by Tony Bulmer
Karyn was cycling through the channels on her wrist communicator once again. The reception bars suddenly began to pulse—weakly at first, but with each step closer to the ridgeline, they glowed ever stronger. “Dial-back the drama Truman, I am getting bandwidth. Looks like we are moving out of the RCIED envelope our Chinese friends have been jamming us with.”
“I can’t walk much further. I am soaked and my feet hurt. Can’t you call help?”
“Negative, Truman. We still haven’t cleared enough bandwidth, but once we are over the top of the mountain it will be a different story.”
“You are kidding me. I thought the CIA were supposed to have gadgets that could communicate via outer space? How come you haven’t got one of those?”
“I would just as soon beat your whining ass to death as give you a science lesson Truman; so why don’t you man up and move out, that way I can hand your candy-ass over to our friends in the Secret Service.”
The comm’s link on Karyn’s wrist communicator suddenly went live—
“Blowtorch, this is Blacktop. What is your status?”
“SNAFU central Blacktop. You reading our location?”
“Affirmative Blowtorch, we got you clear for touchdown. Asset one still functioning?”
Karyn took a look at Truman Whitaker as he examined his squelching shoes, a soul-deep look of unhappiness twisting across his face. “Functioning as normal, but that is nothing a liberal squirt of Vagisil and a hose down on the front lawn won’t put right.” She paused, thinking about Lauren Whitaker and said, “You guys connect with Foghorn 2?”
“Negative. AWOL status confirmed. But half the Chinese army is sitting in on this and the cops too. We figure the situation will come good when the dust settles. We are in their ball park after all.”
Karyn flipped out her smart phone and thumbed apps until the Satnav came live. She looked down at the screen map and said, “I see you Blacktop. Dead or alive I’ll be there in five.” She shut down the uplink and threw a look at Truman Whitaker. “So what are you waiting for?”
He gave her the savage look of a man wronged. He tilted the patent loafer he was holding in his hands and let the water roll out of it. Then, with a sour face he bent down unsteadily and stuck the shoe back on his foot. But Karyn was already heading off through the trees and along the ridgeline, following the GPS map on her phone, to make the hook up with the back-up van full of U.S. Secret Service agents. Truman Whitaker trudged after her, heavy limbed, almost not believing that this most disagreeable of adventures was finally drawing to a close. He pressed forwards through the encroaching forest, feeling the black mud of the jungle floor draw up around his ankles. The Kane woman was plainly crazy, going off the path like this. Wading through the thick jungle shrubbery, who knew what they would find—snakes, spiders and other stuff too, the kind of flesh crawling insects you only got to see behind glass at the zoological gardens—except here, the insects and the jungle crawlers weren’t behind glass, they were roaming free, lying in wait to drop silently from the trees, or coil viciously from the jungle floor. Truman Whitaker felt his heart pounding so hard now he almost wanted to weep—he would do anything, give anything, to be out of here, and if the Kane woman was right that would be soon enough; then he could move forward from this nightmare, make plans—
The gunshots came from ahead, rapid fire from several directions. Truman Whitaker froze. What the hell was this? He turned fearfully, uncertain where to flee. Bushes offered no protection against bullets and there was no way he was going to sprawl in the dirt—the jungle floor was just too icky—unhygienic.
More gunshots. Louder and closer this time—bullets came zipping and howling through the trees. Truman Whitaker found his legs at last. Propelled by pure, unadulterated fear he ran. In which direction, it no longer mattered.
