Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase 1)

by Guignard, Lars

  “You’re a coward, Kate.”

  “I’m a survivor.”

  “Silence!” Ester said.

  And Michael seized the moment. He leapt diagonally across the I-beams toward the wing of the Horten. He knew it was hard to hit a moving target with a handgun. Especially at a distance in the dark. For a quarter second, maybe even half, all was well. Michael felt himself sailing though the air. Then he felt a nimble hand take hold of his rear foot, using his momentum against him. Losing his balance, he was unable to stop himself from tumbling backwards the way he had come. He managed a split second glance at Ester on the ground below the trailer before his remaining forward momentum was redirected against him. Then he fell shoulder first into the hard steel utility chest, his forehead grazing the sharp corner as he landed. The heavy lid crashed down and even though he sprung up with all the ferocity of a coiled spring, it did little good. He felt the snug hold of metal on metal and knew that the lid was already latched. Michael found himself alone in the dark. No room to roll over. Stuck in the box.

  54

  ESTER MOVED QUICKLY over the steel I-beams of the trailer. She had bolted the utility chest shut, but now had bigger fish to fry. Her mission was a simple one — to destroy the Horten before it became too late. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. The Horten had remained hidden since the Japanese retreat near the end of World War II. The Dragons wanted it that way. They couldn’t afford to have its technology made public. There was too much at stake. Overnight, massive hydroelectric projects would become obsolete. Oil fields would become no more valuable than desert sand. Wind power projects that had eaten years of capital would have no hope of turning a profit. The Dragons were too heavily invested in the current energy infrastructure to allow a technology like cold fusion to wipe it out. Not before they were ready.

  Ester had been inducted into the Green Dragon Society by way of her late mother’s sponsorship nearly ten years ago. She knew that outsiders might find it odd that she belonged to a Japanese organization; the Japanese were after all the same people who had brutalized her ancestors, but Ester understood that the importance of the Society easily outweighed any lingering ethnic tension.

  Ester’s mother had told her that in the beginning it was simple. Back during the Cultural Revolution the waves of spies had been easy to detect. They hid under the cover of diplomatic missions and covered their tracks poorly. But later, as the years progressed, foreign governments’ appetite for the Horten’s cold fusion technology increased. Wave after wave of foreign agents had come. Even in the relatively short decade Ester had been tied to the Society she had personally dealt with Israelis, Russians, French, even Saudis, all looking for the Horten with her famed propulsion technology, all looking for a leg up in the energy game.

  Even Ester had initially thought it absurd — foolish foreigners searching China for an archaic aircraft. She was studying to prepare for university at the time. If not for her mother’s counsel, Ester would have turned down the seemingly harmless, middle-aged Japanese man in an instant. She wanted to earn a degree and move to the city, not keep tabs on the local tourists. But her mother had insisted that Ester give the man a chance and finally Ester had relented. All the man had asked was that Ester keep a lookout for foreigners in the area and report back any behavior she regarded as suspicious. At first she simply sent information about the various tourists poking their heads into the local nooks and crannies, but the more she looked, the better she was able to recognize those visitors whose interests weren’t so benign. With time, she was able to identify the many operatives of foreign governments who came to Yangshuo searching for what her Japanese employer referred to only as the reactor. Though she did not understand its worth initially, as the waves of agents descended upon the region over the years, Ester came to realize that whatever the reactor was, it had to be very valuable indeed.

  Her work for the Japanese man went on for years like that. Even her mother refused to tell her more, saying only that she was doing good work. Ester received a monthly stipend that grew with her responsibilities. Then, immediately after the fourth year of working for the Japanese man, she was invited on a trip abroad. The necessary travel documents were secured for her and within a few days she found herself in Tokyo meeting with a man who identified himself as Director of the Society. It was during this trip to Japan that Ester the freelance operative became Ester the believer.

  In the month she spent with the Green Dragons she learned of their global energy interests and new world order they were proposing. A world without borders. A world driven by limitless green energy. A world with equal opportunity for all. More importantly she learned why they were protecting the Horten and why the world was not yet ready for its bounty; not until all the pieces were in place. In the space of a week, Ester vowed to protect the Horten not for money, but for the very sanctity of her soul. She knew that many others, even the famous Doctor Jie Quiann, father of China’s Space Program, had also taken such a pledge. It was up to believers such as themselves to protect the others.

  Now, nearly ten years later, Ester faced the spear tip of that pledge. She had eliminated Chen, the factory man, who in his foolhardy production of the dangerous trinket had risked exposing the Society. She had eliminated the old man in Yangkok. But despite these things, the Horten had been discovered. Both the American and the British spy had laid eyes upon it. At this point she didn’t know who else might have seen the Horten, but it no longer mattered. All that mattered was that it be destroyed before further damage could be done. To that end Ester removed the three kilograms of Semtex explosive from her shoulder bag.

