He closed his eyes and tried to relax before he arrived at his next appointment. He must have nodded off, because he jolted awake when he was thrown against the back of the front seat. He always refused to wear a seat belt because it wrinkled his suit, but this was one time he wished he’d had it on. His nose crunched as it hit the partition, and blood cascaded down his chin.
The Maybach screeched to a halt.
“Get down!” his bodyguard yelled.
Hazy, confused, and covered with his own blood, Wakefield didn’t do as he was instructed. Instead, he watched the driver’s head get blown apart by a bullet that smashed through the supposedly bulletproof windshield. The man slumped over the steering wheel, pressing against the horn, which now blared nonstop.
His bodyguard dodged several of the armor-piercing rounds that neatly penetrated the windshield, but the bullets didn’t get through to Wakefield. They were stopped by the partition. The bodyguard got out and returned fire, but he was taken down immediately by three bullets that tore into his chest, tossing him around like a rag doll before he collapsed to the pavement.
Three men in black balaclavas approached the car. One of them was carrying a huge drill, the other two automatic weapons.
Panicked, Wakefield made sure the door was locked. He wasn’t a fighter and didn’t carry a gun, so he grabbed for his phone. However, it was no longer on the seat where he’d left it, and he dropped to the floor frantically searching for it.
By the time he found it, the man with the drill was grinding away at the door lock.
Wakefield dialed 000, Australia’s emergency number. “Come on, come on,” he muttered while it rang.
Outside, he could hear the men shouting at one another in some kind of Hindi dialect.
The phone clicked, and Wakefield heard someone say, “Ambulance Emergency. What town or suburb are we coming to?”
“I don’t know,” Wakefield said, trying to keep his voice calm. He knew this call would become public record at some point. “I’m in downtown Sydney somewhere. Men have shot my driver and bodyguard and are trying to break into my car.”
Wakefield could hear typing on a keyboard. “We have triangulated your location, sir, and police have been dispatched. What is your name?”
“It’s Jason—”
The door was wrenched open, and a powerful hand reached in and latched onto his arm. He was dragged out, and the phone was yanked from his hand. The masked gunman threw it to the street and stomped on it.
He looked like the man in charge because he tilted his head toward a white panel van and spoke in a commanding voice to the two men who were holding Wakefield.
Wakefield tried struggling against them, but the man in charge slapped him across the face. The impact hit his broken nose, and a shock of pain exploded through his head. He went limp as they dragged him down the street.
The masked leader pulled the van’s sliding door open. Wakefield knew he had to fight to stay out of there, having been trained in anti-kidnapping techniques, but he was spent and in agony. He could barely resist.
He was about to be thrown in when Wakefield heard a loud crack, and blood splashed across the van’s white exterior. At first, he thought they had shot him and he just couldn’t feel it because of shock.
Then he saw the wide eyes of the masked men’s leader. He had a huge hole in his chest.
As the gunman slumped to the ground, two more shots rang out, and his companions let go of their prisoner and fell.
Wakefield slowly rolled over, fully expecting to be shot as well. He saw another man coming toward him, this one in a suit almost as nice as his, with a pistol pointed at the ground. He bent down to check the three masked men.
When he stood back up, he said, “They’re dead.”
“Who are you?” Wakefield asked.
“Asad Torkan,” his savior said. “Romir Mallik asked me to keep an eye on you. For good reason, it turns out.”
“Mallik sent you?”
“He thinks there is a traitor amongst the Nine Unknown. Come with me. We need to get out of here in case they have backup.”
Torkan gave him a hand and a handkerchief, then guided Wakefield to a silver BMW. He helped Wakefield into the passenger seat. As soon as Torkan got in, he threw the car into gear and tore away as they heard sirens approaching.
Wakefield leaned his head back with the handkerchief against his aching nose. “Do you know who ordered my kidnapping?”
“Mr. Mallik might have,” Torkan said, thumbing his phone.
“Why would someone do this?”
Instead of answering him, Torkan spoke into the phone.
“Mr. Mallik, we have a situation,” he said. “Someone tried to kidnap Jason Wakefield . . . Yes, he’s all right . . . Thank you, sir. Just doing my job.” He turned and smiled at Wakefield. “But if it weren’t for your foresight, right now Mr. Wakefield would probably be as good as dead.”
THIRTEEN
THE INDIAN OCEAN
The USS Gridley reached the Oregon and Triton Star a day after the missile attack. The hazmat team was already searching the contaminated cargo ship for clues, and the captured crew had been handed over to the CIA agents on the destroyer for further interrogation.
Juan sat next to Max in one of the Oregon’s two high-speed lifeboats. An orange sun was setting over a calm horizon. Max was at the wheel, piloting the boat away from the Gridley after Juan’s daylong debriefing with the ship’s CIA contingent. To keep the Oregon out of view of the destroyer’s crew, she maintained a position ten miles away, while the crew painted her and reconfigured her profile to make her unidentifiable by anyone on the Triton Star.
