Sky Hammer. James Axler
lingering in his wake. Weapons poised, Phoenix Force watched the fellow cross the deck and disappear into the main salon a hundred feet away.
“That wasn’t spam on a shingle like they feed the troops,” Calvin James observed, easing his gun hand. “Guess it’s good be to the king.”
“Pity the general in charge is awake,” Hawking quipped, checking the rigging on the cargo hoist for any suspicious motions. “But at least we now know that Le-Wan isn’t belowdecks. That had to be for him.”
James nodded in reply. Good point. Where ever Le-Wan was located, that’s where Kim Jong-il would have the bulk of the troops to protect his nephew.
“Be nice if Yi was belowdecks.”
“Amen to that, brother.”
“Gary, over here,” McCarter said, tapping an access panel in the wall.
Sliding the panel back, Manning found a fuse box, well protected from the corrosive salty air. Jimmying the lock, he swung the door aside. A bank of circuit breakers was inside, all of them clearly marked as to function. Opening the electrical panel, Manning exposed a complex nest of wiring. Checking the breakers, Manning clipped thin gauge wires to their backs, then snipped the bypassed circuits. The master console in the control room would still read the lines as live, but they would die the first time they were turned on and resetting the circuit breaker would do nothing to help. Manning pressed a gray-colored wad of C-4 to the back of the breakers and slid in a radio detonator. The whole ship might be protected by the Faraday Cage effect running through the hull, but this was located out in the open. Closing the board, he swung the door shut and pushed the access panel back into place.
Phoenix Force proceeded to the lower deck. Down here the air was much warmer, the smell of the sea was gone and there was the continuous sound of some sort of machine. Large steel gates were folded back against the walls, and arms lockers were everywhere. James and Manning hid more C-4 charges behind the weapons dumps as Encizo rigged a couple of the gates. Just a little insurance for the future. Hopefully, getting off the vessel was going to be just as quiet as it was getting on. But a wise soldier always planned for what an enemy could do, not for what he might do.
Loosening the light bulbs in the ceiling as they went along the hallway, Phoenix Force left darkness in its wake. That would be suspicious to a passing soldier, but far less revealing than actually spotting the team.
Hawkins took point while James read off the signs on each door. He was fairly proficient in Vietnamese, but only knew a few halting phrases in idiomatic Korean. However, it was enough. Sterile Room. Animals. Contaminate. Storage. Supplies. Laboratory.
Bingo!
Bending, McCarter softly scratched at the bottom of the lab door. After a few minutes, a grumbling person stomped over and threw it wide. The angry soldier was armed with a broom, clearly prepared to do battle with a rat. His face registered shock at the sight of the five intruders, and McCarter rose to hit him in the throat with an open-handed blow. The soldier dropped the broom and back away, hacking for air.
Moving fast, Phoenix Force stepped into the room and Manning closed the door while Encizo fired a single round from his MP-5. The weapon gave a chuff sound and the choking man crumpled into the corner.
Spreading out, the team secured the room, then did a fast search. The room was an office of some kind, containing desks, papers, computers, printers and tall green file cabinets. Double doors marked with warning signs in Korean filled the left wall and the air carried the antiseptic smell of a hospital.
Going to the desk, Manning checked, but every drawer was locked. Accepting that, he fixed a couple more blocks of C-4 from his dwindling supply onto the file cabinets and set the timers for twenty minutes.
“Make it fifteen,” McCarter directed, stuffing some papers from the Out basket into a watertight pouch strapped to his chest.
Manning did as requested, as Encizo and James kept watch on the corridor and Hawkins checked out the double door at the far end. Through the round glass windows, he could see another set of doors. Past those he could vaguely discern some sort of a laboratory, but the angle was wrong for any details. Could be empty, could have a hundred armed troops inside. There was only one way to know for sure.
“Okay, it’s showtime,” McCarter declared, closing the pouch. “Let’s find the professor.”
Walking through the double set of doors, Phoenix Force found the inner room was indeed a full biological weapons laboratory. Two large tables were covered with bubbling experiments, the complex array of gurgling glassware reaching several feet high. Locked cabinets covered the walls, aside from the life-size portrait of Kim Jong-il. There was an autoclave, centrifuge, lots of cages for the test subjects and an Oriental man eating a sandwich. But no guards. The old man was tall and slim, with white hair and glasses. He wore a gold wedding ring. It looked like their target from behind, but could be a trick.
“Yi,” McCarter said, announcing their presence.
The professor looked up from his meager repast and went pale. “No. No! I am loyal to our glorious leader!” he cried, dropping the sandwich and raising both hands. “Don’t kill me! I love North Korean! Death to the Americans!”
“We are Americans,” McCarter said, removing the night-vision goggles to expose his face.
The terror vanished to be replaced with joy. “Then get me the hell out of here, cobber,” Yi stated, switching to English as he slid off the lab stool. “These people are bloody insane.” He started their way, beaming a smile.
“Lift your shirt, please, Professor,” Hawkins urged politely, aiming his MP-5 at the man.
Stopping in his tracks, Yi sighed and did as requested. The man’s chest was marred by a large area of puckered scars, a gift from an early experiment in chemistry gone bad back at Perth University in Australia.
“Sorry, had to be sure,” Hawins apologized.
Professor David Allen Yi lowered his shirt. “You thought I might be a fake? A stand-in or something?”
“Been known to happen,” McCarter said, picking up a glass pipette used for drawing blood. Suddenly he threw the pipette to Yi and the professor caught the glassware with his left hand. Confused, he stared at the pipette, then frowned at McCarter.
“A good test,” Yi noted with strained patience. “Autonomic responses are difficult to fake. Yes, I’m left-handed. Now, is that enough proof, or do you also want some blood and a stool sample?”
“Maybe later.” McCarter grinned in spite of the situation. The old Aussie scientist was as tough as Barbara Price had said. It had to have taken a lot of men to kidnap him from the Woomera Military Hospital last year. Canberra was going to be delighted have the cranky genius back safe and sound.
James went over to an autoclave full of sealed bottles. Each was filled with a greenish fluid. “That it?” he asked.
“Sadly, yes,” Yi said grimly. “Moonfire. The worst nerve gas I ever made, or even heard about. It kills, fast and horrible. Moonfire is not so much a war gas as it is a terror weapon. No solider who ever saw it work would ever risk going anywhere near again. Dear God, I must have killed dozens of people with the clinical test alone! But I…they…”
“Torture?” McCarter asked softly.
Yi turned away, unable to speak.
“Any man can be broken, Professor,” James said gently. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
The professor could only shake his head, obviously reliving the deaths of his unwilling test subjects. Kim Jong-il and his cruel nephew enjoyed finding new ways to dispose of their political enemies. His tests had thus served two purposes for the dictator: revenge and entertainment.
Opening a satchel, Manning started placing explosive charges around the room. Joining him at the task, James directed the placement of the C-4.
Keeping the inner door open with a foot,