“Yeah. Are there any access panels on this thing?”
“Yes. Three, actually. One in his abdomen under the UWB radar, one in his back above the electrical socket, and one in the back of his head.”
“Open ‘em up. Let’s take a look.”
Cole didn’t hesitate. From a trouser pocket he produced a small cloth bundle. He unrolled it, revealing four tools. One looked to Jake like a plain Phillips screwdriver. Cole used it to open the panels.
From his shirt pocket he produced a penlight. “This is a regular flashlight or a red-light laser. I use it to check the sensors. Use the white light.” He showed Jake the control.
Jake peered into the back of Alvin’s head. It was full of wires, contacts, and component connections. “Take a look,” Jake told Cole and held the penlight for him.
“What are we looking for?”
“Anything that isn’t supposed to be there.”
“Looks okay to me.”
“Next panel.”
Of course, they found what they were looking for in the last panel, the one on the abdomen. Cole almost missed it. A tiny bare wire, no more than an inch long, protruded from the top of a solid black plug-in component.
Cole used his fingers to remove the connection, then began tugging on the bare wire. It turned out to be six inches long, a small antenna, and was connected to a small radio receiver, a AAA battery, and a blasting cap buried in about three ounces of malleable plastique explosive.
“A bomb.”
“If it went off, what would it do?”
“Destroy the main power supply. The York will just stop, wherever it is. Think Kent did this?”
“She had access and motive.”
“How did you know it was here?”
“Someone paid Kent a lot of money in the last four months,” Jake replied. “A million and a half pounds. I’m betting it was Sonny Wong. He then kidnapped Wu and Callie and demanded fifty million American from you and ten from Rip, Wu’s brother-in-law. He’s your security chief, and he’s dirty.”
Cole used a pocketknife to cut the wires leading to the head of the blasting cap, which protruded from the plastique.
Jake continued. “Either Sonny Wong is going to kill you, Wu Tai Kwong, and the folks loyal to Wu, then take over the rebellion and lead it himself, or he sold the rebellion to the Communists. They pay him, he wipes out the rebel leadership — at a profit, which he pockets — and disables the Yorks. The PLA defeats the rebel army and hangs a couple hundred traitors as an example to everyone. Voila! everything is once again copacetic in Communist heaven.”
“We’ve kept a tight rein on everything.”
“You’re planning a goddamn revolution involving hundreds — for all I know thousands, maybe tens of thousands — of people all over China and you think the Communist leadership didn’t get wind of it? Maybe in Oz, baby, but not in the real world. Hell, man, the folks in Silicon Valley are selling high-tech secrets to anyone with money. You know that! Cash is king! Sonny Wong may be a patriot, but he can be bought. Kent’s a chippie; you could buy her for pocket change.”
“Okay, okay.” Cole shook his head. “Yeah. Okay.”
“You better visit all these Yorks and see what Ms. Kent was up to in her spare time. I’ll take the chopper back to the barn and have a little chat with our lady friend from SIS.”
“Okay,” Cole said. “Send the chopper back for me. I’ll meet him where it is.”
“Give me the bomb.” Jake held out his hand. Cole handed it to him. “When you get back, Carmellini and I are going to need some weapons. What have you guys got in inventory?”
“A little bit of everything for the Yorks.”
“I need two silenced submachine guns, a couple of silenced pistols, and two fighting knives.”
“You going to get Kent to tell you where Callie is?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“I intend to get my wife back alive,” Jake Grafton said. “Whatever happens to anybody who gets in the way is their tough luck.”
Tommy Carmellini and Kerry Kent were still seated in the small office at the end of the museum exhibit trailer. “Any problem?” Jake asked.
“She offered me some money.”
Kent was staring at a spot on the wall, her face a mask.
“Anybody talk to her, she talk to anybody?”
“No, sir.”
Carmellini got out of the chair and Jake sat. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said to Kent. “I’m not going to fool around. I want the truth and I want it now.”
She didn’t say a word.
“You understand that you’re never going to see a dollar of that money. It’s history. Forget about it. The SIS will confiscate the account. What we’re talking about now is your life.”
Jake Grafton leaned forward and stared across the desk into Kerry Kent’s eyes. In spite of herself, she found she couldn’t look away. “Tell me where my wife is. If I get her back safe and sound, you live. If I don’t, you die. It’s that simple.”
She said nothing.
“Carmellini,” Jake said. “Get me a roll of duct tape.”
The CIA officer went through the door.
Almost too quickly for the eye to follow, Kent lashed out at Jake Grafton’s throat with the cutting edge of her hand. Jake took the blow on his forehead and went for her with both hands. He got his left hand around her neck, his thumb on her windpipe, and squeezed for all he was worth while he used his right to pop her hard in the nose.
Cartilage shattered and blood spattered everywhere.
The fight went out of her. Grafton released his grip.
She sat dazed, bleeding freely, then her eyes focused again.
She held her shirttail to her nose, exposing her bra. Jake didn’t take his eyes off her. Amazingly, he felt better.
“Asshole,” she hissed. “Hitting a woman.”
Carmellini opened the door, then paused. Jake stood up and took the tape.
“We’ll tape her to this chair. Put her in it.”
That didn’t take much wrestling. Jake began wrapping tape around her. “Put her hands behind her.”
“What about her nose?”
“Never heard of anyone dying of nosebleed. If she croaks we’ll put her in the medical textbooks.”
Kent screamed. Jake punched her again, medium hard, and she stopped.
“One more time,” he told her. “I enjoyed that.”
He used almost the whole roll of tape on her. “Now,” he said, removing the bomb that had been in Alvin York from his pocket. “Here’s how we’re going to do this. You are going to tell me where my wife is, and Mr. Carmellini and I will go get her. If we return with Mrs. Grafton, we’ll come in here and disarm this bomb. If we don’t return… well, I guess you’ll die when Sonny pushes the button to pop the Sergeant Yorks.”
Carefully, with her watching, he twisted the wires that ran to the blasting cap back together. “There.”
“You’re an American naval officer,” she whispered. “You can’t do this to me.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that. Actually, I was thinking of taping this bomb to your head. What do you think, Tommy?”
“Asshole,” she hissed. The blood covered her mouth and shirt. She was a hell of a mess.
“Get the WB phone out of her bag.”
Carmellini did as he was told.
“I doubt if she memorized the phone number. Look for something with phone numbers written on it, a little pad, her checkbook, anything.”
Kent’s eyes widened.
“You were supposed to blow the Yorks with the cell phone, weren’t you?”
She lost control of her face.
Jake continued. “We’ll just tape the bomb to your head. If anything happens to Callie, I’ll call you. How’s that?”