“Let’s do it,” Jin said. She was too antsy to sit, so she got to her feet and typed in the code to play the video.
Lu came on the screen, unchanged from the last time they’d seen him, his body ravaged by the cancer that later ended his life.
“Good day, April and Angus,” he said, his voice weak and gravelly. “I expect you’ve been eagerly awaiting this moment. I know I would be in your position. I would give anything to see your faces when I reveal what will happen.” He took a sip of water and cleared his throat.
“He just loves his dramatic moments,” Polk muttered, “even beyond the grave.”
“You should have seen him when he was alive,” Jin said.
“First, I would like to congratulate you on your success to date,” Lu said. “There is still much to be done, but in just a few short days, your mission will be complete. You will have served China most honorably, and will inherit my wealth. While you may have to say farewell to your former lives in Australia, you will have friends in Asia, and the resources to live well anywhere else you desire.”
“Okay, already, tell us what we need to do,” Polk said anxiously.
Lu continued. “The carrot is still waiting for you. Hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency will be yours at the end of this, as promised. You hold your end up, and I will do the same. Now for the objective.” He went into another coughing fit and quenched it with a drink of water.
Jin and Polk looked at each other. It was all or nothing. Jin took her husband’s hand.
“If you’ve followed my instructions, the Shepparton should be holding a full load of Enervum along with its delivery system,” Lu said. “The amount of gas on board is enough to poison five million people, the entire population o
f Australia’s largest city. You will take the ship, and at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, nine days from now, release its cargo into the air in the middle of Sydney Harbour. That is your final objective. I hope you succeed.”
TWENTY-TWO
DARWIN
After transferring a stabilized Oliver Muñoz and the two Senators’ families to a hospital in Bali’s capital, Juan had pushed the Oregon’s new engines to their limits to reach the Empiric, but Sylvia and Murph were long gone by the time they arrived. The ship kept going, and when they were within three hundred miles of Darwin, Gomez took off from the Oregon’s deck in the tiltrotor with Juan, Julia Huxley, and Eric Stone, who had insisted on coming when he heard about his best friend’s condition. They landed an hour later, and Juan drove a rental van carrying Julia and Eric out of Darwin International Airport while Gomez stayed behind to refuel the plane.
“I can never get used to a hot Christmas,” Eric said idly from the back seat as they passed a city bus plastered with an ad for a local bank. Its loan offer featured Santa on his sleigh even though it was a hundred degrees in the midday sun. Yet the grass under the eucalyptus and palm trees lining the road remained green thanks to frequent downpours during the summer’s wet season.
Juan glanced at Julia with a concerned expression, and she silently nodded. Eric was trying to distract himself from what he’d find when they arrived at the hospital.
“We’ll do everything we can for him,” she said.
“Maybe it’s only temporary,” Eric said. “He could be back on his feet by Christmas morning.”
“Maybe,” she replied with an air of hope. But the discouraged look she gave Juan made it clear she was dubious of that outcome. The holiday was only three days away.
The rest of the drive was quiet except when they stopped at a medical supply store to pick up an order Julia had called in. It was a motorized wheelchair for Murph to use. According to the reports they’d received from the Royal Darwin Hospital, he could still control one of his fingers enough to guide the chair with the joystick. Eric spent the rest of the ride attaching a custom-made device to the chair’s armrest.
When they reached the hospital, they found it swarming with Australian soldiers as well as various government officials. Thanks to fake U.S. government IDs, the three of them were allowed to enter and went up to the fifth floor, where the patients from the Empiric were being cared for.
Julia stopped at the central desk and announced, “We’re here to see Mark Murphy.”
The duty nurse squinted at her and then looked at Juan and Eric. “I’m not sure he is allowed visitors.”
A doctor who had been peering at a computer screen looked up. He was a trim man in his thirties with short black hair.
“I’m Leonard Thurman,” he said. “Mr. Murphy has been under my care. Are you Dr. Huxley?”
She nodded. “How did you know that?”
“We’ve been expecting you. I received a most unusual phone call from my government an hour ago. The U.S. State Department apparently requested that I show you and your colleagues every courtesy. Mr. Murphy and his sister Ms. Chang are the only American survivors of the tragedy that brought them here. Please, follow me.”
Thurman led Julia down the hall, and Juan and Eric trailed behind them.
“Dr. Thurman,” Julia said as they walked, “what is their latest condition?”
“Ms. Chang seems to have suffered no ill effects of what we think is a poison gas attack. The status of Mr. Murphy, on the other hand, has not changed since he arrived. He has not gotten any worse, which is good news, but he remains almost totally paralyzed from the neck down.”