Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

Austin stepped into the first bay and found a light switch. Floodlights hanging from the catwalk turned night into day. He made his way along a corridor between the metal containers until he came to a partition. He stepped through an opening into the next bay and repeated his search.

As Austin made his way through the hold bay by bay, Zavala kept pace along the catwalk. Austin had crossed the hold without incident until he came to the last bay. Haste made him careless.

Austin assumed that the guard was still ahead of him, caught in the pincers of their maneuver. But the prey had figured out the intention of the maneuver and had hidden in a narrow space between container stacks. He waited for Austin to pass and then silently emerged behind him. Moving quietly on bare feet, the guard lifted his gun with both hands and carefully took aim between Austin’s shoulder blades.

“Kurt!”

The shout came from Zavala, who was peering over the rail of the catwalk. Austin glanced up and saw his friend’s pointing finger. Without a backward glance, he ducked around a big metal container as a bullet twanged off its corner. Then another gunshot rang out, this one from above. A moment later, Zavala called down.

“You can come out, Kurt, I think I got him.”

Austin peered around the corner of the container, then he waved up at Zavala. The guard lay dead in his bathing suit on the floor. Even shooting down at such a difficult angle, Zavala had drilled him through his chest.

Austin remembered then what Phelps had said about the Chinese fetish for numbers. He shook his head. When your number was up, your number was up.

CHAPTER 45

CHANG WAS A CLASSIC PSYCHOPATH. HE DIDN’T HAVE A drop of human empathy or remorse in his squat, ugly body, and for him killing was as easy as crossing the street. The other Triad triplets had channeled his murderous impulses to their own ends. He displayed a real talent for organization, so they gave him responsibility for the network of gangs that operated in the world’s big cities. The job slaked his blood thirst by allowing him to participate in assassinations for commercial advantage, retribution, or just plain punishment.

The job also had restrained Chang from tumbling into the abyss of sheer madness, as long as the other two triplets provided balance. But now he was on his own, far from the familial reins that had kept his barely restrained violence in check. The voices that sometimes whispered in his head were now shouting for his attention.

After leaving the lab, Chang had delivered the vaccine cultures to the freighter lying in wait near the atoll and then waited for a report from the submarine. The failure of the explosives to detonate, to destroy the lab and staff, had finally pushed him over the edge.

When the appointed time had passed, Chang got back in the shuttle with his most cold-blooded killers, and ordered the pilot to head back into the crater. As the shuttle emerged from the tunnel, the undimmed lights at the bottom seemed to mock Chang. A vein pulsed in his forehead.

Dr. Wu, sitting at Chang’s side, had sensed his employer’s growing fury, and he tried to will himself into invisibility. Even more disconcerting was Chang’s sudden lightn

ess of mood when he turned and said in an almost cheerful tone more frightening than his anger:

“Tell me, my friend, what would happen if someone were to fall, quite by accident, into the tank with the mutant jellyfish?”

“That person would be stung immediately.”

“Death would be instant?”

“No. The nature of the toxin is to paralyze.”

“Would it be agonizing?”

Dr. Wu shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“Yes,” he said. “If the person didn’t drown, he would be aware of every sensation in his body. In time, the jellyfish would begin to absorb him.”

“Splendid!” Chang clapped Dr. Wu on the back. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”

He announced that, since the lab hadn’t blown up, they were going back for some “sport.” Once they were aboard, they were to round up the scientists and kill them any way they wanted. The men he brought in the shuttle were his most cold-blooded killers. They were to spare Zavala, who would be thrown into the medusa tank. Dr. Wu would record his death on video so his final moments could be transmitted to Austin.

Carrying its cargo of murderers, the shuttle descended to the transit hub. The pilot activated the shuttle’s airlock. Minutes later, Chang and his followers burst out of the airlock and almost stumbled over a box of C-4. A length of colored wires had been tied in a bow and placed on top of the carton. And resting against the bow was a white envelope with CHANG on it in big block letters.

The man who had set up the explosives picked up the cluster of wires.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “These wires aren’t connected to anything.”

He handed the envelope to Chang, who ripped it open. Inside was a piece of stationery with a Davy Jones’s Locker logo on it. The paper had been folded in three. Printed on the first panel was

BANG!

Chang quickly unfolded the paper. There was a smiley face on the next panel and