The Emperor's Revenge Read online

  At 400 feet, she wasn’t as long as the largest mega-yachts, but her width was unsurpassed. The main body of the superstructure sat astride gigantic twin hulls, which would give the ship impressive stability even in heavy seas. The interior space had to be double that of other similar-length yachts, and two huge pools and a hot tub on the top deck were the settings for many of the parties. The rear deck had room enough not only for a helicopter landing pad but for a hangar as well.

  The bone-white yacht had been built in secrecy, so many of the features were only rumors, but it was thought to have a submarine and a defense system to ward off rocket-wielding pirates. Munier wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Ever since the luxury yacht Tiara had been boarded off the coast of Corsica in 2008 and robbed of a quarter million in cash, yacht owners had been going to greater and greater lengths to protect their vessels.

  When he got out of the car, a light breeze ruffled Munier’s pima cotton shirt and silk slacks as he walked toward the Achilles’s gangplank, where he was greeted by a lovely young blond woman flanked by two huge men in suits guarding the entry from passersby. Dressed demurely in tailored trousers and vest that nonetheless showed off her slim figure, she glanced at the tablet computer she held before addressing him in perfect English.

  “Mr. Munier,” she said with a glowing smile, “my name is Ivana Semova, Mr. Antonovich’s personal secretary. Welcome to the Achilles.”

  He shook her hand and said, “I’m thrilled to receive the invitation. His reputation as a generous host is well known. Will I have a chance to meet him while I’m aboard so I can thank him in person?”

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Antonovich has requested your presence in the forward drawing room. If you’ll follow me . . .”

  She led him up the gangplank and then a series of stairs to the main outdoor deck. Dozens of bathing beauties in skimpy bikinis cavorted with men of all ages and physiques, some in the pool, some on plush chaise longues. Thumping electronic dance music, only slightly more tolerable than the race car engines’ whines, blasted from speakers hidden throughout the deck.

  When they went inside and the thick doors closed behind them, the music was instantly muted to a barely audible hum. The clip of Ivana’s Louboutins was occasionally deadened when they whispered across Persian rugs.

  “Here we are,” Ivana said as they entered another elegantly appointed room, this one with a huge mahogany desk at the far end. The high-backed chair behind it was facing away from Munier so that he couldn’t see its occupant.

  He thought that this must be Antonovich’s way of making a dramatic introduction. He’d only seen grainy photos of the reclusive billionaire, who was in his sixties, with a paunch, thick salt-and-pepper curls, and a port-wine birthmark on his left cheek that was the shape of a scimitar. Antonovich had made his money the old-fashioned way: he’d bought up many of the most valuable mineral deposits in the Caucasus Mountains when they were privatized. Since making his fortune, he’d supposedly channeled funds into political operations that opposed the Kremlin, leading to a paranoid lifestyle.

  Munier waited for the billionaire to reveal his presence.

  Nothing happened.

  Ivana tapped on her phone, paying no attention to the awkward silence.

  Munier cleared his throat. “Will Mr. Antonovich be joining us soon?”

  “Just a moment,” she replied, but Munier didn’t know if that meant he’d be there in a moment or that she needed a moment. At the bank, Munier would be the one to keep people waiting, but here he remained quiet despite his growing annoyance at the delay. If nothing else, he wanted to go out and join in the revelry.

  A door at the far end whisked open and a short, muscular man stalked in, accompanied by two others, an Indian and a pale man with ginger hair, both of them athletically built. The diminutive leader had a stippling of close-shaved black hair that was balding in spots. His nose looked as if it had been broken in a couple of fights, his thin lips turned down in a tight frown, and he had a burn scar that started below his left ear and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. Despite his brutish appearance, charisma seemed to flow from him in waves.

  He came to a stop in front of Munier and appraised him without saying a word.

  Munier decided he’d be the one to break the ice. “Mr. Antonovich, what a pleasure it is—”

  The man barked a laugh that ended abruptly.

