Combat

Spring Xiamen, Fujian Province People’s Republic of China

Their black rubber raft threaded silently through the densely packed fishing fleet at anchor for the night, the waves, even in the protected harbor, nearly one meter high. The four men were Taiwanese Secret Intelligence Service Commandos, and their chances for success tonight were less than one in ten. Of course all of Taiwan faced about the same dismal odds when it came to remaining free, squad leader Captain Joseph Jiying thought. But the heavy winds, sometimes gusting as high as thirty-five knots, did not help their chances much. They had been in constant danger of flipping over ever since they had left their twelve-man submarine twenty klicks out into the Taiwan Strait just off the entry between Quemoy Island and the Sehnu Peninsula. Now they faced the danger of discovery by patrol boats that darted around the harbor twenty-four hours per day, or by the underwater sound sensors laid on the floor of the bay, or by the infrared detectors installed on the shore batteries, and by the thousands of pairs of eyes always on the lookout. It was estimated that every fifth person in the PRC was a government informer. It meant that at least one hundred fishing boats at anchor tonight held spies.

Xiamen was a city of a half million people and home to an East Sea Fleet base that along with headquarters at Ningbo seven hundred kilometers to the north, and twelve others, was the dominating presence on the East China Sea and more specifically on the Taiwan Strait. Commanded by Vice Admiral Weng Shi Pei, the base was homeport to thirty-seven ships, among them one fleet submarine, three patrol submarines, including a Kilo-class, two frigates, one destroyer, and a variety of smaller boats, among them fast-attack missile, gun, torpedo, and patrol craft. The bulk of the fleet was berthed in a narrow bay to the southwest of the city, while a small naval air squadron was based at the municipal airport on the northeast side of the sprawling city. The sky was overcast, the night pitch-black, the water foul with stinking garbage, oil slicks, and a brown stain that clung to the carbon composite oars they had used since entering the harbor. It was too dangerous this close in to use the highly muffled outboard motor, but no one minded the extra work. It kept them warm.

They rounded the eastern terminus of the commercial port and entered the brightly lit fleet base harbor, the rubber raft passing well over the submarine nets. Keeping to the deeper shadows alongside the frigates and patrol craft, they made it to Dry Dock A, which an earlier recon mission reported was empty. Its massive steel doors were in the open position, and the box was flooded.

Their bowman, Xu Peng Tei, grabbed the metal ladder at the head of the dry dock, tied them off, and scrambled to the top. He cautiously peered over the steel lip three meters above them, then gave the sign for all clear and disappeared over the edge. At twenty-seven he was the oldest man in the group, and although he was not the squad commander, everyone called him Uncle.

Joseph and his other two commandos stripped the protective sheaths from their silenced 9mm Sterling submachine guns, checked the magazines and safeties, then climbed silently to the top of the dry dock and over the edge.

They dropped immediately into a low crouch, invisible in the darkness because of their night-fighter camos and black balaclavas. Joseph checked his watch. It was three minutes until 0100. They were on schedule.

Xu appeared suddenly out of the darkness and crouched beside them. He had also unsheathed his weapon, and the hot diffuser tube around the barrel ticked softly as it cooled. “It’s clear for the moment.”

“How many guards, Uncle?” Joseph asked.

“Two, as we expected. One outside, one in the guard post. They’re down.”

The mid-phase mission clock started at that point. “Ten minutes,” Joseph said, and they headed directly across to a low, windowless, concrete building a hundred meters away. Surrounded by a four-meter-tall electrified razor-wire fence, the only way in or out was through a gate operated from the guard shack. The outside patrols were on a fourteen-minute schedule, so ten minutes was cutting it close.

The building was the base brig, and for the moment it contained only one prisoner. The PRC was trying to be very low-key about him, which was the only reason tonight’s action had the slightest chance of success.

No one wanted to make waves, Joseph thought. Not the PRC, and especially not the United States. Well, after tonight, waves were exactly what they were going to get. And he expected that when the U.S. was finally pushed to the breaking point they would come through. Either that or there wouldn’t be anything left of Taiwan except for smoldering cinders and radioactive waste.

But he was betting his life tonight that the U.S. would save them one more time. If his four years at Harvard had taught him nothing else about Americans, he learned that they loved the underdog, and they loved their heroes coming to the rescue. Superman. It was the one serious indulgence he’d picked up in the States. He had copies of Superman comics numbers five through ten, twelve, fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen, from the thirties, plus a hundred others, all original and all in cherry condition. Truth, justice, and the American way … now the Taiwanese way, because he’d rather be dead than under mainland rule.

One guard, a neat bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, lay in the darkness beside the fence, and the other was crumpled in the doorway of the guard post just inside the compound.

The lights were very bright there, but no alarms had been sounded, no troops were coming on the run. But the clock was counting down.

Zhou Yousheng dropped down in front of the fence and quickly clamped four cable shunts across a five-foot section. Next he cut the wire between the shunts with insulated cutters and carefully peeled them back. Although the fence now had a wide hole in it, the electrical current had never been interrupted, so no alarm would show up at Security Headquarters across the base.

Zhou gingerly crawled through the opening and as Chiang Kunren clamped the wires back together and removed the shunts, he darted inside the guard post where he released the electric gate lock.

They slipped inside, dragged the dead guards out of sight, and re-locked the gate. Joseph led two of his men up the path to the blockhouse. Zhou remained at the guard post. They all wore comms units with earpieces and mikes. One click meant trouble was coming their way.

Chiang, their explosives expert, molded a small block of slow-fire Semtex into the lock on the steel door. He cracked a thirty-second pencil fuse, jammed it into the plastique, then quickly taped a two-inch-thick pad of nonflammable foam over the explosive to deaden the sound.

He’d barely taken his hands away from the foam when the Semtex went off with a muffled bang.

“One of these days you’re going to lose a finger,” Joseph observed, and Chiang shot him a quick smile.

“Then I’ll have to ask for help every time I need to unzip my fly. Female help.”

A long, wide corridor led from the front of the building to the back, five cells on each side. There were no adornments, not even numbers over the cell doors. Only a few dim lightbulbs hung from the low concrete ceiling.

Shi Shizong, who was known in Taiwan and in the west as Peter Shizong, was in the last cell on the left. He rose from his cot when Joseph appeared at the tiny window. He was very slight of build and young-looking, even for a mainlander, to be the PRC’s most reviled villain. He preached democracy, and for some reason unknown even to him, his message and his presence touched a deep chord among half of China’s vast population. Farmers and doctors, factory workers and engineers, fishermen and even some politicians were buying into his message. In the three years he’d been preaching and somehow managing to stay ahead of the authorities, massive waves of discontent had swept across the country, thousands of innocent demonstrators had been killed, their homes and assets confiscated by the state, martial law had been declared in two dozen cities, and even the West had finally begun to sit up and take notice.

Three days ago Shizong’s odyssey had finally ended in a small apartment in Xiamen, with his arrest. The next day he was to be moved to a small, undisclosed city somewhere inland, where he would stand trial for treason. There would be no media, no witnesses, no publicity. He would be found guilty, of course, and would be executed within twenty-four hours of his trial.

His name and philosophy would soon be forgotten. It was something that China needed if its present government were to survive. And it was exactly what Taiwan wanted to prevent, at all costs. Reunification with the PRC was suicide, but reunification with a democratic China was not only desirable, in Joseph’s estimation, it was worth giving his life for.

“Here,” he called softly, and he waved Shizong away from the door.

Chiang rushed over, molded a small block of Semtex on the lock, cracked a ten-second fuse, shoved it into the plastique and stepped aside. This time he didn’t bother with the foam; the building itself would muffle the sounds.

The plastique blew with an impressive bang. Joseph hauled the door open and stepped inside the cell. “We’re from Taiwan Intelligence, Mr. Shizong. We’re here to rescue you.”

Shizong hesitated for just a moment, weighing the possibilities. This could be some sort of PRC trick. “Where are you taking me?”

“Taipei.”

Understanding dawned on his face, and he smiled and nodded. “I see,” he said, warmly. Joseph was instantly under his spell. Shizong had intelligence and kindness; he and he alone knew the answers for China.

Shizong was dressed in dark trousers, but his open-collared shirt was white. Joseph pulled a black blouse out of his pack and handed it to the man.

“We don’t have much time. Put this on over your shirt, please.”

Xu was at the front door when they came out of Shizong’s cell. He motioned for them to hurry.

Chiang closed the cell door, knocked out the lightbulb above it, and joined them outside as Shizong finished pulling the blouse over his head. The night was still except for the occasional boat whistle outside the harbor somewhere. So far there were no alarms, but the next patrol would be at the gate in under four minutes.

Joseph and Xu hustled Shizong down the walk. Chiang closed the steel door and wedged it shut. The lock was gone, but from a distance in the dark the damage might not be noticeable. At least they hoped it wouldn’t be.

Zhou powered the gate open, and as soon as the other four were safely through he hit the button to close and relock it, came out of the guardhouse on the run and just managed to slip through the narrowing opening before the gate clicked home.

The lone sentry came around the corner fifty meters away. Joseph and the others raced across the road and dived for cover in the ditch. The son of a bitch was two minutes early, Joseph thought bitterly.

He laid his submachinegun aside and pulled out a stiletto. If need be he was going to have to take the guard out. But silently. The others understood, and got ready to cover him.

It seemed to take an eternity before the guard reached the gate. He said something that they couldn’t quite make out, then peered inside. After several moments he shook his head and continued along the fence past the section that had been cut and reconnected just minutes before.

Joseph released the pent-up breath he’d been holding, sheathed his stiletto, and picked up his gun.

The only thing that they had not been able to find out was how often the gate guard was supposed to check in with base security. Whatever that schedule might be they were racing against it now.

When the sentry finally turned the far corner, they jumped up and raced the rest of the way down to the dry dock, keeping as low as they could. Xu and Chiang went down the ladder first, followed by Shizong and Joseph and finally Zhou.

Fifteen minutes later they crossed over the submarine net, and made their way past the commercial docks and through the fishing fleet. The weather had begun to calm down, but it wasn’t until they were well outside the harbor and could start the outboard, that Joseph allowed himself to relax.

“It seems that you’ve actually done it,” Shizong said. He smiled. “Congratulations, gentlemen. But now, as the Americans would say, the fat is in the fire.”

Joseph laughed. “Indeed it is,” he said. “I didn’t know that you lived in the United States.”

“It’s been a secret. But I spent three years in the Silicon Valley as a spy for Chinese Intelligence.”

Joseph decided that nothing would ever surprise him again. “Tell me, do you know anything about Superman comics?”

Two Months Later The White House

Kirk Cullough McGarvey, Deputy Director of Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, showed his credentials at the door three stories beneath the ground floor even though the civilian guard recognized him.

“Good morning, Mr. McGarvey, how’s it out there?” the Secret Service officer asked.

“Hot and muggy, Brian, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.”

“Worst place in the world to build a capital city.”

“Amen,” McGarvey agreed. He entered the basement situation room and took his place next to Tom Roswell, director of the National Security Agency. At fifty, McGarvey certainly wasn’t the youngest man ever to hold the third-highest job in American intelligence, but he was the most fit and had more field experience than all his predecessors put together. He’d worked for the Company in one capacity or another for the past twenty-five years: sometimes on the payroll, at other times freelance. But in the parlance of the go-go of days of the sixties and seventies at the height of the Cold War, he’d been a shooter. An assassin. A killer. The ultimate arbiter. Now he was the spy finally come in from the cold.

There wasn’t a man or woman on either side of the Atlantic or Pacific who’d ever looked into his startlingly green, sometimes gray, eyes who’d ever come away unchanged. At a little over six feet, with a broad, honest, at times even friendly, face, he still maintained the physique of an athlete because he swam or ran nearly every day, and he worked out at least twice a week with the CIA’s fencing team. His enemies feared him, and his friends and allies revered him. An old nemesis had once said that although Mac was an anachronism in this high-tech day and age, he was still a force to be reckoned with. “Never, ever underestimate the man. If you do, he’s likely to hand you your balls on a platter.”

