Blown Circuit

by Lars Guignard

“What evidence?” I asked. “That tuning fork thing? I saw it, you know.”

  Meryem just smiled.

  “The Dragons were using you all along,” I said. “They were using you to find the Device.”

  “Maybe so. But who possesses the Device now?”

  It was then that I understood why the crane operator was descending the ladder. Because somebody else was coming up. Azad. He smiled at me piggishly as his head came up through the ladder well, his eyes level with mine.

  “Your husband?” I asked.

  “Colleague only,” she said. “The henna party, this was for you. Please understand that I am sorry for many things I have done. But they were necessary. Everything was necessary.”

  Azad sat in the operator’s chair and pecked away at the laptop keyboard. After that, I knew that I was out of time because the rush of the wind was drowned out by a long sibilant groan. The buzz of the sphere gradually overtook the crane. The buzz was soft at first, but grew louder like a million electric hornets were protecting their nest. And then the sphere began to glow.

  “Hands up, Michael,” Meryem said. “It is over.”

  Not if I could help it. It was obvious that Azad was going to fire the Device. The targeting mechanism was installed. Given that I had already seen the sphere fire once, I knew that the directed-energy beam would vaporize whatever it hit. I was still wearing the empty backpack in front of me like a kangaroo pouch. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to like what happened next. I wasn’t going to like it at all.

  But I did what I had to do. I sprung forward like a cheetah. Then Meryem fired the SIG from twelve feet. It was an easy shot for her, aimed at my center mass, like she had been taught. But I didn’t cringe from the bullet. I held my backpack in front of me and ran into it instead. It was a 9mm round and it hurt when it hit. It felt as though I had gotten hit with a sledgehammer. I felt the ceramic plates in my pack shatter and absorb the impact. I felt the Kevlar lining of the backpack flex. But I didn’t feel my ribs break. I got lucky there. The shot didn’t knock me down. It only knocked the wind out of me. But I could still function. I had to.

  Meryem was puzzled. I saw that. She had put a 9mm soft-nose slug in my center mass, but I was still up. I took advantage of that puzzlement. I took one big step forward and raised my left arm in a swift block deflecting the SIG skyward. Then I twisted my hip and hauled back with my right arm delivering a devastating straight-arm punch to Meryem's face. I hit her on the nose. I was pretty sure that I’d broken it, but I figured we were about even because she’d buried me. But I wasn’t done. I grappled Meryem's gun hand with my left, twisting her wrist around the way it wasn’t meant to go. I’m pretty sure I had almost snapped off her finger in the trigger guard, but the move had the desired effect. She dropped the gun.

  But then I made a mistake. I was merciful. Instead of following through with overwhelming force and snapping her arm back on itself, I let her fall to the catwalk. That’s when she got me. She scissor kicked my legs right out from underneath me. I fell to my knees. And she reached once again for the gun. But I wasn’t gong to let her have it. Not this time. I picked up the SIG. Then I aimed it point blank at Meryem's thigh.

  I was careful about where I shot her. Careful to avoid the femoral artery. Even given everything that had happened, I didn’t want to kill Meryem. What I wanted was a clean shot, through and through, and when I pressed the trigger I got it. Meryem was more or less immobilized.

  The sphere began to glow blue behind me. It became brighter and brighter, the humming building in intensity until I could hear nothing else. It was as bright as day on the catwalk. I could no longer see through the cab window. Just my reflection. Then a bullet cracked out at me through the night. Even at that close range, I could barely hear it due to the buzzing of the sphere, but I watched the windshield shatter from the inside. The shot had missed me, but barely. I had felt it fly by.

  I returned fire. I fired from memory, two handed, at exactly where Azad sat behind the windshield. I fired, and then I fired again, and again, and again. I emptied the mag. Then I clicked the trigger on the empty chamber, just to be sure. That was when a great flash of light shot out from the sphere. It was like a ball of lightning, but bigger and more powerful, so powerful that it lit up the entire sky like day. I had to shield my eyes. I no doubt would have been blinded if I had been looking at the sphere head on. Everything was bright for as far as the eye could see. And then the horizon burned with angry orange flame.

