Kill Switch (9780062135285) (38 page)

Tucker and Kane went flying.

47

March 28, 8:30
P.M.

Old Mission Point

The
Macoma
's nine hundred thousand pounds of iron and steel plow into the cold sands of Old Mission Point, its bow bulldozing trees, rocks, and bushes ahead of it. Debris crashes over the bow railing and smashes into the forecastle. A hundred feet inland
, the bow strikes a boulder off center, heaving the ship onto its starboard side, dragging the forward third of its hull across a row of jagged rocks along the shoreline before finally lurching to a heavy stop.

Tucker knew none of this.

As the world became a herculean roar of rent steel and churning rock, he recalled snatching hold of Kane's collar, of tucking the shepherd to his chest, and the pair of them tumbling over the
Macoma
's deck. They had bounced across the cargo hatches, pinballed off the davits, and slammed into the wheelhouse's bulkhead. They finally slid across the last of the canted deck and came to rest entangled on the starboard railing.

Christ Almighty . . .

With his head hammering, he forced open his eyes and found himself staring down into a well of blackness. He blinked several times, bringing the world into focus.

A world of mud.

He stared dazedly down through the starboard rails that had caught them as the ship rolled to its side. Below him rose a giant pile of black mud, its summit less than seven feet under his nose.

He smelled the ripeness of manure and the earthiness of rot.

Compost.

Kane licked Tucker's chin. The shepherd still sprawled half on top of him. The only thing keeping them from a plunge below were the struts of the rail.

“I got you, buddy,” Tucker said. “Hang on.”

Under him, the hull outside hold number five—­where Felice's team had introduced LUCA—­looked as though a giant had taken a pair of massive tin shears to the steel. Spilling from the gash was a massive wave of slurry compost, forming a mountain under him and spreading like dark lava across the landscape of Old Mission Point.

Fifty yards away a wood sign jutted from the sludge:

LIGHTHOUSE PARK—­OLD MISSION POINT

A few yards past that marched a familiar figure, mucking calf-­deep through the edge of the debris, a backpack hanging off one shoulder.

Kharzin.

Tucker disentangled his left arm from the railing, reached across his body to Kane, and drew the shepherd more tightly to him.

They had to find a way
down
—­not that there was a way
up
.

He saw only one possibility, a
messy
possibility.

He stared below at the steep-­sloping mountain of wet compost.

“Hold on, buddy, it's going to be a bit of a drop.”

Tucker shifted them to the edge of the railing and rolled off. As they fell, he clutched Kane tightly against his body. They hit hard, especially for landing in mud—­then they were tumbling down the slick surface of the mire. The smell filled his every sense. Muck soon covered them in a heavy coat.

In a matter of a few moments, they rolled free of the compost mountain and out across a mix of snow and sand. Tucker stood up, weaving and unsteady. His left shoulder throbbed. Kane limped a few steps, his left rear leg tucked up against his body, but as his partner worked the kinks out of his muddy body, he brought the limb down and tentatively took a few hops.

Sprained perhaps
, but not broken.

Now where was General Kharzin? He was nowhere in sight.

Kane limped forward, ready to go, but Tucker forced the shepherd down with a firm, “S
TAY
.”

You've done plenty, buddy.

Tucker drew the Browning from its holster and edged forward, sticking to the deeper shadows of the
Macoma
's canted hull. Now out of the wind and snow, he could hear the pop and metallic groan of the dying ship. It loomed above him, like a building frozen in the process of collapsing.

He noted a rope dangling from a railing ahead, marking Kharzin's exit from the ship. The end hung a good ten feet off the ground. He pictured Kharzin dropping from it.

Continuing onward, he climbed the bulldozed wave of sand and rock at the ship's bow. The tip of the ship hung like a massive shadowy hatchet in the storm overhead, waiting to fall.

Tucker reached the crest of the stony tide and peered cautiously over its lip.

Fifty yards away, a figure moved through the storm, his back to Tucker and favoring one leg. Apparently Kharzin's descent hadn't gone any easier. The man slowly limped toward a snowy tree line, marked by park benches and gravel pathways.

Tucker cautiously picked his way down the backside of the rocks and started stalking toward his target, not wanting to spook him. Whether Kharzin heard his approach or not, the man suddenly shrugged off his backpack, knelt down near a copse of leafless maples, and unzipped the bag.

