xXx

by Tim Waggoner

  She allowed herself a quick smile. So far, so good. Now for step two.

  * * *

  At the end of the hall, the Director came to an elevator door. Like everything else about this building, there was nothing outwardly special about it, but once he pushed the button to open the door and stepped inside, it was a different story. The elevator was loaded with high-tech security devices out the yin-yang, most of which weren’t visible. The Director ignored them since they didn’t require him to do anything, and he stepped up to the retinal scanner built into the wall where the floor buttons would be in an ordinary elevator. He leaned his face close to the scanner and waited for it to read his retinal patterns. He never would’ve admitted this to anyone, especially not his colleagues or subordinates, but he got a kick out of technology, and he always pushed for his agency to have the newest, coolest toys. Sure, it was nominally in the name of national defense, but in reality it was because the Director liked to play with them. Such tech seemed almost like magic, as if there was nothing it couldn’t do. But shouldn’t do? That was a different matter.

  Retinal scan complete, the door slid closed and the elevator began to rise.

  * * *

  The Director watched the floor numbers on the digital panel change as the elevator ascended. Aside from the lobby—and where he was headed—every floor of the facility was empty. Though the CIA mainly operated outside the United States, the agency was permitted to deal with issues of foreign intelligence and terrorism on US soil. And if they occasionally overstepped their boundaries… well, you couldn’t really fault a fellow for being a patriot now, could you? And if Congress didn’t find out, so much the better.

  The elevator slowed to a gentle stop and the digital display read COMMAND CENTER. The door slid open, and the Director stepped out into the corridor and began walking with a purposeful stride.

  Time for an ass-kicking, he thought.

  * * *

  The instant the elevator door closed, the ceiling panel opened and a dark figure dropped silently into the elevator. He was dressed in black, with short brown hair and beard, intense eyes, and a brow that seemed to be set in a permanent scowl. Hawk straightened and bounced on his feet, eager for action. Hawk waited a few moments to give the Director a chance to move further away from the elevator. He kept bouncing, trying to contain the energy building within him. When he judged that that he’d let enough time pass, he pushed the button to open the elevator door. He stepped out before it was halfway open.

  * * *

  Three men were waiting for the Director as he entered the Command Center’s antechamber. They were not just their country’s best intelligence operatives; they were among the best spies in the whole goddamn world.

  Mr. Pond was a British agent with rugged good looks, and an ever-present smarmy smile who dressed as if he had just come from a formal occasion of some sort—and where he’d probably snuck away with a beautiful counterspy for some hands-on “interrogation.” Jonas Borne was CIA, and his detractors thought of him as a muscled pretty boy whose reputation was overblown. Such doubters usually ended up in intensive care—or the morgue. He wore a brown jacket over a black T-shirt—much more casual than Pond’s expensive tailored suit—but like Pond, Borne didn’t have a hair out of place on his head. Sometimes the Director wondered if the two men exchanged hair-care tips. The third agent was perhaps the deadliest of the three. He wore an old scuffed black leather jacket over a simple black pullover, along with black pants and shoes. Red Erik worked for Russian intelligence, hence his nickname, and unlike the other two spies, his appearance was of no special importance to him. He had a long, narrow face; handsome, but not especially so. He kept his hair buzzed short so he didn’t have to deal with it, and he sported several days’ growth of stubble. But what truly set him apart from his fellow agents was his eyes. Pond and Borne had no hesitation about killing when the mission demanded it. But Red Erik’s eyes glowed with a feral light that marked him as a man who enjoyed killing. And the more he killed, the happier he was.

  The Director walked past the trio of spies without acknowledging them. They were the first line of security for this meeting, so despite their much-vaunted reputations, as far as the Director was concerned, tonight they were little more than two-legged watchdogs. He stopped in front of a containment locker, one of several here, opened it, put his three phones—each of which he used for very different but equally covert purposes—inside. Then he closed the door and locked it by touching his thumb to a pigment analyzer pad on the wall.

  He continued down the hall to the Command Center’s entrance. A handprint reading and another retinal scan, and the door unlocked to admit him. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He heard a series of clicks and snicks as the locks reengaged. A conference table was positioned in the center of the room, on the wall behind it a big-screen TV. On the opposite wall was a large picture window—one-way glass, of course—providing an impressive view of the surrounding buildings. Six spymasters sat at the table, all of whom the Director was acquainted with. Friends, enemies, colleagues, pains in the ass—they were his opposite numbers, heads of intelligence agencies from across the globe. Standing behind them, backs against the walls, were their bodyguards, all of them armed and on high alert. He understood the spymasters’ cautiousness—after all, they were far from home—but he considered their desire for protection to be a sign of weakness. To succeed in this game, you needed balls of titanium, and attending a secret meeting with a bodyguard was like admitting you weren’t confident, or capable, of defending yourself.

  The men sitting at the table were a Who’s Who of the world’s most ruthless and devious schemers. Aside from the director of the CIA, there were six international spymasters, including the heads of Britain’s MI6, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) and China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). Each one a bastard through and through—at least when the situation demanded it, which in their line of work was more often than not.

