The Emperor's Revenge Read online

  “Changing of the guard?” Gretchen said.

  “Could be. None of them matched the photos you provided of Erion Kula or Dalmat Simaku.” Gomez was referring to the hacker Whyvern and the Mafia boss. While the live feed continued, Gomez played back an earlier recording in a corner of the screen. It was footage of men walking to and from the barracks. All of them were in their twenties or thirties, dressed casually in light jackets and jeans. The full trays held food and drinks.

  “I’d guess they’re low-level soldiers,” Juan said.

  Gretchen edged toward the screen. “Yeah, but who were they bringing the meals to?”

  “That might be where Whyvern is working.”

  “Looks like there are at least a few more of them, by the amount of food they brought in.”

  “Assuming we get confirmation that he’s there, let’s go over the plan for bringing him out.”

  After calling in Linc and Eddie to join them in the op center, they spent the next three hours plotting out their strategy for abducting Whyvern, knowing that time was of the essence if the hacker’s threat was real. Juan was impressed to see that Gretchen hadn’t lost any of her tactical skill when she proposed some truly inspired wrinkles.

  Gomez interrupted their discussion to note that three cars were approaching the front of the castle.

  The gates were opened to allow a black Mercedes to drive into the castle interior, followed by two black SUVs. A pair of hulking bodyguards got out of the Mercedes and opened both rear doors while eight other men dismounted from the SUVs.

  Two men stepped out of the Mercedes’s rear, one older and one younger.

  “Zoom in,” Juan said.

  The older man was dressed in a two-piece silk suit that softly reflected the afternoon sun. He was wearing sunglasses and had long, wispy gray hair.

  “Can we bring up the picture of Simaku?” Gretchen asked.

  Juan nodded and instantly a picture of the same man appeared, this one taken by a long lens on a city street.

  “That’s him,” she said.

  The younger man was shoved forward by the bodyguard and stumbled, nearly falling to the ground. He was dressed in a T-shirt and dungarees, his hair was tied in a ponytail, and he had a scraggly beard.

  Before anyone asked, a picture of Erion Kula appeared on the screen. In the photo, he was clean-shaven, and his hair drooped down to the shoulders, but it was clearly the same person being manhandled in the castle.

  “Seems like Whyvern isn’t there voluntarily,” Juan said.

  “Maybe Credit Condamine wasn’t enough for him,” Murph said. “Could be that he stole the Mafia’s money, too.”

  Max shook his head in amazement at the thought. “That’s never a smart move.”

  The hacker was practically dragged to the barracks and pushed inside. Simaku talked to the bodyguards for a few moments and then walked with the rest of the soldiers to the main building. The bodyguards disappeared inside the barracks.

  “We need to capture Erion Kula before Simaku does anything to him,” Juan said. “At midnight, we go in and get Whyvern.”

  FIFTEEN

  Pavel Mitkin’s teeth chattered as Rahul Sirkal strapped lead diving weights to his ankles. The terrified engineer couldn’t move because Seamus O’Connor held him down by the shoulders, and his hands were tied behind his back. Mitkin shivered in the wind coursing over the aft deck of the Achilles as it sped east toward Malta.

  Nearly the entire crew of fifty had gathered to observe his punishment. Only Maxim Antonovich and the bridge officer were missing and both were likely watching on the closed-circuit TV system. The crew Mitkin could see from his supine position were the men and women on the balcony above. Their expressions ranged from anger to open curiosity to unrestrained excitement about what was about to take place. Some of them murmured to one another in hushed voices while a few jeered at him. Though his lip quivered, Mitkin held back the tears that threatened to stream out.

  When the twenty pounds of weights had been secured to his legs, and another ten pounds had been placed around his waist, he was hoisted to his feet. Sergey Golov slowly approached him, appraising the job that Sirkal had done before looking Mitkin in the eyes. The captain shook his head in disappointment, then turned to address the crew. His daughter Ivana stood behind him with her arms crossed.

