Dark Watch (Oregon Files 3)

It swung open, and glaring white light blinded the immigrants. Eddie’s eyes filled with tears, but the pain was worth the first breath of fresh air he’d had in a day. They were inside some kind of huge, modern warehouse, not at all the seedy dockside facility he thought the snakeheads would use. Had Eddie not been so disoriented, he would have noticed there were no support columns for the metal building’s arching roof, a clue as to his real location.

The men were allowed to jump from the truck. Many were so weak they fell to the polished concrete floor and had to crawl away to make room for the next. Eddie was proud that he managed to keep his feet. He took a few shuffling steps away from the truck and tried to squat to ease his aching knees.

There were four guards inside the warehouse. Eddie was pretty sure they were Indonesians. They wore cheap cotton pants and T-shirts, and plastic sandals on their feet. All carried the Chinese version of the AK-47. Out of habit he burned their faces into his memory.

As his sinuses cleared he became aware of another smell, not the tangy saltiness of the sea but a recognizable chemical taint. Casually, so as not to arouse the guards, he crossed back around the truck. On the far side he saw towering doors that reached nearly to the ceiling. But what gripped his attention and sent a jolt of fear to his very marrow was the functional shape of a commercial airliner. It had four engines mounted on its tail, an old Russian-built Ilyushin Il-62.

They weren’t taking this group out of China on a cargo ship. They were going to fly them out. Eddie realized he was in more trouble than he’d anticipated. These people weren’t connected to the pirates at all. This really was a legitimate, albeit illegal, smuggling operation. His whole trip to China was a dead end, only he had no way of contacting the Oregon. The jetliner’s door was opened, and the guards were forming the men into a line to board. The hangar doors were still securely closed, so there’d be no escape that way.

The truck that had brought them here was quiet, its engine was off, but Eddie thought that maybe the keys were still in the ignition. The last of the immigrants were out of the cargo box and shuffling toward the Ilyushin. Eddie joined the end of the line. The truck’s cab was only ten yards away to his right. He could cover that in seconds, swing himself into the seat, and try to ram his way out of the hangar.

He braced himself for the attempt, planting one shaky foot, and was about to start running when he saw that the driver was still in the cab. For another fraction of a second he thought about trying for it anyway, even though he would lose time subduing the man. One of the guards saw he’d paused and barked something that was plain to understand in any language. Eddie released a long breath, allowed his body to relax, and adopted a posture of defeat.

He took one last glance at the truck when it was his turn to mount the stairs to the aircraft’s cabin. He had no idea what awaited him and the others at the end of the flight, but he saw fear in the eyes of those he passed on his way to an empty seat. They were also realizing they’d gotten more than they bargained for.

Fifteen minutes later, the Ilyushin was towed out of the hangar, and after another delay its engines fired and it began to taxi. Judging by the size of the airport complex and the time they’d driven, Eddie guessed they were near Shanghai. His theory was confirmed after the plane took off and arrowed over the city before turning northward.

“How long do you think it will take to reach America?” his seatmate whispered. He was a big farm boy who had no idea what he’d gotten himself into.

The boy still thought they were going to the United States, a land of prosperity and opportunity called Gold Mountain. Eddie didn’t know where they were headed, but he knew it wasn’t the States. The Ilyushin didn’t have anywhere near the range. He also had a sinking feeling that before long he’d come to believe the illegals they’d found drowned in the Sea of Japan were the lucky ones.

“You’ll know it when we get there, friend,” Eddie said as he closed his eyes to the inevitable. “You’ll know it when we get there.”

Cabrillo and his team spent the weekend setting up for the snatch. They worked at the construction site under the cover of darkness. Moving the tons of cement was backbreaking labor that took all of Friday night and part of Saturday evening. The risk of their activities being detected by a foreman checking the site over the weekend was negligible, since the sacks of portland were common at the work zone. They left the placement and wiring of the explosives for Sunday night. Because of their demolition expertise, this went quickly, and by midnight they were ready to return to the warehouse Cabrillo had rented in a town about twenty miles north of Zurich.

