The Brad West Files

by Fritz Galt

  Buford shuffled into his study and closed the door. His computer was already powered up from the day before.

  “What are you doing on the phone?” Buford said. “I thought you were beyond the reach of phones.”

  “I’m not there any longer. I decided to leave.”

  Buford checked the stock prices. “IBM and Cisco are scraping bottom.”

  “Not for long. Suck them up fast. There’s a takeover bid in the works. I’ve got my traders sinking billions into each. Gotta go.”

  A couple of minutes later, Buford completed the purchase of a huge number of shares on margin. Performing the risky transaction brought out goose bumps in areas where he had never seen them before. It was time to jump back in bed.

  He took one last look at the daily ticker for each company. They hadn’t shown the spike that Troy Hutchins had predicted. As it was nighttime in Europe and Wall Street, all that the figures reflected was after-hour trading. The real movement would appear once the bourses opened.

  That gave him time for another quickie in bed.

  Chapter 61

  Liang sat upon a gold throne. He ran his fingers over inlaid diamonds, coral and other gems that formed a giant conch. Dr. Yu was away for the moment, so Liang took the opportunity to visualize himself as the Kalika King. For the moment, he was the Holder of the Conch, the Ruler of the Wheel.

  How would he get rid of the old man? Guns were too crude for Shangri-la and obviously pointed to murder. The same was true for strangulation. He lifted his gaze to the icy peaks that seemed to radiate light. Perhaps he could engineer a climbing accident.

  Once Yu was out of the way, Liang would ascend to the position of kalika, ruler of Shangri-la. Before him lay the oblong valley known as Kalapa, the capital of Shangri-la. His subjects were docile. They were amenable to new leadership. In fact, it rather took the fun out of it.

  But ruling Shangri-la was only incidental to his larger ambition to turn the place into a resort for the rich and mighty of the outer world. Under his rule, visitors would be free to come and go like the jet that flew in the day before.

  He examined the natural beauty of the valley. Among the plants were healing herbs. The waters had restorative powers. One swim across the lake that stretched out to the distance could make a man young again. After all, he had seen Franklin Delano Roosevelt play beach volleyball just that morning.

  His and Beau Buford’s clients could use Shangri-la as a spa to revitalize their spirits. They could come to treat incurable diseases. And here they could escape the law or angry masses in their countries. It didn’t matter to him who came, as long as they could afford it.

  He was well on his way to becoming the richest and most powerful man on earth.

  He reached for his hip flask and took a swig. He had heeded the Shangri-la Code and not touched a drop of spring water. Rather, he drank only the dew and rainwater collected in the presidential palace each morning. When the time was right, he would assassinate Dr. Yu and take over the golden throne.

  He dug the code out of his pocket and reread the duties of the bearer.

  Ruling Shangri-la had to be one of the easiest jobs on earth. According to the code, his only responsibility was to keep people from leaving and prevent the rest of the world from knowing of its existence. That was a rule he could safely ignore. He would continue to let people leave, but they were people who paid dearly for access to Shangri-la and wouldn’t want to let the rest of the world in on the secret.

  Suddenly he heard a jet engine across the valley. He sprang to his feet. Was someone new arriving?

  An airplane rose like a cumbersome missile, dipped one wing, and passed out of the valley. It was the Y-12 transport. “Who let the plane leave?”

  A nubile young woman stirred on a couch beneath the outer columns. “You wanted something?”

  He pointed at the pass through which the plane had just flown. “Who authorized that plane to depart?”

  “The gods, I’m sure.”

  Rubbish. He jumped off the throne and looked about for Dr. Yu. The old man had been with the American delegation that day.

  His sandals slapped against the stone pathway as he aimed for the Americans’ palace. Yu’s party was just heading his way. And among them was May Hua, with all the allure he remembered from their romantic past. She was accompanied by her blasted American boyfriend, Brad West.

  He pointed at the departing plane. “What just happened? Who got away?”

  “I believe it was Troy and Walter,” Yu said. “They read a newspaper, found out about stock prices, and left immediately.”

  “Stock prices? Why would that be important?”

  The others shrugged.

  “This paper?” He whipped the newspaper out of Brad’s hands and glanced at it. Someone had scribbled a map in the margin, but otherwise, it carried the typical daily propaganda. The main story was about acrobats visiting Jakarta. “This says nothing about stocks.”

  He looked up. Yu was laughing.

  Liang was seized with a sudden desire to strangle the old man. The CEOs had been tricked. “I’ll have to tell Buford about this,” he said. He tossed the paper away and it drifted to May’s bare feet.

  His eyes traveled up her ivory legs. He remembered her bikini underpants intimately. The navel was still cute, and the frilly bra was a familiar shape. But her expression was full of loathing. “Is that still you?”

  “Don’t you recognize someone you’ve tried to kill several times in the past week?” she said.

  And her magnificent hair was shorn off. “What did you do to your hair?” Ever since he first fell in love with her, he had worshiped her long hair. In fact, it was he who had encouraged her during flight school not to cut it short, and won special consent from their superiors to let it remain long. Now the silky strands that had attested to her wild animal nature, were gone. “You look like a boy.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Now you won’t bother me any more.”

