The Legend of Banzai Maguire Read online

  They tumbled over the hard ground. Bree knew she was gaining bruises and lacerations, but pain didn’t register as her fear factor soared. She was about to be captured, or killed. The reality of it sank in hard. Article Three: If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and will aid others to escape.

  She fought back, kicking and punching, moves she’d used only on the practice mats in martial arts workouts. She struggled free, but Igor threw her to the ground. She landed on her stomach, and it knocked the air out of her. He flipped her on her back. The toe of her boot caught him on the chin. In the corner of her eye, she saw him go down. And she was off again, running hard.

  The ground around her popped and fizzed. Confused, she watched dirt spray up in clods. A second later, the retort of a gun explained it all. They were shooting at her.

  Something slammed into her calf, felt like a fist. It knocked her leg out from under her. She rolled on the ground, clutching her calf. Her hand came away bloody.

  The cloth was torn. Then the pain kicked in, a delayed reaction to the gunshot wound. Ah, God. Please. Don’t let me die yet...

  She crawled, collapsed, and pushed to her knees again, inching forward as the men gained on her. A deep sense of regret swamped her. She thought of all the things in life she’d never experience: falling in love, marriage, having kids. She thought of the friends she’d never see again, the places she’d never visit, her parents’ grief when they learned of her death. USAF representatives would make another visit to Chestnut: an officer or two, and this time a chaplain, dressed in crisp blue uniforms. Her mother would be the one to open the front door to the sight of those grim-faced men with their sympathetic eyes, because Bree’s father would be in the shop in the barn working on someone’s car. “Mrs. Maguire, we’re sorry...so sorry...”

  Bree crawled, gasping. The men’s boots appeared in her blurred vision. Igor grabbed her by the collar and hoisted her to her feet. She mashed her heel onto the top of his foot, bringing her elbow backward, his privates the desired target. But he jerked her backward, into his body. Something cold and round pressed into her temple.

  A gun.

  Bree went still as the bounty hunter walked toward her. Breathing hard, the gun pressed to her head, she weighed her options. Hell, she weighed Igor. She’d learned how to handle imprisonment and interrogation. She knew how to resist. Most of all, she’d learned how to survive. She was a fighter pilot, a valuable resource; her country wanted her home, alive. It was looking more and more likely that this pair wanted to keep her that way, or they’d have killed her already. Her only hope was that Cam would somehow escape this pair’s notice, and live until she could be rescued. Because I won’t be able to help you, Scarlet Bree swallowed. I’m sorry.

  She glared at her pistol, dangling from the bounty hunter’s hand, before slowing raising her gaze to his dark eyes. He walked toward her, pulling something from his pocket. A hypodermic needle.

  “There’s money for you if you give me back, unharmed. A lot of money,” she bargained desperately, breathlessly, recalling again the blood chit. “You’ll need the paper in my right thigh pocket. Go on, take it. Have a look.”

  The bounty hunter came for her, his arm raised. “You are what I want. Not the money.”

  Bree started to struggle. Igor jerked her against him, reminding her of the gun pressed to her head. She hated the gasp that escaped her dry lips as the needle sank into her upper arm. It burned. Immediately, she felt woozy, and fought futilely against the effects of the drug.

  Her limbs went weak. The ground felt spongy, and she was floating...floating...

  The bounty hunter sheathed the needle and spoke to Igor in rapid-fire Korean. He sounded impatient, angry. He probably hadn’t liked chasing her all over the countryside.

  Igor wrenched her upright and threw her into the back of the truck. She landed on her stomach, and tried to push to her knees, but her arms and legs didn’t seem to be working right. She could lift her head and little else. A layer of hay and assorted bundles covered the flatbed. On the sidewalls were round iron handles, like what you’d use for harnessing livestock. Well, she thought drunkenly, she’d be riding to their destination in utter, bovine comfort.

  “I draw the line at a nose ring,” she slurred huskily against the pain in her leg and the effects of the drug. Igor gave no indication that he understood English or had heard her at all. A pair of wide hands smoothed down her hips.

