by Alex Ryan
“Just plug in the USB drive that I gave you. It has an auto-run program that will grab everything. It’s wicked fast. You need only a few seconds.”
“I found Yao,” Nick said on the open channel for everyone, including Lankford, to hear. “He’s dead. Bullet to the head.” He snatched the envelopes from the dead man’s hand and shoved them into his cargo pocket. He walked over to the desktop computer, inserted Lankford’s flash drive into a USB port, and kept talking. “I’ve also got a tunnel in here. Looks like it goes—”
He paused midsentence.
Something was beeping . . . and the frequency was accelerating.
“Bomb!” Nick shouted and ran.
He was diving for cover when the ‘explosion’ happened.
Instead of a burning blast, all Nick heard were a series of anticlimactic whumps followed by a puff of gray smoke. Not a bomb, but self-destruct charges rigged inside the laboratory computers, undoubtedly triggered when he inserted the USB drive. He doubted he would have been injured had he not made it out. As it was, his strained left knee was screaming at him from his dive out of the room. Nick shook his head.
Shit. Lankford is going to be pissed.
An outstretched hand appeared in front of Nick’s face. He looked up and saw Zhang. They clasped hands, and the Snow Leopard Commander pulled him to his feet.
“What happened?” Zhang asked, peering into the room.
“Computers were booby-trapped,” Nick said.
“You need to check the other room, Nick,” Lankford barked in his ear on the secure channel. “You need to see what Zhang found.”
“So they killed him,” Zhang said, staring at the dead CEO alone at the table.
“Yep,” Nick said. “You surprised?”
“No,” Zhang said, shaking his head. “Just disappointed. I desperately wanted to talk to Yao. It would have been . . .” Zhang paused for a moment, his gaze distant, and then mumbled, “It would have been better for everyone if we could have ended this tonight.”
“Stop jabbering with Zhang and get your ass in the other room,” Lankford barked in his ear on the secure channel. “You need to see what Zhang found.”
“Got a tunnel to clear,” Nick said, gesturing to the hatch. “Why don’t you and your guys get started while I check out the other room?”
“This is a joint operation, Nick. I think you should come too,” Zhang suggested.
“Helicopters on the portico in less than ten mikes,” Lankford said, and then, in his other ear: “He’s playing games, Nick. Don’t take that shit from him.”
“Sure,” Nick said, “but first, let me clear that other room.” He marched toward the other doorway, but the Snow Leopard Commander stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. Then Nick watched Zhang pull a grenade from his kit.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
“There is a computer stack in this room as well,” Zhang answered. He tossed his grenade inside. “It is undoubtedly booby-trapped too.”
“What the hell is happening, Foley?” Lankford screamed in his ear.
The Snow Leopard Commander stayed upright, barely flinching as the grenade exploded in the other room. Then he turned to Nick. “Regrettably, there was nothing I could recover from the room,” he said. “How about you?”
“Same. Nothing at all,” Nick said. He resisted the urge to finger the envelopes in his cargo pocket.
“Then it is time to go,” Zhang said, clapping him on the back.
As they walked away, Nick glanced over his shoulder at the American and Chinese operators who were rushing between the rooms, trying to find anything of value and trying just as hard to prevent the other team from finding and securing anything they’d missed. He shook his head.
What a cluster . . .
Nick thought about Dash and about the madman Feng, who had nearly killed her. He thought about Yao, who had secretly pulled the strings all along. He knew there were others in bed with Yao—powerful actors who could snuff out a life with a text message and a wire transfer. He knew both the American and Chinese governments wanted the immortality technology that Yao and Feng had developed and that both governments had hoped that tonight they would get it. He also knew that Lankford was right—a powerful cabal was behind all of this. Yao’s murder proved he was not, and never was, the ringleader of this shadow organization. Whoever led the cabal had deemed the CEO enough of a liability that even his brilliant mind and vision weren’t enough to save him. Project Penglai would live on, just not at Nèiyè Biologic.
“Yao is dead. The high-value targets eluded us, and the computers were destroyed. Was this mission a success, Nick?” Zhang asked as they stepped outside.
A blast of crisp, clean mountain air swept across the portico.
Nick inhaled deeply and discreetly switched off his transmitters.
Then, staring into the black, he clasped a hand on his friend’s shoulder and said, “I think for you and me, it was the best we could have hoped for.”
CHAPTER 40
Landau and Associates Architectural Firm
Central Germany Division Headquarters
Eiselbener Strasse 46
Berlin, Germany
1430 hours local
Nick didn’t want to be here.
His body was battered and bruised from head to toe. He ached in places he didn’t even know a man could ache. The last time he’d felt this torn up was at the end of hell week in BUD/S. He groaned his displeasure at the world. He had done his part—done more than either government could reasonably ask of him. Now he didn’t want to talk to Lankford about why he had not secured the site. He didn’t want to argue about Zhang, the Chinese, nationalistic interests, secret cabals, or how Agent Ling was going to become a problem for everyone. He didn’t want the CIA man to hard press him for a job. And he didn’t want to have to turn him down again. But most of all, he didn’t want to waste another second in any place that wasn’t Beijing.
