no? But selling these girls? Killing those who resist? Torturing their families? Even I know these things are wrong.”
Bebe lit up a cigarette.
“This man affects maybe one quarter of people on planet right now,” he went on. “In five years, maybe half. In ten years, the way Chinese dragon is behaving, who knows? Maybe he will control entire world?”
Conley put all the photos back in the envelope and tried to hand it back to Bebe. But the Russian insisted he keep it.
“I know you and your friends have major beef with Sunny Hi,” Bebe told him. “He was money man behind the departed Zeek. Plus, you and friends know this man is capable of many bad things. So, you must stop him somehow. Especially now that he loosens up, showing himself more in the light.”
Conley was more than a little surprised.
“Us?” he asked Bebe. “Why us?”
The gangster smiled, displaying his mouth full of dingy, gold-capped teeth.
“Because these days, you are superheroes,” the Russian said. “And no one else will dare do it. No country. No mafia. No military will go after him. They are afraid or too busy elsewhere. Fate of world is in your hands.”
With that, Bebe signaled his driver to stop. The limo door opened and Conley realized they were back where they started on San’nah Street.
“Take my word for this,” Bebe went on. “Now is time to whack this monkey. It won’t be easy. Will be very dangerous, in fact. I will be in touch with more information on his location, but I know foolproof plan is needed here because this man is not stupid. He is very, very smart. But you must help world. Save kids. He is pirate. You are pirate killers. Think it over.”
Conley stepped out onto crowded San’nah Street. Bebe waved to him, then closed the door and the limo roared away.
Only then did Conley realize Bebe still had his hot dogs and soda.
The Gulf of Siam
One week later
THE HONG SONG STAR was a mid-sized, Kilos-owned freighter home-ported in Ko Si Chung, Thailand.
Sailing off the Thai coast, one day out of port, the freighter was overtaken by pirates. Ten of them in all, they approached in a large motorboat, hooded and armed with machine guns. Climbing a ladder left unattended on the bow, they quickly rounded up the crew and seized the bridge without firing a shot.
In all, it took less than five minutes for the Hong Song Star to fall to the hijackers. In its cargo hold was 12,000 tons of sugar, worth about eight million dollars. Or at least that’s what it said on the ship’s manifest.
The pirates immediately locked the crew in the engine room, giving them plenty of food and water and DVD players for entertainment. There they remained while the hijackers repainted and renumbered the ship. By the next morning, the freighter had been rechristened the Ocean Song.
At noon that day, the crew was brought back up on deck and fed a hot meal. While they ate, a fleet of Vietnamese fishing boats approached in the distance. Confirming with the freighter’s captain that all was OK, the pirates put the crew overboard in life rafts. The Vietnamese fishermen picked them up within minutes. The master of the fishing fleet immediately radioed the International Piracy Center and reported what had happened.
Meanwhile, the hijacked ship disappeared into heavy fog to the east.
Only once the Vietnamese fishing boats were out of the ship’s sight did the pirates finally take off their masks.
There were ten of them in all: the five Senegals and the five members of Team Whiskey.
“If hijacking ships is really that easy,” Batman said, throwing his mask into the sea, “maybe we’re in the wrong business.”
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, a Chinook helicopter appeared over the ship.
Flying out of a secret Royal Navy installation near Singapore, the copter hovered about fifty feet from the freighter’s stern while two men slid down an access rope, both landing with a thump.
One was Dr. Alan Stevenson, the ex-Special Air Service physician who had hired Team Whiskey almost two months before to retrieve the mother of all microchips after it had been buried on an island off Zanzibar. The second man was also ex-SAS, a surgeon named Dr. Mace.
The Senegals helped them to their feet and picked up their heavy bags. Stevenson gave a thumbs-up to the copter pilot, and the huge aircraft flew away.
Both doctors were quickly brought below.
Two hours later
BATMAN KNOCKED TWICE on Nolan’s cabin door and went in.