The long conference table was filled with the President’s civilian and military advisors this morning. Among them were all four of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretaries of State and Defense; representatives from all the law-enforcement and intelligence services, including the FBI, Secret Service, and Defense Intelligence Agency, along with the National Reconnaissance Office, which was responsible for all the photographic data received from our KeyHole and Jupiter satellite systems as well as a host of others. His National Security Advisor, Dennis Berndt, and his Chief of Staff, Anthony Lang, were also present. All the big dogs, McGarvey thought. But he wasn’t surprised.

Roswell had been talking to the FBI’s Associate Director, Bob Armstrong. He turned to McGarvey. “You giving the briefing this morning, Mac?”

“Gene will start us off.”

Eugene Carpenter was the Secretary of State. Nearing eighty, he was the oldest man in government, but everyone respected his intellectually astute, though usually practical, views. He was sitting slumped in his chair lost in his own thoughts.

“If we don’t watch our step, this business over Taiwan is going to jump up and bite us on the ass, because the Chinese sure as hell aren’t going to forget the Nanchong.”

“Just like the Maine, is that what you’re saying?” McGarvey asked.

“Worked for us,” Roswell said.

The FF502 Nanchong was a PRC frigate that had been destroyed overnight fifty miles off the southwest coast of Taiwan in international waters. The Chinese claimed that it was attacked by a Taiwanese gunboat or perhaps a submarine, while Taiwan denied any involvement. The PRC’s state-controlled media were already clamoring for retribution, and the Chinese military had been brought to the highest state of readiness they’d been in since the Vietnam War.

The President walked in, and everyone stood until he had taken his seat. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. It was the same affliction that every president since FDR had suffered; the job was a tough one, and it took its toll. He gave McGarvey a nod.

“People, let’s get started, I have some tough calls to make and I’m going to need your help this morning.” He turned to the Secretary of State. “Gene?”

Carpenter looked up as if out of a daze, and he sat up with a visible effort. He looked pale and drawn, in even greater need of rest than the President.

“Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here this morning because of an incident last night in the East China Sea in which a People’s Republic Of China warship was blown up and sunk with all hands lost. I’m going to leave the actual briefing to Mr. McGarvey, who warned us two months ago that something like this was bound to happen. But there’s something that you all need to know before he gets started. Ever since the most recent round of trouble between mainland China and Taiwan started two months ago, we’ve been trying to find a way to keep the situation out there stable.”

Carpenter passed a hand across his eyes. “It’s no secret that we’ve not done a very good job of it. Eight weeks ago, in response to a PRC naval exercise in the area, we moved our Seventh Fleet out of Yokosuka: the George Washington and her battle group north of Taiwan and the Eisenhower and her support group to the south. Our committment, of course, was and still is to honor our pledge to keep the East China sea-lanes open.

“China’s response in turn was to augment her East Sea Fleet presence in the region with elements of her North and South Sea Fleets, greatly outnumbering us.”

Carpenter shuffled some papers in front of him. “Four weeks ago our two Third Fleet carrier battle groups — the Nimitz and John F. Kennedy — arrived from Honolulu to cover Taiwan’s north and east coasts, which prompted China to completely strip her North and South Sea Fleets, concentrating every ship that they could commission in an area barely three hundred miles long and half that wide. In addition, the entire PRC Air Force has been moved east. Along with their army and Missile Service, the entire military might of China was placed this morning on DEFCON One.”

“My God, what the hell do they want, war?” Attorney General Dorothy Kress demanded angrily. “Over one man?”

“They’ve done this before,” Admiral Richard Halvorson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said. “The last time they rattled their sabres was during Taiwan’s elections. So long as we stand our ground they back down.” He turned to the President. “Hell, Mr. President, Shizong isn’t worth that much to them.”

“How much is Taiwan worth to us, Admiral?” McGarvey asked across the table. All of them were in for a rude awakening that morning. They would be faced with recommending one of the toughest decisions any president could ever be faced with.

Halvorson shrugged. “That’s a civilian policy decision, one thank God that I don’t have to make,” he said. “Ask me if we can defend Taiwan against a PRC invasion, I’ll give you the numbers. And frankly, at this moment they do not look good. We’re spread too thinly.”

“But that’s exactly the decision we’re going to have to work out here this morning,” McGarvey pressed. He didn’t know why he was angry, except that we had worked very hard and long to get ourselves into this position. Getting ourselves back out wasn’t going to be easy. Nor would it be safe.

The President motioned for McGarvey to back off for the moment. It was the same game we’d been playing out there ever since Nixon had opened the door and stuck his foot into it, McGarvey wanted to tell them. But they knew it; hell, everybody knew it. China was getting Most Favored Nation trading status because she was a vast market. It had to do with money and almost nothing else. The fact was we couldn’t ignore a country whose population was one-fourth that of the entire world’s. But we couldn’t give in to them either; abandon our friends and allies just as the British had abandoned Hong Kong. When the solution to a little problem was distasteful Americans lately seemed to put it off until the problem got much bigger and the solution became even tougher. Sooner or later, as Roswell suggested, the situation over Taiwan was going to bite us in the ass.

Like now.

“Okay, Gene, everything we’ve tried so far has failed,” the President said. “Tell them the rest.”

“I’ve just returned from a three-day shuttle-diplomacy mission between Beijing and Taipei. I was trying to talk some sense into them; find an opening, even the slightest hint of an opening, so that we could resume a meaningful dialogue.” Carpenter pursed his lips. “I was afraid that I was coming back with the worst possible news: that there was going to be no simple way out of the morass except to continue the Mexican standoff between our navy and theirs. I thought that the best we could hope for would be, as Admiral Halvorson suggested, that the Chinese would sooner or later tire of the exercise and go home.

“But then the Nanchong incident occurred last night while I was over the Pacific on my way home. Now all bets are off.”

“What do they want?” Secretary of Defense Arthur Turnquist asked. His was one cabinet appointment that McGarvey never understood. The man was an asshole; he spent almost as much time saving his own reputation as he did on any real work. But he was well connected on the Hill.

“The mainland Chinese want the immediate return of Peter Shizong, dead or alive. And the Taiwanese want nothing less than their independence unless mainland China is willing to open itself to free elections and a totally free market economy. Neither side is willing to discuss the issue beyond that.”

“That’s hardly likely anytime soon,” the President’s advisor on national security affairs, Dennis Berndt, pointed out unnecessarily.

“It comes down to the simple question: Do we abandon Taiwan? Do we turn tail and run? Or do we stay and risk a shooting war?” Carpenter said. “The sinking of the Nanchong may well be the catalyst. We have to consider where our breaking point is.” He sat back, the effort of bringing the discussion this far completely draining him.

“What’s the military situation out there at the moment?” the President asked.

“It’s a mess, Mr. President,” Admiral Halvorson answered. “We’ve offered to help with the search-and-rescue mission, but the Chinese have refused, as we expected they would. The actual effect of the sinking was to move the bulk of the PRC’s naval assets about twenty-five miles closer to Taiwan.”

“What about the Taiwanese military?”

“Fortunately their naval units in the near vicinity have all moved back an appropriate distance, but they, along with their Air and Ground Defense units, are at DEFCON One. In the meantime we’re keeping four Orions and five A3 AWACS aircraft in the air around the clock to make sure that this doesn’t spin out of control and blindside us. All of our carrier fighter squadrons are at a high state of readiness, as are our Air Force fighter wings in Japan and on Okinawa.” The admiral looked around the table at the others to make sure that they all would catch his exact meaning. “If someone starts an all-out shooting war over there, we’ll be the first to know about it. The PRC knows that we know, and so does Taiwan.”

“If we have the region so well covered, how’d the Nanchong get hit without warning?” SecDef Turnquist asked peevishly.

“I can’t answer that one, Mr. Turnquist,” Admiral Halvorson admitted. “Al Ryland’s people are the best, and he told me this morning that he was damned if he knew what happened.” Vice Admiral Ryland was the Seventh Fleet CINC. His flag was on the George Washington.

“If it happened once, it can happen again.”

“No, sir, that’s not a possibility you need consider,” the admiral said in such a way that it was clear he would not be pushed. “Mr. President, I would sincerely hope that we can come to some sort of an agreement with Tiawan over Shizong. I’m not saying that we turn him over to the Chinese, but Taipei could certainly be made to stop his radio and television broadcasts. Christ, it’s driving them nuts.” He looked around the table at the others to emphasize his point. “The longer our military forces are in such close proximity to the Chinese the more likely it’ll become that there’ll be a serious accident. We’re going to start killing people over there — our own kids. And on top of that my commanders have their hands tied.”

“They are authorized to use whatever force necessary to defend themselves, Admiral,” the President said. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be pushed either. Unlike his predecessor, he had spent time in the military.

“That’s the point. Mr. President. They might need more authority than that, and they might need it so fast that there’d be no time to phone home. Al Ryland would like full discretion—” Ryland was in overall command of the combined fleet.

“No,” the President said even before Admiral Halvorson finished the sentence. He sat forward for emphasis in his tall, bulletproof leather chair. “This will not spin out of control into an all-out shooting war between China and the United States.”

“Then, Mr. President, let’s pack our bags and get the hell out of there,” McGarvey said from across the table.

The President shot him an angry, irritated look, as if he hadn’t expected a comment like that from the CIA, and especially not from McGarvey, for whom he had a great deal of respect. “The CIA does not set policy.”

“No, sir, nor will the CIA tell this administration what it wants to hear.”

“When have you played it any differently?”

McGarvey had to smile, and there were a few chuckles around the table though the mood was anything but light. Friend and enemy alike all agreed that McGarvey never bullshitted the troops. Never.

“Okay, let’s hear the CIA’s version of the situation, because I sure as hell need the unvarnished truth before I can come to a decision that makes any sense.”

McGarvey hesitated for just a moment. He’d been in this kind of a position many times before. It never got any easier. What he wanted to do had one-hundred-to-one odds against it. But the alternatives were either losing Taiwan or going to war with mainland China. In either case tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives would be lost. Needlessly.

“There may be no acceptable solution, Mr. President. At least not in the ordinary sense of the word, because the Chinese themselves engineered this situation.”

The Secretary of Defense started to object, but the President held him off with a sharp gesture. “Go on.”

“First of all the Nanchong was ready for the scrap heap. We believe that she was headed for the cutting yard when she was diverted at the last minute and sent out on this mission. She was a Riga-class frigate, built in 1955 in the Soviet Union and transferred to Bulgaria in 1958. Her name at that time was the Kobchik, which made her a KGB boat. Navy ships have numbers but no names.

“The Kobchik was extensively retrofitted in ’80 and ’81, and then sold to the PRC in 1987, when she was renamed the Nanchong. By that time she was already an outdated piece of junk.”

“Like most of the Chinese navy,” SecDef Turnquist said. He was going to make a run for the presidency next election, and the rumors were already flying that he was taking Chinese soft money. But McGarvey wasn’t going to go there right now.

“The Nanchong’s skipper, a man by the name of Shi Kiyang, was convicted of treason eighteen months ago and sentenced to life in prison without parole at East Sea Fleet headquarters in Ningbo. His mother, his wife, and his two children were sent into exile to Yulin, in the far north, and all of his assets, car, bicycles, bank account, Beijing apartment, and furniture were confiscated by the state.

“But he made an amazing comeback. Six weeks ago he was released from prison and sent to Xiamen on the coast. His family was brought back to Beijing, where their old lives were reinstated.

“The Nanchong left port three days ago on her one and only mission with a skeleton crew of officers and men who had all been convicted of a variety of crimes from treason to theft of state property.”

“Goddammit, we were set up,” Admiral Halvorson said angrily. “But why? What did the bastards expect to accomplish?”

“Get our attention.”

“Are you telling us that the Chinese sank their own ship?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“They got our attention. What do they want?”

“They want exactly what they told Gene they wanted. Peter Shizong. Dead or alive.”

“They’re using the Nanchong as an excuse to punish Taiwan. I can understand that. But they want us to back off this time, and they’re willing to fight.”

“That’s the conclusion we’re drawing, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “They’re not merely rattling their sabers this time, they’ve pulled them. The ball is in our court.”

