Hit Hard

by Amy J. Fetzer

  His boss was quiet for a moment and was likely thinking as David was: that China had a lot of snoop hardware and maybe they were trying to tap into theirs. “See if there are any spikes elsewhere. Start with Arizona relay and work east.”

  A lot of ground to cover, David thought, flexing his fingers to prepare for the long haul.

  Anan Isarangura watched the chief of the morgue pull the body from the river. It hadn’t been there long, he thought, or it would be bloated horribly. But cause of death was obvious and his officer rushed up the incline and to his side.

  “It is the same as the last.”

  Anan had seen the like before, several years ago. The ambulance workers lifted the body onto a gurney. Despite the heat of the morning, the young officers shivered beside him.

  “Who would do such a thing to a man?”

  “A very angry person, I suspect.”

  His gaze traveled over the crowd, searching the faces. Often the killer watched the discovery of their handiwork. He looked for someone in the background, someone almost eager to see how the police reacted. He found only onlookers who quickly turned away at the sight of the bloody body.

  Anan understood the criminal mind better than most of his staff and his investigators. He’d worked for many years searching the world for the worst of society before coming home. Before this body was discovered, he knew that there were terrorists using his homeland as a haven. Law agencies from all over the world had sent their people here to search them out. Anan was not offended. He understood that in his own ranks, some officers were ruled by the Chow, the Jao Pho. Because of money, not for their cause.

  Yet when dealing with the most vile, one often had to send their most deadly. Balance the scales, he thought, then wondered how deep the American was in this.

  Viva lurched back when Sam whipped around aiming his gun. He released a breath, pointed to the ceiling as Logan and Sebastian came through the door. “Chéri, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, he’s not.”

  Logan holstered his weapon and examined the body. “This looks like a battle, but stabbed in the back.” He pried at the deep gouge and Viva’s stomach turned over. “Big knife. Might have pierced his lung.”

  “He said someone he trusted did that.”

  Logan looked up. “Another agent?”

  “A contact who got a better offer,” Sam said and thought of Niran. The guy would sell out his mother for a profit. He told them what Kashir had said, and the seal Viva found.

  “Not so odd,” Sebastian said. “The house has an embassy emblem near the front door. And it looked like that.” He gestured to the printout.

  “What country?”

  “Algeria.” Logan told them about the diamond cutter’s children and his certainty left no questions.

  Sam frowned. “Algeria assumed a seat on the UN Security Council. The same time as Sulak Krahn.”

  “Who?” Viva asked.

  “The man who hired us to trace the diamonds,” he answered, distracted. He was at the desk, searching for something.

  Viva started toward the hall, looked at the body, then at Sam. “What will you do with him?”

  Her sad expression made him hurt for her, her clothes covered in Kashir’s blood. “Deliver him to Interpol.”

  “It seems so undignified. His life is over because he tried to get to you.”

  Sam moved toward her, seeing the stress in the lines around her mouth. “You okay?”

  She looked away as Sebastian and Logan lifted the body out the door. “That’s two people who’ve died on me.” Strangers, she thought. One bad, one trying to do something good.

  Sam frowned and started to come to her. She put up her hand. “Give me a minute.”

  He turned to the team. “Get the Big Cheese on the wire. He needs to know about this.”

  Kukule Ganga Dam

  Kalawana, Sri Lanka

  Thomas Rhodes cursed under his breath and ended the early-morning call.

  “They don’t believe you,” Risha said, turning from the window and sipping from a bottle of water.

  “Would you?”

  “It is hard to believe, Thomas.”

  “But without proof, no one wants to listen.” He pocketed the phone. “I left messages for everyone I know at the Pentagon. If I get an answer, then maybe.”

  “It changes nothing about the dam.”

  “If something could make that hole, it could do it again.”

  Horror shaped her expression.

  “I think we have some big trouble coming.”

  Risha’s assistant threw open the trailer door and ran inside, grabbing the remote and switching on the TV. “You are not going to believe this.”

