Typhoon Fury (Oregon Files 12)

The facility was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped by razor wire, and access was controlled by a gate with two guards, posted twenty-four hours a day. Getting in unseen wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Brekker had planted minuscule cameras on light poles, with views of the plant from six different angles, including the guard gate, to allow remote observation. They relayed the images via a phone hidden under what looked like a discarded box on the side of the road. The setup would give them twenty-four hours of surveillance before the batteries died.

The plan was to sneak into the warehouse in the middle of the night and steal the fire truck filled with the smuggled methamphetamine. Then he would have a powerful bargaining chip for reeling in Locsin.

While he waited for Greg Polten and his colleague, Charles Davis, to arrive, Brekker munched on a sandwich and watched feed from the cameras on three monitors set up in the cruiser’s luxurious main dining area. Van Der Waal sat on the other side and drew the curtains before cleaning and oiling his trusty Vektor SP1 pistol, the standard sidearm for South Africa’s Defence Force. Lynch was in a cabin below with one of Brekker’s men watching him while the others got some shut-eye in the bedrooms. Equipment bags were piled on the marble floor along with several fifty-pound kettlebell weights to keep the mercenaries fit during extended ops, though they often proved handy for other purposes as well.

Ten minutes later, just as Van Der Waal finished snapping his weapon back together, Polten and Davis climbed aboard the boat. Brekker had not met either of them in person before, but he knew the Dugway Proving Ground chemical weapons experts by sight, having carefully studied what info he could find on them before agreeing to the job.

Davis, whose sweaty, flowered shirt clung to his oversized belly, dropped his carry-on in the middle of the room and said, “Finally, some decent AC. Hey, nice digs!”

Polten didn’t seem bothered by the heat and humidity. He calmly set his bag down and took off his frameless glasses to clean them with a pocket wipe.

“You didn’t have any trouble getting here with Lynch?” he asked before putting his glasses back on. With his graying temples and jogger’s form, he looked to Brekker like the kind of college professor the coeds all had a crush on.

“He’s downstairs,” Brekker said.

“I’d like to see him while Davis tests the Typhoon pill.”

He moved toward the stairs, but Brekker put up a hand to stop him. “This operation has gotten much more complicated. Now that we know the type of man we’re up against, I’m afraid I’m going to have to double our fee. Consider it ‘danger pay.’”

Polten furrowed his brow and said, “I can’t get that kind of money to you now, but I’ll triple your fee when I get the Typhoon formula.”

Brekker was surprised at how quickly Polten responded. No blustering objection, no negotiating. That was exactly what he wanted to know.

“And this operation is off the books? I don’t want it to come back to us if something goes wrong.”

Polten shook his head. “We routed your payment through a dummy corporation, as you requested. No one but me and Davis knows you’re involved.”

Brekker nodded, satisfied with the answer. He took the tin container from his pocket and dumped one of the pills into Davis’s hand. Davis eagerly examined the pill, then unzipped his bag and removed portable chemical testing equipment.

“It’s amazing what you can get through customs if you’ve got the right government permits,” he said as he pulled out tubes and small vials of liquid.

“This way,” Brekker said to Polten. They walked down the stairs and entered the room where Lynch was lashed to the bed with nylon rope.

The guard, who was watching a movie on his phone, glanced up and said, “He’s been whimpering nonstop. And he reeks like moldy garlic.”

Lynch looked much worse than he had just that morning. His cheeks were sunken, and his muscles were already withering. Perspiration soaked the bedcover, and the stench of his foul body odor was overpowering.

“It’s been twelve hours since he missed his dose?” Polten asked.

“More like twenty-four. He was supposed to take it last night, but we caught him before he could.”

“Interesting.” Polten walked over and took out a small penlight. He flashed it in Lynch’s eyes as if he’d examined patients in the past. Lynch, who’d seemed dazed, lunged at Polten and snapped at him with his teeth. Polten pulled back just in time to avoid losing a chunk of his hand.

“Give me my pill now!” Lynch yelled.

Polten stood back and appraised him with a cold eye. “This is happening even faster than our records indicated it would.”

“What records?”

Polten nodded for them to go back to the main cabin. When they got there, he said, “We have some files on the use of this drug. Its beneficial effects are potent, as you’ve seen. Its withdrawal symptoms are even worse. It’s the price you pay for becoming an addict.”

“And you think there’s more of this Typhoon somewhere?”

Polten nodded. “The drug was developed in the early forties. We had thought the last remnants of it were wiped out when Hiroshima was nuked. The Japanese had built a large plant to put the manufacture of the pill into large-scale production, enough to supply every man, woman, and child in the country in anticipation of the coming invasion of the home islands. The drug’s effects combined with fanatical loyalty to the Emperor could have cost us millions of soldiers before Japan was conquered. No one knows if Hiroshima became the target for that reason or if the destruction of the factory was merely a side benefit of the atomic explosion, but no Typhoon pills survived there, and the formula was lost.”

“Then how did the Filipinos find it?”

“We suspect some of the pills had been shipped to kamikaze pilots here during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. But that’s only speculation. Although a supply of it was supposedly carried out by a destroyer called the USS Pearsall at the end of the war, the ship never made it back to the U.S. and was thought to have been sunk by a Japanese sub.”