Wild Storm

by Richard Castle

  He just had to give the drivers of the pickup trucks a little more incentive. So he switched his scope from shoulders to a far easier target: windshields.

  From just fifty yards, aiming at such a relatively large mark, he didn’t bother counting heartbeats. He was just careful enough to make sure he didn’t hit anyone sitting behind the windshield and started squeezing off rounds.

  The first one shattered. Then the second one. By the time he was fixed on the third one, the trucks were already starting to move out, spinning sand in their haste to escape. Just for emphasis—and to give an enterprising windshield repair shop some extra business—Storm sent one more round hurtling out of the CheyTac.

  With the bandits in retreat, Storm hopped off the roof of the cargo truck and was heading for the back of it. Katie, who had dismounted from her camel, appeared to be in shock more than anything. Strike was having a hard time steadying Cleopatra, whose gentle disposition did not appreciate gunfire. Antony, standing still with unusual serenity amid all the excitement, was perhaps the only living creature that seemed genuinely unconcerned about the commotion.

  “My goodness gracious,” Raynes was saying as he rode back toward the group. “That was amazing! Did you see that? You were right, Mr. Talbot. Bullies do need to be punched in the mouth!”

  Storm ignored the man. He unhooked the trailer door to the middle cargo truck, the one that had supposedly been carrying Bouchard but was now—allegedly—carrying rocks. Hopping up, Storm found a hammer that had been left on the floor and began prying open the crate inside.

  “I don’t know whether to curse you or thank you,” the professor was yammering, having dismounted next to Katie. “But I will say it doesn’t look like we’ll have to worry about those ruffians again. So I guess I’ll thank you.”

  The crate top was off now. It was not rocks. It was a large metal box with clasps on the sides. Storm opened the clasps, lifted the top, then peered inside.

  It was a large pile of white powder.

  A granular, white powder.

  Which is exactly what Alida McRae said raw promethium looked like before it was refined.

  A Geiger counter could confirm it, but Storm didn’t need sensitive instrumentation to figure out what was going on. The archaeological dig was just a front. The professor was really running a promethium-mining operation. The men Storm had just shot at weren’t bandits. They were terrorists who had come to buy it.

  “I will have to write a very positive letter to the International Art Protection League about your performance here today,” Raynes said.

  Storm hopped down from the truck and rounded the corner to confront Raynes.

  “Drop the act, professor,” Storm said. “There’s no such thing as the International Art Protection League. You knew it from the moment my colleague and I appeared in your camp. I only figured it out when you let me quote movies for an hour instead of pressing me for more details about my employment.”

  Then Storm switched to Arabic: “Besides, I heard everything you said just now. And I know exactly what’s going on here. You’ve been selling promethium to terrorists.”

  The word promethium made Strike’s head whip in Storm’s direction. Even Katie Comely, with her limited language skills, seemed to understand.

  Raynes’s face twitched. Then, with a speed that surprised even Storm, he produced a small pistol from the folds of his thobe and aimed it at Katie’s head from point-blank range.

  “Don’t move,” he said in a deadly calm voice. “If you try anything, I’ll kill her.”

  CHAPTER 22

  PANAMA CITY, Panama

  C

  arlos Villante pulled his Cadillac into the parking garage underneath the skyscraper that contained the offices of the Autoridad del Canal de Panama. He found his reserved spot—marked with C. VILLANTE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR—and parked there. Using his electric fob, he locked the car as he walked away, allowing himself one final smirk before entering the elevators.

  He was ready for another day of smuggling bicycles.

  While he considered himself, first and foremost, an employee of the United States government—that was certainly where his largest paycheck came from—the day-to-day reality of his existence was that he really did have to maintain the veneer of being a high-level bureaucrat within the canal authority.

  It was no small chore. It was, in actuality, quite a bit of work: endless meetings, site visits, contracts to pore over, details to check. And whereas he didn’t want to do his job so well that someone decided to make him the authority director, he did have to do it well enough not to get fired.

  On this morning, that meant arriving an hour earlier for a meeting with his boss, Nico Serrano, the authority director, who had sent him a text message the night before, saying they needed to conference first thing.

  I thought you were still in Washington, Villante had texted back.

  Just landed.

  Do you need me to prepare anything for this meeting? Villante wrote, ever the dutiful bureaucrat.

  No. But be ready to hear some bad news, Serrano had replied.

  So it was Villante wiped off whatever smile had been on his face as he rode up the elevator with all the other men and women who were girding themselves for another day of earnest paper pushing.

  He set his briefcase down in his office, fixed himself a cup of coffee, and then walked by the corner office. Serrano was already there.

  Villante tapped on the frame of the open door. “Would you like to meet now?” he asked.

  Serrano looked up from his computer screen. There were dark smudges under his eyes. The lines on his face seemed deeper than the last time Villante had seen him, even though that had been only a week earlier.

  “Yes, yes, come in,” Serrano replied, rubbing his eyes.

  “Would you like me to get you some coffee first? You look like you could use it.”

  “Thank you, but I’ve already had three cups. Sit down, please.”

