“Yer men just delivered them to me. We’re all standing around in a nice little circle.”
Webb luxuriated in the feeling of accomplishment. From the plan’s earliest gestation he had been unconvinced—such a convoluted idea with so many possible places for it to go wrong. Finding the fossil, translating the tablets, locating Mu and so on. But it had worked! Maybe its pure diversity gave it the legs to succeed. An interesting lesson and one he would take to his heart and soul when forming his future plans. Well done Bay-Dale, the smarmy, arrogant old bastard.
Job done, Webb thought. What’s next?
Dudley waited patiently and Webb simply let him. His mind flicked over the various scenarios that had already been offered up—Le Brun’s galleons or “ghost ships” sounded positively delicious, real dead-of-night, roaring campfire kind of storytelling stuff, God rest her foul, malevolent soul, whilst his own Tesla suggestion, and in particular a project one of the new guys—Julian Marsh—had come up with were all vying for first place on the new agenda.
“Are yer still there?” Dudley’s voice broke in.
“Yes, yes.” Webb sighed and looked up, greeted by a window full of blackness. It was almost midnight in DC, not that the passing ant-life below seemed to notice. “Bring the boxes home, Dudley. Bring them here to DC.”
A pause and then: “Are yer feckin’ kiddin’ me?”
Webb started, snapped back to reality. What did this toady just say to me? “Is there a problem?”
“Of course there’s a feckin’ problem! This Drake twat and his team killed three of my boys. Three!” His thick brogue pronounced it as tree! “Did y’not hear me? We be the 27-Club for fifteen bloody years, man.”
“Okay.” Webb couldn’t care less about Dudley’s life—past, present or future. “We’ll deal with Drake later. I hear the Yakuza are now chasing him down as well as Ramses. That team—their future is dismal at best.”
And I have my own personal interest in seeing them live at least a little longer . . .
“Feck that.” Dudley assaulted his ears, shocking him still further. “We’re gonna kill that fecker and we’re doin’ it in Hong Kong.”
Webb took a deep breath, counting to ten and thinking that his other team—the team that had initially taken delivery of the Z-boxes from the Chinese—were standing alongside the Irishman and his three colleagues. Perhaps . . .
“Bring me the Z-boxes. They’re more important than you can ever imagine. Even your life pales beneath their importance. Bring them to me and we’ll talk about Drake et al.”
“Me life?” Dudley repeated. “Me life? All I know is how t’kill and maim and torture. Drake’s gonna learn that. Him and his mongrel crew. You, boy, you can have yer feckin’ boxes and feck ya.”
The line went dead. Webb sat holding the receiver in his hand for almost a minute, trying to remember the last time anyone had spoken to him in such a way. It was so unusual it felt almost refreshing. Standing up, he knew that he couldn’t trust the Irishman and placed another call, this one to the leader of the other team.
The Z-boxes were of vital importance now, more so than any other thing. If Webb owned those, he owned more of the US military than the recently deceased General Stone could ever have given him.
There was an eye-opening, quite improbable but true story about how America had sent most of its nuclear weapons to Georgia at some time during the cold war. At that time, if Georgia had seceded from the United States it would instantly have become the third largest nuclear power in the world.
Funny story, Webb thought. What then if I personally held the key to all of them? What would I become?
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Late afternoon in Taiwan and Callan Dudley had murder on his mind. The last thirty minutes had equipped him with an absolute wealth of information, everything this pathetic second Pythian team knew and how much King feckin’ Pythian had kept secret from him.
Blood pooled everywhere, its metallic aroma a healing salve to his distraught senses. From detonating the chain bomb to losing three members of the 27-Club in just a few minutes; to fleeing the battle; to meeting the Z-box team and understanding they were more trusted than he; to taking their legs and their arms in a matter of seconds and leaving them curled in absolute agony; his day had been grueling to say the least. Extracting information from the men had taken the edge off, allowed him to relax. Malachi kept him from tipping too far over the edge, reminding him that despite all their failings the Pythians were still extremely powerful and shouldn’t be left feeling too pissed off at the end of all this.