  They watched the broadcast and Thomas slowly lowered to a chair. “That’s impossible. Utterly impossible.”

  “If you knew where the buyers were,” Viva heard as she came into the room. “why didn’t you ghost them all, for crissake?”

  “I don’t know all of them, just the ones I had a visual of. But the seller is the one we have to take down. The rest, we can pick off whenever we want.”

  Sam threw Kincade a narrow look. “If you could, then bin Laden would be in the ground.”

  “Someone else is doing it for us anyway.”

  “Max!” Viva rushed to give him a hug. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  He looked over her shoulder at Sam and said, “She likes me best.”

  Viva laughed. Sam didn’t.

  “I heard you guys had a woman on the team.” Kincade inspected her slowly from head to toe and Viva felt stripped.

  “And I’m not her. I’m the troublemaker.”

  “Viva,” Max said kindly. “Not your fault, but ours.”

  “Good, take the blame. Do I get a cut now?” She looked at the new face and Sam introduced Adam Kincade.

  He was on the phone and waved. “You were right, it’s a diplomatic seal.”

  “Big deal, did you match the face?” Viva asked.

  “Is she always this demanding?”

  “Yes,” they all said at once.

  Viva whipped around, flushing red.

  “I like ’em like that.”

  The team gave Kincade a narrow look and he laughed.

  But it was Sam who said, “Off limits, Kincade.”

  It made Viva feel giddy as Kincade went back to speaking into the phone, jotting notes. He ended the cell call and came to them. “You have more information than we do. Though I can tell you exactly which terrorists are in country.”

  Viva didn’t know what the names meant, but the team certainly did. They went still as glass, and lots of “oh, shit” fluttered around the room.

  “Sam, we have McGill on the line,” Logan said, and Sam grabbed the phone, giving the general the latest development.

  “Wyatt, do you know the political ramifications of entering a house of the diplomatic corps?”

  “I imagine for the same reasons these guys brought them there, sir.”

  “We can’t touch them.”

  “Sir, this man was kidnapped, and his family’s hostage. We have confirmation. We’ve seen the children.”

  “Entering will set back diplomatic relations with Algeria five years.”

  Sam’s fist clenched in a small effort to control his temper. “He has the diamond, when the cutter isn’t of any use, he’ll kill him and any trail.”

  A lengthy silence passed before McGill said, “The US government must claim no knowledge of what transpires inside the diplomatic corps of another country. It’s sovereign foreign soil. We cannot interfere in domestic internals of diplomats. I repeat, you—”

  “You don’t need to say it twice, McGill, I’m not fucking deaf. So we leave this man’s family there to be executed?”

  “It’s unfortunate, but we can’t. Relations all over the world with the US will be jeopardized.”

  “And babies will be dead. Hope you people sleep well tonight.” Sam cut the line and swore.

 
Viva looked at them all. “We can’t leave those kids there. God, what Voslav did to those children in that abandoned school…”

  That foul place flooded Sam’s memory, and his rage over it went nuclear.

  “Bending rules is one thing,” Kincade said. “Causing an international incident that will put the US in a bad light is another.”

  “I can’t believe you’re even hesitating,” she said.

  “Viva. We feel the same way, but if we assault, India will be accused.”

  “Then India’s government should be told!” Viva looked at Kincade. “You’re CIA, do something. You do secret, covert stuff all the time.”

  “My boss agrees with McGill.” He wiggled the phone. “I can’t go against orders,” Kincade said.

  Viva looked around the room, the men solemn and silent. “You let something happen to those kids like it did to me and I swear, I’ll never forgive you.”

  She stormed away from them and Sam knew she was right. What the hell did Washington know? They weren’t here, hadn’t seen the results of the slavery.

  Conversation stopped, the silence falling hard in the large house, frustration filling the air. Adam sighed heavily, then whispered something to Sam.

  Behind her, Kincade left.