The only thing that mattered to him right now was going home to Dash.
“Are you okay, sir?”
He looked up at the pretty young girl—blonde hair, blue eyes, Eastern European features—who was eying him with more than a little concern and feeling maybe some irritation of her own.
“I’m fine,” he said, then remembering the bruised train wreck that was his face, he added, “Just uncomfortable. I was in an accident recently.”
She nodded and smiled at him.
“Would you like some water? Or perhaps tea or coffee?”
“Black coffee would be awesome,” he said.
“I’m sure Mr. Kent will be with you any minute,” she said in her clipped German accent. Her desk phone beeped. She smiled and held up one finger, taking the call.
After a brief conversation in German, she returned the receiver to its cradle. “Mr. Kent will see you now. I can bring your coffee in if you like.”
“That would be great,” he said, rising slowly, silently cursing his aching knee as he did. “Danke Shon,” he added, thereby depleting the entirety of his German language skills.
She opened the mahogany door and ushered him into an office larger than most apartments he’d lived in. Lankford stepped out from behind an imposing claw-foot desk and extended a hand. Nick shook it firmly.
“Thank you so much, Katrina,” he said.
“Of course, Mr. Kent,” she said. “I’m getting Herr Foley some coffee. May I get you another cup?”
“Yes, please,” the CIA man said, and the door closed behind Nick. Lankford gestured to the two oversized leather seats beside a matching couch that formed a sitting area beside the expansive window.
“Mr. Kent?”
“Clark Kent,” Lankford replied.
“No,” Nick said, shaking his head.
“Yes.”
“Your NOC is Clark Kent?”
Lankford tried to keep a straight face but failed and busted up laughing. “I’m just fucking with you, Foley. It’s David Kent.”
Nick chuckled and eased himself gingerly into the chair. “Nice digs compared to your last gig,” he added.
Lankford—now Kent—laughed out loud.
“I earned it,” he said, taking his own seat. He straightened the cuffs on his tailored shirt. Nick decided Lankford did, indeed, deserve it. Especially when he noticed the CIA agent leaning hard left because of his recent gunshot wound.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Nick said. Then, the fatigue suddenly hit him like a bus. “Look, I know we need to debrief this thing, but I’m going to be honest with you. All I care about is getting home. I hope you’re not planning on keeping me around for a couple days so everyone and their uncle can talk to me.”
“It’s not going to be like that,” Lankford said. “First things first, thank you for everything. Had you not agreed to help me find Peter Yu, we never would’ve had closure, and we certainly never would have stopped Feng and Yao. I owe you.”
“Even after getting shot in the other ass cheek?” Nick jabbed.
Lankford smiled. “Yeah, even with that. As you pointed out, I sucked you into this mess, so no foul there.”
The door opened, and Katrina delivered them their coffees—in porcelain china cups, he noted—and then left quickly, closing the door behind her.
“You have questions about the compound?”
Lankford nodded. “Don’t you?”
Nick sighed. He did have questions, he supposed. He just wasn’t sure he gave enough of a shit to wait around for the answers. He’d had enough of spy games and murderous psychopaths for two lifetimes. Yes, he longed for the truth, but he knew that Lankford, and others like him, would continue to ask questions and prosecute targets until the truth was birthed. He was just too damn tired to live at the pointy tip of that spear. All he wanted now was to get back to his real job and to Dash. But if he shut his eyes and plugged his ears, two weeks from now, when his batteries were recharged, future Nick would regret not knowing. He fingered the envelope in his left cargo pocket, debating the best time to hand it over.
“Not really,” he said at last.
Lankford listed in his chair and then crossed his legs, pain on his face. “Did you get a look in the other room?” he asked.
“You mean the one Zhang dropped a grenade in?”
“Yes.”
Nick shook his head. “There was nothing left to see, as far as I could tell.”
“Did Zhang take anything from the room? Anything before he tossed that goddamn grenade?”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t think so. He claimed he didn’t find anything.”
“And you trust him?” Lankford asked.
“With my life,” Nick said simply.
Lankford nodded.
“This isn’t over, Nick, I’m afraid. We’ve uncovered something enormous—something that has been rumored in the intelligence community for decades but over the years has morphed into an urban legend worthy of scorn and mockery. But this cabal is real, Nick. They have their tentacles so deep into so many corporations and governments that they may represent the greatest threat to security on earth right now. The existence of Project Penglai and the membership list you obtained is the first credible evidence that the legend is true. I have to pursue this. I could really use your help.”
“Count me out,” Nick said. “This thing—this cabal or whatever—is unnerving. But that’s why we have guys like you that can track the beast down and drive a stake through its heart. I’m done monster hunting, sorry.”
Lankford smiled and handed him a business card with two sets of numbers written on the back. “The top number is my new personal cell. The other number is my secure line. Stay in touch, Nick, and the next time you’re in Germany, you owe me a dinner.”
“Me owe you?” Nick said and laughed. “I seem to remember you stiffing me with the tab last time. I think you owe me.”