  “We are supposed to be a team,” Golov said in English, the common language of the multinational crew. “We are supposed to support each other, protect each other, even die for each other, if it comes to that. By going on this journey together, we have made that commitment.”

  Golov pointed at Mitkin. “But this man has betrayed us.”

  Catcalls rained down on Mitkin until Golov held up his hands to silence them.

  “Not only is he a deserter, but Pavel Mitkin is guilty of the most heinous crime at sea: mutiny. When he was caught, he tried to convince other members of this crew to rise up against the senior officers and overthrow our command of this vessel. Of course, the rest of you are loyal crew members and refused to take part. For his crime, Mitkin must be punished.”

  Mitkin couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

  “Don’t you all see what’s going on?” he cried out. “The captain is leading us all down a terrible path. He’ll get us all killed! Think of what Mr. Antonovich—”

  Sirkal quieted him with a vicious backhand slap across the face. Mitkin’s knees buckled, but O’Connor kept him upright, with fingers digging into Mitkin’s scrawny biceps so hard that his hands were going numb.

  Mitkin knew that Golov could have simply shot him in the head and dumped his body overboard after he’d been found slithering over the side during their layover in Gibraltar. But a public punishment was needed to show the crew what would happen to them if they had similar thoughts of betrayal. Mitkin had noticed that several crew members hesitated to restrain him when he had made his panicked plea to be let go. So had Golov. A demonstration of the captain’s authority was required.

  “If there is anyone here who wishes to speak in Mitkin’s defense,” Golov said, “do so now.”

  Mitkin scanned the crowd with a flash of hope, but it was dashed when his eyes settled on the Achilles’s chief engineer. The old sea dog sneered at him in disgust. No one uttered a word.

  The fact that he was branded a traitor and mutineer by his fellow crew finally became real and the irony of the situation overwhelmed him.

  He laughed, a chuckle that grew into a hearty belly shaker.

  Golov cocked his head at Mitkin before speaking. “You see? He finds your loyalty amusing. He thinks you’re fools.”

  Mitkin had realized that he couldn’t trust the other crew members, so he’d planned his escape while setting in motion the keys to exposing Golov’s plot.

  Simply pointing the authorities toward the Achilles and its captain not only would have been discovered by Golov and Ivana but it would also have implicated him as a participant in the conspiracy. He’d been going for a more subtle tactic that would reveal their scheme while enabling his flight to freedom.

  But all his plans came to naught when he was spotted shimmying down a rope as the yacht had been departing Gibraltar. He’d plotted everything down to the second, so it had been pure bad luck when the third mate had been wandering the deck and saw him, alerting the security team to retrieve him. Now Mitkin would pay for that bad timing with his life.

  Golov walked toward him and stopped so that he was face-to-face with Mitkin.

  “Pavel Mitkin,” Golov said, “you have been found guilty of treason and mutiny, both capital offenses. Your sentence will now be carried out.” Golov looked at Sirkal. “Extend the plank.”

  Sirkal raised a section of the railing and pressed a button next to him. A diving board, normally used for water activities during anchorage, swung out from the deck. The ten-foot-long fiberglass plank extended
over the water and locked into place.

  Golov nodded to O’Connor, who shoved Mitkin toward his fate. Mitkin considered pleading with the captain, but he knew his appeals for mercy would fall on deaf ears. Even the lone remaining secret he’d been hoping to use as a bargaining chip wouldn’t save him now.

  “Walk,” Golov commanded. Many of the crew joined in a chant.

  “Walk! Walk! Walk!”

  Mitkin took a breath and shuffled forward, his legs gaining strength from the realization that he had one last bit of control over his tormentors: his actions hadn’t all been in vain.

  He stepped onto the diving board and inched his way forward, goaded by a long fishing gaff thrust at him by O’Connor.

  The wind nearly knocked him off several times, but the rock-solid stability of the twin hulls kept the yacht from rolling and throwing him over the side. When he reached the end of the board, Mitkin carefully turned to face the crew, the board bouncing under his weight. He looked at Ivana, then Golov.