  She went rigid at Igor’s touch. Teeth clenched, she submitted to what appeared to be a thorough but thankfully asexual pat-down, hoping she’d hurry up and pass out before he changed his mind and committed an act far worse. Igor found her second pocketknife, the blood chit, map, and compass. He found her tube of lip gloss, too, treating it equally with the rest of her gear—as if it were all worthless. Wiping his hands as if she were dirty, Igor stomped out of the truck and swept the rear door closed. Bree heard it lock.

  Hay made a flimsy shield against the chill of stainless steel. Where the bullet had grazed her calf, it stung like killer bees. Hay poked between her boots and damp woolen socks. It’s nothing, she told herself. She didn’t feel it, any of it.

  She wouldn’t feel what they’d do to her later, either.

  Bree fell forward as the truck lurched into gear and bumped violently up the wooded slope. Rolling onto the road didn’t much improve the ride. Apparently, the North Korean dictator had fed his dollars into nukes and not the roads.

  Bree did a push-up and got her knees under her. It wasn’t only the truck that left her swaying. She was losing her coordination; she had to think about moving each body part. Staring at her hands half buried in the hay, she saw that they were blurred, both of them—no, all four of them. She blinked and then there were eight hands. Somehow, she made her way to the back wall, nearest the cab. Her arms buckled, but a lump cushioned her fall. It was more solid than a bag of hay, not as lumpy as a sack of potatoes. And it was warm.

  Bree lifted her head. The lump was an unconscious American soldier slumped against the wall. A pilot, like her.

  Bree squinted, dragged fingers down a cool cheek. A smooth cheek. The face spun in a drugged kaleidoscope, but she could make out the features. “Cam,” she whispered, grabbing her collar before she slumped sideways and passed out.

  Chapter Four

  Bree exploded out of a dream into blinding white light and utter silence. She sucked in a breath. The sound of the abrupt inhalation rang in her ears. Her heart pounded even louder.

  Instinctively, she flung out her hands, but something held her arms in place. It was light...not dark, she thought, anchoring her mind to reality. Not the river from her childhood, the canoe, but she was just as trapped.

  Bree swerved her attention upward from the sides of the luminescent white box that contained her. Pipes and intricately twined wires lined the ceiling, high above. The irregularity of the stone surface suggested that it was a cave or an area dug under the ground. A vague sense of pressure in her ears suggested it was located at some depth.

  A high-tech dungeon?

  Good guess, she thought. She was eight-way, hand-tied to a gurney. Her flight suit was gone. The closest thing she could come up with to describe what she was wearing was a white rubber suit, riddled with wires and who knew what else. What was it designed to deliver? Electric shocks? Direct nerve stimulation? Her imagination did a good job of filling in the blanks. A fog clung to her brain, dulling her thoughts, but nothing hurt—and she knew plenty of spots that should have been hurting: lacerations left from the forest landing, the bullet wound on her calf. As far as she could tell, she hadn’t added any new injuries to the list.

  She swallowed, her mouth dry, and tried to come up with a plan. She’d been in sticky situations before, but it was going to take a boatload of creativity to get out of this one, though it didn’t hurt to give the basics a shot, first. “Help!” she shouted. “Help! Can anyone hear me?”

  “
Too well.” The bounty hunter peeked over the edge of the box-bed. It must be on a raised platform because she couldn’t see him from the shoulders down.

  “Let me go!” she yelled.

  The man exhaled and adjusted his clear protective goggles. “I don’t know which I care for less, your pleading or your wingman’s cursing.”

  “Where is she? Is she here? Let me see her!”

  “I put her to sleep.”

  “To sleep?” Bree choked out. Cats and dogs were put to sleep, not people.

  “Sleep sleep,” he clarified. “Well, perhaps a little deeper than that.”

  The bounty hunter lifted a needle to the light. A trembling droplet sparkled on its tip.

  “Wait!” No more drugs. She wanted something she could fight, where the odds were more in her favor; she couldn’t defend against the meds. “I’ll cooperate,” she lied.

