Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase 1)

by Guignard, Lars

  Continuing on, they soon found themselves in a meadow, the trail an ocher line stretching like a ribbon across the green grass. A small river was now visible in the distance, winding between the karsts where the meadow turned to water-filled rice paddies. Michael marveled at the place as he piloted the bike forward, careful to avoid dropping it on the path, which was soon reduced to a low berm between paddies, green rice shoots poking their heads out of the flooded fields.

  Water buffalo lolled in muddy ponds and footprints dotted the berm, but there wasn’t a human being in sight. After some time, Michael slowed the bike to a standstill, shutting down the engine in an effort to get his bearings. A gentle breeze could be heard rustling the trees growing up from the rocky soil of the karsts, a rooster crowing somewhere in the distance.

  “There,” Kate said, pointing to the other side of the far off river, where a wisp of smoke curled its way off the valley floor and up the side of a bent mountain. “Look familiar?”

  Michael nodded. “I think we found our crooked karst.”

  • • •

  A MILE AWAY the all-seeing eye of the MSS watched with detached scrutiny. The tracking device was working as specified, but truth be known, for the moment Huang was more interested in the landscape. He remembered fields like this from his time as a boy in rural Guangdong Province. Huang was still in the prime of his life, but he recognized that by and large, those times had passed. Nowadays he was more likely to rest his eyes on the never ending array of newly constructed skyscrapers than to happen upon an empty field. Regardless, it didn’t much matter. Huang had a job to do and he was getting close. The American was near his goal and he was near the American. Even without the assistance of their spies in the American camp, Huang believed his mission would soon be complete.

  “Captain Huang,” a junior agent interrupted.

  “Yes?”

  “The target is moving.”

  Huang snapped back to attention, focusing his gaze on the moving icon on the LCD screen. He reminded himself that now was not the moment to let his mind wander. There would be time for those reminiscences later. Now was the time for hunting.

  • • •

  AS PROMISED, AFTER crossing the stream on a narrow crumbling foot bridge, they reached their destination. A studied look at Kate’s iPhone confirmed that the crooked karst matched the engraving on the side of the capsule. This time, there was no disputing the angles. But why here? What made this place special? The village was quiet, almost eerily so, a ribbon of dirt running right through the center of it, stone huts on either side of the path. Michael and Kate continued to tool along slowly on the motorcycle until they passed a boy guiding a lone goat off the path and into a pen. Michael brought the motorcycle to a stop in the middle of the path where Kate got off to address the boy. The boy replied with a single syllable and a smile.

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked him if this was Yangkok.”

  “And?”

  “He asked me where else it would be.”

  Michael kicked the bike onto its stand and they walked past several more vacant doorways, Michael finally poking his head inside one of the huts that seemed to promise more life than the others. There was what looked like a raw cotton mattress in the corner with some hay and a clay cooking oven in which the embers were still smoldering. The floor was unfinished stone and mud like the walls. As Michael’s eyes adjusted to the dim light he was able to make out a short-haired pig sleeping in the corner. There was a blackened wok, and a set of chipped, recently washed plates. Not exactly a manse, but it would keep the rain out.

  There were no signs of the hut’s inhabitant and Michael was about to move on when he heard an enormous squawk behind him. He turned to find himself facing the boy whose path they had already crossed. He now held a live chicken which he carried upside down by its feet.

  “Ask him where everybody is.”

  “You mean like take me to your leader?”

  “Just ask,” Michael said.

  Kate addressed the boy in a few simple Mandarin words, and the boy responded. “He said the green creatures came. They inserted probes into the children. Then they beamed the village elders into their golden space ship.”

  Michael just looked at Kate.

  “I’m kidding,” she smiled. “He said most people left the village when the government told them this land would be flooded in a hydroelectric project. Only his grandparents and a few of the older people have stayed behind.”

  The boy then said something else.

  “He asks if we are friends with the American man who came here many months ago.”

  Michael felt a jolt of pure electricity run up his spine. If there were Americans way out here, he knew he wanted to hear about them. The boy continued to speak, Kate translating.

  “He says there was a man that looked something like you, only older, with gray hair, but the eyes, the blue eyes were the same. The man came here and asked a lot of questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  Kate translated. “He says he doesn’t know. He says he only saw the man speaking with his grandfather. He couldn’t hear well.”

  “When did he come?”

  Again Kate translated. “He thinks about three months ago.”

  Michael felt something that he hadn’t felt for some time, something that felt like hope.

  “Where is his grandfather? I want to speak with him.”

  The boy didn’t seem to require a translator. He simply looked to Kate and uttered three short syllables.

  “He says to follow him.”

  THE BOY LED them past several more open doors, to another hut, in many ways identical to the ones they had passed. The difference was that this hut showed activity both inside and out. An old woman, her silver gray hair shorn, swept off the dusty stones in front of the door. The fresh scent of stir fried vegetables hung in the air, a steady chopping sound echoing out from within. The woman smiled at the boy before straightening her tired back in the presence of the strangers. Despite her smile, Michael guessed that she was less than pleased with the intrusion. She called inside the hut and the chopping ceased, Kate taking over in Mandarin.

