Typhoon Fury

28

Finding an isolated location in the bustle of the city would have been difficult, so Gerhard Brekker rented a yacht big enough for his team and docked it away from the main marina so that Alastair Lynch’s periodic screams for more Typhoon would go unheard. The 60-foot power cruiser with sleeping quarters for ten passengers reminded Brekker of the fishing charter his father owned in his home city of Cape Town.

After getting Lynch squared away on the boat, he and Van Der Waal had spent the day casing the Baylon Fire factory and warehouse, where Lynch claimed the smuggling operation was based. Lynch had divulged how the drugs were packed into fire trucks for shipment, and he knew one was supposed to be loaded by this evening and shipped out the next day. Brekker’s target was Locsin himself. It was easy enough to find the rebel leader’s photo on websites advertising the bounty put on his head by the Filipino government.

The facility was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by razor wire, and access was controlled by a gate with two guards, posted twenty-four hours a day. Getting in unseen wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Brekker had planted minuscule cameras on light poles, with views of the plant from six different angles, including the guard gate, to allow remote observation. They relayed the images via a phone hidden under what looked like a discarded box on the side of the road. The setup would give them twenty-four hours of surveillance before the batteries died.

The plan was to sneak into the warehouse in the middle of the night and steal the fire truck filled with the smuggled methamphetamine. Then he would have a powerful bargaining chip for reeling in Locsin.

While he waited for Greg Polten and his colleague, Charles Davis, to arrive, Brekker munched on a sandwich and watched feed from the cameras on three monitors set up in the cruiser’s luxurious main dining area. Van Der Waal sat on the other side and drew the curtains before cleaning and oiling his trusty Vektor SP1 pistol, the standard sidearm for South Africa’s Defence Force. Lynch was in a cabin below with one of Brekker’s men watching him while the others got some shut-eye in the bedrooms. Equipment bags were piled on the marble floor along with several fifty-pound kettlebell weights to keep the mercenaries fit during extended ops, though they often proved handy for other purposes as well.

Ten minutes later, just as Van Der Waal finished snapping his weapon back together, Polten and Davis climbed aboard the boat. Brekker had not met either of them in person before, but he knew the Dugway Proving Ground chemical weapons experts by sight, having carefully studied what info he could find on them before agreeing to the job.

Davis, whose sweaty, flowered shirt clung to his oversized belly, dropped his carry-on in the middle of the room and said, “Finally, some decent AC. Hey, nice digs!”

Polten didn’t seem bothered by the heat and humidity. He calmly set his bag down and took off his frameless glasses to clean them with a pocket wipe.

“You didn’t have any trouble getting here with Lynch?” he asked before putting his glasses back on. With his graying temples and jogger’s form, he looked to Brekker like the kind of college professor the coeds all had a crush on.

“He’s downstairs,” Brekker said.

“I’d like to see him while Davis tests the Typhoon pill.”

He moved toward the stairs, but Brekker put up a hand to stop him. “This operation has gotten much more complicated. Now that we know the type of man we’re up against, I’m afraid I’m going to have to double our fee. Consider it ‘danger pay.’”

Polten furrowed his brow and said, “I can’t get that kind of money to you now, but I’ll triple your fee when I get the Typhoon formula.”

Brekker was surprised at how quickly Polten responded. No blustering objection, no negotiating. That was exactly what he wanted to know.

“And this operation is off the books? I don’t want it to come back to us if something goes wrong.”

Polten shook his head. “We routed your payment through a dummy corporation, as you requested. No one but me and Davis knows you’re involved.”

Brekker nodded, satisfied with the answer. He took the tin container from his pocket and dumped one of the pills into Davis’s hand. Davis eagerly examined the pill, then unzipped his bag and removed portable chemical testing equipment.

“It’s amazing what you can get through customs if you’ve got the right government permits,” he said as he pulled out tubes and small vials of liquid.

“This way,” Brekker said to Polten. They walked down the stairs and entered the room where Lynch was lashed to the bed with nylon rope.

The guard, who was watching a movie on his phone, glanced up and said, “He’s been whimpering nonstop. And he reeks like moldy garlic.”

Lynch looked much worse than he had just that morning. His cheeks were sunken, and his muscles were already withering. Perspiration soaked the bedcover, and the stench of his foul body odor was overpowering.

“It’s been twelve hours since he missed his dose?” Polten asked.

“More like twenty-four. He was supposed to take it last night, but we caught him before he could.”

“Interesting.” Polten walked over and took out a small penlight. He flashed it in Lynch’s eyes as if he’d examined patients in the past. Lynch, who’d seemed dazed, lunged at Polten and snapped at him with his teeth. Polten pulled back just in time to avoid losing a chunk of his hand.

“Give me my pill now!” Lynch yelled.

Polten stood back and appraised him with a cold eye. “This is happening even faster than our records indicated it would.”

