“Facade?” Bradley’s brow was creased with concern for the spreading flames and shock at what he was hearing.
“Yes, it’s all just make-believe, I’m afraid. We’ve been playing happy families. The fact is, China’s running out of diamonds. Our investigations in Montana have proved rather fortuitous. It seems the United States has an as yet undiscovered and untapped supply. We’ve managed to keep up appearances, hiding the numbers from everybody including yourself and the board. Conrad’s cranes and bulldozers still make noise at the site when they need to, we hire peasants from the mountain villages to mill back and forth in filthy miners’ uniforms. Hell, we even maintain the rail link. But it’s all a show. And it’s about to come to a spectacular end.”
“A spectacular end?” Will spat in disgust. “Is that what you call blowing up Beijing? If there are no diamonds left in China, why don’t you just leave? Start mining Montana and leave the people of China alone.”
Chad shook his head impatiently. “You’re not listening. Perhaps it’s the crackling of the flames or the panic pounding in your ears. We need money to expand, to mine, to conquer. That money will be sourced from several insurance policies. As you know, Bradley, I’ve always been rather fond of your uncle. It’s just a matter of timing, that’s all. The world economy is hungry and desperate. We’re at a crossroads. There can be only one world leader. We choose America. It has more diamonds.” He shrugged casually. “I’m greedy, I know, but what can I do about it? It’s a curse.”
“So you’re going to cripple the Chinese economy?” Will said. “Just like that?”
“Not cripple. Destroy. Terrorism’s best-kept secret is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Blow up Beijing and a shocked world will turn to the United States for guidance, security, leadership. Every country in the world will hand financial control over to Uncle Sam in the hope that America will save the world economy from spiraling out of control. The most powerful business empires in America—including the new improved Zhang Diamond Corporation—will have the rest of the world eating out of their hands.”
With a hiss the pool of flames slithered across the carpet in different directions. Chad, Mya, and Xi all took one or two steps back, making sure they still had time to make their exit.
On the boardroom table, Will struggled even harder, his flesh grinding against Bradley’s, both bodies growing slippery with sweat as the temperature in the room began to rise. “Exactly how the hell do you expect to get away with all this?”
“You mean the fire? Well, that will be your fault. Of course, when the police discover the cindered remains of two naked men, twisted and charred in the clothes they tried to wrench from each other’s bodies in an act of sodomy, I’ll be the first to advise the board of discretion. Such a scandal would bring shame to a company that’s already in the headlines. I’ll see to it that the whole matter is suppressed as quickly as possible.”
“And Beijing?” Will grunted through his locked jaw. “Who’s gonna take the blame for that?”
Chad laughed a genuine, hearty laugh. “Oh, come on, what terrorist organization in the world wouldn’t want that on their resume? Every man on the CIA’s Ten Most Wanted List will have his hand up, desperately claiming this was his own ingenious plan.”
His laughter turned to a cough as the air in the room began to turn into a toxic haze. Smoke completely concealed the ceiling now, swirling and churning.
“Ingenious plan!” This time it was Bradley’s turn to offer a spluttered laugh of disbelief. “This isn’t a plan. This is insanity! It’s a scam from a man who is completely deranged!”
“Deranged!” Chad stepped up to the boardroom table and slammed his hand down beside Bradley’s head. The flames were now leaping up from the carpet beneath the table. “Who the hell are you to insult anyone else’s ambition? Who are you to call my hard work deranged? Your fate was always written. You came from money. Your family was always going to pay your way—until now. Someone like me, on the other hand, came from nothing. I put myself through school working three jobs. Do you have any idea how many years I spent at Harvard busting my ass, knowing there had to be a smarter way—a
faster
way—to becoming one of the world’s richest men? This ‘scam’ as you call it entails an insurance portfolio worth more money than you can imagine, starting with Sen’s life insurance and risk management, which includes a hefty payout for kidnapping, ransom,
and
murder. Add to that the payout on the Eye of Fucanglong, not to mention the entire network of Shandong mines, and we’re talking in excess of—” He turned to Mya and asked in fiery jest, “Mya, what comes after millions?”
“Billions,” she answered arrogantly.
“And after that?”
“Trillions,” she purred.
“And after that?”
She smiled. “Us.”
Chad sneered at Bradley, his vicious smile so full of rage and greed that there was no room left for happiness. “Make no mistake.
This—is genius
. And while China smolders and digs through its ashes and the world weeps and panics, we’ll emerge as the new saviors of Wall Street. We’ll ensure that the United States will remain the dominant force in the world’s economy. We’ll create jobs, opportunities, wealth, the likes of which America has never known before!”
“By annihilating China!?” Will fumed.
“By neutralizing the competition. Minimizing the strength of the opponent.”
“Minimizing? You’re talking about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people!”
“Actually, given the area of the impact zone and the strength of the device, we’ve put our estimated body count at around four million,” Chad said with a shrug. He checked the spreading flames, which were now crackling up the walls, and decided it was time to leave. “Actually, make that four million and two.”
Chad took his laptop from Mya and shot a nod to his accomplices. Mya and Xi swiftly exited through the boardroom doors, a curtain of flames on either side of it now. Chad tucked his laptop under one arm, then gave a confident, cool farewell salute. “I’d like to say no hard feelings,” he said with a smirk, glancing down between Will’s and Bradley’s legs, “but by the looks of it that’s going to be your one last pleasure.”
Despite the growing sounds of the fire, Chad’s snicker was distinctly audible above it all as he fled the room in a smoky wake.
“My back’s burning.” Bradley sucked in his breath, then coughed with the smoke he inhaled.
