Shadow Tyrants

FORTY-SIX

Carlton wasn’t pleased about being woken up in the middle of the night, but his spirits improved when he found out that an attack on the Colossus 5 had been foiled.

The two men that Taylor had caught were brought to the ship’s meeting room. When Carlton arrived, he found the two men cuffed and being watched over by six armed guards. Taylor stood when he entered.

He looked the intruders up and down before saying, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “They won’t talk. We’re not even sure they speak English.”

“They look like soldiers to me, but they’re not Indian or Iranian. What were they doing?”

Taylor tossed a toolkit on the table.

“Sabotage of some kind.”

The two men stared at Carlton with impassive faces.

“Who do you work for?” he demanded.

They said nothing.

He turned to Taylor. “Do you think Mallik and Torkan would hire mercenaries?”

“Always a possibility,” Taylor said.

“I don’t think they know anything of use, but we should at least try to find out. We’ll take them on the plane with us. You’ll have plenty of time on the trip to get information out of them.” Carlton turned to them. “She’s very persuasive with a blade.”

The black man finally spoke up in an American accent. “Asad Torkan was here.” The Asian man remained still.

Carlton suppressed a smile at getting him to talk so easily. “So you work for him?”

“No.”

“But you know who he is?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing here?”

“We’ll show you.”

“You’ll show us?” Taylor said.

The black man nodded. The Asian man continued to stare, still no response.

“Tell us here,” Carlton said.

“We’ll show you,” the black man repeated. “We want Torkan as much as you do.”

“Why?”

At last the Asian man opened his mouth. “We know you and Romir Mallik are fighting each other.”

“Interesting. So you’re here to what? Save me?”

The Asian man nodded.

“Where should we take you to show us what Torkan was doing?”

“The dock,” the black man said. “By the generator housing. Your life depends on it.”

Carlton looked at Taylor. She shrugged and said, “We’ll still be well protected in the dockyard.”

“Double the number of guards.” Carlton turned back to the prisoners and leaned down. “If I’m disappointed by what you show us out there, you’re going to die.”

The two men said nothing.

Juan, Raven, and MacD had returned to the rendezvous point, where Tiny picked them up in a van. He found a quiet parking lot where they could formulate a plan to rescue Eddie and Linc from the Colossus 5. The first rays of dawn shone through the windshield.

“We don’t have the manpower to go in guns blazing,” MacD said.

“Then we have to do it quietly,” Raven said. “We’ll make another run at it tonight.”

“No good,” Juan said. “The Colossus 5 is going to set sail today. We can’t wait.”

“How long do you think they’ve got?” Tiny asked.

“Natalie Taylor has a reputation for harsh measures. That’s why she was drummed out of British Intelligence. Rumors say she would have gone to jail if she hadn’t had something on a minister in Parliament. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tortures them until…”

Juan paused when he heard something on his headset. He was keeping it active knowing that Linc or Eddie had tossed his comm unit away before being apprehended. It was the sound of approaching vehicles.

“Quiet,” he said, and pointed at his headset. Everyone else put their own on.

The vehicles stopped, and they heard several people get out.

“So what do you want to show us?” Xavier Carlton said, his voice faint.

“Over here,” Linc said.

The footsteps came closer to the microphone. As they walked, Eddie said, “Where are we flying to?”

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Natalie Taylor said.

In just those few phrases, Eddie and Linc had conveyed valuable information through the mic that they knew was still active and out of sight. Both of them were still alive and in good condition. Carlton and Taylor were with them. And they were going to be flying somewhere today.

The footsteps stopped.

“He was in this trailer,” Linc said.

“Doing what?” Taylor asked.

“I didn’t stop to ask in the middle of our gun battle.”

“He was doing something to my cars?” Carlton said.

“What cars?” Eddie said.

“Open it up and search the cars from top to bottom,” Taylor said.

“If Torkan damaged either of them,” Carlton said, “I’ll kill him myself.”

“Nice cars,” Linc said. “Cadillac Eldorado, right?”

“It’s a 1959 Biarritz convertible,” Carlton said proudly.

“I like the color. Green suits it. And the other one looks like a Bugatti Veyron.”

“Chiron.”

“Are those traveling with you today?” Eddie asked.

“Why?” Carlton said.

“Here’s why,” Taylor said. Juan wished he could see what they were looking at.

“Looks like a bomb,” Eddie said as if he’d heard Juan’s plea.

“We found it near the Cadillac’s gas tank.”

After another thirty seconds, Linc said, “Two bombs.”

“This was mounted on the Bugatti,” Taylor said. “It looks like it has a pressure sensor.”

“So it was meant to go off when we were in the air?” Carlton growled in anger.

“Told you we weren’t with Torkan,” Linc said. “Would we have led you to those if we were?”

“You make a good point. But we still don’t know who you are. Natalie will find out. Take them back to the ship.”

It sounded like they walked away, and MacD was about to say something, but Juan put up his hand to stop him. There weren’t enough footsteps.

Doors slammed, and Carlton spoke again in a more hushed tone.

“They may not be with Torkan, but they’re up to something,” he said.

“I’ll find out what it is,” Taylor said. “It’s surprising how much more information you can get from two people than you can from just one, especially when you begin carving one up in front of the other.”

“Good. No matter what, though, it’s probably not wise to take them all the way to your destination. Toss them out of the plane over the ocean when you have as much as you can get out of them.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“Not now, not after Torkan tried to kill me. I’ll be safer on the Colossus 5 until it’s up and running.”

“What about Lionel Gupta?”

“Stick to the plan. Take him and the two prisoners to the airport by helicopter.”

“And your cars?”

“Search them again, and then lock up the truck for the drive to the plane. I still want them in Australia when you’re done with the other segments of the mission. Oh, and Natalie? Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

One set of footsteps walked away. Then Taylor started giving instructions to the men about the truck.

Juan looked at the others as he thought about what they’d learned.

“If they’re being flown to the airport,” MacD said, “we can’t intercept them en route.”

“Maybe we can take them when they land by the plane,” Raven said.

“I can tell you that would be a suicide mission,” Tiny said. “No way we can get anywhere close to that A380 without drawing attention.”

The three of them looked at Juan, who said, “I think our only option is to get on Carlton’s private jet and rescue them once they’re in the air.”

MacD gaped at him. “How? Tiny doesn’t think we can get near it.”

“Linc and Eddie gave us a way when they told us about the cars.”

He sized up Tiny, who looked back at Juan in confusion. “Me?”

Juan continued. “I can’t fly that thing, so I’m going to need a pilot just in case we can’t persuade them to do what we want. Can you fly it?”

“Sure,” Tiny said. “Not well, but I can get us back on the ground in one piece. The question is, how do we get on in the first place?”

“We drive on,” Juan said. “The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz is a huge car. There’s plenty of room for both of us in the trunk.”