“Your father was a worthy adversary.”
Michael spun around. The words hadn’t come from Kate who remained beside him, lips pursed shut, eyes wide in the moonlight. They had come from the bank above, near the truck. Michael craned his neck, but could see nothing in the darkness.
Kate put her arm out, barring Michael’s movement. “Follow my lead,” she said quietly.
But the only lead Michael was following was his own. He pushed Kate’s arm aside, striding up the bank toward the truck. Not much of anything was visible in the shadows even with the headlights shining. Then the woman walked into the light. Michael had seen her before, but now he was seeing her with new eyes. Young, pretty and innocent, it was their bicycle tour guide from Yangshuo. Ester. Michael noted that she didn’t appear to be holding a weapon, at least not one that was drawn. He took a moment to slow his racing pulse.
“What do you know about my father?”
“I know that he was good at his work.”
“What else?”
“I know that he did not choose his friends wisely.”
“And?”
“I know that neither do you.”
Michael was within ten feet of Ester now. He watched her eyes. They were young and dark, but they weren’t focused on him. Not even close. They stared beyond Michael. Through him really, back down the bank to Kate. Michael turned to her. Her gaze conferred a softness he had not yet been privy too.
“I’m sorry, Michael.”
He turned back to Ester. She had taken a step forward and now aimed an antique German Luger straight at his chest. It was an old weapon to be sure, but it still shot standard 9mm rounds. An encounter with it would be fatal.
“What do you want?” Michael asked.
Ester motioned him toward the truck. The plate steel utility box sat nearest the cab, bolted to the I-beam frame of the trailer.
“I want you,” Ester said, “to get in the box.”
Michael, unsure if he had heard her correctly didn’t move. Ester repeated herself.
“I said, get in the box.”
Michael risked a backward glance. The utility box was perhaps six feet in length and two and half in width, a couple of feet deep at most. It was made of forge hardened diamond plate steel and one thing Michael was absolutely certain of was that he would not get inside of it. Not without a fight anyhow. But he needed a plan. He needed to buy time and already Ester was backing him toward the box where it sat welded to the frame of the trailer immediately below the leading edge of the Horten’s wing. As Ester backed him up, Michael noted that in addition to the Luger in her left hand, she carried a double barreled sawed-off shotgun, a twelve gauge by the looks of it, hanging from a leather shoulder loop inside her coarse wool jacket.
“The old man in the village. You shot him before he could talk.”
“Yes,” Ester said.
Michael considered the implication. “Is that what you did to my father?”
Ester smiled. “Your father was a brave man. That is all you need to know.”
“Where is he?”
There was no response.
“Shoot me if you want, but you will tell me where he is.”
Michael’s command was answered by a cellular beep. Ester carefully ended the ring with a touch to the phone on her belt.
“There is no time. Turn around.”
Michael was loathe to do so, but he didn’t think she was going to execute him. Not if she was still talking about the box. He risked turning ninety degrees and as he did, Ester reached into her pocket, removing what looked like a flash memory card. She held it in the air.
“The account details are saved on the card,” she said to no one in particular. “They will be useless without remote activation which I will provide upon the successful completion of my mission.”
Kate stepped up the bank. “That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
“You were to deliver the aircraft alone.”
Ester stepped to the side and jabbed the barrel of the Luger into Michael’s back. He found himself wishing she’d stuck it in the back of his head. His father had always told him that contrary to popular opinion, the back of the head wasn’t the worst place a gun could go. With a gun to the back of your head, a quick turn to the left or right, dramatically increased the odds of a flesh wound, the bullet skirting your skull mostly harmlessly. With the gun in his back, Michael knew that his soft organs would be vulnerable if he tried to move. An escape attempt now would result in at least a pierced lung. Probably worse. He stalled for time.
“What was it, Kate? Why’d you sell me out?”
“Make it easy on yourself, Michael. Do as she says.”
Michael stood tight against the trailer now, the cold steel utility box at eye level. He still felt the Luger at his back, but he was hopeful. She couldn’t keep the gun parked there forever, not the way he saw it. He placed both hands down and pulled himself up onto the steel frame of the trailer. The semi trailer had no deck, only two long I-beams which composed the length upon which cargo was fastened. The box was welded down where the I-beams met an orthogonal strut.
“Lift the lid.”
Pistol still trained on him, Michael forced any thought of Kate from his mind. If he was going to survive he needed to focus. He knew that. It wasn’t the time to consider how he had gotten into this situation — it was the time to get out of it. Michael reached down for the lid of the box. It was heavy as he expected. Inside was a collection of the tarps and fasteners used to secure cargo. Michael could feel Ester’s gun trained on his back, but he thought if he could leap across the width of the trailer, from one I-beam to the next, he might be able to take cover behind the Horten’s landing gear. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was something. Still, he needed a diversion. Anything to buy him another second.
“You’re a coward, Kate.”
“I’m a survivor.”
“Silence!” Ester said.
And Michael seized the moment. He leapt diagonally across the I-beams toward the wing of the Horten. He knew it was hard to hit a moving target with a handgun. Especially at a distance in the dark. For a quarter second, maybe even half, all was well. Michael felt himself sailing through the air. Then he felt a nimble hand take hold of his rear foot, using his momentum against him. Losing his balance, he was unable to stop himself from tumbling backwards the way he had come. He managed a split-second glance at Ester on the ground below the trailer before his remaining forward momentum was redirected against him. Then he fell shoulder first into the hard steel utility chest, his forehead grazing the sharp corner as he landed. The heavy lid crashed down and even though he sprung up with all the ferocity of a coiled spring, it did little good. He felt the snug hold of metal on metal and knew that the lid was already latched. Michael found himself alone in the dark. No room to roll over. Stuck in the box.
Chapter 54
Ester moved quickly over the steel I-beams of the trailer. She had bolted the utility chest shut, but now had bigger fish to fry. Her mission was a simple one — to destroy the Horten before it became too late. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. The Horten had remained hidden since the Japanese retreat near the end of World War II. The Dragons wanted it that way. They couldn’t afford to have its technology made public. There was too much at stake. Overnight, massive hydroelectric projects would become obsolete. Oil fields would become no more valuable than desert sand. Wind power projects that had eaten years of capital would have no hope of turning a profit. The Dragons were too heavily invested in the current energy infrastructure to allow a technology like cold fusion to wipe it out. Not before they were ready.