched uranium, weapons-grade, produced faster, more safely and with greater purity than in traditional gas centrifuge systems.

  And as Chase surveyed the rest of the factory, he saw the uranium’s destination.

  An assembly line had been set up, a row of at least twenty gleaming stainless-steel cases in progressive stages of completion spaced out along it. Bomb cases.

  “Buggeration and fuckery …” he whispered. What he saw below was advanced technology, beyond the capabilities of most nations seeking to join
the nuclear club.

  But Yuen had it—his own personal nuclear bomb factory, built in secret with the billions of dollars his hightech companies had brought him.

  Everything had changed. This was no longer just a rescue mission, and Yuen’s dealings were now more than selling uranium on the black market. He was building—had built, Chase realized, as he saw the completed last bomb on the line—nuclear weapons. Whatever Yuen’s intentions, the factory had to be shut down. Now.

  He looked over the plant again, looking for weak spots. According to his SAS briefing, the lasers were the key, the most complex and expensive part of the entire process. If they were destroyed, or even damaged, the whole system would be rendered utterly useless.

  And if there was one thing he was good at, it was damaging and destroying things.

  There were five condenser chambers, though at the moment only four were active. Two men, wearing not the white bunny suits found in the innocuous chip fabrication plant but yellow hazard suits with full face masks, were working on the fifth, a panel open and what Chase guessed was the laser partially removed. That meant he could take care of one of the lasers just by knocking it to the floor, but the others would present more of a problem.

  The lights in the conference room suddenly flicked on.

  Chase whirled, gun flashing up at the door as it opened—

  Sophia!

  She stood in the doorway, terrified. Behind her was Yuen, pressing a gun against her head. Behind him were two uniformed security guards and the two black-suited bodyguards, all with their guns raised.

  Pointing at Chase.

  “I told you to wipe your feet.” Smirking, Yuen advanced into the room, shoving Sophia before him. His men followed, spreading out two to each side. “Now, drop your gun or your ex-wife becomes your really ex-wife.”

  “You won’t hurt her, Dick,” growled Chase, concentrating more on the other men than on Yuen. While the billionaire was gloating, he was distracted—but his guards were silent and completely focused, weapons unwavering. “Not after the trouble you went through to get her back.”

  “Oh, you mean the way you dropped my dear trophy wife right back into my lap, without my even having to lift a finger?” Yuen laughed, and ground the gun against the side of Sophia’s face. She whimpered. “Do it,” he snapped, voice hardening. “Or she dies. I can get another wife. But you won’t get another warning.”

  Left with no choice, Chase held up his hands and dropped the gun. The guards immediately rushed forward, grabbing his arms and searching him.

  Yuen stepped out from behind Sophia. He lowered his gun…

  And handed it to his wife.

  Sickening disbelief rose in Chase’s stomach as Sophia flicked her hair and gave him a smile of fake apology. “Sorry, Eddie,” she said. “But you never were terribly bright, were you?”

  18

  What the fuck is this, Sophia?” Chase demanded as the guards tossed his belongings onto the circular table and shoved him back against the wall, guns pressed to his chest.

  “This,” said Yuen smugly, “is what marriage is all about. Two equals working together in perfect harmony to get what they want.” He kissed Sophia on the cheek. She smiled. Chase’s stomach churned at the full realization of her betrayal—and his complete gullibility.

  Yuen went to the window, opening his arms wide as if to embrace the machinery of death below. “So, what do you think of my little toy factory? Looks good, doesn’t it?”

  “It’ll look even better as a smoking crater,” Chase replied defiantly.

  “Oh, let me guess,” said Yuen. “You’re thinking that even if something happens to you, your friend Mac knows where you went and will use his influence with MI6 to start an investigation?” His mouth curled into another smirk. “Sorry, but he had a slight accident. His house kind of … blew up.”

  Mac’s house—Nina.

  Chase erupted in rage, trying to tear free of the men holding him to rip out Yuen’s throat with his bare hands, but the guards kept their grip and shoved him painfully back against the wall. “You bastard! I’ll fucking kill you!”

  “No, you won’t.” Yuen nodded to his men. “Kill him and get rid of the body.”

  One of the security guards moved his gun over Chase’s heart—

  “Aren’t you even going to tell him why you’re making the bombs?” Sophia asked in a seductive voice, running a finger up Yuen’s arm. The guards paused.

  Yuen looked askance at her. “What am I, a Bond villain? Maybe after I tell him my entire plan I can put him in a tank of sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.”

  “Oh go on,” she purred, draping herself over him. “Do it for me. I just want to see the look on his face. And then you can kill him.”

