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  There was no sign of Lyons.

  The sound of rubber squealing on concrete resounded within the shed.

  Schwarz was closest to the far end of the shed, and he ran toward the sound in time to see a large dark maroon Suburban picking up speed, as it turned around the building and vanished.

  Schwarz took off after it, his nostrils picking up the smell of burned rubber. Rounding the end of the storage shed, he caught a glimpse of the 4x4 as it swung around their own parked cars. Dust rose from the tires as the Suburban made a swaying left turn, then cleared the gates and sped out of sight.

  “I think they have him,” Schwarz said, as Blancanales joined him.

  Blancanales didn’t say a word but simply held up Lyons’s discarded Colt Python.

  Kalikani walked on by, making for his own car. He opened the door and leaned inside to call on the radio. He was still speaking as Blancanales and Schwarz reached him.

  “I guess no one tagged the plates?” he said.

  The Able Team pair shook their heads.

  “Let’s go check our perps,” Schwarz said. “See if one of them is alive. Maybe we can get some answers about this damned setup.”

  “I won’t hold my breath on that,” Blancanales said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lyons woke to find he had one hell of a headache. There was blood down the left side of his face, still slightly moist, so he figured he hadn’t been unconscious overly long. As his awareness slowly returned, he realized he was no longer in the vehicle that had transported him.

  He was sitting on a wooden chair, his wrists bound together with a plastic tie, lying on his lap. His jacket had been removed but his shoulder rig left in place, minus his sidearm; he recalled having dropped the weapon during the firefight back at the dock.

  He was able to feel the warmth of the sun down his right side so it was still daylight. The floor underfoot felt hard, and wherever he was being held had a musty odor in the air. Lyons kept his head down to give himself time to recover his senses. The blows that laid him low had skewed his reflexes, and he needed time to let them reset.

  He listened for sounds. Occasionally he picked up the distant hum of passing traffic. But he was unable to work out if he was still in the city or had been removed to some isolated spot.

  He heard a man’s voice close by. Another answered. They were not speaking English. Lyons recognized it as Chinese.

  If nothing else, it seemed he had found the people they were after. Not the way he would have chosen to find them, but what the hell, maybe he could fool them into believing they had the upper hand.

  Lyons smelled tobacco smoke. By its pungent odor, someone was smoking a cigar.

  “Time to stop pretending you are still unconscious, Matthews. I know that is not who you really are. Just your—what is it you Americans childishly call it?—cover name.”

  Lyons slowly lifted his head; the ache inside his skull was still too fragile for quick moves.

  He realized his name had been used.

  When he slowly opened his eyes, he found himself facing two casually dressed men. He took his time checking them out.

  The one smoking the cigar was Chinese. He was young, lean, with slicked-back black hair. He had a semblance of a smile on his lips. The smile did not reach his eyes. He carried a heavy autopistol in his left hand. The guy next to him had a broad set to his face and body. His hair was cropped close to his angular skull. The heavy cheekbones and thin-lipped mouth suggested Korean heritage. Neither man was more than average height.

  “What do I call you?” Lyons asked. “Yin and Yang?”

  “We are not here to trade witty remarks. Or exchange banter. At this moment in time, Matthews, you are close to becoming dead. Make no mistake. It doesn’t matter to me if you die in the next few moments. My companion, who does not understand English, will kill you if I tell him to.”

  “Is this going to be one of those question-and-answer things?” Lyons asked. “If it is, just get on with it.”

  “Why so much interest in us?”

  Lyons shook his head. “Now you’re insulting me. You know damn well why. We’re interested in someone screwing around with NNEMP technology. Setting off a test firing that affected a small area here in Honolulu. It brought down a search-and-rescue helicopter and left the crew dead. Same launch backfired and sank the boat carrying the equipment. That was your boat that sank in the water just off the coast. You hit us with the NNEMP. That’s the bad part. But your ship was sunk. That’s good. Yin and Yang.”

  “I can see,” the Chinese said, “that you persist in trying to provoke me, when all I require from you is a little information. And to put right your error, the vessel that sank belonged to the North Koreans, not the Chinese. Something you did not know? Not that it really matters. However I am interested in knowing how you located where the boat came from. Obviously your information was firsthand.”

  “I’ve only been on the islands for a short time. What can I tell you?”

  “The extent of your involvement with Oscar Kalikani. What else you have learned, if anything, about our presence in Hawaii. And, of course, who you people really are. Things of small importance.”

  “So small you send out your hit teams to try and kill us? I figure maybe you’re running a little scared.” Lyons nodded in the direction of the silent Korean. “Does he speak?”

  “Only his own language. But he understands me, so we have no problems. He is nothing but a heavy. Another American word. He will, if needed, provide the muscle. Not very pleasant for you, if it occurs.”

  “Their game and you’re along to lend support? The North Koreans are way ahead with the NNEMP technology. That must piss you off. You’re way behind. You ChiComs have been spending too much time making washing machines and computers for the rest of the world. Took your eye off the ball there. But you’re throwing big money at the Koreans. Am I right?”

  For the first time the Chinese allowed a flicker of emotion to shadow his bland features. Lyons knew he had scored a point.