Max shook his head as Juan told him about the B-1B lying with its nose in the surf next to Diego Garcia’s runway.
“Those guys got lucky if they all survived a crash like that,” he said.
“Sounds like they had a good pilot,” Juan replied. “He brought it in on hydraulic power alone.”
“Any word on how the computers were shut down?”
Juan shook his head. “They’re coming back online, though. The computers weren’t permanently fried. The technicians on the island said it was as if the computers had been scrambled. Something about disrupting the electron flow in the transistors. The event didn’t disable basic electrical functions, only computer chips. The effect seemed to end a minute before the missile arrived, which explains why it wasn’t disabled as well. Now all the computers on the island and in the harbor’s naval ships are working again.” Then, turning his head, Juan said, “Maybe Eric and Murph can make some sense of it.” Juan’s tech wizards had been part of the debriefing before returning to the Oregon earlier.
“Whatever the weapon was,” Max said, “it could do a number on the Oregon. Everything on board is computer controlled. We’d be dead in the water.”
“I thought about that, too. Take some time to figure out how to keep us operational if our computers conk out.”
“Already on the agenda. I’ll have more time now that we’re not acting as babysitters for Tao’s crew anymore.”
“They’re the CIA’s problem now,” Juan said, “along with the Triton Star.”
“Do we know where the missile came from?”
“The CIA thinks that it was shipped in pieces to Mozambique. That’s what was in the container labeled FARM MACHINERY. They traced the launcher’s serial number to a missile supposedly stolen by the Pakistanis, but so far it’s a dead end.”
“Then that puts us back at square one,” Max said. “Does the CIA have any theories for who’s behind this?”
“They’re focusing on the Iranians—because of Rasul, whose last name we still don’t know—and the Pakistanis. They think it’s either an Iranian plot to take out the island or that Islamic terrorists in Pakistan tried to cripple America’s ability to bomb Afghanistan.”
<
br /> “But why frame the Triton Star crew? If we hadn’t been there, it would have looked like they had launched the missile, then killed themselves by accident or committed suicide.”
“I agree,” Juan said. “And no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.”
“Most of the world doesn’t even know there was an attack. I’ve been keeping tabs on the world news, and right now the official story is that the island suffered a sudden power failure during routine maintenance of the electrical plant.”
“The military suspended all social media feeds, telephone service, and internet access from Diego Garcia to keep a lid on the real story. The people who organized the attack might even think they succeeded.”
“Do you buy the CIA line?” Max asked.
“I don’t think the Iranians are behind it,” Juan said. “If we discovered they were responsible, they’d be risking all-out war with the U.S.”
“What about terrorists? ISIS? Al-Qaeda?”
“If it had been a group like that, they’d be bragging to every news outlet in the world about how they had handed big, bad America a huge defeat. No, I think something else is going on here. Maybe a test?”
Max turned to Juan with a frown. “You think this was all to see if their pseudo-EMP weapon worked?”
Juan held up his fingers and ticked off the answers one by one. “Isolated base. High-profile target. Supposedly hardened against this kind of attack. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make this operation work. What I can’t figure out is why they launched when they did.”
“It does seem odd,” Max said. “They could have launched the missile long before we intercepted the Triton Star.”
“Which makes me think Camp Thunder Cove wasn’t the original target. It was sheer luck that we were available to intercept the Triton Star. We know that Rasul’s mysterious connection sent him the coordinates of Diego Garcia after we arrived.”
“So what was the original target?”
“I don’t know. Tao mentioned that Rasul’s containers were supposed to be delivered to somewhere called Jhootha Island. But if he was going to fire a missile from one of those containers and then kill the crew, why set course for that island?”
“Maybe he wanted to launch the missile from Jhootha Island.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“What’s on the island?”
“And what’s nearby? I have Eric and Murph checking into those questions. But I think we should go there and check it out.”
Max shook his head. “Sounds like a long shot to me.”
“The CIA thought so, too. Do you have any other bright ideas? I’m all ears.”
“That wasn’t a criticism,” Max said with a smile. “Your long shots usually come through.”
When they reached the Oregon, Max and Juan headed to the op center, where they found Eric and Murph in a heated discussion.
“Why would they go there?” Murph said, notably exasperated. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“How should I know?” Eric shot back. “But that’s where Tao said they were heading.”
“Okay, you two,” Juan said as he and Max entered. “You can settle your differences by video game duel later. Is this about a certain island I asked you to investigate?”
Eric nodded. “We found Jhootha Island, all right.”
“But it’s highly unlikely the Triton Star’s size would regularly be able to stop there to unload a container,” Murph said.
“Why is that?” Juan asked.
Eric brought up a satellite image of the island on the main viewscreen. It was circular, ringed with sandy beaches, and covered in tropical jungle. No roads or settlements were visible.
