The Cyclops Revenge Read online

  Satisfied that he would not be disturbed, he wedged himself along the right-hand wall. He checked the cab of the white truck. All appeared in order. To save time, the sailor crawled beneath the chassis, scooting to the opposite side.

  The electric panel mounted to the interior wall of the shipping box glowed with a series of red and green indicator lights over a panel of eight two hundred and twenty volt outlets. This container had been wired into the ship’s electrical system which in turn fed current to the vehicle. Just above the electrical panel, a flat, rectangular black box, the backup generator, provided a twelve-hour backup in case of a power failure. When it was lifted by the derrick, the electrical connections would be severed and the back-up supply would take over. Gundersen had plenty of time to transfer the power to the truck’s power plant.

  Gundersen studied the wall unit. From two of the outlets, a pair of thick yellow power cables snaked from the console and draped to the floor. A foot past the truck’s cab, they ascended to the refrigeration unit mounted on the front-facing wall of the truck’s hold. The cables disappeared under and into the refrigeration unit, feeding the massive machine.

  Gundersen stepped onto the running board of the passenger door and shined the light on the temperature gauge mounted on the ceiling of the cab.

  Minus 2 degrees Celsius. Perfekt!

  He placed his hand on the sidewall of the truck’s cargo area. A patina of frost coated the outside. He removed his hand, leaving a hand print on the frosted metal. He smiled a thin, weary grin.

  All was good.

  He would soon be rid of this worrisome container. The sound of motors whirring and grinding above him told him the derrick was in motion again, removing another container. Soon this box would be removed from his ship.

  Gundersen smiled, locked up the container and counted the minutes until he would make the delivery … and the moment he could relax.

  “J’ai besoin du nom, Hammon.” I need the name …

  Still alive, but barely conscious, the fat man slumped on his right side in the Adirondack chair. The pattern on his floral print shirt had become obscured by the large amount of blood soaked into its silk. Two of the wounds, the knife wound on his torso and the gunshot wound in his shoulder, were congealed with blood.

  Hammon’s head bobbed intermittently as he bounced in and out of consciousness. Hussein could not determine if it was a haphazard movement caused by extreme pain or if he was shaking his head in disagreement or simply nodding a capitulation.

  His eyelids fluttered. The blackened, sizzling hole in the left side of his head continued to ooze rivulets of blood where the ear once resided, revealing a canal leading to the brain. The acid cooked the blood and eroded a trail of skin down to his neck. The excess caustic fluid dripped onto his shirt, burning holes in the collar.

  “You must be in incredible agony, mon ami,” she continued.

  Hussein nodded to Oliver again. The manservant lifted the weapon sitting beside the severed ear, sitting in its own small pool of thick, sanguineous fluid. He pulled back the slide on the nine-millimeter in his pinky-less hands and brought it to Hammon’s face, dimpling a small intact area on his temple.

  “Just give me the location where he is and we will put an end to your misery.”

  Hammon’s lips moved, mouthing incoherencies.

  “I can’t understand you. Speak up!”

  Hussein did not look at her tortured captive. She studied her manicured fingers, frowning at a blemish. “Cut the other one off!”

  Oliver yanked Hammon’s head to the left, exposing the remaining ear. Hammon groaned. His eyelids fluttered, exposing glassy, unfocused eyes.

  The manservant lowered the sharp blade, touching it to the valley of skin.

  As soon the blade made contact, Hammon screeched two unintelligible words.

  “I’m sorry,” Hussein asked. “I did not get that.”

  “Onion,” Hammon pleaded, drawing out each tortured syllable. “He‘s … at … Red Onion … with Cooper … Steven C …”

  Hussein stood up, retrieving the nine-millimeter from the glass table. She raised the weapon and fired a round between Hammon’s eyes. “Merci beaucoup, mon cheri!”

  The matriarch of terror pointed to the corpse, then toward the ocean.

  “Jettez ce morceau de merde dans le mer.” Throw this piece of shit in the ocean.