  “Very perceptive, Matthews. However, you are still tied up and resisting answering my questions. It will not do you any good, so why continue?”

  “Maybe I’m stalling for time. Waiting for my team to burst in and kick your skinny Chinese ass. Face it, you have me tied up. Not going anywhere. You can finish me off anytime you want. So why would I want to make it easy for you? You certain you have the hang of this interrogation thing?”

  The Chinese turned and said something to the Korean. The guy took a swift step forward and launched a fist that caught Lyons across the side of his face. The blow was delivered with full force. It rocked Lyons’s head. The Korean used his other fist to slam against the opposite side of Lyons’s face. They were solid hits, hard, and Lyons gasped under the stunning blows. He rocked back on his chair, spitting blood from his mouth.

  “Do we start talking again?” the Chinese asked. “Or is there more of your comic routine to come?”

  “If my hands were free, I could do a few card tricks,” Lyons said.

  The muffled sound of a cell phone interrupted him. The Chinese took the phone from his pocket and answered the call. He spoke in rapid Chinese, his annoyance clearly visible in his actions and the tone of his voice. He turned to the Korean and snapped out brief instructions before returning his attention to Lyons.

  “Consider this a short reprieve. I need to attend to something. I will leave you in Yun’s hands. He might decide to work on you some more, so be careful how you act toward him.”

  He put away his weapon, turned and walked off, leaving by a thick wooden door. Shortly Lyons heard a car fire up and move away.

  The Korean, Yun, circled Lyons’s chair. Lyons could hear him muttering to himself in a low voice. When he moved back into view, the first thing Lyons saw was he now
had a pistol in his right hand.

  An added complication but not something Lyons was about to quit over.

  Time drifted by. Too long. Yun was becoming restless. He checked over his shoulder a few times, clearly expecting the Chinese guy to return.

  This, Lyons decided, was not going to end well. Unless he pushed someone’s buttons.

  Lyons watched as Yun moved again, walking around the chair and then confronting his captive. He began to speak. This time his voice raised, and he kept jabbing a thick finger at Lyons. The tone of his voice warned him Yun was working up to something, so it was time to make his move.

  A cell rang. Yun pulled it from his pocket and listened. He replied, his tone angry. He shut off the call and pocketed the cell.

  The Korean started to harangue his captive.

  “Yun,” Lyons said loudly. “Shut up.”

  Lyons had a powerful voice when he chose to use it. The outburst had a brief effect on the North Korean. He stared at Lyons, unable to understand what the American had said.

  That hesitation offered a thin window for Lyons. He realized he was about to get one chance.

  And being the Ironman, he took that opportunity, coming up off the chair in a powerful lunge. His right foot, clad in a tough boot, swung up and struck Yun between his thighs.

  Kicking a man in the testicles was a precise art; make contact off center and the pain would be minimal, but catch the target correctly and there would be catastrophic results. Carl Lyons understood the concept and delivered a blow 100 percent accurate that drew a high screech of anguish from Yun. The Korean went up on his toes, the cry of pain trailing off into a whimpering whine.

  Lyons gave him no time to recover. He delivered a second kick, directly over the site of the initial strike. Yun sagged at the waist in an instinctive and protective move. Lyons had been hoping for that. As Yun doubled over, Lyons dropped his bound hands over the man’s head, gripping the back of his thick neck and pushed down hard. Yun’s unprotected face met Lyons’s solid knee, as it swept up. The brutal impact flattened Yun’s nose. Cartilage was crushed, and Yun’s nose streamed thick gouts of blood.

  Keeping a tight grip on Yun’s neck, Lyons slammed his knee into the Korean’s face three more times. Yun dropped to his knees, his face a ruined mass of torn flesh and shattered bones. Blood gushed down his chin and soaked his shirtfront. The pistol had slipped from his fingers, and Lyons nudged it out of reach.

  Without hesitation Lyons swung around to stand behind the Korean’s kneeling figure. He dropped his bound hands over Yun’s neck and hauled back, cutting off the air to the man’s lungs. Lyons slammed a knee into Yun’s upper back.

  Already half conscious from the heavy blows, Yun offered only token resistance. As Lyons increased the pressure he heard a soft crunch of spinal bones. When he heard that whisper of sound, Lyons held his position until he felt the man’s body lose all tension. He freed his arms and let Yun drop facedown on the floor.

  Lyons sucked air into his lungs. His head and face hurt from the earlier blows to his skull and the recent punches Yun had delivered, and his mouth was bloody on the left side.

  He picked up the pistol Yun had dropped. It was a P226. He glanced around and saw where his own jacket had been thrown on the floor. He went through the pockets, found his cell and took it out. He pushed the P226 down the waistband of his blood-spattered pants, then awkwardly—because of his bound wrists—speed-dialed Blancanales’s number.

  “That you?” Blancanales asked. “Carl?” He missed using Lyons’s cover name, but Lyons overlooked it.

  “It’s me,” he answered.

  “You hurt? You sound weird.”

  “Yeah? Could be because I got hammered in the mouth.”

  “Hell. Where are you?”

