“When I had the house built,” Renard explained, “I was dating a former navy pilot. Thought she’d like it for recreation, but it turned out she preferred this room over the bedroom.”
Chilly snickered. Hot Shot murmured, “Yeah, pilots have egos. Zipper-suited sun gods.”
“Right,” Renard said. “She was tight and not in a good way. Gentleman, take your seats.”
Hot Shot slipped into the right seat, Chilly into the left, and Renard leaned over the backs between them. He handed Chilly his cell phone.
“Okay, turn on that left-hand computer; then transfer the nav on my cell over to the system. The registry’s stamped on that metal plate on the keyboard.”
“Got it,” Chilly said.
Ten seconds later he had Lincoln Shepard’s tracker up on the big monitor. The blinking yellow dot was just crossing above a wide swath of green and entering a vast area of blue.
“Shit,” Renard said.
“Where are we?” Hot Shot asked as he leaned to the left and watched.
“That western section is mainland China, with Beijing off to the left. That aircraft is headed due east to Pyongyang.”
Hot Shot turned and stared at Renard. “As in North Korea?”
“As in the Hermit Kingdom,” Renard confirmed.
“What’s on that plane?” Chilly asked.
“A precious jewel. Can you tell us what kind of aircraft that is, Chilly?”
“Only if I hack into the FAA, but even that might not do it ’cause it’s international. Might have to break into Geospatial.” Chilly turned and looked at Renard with the biggest shit-eating grin he ever had. “Illegal, nothing, bossman. This is forbidden, prohibited, and criminal, supreme!”
“Chilly,” Renard said. “Remember how much your bonus was last year?”
“Shit, yeah.”
“Double it.”
“Double it?” Chilly scoffed. “Hell, man, I’d pay you for this!” Then he started hammering away at the keyboard.
In the meantime, Renard instructed Hot Shot to bring up his flight simulator. It was one of the best in the business. It was called Proflight, but SR Research and Development had already improved it. Hot Shot’s monitor glowed with the beta version, with maps and landscapes and aircraft in drop-down menus.
“Nice,” Hot Shot exclaimed. “We used one for training sometimes, but nothing like this.”
“Got it,” Chilly interrupted. His monitor had switched over to a different navigation system, which was much more advanced than Shepard’s. It had latitude and longitudinal lines, three-dimensional features and ground altitude markers. The blinking yellow dot had changed to red, beside which a box showed the flight number, altitude, and airspeed.
“Nice.” Renard squeezed his shoulder. “Now give me the remaining distance to Pyongyang, an ETA at the current flight speed, and any air strips between the current location and the target.”
Chilly tapped some more. “It’s five hundred thirty miles, four hundred thirty-seven nautical. Looks to me like they’re a third of the way there. The only airport I’ve got between current and target is that, like, finger of China poking down into the ocean. It’s got a strip called Dalian.”
“Okay, now tell me what kind of equipment that is.”
“Equipment?” Chilly scrunched up his face.
“He means what kind of airplane, dumbass,” Hot Shot said.
“Oh.” Chilly moved his mouse and clicked on the transponder signal. “It’s a Gulfstream G550.”
Renard jabbed a finger at Hot Shot’s monitor. “Call up that model and give me cockpit view.”
The image of a business jet cockpit filled Hot Shot’s monitor. The instruments were “all glass,” meaning state-of-the-art digital. “You can fly that, right?” Renard asked Hot Shot.
“Piece of cake.”
“Okay, boys,” Renard said. “Here’s the hard part. Chilly, can you hack into that Gulfstream’s computer via the transponder?”
“Not from here. Maybe if I backdoor Space Command.”
“Fine. Do it.”
Chilly blew out a breath. “Okay, but it’ll take a while.”
“What’s the time on target to Dalian?”
“Looks about twenty-five minutes,” said Hot Shot.
“Chilly, you’ve got five minutes to turn over the controls of that aircraft to Hot Shot. I’m going to run downstairs and get us some coffee.”
“I don’t do coffee,” Chilly complained. “You got any Red Bull?”