The sound of chaos had a quite different effect on Karyn Kane, an equal and opposite effect to that of Secretary of State Truman Whitaker. Whereas he ran through fear and an overpowering compulsion to save himself, Karyn ran towards the very heart of the encroaching chaos, drawing her weapon as she went. The only thought in her mind—fellow Americans in danger—men of honor and service, courageous valorous men who needed her help and now. Coming fast through the trees, every move she made she made on instinct, circling around now, in a fast moving tactical stance, her weapon up and ready for the off. She was coming close to the edge of the trees now, emerging onto a black asphalt roadway that coiled across the ridgeline. The road hung over the top of the mountain, while below, the glistening, mist-shrouded city of Shanghai rolled away before her, to the distant horizon. Karyn ran up the edge of the pavement, training her pistol on her line of sight. The road snaked upwards. Karyn followed the curve. She stayed on the outside then moved quickly to the inside—there was something up ahead—
As she came through the curve, her weapon high and ready, she saw the black Secret Service van parked up close to the safety rail. All doors on the vehicle gaped wide and an unholy silence folded over the entire scene. Drawing closer, the sudden thrum of insects filled her senses, a crawling buzzing cacophony, amplified by her heightened sense of awareness. Moving closer, she saw that the van was covered in bullet holes—hundreds of bullet holes, like it had been ambushed from three directions at once. Karyn kept her gun high. She moved quickly to the driver’s side window and looked inside. The hot stench of death hit her. What was left of the occupants was not pleasant to see. Every member of the Secret Service back up crew was dead—all of them. She moved around to the side door of the van and glimpsed inside. The dark interior reeked of evisceration and shredded electronics. Every single comms system was down and out and eerie shafts of light cut through the darkness, where countless large caliber bullets had shredded through the thin metal walls—it looked like the van had been hit by a mini-gun. Those things fired up to 6,000 rounds per minute. Blacktop was down. Backup was gone. That meant she was on her own, stranded in the middle of hostile territory. It wouldn’t be the fist time.
The thrumming of the insects got suddenly louder. Karyn turned very slowly and saw a small black shape hovering above, maybe twenty feet out from the side of the mountain. As she focused against the sun, the black shape began closing, slowly insidiously with malevolent intent. It was an AVIC Vortex drone. A deadly floating gun platform, armed with micro munitions, the kind that would cut a person in half with just the shortest burst of fire. The floating death drone had the drop on her. Karyn scrutinized it, as the drone angled sideways, its tiny mini-cannons tracking around beneath it, zooming in on her, finding range and distance. Karyn kept her movements slow and controlled. Somewhere, there was a jittery-fingered computer nerd in a camouflage uniform focusing in on her with the cross-haired targeting system. She gave him a bright smile. If she moved real quick, she could take out the drone, no question. Trouble was, the nasty little horror had friends—two of them, moving in from her peripheral vision, so they could hold her in a field of fire. She could take one for sure, maybe two at the most, but she would never be able to take all three. They had her checkmate. Surrender or die, were the only alternatives. Karyn got ready for the move, she had never been one for surrender and she wasn’t about to start now.
But, as she coiled ready, dark figures with guns began emerging all around. Karyn shifted her gaze very slightly and found herself, staring down the barrels of the PLAC Special Forces. Most of them were fielding QBZ assault rifles, but there were a couple of scoped-out QBU variants to contend with too. Outnumbered and outgunned—it was never a good place to be. Karyn slowly eased her finger across the trigger of her P229 and made ready to make her play. Standing in her Zen space, getting ready once again to look into the face of death, she almost didn’t hear the snarling dogs as the arrived on the scene, but she saw their savage, tortured faces straining hard as they lurched wildly towards her.
Karyn didn’t move. She stood with weapon held ready, her eyes flickering across the opposition with a hard, calculating resolve. Then sh
e heard a voice screeching out above the pandemonium—that prick Truman Whitaker. The enemy had captured him and he was sounding off louder than a girl scout at a house-spider jamboree. She blinked once, twice, then slowly very deliberately eased her finger away from the trigger of her weapon. Then, with equal care, she slowly raised her hands. The enemy didn’t hesitate—they swarmed her immediately.
