Chapter 38
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Flint climbed the last of the stairs and stopped on the veranda when he heard voices. His comms were still open so Gaspar and Drake could hear.
He’d reviewed the floorplans before he arrived.
Graves occupied the entire fourth floor as the Asian man occupied the third.
Right now, they were in Graves’s study. Flint could see bookshelves, a desk, one lamp with a dim bulb.
The glass veranda doors were open to let in the night air off the river.
Graves stood near Flint with a large bag at his feet, packed and zipped.
The Asian man stood a few feet farther inside.
Flint stayed in the shadow under the eave where the veranda doors met the wall. His side ached where Ming had stabbed him and the slice on his forearm had dried. Neither was actively bleeding. He could ignore them both as long as it took.
“It’s done,” Graves said. “Sear was the last one. It’s time to close up and go. Our aircraft’s on the way.”
The Asian man replied, “This is a lot to abandon. We’re not ready to relocate yet. We’ve got more clients in the pipeline. We need to tie those off.”
“We’ve started fresh before with fewer resources.
Chu, when our own people decided we were loose ends to tie off, we tied ourselves off first, and we had nothing in place back then.
We’ve got another setup. It’s not finished, but we’ll be alive to do it.
” Graves lifted the heavy bag onto the desk.
“There’s nothing here we can’t leave behind. Now’s the time.”
Chu shook his head. “We can’t leave the system live.”
“Flip the destruct switch. Whatever’s there will burn in less than two minutes,” Graves replied. “You’ve told me that yourself. We have the copy where no one will find it. A couple of days setup and we lose nothing.”
“We lose momentum. We’ll throw red flags into the databases where the work is half finished,” Chu said.
“We’ll finish it. Just not right here and not right now.” Graves stood with his hand flat on the bag. “We have no choice. Flint is on his way. We both know it. We want to get out at all, it’s now or never.”
“Two government men and an airplane,” Chu said quietly, still shaking his head. “One passenger on it had to die. The rest died to cover it up. Fourteen years and they never caught the men who did it.”
“Exactly,” Graves said as if he were proud of the job. “We did that and we can do this, John. Together.”
Flint absorbed that the man he’d followed from Bangkok and John Chu were partners. The two of them had bombed a jetliner and killed more than three hundred souls fourteen years ago. He’d seen the evidence downstairs on Ming’s monitor.
“Locke,” Chu said. “We’re not finished here. It’s too soon. We need another twenty-four hours.”
Flint had heard the infamous names before. Garrett Locke and John Chu. Identified, hunted, but still at large.
Locke shook his head. “We don’t have twenty-four hours. Flint was in Bangkok when we left with Sear. We know he followed up. He’ll be here. We need to be gone before then.”
“When have we ever run from one man?” Chu objected. “Never. We never run.”
“This is different. You know it is,” Locke replied.
“I’ve watched them. Flint, the woman, the pilot, the operative in Miami. I know more about them than they know about each other.” Chu’s voice was flat and sure. “I can see them. I know what they’re capable of. We can defeat them like we’ve defeated others more ruthless and well connected.”
“What’s bothering you, John?” Locke took his hand off the bag. “We’ve worked well together here for years. You’ve never questioned my judgment like this before.”
“Because I trusted you. We were partners. We relied upon each other. You changed all that,” Chu replied.
“Changed what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When were you planning to tell me Ming is my daughter?” Chu’s voice broke slightly but he recovered. “Not until you needed the leverage, right?”
Locke didn’t answer.
“She was scheduled to fly on that plane. Fourteen years ago, Locke. Fourteen years. You planned this. You put another child in her seat. You told me my daughter was dead.” Chu’s tone was cold enough to freeze mercury.
“You let me grieve her, bury her. My only child. And when she was old enough to be useful, you brought her here as an operative, mine to command. Year after year you encouraged me to train her as the best operative we have.”
“That’s crazy. Why would I do that?” Locke asked.
“Because the day you took her, you already knew. You knew you’d want leverage over me someday,” Chu snapped. “You’re a cold-hearted bastard, Garrett Locke. Always have been. So don’t give me your sentimental crap about loyalty now.”
