The Prisoner's Gold (The Hunters 3) (11 page)

Chen glanced down at the second LSV. It was undamaged and had rolled to a distant stop after the driver, Chen’s best friend, Zhang Min, had taken a round from the deadly sniper. Zhang’s body was slumped forward in the restraining harness of the vehicle, as if he were taking a nap. But the dark blood that covered the lower half of his body disproved that notion.

Chen considered pulling the body upright, so he could see his friend’s face one last time, but he decided against it. He would have to live with the loss regardless, but for the time being he could lie to himself and pretend that the death had been quick and painless. If he raised Zhang’s head, he might see a grimace of eternal pain, and that would be too much to bear.

He stepped back and shook his head.

I’ll live with the lie. And I will avenge his death.

‘Goodbye, my brother. I will find them. I give you my solemn vow.’

Chen walked away from the vehicle and back to the still-functioning Viking. The treaded vehicle was packed with those men who had left the immobile transports behind. They would all need a ride back to the mine, and it would be a grim affair for those riding inside. The transport had no air conditioning. While it was chilly outdoors at this time of year, the temperature would soar with so many sweaty bodies crammed inside.

Chen would ride on the roof next to the gunner’s turret instead.

He climbed the metal grill that covered the outside of the armored vehicle and stepped onto the flat roof. The gunner stared at him, waiting for further instructions.

‘Get us back, and then come out for the wreckage and the dead,’ Chen said.

The gunner, a young man of twenty-two, turned and relayed the command into the microphone attached to his military-grade helmet. He wasn’t a soldier, though. Owned by the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, the Jiu Quan Mining Company had hired the private security guards from the local population and had trained the men themselves.

It was much cheaper than paying for mercenaries.

And they were much more loyal to the cause.

The orders transmitted, the Viking’s diesel engine growled to life, making the metal roof vibrate with restrained horsepower. With a jolt the vehicle lurched forward in a wide-arcing turn back toward the mine. One of Chen’s men followed them in the still-functional LSV, Zhang’s body carefully relocated to the passenger seat.

The entire mission was a failure, and Chen knew Lim would ask him why.

His life would depend on his answer.

It was true that the gunner on the lead Viking had opened fire ridiculously early, and he had berated the man for that. His machine gun wouldn’t have been in range for a few more minutes. But beyond that point, did his men do anything wrong?

Chen pondered the question for a few minutes but came to the same conclusion each time: there was nothing they should have done differently. They hadn’t known the foreigners would be armed, and there was no way they could have guessed the enemy sniper could shoot targets with deadly accuracy from nearly two miles away. Chen wondered if he was using a next-generation sniper rifle. Though he was far from an expert, he had never heard of such range before.

Hopefully Lim hadn’t, either.

Chen pulled out his black satellite phone and dialed Hong Kong.

Lim picked up on the second ring. ‘Chen, it has been a long time. Something interesting to report, or did you merely miss my voice?’

Chen breathed a sigh of relief. At least his boss was in a good mood.

Chen quickly reported the events of the last half-hour, stressing the stunning abilities of the foreign sniper. He finished by requesting permission to pursue the intruders out on the open road, hoping that would restore Lim’s faith in him.

‘Are you sure about the distance?’ Lim asked.

‘At least one-point-five miles. Probably less than two, but not by much.’

‘You know that Brother Feng doesn’t like foreigners. He especially frowns on foreigners who try to loot our great nation. But the sniper you described must be military, which is far worse. Yes, do chase them down. And before they die, find out what they were looking for.’

Chen smiled at the opportunity to make up for his earlier failure and the chance to claim vengeance for his fallen friend.

‘And Chen,’ Lim said, before ending the call, ‘get some video of them
before
the shooting starts. Just in case they get the best of you again.’

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

John Sylvester was a talented detective; so talented, in fact, that he had been on Seymour Duggan’s payroll for nearly three years, which was pretty much the biggest compliment that someone in his profession could get. Based in Orlando, a tourist city in the middle of Florida, Sylvester’s area covered the entire length of the Sunshine State.