A stainless steel tank shone brightly within the muddy pack. Kharzin unscrewed the nozzle hose of the sprayer and tossed it away.

Uh-­oh . . .

Tucker moved swiftly forward, incautiously snapping a twig.

Kharzin turned his head.

The two of them locked eyes.

Tucker raised his pistol and charged Kharzin. The other swung around, shaking free the tank from the pack and hugging it to his chest like a shield.

Kharzin confronted him, dared him. “Go ahead! Shoot! Hit the tank or hit me . . . it doesn't matter! Either way, the corruption inside will spill free upon your precious soil. And I'll have my revenge for my daughter, for my country!”

Tucker lowered the Browning and slowed his run to a walk.

Off in the distance came the wail of sirens.

The pair stood staring at each other, neither speaking.

Tucker considered his options. First of all, he had no idea whether Bukolov had succeeded in decontaminating the ship's hold. He smelled the ripe sludge covering his body. The monster could already be out of the bag, set loose upon the shores of Lake Michigan.

If so, the tank in Kharzin's arms was irrelevant.

Still, Tucker waited, wanting extra insurance for his next move.

Then he heard it:
thump, thump, thump—­
multiple helicopters echoed over the water behind him.

Good enough.

He shot Kharzin in the right kneecap, breaking the stalemate. The man's leg buckled, and he pitched forward. As he hit the ground, the canister knocked from his arms and rolled free. Yellow liquid spilled out its open spigot, blazing a toxic trail, mapping its trajectory. As the tank came to a rest, it continued to leak weaponized LUCA.

Tucker moved forward, taking care not to step on any of the yellow lines.

Kharzin rolled onto his back, his face twisted with rage and pain.

Behind him, a helicopter swept over the bulk of the
Macoma,
then hovered for a landing at a neighboring open stretch of beach. Others buzzed higher, circling wider, stirring through the storm.

“The cavalry has arrived,” he said to Kharzin.

As the skids of the first helicopter touched the rocky beach, the side door popped open, and a pair of men jumped out, both wearing anorak parkas and shouldering backpack sprayers. They should be able to quickly clean up and decontaminate the brief spill. Behind them followed another trio of men armed with assault rifles.

The group began jogging toward Tucker's position.

He returned his attention to Kharzin. “Do you see the men with the rifles?”

The general remained silent, his gaze burning with hatred.

“They're going to take you into custody, whisk you off somewhere for a long talk. But I'm not officially
with
them, you see. So before they take you away, I want you to know something.”

Kharzin's eyes narrowed, showing a glint of curiosity past the pain.

“You're going to need new shoes.”

He shot Kharzin in the left foot, then right—­then turned away from the screaming and the blood. He'd had enough of both.

Time to go home.

He headed back to where he had left Kane.

That was home enough for him.

48

April 7, 10:43
A.M.

Spitskop Game Park, South Africa

Footsteps entered the barn.

Now what?

Lying on his back, Tucker scooted his roller board out from beneath the Range Rover. He wiped the oil from his hands onto his coverall, but there was nothing to do about the splatters on his face. No doubt about it, the Rover needed a new oil pan and gasket.

As he rolled free of the bumper, he found himself staring up at the worried face of Christopher Nkomo.

“My friend,” he said, “I am not comfortable accepting such a large gift.”

Tucker sat up and climbed to his feet.

Kane stirred from where he had been curled on a pile of straw, patiently waiting for his partner to realize he was not an auto mechanic.

Tucker scratched at the bandage over his ear. The sutures had returned his ear to its proper place on his head and were due to come out now.

It had been ten days since the crash of the
Macoma
. It seemed Bukolov's kill switch had proved successful, the site declared LUCA free, although monitoring continued around the clock. The entire event was reported to the media as a mishap due to a fault in the ship's navigation systems during a severe winter storm. Additionally, the cordoning of the site was blamed on a hazardous spill. Under such a cover, it was easy for teams to move in with electric-­powered dispersion sprayers and swamp the entire area with the kill switch as an extra precaution. It also explained the continued environmental monitoring.

The rest of the crew, along with Bukolov, were discovered safe, except for a few broken bones and lacerations. Even Nick Pasternak, the pilot, was found with only an egg-­sized knot behind his ear, where Kharzin had clubbed him and made his attempted escape.

