The Wrong Man (Complete 3-Book International Thriller Box Set)

by Fritz Galt

“Releasing fuel,” the tanker pilot announced over the airwaves.

  Harry checked the HUD, both hands steady on the yoke. The fuel indicator ceased to drop and held steady. Each drop of new fuel was being consumed at the rate in which it was delivered. He couldn’t fly all that way to China.

  “Pump it faster,” he said. “I’m only barely staying up here.”

  “Roger that. Increasing fuel.”

  The HUD’s fuel indicator steadily climbed.

  “Are we going to make it?” Sean whispered over the headset.

  Harry nodded reassuringly, not taking his eyes off the computerized horizon that he was trying to maintain.

  It took twenty minutes of nerve-wracking adjustments to keep the two aircraft coupled midair. When at last the boom withdrew from the tank, Harry closed the fuel door, punched in new coordinates for Harbin, switched to autopilot and felt the acceleration press him back in his seat.

  He looked at Sean. “You take over for a while. I need a nap.”

  Sean sat bolt upright and shot him a look as Harry eased his seatback into a reclining position.

  Harry wasn’t aware of what happened next, because he was fast asleep.

  Hiram Klug couldn’t believe their good fortune. The resort wasn’t charging them for lodging or dining or even the bar. The vacation was entirely on them.

  Hiram decided to make good on their offer by taking Tiffany to the beachside restaurant for a full-course anniversary dinner.

  No skimping for them any longer.

  It seemed incredible to him as he strolled along jungle path illuminated by light bulbs underfoot. The people of the island were so thankful to him for doing what he considered the only thing a rational human could do—defend his wife and help maintain order on the island.

  “You know,” he told her, thinking aloud. “I’m kinda embarrassed by all this attention.”

  “Nonsense,” she told him. “You soak it up.”

  “I have to admit, I don’t mind the free-bees.”

  “Me either,” she said, her CPA training shining through. “I wouldn’t want to calculate all that we’ve spent. It’s like we’re guests on some reality TV show, with all expenses paid.”

  “I did appreciate the statues and rugs they gave us. They would look kinda nice in the family room.”

  “And I thought the jewelry might go well next time we go to the movies.”

  “Hell, Sweetie, I have bigger plans for us.”

  They reached the restaurant. A highly respectful maitre d’ recognized them at once, and his dark face grew radiant from the pleasure of serving them. They found a suitable table along the water’s edge. Lights hung from the bow of shrimp boats that bobbed far out at sea.

  “Bigger plans?” she picked up their conversation where they had left off. “Like what?”

  “Picture this.” He leaned back and drew a large frame around his idea. “The Paper Mill Playhouse. Season’s tickets!”

  She simply shook her head dumbfounded and full of respect for her husband. It was all too much, even for him to comprehend at times.

  Their server arrived, a young woman who couldn’t keep her enormous eyes off of Hiram. The deference in her voice made him want to giver her a noogie. Enough with all this respect, already.

  They placed an order for King Crab and the catch of the day. She promised them that they wouldn’t be disappointed.

  Their highballs arrived immediately, and they drank a toast to the island. Nothing further needed to be said.

  Several waiters hung about in the shadows of the candle-lit restaurant. A sea breeze gently stirred the air. The speakers were piping in Henry Mancini. The evening couldn’t have been more perfect.

  He looked into his wife’s lovely sapphire eyes. She looked twenty years younger.

  “Hiram,” she said at last. “You shouldn’t have taken such a risk.”

  He knew what she was referring to, and it wasn’t the Paper Mill Playhouse.

  “Listen, that’s all ovah now. I did what I did, and it’s done, okay?”

  “But, I mean, shooting a gun?”

  “Yeah, but I had to. You should have seen these guys. They were trying ta kill people, average people like you and me!”

  “I know. It’s so horrible, but why did you have to be the hero?”

  Hiram heaved a sigh. “I guess some people get all the luck.”