Shortly after being hired by Cobb in Wales, Duggan had arranged for Sylvester to track Jean-Marc Papineau upon his arrival at his coastal compound in Florida. The property itself was practically untouchable – the private drive from the gate to the house was covered by surveillance and protected by an electric fence – so Sylvester had focused his efforts elsewhere.

He had placed cameras in the trees along the main road, allowing him to monitor the turnoff that led through the swampy marsh to the mansion. He had rented a fishing boat to take him a mile down shore from the compound’s small stretch of beach, and he had planted a camera there too. A few of the more pliable locals had informed him that the yacht parked on Papineau’s pier was mostly for show; it had barely left its slip in more than a year. That meant that if his target needed to travel somewhere, he would most likely fly out of the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, which was only a few miles away.

Knowing this, Sylvester set up shop in a nearby diner.

He watched his camera feeds from there.

The diner was a little on the grubby side for Sylvester’s taste, but he had seen worse. Despite the grime and the terrible coffee, the diner was perfect for his needs: the food was tasty, the Wi-Fi was free, and the location was perfect. Anyone driving from the compound toward the airport would need to use the road out front, and he would see them coming from far away. This would give him enough time to hop in his sedan and pull out ahead of them. People always suspected a tail when a car pulled out behind them, but they would hardly think twice about a car that was on the road up ahead – even if it ended up tailing them for miles.

Sylvester knew this from experience.

He had just finished soaking up his last bit of grits with a homemade biscuit when he noticed movement on his beloved laptop. A nondescript, white Hyundai hatchback had turned off the dirt road and was headed his way.

‘Is that you, Frenchie? What, no limo today?’

He stared at his camera feeds until he was positive it was Papineau. ‘A Korean rental? How disappointing! You could have done so much better and still remained incognito.’

Sylvester laid a crumpled twenty on the table, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and closed his computer. He paused by a mirror near the front door and admired his square jaw and thick brown hair. For a man in his forties, he still looked to be in his twenties, and he often used those good looks to his advantage. Sylvester exited the blissfully cool air-conditioned diner, trading it for the thick, soupy air of south Florida. He started his sedan, which had built-in Wi-Fi, and opened the laptop on the passenger seat.

He cranked the vehicle’s AC to high and relaxed, knowing it would be a few minutes, even if Papineau was speeding. When the Hyundai showed up on the video feed in the lower right corner of the laptop’s screen – the final camera that Sylvester had placed along the road before the diner – he shifted into
DRIVE
and eased his sedan onto the road. He headed south with a constant eye on his rearview mirror. The Hyundai finally appeared a minute later. The small car followed him for a mile before passing him, steering west onto highway A1A toward the airport.

‘Where ya headed?’ Sylvester asked aloud as he turned to follow.

As if in response, Papineau suddenly spun around and drove back in the opposite direction.

The U-turn both surprised and impressed Sylvester. It was called a Surveillance Detection Route, or SDR. He knew that the Frenchman would perform a series of seemingly random turns, attempting to notice any vehicles following him. An SDR might only amount to a few minutes of detour, or it could take hours. In any case, Sylvester couldn’t turn to follow or he would be spotted. He had no choice but to continue west toward the city.

Fortunately for him, Sylvester had planned ahead.

He had cameras positioned along every road that led to the airport.

If that’s where Papineau was headed, he would see him again soon.

A mile later Sylvester pulled into a gas station to wait. He parked in front of one of the pumps, but didn’t get out. Instead, he simply sat there, flipping through the feeds on his laptop until he caught sight of the Frenchman nearly twenty minutes later.

‘There you are.’

Having completed the unpredictable driving of his SDR, Papineau felt confident enough to approach his final destination. Sylvester quickly caught up to his target and watched Papineau pull off a busy street and head toward a private terminal for small aircraft. Lacking the appropriate gate pass, Sylvester continued on toward the cargo terminal before circling back with a cover story to gain access to the private facility.

