Contract to Kill by Andrew Peterson

lack of activity made it obvious no one had reported the murders. If anyone had, the place would’ve been swarming with police.
    Nathan took a look with the thermal imager. “I’m not seeing any warm signatures out there. Keep going, Harv.” Nathan consulted his phone again. “Looking at some satellite photos, I think I know the best place to park and approach the fields. There’s an industrial area bordering the north side of the complex. Let’s be on the lookout for surveillance cameras. There are bound to be a few around.”
    As Nathan suspected, most of the low-rise buildings had cameras mounted on their parapets and all of the parking lots between the buildings were brightly lit.
    “Keep going, I see a good spot,” said Nathan. “Just a little farther.”
    They approached a smaller industrial building that looked unoccupied. Its doors and windows were covered with painted plywood.
    Nathan studied the surrounding area for any movement and detected none. “What do you think about parking in here? The only downside would be a security patrol noticing a newly parked vehicle and recording the license plate. But this place looks inactive.”
    “I’d say it’s low risk,” Harv said. “We’ll be in and out in fifteen minutes.”
    They stayed close to the building and walked toward the wrought iron fence surrounding Hickman Field. Nathan brought his night-vision up and scanned the soccer fields again, just to be sure. All clear.
    “Ready?”
    “And if they aren’t dead?” Harv asked.
    “We call it in,” Holly said.
    “I’m already on it.” Nathan patted his carry bag. “I’ll use the voice-morphing program on my laptop. I can completely change my voice, even into a woman’s.”
    Holly shook her head—in amazement or dismay, it was hard to tell which.
    Harv winked at Holly. “He did consider working on Broadway.”
    “Easy, now,” said Nathan. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
    “Can we be serious about this?” said Holly.
    “Here’s the plan. If by some chance one of them is still alive, we’ll call 911 and request a bus. I’ll use my laptop to create the morphed voice, then we’ll play it back into a pay phone, assuming we can find one.”
    “I guess that’ll work,” Harv said, “but use the word ambulance , not bus .”
    Holly crossed her arms and made an involuntary shiver.
    “We’ll make this quick. Here, I’ll give you a boost.”
    A few seconds later, they were over the fence, walking toward the site of a double murder.

CHAPTER 10
    Philippine Sea—fifteen days earlier
     
    From an aft deck outside the bridge, the captain of Yoonsuh , a seventy-meter South Korean–registered luxury yacht with a draft of nearly 1,700 tons, watched the skiff approach the stern of his boat. In the distance, he saw the faint lights of the Namkung Khang as it continued its journey south to Palau. His radar indicated there were no other contacts within range. A low-pressure front was moving in from the north, but they’d easily outrun it. Everything looked good.
    The skiff’s operator maneuvered the small craft up to Yoonsuh ’s stern diving deck, and a crew member secured its lines.
    A state-of-the-art vessel in every respect, Yoonsuh had been retrofitted with supplemental diesel tanks, extending its range to forty-five hundred nautical miles at cruising speed. All told, the yacht carried more than forty thousand gallons of fuel.
    As he always did, the captain made sure the skiff’s special passenger received first-class accommodations. His stateroom suite had a home theater with access to more than two thousand movies and TV series. In addition, there were four women aboard who were highly skilled masseuses . And the food? World-class. The two-week journey to the California coast would be lived in extravagance.
    The duffel bags were transferred into the closest of six bedroom suites, where they were stacked against the bulkhead. A little later, they’d be moved into a secret double-hull