by Ethan Cross
“What’s your point?” Loria said.
“Just that your friend, Mr. Yoshida, doesn’t plan to make a dime from the sale of this technology.”
Yoshida said nothing, but Burke noticed the muscles of his jaw bulging as he ground his teeth.
“Yoshida is a patriot. He would never betray his country. But I would extrapolate that the CIA had plans to shut down the battery program, and so his plan wasn’t to sell it, but to give it away.”
Loria looked to his partner and said, “Anything to say?”
“We checked his personal finances. He’s recently purchased the domains freepowerforall.com and batteryofthefuture.com, and he’s hired a programmer and marketing genius who used to work for WikiLeaks,” Burke continued. “If you check his phone, you’ll find a message to the designer in question stating that Mr. Yoshida would be sending the data tonight and wants the site live by the morning. Now, why would he do that if he planned to sell the tech?”
“Is that true? Say something,” Loria yelled.
“I actually feel sorry for you, Mr. Loria,” Burke said. “You’re the only somewhat honest one out of this group. To my knowledge, you had no intentions of selling out the others. You’re just the one getting screwed.”
Loria twitched and blinked and said, “Put your gun down, Yoshida. You too, Kruger. Or I’ll have my security cut you down. We need to have a talk about all this.”
Burke winced. “Again, Ty, buddy … screwed. You see, I’m guessing that all of these men are contracted to you by Black Dog Protective Services?”
Loria didn’t answer, but the look on his face said enough.
“I discovered that Mr. Yoshida paid a very substantial sum to Black Dog and Carl Verbeek. These men don’t work for you. They work for him.”
Loria’s face had become so red that he looked as if he may burst. “Say something, Yoshida!”
The CIA agent let out a deep breath and said, “It’s all true. I realized after the massacre that I’ve done nothing with my life but cause pain and suffering. I’ve always just followed orders blindly and did whatever was best for me. I’ve been a selfish man. And this is my chance to do something good. What’s a little collateral damage compared to the greater good or making the world a better place?”
“And what about the rest of us?” Loria asked.
Yoshida pursed his lips and seemed to consider that. “You can all burn in Hell where you belong.”
Loria reached behind his back, likely to retrieve a pistol, and Burke could see Kruger and the blonde tensed to shoot their way out of the building.
“Wait! No one open fire,” Burke quickly said. “This truck is filled with a lot of oxygen tanks, which were on their way to a local hospital. I stole the truck and opened up all of the regulator valves just before driving in here.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Yoshida was the first to ask.
Burke rolled his eyes. “An oxygen-enriched environment is defined as any atmosphere with more than 23.5 percent oxygen. Considering that, think of the basic fire triangle. All three legs of the triangle must be present to produce a fire—a fuel, an oxidizer, and an ignition source. If asked to name some fuels, you would all likely name materials like wood, coal, oil, and gas. But would any of you list materials like aluminum, steel, stainless steel? Consider this. Why can we light a piece of wood with a match but not a steel rod? Because the ignition temperature of the wood is much lower than that of the steel rod, and the heat from the match is sufficient for ignition only on the wood. But as the oxygen concentration in an atmosphere increases, the auto-ignition temperature decreases. So materials that cannot be ignited in normal air may burn readily in oxygen-enriched environments.”
“Does anyone know what the hell the little man is talking about?” Kruger said.
Burke sighed. “How to explain this in a way you can all understand, including all you mercs on the catwalk? I’ve used this truck and the pure oxygen it was carrying to turn this building into an oxygen-enriched environment. That means that all we need is a small ignition source, like an open flame, or, say, gunfire, to set the atmosphere in this building ablaze. If any of you try to discharge your weapons, they will likely explode in your hands.”
Chapter 100
No one spoke. No one seemed to know how to react. And that was what Burke had counted on. How do you win a fight against a superior force? Don’t fight at all. Get them to fight each other, and then starve them of their resources.
As he had instructed, Isabel had been moving closer and closer to him during his speech. He would need her within reach for what he feared would come next.
Loria sniffed the air and said, “He’s bluffing. I don’t smell any gas.”
“It’s oxygen, you idiot,” Yoshida said. “It’s odorless. And I don’t think he is bluffing.”
Kruger grabbed the large crate from the back of the panel van, pulled it out by himself, and tossed it onto the ground between him and Loria. “This changes nothing,” the giant South African said. “We had a deal. Here’s your prize and all of the research we took. Transfer my money.”
Yoshida pointed at Burke and said, “Don’t try anything.”
Burke raised his hands. “I’m just here to watch the fireworks.”
Yoshida frowned but turned to Kruger. “I think we’ll need to search that crate and run a full diagnostic on the battery before we transfer anything.”
“You told me to steal this hunk of metal. There was no contingency on it working properly.”
“If you didn’t tamper with it, then it should work just fine. And if there are no surprises in the crate, then there’s no reason to object to a search.”
“The police are probably on their way, and you’re only guilty if they find me here. We had a deal. Transfer the money.”
“Our deal never included you killing my best researcher. I think we’re going to need to renegotiate.”
