The Jungle

As they exchanged phone numbers with Smith, Max pulled their laser defeater from the window and packed up the bug detector. He snapped the briefcase closed and handed it to Cabrillo.

“If you hear anything from her, no matter the time, call me immediately,” Juan told Croissard at the suite’s door.

“I will. I promise. Please bring her back to me. She is headstrong and stubborn, but she is my daughter, and I love her very much.”

“We’ll do our best,” Juan said, because he would never promise something he couldn’t deliver.

“Well?” Max asked as they were striding down the hallway heading for the elevators.

“I don’t like it, but what choice did we have?”

“That’s why the face-to-face. To spring Smith on us at the last minute.”

“Yeah. Pretty cagey of him.”

“So, are we going to trust him?”

“Smith? Not on your life. There’s something they’re not telling us, and he’s the key.”

“We should back out of this whole thing,” Max opined.

“No way, my friend. If anything, I’m more interested than ever in what the lovely Miss Croissard was doing so deep into Burma.”

“Myanmar,” Hanley corrected.

“Whatever.”

They exited the elevator and started crossing the busy lobby when Cabrillo suddenly hit himself on the head as if he’d forgotten something and grabbed Max’s elbow to turn them around.

“What is it, did you forget something?” Hanley asked. Juan had picked up his pace ever so slightly.

“I noticed two guys hanging around the lobby when we first entered. Both look local, but they’re wearing long coats. One of them noticed us when we got into view and quickly turned away. Too quickly.”

“Who are they?”

“Don’t know, but they’re not with Croissard. If he wanted us dead, he would have had Smith shoot us as soon as we entered his room. And he knows we’re going back to the airport, so what’s the point of following us?”

Max saw no flaw in Cabrillo’s logic, so he just grunted.

They approached the express elevator for the SkyPark. By feel, Juan was able to insert the magazine back into his Kel-Tec automatic. He even managed to cock the weapon against his hip bone without taking it from his jacket pocket. The two men were making their move, coming across the lobby without taking their eyes off the Corporation duo.

The elevator door pinged open. Juan and Max didn’t wait for it to empty before shouldering their way in, all but ignoring the looks of indignation thrown their way. It wasn’t even going to be close. The men had waited too long, and now the elevator doors were closing. It was too public out in the lobby to pull any sort of weapon, so Juan threw them a taunting smile as the doors met with a hiss.

“Now what?” Max asked as they were carried skyward.

Juan took the opportunity to load the ejected bullet into the pistol. “We get to the top, wait about five minutes, and then head back down again.”

“And what will they be doing, pray tell?”

“Splitting up to cover the lobbies of the other two towers. They’ll never think we’d stay in this one.”

“And if they decide to follow us up?”

“Never happen,” Juan dismissed with a shake of his head.

“I still wonder who they are,” Max said as they neared the fifty-fifth floor and the SkyPark.

“My money’s on the local secret police. Something about our plane’s registration or our passports sent up a red flag, and these gentlemen want to ask us a few questions.”

“So how’d they know we’d be here at the—” Max stopped asking his question and then answered it: “They talked to the car service that brought us to the hotel.”

“Elementary, my dear Hanley.”

The doors opened, and they stepped out onto one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world. The hundred-thousand-squarefoot platform sitting atop the three towers was like Babylon’s famous hanging gardens, only these weren’t the exclusive environs of Nebuchadnezzar and his wife, Amytis. Trees provided excellent shade, while the flowering shrubs perfumed the air nearly a thousand feet above the streets. The long swimming pools, with their dizzying infinity edges, were sparkling blue and surrounded by sunbathers.

To their left was an eating area cantilevered off the third tower so that it hung suspended in space. Diners were lounging under bright umbrellas while waitstaff danced between the tables, bearing trays of food and drinks. The view over Singapore Harbor was absolutely breathtaking.

“Man, I could get used to this,” Max said as a woman in a bikini passed close enough for him to smell the coconut in her ta

“You ogle any harder, your eyes are going to pop out.”

Juan led them away from the elevator and took up a position so they could see it on the off chance that the two secret policemen had followed them up. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t, but he hadn’t stayed alive in such a dangerous profession for so long by not being cautious.

A moment later the elevator doors parted again. Cabrillo tensed, his hand in his pocket, his finger resting along the trigger guard. He knew he wouldn’t shoot it out with these guys—Singapore had the death penalty—but, if need be, he could toss the pistol into a bush to his right and avoid a major weapons violation. Provided they didn’t find the second, one-shot gun embedded in his artificial leg.

A family dressed for a little time under the sun emerged, the father holding the hand of a little pigtailed girl. An older boy immediately rushed to look over the railing at the miniature cityscape so far below.

The doors started to close. Juan blew out his breath and was about to make a snarky comment to Max when a hand appeared between the gleaming elevator doors and stopped them from closing entirely.

Cabrillo cursed. It was them. They looked out of place with their long dark coats and their darting eyes. He backed a little deeper into the trees. They would have to sneak along the back side of the restaurant to get to the elevator housing for the third tower. To do that they would need to scale a concrete retaining wall and that might attract the attention of one of the servers or pool attendants. It couldn’t be helped.

He put his foot on the first tier of the wall and was about to boost himself up when an eagle-eyed lifeguard a dozen yards away shouted for him to stop. He must have been watching them the whole time and suspected they were up to something.

The two agents immediately were on guard and started moving toward them, even though Juan and Max were still out of their direct line of vision.

The time for subtlety was over. Juan heaved himself up onto the wall, climbing the three tiers with the agility of a monkey. When he reached the top, he lowered a hand to help Max. The lifeguard began climbing off his little mahogany tower and blowing his whistle to attract additional security. He either hadn’t noticed or had dismissed the two men in trench coats.

The agents burst into view. One threw open his coat and brought up a vicious-looking machine pistol. Max was halfway up the wall, as exposed as a bug on an entomologist’s lab table. Juan had a split second to make a decision, and he did so without hesitation.

He dropped Max.

Just as the agent pulled the trigger. Cement dust and chips exploded off the wall where Max had been dangling. People started screaming and stampeding away from the chain saw-like whine of the machine pistol as the entire thirty-round clip was emptied against the concrete wall inches above Max’s prone form.

Not knowing what was going on but acting on instinct and adrenaline, Cabrillo drew the Kel-Tec and returned fire. His first rounds were snap shots, just trying to break the gunman’s fixation on perforating Max. The gunman jerked slightly as a more carefully aimed yet still a little wild bullet struck the crown of his head.

The second agent started opening his coat, where he doubtlessly had his own weapon. Juan shifted his sights and, to his horror, saw that the “agent” was wearing a heavy suicide vest. He could see the packs of explosives and other bags that would contain metal scrap for shrapnel.