So they left one of their men intact and gave him two Z-boxes. Sent him on his way.
Dudley’s plan developed as the hours went on. He learned about the Yakuza, about Drake and his entire team, about Alicia Myles in particular. He learned all about the things that the Z-box could do—terrifying, apocalyptic things.
At one point he turned to Malachi. “Brother, tell me. Do we still have them bombs left?”
“Aye, we do. In the back of the car. And we now have access to a smuggler’s boat. Where do you want to go?”
“How much did that cost us?”
“Ah, the pilot don’t mind. Not where he is.”
Dudley grinned. The other remaining members of the club—McLain and Byram—had been absent, securing the boat, for over two hours. “This Z-box thing,” he nodded toward the packaged object. “Could be worth millions. Hundreds of millions to the right people, I guess.”
“Worth more than avenging our boys’ murders?”
“Nah. Course not. But we could cause a lot more damage with that sorta money now, couldn’t we?”
Malachi thought about it for a minute, mind straining, then said, “Feck it. Let’s just kill Drake.”
“Knew you’d say that.” Dudley’s grin was wide.
“Yer thinking to use the Z-box in some way?”
“That I am. Drake’s in Hong Kong. He wants us. We want him. The Yakuza want his bird, Kitano. I say a three-way meet.”
Malachi blinked, apparently shocked. “Yer talkin’ a three-way pitched battle in the streets, boy. Say what ya will, his team’s no pushover. And the Yakuza?”
Dudley watched his brother shaking his head. “Yer wimping out?”
“Nah. Was just thinking how much fun it’s gonna be when we dance a jig on their still-beating hearts.”
Dudley kicked a man hard in the ribs. “All right, we know from this fecker that the Jap cop’s some kinda liaison. They have his details from the Chinese. I say we contact him . . . arrange a meet, an exchange, and invite the wee gangsters to the party.”
“Party?”
“Tomorrow night in Hong Kong, the Pythians have organized some kinda high-society get together. The posh knobs think they’re donating to charity, really they’re funding terrorism. Same old, same old. We arrange a Z-box handover to Drake there, he’s more likely to believe it’s legit.”
“Ach, yer on top form t’day, Callan.”
“Must be the stench of blood in the air.” Dudley cackled. “The sound of them bones breaking.”
“Problem,” Malachi said. “When yer start talking they’ll know it’s you.”
“Why? I sound feckin’ Irish or something?”
“A little.”
“So we get one of these feckers to do it.” Dudley kicked out again. “Let ‘em live or let ‘em die quick. Whichever.”
“And how do we contact the Yakuza?”
“They have a head office in Japan.”
Malachi stared. “Feck off. Yer shitting me.”
“Nope. It’s there all right.”
Leaving his brother aghast, Dudley walked over to the Z-box. It was safe to say they had severed links with the Pythians now, but the fact that he’d still let them have two boxes should ease the blow. Using this last box to avenge both the deaths of his friends and past insults felt more than fitting, it felt justified.
He turned around. “Let’s get one of these feckers as c
lose to normal as we can. The bleedin’ phone calls ain’t gonna make themselves.”
Malachi looked down at the bloody mess. “I ain’t stickin’ no one’s teeth back in.”
Dudley grunted. “Me either. Maybe we could hire a tramp or something?”
“Aye. I like the sound of that.”
“Then follow me brother. This is gonna be one hell of a lot of fightin’ fun.”
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
When Drake saw Hibiki take the call he didn’t immediately understand its magnitude but, as the Japanese cop talked and his voice grew unaccountably hoarse and hushed, the Yorkshireman knew something was afoot. Locking eyes with both Alicia and Dahl he drifted over.
“I understand,” Hibiki was saying. “Tomorrow night, yes, but why all of us? Wouldn’t a smaller unit be less conspicuous?”
The answer made him grimace. “Yes, I understand. How will we gain entry?”
Yorgi joined them, looking pensive. “Is this problem?”
