Клайв Касслер - Typhoon Fury

“And I’m guessing the person who makes the dead drop knows even less than you do. So even if we were able to capture him, it wouldn’t do us much good.”

Tears were streaming down Lynch’s face. “What do you want me to say?”

“Until you give me something useful,” Brekker said, picking up the pills, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep these myself.”

“Okay! Okay!” he screamed. “I do know about Locsin’s shipments. I know where they come from.”

“Where?”

“Manila.”

“Manila’s a big city. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“It’s a warehouse near the docks. That’s where they store the product before they load it onto their ship.”

“What ship?”

“The Magellan Sun . Locsin thought it was better to buy his own ship after one he’d chartered was confiscated.”

“Do you know where I can find this ship?”

Lynch shook his head, then blurted out, “But I know where the warehouse is. I can give you the address.” He recited an address, which Van Der Waal entered into his phone. “Now, please. Please, can I have my dose?”

Brekker studied Lynch, but he couldn’t detect any deceit. “Let me make a phone call first. Just to check your story.”

He pocketed the pills and stepped outside while, behind him, Lynch cried for him not to go.

The hut sat in the middle of a vast grid of flooded rice paddies, and the rising sun reflected off the still water. Mist rose around Brekker, obscuring the nearest building, another shack a mile away in the distance. He took out his phone and called his current employer.

Greg Polten answered on the second ring. “I’m in L.A. about to get on a flight to Bangkok. Did you get any info?”

“You might want to change your flight plans. Lynch cracked when I held back the Typhoon pill that was on him when we took him, just as you predicted. Perhaps it’s time you told me what this drug does.”

“That’s not important for you to know,” Polten said, the air of superiority in the American chemist’s voice oozing through the phone. “I’m paying you to retrieve that pill for me and find more of it if you can. That’s it.”

The tone convinced Brekker that he was holding something far more valuable than the contract he’d taken.

“All right” was all he said.

“So can you find more of it?”

“Yes, I think we can. We’re going to Manila next.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there.”

“You will?”

“Yes,” Polten said. “I need to test the pill you have before we go any further, just to make sure you have the real thing.”

After seeing Lynch’s behavior, Brekker had no doubt that it was.

“And Lynch?” he asked. “What should I do with him? Eliminate him?”

“No. Bring him with you.”

“With us? Why?” Transporting him would bring extra security risks, though he thought Lynch would do anything he asked as long as he dangled the prospect of his dose in front of him.

“I want to see the effects of his withdrawal in person. It will give me a lot of useful data for my analysis of the drug.”

“It’ll be expensive to move him.”

“I can cover the expense,” Polten said.

“Very well,” Brekker said. “When can you be there?”

“I’ll get the next flight out to Manila. My colleague and I will be there by tonight.”

“You’re paying the bills, so whatever you say. We’ll see you there.”

Brekker hung up and went back inside the shack.

“No commercial flight for us this time, boys,” he announced. “We’re going to hire a charter so we can take Mr. Lynch with us.”

“Can I have my Typhoon now?” Lynch pleaded.

“Not until we get to Manila and verify your story about the warehouse. If the product is there, you’ll get as many pills as you want for helping us.”

Although Lynch was still agitated, the thought of a huge supply of Typhoon pills soothed him. If he knew that he’d already taken his last dose, Brekker had no doubt Lynch would go wild with panic.

But that’s why Brekker was so good at his job. His unflappable attitude not only got him results like it had just now, it also made him an expert liar.

25

THE PHILIPPINES

Baylon Fire, one of the largest suppliers of fire trucks and firefighting equipment in Asia, sold its products to over a dozen countries, from India to South Korea. The privately owned company’s monstrous shipping warehouse by the Manila docks sat beside its main manufacturing plant and testing facility, where its fire engines were put through their paces on a proving ground that could simulate anything from a structure fire to a plane crash.

Dozens of trucks of all types stretched to every corner of the building, from pumpers and ladder trucks to gigantic eight-wheeled airport firefighting vehicles, colored bright red or yellow, depending on the specifications of the country that had ordered them.

When Locsin traveled through Manila, he wore a cap and sunglasses to disguise himself, since he was a wanted man. But inside the warehouse, which was now empty of people on his orders, he had nothing to worry about. For months, he had cultivated the loyalty of Baylon Fire’s fitness-conscious owner by getting him hooked on Typhoon. Getting him to clear out the warehouse for an hour this early in the morning was a simple matter.

While he watched, Tagaan supervised a group of his men passing brick-sized white packets from a series of crates to the top of a scarlet red fire truck. The man on top of the truck systematically dropped each packet into the opening where water would normally fill the three-thousand-gallon tank.

“How much longer will this take?” Locsin asked Tagaan. He was impatient to get back to the dig.

Tagaan regarded the pallet holding the crates. “It looks like we’ve got about three hundred packets to go.”

The setback at the chemical lab compound made this shipment even more important, which was why Locsin felt the need to oversee the loading himself. The extensive search for more Typhoon was burning through their cash hoard. In all, the packets of methamphetamine going into the fire truck had a street value of over fifty million dollars.

“Good,” Locsin said. “When we’re done here, inform Lynch that we’ll be loading the truck onto the Magellan Sun tomorrow night. I want the money transferred to us as soon as it reaches Jakarta.”

“Yes, comrade.”

It was Tagaan, a marine engineer by training, who had come up with this smuggling method. The packets were designed so that not only were they watertight, but they would also float. No customs inspector would think to examine the interior of a sealed water tank inside a fire truck. When the truck reached its destination and received its clearance, it would be prepped for delivery to the customer at a secure facility where the tank would be filled. The packets would float to the top, and they would be removed by a large, four-pronged retriever snake like those used to pull cables from inside walls.

That kind of ingenuity was the only reason Tagaan was still alive. The drive back to Manila had been a long and miserable trip, with Locsin browbeating his most trusted comrade the whole way for somehow leading Beth Anders and her friends to them. There was no other explanation for how they happened to show up at one of his most secret facilities.

Negros Island hadn’t been raided, but he’d put his men there on high alert just in case.

In fact, all of their operations from now on had to be strictly controlled and protected until they knew how they’d been compromised. The cargo being transferred from the Magellan Sun this evening was critical to their plans. Locsin couldn’t be there because he was focused on the important dig they had going on, but he could make Tagaan available.