  “Oui, Madame.”

  “Do we have anyone with access to the Red Onion?”

  “We will have to pull some strings,” Oliver replied, “but I believe we have an asset ready to go.”

  Hussein grinned. “Didn’t I tell you they would keep him at a black site.”

  “Oui Madame, you did,” Oliver replied. “What about Cooper?”

  Hussein rubbed her chin with a thumb and forefinger. “Yes, indeed. It is fortunate that Hammon also divulged that Cooper is being held with my son. It is a fortunate turn. We can kill two proverbial birds, n’est-ce pas?”

  Oliver nodded.

  “Get al-Raqqah on the line. They will need to coordinate with our friends at the GRU,” Hussein commanded, pointing at the satellite phone.

  “The GRU?” Oliver asked with a tone of incredulity. “Do you think the Russians will want to be a part of this?”

  Hussein had been performing a delicate balancing act over the past two years, juggling the desires of ISIS and their quest to bring harm to America with the agenda of the Russians, who tried to appear disgusted by the terrorist group but who secretly also desired to wreak havoc on the States.

  She was on the secure satellite phone every day with her handlers in al-Raqqah, Syria, the de facto capital. Hussein also made frequent overtures to her contact at the main intelligence agency of the general staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the GRU. Hussein was confident that day-to-day reports to her Russian counterpart were making their way to the Russian president.

  “The Russians have hacked Americans emails, no ? With the right amount of money and the chance to help bring down the American economy, they will jump at the chance. We need to move quickly. They have the resources, we have the people on site. I want a plan in place in twelve hours.”

  Twin navy-blue Lincoln Navigators skidded to a halt on the tarmac at Hampton Roads Executive Airport on West Military Highway in Chesapeake. A Gulfstream G-IV SP sat quietly outside a hangar in the dim predawn glow. The airport’s posted hours were from seven to five. It would be another two hours before the airport would begin serving southeastern Virginia businessmen.

  A five-man group emerged from each vehicle, now dressed in casual business attire. Two toted briefcases. Two clusters of three men from each Navigator moved with military precision to the rear of the SUVs. As soon as the lift gates had fully elevated, each trio pulled a wooden coffin-sized crate cratered with fist-sized breathing holes from the vehicle’s bed.

  As this occurred, the briefcase-toting men approached the jet. A sleepy-eyed airport official appeared from the main hangar holding a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee, meeting them at the nose of the aircraft.

  Each man lifted his respective briefcase and opened it, allowing the airport man a glimpse inside. With a satisfied nod, the cases were closed again. The airport official poured his coffee out onto the asphalt and dropped the cup. He took the cases, one in each hand, and disappeared into the hangar.

  The two coffin crates were loaded onto the Gulfstream jet by the rear staircase. The Navigators zipped to a distant parking area and the drivers jogged back to the aircraft.

  Inside the cabin, the senior team leader, commander of Team Mohammed, stuck his head in the cockpit. The former briefcase-carriers were now buckled into the seats checking dials and flipping switches.

  A moment later, the twin engines whirred to life.

  “Did you file the flight plan?” the leader asked.

  “Yes,” the pilot responded in perfect English. “We’ll land in Georgia to refuel. The second leg was filed as going to Miami. After we tak
e off from Augusta Regional, we’ll turn off the transponder as if we’ve gone down. Of course, we’ll be well over the Atlantic before anyone realizes we’re not on course. We’ll send out a distress call when we are a few miles offshore. Then we’ll adjust our course to the final destination.”

  “Excellent.” The leader turned and motioned for his compatriot, the junior team leader of Team Isaiah, to follow him through the cabin. They arrived as the lids were being removed from the coffin-like crates.

  The Pettigrew woman—bound, gagged, and unconscious—was lifted from her crate, laid out on a small sofa, and strapped down. The boy’s limp body was moved onto a second couch across the aisle. Two men took seats in swiveling captain’s chairs, watching over their prisoners.

