Kate spoke in soft Mandarin but the woman didn’t reply to her. She just looked directly through Kate as though whatever these foreigners might do or say from this moment on didn’t matter. Her husband was after all sitting not ten feet away, dead as Mao, his head hanging off his neck like so many pounds of raw meat. But Michael was now convinced there would be more death if they didn’t press on.
“Your husband. He had a knife.”
The old woman looked up at Michael and wailed the long low moan of the emotionally dead. The moan didn’t end, it just went on and on echoing through the hills until finally Michael stood, taking Kate by the shoulder. Even if this was the only way forward, Michael reasoned they had to give it time, if only a little. But then, as Michael raised Kate to her feet, the old woman looked up from the dirt and met Michael’s eye. She held the look for a long moment. Then she muttered something, barely audible at first. To Michael’s unpracticed ear it sounded like a single syllable, maybe two.
Kate addressed the woman softly in Mandarin. “What was that? I didn’t hear.”
This time the old woman screamed in forceful Mandarin, slapping her open hand against her skull.
“What is it? What’s she saying?”
Kate struggled to understand, the old woman still screaming. “It’s in his head,” Kate said. “She says it’s in his head.”
30
THE OLD WOMAN moaned down at the earth, arms clutched against the side of her skull.
“What? What’s in his head?”
Michael did his best to reach out to the woman, placing his hands on her shoulders to calm her, but she pulled away, slapping her skull, still screaming.
“Tell me what’s she saying.”
“The same thing. It’s in his head.”
Michael turned toward the villagers who had gathered from the surrounding hills. “Ask them if they know what she’s talking about.”
Kate addressed the villagers. They responded, but one look at Kate’s face told Michael she didn’t understand what they were getting at. “They say the old woman talked a lot. About the war.”
“Which war?”
Kate translated as the villager went on. “He says the war that happened long ago. The war with many doctors.”
“What kind of doctors?”
Kate translated. “He says, Japan. Japanese doctors.”
Michael thought about it. “The Imperial Japanese Army was a Nazi ally here. They had a whole lot of guns, but not many doctors, at least not out here. Not in the sticks.” Michael paused for a moment. “Oh, Jesus.”
“What?”
“I read some of the history of the area before I left home. There were hospitals in Guilin. They were known for certain procedures.”
“Procedures?”
“Keep the woman outside,” Michael said, already halfway back to the hut.
MICHAEL KNEW WHAT needed to be done, he just wasn’t certain he wanted do it. What he hadn’t made clear to Kate were the type of activities the Japanese Imperial Army had become famous for: namely the medical experimentation upon and vivisection of conquered peoples. Michael recalled that the experiments ranged from testing vaccines to the clinical administration of torture, right on through to genetic manipulation and vivisection. But staring down at the old man lying there in a spray of arterial blood, his head half blown off, Michael was less concerned with what the experiments were comprised of than with what came next.
Steeling his nerve, Michael looked away from the old man’s corpse to the clay oven in the corner of the hut. On top of the newly washed dishes sat a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Michael put them on, noting that the old man’s fingers were still wrapped around his pocket knife, rigor mortis setting in. Michael had no desire to make this process anymore invasive than it had to be so he reached into his own pocket for his newly purchased Swiss Army knife. He opened up the main blade thinking that this was probably not what the manufacturer had intended. The old man’s face was gone, disintegrated in a flurry of shot, and Michael knew that his first task was to cut away the skin so that he could get to the skull. Holding the head steady in one hand, Michael exhaled and made his first cut, sinking the blade into the flesh laterally along the pulpy scalp. Though this was definitely a first for him, he thought that all those years of carving jack-o’-lanterns could finally be put to good use.
“Michael?” Kate said, poking her head in the doorway unable to keep the look of what had to be horror from spreading across her face.
“Just keep the woman and the kid away.”
Michael carefully sliced the bloody skin back from the skull. He continued cutting slowly but firmly with the knife, slicing the skin down toward the left eye.
“What are you doing?”
“You heard her. It’s in his head.”
“It’s an expression. Like I’ve got a song in my head. It doesn’t mean I literally have a song in my head.”
“Here I think it does.”
Michael doubled back and continued his incision down toward the right eye. Holding the head steady in one hand, he took hold of the flap of skin between thumb and forefinger and peeled the flesh down the skull like the skin of a grape.
“Do you have to?” Kate asked, covering her mouth and looking away.
Michael’s medical training was limited to basic first-aid, but with the skin gone and the bone of the skull exposed beneath, he saw exactly what he had thought he might: a discoloration in the skull. The discoloration was darker than the rest of the area, round, and about two inches in diameter. It’s hue was a yellowish black, but when Michael rubbed it with his glove, the fatty substance rubbed away revealing a perfectly round metal plate inset in the old man’s skull like an all knowing third eye. Michael reached back toward the sink grasping a pitcher of water. Quickly rinsing the plate, the small recessed screws holding it anchored firmly into the skull became visible, their tiny Phillips heads shining out at him like stars. The four screws were encrusted with calcium deposits after being in the old man’s skull for decades, but with the help of his Swiss Army knife, Michael was able to scrape them off and twist them two turns each. After this he inserted the blade of his knife into edge of the skull around the perimeter of the plate. One smooth lever motion and the plate popped out, nearly hitting the floor before Michael caught it in his yellow gloved hand.