“What records?”

Polten nodded for them to go back to the main cabin. When they got there, he said, “We have some files on the use of this drug. Its beneficial effects are potent, as you’ve seen. Its withdrawal symptoms are even worse. It’s the price you pay for becoming an addict.”

“And you think there’s more of this Typhoon somewhere?”

Polten nodded. “The drug was developed in the early forties. We had thought the last remnants of it were wiped out when Hiroshima was nuked. The Japanese had built a large plant to put the manufacture of the pill into large-scale production, enough to supply every man, woman, and child in the country in anticipation of the coming invasion of the home islands. The drug’s effects combined with fanatical loyalty to the Emperor could have cost us millions of soldiers before Japan was conquered. No one knows if Hiroshima became the target for that reason or if the destruction of the factory was merely a side benefit of the atomic explosion, but no Typhoon pills survived there, and the formula was lost.”

“Then how did the Filipinos find it?”

“We suspect some of the pills had been shipped to kamikaze pilots here during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. But that’s only speculation. Although a supply of it was supposedly carried out by a destroyer called the USS Pearsall at the end of the war, the ship never made it back to the U.S. and was thought to have been sunk by a Japanese sub.”

Brekker narrowed his eyes at Polten, whose lip twitched ever so slightly. A liar knew a liar, and Polten certainly wasn’t sharing the whole truth about the shipment of the Typhoon pills.

“The ship was never found?”

“Not until recently,” Polten said. “Some recreational divers found the wreck buried in sand, so the U.S. agency named NUMA — the National Underwater and Marine Agency — is sending a vessel to secure any live munitions that might still be on board.”

“Does NUMA know about the cargo?”

“I doubt it. It was top secret at the time. We only knew about it from the classified archives at Dugway. That must be why the NUMA ship isn’t scheduled to arrive for another three weeks.” Polten showed Brekker a map of the sunken Pearsall’s position at an uninhabited atoll near Samar Island. “But Locsin may have already found it and removed the cargo. We have to find him if we’re to have any chance of getting that formula.”

“Why is this formula so important?” Brekker asked, nodding at Davis, who was analyzing the tablet. “You already have the pill sample.”

“It’s complicated,” Polten said, “but the critical ingredient is a plant that grows only in the Philippines. The problem is, we don’t know which plant it is. It may be something that grows on only one island. With seven thousand islands in the chain, each with its own endemic species, the plant we need would be virtually impossible to find without that formula.”

“And with that formula, you could make as much Typhoon as you wanted?”

“Sure,” Davis piped in as he continued his analysis. “As long as you had the formula and a good supply of the plant, anybody with a chemistry degree could make it.”

Polten’s eyes blazed with anger at Davis’s interjection and he hastily added, “But to reduce the extreme side effects, it might take years of testing and reformulation.”

“I see,” Brekker said. He glanced at Van Der Waal, who responded with the barest nod.

“Got confirmation,” Davis said triumphantly. He looked at Polten with a big smile. “This is definitely the original Typhoon formulation.”

“You’re sure?” Brekker said.

“No doubt.”

“Now,” Polten said, “I want to know how you plan to find—”

A rapid double report from Van Der Waal’s Vektor pistol interrupted Polten, who coughed twice before slumping to the floor. Davis pitched over onto the table, a surprised look in his open eyes. Van Der Waal had hit each of them in the center of the chest. Blood soaked Polten’s shirt and pooled on the marble floor.

“At least it’ll be easy to clean up,” Van Der Waal said, holstering his pistol. “Moron. He agreed to the increased price too fast.”

Brekker nodded in agreement. “You could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes. If he was willing to pay that price, imagine how much the formula would be worth to Locsin.”

“We could always sell it ourselves on the open market.”

“If it’s still on that destroyer, if the formula still exists, and if we can successfully manufacture it. That’s a lot of ifs. I’d rather get paid now. Let Locsin take the risk of being a drug dealer.”

The men who’d been asleep had been waiting for the gunshots. They came up and began tying the feet of Polten and Davis to the heavy kettlebells. They’d take the bodies to the middle of Manila Bay later for an unceremonious burial at sea.

Van Der Waal pointed to the computer screens and said, “Looks like we’ve got some activity.”

Brekker looked at the feed from the remote cameras stationed outside the Baylon Fire factory and saw two SUVs enter the gate. They were waved through by the guards without even stopping. When they reached the warehouse, a half-dozen men got out, including one that looked like Locsin, though it was impossible to be sure at this distance. Two women got out with them, one a redhead, the other raven-haired. Both were shoved roughly toward the warehouse and taken inside.

“You think they’re going to have a party?” Van Der Waal asked in amusement.

“I don’t know,” Brekker said, unzipping one of the equipment bags and taking out his assault rifle. “Let’s go find out.”