Austin peered around the corner of the container, then he waved up at Zavala. The guard lay dead in his bathing suit on the floor. Even shooting down at such a difficult angle, Zavala had drilled him through his chest.

Austin remembered then what Phelps had said about the Chinese fetish for numbers. He shook his head. When your number was up, your number was up.

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 45

CHANG WAS A CLASSIC PSYCHOPATH. HE DIDN’T HAVE A drop of human empathy or remorse in his squat, ugly body, and for him killing was as easy as crossing the street. The other Triad triplets had channeled his murderous impulses to their own ends. He displayed a real talent for organization, so they gave him responsibility for the network of gangs that operated in the world’s big cities. The job slaked his blood thirst by allowing him to participate in assassinations for commercial advantage, retribution, or just plain punishment.

The job also had restrained Chang from tumbling into the abyss of sheer madness, as long as the other two triplets provided balance. But now he was on his own, far from the familial reins that had kept his barely restrained violence in check. The voices that sometimes whispered in his head were now shouting for his attention.

After leaving the lab, Chang had delivered the vaccine cultures to the freighter lying in wait near the atoll and then waited for a report from the submarine. The failure of the explosives to detonate, to destroy the lab and staff, had finally pushed him over the edge.

When the appointed time had passed, Chang got back in the shuttle with his most cold-blooded killers, and ordered the pilot to head back into the crater. As the shuttle emerged from the tunnel, the undimmed lights at the bottom seemed to mock Chang. A vein pulsed in his forehead.

Dr. Wu, sitting at Chang’s side, had sensed his employer’s growing fury, and he tried to will himself into invisibility. Even more disconcerting was Chang’s sudden lightness of mood when he turned and said in an almost cheerful tone more frightening than his anger:

“Tell me, my friend, what would happen if someone were to fall, quite by accident, into the tank with the mutant jellyfish?”

“That person would be stung immediately.”

“Death would be instant?”

“No. The nature of the toxin is to paralyze.”

“Would it be agonizing?”

Dr. Wu shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“Yes,” he said. “If the person didn’t drown, he would be aware of every sensation in his body. In time, the jellyfish would begin to absorb him.”

“Splendid!” Chang clapped Dr. Wu on the back. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”