Ethan obeyed without question as they walked, but the urgency of the situation demanded questions and answers.
‘Please inform your captain that we need to send a priority signal to Washington DC, the Defense Intelligence Agency.’
‘Your signal will be sent in the air. Right now you need to get to Saudi Arabia.’
‘Why are we going there?’ Lopez asked.
‘You’ll find out on the way,’ came the response as the crewman led them to a doorway emblazoned with the legend: Strike Fighter Squadron 81. The door was open as they walked in and two pilots awaited them, both holding flight suits in their hands.
‘Oh, not again,’ Lopez murmured.
Ethan grabbed a proffered flight suit and began pulling it on as the older of the two pilots briefed them.
‘We’ll get you to King Abdulaziz Air Base in no time,’ he said. ‘Just sit back and enjoy the ride, okay? We’ve been told you’ve done this before?’
‘F–15s out of Eglin in Florida,’ Ethan confirmed, ‘couple of years ago.’
‘Air Force? Okay,’ the pilot replied, ‘that means you haven’t seen anything yet.’
Ethan was handed a gray helmet with a glossy black mirrored eye–shield, an oxygen mask and a pair of fire retardant gloves. As soon as they were ready, the pilots led them back through the endless corridors inside the carrier and then ordered them to don their helmets before climbing the steps back out onto the flight deck.
The sound of jet engines shredded the air as they ascended onto the aft deck, and Ethan saw rows of F–18E Super Hornets parked tightly together, their wings folded up as crewmen swarmed across them. Two of the sleek, angular fighter aircraft sat with their canopies open as the pilots led them toward them, both aircraft’s tails emblazoned with the 81st’s emblems.
Lopez stared at the fearsome looking aircraft with some trepidation.
‘This is down to Jarvis,’ she said finally. ‘He knows I hate this stuff.’
Ethan ascended a ladder beside the nearest F–18’s cockpit and climbed as directed by the ground crew into the rear seat, the pilot climbing into the front. A galaxy of television screens, dials, switches and lights confronted him as he was strapped into the ejection seat by a crewman. To his right, Lopez was likewise strapped into her seat, her head leaning on one gloved hand as she shook her head in dismay.
The canopy on Ethan’s F–18 closed and the raucous of the flight deck was silenced as Ethan heard the jet’s turbofan engines whine into life, crewman pulling power hoses from beneath the jet even as, right in front of them, a massive Grumman E–2C Hawkeye slammed down onto the deck. Ethan’s pilot called a series of radio commands to the control tower and within minutes they were taxiing across the crowded deck toward the bow catapults, directed by yellow–shirted crewmen using nothing more than hand signals, radios useless on the aircraft carrier’s violent and noisy deck.
‘You like fairground rides, Mr Warner?’ the pilot asked over the intercom.
‘That a leading question?’
The pilot laughed. ‘Brace yourself.’
The two jets lined up on alongside each other on the catapults at the carrier’s bow as crewmen again swarmed around them and Ethan saw the F–18’s wings fold down, the flaps being extended as the Hornet’s nose sank a little under the tension of the catapult.
A series of barked radio commands that Ethan could not decipher crackled over the RT, and he saw the pilot give a thumbs up and a salute to one of the deck crews as the Hornet’s engines whined up to full power, the jet vibrating like a leashed beast straining to escape.
Suddenly the aircraft jolted and then Ethan was shoved back into his seat as though he had been literally fired from a cannon. The deck flashed by in a surge of blurring motion and Ethan felt his lungs compressed against his spine and his head slam against the headrest as the F–18E Super Hornet was hurled from zero to a hundred eighty knots in a little over two seconds.
The deck blasted by and then suddenly the vibration was gone as the fighter soared into the air and banked gently right over the sparkling ocean. A scattering of cumulus cloud shot by, light and shadow flickering through the cockpit as Ethan saw the altimeter climbing through two thousand feet.
He looked over his shoulder out across the F–18’s wing, and saw Lopez’s aircraft move into close formation as they climbed up through broken cloud layers to twenty thousand feet, the bulbous canopy of the aircraft providing a spectacular panorama of the ocean below.