He told the guard at the gate that he was interested in renting a private hangar for one of his Learjets, and the hint of money prompted a call to the general manager. Sylvester had long ago discovered his clean-cut good looks lent themselves to role-playing a wealthy young businessman. A few minutes later, a paunchy man named Wilson was giving him a tour.

During their twenty-minute conversation, the general manager explained the operations at the small terminal and spoke convincingly about the obnoxious aspects of commercial air travel and security – all in an attempt to lure prospective business. But the only thing that Sylvester cared about was the tour of the hangers. All it took was a fleeting glimpse of Papineau’s private jet and the lone security guard standing by it for Sylvester to memorize the aircraft registration number on the tail of the plane. With that, he could determine where the plane had been, where it was scheduled to go, and the name of the registered owner.

In short, he had everything he needed.

After thanking his host and indicating that he might be back to tour the facility again, Sylvester excused himself on the pretense of a business meeting in Miami. He promised to have his accountant get in touch within a week.

Instead, he returned to his rental car and pulled up the online database for FAA registration. He entered the tail number that was fresh in his mind and began his trace of the aircraft’s ownership. It took him ten minutes to sort through the layers of shell companies, and ten minutes more to scour the log of flight plans, but he eventually found what he was looking for.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Duggan.

Seymour picked up on the first ring. ‘Yes?’

‘I have a destination.’

* * *

Eight hours later, Duggan’s phone rang again in his opulent room in the Phoenicia Hotel in Malta. He checked the display and saw it was another of his operatives: Jerry Westbrook.

‘Tell me you found him?’ Duggan asked calmly.

After receiving the tip from Sylvester in Florida, Duggan had phoned Westbrook, his best man in California, to drive to San Diego to tail Papineau from the airport to his final destination. Duggan had used Westbrook, a part-time actor and full-time private investigator, on a number of cases in the past. They had never met face-to-face and Westbrook, like Sylvester, knew Duggan only by the alias of ‘Harry Reynolds’.

In Duggan’s line of work, it paid to keep things close to the vest.

He liked Westbrook, but that was no reason to compromise his own security.

‘Yep. I got him, Mr Reynolds. A private limo picked him up at the airport and took him up to a swanky estate in Castillo. Big security. I had to park about a mile away to make sure I wasn’t made. Nothing but sprawling estates out there. Place looks like a damn castle. Want me to keep on him when he leaves?’

‘Hmm,’ Duggan said, thinking it over. ‘I’d head down the road a ways. He’ll most likely be going back to the airport tomorrow. It would be nice to confirm.’

‘No problem.’

‘In the meantime, why don’t you ask around a bit? Maybe one of the locals will know the name of the man who owns the estate. At the very least, get me a street. I can do quite a bit with a mailing address.’

‘Consider it done,’ Westbrook bragged.

Duggan smiled, glad that everything was going so smoothly.

Unfortunately, it was the last thing Duggan would ever hear him say.

Castillo, California

(
22
miles north of San Diego)

Papineau took a small bite of the succulent crab cake, swallowed, then wiped his mouth with a fine linen napkin. ‘You knew this would happen, sir. You planned for it.’

Maurice Copeland nodded, chewing his food with the grace of a camel.

Papineau smiled and marveled at his apparent new stature in his boss’s organization. On his last visit, Copeland had hinted none too subtly that Papineau might soon find himself out of work – or worse – but on this visit, he had been treated regally. Copeland had sent a limo to bring his guest from the airport to the fortified home. For the first time ever, Papineau had enjoyed the scenic ride to the private hilltop community. He had paid no attention to the electrified gate that momentarily blocked their path or any of the other security measures that protected the land from intruders.

Instead, he admired the house and the distant Pacific Ocean.

When Papineau had reached the residence, Copeland had welcomed him warmly at the front door. In the past, Copeland’s beautiful-but-broken wife had always greeted him, but she was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t help but wonder if she had finally found the courage to leave Copeland, or if his boss had killed her and buried her somewhere on his spacious estate.