  As Villante complied, Serrano asked, “How are things?”

  Villante had no reason to lie. “Not very good. I went out to visit Parades yesterday,” he said, referencing the name of one of his contractors, a man Serrano knew well. “Parades says if the funding for the expansion project doesn’t resume, he is going to have to default on his largest loan. It will probably mean bankruptcy.”

  Serrano bowed his head and squeezed his forehead, like this news had exacerbated an existing headache. Men like Parades had led the charge of Panamanian prosperity that had transformed their country. It was no exaggeration to say that if men like Parades were in trouble, it boded ill for the nation.

  “I assume he is not alone?” Serrano asked.

  “I’m afraid not. Grupa de 2000, Eusebio Rivera’s outfit, is struggling, too. Most of the companies I’m dealing with are teetering on the brink right now, Nico. They’re all in the same situation. They are relying on us to get the funding flowing again. I’m sorry, I’m telling you things you already know.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I…I keep hoping that somehow it’s not the case.”

  “I thought our situation was about to improve with the Americans.”

  “So did I,” Serrano said. “But I spoke with Congressman Jared Stack personally while I was in Washington. I was, of course, full of condolences about the death of his predecessor, Congressman Vaughn. And I expressed outrage over the attacks. I wanted to make it very clear there is no joy in Panama over the senselessness of this act of terrorism.”

  “Of course.”

  “But then the conversation moved along, and I reminded him of the importance of the canal to U.S. commerce. I brought out all the reports we prepared about how the widening of the canal would be a financial boon for everyone. I reminded him of the difficulties we are having here with financing. And do you know what he said?”

 
Serrano shook his head and continued. “He said that he and Congressman Vaughn were very close friends, and that while they didn’t always see eye to eye, it would dishonor Vaughn’s memory to fund the canal expansion when Vaughn had been such a staunch opponent of it.”

  “But that’s…that’s absurd!” Villante burst, his outrage real even if his identity wasn’t. “The Americans are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.”

  “I had thought good sense would prevail now that Vaughn was gone. We all did. But, apparently, that is not the case. Good sense seems to be in very short supply in that town.”

  Villante balled his fists, then unclenched them. Again, it was not an act. He was genuinely upset by the stupidity of his government and wished he could express his anger to someone who might be able to do something about it. If there even was such person.

  “So what can I do?” Villante asked.

  “This is going to get out. It always does. And when it does, there is going to be great despair here. Please just tell Parades and Rivera to hang on and not lose hope. If companies like theirs start filing for bankruptcy, it will be a tremendous disruption to our economy. You have to tell them we will get the money flowing again. It’s just going to take a little longer.”

  “Do you have a plan, Nico?”

  “I do.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s best I not say. All you need to know is we are not yet out of options. I have another card to play.”

  “Okay, my friend,” Villante said. “I will deliver your message of hope.”

  Villante stood and excused himself from Serrano’s office. As he walked back to his own, he was already thinking of whether he should report this to Jones at Langley. As a deeply embedded asset, one who had invested years in establishing the most credible cover imaginable, Villante often heard bits of information that he was unsure of how to handle. He was constantly weighing the value of the information against the risk that sharing it might inadvertently expose him.

  In this case, he decided he didn’t have anything definitive enough to report. He would root around a little more, keep his ears open, and see how things played out.

  CHAPTER 23

  WEST OF LUXOR, Egypt

  T

  he gun was old and small for a revolver. It took Storm a moment to recognize it. It was a Colt Pocket Police, a gun coveted by Civil War buffs because generals on both sides had carried them.

  Yet being an antique made it no less deadly when fired from point-blank range. Raynes had the weapon pressed against Katie Comely’s temple. He was using her as a shield from the rest of the party.

  “Hands up,” Raynes ordered. “All of you, hands up. Nothing crazy here, or she dies.”

  Storm, the three graduate students who had been driving the cargo trucks, and the four guards slowly raised their hands. The only one who didn’t comply was Strike. She had brought the M16 up to her shoulder and was aiming it at Raynes from perhaps thirty feet away.

  “I’ve got the shot, Storm,” she said calmly.

  “Don’t,” Storm said.

  “I can take him out,” she insisted.

  “No! For God’s sake, you’re on a camel and that gun is stuck on automatic. There’s no way you’ll be able to control your aim or the muzzle climb. There’s too great a chance you’d hit them both.”

  “Better listen to your boyfriend, Ms. Sullivan—or whatever your name is,” Raynes said, hiding more of himself behind his terrified postdoc.

  “I’ve. Got. The. Shot,” Strike said again, not lowering the weapon.

  “And Katie has got a family in Kansas,” Storm said.

  “Drop the weapon! Drop it, now!” Raynes was shouting as Storm spoke, pressing the barrel of the Pocket Police tighter against the side of Katie’s head.

  Storm wished he could place his body between Strike and her target. But she was too high up on the camel. All he had were words. The ones he chose were soft: “Clara. Please. Not for her. For me.”

  Strike took a deep breath, moved her finger to the trigger, tightened her grip on the gun…

  Then tossed it on the desert sand below her.