The pilot’s voice sounded in his ear.
‘I’m opening a data–link channel, stand by.’
Ethan waited for a moment and then Doug Jarvis’s voice crackled in his ear as one of the screens in the cockpit showed the old man’s face as he spoke from what must have been the DIA’s Watch Center in Washington DC. A second screen showed Lopez’s face obscured by her oxygen mask, dark eyes glowing with discontent.
‘Ethan, Nicola,’ Jarvis greeted them. ‘I trust that you’re enjoying the ride.’
‘Up yours,’ Lopez muttered in reply.
‘Many people would give their right arms to be sitting where you are now,’ Jarvis chided.
‘They can have mine,’ Lopez shot back. ‘What’s the story?’
‘Have you apprehended Abrahem Nassir?’
‘No,’ Ethan replied. ‘He escaped us and is likely heading for America even as we speak.’
‘I’ll alert the relevant authorities,’ Jarvis replied. ‘We’re already on high alert but it’s not possible to figure out where Nassir might strike, or whether he has allies already in the country we can neutralize. Do we have any further intel?’
‘Abrahem was in the company of an older man with plenty of money according to the prisoners questioned by the SEAL team, somebody called Tariq.’
‘We’ll look into it,’ Jarvis promised.
‘There’s also further evidence of Chinese involvement,’ Lopez added. ‘It looks like whatever Abrahem got his hands on, it doesn’t belong to him. If this entire thing is being funded by one man then this Tariq is at the head of the money chain – pin him down and it’ll lead to anybody else working for these two who are already Stateside.’
‘I was worried about the possibility of China’s involvement,’ Jarvis echoed. ‘The President is hosting a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House tomorrow evening for the President of the People’s Republic of China, some sort of major new Asian Trans Pacific Trade agreement.’
‘Abrahem might have plans to attack that ceremony,’ Lopez replied. ‘From what we can gather he may have obtained technology from the Chinese, perhaps the implants that were used to control Major General Thompson.’
Jarvis nodded.
‘There have been some further developments here. The FBI has people on the ground in Hong Kong and Kowloon trying to trace the connection between four NSA agents abducted there in 1997 and Abrahem’s involvement now. They’ve sent a pair of agents, a friend of yours I believe Ethan?’
‘Hannah Ford?’
‘The same. Quite an interest she has in you, courtesy of Director LeMay.’
‘The FBI are fishing for the same technology out there,’ Ethan said. ‘If Majestic Twelve are behind LeMay, then Mitchell might also be out there. You need to send her a warning.’
‘Correct,’ Jarvis replied. ‘But my men haven’t been able to locate her yet.’
‘She could be in danger and we can’t let that technology fall into the hands of Majestic Twelve, either through LeMay or Mitchell.’
‘Where do we start?’ Lopez asked Jarvis. ‘We need to pin this down before Abrahem can make his move.’
‘You’ll be flown to Saudi Arabia, where an aircraft is waiting to bring you back to the States. I’ve obtained one of the highest security rating’s our unit has ever achieved, because there’s something waiting for you here when you get back and you’re going to have to see it to believe it. Get your heads down, because whatever Abrahem has coming is going to keep you very busy when you ge
t back. For now, you’d best be on your way. Jarvis out.’
The screens in the F–18’s cockpit blinked out, and Ethan saw Lopez’s aircraft drift away out of formation until it was a bright speck on the horizon.
‘Time to hustle,’ the pilot said, ‘I feel the need.’
‘The need for what?’
Then reply came back from the other Super Hornet pilot. ‘Speed!’
Ethan felt the F–18 rocket forward as the throttles were pushed to the firewall. Full afterburner punched the Hornet through the sound barrier and the G–force acceleration crunched Ethan down into his seat as the fighter’s nose was hauled up into a steep climb as it searched for the rarified cold air of the upper atmosphere. The F–18 soared through forty thousand feet and rolled through the inverted, Ethan hanging onto his lunch as he was finally returned to right–side up. The sky above was a deep indigo blue and the clouds below tattered blankets of white stretched across the azure ocean.