14
The Arabian Sea
Two hundred nautical miles out from the vast city of Mumbai, the Panamanian registered super-freighter Maharashtra moved south across the Gulf of Khambhat at a steady 20 knots. Weighing in at close to 82,000 dead weight tones the Panamax class container vessel was overloaded beyond industry limits. But the short journey across the Arabian Gulf from Karachi, Pakistan to Nhava Sheva container terminal in India was considered a short hop by international freight shipping standards. The shipping lanes between the two countries ran thick with the world’s biggest cargo vessels. Authorities tried to regulate the industry, but with such a vast quantity of cargo travelling on a daily basis, regulation was all but impossible. Smuggling and corruption was rife—drugs, slavery, weapons and counterfeit goods of every description crossed the seas every day, in industrial sized quantities. Customs officials posed no obstacle, and for an additional consideration, port authorities and import/export commissioners would overlook any kind of regulation. Such can do attitudes made the South Asian shipping industry one of one of the largest and most successful in the world. A situation that was most fortunate on this particular voyage, as the Maharashtra contained a most unusual consignment deep within it’s cargo hold.
The device was packaged most professionally, layered beneath thousands of heavy steel cargo boxes. The drab, well-worn freight container used for transshipment was quite innocuous, identical in fact to the many millions of similar containers that passed around the world every year. But inside this container, packed deep within a cover shipment of highly engineered machine parts, there lurked an illicit and quite deadly cargo that was travelling far from its originally intended destination—Xingcheng air testing range in northwestern China.
It had been a well-planned and impeccably executed hijacking. Money had exchanged hands, but it had been a bloody affair none-the-less.
And now, the device had come far, very far from its intended destination. Many had died that it might make its journey. Many others had been bribed and betrayed, or promised great ideological gifts that would further the will of God, and offer salvation to the many. Specifics were never mentioned by the hushed voices that made the promises, but death, power and money invariably were. To the many men encountered on the devices great journey, such promises were perceived as great wisdom. Few doubts were raised as to the veracity of the promises, as such questions are beyond men of great ambition and besides, anxious hearts are never a match for greedy fingers, just as great miracles are never attained without necessary sacrifice.
And so, the device travelled onwards on its great journey, moving across the mountains and desserts of a vast untamed continent, towards a cataclysmic date with destiny. Deep in the hold of the ship, darkness enveloped the cold, intelligent metal, lying dormant in its vacuum packed slumber. Only the fingers and minds of hard intellect could awaken it from its endless sleep. Pitiless technological minds, trained in the dogma of single-minded belief above all things.
But, in the dark, steel world below-decks, the device passed no judgment. It lay cold, immobile, unthinking, ever ready to emerge from its cocoon and metastasize into the world of man.
The time was growing near.
The Maharashtra was making its final innocuous approach now, heading towards the giant deep-water container port of Nhava Sheva. The awe-inspiring coast of the great Indian subcontinent loomed out of the morning haze, like a mirage, floating above the desert sands. Only this mirage was not only tangible it rose ever higher out of the mist, revealing the glittering business towers of India’s second city, one of the wealthiest, most populated metropolises in the world. Once known as Bombay by Portuguese traders and the imperialist British Empire, this most ancient of world civilizations had now reverted to the name Mumbai named after the Koli goddess Mumbadevi and the word Aai meaning mother in Marathi, the ancient language of the Kolis.
But now, after centuries of colonialism, the new India was rising up from the repressed shantytown past, into a new and bold technological age, that featured India at the very forefront of world advancement. The glittering spires of this grand new chapter in history shimmered precipitously above the vast river estuary known as Thane Creek. It was an awe-inspiring sight. The city of Mumbai was a vast steaming metropolis perched precariously on Salsette Island. This was a fragile world, much of it reclaimed from the waters of the Arabian Gulf. But now, this ocean world was growing tall, rising from the brackish delta, like some monstrous new Manhattan. It was here, in this broiling city, with its colonial charm and brash new architecture that one of the largest stock exchanges in the world had emerged, to become a multi-trillion dollar marketplace for financial trading of every kind.