  When the man’s needle paused in midair, she stalled for time. “We were part of a peacekeeping patrol. We have nothing against your people. Our countries are not at war.”

  “This is true.” He tapped the needle thoughtfully. And then he lifted his eyes. “Let me be frank, Captain. We share something in common: distaste for the ruling government here—although the term ‘government’ hardly applies to this particular regime. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” he said in a mocking tone, and lifted the needle.

  “Wait.” She cleared the hoarseness from her throat. “You’re a rebel?” If he was a radical, a dissident, then she was a hostage and not a prisoner of war. The distinction meant that all the rules had changed. In other words, there were none.

  “I’m a scientist. The type of work that I do requires aggressive subject acquisition, but there are few places to find young, healthy, robust people for my needs, people who won’t be missed. Your peace patrols presented the perfect opportunity. I could acquire the subjects I needed while placing the president in a delicious pickle.”

  A pickle? He had to be joking. “That pickle could lead to nuclear war!”

  “So, what if it does?” He shrugged. “My laboratory is deep underground, hardened for a direct hit. I have power and supplies to last through an Armageddon of a thousand years.”

  She shook her head, trying to absorb it all. “Did you do it?” She had to know. “Did you shoot me down?”

  “Ah. And how did I accomplish the deed? Your wing-man had the same questions. The answer is yes, and with shoulder-launched missiles, available easily and everywhere, even here in this ignorant, arrogant little principality. Try not to look so surprised. I can read everything in your face, you know. Every emotion. It is a good thing I do not have the need to interrogate you, Captain. You would have made my job an easy one.”

  No, you bastard, I wouldn’t have. She had a wingman to protect. A friend. She’d never have let Cam down. Or betrayed her country. All her life all she’d ever wanted to be was a soldier to serve her country and its ideals. Bree knew she looked inconsequential to some, but appearances were deceiving. That her captor didn’t recognize that made him far more vulnerable than she was with her supposed transparent expressions.

  “Now, to sleep,” he said. The needle he held disappeared from sight. To where? Something powerful entered her bloodstream and gave her the answer. “More correctly, I will place you in suspended animation. Bio-stasis is the common term, and one you may have heard, although technically your biological functions are not completely suspended.” He ran his gloved hand over the smooth white edge of her coffin-like box as if he thought it was a thing of beauty. “The cryopod,” he said with reverence. “It will maintain your body temperature at the defined level, while these tubes, here, will fill your body cavities—stomach, intestines, lungs, and the like—with supercooled fluid. In that manner, you will continue to exist, indefinitely, unaware of the passage of time, while aging proceeds at such a slowed rate that you could live nearly forever in the state.” His eyes shone with promise, excitement. “Or at least that is my goal once I perfect my life’s work.”

  Once he did? It wasn’t perfected yet? Bree was spinning now, falling into a black hole, but she had enough adrenaline left to push her pulse faster. She tried to free her legs. The restraints tightened around her jerking limbs until she imagined her bones snapping under the pressure.

  “Keep still!”

  “Why are you doing this?” she gasped.

  “To be able to say that I can.” The fanatical determination in the man’s eyes chilled her to the bone. “Don’t worry. It will be for only a day or two. A week at most, depending on how well you are doing. And what then? I’ll thank you and your cohort for your time and set you free where your people will be sure to find you. Enough talk. I am behind schedule.”

  A clear lid descended over the pod. Her eardrums wrenched with a pressure change. She was closed off to everything outside, as if she were in the cockpit of the F-16. In a way, it was reassuring. It meant that her captor did indeed have decent technology at his disposal. Maybe, just maybe, she would wake up at the other end of this.

  But as soon as the door sealed, the interior of the pod whirred to life. Tubes and needles with fiber-optic-illuminated ends moved into position. One straw lowered to her mouth. She pressed her lips together, turned her head as far as the neck brace would let her.

  The scientist rapped on the glass and shook his head. “Keep still!”

