He turned the corner, gun forward.
And found himself staring into the barrel of a SIG P229.
“What are you doing here?” Jack said.
“Drop your weapon,” Lian said. Their pistol barrels were inches apart.
“Drop yours.”
Tree branches knocked and scraped against the living room windows, rattled by the high winds.
“Where’s Paul Brown?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said.
“Jack? You okay?” Paul’s voice whispered behind the wall.
Lian grinned. She kept her eyes sighted down the barrel at Jack. “Are you okay, Mr. Brown?”
Paul stepped out from around the corner. “Yes, thank you.”
“Can I trust Mr. Ryan?”
“He’s a friend.”
“But can I trust you?”
“Me? Of course.”
Jack saw a flash in her eyes. She was calculating. She lifted her left hand from her pistol and raised the palm, then turned the pistol barrel toward the ceiling, signaling a stand-down.
Jack lowered his weapon and shoved it back into his waistband. “What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about the two of you,” Lian said, holstering her weapon. “The storm is surging north. I tried calling both of you, but the cell towers must be down, so I drove over here.” She gestured at the broken furniture. “And found all of this.”
Jack had seen a silver Range Rover parked across the street but didn’t think anything of it. The Dalfan company vehicles were all black. He turned to Paul. “You never did explain what happened here.”
Paul shrugged. “When I figured out that I’d been played, I got mad.” He shrugged. “Got drunk. Starting smashing things. Kind of lost my mind.”
“There goes the rental deposit,” Jack said.
Paul toed a piece of broken pottery. “Stupid, I know. And then I called a taxi to find a place to hide.”
“Why did you need to hide?” Lian asked.
Jack told her about the software on the USB drive and what it was apparently designed to do. She was stunned. He added, “Weston Rhodes is playing a dangerous game.”
“My laptop,” Paul said. “It’s upstairs.”
“Grab it,” Jack said.
Paul headed for the staircase. The wind howled outside, amplified in the shaking tree branches.
“What dangerous game?” Lian asked.
“Don’t know all the details, but there were some bad dudes coming after Paul, and they’re tied to Rhodes somehow.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’d also like to talk to your brother.”
“He and his girlfriend caught the last flight to Beijing before Changi closed.”
“Let me guess. A business trip.”
Lian’s eyes narrowed. “What else would it be?”
“I’ll deal with him later.”
The glass in the living room window broke. They both turned to look. A tree branch must have—
Oh, God.
Two cylindrical grenades bounced on the floor. Jack and Lian turned and dove for the ground.
Too late.
The grenades exploded before their bodies hit the floor.
62
Jack rolled onto his back, blinded by the dark. A flash of lightning outside the smashed windows gave him a momentary glimpse of rain pouring into the living room. He sat up with effort, the fog clearing. He glanced over at Lian, still facedown.
Jack crawled over to her and checked her pulse. Alive. Another flash of lightning showed a trickle of blood coming out of her ear.
Jack rolled her over gently onto her back. She began to stir, then suddenly startled awake, her eyes wide with terror. She turned and stared at Jack, her face a welter of confusion.
“Flash-bangs. You’re okay. Just take a second.”
She blinked, then frowned. Jack knew the headache pounding inside her skull was as bad as his.
“What happened?” she finally managed, as Jack helped her to her feet.
“Couple of flash-bangs.”
“How long were we out?”
Jack checked his watch. “About fifteen minutes.”
“Where’s Paul?”
“Wait here.” Jack ran up the staircase, calling out Paul’s name. He stumbled over a step in the dark but caught himself. Another lightning flash lit the hallway. Black shoe scuffs all along the walls. Jack ran for Paul’s bedroom, still shouting his name. He dashed inside. The room was trashed.
Paul was gone.
Lian was in the kitchen, washing her face in the sink, when Jack ran back down. There wasn’t much pressure in the line.
“He’s not upstairs,” Jack said, as he approached her.
“Not down here, either.” She dried her face. “Those ‘bad dudes’ you were talking about must have followed you here.”
“Or you,” Jack said.
“He must have run away again, or they took him.”
“I saw signs of a struggle upstairs. Paul put up some kind of a fight.”
“My question is, why aren’t we dead?” Lian said. “We were out cold. Two bullets in the head and we’re not a problem anymore.”
“I don’t know, but I’m not complaining.”
“Where do you think they took him?”
Jack checked his watch. “It’s eleven twenty-seven. There’s still time.”
“For what?”
“We need to get back to Dalfan. They’ve taken Paul there.”
“How do you know that?”
He grabbed her by the hand. “I’ll explain on the way. Let’s go!”
They took Lian’s silver Range Rover. It had a better chance in the high water and it had all-wheel drive, too.
No one was on the streets now, which meant no traffic to slow them down, but Jack had to work the wheel hard to avoid the obstacles in the road — tree branches, garbage cans, sheet metal roofing, and abandoned vehicles. A couple times he had to jump the curb and run on the sidewalk to keep from hitting sparking power lines slithering in the street.
Jack took a chance on Lian and filled her in on the fight at the warehouse and then at the Pink Lily.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Jack said, taken aback by her nonchalance.
“It’s not surprising, given the stakes involved. I’m just glad you’re the one who survived.”
“Six dead bodies will be hard to explain to the police.”
“I think you’re right about the four Chinese disappearing. They’re probably fish food by now. So really it’s only two you have to worry about.”
“Gee, that makes me feel better.”
“At least now I know you’re the one who deleted all of my security files.”
“No, I swear, it wasn’t me.”
“Then who?”
“Still working on that one.”
“I still can’t believe Rhodes wants to crash the world’s stock markets.”
“I don’t think he does.”
“But he gave Paul the software.”
“Sure, but he didn’t write it. That means someone else wrote it for him. So it’s that coder I want to talk to — and the guy behind the coder. That’s the asswipe who’s behind all of this.”
Lian powered on the radio. An emergency signal blared on every station and an automated voice repeated: “SEEK HIGH GROUND NOW! STAY IN SHELTER! DO NOT DRIVE! AVOID LOW-LYING AREAS! HIGH-VOLTAGE LINES ARE DOWN! STAY INDOORS!”
Dead traffic lights swayed in the wind; streetlamps and building lights were all dead now.
Lian punched the radio off. “Only thirteen minutes to midnight. Drive faster!”
63
Deputy Ri stood in his cramped basement office, talking into the speakerphone on his desk. “Why hasn’t it happened yet?” His expressionless face was beaded in sweat.