by Cliff Ryder
Liang stared a moment longer, as if trying to evaluate their odds. Then he nodded.
“Off we go, then.”
The two men swung into the hall, pulled the locked door shut behind them and hurried into the waiting elevator. When the doors opened, the car was in plain sight. No one was in the garage, thankfully, not even the maintenance man they’d paid off.
Liang started the engine and Alex slipped into the passenger side, arranging his bag on the floor so he’d have room to stretch his legs. A few seconds later, they were speeding down the wide avenue toward the outskirts of town. It had taken several calls, but Liang assured him that there would be a plane waiting for them, and that there would be no trouble with customs.
Alex felt the need to explain himself. More than anything, he didn’t want Liang to think he was weak or inexperienced. He had put the man’s life in danger by taking on this mission when he was less than one hundred percent. He owed the man something by way of explanation. And yet, there just weren’t the appropriate words. Liang knew all he needed to know about Alex, the mission and his situation. Anything more would put the man in even more danger.
They reached the airport without incident, but the minute they passed through the main gate and had the terminal in sight, Liang stiffened. “We’ve been spotted,” he groaned. “You suppose that PMC
guy is hooked into the Mafia here, too?”
Alex looked behind them to where that same black car, flanked now by two SUVs, had fallen in line and were in hot pursuit. “Shit,” he said.
“Anything’s possible. Maybe they were paying someone off. You think we can lose them? Maybe you’d better call them again and tell them to keep the engine running.”
Liang flipped his phone open, clicked speed dial without looking and started jabbering into the mouthpiece. He listened for a second, and then nodded grimly. He snapped the phone shut and gunned the engine, leaving their pursuit vehicles scrambling to keep up.
“I hope those legs have a little juice left in them, brother. You may have to run for it. The plane is fueled up and ready to go, but when I told them who was on our ass, they got a little jumpy. They aren’t going to be too patient.”
Liang skidded in a short curve and raced for the runway.
Alex leaned out the window. He saw the plane.
The engines were already revved, and Yoo Jin-Ho stood on the gangway, watching the chase. The little man waved frantically, as if he could help the car move faster. He was screaming something at them, but there was no way to make it out.
Alex dragged the duffel bag off the floor. The effort sent fire shooting through his legs. He unzipped a pocket on the side of the bag and dragged out two shoulder straps. He slung it over his back, tugged it into place and pulled the straps tight.
“Pop the latches on that T-top and blow the hatch.” Liang shouted.
“You might not be able to stop and get it back.”
Alex grinned at him. “What do you have in mind?”
“It’s not my car, and the guy who owns it,”
Liang shouted, “he’s not here. I’ll get it fixed for him. Don’t worry about the car. Get that roof open, and get ready.”
Alex glanced ahead. The plane was moving, and not slowly. Liang skidded in behind it on the runway. Alex stared at the plane, then back at Liang. “And you say I’m crazy?”
Liang just grinned. “I’m coming in straight under that plane, brother,” he yelled. “You’d better be ready—you aren’t getting a second chance.”
Alex closed his eyes, focused and slammed his hands up, snapping the clamps on the T-top. It caught in the wind and whipped away behind them. He hoped it hit one of the pursuers in the windshield, but he didn’t bother to look back. He balanced himself in the seat, hands braced on the roof, and watched as they pulled up behind the plane. It began to rise.
He saw Jin’s terrified face watching from the still-open hatch on the side of the plane. Liang hit the gas, and the powerful car roared forward. The plane had barely cleared them, but Liang didn’t hesitate.
“I don’t think they can see you from here, man.
Maybe they think you missed it. Maybe they’ll chase me,” he shouted.
“Safe home,” Alex screamed. Then he glanced up, said a silent prayer and shot his legs out like pistons. He cursed, screamed and prayed in the same breath. He reached out, caught the bottom of the door and used his momentum to carry him up and forward. He tucked his knees in close and whipped up and through the hatch. He released the rail and felt hands grabbing his waist, dragging him in. Moments later the hatch swung closed, and he felt the plane rising. He lay curled where he’d landed, his eyes closed, waiting for shots to bring them down, or the hatch to open and suck him back out.
Below on the tarmac, Liang followed the course of the plane a moment longer, then veered off. If their pursuers had seen Alex jump, they paid him no heed. All three vehicles followed Liang, the pack of cars parting to drive around the plane rather than under it.
Alex looked around and found Jin seated in a canvas cargo net, grinning at him.
“Good to see you again.” Jin laughed. “That was quite an entrance.”
“I’m known for my entrances.” Alex chuckled.
“You think we can get out of here before they get someone in the air and catch us?”
“Probably.” Jin leaned into the cabin and spoke to the younger man at the controls. Jin checked his instruments, barked an order, and the pilot increased the plane’s speed. They banked away from the airport and gained altitude fast.
“I called the customs officials,” Jin said thoughtfully. “I am sure that I saw a black sedan and a pair of SUVs loading suspicious cargo. It was my civic duty to call in the warning.”
