by Jack Soren
Tatsu wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she pulled off the lab coat and her shirt, picked up the knife and placed it against her naked flesh, between her breasts. She closed her eyes again, this time to try to calm herself.
Honor. It’s what Umi wants, and you owe her so much.
But before she could drive the blade home, she heard a beeping noise, and opening her eyes, she noticed the red light blinking on Hank’s phone. She assumed it was some sort of preset alarm and was going to ignore it, but the rate it blinked seemed to be increasing. She picked it up and activated the screen, displaying a map with a single moving point. Using her thumb and forefinger, the map image zoomed out. As it did, some place-names appeared on the map, including the Lakeview Motel.
She watched the red dot move faster and faster—directly toward her room.
The red dot moved faster.
The beeping echoed faster.
They synchronized. Faster and faster.
And then . . . they stopped. The dot merged with her motel on the map, and the beeping fell silent. Tatsu looked up at the door. Deafening silence was all she heard. Everything was still except for the dust dancing in slow motion as the early morning light spilled into her room through the edges of the drawn curtain. She held her breath, the only sound the pounding of blood in her ears.
Then, tentatively, she got out of the chair and reached her hand out toward the curtain.
CRASH!
The sound of splintering wood shattered the room’s quiet. Tatsu tried to understand what she was seeing. A black-gloved fist was sticking through the door, into her room.
That’s impossible, Tatsu thought, as the fist turned at an unnatural angle, grabbed the chain lock, and ripped it off the door. Then she remembered the file she’d read on Per and seeing the glint of something metallic across the walkway back at Crystasis’s research facility.
Before the door could swing open, Tatsu collected her belongings, shoved them back into her pockets, and grabbed the knife she had been about to end her life with. She didn’t hide but stood directly where he would see her. As the door swung open, and Per took a first step into the room, he hesitated just for a moment.
At least part of him is human, Tatsu thought as she took advantage of the hesitation and drove her knife into Per’s leg. A second later—with no screaming, she noted—Per knocked Tatsu through the air. She hit the bed and rolled off it, out of sight. Lying on the floor, Tatsu grabbed her shoulder and winced, sucking wind through her teeth. She’d only taken part of the hit with her shoulder and had thrown herself so she’d be hidden, but her shoulder still tingled like she’d been hit by a truck.
Don’t let that thing hit you again.
“Come out,” Per’s voice commanded. He was smart, she’d give him that. If he’d been dumb enough to look over the edge of the bed, her poised thumbs would have gouged his eyes out.
“I think I’ll stay right here, thank you,” Tatsu said. “But feel free to let yourself out.”
“Stop being foolish and come out of there. And cover yourself.” The last was said as Per threw the lab coat over the bed. It landed beside her.
“Sorry, I thought you liked girls,” Tatsu said. She had to do whatever she could to keep him from thinking he was running the show.
From the sound of his voice, he was still standing by the door, blocking her exit. Then she heard footsteps leading away and outside. Is he leaving? A moment later she heard a car trunk slam and footsteps approach again. She hated being trapped like this, but what could she do in such tight quarters with that arm of his waiting for her?
“This is your final warning. Come out and tell me about Dead Lights. I don’t have time for this.”
He doesn’t have time? Why not? Because his plan has a schedule? Or maybe the schedule isn’t his.
“There are plenty of flights out, today. You went to all the trouble of tracking down the Dead Lights bomber, and you’re just going to leave? What’s the rush?” Tatsu said, taking a shot in the dark that the schedule belonged to a commercial airline. If she was right, she had a bad feeling of where that flight would be headed.
“I am not interested in finding the Dead Lights bomber. I just want to know about Dead Lights. If you are not going to tell me, I will assume that is because you do not know. And I will go talk to someone who does know. That is the only rush. Now, come out!”
Someone who does know? Before Tatsu could ponder that any longer, something splashed all over her.
“Hey!” Tatsu shouted, instantly recognizing the pungent smell. Gasoline rained down on her from the doorway. That’s what he got from his car. Oh, God, he’s going to burn me!
“Last chance.” His voice wasn’t raised or excited or laced with any kind of emotion. It was eerie. Then she heard the sound of a road flare igniting, a hiss and a glaring light coming from Per’s position in the doorway, making the shadows on the wall elongate and dance.
Tatsu grabbed the lab coat and wiped as much of the gasoline off her as she could, then she dipped it in even more of the fuel that was on the carpet around her. She counted to three before jumping up and tossing the lab coat at Per and the burning road flare. The coat ignited with a whoomph! as it fell onto Per. While he fought with the fiery coat, Tatsu jumped over the bed and dove at the curtains, crashing through the window and landing in the parking lot. She rolled and was back up on her feet in seconds. Per came out of the burning motel room, the floor and bed on fire now. Tatsu took a squared-off stance and raised her fists. The invitation to him was clear.
Per saw Tatsu standing there, waiting for him. He was a sight. What little hair he had left was scorched on one side, his glasses bent, and his leg bleeding where the knife still stuck.
“If you were smart, you would have run while you had the chance,” Per said, approaching her.