  Chapter 65

  AZAD HAD A thumb-sized hole in his forehead and a smile on his face. There was blood and glass everywhere in the cab. He was smiling because of what he had seen on the laptop screen. The screen showed a satellite image of the Sixth Fleet, command boats and aircraft carriers and supply ships, all out on exercises outside of Naples, Italy. Overlaid above the image were two words.

  TARGET DESTROYED

  The image was very close to the satellite imagery I had seen aboard the Fox. The screen then cycled to show a low-angle video feed. The video feed was as black as night and showed a huge fire at sea. It clearly showed that the Sixth Fleet had been reduced to a burning pile of slowly sinking steel.

  That was when I smiled.

  I smiled because it was only then that I knew that I had succeeded. Because even though I’d been able to tether my iPhone to Azad's laptop, and even though Mobi Stearn and the other techs at Langley had had access to Azad's machine, I hadn’t been sure that they would be able to fool him. But they had fooled him. I saw it on the screen. It was the flames and smoke that told me so. Because, though Meryem's people had many resources, Azad had already said that they were reliant on observation ships for the position of the fleet. And given the blast radius of the Tesla Device, any observation ship would have been blown sky high by that point. Which meant that the low-angle video feed had to be a fake.

  I pulled out my phone to be sure. At some point, the screen had cracked, but the half of it where the liquid crystals hadn’t gone black showed an instant message. The message contained a text and a web link. The text was about a ship. When I clicked on the link, I saw a video mirror of Azad's laptop. As I suspected, Azad's laptop was running four or five routine programs: virus protection, a browser, etc., and two core programs. Those core programs were the ones I was interested in. There was the real targeting program and the false one—the emulation that Mobi had cobbled together.

  I had known that once the network password was cracked, it would be possible for Mobi to patch into their machine. The CIA was tethered to me, and I was tethered to Azad. What I didn’t know was whether Mobi would have had enough time to create a false targeting program. Apparently, he had had too much time. Adding the visual effect of the destroyed fleet had been a step too far. Though Mobi couldn’t have been certain, given the blast radius of the weapon, there was no way for Azad to get that information in real time, and if he hadn’t been dead, he would have been smart enough to realize it. Then he might have checked his machine and fired again using the original targeting program. Which would mean he might have actually hit something other than the empty stretch of desert that he had blown up.

  When they debriefed me, I thought I’d mention that in the face of uncertain information, the tech guys might want to ease up on the visuals. Less is generally more with those things. Then I cut the wire leading to the sphere, dropped Azad's laptop into my backpack and assessed my options. My adrenaline was still running freely, but I was beginning to feel my ribs, which meant that Meryem's 9mm bullet might have done more damage than I’d initially suspected. They were disorganized below. But though the head had been cut off the Hydra, it didn’t mean the soldiers couldn’t rally around the next in command. I checked my phone. An instant message read: TRANSPORT CONFIRMED. That was good, but it meant I still had my escape and the delivery of the sphere to negotiate.

  Then a flash of light caught my eye and I realized that the rest of my task was going to be both easier and harder than I imagined
. Easier because the crane again had power. I saw it in the control panel which had lit up in front of me. Harder, because I also saw Kate. She had been on the castle floor, but not any longer. Now she stood outside the cab with her Glock in her hand.

  “I’ve restored power to the crane, Michael.”

  “Good. Keep us covered and I’ll try to swing this thing around.”

  I’d checked my phone. I had five minutes before our scheduled departure, but I figured it was enough time to get the sphere into position, providing Kate put her gun down. Instead, she raised it toward me.

  “Lower it here, Michael. It’s been great working with you, but I have a delivery to make.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “I’m aware of that, Michael. But this is where our paths part.”

  I watched Kate’s finger move on the Glock’s two-part trigger. Four point seven more pounds of force and she’d have me.

