“They were prepared,” the senior man said. “They were prepared for this eventuality.”
He strolled past the two majors and entered the farmhouse.
He ambled slowly through West’s abandoned home, taking it in, pausing every so often to examine some trinket closely—a framed photograph on the wall of West with Lily and Zoe at a waterslide park; on a shelf a ballet trophy that belonged to Lily. He lingered longest over a photo of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Black Dragon, Rapier, and the bodyguard, Switchblade, followed him at a discreet distance, waiting patiently for whatever instructions he might have.
The senior man picked up the photo of West, Lily, and Zoe at the waterslide park. The three of them appeared happy, smiling for the camera, grinning in the sunshine.
“Very good, Jack…” the senior man said, staring at the photo. “You got away from me this time. You’re still wary enough of the world to have a getaway plan. But you’re slipping. You detected us late and you know it.”
The senior man gazed at the smiling faces in the photo and his lip curled into a snarl. “Oh, Jack, you’ve become domesticated. Happy even. Andthat is your weakness. It will be your downfall.”
He dropped the photo, let it shatter against the floor, then turned to the two majors:
“Black Dragon. Call Colonel Mao. Tell him we have not yet acquired the Firestone. But that need not stop him from advancing at his end. Tell him to commence his interrogation of Professor Epper, with extreme prejudice.”
“As you command.” Black Dragon bowed and stepped a few yards away to speak into his sat-phone.
The senior man watched as he did this. After a minute or so, Black Dragon hung up and returned. “Colonel Mao sends his regards and says that he will do as you order.”
“Thank you,” the senior man said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Black Dragon, shoot yourself in the head.”
“What!”
“Shoot yourself in the head. Jack West escaped because of your ham-fisted assault. He saw you coming and so got away. I cannot tolerate failure on this mission. You were responsible and so you must pay the ultimate penalty.”
Black Dragon stammered. “I…no, I cannot do tha—”
“Rapier,” the senior man said.
Quick as a whip, the big man named Rapier drew his pistol and fired it into the Chinese major’s temple. Blood sprayed. Black Dragon collapsed to the floor of Jack West’s living room, dead.
The senior man hardly even blinked.
He turned away casually. “Thank you, Rapier. Now, call our people at Diego Garcia. Tell them to initiate blanket satellite surveillance of the entire southern hemisphere. Target is an aerial contact, Boeing 747, black with stealth profile. Use all aerial signatures to locate it: transponder, contrail wake, infrared, the lot. Find that plane. And when you do, let me know. I’m eager to reunite Captain West with his Jamaican friend.”
“Yes, sir.” Rapier hurried outside.
“Switchblade,” the senior man said to his bodyguard. “A moment alone, please.”
With a deferential nod, the young Asian-American Marine left the room.
Alone now in the living room of West’s farmhouse, the senior man pulled out his own sat phone and dialed a number: “Sir. It’s Wolf. They have the Firestone, and they’re running.”
AS ALL THIS was going on in Australia, other things were happening around the world:
In Dubai, a middle-aged American cargo pilot staying overnight in the Gulf city was being brutally strangled in his hotel room.
He struggled against his three attackers, gasping and thrashing, but to no avail.
When he was dead, one of his attackers keyed a cell phone. “The pilot is prepared.”
A voice responded:“West is en route. We’ll keep watching him, and tell you when to proceed.”
The dead pilot’s name was Earl McShane, from Fort Worth, Texas, a cargo hauler for the TransAtlantic Air Freight company. He was not a particularly noteworthy individual: perhaps the biggest thing he’d done in his life was after 9/11, when he had written to his local newspaper denouncing “the dirty Muslims that done this” and demanding revenge.
At the same time, in rural Ireland—County Kerry, to be exact—a crack force of twelve men in black were advancing stealthily on an isolated farmhouse.
Within seven minutes it was all over.
They had achieved their goal.
All six of the guards at the farmhouse had been liquidated, and in the attackers’ midst as they left the darkened farmhouse was a small boy named Alexander, aged eleven.
As for The Halicarnassus, it shot across the Indian Ocean, heading for the Persian Gulf.
But it didn’t fly there directly. It took a circuitous route that included an overnight stop at a deserted airfield in Sri Lanka, just in case the Chinese had anticipated their escape route.
It meant that they approached Dubai in darkness, late in the evening of December 2.
Inside The Halicarnassus, all was quiet and still. Only a few lights were on. The two kids were asleep in the bunkroom of the plane, Zoe had nodded off on a couch in the main cabin, and Sky Monster was up in the cockpit,