  “Damn it,” she said.

  “All right,” Raynes said. “And while you’re at it, let’s get rid of those handguns you have, too. I’ve seen what’s in those shoulder holsters. Do it real, real slow. If I even think you’re making a move to draw, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

  Storm and Strike slowly discarded their sidearms, moving deliberately so their actions could not be misinterpreted.

  “Okay, all of you, over there, away from the trucks,” Raynes barked. “That’s right. And let’s keep those hands up.”

  Storm, Strike, and the others herded themselves into a small clump a short distance away from Raynes, who still had his gun trained on the side of Katie’s head.

  When he felt the group was a sufficient distance away, Raynes moved just slightly away from Katie.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now you’re going to keep your hands up, but you’re going to sit down.”

  Exchanging glances, the nine people who suddenly found themselves at gunpoint reached the conclusion that they didn’t have much of a choice and took a seat on the sand.

  “Very good,” Raynes said. “Katie, there’s a bunch of rope in the truck. You’re going to go get it and use it to tie up all of these people. Start with Mr. Talbot here. Then Ms. Sullivan. And you had better make it tight.”

  Raynes shadowed Katie’s movements as she went to the cargo truck, retrieved the rope, and began tying up her friends and colleagues. He stayed within a few feet of her, never letting the gun drop.

  Storm and Strike communicated with their eyes only. At one point, Storm—as if responding to a suggestion Strike had made aloud—shook his head.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said.

  “No talking!” Raynes ordered. “And let’s keep those hands up.”

  “But my arms are getting sore,” one of the graduate students complained.

  “A bullet will hurt a lot worse,” Raynes snarled.

  Katie, who was finally recovering from her shock, began fuming. “It’s been you, all along. You’re the one who told the bandits what we’ve dug up. You’ve been telling them when to make their raids. All as a front for selling this…this promethium, whatever that is. How could you do this to us?”

  “You’re very naïve, Katie. All this equipment. All these supplies. All these workers. You think I’ve been getting that kind of money from the university? Please.”

  “But…why just dig it up and let someone else take it?”

  “Because if these people didn’t take it, the Egyptian government would. Either way, I don’t see a dime of it.”

  “But you get credit for the discovery!”

  “Oh, fabulous, credit,” Raynes said with a scoff as Katie continued her knot work. “Let me explain to you how credit works in the real world, my young postdoc. You make these amazing finds. You publish them, like a good academic should. You get all this quote-unquote credit. And then the university chancellor says, ‘That’s wonderful, professor. Congratulations. But, sorry, we have to cut your funding.’

  “And then there are the foundations. Oh, let me tell you about them. They make you travel halfway across the globe to grovel at the feet of their almighty boards. And they tell you how fantastic you are. And then a week later, the executive director calls you up and says, ‘Sorry, our portfolio didn’t perform as well as we hoped this year. But we’ll fund your dig two years from now, for sure. Good luck keeping it going.’”

  Raynes punctuated this by lobbing out a few words that cannot be said on network television.

  “And so there I was, slowly sinking, watching my budget and my staff whittle down to nothing, losing everything I had worked for. And then, one day, I noticed an unusu
al geological formation in one of the seismograms. I dug just a little and found a limestone cave that had a deposit of something that wasn’t limestone. I had it tested and, lo and behold, it was this thing called promethium, the rarest of the rare earths. It sells for three thousand dollars an ounce. And what was I supposed to do at that point? Tell the Egyptian government, which would immediately claim mineral rights and take it all for themselves? No way.”

  Katie had furious tears streaming down her face. “You’re a monster,” she spat.

  “Am I? I didn’t hear you complaining when you were collecting that postdoc stipend and padding out your resume so you could get yourself a tenure-track job back in the states. Where do you think that money came from?”

  Katie did not reply. Raynes went over to her and cupped the back of her head.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, jerking herself away.

  “I was going to let Bouchard through. You know that, right? All the truly important finds got through. I just…I needed the bandits as a cover. I couldn’t risk selling the promethium on the open market. I would have lost it all and we would have had to close the dig.”

  “So instead you sell it to terrorists,” Storm said.

  “Shut up!” Raynes said, briefly swiveling his gun in Storm’s direction. “I sell it to a man named Ahmed. What he does with it is his business.”

  “He’s using it to make a weapon that blows up commercial airliners laden with innocent people,” Storm said. “But, hey, you’ve got a dig to fund, so what do you care?”

  Raynes ignored him. Katie had bound the nine other members of the expedition.

  “Very good. Now get in that truck,” he said, pointing to the middle cargo truck, the one with the promethium still in back.

  “I’m not coming with you,” she said indignantly.

  “Oh, yes you are. You’re my insurance plan in case anyone here gets any ideas about playing hero. Actually, sorry, you’re the second part of my insurance plan. This is the first part.”

  He walked to the front of the first truck, aimed the Pocket Police at the front left tire, and shot it. The truck jolted down. He followed suit by shooting out the front right tire. Then he went to the back truck and similarly disabled it with two well-aimed shots.