  Yuen paused, taking in the scent of Sophia’s perfume, then relented. “Aw, why not?” he said, stepping forward. “Although you’re probably going to be disappointed, Chase. I don’t have some insane scheme for world domination. It’s just about money.”

  “So being a billionaire isn’t enough for you?” Chase sneered.

  “There’s no such thing as too much money.” Yuen looked down at the assembly line. “I have twenty-four nuclear bombs—okay, I soon will have twenty-four nuclear bombs, as only the first one’s fully assembled. But they’ll be made available through various black-market channels to the highest bidders. I think a hundred million dollars would be a fair starting point per bomb.”

  “No bulk discount?” asked Chase sarcastically.

  “You know, I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I could sell them in six-packs.” Yuen gave him a mocking grin. “But the point is, now anyone can become a nuclear power, whether they be a country, a terrorist organization or even just a rich guy who really, really wants to keep the neighborhood kids off his lawn. All they need is the money.” He took another step towards Chase. “So, for the price of a couple of fighter jets, you can have a fifteen-kiloton nuclear device that’s so simple and rugged any illiterate peasant can operate it, can be disassembled and carried by two guys, or even one if he puts his back into it, and has a design that’s absolutely foolproof. Your own personal Hiroshima, for a very reasonable price. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “That’ll only get you two point four billion dollars,” Chase pointed out. “You won’t exactly knock Bill Gates off the rich list.”

  Yuen smirked again. “You’re not thinking of the big picture—which is why I’m a billionaire, and you’re a loser with thirty seconds left to live. Think of the paranoia when the major governments realize there are nukes running loose! They could be anywhere—they could even be in their capital cities right now! That means a massive spending boost for the military, homeland security, intelligence services … and all the corporations that contract for them. Like mine. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.” He glanced over his shoulder at Sophia. “Is that the look you wanted?”

  The look on Chase’s face was actually as blank a mask as he could manage as he tried to conceal his thoughts. This was his last chance, the only remaining moment for him to break free…

  But he knew he couldn’t succeed. Each of the four men pinning him against the wall was as strong as he was, and if even one of them pulled the trigger in the split second it would take him to move, he would be dead.

  Not that it would stop him from trying. He tensed his muscles, about to make a final desperate attempt to throw off his captors … when something occurred to him.

  It was a trivial thought, a question, in the circumstances totally irrelevant. But even as it entered his mind, Chase realized that he had to know the answer.

  “Wait,” he said, as Yuen opened his mouth to order Chase’s death. “The map Nina found—what’s it got to do with the nukes? Why do you want to find the Tomb of Hercules?”

  Yuen seemed genuinely surprised. “The Tomb of Hercules? I don’t give a rat’s ass about it—the only reason I pretended to was because Sophia asked me.”

  “That’s quite enough of that
, dear,” said Sophia from behind him—

  A bullet exploded from a messy exit wound in his chest as Sophia shot him. Yuen’s mouth opened in a silent scream, then he collapsed to the floor.

  Before anyone had a chance to react, Sophia turned and shot one of the uniformed security guards in the head, blood splattering the wall behind him. The other security guard managed to bring his gun around—only for one of the bodyguards to shoot him in the stomach. He dropped to the floor, writhing in agony—and Sophia fired another shot into his back. The man instantly fell still.

  For a moment, hope rose inside Chase—Sophia had just been playing along with Yuen, waiting for the right time to help him …

  The hope was crushed as she lifted her gun again, aiming at him. The two bodyguards stepped away, keeping their weapons trained on his chest.

  “So,” said Chase, recovering from his shock, “I guess couples counseling didn’t work out.”

  “Show some tact, Eddie,” Sophia said in a clipped tone of mock offense. “I’m recently bereaved! I need some time to grieve for my late husband.” She looked down at Yuen’s corpse for half a second, then back at Chase. “There, that should do. Thank you, boys,” she told the bodyguards, who nodded respectfully.

  Chase regarded the two men warily. “So what now? You going to kill me too?”

  “Don’t be absurd. I never discard something I need. If I’d wanted you dead I would have had you shot while you were still dangling from your parachute. Yes, I knew you were coming,” she added on seeing Chase’s expression. “I hid a tracking device in that awful leather jacket of yours while we were on the flight to Botswana. I knew you’d keep wearing it.”

  Chase cautiously lifted his hands to search his pockets. “Outside chest pocket, left side,” Sophia told him. “Where you used to keep your cigarettes before you stopped smoking. You never used that pocket for anything else, so I knew you wouldn’t check it.”