“We have the Carl Vinson and her battle group still in Yokosuka. We could park them just offshore from Taipei. Any invasion force would have to get through us first,” Admiral Halvorson said. He was mad. “Might make them stop and think before they pulled the trigger.”

“They would only be fighting a delaying action,” Turnquist objected.

“That’s if we stuck to conventional weapons,” Halvorson countered. “We have six submarines patrolling the strait, three of them strategic missile boats. Their combined nuclear throw weight is five times that of the entire Chinese missile force.”

“Most of the Chinese missiles are ICBMs, are they not?” the President’s National Security Advisor, Berndt, asked. He was clearly alarmed. “Capable of reaching the United States a half hour from launch?”

“Our first targets would be their launch sites,” Admiral Halvorson shot back.

The President gestured for them to stop talking. “How reliable is your information, Mac?”

“We have a high confidence.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Whatever we do, Mr. President, will involve a risk — either of losing Taiwan or of getting into a nuclear exchange with China.”

“If it’s about getting into a nuclear war, Taiwan’s independence isn’t worth the price,” Berndt said. It was obvious that most of the others around the table agreed with him.

“It’s about our word,” McGarvey interjected softly.

“That’s what was said about Vietnam,” Berndt pressed. He was an academic. He’d never been out in the real world.

“Taiwan is an ally.”

“So was South Vietnam.”

“Maybe we could have won that war,” McGarvey said patiently. After twenty-five years working for the CIA, he didn’t think he’d heard a new argument in the past twenty years.

“I’ll repeat my question, Mac, what does the CIA suggest we do?”

“Play the PRC at their own game, Mr. President,” McGarvey said.

“Okay, how do we do that?”

“You’re going to lend me a Seawolf attack submarine and I’m going to sink it with all hands lost.”

Three Days Later CVN George Washington

Even at a distance from the air the George Washington was an impressive sight. At over a thousand feet in length, she displaced more than ninety thousand tons, carried a crew of three thousand men, women, and officers, plus another three thousand in the air wing. The carrier had ninety planes and an arsenal of Phalanx cannons, Sams and Sea Sparrow missiles, and yet her two pressurized water-cooled nuclear reactors, which needed refueling only every thirteen years, could push the largest warship afloat to speeds well in excess of thirty knots. McGarvey peered out the window of the Marine Sea King CH-46G troop-carrying helicopter that brought him and his escort, Navy SEAL Lieutenant Hank Hanrahan, down from Okinawa.

It was early morning, the sun just coming up over the eastern horizon, and the day promised to be glorious. The north coast of Taiwan was a very faint smudge on the horizon to the southeast, and arrayed for as far as the eye could see in all directions were war ships: the George Washington’s battle group of Aegis cruisers, guided-missile destroyers, and ASW frigates directly below; Taiwanese gunboats, destroyers, and guided-missile frigates to the east; and the PRC fleet along a three-hundred-mile line to the west. The George Washington’s air wing maintained a screen one hundred miles out, which of necessity brought them into very close proximity with the Chinese. And below the surface were six U.S. submarines, four Taiwanese boats and eleven Chinese submarines, three of which were nuclear-powered Han-class boats, old but deadly.

“There’re almost enough assets out there to leapfrog from Taiwan to the Chinese mainland without getting your feet wet,” Admiral Halvorson had told McGarvey after the President’s briefing. What he meant was that once the shooting started it would be impossible to control the battle or stop it until there was a clear victory. In the meantime a lot of good people would be dead for no reason.

“Ever been on a carrier before, Mr. M?” Lieutenant Hanrahan asked, breaking into McGarvey’s thoughts. He was twenty-six, with a freshly scrubbed wide-eyed innocent look of a kid from some small town in the Midwest. But he was a service brat, his dad was a retired navy captain, and he was as calm and as hard as nails as any man in the SEALs. You only had to look into his eyes to see it. He’d been there done that, and when called upon he was ready, willing, and very able to go there again and do it again.

“A couple of times, but you forget how big they are.”

“About the size of a small city. Only problem is you can’t find a decent saloon anywhere aboard.”

McGarvey had to smile. He was being tested. “A decent legal saloon, you mean.” Hanrahan gave him a sharp look. “I wasn’t always a DDO. And grunts tend to hear a hell of a lot more than their superiors. Don’t shit an old shitter.”

Hanrahan grinned happily. “I read you, Mr. M.”

A red shirt guided them to touch down just forward of the island. The Grumman E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft normally parked there was airborne, and for the moment the elevator to the hangar deck was in the up position and clear. Fully one-third of the Seventh and Third Fleet’s assets were in the air at any one time, making this one of the busiest pieces of air real estate in the world, even busier than Chicago’s O’Hare.

The seas were fairly calm and as soon as the helicopter came to a complete stop, McGarvey and Hanrahan unbuckled and grabbed their bags. There was no sense whatsoever that they were aboard a ship at sea. The deck was as rock solid as a parking lot in a big city, but noisier.

“Thanks for the ride,” McGarvey shouted up to the crew forward.

“Yes, sir. Hope you enjoyed the meal service and in-flight movie,” the pilot quipped.

“Just great,” McGarvey said. A cheese sandwich and a ginger ale while looking out a small window were not usually his first choices for breakfast and entertainment, but he’d had worse.

The red shirt motioned them to the island structure as the chopper was already being prepped to be moved below and refueled for the 350-nautical mile return trip. Just inside the hatch a Marine sergeant in battle fatigues, a Colt Commando slung over his shoulder, saluted.

“Gentlemen, please follow me to flag quarters.”

He led them down a maze of passageways, the machinery noises not as bad as McGarvey remembered from the Independence, but the corridors just as narrow and covered in stenciled alphanumeric legends. Pipes and cable runs were everywhere, and seemingly around every corner there were firefighting stations built into the Navy gray bulkheads. The ship was very busy, evident by all the activity they saw through the hatches in the bulkheads, decks, and overheads, and the constant PA announcements.

Men all good and true, busy at the work of war, the line came back to McGarvey from somewhere. Only these days it was men and women all busy at the work of war.

Another armed Marine sergeant in battle fatigues was stationed at the admiral’s door. He stiffened to attention. Their escort knocked once, then opened the door and stepped aside.

“Gentlemen, the admiral is expecting you.”

Flag quarters was actually a well-furnished suite, sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom, that equaled anything that a luxury ocean liner could offer — thick carpeting, rich paneling, nice artwork, expensive furniture, except there were no sliding glass doors or balconies.

“Good morning,” Vice Admiral Albert Ryland said. He put down his coffee cup and he and the other two men with him got to their feet.

“Good morning, Admiral,” McGarvey said, shaking hands.

Ryland, who was from Birmingham, Alabama, looked and sounded like a tall, lean Southern gentleman from the old school. He was one of the most respected officers in the Navy; it was Halvorson’s opinion that he would probably end up Chairman of the Joint Chiefs within five years. “Don’t try to hold anything back on him, or he’ll cut you off at the knees,” Halvorson warned.

“This is the George’s captain, Pete Townsend, and my Operations Officer, Tom Byrne.”

They shook hands. The captain looked like a banker or the chairman of some board of directors. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, his hair was thin and gray, and his face was round and undistinguished. Byrne, however, was a very large black man who looked like he could play with the Green Bay Packers. His grip was as strong as bar steel.

“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Hank Hanrahan. I have orders to assist Mr. McGarvey.”

“You Mike Hanrahan’s son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s your old man doing these days?”

“He misses the Navy, sir.”

Ryland chuckled. “This would be just the kind of brouhaha he’d like to be in.” He turned back to McGarvey. “Well, the Chinese know that you’re here. They’re watching every move we make. Satellites and OTH radar.”

“Hopefully they don’t know who I am,” McGarvey said. “And we’re going to keep it that way because Hank and I are not going to be aboard very long. Just until nightfall.”

“I thought your helicopter was heading back right away,” Townsend said.

“We’re not leaving that way.”

“Unless they’re sending another bird for you, I don’t have anything to spare.”

“We’re not flying.”

“Are you going to swim?” Townsend demanded angrily.

“As a matter of fact that’s exactly what we’re going to do, Captain,” McGarvey said. “Tonight.”

He couldn’t blame Ryland or his officers for being in a bad temper. They were in the middle of a likely very hot situation with their hands practically tied behind their backs. This was a fight between China and Taiwan. The U.S. was Taiwan’s ally and was supposed to back them up if they were attacked, but the Navy was here only to show the flag. The President’s orders remained very specific: Ryland was not to shoot unless the Chinese shot at his people first. In effect if the PRC navy simply wanted to sail right through the middle of the Seventh and Third Fleets, engage every Taiwanese warship they encountered, and then send troops ashore, there was nothing Ryland could do about it.

Ryland shook his head. “Dick Halvorson said that you were inventive.”

McGarvey smiled faintly. “I don’t think that was exactly the word he used.”

“No.”

Byrne poured them coffee. “Admiral Halvorson said that we were to give you whatever you wanted.” He looked at Hanrahan, who did not avert his gaze. “That’s a pretty tall order.”

McGarvey took a plain white envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Ryland. He figured that if the flag officers were unhappy before, they would be even less happy after reading the letter.

When Ryland was done he handed it to Townsend, and looked at McGarvey. “Okay, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs calls to tell me than the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations is flying out, and I’m supposed to give him all the help I can. I’m thinking that perhaps you’re bringing a magic bullet to get us out of the mess we’re in. And now this.”

Townsend had finished the letter, and he handed it to Byrne. He was clearly upset.

“No magic bullets this time, Admiral. But I think we might have a chance of coming out of this situation with our asses more or less intact,” McGarvey replied. He had decided long ago never to try to argue with a man who has just been blindsided. If you wanted to get through to him, you waited until he calmed down a little.

“That’s a comfort,” Ryland said acerbically. “I’m told to defend Taiwan, but I can’t fire a shot to do it.” He glanced at Byrne, who had also finished the letter. “Now the President tells me that I can’t even ask any questions. Christ on the cross, if we lose here, we lose everywhere!”

“If we start a shooting war, it could escalate. Go nuclear.”

“McGarvey, there’s a real chance that every time we untie one of our carriers from the dock and send her to sea we’ll get ourselves into a nuclear war. Are you telling me that Taiwan isn’t worth the risk?”

“That’s the current feeling in Washington.”

Ryland glanced again at his officers. “A dose of refreshing honesty for a change. It’s a wonder that you’ve kept your job for so long. What are we doing here then?” he asked angrily. “Sooner or later there’ll be another accident. Then another, and another until all hell breaks loose! That’s the way it works, you know.”

“The Nanchong was no accident, Admiral. The Chinese sank her. That’s why the President sent me out here, to work out a solution that’ll keep everybody happy — Taipei and Beijing.”

“If that’s true, it explains a couple of things that we were wondering about,” Byrne said. He and Ryland exchanged a look.

“How many men were aboard her?” Ryland asked.

“We’re not sure, but probably no more than a dozen. Just enough to take her to sea, but not enough to fight her.”

“Gives the PRC a supposedly legitimate reason to be here,” Byrne observed.

“And us, too,” Ryland agreed. “What do we do about it?”

“We’re going to sink one of our own.”

Ryland sat forward so fast that he practically levitated from his chair. But he hesitated for just a moment before he spoke. McGarvey could almost hear him counting to ten. “I don’t think that you’re saying what I just heard. The Chinese may be willing to kill their people, not us.”

“Thirty-six hours from now there’ll be an underwater explosion a hundred miles from here. Five minutes later one of our submarines, the Seawolf, will send up a slot buoy to report that they have engaged an unknown enemy, were damaged, and are in immediate danger of sinking. Before the message is completed the communications buoy will break loose from the submarine, there’ll be another intense underwater explosion, and then nothing.”

Byrne got a chart of the area, and McGarvey pinpointed the approximate location for them. The George Washington’s captain saw the plan immediately.

“That’s sandwiched between us and the Kennedy. No Chinese assets that we’re aware of within a hundred fifty miles.” Townsend looked up. “That gives the Seawolf a clear path into the open Pacific. Is that what you have in mind?”

McGarvey nodded. “There’ll be an extensive search, of course, and some wreckage will be found. Twenty-four hours later we’ll announce that the Swordfish was lost with all hands, and was probably torpedoed.”

