Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 25

Kurt and Joe hopped out of the container and did a quick survey. Nine men down. No sign of reinforcements. Ruthless and precise.

Oddly enough, the three hackers lay on their sides in the tram they'd come over in. They were not moving but didn't appear to have been shot.

Joe shook one of them but got no response. "They look drugged to me," he said. "They're still breathing."

"We can figure that out later."

They followed the trail of bodies to a corridor, where they found an elevator. Joe was about to press the b.u.t.ton when Kurt blocked his hand. "Let's not announce our arrival."

They pried the doors open and found a narrow elevator shaft. On the far side, a maintenance ladder traveled up a shallow, recessed channel that was carved into the wall.

Kurt counted five floors between them and the underside of the parked elevator car.

"What do you bet that's where our friends are?" Kurt asked.

"Sounds like a place to start. We can't search this whole complex."

They moved into the elevator shaft and began climbing the ladder. Kurt went first. Joe braced the door to keep it open. It gave them a little light to work with and would make for a quicker getaway if they had to come down the ladder as well.

Climbing quickly, they pa.s.sed the first two floors. As they cleared the third, Kurt heard a clink beneath him and then a dull metallic clatter as something fell down the shaft to the concrete below.

He looked down and saw Joe, holding on for dear life with one hand and clinging to a broken part of the ladder with another.

"What are you doing?"

Joe hooked the broken section of the ladder onto one of the rungs and climbed past it. "We're in a lot of danger here, Kurt."

"I don't think anyone heard that."

"I'm not worried about the guards," Joe said, "I'm worried about North Korean construction practices. Have you looked at this concrete? It's flaking away like a day-old croissant. I'm thinking they used way too much sand. And this rebar . . . It's all rusted and loose." As if to emphasize the point, Joe pulled on one of the bars and it came right out. "I say we make this quick before the whole place caves in on us."

Kurt smiled. His friend was an engineer and a perfectionist. He would never allow such shoddy work on his watch.

"I'll be sure to send a strongly worded letter to Kim Jong-un when we get home," Kurt said. " 'Please construct your secret bases with better materials so we don't get injured when infiltrating them. Otherwise, you'll be hearing from our lawyers.' "

"I'm sure that'll spur him to action," Joe said.

By now they'd reached the elevator car. Kurt squeezed by it and climbed on top. He pried open the emergency escape panel and dropped in as quietly as possible. Joe followed. The door was already open. The equivalent of a hold switch was in the locked position.

Two more bodies lay in the hall, and for a moment the silence held. But as Kurt stepped forward, a commotion rang out at the far end. Multiple gunshots. A stun grenade going off. And then return fire from the silenced pistols of Calista and her partner.

Whatever trick had gotten them this far without resistance had apparently failed at the last moment. Alarms were now sounding throughout the complex.

"So much for the peace and quiet," Joe said.

"Come on," Kurt urged, running forward, headed straight for the sounds of the battle.

Pressing himself up against the wall beside an open door, Kurt heard another volley of gunfire, a shout of pain, and then a second explosion from a stun grenade.

Glancing inside the room, he saw Calista lying on her side, blood streaming from her ear. Her friend was firing into a smoke-filled room when a bullet knocked him backward and a second sh.e.l.l hit him dead in the center of the chest.

On the ground beside them lay Sienna Westgate.

A spike of adrenaline surged through Kurt. He could hardly believe his eyes. She was alive. Or at least she had been. But now . . .

A trio of North Korean soldiers rushed through the smoke, and Kurt instinctively opened fire, dropping the first two quickly and winging the third, who dove back through the smoke to a position of relative safety.

"Cover me," Kurt shouted to Joe.

Joe swung into position and unleashed a hail of bullets as Kurt crawled into the room, grabbed Sienna, and dragged her out. She groaned as he pulled her into the hallway. At least she was alive.

As he pulled her around the corner, a new volley of return fire came from the depths of the room, peppering the doorframe and the wall.

Joe snapped off a few more shots, and the last soldier dashed through the smoke toward the rear of the room and out into a stairwell.

"Something tells me he'll be back with the posse," Joe yelled.

"Let's not wait around to meet them," Kurt said. "Get the elevator."

As Joe ran off, Kurt began to pick Sienna up.

"Kurt?" Her voice was husky like someone whose throat was dry.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked.

"How? What? What are you doing here?"

She was clearly disoriented. "Long story," he said. "Can you walk?"

She tried to stand but fell. "My legs," she said. "I can't feel them."

"Put your arm around me," he said. "We have to get out of here."

Sienna did as Kurt asked, and he helped her down the hall to the waiting elevator. There, he leaned her against the wall and pointed to Joe. "Stay with him."

"Why?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

"To return a favor."

Joe shot him a look. "Kurt, this place is going to be crawling with North Korean troops very shortly."

"All the more reason," he said.

Kurt let Sienna go and stepped out of the elevator.

Joe flipped the hold switch back to operate and pressed the b.u.t.ton. "I'll send the car back up once we're out."

Kurt nodded and took off back down the hall. Sienna didn't take her eyes off him until the doors closed between them.