  “The next shift will relieve you in three hours,” the senior leader commanded. “The rest of you relax and get some rest.”

  Five minutes later, the Gulfstream lifted off the four-thousand-foot runway into the receding darkness. The plane banked on a southerly heading and disappeared over the trees.

  Part Two

  Chapter 19

  Saturday, April 11

  “What are you doing here on a Saturday morning?”

  Angelo Sheppard swallowed hard as the moisture in his mouth evaporated. Quinton Boyd, vice president of Injectable Production, stood in the doorway to his cramped, paper-filled office, backlit by the harsh fluorescent light. Sheppard, director of Biological Manufacturing at Dawson Pharmaceuticals, could not remember a time when Boyd, an Englishman who Sheppard had heard had been knighted, ever came to the production floor. Especially this early in the morning … and never on a Saturday.

  Boyd’s eyes bore into Sheppard. “It’s time, Angelo. It’s bloody well time!”

  “I see.” Sheppard’s gut tightened. Though he had been preparing for this moment for months, Sheppard had been petrified for the last two weeks. This was not what he’d signed up for! There was something wrong with the whole thing. He just didn’t know what it was. But now he was in too deep. The events that would transpire in the next few hours could not be reversed. Up until this very moment, everything had been just a plan, a dream. Now, it was about to become a reality.

  Whatever that was!

  That made his anticipatory anxiety all the more intense. Meticulous preparation made failure all the more unacceptable.

  “I want you to show me the area,” Boyd said.

  Sheppard stood and came around his desk. “Follow me.”

  They walked through a glass corridor bisecting the sterile production area, a gaping space filled with massive stainless steel vats dripping with tubing, with gauges attached to computer terminals like aluminum patients on life support. Boyd and Sheppard passed the egg-preparation facility. This is where, when the plant was in full production mode, fully gowned and masked workers wheeled towers of trays of manufacture-grade eggs to and from the topping machines to the candling and extraction rooms.

  Once through, Sheppard led his boss past shelves of supplies and empty but ready-to-be-filled syringes, filing through two more pristinely organized sterile rooms. Sheppard opened one final door and allowed Boyd to enter first. When the vice president was inside, Sheppard checked to make sure no one had followed them or was in the hallway. All was clear.

  He closed the door and locked it.

  Sheppard looked at his boss and fellow conspirator with a sheepish, nervous grin. “I call it the Vault, sir.”

  Boyd scanned the room as a low-pitched drone filled the space.

  Inside, a massive aluminum drum lay sideways. The size of two refrigerators, the gigantic cylinder rested on four steel support legs. A large-bore flexible-plastic pipe protruded from one of the two convex ends. Curving like an elephant’s trunk, the black tube disappeared into the nearest wall, where it met the floor. A flat, dark LED panel with an attached keyboard sat perched on a small shelf attached to the machine. A thick power cord snaked from this portable computer to an electrical outlet. A frosted patina coated the colossal stainless steel vat. A chill hovered over the room, seeping into Sheppard’s bones.

  “It’s loud,” Boyd commented. “Are you sure no one can hear this?”

  “The refrigeration unit is state-of-the-art,” Sheppard replied, pointing out the condenser to the right. “We cannot decrease the noise. But the walls and the ceiling surrounding us have been filled with industrial-grade insulation. And these sound-proofing pyramids deaden the noise. You didn’t hear anything before we opened the door, right?”

  “No…jolly good,” Boyd replied.

  Sheppard moved his arm in an arc around the small room. All four walls, as well as the ceiling and the door they had just entered through were covered with triangular, sound-absorbing foam prisms. The tall, slim, gray pyramids pointed ominously toward the interior of the room, covering every inch like points of a giant torture chamber.

  “Is it ready to receive the shipment?” Boyd asked.

  Sheppard placed his palm on the skin of the drum and motioned for Boyd to do the same. It was cold. Very cold. Sheppard and Boyd removed their hands, leaving evaporating handprints on the metal.