  Mitkin summoned up all the courage he could muster and spoke in a trembling but clear voice. “You think you’ve defeated me. You haven’t. Because you don’t know everything I’ve done.”

  O’Connor was about to jab Mitkin with the gaff, but Golov stopped him. “What do you mean?”

  Mitkin smiled ruefully at Ivana. “You think you were so clever with your little Easter egg about ShadowFoe. You just couldn’t keep from bragging. Well, Interpol will soon find out all about ShadowFoe. I couldn’t lead them to you, but your online nemesis Whyvern might.”

  Golov looked at Ivana in confusion and alarm. She avoided his gaze in embarrassment. Golov whipped around and stared at Mitkin in fury.

  “Go get him!” he yelled.

  O’Connor stepped onto the diving board and edged his way toward Mitkin. The board dipped farther toward the ocean, threatening to spill both of them over the side.

  Mitkin didn’t harbor any hopes that they would free him because of this new information. They would torture him until he confessed everything and then kill him afterward.

  He wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Mitkin smiled, expelled what breath he had, and fell backward off the diving board. His last view of Golov was of the captain screaming to get him back.

  Mitkin hit the water and plunged beneath the surface. He fought the good fight against the terror of drowning, but the desperation to breathe quickly overpowered him and he took in a lungful of seawater. With the weights dragging him down toward the ocean floor two thousand feet below, the light above quickly dwindled to twilight and then darkness.

  SIXTEEN

  Eddie Seng nudged the bow of the Rigid-Hulled Inflatable Boat, or RHIB, onto the narrow beach a half mile up the peninsula from Vlorë Castle. It scuffed the sand with a sound barely louder than the nearly silent electric motor that he was using instead of the powerful twin outboard diesels that could push the RHIB over fifty knots. The boat was specifically designed for use by Special Forces around the world and allowed Eddie, Franklin Lincoln, and Mike Trono to remain unseen and unheard from the castle.

  With heavy cloud cover blotting out the crescent moon, the midnight landing was so dark that the three of them wore night vision goggles. Eddie shut off the motor while Linc and Trono anchored the RHIB to a rock. Dressed all in black, they were difficult to see even with the goggles. Without a word, they grabbed their packs and weapons and crept up a switchback path, worn into the side of the hill, leading up to the road.

  At the top, Eddie peered over the edge. Pocked asphalt stretched to the castle a half mile in one direction and to a small town five miles the other way, where the peninsula jutted from the mainland. Potent spotlights around the castle gate and easy sight lines from the battlements made a land approach suicide. But visibility from those lights ended a quarter mile away from them, so Eddie was confident they’d go undetected.

  No cars were in sight.

  “Clear,” Eddie said quietly into his throat mic pressing against his neck.

  Eddie and Linc took up prone positions, Eddie aiming his M4 assault rifle toward the castle and Linc facing the town. Eddie nodded at Trono, who raced across the road and started climbing the telephone pole. Using crampons attached to his boots and a belt slung around the wooden pole, he scurried up as easily as a squirrel.

  “Look at him go,” Linc said. “Those flyboys love heading for the sky.”

  Mike Trono, slender of build and with fine brown hair peeking out from under his wool hat, had served in the Air Force as a pararescue jumper, and then raced powerboats to get his adrenaline fix, before joining the Corporation. Being one of the few non–Navy veterans on board the Oregon made him the frequent target of ribbing.

  “‘Aim high’ is our motto,” Trono said into his mic as he hoisted himself up. “Linc, what’s the Navy motto? Oh, right, it doesn’t have an official one.”

  “Don’t need it,” Linc said. “That’s how much more awesome we are than the Air Force.”

  That got a small chuckle from Trono, who was now at the top of the pole.

  “I see power, telephone, and fiber-optic lines,” he said.

  “The fiber-optic line gives them a fast Internet connection for their hacking activities.”

  “Not for much longer,” Trono said. “Planting the C-4.”

  After a few minutes, Trono announced that the charges were in place and climbed back down. He took up watch while Linc jogged a hundred yards in the direction of town to lay low-reflection spike strips across the road.