“And if you were smart, you’d get that knife wound looked at instead of wasting your time flying all the way to Tokyo. You won’t find any answers there, you know,” Tatsu said, baiting him as they circled each other.
“I believe I will see what Nagura has to say for himself before I decide Tokyo is a waste of time. And if he does not feel like talking, maybe I will see how many knife wounds he can endure.”
“NO!” Tatsu shouted as she stopped circling, her breath catching and electricity rifling through her arms and legs at the thought of Nagura’s being hurt.
The corner of Per’s mouth went up in what might have been a smirk, and instantly Tatsu saw her mistake. All this time while she thought she’d been playing him for information, he’d actually been playing her. Anger—at herself and at him—mixed with the fear already rising in her for Nagura’s well-being. She fought for control, knowing if she was going to triumph, her mind and body had to be clear and focused. She needed to act, not react.
If I can get close enough to get my hand on that knife, I can end this in a hurry.
She ran at Per before he could get his bearings—or thought she had. With no trouble at all, he turned and blocked her attack. He swung that arm of his, but she easily ducked it and swept his legs from under him, sending him to the pavement. As he hit the ground, he swung his arm at her again. She had to jump backward, arching into a back handspring to avoid it. Then she saw the hole in the ground his arm had made. All he needed was one solid connection with that thing, and she’d be dead.
People were starting to gather outside their motel rooms and someone yelled, “I’ve called the cops!”
Tatsu was still going to fight it out, but without a remark, Per got into his car and drove away, leaving Tatsu standing there half-naked, her motel room in flames. Sirens sounded in the distance. Tatsu looked at the crowd staring at her, some of them using their phones to take a picture. She grabbed the curtain from her motel room off the ground, shook the glass out of it, then wrapped it around her shoulders, covering herself. Wi
thout a second glance, she hurried out of the parking lot.
A few blocks away, thankfully without running into anyone, she got to her motorcycle. She unlocked the seat’s trunk and took out her rain slicker, tossing her curtain shawl away. With her steed between her legs, she felt better. She took out her phone and checked the flights to Tokyo. There were a half dozen throughout the day, but the next flight actually had an hour and a half stopover in France. The flight after that was nonstop and got into Tokyo almost an hour before the first flight. Hopefully Per’s rush to get to Tokyo made him take the first flight. Either way, she’d have to be careful.
Chapter Thirteen
London
1:00 P.M. Local Time
JONATHAN STOOD BACK from the window of his flat, peering out through the sheers at Fahd’s men, who had driven him there and were now waiting for him and the bag at his feet. Packing wasn’t the first thing he did when he got home, though. That honor had gone to finding the bugs and fish-eye cameras strategically placed around his apartment. It hadn’t taken him long to find the devices, but he wondered more than a little about not having noticed them before. What else had he missed?
There had been a time when if a crumb was out of place when he returned home, he would have noticed it without effort. Was he getting lazy? Or worse, old? He’d certainly been through a lot since those days, but he’d thought he was still on his game. Even though his game was now stealing stolen art rather than covertly taking orders from a government. There were parts of that old life that he missed, but the paranoia was not one of them. Not that he’d shucked that little feature with The Monarch.
The Monarch. While he felt excitement at the idea of getting back to what he was sure he was meant to do—him and Lew—part of him was screaming that he was crazy and should slip out the back and take a cab to anywhere but here. Lew could take care of himself. Lew could even be The Monarch without him, couldn’t he? But Jonathan knew from experience that that wasn’t true. The last time he’d bailed from the life and left Lew on his own, the lunkhead had wound up in federal prison.
But it was all just woolgathering. Jonathan could no more leave Lew than he could leave his skin. And when all was said and done, there was one thing he knew he was feeling about this whole situation that he hadn’t felt in years—excited.
Jonathan waved to the driver and headed down with his suitcase. He got in, and they headed over to pick up Lew. Less than an hour later, they were both on board The Custodians’ private jet at Heathrow.
THE BOEING 747-8 Intercontinental jet liner was capable of seating six hundred people in its uncustomized form. Today there were only eight on board, including the pilot and the copilot. At top speed, they’d reach their destination in just over eight hours. A few guards, with their weapons stowed away, sat near the front of the plane. Fahd was up in the cockpit, talking to the pilots. Jonathan and Lew were seated near the back of the plane. Emily, because of her condition, had stayed home.
Lew was just finishing his second dinner while Jonathan sipped on some green tea after barely touching his. Everything was happening so fast that Lew had no idea what was in store for them, but he’d decided that whatever it was, there probably wasn’t going to be much time for hitting a drive-thru. Assuming they even had drive-thrus wherever they were going.
“So what do you think?” Jonathan asked, putting down his teacup.
“A little frozen in the middle, but not bad,” Lew said.
Jonathan just looked at him. Lew could tell he wasn’t in the mood for playing around. Not that he was either, but it was how he dealt with things.
“You don’t think it’s all a little convenient? I mean, exactly what we need at exactly the right time? And why us? Our track record hasn’t exactly been stellar lately. If it’s just the symbol—The Monarch—that they want, why not just start using it themselves?”