Alex stared at the little man for a long moment, then burst into a quickly regretted fit of laughter.
His sides ached, his shoulder was killing him, but, for the moment, he was alive.
Alex didn’t breathe easily until the plane’s wings were banking southeast toward South Korea. Jin seemed unconcerned, as if he’d done this a hundred times before. Alex sank back in his seat, shut his eyes and willed the pain in his legs away.
During the flight, Jin dragged out a first-aid kit and set to work on Alex’s wounds. They needed to get him cleaned up to prevent infection from setting into his shoulder. Jin worked quickly and efficiently. He dressed the wounds, and then handed Alex a package. It was sealed in brown paper, covered in odd symbols.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“I received a package and was told to get that to you. They said you were supposed to pick it up before you left—thought it might come in handy.”
Alex opened the package. There were two small brown plastic pill bottles inside. He read the instructions on the label, and took two of one and one of the other before sticking them in his pocket. He thought about what they meant, and it all came crashing in on him. Denny Talbot knew about the MS, knew that he hadn’t told them and that he’d endangered the mission by going at all. Then an image of Brin and Savannah surfaced. He shook it off.
When they touched down in Seoul, Alex waited for customs to check the plane, let the authorities check out his paperwork. There was nothing at all in his possession that could be considered illegal, so he turned his bag over to them and let them check it. Aside from a brief question on how he managed to get so injured, which Alex explained using the old serviceman’s standby—a drunken bar brawl over a woman—the whole affair was done in fifteen minutes and Alex bid his farewells to Jin and made for the main terminal.
There were two hours of downtime before his flight back to the States. He knew he had to lay low, just in case. No matter how well things were going, it always paid to err on the side of caution. He slipped into the men’s room, quickly washed up and changed his clothes. With his hair slicked back and wearing street clothes, he looked every bit the American tourist, if a bit under the weather. He walked into the bar then, sliding into a dark booth
and ordering a whiskey. From there, he watched the door and the clock, hoping no one would notice him.
There were other Americans in the bar, all loud and full of good humor. Alex eventually fell in with them, using his businessman cover and buying them all drinks. Within a few minutes, they were chatting and laughing it up like old pals.
Nobody even looked at them twice. Once they called for his flight to board, Alex was away into the night, just another anonymous American on his way home.
But he knew home wasn’t exactly the same anymore. His body had gone south on him and it would have to be dealt with. He’d thought to be done with all of this once the mission was completed. But it wasn’t really completed. Somehow that damnable weapon had ended up in Brin’s hands. His orders had been clear. Kill everyone associated with the project. Destroy the weapon.
Surely they wouldn’t make him kill his own wife?
Or had they already sent someone else in to do it?
All the way home, he struggled with possibilities. It was the end game, a time of diminish-ing options. The way Alex saw it, he had exactly two. The first was to take his family and disappear.
The only other option was to go in and take out the U.S. branch of MRIS himself. If he didn’t, he knew someone else would, and they wouldn’t worry about whose wife was in what laboratory or about a little girl who needed her mother.
Either way, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep them safe if the worst happened.
The flight was the longest of his life.
The plane touched down in the States without incident, and Alex didn’t waste any time getting outside and into the first cab in line. He gave the man the address, then leaned back and tried to sort out his thoughts. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince Brin to leave town on short notice. Her work was important to her and she knew nothing about Room 59. None of it would make any sense to her. She wouldn’t have a choice, though, even if he had to drag her kicking and screaming himself.
There was also the separation to think of. He’d been gone too much lately, and now that he knew what he was facing, it seemed as if the minutes were more precious than ever. He was going to have to explain all of that to Brin, but not until the mission was complete. Not until he’d extracted her from the danger he knew she was in, and was certain she’d be safe.
The cab pulled up in front of his house and he tossed the driver a twenty-dollar bill and climbed out without looking back. Something was wrong. He’d known it the minute his feet hit the curb, but it wasn’t until he reached the front porch that it hit him.
It was almost seven in the evening, and Brin’s car wasn’t in the drive. There were a couple of lights on in the house, but they always left a few on so would-be burglars might be fooled into thinking people were home. The front door was locked. Alex dug under the bushes on the left side of the porch, slid aside a flat slab of rock, poked his finger into the dirt and came up with a small key box. It required a four digit combination to open it, and he rolled the tumblers into place. It was more difficult than it should have been as his hands trembled. He was ready to curse the MS, and then he stopped, took a deep breath, and his hands stilled. It had nothing to do with the disease this time. It was all nerves.
He slipped the key into the lock and it turned easily, then he pocketed it and entered the house.
He heard nothing. Closing the door quietly, he put his bag down in the hall. Then, with quick deliberation, he made the rounds of all the rooms. He found no one, including Brin.
Alex finished his search and frowned. It wasn’t like Brin to be at work so late. Savannah had to be picked up by a certain time, and Brin hated pawning her off on a babysitter. She feared that with both parents working, Savannah wouldn’t get enough personal attention. It was possible that she and Savannah had simply gone out or something, but his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong.