In the end, with no one reported killed, the media interest in the crash quickly faded away into lottery numbers and celebrity weddings.

Life moved on.

And so did Tucker.

Two days after the events, he and Kane landed in Cape Town. Bruised, battered, and stitched up, they both needed some rest—­and Tucker knew just where he would find it.

He waved Christopher toward the shaded veranda of a colonial-­era mansion. The three-­story, sprawling home was located in a remote corner of the Spitskop Game Preserve, far from the tourist area of the park where he and the others had originally stayed with its bell captains and its servers dressed all in house whites. This mansion had been abandoned a decade ago, boarded up and forgotten, except by the snakes and other vermin, who had to be evicted once the restoration process began.

A crew worked busily nearly around the clock. Ladders and scaffolding hid most of the slowly returning glory of the main house. New boards stood out against old. Wide swaths of lawn—­composed of indigenous buffalo grass—­had already been rolled out and hemmed around the home, stretching a good half acre and heavily irrigated. Cans of paint were stacked on the porch, waiting to brighten the faded beauty of the old mansion.

Farther out, the twenty-­acre parcel was dotted with barns and outbuildings, marking future renovation projects.

But one pristine sign was already up at the gravel road leading here, its letters carved into the native ironwood and painted in brilliant shades of orange, white, and black. They spelled out the hopes and dreams for the Nkomo brothers:

LUXURY SAFARI TOURS

Tucker crossed the damp lawn and climbed the newly whitewashed porch steps. Overhead, wired outlet boxes marked the future site of porch fans. Kane trotted up alongside him, seeking shade and his water bowl.

“Truly, Mr. Tucker, sir,” Christopher pressed, mounting the steps as if he were climbing the gallows. “This is too large a gift.”

“I had the funds and quit calling it a
gift
. It's an investment, nothing more.”

Upon completing the affair with Sigma, Tucker had noticed a sudden large uptick in his savings account held at a Cayman Island bank. The sudden largesse was not from Sigma—­though that pay had been fair enough—­but from Bogdan Fedoseev, the Russian industrialist whose life Tucker had saved back in Vladivostok. It seemed Fedoseev placed great stake in his own personal well-­being and reflected that in the
bonus
he wired.

Tucker took that same message to heart and extended a similar generosity to the Nkomo brothers, who, like Tucker with Fedoseev, had helped keep him alive. From talking to Christopher during the long stretches of the journey to the Groot Karas Mountains, he knew of the brothers' desire to purchase the mansion and the tract of land, to turn it into their own home and business.

But they were short on funds—­so he corrected that problem.

“We will pay you back when we can,” Christopher promised. Tucker knew it was an oath the young man would never break. “But we must talk interest perhaps.”

“You are right. We should negotiate. I say
zero
percent.”

Christopher sighed, recognizing the futility of all this. “Then we will always leave the presidential suite open for you and Kane.”

Tucker craned his neck up toward the cracked joists, the apple-­peel curls of old paint, the broken dormer windows. He cast Christopher a jaundiced eye.

The young man smiled in the face of his doubt. “A man must hope, must he not? One day, yes?”

“When the presidential suite is ready, you call me.”

“I will certainly do that. But, my friend, when will you be leaving us? We will miss you.”

“Considering the state of the Rover, you may not be missing me anytime soon. Otherwise, I don't know.”

And he liked it that way.

He stared again at this old beauty rising out of the neglect. It gave him hope. He also liked the idea of having a place to lay his head among friends when needed. If not a home, then at least a
way station
.

Kane finished drinking, water rolling from his jowls. His gaze turned, looking toward the horizon, a wistful look in his dark eyes.

You and me both,
buddy.

That was their true home.

Together.

Tucker's phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered, guessing who was calling. “Harper, I hope this is a social call.”

“You left in a hurry. Just wanted to check on you and Kane.”

“We're doing fine.”

“Glad to hear it. That means you might be up for some company.”

Before Tucker could respond, a black Lincoln town car pulled into the dirt driveway, coasted forward, and came to a stop in front of the house. The engine shut off.

“I assume it's too late to object,” Tucker said.