  On the TV, the President of the United States was giving a speech. “This kind of brazen attack on American soil will not go unpunished. We will be vigilant, and we will find those responsible.”

  MI6 Control took notice of the Director’s entrance and used a remote to mute the volume on the TV. The Director was relieved. He hadn’t voted for the sonofabitch, and the man’s voice grated on his ears.

  All heads turned as his fellow spymasters acknowledged their host’s entrance. The Director stopped and regarded them for a moment before speaking.

  “Any of you assholes want to make this easy on all of us and just admit you killed Augustus Gibbons?”

  MI6 Control frowned. “How do we know it wasn’t you?”

  “Because I called the goddamn meeting, you Limey prick.”

  The Director glared around the table at his fellow spymasters, all of who glared right back. The meeting was off to a flying start.

  * * *

  The Director took a seat at the head of the table—naturally—and he gestured for MI6 Control to hand him the remote. The Director pointed it at the TV, pressed a sequence of buttons, and the President was replaced with images of the Dumpling Palace—or rather, the gigantic hole in the ground where the restaurant had once been.

  “Dandy of a pipe-blower—that crater must be the size of Wembley Stadium,” MI6 Control said.

  “It wasn’t a bomb.” The Director worked the remote and an image of a falling, burning object appeared on the screen, followed by footage of search teams sifting through debris.

  “A missile?” the Russian asked.

  “No, it wasn’t a missile. It was a satellite. At terminal velocity, the impact registered over eight kilotons. And without a ballistic heat signature, our long-range detection systems couldn’t even see it coming.” The Director switched the TV back to the live feed of the President, but he kept it muted.

  “You brought us all this way for an accident? Space junk falling from the sky?” the Chinese spy
master said.

  “Little paranoid, even for you, George,” MI6 Control said.

  The Director bristled inwardly at the man’s use of his first name. He much preferred being addressed by his title, even by friends, relatives, and lovers. Especially lovers.

  “Is it paranoia that this particular satellite just happened to be launched less than six days ago by an FSB dummy operation out of Moscow?” the Director countered.

  All eyes turned toward the Russian spymaster.

  “If Russia wants someone dead, we are behind you with gun and BAM!”

  The Director scowled. “That a threat, my friend?”

  The Russian scowled back, unintimidated. “Only if you feel threatened, friend.”

  The Director stood up, put his hands palm down on the table, leaned toward the director of the FSB, and unleashed a stream of profanity that would’ve burned the ears off the most seasoned sailor. Undeterred by the invectives hurled at him, the FSB director followed suit, standing, putting hands on the table, leaning forward, opening his mouth, and giving as good as he was getting. Except, of course, his profanity was in Russian. The other spymasters seated around the table shifted in their seats uncomfortably, and several of the bodyguards put their hands on their sidearms, just in case the situation escalated any further.

  Suddenly a piercing whistle cut through the two men’s shouting. They quieted at once and turned to see who had made the whistle.

  “I brought a tape measure, if that would help you settle things faster.”

  The woman was a striking blonde in her early forties. She wore a severe white suit jacket and skirt, the lines of the clothing sharp enough to draw blood. She projected an aura of icy confidence, and her eyes shone with fierce, uncompromising intelligence.

  This is a dangerous person, the Director thought. Aloud, he said, “Who the hell are you? And how did you get in here?”

  “Jane Marke. I’m with the OGA.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “Well then, I guess out of all the swinging dicks in this room, I’m the only one who’s any good at her goddamn job.”

  Marke took a phone from her jacket pocket, entered a number, and waited a moment for the person she was calling to answer.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Have him give a wave.”

  She nodded toward the TV, and the Director, along with his fellow spymasters, turned to look at the screen. The President was walking across the Rose Garden after finishing his address. An aide whispered into his ear, and the President stopped, looked to the crowed who’d gathered to listen to him, and waved at them.

  “And please burn that tie… Makes him look evasive.”

  Marke disconnected and replaced the phone in her pocket. Then she turned to the Director and the Russian spymaster. “Okay, you may sit.”

  The Director exchanged a glance with his FSB counterpart. Neither man spoke a word, but the message that passed between them was clear. Who the hell does this bitch think she is? But despite themselves, both men sat.

  The Director hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he’d never heard of Marke or of the OGA—whatever the hell that stood for. And since it was the Director’s job to know everything that was worth knowing, this bugged the holy living shit out of him.

  Marke reached into another jacket pocket and brought out a handheld device unlike anything the Director had ever seen before. It wasn’t just next-gen tech; it was next-next-gen.

  “Gentlemen,” Marke said, “this is the device that crashed the satellite. Nerds in the lab have coined it Pandora’s Box.”

  * * *

  A figure garbed entirely in black moved across the city’s rooftops with the speed and grace of a creature born to this environment. Xiang was a shadow among shadows, a silent silhouette cutting through the night with surgical precision. His mind and body were in perfect balance, fused into a single powerful force directed toward one goal: reaching the anonymous building where some of the world’s most dangerous people were holding a secret meeting. By this point, Serena and Hawk were moving into position, and Xiang needed to haul ass if he didn’t want to be late for the party.