‘We’re supersonic and heading for Mach Two,’ the pilot informed him calmly, ‘courtesy of Uncle Sam’s Navy.’
***
XXV
Tai Tam Tuk,
Hong Kong
‘Are you sure that’s the one?’
Vaughn kept a careful watch on the vehicle that was driving down a road toward Tai Tam harbor. Hannah drove, careful to keep her distance from the glossy black limousine as it cruised alongside a gorgeous mountain lake on one side and the sheer face of the Tai Tam Dam on the other, the harbor visible ahead and to their left.
‘It’s him all right,’ Hannah replied as she drove. ‘The plates match the traffic cam footage, but we can’t be sure that Mitchell’s aboard.’
Hannah could tell that Vaughn was uncomfortable with what they were doing. The brief from Director LeMay had been simple enough: track down Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez and ensure that they were arrested and imprisoned for their crimes, by way of looking into the NSA abductions from 1997. Now, they were driving into unknown territory on Hong Kong Island, following a man known to be an assassin and completely ignoring LeMay’s orders.
‘And we don’t know where Warner and Lopez are right now,’ Vaughn pointed out.
‘We’ve got nothing,’ Hannah agreed. ‘Right now, Mitchell is our only lead and also a link to Warner. LeMay will understand.’
‘LeMay might think that you’re working for Jarvis and not the FBI.’
‘And what’s he going to do?’ Hannah challenged. ‘We’re following leads pertaining to the Stanley Meyer murder, leads that connect to both Ethan Warner and Aaron Mitchell. These leads could close the case. If he doesn’t like what we’re doing here then he’s going to have a hard time reprimanding us about it – he damned well sent us!’
Vaughn gestured ahead. ‘The limousine’s turning.’
Hannah frowned as she looked ahead and saw the black vehicle turn right off the road and into a secluded forest. A barrier protected the entrance but it was open to allow tourists into the public park that surrounded the dam’s reservoir.
‘You think he’s going for a stroll in the countryside?’ Vaughn quipped.
‘How far does this go?’
Vaughn glanced at a map of the island in his lap.
‘Half way back to the city,’ he replied. ‘It’s a tourist trail and nature walk and the road runs right along it for about five clicks before you reach the edge of the city.’
Hannah frowned as she followed the limousine, allowing it to disappear infrequently around turns in the road which wound its way between soaring forests cloaking the mountains. There was not a lot of traffic on the road and only the occasional tourists on pushbikes.
‘What the hell is he doing all the way out here?’ she asked out loud.
Vaughn frowned. ‘If we know Mitchell, it’s nothing good. Maybe he wants to get out of the way of Hong Kong’s surveillance for some reason?’
Hannah did not reply as she drove, and then she saw the limousine pull over through the trees. Hannah eased the car by as she watched the limousine cruise into a small parking area in the woods. Through the trees she could see a series of trails vanishing up into the hills, the area devoid of tourists.
Hannah pulled over to the roadside and opened her door.
‘Mitchell will have noticed us behind him,’ she said. ‘We can’t risk pulling into the same lot. You drive on and find another, then double back for me. I’ll stay on Mitchell.’
Vaughn shook his head. ‘He’s dangerous, you can’t do this on your own. You saw what happened to Meyer and…’
Hannah got out of the car and shut her door before jogging away from their vehicle. She reached the edge of the tree line as she heard Vaughn drive away, no doubt cursing her to high heaven. She walked for a few minutes back up the road until she reached the parking lot.
The lot was deserted but for the black vehicle parked now alongside a narrow trail winding its way into the woods. The wind whispered through the leaves, dappled sunlight shimmering on the forest floor and reflecting off the vehicle’s glossy paintwork.
In for a penny…
Hannah stepped out from behind the trees and forced herself not to draw her weapon as she walked across the lot toward the car. She could tell even from a distance that the windows were mirror–black tinted, veiling the interior of the vehicle from prying eyes. Private plates, the vehicle otherwise unmodified and equally unremarkable. She could tell that the vehicle was unoccupied as she peered through the front window, so she moved on into the forest and followed the nearest of the trails.