  “It doesn’t have to be like last time, Michael. I like you. You lower this sphere and you and I are good. I have a team en route. They don’t need to know about you, they don’t want you. Lower the sphere, you go your own way.”

  “And my father? Wasn’t the deal that you’d release him if I helped you find the Device?”

  “Well, you didn’t exactly take us up on that deal when we offered it, Michael.”

  I thought about it. I was tired and sore and I wanted to end the whole thing. Plus, I could still see Meryem lying on the catwalk, grasping her wounded leg, and the whole damn thing left a sour taste in my mouth. But I wasn’t about to give up so close to the prize either. That wouldn’t be sporting. Or professional.

  “I’m taking you up on it now,” I said.

  “And you’ll give us the Device?”

  “You win, Kate,” I lied.

  The smoke-laced wind blew in through the shattered window as I scanned the crane’s controls. There were dual joysticks on either side of the vinyl seat. A plexiglass window in the floor below let me see straight down. I pushed Azad's dead hand to the side and hit the joystick. It was tough to maneuver over him, but I’d played enough video games to figure out the controls quickly enough. After moving the sphere back towards me a couple feet, I began to lower it. The big winch began to spin, the squeaky cable unravelling as it slowly lowered, the sphere headed for the castle floor. I watched it descend through the window in the floor below me. Kate looked pleased, her tight trigger face beginning to relax. Then I hit the joystick again.

  The big crane swung slowly, right to left.

  “Michael, what are you doing?” Kate asked, the tension returning to her cheeks.

  “I’m making my appointment,” I said.

  “You said you would give it to us.”

  “Changed my mind,” I said. “I don’t think you were ever going to give my dad up. And even if you would, I don’t think they will.”

  I watched through the scratched plexiglass floor as the sphere swung in the smoky wind, its pendulous motion exacerbated by the movement of the crane. It looked like a giant wrecking ball headed straight for the castle wall. It was going to be close.

  “Last chance, Michael. Stop the crane. It’s what’s best for you. I promise.”

  “Forget it, Kate.”

  She stared at me from the catwalk outside the cab door, her auburn hair blown by the wind. She was in some pain, I could see that. Because her left foot had been wounded from the bullet, she carried her weight on her right leg. She was in better shape than Meryem I supposed, but she looked sad—sad and vulnerable. Apparently I had that effect on women.

  “He was on that ship in Istanbul, Michael. He was on the ship, but the Dragons moved him once they pinpointed his transmission. It was a PKK op after that. We gave them the layout and the access. They blew it up. Let them claim responsibility if they so chose. After that, it was all a setup. We set you up to find the sphere for us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was on that ship too.”

  “The scarf?”

  “Did you test the blood on it?”

  “Didn’t get around to that between people trying to kill me.”

  “If you had, you’d have found the blood belonged to me. Six has my DNA on file. I may be a bitch, but I’m not a heartless bitch, Michael. I left something for you on that scarf. Didn’t you wonder why the ship didn’t blow when the timer counted down to zero? I delayed the detonation with a manual override. Gave you time to get out.”

  I thought about it.

  “And the stuff about the affair? You and my dad?”

  “I already apologized for that,” she said. “It was what it was. Please Michael, for your own sake, stop the crane, lower the sphere, and disappear into the night while you still can.”

  I looked down at the castle wall. It was going to be close. Really close. I hoped that there was enough slack left in the power cable for what I had in mind, but I wasn’t sure. The sphere was about ten lateral feet from hitting the eastern castle wall and lowering steadily. I felt as if I was swinging the world’s deadliest piñata. I pushed Azad forward in his seat and slumped his heavy right hand over the joystick. Then I looked Kate in the eye and walked straight into her gun.

  Chapter 66

  I WORE MY backpack in front of me like a shield, but Kate didn’t fire. I pushed past her, clicking the door to the crane cab locked behind me. It would give me the time I needed. I didn’t bother wrestling Kate for her gun. I just didn’t have the time. Instead, I sprinted for the end of the jib.

  “Michael!” Kate screamed after me.