  “I’m not Antonovich. My name is Sergey Golov, the captain of this vessel.” His accent wasn’t thick, but it was definitely Slavic. “Have a seat, Munier. We have some things to discuss.”

  Though he was confused, Munier did as asked. He expected to be offered a cocktail, but none seemed to be forthcoming.

  He glanced at the still-turned chair and then at Ivana, whose smile had vanished. “I was under the impression that Mr. Antonovich would be here.”

  She shook her head.

  “Antonovich isn’t coming,” Golov said. “I asked you here.”

  Munier grinned halfheartedly. “I appreciate you inviting me to the party. Is there something I can do for you?”

  Golov chuckled and took a seat across from Munier, leaning his elbows on his knees. The Indian and the redheaded man stood behind him, stone-faced.

  “A party . . . Right,” Golov said. “Yes, I invited you to a party, but it’s not the kind you think.”

  Munier adjusted his seating position, suddenly uncomfortable with the situation. “What do you mean?”

  “Mine is more like a raiding party.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re going to help me rob your bank. Today.”

  Munier blinked several times, trying to make sense of what he just heard. Then a smile tickled the corner of his mouth. “You’re joking, right? This is some kind of gag. Did Georges Petrie put you up to this?” Petrie, the vice president of the Credit Condamine, was known for his elaborate pranks.

  “No joke, Munier,” Golov said, all traces of his smile gone. “Do we look like fun-loving people to you?”

  Munier’s heart hammered against his sternum. “I suppose not.”

  “You see, the biometric locks in your bank can only be opened by you.”

  Petrie’s fingerprints and retinal signature could be used as well, but Munier didn’t correct him.

  “And, of course,” Golov continued, “they’ll only work while you’re living and breathing. Chopped-off fingers and plucked eyeballs only work in the movies. We know the latest readers sense active blood flow.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  “I will kill you right now if you don’t.” To emphasize his point, his men drew pistols from their jackets and held them casually at their sides.

  Munier tried to gulp, but he discovered that his mouth had dried up. “So, I help you and then you let me go free?”

  “You’re not a stupid man, Munier. You’ve seen our faces. It couldn’t be helped because of what we’re planning. We can’t leave witnesses, so I think it’s clear you’re not going to make it out of this alive.”

  “Then . . . Then what possible reason could I have to do what you say?”

  Golov nodded at Ivana and she glided over with the tablet. She tapped several times and then turned the screen to Munier.

  He gasped when he saw the image.

  There were his wife and two daughters, playing on the beach, making sand castles.

  “Show him,” Ivana said into her phone.

  The image shifted so that Munier could see the pistol that the cameraman was holding.

  Munier had the urge to scream a warning to his family through the screen, but Ivana took the tablet back before he could.

  “You’re a monster,” Munier could barely utter to Golov. He looked at each of them. “All of you are monsters.”

  “Believe me,” Golov said. “We didn’t want it to come to this. Still, I
’ve done worse.”

  A desperate thought seized Munier. “Georges Petrie! You can take Petrie! He can get you in. Just don’t hurt my family.” His throat caught in a sob. “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

  “No. You’re our only option.”

  “But Petrie—”

  “Unfortunately, we already tried him,” Golov said. He nodded at the Indian, who went over to the desk chair and spun it around.

  Until that point, Munier had held out hope that there would be some way out of this, that he could come up with a solution. But now he knew he had no choice but to do what they said.

  It wasn’t Maxim Antonovich that had been hiding in the chair, as he’d thought. Staring back at him were the unseeing eyes of Georges Petrie, his tanned forehead marred by a bullet hole.

  THREE

  ALGERIA

  As he descended, Juan could see more clearly the rock outcroppings that jutted from the giant sand dunes at irregular intervals and he hoped that none of the dune buggies had made a hard landing on any of them. Since there were nine men and only three seats on each buggy, a bent frame or broken axle would leave at least three of them stranded in one of the harshest environments on the planet.

  Juan knew who would draw the short straws, if it came to that. Nazari wouldn’t hesitate to leave them behind, especially since he seemed to have his own way out of Algeria if he planned to kill Juan, Eddie, and Linc.