“Will you please just shut up and hack?” Hot Shot sputtered.
Renard had already exited the play room. Hot Shot called out to him.
“Sir? What do you want me to do once I have the controls?”
“Bring it down at Dalian, but don’t crash it,” Renard called back.
Chilly beamed at Hot Shot, his eyes as big as golf balls. “Boy, oh boy, bossman’s gone cray-cray. That’s multiple federal offenses, I don’t know how many international infractions, and maybe a side of manslaughter...”—he raised his eyebrows at his now-literal partner in crime—“that is, if you screw the pooch on landing.”
Hot Shot snorted as he aimed all his concentration on the controls. “Screw the pooch, nothing. This baby’s gonna have beautiful puppies. I don’t know what’s on that bird, but we’re getting it on the ground in one piece, capisce?”
“Cap Peach.” Chilly leaned deep over his keyboard and started to play it like Mozart at his most possessed. “Get ready to fly, a-hole, and fasten your seat belt.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lily sat in a buttercream-colored, plush leather aircraft seat inside the spacious cavern of an opulent jet. The Gulfstream’s interior was arrayed for fifteen passengers, its fuselage carpeted and polished to a gleam, with drop-down mahogany tables, a full galley up forward, and a water closet with bidet in the back. There was an onyx wet bar, and even a small couch; it was an airborne suite fit for a queen. But Lily’s appearance failed to match the décor.
Her prim gray suit was torn at the shoulders, the buttons all gone, and her tangerine blouse was stained with her sweat. Her dyed-blond hair was unwashed, greasy, and bound in the back with a thick rubber band.
Her wrists lay on her lap, aching and raw from a pair of black handcuffs, and her ankles were bound with thin rope. A Chinese guard at the temporary detention facility in Beijing, who’d attempted to explore her panties, had discovered the power of her legs.
“You realize, Miss Stone, or whatever your name is, that soon you are going to talk.”
Colonel Hyo sat in another chair facing Lily, his back to the galley and the cockpit. His large officer’s cap sat on the table between them, next to a repast of Chinese delights, which he chopsticked languidly while Lily’s stomach growled with hunger and thirst. She looked at his cruel face with her gleaming bloodshot eyes and said nothing.
“Who you work for exactly, is not of interest.” Colonel Hyo raised a glass of white wine, taking his time. “The Americans, the British, or some other corrupt Western entity. Your objective is all that I want, and you will tell me.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Lily croaked.
Hyo smiled. He had a gold-capped tooth just behind one incisor. “Perhaps not in mine, but certainly in yours, which, if you fail to cooperate, is going to be tragically short.”
Lily turned her face away and looked across the fuselage to a large oval window. It was late at night, though she had no idea what time, and the twinkling lights of land far below had disappeared. They were either above unpopulated tracts or over the sea.
She’d had some hope when General Kung had ordered her detained because relations between the Chinese and the United Kingdom, of which “Rosalind Stone” was a citizen, were generally positive, and delicate. So, she’d waited it out in a dank cell somewhere in Beijing, insisting she was
an innocent sales rep and that the whole thing was some sort of horrible mix-up. She’d cried and whined and fussed in character, hoping that Zeta would drum up some indignant British “ambassador” to come pounding on Chinese government doors.
But apparently Kung’s kindly face belied a wily tactician. He knew the Chinese couldn’t hold her for long without suffering some sort of official British visit, and certainly torturing the truth from her would result in very bad press. However, the North Koreans were another animal altogether. Nothing decent was ever expected of them, so he’d turned her over to Hyo.
Lily heard laughter from the rear of the plane. Six of Colonel Hyo’s officers were relaxing back there, enjoying their luxury—something they rarely experienced—as their own military aircraft were bare bones. Two of them were playing Baduk, the Korean version of Japanese Go. She heard the black and white oval game pieces clicking on the board, then a curse, and another laugh. She closed her eyes as a tremor of terror rolled up her aching spine.
How the bloody hell am I going to get out of this? She hadn’t slept for two days, and the exhaustion was opening a flood of despair. Does Shepard even know where I am?