  Ester separated the cellophane wrapped Semtex blocks carefully from each other. The detonators were kept apart, in their own Ziploc bag, to prevent the possibility of an electro-static discharge. The procedure was easy really. She simply had to mold the Semtex blocks into position at intervals around the Horten’s airframe and insert a detonator into each block which would be hardwired to a single timer. The timer would give her ample time to escape to safety, providing all went according to plan, and so far, given that the discovery of the Horten had prompted a worst case scenario, thing were proceeding along remarkably predictable lines. The American had been neutralized and when containment had proved impossible, the British spy had delivered the aircraft as contracted. Now all Ester had to do was place the explosives and her duty here would be done.

  Her phone rang, cutting her rumination short. “Yes?” Ester answered.

  “Is it done?”

  Hayakawa’s strong voice was familiar to Ester. The great Japanese man didn’t have to introduce himself and she could tell he was in no mood to waste time. “I am applying the putty now.”

  “The British?”

  “Paid.”

  “The American?”

  “Neutralized.”

  “Excellent. Report back to me upon completion.”

  The man hung up and Ester reflected that he had not greeted her or said good-bye. This did not bother her though. Only the cause mattered now. The world was not ready for the Horten and its promise of clean green energy. The change would be too swift. Governments would collapse. The social order would dissolve. Capital, the same capital the Dragons would one day use to usher in a better world, would be destroyed. And what would rise to take its place? Chaos. Certainly, a new world order would eventually be drawn along new lines, but the concomitant damage would be horrific. The Dragons’ goal was to avoid this. The Dragons’ goal was to usher in a golden age of limitless peace.

  With that comforting thought, Ester affixed the first block of Semtex to the wing of the Horten. She inserted the detonator noting that she had chosen a spot on the wing directly above where the American had been laid to rest. No matter, she thought. It was more merciful this way. There would be time to atone for her sins once her journey was complete.

  55

  IT WAS THE nightmare all over again. Michael was back in the mineshaft. Back on the ledge. He couldn�
��t move more than a few inches in any direction and nobody had come for him. No water, no light, no food. He’d been left to die. Above him just beyond the reach of his fingers was the iron trap door. Below him, beyond the rock ledge, God only knew. Only this time, he wasn’t on a ledge. This time he was in China. In a metal box. And there was no chance of his father saving him. Because he had come to save his father.

  Michael beat on the lid of the box, but it did little good. Already he felt the familiar claustrophobia settling in. The way Ester had said “neutralized” had chilled him, the walls of the chest closing in, spiraling around. All in all, Michael thought, his circumstances were dire and were getting worse by the moment. He questioned the decisions that had brought him here. He cursed the fact that he had said yes to the man who had approached him after the terrible news about his father. For what had he come to China, he asked himself? A metal coffin? Round and round he went fighting back panic with the left half of his brain while the right half fanned it on. He was certain that it was over, that he had been too lucky for too long, that he had bitten off more than he could chew, when a single fleeting thought gave him pause.

  What if?

  What if he died right there in the box?

  What if no one ever heard another word from him?

  What if his last breath was here, seven thousand miles from home?

  His heart would stop beating. He would cease to be. But what then? Michael didn’t consider himself to be a spiritual person. He had no firm beliefs regarding what would happen to him when he died. He had no idea whether he would encounter a white light or a black void. But what if the cosmic coin flip came up void? What then? If death meant that he would simply cease to be, then there wasn’t a lot to lose. Which meant that there was everything to be gained. And with that thought the steel walls of the chest began to spin a little slower. It was an odd notion, he thought, finding comfort in the void, but Michael appeared to have found it. Michael reflected back on his training; not just the training his father had given him over the years, but everything that had happened since his dad’s disappearance. Closing his eyes, Michael was able to center himself, moderating his breathing inside the cramped space. As his heart rate slowed and his spinning head came to rest, he found that faith. Faith in himself.

  Michael took stock of his situation. Survival, he knew, depended on one thing: his ability to stay calm. He reached out tentatively with his fingertips. He hit the walls of the metal box right away. He estimated that he had a little less than two inches play on either side of his shoulders. His legs were bent up slightly at the knee for lack of room to fully extend his six-foot-three-inch frame. Reaching above his head to the top of the box, he guessed he had five inches of space. Not roomy to be sure, but it was something.

  Michael took an inventory of his general physical condition. He had grazed the side of his head in the fall, but he didn’t think he was concussed. On the contrary, since the initial panic had subsided he was now thinking clearly. Though his shoulder hurt from the impact of the fall, he also observed that the bottom of the chest was remarkably soft. There were canvas tarps in here. Tarps with hard lumps which Michael guessed to be tools below him. Looking above, he saw a flash of light through the seam in the chest’s lid above the hinge. Like that, Michael knew what he had to do. Now he just had to do it.