“The Swordfish? She was pulled from duty six months ago,” Byrne said. “She’s back at Groton.”

“That’s right. And when this is over with, she’ll be taken in secret and sunk just off our continental shelf.”

“If we blame the Chinese, they’ll have to figure that we’ve pulled the same stunt on them that they pulled on the Taiwanese,” Byrne said.

“It won’t matter,” McGarvey told them. “Everybody will back off to let the situation cool down and allow the politicians to hash it out.”

“That’ll only buy us a few days, maybe a week, and then we’ll be right back in the same situation we’re in right now,” Ryland opined. “What will we have gained?”

“After seven days the PRC Navy will return to their home bases and so will we.”

Ryland glanced at the President’s letter on the coffee table. “That’s the part I’m not supposed to ask any questions about.”

“You wouldn’t want to know, Admiral. As soon as it gets dark we’ll be out of your hair.”

Ryland turned to Hanrahan. “You’re in on this, Lieutenant?”

Hanrahan stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

Ryland waved him off. “Relax, I’m not going to order you to tell me. Except how in the hell do you think you’re going to get off this ship without the Chinese knowing something is going on? If you’re not flying, you’ll have to be transferred to one of our frigates or destroyers, and they’ll see that, too.”

“Sir, we’re exiting the ship from the port hangar deck just forward of the Sea Sparrow launcher.”

“What the hell—” Townsend exploded.

“Relax, Pete, I think I know at least part of what they’re up to,” Ryland said. “The Seawolf is coming to pick you up.” He shook his head. “That’s a dicey maneuver no matter how you slice it.” He turned to the captain again. “We’ll have to warn sonar.”

“That won’t be necessary, Admiral. Your people haven’t detected her yet, have they?” McGarvey asked.

“No,” Townsend said, tight-lipped. “Where is she?”

McGarvey glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. “Actually we’re passing over her about right now. She’s been lying beneath a thermocline nine hundred feet down since yesterday morning.”

“We’re on a twelve-hour pattern,” Townsend said. “We’ll be right back here around seven this evening.”

“That’s about when we go overboard,” McGarvey said. “When you’re clear, she’ll come up to about fifty feet, we’ll dive down to her and lock aboard.”

“Does Tom Harding know what’s going on?” Ryland asked. Harding was the Seawolf’s skipper, and a very good if somewhat conservative sub driver.

“No.”

“Well, I can think of at least a hundred things that could go wrong. But considering the alternatives we’ll do whatever it takes to get you down to her in one piece.”

“In secret,” McGarvey said. “As few people outside this room as possible are to know that we’ve gone overboard.”

“I’ll arrange that,” Townsend said, and he shook his head. “I think you’re nuts.”

McGarvey nodded. “You’re probably right, Captain.”

1920 Local SSN 405 Hekou

Lying just off the floor of the ocean one thousand feet beneath the surface, the PRC Han-class nuclear submarine Hekou was leaking at the seams, the air was going stale, and the radiation levels inside the hull continued to rise, the last fact of which was being withheld from the crew. Her home base was at East Sea Fleet Headquarters in Ningbo, and she had been among the first to sail when the trouble begin. By luck she had been lying on the bottom eight days ago hiding from the American ASW aircraft above while the engineers were frantically correcting a steering problem when sonar picked up the George Washington passing almost directly overhead. When the steering problem had been fixed, and the aircraft carrier was well past, the Hekou’s skipper sent up a communications buoy to get instructions. He was told to stay where he was, maintain complete silence, and wait for the moment to strike.

The message unfortunately was not clear on when that moment might be. In the meantime Captain Yuan Heishui was having problems keeping his boat alive, and there was the American submarine five hundred meters off its starboard bow, also hovering just off the bottom mush.

Twenty-four hours ago sonar had detected the American Seawolf-class submarine approaching their position very deep and very slowly. The approach had been so slow and so stealthy that the Americans had been on top of them before they knew what was happening. Even before Heishui could order his torpedo tubes loaded and prepared to fire, the Seawolf went quiet and settled silently in place, apparently completely unaware that they were not alone.

Since that time Captain Heishui had ordered all nonessential machinery and movements aboard his boat to stop.

He picked the growler phone from its bracket, careful not to scrape metal against metal. “Engineering, conn,” he said softly.

Their chief engineer, Lieutenant He Daping, answered immediately. “Shi de,” yes. He sounded harried and in the background the captain could hear the sounds of running water.

“This is the captain. How is it going back there?”

“Without the pumps we’re eventually going to take on so much water that we won’t have the power to rise to the surface.”

“We must not run the pumps. How long do we have?”

“Six hours, Captain, maybe less,” Daping answered. Captain Heishui knew the man well and respected him. He came from a very good family, and his service record was totally clean, an accomplishment in itself.

“Seal off the engineering spaces, then introduce some high-pressure air in there. That should slow the leaks.”

“I was just about to do that,” Daping said. If they could not get out of the fix they were in now and get moving soon, sealing the aft section of the boat would doom the crewmen back there. If the flooding got too bad, there would be no way of opening the hatches.

“I’ll do what I can,” the captain promised. “But we might have to fight. Ho yùngi,” good luck.

“Yes, you too, Captain.”

“Conn, sonar.”

Heishui glanced up at the mission clock, then switched circuits. “This is the captain. Is Sierra Seven back early?” They had designated the American Aircraft carrier as Sierra Seven and had timed her movements. She was on a zigzag course that brought her back to the same point approximately every twelve hours. It was 1120 GMT, the standard time kept aboard all submarines, which put it at 1920 on the surface. If it was the George Washington, he was slightly early.

“She’s fifteen thousand yards out, Captain, but it’s Sierra Eighteen,” Chief Sonarman, Ensign Shi Zenzhong, reported excitedly. “He’s moving. He’s on the way up, very slowly, on an intercept bearing with Seven.” Sierra Eighteen was the American submarine, and the captain could not imagine what he was up to.

“Have they sent up a slot buoy?”

“No, sir. And they’re running silent. No one on the surface will hear them.” Zenzhong’s voice was cracking, and the captain considered pulling him off duty immediately. But the man was the best.

“Have we been detected?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” the sonarman replied. The captain’s calm demeanor was helping him and everyone in the control room.

“Stand by,” the captain said. He motioned his XO, Lieutenant Commander Kang Lagao, over. “Get down to sonar and give Ensign Zenzhong some help. Sierra Eighteen is on the way up.”

“Maybe they’re rendezvousing with the George Washington,” Lagao suggested. He was the oldest man aboard the submarine, even older at forty-six than the captain. And he was wise even beyond his years. Exactly the steady hand they all need. The American command structure could take a lesson.

“That’s what I think, but something is strange about it,” Heishui said. “See what’s happening and then start a TMA.”

Lagao was startled. “You’re not going to shoot, are you?” A TMA, or Target Motion Analysis, was a targeting procedure used to guide torpedoes in which the enemy vessel’s speed and position were continually tracked and plotted against the relative speed and position of the tracking boat.

“Not yet. But I want to be prepared. There’s no telling what they’re up to, or when we might have to shoot.”

“Very well.”

When Lagao was gone, Heishui picked up the growler phone. “Forward torpedo room, this is the captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want all six tubes loaded, but not flooded, with 65-Es.” Heishui glanced over at his weapons control officer and chief of boat, whose jobs he was doing. They were studiously watching their panels. The captain did not want to bring any shame to them, but he wanted to make absolutely sure that no mistakes were made. Their lives depended on it. “I want this done with no noise. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll send the presets momentarily, but if there is any noise whatsoever, whoever was responsible will be court-martialed and shot as a traitor — if we survive to make it home. Do you understand that as well?”

“Yes, sir. Very well.”

“Carry on,” Heishui said. He replaced the phone, confused about many things though not about why he was here. Taiwan needed to come home, as Hong Kong had, or else be punished as a naughty child.

1930 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

Hearing anything with precision from beneath the sharp thermocline was difficult except for a ship the size of the George Washington. Named for her class, the Seawolf was the state of the art in nuclear-powered attack submarines. No other navy in the world had a boat that could match her stealth, her nuclear and conventional weapons, her speed, and her electronics. Especially not her BQQ-8 passive sonar suite, which, according to the sonarmen who used it, could hear a gnat’s fart at fifty thousand yards. Her mission had been to patrol an area well north of the Seventh and Third Fleets in case the PRC tried an end run on them. The long ELF message they had received forty-eight hours ago irritated the Seawolf’s captain because it put his boat at risk without an explanation why. He was ordered to rendezvous with the George Washington without allowing the carrier or any other ship to detect her. And less than an hour from now he was to pick up two passengers. The only reason he hadn’t “missed” the damn fool message was the last line: McGarvey Sends.

“Skipper, we’re at seven hundred twenty feet,” the Chief of Boat Lieutenant Karl Trela reported.

“Okay, hold us here,” Commander Thomas Harding told him. The bottom edge of the thermocline where the water got sharply colder was just twenty feet above the top of their sail. They were at the edge of the safety zone where they were all but invisible to surface sonars. He picked up the phone. “Sonar, conn.”

“Sonar, aye.”

“Where’s the George?”

“Four thousand yards and closing, skipper. He’s on his predicted course and speed.”

“What else is up there, Mel?” Commander Harding asked in a calm voice. The trademark of his boat was a relaxed vigilance. A few of the crewmen called him Captain Serenity, though not to his face.

“There’s some action southeast. I think it might be the Marvin Shields. And there’re faint noises southwest, maybe thirty thousand yards. My guess would be the Arleigh Burke, but I’m not real sure, sir.” The Shields was a Knox-class frigate, and the Burke was a guided-missile destroyer. Both were a part of the George Washington’s battle group.

“Any subsurface contacts?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Very well. Keep your ears open. I want to know as soon as the George has passed us and gets ten thousand yards out. We’ll be heading up.”

“Aye, aye, skipper.”

Commander Harding got his coffee and leaned nonchalantly against the periscope platform rail, a man without a care in the world. Whoever McGarvey was sending down in secret would be bringing the explanation with them. And it better be damned good, he thought, or there will be hell to pay. But then he’d had dealings with the man before. And McGarvey was, if nothing else, a man of consummate cojones. The mission would be, at the very least, an interesting one.

1940 Local George Washington

Nobody said a thing on the way across the hangar deck. Their Marine escort, Sergeant Carlos Ablanedo, stopped them for a moment behind an A-6E Intruder, its wings in the up position, its nose cover open exposing the electronics inside. There was some activity forward, but it was far enough away, and the cavernous deck was lit only with dim red battle lights so there was no chance that they would be spotted.

Word had been sent down to the various section chiefs to make themselves and their crews scarce from about midships aft between 1930 and 2000 hours. It was done in such a way that no questions were asked. A personal favor for the old man.

The military services were not usually particularly friendly toward the CIA; too many mistakes had been made in the past, not the least of which was the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But McGarvey had to admit that this time they were treating him with kid gloves. They were looking for a solution that would require no shooting, and they were willing to go along with just about anything to get it.

The night was pitch-black, the sky overcast, so that there was no line to mark the horizon. The seas were fairly flat, so the huge wake trailing behind the massive warship was not as confused and dangerous as it could have been. Nonetheless, Hanrahan warned him that once they hit the water they were to swim at right angles from the ship to put as much distance between themselves and the tremendous suction of the gigantic propellers as possible. To help them the captain would order a sharp turn to port at 1950, which would take the stern away from them.

There was no rail on the open elevator bay, and it was a long way down to the water, maybe thirty or forty feet, McGarvey estimated. He and Hanrahan were dressed in black wet suits with hoods, small scuba tanks attached to their chests, buoyancy control vests and swim fins strapped to their backs. Hanrahan also carried a GPS/Inertial Navigator about the size of a paperback book. On the surface it established its location from satellites. Underwater it “remembered” its last satellite fix, and then kept track of every movement: up, down, left, and right, along with the speed to continuously update its position. It was a new toy that the SEALs had been given just two months ago. In trials it had worked like a charm. But this would be its first real-world test. McGarvey carried a bag with his things.