It was a rapid emergence, over decades rather than centuries, a heady ascent that many in the old world considered vulgar and arriviste. But as with all such fabulous successes, the quick cash and sumptuous achievement could so easily sink back into the brackish swamp from where it came.
The towering gantry cranes, of Nhava Sheva were visible now, rising up from the realm of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, an autonomous corporation owned by the Indian government. It was a realm of big money and big ideas, with seemingly limitless funding. The port was like a city in its own right, bordered on all sides by a vast container transshipment terminal, where millions of steel containers identical to those on the Maharashtra rose up, row upon row, like a giant Lego army poised to do battle. The ship was so overweight it barely made it into the dock, but just as soon as it pulled in, the giant gantry cranes swept into action, unloading the thousands of shipping containers with computerized efficiency.
The device was on its own now, cocooned its private world, languishing cold and anonymous amongst an ocean of steel. Very soon the men would come, when they did, the device would be ready.
15
20,000 ft above Toba Kakar Mountains, western Pakistan
The bandages did not help. Nor did the super-strength painkillers, or the twenty five year old Scotch whisky. General Faz Huq had polished off nearly a whole bottle of it since his personal Gulfstream G650 had taken off from Dubai International. He lit a cigarette, chaining on from the last. He always left a thumb space of white paper before the filter. He did this for health reasons. The full strength Marlboro reds took the breath out of you if you smoked more than five packs a day. Filthy American cigarettes—there was a rumor circulating that the Americans added cancer germs and other poisons to their export brand cigarettes, so they might kill the world’s Muslim people by stealth. General Faz Huq knew the rumors to be untrue, because he had started them himself. It was surprising how generous American corporations could be when faced with the threat of commercial disaster. There had, of course, been a great deal of expensive and ongoing publicity needed to restore faith in American products, but the general was nothing if not a facilitator—for a fee of course.
But now, as the general sat on his private plane and broke open his third pack of cigarettes that day, he knew that his troubles extended far deeper than his insatiable need for nicotine. His position as head of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence agency was highly demanding; not only did he have to balance a heaped portfolio of seemingly intractable social, political, and religious issues, he also had a very full schedule of commercial sidelines to contend with. But these workaday pressures were almost incidental compared to the real issue that was troubling him—Zhàn Tao the Chinaman had overreached himself for the last time.
The trip to Dubai had been a horrible and humiliating defeat. Memories of the rooftop beating kept spinning through the general’s head again and again. Th
e pain of the beating was bad, but the terrible humiliation far worse. The general was so angry, his hands shook, as he rattled more ice into his glass and poured yet another generous shot of whisky. How weak and foolish he had been to fall for such a subterfuge—a candy-sweet sugar-trap of young flesh and luxurious living. It had always been all right before. He had visited the Chinaman’s luxury hotels all over the world. Zhàn Tao was a man of great generosity, which was just the way the general liked to keep his relationships with dignitaries of the worlds great powers. The Chinaman’s largesse was second only to that of the Russians. The stupid Americans came a poor third, but their feeble country had been brought to his knees by the great minds and fearsome resolve of the Islamic world, so they could hardly be expected to afford the kind of lavish financial gifts they once offered. The thought gave the general a small moment of satisfaction, but his thoughts quickly turned back to his humiliation at the hands of the Chinaman. The beating would be forgotten in time, but the video-evidence that the jackal Zhàn Tao had collected at the hotel Al Muntaha would not be forgotten so easily.
General Faz Huq watched one of the videos now, the silent playback unfolding in glorious high-definition color. This was no amateur-hour skin flick; this was a fully produced masterpiece of hardcore cinema, complete with multiple camera angles, Dolby 5.1 dialogue and extreme close-ups of every lurid and gratuitous detail. Watching the videos now, the General could feel himself getting excited once again. But the excitement served only to compound his misery. It was painfully and nauseatingly obvious that the young boys and girls who served as his co-stars were far younger than the accepted norm.