  56

  MICHAEL’S FATHER’S GREATEST lesson to him wasn’t a lesson at all. It was inherited. On the gene. Michael’s father was a man who knew how to take the bull by the horns. When something needed to be done, Michael’s dad did it. No questions. No fuss. And no whining. Like at the accident. They were driving to the grocery store one day. Just a normal day, when a big truck coming in the opposite direction lost its brakes. Michael’s dad was able to swerve out of the way and maintain control of the car, but the guy in front of him wasn’t so lucky. He veered right off the road, rolling down the embankment and into the river. First Michael’s dad asked if he and his sister were okay. Then he jumped out of the car and headed for the guy in the river. The guy’s car was floating by this time, being sucked away by the current, but Michael’s dad was able to jump atop the hood and pull the unconscious driver out. He saved the guy’s life. They waited for the ambulance to get there and then went to the grocery store. Just a normal day. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Michael always hoped that if it came to it, that he had that part of his dad in him. That he could do something like that too.

  THIRTY SECONDS EARLIER Michael had told himself that getting out of the box might just be possible. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had turned onto his side and reached under the tarp to pull out the hard object he was lying on top of. Extricating it from beneath him, Michael discovered that he now held a tire iron. That was the good news. The bad news was that maneuvering the tool in the tight space proved next to impossible. It was shaped like a cross, each of its arms of equal length, and the harder Michael tried to pull it up and over his body, the harder it seemed to get wedged like an anchor in the corner of the box. Finally Michael changed tack and let the tire iron fall back down to the floor of the metal box, arching his back so that he could fish under his body with his left arm and pull the tool beneath him. This time he was just able to get the tool out of the tight corner and above him.

  Michael took a deep breath celebrating his first minor victory. He held the tire iron against the lid of the box for a long moment, resting his arm. Then, the muscle burn gone, he wedged the flat end of the iron into the crack where the lid of the chest met the hinge. He pushed, but he applied too much force and quickly lost purchase, the blunt end of the tool skidding down the seam.

  “Damn it,” Michael swore under his breath.

  It was then that he heard a sputter, followed by a roar.

  ESTER HAD FINISHED applying the last of the Semtex before she hit the switch. She had been explicitly instructed to fire the aircraft’s auxiliary jets prior to completing her operation. To do so she had climbed into the Horten through the bottom hatch and attached a simple booster battery with remote switching device to the leads below the control panel. It was not known if the antique jet engines would operate, but the Society leaders had determined that it would be worthwhile to at least attempt to open the fuel gates prior to detonation. Ester’s understanding was that the open baffles to the fuel reservoir would greatly enhance the initial Semtex charge thus assuring that the destruction of the aircraft would be complete.

  The safe operation of the aircraft was of course in no way guaranteed after so many decades of dormancy and Ester had thus retreated a safe distance before she activated its vertical lift jet engines and their integrated afterburners. To her considerable surprise, the vertically mounted jets fired nearly immediately, hot flames shooting out of their exhaust ports and hitting the trailer below.

  If one thing was certain, Ester thought, it was that the American wasn’t long for this world. The British spy had already retreated to the shore of the reservoir to verify the integrity of her payment. In Ester’s mind, the Brit was worse than the American. She believed only in money, but the American believed in something more. True, he would never find the father he was looking for, but at least he had tried. Ester almost felt sorry for him, cooking quietly inside that metal box under the hot flame of the afterburners, but she quickly turned her attention to the task at hand. For the good of the Society, sacrifices had to be made.

  • • •

  THE BOX WAS hot and getting hotter, but Michael had no intention of being anyone’s sacrifice. The intermittent yellow light that he had seen through the crack of the lid now glowed red, the roar of the jet engines deafening him. Michael smelled an acrid odor and realized only belatedly that it was his own hair, singing where it touched the metal chest. It was now obvious that he faced not one, but two challenges: first, getting out of the box and second, actually surviving once he was out there. To that end he knew he was going to need more than a tire iron. Arching his back, he lifted as much of his body as
possible off the metal floor of the box and pulled on the tarp below him. It came slowly at first, but he was eventually able to extract a corner of the thick canvas tarp out from under him and pull it over himself.

  Then he reached into his lower cargo pocket and withdrew the compact folded space blanket that he kept there. Unfolding the blanket along its length, he covered himself with this too, careful to keep the shiny side out. Sweat poured off of his forehead stinging his eyes. He knew that even if the afterburners weren’t firing directly down on him, he wouldn’t be able to take much more. Cocking his head to the left, he wiggled the blunt end of the tire iron into the gap again. This time he levered it back and forth gingerly until its leading edge was well within the crack beside the hinge. But just when he thought he had it firmly in place, it slipped out again.

  It went without saying that to admit defeat now would spell the end. The way the box was heating up, he was looking at his last chance. This time he had to mean it. With that thought, Michael took a breath, centered himself, and let out a loud karate style kiyah, letting the thought of a perfect hit guide him. It worked. In one solid motion he sent the blunt end of the tire iron directly through the gap. He levered the iron up and down, once, then twice, listening to the hinge creak and groan until on the third down stroke it popped.

  Michael wasted no time, sticking both arms under the cover of the tarp and pushing upwards on the lid, bench pressing the hot steel like a strongman. He didn’t know if it was the heat or his overpowering desire to escape that had made the metal soft, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that he sprung up, into the flames, the tarp and blanket covering his body. He took a running step forward leaping out of the box and launching his body through the fire and exhaust.