Raven held up the temporary phone they’d loaned her to replace the one taken by Locsin. “I don’t think we have to wait that long. While we were recovering from the battle, I was finally able to check my email and found a message from an account that I’ve never seen before. It says, ‘Raven, this is Beth. In a huge cavern but don’t know where. Track this cell number to find me.’ I checked the number in the message, and it has a Philippines prefix based on Negros Island. If this is legit, Beth might have found a way to lead us right to Locsin.”
58
NEGROS ISLAND
By the time night had fallen in the cavern, Beth was lying on her bed going crazy from boredom. Besides her meal breaks, she’d had no human contact, and there was nothing to read or do in her cell. Because of the double doses of Typhoon, she felt better than ever. Her wound was healing well, but she also had the periodic urge to smash everything in the room from frustration at her predicament.
She wondered if her email message had been received. It was possible that it had gone straight to Raven’s junk mail because it came from an unknown number. And Beth had no idea if they really could track Dolap’s phone, nor did she know if the phone was actually broadcasting, especially given the depths of the cavern. She had a feeling that this is what Purgatory would be like.
The exquisite masterpieces she’d examined were the only thing keeping her sane. She could have kicked herself for assessing the value of the paintings so quickly. She should have said it would have taken days, not only so she could revel in their beauty but also to stave off the inevitable moment when she was no longer useful to Locsin.
She heard voices in the hallway and got up. They were approaching her room. If she was going to get out of here, she might as well try anything and everything. She really didn’t have much to lose.
A key rattled at the lock, and she picked up the metal nightstand with ease. To her surprise, she was able to hold it over her head even with her injured shoulder.
As the door opened, she swung the table at the first person she saw, delivering a strong blow to the man’s shoulder. It was Dolap, who shrugged it off as if it were just an annoyance and wrested the table from her hands. With a look of fury, he raised the table as if to strike her with it, but a voice behind him yelled, “Stop!”
Locsin stepped into the room with Tagaan. Both of them started laughing, and Dolap joined in after a moment, putting the table back down. Beth wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of being cowed, so she sat on the bed and checked her nails with disdain. They actually weren’t too bad, given the circumstances.
“Ms. Anders,” Locsin said after the laughter ceased, “you’re looking well.”
Beth didn’t even look up, concentrating on a chip in her thumbnail.
“I hear you’ve had a healthy appetite. It must be helping your wound.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Beth saw him nod at Dolap, who walked over and yanked aside the bandage on her shoulder.
Locsin peered at it. “Excellent. This has been a very interesting experiment. And thank you for the appraisal of the paintings. Tomorrow I would like you to show me how to verify their authenticity.”
“I doubt I could teach anything to someone like you.”
“You might be surprised,” he said with a sickening smile. “I spent three years at university in Manila before I came back here to carry on the struggle for my people.”
Beth looked Locsin in the eye and laughed derisively. “Every murderer like you thinks he’s a freedom fighter.”
Locsin shook his head. “It’s pointless to get into a debate with you about whether the ends justify the means. Today I had a similar discussion with your friend Juan Cabrillo, and it didn’t go well for him.”
Beth shot to her feet. “What did you do to him?”
“Him and his whole ship, actually. They’re gone. If you were holding out some pathetic hope that he would come rescue you, you might as well forget about it.”
Stunned, Beth collapsed back onto the bed.
“Now get some sleep,” Locsin said. “I want you rested for my lesson tomorrow. Even if you think I’ll be a slow learner, we’ll have plenty of time. There’s a typhoon coming through. By tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be socked in for several days. Good night.”
They left, and Dolap locked the door behind them.
Beth was in shock. She didn’t know whether to believe Locsin or not. But it was likely that Raven had teamed with Juan after Beth was abducted, which meant that if he was really dead, Raven probably was, too.
It felt like there was a hole in Beth’s stomach. Normally, she would sob uncontrollably at the loss of her friends and at the true hopelessness of her situation. But right now there was nothing inside her but anger. She wanted to kill Locsin, Tagaan, Dolap, all of them. She wanted to make them suffer, but she couldn’t. At least she could let them know she wasn’t going to take this quietly.
Beth picked up the nightstand and beat it against the door until her fingers ached.
• • •
AS HE STOOD with Tagaan and Dolap at the end of the hall, Locsin could hear the bang of metal against Beth Anders’s door.
Dolap made a move toward her room, but Locsin put his hand up to stop him.
“Let her vent,” he said. “It shows that the Typhoon is working.”
They continued talking as the banging went on.
“Are we ready for Hidalgo?” Locsin asked.
“We need to bulk up our food stores before the storm arrives,” Tagaan said. “We don’t know how long the roads may be out after that. We also need ingredients to keep our meth lab in operation.” The meth lab was in a remote corner of the cavern because of the noxious chemicals required.
Locsin turned to Dolap. “Since you’ve done such a good job with Ms. Anders, I’ll give you some time in Bacolod tomorrow morning to get the supplies. Pick a man to take with you. You shouldn’t require more than one truck.”
“Thank you, comrade,” Dolap said, obviously pleased with the reward. “She has been difficult at times.”