  “Hello. We met your grandson on the path.” Both Michael and Kate smiled as the old woman eyed them warily. “He said an American that looked a lot like this one,” Kate pointed to Michael, “came here many months ago.”

  If the old woman looked disinclined to help before, she was positively tight lipped now. Michael observed what seemed to be the particularly Chinese habit of smiling under duress. Whatever this woman knew, he doubted very much she’d be sharing it with them, and by the looks of that smile, he suspected the kid would get a few whacks with the end of her broom as well. Michael spoke to Kate without turning to her.

  “No way she’s talking.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “So what now?”

  Kate smiled back at the old woman and stepped past her, poking her head into the open doorway. Michael appreciated Kate’s initiative, but wished there was another way. It was after all this woman’s home she was entering uninvited. As fate would have it though, Kate did little more than bob her head into the shadowy interior before she bobbed right back out again, staring into the face of a man who looked older than time itself. The man carried a worn pocket knife in one hand, a long green onion in the other. Michael wasn’t sure if the old man intended to whip Kate with the onion or cut her eyes out with the knife, but he did neither. Instead, he simply stepped into the sunlight and appraised his visitors. The old woman was quiet, the boy observing silently from the path. Even the chicken stopped squawking.

  Kate opened her lips and began to say something in Mandarin, but the old man put a finger to his lips. Kate was silent and the old man, who looked like he had been crying, rubbed his tired fingers over his sweaty brow and up through his long strands of greasy hair. The action revealed a keloid scar which started near the middle of his forehead and looked as though
it kept on going right over the top of his skull. The scar was clearly old and had obviously been sewn up with little concern for the finesse of modern plastic surgery. From the steely stare in his wizened eyes though, Michael could tell that aesthetics of the wound were long forgotten, even if its cause had not been. The old man uttered a word, flicking the wet green onions like a switch as he did.

  “What did he say?” Michael quietly asked Kate.

  “He said, go.”

  “Ask him about the American.”

  Kate began to translate, but this time the old man’s answer wasn’t a word, but a gruff scream. “He says to go, now.”

  Michael looked to the old lady, then back at the man with the scar. It was most likely her husband, possibly her father, but it was hard to tell. Either way it didn’t matter. The chicken squawked behind them, Michael fairly certain that they would learn no more. Not under these circumstances. Not on this visit.

  “Then let’s go,” Michael said, and as he turned, he cast a second glance at the pocket knife the old man held between his thumb and fingers. The rust colored blade was extended, its tip broken off, no doubt from hard use. But what caught Michael’s eye wasn’t the blade, or the way the old man held it. It was the insignia embossed on the piano black handle exactly where the Swiss Cross would have been be located had it been a Swiss Army knife. Except, Michael noted, it wasn’t a Swiss Army knife. It was a German Army knife. And it wasn’t embossed with a Swiss Cross. It was engraved with a silver swastika. The Nazi emblem glinted in the midday sun, still shiny after all these years.

  29

  WHEN HE WAS eighteen, Michael’s father taught him about honor. Michael’s grandfather had just died and Michael was due at the funeral. The problem was, Michael was away at college. There was no way to go to the funeral without missing his final exams. Michael had been reasonably close to his grandfather and he knew that he wouldn’t want him missing his finals. Not for his funeral. Not when he was already dead. But not going would look bad. Michael knew it would. It would look bad to his aunt and uncle, his cousins, and everybody else. Michael asked his dad what he thought he should do and his dad told him to do what Grandpa would. So Michael thought about it. Then he drank a Black and Tan and hit the books. Michael skipped the funeral. And he knew his grandfather was smiling in his grave. Because honor isn’t about doing what’s popular. It’s about doing what’s right. And Michael’s dad gave him the permission to do that.

  LESS THAN TEN minutes had passed, but Michael knew that the image of the Nazi pocketknife had been seared into his brain for an eternity. He sat with Kate, straddling the motorcycle at the base of the crooked karst, staring down the path to the village of Yangkok below. They needed to think, they needed to regroup, but most importantly they needed to find a means of getting the old man to share what he so obviously knew.

  “There you are talking about how we have to work smart. How we need a bird to catch our fish for us. Well we got our bird, Michael. That was him down there with a scar the size of Cuba running down his forehead. What are we doing here?”

  “We weren’t going to get anywhere. Not like that.”

  “Like what then? Look at it. The mountain we’re sitting on is a match to the engraving. The old man had the knife. The knife is a direct link to the Nazis and the Horten and whatever else went on here during World War II. An American that looked a lot like you went through there three months ago. Three months would have been February. Everything, and I mean everything, adds up. Hell, if we can get that old man to talk it might just be a road map directly to your father.”

  “You think I don’t know all this?”

  “Then what?” Kate got off the bike, addressing Michael head on. “It’s time we pushed. Maybe the old man won’t say anything. But the woman might. Or the kid. We just need to be persuasive.”