  He spat at her feet. Who would want a Chinese beauty once she had been sullied by an American cowboy?

  He turned to the young man who stood there trembling. Liang had spent months flying all over the Himalayas looking for Shangri-la, and he didn’t like the idea that naïve scum like Brad West could stumble upon it by sheer luck. “How did you ever find this place?”

  “I put a few miscellaneous clues together and voila.”

  Brad was being purposely obtuse. It diminished May to associate with such a sanctimonious toad.

  He addressed the American. “However you got here, I suggest you turn around and head back. You don’t belong.” He nodded at May. “And take her with you.”

  He turned and stomped back toward the palace. But anxiety made each footstep heavier. How many people had they alerted? Had they informed the military? Worse, had word leaked out to the general public?

  Brad’s mere presence told him that he was running out of time.

  Liang would have to accelerate his plans to ascend to the throne. He would have to eliminate May and Brad quickly. Pushing them off a cliff would be too good for them, and too difficult to accomplish. There were few murder weapons available in Shangri-la, and there were ways to restore people to health.

  How did one kill in paradise?

  He entered the throne room and climbed back into the golden seat. There, sunlight reflected off the lake into his eyes. Those waters kept everyone young and healthy. But couldn’t they also kill?

  That night, he would arrange a little drowning party.

  Chapter 62

  The first sign of trouble for Beau Buford came from the stock market. He stared in disbelief at his computer screen. Rather than jumping ten percent as Troy had predicted, the Dow had plummeted.

  Troy had received insider information in Shangri-la on a takeover of IBM and Cisco, which would set off a buying frenzy on Wall Street. Apparently that never happened.

  Instead, the Dow had fallen and IBM and Cisco Systems had taken a bath. And be
cause of Buford’s aggressive purchases on margin, his various brokers had required numerous market calls to make up the difference. In one day, IBM shares had lost 40% of their value and Cisco dropped 45%. Buford’s margin accounts lost 100%.

  In short, everything that he had just extorted from international leaders, his hundreds of millions to fund a new empire, had been depleted in one day.

  And who had made him buy the stock?

  Brad West had brought Troy the news. Buford kicked himself. He should have never trusted that boy.

  Sure, Brad had made him buy the blue chip stock. But what had caused the floor to fall out from under Wall Street? Was it that the president, other heads of government, and several CEOs had vanished?

  The large correction affected all sectors of the market. The NYSE’s computer circuit breakers had put a halt to the day’s trading. But by then, it was too late for him.

  He studied the numbers. Once, he had had to count the zeros. Now there was only one zero. He was flat broke.

  He looked around his study. He needed a loan. What could he put up for collateral? The sofa?

  He was desperate. Who could he call for help?

  He opened his phone book and ticked off the names. Each and every person that owed him a favor was now living in the Himalayas beyond his reach.

  He whirled around in his seat and took his rage out on an extraneous piece of scratch paper. He wadded it up and reached back to hurl it into the wastebasket.

  Hold on. It contained a GPS number.

  He flattened the paper out and stared at it. It was the coordinates for Shangri-la.

  What a laugh. He had paid for the Shangri-la Society to meet in Paris expressly to profit from the place. It had never been his intention to leave the real world where he would make his fortune. But the real world had shafted him.

  He opened the desk drawer where his bodyguards had stashed a handgun. He pulled out the clip and checked the number of rounds. It was full. At last, he shoved it into his pocket.

  He could seek refuge in paradise. He might even find peace there, after he exacted a little revenge.

  Chapter 63

  Once again, it was well into the evening at Langley. Several hours earlier, Igor Sullivan had called Linda and put off their Georgetown date.

  He had been working in the map room all day, trying to get the accursed camera to take its eye off the Afghanistan-Pakistan border long enough to let him peer down at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Then, as soon as it was his turn, a different group ran into the room with a higher priority and Sullivan was told he might not get to the camera that day.

  He emerged from the room bushed and frustrated. Satellite photography was interesting work, and he could see why people became obsessed with it, but they were losing touch with the world. Losing touch with their lives.

  He was too exhausted to climb the stairs to his office. A beep announced an elevator. He hurried to catch it. Once inside, he leaned against the button for his floor. Only robots like him and the elevator worked late at night.

  He sensed something before he opened his office door, but was too tired to react. A blonde sat there in silk pajamas reading a paper.

  Her blue eyes shot up to him. Musky perfume hung in the air.

  “Linda!” He checked back in the hallway. “What if someone comes in here?”

  She smiled. “Everybody else is too preoccupied tonight.”

  Perfume was not the only scent in the room. Several cartons of Chinese food sat on his desk.

  “I thought we would eat in tonight,” she said.

  “I can see there’s no way to cancel this date.”

  She folded the newspaper and set it on the edge of the desk.

  “Hold on,” he said. “What’s the headline?”

  He could make out the word “MISSING.”

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “President Webster went missing in China.”

  Unbelievable. He grabbed the paper and unfolded the front page. Sure enough, the president and several major world leaders had taken a Chinese military jet on a sightseeing tour of southwestern China.

