“Yes, we are not without means. But now we need to see what we are paying for. No disrespect intended.”
“Of course not. You have every right to do so. Here. Perhaps this will set your minds at ease.” Nahir handed Wira a cell phone. A video image played on the small screen.
Wira and Putra watched as the camera zoomed in. Two dogs were wagging their tails at someone out of range. The camera panned out and focused on a blue metal canister in the corner. A cable was attached to the aerosol nozzle affixed to the top. The image zoomed in as the nozzle, triggered by the cable, released a mist into the chamber.
The focus shifted to the animals, who looked puzzled by the sound of the compressed gas, but still happy. The video speed increased until the counter indicated five minutes had elapsed. The little dogs convulsed on the floor of the chamber, blood seeping from their eyes and ears as froth foamed from their noses and mouths. Wira and Putra watched in rapt fascination as the dogs expired in horrific agony. When the screen went dark, Wira handed the phone back to Nahir.
“Impressive. But frankly, that could have been anything, no? Any toxin released into an airtight chamber. Or even the air being shut off, leaving the animals without oxygen.”
Nahir shrugged. “Really? What toxins do you know of that would cause that specific set of reactions in five minutes of exposure? I’d love to hear, because then I won’t have to pay a king’s ransom to acquire agents like this one.” Nahir fixed Wira with an icy stare. “Suffocation wouldn’t do it, which you should know. Get your facts straight.”
Putra looked nervously at Wira, who hadn’t displayed any reaction to Nahir’s insult. Instead, Wira took a sip of his water and set the glass down before leaning back and folding his hands in his lap.
Nahir checked his watch and cleared his throat.
“If you have an expert, I’ll gladly allow him to speak with my science director, who can give him the exact composition of the agent. Beyond that, I’m not sure what to tell you. If you don’t want it, no problem, I have other, qualified buyers who will take it without any hesitation.” Nahir pronounced “qualified” like a taunt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have guests who have traveled far to enjoy my hospitality. Think it through, discuss it amongst yourselves, and I’ll be back shortly.”
Nahir stood and began making his way down the steps to the pool deck. Wira rose and followed him.
“We do not wish to offend you,” Wira said. “If I have your word that the gas is as advertised, that is good enough for me. Please. I will make one phone call and arrange for the rest of the funds to transfer. It can be done within the hour. But I want to take delivery now.”
Nahir gave him a frosty smile. “Come. Walk with me, and I’ll explain how the rest of the transaction will work.” He stopped, waiting for Putra to join them, and then led the pair along the pool area to the beach. Both newcomers’ eyes traveled to the women, and Nahir nodded. “Would you like to avail yourselves of my playthings? Just say the word. They are yours for the asking.”
Wira swallowed hard. “Thank you, but no. This is strictly business for us.”
“Well, if you reconsider, speak up. I assure you they are the stuff fantasies are made of. And each as willing as you could want.”
Wira shook his head.
Nahir smiled again. “Fine. Here’s how we’ll do this. You will transfer the remaining funds. Once I have confirmed receipt, I will arrange for the material to be loaded onto the vessel of your choice, although I have to warn you that if onto a seaplane, you will run into considerable difficulty when returning to Singapore. Customs there isn’t particularly understanding.”
“We have a boat. The green one out beyond the breakwater,” Putra said.
Nahir squinted at the fishing scow and nodded. “I see. Fine. Then make your call, and enjoy my hospitality until it gets dark. Once it does, I will see to it that the canister is transported to your boat.”
“Why can’t we take it now?” Wira asked.
“Because you haven’t paid me, and because it might look suspicious if you were leaving my soiree with a wooden crate – especially in these times of satellite surveillance. While the canister isn’t particularly large, it’s packed in protective foam and boxed, which is how I strongly recommend it be transported unless you want to risk the dogs’ fate if there’s a mishap. But let’s not make tracking you too easy, just in case anyone’s watching, shall we? We’ll do this tonight and not before. Only a matter of a few more hours.”
