It went without saying that to admit defeat now would spell the end. The way the box was heating up, he was looking at his last chance. This time he had to mean it. With that thought, Michael took a breath, centered himself, and let out a loud karate style kiyah, letting the thought of a perfect hit guide him. It worked. In one solid motion he sent the blunt end of the tire iron directly through the gap. He levered the iron up and down, once, then twice, listening to the hinge creak and groan until on the third down stroke it popped.
Michael wasted no time, sticking both arms under the cover of the tarp and pushing upwards on the lid, bench pressing the hot steel like a strongman. He didn’t know if it was the heat or his overpowering desire to escape that had made the metal soft, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that he sprung up, into the flames, the tarp and blanket covering his body. He took a running step forward leaping out of the box and launching his body through the fire and exhaust.
Blind under the tarp, all that Michael was certain of was that the ground seemed much farther off than he had remembered it. When he finally hit the cool earth, he rolled to a rest several feet down the embankment. Doing a quick check of his motor functions, Michael found that all his body parts were still working; the reflective space blanket together with the heavy tarp had protected him from the searing heat. It did nothing, however, to mask his astonishment when he pulled the smoldering fabric from his eyes.
The Horten was hovering in mid air. It wasn’t just the Horten, though; it had taken the entire length of the semi-trailer up with it as it hung there, above the meadow, only the front wheels of the truck still touching the ground. Michael estimated that it was pitched at a fifteen degree angle as it attempted to lift off with its heavy load, jet engines thundering down in the night. Michael quickly returned his attention to the tactical, checking his periphery. As far as he could tell he was alone on the embankment. As he began the climb back up the bank, however, he was able to make out Ester’s figure carefully watching from the other side of the craft. A closer look at the Horten as it hovered restlessly revealed what looked like a faintly glowing red necklace around its cockpit. It took only a moment for Michael to place the red LEDs as the signature glow of the detonators. He now knew that the situation was much more dire than he had initially suspected. A Semtex explosion would likely breach the Horten’s reactor. At that point all bets were off.
Chapter 57
Huang’s MSS gunship was a dozen kilometers to the east and closing fast. The pilot had locked in the GPS coordinates of the suspect truck, but really there was no need; the Horten’s plume of smoke and fire could be seen across the valley. There were still gnawing concerns, chief among them why the Triad gang which had ambushed them would be interested in the Horten, but Huang took the matter in stride. Most likely they were interested for the same reason criminals were interested in anything: money. As to their immaculate timing, Huang had never doubted the sophistication of China’s criminal gangs. He knew that they were quite capable of getting what they wanted. But he also knew that the element of surprise no longer rested with the Triad. It now belonged to him. Huang rose from his crouch and made his way up to the pilot to relay his commands. Already he could smell the burnt jet fuel through the open chopper door. It was time.
* * *
Nearer the ground, the roar of the Horten’s auxiliary thrusters echoed off the surrounding karsts creating a cauldron of sound. Crouched low, Michael skirted around the front of the truck. Though the deafening jets gave him cover, they also reminded him of how bad things could get. If Ester was allowed to detonate the Semtex there would be no escape — for himself or California.
Ester stood arms akimbo, staring up at the Horten as Michael approached. He arced far and wide, approaching from directly behind her, certain that her peripheral vision would kick in if he did anything less. Michael noted that she held something in her palm, undoubtedly a remote detonator. He was only feet away when something deep inside Ester alerted her to his presence. Michael sprung forward in a low tackle, but she sidestepped, firing her Luger as he rolled across the soft dirt. Michael knew she had missed, but not by much. He found himself hoping the antique gun would be slow to chamber a round. It didn’t matter, though, because even if running face first into a bullet wasn’t his first choice, he saw little alternative.
Ignoring the weapon, Michael launched his body upward, lodging his left shoulder in Ester’s gut while sweeping her legs out from under her with his arm. Michael’s gamble paid off. Ester fell hard and he turned his efforts to wrestling away her weapon. He managed to palm the Luger easily, but only because Ester’s energy was directed to the remote she held in her left hand. By the time Michael had realized his mistake it was too late. He grappled her left wrist and reached for the device, but the moment was lost. Ester clicked the remote.
The first thing Michael noticed was the relative quiet. The roar of the Horten’s auxiliary jets ceased almost immediately as the hot orange flames were sucked back into the thrusters. The Horten hung there in mid air for a moment before dropping back down to the ground with a bouncing thud. Then, Ester allowed her wrist to go limp, the remote falling to the earth below. Her stoic stare spoke volumes without her lips uttering a single word. Michael looked past Ester to the LED atop the remote trigger. It blinked.
“No!”
Michael sprung off Ester and grabbed the remote. It had begun a countdown from fifty-five seconds. He examined the remote, but found nothing in the way of a reset button, not even a battery compartment. Just a single trigger and the LED display. Michael heard a powerful low thumping in the sky. There was no time to dissect the mechanism. He glanced up to see Ester detaching the sawed-off shotgun from her shoulder loop. He reacted with a flying front kick, booting it from her grasp before she could level the gun. It tumbled down the bank and in that moment rotor wash engulfed them, mini gunfire strafing the earth. One of the bullets must have found its mark because Ester jerked suddenly, collapsing to her side. Michael needed no further encouragement. He sprinted for the Horten like a bat out of hell.
* * *
Half a mile away, Li Tung told his driver to step on it. They weren’t far from the meeting place now, but he could take no chances. His welfare, and more importantly, the welfare of his only son, depended on it. Behind his limousine followed two Mercedes-Benz G-Class sport utility vehicles. An off-road motorcycle led the way in front. The ten man crew could have fit easily in the two SUVs, but Li insisted on the second truck in case something should happen to the first. What worried Li was that at even this distance, a good kilometer from the site, he could see the spotlight of a helicopter and hear automatic weapons fire in the darkness. It could mean only one thing — the MSS had managed to arrive before they were in position. Li picked up his walkie-talkie and pressed the talk button as he had been instructed.
“You must hurry,” he said.
Before Li could say another word, the two powerful SUVs overtook the limousine, accelerating past it on either side of the narrow road. They would get there, Li silently prayed. There was no other way.
* * *
Michael grunted as he hauled himself up the ladder into the cramped cabin of the Horten. The LED read forty-five seconds and counting. Three quarters of a minute. Enough time to microwave a burrito. Or froth a couple of lattes. Or maybe, if he was very very lucky, do what he had come to do. Michael stooped through the hatch into the reactor room and opened the communications console. The green anodized encoding machine was there, just as he had left it. He removed the machine’s back cover and took out a stuff sack from inside his cargo shorts. Emptying its contents into his lap revealed the items wrapped in the towel Li Tung had handed him — the code machine’s eleven rotors complete with a variable voltage power source. In hindsight, Michael wished he had used the rotors immediately after receiving the clear-code, but he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself for jumping the gun, not when he had been so close to solving the puzzle of his missing father. Of course hindsight was twenty-twenty. In retrospect he would have had Tung deliver a pistol and maybe a blow torch too.