Spyder Web

52

Kang left his men with strict orders regarding their guests. Moy and his uncle were to remain in the bedroom with two guards in the suite and one posted in the corridor. When the call came, they were to be eliminated quietly. A cache of opium in the suite would cast the suspicion that the two dead men were involved in a failed drug deal. The Chinese embassy would denounce Moy Huian’s diplomatic papers as forgeries and provide documentation identifying him as an Asian drug smuggler. Phillip Moy’s reputation as a dynamic entrepreneur would be stained by an alleged link to organized crime and drug trafficking.

Kang and his men took the elevator down to the hotel’s parking level and retrieved their rented car for the trip to Parnell’s office in Canary Wharf. Teams of agents, posted throughout the Hilton, monitored Kang’s departure, each seamlessly handing responsibility for tracking the Chinese agent to the next person.

From a maintenance scaffold in the hotel’s parking garage, one of Axton’s watchers picked up Kang and his men as they left the elevator and located their car, a black Mercedes-Benz.

‘Team one to team two, Mad Hatter is moving,’ the watcher announced over his radio. Kang’s men paid no attention to the maintenance worker as they passed. ‘Black Benz pulling onto Park Lane.’

‘Roger, team one,’ team two’s lead answered. ‘We have him.’

Axton and Mosley listened to the radio traffic of the watcher teams as they followed Kang Fa. Officially, Mosley was there to observe the British side of the operation, but, with the large number of CIA personnel assisting MI5 with the technical aspects of the sting, the two senior agents treated it as a joint venture.

Axton’s people kept track of all the players moving about, while Mosley’s staff monitored the computer linkup between Chicago and London. If everything went well, British SAS officers would be making the arrests in a few hours.

From Looking Glass, they could clearly see Parnell’s office. Below, thirty agents composing fifteen teams formed a net that would draw close around Parnell’s building. Mosley checked in with his line-monitoring crews while Axton followed the status of his watchers.

On the streets below, Nolan Kilkenny and British agent Peter Stone were returning to Looking Glass after making a final check of the team monitoring the district’s telephone switching station. All the phone lines servicing Parnell’s office and flat were tapped by British Intelligence with equipment from Moy Electronics.

Kilkenny and Stone blended in with the crowds of people milling about the street. As they approached Parnell’s building, Kilkenny noticed a work crew by a manhole, several delivery vehicles, and assorted cars. Looking closely at the crowds as they roamed, he began to pick out people who weren’t what they seemed. Despite the use of scarves and hats, he spotted the lightweight communications gear favored by the surveillance teams. A young lady in a pair of brightly colored running shorts and a tank top skated by on Rollerblades. Beneath her helmet, Kilkenny spotted a thin wire.

Kilkenny identified twelve teams of agents stationed around the building. The path that Stone and he followed was circular, randomly doubling back on itself in case Kang had any of his own people in the area. The last circular sweep ended behind the office building where British Intelligence had set up their base of operations. They were about to enter when Stone got a call over his headset. Kilkenny waited while Stone received new orders and signed off.

‘Do you know anything about boats?’ Stone asked.

Kilkenny smiled. After six years in the navy and a lifetime of sailing on the Great Lakes, he knew more than most people. ‘I can find my way around one if I have to. Why?’

‘No reason really.’ Stone chuckled at the absurdity of the story he’d just been told. ‘A few days back, we managed to “borrow” a slip in the marina underneath Parnell’s building. Parnell has a boat down there, and we want to make sure that every exit is covered. Our boat was supposed to be on-station by now, but its motor is running foul. They’re puttering a ways upriver, but they’re not going to be of much help to anybody. I’ve been ordered to suit up and take two men down to cover the marina. Axton has graciously asked if you’d be willing to give our boys on the boat a hand when they finally get here. There’s a small dock alongside the park where they’ll tie up.’

‘Sure, I’ll see what I can do,’ Kilkenny said, accepting the assignment. ‘Beats waiting upstairs anyway. I don’t think your boss likes having strangers hanging around his command post.’

‘Axton’s a strange one all right,’ Stone agreed, ‘but he knows his business.’

Stone walked Kilkenny over to the edge of the park where he was to wait, then bought him a newspaper. It was a pleasantly warm, overcast May afternoon with less than an hour to go before the file transfer was scheduled to occur. Kilkenny sat down on a park bench and began flipping through The Times while waiting for the troubled boat.

Several boats moved along the river: a couple of tourist ships and a small barge. When Kilkenny was younger, his uncle had often taken him out to Belle Isle or the Saint Clair River to watch the great ships on days like this. He’d spent many afternoons along the shore, hoping to catch a glimpse of a thousandfoot freighter.

An older man with a bag of bird feed strolled along the river walk and sat beside him on the bench. Soon a small congregation of pigeons flocked at his feet, waiting for the next handful of seed to be dispensed.

‘A lovely day, is it not?’ the man asked in thickly accented English.

‘Yes,’ Kilkenny replied, ‘though I wouldn’t mind a little more sun.’

‘Young man,’ the stranger’s tone became more serious, ‘why are you here?’

Kilkenny feigned innocence. ‘I’m just sitting in the park, enjoying the day.’

