The room glowed green through the night vision visor. It was as he expected. The large space was set up similarly to technology facilities he’d visited in the United States. Computers, large tables, and cabinets filled the room. In the corner, past the cubicles, was a door with an overhead sign: “UFFICIO.” He tested the door—locked. He retrieved a second small box secured to his belt that had a key-like extension on one end and pushed it into the lock. In two seconds a green light flashed once. He turned the handle and opened the door, closing and locking it behind him.
The office’s layout was typical: desks, chairs, a copy machine, computers on two of the tabletops, stacks of paper covering most surfaces. A large safe—taller than him by at least a head—sat at the rear. He placed a third device adjacent to the safe’s lock and began to spin the combination dial, first to the left, then slowly to the right, then left again. A series of numbers glowed on his device’s small screen. He spun the dial to the designated numbers and tried the handle. It opened with a soft click.
Inside were stacks of money in various currencies, papers, a pistol, and, on the top shelf, a small computer server with lights that blinked green and orange. Taking the same device he used to unlock the office door, he removed a plastic cap and inserted the device into one of the server’s USB ports. A green light on the device flashed.
“Countdown: one minute,” his artificial-intelligence-enabled helmet said. Then added, “You are running late. There are men in the alley.”
He heard the audible tick in his helmet as the countdown began. He needed one minute to download the data onto the device and upload a corrupting virus onto the server. The device’s internal processors would transmit the information via satellite to a Chinese facility.
“Con Ma, someone is approaching the office door,” his helmet said.
This was unexpected. He went to one knee, pulled his weapon, turned to the door, and waited. His helmet’s visor displayed the halo of light around the closed door as someone turned on the lights in the facility.
The door shook violently.
“We know you’re in there. Come out now, and no one will be hurt.” English. A male voice and, based on the accent, from the southern United States.
Con Ma frowned. The warehouse was supposed to be empty. He looked at the device in the server. The light was now solid green, no flashing. He removed it and scanned the room. A vase full of plastic flowers sat on a desk’s corner. As he crossed the room, the door rattled again.
“Out, you son of a bitch. Now.”
He removed the flowers from the porcelain urn, clicked two switches on the device, and placed it inside. He then replaced the flowers. After the device finished transmitting the files, it would self-destruct, destroying the files. His job was done. He was now on his own to save his own ass.
“Out, Goddammit! Now!”
Con Ma raised the large pistol-like weapon and issued specific instructions to his helmet: “Doorframe.” He pulled the trigger, and the augmented bullet exploded on contact with the frame. The door twisted away and smashed into the wall behind it. Con Ma ran out the door and turned toward the entry. A man stood in the middle of the aisle, his pistol pointed at Con Ma. The man fired; Con Ma felt a searing pain in his leg.
Con Ma raised his weapon and fired, but the enhanced bullet missed its target and exploded against the wall of the facility. Instantly fire and debris filled the corner. The guard fired again. Con Ma felt the bullet nick the side of his helmet; he again fired his weapon. The guard’s right shoulder and arm exploded, and the man was tossed across the floor. His pistol flew into the air and skidded on the concrete floor. The man lay broken and still.
Con Ma reached the door and stopped. He removed his helmet to check the damage from the bullet, pleased that it was just grazed, then replaced it. He took a quick look up the alley. A Humvee sat idling. A man with an automatic rifle stood next to it and, upon spotting Con Ma, started firing.
“Vehicle, maximum effect,” Con Ma said as he raised his weapon and aimed it at the Humvee’s grille. The impact was like a grenade’s. The shock wave ripped the man apart and threw him across the narrow alley, slamming him against the building.
“Time left?”
“None; you are out of time.”
He limped to the rope and climbed. Reaching the parapet, he gritted his teeth from the pain of his bullet wound and fell to the roof. He found the anesthetic syringe, jammed it against his leg, and fainted. When he regained consciousness, he asked again, “Time?”
“Five fifty-two, local.”
Damn, he was seriously behind schedule. He’d been out for almost an hour. Not good. Dawn was breaking.
Now, looking again over the edge of the roof, he saw a man talking to the detective. He had been told that the facility would be clear, that the operation would be clean, in and out. No problems. Well, now there were problems—big problems. At least, he hoped, the transmitter had sent the data out before it self-destructed. So, that part was done. He had fulfilled his contract. His leg burned like a thousand fires. He hadn’t counted on being shot in the thigh and passing out once he’d reached the roof. Rope sat coiled next to the parapet. He didn’t remember pulling it up. Luck, he thought.
He scanned the roof across the alley. A stream of water rose above the parapet as the fire department doused the charred corner of the adjacent building. He staggered across the tarred roof toward the cycle-drone, which looked like a motorcycle that could fly. He left the rope behind. He climbed aboard, secured himself with the seat belt, and tightened the strap to his helmet. With his right hand against the iPad-sized glass of the control panel, the drone lit up, all its avionics activated. He looked across the river and spotted the flashing lights of a helicopter headed toward him.
“There’s an approaching aircraft,” he told his helmet. “Data, please.”