“You won’t have to deal with her much longer. We’ll test the Typhoon on her for one more day. If the effects are still positive, we’ll dispose of her before Hidalgo has passed. No sense in wasting any more of the drug on her.”
He dismissed Dolap, who went back to his post outside Beth’s room.
“What about the Typhoon and the flower?” Tagaan asked. All of the barrels were still inside the truck in which they’d arrived, under armed guard even inside the cavern. “Where should we store them?”
“Once the storm has passed, I will drive them to our hiding spot outside the cavern. Only you and I will know the location of the bulk of the pills. The temptation of theft by our men will be too high here. Since we should be in full production of the drug soon, I want to move up our timetable to take over the Philippines. How is Kuyog production proceeding?”
“With half the parts shipment destroyed by Juan Cabrillo and his people, and with fifty of them used to sink the Oregon, we’re down to one hundred and thirty-eight either complete or in production. We can order more components from the Chinese supplier that we addicted to Typhoon, but it will take time to manufacture and ship them here.”
Locsin thought about their planned attack on the Philippine Navy. Now that they’d annihilated the ultra-sophisticated Oregon and had refined their tactics, he felt confident that they could wipe out the more conventional warships of his own country’s navy with the remainder of the Kuyogs.
“Continue our production at maximum capacity,” Locsin ordered. “I want them all completed in a week and prepared for use. Then we will begin our campaign to conquer the Philippines. After that, we set our sights on the rest of Asia.”
Tagaan frowned. “Comrade, we should wait until we have Typhoon in production. It is reckless to move against the government before we have our supply secured.�
��
Locsin stared at Tagaan. This was the third time that his number two had questioned his judgment. “Do you think you’re smarter than I am?”
Tagaan hesitated only a moment before answering, but it was enough for Locsin to notice. “Not at all.”
“But you’re saying I’m reckless. Am I stupid, too?”
Tagaan averted his gaze. “Forgive me for being unclear. I meant that we have time now that we have more than a million Typhoon pills at our disposal. We should use them to take over the government from the inside. Then we can use the Kuyogs against any country that opposes us.”
Locsin balled his hands into fists, then released them and smiled. “Excellent. You are a wise man, my friend. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Thank you, comrade.”
“But I also think it’s wise to complete production of the Kuyogs as quickly as possible in case something unforeseen happens. Don’t you agree?”
“I do, comrade.”
“Then go make sure our production is continuing as projected. I’ll take the lead on finding more chemists to develop the drug from the orchid.”
Tagaan nodded, and Locsin glared at him from behind as he left.
Locsin then called to Dolap, who rushed to his side. Dolap was Locsin’s cousin and one of his most trusted men, which was why he’d been put in charge of Beth and the paintings.
“Yes, comrade,” Dolap said.
Locsin put his hands on Dolap’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “When you’re in the city, I have a special mission for you. Make up some excuse for whoever you take with you that you need twenty minutes on your own. This is just for you and me. No one else is to know. No one.”
59
On the deck of the Oregon, Juan was buffeted by the steadily strengthening winds as he walked toward Max at the stern. The black clouds made it look like daybreak even though the sun had risen an hour before. A small river fed the wetlands that were protecting the ship from the brunt of the waves crashing onto the shore, but they wouldn’t completely mitigate the effects of the storm surge when Typhoon Hidalgo arrived. For that, they would need propulsion from the engines, which were currently shut down.
Standing beneath the jackstaff, Max peered over the railing at crewmen working on the Venturi nozzle below. He had to yell at the top of his lungs to be heard over the howling wind.
“No! Just rip it off!”
When Juan reached the railing, he looked down and saw three men in the water tugging at a bent piece of metal. A fourth crewman was using a blowtorch to cut apart the jagged remnant of the Kuyog explosion.
“Are you scrapping my ship?” Juan teased.
Max turned to him with bloodshot eyes from working straight through the night. “We might as well if we can’t get that nozzle functional in the next few hours. An anchor isn’t going to keep us in place. What’s the latest forecast?”
“We should be seeing hurricane-force winds before dark. It’s been downgraded to a Category Three, but the center of the storm is still on track to pass right over us, so we’ll get the worst of it. Do you think we’ll be ready for it?”
“Fingers crossed. There was nothing I could do about the ballast tank flooding. That will take some heavy-duty welding on the exterior hull. But I’ve finished recalibrating the cooling system, and the damage to the magnets wasn’t as bad as I first thought. If we can get this Venturi nozzle at least somewhat operational, I think we can get us to three-quarters power output. But even if that happens, the ride is going to be pretty rough for the next thirty-six hours.”
“I have faith in you,” Juan said.
“I’m glad someone does, because the thought of doing maintenance work outside in a gentle one-hundred-mile-an-hour breeze isn’t my idea of fun.”
Juan left Max still yelling and went to the nearest hatch, which looked as if it were jammed shut with a broken handle. He pressed in three spots simultaneously on the hatch, and it sprung open, revealing the luxurious secret interior.
