To her, this trip couldn’t have come at a better time.
A week without stress was exactly what she needed.
Sitting in a nearby van, they watched the scene unfold in front of the hotel. They had been following Maria since the airport and would continue to watch her until she left Mexico.
That is, if they let her leave Mexico.
After all, she was the key to everything.
4
Dressed in black, the men looked like shadows as they crept through the forgotten tunnel system underneath the city of Ambridge.
Built more than a century ago, the tunnels had been part of the local sewer system until World War I, when the property was sold to a wealthy industrialist who cleared the land and built a large manufacturing complex on the north shore of the Ohio River. According to the purchase agreement, the industrialist had vowed to fill in the old tunnels at his expense and build new sewer lines that would meet government standards. But when it came to it, he decided it was a waste of money. Instead of filling in the tunnels like he’d promised, he sealed both ends and lied about it to the city inspectors.
Decades later, when Payne Industries acquired the property, the former owner failed to mention that the tunnels had never been filled in. So they sat there, dormant, until they were recently discovered by a demolition crew tasked with clearing the old steel mill and blast furnace to make way for a new manufacturing centre that would house the Research and Development division of Payne Industries.
This type of demolition was fairly common in Pittsburgh. In recent years the city had undergone an amazing metamorphosis, one that had transformed it from an urban nightmare into one of the most scenic cities in America. First, the steel industry relocated, leaving plenty of land for new parks and businesses. Then Pittsburgh’s three rivers — the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio — were dredged, making them suitable for recreational use and riverfront entertainment. Buildings received facelifts. Bridges received paint jobs. And the air was suddenly clean. Long gone were the days when the city had to turn on its streetlights in the middle of the afternoon so people could see through the smog. The city’s transformation was so complete that Rand McNally, Forbes and The Economist all recently named Pittsburgh as America’s Most Livable City.
But below the surface it was a different story.
More than 20 feet under ground, the tunnels resembled old Pittsburgh — a dark, desolate place that smelled like a sewer, or something worse.
‘This place is awesome,’ whispered David Jones without a hint of sarcasm. Using next-generation night-vision glasses that resembled swimming goggles, he stared at the century-old architecture, marvelling at the intricate pattern of the bricks. The diameter of the tunnel was nearly 7 feet wide, and it seemed to go on forever. ‘Too bad you’re tearing it down.’
Annoyed by the comment, Jonathon Payne glanced over his shoulder. ‘I never said I was tearing it down. This is a piece of history. They don’t make tunnels like this any more. If it’s structurally sound, I want to keep it.’
Jones stared at the ankle-deep water on the tunnel floor. It was littered with bricks and mortar that had fallen from the roof, caused by leakage and decades of neglect. In his mind, there was no way in hell it was going to pass inspection. ‘Like I said, too bad you’re tearing it down.’
Payne ignored his best friend and continued forward.
To the outside world, the two of them didn’t appear to have much in common, but that had more to do with their looks than anything else. Payne, the CEO of Payne Industries, was a hulking 6 foot 4, muscles stacked upon muscles, his white skin littered with scars from bullets and blades. He had the look of an ex-athlete who had lived his life to the full, but was forced to retire too soon. Raised by his paternal grandfather, a self-made millionaire who went from mill worker to mill owner in less than thirty years, Payne had shunned the family business for a career in the military. But when his grandfather passed away and left him a controlling interest in Payne Industries, he felt obliged to return home and run the company.
Unfortunately, he’d been craving his old life ever since.
Jones, too, was an adrenaline junkie, but he looked more like an office clerk than an officer. Known for his brain rather than his brawn, he possessed the wiry build of a track star, someone who could run a marathon without breaking a sweat but wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Although his mocha skin and soft facial features made him look delicate, Jones was lethal on the battlefield, having completed the same military training as Payne.
The two of them used to lead the MANIACs, an elite Special Forces unit composed of top soldiers from the Marines, Army, Navy, Intelligence, Air Force and Coast Guard. They were specialists in every aspect of surveillance, reconnaissance and combat. Classified above top secret, the MANIACs were essentially ghosts. And when it came to military operations that were strictly ‘off the record’, the MANIACs were the best of the best.
Even though Payne and Jones had retired in their mid-thirties, they were still deadly. At the Pentagon’s request, the duo was still actively involved with the Special Forces programme. Officially, they were nothing more than advisors — trusted experts who gave their opinions on training, weapons and tactics — but over the past few years they’d been placed in the field on more than one occasion.
And they had loved every minute.
To stay sharp, the duo conducted field exercises on a regular basis. Sometimes to knock off their rust, and other times to test young trainees in advanced warfare. On this particular night, they were trying out a new piece of technology that had been developed by Payne Industries. Known as the ‘puke light’, the LED incapacitator is a nonlethal weapon that resembles a flashlight. The original device, which was designed by Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS), emits a bright, rapid, well-focused series of different-coloured, random pulses. Before the human eyes can focus on one frequency, another frequency comes on, causing intracranial pressure. This results in cluster headaches, nausea, vomiting, disorientation and visual impairment of the target. At least, that was the intended effect. Unfortunately, some test subjects were completely unaffected by the light, which meant the design needed to be tweaked before it could be trusted.
Based on years of combat experience, Payne and Jones recommended the addition of an auditory element to the device, something loud enough to disturb the fluid in the inner ear of their target without compromising their own equilibrium. They felt the combination of light and sound would produce the desired effect, leaving their opponent as defenceless as the victim of a stun grenade.
Of course, the only way to know for sure was to test it out. To that end, Payne contacted the Army ROTC commander at the University of Pittsburgh, an old friend named Gregg Peterson, and requested the five best cadets from the Three Rivers Battalion. Young, athletic men with lots of potential. Then he armed them with paintball guns and flashlights and dumped them at the other end of the tunnel system. Their lone goal was to shoot the unarmed Payne and Jones before the duo could disarm them. If the cadets succeeded, Payne Industries would pay their tuition for the entire semester. If they failed, they would still be helping their country by testing a military prototype that would soon be used in close combat.
Not that they thought they’d fail.
The cadets were so confident they’d wipe out Payne and Jones that they were already planning a victory celebration back on campus. After all, how could two old guys take them out?