“Nothing good happens after 1 a.m.,” Drake said. “You should know that, Yorgi.”
The Russian frowned. “But it is afternoon.”
“Not in Yorkshire it ain’t, and that’s where my time clock’s based.”
Dahl groaned. “You’re as nutty as a bag of pistachios.”
“Oh, am I? Not as cracked as a piece of Swedish shelving?”
Hibiki ended his call then, quite abruptly, and stood staring at his cellphone as if it might be about to sprout legs.
“Problem, mate?” Drake asked.
“That has to be one of the oddest calls I’ve ever taken,” Hibiki said. “But wait, I don’t want to go through it all twice, and neither will you. Let’s get Hayden and co on the line.”
Dahl checked his watch. “Is it worth waking her in the middle of the night?”
“It’s bigger than the Taiwan Strait exploding.”
Drake waited whilst Dahl contacted Hayden and then managed to loop everyone else into the conference call. Alicia fidgeted and gave Hibiki the eye, mentioning that there was a time and a place for teasing and it better be worth her while. Drake was pleased to see Mai take an interest and with her came an increasingly assured Grace and a healing Chika. Maybe they could salvage something out of this crude rescue after all. A return to normality? That alone would be worth all the effort.
At last the call was ready. Hibiki spoke up. “I just received a call from a man, a Taiwanese man, who told me he’d managed to steal one of the Z-boxes from Callan Dudley and wants to give it to us.”
Now Drake understood why Hibiki wanted everyone involved. “Bollocks,” he said. “Stealing anything from Dudley would be beyond tough, but then giving it away for free?”
“Guy said he’s loyal to the US, to SPEAR and to the Ninth Division. A friend, he said.”
Drake pulled a face and glanced across at Alicia, his old compatriot in that secret unit. “How’s he know about the Ninth? Did he give a name?”
“No names. He said he used to do business with Crouch. Mentioned the Pythians, the Lost Kingdom. Seemed pretty switched on.”
“Plenty of people know Michael,” Drake said. “What else did he say?”
“That the other two Z-boxes were on their way to the Pythians.” Hibiki shrugged as if that information helped prove the man’s good intent. “And that we should dread what they might do with them. That the Chinese had agreed to the destruction of Mu for the perfect excuse to invade Taiwan—”
“Invade?” Mai repeated. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Hayden spoke up then. “The Politburo have long since known that despite their recent startling advances, an occupation of Taiwan would not be feasible without putting boots on the ground. Failing that, it all might go pear-shaped and become a humiliation.”
Hibiki tried to continue. “This man also said he would only exchange the box if the entire team were present, stating that he may want something from any of you in the future and that he wants you to be able to recognize him on sight. But it’s for your eyes only and no pictures, no covert surveillance, that’s why he wants the meet to be at a stylish, swish party tomorrow night in HK. That, and safety from Dudley. You’ll all need to be dressed for the part and be able to pass through reasonable security.”
Hayden jumped in as he took a breath. “When you say the SPEAR team? Do you mean all of us?”
“I’m not sure,” Hibiki admitted. “Can you make it?”
Hayden paused as the entire team did the calculation. “It gives us about twenty nine hours to get to you and make ready. Yeah, we can do that.”
“Then I would say get started.”
“Can we pause for a second?” Mai said. “And address the issue of these so-called Z-boxes. I mean—we know the Chinese developed them and then just gave them away. Why are they so important?”
“The Pythians want them,” Dahl said. “So they’re not waffle makers.”
“Actually,” Hayden said. “I was waiting until morning to tell you guys, but we recently got the low down on the Z-boxes from our contacts inside the Politburo. A ten-year deep cover asset had to blow his ID and then be pulled out to attain this info so you can bet your sweet asses it’s of the highest importance, presidential level. The Z-box is basically a hacking tool. A complex, intelligent machine that cracks codes.” She paused. “Almost any code.”
“You’re talking US military access,” Dahl said. “Monetary and energy grids. That kind of stuff.”
