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as they began their sweeps of the lower huts, occasionally panning up to that reinforced slab of steel above everything. “Chief, make sure Blue Hand is zeroed in on that piece of armor up top.”
    “I was wondering about that thing myself. Think we got trouble?” Adams asked as he opened a channel to Lasko.
    “Don’t know. Could be the king pirate just likes to sleep in more protection than his lackeys. We’ll keep an eye on it as the op develops.”
    “Lasko’s already zeroed in on it as one of his secondary targets.” Adams returned to watching the teams clear the first level. “So far, so good. You know what that means.”
    “Yeah—it’s bound to go to hell sooner or later. Wait, let me make sure. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’”
    “Oh, you evil bastard.”
    * * *
    Flanked by Yosif, Vanel crept from hut to hut, making sure each one was empty. On the last one, he pushed aside a ragged blanket and almost took a parang to the chest. He managed to turn the blade aside with the barrel of his HK and push the defender off him. With a shout, his attacker leaped forward, blade raised to chop his skull in half.
    Vanel lined up his carbine and triggered a three-round burst into the man’s chest, dropping him in his tracks. Hearing movement inside, he pushed forward to see a blanket still swinging from someone ducking through a back exit, their footsteps slapping the ground as they fled. With Yosif right behind him, Vanel cleared the exit, making sure no one was waiting to ambush them, then took off in pursuit.
    Though Vanel was short and muscular instead of tall and broad like his kin, the walls of the narrow alley brushed his shoulders, making him twist sideways and trot down the winding path. Rounding a corner, he glimpsed the runner scrambling up a chain dangling off a tugboat prow that had been wedged into the trees.
    The man was pulling himself onto the deck as Vanel and Yosif both shot at him. The bullets chopped into wood and sparked off the metal hull as the man rolled to cover.
    “All Father’s Beard!” Vanel hissed as he exchanged magazines. “I know I hit him!”
    Yosif radioed back to base for orders. “Kildar said continue our sweep forward. Rest of the team will clear pieces below.”
    “Roger.” HK ready, Vanel began creeping forward again, alert for any noise or movement.
    * * *
    Yeung Tony leaned back and watched a young Chinese prostitute prepare his batu kilat , vaporizing the methamphetamine in a glass pipe that concentrated the fumes. She offered the pipe to him and Tony inhaled the pungent chemical smoke, eager to chase the white dragon again. While he did that, he forced the girl’s head down between his legs.
    As the meth entered his lungs, then his bloodstream, he grinned at the heightening of his senses as he adjusted the signature purple doo-rag on his head. The drug made everything around him crystal clear, like his eyes had just switched into high definition. From the whores fucking him and his men on the large, improvised balcony below to the riches strewn around his room, cash and designer clothes interspersed with high-end electronics, like the 65-inch LCD television mounted on one wall, he saw it all.
    He ruled it all.
    An average-looking man, half-Malay, half-Korean, Tony wasn’t the leader of this group because of his strength or ability with a weapon. Rather, it had been his skill at planning hijackings and his uncanny ability to figure out where the local authorities were patrolling that had cemented his leadership. It had also helped that he’d killed the last two challengers to his position, both securing his rule and establishing his ruthlessness.
    Now numbering seventy-five strong, his group roamed the seas around the Archipelago with impunity, his teams striking three or four ships in a night. With much of the region’s attention still focused on the Straits of Malacca, Tony knew it was only a matter of time before the authorities began patrolling