She could hear no birdsong as she moved, a possible indicator that somebody had recently moved up the trail ahead of her, silencing the wildlife. She had read once that a forest requires around fifteen minutes to return to normal after a human being has passed through, and she reckoned that Mitchell could only be a couple of minutes ahead of her.
The sound of a branch or twig snapping from somewhere off the trail caught her attention and she froze, one hand resting on the butt of her pistol as she looked ahead through the trees. A muffled wheezing sound drifted to her on the faint breeze. Hannah looked over her shoulder to ensure that nobody was approaching from behind before she edged forward to where a dense thicket of vines and foliage concealed a small clearing amid the towering trees.
Another twig snapped, and Hannah eased forward to the edge of the thicket and then she froze once more as she surveyed the scene before her.
Bound to a tree trunk, his mouth gagged, was a Chinese man perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties. His brow was sheened with sweat and his face pinched with agony as he writhed against his bonds.
Another sharp crack, and now Hannah realized that the man’s arms were tied back around the far side of the tree and that she could see a tall, broad figure partially concealed there. The Chinese man screamed behind his gag and Hannah saw the shadowy figure wielding what looked like some sort of metal tool. She drew her side arm and waited, watching as the bound man wept, his head hanging low as the shadowy figure emerged from behind the tree with a pair of bloodied plyers in his hand.
Aaron Mitchell was physically larger than she had anticipated, the images she had studied for so long not doing justice to his frame. She figured maybe six four, two hundred fifty pounds and no fat that she could make out under a thin white shirt that bulged with muscle.
Mitchell moved to stand before his victim and waved the plyers in front of his face.
‘Don’t make me start on the front,’ he growled as he yanked the gag from the man’s mouth. ‘Kowloon, 1997. Start talking or you’ll never see your family again.’
The Chinese man’s features twisted in a volatile mixture of pain and rage as he spat his response.
‘Go to hell!’
Mitchell watched his captive for a moment and then shrugged. ‘So be it.’
The big man drew back his elbow and Hannah realized that he was about to plunge the plyers directly into the victim’s groin. The captive screwed up his face and gritted his t
eeth in anticipation of the unthinkable pain he was about to endure when Hannah stepped into the clearing and aimed her pistol at Mitchell.
‘That’s enough.’
Mitchell looked over his shoulder at her, an expression of mild surprise on his features as he remained motionless, the plyers inches from his victim’s body.
‘Drop the tool,’ Hannah uttered, her pistol aimed between Mitchell’s eyes.
Mitchell turned slowly to face her but did not drop the plyers. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’
Hannah raised an eyebrow. ‘Stopping you from killing somebody else, I’d say. Hands up!’
Mitchell did not move.
‘You’ve got about four minutes before we’re all dead,’ he said calmly. ‘I suggest you use them wisely.’
Hannah frowned at the big man. ‘You don’t expect me to believe that? Get down on your knees right now!’
‘Less than four minutes,’ Mitchell replied. ‘Either I extract the information that I know this man possesses, or neither of us will find out what really happened in Kowloon in 1997.’
Hannah kept her aim steady. ‘We can find that out at the Consulate’
‘You’re very naive,’ Mitchell growled.
‘And you’re a murderer!’ Hannah shouted. ‘I’ve already got you for one killing and it looks like you’re set for another right here!’
‘Needs must,’ Mitchell replied. ‘Three minutes.’
Hannah felt her pulse begin to race as she looked at the elderly man bound to the tree.
‘What does he know?’ she demanded.
‘Everything,’ Mitchell replied. ‘He works for Chinese intelligence as a hacker and has done so for many decades.’
‘I’m a financial consultant,’ the injured man whimpered, ‘for Hei Sing Bank in Kowloon. Call them, they’ll confirm it! And call the police!’
‘It’s a cover,’ Mitchell replied. ‘The bank has been infiltrated by hackers who use it as a staging post to attack western digital interests and military installations. We’ve known about them for some time.’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 16