“Aircraft’s transponder says HC120,” his helmet responded. “Registered to the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department.”
“Activate police scanner.”
Con Ma started the drone’s four electrically driven double rotors. Their whirring increased until the vehicle began to gradually rise.
“Con Ma, are you injured?” his helmet asked. “Your vital signs show stress due to injury.”
“Yes,” he answered. “I’ve taken necessary precautions. Right thigh wound.”
“Do you wish me to take control?”
“Stand by to assist. I’m okay.”
“Standing by. Returning to scanner intercepts.”
“Detective Phan, on your location in ten seconds,” the helicopter pilot said. “I see the lights from the fire trucks.”
Con Ma twisted the handles, and the drone rose three meters off the roof. He leaned to the right, and the machine rotated away from the fire trucks and the lights.
“Detective, I see something on the roof next to the address you gave,” the helicopter pilot said on the scanner. “I don’t know what it is.”
“Describe it, Eagle One.”
“Looks like a drone. But a design and size I’ve never seen before . . . and there’s someone on it.”
“Say again,” Phan said.
“It’s a motorcycle built into a drone. That’s all I can say. Oddest damn thing.”
“What’s it doing?”
“Flying, sir. It’s flying and leaving the scene.”
“Where’s it headed?”
“Toward the river. Should I follow?”
“Yes, Eagle One—follow the fucking thing.”
Con Ma smiled. Now to find out what this contraption the Chairwoman had given him could do. He twisted the controls, and the drone shot away from the warehouse district, as if an enormous hummingbird had been kicked in its ass. He skimmed the rooftops; the control panel read 104 kph. He hunched under the windscreen and sharply banked the machine toward the river. The sun was just breaking the horizon. The river’s surface was like glass. He dropped to six meters above the water and headed north and away
from the port. He knew he couldn’t outrun the Chinese-made helicopter. His top speed was at best 140 kph, the helicopter’s almost double that. His advantages were size and maneuverability.
He looked at the radar display as one ping flashed. “Display, identify, and confirm ping on the radar.”
“Confirmed,” his helmet replied. “Ho Chi Minh City police helicopter, Eagle One.”
“Distance and heading, please.”
“Two-point-three kilometers. At current speeds, it will intercept in one minute, fourteen seconds.”
A shot of pain racked his leg. He gritted his teeth.
“I sense that the trauma is impacting your control of the aircraft. Would you like assistance?”
“Stand by to assist.”
“Yes, Con Ma. Standing by.”
The scanner squawked in his ear. “Detective, the craft is attempting to escape. Should I fire?”
“See if you can force it down,” Phan said. “Wait to shoot until it’s clear of residential areas.”
“Roger that.”
Con Ma rotated the drone toward the opposite side of the river. Ahead was the Sai Gon Bridge. He lowered his altitude above the river to three meters. A tug pushing two barges raced past him on his left. A small fishing boat flew by on the right, its captain waving at Con Ma. The cycle-drone barely cleared the bridge’s arched supports.
“ETA on Eagle One?” Con Ma asked.
“Distance now one thousand sixty meters and closing. Do you need assistance?”
“No. But thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
After clearing the bridge, he aimed the drone up the river. A thousand meters farther, he veered left into the Kinh Thanh Da canal.
“They are shooting from the helicopter,” his helmet said. “Autonomous evasive countermeasures under way.”
The drone violently rotated right and almost touched the river. Con Ma, holding tight, watched a series of small waterspouts appear immediately to his left and below. They popped along the surface of the river in a ragged line.
“Automatic weapons. AK-47.”
“Too much information.”
“Understood. Eagle One is now one hundred meters to rear, ninety meters above.”
The drone buzzed under the cross-canal bridge and back over the central part of the Saigon River. Con Ma’s goal was simple: reach the Binh Loi Bridge complex.
“On my mark, take control and spin out to starboard, and take a tactical position behind the helicopter.”
“Yes, Con Ma. Waiting.”
He turned and looked at the helicopter. The rising sun brightly illuminated its blue-and-white markings as if a spotlight had hit it.
He cinched the seat belt tighter. “Mark.”
The drone banked and rolled, the g-forces nearly throwing Con Ma from his seat. It spun out and came to an abrupt stop. The helicopter, thirty meters over him, roared past. He could feel the downdraft of the main rotor blades. The drone adjusted to the shift in air pressure. The helicopter then began its own adjustment, banking wide to the right.
“Activate weapon,” Con Ma commanded.
On a small sponson mounted to the front cowling, a weapon—similar to the handheld one he’d used in the warehouse—angled up sharply and rotated left to right.
“Target helicopter’s tail rotor.”
“Target set.”
Con Ma watched the helicopter complete its bank. Just inside the open side door, a man crouched with a rifle.
“Detective, should we fire again?” the pilot said over the scanner. “He didn’t respond to the first burst of fire.”
“Yes, fire,” Phan said.
“Fire weapon,” Con Ma said.
“Weapon fired.”