“I’m not just talking US or military, but anywhere and everything. Every essential service’s infrastructure. Schools. Government. Entertainment.”
“How would they do that?” Smyth wondered.
Karin answered that one. “All common individual systems, whether they be offense oriented, defense oriented, hell, even used for gas and electric distribution, run off the same sort of structural design, much the same as one corporation’s personnel records run on systems pretty similar to another’s. They’re all based on the same designs. Access one, you can access another and another. Once you have their source code it’s relatively easy to find vulnerabilities in the whole system. For malware writers as much as terrorists and serious hackers such vulnerabilities are the Holy Grail, an unlocked window for these sneak-burglars to get into. Alternatively they could alter the code for their own means or leave a backdoor for later. Sell the backdoor’s password to someone else. This box does all that and more, and it doesn’t need a super-geek to operate it. It provides access.”
Hayden took over without missing a beat. “The US has accused China of conducting a cyberwar and cyber espionage against its interests for many years. Congress called them ‘the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies’.” She sighed tiredly. “And here we are.”
Mai coughed loudly. “So, to recap, the Chinese developed a code box and everyone wants it.”
“They’re all at it,” Komodo said with a disbelieving grunt. “NSA. British Intelligence. The Mossad. You name it. China just got here first.”
“And since they gave it away so easily they probably already have a superior design.”
Komodo laughed. “Well you know what they say about your PlayStation and laptops. By the time you buy the latest one it’s already out of date.”
“What I’m thinking,” Hayden said. “Is that if we gained possession of a device we’d be able to better understand how they work. Maybe even crack their code, make them obsolete. I’m pretty sure the Secretary will have the same idea. I’ll call him now but do expect to be on the next Gulfstream out. ETA fourteen hours or so.”
“We’ll start gearing up.” Drake said. “Working the op. Build it on a ‘don’t trust the source’ basis and take it from there. At the very least Dudley will be trying to get the box back. We don’t want any surprises.”
Smyth’s sarcastic grunt filtered down the wires. “That’d be a friggin’ first.”
Drake admitted he had a point. “All right, smart ass. Fewer surprises than normal. How�
�s that?”
“Still clutching.”
“And bring your stylist, Smyth,” Alicia cracked. “This party—it sounds posh. You for one are gonna take an awful lot of tittifying up.”
“What the hell does that mean? Is that rude?”
Drake was laughing. “Bloody hell, Alicia, you’re one to talk.” Even Mai had to hide a smirk.
Alicia swept up on to her feet, a swan in perfect flight. “Vogue’s my middle name, didn’t ya know? I’m the chic chick. A glamour puss with a large helping of added ‘Y’. The swank that makes you—”
“We get it,” Dahl said. “You think you can pull it off and maybe you can.” He surveyed the group critically. “My guess—Drake’s the problem.”
“Balls. The last time I looked the height of Swedish fashion was Abba’s Agnetha. What have you had since then? Boris Becker?”
“He was German, you damn, ignorant Yorkshire tw—”
“Well, there you go. Even Saab went bust.”
“Guys,” Hayden interrupted. “Guys. Just start making ready. We’re on our way. Hopefully this will be a ten-minute cakewalk. But failing that—”
“Big Trouble in Little China gets a sequel,” Drake stated. “But bigger. Much bigger.”
“Be ready for anything.”
“Always am, Hayden. Always am. Already I see a plan B forming . . .”
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Drake spent the fourteen hours before Hayden and the others arrived casing the luxurious hotel in question, which stood at the edge of Victoria Harbor, overlooking the bay and nearby Kowloon, resplendent by day and sparkling at night. The party would be held on the top floor, naturally off limits to all but the insolently rich. With that in mind Alicia led a shopping trip to the Pacific Place Mall, spending hours and countless HK dollars to guarantee the team were properly outfitted. At first, Drake wondered about the odd change in her—Alicia Myles didn’t really care if she was dressed in denim or lace, leather or silk, or anything for that matter—but then he caught up. This was different, it was engaging, poles apart from her self-imposed normality, thus—it appealed. For now.
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