They flipped a pair of lines over the side, attached their hooks to the six-inch lip at the edge of the deck, then threaded the lines through their rappelling carabiners.

“Okay, Sarge, we were never here,” Hanrahan said.

“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of your ropes, but you guys stay cool.”

McGarvey looked over the side at the black water rushing by. “I don’t think we’re going to have much of a choice in about two minutes.”

The sergeant grinned. “At least this ain’t the North Atlantic.”

“Some guys have all the luck,” Hanrahan said.

The carrier began its ponderous turn to port. They could actually feel the list, which McGarvey figured had to be at least five degrees, maybe more. The white wake curled away from them, and Hanrahan gave him the thumbs-up sign.

They went over the side together, rappelling in long but cautious jumps down the ship’s flank, until they were just a few feet above water that moved as fast as a mountain stream.

Hanrahan unclipped his line and held it away from his body. McGarvey did the same, and on a signal from the SEAL they pushed off, hitting the water almost as hard as if they had jumped off a garage roof and landed on their backs on a concrete driveway.

McGarvey tumbled end over end and then he was swept deep beneath the surface. It seemed to go on for an eternity, until gradually the turbulence began to subside. When he surfaced, the ship was already ahead of him, and a ten-foot wall of water from the wake was curling around, heading right for him.

He yanked his swim fins free, struggled to put them on, and headed directly away from where he figured he had gone into the water and at right angles to the wake.

After five minutes he stopped and looked over his shoulder, involuntarily catching his breath. The ocean was empty. There was no sign that the George Washington had ever been there. No wake, no lights on the horizon, nothing. There were no other ships in sight, nor were there any aircraft lights in the sky. No sounds, no smells. He could not remember ever having such an overwhelming feeling of being alone. Facing a human enemy, one bent on killing you, was one thing. But facing the sea, which was a supremely indifferent enemy, was another matter altogether.

He saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye to the left. He turned toward it, raised the tiny strobe light attached to his left arm and fired a brief burst in return.

A couple of minutes later Hanrahan materialized out of the darkness. “Are you okay?”

“I’m wet,” McGarvey said. “How close are we to the rendezvous point?”

“Just about on top of it.”

They donned their masks and mouthpieces, and on Hanrahan’s lead they let the excess air out of their BC vests and started down at an angle toward the northeast. Almost immediately the massive hulk of the Seawolf’s sail appeared directly beneath them. The submarine had risen so that the top of her sail-mounted sensors were twenty feet beneath the surface.

McGarvey followed Hanrahan down the trailing edge of the sail to the submarine’s deck, where the forward escape trunk hatch was open. The trunk was like a flooded coffin: the fleeting thought crossed McGarvey’s mind as Hanrahan reached up and pulled the hatch closed. This was definitely not a job for someone with claustrophobia.

2015 Local SSN 405 Hekou

Captain Heishui studied the chart, which showed the present positions of his submarine and the American boat, as well as the track of the George Washington and her battle group. He was trying to reconcile what he was seeing with his own two eyes and what his XO was telling him.

“She’s on her way back down,” Lagao said. “There’s no doubt about it. It’s my guess that she rendezvoused with the American carrier long enough to exchange messages, perhaps more.”

Heishui looked up. “More?”

Lagao was a little uneasy, but he held it well. Heishui was an exacting captain. He did not suffer mistakes very well. “It’s possible that the Seawolf took on supplies or passengers. He didn’t surface, at least Zenzhong doesn’t think so. But we may have picked up machinery noises. Possibly the pump for an escape trunk.”

“All that information from beneath the thermocline?”

“There have been fluctuations in the temperature and salinity. But it’s just a guess, Captain.”

Heishui nodded. “I think that you may have something,” he conceded. “Let’s see what he does now.”

“What if he tries to run?”

“Then we will follow in his baffles so that he will not detect us.” Heishui studied the chart for a moment, trying to read something from it, some clue. “He can outrun us, of course, but not if he wants to remain stealthy.” He looked up again. “That in itself would tell us something.”

“We will have to keep a very close ear on him,” Lagao warned.

“I want a slot buoy prepared. If he does head away we’ll send up the buoy on a one-hour delay to inform Ningbo what we’re attempting to do. The delay will give us plenty of time to get clear.”

“I’ll see to it now,” Lagao said.

Heishui called sonar. “What is he doing?”

“Still on his way down, Captain.”

“I think he means to get under way as soon as he reaches the thermocline. Keep a close watch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Prepare to get under way,” he told his Chief of Boat. “We’re done waiting.”

2020 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

By the time McGarvey and Hanrahan changed clothes and were led down one deck and forward to the officers’ wardroom directly beneath the attack center, the Seawolf had already started down. The XO, Lieutenant Commander Rod Paradise, who had been waiting for them when they emerged from the escape trunk, shook his head and grinned. “It’s getting to be a habit, picking you up,” he told McGarvey. “This is one time I think the captain is finally going to be surprised.”

On a mission last year the Seawolf had rescued him from the Japanese Space Center on the island of Tanegashima. While aboard he’d gotten to know the captain and some of the crew. He had developed a great deal of respect for them. It was one of the reasons he wanted this sub for the mission. Harding was unflappable.

“I’d take five dollars of that,” McGarvey said.

Paradise started to say something, but then shook his head. “I don’t think I’d care to bet against you after all.”

The angle on the bow was sharp. Harding was wasting no time getting back to the protection of the thermocline. But it made walking difficult, especially down ladders.

“Here we are,” Paradise said, shoving back the curtain.

Harding was just pouring a cup of coffee. He turned around and smiled pleasantly. “Ah, McGarvey. It’s nice to see you again.” After the Tanegashima mission they had gotten together with their wives for drinks and dinner in Washington. The women had gotten along very well, and McGarvey and Harding had talked over dinner and then at the bar afterward until midnight. There didn’t seem to be a subject that they disagreed on.

“Hello, Tom. Thanks for the lift.”

“Getting off the George must have been interesting.”

“Next time I’ll leave it to the kids,” McGarvey said. “This is Lieutenant Hank Hanrahan. He’s along for the ride.”

The captain noticed the SEAL insignia. “I suspect that you’re going to have an interesting time of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Hanrahan agreed happily.

They sat down at the compact table, and Paradise poured them coffee. If anything, it was better than the coffee on the George, which was going some because the carrier was the flag vessel for both fleets during this operation.

“Okay, Mac, you’re aboard safe and sound, and a lot of people went through a whole lot of trouble to get you here, so what’s the program?” Harding asked. He was not a man to beat around the bush; not with his questions, nor with his orders. When you dealt with Harding you were dealing with a straight shooter. It was one of the qualities McGarvey liked about the man.

McGarvey handed him the carte blanche letter from the President. Harding quickly read it and handed it back. He was not overly impressed.

McGarvey handed him another envelope, this one sealed. “Once you’ve taken a look at that you’re committed, Tom.”

A flinty look came into the captain’s eyes. “I wouldn’t have picked you up if I wasn’t already committed.”

“No one outside of this room can know what the real mission is.”

Harding considered it for a moment. He looked at Hanrahan. “Do you know what this contains, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.”

Harding opened the envelope, quickly scanned the three pages it contained, then read them again before handing them to his XO. This time he was impressed.

“You’ll have to maintain radio silence,” McGarvey said. “We’re on our own now until we get back to Pearl, no matter what happens.”

“All this because the old men in Beijing are frightened,” Harding said, amazed. “But this isn’t all of it. There’s more.”

“Frightened men are capable of just about anything.”

“The question becomes how far are we willing to go to protect an ally,” Harding mused. “We’re talking about the potential for a nuclear exchange here. So I suppose just about anything should be considered. Even a stunt as harebrained as this one.”

McGarvey didn’t have a chance to answer before Harding cut him off.

“I think it’s worth a try, Mac,” he said. He glanced at Hanrahan. “When I said interesting, that was one hell of an understatement.”

Paradise finished reading the mission statement, then reached behind him and took out a chart of northern Taiwan and the waters around it. They moved the coffee cups so that he could spread it out on the table.

“Keelung will be your best bet,” Harding said. “It’s a big enough city so you might not be noticed. And if we make our approach from the southeast, we’ll have deep water to within just a few miles of the coast.”

“That’s what we thought,” McGarvey agreed. “We can get transportation there, and Taipei is only fifteen miles away.”

“We can supply you with an inflatable and a muffled outboard, but you’ll have to find someplace secure to hide it. I expect that the Taiwanese are a little jumpy about now. They’ll have plenty of shore patrols out and about.”

“We’re going in as just about who we really are,” McGarvey explained. “We’re American military advisors, so it’ll be up to the Taiwanese to keep quiet about us. It’s something they’ll understand.”

“Okay, so that gets you to Taipei, then what?” Paradise asked. “It’s a big city, maybe two million people.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks, Rod, to figure out things like that,” McGarvey said. There was no reason for him or Harding to know what that part of the plan was. In fact no one knew, not even Hanrahan. Nor would they ever.

“How about a time line, then?” Harding asked.

“If we’re not back in twenty-four hours, get the hell out, someplace where you can phone home and let them know that we’re overdue. The mission name is MAGIC LANTERN.”

“What’s the earliest we can expect you?”

“That depends on when you get us to Keelung.”

“We could have them ashore by midnight,” Paradise said, looking up from the chart. “Even if we take it slow and easy.”

“In that case with any luck we’ll be back before sunrise,” McGarvey said. “But the bad news is you’ll have to surface.”

“We can mask just about any surface radar, but if a surveillance aircraft or fighter/interceptor gets close enough, the game will be up.”

“We’ll have to take the chance.”

“You’re bringing something or someone aboard?”

“Something like that.”

Harding looked at the mission outline again. “We have one thing going for us. This side of the island is fairly secure. If the PRC makes a move, they’ll come from the west. The bulk of Taiwan’s ASW assets are directed that way.” He looked up. “Getting in and out will be the least of our problems, I think. Your mission ashore will be the tough nut to crack.”

“Like I said, Tom, that’s why they pay me the big bucks,” McGarvey replied.

2050 Local SSN 405 Hekou

“Conn, sonar.”

Heishui grabbed the phone. “This is the captain.”

“Sir, Sierra Eighteen is on the move. She just turned southeast, relative bearing two-zero-eight, and she’s making turns for ten knots.”

Heishui turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Turn right to two-zero-eight, and make your speed ten knots.”

“Aye, sir. Make my course two-zero-eight, my speed one-zero knots.”

Heishui turned back to the phone. “If he starts to make a clearing turn, or you even think that he might be about to do it, let me know immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

Heishui replaced the phone. “Prepare to commence all stop and emergency silent operations on my command,” he told his COB.

“Yes, sir.”

Heishui went to the chart table, where he laid out the American submarine’s present position, course, and speed. Projecting her line of advance brought her to the north coast of Taiwan about midnight. A mystery within a mystery, he thought glumly.

United Nations Security Council

Chou en Ping, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, got slowly to his feet, an all-but-unreadable expression on his flattened oriental face. Until his appointment three years ago he had been head of the Mathematics Department at Beijing University. Very few people in the entire UN were smarter than he was. Sometimes talking to him seemed like an exercise in futility.

“We have come to an impasse,” he said in English. He directed his remark to Margaret Woolsey, the U.S. ambassador. “I have been directed by my government to ask that the voice of reason prevail. We call on the provincial government of Taiwan to immediately hand, over the criminal Shi Shizong. We are sending a military delegation to Taipei to arrest him within twelve hours.”

Margaret Woolsey looked around the chamber at the others, trying to gauge their moods this morning. It was a few minutes after 8:00 A.M., and the session had been going with only a couple of short breaks since nine o’clock the previous evening. They were all tired, their thinking somewhat dulled. It was exactly what Ping wanted. She offered a faint smile. “There will forever be an impasse when it involves the issue of individual freedom,” she said. It was the harshest condemnation of mainland China’s current actions, and some of the other delegates looked up in interest.

“Do you wish to debate the human rights issue again, Madame Ambassador?” Ping asked, pleasantly. “Shall we begin with Harlem, Detroit, or Watts?”

“Let us start with political asylum.”