  It had been an enormous risk. Maybe he wasn’t using his brains.

  “Well, at least these guys, whoever they are, are all behind bars.”

  “Did the police ever figure out who they are?”

  “I think the police chief is on permanent leave.” He reflected on how the loser had avoided the final standoff with the terrorists. “And I certainly don’t know who those guys in robes are. They are all a bunch of hoods, if you ask me, and I have no time for them. They can rot in the Purang prison as far as I care.”

  “Without a trial?”

  “Hey,” he said, gesturing around him grandly at the resort, where a band was warming up beside the pool, and at the line of coconut palm trees that fringed the sand- and seashell-covered beach, then out at the enormous sleeping black sea. “What more evidence do you need? They and their guns were trying to destroy the peace.”

  Just then a muffled, distant boom came from overhead. Hiram looked beyond the restaurant’s awning, but saw nothing in the black night sky. It must have been some sort of invisible, supersonic jet flying high above the Pacific Ocean.

  The waiters were assembling their food at the far side of the restaurant. Three men lined up and carried in all the dishes at once.

  The first man presented Tiffany with her King Crab. Would you like me to pour butter on that for you?”

  She assented.

  “Your catch of the day, sir,” the second waiter said deferentially, setting the large round platter on the table before him.

  Hiram looked up at the third and last waiter, who stood trembling with a white cloth over his forearm. “Yes?” he asked.

  He wondered where he had seen that man’s face before. Certainly not at the resort. He was too light-skinned, and he seemed too broad chested to be an islander.

  The man removed the white cloth and revealed a carving knife in his hand.

  Hiram didn’t need his fish carved. He looked down at his meal. “These are fillets.”

  “Hiram!” Tiffany’s voice rose from her throat.

  He glanced up, reflexively raising an elbow to shield himself. The waiter had turned the knife on Hiram and lunged toward him as he sat in his seat.

  Jumping to his feet, Hiram slipped under the short man’s arm and caught him full on the face with his elbow.

  Women screamed around the restaurant. Chairs squeaked in the sand.

  The man took a second pass at him. The knife sliced through the air, this time under Hiram’s arm, toward his stomach. Hiram turned his assailant away with his elbow, sending the man off kilter. His short arms couldn’t reach far enough to get the knife close to Hiram.

  He felt the blade slash through the fabric of his new batik shirt. This was totally unacceptable, not only ruining his anniversary dinner with his wife, but also ruining his newly bought outfit! Trying to frighten off the man, he rushed the guy, sending him to the sand. The knife flipped harmlessly from his hand. Unable to stop his forward momentum, Hiram stumbled over his assailant and landed squarely on the man’s chest. That produced a strange sounding, “Oof.”

  “Hiram!” Tiffany said, a note of censure in her voice.

  He struggled back to his feet to explain himself. “Sweetie, he tried ta stab me.”

  “I know, but…”

  The waiter had regained his feet, his fingers fumbling for the knife.

  “Hiram!” Tiffany said, this time with a shriek of alarm.

  He raised his hands in self-defense. But there was no need.

  The young man grasped the knife with both hands and pointed it inward. “Allahu Akbar!” he shouted and plunged the blade dee
p into his own chest, pulling it upward into this heart.

  Blood spurted everywhere.

  A woman beside their table began to choke on her food.

  Tiffany was speechless.

  Hiram looked into the man’s eyes. Whatever possessed the guy?

  The erstwhile attacker fell to the sand at his feet. And with him went the answers to all the questions that were forming in Hiram’s mind. Who was this guy? Why did he want Hiram dead? And what in the world was worth killing oneself for?

  Tiffany was clinging to him, her body trembling as she gazed horrified at the spectacle at their feet.

  “That’s okay, Sweetie,” he said, turning her soft, round shoulders away. They rocked together and looked out at the vast, protective sea. “I think we got them all, now.”

  Night had fallen by the time Harry glided down toward Harbin Airport.