She was certain that Hyo still had her cell phone in his possession because he clearly wanted its contents, and she’d refused to give him the code. If he hadn’t pulled the battery, then Linc might still be able to track her.
But then what? Bloch couldn’t send Tactical on a mission to North Korea. She’d be in a cold, dark prison for years. Her eyes welled up as she thought about hearing those maddening clicks as her guards played Baduk, over and over while her body withered to sagging flesh and bones.
Her buttocks clenched, and her eyes popped open as she felt Hyo’s fingers gripping her jaw. He snapped her face around as he leaned across the table, his black eyes squinting at hers.
“You are not paying attention, Miss Stone.” He sat back down in his chair. “You should think about what will soon happen.” He looked at his watch, a simple plastic G-Shock. “In approximately one hour, you will be in Pyongyang. It will be your last full view of civilization, as you know it. And then”—he picked up a chopstick and flicked it against his wine glass, where it made a sharp ding—“you will be gone forever.”
Lily cleared her sand-dry throat. “You think my government will just let your dear leader do as he pleases?”
Hyo laughed. “Your government, whoever that is, barely protests his nuclear ambitions. So why would they care about you?”
“I am an innocent civilian. You’ve made a ghastly mistake.”
“We shall see.” Hyo tapped the ivory stick on the face of his watch. “It should not take long to discover. I think we shall start with freezing cold, then unbearable heat, and then some electrics in sensitive places. If you still resist, we shall move on to serious measures, things that will leave you unpleasant to look at.” His lips turned up in a smile, and, as they did, his curving scar turned white.
The airplane shuddered. At first it seemed like a hard shiver of turbulence, but then a strange noise came from the right rear outside, somewhat like a car engine in overdrive. Then came a sharp bang and a declining whine, and the Gulfstream dipped hard to the right.
Lily slid to the right in her chair and her head bounced against the fuselage. She heard the Koreans in the back cursing and the sounds of ceramic play pieces scattering over the floor.
Then the airplane corrected, and she heard urgent voices from the cockpit up forward.
Colonel Hyo pushed himself from his seat and stormed up front. There was no door to the cockpit, and he gripped the open sills on either side, spread his stance for balance, and thrust his head inside. The two Chinese pilots were hunched forward in their seats, chattering in staccato grunts as they flicked switches while stall warning bells went off.
“Zheshizen me huishi?”—What’s going on?—he demanded in Mandarin.
“Wo men buzhidao!”—We don’t know!—the right-seat copilot said without turning around. “We have lost the right engine, and when we took it off autopilot, we still have no control!”
With that, the pilot in the left seat took his hands from where they were gripping the yoke and raised them up in the air. Both yokes, his and the copilot’s, continued to jerk and twist on their own, as if the aircraft were haunted by some ungodly ghost.
“Will it still fly?” Hyo demanded.
“It is flying now,” said the pilot. “But I am not flying it!”
Hyo snapped his head around to the rear and yelled in Korean, “Seat belts!”
Lily had no idea what was going on, but she heard the men behind her hissing in whispers. She looked down at her cuffed hands and tried to twist around to grab her seatbelt, but she couldn’t reach it. The galley’s orderly, a young Chinese man in a white chef’s coat, burst from up forward and threw himself into the empty seat to her left. He belted in, gripped the armrests, and prayed—most likely to Buddha.
Hyo turned back and snapped at the pilots. “Where is the nearest airport?
“It’s Dalian,” the chief pilot said. “I have already called them and asked for crash trucks.”
“Can you make it to there?”
“I have no choice!” the pilot nearly squealed. “The aircraft is heading there by itself!”
With that, the Gulfstream nosed over hard to the right. Hyo lost his grip on the left-hand sill, and he slammed back into the bulkhead. He slithered along it back toward the cabin, then staggered over to Lily, whipped her belt from its holder, and snapped her in. Then he crashed back into his seat and did the same for himself, as he stared at her face in fury. She raised her cuffed wrists and sneered back.
“Do you think I did this from here?”