  “And the best way to do that,” Michael said, “is to learn more. They made it clear they don’t want us asking questions. If we’re going to get anywhere with these people, we need to know who they are and what they want. We need an in before we try again.”

  “If we even have time to try again.”

  Michael looked directly at Kate. “What does that mean?”

  Kate pulled the stray strands of hair away from her face. It was a habit Michael had made note of. She did it when she was nervous or anxious. Michael guessed that she also did it when she was about to come clean.

  “Last night, while you were sleeping, I made a call.”

  “Please tell me you used a payphone.”

  Kate nodded. “I talked to my handler in London. He only spoke a few words before getting off the line, but it was enough.”

  “What did he say?”

  “The bird’s gone south.”

  Michael was silent.

  “Like everything else, the Chinese are looking for supremacy in space. Three days ago they launched a satellite incorporating a new version of the Horten’s cold fusion reactor as its power source. About fourteen hours after that they lost communication with that satellite. Subsequently its orbit began to degrade. If its orbit continues to degrade at its current rate, its most likely reentry point is somewhere above Southern California. Exactly what will happen when it reenters the atmosphere is unknown. What we do know is that a breach of the reactor core will result in an explosion on an order of magnitude the world has seldom seen. And even if by some miracle the breach from the primary reactor isn’t catastrophic, prevailing winds will ensure that the radioactive fallout from its secondary coil will be worldwide.” Kate met Michael’s eyes. “If this thing comes down a whole lot of people are going to die, Michael.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

  “You’re a civilian. I didn’t want you to have a complete meltdown.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call myself a civilian.” The truth was Michael hadn’t considered himself a civilian since he was seventeen. Not since that fateful day when his kidnappers had given up. Despite holding him for three days, his father had not come. That meant that Michael was no longer of any use. They said they would kill him. But they weren’t that kind. Instead of killing him, they locked him in a narrow mine shaft — no food, no water, and no way out. Michael didn’t know how long he had waited there before help came. But he knew he was no longer a civilian. After that he’d never be a civilian again.

  “What would you call yourself then?” Kate said.

  “A realist.”

  “Good. Then understand this. That satellite is the equivalent of a very large bomb. To make that bomb the Chinese reverse engineered their reactor design including all of its communications protocols from the damaged Horten they found. If we can locate the second Horten and plug it into that green box we found, if the boys in tech can find a clear-code that will reboot its systems, there’s a chance we can keep that bomb from blowing.”

  “Just a chance?”

  “A chance is the best we’ve got.”

  Michael stared down at the low clouds hanging over the valley. Regardless of the belated manner in which Kate had shared this information, he knew in the pit of his gut that she was right. The stakes were too high to beat around the bush. They needed to talk to the old man. But something material had to change. They needed a reason for him to trust them. Instead they got a clap of thunder. A gunshot echoed up from the valley below. It sounded like a twelve gauge, but Michael guessed it could have come from any large caliber weapon. It was followed quickly by a second shot, this one seemingly louder than the first and in that moment Michael knew that the luxury of decision was no longer his. The second shot still reverberating through the hills, he kicked the bike to life, Kate hopping on behind him.

  THEY HEARD THE screaming before Michael even killed the engine. The boy stood wailing in the middle of the path, tears streaming down his face. The old woman then stepped out of the hut and one look at her told Michael that the man with the knife had been her husband and he was dead. She ignored Michael and hunched over
on the ground, knees in the dirt. Others appeared, hurrying down hidden trails onto the main footpath of the village, and soon the wailing was everywhere. One of their own had fallen.

  Michael dropped the bike in the soft dirt and headed into the hut where the old man had been cooking. He only needed to poke his head in the doorway for a second before looking away. It wasn’t like an automobile accident seen from afar, it was more visceral than that. And despite everything Michael thought he knew about being born from the earth and going right back to it, he felt an overpowering urge to sink to his hands and knees and vomit. The old man’s head, or what was left of it, was slumped to the side of his neck at an unnatural angle. A second shot had taken out most of his face, reducing what had been a person to what looked like a bloody rump roast hanging from a stump of flesh. Michael grasped his gut and dry heaved. Kate, who had entered the hut cautiously behind Michael, looked momentarily stunned, a faraway look in her eye. Michael left the hut.

  “Who did this?” Michael asked two of the villagers. “Who did this?”

  The villagers ignored him. Michael’s only response was the low moan of the old woman, the boy now seated against the stone wall of a nearby hut dropping a pebble repeatedly into the mud as though caught in an infinite loop of disbelief.

  Kate echoed Michael’s question in Mandarin. The stray villagers who had come down from the hillside looked up at her, but quickly redirected their attention to the old woman. Kate, undeterred, continued forward, repeating the question. The villagers only shook their heads. Looking at them, still breathing hard from their run from the fields, it was unlikely that there would have been any witnesses except for the kid and the old woman. No, it was obvious to Michael that if he wanted answers he was going to have to go straight to the source. But Kate beat him to it. She knelt down in the dirt before the old woman, taking her by the hands.