Though it was hard to tell in the low light if the plate was nickel or platinum, one thing was clear: it had been cast to resemble a full moon. Japanese Kanji were inscribed around its circumference, a stylized relief of a double peaked karst etched in the foreground. Twin peaks rising before a full moon, the pointed mountain looked strangely familiar yet like nothing Michael had ever seen before. It looked, Michael thought, like the devil’s pitchfork.
31
RAND LAID INTO Mobi like there was no tomorrow. He threatened prison. He threatened a lively physical interrogation before Mobi made it to prison. And he threatened an active sex life for the duration of Mobi’s stay in prison. Then, after several wasted hours during which Mobi was forced to sit in the corner like a new improved Buddha, Rand decided he needed him. He conscripted Mobi to assist his men in the installation of their equipment in JPL’s main tracking station. Apparently, the ASAT orbital platforms Alvarez had referenced could be controlled from just about anywhere provided there was a set of eyes to monitor their progress and a large enough antenna to provide secure communication. Through its Goldstone Deep Space Antenna Array and trained technicians, JPL provided both.
Alvarez clicked her tongue, clearly done with the long wait. “It looks like you’ve got all the angles covered, Colonel.”
“Nice try, but you and your engineer are sitting in on this one. I don’t want to encounter any resistance up here and the best way to ensure that is to keep you two on tap.”
“Respectfully, I have eleven active missions that I need to keep flying today. I’m sure NASA would prefer that you let us do our jobs.”
“I couldn’t give my sor
ry ass pension what NASA prefers,” Rand said. “That stunt your engineer pulled hacking beyond his pay grade proves he isn’t to be trusted. If there’s a problem with the uplink, I want him here where I can see him.”
“Which is where he’s going to be,” Alvarez said, pointing across large room. “Right behind that door, watching space traffic in Secondary Ops while you get the prime real estate here in Mission Control.”
Rand considered. He might still need Alvarez. No need to piss the lady off for nothing. “If I need him,” he said, “I want him stat.”
“You’ll have him.”
Rand eyed his two operations engineers, both comfortably ensconced in front of their terminals. “How long until we’re in range?”
“If the current orbital degradation holds?”
“Ballpark,” Rand said.
“Thirty-nine, forty minutes.”
Rand looked to Alvarez and said, “Keep him close.”
Mobi immediately understood he was being offered a reprieve and stepped across the room, moving to pull the door to Secondary Ops open. But as he laid his fingers on it, Alvarez’s hand touched his, opening the door for him. Mobi’s eyes met Alvarez's for a split second as he felt her fingers on his palm, but he quickly looked away. Once in Secondary Ops, Mobi kept right on walking out the door on the other side, buoyed by the keycard he felt hidden in the palm of his hand.
Mobi knew what the keycard meant. Thankfully, the rigorous biometric security protocols of JPL’s secure level entrance were behind him. He swiped his way back down to the lower lab and within a couple of minutes he was inside Alvarez’s office. Alvarez had a pair of louvered blinds on the glass window to the corridor which he promptly closed. He checked the multi-line phone on the desk. It had an internal configuration. Then he examined the keycard. Alvarez had scrawled an eighteen digit number on the back of it which Mobi guessed included a contact number for Quiann. But Mobi knew he wouldn’t be able to make a call out without going through the JPL operator. Not the best plan under the circumstances. He tried the desk drawers, but found little of note: a few pencils and pens, a ream of paper, and a pack of batteries. Mobi began to question his assumptions. Was her office where Alvarez had intended he come? With the exception of her long mohair coat sitting rumpled in the corner, the place was empty.
Mobi rifled though the pockets of the coat finding nothing but a half-empty box of Tic-Tacs. He was about to eat one when he noticed something else — a bright green foot poking out from under the coat. Mobi could immediately tell that the foot wasn’t human, or even real for that matter. It belonged to a green alien balloon — the kind you could buy for five bucks from a vendor in Griffith Park. Lifting the coat off the floor revealed that the alien had the typical Roswell look. It wasn’t the first time Mobi had seen this particular toy. This alien was something of an unofficial mascot at JPL and more than one employee had one strung up in their office. What Mobi found strange, however, was the fact that Alvarez would have one in an office completely devoid of any other personal touch. Alvarez must dig her X-files, Mobi thought, or else....
Mobi examined the alien balloon carefully noting that it was a little heavier in one foot than the other, not much, but a little. The green tinted PVC plastic was transparent under the right light, and holding the little bugger up to the florescent tube, Mobi was able to see what looked like a black plastic wafer in its left foot. Feeling a surge of excitement now, Mobi placed his thumb on the sole of the inflatable foot and his fingers on the heel, pressing down on the black wafer inside. No sooner did Mobi feel a bubble switch in the plastic wafer click down, than a hum emanated from the rear of the office. Turning around, Mobi watched Alvarez’s entire rear wall slide open behind her desk.