“This is Jhootha Island—its Indian name—two hundred miles off the west coast of India,” Eric said. “On Western maps, it’s known as Killington Island, named after its discoverer. As you can see, it’s surrounded by atolls, and there are no natural harbors or coves big enough for a yacht, let alone a large containership. There’s definitely no pier.”
“Maybe Tao unloads the contents of the containers and transfers them to a tender,” Juan said. “A small boat could make landfall on the island.”
“If they did,” Murph said, “I can’t tell you why they’d want to. Not when they’d be killed the moment they set foot on land.”
“Why?” Max asked. “Is it full of poisonous snakes like that island near Brazil?”
Eric shook his head. “It’s home to a tribe of natives who are completely cut off from the modern world and hostile to anyone intruding on their territory.”
“Killington landed there by accident and got a spear through the gut for his trouble,” Murph said. “But they named the island after him, so that’s a nice consolation prize.”
“We knew the Triton Star was heading somewhere called J Island because of their computer records,” Juan said. “Tao then gave us the name Jhootha Island without prompting. He had no reason to lie about it, so I’m inclined to believe that’s where they were going.”
“That would be an oddball destination,” Murph said. “The Indian government has declared Jhootha Island off-limits to outsiders.”
“Which makes me want to take a look even more now,” Juan said as he sat in his command chair. “Discreetly, of course. Eric, lay in a course.”
“Aye, Chairman,” Eric said, taking his position at the helm.
“National Geographic is going to be so jealous,” Murph said with a chuckle.
“Why? You planning to sell photos of the islanders?” Juan joked.
“If I did, the magazine would probably pay through the nose for such a huge scoop. According to Indian records, it’s been forty years since anyone has come back from that island alive.”
FOURTEEN
LONDON
Of the Nine Unknown, Xavier Carlton was the richest by far. All of them had private jets, but he was the only one with his own personal Airbus A380 wide-body airliner. His second one, actually. The first had disappeared eighteen months ago, never found by searchers except for a few pieces of wreckage that washed up in Oman and Yemen. The insurance company had been dragging its feet about the payout, but he didn’t need the money for its replacement. He could buy five more of the luxurious made-to-order planes without straining his bank account.
As the descendants of the original Nine who had been bestowed with the knowledge of propaganda, Carlton’s ancestors had invested in some of the most influential newspapers in Europe. With that wealth, his family had branched out into other types of media as radio, television, and then the internet came to dominate news and entertainment.
Now Unlimited News International was one of the most influential, wide-ranging media companies in the world. Still, that reach hadn’t helped Carlton definitively pin the sabotage on any of the other Nine.
The latest estimate for completing repairs to the Colossus 5 was one more week. The satellite dish had been totally destroyed, but Carlton found an identical one intended for an internet company in São Paulo and purchased it for three times the going price. It was now headed to the ship for its installation.
All of that would be good news for the meeting of the Nine set to take place in India the next morning, the first gathering in more than a year where they were all present. Carlton was on his plane, waiting on the Heathrow tarmac for the overnight flight to Mumbai. His guest for the voyage was supposed to arrive soon.
Carlton was in his main deck private office going over his plans for the meeting when there was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” he said.
His personal assistant, Natalie Taylor, came in carrying a gold platter with a teapot and cups. She was dressed in slacks and a blazer, her blond hair barely touching her shoulders. She set the platter on the desk and said, “Mr. Gupta’s plane has landed, and he will be here momentarily.”
“Show him in when he arrives.”
Taylor nodded and left.
Carlton leaned over to the window and saw a black SUV pull up to the boarding stairs. An obese man in his fifties emerged from the backseat. Carlton shook his head at the way Lionel Gupta had let himself go. Carlton, trim and rock solid at forty-eight, was known for his fitness regimen, even having a private gym installed on board his jet so he could exercise while he was traveling.
A minute later, Taylor opened the door, and Gupta entered his office breathing hard from the climb up the jet’s stairs. Taylor, who was in even better shape than Carlton, looked amused but said nothing. Carlton stood to shake Gupta’s hand and waved for him to sit, which Gupta did gladly.
“Tea?” Carlton asked.
Gupta nodded. “Cream and three sugars.”
Taylor poured two cups and glided out of the office.
“The media world has been good to you,” Gupta said as he drank his tea and looked around at the lavish furnishings, many of which were gold-plated. The fabrics were made of the finest silks, and every piece of wood was hand-carved Indonesian teak.
“Let’s get down to business,” Carlton said, taking a sip from his own cup. “We both were given a massive head start in life and we’ve built even greater riches from it. You wouldn’t have one of the largest engineering companies on the planet if it weren’t for being part of the Nine, and I wouldn’t be where I am without that position, either.”
Gupta shrugged. “So we’re both privileged. I don’t apologize for that.”
“And you shouldn’t. But we have a responsibility to do something with that wealth.”
“I agree. That’s why we all have combined our resources for the Colossus initiative.”
“Maybe not everyone agrees,” Carlton said. “The attempted kidnapping of Jason Wakefield is concerning.”
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