Yoshida gestured toward one of the mercenaries on the ground level and said, “Check the crate.”
The man, eying Kruger apprehensively, made his way over to the wooden box. But Kruger’s face didn’t show anger. His features were downturned with disappointment.
“Gentleman, may I suggest a solution before this situation escalates to violence?” Burke asked.
Kruger met Burke’s gaze and said, “It’s too late for that.”
Then he grabbed the mercenary reaching toward the crate by the head and twisted his neck with a sickening crunch. Yoshida ran toward his fallen man, raising his gun, but apparently afraid to fire. Producing a throwing knife from his belt, Kruger flicked his wrist and sent the knife gliding through the air. It struck Yoshida in the throat. The CIA agent grabbed his neck, blood flowing out around his fingers, and fell to the ground with a gurgling scream.
Burke knew what was coming next, and he wasted no time in preparing for it. He threw open the door to the truck and from beneath the bench seat he pulled out the thick gray blanket he had placed there. He had retrieved it from the back of the BearCat. The ballistic blanket was used by SWAT officers to throw over windows or use as cover in a variety of tactical situations. As an added precaution, Burke had soaked it in water.
He pulled Isabel close to his body and threw the ballistic blanket over both of them while running toward the door.
A millisecond later, he heard the first shots ring out. Several of the mercs opened fire, and he could tell by their screams that the results were as he had expected.
He dared not look back or stop, but he could hear flames igniting and the pressure of the fire building and growing, its hunger almost palpable in the air. They needed to get out of the building before it became a giant pressure cooker. But he also didn’t want to take any chances, and so he had retrieved a standard road flare from beneath the truck’s seat. As they reached the sliding door, Isabel pulled it open while Burke ignited the flare and tossed it toward the back of the flatbed.
The world became fire.
A huge rush
ing pressure wave spread across the room as the truck exploded and shot into the air, landing on one of Loria’s prized collection. Even beneath the protection of the blanket, the heat was unbearable. They fell through the opening in a heap on the ground, and Isabel quickly closed the door behind them.
Coughing and breathing heavily, Burke said, “Come on. We need to get away from the building.”
Isabel looked at the doors and hesitated, as if she were debating running back in to make sure that Kruger met his end in the flames.
“Constable!”
Reluctantly, she helped him off the ground, and they retreated toward the house. Burke heard the gas tanks of the cars inside the building catching fire and exploding. It hurt his heart to think of those works of art being lost, but he supposed that it was much like Carter’s wife and her burning parties, people were more important than material things. And miraculously, he and Isabel had both survived this trial by fire.
He heard the men inside screaming. Some of the mercenaries had jumped out of windows and ran across the yard, still burning, pain destroying all rational thought until they fell to the ground in piles of burning flesh. More explosions and the sound of twisting and buckling metal added to cacophony.
He and Isabel merely stood there and watched it burn. Then a much larger explosion tore the building in half, the concussion wave knocking them both back to the ground.
Chapter 101
After throwing the knife, Kruger knew that one of the American mercenaries would shoot. They were ignorant and undisciplined. Although, he supposed many would have said the same about his actions. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed Yoshida. Maybe he should have let things play out a bit longer. But he knew the outcome would have been the same, and he wasn’t about to walk away without his money while leaving the man responsible for all his troubles alive.
Within a second of the first shot, the world inside the building became a picture of Hell. Flames, explosions, chaos, men burning alive.
But he didn’t wait around to watch the show. As soon as he heard the crack of the first rifle, Kruger scooped up Zarina and dove through the open rear doors of the panel van.
“Shut the doors!” he said as he rushed to the front of the van, knowing they only had a matter of seconds to escape the inferno.
Reaching the front of the van, he heard the rear doors slam shut just as he started the engine. Flames shot out from around the hood at the sudden spark of life from the vehicle. It would explode any second, but he jammed down the accelerator anyway, hoping that there was enough life in it to carry them to safety.
The van shot forward, smashing into the side of one of Loria’s toys with a scraping of metal that caused more flames to ignite. The heat was blinding, like his eyeballs were cooking in his skull. It was like the very air inside the metal shed had turned to fire.
But he kept his foot pressed to floor.
The rear of the building held some offices and a bathroom. The van easily tore through the two-by-four and drywall construction, but then came the real test. He had no idea whether or not the vehicle had the power to push through the side of the metal building, but he figured that the structure must have been built in sheets and if nothing else, maybe the impact would burst one of those free. He knew, however, that if the van struck one of the poles or support braces, then they would cook along with the rest of the poor souls inside the maelstrom of fire and death.
To his surprise, the van punched through with little trouble, but that didn’t mean that they were safe. Any second, the fire in the vehicle’s engine would lead to the gas tank and turn the van into a ball of flame.
He looked back at Zarina, who was crumpled against the van’s rear wall. His heart rate had been steady through the whole event, through betrayal and bullets and explosions; that was merely analysis and reaction. He wasn’t afraid to die, but he could not imagine losing either of his girls.
