another avenue. One day, there will be a solar panel that is one hundred percent efficient or a way to economically harvest energy from the tides or the waves or the wind. When that happens, there will be no more need for the Gazproms, Aramcos, or Exxons of this world.”
“Yes, of course!” Yevchenko shouted. “But let it happen a hundred years from now. We’ve spent a hundred billion dollars over the last three years, buying up new reserves of oil and natural gas. Huge portions of the government budget have gone into infrastructure for our industry. We cannot have those investments be wasted. Not now, not at this juncture.”
Gregorovich went back to his search, pressing down the long grass with his boots, following the trail of blood. “Even if the Japanese develop this system, it will take decades to build out the infrastructure,” he said. “Decades more to change the world.”
“No,” Yevchenko said. “When the change comes, it comes suddenly. Ten years ago, cell phones were the gadgets of the rich. Now they blanket the Earth. The trillion dollars spent on landlines for the world’s phone companies are fast approaching worthlessness.”
Gregorovich still hadn’t found the pigeon. He paused to focus on his old mentor once more. “Not like you to show fear, my friend. Perhaps you’ve lived in the comfort of Moscow’s bosom for too long.”
“No need for jealousy, you could have joined me.”
“And live in fear like you?” Gregorovich shook his head. “You’re screaming bloody murder over a pipe dream and a long-shot possibility. That doesn’t add up to me. What is it that really scares you?”
Yevchenko seemed to shiver a little more. He hesitated and then finally spoke. “I’ve received a threat. It claims we will suffer for what we did. It comes from Thero himself. It includes details only someone who was there would know. It promises that the martyrs of Yagishiri will be avenged, that their blood will be repaid a millionfold. What once was designed for peace will now be used for war.”
Gregorovich considered this. He couldn’t imagine anyone surviving the explosions and fire he’d caused. The lab had been turned into a smoking crater two hundred feet wide. The fire had burned so hot that Gregorovich and another commando had been singed from a long distance away. “Someone is using his name to scare you.”
“Perhaps,” Yevchenko agreed. “But, either way, they must be stopped. And the technology destroyed once and for all.”
Gregorovich paused, wondering who might be perpetrating this hoax. “As I recall, there was a woman, an Australian. She was a colleague of Thero’s, a friend of his son and daughter. She denounced the work as a waste of time, and remained in Australia when Thero and his team went to Japan.”
Yevchenko nodded. “We put tabs on her already, she’s not the cause. But she’s a danger to us nonetheless, especially now that she’s working with the Americans.”
“How did they get involved in your little mess?”
“There was an incident in Australia,” Yevchenko said. “The woman you spoke of was rescued by an American from their National Underwater and Marine Agency. We believe they’re also looking for Thero. Two of their ships have just been diverted toward Perth, a third toward Sydney.”
Gregorovich had heard of NUMA. Though their work was civilian in nature and their staff mostly scientists and environmental do-gooders, some in Russia were convinced that it was an offshoot of the NSA. Gregorovich doubted this. But even he had to admit they ended up in more scrapes than the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Why NUMA?”
Yevchenko shrugged. “No one knows. But, most likely, they intend to steal whatever they discover and develop it for America. As I’m sure you can understand, such an outcome is completely and categorically unacceptable.”
Perhaps this was what Yevchenko and the party leaders feared the most. “You should have listened to me the first time,” Gregorovich said. “I would have brought Thero and the other scientists to you. This would have been your prize to exploit.”
“All we want is the status quo,” Yevchenko explained. “It was your job to ensure that. As far as the party is concerned,
Yevchenko’s gaze was harsh, his voice firm and bitter. Apparently, there was a little fire left in his soul after all, at least on this subject.
“What are you saying?”
“You must find Thero or this imposter and destroy him. You must erase from existence all record of their research, all evidence of their efforts. And you must not leave any loose strings to haunt us this time.”
He understood the context. This was not a request. “I did not fail.”
“Something slipped through your grasp.”
Gregorovich fumed at the insinuation. There had to be another explanation. It seemed he would have to find that explanation himself. “If you want to stop Thero, you’ll have to locate him first. The woman is the key. That’s undoubtedly why the Americans and Australians are using her.”
“What do you suggest?”
“You have men watching her?”
Yevchenko nodded.
“Have them capture her and bring her to whatever command post you’re setting up for me,” Gregorovich suggested.
“We have a ship awaiting your arrival. A team of commandos were flown to it yesterday. They have no knowledge of the situation but will follow your orders.”
“I’d rather hire my own,” Gregorovich said.
“No,” Yevchenko said.
Gregorovich turned away, noticing movement in the long grass ahead of him. The pigeon he’d wounded was there, trying desperately to drag its damaged body through the pasture. For a moment, he thought of blasting it with the shotgun. But it no longer mattered to him. He had a new quarry to hunt now.
Yevchenko saw it as well, stepping forward.
“Leave it,” Gregorovich said. “Let it suffer.”
Yevchenko stepped away. He seemed half pleased and half apprehensive. “You’re a very cold man, Anton Gregorovich. This is why we choose you. Do not fail us again or the suffering will be yours.”
SEVENTEEN
The sun rose over Tanjung Priok Harbor shrouded in a blanket of haze. It lit up a thicket of cranes and booms sprouting from an endless line of ships and the lengthy concrete piers. Only seven degrees south of the equator, and a recipient of constant humidity from the Java Sea, the harbor was a sweatbox even at this hour of the morning.
At least that’s how it felt to sixty-five-year-old Patrick Devlin, as he meandered along in the early morning sun.
After forty years at sea, Devlin was approaching retirement. That looming thought, and a long night of drinking, had left him in a reflective mood. What exactly was he retiring to? He had no family, no real friends aside from those he crewed or drank with.
“Can’t believe this is the last time I’ll see this stinking place,” he said, speaking to an equally exhausted drinking companion, another Irishman named Keane.
“If it was your last night here,” Keane said, “then you did it up right, Padi. In true Irish fashion… you drank everyone under the table. And left them with the tab.”
Despite Indonesia’s Muslim status, there were plenty of places to drink in the city of Jakarta. A good thing too, because the harbor had become so busy that ships often anchored for days waiting their turn to load and unload. Traffic in the port had doubled threefold in the past decade. Despite frantic levels of construction, the harbor could not keep up.
“Think about it,” Keane added. “Back home, you’ll never wake with dust caking your throat and sweat dripping from your face.” Keane almost tripped but regained his balance. “And none of these damned blaring