  Yet Viva continued to fume, seeing those poor kids locked away in the dark, the horrible things they did to the girls. Images multiplied and she stared uninterested at the TV. It took a second for what she was seeing to register. Viva approached, and dread washed through her. The sound was down, but she didn’t have to hear it. It was a frantic scene, fire erupting in quick flashes, people screaming, and as she moved closer, the realization of it hit.

  Volcano.

  She grabbed the remote and turned off the mute. “Would you look at this?”

  Slowly they came closer. “Sweet Jesus,” Logan said.

  Orange-red lava rolled down the hill, the TV camera jolting as the cameraman rushed to get out of the path. People bolted, frantically grabbing children and animals.

  “Go west,” she said as if the people could hear her. “Lava’s heavy, it travels downhill.” She gestured to the TV. “They won’t get out of the path unless they get far away from the flow. It rolls like a ball and moves along the land, but the slightest elevation in terrain and it will change directions. Oh, God, where is that?”

  “Guatemala.”

  “Impossible. That’s got to be Tolimán Crater; it’s been dormant for nearly two million years.”

  “Looks like it woke up,” Sam said.

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “There are three volcanoes within fifty miles of each other. Dormant for millions of years and it erupts now? Without spewing ash? Without warning?”

  “Who’s to say it didn’t?” Sam asked.

  “I do. We would have seen something about it, and those people would have left long before lava erupted. Good God.”

  The cameraman jumped into the back of a Land Rover, still filming. The rush of molten lava was high, crushing and burning everything in its path. Trees, homes, people. Thousands were dying before her eyes.

  “There’s little ash in the air.”

  “People often wait till the last minute before evacuation,” Sebastian said.

  “Jeez, you guys. It’s not like you can hide from that. It’s not a storm, it’s lava. There is no safe shelter.” She watched the devastation, flipped the channels, and found more on other networks. The villages at the base were already gone. “There should have been a warning, weeks of it.”

  “What do you know about volcanoes?” Logan asked.

  “I have a degree in paleoclimatology, weather patterns, and geothermal reaction to the Earth’s core and crust. Not just what it did to dinosaurs and the caveman. And I worked for the USGS. I know that”—she pointed to the screen—“should not be happening. Not without some previous activity. It would take a major shift in tectonic plates to erupt like that. The water in Lake Atitlán would have changed temperature. Geologists monitor it with sensors. They’d have warned people. The lake is three hundred and twenty meters deep and smack up against Tolimán.”

  “What do you think it means?” Sam asked.

  “This is not a natural disaster.” She looked at each man, her skin paling to bloodless. “He used it.”

  Eighteen

  No one said anything, three men staring at her as if she’d lost her marbles and they were rolling across the floor.

  “Viva, it’s a volcanic eruption,” Logan said. “You can’t honestly believe that HSS could cause a dormant crater to erupt.”

  “No, I don’t. But a fissure crack, even a small one, is enough of a catalyst. The pressure builds, like a pot boiling over. With nowhere to go, it splits. You said it could take down an aircraft. How much power would it take to do that from the ground? Jets are up there at twenty thousand feet. I’ll bet you”—she looked directly at Sam—“flying lessons that this isn’t a natural disaster.”

  “Even if it were possible—and, sorry, baby, I’m not agreeing on this yet—in this short a time?” Sam said. “It’s been maybe ten, twelve hours.”

  “The designer said it was larger, but portable, and he has the stone. What more do you want? And if it’s not, then explain the eruption without ash spewing first.”

  “I can’t. That’s your department, apparently.” Sam sat on the edge of the sofa, thoughtful.

  “The plans were already modified, and that general what’s-his-face said that they needed a diamond to increase its intensity.” She waved at the TV. “There you go.”

  “But the HSS would have to be there in Guatemala. This thing has a range of yards, not miles, even with the diamond. How could it reach from here?”

  “That’s saying it’s still here,” Sebastian said. “And if they are telling us its real capability.” They agreed that was possible.

  “They’d still need line of sight,” Sam insisted. “That’s halfway around the world and they can’t get around the curve of the earth.” Sam went still. “The only way to do that is with a satellite.”