  The plane had returned to Beijing, but with several of its passengers missing.

  The Chinese said they didn’t know where they were. They had lost part of their VIP delegation.

  In Washington, the vice president had taken over the White House for as long as President Webster was missing. The Pentagon accused the Chinese. Diplomatic notes flew from the U.S. and Europe to Asia and the United Nations.

  Elsewhere on the front page, Wall Street news competed for attention. Stocks had tanked and the sudden sell-off had caused the New York Stock Exchange to suspend trading mid-session.

  He clicked on his television.

  Linda began to transfer the food to paper plates.

  Reports flooded the studios from London, Paris, Frankfurt and Tokyo. Countries were scrambling to account for the disappearance of their leaders.

  Financial news programs buzzed with the news from Wall Street. Stocks in the technology sector had skyrocketed during the day, boosting the Dow Jones Industrial Average to an all-time high. Then, upon news of the president’s disappearance, the trapdoor opened under everyone’s feet.

  The enormous profits made that morning were wiped out in an instant. Analysts agreed that it was a good thing circuit breakers automatically shut down trading for the day under the panic sell-offs.

  The Chinese plane that carried the VIP passengers, a Y-12 turboprop transport, brought back only the bank CEOs.

  When asked where the military planes had flown, neither the Chinese nor the CEOs were saying. The Chinese considered the flight plans a national secret and the CEOs couldn’t be reached for comment.

  Airplanes. Sullivan cracked his chopsticks apart and dug into the sesame chicken. Not bad. Then he checked his computer for red flags on Beau Buford.

  One line flashed on the screen.

  Buford had hired a business jet at Zurich Airport.

  He took a mouthful of sweet and sour pork and keyed in a request for Buford’s flight plan. With typical Swiss efficiency, the answer came right back.

  “China.”

  He picked up his phone and dialed Brad. But his son was out of reach.

  He hung up and stared at Linda. “What’s happening here?”

  She raised her chopsticks. “It’s our date, dear.”

  Chapter 64

  Earl Skitowsky turned to his new bride, who was wearing a white veil over an all-black leather jumpsuit. “How about a honeymoon in paradise?”

  Jade slowly peeled the veil back. Her dark eyes flashed about the Beijing civil affairs building where the clerk had just stamped their marriage certificate. “Brad and May need us?”

  He recalled Brad’s phone call that had interrupted their ceremony. His best friend had been on the verge of entering a tunnel that would take him to the “other side,” where he was destined to face Liang single-handedly.

  “I think our pals need some extra muscle.”

  Jade smiled. “That’s my kind of honeymoon. A showdown in Shangri-la.”

  He offered an elbow, and the two strode past the long line of applicants waiting to legalize their marriages and divorces.

  “Did Brad tell you how to get there?” she asked.

  He paused by the exit. “You have to fly us to a town called Yuhu in Yunnan. From there, we enter a cave.”

  “So, you’d like me to do the driving?”

  He had to admit that making her the chauffeur wasn’t very gallant.

  But she had other concerns. “How can I get an airplane?”

  She had requested a military jet from the air base in Kunming and taken it to Beijing. “Just say you’re returning the plane.”

  “I will need permission from the top,” she said.

  “You mean President Qian?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that.” He pulled his cell phone out and turned it on. Moments later, he was dial
ing Igor Sullivan.

  He pushed the door open to get better reception. The warm air and bright mid-afternoon sun hit him full on the face.

  “Hi, Sully. How’s it hanging? You’re talking to a married man.”

  “Congratulations. Jade informed me you two were getting married,” came Sullivan’s voice. But he sounded tense. “I couldn’t get hold of you. I didn’t know I was interrupting a wedding.”

  “No harm, no foul. You know about Brad and May?” Earl went on.

  “I know they’re engaged. I can’t wait for the wedding, as I have a hot date ready to bring to the nuptials. I met her at the office, of all places.”

  “You? Igor P. Sullivan?”

  “The one and only. I’m a new man.”

  Earl hated to let the guy down. “Sorry to ruin your wedding plans, but Brad should already be hitched by now. Seems May insisted that they tie the knot before she turns twenty-five.”

  “Which is…” Sullivan paused, apparently calculating the dates and the time difference. “Or was, today.”

  Profound disappointment registered in his voice.

  “Earl, there’s more. We’ve got serious political and economic problems here. Brad’s stepfather, Professor Richter was granted a full pardon and has disappeared. He may have been the man named Beau Buford who hosted the Shangri-la Society symposium in Paris.”

  It took a moment for Earl to make the connection. “Oh yes. I met Buford at the embassy reception. Where is he now?” It gave him a thrill to put the question directly to the CIA.

  “He’s heading to China as we speak. But we’ve got even bigger problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “The stock market crashed, and the president is missing.”

  “Come again?” The news didn’t quite register in his blissfully ignorant state.

  “I’m saying that the whole country’s falling apart, from Wall Street to Washington. You’ve got to find out who’s behind this.”

  “I think that’s no secret. Liang probably lured the president to Shangri-la and is holding him there.”