  Despite the intense physical exertion, his breathing was steady, almost relaxed, and his heart rate was surprisingly low. A light sheen of sweat on his forehead was the only outward sign of the effort he was putting forth. His expression was calm, almost placid, as if he were meditating instead of running all out. It was moments like this, nights before an operation kicked into high gear, that he felt most alive, most truly and completely himself. He didn’t believe in an afterlife, but he didn’t disbelieve, either. There was far too much to contend with in this life for him to concern himself with any other. To Xiang, this was what it meant to truly live.

  He poured on the speed as he approached the edge of a roof and then, without an instant’s hesitation, hurled himself out into space.

  * * *

  “My team back-tracked the satellite’s last signal input to Miami,” Marke said. “Some asshole living it up at the Ritz-Carlton penthouse thought he could hold the world ransom. Three flashbangs, two bullets, and one body bag later, we took custody of the device.”

  The Director scowled. “You have to be kidding me. There must be at least a hundred redundancies in place to prevent some punk with a laptop hijacking satellites.”

  “And Pandora’s Box can bypass all of them,” Marke said. “With a push of a button, it can eavesdrop on secure communications, corrupt military software, transmit false intelligence… or crash a satellite out of the sky like a goddamn tactical warhead.”

  The Director was no scientist any more than his counterparts were, but when it came to assessing threats, that was their bread and butter. All of them had explored the possibilities of attack by falling satellites before—whether as aggressor, target, or both—and they all had come to the same conclusion: it wouldn’t work.

  Marke sounded irritated, “Tech like this costs a hell of a lot of money. Only an extremely powerful—and particularly devious—intelligence agency could hope to pull this off, and that means one of you is behind this, and I’m not leaving until I find out who.”

  That was the moment the Director decided he had put up with more than enough of Marke’s shit. He opened his mouth to tell her just that, when the window exploded.

  * * *

  Xiang crashed through the window directly behind Marke. He collided with her, knocking her to the floor, and as he rolled off of her, he snatched Pandora’s Box from her hand. Xiang then leaped onto the conference table and held the device out so Marke could see that he’d taken it. Marke had already risen to her feet, and she glared at Xiang with a mixture of surprise and fury. He allowed himself a small smile. Always nice to have one’s work appreciated. Marke dove for cover as MI6 Control drew a 9mm and pointed it at Xiang, but before the man could fire, Xiang snatched the weapon from his hand and kicked him in the face, sending the spymaster tumbling backward in his chair. The man’s bodyguard reached for his weapon then—a little late on the draw, Xiang thought—and he shot the man through the heart before he managed to raise his gun. As the bodyguard dropped, the man sitting next to MI6—the Mossad spymaster—reached for his own weapon, and Xiang spun around and kicked him in the face, sending him tumbling back to join his fellow spymaster on the floor. Two of the bodyguards that had been standing behind the Mossad director drew their weapons.

  Alarms blared then, and steel shutters dropped down over the windows—Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Xiang smiled. A little late, assholes, he thought. He slipped Pandora’s Box into his inner jacket pocket, both to safeguard it and to free up his other hand.

  The two guards opened fire then, but Xiang was too fast. He launched himself off the table, glanced in the direction of the Russian spymaster, and then shot one of the attacking bodyguards dead. He shot at the second bodyguard, but missed. Unconcerned with his miss, Xiang turned toward the Russian and gave the man a triple-kick, knocking him down as two more bodyguards began to shoot. Xiang
knew all the guards would’ve started blasting away at him the instant he crashed through the window if they hadn’t needed to worry about accidentally shooting their bosses—the very people they had sworn to protect. The guards would continue to be cautious, but the question was for how long?

  Xiang jumped back onto the table, landing on his back and spinning around in a maneuver resembling a breakdance move. He fired as he spun, taking out several bodyguards and the Chinese spymaster. As his spin slowed, Xiang’s gun clicked empty. He tossed the weapon aside and unzipped his jacket. A bodyguard trained his weapon on Xiang, but before the man could fire, Xiang slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around the bodyguard’s arms, trapping the man’s weapon inside his jacket. Xiang yanked the jacket toward the ceiling, breaking the bodyguard’s grip on the gun. As the weapon flew into the air, Xiang reached up to grab it, then whipped the bodyguard across the face with it. Xiang pulled his jacket free from the man’s arms as the man went down, and he tossed it on the table behind him. He caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye, and he pointed the gun behind him and fired, taking out another bodyguard who’d been about to shoot him.

  Xiang didn’t see Marke, and he assumed the woman had taken shelter beneath the table. The CIA director had evidently had enough, for he’d risen from his seat and was heading for the door. Xiang didn’t give a damn about the man. His sole objective was to obtain Pandora’s Box, so what did he care if the man got away? That meant there would be one less person in the room for him to deal with.

  Xiang stood upright on the table and quickly looked around. Two bodyguards on the other side of the table were getting ready to fire at him, and he ran toward them and executed a flying double-kick, striking both men in the face and dropping them to the floor before either could get off a single shot.