Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

They began to pivot as the crane operator manipulated them into a proper alignment.

“I can see the other truck,” Kurt said. “And Calista. She’s headed for what I’d guess is the control room.”

Kurt watched her rap on the door of the control room and wait for the door to be opened. “Don’t do it . . .” he whispered.

No one heard his psychic warning. The lock was released and the door pushed open. She handed the first guard some type of manifest and, as he looked at it, she calmly drew her gun and opened fire. The shots were accurate, fired in rapid succession, but unhurried and without a sense of panic. She was cold and efficient.

At almost the same instant, Calista’s friend grabbed the other driver and broke his neck with a quick twist and a sickening crack. Two men came running from beside the crane to intervene but were quickly gunned down. The room went still.

“What about the other driver?” Joe whispered.

“He’s probably dead,” Kurt suggested, figuring Calista would have killed him before she got out of the truck.

“This girl of yours is cold as ice,” Joe said.

“She’s not my girl,” he said.

“Are they coming this way?”

“No,” Kurt said. “They’re going into the

control room.”

Unaware that she was being watched, Calista strode into the control room and immediately began working one of the computers. It took only thirty seconds for her to break into the system.

Egan, her third brother, ducked in. “The loading platform is secured,” he said. “Does anyone know we’re here?”

“I got them before they could sound the alarm,” Calista said. She ran through the security protocols and checked for any sign of trouble. “We’re fine. Get the hackers out of the second van. We’ll escort them through.”

“How many men on the other side?” Egan asked.

“A full million in the North Korean Army,” she said with a smile.

“You know what I mean.”

“According to the duty roster I was able to pull up on the computer, the North Korean station is manned by a hundred twenty. Most of them are restricted to the surface level and the topside loading zone. Only forty are cleared to enter the lower levels and they comprise two shifts, so we’ll be dealing with no more than twenty at a time.”

“There are only two of us,” he pointed out.

“Makes it interesting, doesn’t it?”

He stared.

“Relax,” she said, opening a pack with three silver canisters that had odd numeric markings on them. “This will even the odds.”

“Nerve gas?”

“Nothing so dangerous,” she explained. “It’s an RPA, a rapid paralytic agent. Freezes the central nervous system for ten minutes or so. It won’t knock them out or kill them, but it will make them easy to hit. We take the main control room by surprise, then pump this through the station, and the rest will be easy.”

“Do we have gas masks?”

Calista produced two small filters that looked like bulkier versions of the masks surgeons wore. They fit over the nose and mouth. “Won’t need them for long,” she said. “The gas goes inert after sixty seconds.”

“We still have to get through the tunnel first.”

At that moment a message appeared on the screen. It was in Korean. Calista scanned it with a handheld device that translated it to English.

“Our invitation,” she said. “They’re awaiting transfer of the hackers. Get them out of the truck and into the tram.”