“That would first presuppose the criminal seeking such protection were to seek it of a legitimate nation. Illinois can no more offer political asylum to a federal fugitive than can Taiwan from China.”

Margaret Woolsey felt a cautious thrill of triumph. Ping was apparently as tired as the rest of them. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Mr. Ambassador.”

Ping seemed momentarily confused.

“The issue is Taiwan, not Peter Shizong.” She held up a hand before Ping, realizing his stupid blunder, could interrupt. “But I agree that Mr. Shizong’s case is a special one of great concern to your government, as well as to mine. It is an issue that should be considered by an impartial panel of judges. I propose that Mr. Shizong be handed over at once to the World Court in The Hague, where he should stand trial to show cause why he should not be returned to the People’s Republic of China to face charges of treason.”

Ping nodded. “Shall we prepare a list of U.S. criminals who should be handed over to the World Court for the same consideration?”

“If you wish, Mr. Ambassador,” Margaret Woolsey said. “Though I would sincerely hope that a connection will be made between them and the current problem between Taiwan and China.”

Ping was holding a fountain pen in his hand. He put it in his coat pocket. “Twelve hours, Madame Ambassador. And I do hope that reason will prevail when our delegation arrives in Taipei.” His gaze swept around the chamber, then he turned and walked out.

0405 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

McGarvey climbed up into the escape trunk. They were about three miles off Taiwan’s coast, just west of Keelung. He was worried that they were running out of time. It would be light on the surface soon. Unless they got off shortly, they would have to withdraw and lie on the bottom until nightfall. As it was they were running way behind schedule. Every hour that the standoff between the PRC and Taiwan, with the U.S. in the middle, continued, the chances that shooting would begin and someone would get hurt increased exponentially.

The problem was the patrol boats. They were unexpectedly swarming all over the place topside. Along with the increased commercial traffic, this part of the ocean was practically as busy as New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. No one had considered that since the entire west coast of Taiwan was all but cut off from outside traffic, the major ports on the island’s east side, among them Keelung, would have to take up the slack. They had been waiting for an opening since before midnight.

The phone outside the trunk buzzed, and Paradise answered it. “This is the XO.” He nodded, then looked up and gave them the thumbs-up sign. “I’ll tell them.” He hung up. “Okay, it’s clear for now. The captain says that we’ll wait on the bottom here until you get back. Sonar will pick up your outboard, and we’ll surface if it looks okay.”

There were Chinese spies everywhere. If the Seawolf was spotted on the surface, the game would be all but up. “If it’s not clear, come to fifty feet and we’ll get aboard the same way we did last night,” McGarvey said. He did not want to get stuck in the middle of a war zone.

Hanarahan looked startled. “But we were told that he can’t swim.”

“He’ll have to learn,” McGarvey shot back.

Paradise picked up on the exchange, but he shook his head. “I don’t even want to know what you guys are talking about. We’ll be here, okay? Just watch your asses.”

“If we’re not back by midnight, pull the pin, Rod, and call home.”

“I’ll tell the captain,” Paradise said. He swung the escape-trunk hatch shut. Hanrahan dogged it tight, then hit the flood button, and immediately the cold water began to rise.

“What do you figure our chances are, Mr. M?” Hanrahan asked.

“Name’s Mac, and I’d guess about fifty-fifty.”

Hanrahan grinned from ear to ear. “Good deal. When we started they were only a hundred to one.”

0410 Local SSN 405 Hekou

“Sir, that is definitely their escape trunk,” Zenzhong reported excitedly. “The hatch is opening now.” The chief sonarman pressed his earphones tighter. “Wait.”

“Stand by,” Lagao told the captain waiting on the phone.

“They’ve released something into the water.”

“A life raft?” Lagao suggested.

Zenzhong looked up and nodded. “Yes, sir. I can hear the inflation noises now.”

“Any idea how many people are leaving the submarine?”

“No, sir. But the hatch remains open, so no one else is leaving the boat.”

“Keep a close ear, Ensign,” Lagao said. He hung up the phone and walked back to the control room, where he and the captain hunched over the chart table.

The Hekou was like a puppy dog lying behind its mother. The Seawolf had cleared her baffles three times on the way in, but each time Heishui was just a little faster shutting down because he anticipated the maneuver, whereas the American captain had no reason to believe that his boat was being followed.

“They put someone on the surface with an inflatable, but they left the door open, so it means they’re coming back,” Lagao said. He had a wild idea what the Americans might be up to, but he didn’t dare voice his opinion to the captain. Not yet. It was just too crazy.

Heishui studied the chart. “They went through a great deal of trouble to rendezvous in secret with their carrier and then take someone aboard. That was a very risky maneuver. And now, presumably whoever transferred from the George Washington is going ashore. Interesting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Navy SEALs?”

“They’re trained for such maneuvers,” Lagao said. The PRC Navy didn’t have a unit quite like the American SEALs. To the average Chinese sailor an American SEAL was ten feet tall, could run the hundred-yard dash in four seconds, and ate raw concrete for breakfast.

“But why go ashore in secret?” Heishui asked. “The U.S. and the criminal government of Taiwan are allies. Why didn’t they simply fly in? Unless they didn’t want us to know about it.”

“That’s a reasonable assumption, Captain.”

Heishui looked up at his executive officer. “What is it? What are you thinking?”

Lagao was uncomfortable. He had served with many officers in his career but never with one who so hated speculation as Heishui. Yet his captain had asked him a direct question, and one of the primary functions of an executive officer was to make suggestions.

“I was thinking that the reason we’re here is to resolve the issue of Shi Shizong. Taipei has gone too far this time. They need to come home.”

Heishui looked at his XO thoughtfully. “Go on.”

“If Shizong were suddenly to disappear from Taiwan, and show up someplace else, our position would not be quite as tenable.” Lagao chose his words with extreme care. He was walking a fine line between reason and treason.

“We have spies at every international airport on the island: He would be spotted if he tried to fly out,” Heishui said. “And there are probably others who are very close to him, watching his every move. How else would we know as much about him as we do?” Heishui dismissed the suggestion. “The Taiwanese are not interested in giving him up in any event. They want him as badly as we want him.” He shook his head. “And you’re forgetting the Nanchong.”

“What if the Americans mean to kidnap him?” Lagao pressed.

A startled expression crossed Heishui’s face. “Take him away aboard the American submarine?”

“However improbable, Captain, it is a possibility that we should consider.”

“What would they do with him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lagao said. “The point is he would no longer be on the island. Other than the Nanchong, there’d no longer be any current reason for us to be here.”

“Unless we could prove that he was aboard the Seawolf, and report it to Ningbo,” Heishui answered. He picked up the growler phone. “Sonar, this is the captain.”

“Sonar, aye.”

“What’s Sierra Eighteen doing now?”

“He’s heading to the bottom, sir.”

“What about the inflatable they sent up?”

“It’s heading ashore, sir.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can hear the small outboard motor.”

That’s exactly what Heishui thought. “The moment it returns I want to know. It may be hours, even days, but I want to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

Heishui hung up. “When they come back the Seawolf will lift off the bottom. They’ll make noise. In the confusion we’ll send a man up with night-vision glasses to see with his own eyes who is aboard the inflatable.”

0445 Local Taiwan

“Cut the motor,” McGarvey ordered urgently. Hanrahan complied instantly. They were about fifty yards off a commercial wharf. There were no boats tied up, nor were there any lights except for one pinprick of a yellow beam. Hanrahan spotted it.

“A patrol?”

“Looks like it.” The flashlight moved slowly to the left, stopping every few feet. At one point the narrow beam of light flashed across the water. It was far too weak to reach out to them, but they ducked nevertheless.

On their chart the dock belonged to a fisheries company. Either the fleet was out tending nets, which McGarvey found hard to believe in the middle of a war situation, or all fishing had been suspended and the boats had been commandeered for patrols. They had expected to find minimal activity there tonight, but this was even better than they’d hoped for.

The city of Keelung, just a few kilometers to the southeast, was mostly in darkness, blacked out because of the threat of invasion. But behind them, for as far as they could see in every direction were the dim red-and-green lights of the commercial fleet and the numerous military patrol boats the Seawolf’s sonar had picked out. Coming in had been like playing dodgeball.

After ten minutes the point of light disappeared around the corner of the warehouse and processing center. They waited another full five minutes to make sure that the guard wasn’t coming back, then paddled the rest of the way in.

The old wooden docks were up on pilings. They worked their way beneath them, the water black, oily, and fetid with rotting fish and other garbage, then pulled themselves back to the seawall and to the west side, where they found a ladder. The only way anyone would spot the inflatable in what amounted to an open sewer would be to get into the water to make a specific search for it.

They had changed into civilian clothes on the way in: light sweaters, khaki trousers, soft boots, and jackets. After they secured the boat they scrambled up the ladder and stepped ashore with the credentials of U.S. Navy advisors to the Republic of China’s Maritime Self-Defense Force.

“Welcome to Taiwan, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said, and keeping low they headed across the net yard in the dank humidity of the nearly silent early morning.

0520 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

Harding hadn’t slept in more than thirty-six hours. Once they were settled on the bottom, and he had made sure that his boat was secure, he drifted back to his cabin, where he kicked off his shoes and lay down on his bunk. McGarvey was one tough character, and Harding held a grudging admiration for the man that was beginning to grow into a friendship. But in Harding’s estimation McGarvey was also one lucky son of a bitch. By all laws of reason he and Hanrahan should have been spotted on their way ashore. Four different patrol boats had come to within spitting distance of their inflatable and yet had passed right by. And they were still going to have to get back tonight after dark if they were successful ashore. There was another worry, too. Paradise had reported the conversation between McGarvey and Hanrahan in the escape trunk. They were apparently bringing someone back with them, and there was only one person on all of Taiwan he could think of who’d be worth the risks they were taking.

The phone over his bunk buzzed. He switched on the light and answered it. “This is the captain.”

“Hate to bother you, skipper, but we’ve got company,” Paradise said.

Harding sat up. “What are you talking about?”

“Sonar’s picked up some stationary noises. Maybe pumps, nuclear-plant noises. It looks as if we’ve got a PRC Han-class submarine parked on our back porch.”

“I’m on my way.”

Taiwan in Country

Hanrahan was in the front seat of the ancient cloth-goods delivery truck speaking Mandarin with the driver. They’d hitched a ride on the main highway into Keelung just as the rain began in earnest. The drab old city was known unofficially as the rainiest seaport in the world, and although it was dawn by the time they reached the train station, visibility was limited to less than one hundred feet in the heavy traffic.

“Syeh syeh ni,” Hanrahan told the old man.

“Boo syeh,” you’re welcome, the driver said, an odd expression on his wizened old face.

Everything that came to Keelung by sea had to leave either by rail or by highway, so the train station was busy twenty-four hours per day. Passengers and small parcels were loaded from the street side through the terminal, while trucks and a special spur line running up from the docks used a commercial loading yard across the tracks.

“Your Mandarin sounded pretty good,” McGarvey said as they hurried across the street.

“Thanks, but I only had two years of it at Fort Benning.”

“It’s gotten us this far.”

“Yeah, but I think the old man’ll probably never trust an American again. I think I might have told him that I’d love to screw his mother, his sister, and his goat.”

McGarvey had to laugh. “Would you?”

Hanrahan shrugged. “Well, maybe not his mother.”

The train station was a madhouse, filled mostly with merchants and tradespeople bringing goods and services from Keelung to the rest of the country. Taiwan had only one rail line, which circled almost the entire island along the coast, with only a couple of branch lines. The trains were always overcrowded with people and animals, and loaded beyond belief with everything from candle wax and strawberries to codliver oil and machine screws.

Hanrahan headed for the lines at the ticket windows, but McGarvey steered him directly down to trackside, where he produced a pair of first-class tickets to Taipei. The police guards demanded to see their passports before they were allowed to board the train. When they were settled near the rear of the car Hanrahan leaned nearer.

“Good thinking about the tickets, but we’re not going to be able to get back this way, not with … him.”

McGarvey watched the policeman at the gate. He’d not made a move to use the telephone beside him. A couple of Americans boarding a train in Keelung were evidently not unusual enough for him to report to his superior. It was another break for them. But he didn’t think that their luck would last forever. It never did.

