The trouble was, these days China was always willing to up the ante. The US had already forewarned its fleet and even such minor transmissions were seen as acts of provocation.
Kinimaka entered her eye line, breaking into her thoughts. “Guards have all been assigned. We’re going high-profile to warn these people off, rather than low-key and risk missing something. Sound okay?”
“Yeah.” Hayden was distracted, ruminating over China and the latest developments. “Mano, we have a far, far bigger problem.”
The Hawaiian stopped so suddenly his shoes squeaked across the floor. “We do? What?”
“The Taiwan Strait just went up in a water bomb. China have wasted no time blaming it on Taiwan, attributing their earlier overflies to sighting flights and provocation. They’re calling the explosion an act of war.”
Kinimaka’s mouth fell open. “And the Lost Kingdom?”
“Nobody knows. But take a look at this…” Hayden spun her laptop around and pressed a button, playing a recording of the Taiwan Strait event for him. As he watched she continued, “You can bet your ass the Lost Kingdom’s a helluva mess. Once the dust has settled who knows? But the consequences of that explosion…” Hayden shook her head.
“What do we know?”
“Dudley pressed the button. Almost certainly he’s working with the Pythians who ransomed the Peking Man to China earlier. In addition, the Chinese gave them three items called Z-boxes. We’re still working to discover what they are, but the rumors are frankly terrifying. Our current situation is this — Drake and the team are in Hong Kong awaiting instructions.”
Kinimaka waited for more, then said, “That’s it?”
“We don’t know Dudley’s location. The Yakuza are still hunting for Mai and Chika with a vengeance. What do you want SPEAR to do? Take control of Beijing?”
“I bet they could do it.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Hayden rubbed her tired eyes.
“Hey,” Kinimaka walked forward and held her. “Let’s focus. The war problem is out of our control. Stick with Dudley. These Z-boxes that he probably has. Let’s work that.”
Smyth entered the room then, fresh from his visit to the hospital. “Damn, you two just hack me off. Ya can’t stand around hugging all friggin’ day. We got work to do.”
Hayden pulled away from Kinimaka. “Would you like to punch him first, or shall I?”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Tyler Webb smashed a closed fist against the top of his desk, exultant as he heard the news. The feeling he experienced bordered on sexual, so arousing it almost settled on a par with the feelings he got whilst stalking other people’s homes and rifling through their personal lives, but then he remembered who was on the end of the line.
“Dudley,” he breathed a little lower than he really wanted to. “Good job, my fine Irish friend. Good job. You’re actually holding all three Z-boxes now?”
“Yer men just delivered them to me. We’re all standing around in a nice little circle.”
Webb luxuriated in the feeling of accomplishment. From the plan’s earliest gestation he had been unconvinced — such a convoluted idea with so many possible places for it to go wrong. Finding the fossil, translating the tablets, locating Mu and so on. But it had worked! Maybe its pure diversity gave it the legs to succeed. An interesting lesson and one he would take to his heart and soul when forming his future plans. Well done Bay-Dale, the smarmy, arrogant old bastard.
Job done, Webb thought. What’s next?
Dudley waited patiently and Webb simply let him. His mind flicked over the various scenarios that had already been offered up — Le Brun’s galleons or “ghost ships” sounded positively delicious, real dead-of-night, roaring campfire kind of storytelling stuff, God rest her foul, malevolent soul, whilst his own Tesla suggestion, and in particular a project one of the new guys — Julian Marsh — had come up with were all vying for first place on the new agenda.
“Are yer still there?” Dudley’s voice broke in.
“Yes, yes.” Webb sighed and looked up, greeted by a window full of blackness. It was almost midnight in DC, not that the passing ant-life below seemed to notice. “Bring the boxes home, Dudley. Bring them here to DC.”
A pause and then: “Are yer feckin’ kiddin’ me?”
Webb started, snapped back to reality. What did this toady just say to me? “Is there a problem?”
“Of course there’s a feckin’ problem! This Drake twat and his team killed three of my boys. Three!” His thick brogue pronounced it as tree! “Did y’not hear me? We be the 27-Club for fifteen bloody years, man.”
“Okay.” Webb couldn’t care less about Dudley’s life — past, present or future. “We’ll deal with Drake later. I hear the Yakuza are now chasing him down as well as Ramses. That team — their future is dismal at best.”
And I have my own personal interest in seeing them live at least a little longer…
“Feck that.” Dudley assaulted his ears, shocking him still further. “We’re gonna kill that fecker and we’re doin’ it in Hong Kong.”
Webb took a deep breath, counting to ten and thinking that his other team — the team that had initially taken delivery of the Z-boxes from the Chinese — were standing alongside the Irishman and his three colleagues. Perhaps…
“Bring me the Z-boxes. They’re more important than you can ever imagine. Even your life pales beneath their importance. Bring them to me and we’ll talk about Drake et al.”
“Me life?” Dudley repeated. “Me life? All I know is how t’kill and maim and torture. Drake’s gonna learn that. Him and his mongrel crew. You, boy, you can have yer feckin’ boxes and feck ya.”
The line went dead. Webb sat holding the receiver in his hand for almost a minute, trying to remember the last time anyone had spoken to him in such a way. It was so unusual it felt almost refreshing. Standing up, he knew that he couldn’t trust the Irishman and placed another call, this one to the leader of the other team.
The Z-boxes were of vital importance now, more so than any other thing. If Webb owned those, he owned more of the US military than the recently deceased General Stone could ever have given him.
There was an eye-opening, quite improbable but true story about how America had sent most of its nuclear weapons to Georgia at some time during the cold war. At that time, if Georgia had seceded from the United States it would instantly have become the third largest nuclear power in the world.
Funny story, Webb thought. What then if I personally held the key to all of them? What would I become?
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Late afternoon in Taiwan and Callan Dudley had murder on his mind. The last thirty minutes had equipped him with an absolute wealth of information, everything this pathetic second Pythian team knew and how much King feckin’ Pythian had kept secret from him.