“I think someone is doing it for you, but you are the one who will pay.”
The Gulfstream descended in a sickening spiral. Lily closed her eyes, praying to a God she didn’t really believe in. For a moment she thought about Scott and how he’d begged her to quit and take up a “normal” life in San Francisco with him. If she’d done that right there and then, she wouldn’t be here.
Well, everyone’s entitled to cocked-up choices.
Then the airplane straightened out, but it was still in a nose-down dive. The Koreans behind her were absolutely silent, but the Chinese pilots up front were cursing. She kept her eyes tightly shut; Colonel Hyo’s face wasn’t going to be the very last vision she ever saw.
She felt the aircraft’s nose slowly rising again, and the engine off to the left was no longer screaming. She opened her left eye, and saw a blur of bright lights streaming past the window. She heard the undercarriage whining open, and then the tires screeched and bounced on the tarmac.
She opened both eyes and her pounding heart felt like it was up in her throat as off to the front right she saw the spinning red beacons of fire trucks, very close; the left engine reversed in a howl as the Gulfstream skidded to the left, and the right-hand winglet was sheared right off by a fire truck ladder.
The brakes squealed, and the nose dipped hard and the airplane jolted to a stop. One of the pilots threw off his headset, got up, staggered to the forward toilet, and charged head-down inside. Lily heard him retching.
Hyo wrenched himself up from his seat, stomped to the passenger door, and cranked the emergency handle. It hissed outside on its hinges, and the airplane filled with the scream of emergency sirens. A Chinese soldier scrambled up a stairway and popped his stunned face inside. He was wearing an olive fatigue cap with an embroidered red star.
“I am here as the guest of General Deng Tao Kung,” Colonel Hyo snapped in Chinese. “Get me a truck.”
The Chinese soldier saluted and disappeared. Hyo turned around and walked to Lily. He bent down, gripped her armrests, and nearly touched her nose with his.
“You must think that you have a reprieve,” he snarled. “But now, Miss Stone, we shall be going
to the Dalian Jinlon Forest. It has a lovely, ancient, and very remote temple.” His lips turned up in a sneer. “You will need every opportunity to pray.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
If Dan Morgan had been on a nice long vacation with Jenny, he would have loved The Oaks Eatery in Ogden Canyon, Utah.
The place was the oldest establishment around—a small wooden structure with a peaked roof, just off the winding Route 39 state highway. It didn’t look like much from the front, where all the hiking aficionados parked their Jeeps and RVs, but inside was a comfy old place with slat wooden banquettes, red tablecloths, cloth napkins and porcelain dishware, with towering windows providing a vista of the tumbling river out back, braced by lush pines. Folks drove many miles for The Oak’s juicy burgers, fat fries with BBQ sauce, and handmade ice cream, and Morgan was certainly enjoying the first decent meal he’d had since Virginia.
However, he wasn’t on vacation, with Jenny or anyone else. Besides, he wasn’t even Dan Morgan on this fine cool evening, where the sun was just going blood orange behind a magnificent granite peak. He was Air Force Master Sergeant Daniel Martin, and he was on the hunt.
At least he’d been smart enough not to try driving another thousand miles. Instead, he’d headed due south from Kentucky to Nashville, found a local kennel with five-star reviews, and parked Neika there with a promise to be back in a couple of days. Then he’d headed for the airport, long-termed the Shelby, spruced himself up with a close shave in the restroom, and boarded a flight to Salt Lake City, where he’d rented a two-door black Wrangler.
It wasn’t far from there to Hill Air Force Base, where Morgan presented his retired army ID at the gate and headed right over to Military Clothing Sales. He picked up a set of air force ACUs, a sage T-shirt, and boots that were much nicer than the army “rough-outs.” Finally, he plucked master sergeant ranks off the rack and went over to the express tailoring and name tape counter, where a nice blue-haired lady with half-frame glasses on a beaded lanyard looked up at him.
“Morning, ma’am,” Morgan said with a wry grin as he dropped his pile on the counter. “Can’t believe I’m doin’ this again.”
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