He took the teak-paneled stairway down to the Magic Shop, the Oregon’s workshop and storehouse for any gadget, costume, or makeup needed for a mission. He found Kevin Nixon hunched over one of the many workbenches tinkering with an electronic device. Dozens of clothes racks were behind him, as was a makeup counter worthy of a movie set, a metalworking table, a woodshop, and shelves full of electronics, tools, and assorted gear.
Kevin was an award-winning Hollywood special effects master who had joined the Corporation after his sister was killed on 9/11. Any time someone on the Oregon needed a disguise, a uniform, or an unusual piece of equipment, such as Juan’s combat leg, Kevin would put his considerable expertise to work. Unlike the athletic veterans, former special forces operators, and CIA agents that made up the bulk of the crew, Kevin’s sedentary job and rich food provided by the chef meant that he was constantly at war with his weight, though right now he was looking more svelte than usual and seemed to be winning the battle of the bulge.
When he saw Juan enter, Kevin looked up, pushed the pair of magnifying glasses back onto his head, and sighed.
“You’re not going to blow up this tracker, too, are you?”
“Me personally?” Juan said. “No. But, then, I’m not going on the mission. Besides, technically I didn’t blow up the last one, either. That was Tagaan’s fault.”
“Who’s going to destroy it this time?”
“Eddie, Hali, and Raven. They’ll blend into the Philippine crowds better than Linc and I would.”
“I met Raven when I was outfitting you all with those Filipino police uniforms. She seemed quiet, but extremely competent.”
“She’s performed well even though she hasn’t worked with us before,” Juan said.
“She’s highly motivated. The few times she talked, she had some choice words for this Locsin guy. Sounds like it’s personal.”
“It is. She was on protective detail for Beth Anders. We think this mission will help find her.”
“You said she sent a phone number to home in on?”
Juan nodded. “I have a request in to Langston Overholt to track it down, and he passed it on to the NSA. I figured they owed us for the Vietnam job. Lang says they agreed to find it, but apparently the phone isn’t transmitting right now. It may be off or unable to get a signal. As soon as it comes back online, he’ll let me know. Then I’ll send the team in to plant that new tracker of yours so we can find out where he’s going. Unless, of course, Beth is with the phone’s owner at the time. Then they’ll snatch her back right there.”
Kevin handed the tracker to Juan. “Since you gave me a second shot with this one, I decided to add a few features.”
The device was a little larger than the previous tracker that Juan had planted on the truck holding the Kuyog components. It was cylindrical and painted black.
“One end is magnetic,” Kevin said. “Just stick it under the chassis of any vehicle you want to follow. If the satellite signal is blocked because it’s in a building, it will use any cell phone or Wi-Fi signal available to continue transmitting.”
Juan noticed a thin seam near the end opposite the magnet.
“What’s this?”
“Good eye.” Kevin turned to a laptop and typed in a command. The cylinder telescoped out to reveal a tiny camera suspended from a gimbal. “I repurposed this from one of our drones. You’ll be able to control the camera sightline remotely. There’s even a mic for audio feed. Just make sure the cylinder is placed somewhere that the telescope can extend past the vehicle’s frame.”
Juan smiled. “You’re a genius. And to think your talents could have been wasted winning an Oscar for designing some monster in the latest superhero movie.”
“If it helps save Beth, I don’t mind missing out at all. Award shows are overrated anyway.”
Juan’s phone buzzed, and he answered it
immediately when he saw it was Overholt.
“Did you find it?” Juan asked without preamble.
“The NSA reported that the phone came online a few minutes ago,” Overholt said. “Who knows how long it will be active, so I advise sending in your team immediately. I’ll relay the coordinates to you.”
“Where is it?”
“Just like you thought, the signal is coming from Negros Island. It’s a city called Bacolod not too far from your present position. Good hunting.”
He hung up and called Hali, who was waiting with Eddie and Raven in the boat garage ready to take the RHIB up the river to a small town where they could “borrow” a vehicle for the morning.
“Hali,” Juan said. “We just got the coordinates of the phone signal. Tell Eddie the mission is a go.”
60
BACOLOD, NEGROS ISLAND
Finding an isolated car to hotwire took longer than Eddie thought it would, but according to the NSA, the phone that Beth had told them to track was still in the city when he, Hali, and Raven arrived. With over half a million people, the modern city of Bacolod was a major hub for the processing and shipment of the sugar grown in the vast fields they’d passed on the drive. If they didn’t intercept the person with the phone before it turned off again, they’d never find him.
Although none of them looked Filipino, Raven’s and Hali’s caramel complexions and dark hair meant that they could more easily disappear into the crowds of people preparing to ride out the coming typhoon. And since people of Chinese ancestry made up a significant portion of the population, Eddie looked like he could be a native. Most of the inhabitants spoke English, so language wouldn’t be a problem, though they’d have to fake the accent.
The NSA guidance led them to a plaza crowded with shoppers getting last-minute supplies before the storm. The nearest building had a sign on it that read Visayan Wholesale Foods.
Eddie parked the car, and the three of them walked toward the building, which had trucks lined up outside loading crates of food to replenish the rapidly emptying grocery stores. There was apparently no thought of evacuation, but Eddie wasn’t surprised. There was simply no way to clear out an entire island of more than four million people.
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