Devil's Gate

“I don’t even know what day it is,” Kurt said. “I barely know what planet we’re on.”

Joe laughed. “Well, don’t blame me if you’re up all night.”

“Somehow,” Kurt said, “I have a feeling I’m going to be.”

Kurt looked at the wall behind the bar. A six-foot canvas displaying a strapping Englishman in colonial garb stood front and center.

“Sir James Brooke,” Kurt said, reading the inscription on the brass plate at the bottom.

The bartender returned with their drinks and seemed to notice the focus of their attention. “The White Rajah,” he said.

“Really?”

“He put down a rebellion against the Sultan of Brunei in 1841 and was granted the title Rajah of Sarawak. He and his family ruled a small empire in what we now call Kuching for about a hundred years, until the Japanese invaded in 1941.”

“But Sarawak is across the strait,” Kurt said, knowing Sarawak and Kuching were on the neighboring island of Borneo.

“Yes,” the bartender said. “But when the war ended, the family gave the territory back to the British Empire. The club here was renamed in his honor.”

As the bartender shuffled off, Kurt took a sip of the rich, bold coffee, another step on the road to feeling like himself again.

Joe looked over at him. “So what are we doing in Singapore?” he asked. “Aside from getting a history lesson?”

Kurt began to explain. “Twelve years ago I did a salvage job down here,” he said. “One of my last jobs for the company before joining NUMA.”

Joe cocked his head. “Never heard this story.”

“It’s probably still classified,” Kurt said. “But since it matters now, I’ll give you the gist of it.”

Joe pulled his chair closer and glanced around as if looking for spies. Kurt laughed a bit.

“An E-6B Prowler got into trouble and went down in the South China Sea,” he said. “It was a prototype. There was all kinds of equipment on it that we didn’t want the other side finding, and the other side included China, Russia, and North Korea.”

“Still does, for the most part,” Joe said.

Kurt nodded. “The pilot was using a new side-scan radar and ru

“Ah,” Joe said. “I can see why that would be a problem.”

“You know the rules of salvage,” Kurt said. “In the open ocean it’s finders, keepers, but if that plane was even one foot inside Chinese territorial waters and they found out about it they’d park half their fleet on top of it and shoot at anyone who came within ten miles. Even if it wasn’t, we knew they’d be after it.”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Chance of a lifetime.”

“Exactly,” Kurt said. “So we concocted a story that we’d rescued the pilot and recovered the wreckage. Even faked video of him being pulled out of the sea and wing sections being hauled aboard a tender. In the meantime, my team and I rounded up a group of locals who could look for the wreck and salvage it without raising any suspicions from the Chinese.

“The guy who helped set it up was a CIA contact known as Mr. Ion. This guy is a half American, half Malaysian operator. He knew everybody and how to get pretty much anything. Still does, from what I hear. But he works the middle ground. You can usually trust him to do what he says and keep it quiet, but you can’t count on him not working for the other guys once you’re gone.

“Anyway, he helped us build the team, including a guy who was with us from Day One. Andras.”

“Was he a problem?” Joe asked, tipping back the beer.

“Not until the very end,” Kurt said. “He even sniffed out a traitor who was co

“What happened?”

Kurt took a slug of the coffee. “We got out to the site, and the aircraft was gone. Word was, Andras had been bought out by the Russians. They were just starting to fall in love with capitalism, and one of the things they were selling like hotcakes was MiGs. With the avionics and technology in the Prowler, they could have leapt forward a generation overnight.”

“So that guy was a snake even back then,” Joe said.

Kurt nodded.

“What’d you do?”

“On my first dive to the sunken jet, I’d rigged up fifty pounds of charges. My orders were to blow the plane up if we couldn’t lift it or if we pulled it off the bottom and got caught by the Chinese. The explosives were still on the plane, and they were armed and just waiting for a signal. I uplinked to the satellite and triggered them. Somewhere over Kamchatka a Russian jet exploded. Poor souls flying it probably had no idea what their cargo was.”

Joe shook his head softly. “Rough business.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said, feeling a tinge of remorse for the poor flight crew even after all this time. “So is this. And this time when someone suffers, I’m going make sure it’s Andras.”

Joe looked around. “I’m with you. You think we’re going to find him here?”

“Not him,” Kurt said. “But someone who knows how to find him.”

Kurt picked up the coffee and took another sip.

The way he saw it, Andras had beat him twice. No doubt the man had been paid when he handed the E-6B Prowler over to the Russians. The explosion was their problem. And if history was any guide, he was probably already counting the cash for delivering the kidnapped scientists to whoever they were given to. Then again…

Kurt looked up at the oil painting of the White Rajah. He remembered Andras insisting he’d be a king when this was all over. He wondered what the man was up to.

Kurt finished the coffee and motioned for another. As the bartender refilled his mug, Kurt turned around to check the room.

He assumed whoever had called him would be able to find him and then some kind of deal for the exchange of information would be crafted. But, so far, no one had approached, no note had been passed, no waiter or bartender had suggested another party was waiting to see them.

All around, the patrons dined, glasses clinked, and the occasional flash of blue lightning lit up the skylight above, but nothing out of the ordinary happened.

It was odd. At times in his past, Kurt had felt a sixth sense telling him he was under surveillance. He didn’t even feel that here. It was more like they’d been shunted off to a siding and left there to rot, like a railcar rusting to pieces in waist-high weeds.

He began to wonder if he’d been fed bad information.

And then the double doors across from him opened and a trio of men came in. Two hulking bodyguards. With dark-ta

In front of them was a smaller man, mostly American-looking with some Malaysian features. He had soft eyes, relatively smooth skin. Short dark hair spiked with gel stood atop his large round head, one that seemed way too big for his narrow-framed body. The slightest touch of gray could be seen at his temples.

From his clothes and casual ma

“Ion,” Kurt said, standing.

The man turned upon hearing his voice. He focused on Kurt from a spot between his two bodyguards. Recognition took a few seconds, and then a smile washed over Ion’s face.

The smile was false and forced, and it vanished almost as quickly as it had come. A sign that could mean only one thing: trouble.

43

IN THE SWANK CONFINES of the White Rajah, the man who called himself Ion took a step backward. His new position placed him between and behind his guards, who stiffened, and focused their attention on Kurt like a laser.