Putra and Wira murmured to each other, and Wira straightened. “Putra will accompany your men to wherever the agent is stored. He will oversee the loading onto one of the skiffs. Is that acceptable?”
“Of course. But only once payment has been received.”
Wira noticed one of the women, a gorgeous Eurasian with sun-kissed skin, glancing at them before looking away. “They are indeed miraculously beautiful young things, are they not? But alas, that is not our way.”
Nahir laughed. “You are true believers, and I respect that. However, I want you to know that you are not bound by any constraints here in my home, and I’ll remind you that even the righteous need…diversion…from time to time.”
“I appreciate that. I will make the call,” Wira said. “I trust you have a working phone? I lost cell service ten minutes before landing.”
“Of course. A satellite link. Right this way.”
Maya’s heart felt ready to burst from her chest. She recognized the two men with Nahir as the terrorists in Lev’s photographs, their faces seared into her memory. If they were here…she fought to appear uninterested and dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes, returning her attention to her companions, who were prattling on about trendy nightspots in Paris and London. She laughed with them when Angela wisecracked about the coming party, but her stomach was doing flops even though outwardly she appeared collected.
If Natasha’s disappearance had been a disaster, this was a full-blown crisis. Because if the terrorists had come to the island on the arms merchant’s birthday, it could only be for one reason, and any spare time she hoped she might have had just run out.
Chapter 33
The party crowd gathered around the expansive pool deck to watch the sun set. The glowing red ember slowly sank into the cobalt sea, flaming the sky with a rainbow of color, the morning’s showers a distant memory. A jazz quartet thumped away onstage as a small army of servers milled through the privileged with silver trays piled with drinks and appetizers. The dizzying aroma of expensive cologne and perfume drifted from the guests, largely older men with trophy wives or girlfriends half their ages.
Maya moved among the celebrants with her glass of Perrier water on the rocks with a lime twist, smiling perfunctorily, eyes searching for Nahir and the terrorists, whom she’d lost sight of when she’d been told by Carla to get prepared for the party. The band reached the end of its set, and the singer made the dinner announcement in three languages. Everyone moved to the tables that had been positioned for dining beneath the stars. Maya spotted Nahir coming out of the villa with the two men and breathed a sigh of relief when they sat together at the main table – if they were there to collect their purchase, they probably hadn’t done so yet.
The meal was an epicurean extravaganza, the Michelin chef outdoing himself with his nine courses, each richer than the last. Maya nibbled at the fare as first-growth Bordeaux flowed like water, ten cases of Chateau Petrus from a stellar year purchased at auction in New York and shipped to Nahir’s temperature-controlled, eight-thousand-bottle wine cellar for the party. After salad, lobster bisque, and curried shrimp, a small piece of seared pork belly was followed by ostrich in a truffle reduction, which in turn was trumped by poached Chilean sea bass, bluefin tuna, fugu prepared by a master Japanese chef skilled in the art of preparation of the poisonous pufferfish, and the final entrée course of Kobe beef filet.
Throughout dinner Maya kept a veiled eye on Nahir and the terrorists, who looked disgusted by the ostentatious
display and as restless as she felt. When dessert had been served, paired with a brimming glass of Château d’Yquem Sauterne, she had already imagined fifty ways to kill them right there with her bare hands, and she had to remind herself that her mission was to destroy the agent, not slaughter the arms dealer and his clients. Although if she could, she intended to do both.
A contingent of guards ringed the grounds, their customary assault rifles exchanged for more discreet pistols so as not to alarm the guests, and she counted at least fifteen of the serious-looking men. She had little doubt that an equal number might be prowling the beach and perimeter wall, and for a moment she was overcome with despair. How was she supposed to prevail in the face of those odds? One woman, unarmed, against a platoon?
The answer, her inner voice assured her, is to be better than they are. Smarter.