The bullet invisibly traveled the distance from the drone to the helicopter. The hub of the tail rotor assembly exploded, shearing off the last meter of the helicopter’s tail boom. The aircraft immediately began to uncontrollably gyrate under its rotor.
“I’m hit; tail rotor gone,” the pilot said over the scanner.
“Damn it,” answered Phan.
The pilot pushed the helicopter to the left and headed toward the open fields of an abandoned boatyard along the north bank. Untethered, the rifleman lost his grip and tumbled thirty meters to the river. The spinning helicopter, barely clearing the trees, crashed and skidded across an open patch of concrete.
“Detective, I’m down near the Binh Trieu Bridge. My copilot’s in the river. The drone was last heading toward the Binh Loi Bridge.”
“Shit,” Phan said.
How many times had Con Ma heard that voice? God, he hated that voice and the man that came with it.
“Detective, I don’t know what that thing was or who was driving it, but they disappeared like a ghost.”
CHAPTER 3
For Cleveland Police detective Alexandra Polonia, it had been a busy twelve months. First her husband, Detective Ralph Cierzinski, was arrested for running both a murder-for-hire ring and a meth lab that sold crank and other drugs to kids, and she’d spent the last year, and nearly all her money, proving that she knew nothing about any of his illegal activities. She’d had him sign the divorce papers the day he climbed, in chains, onto the bus to prison. Then—strangest of all—was her uncanny resemblance to a Croatian journalist, a resemblance that ended in terror and death in Venice, Italy. Then there was her husband’s escape from prison that left at least two people dead. And last, and certainly not the least, was her falling head over heels for CIA agent Javier Castillo from Waco, Texas.
Things went even further south when Alex’s police captain ordered her home from her Venice vacation. Back in Cleveland, she ran smack into the teeth of a political witch hunt looking to collect heads. The higher-ups had been relentless during the months that followed her husband’s arrest—she was guilty, no proof required. But now, after Ralph’s murderous escape from prison, their reasons for wanting her sacked grew dramatically. They wanted a head on a stick, and Alex’s would do nicely.
After the “unofficial” commission’s ambush and her insolent responses, her captain had no option but to place her on administrative leave. The official reason was for not cooperating with an informal and unofficial investigation. She understood where this was heading. Her union representative said they would handle it, which gave her no great sense of confidence.
After enduring the kangaroo court review, she spent the next few days going through every remaining financial resource she had. Her kitchen table looked like the week before tax day. Paper was strewn messily across the Formica tabletop. Not only was she on administrative leave, but she was broke too.
Now, a week after her return from Venice, she was at her parents’ place for Sunday dinner. She had come to two conclusions: she had enough money to survive on for three months, assuming that she ate only ramen noodles, and there was no chance she was going to stay with the Cleveland Police Department. It was every woman for her damn self.
“Honey, are you okay?” her mother asked at the table. “You seem out of sorts.”
“She’s okay,” her father said. “Just been a couple of tough months.”
Alex smiled at her father, and he returned it. “It’s Ralph,” she said. “All the stuff from last year keeps coming back. They’ve put me on administrative leave—indefinitely.”
“That’s such bull,” her brother John said. “They’re leaving you out there to twist in the wind. They need a scapegoat, and it’s you.”
“I know you, sis. You’ll never be anyone’s stooge,” Rick, her youngest brother, added. “Why didn’t they do something before you went on vacation? Mom says you went somewhere nice.”
“Venice,” Alex said. “It was going to be nice, and then it became the reason for my suspension.”
“Why?” her father asked.
Through the rest of dinner, Alex told them the whole story: the Croatian journalist who had a terrorist for a son and who looked enough like her to be her twin; the war crim
inal running for president of Croatia; the CIA agent from Texas (she left out all the intimate details); and the email from her husband that led to a trap he’d set up to facilitate his escape, a trap that led to the death of the special response team state trooper.
“I never liked Ralph,” her mother said. “But he was your choice.”
“Mom,” Alex said. “We’ve talked about this. Yes, I was a fool to marry that man. But that’s done. I’m moving on—I have to.”
“That woman in Venice . . . As a mother, I understand what she did. It’s so sad. I’m sorry for you, honey, so sorry.”
“You said she looked like you?” John asked.
“Like looking in a mirror,” Alex said. “That was the strangest part. I thought we had trouble in Cleveland, but for people in that part of the world, when you combine the Bosnian War and seven hundred years of hate, our difficulties seem trivial.”
“What the city is doing stinks,” Rick’s wife, Julie, said. Julie had been married to Rick for almost fifteen years. Alex thought of her more as a sister than an in-law.
“Thanks. I’m just trying to let the dust settle. The department doesn’t know what to do with me. They believe I’ll sue, but most of all they want me gone. I think I’ll oblige them.”
“Quit?” John asked. “You’ll let them get their way?”
“At least I’d be in control. If I wait for them to make up their minds, it might be summer before I can return to my desk. If I resign, they’ll have nowhere to go. Maybe then it will all be dropped.”
“And Ralph?”
“I’ll play that game when I have to.”
Saigon Red Page 2
