Chapter 58

58

Washington, D.C.

Banfield’s face was flushed red, partly from the booze she’d been drinking, but mostly in reaction to the texts she’d been exchanging with the Vendor. She’d never met the man before and had no idea of his true identity.

Over the past few years, she had allowed herself to fantasize about him, picturing a roguishly handsome and dangerously mysterious European royal who would someday magically appear at her door and whisk her away to his mountain castle. All of those childish notions were suddenly crushed beneath his vicious barrage of nasty exchanges questioning her intelligence and usefulness.

Wilting beneath the Vendor’s scalding criticisms, she found herself on the verge of groveling, something she loathed even more than the man’s gross ingratitude. She had risked her career and even prison in order to help his business escape unwanted scrutiny. And now she was an idiot for working late and discovering Overholt’s texts hours after the fact?

Her ego told her to resign then and there, but the prospect of more tax-free cash was too great to ignore. She swallowed her pride as he laid out more demands. He finally ended his digital tirade with the simple text command:

IF YOU LEARN ANYTHING MORE ABOUT THE OREGON CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY!!!

Her eyes welling with tears, she tossed her encrypted Vendor-only phone aside. She’d never been so humiliated. But what bothered her even more was the vague but unmistakable subtext beneath it all that sent shivers down her spine.

For the first time in their long and profitable relationship, she finally realized he could very well murder her.

---

★The Island of Sorrows

The Celebes Sea

The Vendor paced the control room, fuming. The Makṛī had been destroyed, the drones grounded, and the cameras shut down. But what infuriated him most of all was the prospect of the hated Oregon looming somewhere out at sea.

That idiot Banfield should have been more attentive. As soon as he recruited a suitable replacement he would eliminate her. He had bigger problems at the moment.

Why had the Oregon requested a quick response force at his island, and then suddenly canceled it? The Vendor tasted the bile in the back of his throat. Without a doubt, that saucy, one-legged fellow who had downed his automated airplane had something to do with it. But what? There was no one-legged man on the island—

“Keiko!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Pull up the image of that brigand that sabotaged flight 252 and put it on my screen.”

“Here it is.”

Cabrillo’s photo capture in the plane’s cargo space appeared on the display.

“I’ve enhanced the image as best I could. The onboard cameras were low resolution.”

“Quit making excuses. Keiko, pull up the facial photos of the mercenaries we brought to the island and run a comparative facial recognition analysis with the brigand. I’m trying to determine if he is one of the mercenaries on the island.”

“Running now.”

Juan’s image from the airplane was overlaid with forty dots at key nodes on his face, delineating the features that comprised his unique facial identity. Those metrics included skin texture analysis, nose width, eye socket depth, geometric ratios between facial landmarks, jawline contours, and 3D analysis.

Next, the twelve mercenary faces appeared separately next to Juan’s photo from the plane, each one slapped down like a playing card on a blackjack table. As each face card was slapped down, the same forty dots at key nodes appeared on their faces as well, and a mathematical analysis comparing the two appeared in a separate window. Each analysis ended with a percentage match.

The first face up was Plata, who scored a fifty-one percent match. Within thirty seconds, all of the other faces had been compared. Davis had the lowest score at eleven percent. The highest score was Mendoza’s at sixty-eight percent, despite his hair color.

“Keiko, I want you to refine the parameters.” He gave her a few suggestions.

On the second run, Mendoza scored eighty-six percent.

The computer automatically overlayed the two photos. Despite Kevin Nixon’s brilliant prosthetic work, which included subtle changes to Juan’s facial geometry and skin texture, Keiko was finally able to suss him out.

The Vendor couldn’t help but smile with admiration. How could a one-legged man sneak onto an island posing as a cutthroat mercenary? Of course! Because the men weren’t subject to a complete physical. There had been no need for one. They weren’t being recruited for a long-term career. They had been recruited to die quickly and violently. Who cared if they had tuberculosis or piles or even a fake leg?

The presence of the spy explained how the Oregon found his island and perhaps also the destruction of his drones. The Vendor quickly checked Banfield’s text message. The quick response force had been canceled before the drones had been destroyed, not after. That surprised him. He assumed it would have been the other way around.

It didn’t matter. This was a dangerous fellow in service of a very capable vessel that knew his location and was no doubt on the way. The Vendor faced a dilemma.