After numerous toasts to Nahir’s continued good health and prosperity, the main musical attraction took the stage: a British pop legend whose career had spanned four decades, including marriages to supermodels and countless trips to rehab. A stir of excitement rose from the assembly, and Maya overheard one woman telling her husband that it had cost a million dollars to have him play a one-and-a-half hour set, plus expenses, the woman’s tone rising on the last word, as if the million wasn’t gratuitous but the expenses somehow were. Maya considered how many innocents had had to die at the working end of Nahir’s merchandise to pay for the party, and her disgust and resolve intensified as everyone stood and moved toward the stage.
Nahir led the terrorists into the house. Maya fought her way against the human tide, trailing them in, unwilling to let them out of her sight.
A steward stopped her on the veranda as they walked through the great room and out the front door. “Can I help you?” he asked, barring her way.
“I’m looking for the powder room.”
“Guests are being asked to use the pool facilities. I appreciate your understanding,” he said, a courtesy smile frozen in place, his tone firm.
Maya cursed silently and nodded. “All right. Thanks,” she said, and turned, the sequins on her dress glittering in the light from the crystal chandelier.
She’d need to work fast. There was no reason she could think of that Nahir would abandon his party when his favorite act was taking the stage except to coordinate a handoff. She skirted the crowd and worked her way to the bungalows after making a display of checking her slim clutch purse in front of the pool bathrooms and appearing not to find what she wanted.
Moments after entering the room, she stripped off her dress and donned her black pants and shirt. After confirming that there were no nearby guards, she hoisted herself out the back window and loped to the bamboo thicket where she’d buried the guard’s pistol in a plastic bag. She made quick work of disinterring it and chambered a round before creeping along the edge of the landscaping to the front of the villa.
Maya peered around a copse of trees in time to see Nahir returning to the house with only one of the terrorists. The rear gate was closing, and she waited as it shut before launching herself at the nearby perimeter wall and scrambling over. She landed softly, tucking and rolling to absorb the impact, and quickly made her way toward the rear gate, where three guards loitered outside, rifles in hand. She saw a dim light bouncing away down a trail eighty meters beyond – a golf cart or quad, she guessed.
She hastened into the brush and pushed her way through the high grass until she came to a footpath worn flat by the patrols. Once past the gate, Maya jogged along, her running shoes soundless on the powdery dirt, and when she rounded a bend that put jungle between herself and the villa, picked up her pace to a full sprint.
The eerie glow of the moon bathed her surroundings in a spectral light, and she could easily see tire tracks as she ran. She came over a slight rise and saw one of the suspect outbuildings on her right. Faint illumination seeped from a shuttered window. A lone guard at the door sat on a milk crate, his rifle in his lap as he lit a cigarette.
The sound of the band from the compound was faint, but sufficient to mask her footsteps as she crept around to the rear of the building. No windows there, but also no golf cart. She debated continuing down the path, but something tugged at her. There was a guard. That meant that even if this wasn’t where the nerve agent was being housed, there was something of value inside.
Or something that needed guarding for another reason.
The man shifted on his perch, listening to the distant music carried by a gentle wind that stirred the wash of elephant grass lining the cart trail. He stiffened when a thump issued from the brush across the path from him, and he stood, weapon in one hand, flashlight in the other, pointing both at the suspicious sound.
Maya was on him from behind before he had a chance to turn, her hand clamped over his mouth as she plunged the five-inch blade of the carbon-fiber knife from her luggage through the base of his skull, severing his spinal cord with the thrust. As he crumpled, his rifle and flashlight dropped onto the dirt next to him. Maya heaved his body toward the front entrance and propped the corpse in a sitting position on the milk crate, to a casual observer appearing to watch the trail with sightless eyes. She retrieved his weapon and flashlight and tried the door.
Locked.
She glanced at the dead guard and spotted a key ring dangling from his belt. The third one did the trick, and the door groaned inward as she pushed it open, leading with the rifle. A single overhead low-wattage bulb burned in a socket suspended by a ceiling wire, and the space smelled like urine, sweat, and the distinctive copper penny odor of blood.
Natasha lay on the concrete floor behind a barred jailhouse door. The clotted blood around her nose and mouth and bruises on her arms and legs were visible even in the dim light, as were cigarette burns that marred her once-beautiful face. She turned her one good eye to Maya and hacked a wet cough.
