Mirage

“Shoot.” They were at a depth where there was just enough light to see feathers of biologic flotsam streaming by the thick domed canopy. The sub navigated through a lidar system — basically, radar with lasers.

“Why not just lob a missile down on to Kenin while he’s sunning himself? Surely there are times he’s alone.”

“If this was about revenge, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Juan replied. “But I want to get my hands on his stealth technology, or whatever it was, that made that ship disappear and capsize Dullah and you on the Sakir.”

“I assume you then want to sell it to your and my favorite uncle.”

“I whetted Lang Overholt’s appetite while we were laid up in Bermuda. He said — and I quote—‘Get me that and I’ll hand you a blank check from the Treasury.’ I foresee a number one followed by eight zeros.”

It took Linda a second to imagine the figure. “A hundred million. My my.”

“We just got them back their stolen billion. I think they can afford it. Though Lang’s going to grit his teeth handing it over.” Juan smiled at the thought. His old mentor was known as both a brilliant strategist but also the biggest miser in Washington, D.C.

From time to time, they would rise close enough to the surface to get updated GPS signals to fine-tune the navigation plot. They were fighting the Yangtze’s current, so the going was slow. Because Shanghai is the busiest container port in the world, an unimaginable amount of ship traffic thundered overhead. In the submersible the hiss of steel through water and the chop of propeller blades was an industrial symphony. It dimmed little when they made the turn to start following the Huangpu River that bisected the megalopolis.

They stayed close to the middle of the river. Juan knew on either side of them were mile upon mile of commercial docks. This was a city of industry, and its rivers were its lifeblood. When they passed the Pudong District, they were at a depth of forty feet but could still see the artificial neon glow of the numerous buildings cutting through the water. Twenty minutes later, they drifted toward their rendezvous. The site was in the process of renewal. A cement plant had once stood on a piece of real estate that now was prime for residential development. The towers that were to replace it would be home to five thousand people.

Now the plant had been demolished, but the quay where raw materials had once been imported still stood. Juan had one of their encrypted walkie-talkies. “The Merman is here.”

“About time, Merman,” Eddie replied. “For a while there, I thought you’d come to your senses and called the whole thing off.”

Juan surfaced the mini-sub in the shadow of the quay and quickly saw that he could slip it between the dock and a partially sunken barge. They would be invisible. Eddie was parked in a Chinese knockoff of a Toyota van. A fine rain was falling, blurring the lights of the city. Juan unstrapped himself, gave Linda’s shoulder a squeeze, and made his way to the hatch.

“Take care,” Linda said.

“See you soon.”

Eddie had already released the straps holding the cargo pod to the sub’s upper deck, and, together, he and Cabrillo lifted it into the van’s rear cargo box. The pod itself wasn’t much larger than those seen atop cars, and it weighed less than a hundred pounds.

Once they were clear, bubbles boiled around the Disco submersible and it soon plunged back into its natural element. Linda would be traveling with both tide and current, so she’d be back aboard the Oregon in half the time it took to get here. Eddie drove the truck to a commercial parking lot that was less than two miles from Kenin’s tower fortress. They spent the next hour examining the items they had smuggled into China, making certain nothing had been damaged. Juan was trusting his life to this gear, so he was thorough and methodical.

It was too late to find a taxi so they walked back to the rented office that overlooked Kenin’s penthouse retreat. MacD Lawless was watching the darkened terrace through the powerful camera lens. Mike Trono was stretched out asleep in the adjoining office. Cabrillo let him be and wrapped a sleeping bag around himself and curled up on the carpet. He was asleep in moments.

Next morning, the rain had intensified, and the forecast said it would continue for at least another day. The men remained holed up in the office. Eddie was reduced to the role of errand boy, going out to get their meals. They maintained the overwatch of the rooftop terrace because there wasn’t much else to do. All of them had been on such stakeouts before and each had his own way to combat the boredom.

Thirty hours after sneaking into the country, Juan was with Eddie in the truck. The weather had broken. Seng was behind the wheel while the Chairman rode in the cargo bed. He was strapped in and ready to go. The roof panels had been cut and hinges attached so he could open them with the pull on a length of rope. They just needed to wait for Kenin.

Eddie found a parking space near where he’d spent part of a night watching the building’s back door. He had to remain with the vehicle in case a cop wanted him to move. MacD was in position farther down the street ready for the diversion while Mike was up in the office with a radio to tell them when Kenin went out to enjoy the sunshine after so many days confined indoors.

The guards had done their dawn sweep, and at nine o’clock repeated it because the girl was coming out to swim. Mike relayed this information to the others using a predetermined series of clicks on their walkie-talkies. Not knowing the level of government monitoring made them prudently circumspect.

Juan heard two clicks from his radio handset. Kenin had made his appearance. Juan’s stomach knotted. Minutes to go. He tightened his grip. He wouldn’t open the roof panels until he heard that final single click in case anyone in the surrounding buildings looked down and became curious enough about an open-topped van to call the police.

He had to wait until Kenin was seated poolside. One guard would be standing outside the little pavilion that housed the elevator. But the real trigger moment would come when Mike saw the elevator guard switch frequencies on his radio and check in with the guards down in the penthouse suite. He did it every five minutes. A simple “All’s well.” Once he gave that, Juan had just those five min—

Click.

Cabrillo yanked on the rope, and the two precut sections of roof hinged downward, flooding the interior of the van in light. The truck shifted slightly as Eddie jumped clear and started making his way to another vehicle they had stashed nearby.

Down the street, MacD set the paper bag he’d been carrying in the space between two parked cars and casually blended back into the throngs of people on the sidewalks. After a ten-second delay Cabrillo knew was coming, the contents of the bag started to erupt.

It had been filled with tiny firecrackers. Ironically, they had smuggled them in because they couldn’t guarantee the quality of local fireworks from the nation that invented them. They lit off like echoing popcorn. Those people nearest the smoking eruption of tiny explosions stepped back smartly while nearly every other pedestrian edged forward to see what was happening. For half a block, all eyes were on the sparking and popping bag. No one paid the slightest attention to the van.

They never saw what emerged from the top.

The technology had been around since the 1960s. Max had found the design specs on the Internet. The only issue had been finding sufficiently pure hydrogen peroxide to fuel the contraption.

Cabrillo had spent the morning strapped to a jetpack. Now, with the crowded street distracted by the continuous string of firecrackers going off, he toggled the switch that caused the fuel to react with a silver catalyst and expand in an exothermic reaction that blew superhot gas through the pack’s twin jet nozzles. The sound was like that of steam escaping from a loose fitting, but the exhaust was invisible.

Juan’s first attempts at using the jetpack tethered down in the Oregon’s hold had been disasters. Seconds after lifting free of the deck, he would begin tumbling in midair, and had it not been for the ropes supporting him, he would have killed himself a dozen times over. But then came the eureka moment when he intuitively understood the dynamics of this kind of flying and he could keep erect and stable until the tanks ran dry and he would alight onto his feet with the grace of an eagle returning to its aerie.

Max had done the calculations, and Cabrillo trusted no man more than Hanley, but as he lifted out of the truck’s cargo bed he knew he could be dead in thirty seconds. That’s all the time he had to soar four hundred twenty feet into the air and land precisely on the flat-roofed elevator housing. If he didn’t make it, he’d be just shy