“We considered that,” Fahd said from behind them. Lew didn’t particularly like Fahd. He was shifty and had this weird habit of sidling up to you without being heard. Lew preferred his friends and foes the same way: head-on and in plain sight. Fahd sat down across from them.
“So why didn’t you?” Lew asked.
“Modis Operandi,” Fahd said. “It’s not just you and it’s not just him, it’s the two of you together. You have a way of working that’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It would be easy to just start drawing symbols all over the place. But duplicating your style and methods is a whole different story.”
“We have a style?” Lew said, only half kidding.
“Like no other,” Fahd said. Lew could tell from the look on Jonathan’s face he wasn’t buying it either. “But enough of the compliments. I want you two to get some sleep before we land, so let’s go over what we know.”
Fahd put a tablet computer down in front of them and swiped the screen open. An image of a huge yacht displayed.
“This is the Jurojin Maru, one of the largest yachts in the world. It’s almost six hundred feet long, has a crew of over fifty—most of whom are former SAS—and can normally accommodate up to ninety guests.”
Lew leaned forward and whistled, more than impressed by the floating city. He could see two helicopter pads, two pools, a tennis court and several decks filled with what looked like lounge chairs. It had to be at least six stories high, not counting whatever lay below the waterline.
“Normally accommodate?” Jonathan said.
“Yes, I’ll get to that. The Jurojin Maru has two minisubmarines and a moon pool in a pressurized deck at the base of the ship and several high-speed launches. She also has state-of-the-art defenses to protect its guests from pirates and terrorists.”
“Defenses?” Lew said. That little tidbit he didn’t like.
“Antiballistic and antisubmarine missile systems, paparazzi laser deterrent, armor plating, bulletproof glass, and an armory stocked with everything from machine pistols to RPGs,” Fahd said.
“Son of a bitch,” Lew said.
“Who owns it?” Jonathan asked. Fahd swiped a new picture into view. A small Asian woman who Lew thought looked to be about a hundred and fifty years old appeared.
“Umi Tenabe, head of the Tenabe Group, one of the richest multinationals in Japan. They’re into everything: construction, engineering, pharmaceuticals, electronics—you name it. Aside from running her father’s company after he died, a minor miracle in Japan’s society, especially back then, she was an incredible philanthropist. Mostly sciences, and for the past ten years, almost exclusively longevity research and life extension.”
“I can see why,” Lew said, thinking if he ever got that old, he’d eat a bullet, not figure out how to get more wrinkles.
“Was?” Jonathan said.
“Yes, as I said, for ten years she was the major funding source for the science, but six months ago her husband, Mikawa, passed away, and she’s mostly disappeared from the scene—along with her money. Umi popped up again a few months ago to host this,” Fahd said, swiping. An announcement for a Longevity and Life Extension Conference appeared on the tablet.
“This weekend,” Lew said, noticing the date.
“Yes,” Fahd said. “My contacts tell me guests have already started to arrive.”
“It’s all very interesting, Fahd,” Jonathan said, “but why do we care about this?”
“Because of this.” Another swipe made both Jonathan and Lew lean forward.
On the screen was the unmistakable work of Pablo Picasso. Working with Jonathan, Lew had learned a great deal about art over the years and could even recognize certain styles and artists, but anything beyond that was Jonathan’s purview.
“Le pigeon aux petits pois,” Jonathan said. A moment later, he said to Lew, “The Pigeon with Green Peas. It’s—”
“A Picasso,” Lew said, fighting every reflex to make a French restaurant joke.
>
“That was supposed to have been destroyed back in 2010,” Jonathan said. “The thief confessed and said so.”
“And as we both know, thieves never lie,” Fahd said with a wink.
“How much?” Lew asked.
“About thirty million,” Jonathan said.
“Thirty-two million, at last appraisal,” Fahd said.
“Let me guess,” Lew said. “The pigeon dinner is somewhere on the super floating death fortress. Yeah, this will be a snap. Forget it, buddy.”
“Lew,” Jonathan said, with a tone that Lew knew said take it easy. Lew didn’t think he was being unruly, but he couldn’t always tell. Regardless, this whole thing sounded like suicide, and he was damn sure not going to sit there and quietly drink the Kool-Aid.
“Were you not here for the whole SAS guards, missiles, and lasers discussion? Even if we could get on the ship, we’d never be able to grab it. And even if by some miracle we did, we’d end up with an RPG enema on our way home.”
“Something tells me we’re not going to have a problem getting on board,” Jonathan said, looking to Fahd. “You got us passes for this conference, didn’t you?”
“Well,” Fahd said, looking from Jonathan to Lew. “Yes and no.”
“Why do I feel like I was just auctioned off to the lowest bidder,” Lew said.
“We were only able to get one pass. Jonathan, you’ll be replacing Dr. Chris Hudson, gerontologist from USC,” Fahd said, handing Jonathan his credentials.
“And the real Dr. Hudson?” Jonathan asked.
“Terrible case of the stomach flu, I’m afraid. Just a shame,” Fahd said.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Jonathan said. “And the fact that I know about as much about gerontology as I do quantum physics won’t be a problem?”