He turned back to Hanrahan. “We’re coming back by car, so keep your eyes peeled on the highway for roadblocks or military patrols. We might have to make a detour.”

Hanrahan nodded. “Now that we’re here, are you going to let me in on the rest of it, or am I going to have to guess?” He looked out the window at the police. “These people have their backs to the wall. If something starts to go down that they don’t understand, they’re likely to start shooting first and ask questions later.”

“I brought you along to get us on and off the sub, and because you speak Chinese. The rest of it you’re going to have to leave up to me.”

Hanrahan started to object, but McGarvey held him off.

“We’re probably going to run into some major shit in Taipei. And if it does hit the fan, if it looks like some of the good guys might get hurt, you’re going to turn around and walk away from it. And that’s an order, Lieutenant. At that point it becomes strictly a Company operation, and you’re not going to be the one holding the dirty laundry.”

The train was completely full now. The conductor came in, shouted something over the din, and moments later they lurched out of the station for the fifteen miles to the capital city.

Hanrahan’s jaw tightened. It was clear that he was anything but happy. “Just one thing, Mr. M,” he said, his voice low but with a hard edge to it. “I know how to follow orders—”

“Nobody is questioning you. But if something goes down, no matter whose fault it is, who do you suppose they’re going to blame? It won’t be me. It’ll be a grunt lieutenant.”

“The SEALs have never left one of their own behind, never,” Hanrahan said. “I don’t give a shit what’s going down, ’cause that’s a fact.”

East Fleet Headquarters Ningbo

“Captain Heishui is a reliable officer,” Sun Kung Kee, the fleet’s political commissar, told the CINC, Vice Admiral Pei. “I know his father. He will do as he is ordered.”

“I expect nothing less from all of my officers.” Admiral Pei reread the slot buoy message that had been sent last night from the Hekou.

“Presumably he followed the American submarine to the coast near Keelung. If he is right, the Americans meant to put someone ashore in secret. Since there have been no incidents reported, we must assume that Captain Heishui is still there and has not been detected.”

“Nothing from our satellites?” the admiral asked.

“The weather is too bad for visual images, and nothing has shown up on infrared, Admiral,” Commander Sze Lau, his Operations Officer replied.

“What about our spies on the ground in Keelung and Taipei, if that’s where the Americans are heading? Have there been any reports?”

“Nothing yet,” Commissar Kee told him. “But we must ask ourselves why the Americans chose to put somebody ashore in such a secret manner. The operation was not without its very considerable risks, which means that the Americans must be expecting a very considerable reward.”

Admiral Pei put the slot buoy message down and sat back. “Yes?”

“Shi Shizong,” the political commissar said, and both officers were startled though it was immediately clear that they understood the logic. “I think they mean to kidnap him.”

“Do we know where he is being held?” Commander Lau asked. “We could intercept the Americans and take Shizong ourselves.”

“His location is a secret. Apparently they move him every few days. Beijing, however, thinks that the Americans will almost certainly make contact with someone from their illegal consulate, who might know where the criminal is being hidden. If we were to wait there, our agents might be able to follow them to the traitor.”

“Beijing was consulted?” Admiral Pei asked, his voice as soft as a summer’s breeze but as bitter as a Tibetan winter’s gale.

“Naturally I wanted to provide you with all the support you might need without the necessity of asking for it if and when the need should arise,” Commissar Kee answered smoothly.

“Go on.”

“If Shizong cannot be returned home to stand trial, he must never be allowed to leave Taiwan alive.”

“That is a job for your agents on the ground,” the admiral said.

“But if they fail, it will be up to Captain Heishui and his submarine.”

“It would be a suicide mission.”

“An acceptable loss providing Shizong does not escape,” Commissar Kee pressed. “Word must somehow be gotten to him.”

“It will be difficult without revealing his position, if indeed he is hiding just off the coast from Keelung, but not impossible,” Commander Lau said, and Admiral Pei nodded his approval for the mission. The nation was willing to go to war over this issue; what was the possible loss of one submarine and crew by comparison?

Taipei

McGarvey watched from the train window as they entered Taiepi from the northeast. The capital was a city ready for invasion. The government was taking the Chinese threat seriously. Street corner antiaircraft batteries were protected behind sandbag barriers. Rooftops bristled with machine-gun emplacements. He counted six Patriot missile launchers set up in parking lots and empty fields, something the PRC had to be really unhappy about.

“This is going to be on my lead,” he told Hanrahan. “You don’t do a thing unless I tell you to do it.”

“This place is crawling with PRC spies.”

“That’s right,” McGarvey said. “The problem is that you can’t tell them from the good guys. And if they get wind that we’re here on a mission we’re screwed. Capisce?”

Hanrahan nodded. Jumping off aircraft carriers, diving down to submarines, and even storming ashore prepared to fight an army of trained commandos was one thing. In-your-face daylight covert operations where you were outnumbered a few billion to one was another ball game.

The press of people on the train platform all the way up to the street-level terminal was constant. They had to bull their way forward in order to get outside to the cab rank, and practically had to knock over three businessmen to get a cab. McGarvey gave Hanrahan an address on Hoping Road a few blocks from the university to give to the cabbie, and they headed away.

The streets were as crazy as the train station. Traffic was all but stalled at many intersections, and their driver had to backtrack and make several detours around the downtown area. Especially around the government buildings. The military presence was everywhere, yet there seemed to be a look of inevitability, of resigned indifference, on the faces of the people here and aboard the train. War was coming, and there wasn’t much that anyone could do about it.

“How the hell do they expect to get anything done like this?” Hanrahan asked, watching out the windows. The cab was not air-conditioned, and already the heat and humidity had plastered their clothes to their bodies.

“You oughta see New Delhi at rush hour in midsummer,” McGarvey said absently, watching for any signs that an organized resistance movement had been formed.

The Taiwanese were great soapbox orators. They took their politics more seriously than just about any other country on earth. Their representatives regularly got into fistfights on the floor of the legislature. And just like the South Koreans, who were also faced with a constant threat of annihilation, there were staunch Taiwanese supporters for every side of just about every issue that was raised. There was a sizable minority of Taiwanese who wanted a return to the mainland. If they wanted to start something, now would be a perfect time for it. If Taiwan were suddenly to find itself in the middle of a bloody civil war, it would give the PRC one more reason to come in and take over by force: to save human lives.

Taiwan was like a powder keg with a short fuse in the middle of an armory packed with dynamite. Lit matches were being held out from every direction. It was only a matter of time before one of them caught.

The driver left them off in front of the Bank of South Africa building, in an area of offices and apartment high-rises. They had just passed the sandbagged entrance to Taiwan University, where a mob of a thousand or more students wearing headbands and carrying banners was parading up and down in front of a Patriot missile emplacement on the grass. Soldiers had cordoned off the area, keeping the students from spilling out onto the busy street and further disrupting traffic. It was the only evidence of any sort of dissension that McGarvey had seen so far.

The Parisian Lights was a sidewalk café set under a red-and-white-striped awning across Hoping Road from the university demonstration. The place was crowded, but they got a table in the corner. Their waiter spoke French with a Chinese accent. McGarvey ordered coffee and beignets, and when the waiter was gone he used his cell phone to call the American Institute three blocks away on Hsinyi Street.

“Peyton Graves,” he told the operator.

“He’s not in,” she answered.

“Yes, he is,” McGarvey insisted. “I’ll hold.” Graves was the CIA’s Chief of Taiwan Station and a very capable old China hand. He was in the hot seat right now, so he wasn’t going to be in to most people. It was SOP. McGarvey had met the man only once, and although Graves had struck him as a bit officious and bureaucratic, he was doing a good job for them out here.

“This is Peyton Graves, what can I do for you?”

“Is this a secure line?” McGarvey asked.

“Jesus,” Graves said softly. He’d recognized McGarvey’s voice. “It can be.”

“Switching now,” McGarvey said. He pressed star-four-one-one, and his cell phone’s encryption circuits kicked in. “How’s this?”

“Clear,” Graves said. “You’re in-country, but nobody said anything to me, Mr. McGarvey.”

“I want to keep it that way, Peyton, you probably have a PRC leak in the embassy.”

“This place is like a sieve. Where are you?”

McGarvey told him. “We’re going to need a windowless van and a driver who knows the city, and someplace to lie low just until tonight.”

“I’ll have somebody pick you up within ten minutes. It’ll be a gray Chevy delivery van, Han Chi Bakeries, Ltd. on the side. Driver’s name is Tom Preston. Tall, dark hair, mustache.”

“Good enough. No one else is to know that we’re here, and I mean no one, not even the ambassador.”

“I understand,” Graves said. “I’m not even going to ask how you got here without flags going up. The city is crawling with PRC supporters. But if you’ve come here to do what I think you came here to do, tonight will be cutting it a tad close.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Apparently you haven’t heard. The PRC are sending a military delegation of some sort over here early this evening to arrest Shizong. Nobody knows how it’s going to play, but the word is out that the delegation will at least be allowed to land. From that point it’s anybody’s guess.”

“Does the PRC know where Shizong is being kept?”

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. The Taiwanese CIA have been handling it, and they’ve done a good job so far. But the politicians might take it out of their hands. Taiwan wants to keep him b e, but they’re afraid that if the PRC pushes it, we’ll just sit on our hands and watch.”

“They’re right,” McGarvey said. “Do you know where he’s being kept?”

“They switch him around every few days. But for now he’s up on Grass Mountain at Joseph Lee’s old place.” Lee was a Taiwanese multibillionaire whom McGarvey had run up against a couple of years ago in a Japanese operation to put nuclear weapons in low-earth orbit. Lee was dead and the Taiwanese government had confiscated most of his properties, including the Grass Mountain house.

“Who’ll be with him tonight?”

“I don’t know for sure, but considering what might be going down I’d guess the same team that snatched him from Xiamen.”

“I know them. They’re all good men.”

“Tough bastards,” Graves said. “They’re not going to take kindly to anyone barging in up there, friend or foe. Especially friend. If the PRC is allowed to arrest him and take him back to the mainland, Taipei will be able to make a very large international stink over it. They’ll win beaucoup points in the UN. But if you mean to grab him and bury him someplace deep and out of sight, nobody will win. They’re not going to want that.”

“You’re wrong about one thing, Peyton. If we do pull this off, everybody will end up on top in the long run.”

“Do you want some help then?”

“Just Tom Preston, the van, and someplace to crash until tonight,” McGarvey said.

“If anything breaks this afternoon, I’ll get it to you,” Graves said.

“Thanks. But then forget that we were ever here.”

“You’d better take Tom with you. After tonight he’ll be useless here.”

“Will do,” McGarvey said, and he broke the connection.

YAK 38 Forger A Tail Number 13/13

Captain Xia Langshan was flying right wing escort for the Boeing 727 bringing the arresting officers to Taipei. Lieutenant Qaixo was flying left wing. Their transponders were all squawking 11313, which was the code for a peaceful-mission incursion into Taiwanese airspace. The same code was used when Taiwanese weather-spotting airplanes flew into PRC airspace. They just cleared the beach on their long approach.

“Green One, this is Eagle thirteen/thirteen, feet dry,” Langshan radioed his AWACS controller circling at thirty-five thousand feet, thirty klicks to the west.

“Thirteen/thirteen, this is Green One. You are clear to proceed, out.”

Langshan switched to the civilian frequency in time to hear the Boeing whose ID was Justice Wind Four receiving its landing instructions from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport at Taoyuan. He could hear the tension in the controller’s voice.

“PRC Flight Four, your escort aircraft will not be allowed to land. Acknowledge.”

“Taoyuan Airport tower, this is Justice Wind Four on final to one-seven with delta. We acknowledge your last transmission.”

“We want your escorts to leave our airspace the moment you land.”

“Negative, tower. They have been ordered to remain on station until their fuel has been exhausted, at which time they will be relieved.”

“Permission is denied, PRC Flight Four.”

“We didn’t ask for permission, Taoyuan tower,” the pilot, Colonel Hezheng, replied in polite but measured tones. “We will view any hostile response as an act of war, acknowledge.”