“A man keeps something in reserve,” Locke shrugged. “You’d have done the same, given the chance. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.”
“My mistake was thinking you would treat me differently than all the others. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.”
“Okay, but we are where we are. Flint’s on his way. We need to go. Now,” Locke insisted.
Chu shrugged. “Bolivar will finish Flint and his crew. It’s already in motion.”
“Bolivar? I told you to kill him,” Locke’s nostrils flared with anger.
“Bolivar is an excellent operative. I’ll need him going forward.” Chu stepped in close. “You won’t be on that helo. Ming, Bolivar, and I will build again. And you’re not leaving at all.”
Flint never saw the gun come up. Locke didn’t either.
Chu shot Locke twice in the chest before Flint could clear the doorway.
One second Chu’s hands were empty and the next Locke fell heavily against the desk with the packed bag still under his palm. He was dead before his body slid to the floor.
Chu knew where Kyle and Oakley were. And with Bolivar already moving on Scarlett, Chu was the only man left who could call him off.
Flint needed Chu alive.
He stepped out of the shadow through the open doorway with his pistol aimed at Chu’s chest.
Chu had already half-turned toward the path to the helo pad. He stopped but he didn’t raise his hands and he didn’t look afraid.
“Michael Flint.” Chu gave him a smug welcome. “You came up the gorge through the river. I didn’t think anyone would ever try that. It’s a killer.”
“Step away from the body. We’re leaving here together.”
“Not likely.” Chu’s tone was flat and certain. “You won’t shoot me. You need me to find Kyle Patterson and the woman you call Oakley. A dead man’s of no use to you. You know it or you’d have fired already.”
He was right, and Flint didn’t pretend otherwise.
Flint heard rotors somewhere out over the river beating against the night. Chu heard them too. His aircraft. He glanced toward the veranda, then back at Flint, unhurried.
“Ming should be here by now,” he said, half to himself, like a man with only one more thing to collect before he left.
He crossed to Locke’s desk and woke the screen and found the security feed as he’d done a thousand times. He pulled up the view of the operations room, perhaps to see what was keeping his daughter.
Flint could see the screen. Chu was expecting to leave with his daughter momentarily.
Instead, he stared at her body and his face cycled from impatience to grief to all-consuming rage.
For a moment Chu didn’t move at all.
Then he whipped around, raised the pistol, and fired, too enraged to aim. He moved toward Flint and kept firing, and the next one wouldn’t miss.
Flint put two rounds into Chu’s chest.
Forward momentum pushed Chu one more step before he fell, his big body thundering to the floor.
Everything Chu knew about Kyle and Oakley, everything that could have called Bolivar off Scarlett, died with him.
Flint had no time to dwell on the problem. The rotor noise grew louder as the helicopter came in over the compound. Locke’s ride, or maybe Chu’s. Late, but here.
Flint went to the front to see it set down on the flat ground out front. The rotor wash flattened the brush at the cliff edge and battered the open veranda doors behind him. Overwhelming noise filled the air.
Flint picked up Locke’s bag and the rifle and stepped onto the veranda. He stayed in the shadow of the doorway and watched the bird settle.
“Drake wanted to come in for you,” Gaspar said over the comms. “He went after Locke’s pilot, and I haven’t heard from him since.
Don’t wait for him. Take Locke’s helicopter if the pilot will cooperate.
Otherwise, fly it out to the field yourself.
I’ll keep trying to raise Drake and have him meet you there. ”
“Understood,” Flint said.
He crossed to the helicopter with the rifle up.
He reached the side door and pulled it open, and the pilot looked down at him.
It was Drake.
He had a headset on and both hands full of an aircraft he’d never flown, with no hands left over for the radio.
“You were supposed to stay offshore,” Flint said.
“You needed a way off this rock,” Drake said. “Now you’ve got one. Get in.”
Flint climbed into the co-pilot’s seat and fastened his harness.
He was no closer to Kyle and Oakley than when he’d started down the gorge.
Drake took the helicopter up off the cliff and turned out over the water, toward the coastal field where Gaspar would have a jet waiting.