As answer, the driver's door popped open, and a woman in a dark blue skirt and white blouse exited. She was tall, with long legs, made longer as she stretched a bit on her toes, revealing the firm curve of her calves. She pushed a fall of blond hair from her eyes, sweeping it back to reveal a tanned face with high cheekbones.

Though he had never met the woman face-­to-­face, he knew her.

Ruth Harper.

He stood straighter, trying to balance the figure before him with the image formed in his mind from their many phone conversations.

This certainly was no
librarian
.

The only feature he got right was the pair of thick-­rimmed rectangular eyeglasses perched on her nose. They gave her a studious, even sexier look.

Definitely no librarian he had ever met.

Tucker called down to her from the porch. “In some lines of work, Harper, this would be considered an ambush.”

She shrugged, looking not the least bit chagrined as she climbed the steps, carrying a small box in her palms. “I called first. In the South, a lady does not show up on a gentleman's doorstep unannounced. It just isn't done.”

“Why are you here?” he asked—­though he could guess why, sensing the manipulation of her boss, Painter Crowe.

“First,” she said, “to tell you that Bukolov sends his regards—­along with his thanks.”

“He said the
last
part? Doctor Bukolov?”

She laughed, a rare sound from her. “He's a new man now that he has his own lab at Fort Detrick. I even saw him smile the other day.”

“A minor miracle. How's he getting along?”

“His studies are still in the rudimentary stages right now. Like with human stem cell research, it might take years if not decades to learn how to properly manipulate that unique genetic code to the benefit of mankind.”

“What about to the
damage
to mankind? What's the word out of Russia?”

“Through back channels, Kharzin's superiors at the GRU have insisted they knew nothing about his actions. Whether it's true or not, we don't know. But word is that the Russian Defense Ministry is turning the GRU upside down, purging anyone associated with Kharzin.”

“How about Kharzin? Is he cooperating?”

She turned and balanced the small box she had been carrying onto the porch rail. “I don't know if you heard before you left, but he lost one of his feet. He must have rolled after you shot him, contaminated the wound with some of the spilled LUCA organism. By the time anyone realized it, the only option was amputation.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he lied.

“As to cooperation, he knows the fate that would befall him if he ever did return to Russia, so he's grudgingly beginning to bend, revealing small details to fill in some of the blanks. Like revealing the name of a port authority agent who was paid to look the other way when and if the
Macoma
reached port in Chicago. The man's in custody now.”

Good riddance.

“And it seems Kharzin's paranoia has finally proven of benefit. Prior to leaving for the States, he set up a fail-­safe at his lab outside of Kazan. Without an abort code from him personally every twenty-­four hours, his lab's remaining samples of LUCA would be automatically incinerated. He didn't want anyone else gaining access to them.”

“So they're all gone then?”

“That's the consensus. His lab did indeed burn down. And if we're wrong, we're still the only ones who have the kill switch.”

“So it's over.”

“Until next time,” she warned, arching an eyebrow. “And speaking of next time—­”

“No.”

“But you don't know—­”

“No,” he said more firmly, as if scolding a dog.

She sighed. “It's true, then. You and the Nkomo brothers are going into some investment together? Luxury safari adventures?”

“As always, Harper, you're disturbingly well informed.”

“Then I guess the only other reason I made this long trip was to deliver
this
.” She pointed to the box on the porch rail. “A small token of my appreciation.”

Curiosity drew him forward. He fingered the top open, reached inside, and pulled out a coffee mug. He frowned at the strange gift—­until he turned the cup and spotted the gnarled face of a bulldog on the front. The dog was wearing a red-­and-­white-­striped cap with a prominent G on it.

He grinned as he recognized the mascot for the University of Georgia, remembering all of his past attempts at placing Harper's accent.

“Never would've taken you for a fan of the Georgia Bulldogs,” he said.

She reached down and scratched Kane behind an ear. “I've always had a special place in my heart for dogs.”

From the arch of her eyebrow, he suspected she wasn't only referring to the four-­legged kind.

“As to the other matter,” she pressed, straightening up, “you're sure?”

“Very sure.”

“As in forever?”

Tucker considered this.

Kane picked up his rubber Kong ball and dropped it at Tucker's feet. The shepherd lowered his front end, hindquarters high, and glanced with great urgency toward the endless stretch of cool grass.

Tucker smiled, picked up the ball, and answered Harper's question.

“For now, I have better things to do.”