quarter mile away. There were dozens of red and orange streaks crisscrossing the sky over a small hill just up from the beach. He watched these pyrotechnics for about a minute—then he saw a helicopter. Or at least he thought it was a helicopter. There was so much smoke and fireworks going off, he couldn’t see it very clearly. Whatever it was came into view just above all the commotion, going into a lower hover. Seconds later, it illuminated a piece of ground with an extremely powerful light, something brighter than the senior crewman had ever seen coming from an aircraft.
This display lasted just a few seconds before the bright light suddenly went out. There was a chance that this aircraft was shot at, and possibly even shot down. Either way, the sailor lost sight of it a moment later.
About the same time, the fireworks doubled in intensity—but then just as quickly, they faded down to nothing and it was dark again on the other side of the hill.
The sailors knew the ship-breaking beach employed a ruthless security apparatus to keep its 20,000 laborers in line. Maybe some of these gunmen had been drinking too much and things got out of hand.
But then the senior man saw another curious sight. At least a hundred people were making their way over the hill, through the greasy saw grass and down to the beach. Women and children mostly, they were all dressed in rags and many seemed sick. Some couldn’t walk and had to be helped by others.
The senior crewman’s first thought was that these people were somehow responsible for all the tumult he’d just seen and were about to be executed by the Gottabang security forces. But how exactly? Were the security people going to shoot all these women and children? Or slash them to death? Or walk them into the dirty water and drown them?
None of the sailors wanted to see that.
But just as the senior man was about to turn away, another weird thing happened. Off to his left, a huge plane came into view.
It roared over their ship, its large nose pointing toward the water’s surface. Just when it seemed the plane was going straight into the sea, the sailor realized it was an amphibian and it was landing on the water.
But why?
The hundred people were on the beach by now, and the seaplane was moving over toward them. But the senior man knew that a plane that size could hold maybe forty people tops.
The attention of the four sailors was so locked on what was happening on the beach for the next few minutes, they never noticed the two shadowy shapes sneak onto the bridge behind them.
It was the reflection in the ship’s windshield that finally gave them away. The sailors turned to find two huge individuals in combat suits and giant helmets holding enormous weapons on them.
“We’re really sorry, boys,” one finally said in English, “but we have to borrow your ship.”
11
FROM TWO MILES up, Monte Carlo looked like something from a dream.
Dozens of glittering high-rise buildings sprouting almost naturally from the side of a stately mountain; long, winding, tree-lined streets wrapped like ribbons around the city’s undulating topography; a harbor full of yachts, mega-yachts and even giga-yachts, surrounded by water that shimmered like Perrier.
Batman and Twitch were up on the Shin-2’s flight deck, noses pressed against the cockpit glass, looking down on it all. Everything below them was clean, shiny and new. A magical place, captured permanently by a Nikon Starlight lens.
Five minutes later, they were down with a splash in Monte Carlo Bay. It was just after nine in the morning. The place was even more enchanting from eye level. The flying boat sped past the fleets of magnificent multimillion-dollar vessels; some were as big as warships and some were even bigger. A few made The Immaculate Perception look like a rowboat.
It was enough for Batman to forget all the weirdness from a few hours ago. He’d never been here before, but he was particularly in awe of this place. After being kicked out of Delta Force, he’d gone to work on Wall Street before getting caught up in the Wall Street meltdown and then the Madoff scandal. He’d seen wealth flaunted before; it provided a strange excitement to him. But he’d never seen anything like this.
The Shin-2 slowed and taxied toward the inner harbor. Its arrival had not gone unnoticed. Passing two rows of fireboats, the crews sent out great plumes of water,