  “Christ. There’s thousands up there.”

  Sam wasn’t buying it. “They’d have to know exact satellite movement when it passes overhead. That’s precise coordinates to hit a bird and hope the beam shoots down in the right spot? It’s risky, inaccurate, and damn difficult to obtain.”

  “What if it was rigged with one of those GPS things?” Viva asked.

  Damn, the woman was quick. “Like painting a target with a laser?”

  The boys, as Viva thought of them, bristled with the possibility. “I don’t know what that means, but if they needed a satellite, then they’ve got their pick,” she said. “SETI, astronomers, cable TV, and if they somehow used a satellite dish? There are fields of them all over the world, some right here in Thailand.”

  “Back up, regroup,” Sam said. “Dishes are directional and immobile, pointed at one target in space. Maybe the HSS hit a sensor in Guatemala?”

  Viva waved that off. “Sensors are designed to catch minor seismic activity and temperature change. It would probably burn out with something so intense.”

  “Scratch that, then, birds have a pattern. Certain ones are in range within hours of each other, overlap, and link. Some don’t move at all.” It’s a wonder they didn’t hit each other.

  “What does it matter, if they can reach one?”

  “But they’d have to have the present satellite movement over the one area and from here to have the means to bounce off one. Covering an area from Thailand to Guatemala?” His expression was wry with doubt. “Retasking one is a major deal, and it takes time. Won’t go unnoticed, either.”

  “I still don’t think it’s capable of long-distance range,” Logan said. “At least not in thousands of miles.”

  Viva tipped her chin up. “You’re entitled to your opinion. It’s wrong, but keep at it.”

  Logan’s smile was slow, then he chuckled to himself.

  “Listen to me, you know the capabi
lity better than me,” Viva said. “During Desert Storm, they were running the show from the US via satellite, with intel, those unmanned aerial units. I watch the Discovery Channel,” she said when they looked startled. “You can’t tell me there aren’t enough satellites to bounce it off?”

  “She’s right,” Max said, a sandwich in his hand. “Corporate, telecommunications, air traffic control, banking. Heck, even FedEx and UPS have them with GPS to track trucks. They’re all stationary.”

  Viva moved to the windows, below a lovely view of Bangkok Bay, estates on the far side of the water, testimony to the wealth in Thailand, spread out for miles. She didn’t really see any of it.

  “Viva, you’re quiet, it scares me,” Sam said.

  She laughed to herself, yet her face was still marked with concentration as she twisted to look at them. “I’m trying to think like a sadistic diamond buyer.”

  “Now, I’m really scared.”

  She flashed Sam a smile. “If this is real, if it’s capable of that”—her look dared Logan to contradict her—“then why fire it? He’s got to know you’re on the hunt. He knows we have Ryzikov’s laptop, he e-mailed you through it.”

  “It doesn’t make a difference, baby,” Sam said. “He’s got his ass covered ten ways to Tuesday and he knows it. As far as we know, no one’s ever really seen this guy.”

  “Wait, wait,” she said, thinking faster than she could talk and latching on to the identity of the seller. “The ring, the photo, and what Kashir said, the kids hostage.” Her look said they’d better find a solution to that soon. “This guy is a diplomat. He’s got to be.”

  “He’s using the diplomatic corps as a cover,” Sam said.

  Viva shook her head almost wildly. “If he can hide inside his diplomatic credentials, what kind of information could he get?”

  “They aren’t privy to intelligence like satellites, Viva,” Sebastian said. “They are like Kashir said, negotiators, using diplomacy.”

  “That’s if they are using birds to bounce the signal,” Sam said.

  “What else could it be? And who’s to say he followed rules, he’s selling a dangerous weapon!”

  Sam came to her, first laying his hand on her shoulders, then pulling her in close. He understood her feelings. She wasn’t accustomed to seeing the goal within reach and having bureaucrats tie their hands. It was like asking permission to engage when the enemy was spraying you with bullets.