  “No idea,” Lyons said. “Let me get outside and I’ll figure it out.”

  Lyons crossed to the door where the Chinese guy had exited. It opened to bright sunlight that hurt Lyons’s eyes. He leaned against the door frame as he took in the scene. He saw warehouses. It looked deserted. All the buildings had a shabby, unused look to them. Lyons scanned the area. He spotted a sagging sign on one frontage.

  “Someplace called Pacific Rental, Warehouse 35,” he quoted to Blancanales.

  He heard Blancanales relay the message and picked up Kalikani’s affirmative response.

  “We should be with you in twenty,” Blancanales said.

  “I’ll wait around,” Lyons said drily.

  The area was quiet. No movement. And no sign of his Chinese inquisitor. The guy had disappeared. Whatever had taken him out of the warehouse had removed him from the vicinity, leaving Lyons alone with his silent guard. Lyons didn’t see the man returning. The phone call Yun had received must have advised of that fact.

  He leaned against the warehouse frontage. After a minute he decided it would be more comfortable if he sat down. He kept Yun’s P226 in his hands. Hawaii, he decided, was showing itself to be somewhat less than paradise. The sun was strong. It hurt where it burned against the gash in his skull but Lyons couldn’t be bothered to move. He was suddenly very tired. It was becoming hard to keep his eyes open and after a while he didn’t bother trying....

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dr. Emanuel Absalom sat facing his team across the conference table, his body in the room, his mind elsewhere. Physically he presented the archetypal scientist from popular fiction; in his late forties, tall, lean, with pale skin and thick white hair that he wore long. His keen eyes stared out from behind glasses he was always pushing into position while he considered a complex problem. His dress code was expensive crumpled, and even the white lab coat he wore hung loosely on his spare frame.

  Outward appurtenances aside, Absalom was a man who understood his business; his knowledge of physics and the application toward pulse technology was unrivaled. Absalom could have held any number of prestigious positions throughout the scientific world. Instead he enjoyed the excitement that came from selling his skills to less-than-favorable clients.

  He barely acknowledged the presence of the other three men and one woman. When someone placed a cup of coffee in front of him, he made no move toward it, which in itself was unusual; Absalom was a coffee addict, and normally he would have immediately consumed it.

  That fact alone alerted the team to the seriousness of the situation. They were all aware of the malfunction of the equipment following the NNEMP dispersion in Hawaii. Though the main part of the test had worked, the secondary burst that had destroyed the delivery vessel had been totally unexpected and was the cause of Absalom’s introspection. His team understood his dismay. Absalom was a man who took even a partial failure as a disaster, which was troubling him.

  It also troubled Major Ri On Choi. The forty-three-year-old North Korean army officer was there as the research center’s controller. The research facility’s top man. His task was to oversee the NNEMP project and keep the higher command updated on its progress.

  Major Choi was ambitious to the extreme. In his eyes every delay, failure, breakdown applied to the project—code named Cobalt Blue—reflected on him. He understood the need for the creative input of Absalom’s team, yet at the same time, he felt their caution a hindrance. Choi wanted results. Positive results he could present to his peers that would reflect positively. The test firing that resulted in the breakdown of the Coast Guard base had been tainted by the destruction of the ship. In Choi’s estimation that was inexcusable.

  “Well?” Choi snapped, directing his question across the table in Absalom’s direction. “What have you got to say for yourself? This incident is not acceptable, Absalom.”

  As Absalom did not speak Korean, the major used English, as did all of Absalom’s team.

  Absalom looked up, meeting Choi’s angry glare. His refusal to be intimidated by the uniformed man only served
to increase Choi’s anger.

  The physicist had no love for Choi. He found the North Korean insufferable. The man was nothing more than a cog in the North Korean machine, an arrogant individual so in awe of his own self-importance that he imagined himself to be the lord over all he surveyed.

  During the physicist’s career, wherever he went, Absalom had come in contact with Major Choi clones. Given a degree of power, they thought they stood head and shoulders above every other mortal, and took great delight in using, abusing, their power. Ignoring any physical size, these people, to a man, were small individuals. They imagined they were indestructible, persons of high intellect; when, in fact, they were far from that ideal.

  Emanuel Absalom understood Choi’s limitations, but he was unable to resist a degree of insubordination when confronted by someone like him, especially in an instance like the present situation. The unexpected development with the NNEMP weapon had puzzled even Absalom.

  The firing had seemed to go without a hitch. The sudden power kickback had left the whole of his unit mystified. Absalom felt sure they would get to the root cause. Given the mass of recorded information, it would take time to sift through the whole database. It was large, and the task would proceed slowly. If just a single piece of code was overlooked, they might have to go back and start again.

  That was the reality.

  It was also a reality that the military brain of Major Ri On Choi would not—could not—grasp. He would never grasp it.

  “Acceptable or not, Choi, it happened. It really did happen.”

  “We are all acutely aware of that,” Choi snapped. “And my rank is Major.”

  “As mine is Doctor, if you wish to play immature games. As to your earlier query, I have little to say at this time. Because, Major Choi, we are still looking into what occurred. These matters take time.”