Maya fumbled through the keys until she found one that opened the door.
“Don’t try to talk,” she whispered as Natasha tried to speak, her ruined mouth obviously impeding her ability to form words. She moved next to her and knelt by her side.
“No…I…they have…it’s at…the next…building…”
“The gas?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Let’s get you out of here. Can you walk?”
“I…I…maybe…”
Maya helped her to her feet, supporting her weight as she shuffled through the door. Once outside, Natasha paused and eyed the dead guard. “You…go. Leave me…”
Maya recognized the wisdom in Natasha’s order. She was in no condition to travel far, much less with any speed. Maya helped her a few meters, but it was clear that Natasha was out of the fight.
“Fine. I’ll come back for you.” Maya looked around. “We’ll get you into the underbrush. Hide, and if you hear anything, shoot. I’ll leave you my pistol.”
“No. You…may…need…”
“If an AK isn’t enough firepower, a lousy .40 caliber Browning isn’t going to help. Come on.”
They made it to the jungle. Natasha seemed to improve with every step of distance they put between her and the building, but she was still too frail to be much good. When Maya eased her into a sitting position at the base of a tree and placed the pistol in her hand, Natasha nodded her thanks.
“What…what’s happening?” she asked softly.
Maya explained about the terrorists with Nahir. When she finished, Maya asked the question that was burning her tongue. “Did you…tell them anything?”
Natasha shook her head with a wince. “No.”
Maya straightened and hefted the rifle. “Just sit tight. We’ll get out of this. You’ll see.”
“Be…careful…”
Maya disappeared into the night, the only sound the pounding of her running shoes and the far off wail of a guitar. A cold rage powered her as she raced down the dirt trail, the vision of Natasha’s brutalized form seared into her visual cortex as she prepared to inflict as much damage as po
ssible on the men responsible for the atrocity that was now Natasha’s face.
Chapter 34
Three minutes later Maya rounded a twist in the track and found herself facing a long concrete building nearly reclaimed by the surrounding jungle. Three guards stood by a golf cart, weapons at the ready, while two more loaded a wooden crate onto the back as the terrorist watched.
Maya fingered the trigger guard of the Kalashnikov and considered the best way to take the men. She could easily cut them down with one long, sustained burst from the rifle, but then what? The gunfire would draw every guard on the island. If there was more of the nerve agent in the building, she would be forced to run before she could destroy it.
She was favoring killing everyone as her only option when the terrorist said something in a guttural tongue and hopped onto the passenger seat. One of the guards rounded the front and slipped behind the wheel, and she watched as the cart bounced down another trail leading toward the water. Maya swore as her quarry pulled out of range and disappeared. The guards returned to the card game the loading had interrupted.
Laughter and good-natured swearing echoed off the building as she skirted it soundlessly, and once she was out of sight of the guards, she resumed a flat-out run in pursuit of the cart. The dirt underfoot transitioned into pale sand in the moonlight, and suddenly she found herself moving parallel with the shore, looping back toward the villa, the sound of the concert increasing as she neared.
When she reached the point where the trail met the beach, the cart sat empty. She squinted and could make out the terrorist in a fiberglass dinghy, its little outboard putting as he reversed from the shore. She ducked into the brush as the driver trudged back to the cart and swung it around, returning up the track. Maya remained hidden as the little boat motored far out into the bay and pulled alongside an anchored fishing boat, a light faintly glowing in its ancient pilothouse.
Applause exploded from the compound as the singer’s distinctive rasp brought one of his signature ballads to a close. Maya stashed her rifle along the trail and ran to the shoreline, where a wooden skiff was half beached, its bow resting on the sand. She unfastened the line that secured it to a palm tree and pushed it into the water, then hopped aboard and used the oars to move it farther from land. When she was a minute off the beach, four pulls on the outboard started it with a roar, and she pointed it on a course thirty meters off the fishing boat’s darkened stern.
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