  A gas of some kind entered the pod. It smelled sweet. Another drug. A silent scream of outrage ripped through her. She wasn’t ready to die, not this way, captured and caged.

  If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and will aid others to escape.

  Bree held her breath, her heart slamming against her ribs. Tears stung her eyes, and her lungs felt ready to explode. She knotted her hands into fists, but the instinct to survive was too strong and she couldn’t keep from sucking in a breath.

  The sedative took effect immediately. To pass out was to give in, and she wasn’t ready for that. With all that she had, she struggled to stay awake, to stay alive, fighting with the zest for life and the strength of will that had been hers since birth. Sass, her grandfather had called it.

  The straw scraped along the seam of her compressed lips, found the corner of her mouth, and invaded. A cold salty-sweet liquid squirted inside. Bree spat it out, until it began to gush and she couldn’t keep up. She coughed, inhaled a lungful of the vile stuff. It went up her nose. She was suffocating. Arching her back, she thrashed about in her restraints.

  Somewhere above her, her captor watched the drugs take her down. Somewhere above him, she could only hope, God watched them both. It was her last thought before the growing darkness choked out the light.

  2176

  Chapter Five

  By all accounts, it was a peaceful night. A full moon illuminated the water of the East Asian Sea, where swells undulated in a timeless rhythm, curved, luminous, and dark like the backs of tarnished silver spoons. But far below the surface, a sleek black shadow raced over the sea floor. The Sea Snake.

  Onboard the UV800, the coastline of the Asian Kingdom showed up clear and three-dimensional on the forward navigation display. United Colonies of Earth Commander Tyler Armstrong maintained his vigilance at the controls. It had been fourteen hours since he’d left the UCE-SS Invincible. Fourteen long hours, Ty admitted, rubbing one hand over his scratchy jaw. But the Sea Snake was designed for stealth and not for comfort.

  Terrain-following guidance allowed the underwater vehicle to stay close to the sea floor, necessary for avoiding the notice of the infamous, enviable, and efficiently brutal Han forces, protectors of a secretive and isolationist kingdom that wanted little to do with the world outside its borders. His goal was to slip through the border without anyone knowing, and then go back out the same way. If all went as planned, Prince Kyber, the acting Han ruler, wouldn’t know that tonight ever happened.

  Luckily, the UV’s depth and its almost-nil silhouette ma
de detection almost impossible. Almost, Ty thought.

  During the crackdown on sea terrorists, known in the aftermath as the Pirate Wars, the UCE Navy had seen the loss of two military UV-800s, six men between them. Luckily, the pirates lacked both the brainpower to operate the commandeered UVs and the infrastructure to maintain them, averting what could have been a catastrophic loss of technological knowledge. On the downside, what the sea dwellers lacked in wits and tech they made up for in barbarism. They’d caught the UV crew, tortured, and killed them.

  Ty had been the first to find the bodies.

  He shut down the gory images that flooded him. Mental self-censorship. As a SEAL commando, he’d had a lot of practice at that game, even for the missions that went as planned. But tonight’s venture was a different kind of hunt, he reminded himself. He was after treasure. Off the record and off the clock.

  Treasure Legend said that two pilots missing since the end of the Korean Peninsular War were in fact still alive, their bodies preserved and hidden in a bombed-out cave now submerged by the East Asian Sea, which, like other oceans, had risen slowly and steadily over the past couple of centuries. That those POWs, dead or alive, had never been returned home and repatriated had always bothered him. It was inexcusable that no one had searched harder for them. “Never leave a man behind.” That was his unit’s motto. If no one else would do the job, he would.

  Hell, Armstrong, admit it. You’re a tomb raider You want to feel the rush of snatching artifacts right from under ol’ Prince Kyber’s nose.

  Yes, there was that, too, he thought, his mouth tipping in a self-satisfied smile. Men like him had raised ships from the bottom of the sea, uncovered lost millions from secret vaults, raided tombs, discovered secrets beneath the pyramids. But no one had ever salvaged a live person along with the mysteries of the past. Ty wanted to be the first.