  I didn’t respond. I had to leap over Meryem, and then I was too busy running. Once I’d sprinted the eighty feet to the end of the jib, I swung down below the trolley and grabbed hold of the steel cable using the padded nylon strap of my pack. Then I pulled the strap back on itself with my other hand to make a tight noose and let myself fall like a fireman on a pole. I saw a muzzle flash from above, but I didn’t think Kate was trying to hit me, not really.

  Shots flew up from the castle floor, but the crane’s boom spun over the wall and within seconds, I, too, had slid down behind the castle wall as the sphere continued its downward path to the deck of the giant catamaran. The sphere touched down with a gentle thud on a thick rubber mat and I slid down right on top of it, the strap of my backpack smoking from the friction. Even as I recovered my balance, I smelled diesel fuel and felt the vibration of the catamaran’s big twin engines.

  A crew of four men in oversize rubber gloves and boots detached the sphere from the iron cable. Next they lifted the sphere’s power cable off the deck with two long fiberglass poles and began to cut it with a gasoline-powered, rubber-mounted chop saw, similarly outfitted with long insulating poles. The powerful current arced brilliantly through the sparks, but soon the fat cable was severed and placed on shore. Then the catamaran’s twin engines kicked into gear and we motored off into the night.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long before I felt the adrenaline begin to wane. Not so much because I felt less wired, but because I was beginning to stiffen up a little, especially around my arms and chest where I had taken the hit from Meryem's 9mm. The crew of guys went about their business and I found a seat on deck—a soft, striped lounge chair that I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to leave for the foreseeable future. I rested my tired eyes for a moment before gazing into the smoky sky above.

  The boat was the Turk Club party catamaran, the same after-hours disco that I had seen moored alongside the castle earlier in the day. The Turk Club went out every night after the bars closed so the party could continue all night long. I’d messaged its location to Langley as soon as I’d seen what we were dealing with. They’d made the necessary arrangements, and tonight the party catamaran was on a special voyage. Instead of carrying Bodrum’s late-night, hipster tourists, it was carrying the Tesla Device, and instead of touring around the bay it was headed for a rendezvous in international waters with a CIA-tasked US Navy frigate.

  In the name of appeara
nces, of course, booming music still rattled the deck and the party lights flashed, the silver Tesla Sphere in the center of it all like a giant glittering disco ball. It made for a surreal scene on the rolling seas, our wake glowing in purple and green and blue behind us.

  I had to admit that I was relieved that Kate’s bullets hadn’t found home, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that she had allowed me to escape. It sounded crazy, but if I was to guess, I thought she was trying to apologize and, all in all, I was starting to think that we were about even. I still didn’t trust her, but I’d be a fool not to acknowledge that there had been some kind of partnership there.

  About Meryem my feelings were more mixed. I’d liked her, but she had screwed me over, plain and simple. I was fairly certain that we’d never be able to let bygones be bygones if we met again on life’s twisted highway. You never knew, though. Everything could turn on a dime. If I’d been told that Kate would be the one to save me from being buried alive, I’d have laughed.

  I didn’t recognize the crew that had cut the cable on the sphere and I didn’t know the captain. All I knew was that I had texted my extraction coordinates to Langley and that they had replied that the catamaran would be rendezvousing with a US Navy frigate at 0500. It was an hour to midnight and it looked like I’d be seeing another Mediterranean dawn. I stretched out on my deck chair and closed my eyes, turning the mission over in my mind.

  Sure, there had been some hiccups, but I hadn’t done badly. I’d located the Tesla Device and prevented its use, and though I hadn’t found my father, I’d dealt another blow to those holding him. It was true that there were still things that bothered me. Nothing I could a put a finger on, but more of a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that just didn’t sit well. Perhaps the feeling was a result of the fact that I felt I had been lucky, almost too lucky, and whatever I did, I couldn’t escape the sense that my luck was about to run out. On the other had, I had succeeded. The very fact that I had accomplished my mission and made it to the extraction point was proof of that.