Juan sent the others ahead in the cars they’d use during the operation while he and Linc remained behind with the tractor trailer for one final test. At this late hour there weren’t any pedestrians on the street to question why the truck’s driver locked his partner in the back of the box trailer. Once Linc closed the doors, Juan wedged himself into a corner of the modified trailer to keep from being tossed around. He was exhausted, and his joints creaked as he eased himself to the floor. A moment later he heard the big MAN diesel grumble, and the truck started to move. He carried a flashlight, but the echoing metal container remained mildly claustrophobic. The motor and pulley system attached to the roof looked perfect, a simple design that Linc could operate from the cab.

Juan turned on a portable radio but couldn’t get a station on any frequency, and when he powered up his cell phone it couldn’t acquire a signal. “Can’t hear me now,” he said into the mute device. “Good.”

They’d installed baffles and jammers inside the trailer to isolate it from electronic signals. Linc and Hali Kasim had tested the equipment at the warehouse, but Juan wanted to make sure the system worked inside the city limits where cell coverage would be more complete. It was one more detail that he wouldn’t leave to the vagaries of Murphy’s Law.

Every five minutes during the thirty-minute ride he checked to make sure the phone remained useless. Linc let him out after Hali closed the warehouse doors behind the ten-wheeled truck.

“Anything?” the big man asked.

“Nada,” Juan answered, noting that once he was outside the truck his phone could connect to the nearest cell tower. “We’re good to go. We’ll grab a couple hours of sleep. The van carrying Rudolph Isphording should be in position no later than eight fifteen. I want us ready by seven thirty. Has Julia checked in?”

Hali nodded. “She called me when you were in the truck. Isphording’s wife is out cold, and she’s on her way back to her hotel. She’ll be waiting at the prison at seven and will report in as soon as the van leaves the gates.”

“Okay, good. She’ll shadow them into the city. Linc, you’ll wait with the truck behind the construction site. The crash car’s in position?”

“Parked it myself,” Kasim said. “And I triple-checked the cables are in the back.”

Juan nodded. He’d expected no less. “Now, up until tonight the only thing illegal we’ve done is impersonate a lawyer’s wife, and even that probably isn’t against the law. Come tomorrow morning, however, we’re going to break about every law written into the Swiss penal code. If this operation goes south, anyone who gets nabbed is looking at a few decades in Regensdorf prison.”

His people understood the danger. It was what they were paid for, but Juan always reiterated the risks before they went into action. Hali, Linc, and the other Corporate mercenary, an ex-pararescue jumper named Michael Trono, looked primed.

The following morning broke gray and cold. A light drizzle had begun to fall by the time the team reached their prearranged staging posts. The few people out on the streets were huddled in trench coats or under umbrellas. Rather than a problem, the foul weather was a blessing because it seemed to have delayed the morning traffic.

Juan had little trouble breaking into the construction site. After all, it was his third incursion, and hot-wiring the big engine that powered the crane was a snap. The climb up the tower left him wet and shivering but, fortunately, the crane’s cab had a heater. He fired it up and drank coffee from a thermos as he waited. Around his neck dangled infrared goggles.

Julia checked in again, informing the team that the armored van bearing Rudy Isphording into the city would be there in another ten minutes. From his vantage high above the streets, Juan would be able to see them five blocks before they reached the construction site. Linc had parked the tractor trailer

behind the muddy area. Juan could see smoke pumping from its stack as Linc waited with the engine idling. Hali and the others were in the crash car, a small van they’d bought secondhand from a moving company in Lucerne. Juan couldn’t see them but knew they also had infrared goggles as well as gas masks.

The chairman scanned the work zone once more. Piles of building materials littered the site alongside overflowing trash containers the size of trucks. Excavators and bulldozers remained silent. There was no activity around the construction trailer because no one had yet shown up for their shift. If they held to the schedule the Corporation team had observed the past week, the first worker wouldn’t arrive until a half hour after the snatch had gone down. The seven-story building was dark in the murky storm, a skeleton of steel and concrete. From the high vantage he couldn’t see where he and his people had wired it to blow.

His cell rang. “Juan, it’s me.” Julia Huxley. “Isphording’s van just stopped. One of the cops in the lead car got out to confer with its driver. Hold on. I think it’s okay. The cop’s getting back into his car. All right, they’re on the move again. You should see them in a second.”