  Juan floated down right next to his team, but the untrained Egyptians had landed all over the place in heaps.

  With his chute cast aside, Juan climbed the nearest dune to survey the location. The sun was scorching. His headscarf kept a little of the heat at bay, and he was happy to have the latest lightweight ballistic fabric sewn into his clothes instead of the Kevlar body armor that soldiers lugged around.

  “There are the Scorpions,” he said, pointing at the desert patrol vehicles that had landed in a line in the adjacent dune valley. “Get ours detached from the chutes and pallet.”

  “What about you?” Eddie asked.

  Juan saw Nazari closing on two other Egyptians to their left. One of the men was lying on the ground, writhing in pain.

  “I’m going to see what happened to him. Come pick me up when you get the Scorpion ready.”

  Juan walked carefully down the slope to keep from starting a mini-avalanche. The loose, fine-grained sand made for slow going, and driving over it would be tricky.

  He reached the injured man at the same time as Nazari. He was one of the inexperienced jumpers. His face was contorted in agony.

  The man attending to him turned to Nazari and said, “His lower leg is broken. He landed on that rock and his leg buckled.” He nodded to an outcropping beside them, although the unnatural angle of the man’s shin made the explanation unnecessary.

  Juan felt a familiar twinge at seeing the gruesome injury. He had lost his own leg below the knee in a battle with a Chinese gunboat. He’d grown accustomed to the prosthetic limb he wore, so much so that Nazari would never suspect he wasn’t a two-legged man, but the phantom pain of the missing leg never fully subsided.

  Juan bent down to examine the damage. Then he looked at Nazari. “Both the tibia and fibula have snapped. We’ll have to set it and then fashion a splint. He won’t be able to walk on it, so he’ll either need help or we’ll have to get him some kind of crutch.”

  “You’re sure?” Nazari asked.

  “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen this kind of injury before.”

  Nazari nodded. Without another word, he drew his pistol and put two rounds into the man’s head.

  Juan leaped to his feet and stared at Nazari and the 9mm SIG Sauer in his hand.

  “We don’t have time for all that,” Nazari said calmly. “He would just be a hindrance.”

  The other man jumped up, and it seemed as if he were about to make a big mistake by taking a step toward Nazari.

  “He’s now a martyr,” Nazari said to his soldier. “As we all eventually will be. We couldn’t take him with us, and leaving him here to die of thirst would be cruel. Get our Scorpion prepared to go. As I said, we don’t have much time.”

  The soldier stepped back, took one last look at his comrade, and ran toward the buggies.

  “He doesn’t understand like you and I do,” Nazari said to Juan. “I can see it in you. We’re both alike.”

  Juan nearly shuddered at the thought. “How is that?”

  “We both are willing to do what it takes to accomplish the mission.”

  Before Juan could respond to the insult that Nazari meant as a compliment, Eddie and Linc arrived in Scorpion 1, with Eddie driving and Linc on the .50 caliber in back. The 200-horsepower engine growled as it pulled up next to him. The only thing that distinguished it from the other dune buggies was the small “1” stenciled on the side.

  Eddie looked at the corpse and said, “What happened?”

  “Our client was just showing me his resolve,” Juan said. Nazari’s eyes didn’t betray any understanding, but they regarded him coolly.

  Juan climbed into the front passenger seat behind the 40mm grenade launcher and donned the helmet Eddie handed to him.

  Scorpion 2 showed up a few moments later and Nazari got in.

  When the third dune buggy was ready, Nazari led the way, peering down at a GPS unit as they drove up and over dunes and around the bigger rocks.

  Nazari had ensured they would be far from the drop zone when they reached their destination. Thirty minutes into their drive, Juan spotted the glint of sun on metal in the distance, shimmering in the heat rising off the sand.

  “Is that a mirage?” he asked. The helmet-mounted communication system linked Juan to Eddie and Linc only.

  Linc, who was higher in his seat in the back, said, “I don’t think so, but I can’t make out what it is.”