  Eddie took out his binoculars and trained them on the Albanian Coast Guard base at the end of the harbor next to town. There were two patrol craft tied to the dock, but no large cutter. Eddie couldn’t see any movement.

  When Linc was done, he jogged back, and the three of them crouched down along the side of the road.

  Eddie keyed his encrypted shore-to-ship radio.

  “Welcome Wagon here,” he said to Hali, who was manning communications on the other end in the Oregon’s op center. “The reception committee is all set. Let the Chairman know he can start the party.”

  —

  The Nomad 1000 submarine hovered in its spot next to the castle, submerged at periscope depth. Already in his drysuit, Juan stood behind Max, who was piloting the sub. The view from the periscope’s remote camera showed no one on the wall, looking down at them.

  “Hali tells me that Eddie and his team are in place and set,” Max said.

  Juan checked his watch. “Right on schedule.”

  “Eddie is a stickler for punctuality.” Max turned to look at Juan with a serious expression. “After you’re away, I’d like to hang around. Just in case. Linda doesn’t need me.” Linda was back on the Oregon in command of the ship.

  “I need you to get back to the Oregon and stow Nomad. Once we nab Whyvern, we’ll have to get out of here pronto, and Nomad’s built for comfort, not speed.”

  The sixty-five-foot-long Nomad could dive to a depth of one thousand feet and had an onboard air lock, perfect for clandestine insertions like the one they were about to attempt. She looked like a miniaturized version of a nuclear sub, with a polycarbonate nose, where Max sat, and robotic claws jutting from the chin. Including a pilot and copilot, she had room for up to ten people.

  Juan slapped Max on the shoulder and went into the passenger compartment. Gretchen, Murph, and MacD Lawless were making their final preparations.

  Gretchen and Murph were on the mission for their expertise in finance and computers, while MacD was along for his skills as a former U.S. Army Ranger. MacD was short for his middle name, MacDougal, which he liked marginally better than his first name, Marion. Muscular and blessed with a face of a heartthrob—though his features were now covered with black greasepaint like the others—he gave Gomez Adams a close race in the good-looks department.

  As he pulled on his dry
suit over the same black combat gear they all wore, MacD unleashed his syrupy Louisiana drawl on Murph. “Ah know these guys like their funny names, but what in the world does Whyvern mean?”

  “A wyvern is a type of dragon,” Murph replied. “It has two forelegs, and a snake’s body, and probably came from the—”

  “Ah know what a wyvern is, but why is this guy called Whyvern. He got no legs?” Then MacD saw Juan pulling his drysuit over his combat leg and winced at the question.

  Juan smiled. “Don’t worry, MacD. I’m sure Whyvern makes do fine with just a tail.”

  Gretchen chuckled at that. She knew about his missing leg. Not only had she been amazed that she hadn’t noticed any difference in his gait, but she’d been fascinated by the hidden compartments in the titanium-reinforced prosthesis, which had room for a .45 caliber ACP Colt Defender, a ceramic knife, and a wad of plastic explosive and a detonator no bigger than a deck of cards. A single .44 caliber slug could be fired from the heel.

  “Remember,” Juan said, mainly for the benefit of Gretchen, who wasn’t accustomed to their routines and coordination, “this is a quick snatch-and-go, so we’ll avoid engaging Simaku’s men, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Eddie’s ready at the post-extraction rendezvous, so let’s get going.”

  The plan was to get into the castle silently, abduct Erion Kula, and go out through the front gate using one of Simaku’s own cars, dropping spike strips behind them. The sharp prongs would puncture the tires of any pursuing cars, giving them time to escape with Eddie’s team on the RHIB.

  Juan opened the air lock hatch and gestured for Gretchen to enter. “Ladies first.”

  “Chivalrous as always,” she said, and climbed inside the cramped confines.

  Juan squeezed in with her, holding his helmet so that he wouldn’t have to clamp it onto his suit until the last possible moment. The drysuits were clumsy, but they would keep their clothes from getting soaked. Wetsuits would leave telltale trails of water during their infiltration.