  Below, the landscape was cloaked in blackness. It was the Chinese countryside, with little electricity, forested and buried under snow.

  If the approach beacon at the airport’s VOR station wasn’t strong enough, Harry would have to set his glideslope based on dead reckoning. And that was not what he preferred.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” Harry shouted. “This is an American military aircraft requesting permission to make an emergency landing at Harbin Airport. Come in?”

  “Dis ia Harbin Airpor. We don hava you on radah. Plea idena, plea idenfy yousel.”

  “I repeat, this is an American military aircraft. This is an emergency. Request permission to land at Harbin Airport.”

  “Okay, fine. You clea to runway 02, wind ata 030.”

  Harry let out his breath and checked that he was locked in correctly to the beacon that seemed to magically guide the air wing lower and closer to its destination. It was almost as if the Chinese were leading them in on a silk thread.

  He saw Sean gripping his seat, his knuckles white.

  “You can relax, Sean,” he said, and lowered the landing gear. “It’s all automatic. Have you ever been to Harbin?”

  Sean shook his head. “Ice festival.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Harbin holds an annual ice festival, but I’ve never been.”

  How nice. A town halfway in Siberia celebrating ice. What a stroke of merchandising genius.

  The Spirit of Kansas found its way through the pitch black toward a lighted runway two miles in the distance. Harry watched approvingly as she maneuvered herself with tiny adjustments.

  Just wait until the control tower took a gander at her unusual shape. The local military brigade was probably already on its way, preparing to storm the plane and take her crew captive.

  But there was no such reception committee. As they glided into the pink glow of the arc lights, he spotted an Aeroflot Russian Airlines jet and a Air Koryo North Korean jet parked on the tarmac. But no tanks or military vehicles.

  The wheels touched down on snow-swept concrete. Harry turned in the drag rudders to form an air brake. They rushed through the gloom, pressed against their seat harnesses until they came to a rolling stop.

  Harry gunned the twin engines and turned the nose back toward the terminal. It was a large building and unusually modern looking. What was a model airport doing in the middle of nowhere?

  He couldn’t find ground control on any frequency, so he steered for a position near the Russian commercial liner.

  “Well, Sean, we’re back,” he said as they rolled along. “Ready to look for your family?”

  Sean lifted off his headgear. He looked like a new man, young and vigorous. Perhaps he finally felt delivered from imprisonment.

  “This is my country,” he said. “These are my people. Ready for a few chung-guo ren?”

  “What’s that? Chop suey?”

  “No, it’s the Chinese people. A sea of one point three billion faces. And I love ’em all.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Harry said, spinning down the engine and coming to a halt. “They might be spending the rest of their lives there.

  He released his seat harness and removed his helmet. “Let’s go!”

  On his way to unlocking the co-pilot from the stairwell, he reached for his travel bag in the back of the cockpit.

  “It looks cold out there,” he said.

  “Cold?” Sean said, taking a proffered sweater. “You don’t know cold.”

  Harry unlatched the cabin door. The young airman was standing at an angle, holding his crotch.

  “The lavatory is unoccupied now,” Harry said, gesturing to the portable toilet in the cockpit. But I suggest you make it quick and fly this bird back to Guam as quick as you can.”

  The man rushed past them, unzipping his flight suit.

  Harry lowered the air stair and stepped out of the fuselage, only to feel his business suit seize up and clamp around him.

  An even wind was howling over the tarmac. He felt his eyelashes instantly freeze.

  Across the airfield, he saw a pair of vehicles racing toward the plane. The People’s Liberation Army had arrived to liberate the plane.

  He heard the stairway close behind him with a thud. He and Sean were on their own.

  They set their legs in motion toward the terminal where a warm light emanated from behind an airlock of double doors. Incredibly, nobody stood waiting inside.

  Behind them, the B-2’s engines roared to life. The sudden gust of wind nearly sucked the saliva out of Harry’s mouth. He clamped his jaw shut to retain the moisture in his body.

