“How convenient,” Rhee said. “You understand: If you refuse to answer our questions, we can make this very uncomfortable.”
The billionaire’s ire was rising fast. Any dealings with bureaucrats were usually limited to him telling them what he wanted to do. He was tired, slightly hungover and missing his hundred million dollars.
He looked right into Rhee’s eyes.
“Listen, you asshole,” the man said. “My 737 was stolen from your airport, and inside was a briefcase containing one hundred million dollars in bearer bonds. I don’t know what the hell has been happening tonight in this little pisspot of a country, but if you just unhook me from these handcuffs and let me use a telephone, I can clear this up in about ten minutes.”
Had Rhee listened to the billionaire, the 737 might have been tracked. Instead, the man’s belligerent attitude doomed him. Rhee motioned to one of the officers holding the man’s arms. “Take him to headquarters,” he said.
BARRETT steered the Scarab into the sling, then Barrett, Cabrillo, Reyes and Nixon climbed up the boarding ladder while the deckhands secured the boat.
“Doing some operation time tonight,” Cabrillo said to Barrett. “Do you like it?”
“Not as easy as frosting a cake,” Barrett admitted, “but a lot more exciting.”
The four men walked through a hatch into the interior of the Oregon. Cabrillo motioned down the hallway. “You men go and clean up. I’ve still got some work to do.”
The men started down the hallway to their cabins.
“Hey,” Cabrillo said to the retreating men, “good job.”
Then he walked down to the control room and opened the door. Stepping inside, he began to unbutton his wet shirt, then turned to Hanley.
“Where are we at, Max?”
FOUR feet of space remained between the surface of the rising water and the top of the storm sewer. The batteries on the hard-hat lights were growing dim, the water was rising fast, and the men could no longer safely climb from the raft to steer the Golden Buddha along.
Meadows had lashed the rafts together, and he and Jones were on each side where the two rafts met, standing in a half crouch. As the rafts careened along, they attempted to alter their direction by pushing against the hard sides of the pipe with their legs.
“Junction coming up,” Hornsby shouted. “We need the left channel.”
At the V in the pipes just ahead, the fast-flowing water was being parted like the bow wake on a nuclear submarine. Chunks of debris littered the water, the roof of the pipe was dripping so hard they might as well have been outside, and the pair of rafts was accelerating almost beyond control.
Jones watched ahead and timed his action. As the rafts reached a spot twenty feet in advance of the V, he reached over with his leg and shoved against the wall. The rafts lumbered to the left side, and then were carried in the current past the junction.
“We made that one,” Jones shouted, “but if we get much more water in this pipe, we’re going to have trouble on the next one.”
“If we don’t get some help soon,” Meadows said, “we’re going to need to cut the Buddha loose and try to save our own skin.”
29
“ONE at a time,” Detective Po said to the officer.
Using a screwdriver on his key chain, the officer opened the first can of paint and poured the contents through the open manhole into the racing water below. From the light of his flashlight, Po could see the purple paint mix with the water, then spread out. Placing the empty can to the side, the officer pried open a second and repeated the process. At just that instant, Po’s cell phone rang and he stepped a few feet away and answered.
“Ling,” Sung Rhee said. “I want you to come to headquarters. We’ve captured a suspect.”
“Right, boss,” Po said.
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“THE authorities have decided to trace the flow of water in the storm sewers with paint,” Hanley said to Cabrillo.
Cabrillo was wiping his wet face and hair with a hand towel. Once he was finished, he tossed it onto a table and ran a comb quickly through his hair.
“If they did realize our men had escaped through the sewers, I was hoping that removing all the blueprints would slow down the pursuit long enough for our men to be extracted,” he said. “Looks like we need to implement one of the backup plans.”
Hanley pointed to a computer screen. “As you know, the outflow pipe we picked for the exit into the bay is the only one on the southwest point of the Southern Peninsula. The outflow runs between the Nam Van Lakes and enters the water just north of the island of Taipa.”