at him and grabbing the envelope. Vengai smiled as Wright flipped it open and, leaning over the table, laid out the bills. His hands trembled as he began to count the money, but the profuse sweating subsided as his thrill replaced his fear.
“It’s all there, per our arrangement,” he said. “Ten thousand in cash and the account number for a fund in the Cayman’s containing another ninety thousand. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind and decided that you want to be a part of our team.”
“No. I’m an American. I wouldn’t be helping you guys if I had any other way out my current predicament. I wouldn’t do well in the back jungles of some third-world country.”
Wright continued to count, Vengai rolled his eyes. Without hesitation he reached out, grabbing the back of Wright’s head, and slammed it into the table. Vengai took advantage of Wright’s dazed state—keeping one hand on the back of his head, he used the other to provide the counterpressure he needed and twisted until he heard the satisfying crunch of the vertebrae popping out of place, cracking, then severing the spinal cord.
Wright crumpled on top of the table. Vengai replaced the money in his coat and grabbed the limp form under his arms, then dragged him into the nearby audiovisual room. He pushed the rolling carts with projectors and microphones out of the way, and shoved the body inside and out of sight. Then he calmly closed the door, grabbed the briefcase and returned to the fundraiser.
He should have taken my offer, Vengai mused.
VENGAI SMILED WHEN HE opened the door to the luxury hotel room. He held the smile through the initial software boot up and even when they hit their first wall, but his smile turned into a smoldering glare when his technician told him that the code was incomplete.
He roared with fury and threw the glass in his hand into the wall. He paced around the room, ranting about Wright and the expense of setting him up. He should have known the sweaty technician was up to something when he handed over the hard drive so easily. The situation had nagged at him, but he knew Wright would never have kept the secret for long and so killing him had been the only solution, but it was too soon.
“Sir, I think I have something,” one of the technicians said.
Vengai stopped his ranting and stood in front of the computer. The young computer technician trembled as his fingers moved over the keyboard. He was new to the Ocean Tigers and very willing, but Vengai hated his timidity. The youth was a prodigy, and he recognized that while he could train the village idiot to fight there were few in their ranks that possessed the same kind of technical skills. Once he had gotten past his initial fear he reprogrammed all of their computers and helped to reroute the bank funds so nothing could be traced back to the Ocean Tigers. With his help they had stayed hidden and would remain so until he wanted the world to know the power they had.
“What is it, Dilvan?” he asked, trying not to snap. “What have you found?”
“He left the information for the pieces of the code. They’re attached to the bank account he set up. Once the money is verified in his account, then the code will be released.”
“Well, since he won’t be getting the money, how do we get the code?”
“I might be able to hack his bank account, but this guy was careful. The code for this will only recognize his computer. I need access to that if you want me to get the code.”
“Can’t you fill in the missing code?”
“No, sir. Computer codes are like a math problem. Sometimes if you have enough variables you can piece together what is missing by creating a formula, but he was clever and left an unsolvable puzzle without his personal code.”
“Damn! Fine, we’ll get you his computer. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be even more that we can gain from his system.”
“I would say that is certain, sir.”
“Why is that?”
“If I’m reading the code right, this program isn’t just a satellite program.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that this software is built to hack almost any form of military programming out there. If we can get the rest of the code, it’s possible that we could hack into almost any military or intelligence database in the world, completely undetected.”
Kabilan felt the smile return to his face. Wright’s deception was a minor setback, but it appeared that he was going to get even more than he’d paid for, if he was just a little patient. “We’ll get the code,” he promised. “One way or another.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Bolan sat on the bed, looking through the intelligence that Brognola had sent to his handheld computer. What they had so far was pretty minimal. Heather Daniels had been en route to Port Blair on a supply ship with a bunch of other missionaries, and they’d left out of Singapore. But there was a lot of water between those two points and hundreds of places to hide. He replayed the audio from the call.
Daniels’s voice didn’t waver as she spoke, but the tension in her tone spoke volumes as the fear behind the words resonated from the recording. The man who made the ransom demand, on the other hand, didn’t sound rattled or tense at all. He was direct and matter-of-fact and the forceful slap had likely come from someone else, not the man speaking. He also wondered what the audio techs might be able to pick up from the background once they’d had time to dissect the whole recording. Bolan checked the time and decided that Brognola was likely still at his office.
He picked up his phone and dialed the number from memory.
“It’s me,” he said when the big Fed answered.
“Let me turn on the scrambler. Done. Have you had a chance to review everything we’ve got so far?”
“I have,” Bolan said. “It’s not much to go on. Once we have everything that we need, Heather Daniels is likely to be dead if she isn’t already.”
“Agreed, but we’re working on it. We have come up with a theory that might fit.”
“Let’s hear it,” Bolan said.
“We’ve got an intelligence report on the region that mentions rumors that the KP Branch of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil have reformed in that part of the world.”
“The LTTE?” he mused. KP Branch was the group’s nickname, taken from the initials of its top operative, Kumaran Pathmanathan. “I thought the Sri Lankan government had finally put an end to those guys.”
“That’s the common belief,” he said. “But this group, calling themselves the Ocean Tigers, is operating a lot more like a military than a bunch of pirates. They’re organized, efficient and deadly. Their tactics are way too familiar.”
Bolan considered the information briefly. “It fits,” he agreed. “Do you have anything else on them?”
“Nothing concrete, but if this is the LTTE back in action, then you’re heading into a hell of a hot zone. They’ve always been the real deal, and if this is a reformation of the KP Branch, there’s even more going on beneath the surface than just piracy.”
