Crux

54 BROTHERS IN ARMS

Sunday October 28th

Feng woke slowly. His head throbbed. Intense pain came from his left side, from his right knee, from his shoulder. And he was hungry, so hungry. His body’s emergency genes had kicked in, working to heal the damage, demanding protein, fats, calcium, all the raw materials required to rebuild him. Feng ignored the gnawing hunger, kept his eyes closed, tried to take stock of his situation.

He was seated. A hard metal chair by the feel of it. His hands were cuffed behind his shoulders to his ankles, pulling them up off the floor. Professional.

His internal GPS gave him his location. Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam. Saigon. South side of town. Eighteen meters above street level.

Two kilometers from his last location, on the fifth or sixth floor. Who had him? Bounty hunters? Police? The mystery men with the Indian boss?

He opened his senses, listened to the room. A soft sound of breathing, three meters in front of him. Slow. Rhythmic. Deep. A lone male. Fit.

Feng tensed his muscles ever so slightly, aiming for the smallest motion, the minimum of sound. How strong were these cuffs? How strong was this chair?

“Ni hao,” a voice greeted him in perfectly accented Mandarin: Welcome back.

Feng sighed and opened his eyes. He was in a soundproofed room, the walls thickly padded. And across from him, seated in a chair, was a tall Asian man. Japanese, perhaps. In his forties. Graying at the temples, but still fit and hard. In his hand was a silenced pistol of Chinese design, pointed at Feng. On his face was a grim smile.

Feng recognized the man from Kade’s memories.

“You’re Nakamura,” Feng said.

“And you’re Feng,” Nakamura replied.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

Feng broke it. “You pulled me from the building?”

Nakamura nodded. “You got lucky. A beam fell above you, got pinned against your jeep. You were in an air pocket. Otherwise…”

Feng laughed. “Lucky. Yeah.” He rattled the restraints behind him.

Nakamura raised one eyebrow. “Beats death.”

Feng nodded. The man had a point there.

“Where’s Samantha Cataranes?” Nakamura asked.

Feng blinked in surprise.

“Thailand, maybe?” Feng guessed. “Left her six months ago.”

Nakamura frowned. “Why?”

Feng shrugged as best he could. “Wanted to find kids. Nexus kids.”

Nakamura’s frown deepened. “Lane let her go?”

Feng cocked his head, quizzically. “What you mean?”

“Lane,” Nakamura started again. “He…”

“You have him?” Feng interrupted. “Kade?”

Nakamura stared at him.

“Who turned Sam?” Nakamura asked, “Lane? Or Shu?”

Feng blinked again. “You turned her. ERD turned her. Killed a little girl in Bangkok. Killed civilians. Blew up building with people in it. While they’re all on Nexus and Sam feels it. That’s what turned her.”

Nakamura went silent. In the corner of his eye the DNA match kept blinking. A match against Lane’s DNA, on Feng’s clothing. No match on Sam’s DNA, anywhere. Feng hadn’t been near Sam anytime recently.

Was it possible? That neither Lane nor Shu had reprogrammed Sam? That what she’d experienced had flipped her so suddenly?

Jesus.

Feng interrupted his thoughts. “Kade. You have him or not?”

Nakamura looked at Feng. If Sam really had turned on her own… Then the worst thing he could do was lead the CIA to her.

He needed more data. But he also had a mission.

“No,” he told Feng. “I don’t have Lane. But I want him. Who took him?”

Feng calculated. That third force must have Kade. The old Indian man and his soldiers.

Handing Kade over to the CIA would be no better. But if he helped Nakamura… Chaos could produce opportunity. An opportunity to get Kade free.

“I don’t know,” Feng said. “But I’ll help you find out. One condition.”

“What’s that?” Nakamura asked.

“When you go get him, I come with you.”

It took twenty minutes to figure out who had taken Kade. Nakamura listened as Feng told his story, then fed the data and the description of the man to a CIA analyst AI. It brought back dozens of hits of older Indian and South Asian men who might have been in Saigon, who had connections there, who might in some way be connected to the case.

He showed the images to Feng on a slate from across the room, one by one.

“That’s him,” Feng said. “I’m sure of it.”

Nakamura looked at the hit. Shiva Prasad.

With the name came data.

The untouchable billionaire had entered Vietnam on his private jet a week ago. And before dawn this morning his passport had been electronically stamped again, as he’d left in that jet once more, with a flight plan filed for his private island off the coast of Burma.

“Hey, you have any food?” he heard Feng ask. “Really hungry.”

Nakamura smiled widely.

“Sure, Feng,” he said. “And I hope you can swim.”