The wiser course of action would be to evacuate immediately. But in so doing, he would never discover the identity of the spy nor the origin of the Oregon. Worse, he would never learn how the interloper had managed to defeat his infantry combat system, something he desperately needed to know if he wanted to bring it to market.

His goal now was to capture the one-legged menace and torture him until he revealed all of his secrets. After that, he would kill him in the most unpleasant way, if for no other reason than the sheer satisfaction of destroying the man who had so successfully frustrated his will.

---

★Plata and Drăguș stood inside the underground mine just a few feet away from the German’s corpse. Drăguș had just rolled him over with the tip of his boot to reveal a skull with the face completely melted away. The stench nearly made them both vomit. According to their wrist devices they were just fifty-three meters away from the next flag.

They had entered the mine with extreme caution, searching for the German’s body and whatever weapon had caused his demise. While they had found the corpse, they could not locate the device that had destroyed him.

Three long clicks suddenly chirped in Plata’s headset, followed by four short clicks.

This was the prearranged signal the Vendor had established when he wanted Plata to change radio channels and contact him privately.

“Go on ahead and grab the flag,” Plata ordered. “I need to check on the others.”

“Piece of cake,” Drăguș said.

“Yes, cake. But still be careful, eh?”

Drăguș nodded and sped on ahead.

Once the Romanian was out of earshot, Plata switched to the other radio channel and keyed his mic.

“You’ve got some big brass cojones calling me. What do you want?”

“I have a new business proposition for you.”

“Lucky me! Does this one involve exploding vampire robots? Mechanical piranhas? Tell me.”

“Your man Mendoza. He’s an American spy.”

Plata swore violently. “I knew it! I always hated that basura. He thought he was smarter than me.”

“Apparently he was.”

“You recruited him. You vetted him. Not me.”

“Fair enough. By the way, did you know he had one prosthetic leg?”

“A gimp? Out here? I don’t believe it.” Plata swore again.

“He is a man of extraordinary talents. That’s why I need your help.”

“What is it that you want?”

“I need you to capture him and use your particular skills to extract information from him—his true identity, who sent him, what he knows about my operations.”

“Why would I do that?”

“In exchange for this service, I will immediately transfer the twenty million dollars from the test to each of your accounts.”

“You have to, anyway. We’ve won. Unless, of course, you are a dishonorable man.”

“You haven’t won yet. In fact, there’s little chance you’ll overcome the minefield at flag number nine. There are no drone assets in the armory nor minefield-clearing devices, since none of you requested either. You can’t possibly win the money, and according to the terms of our new contract, you will all be killed at the forty-eight-hour mark.”

“How can I trust you?”

“I know exactly where you’re standing there in the mine.”

Instinctively, Plata glanced down at his feet, then stepped back a little.

“Rahul had laid ground sensors leading up to flag number one. They are still active. I could have sent my own squadron of drones to kill you where you stand or set up an ambush at the mouth of the mine. Instead, I called you.”

“You once told me that money doesn’t matter to you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then I want double the money for my men. Forty million dollars.”

“Done. Is it a deal?”

“What about Davis?”

“What about him?”

“He and Mendoza have been thick as thieves since they got here.”

“That doesn’t make him a spy.”

“But he is an American.”

“Indeed, he is. And that alone is a good enough reason to kill him. You have my permission to do so.”

“I don’t need your permission.”

“Then you have my blessing. I will even put my bodyguards under your command for extra firepower. Is it a deal?”

Plata hesitated. The slippery snake had already pulled the rug out from under him once. He couldn’t possibly trust him. But then again, what choice did he have? They had no means to get off the island, no means to communicate with the outside world, and a certain death sentence waiting for them tomorrow if he didn’t comply.

“What about our transportation out of here?”

“It will be provided free of charge, any destination you choose, just as we agreed to before.”

“One other thing.”

“Name it.”

“When I finish with Mendoza, I want to be the one who enjoys the pleasure of killing him.”

“Done.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“There is one condition,” the Vendor said.

Plata fought the urge to swear again, just as Drăguș came running up out of the dark, a wide smile on his face. Plata glanced down at his wrist device. The flag had been captured. He held up an index finger to silence the Romanian before he could speak.

Drăguș frowned with curiosity.

“I’m listening,” Plata said.

“You only have two hours to accomplish your task.”

“Why the rush?”

“Mendoza’s American friends are in transit and will arrive in force. I promise you, you won’t survive the encounter.”

“Then we need to hurry.”

“Indeed.”