Hawker had moved from his chair and was now leaning against the wall in the sheltered part of the veranda, just outside the doorway. He was just standing there quietly, watching the storm.
She wondered if he was thinking of the last storm they’d been in together, a moment in time two years ago that was so fresh in her mind it could have been yesterday. She wanted to walk over to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and wait for him to turn to her, but she knew things could not be that simple.
She thought about Marcus and felt a new wave of guilt. She imagined him back there waiting, forced to trust what Moore told him about her well-being, probably worried sick over her fate. Now she wished that she’d spoken with him when offered the chance.
She took a deep breath. She didn’t like this. Didn’t like confusion.
Her mind flashed to Moore’s statement. There might not be anywhere safe for anyone. She needed to focus. To stop thinking about Hawker, to stop thinking about Marcus. To stop thinking about anything but the job in front of her.
She watched Hawker a moment longer. And then she turned from temptation, walked to her bedroom, and closed the door.
CHAPTER 38
The massive warehouse on the outskirts of Campeche belonged to a subsidiary of Kang Industrial. But the normal business that was conducted there had been moved, giving way to Kang’s pursuit of the stones.
From his chair Kang surveyed the effort. Through the windows near the back of the structure, he saw the Skycrane helicopter his men had used to hoist the statue from Isla Cubierta. It sat dormant on a helipad, waiting with two others of its kind for a new mission to fulfill. Inside the building, stacks of equipment lined the walls: there were armored vehicles squatting on massive tires, containers holding inflatable rafts, a small two-manned submarine, and a flight of drone reconnaissance aircraft similar to the U.S. Army’s Predators.
As Kang looked around, his heart swelled with pride and fresh confidence. His collection of high-tech equipment had been growing for years, part of a newfound reality he had embraced.
His deteriorating health had given him an unusual vantage point from which to study his empire. As he’d been forced to delegate and rely on others, he’d seen the growth of his empire stall and the number of failures and missed opportunities rise to a level he could not abide. It had taught him a lesson that he considered a revelation: Human limitation and fallibility were the greatest of enemies.
Just as his own body betrayed and failed him, the people around him betrayed and failed him. Physically Kang was forced to rely more and more on the machines. They strengthened him, healed him, and gave him mobility and independence.
To save his empire he had forced a similar paradigm into place. Ultramodern surveillance systems blanketed every square inch of his domain; predictive artificial intelligence software allowed him to move quickly in business and other fields without a large cast of human analysts to slow him down. Computer programs tracked the productivity and reliability of every employee he had. They decided who to hire and who to fire. There were no meetings, emotions, or friendships involved. Just facts, data, and algorithms. With the human element removed, his businesses had begun to thrive again.
And now he intended to bring similar changes to his quest for the stones. Despite the efforts of Choi and his men, Kang knew it would be machinery that allowed him to find and recover what he was looking for. Human power was only necessary to operate or initiate the equipment, and if the humans failed or lagged they were easily replaceable.
In Kang’s eyes, Choi and his men were nothing more than spare parts, one just as good as another, but the machines … the machines were the key.
One of the doctors called to Kang. They were ready to begin the latest and most advanced incarnation of his treatment. At this Kang turned his chair and crossed the floor. Choi followed dutifully at his side.
They arrived at a metallic worktable. Spread out in sections were various types of familiar equipment: the electrical stimulators, the monitors, the power packs.
“Are you ready, sir?” the doctor asked.
“Is the testing complete?” Kang asked.
The doctor nodded. “All diagnostics have been run and the feedback from the earlier sessions downloaded.”
This was the moment of truth.
“Then you may proceed,” Kang said, extending his right arm awkwardly.
The doctor assisted him, straightening and stretching Kang’s arm and sliding a gauntlet of sorts onto it. Next he connected a brace to Kang’s elbow and a shoulder harness of sorts. Once Kang was strapped in, the doctors began connecting wires to various points of the harness.
“I will leave you,” Choi said.
“You will stay,” Kang ordered.
Choi sat down uneasily.
As the doctors worked, a yellow forklift carrying several large crates traveled methodically toward them. The forklift deposited its load and then scurried away as men rushed into position and opened the crates. Inside rested the mechanical equivalent of pack mules: four-legged machines, powered by an internal engine and controlled by an advanced computer brain that kept them agile and balanced on almost any terrain while carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment.
Kang’s techs immediately began assembling them. From the look on his face, Choi seemed to take this negatively.
“Something troubles you,” Kang said.
Choi hesitated.
“You disapprove of these efforts?” Kang felt anger growing within him.
“So much equipment will slow us down,” Choi said.
“No,” Kang said. “This is the only way.”
The doctor finished connecting the wires and then taped them flat against Kang’s arm and plugged them into a power pack in the harness. Kang admired the work. With titanium braces, hydraulic actuators, and an articulated elbow and shoulder joint, his new sleeve looked like some type of futuristic body armor, but it was more than that.
The technicians tested the fit, adjusted it, and then tightened the straps again. After that they went to work connecting smaller mechanical appendages to each of Kang’s fingers.
“I wish to speak of our quarry,” Kang said to Choi. “They continue to elude you.”
“For the present,” Choi explained. “We will find them soon enough.”
“But you were close the other day,” Kang said. “And yet they escaped your grasp.”
One of the technicians squeezed between Choi and the table, twisting and connecting tiny wires to the actuators on Kang’s fingers.
“They escaped,” Choi replied, sounding aggravated, “but only because of the electromagnetic burst. But prior to that, they led us directly to the offshore site. Our men are diving on it at this moment. They’ve found a submerged temple filled with hieroglyphic writing that we’ll soon be able to translate. This information will lead us to the next destination.”
That news did not seem enough for Kang. “And if you had been quicker,” he said, “you would have been able to obtain what they found down there. The second stone would have been in our possession now.”
“Yes, of course,” Choi replied. “But we know their theory. There are four stones to be found. That means there are still two others out there.”
“No,” Kang said with certainty, “there is only one stone remaining.”
Choi looked puzzled.
Kang’s voice turned softer, a tone reserved for a foolish but loyal dog.
“Of course, I cannot expect you to know these things,” Kang said. “They are beyond your ability to perceive or to truly understand. You are a simple instrument, best reserved for simple tasks.”
He nodded toward the technicians, who were using tweezers to connect the thin wires to different nerve junctions on his arms. Each time they did so his arm twitched slightly.