Lankford shifted in his seat and winced. “My association with you has resulted in my inability to sit comfortably for the rest of my life. But fine, if you won’t buy me dinner, I’ll settle for a drink.” He held Nick’s eyes. “Time will pass. You’ll heal. Dash will heal. That little voice will come back. You might change your mind. If you do, call me. We would love to have you back on the team, Nick.”
Nick sat pensively and watched Lankford take a sip of coffee. Then he reached into his cargo pocket. “I do have one thing that might help inform your decision about how to handle our new shadowy friends,” he said and handed the envelope to Lankford.
“What’s this?” Lankford asked, smiling. “A formal letter of apology?”
Nick shook his head, and Lankford’s face changed, sensing the dark gravity of Nick’s final gesture.
“That envelope was clutched in Yao’s dead hands when I found him.”
Lankford’s eyes widened.
“Addressed to me? Personally? How the hell is that possible?”
Nick shrugged. “It would seem your suspicions about the cabal’s tentacles being everywhere are true.”
Lankford opened the envelope and read quickly. Then he looked up, all the color and humor gone from his face. “Did you read this, Nick?”
Nick nodded. “I didn’t think you would mind, under the circumstances. I needed to know if I was secure after leaving the scene.”
“You’re not,” Lankford practically whispered. He looked up at Nick again, his voice heavy with dread. “None of us are.”
Nick stood. “Well, that’s another good reason to check out of the game. I’m just gonna have to hope that these bastards don’t have time to worry about an NGO worker bringing clean water to poor people in China. That being said, if you do happen to take down these motherfuckers, please send me a note. Until then, I’ll be looking over my shoulder.”
He extended his hand to the spook, but Lankford ignored it.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the CIA man said, waving the letter at Nick. “We’re not done talking. I need to know everything you know about this.”
“I don’t know anything else,” Nick assured him. “That letter is the only gold nugget I mined in those mountains, and I just turned it over to you. As far as I’m concerned, the less I know, the better.”
“There must have been something else,” Lankford pressed, his anxiety almost palpable. “Something on Yao’s body or in the room? Something that Zhang said, or that he didn’t say, that was a red flag? C’mon, Foley, think.”
Nick shook his head. “I already told you, that’s all I got.”
Lankford stood. “Has anyone else on our side seen this letter?”
“No.”
“What about Zhang?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Dash about it when you phoned her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Lankford nodded. “Good, keep it that way.”
Nick turned and walked toward the office door. “You said you’d have a plane waiting for me at Templehof with instructions for the pilot to take me wherever I wanted to go. Is that really true?”
Lankford nodded. “Where will you go?”
“Beijing,” Nick said with a tired smile. “It’s time to go home.”
EPILOGUE
Nick knocked on the door to Dash’s apartment. She’d invited him for a home-cooked dinner, recompense for the dinner of ruined risotto and never-cooked lamb chops she’d missed when bodies had washed up on Tung Wan Beach. Even though only two weeks had passed since that night, for Nick it felt like a lifetime ago. They were not the same people now that they were then.
They were something else, but what that something else was, he could not articulate.
“Coming,” she called from inside, her voice harried yet upbeat.
She opened the door and greeted him with an ear-to-ear smile. She wore a blue apron, cinched tightly around her narrow waist, and she had a smudge of flour on her cheek. The aroma of cooking bacon hit him a second later, and his stomach growled loudly.
“My stomach says hello,” he said.
>
“Hello, Nick’s stomach,” she laughed, bending at the waist and addressing his midsection. “Would you and Nick’s body like to come in?”
Grinning broadly, he stepped into the apartment. They stared at each other, both hesitant. Instead of embracing her, he affectionately wiped the white streak of flour from her cheek with the pad of his thumb and said, “Looks like you’re still at it.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “I ruined the first batch and had to start again.”
“Sounds familiar,” he said. “We must have attended the same cooking school.”
She laughed at this and closed the door behind him.
“What’s in the bag?” she said, looking at the ornate paper bag he was holding in his left hand.
“It’s a surprise.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I hope it’s not a present, because I don’t have one for you.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
She smiled and led him inside. He tried to follow her into the kitchen, but she stopped him at the threshold. “No, no, no,” she scolded playfully. “Go take a seat at the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”
He followed orders and took the seat facing the kitchen. Instead of wine or beer, the glass at the top of his place mat was filled with orange juice. A knowing grin spread across his face. “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d stepped into Grandma’s Kitchen,” he said. “Smells like pancakes and bacon.”
“You’re quite the culinary detective, Nick,” she called from the kitchen. “Does Zhang know about this secret skill of yours?”
“I sure hope not,” he said. “We wouldn’t want your government to think I’m actually an undercover food safety inspector.”
“You could definitely be deported for that.”
A beat later, she appeared with a plate in each hand and set one at her place and one in front of him. His plate was filled with an enormous Belgian waffle, a side of bacon, and a mound of scrambled eggs. She scurried back to the kitchen and returned with a dish of softened butter and a bottle of real maple syrup.