She took out a silver box and opened it. Inside were two credit cards made of platinum.
“These are your most favored player cards,” she said, handing one to each. “Anything you want, just show these to the manager and it will be taken care of.”
Then she took two keys from her breast pocket: one silver, one gold. “You’ll also need some transport, I assume?” she asked. “Do you prefer a Lamborghini or a Maserati?”
Batman and Twitch just stared back at her, dumbfounded.
She laughed a little and handed the gold key to them. “Take it from me,” she said. “The Maserati is a lot more fun.”
With that, she began a graceful exit by stepping back into the elevator—but Twitch stopped her.
“Who’s paying for all this?” he asked her.
She just smiled again. “Your friend, of course,” she said, putting her finger to her lips, hinting she could say no more.
Batman and Twitch just looked at each other again.
Emma Simms?
Who else could it be?
The woman resumed her retreat onto the elevator, smiled again and was gone, just like that.
When they were alone again, all Batman could say was: “What the hell just happened here?”
12
Indian Ocean
“ANY IDEA WHAT’S going on here, Snake?”
Nolan nervously checked his ammo clip and then looked out on the hot and hazy sea.
“I wish I did,” he replied, “but I don’t have a clue.”
He and Gunner were sitting atop the bridge of the Taiwan Song. They were both armed, sweaty and anxious. Gunner had binoculars and was scanning the sea in all directions. Nolan was doing the same with his specially adapted one-eye night-vision telescope, set for daylight.
Down on the bow, two of the Senegals had set up gun slots for their M4 assault rifles. Two more Senegals were covering the stern. The fifth Senegal was on the bridge with the freighter’s crew helping them steer the purloined bucket of bolts. The weather was brutally hot.
It was now late morning. They were sailing about thirty miles off the coast of India, barely making five knots. This part of the Indian Ocean was regarded by mariners as particularly treacherous waters. The area had a propensity for freak storms, waterspouts, whirlpools and tsunami-sized rogue waves. Even worse, it was a haven for pirates. Lots of them. Next to the Gulf of Aden and certain places in the Java Sea, this area had the highest concentration of pirates of anywhere in the world.
This was not a very good place to be at the moment and Nolan knew it. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been a guest on one of the most luxurious vessels on the planet, dealing only with snobs and ghosts. Now he was here, in this devil’s lake, on a ship that was moving so sluggishly, the slowest fish in the sea could pass it with ease.
And for what? That was the biggest mystery.
Nolan looked out on the vast expanse of water again and thought: How the hell did we get here?
* * *
ESCAPING FROM GOTTABANG had been the easy part.
Once they’d stolen aboard the Taiwan Song using a rowboat found on the dirty beach, Nolan and Gunner had no problem getting the drunken Korean crew to do what they wanted. And what they wanted at that moment was to make Emma Simms happy and load the poor souls from the Black Hole onto the soon-to-be-broken ship.
The squad had been able to get the Untouchables onto the beach in the first place only because the Senegals had realigned themselves atop the sand dune and brought massive firepower down on the Gottabang security troops who’d been firing at them from the edge of the workers’ shantytown.
But once on the beach, it was soon clear that there was no way to get the escapees onto the Taiwan Song, anchored 500 feet offshore. The ship didn’t have any lifeboats remaining on board, and the team’s RIB had been left way down near the breaking beach and thus was irretrievable.
Just about the time Nolan and Gunner were realizing all this, the ship’s radio crackled to life. It was the Gottabang beachmaster, confirming the Taiwan Song would be the first ship broken that day and that the crew should start making preparations for it now. He ended by saying he’d be calling back in twenty minutes with further instructions on how the crew should run the old ship up onto the beach.
Of course, this was crazy. There had just been a gun battle less than a mile from the breaking operation. Tracer