  The two vehicles that sped past them looked like troop carriers. The Spirit of Kansas was already taxiing away. The trucks gunned their engines in hot pursuit, their unit commander barking out orders. White-clad soldiers hung out of the back of the truck to get their first look at the flying wing.

  It wouldn’t be long before they figured out what was about to slip through their fingers—state-of-the-art technology, much of which had been literally invented to create the bomber. It would probably have been the largest technology transfer of all time.

  But it would take longer for them to fully appreciate their good luck that evening. The Chinese government had just gained a bargaining chip worth trillions in favorable trade deals and incalculable value to their own political and international aspirations. And it wasn’t an airplane. It was a man named Sean Cooper, express delivered into their cold little hands.

  By the time Harry reached the terminal, his ears felt brittle and two columns of ice had formed beneath his nostrils. There had better not be any press waiting to snap his picture.

  Not surprisingly, it would take some time for the Chinese bureaucracy to catch up with the two intruders.

  Even the spanking new immigration booths were empty and the two men walked right into China as if entering someone’s living room.

  “Care to pick up some tourist information?” Harry asked, pointing to a rack of maps and brochures.

  “No, let’s keep going,” Sean said.

  Sure, Harry understood.

  As they stepped out of the terminal, a booming roar passed overhead, pursued by a barrage of automatic gunfire. The Spirit of Kansas had taken wing once more.

  Harry found a few taxis waiting just outside the terminal. He rested his hand on the tinny roof of one car, a far cry from the high-tech mode of transport that was disappearing in the blackness above.

  “You talk to the driver,” he said. “I have no idea where we’re going. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Women yao qu Harbin,” Sean said, sliding into the back seat.

  Harry jumped in just as the taxi driver prepared to speed off.

  As they swung around the airport terminal, Harry glanced out his window. There the afterburners of the Spirit of Kansas glowed like two small fires in the east.

  Then he turned his attention to the man huddled behind the wheel, vigorously scraping frost off the windshield with a debit card as they raced off into the darkened countryside.

  In the back seat of the taxi, Harry reache
d for his mobile phone. It was a miracle that two American mobile phones could communicate with each other in China. But it worked. Badger picked up on the other end.

  “We just arrived at the airport and we’re taking a cab into the city,” Harry said. “Where are you?”

  “Just checked into the Gloria Inn here in downtown Harbin. I’ve got a room for you and Sean to share.”

  Harry shifted hands holding the phone, as one hand had already grown stiff with cold. “Okay, what’s the room number?”

  “1214.”

  “Got it.”

  “Harry, how in the hell did you get through Chinese security?”

  Harry grinned. “A little luck, a little chutzpah and a little confusion on the part of the Chinese.”

  “Do they know you’re here?”

  “It will take them a while to figure it out. They certainly don’t know either of our identities.”

  “Okay,” Badger said dubiously, drawing in his breath. “It takes an hour to reach the city from the airport.”

  “An hour? Why so long?”

  “It’s a long way away. Enjoy the ride.”

  “Just heat up the room for me, will you? All I have is a suit coat.”

  “I’ll send the men out to buy you some parkas and winter gear. This isn’t Cuba, you know.”

  “I figured that out.”

  Harry hung up the phone and smiled at Sean. “They’ll have parkas for us,” he said.

  Sean nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was sitting on the edge of the bench seat, not so much anxious at the speed demon’s driving. More like full of anticipation.

  Chapter 33

  Entering Harbin, all Harry Black could think was, “What ice festival?”

  Factories and warehouses were scattered indiscriminately on the outskirts of town. Huge, serious-looking construction equipment roamed up and down the highway. A cloverleaf spiraled them downward off a bridge and onto the main street lined with apartment buildings. The austere architecture felt more like Moscow than China.

  Then the colors began to appear. Sculptures had carved glistening gateposts and statues out of ice. Red, green and yellow lights glowed within the “ice lanterns.” The frozen streets and snow-packed sidewalks were lined with the colorful works of art.