Will watched Bradley grimace beneath him and noticed the surface of the table begin to smolder and pop. “We have to get off this table.”
“And go where? Roll onto the carpet? It’s on fire!”
As if his answer was a yes, Will began to roll from side to side, his now drenched naked body slipping against Bradley’s, their chests and stomachs and groins sliding together.
“Will, what the hell are you doing!”
“My jeans,” he grunted, picking up the momentum, rolling left, then right, pulling back just before each edge of the table. “The pocket of my jeans is somewhere under you, near my hands. If we can just put enough weight on it to—”
Suddenly over the intensity of the blaze he heard a muffled
chink
and stopped.
“What was that?”
Will’s hands were already trying to wriggle and squirm toward the pocket, feeling their way down Bradley’s hot, tensed back until he managed to pry a small, broken shard of glass out of the pocket. “It’s a mirror. At least it was a mirror. Now if I can just—”
Clutching the sharp piece of glass between two contorted fingers, he blindly positioned it against the shirt that had been used to bind his hands and began sawing away at the material.
“Ah, shit!” Bradley winced from the glass that stabbed into his back.
“Sorry!”
“Careful!”
“I’m trying!”
Part of a sleeve gave a little. Will kept cutting, his forearms flexing and biceps bulging, squeezing Bradley tighter and tighter in their bound embrace before the material gave way another inch, then another. Will could feel his hands pulling apart, his shirt ripping, and then—
“I’m loose!”
As the flames reached and grabbed for them over the edges of the table, Will pulled his arms free and used the glass and his bare hands to cut and tear the rest of the knotted clothes until Bradley was free as well.
Will hauled him to his feet and the two stood naked atop the table as they scanned the room for a way out. Will was the first to make a go of it, reaching over the edge of the table, through the biting flames, grabbing one of the boardroom chairs. He lifted it up, swung it back over one shoulder, then hurled it with all his might at the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“No, Will, it’s shatterproo—” was all Bradley managed to shout before the leather and steel chair hit the glass and ricocheted straight off it.
From behind them they heard a popping, cracking sound and turned in time to see the glass doors to the boardroom surrender to the intense heat and erupt in a shower of tiny shards, followed by the shattering of the display cases along the wall. The only way out had now turned into a corridor of glass.
“How far are the emergency stairs?” Will shouted.
“Down the corridor. Next to the elevators. Do you think we can make it?”
As Bradley asked the question, the ceiling above the boardroom doorway came crashing down in an avalanche of burning plaster and red-hot beams.
Will stared at the roaring wreck now blocking the doorway and shook his head. “Not anymore, I don’t.” He grabbed Bradley by the arm. “Come on, think. There’s gotta be another way outta here.”
“Wait, there is,” Bradley yelled, pointing to the far wall opposite the doorway. “There’s a panic room through that door!”
“A secret door?!” Will smiled. “Cool!”
“You have no idea. It was built as an escape route in case of emergency.”
“I think this qualifies as an emergency.”
“It’s small, but once we’re in, the entire room acts like an express elevator and drops directly to the ground floor.”
“What about the fire? Didn’t your teachers ever tell you not to get in an elevator during a fire?”
“This one’s different. The shaft is impervious to flames—theoretically.”
“What do you mean, theoretically?”
Bradley shrugged. “It’s never been used before.”
With an ominous groan, the smoke-filled ceiling bowed as the flames began to eat their way across the panels above their heads.
“I think it’s time to put the theory to the test,” Will said. “How do we get inside?”
“There’s a concealed square panel to the right of the door. A good push on the panel will trigger it open. Behind it there’s a keypad.”
As Bradley spoke, Will quickly snatched up his ripped and ragged jeans and slid them on, then threw Bradley’s tattered trousers to him. He leaned over the edge of the burning table and saved their shoes from the flames, and the two of them covered their nearly scorched feet.
“To open the door you need to type in a ten-digit code,” Bradley said.
“Which is?”
“
HongKongHQ
. No spaces.” Bradley couldn’t take his eyes off the fiery distance between the table and the wall. “But how do we get to it?”
Will winked. “Do you know how to surf?”
“No!”
“Don’t sweat. There’s nothin’ to it. Just follow me.”
Suddenly Will broke into a sprint.
He ran in a fast, straight line all the way down the length of the burning table, using it like a runway, before launching himself off the edge of it and onto one of the boardroom chairs. He landed with one boot on top of the chair’s back to steer him, and one anchored on the chair’s seat, his momentum setting the wheels of the chair in motion and sending him speeding across the blazing floor before slamming into the wall that concealed the secret door.
He looked for a small safe patch of carpet and pushed off the chair. He spun back to see Bradley sizing up the distance between himself and the end of the table with deep nervous breaths. Above him the ceiling panels were completely ablaze now. One chunk of burning debris fell and splattered on the table right beside his left foot. Hissing flames began to hail down on him. It was all he needed to launch him into a panicked dash down the length of the table.
He hurled himself through the air, hit one of the chairs in a standing position, just as Will had done, and careened crazily through the raging fire, trying desperately to maintain balance and direction until—
Bam!
Will stepped swiftly out of the way just before Bradley’s out-of-control chair crashed into the wall. As the chair spun and swiveled backward into the flames, Will grabbed Bradley by both hands and yanked him to safety.
“See? No sweat!” Will grinned. “You okay?”
Bradley nodded. “Yeah. But I think I prefer skating.”
Will turned to the wall. His fingers felt their way around until he located the small square panel. He pushed and it popped open to reveal a small keypad set into the wall. With care, he began typing in
HongKongHQ
, his brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes stinging with smoke.