“Nice,” Mobi muttered quietly to himself. Then, clutching the inflatable alien at his side, Mobi silently entered Alvarez’s inner sanctum.
32
BY THE TIME Michael and Kate got back to Yangshuo, the sun had already set, casting long shadows across West Street. The same thought had been cycling through Michael’s head for the entire ride back. Another damn karst, he thought, picturing the engraving on the platinum disc. The same karsts that covered the landscape were apparently the solution to his problem. After all, a Japanese surgical team had chosen to implant one in a man’s head. That wasn’t the kind of thing you did without a very good reason. No, both the pitchfork karst engraving and the Kanji around the disc’s rim were significant. He just needed to figure out why.
Michael and Kate returned the rented motorcycle to its much relieved owner and climbed the Whispering Bamboo’s wooden stairs roofward. If there was a solution to their problem, it was here, in the inscriptions on the capsule. Kate latched the wooden door behind them to ensure they wouldn’t be disturbed, but it took only a moment to discover that they had a much bigger problem.
“Shit,” Michael said.
The capsule was gone.
There was no other way to put it. The cowling of the swamp fan stood open and the lock was snapped off, but the capsule was nowhere to be seen. All that was left were boot prints, lots of them, covering the tar and gravel surface of the roof. Michael crouched down and ran the gravel through his fingers, the rough crush warm to the touch. Then Michael’s eyes widened in the fading light. There was something else. A pool of something dark and sticky. Blood.
“Kate?”
“I see it,” she said, staring down at the blood.
“Not that.”
Michael was halfway across the rooftop by the time the words had left his mouth. The form had been just a dark mass in the dusk, but now as Michael approached it became clear that it was a body. And not just any body. It was Ted, lying there, face down on the roof. Michael locked his hand over Ted’s shoulder, preparing for the worst. But he didn’t get it. With a simple touch Michael could already tell that Ted was still breathing. He turned him onto his back to reveal the nasty gash on his friend’s forehead.
“Ted?”
There was no response.
“We need to get him out of here.”
Kate stood, but immediately froze, Michael following her gaze. The wooden door to the stairs had begun to rattle on its hinges. Kate reached behind her back, withdrawing her Glock with the smooth grace of a seasoned professional. Crouching down on one knee, she extended her arms, holding the gun at ready. They were in a decent enough position on the corner of the roof, out of the immediate angle of sight. Michael studied Kate’s hands. They were steady, her trigger finger icy calm.
Ted groaned. Now was not the time for him to come to, Michael thought. Then he groaned again and what happened next occurred very quickly. The door broke. It literally exploded off its hinges accompanied by a scream the likes of which Michael had never heard before. A dark figure burst though the door and rolled twice across the roof before taking cover behind the swamp fan. Kate tracked the figure with her weapon as an object, it looked like a box, or a bomb, came skidding across the gravel roof toward them. Both Kate and Michael dove behind the cover of a large water cistern. The rectangular object skidded to a stop, maybe twenty feet away from them. There was no way to get any farther away from it without literally leaping six stories off the roof to the concrete below. They waited a moment, then two, and in the dying light Michael thought he recognized a symbol on the object. Not a swastika this time, a cross. A red cross.
“Mates?” a voice said from behind the swamp fan.
Michael recognized the voice immediately. It took Kate a moment longer, but she got it too, lowering her weapon. It was Crust. He edged into view from behind the cowling, picking up the box with the cross on it, now clearly recognizable as a first aid kit.
“I heard voices up here and it got me worried.” He indicated the first aid kit and said, “Thought the old man might need this.”
Crust explained that he too had been looking for them. Instead he had found Ted unconscious on the rooftop, blood seeping from the nasty gash on his head. Fearful of moving him, Crust did t
he next best thing and went to get medical help. Unfortunately, the best he could come up with was the first aid kit.
“You nearly shot me, sister! What are you doing with a gun?”
“Defending myself from crazy Ninjas.”
“People,” Ted said groggily, “this is beside the point.”
“He’s right,” Michael said. “Ted. Tell us what happened?”
“Let’s just say I ran into a problem with your friends from the bridge.”
“The thing I wanted to show you?” Michael said, careful not to give away specifics in front of Crust.
“Gone,” Ted said, wiping the blood from his forehead. “Tell me you had more luck than I did.”
Michael cast a glance at Crust and then thought to hell with it. He reached into his pocket and removed the platinum disc revealing the engraving of the double-peaked karst. Ted was silent for a long moment.
“Are you sure it’s genuine?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then we need to find out where it is.”
“There are over ten thousand peaks in the immediate area,” Kate said. “Just like with the first engraving, it’s going to take time to narrow it down.”
“I don’t think so,” Crust said.
Both Michael and Kate looked over their shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“All you need to do is float, brother.”
“Float?”
“Snag yourself a tube, a kayak, a sheep’s stomach if you prefer. Just float.”
“Why?”
“Because mate,” Crust said pointing at the platinum disc. “This gnarly mountain is about eight clicks down our lovely Li River.”
Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase 1) Page 15