  “It will maintain a negative two degrees Celsius, or 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s has a twelve-hour backup supply in case of power failure.”

  “Where will the drums be placed?”

  Sheppard moved to the end of the device. He reached under the platform on which the massive cylinder sat and found a lever. When he pulled it, the dull whirring of an electric motor competed with the hum of the condenser. The container inched upward away from the supports. The belly of the sleek silver container rose, exposing a rectangular, grave-sized hole, trimmed in stainless steel. The cool refrigerated air mixed with the room-temperature atmosphere, creating a cloud that hugged the tile. From the underside of the vat, ten large-diameter tubes capped with stainless steel nozzles hung, unattached, reaching into the subterranean space.

  “These tubes,” Sheppard explained, “will be attached to the sealed drums. They will remain frozen. When we begin the production run and the diluent is to be added, I will activate the diverter. The contents of the drums will be fed into the product.”

  “And will the seals remain intact throughout the entire process?” Boyd asked. “We can’t afford a leak. That cannot happen.”

  “Got it,” Sheppard said. “No one has access to this room except me. I will place the drums and insert the tubes personally. Of course, I will be wearing complete head-to-toe double-suited protection, as instructed. When I’m finished, the clothing will be removed and burned.”

  “I want you to take all precautions.”

  “Why are all these precautions necessary?” Sheppard asked.

  “Do you have a problem with that, Angelo?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “Good. Because your life depends on it. What about the FDA inspectors?”

  “I’m not comfortable with this, Mr. Boyd!”

  Boyd leveled one of his patented stares at Sheppard. “We’ve been through this, Angelo!”

  Sheppard averted his eyes to the frosted metal of the large horizontal container. He swallowed and continued. “Yes, sir … I programmed the software to keep select trays pure,” Sheppard answered. We will only allow the experimental fluid in the drums into the lots slated for use by Dawson’s business partner on the specified day. That will begin the experiment. We will produce those lots after the inspectors have certified the other products. As you know, the FDA inspectors are few and far between, with too much to do. It will not be hard to make this happen.”

  “And only you and I know about this? The contractors who installed this asked no questions?”

  “They were told it was a holding tank for a new line of product. We buried the work order with the renovation of Building Four. No worries.”

  “When will the drums arrive?” Sheppard asked.

  “They are on the way. And should arrive within twelve hours. I have a team of three men who will deal with the driver
of the truck.”

  “I thought only you and I and a few of the board members knew?”

  “Angelo, keep your mouth shut and do the job, mate! When they escort him away, you will take the drums to … the Vault … as you call it. Understood?”

  Oleg Gundersen placed the red flame of his jet lighter to a fresh cigar and puffed. Plumes of blue smoke whisked off, carried by the stiff breeze. The early morning sun burned off the cool air as he watched from the hard asphalt of Pier Five.

  Nesten ferdig! he thought. Almost done!

  He studied the markings on the last cargo container as the massive crane transferred it from the ship to the transfer vehicle. This container was not destined for the bed of a tractor-trailer. Gundersen climbed into the passenger seat of the transfer rig beside the driver. He nodded. The driver acknowledged the signal and caused the transfer rig to move. Appearing to be weeks out of puberty, the skin of the longshoreman’s face was dotted with acne. Five minutes later, he braked in a secluded area of the yard. With adjustments from two levers, he lowered the metal box from the rig to the asphalt as a breath of dust escaped from under it.

  Gundersen reached into his pocket, removed five one-hundred-dollar bills, and offered them to the young man, who placed them in the front pocket of his stained denim shirt.

  Gundersen swiveled his head in a one-hundred-eighty-degree arc. The main bustle in the yard was a hundred yards away. The few dock workers were busy, pre-occupied with their tasks. Truck drivers waited in the coffee shop for their loads to be placed on the beds of the eighteen-wheelers.

  Convinced the timing was right, Gundersen exited the rig and slapped the door twice. The rig moved off and disappeared through the multicolored stacks of containers. When it was out of sight, he strode to the doors of the cargo container.