Kruger jumped to his feet, nearly bent at a ninety-degree angle, almost crawling, as he moved through the back of the burning van. In one motion, he scooped up Zarina’s unmoving form, ripped open the rear doors, and dove from the van onto the desert sand.
The van kept rolling along for several hundred yards before finally succumbing to the flames and exploding.
The desert floor was hard and unforgiving, not really as much sand as a rocky compress of sand and stone. Ignoring the pain, he searched for Zarina. She lay only a few feet away, on her back.
He rushed to her side in a staggering lope, still hunched over, digging his fingers into the ground to propel himself faster. Her eyes were closed, but he could see that she was still breathing. He lifted her up into his arms and cradled her like a child.
Blood gushed from a wound in her abdomen and ran out from her nose and mouth. She must have caught a round from one of mercenaries or a piece of shrapnel from one of the explosions. It was bad. He could see another dark liquid mixed with the blood. He stroked her golden hair and said, “Wake up, my love. Wake up. You’re going to be fine.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she reached up and touched his cheek.
“There you go. You’re a fighter. You’ve been hurt worse than this before.”
His massive hand tried to put pressure on her wound, but he felt the blood flowing out around his fingers. His mind raced for a solution, some emergency medical treatment he could perform.
Zarina shook her head and smiled up at him. The light from the fire illuminated her face and hair, accentuating her pale skin and blonde mane, giving her whole body an ethereal radiance. She looked like an angel. She mouthed the word “Go.”
“Never. I will never leave you. I wouldn’t leave you to the lions, and I won’t leave you now. I will never abandon you. I am yours, and you are mine. My golden beauty.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks. He stroked her hair. He felt her hand touching his back, but he didn’t know what she was doing until it was too late.
She pulled the bone-handled knife from the hidden sheath, and with a swiftness he wouldn’t have thought possible in her condition, she slashed the blade across her own throat.
“No, no, no.” He tried to hold one hand over her neck and one over her abdomen. The blood was everywhere now, flowing out in torrents onto the rocky sand. “Please, no. Please.”
He didn’t know what he was anymore, who he was, but none of that mattered now. Kruger wept. Idris wept. Both sides of himself, darkness and light, they each cried out in a pain like he had never known. He wanted to tear off his own skin and claw out his own eyes. He was wild with fury and sorrow and fear. Even as he had listened to his mother’s screams as the lions slowly devoured her, he had never felt this afraid, this alone.
Looking back at the burning structure, now several hundred yards behind him, he remembered the bomb that had been placed in the crate beneath Yoshida’s prize. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small device resembling a key fob, and pressed the button to ignite the final fire.
The explosion decimated the building, sending chunks of metal and wood high into the night sky. He heard the sirens in the distance, but he didn’t want to move. He wanted to pick up Zarina’s body and walk back into the flames. He wanted this pain to end.
But then he thought of Kianga, his daughter, his sunshine. He had to make it home to her. Some part of him needed to survive this, not for Kruger, not for money or the mission, but for Idris, for his daughter.
He closed Zarina’s now lifeless eyes, pushed himself up from the ground, and walked away into the darkness.
Chapter 102
Burke and Isabel sat and watched the flames lick the sky as the emergency crews and police arrived on scene. The paramedics immediately rushed up to them, but both Burke and Isabel waved off the first responders. They didn’t say a word to each other as they watched what was left of the structure cave in on itself.
Finally, Burke said, “See, didn’t that work out much better than dying?”
Isabel’s face showed no emotion. She seem
ed hollow, like vengeance and rage were the only things still animating her body and now that they had drained away, there was nothing left. “I’m not sure yet,” she said.
“You completed your crusade. The people responsible for the massacre are all dead.”
“I guess so.”
“Now you know why it happened and made the culprits pay for it. Do you feel any better?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ve considered suicide many times myself. But you know what always makes me feel better.”
“What’s that?”
“Ice cream. And pancakes. You want to get some pancakes?”
A small smile crept onto her face. “I would, but I think I’m still under arrest.”
Burke shrugged. “No worries. I know people. You just have to promise not to kidnap or beat anyone else with a hammer.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Good. Then we’ll get pancakes. Maybe pancakes with ice cream on top. Have you ever done that?”
“I don’t like pancakes.”
“You’ll learn to love to them. Doctor’s orders.”
He heard a familiar voice at his back and turned to see Nic and Carter walking up the driveway. Nic smiled as they approached and said, “We can’t take you anywhere, kid. We tell you not to shoot anyone, and so you decided to blow them up instead?”
Burke stood and replied, “Technically, I didn’t blow anyone up. I just put them in a position to blow up themselves.”
He looked at Sam Carter, who had tears in his eyes. Burke didn’t understand why and was about to ask when Carter said, “Shut up and come here, kid.” Then the FBI agent wrapped him up in big hug.
Burke’s eyes went wide, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He fought the urge to push Carter away and instead patted him on the back and said, “Okay. Okay.”
Carter finally pulled away and wiped his eyes. “Sorry. You just scared us, son. We assumed the worst.”