  Nazari must have seen it as well because his Scorpion adjusted course and accelerated toward it.

  “Must be our target,” Juan responded.

  Eddie goosed the throttle to keep pace. When they got within four hundred yards of the object, its shape became apparent.

  It was the bright aluminum tail of an airplane. Although it showed signs of weathering, it seemed to be in decent condition. Juan suspected that it had been buried by the shifting sands and was only recently uncovered by a storm. Wandering nomads loyal to Nazari’s cause must have reported it.

  “That looks like it’s been here a while,” Juan said.

  The tail section was big enough to be part of a medium-sized passenger plane, but Juan could soon make out a new detail.

  Not only did the rear part of the fuselage have no windows but it sported the familiar Stars and Bars roundel of the United States Air Force.

  “That’s either a cargo jet or bomber,” Juan said. He squinted at the tail. The black numbers stenciled on it were faded but still visible.

  52-534

  “Linc?”

  “I’m on it,” Linc replied. He surreptitiously checked a database about WMDs he’d downloaded to his handheld tablet computer and plugged in the number to see if it matched any known missing planes.

  Less than ten seconds later, Linc said, “I got it. Serial number 52-534 is a B-47 strategic bomber that went missing in 1956 on a transatlantic flight to Morocco. It was part of a four-plane formation that was supposed to rendezvous with a tanker for refueling, but when they came out of some heavy overcast, this one was missing.”

  “They must have had some kind of equipment malfunction and gone off course,” Eddie said.

  Juan assumed he now knew why Nazari had hired them to come all this way, but then he tilted his head in thought. The B-47 was designed to carry ten-thousand-pound thermonuclear weapons over the Soviet Union. But if this plane had gone down in a controlled enough manner to take it hundreds of miles off course and come to rest relatively
intact, the pilot must have jettisoned that heavy load before attempting his landing. Even if he hadn’t, this expedition didn’t have the equipment to carry such a tremendous load, and no one on Nazari’s team had the expertise to dismantle a nuclear bomb. It couldn’t be what they were after.

  “Was it declared a Broken Arrow?” Juan asked, using the term for a missing nuclear device.

  “Yes,” Linc said as they pulled to a stop next to the tail. He stuffed the tablet back into his bag. “They searched for it for weeks. Even called in the British Navy and French Foreign Legion to look for it.”

  “What was it carrying?” Juan asked as he saw Nazari climb out of Scorpion 2, a malevolent smile breaking the Egyptian’s stoic demeanor for the first time. “Something portable, right?”

  He turned to see Linc flip up his helmet’s visor and nod grimly. “The plane was transporting atomic bomb components to a base in Europe. Sitting about fifty feet away from us, somewhere under that sand, are two plutonium nuclear weapon cores.”

  FOUR

  MONACO

  With most of the city’s thirty-five thousand residents at the Grand Prix racecourse, the Boulevard de Belgique, only a few blocks away, was nearly deserted. On a normal Sunday, this Monte Carlo district, where Credit Condamine’s bank headquarters was located, would be teeming with tourists, but most of them were at the race. Sergey Golov was satisfied to see that they wouldn’t have to contend with many witnesses, just as they’d planned.

  Henri Munier’s Tesla SUV stopped at the gate to the underground parking garage, and Golov slid Munier’s identity card into the reader. The hardened steel gate cranked up, and Golov steered the vehicle to the bank president’s private parking spot.

  He switched off the SUV and nodded to Ivana Semova in the passenger seat. She connected her laptop to the car’s data port and began typing on the keyboard. Although she had introduced herself to Munier as Antonovich’s assistant, in reality she was the billionaire’s computer expert. The Kiev native had ditched her hacker lifestyle—breaking into American retail databases and designing viruses that could worm into secure financial systems—to help Antonovich protect his own companies from people just like her. Her work had been so stellar that he’d asked her to lead the team that designed the state-of-the-art digital control architecture on his yacht. He’d paid handsomely for her services, and she was worth every penny.