He sat down in front of the computer and booted it up. As the cursor blinked and the cooling fans hummed, he wondered what he was going to face when he logged into Room 59. Denny had to know by now what had happened, and how close things had come to failing in Beijing. The mission had been sloppy, poorly executed, and he never should have accepted it. None of that was going to go over well, particularly the part where he’d kept his MS to himself until he was in too far to be recalled.
He ran through the preliminary login sequence quickly. Within moments the main Room 59
screen came to life.
“Chameleon, online and checking in,” he typed.
He’d used that exact same message after every mission he’d accomplished. This time it felt odd.
He didn’t feel like a chameleon, and he wasn’t sure yet that he was even welcome in the room.
“Welcome back, Alex.”
Alex took a deep breath and began to type.
“Hello, Denny. I have a report.”
“We know what happened already, Alex. When were you going to tell us about your condition?
Didn’t you think we’d understand?”
“I needed this one, Denny. You’re the one who showed me Brin’s company’s involvement. I couldn’t leave this to someone else, not knowing if they’d get the job done or if they’d come after Brin when they were done. We aren’t after Brin, are we?”
“The situation is complicated. Your wife has been in here, Alex,” Denny replied. “Here, in this room. She logged on to your computer, broke your security and made it into the outer room.”
“And you brought her the rest of the way?” Alex shifted through emotions from surprise, to shock, to anger. “You told her what was going on without even consulting me before doing it?”
“If it had been possible, we would have aborted the mission. Under the circumstances, you were out of communication and sending Liang was the best we could manage. Brin picked up a prescription that was meant for you, and she knew something was wrong. We got our report from the medical records.
None of us was happy to find out you were sick and didn’t think we needed to know. We didn’t tell Brin anything about what you were doing, though we did let slip that you were in the Far East. While you were keeping secrets, you failed to let us in on your cover story for this mission. Not that it matters now.”
“Where are they?” Alex asked. “Brin isn’t here.
Savannah isn’t here.”
“She’s probably at work,” Denny typed. “Alex, we have a serious problem here. You put a lot more at risk than your life, or even your family. What the hell were you thinking? We don’t operate this way.
We can’t afford to. Was my brief not clear, or do you think this is all just a game we’re playing? If those nanoagents had been released here, or anywhere in the world, it would be too late for apologies.”
“I couldn’t let someone else go,” Alex repeated.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have a better answer than that.
This is my life—it’s what I do. I have nothing else, and if I’m not going to be around to take care of my family in the future, I damned sure wanted to take care of them now.”
“You’d better get your head straight,” Denny wrote. “You are one man. Yours is one family. We aren’t in this for ourselves, or have you forgotten that? This is all-or-nothing. This is us against the world. You used to be the poster child for that. I wanted you on this mission because no one could do it better, but that was you at full strength. When things changed, you should have let me know. You should have trusted me.”
“I don’t know what else to say,” Alex typed. “I figured my career was pretty much over and had my resignation ready to turn in when you handed me this mission. I couldn’t turn it down, didn’t want to. I thought I could do it.”
“And?”
“And I was wrong,” Alex typed. “I’m just not what I used to be. I assume I’m out of a job?”
“We’re still assessing all this, Alex,” Denny wrote. “Your knowledge, your skills, they aren’t things that can be replaced easily
. That said, you have directly violated the rules of Room 59. If—
and I stress the word if—we can find a place for you here, then there’s one thing you’d better be crystal damned clear on. None of this is about you.
You aren’t in charge, you don’t make the rules and when you are told to do something, you’ll do it.
There isn’t any place here for rebels. We have rules and operating procedures and you know them. You willingly broke them.”
“I know,” Alex said. “And I appreciate that you’d still even think of supporting me after all of this, but the mission isn’t over, Denny. Not by a long shot.”
“What are you talking about? We have the reports on the MRIS complex. You obliterated it.
Liang even managed to get a man in and verify that the lower levels were destroyed. There’s nothing left of the computers or the data.”
“They sent it here already,” Alex typed. “They sent it to the MRIS lab right here. I found a shipping report, and I saw Brin’s name on the receiving end. She’s going to think she’s saving the world. I have to get in there, Denny, and I have to get her out.”
“Wait a minute,” Denny replied. “Are you sure about this? You’re telling me they’ve already got some kind of prototype here?”
“I still have the folder with the data on the shipment,” Alex replied. “I don’t know how many of their people over here are in on it, but there have to be a few. Hershel Rand, for one—he’s the CEO. Apparently they are planning on bringing Brin in, though I don’t know in what capacity. I know she wouldn’t willingly help them release a biological weapon, but if she thought she was working on a miracle cure she’d be all over it.”
“I’ll send someone in,” Denny replied. “You’re in no condition to operate right now, even without the MS. Liang said you got pretty beat up over there. Besides that, you’re too close to it emotionally—and that leads to mistakes in judgment.”
“I’m going in whether you order it or not, Denny. I’m sorry to disobey orders again so soon, but this one is mine. I need to be the one to do this,”
Alex typed furiously.