‘That is not true.’ The stranger’s rebuke was firm, but not angry. ‘I have been watching you since you arrived. You are involved with a surveillance operation, but only as an observer. Officers of the British government are stationed all around that building.’ The old man nodded his head in the direction of several teams visible from where they sat. ‘I also believe the base of this operation is located on the twelfth floor of this building. Don’t bother to deny these facts or feign ignorance of them. I know them to be true. I also know that you are Nolan Kilkenny, from the United States. So I ask you again: Why are you here?’

Everything the stranger had said was true, but Kilkenny couldn’t guess where this man’s interest lay. The power and confidence with which the man spoke reminded him of Jackson Barnett. Like Barnett, the man’s complete grasp of the situation made Nolan feel like a pawn in this game. Kilkenny also sensed that any denials he made would be a waste of breath.

‘Are you with British Intelligence?’

‘Yes and no,’ the stranger replied cryptically. ‘It depends upon your point of view. I am very interested in what is about to happen inside that building. For a close friend of mine, it’s a matter of life and death. I believe that you know about such things already. Did you not face death recently?’

There was no threat in the man’s voice, nothing that roused Kilkenny’s defenses. The man knew about the attack on the interstate and appeared to sympathize with him. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you know that the death you faced has a name? I have lost others to this practitioner of death, good people who did not deserve to die. You and your companion were fortunate when you faced him. I hope that my Anya will fare as well.’

Kilkenny knew whom the man was talking about. ‘Kang Fa.’

‘Yes. I could tell you many stories about Kang Fa, but I will summarize his career with this one fact: Kang Fa leaves nothing behind. He is a perfectionist who eliminates all loose ends.’

The man took a glance at his watch. ‘My time grows short. Beneath that building lies a marina. It is the one weak point in Axton’s defenses, weak because I have made it so.’

‘The engine trouble on the boat?’ Nolan guessed.

‘Very perceptive. If Kang Fa remains true to his past, once he has acquired the ciphers, he will kill Parnell and my Anya. That is his way. They will remain alive only as long as Kang Fa needs them, which brings us back to the marina. Once the net begins to draw tight, Kang will need a way out.’

Kilkenny began to see the strategy that the old man was laying out for him. ‘Stone told me that Parnell keeps a boat down in the marina.’

‘You grasp the situation quickly. I expected no less from a former commando. When it becomes clear to Kang that he is trapped, Anya will offer him this way out. It is my hope that she will be able to free herself during the escape attempt.’

‘And if Kang escapes?’

‘That is a risk I am willing to take for my friend. With your help, I can minimize that risk. Come with me. We both have our own scores to settle with Kang Fa.’

Kilkenny thought about what the man had said, and everything was true. Mosley had briefed him on Kang Fa, and the Chinese agent was as ruthless as they came. While his mind urged caution, his gut told him to trust the old man. Six years in the SEALs had taught Kilkenny to listen to both.

‘Sir, what is your name?’

The old man grinned, knowing that he had an ally. ‘Yakushev, Andrei Yakushev.’

Twelve stories above the riverside park, Axton and Mosley awaited the arrival of Kang Fa. Mosley picked up a pair of binoculars and began surveying the grounds around Parnell’s building. A helicopter, code-named Eagle, maintained a safe distance, holding its position upriver. All of Axton’s teams were in place and everything seemed ready.

Axton joined Mosley, who stood at the window studying the scene below. ‘Kang’s making good time in traffic, ETA of ten minutes.’

‘Excellent. I checked in with the computer teams; they’re all ready for the linkup. The ground teams are all in position and…’ Mosley paused. Something on the ground near Parnell’s building suddenly caught his attention. ‘Wait a minute?’

‘What is it?’ Axton tried to find what Mosley had spotted.

‘Damn! What’s Kilkenny doing down there?’

‘What are you looking at? Where?’

Mosley handed the binoculars to Axton in disgust. ‘Down in the park, those two people on the river walk. The redhead is Nolan Kilkenny; he’s supposed to be waiting to assist your boat. Is that one of your people with him?’

Axton focused in on the two men. Unfortunately, their backs were turned toward him. ‘I can’t tell if it’s one of ours or not. Kilkenny seems to be following the other man. Wait — they’ve slipped over the railing onto the dock. I can’t see them now, but they’re headed for the marina.’

Axton switched on his headset microphone. ‘Team five, this is Looking Glass, over.’

‘Team five here,’ Stone replied from the marina lobby.

‘Stone, we have a possible security breach near the marina. Kilkenny and another person are headed down to the river entrance. See if you can find out what the hell he’s doing.’

‘Will do, sir.’ Stone signed off and flagged one of the other officers over. ‘Williams, do a perimeter sweep of the marina for a pair of civilians. See if you can find them. One is that Yank — Kilkenny.’

As Williams went off to search for the intruders, Stone and the remaining officer took their positions near the marina lobby.

Kilkenny and Yakushev slipped into the marina and hid themselves near the entrance. A large sailboat screened their position from the three officers posted in the lobby. Shortly after they arrived, one of the officers split off from the other two and began checking the boat slips.

‘Andrei, those men are the replacements for the crew of the boat you disabled. One of them is starting to sniff around — looks like someone noticed us heading over here.’

‘It’s of little matter. This is a large marina with ample room for concealment. We must remain in a position to aid Roe when the time comes.’