made would be a waste of breath.
‘Are you with British Intelligence?’
‘Yes and no,’ the stranger replied cryptically. ‘It depends upon your point of view. I am very interested in what is about to happen inside that building. For a close friend of mine, it’s a matter of life and death. I believe that you know about such things already. Did you not face death recently?’
There was no threat in the man’s voice, nothing that roused Kilkenny’s defenses. The man knew about the attack on the interstate and appeared to sympathize with him. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that the death you faced has a name? I have lost others to this practitioner of death, good people who did not deserve to die. You and your companion were fortunate when you faced him. I hope that my Anya will fare as well.’
Kilkenny knew whom the man was talking about. ‘Kang Fa.’
‘Yes. I could tell you many stories about Kang Fa, but I will summarize his career with this one fact: Kang Fa leaves nothing behind. He is a perfectionist who eliminates all loose ends.’
The man took a glance at his watch. ‘My time grows short. Beneath that building lies a marina. It is the one weak point in Axton’s defenses, weak because I have made it so.’
‘The engine trouble on the boat?’ Nolan guessed.
‘Very perceptive. If Kang Fa remains true to his past, once he has acquired the ciphers, he will kill Parnell and my Anya. That is his way. They will remain alive only as long as Kang Fa needs them, which brings us back to the marina. Once the net begins to draw tight, Kang will need a way out.’
Kilkenny began to see the strategy that the old man was laying out for him. ‘Stone told me that Parnell keeps a boat down in the marina.’
‘You grasp the situation quickly. I expected no less from a former commando. When it becomes clear to Kang that he is trapped, Anya will offer him this way out. It is my hope that she will be able to free herself during the escape attempt.’
‘And if Kang escapes?’
‘That is a risk I am willing to take for my friend. With your help, I can minimize that risk. Come with me. We both have our own scores to settle with Kang Fa.’
Kilkenny thought about what the man had said, and everything was true. Mosley had briefed him on Kang Fa, and the Chinese agent was as ruthless as they came. While his mind urged caution, his gut told him to trust the old man. Six years in the SEALs had taught Kilkenny to listen to both.
‘Sir, what is your name?’
The old man grinned, knowing that he had an ally. ‘Yakushev, Andrei Yakushev.’
Twelve stories above the riverside park, Axton and Mosley awaited the arrival of Kang Fa. Mosley picked up a pair of binoculars and began surveying the grounds around Parnell’s building. A helicopter, code-named Eagle, maintained a safe distance, holding its position upriver. All of Axton’s teams were in place and everything seemed ready.
Axton joined Mosley, who stood at the window studying the scene below. ‘Kang’s making good time in traffic, ETA of ten minutes.’
‘Excellent. I checked in with the computer teams; they’re all ready for the linkup. The ground teams are all in position and…’ Mosley paused. Something on the ground near Parnell’s building suddenly caught his attention. ‘Wait a minute?’
‘What is it?’ Axton tried to find what Mosley had spotted.
‘Damn! What’s Kilkenny doing down there?’
‘What are you looking at? Where?’
Mosley handed the binoculars to Axton in disgust. ‘Down in the park, those two people on the river walk. The redhead is Nolan Kilkenny; he’s supposed to be waiting to assist your boat. Is that one of your people with him?’
Axton focused in on the two men. Unfortunately, their backs were turned toward him. ‘I can’t tell if it’s one of ours or not. Kilkenny seems to be following the other man. Wait-they’ve slipped over the railing onto the dock. I can’t see them now, but they’re headed for the marina.’
Axton switched on his headset microphone. ‘Team five, this is Looking Glass, over.’
‘Team five here,’ Stone replied from the marina lobby.
‘Stone, we have a possible security breach near the marina. Kilkenny and another person are headed down to the river entrance. See if you can find out what the hell he’s doing.’
‘Will do, sir.’ Stone signed off and flagged one of the other officers over. ‘Williams, do a perimeter sweep of the marina for a pair of civilians. See if you can find them. One is that Yank-Kilkenny.’
As Williams went off to search for the intruders, Stone and the remaining officer took their positions near the marina lobby.
Kilkenny and Yakushev slipped into the marina and hid themselves near the entrance. A large sailboat screened their position from the three officers posted in the lobby. Shortly after they arrived, one of the officers split off from the other two and began checking the boat slips.
‘Andrei, those men are the replacements for the crew of the boat you disabled. One of them is starting to sniff around-looks like someone noticed us heading over here.’
‘It’s of little matter. This is a large marina with ample room for concealment. We must remain in a position to aid Roe when the time comes.’
53
It was 5:00 P.M., the end of the business day, and the building’s professional tenants were leaving their offices for the weekend. Kang and his men were waiting quietly in Parnell’s office as the staff filed out. By 5:15, only Parnell, Roe, and the Chinese agents remained inside the suite. Parnell locked the doors and returned to his office.
‘Can we hear anything?’ Axton asked the sound engineer.
‘No, sir. I can’t filter them out from the noisemaker that Kang’s running. None of their speech is intelligible.’
‘Keep trying,’ Axton urged. ‘We need to know what’s going on in there, and I’m a terrible lip-reader.’
Inside Parnell’s office, the mood was tense. Only Kang appeared confident and unaffected by anticipation.
‘It’s time,’ Parnell announced.
Roe sat down at Parnell’s computer and accessed the communications program. After cruising through a few local computer networks, Roe logged into the Piccadilly Gardener’s server. Then she sat back and began to wait.
‘What is she doing, Parnell? Why did she stop?’
Roe answered Kang directly. ‘The final connection to Moy’s computer will be made through a remote system. I’m waiting for that connection to be made before I continue.’
Too bad the screen faces away from the window, Mosley thought as he watched through the binoculars. I’d love to see what Roe is doing.
‘Gatekeeper one, this is Looking Glass. Over,’ Mosley called out.
‘This is Gatekeeper one. Over, Looking Glass.’
‘Are you monitoring an outgoing signal?’
‘Yes, sir. We’ve got a clean signal from the Tea Party. They’re holding at a local server.’
‘Keep on it, Gatekeeper one,’ Mosley advised. ‘Looking Glass out.’ Mosley turned to Axton, who was talking with the sound engineers. ‘So far so good. Roe’s right where she’s supposed to be. It’s five-twenty now, so in five minutes, the Spyder should be going on-line.’
Grin watched the clock in Newton’s lab with Harbke and Ullrich, the second hand sweeping out each minute as it closed in on 12:25. Right on schedule, the Spyder logged on to the university network. Using separate lines, it burrowed two pathways out of Ann Arbor. The Spyder bounced through ten computer networks in each direction,
