“A factory? Would it be big enough to spot from the air?”
“Maybe. Why?”
Drake turned to where Uncle Pete was crouched. “You have the sat phone?”
“Yes.”
“Hand it over.”
Chapter 43
Spencer clutched his wounded arm as Allie trudged alongside him. The gunmen who’d taken them prisoner were silent as ghosts as they made their way through the jungle. Spencer had given up the fight when he’d seen that the shooters were preparing to gun down Allie, and had tossed his weapon aside and told her to do the same.
The bullet had torn through his shoulder, missing the bone and exiting cleanly, but the wound ached with each step, the flow of blood staunched from a crude pressure dressing one of the captors had rigged.
He had no idea where they were being led, but they seemed to be headed south, judging by the position of the sun whenever the canopy gave way to blue sky. Spencer wanted to reassure Allie, but he knew better than to risk the gunmen’s wrath — the hike would be even harder after a rifle butt to the skull.
Two hours later they arrived at their destination: a crudely built cinderblock warehouse with easily fifty gunmen watching the perimeter of the clearing. Their captors guided them to a door and pushed them through. Inside was a pill manufacturing line, complete with conveyors; pill-making machines; a coating system; rolling steel shelves lined with jugs of muriatic acid, acetone, ammonia, and other chemicals used in manufacturing meth; and in the far corner, rows of large vats with hoses tangling from them.
At the opposite end of the building was another door. The gunmen herded them to it, and one of them slid back the bolt. The lead man pointed, his meaning clear — they were to go in. Allie walked into the gloom, and Spencer followed. The door slammed shut behind them, and they waited as their eyes adjusted.
A woman’s voice from the corner startled them. “Welcome to hell.”
Allie squinted to make out who was speaking, and gasped when she saw Christine Whitfield on a cot. She rushed to her and stood over her. “Oh, my God. It’s you!”
“You speak English, obviously. How do you know who I am?”
“We’ve been looking for you since we found the plane.”
“And who exactly are you?”
“We’re… friends of your mother,” Spencer said, before Allie could speak.
Christine peered at him. “Looks like you took a bullet.”
“Yeah.”
They were interrupted by the bolt sliding open and Lee entering with two gunmen. He sneered at the new captives and barked at Christine in Chinese, “You translate. Ask them who they are and what they’re doing here.”
Christine blinked and shook her head. “They don’t speak English. I already tried.”
Lee looked annoyed. “What nationality are they?”
“I think they’re German. That’s what they sounded like.”
Lee looked them up and down and then stalked out, his gunmen following. The bolt slammed home and Christine looked to them. “Either of you speak anything besides English?” she whispered.
Spencer nodded. “Spanish.”
“Me too,” Allie confirmed. “What did he say?”
“He wanted me to translate for him, but I said you didn’t speak English. I figured I’d buy you some time while he’s trying to find a translator.”
“Why?” Allie asked.
Spencer turned to her. “Because once we answer their questions, they’ll have no reason to keep us alive.”
Christine sighed. “Oh, they’ll keep her around. They’re going to sell me into sex slavery. I imagine she’ll bring a pretty penny, too.”
Allie’s expression turned to one of horror. “Oh, God…”
Spencer moved to her side. “Don’t worry. Drake and Joe will be looking for us.”
“You saw how many are here. What can two do against a hundred?” Allie murmured.
“They’re resourceful.” Spencer looked at Christine. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Broken collarbone. Bruises, maybe a few broken ribs and a concussion. And they’ve been shooting me up with something for the pain — heroin. But they’re decreasing the dose, so something’s up. They filmed me yesterday saying my name and that I was okay.”
“What happened with the plane?”
“One minute we were flying, the next we were crashing. Something exploded in the engine compartment. I’m lucky to be alive. My boyfriend didn’t make it.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Allie said. “But you’re right that you’re lucky. The wreckage looked like nobody could have walked away from it.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I still can hardly believe it myself.”
Christine appeared to tire from the effort of speaking, and closed her eyes. Allie and Spencer moved to the wall and slid down, facing her. Allie glanced at the dressing on his arm. “You need some antibiotics so that doesn’t get infected.”
“I doubt they’re planning to keep me around that long.”
That simple truth seemed to reverberate in the cinderblock chamber, and Spencer joined Christine in closing his eyes. Allie stared numbly at the door, her stomach churning with bile at what was to come.
Reggie waited in the shade for Tam and his gangster friend to show. He’d received a ten-second video time-stamped the day before from a burner phone, and had immediately forwarded it to CIA headquarters for analysis. His control had told him to agree to the trade, but to stall for time so they could bring a surveillance plane to bear and see if they could identify the building where she was being held. Now that they knew it was Red Moon that had her, they could narrow the search down to the gang’s territory and were actively looking for any cinderblock structure in the southern Myanmar jungle that bordered the Shan state and Thailand, using a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft equipped with sensitive infrared, thermal, and imaging gear. While it wouldn’t have been able to spot wreckage of a plane, given the absence of a thermal signal, a factory would have personnel and a power source, and would therefore theoretically show up relatively easily.
This time Jun led the way to the café, Tam trailing him. When they were inside and seated, the establishment’s only customers, he got straight to the point. He rattled off a few sentences, which Tam translated.
“He say you get movie. Girl alive.”
Reggie nodded. “I did.”
“You pay now.”
Reggie frowned. “He wants half a million dollars. I don’t carry that around in my wallet. I have to make a wire transfer and wait for it to arrive; then I can send it to him. But I need to understand the swap mechanism, because I’m not giving him money until I have the girl in my possession. Translate that for him.”
Tam did, and the man grunted. He offered a solution, and Tam nodded as he listened. When Jun had finished, Tam began translating. Reggie cut him off mid-sentence. “No. That won’t work. Too many ways he can screw me. So here’s what I’ll do. Give me twenty-four hours. When the money hits Thailand, I’ll have the bank arrange for cash. It will fit in a briefcase. He brings the girl to a destination of our agreement, I bring the cash. We both come alone. Anyone but Jun and the girl shows up, the deal’s off and I walk.”
They went back and forth, and eventually agreed on a transaction they could both live with. They would do the exchange by the close of business the next day, and Tam would call to verify that Reggie had gotten the funds and was ready before they chose a location for the handover.
Jun and Tam left the café, and Reggie watched them turn the corner, and then an unremarkable-looking middle-aged woman did the same — a CIA asset in the area who’d been charged with shadowing them in the hopes of discovering Red Moon’s base in town.