The smoke from the firefight and the stun grenades had filled most of the hallway by now. The flas.h.i.+ng lights of the fire and smoke alarm systems pulsed through the haze.

Kurt found the room where the fight had taken place and discovered Calista beginning to wake up from what he guessed was a stun grenade that landed too close.

He dropped down beside her and shook her. "Remember me?"

Like Sienna, it took Calista a second to recognize him. When she did, she reached for her gun, which Kurt knocked out of her hand and across the floor.

"You wouldn't kill your rescuer, would you?"

She looked around. "Egan . . ."

"If you mean your date," Kurt said, "he's dead."

The news brought little reaction from her. Kurt began to help her up.

"Wait," she said. She pulled out a small silver canister. "Throw it in the stairwell, it'll give us a few minutes." He dragged her over to the door and cracked it open. The sound of feet pounding down the metal stairs told him the North Koreans were on the way.

"Twist the top," she said, now standing on her own. "And don't breathe."

He did as she directed and tossed the canister onto the landing. It skittered to the wall and began hissing as two high- pressure jets of gas burst forth. Kurt slammed the door and heard the sound of men falling in their tracks and tumbling down the stairs.

"Don't worry, they're not dead," she said.

"I'm more worried about us," he said. "Go."

She began to move, lurching forward unsteadily, but Kurt wasn't about to get too close.

"Down the hall," he ordered.

With a wall to lean against, she made better progress, slamming her hand onto the elevator call b.u.t.ton as soon as she reached it.

The doors opened and she fell inside. Kurt followed and stood on the opposite side of the car, the pistol in his hand. He punched the bottom b.u.t.ton and the elevator began a slow creaky descent.

She laughed. "You really are a white knight," she said. "Can't resist a damsel in distress. Even one like me."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said. "You have answers, that's all I want from you. Who are you? Who are you working for? What do you want with Sienna and the others?"

An exaggerated pout appeared on her lips. "I was hoping for something more than boring conversation."

The elevator reached the bottom floor and the doors opened.

Joe and Sienna stood at what appeared to be the control panel for the maglev train. To Kurt's surprise, the three hackers from the tram were awake and helping.

"Can you work it?"

Joe looked at Kurt and shook his head. "It's all Greek to us," he said. "And by that I mean Korean."

Calista made her way over. "Maybe I can help."

Kurt didn't trust her but even she couldn't possibly want to stay where they were.

She studied the panel and flicked through a couple of screens. "They've cut the main power from up above. I can probably override their command."

As she fiddled with the controls, Kurt looked over a battery of closed-circuit TV feeds. One showed the hallway where the firefight had been. Another camera showed the stairwell. There seemed to be one on each floor. He checked through all of them. Men were piled like cordwood on each of the upper landings, but at the top level a new group of soldiers were rus.h.i.+ng in. They wore gas masks.

"Better hurry."

"I think I've got it," she said. "Get in the tram."

At her command, the three hackers began to move. Joe helped Sienna while Kurt stood by Calista, waiting for the inevitable trick.

"Relax," she said. "I'd rather spend time in a Western prison than a North Korean one."

She flipped a switch and the power pack came to life. The hum of electricity and the whine of high-voltage generators were a welcome sound to everyone.

"Get on board," Kurt said.

"We need to transfer control to the remote," she said, reaching into her pocket and grabbing for something.

The act brought about a quick jab from Kurt's pistol. "It's just a remote control," she said, pulling out a small device with a glowing screen. "We're going to need it, unless you want to stay behind and press go."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the device from her and pushed her toward thetram. As soon as they were all in it, he pressed the flas.h.i.+ng green b.u.t.ton. But instead of the tram accelerating, a lightning bolt flashed in Kurt's eyes and across the synapses of his brain. A wave of pain shot through his body combined with the sensation of dropping from a great height.

Aided by a push from Calista, he fell backward, tumbled over the side of the car, and was unconscious by the time he hit the ground.

"I told you I'd be ready next time I saw you," Calista whispered.

Dumbfounded, Joe watched Kurt fall. There was no sound, no indication anything had happened, Kurt just dropping as if someone had turned off a switch in his brain.

Sienna screamed, and Joe instinctively jumped out of the car and began to pull Kurt up. Kurt was deadweight, a twohundred-pound rag doll.

Behind him there was a commotion.

"Sienna," Calista said. It wasn't a shout but a scolding, the way one might address an inattentive child.

Joe turned around. Sienna was aiming a weapon at Calista. Good work, he thought.

Calista obviously felt otherwise. "If you ever want to see your children again, you'll point that somewhere else."

Slowly, as if in a trance, Sienna turned the weapon on Joe. Not so good, Joe decided.

Confident she was now in control, Calista addressed Joe directly. "Pick up the remote and toss it to me," she said.

Joe shook his head.

"Please," Sienna managed, tears pouring down her face. "She has my children. She has all our children. If we don't go back, they'll be killed."

"We can rescue them," Joe insisted. "She knows where they are. Just give us twenty-four hours."