“Nationals are doing well. They won last night,” said Zen. “They’ll be back home soon. Maybe we can take in a game.”
“Baseball?” asked Stoner.
“Yeah. You want to go to a game?”
Instead of responding, Stoner went back to his workout. During his treatment in Eastern Europe, he had been essentially brainwashed, his personality and memory replaced with an almost robotic consciousness. His old self or at least some semblance of it remained, but exactly how much, no one could say.
Zen had managed only a handful of conversations with him since he’d been here. Stoner hadn’t said more than a dozen words in each. But that was more than he’d said to anyone else.
Stoner did two more circuits, pumping the iron without visible fatigue. As he finished a set of standing presses, he glanced over at Zen.
The look in his eye frightened Zen. For a split second he thought Stoner was going to toss one of the dumbbells at his head.
He didn’t. He just glared at him, then pumped through another twenty reps.
“Man, you’re in good shape,” said Zen as Stoner racked the weights.
Stoner turned to him. “Need heavier weights. Too easy.”
“Did you ask the doctors?”
Stoner pulled his hood over his head.
“I can try and get more for you,” said Zen. “What weight?”
“Big disks,” said Stoner. “I need more.”
He started walking toward the door next to the rack.
“Feel like having breakfast?” Zen asked.
“No,” said Stoner. “Gonna shower.”
“OK,” said Zen. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then, maybe.”
Stoner said nothing. Zen watched him walk down the hall, turning right into his room.
“I’ve already ordered more weights,” said Esrang when Zen met him outside. “We didn’t want to give him too much at first, in case he decided to use them as weapons.”
“You still think he’s dangerous?”
Esrang pitched his head to one side, gesturing with his shoulders. He was one of the world’s experts on the effects of steroids and other drugs on the human brain, but he often pointed out that this meant he knew that he didn’t know enough.
Zen glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid I have to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
Zen smiled. It was a nice thing for the doctor to say, but they both knew it wasn’t necessarily true.
Chapter 13
Li Han watched as the aircraft was lifted into the back of the pickup truck. It was a lot lighter than he’d expected; three men could easily handle it.
It would fetch a decent amount of money. The design was unique, the materials, even the onboard flight control computer, which had considerably more processing and memory chips than Li Han expected — the right buyer would pay a good price.
The question was finding the right buyer. The best price would come from his former countrymen, though there was no way he could deal with them.
The Russians were one possibility. The French were another. The Iranians, but his last dealings with them had turned sour.
The biggest payday might actually come from the Americans, who would want their equipment back.
Maybe they could make a deal.
He needed to find a place to examine it more carefully, and think. That meant going north, away from the area controlled by the Brotherhood. They would only complicate things.
The Brother holding the forward end of the aircraft slipped as they were placing it into the bed of the pickup. The fuselage fell hard against the truck.
“Careful, you idiots!” yelled Li Han in Chinese.
He ran over to the plane. It didn’t appear to be damaged, at least not any worse than it had been.
“Come,” he said, switching to English. “We need to be away from here before the satellite appears.”
Melissa was a mile and a half from the transponder when the signal went from a steady beep to a more urgent bleat.
The aircraft was being moved.
She squeezed the throttle on the motorcycle, hunkering down against the handlebars as its speed jumped. A second later she realized that was a mistake. Backing off the gas, she pulled her GPS out from her jacket pocket and got her bearings.
The transponder was in a valley roughly parallel to the one she was riding through. Both ran east to west. According to the map, a road that intersected both valleys lay two miles ahead. She could go to that intersection and wait.
Unless whoever had the UAV turned north rather than staying on the road. There were at least two trails running off the valley in that direction before the intersection. And sure enough, the signal soon indicated that the UAV was moving farther away.
It was starting to get light. Melissa went up the connecting road and stayed on it, speeding roughly parallel to whoever was taking the UAV away. They were about a mile and a half away, but the trail and road ran away from each other, her path going due north while the other gradually tailing eastward.
Finally she stopped and examined the map on the GPS to try and guess where they were going. The trail wound through a series of settlements, intersected with several unpaved roads, and finally ended at what passed for a super highway here, a double-lane asphalt paved road that ran to Duka, a small town that sat on a flat plain at the eastern foot of the mountains. She slipped the GPS back into her pocket. Who had the UAV? Mao Man?
She hoped not. The fact that it was being taken north argued against it: the Brothers’ stronghold was well to the south, where she assumed he’d been heading when attacked. He had only come this far north to arrange for a meeting with weapons suppliers.
Most likely either a government patrol spotted the wreckage and decided to take it, or some local farmer found it and decided to take it to the authorities and claim a reward.
Either could be easily bought off. A hundred dollars here would bring a family luxury for a year.
Melissa slipped the bike out of neutral and began following the signal once more.
Li Han felt his eyes starting to close as they zigzagged through the hills. He’d been up now for nearly thirty-six hours straight, long even for him.
Shaking himself, he sat upright in the cab of the truck, then rolled down the window, sticking his head out into the wind. He could sleep in Duka. He’d used a building there to house some explosives about a year and a half before; it was sure to be still unoccupied. And though the town was controlled by two different rebel groups, neither would bear him any malice, especially if he promised fresh weapons and ammunition as he had the last time.
But he had to stay alert until he reached the small city. The army occasionally sent patrols through the area. It was unlikely that they would meet any at night, but if they did, the soldiers would assume they were rebels and immediately open fire.
One of the men in the back of the pickup began banging on the roof of the cab. The driver slowed, then spoke to him through his window.
“What?” asked Li Han in English.
“Following. A motorbike follows,” said the driver.
A motorcycle?
Li Han twisted around, trying to see. It was too dark, and the hulk of the UAV blocked most of his view.
It wouldn’t be the army. More like one of the many rebel groups that contested the area.
“Shoot them!” yelled Li Han. He turned back to the driver. “Tell them in the back to shoot them. Don’t stop! Drive faster. Faster!”
Melissa knew she was pressing it, pulling closer and closer to the truck. But it was alone, and while there were definitely men in the back, none seemed armed or particularly hostile. If she caught up, she could work out a deal.