The radio was silent for several long seconds, and Langshan could almost imagine the scene in the tower as the controllers talked to their superiors by telephone.

“Acknowledge,” Colonel Hezheng repeated calmly.

The airport was visible now about twenty kilometers to the west. Langshan’s threat-assessment radar was clear, although he was being painted by at least a half-dozen ground-radar sets. None of them, however, were missile-facility radars. Those signatures were different. The Taiwanese military well understood that if they illuminated a target it was tantamount to aiming a loaded gun. It was universally recognized as an act of aggression. In that case Langhsan had permission to shoot, though it was not his primary mission.

“We acknowledge your last transmission,” the tower finally responded. “Your escorts will maintain flight level one-zero and remain within ten kilometers of the airport.”

“My escorts have been ordered to establish and maintain twenty-five-kilometer patrol zones centered on Taipei.”

“Negative, negative, negative!” the tower controller practically screamed.

Colonel Hezheng overrode the transmission, his voice still maddeningly calm. “The provincial government of Taiwan has not adequately informed the people about the real issue of the criminal Shi Shizong. We will drop leaflets guaranteeing the truth of our peaceful mission, and let the people decide for themselves who are the warmongers.”

Langshan grinned behind his face mask.

“PRC Four, we will shoot your escort aircraft out of the sky if they stray outside of the airport containment zone.”

The 727 was losing altitude for its final approach to landing. Langshan looked over at Qaixo and rocked his wings left-right-left. Qaixo responded.

“If our aircraft are fired upon, they will shoot back, tower. And we will request immediate backup. In force.”

The radio was silent again. Civilian traffic to Taiwan had been sharply curtailed since the troubles had escalated in the past ten days. And all traffic for the duration of this mission had been diverted to the airport at Kaoshiung in the far south.

Qaixo peeled off to the north to start the outer leg of his patrol zone. When he got over the city of Taoyuan itself he would begin to drop his leaflets.

Langshan watched for a few moments as the 727 continued gracefully down for landing, then hauled his throttles back and shot northeast directly for the heart of Taipei, maintaining an altitude of ten thousand feet while his mach indicator climbed past.7, the hard bucket seat pressing into his back.

In less than two minutes he was directly over the city, Grass Mountain rising off to his north, Green Lake spread out to his south, and the city of Keelung on the coast lost under a thick blanket of low-lying clouds directly ahead.

His threat-radar screen remained blank, and the moment he crossed the Tamsui River he released the first of his canisters programmed to fall like a bomb to one thousand feet before opening and spreading the leaflets on the wind. At the very least, he thought, the bastards would have a big cleanup job tomorrow. In his underwing pods he carried one million messages on long, thin strips of rice paper, like giant fortune cookie fortunes.

He dropped a second canister near the stadium and a third on the densely populated shantytown in the western suburbs before he continued to Keelung and the coast twenty-five kilometers to the west-northwest. Within a half minute he was enveloped in a dense cloud, rain smashing into the canopy like machine-gun bullets. His forward-looking radar was clear of any air traffic, and his look-down-shoot-down radar showed him exactly what was happening on the ground.

In two minutes he was over the city of Keelung, where he dropped two more of his canisters and then made a long, sweeping turn out over the harbor.

At the last minute, about three miles off the coast, Langshan dialed up a special canister on his port wing rack, checked his position, hit the release button, and then headed back for his second run over Taipei.

1920 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

“Conn, sonar.”

“This is the captain speaking. What do you have, Fisher?”

“Skipper, something just hit the water eighteen hundred yards out, bearing one-eight-seven. It’s not very big, but from the angle it made I’d say that it was dropped from something moving real fast. Maybe a jet, but definitely not a boat.”

“Any idea what it is?”

“I think it’s a comms buoy, sir … stand by.”

Paradise came in from the officer’s wardroom with a couple of cups of coffee. He handed one to Harding. It had been a very long day since McGarvey and Hanrahan had locked to the surface. They’d all existed on coffee.

“Okay, skipper, that’s definitely a comms buoy. She’s started to transmit acoustically.”

“Good work,” Harding said. He switched to the radio room. “Comms, this is the captain. Somebody just dropped an acoustical communications buoy to our south and it’s starting to transmit. It’s probably in Chinese and in code, but see what you can do with it.”

“Aye, aye, skipper,” the radio officer said with even less enthusiasm, for a job he was not equipped to handle, than he felt.

“A message from home for our friend?” Paradise asked.

“So it would seem. Question is, what kind of a message is it?”

“It could be about us,” Paradise said. “But you have to wonder what makes them think that they haven’t told the entire world where their boat is hiding.”

1945 Local SSN 405 Hekou

Captain Heishui handed the decoded message across the table to Lagao. They were alone in the officers’ wardroom. His XO read the message, then read it again before he looked up, a grave expression on his face.

“If they manage to get him aboard the American boat, we will be obligated to attack,” he said.

Heishui nodded. “But we would have two advantages,” he said. “In the first place, they don’t know that we’re back here. But even if they do find out, they’ll never believe that we would open fire. You have to shoot at an American six times before he will start to respond.”

“Yes, Captain. But when he does it’s usually fatal.”

Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport

Peyton Graves powered down his window and pointed a tiny parabolic receiver at the PRC Air Force 727 as the boarding stairs were brought up and the forward hatch swung open.

A lot of cars and military vehicles surrounded the jet, which was parked in front of the old Pan Am hangar. Everyone seemed restrained. No one wanted this situation to accelerate out of control. There were no media.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Daping, chief of the Counterespionage Division for the Taiwan Police, went up the stairs, followed by a lieutenant in uniform whom Graves did not recognize.

They stood at the head of the stairs for a few moments until a full bird colonel in the uniform of a civilian police officer, blue tabs on his shoulder boards, appeared in the doorway. A much taller man in a captain’s uniform showed up right behind him.

“Good evening, I am Colonel Lian Shiquan, Beijing Police. I am here with a warrant for the arrest of the criminal Shi Shizong.”

Graves turned up the gain on his receiver. Even so it was hard to pick up the Taiwanese officer’s reply because his back was turned to the receiver. When it came, however, it was a complete surprise to Graves. The government had caved in even faster and more completely than he thought it would.

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Daping replied. “He is being held not too far from here, at a home on Grass Mountain. We have transportation standing by to take you there immediately.”

It was too far for Graves to see the expression on the Chinese colonel’s face, but he heard the surprise and the smug satisfaction in his voice. “I should think so. There are eight of us, plus myself and my adjutant, Captain Qying. Let’s proceed.”

Graves tossed the receiver on the passenger seat and headed past the hangars toward the back gate. He used his cell phone to call the safe house where McGarvey was staying.

“Switch,” he said as soon as McGarvey answered.

“Right.”

Graves hit star-four-one-one. “You’ve run out of time. I’m just leaving the airport. The Taiwanese are handing him over without an argument. They’re taking the PRC delegation up to Grass Mountain right now, so you’re going to have to hustle.”

“How many of them?”

“Ten PRC and I don’t know how many Taiwanese cops. But if you get caught in the middle of them, you’ll get yourself shot.”

“Thanks for your help, Peyton. We’ll take it from here,” McGarvey said. “Get back to the embassy and keep your head down, there’s no telling what might happen in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Good luck.”

Taipei

It was after 8:00 P.M., but still light by the time they cleared the city and headed east on the Keelung Highway. Grass Mountain, off to their left, was tinged in brilliant pinks and salmons at the higher levels, but the sky toward the coast was dark and threatening. The highway was choked with traffic of all descriptions, from eighteen-wheelers to hand-drawn carts. There seemed to be tiny scraps of paper blowing everywhere.

“I think we’ve got a tail,” Tom Preston said from the front.

McGarvey crawled forward to the passenger seat, opened the window, and adjusted the door mirror. Preston switched lanes to get around an old canvas-covered flatbed, and a yellow Fiat followed.

“It was outside the apartment this afternoon,” McGarvey said. In the middle of an operation he had a photographic memory for people and things. Patterns and anomalies. The ability had saved his life on more than one occasion.

“Sorry, I missed it.” Preston had struck McGarvey as easygoing but very capable. He and Hanrahan, who were football fans, had argued heatedly, but good-naturedly, about the Pack versus the Vikes all afternoon. But he was apologetic now.

“I only saw him the one time,” McGarvey said, studying the image in the mirror. “Same driver, but he’s picked up a passenger.” He missed the look Preston gave him.

“They’re not our people,” Preston said. “I’m sure of at least that much.”

“Taiwanese police?”

“No. I know all of their tag series. That’s not one of them. Civilians. PRC supporters. Maybe spies. Either they knew about the safe house and were watching it, or someone from inside the consulate tipped them off. Whatever it is, we’re going to have to deal with it pretty soon because our turnoff is coming up.”

“What do you want to do, Mac?” Hanrahan asked from the back. “We’ve got the PRC delegation from the airport breathing down our necks, so we don’t have a hell of a lot of time.”

McGarvey took out his Walther PPK and checked the load. “No matter what happens, we’re not going to hurt any Taiwan national if we can help it. That means cops and soldiers as well as civilians.” He checked the mirror. The yellow Fiat was still behind them. He holstered his pistol and checked the two spare magazines.

“Here’s the turn,” Preston said.

“Head up toward the house: I’ll tell you where to pull over,” McGarvey said. It was an early evening like this when he’d come up here nine months ago. Visiting the spoils of war, he’d told his chief of staff in Washington. In reality he was picking up the pieces of a mission that had nearly cost him his life. After all was said and done he wanted to see the house where Lee had lived in order to get some measure of the man who’d almost brought the world to a nuclear showdown. Not terribly unlike the situation they were in again.

Lee’s eighteen-room house was perched on the side of the mountain a couple of hundred feet above its nearest neighbor. A maze of narrow roads led in all directions into narrow valleys and defiles, in which other mansions were built. But Lee’s compound was at the head of a very steep switchback that had been cut through the living rock. Except for the helicopter pad, there was only one way in or out. Had the Taiwanese police decided to bring the PRC delegation up by chopper, the mission would have been over before it had begun.

Within a few blocks of the highway the Grass Mountain road rose up sharply from the floor of the valley. The traffic, except for an occasional Mercedes or Jaguar, ended, and a thin fog began to envelop the twisting side streets and houses set back in the trees in an air of gloom and mystery. This was the Orient, and yet a lot of people with money built Western-style homes up here. It was a curious mixture, just like Taipei itself.

“Okay, Lee’s driveway is coming up around the next curve,” Preston said.

McGarvey had spent only a half hour up there, looking around the house and down across the valley toward the city from the balconies. The view had been nothing short of spectacular. But he tried to recall how steep the slope was just below the house on the side of the compound away from the road. Maybe negotiable, but he wasn’t sure. He’d not been on a life-or-death mission that time.

“As soon as we’re around the curve and out of sight of the Fiat, you’re going to slow down and let me off,” McGarvey said. “Then drive past Lee’s road, pull into the next driveway, turn around, and wait there.”

“What about the guys in the Fiat?” Preston asked.

“I’m going to try an end run. If they miss me, they’ll come past you, probably turn around, and wait to see what you’re going to do next.” McGarvey screwed the silencer on the end of the Walther’s barrel.

“You’ll need some help. I’m coming with you,” Hanrahan said, taking out his Beretta.

“I know one of the guys up at the house. If I show up alone, they might listen before they start shooting.”

“Goddammit, Mac, that’s not why I signed on—.”

“You signed on to take orders, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said harshly. “If I can grab Shizong and get him out of there, I’ll be moving fast. I’ll need someone to watch the back door. I don’t want to get caught between the PRC delegation coming up from the airport and the goons in the car behind us. Do you understand?”

Hanrahan wanted to argue, but he held himself in check. “Yes, sir.”

McGarvey softened. “If we do this right, nobody will get hurt.”

“Here we go, guys,” Preston said. They came around the sharp curve, passed Lee’s driveway, and Preston jammed on the brakes.

“If the group from the airport makes it up here, give me ten minutes and then get the hell out,” McGarvey said. He popped open the door, jumped out on the run, then ducked into the trees and brush beside the road as the van disappeared and the Fiat came charging around the curve.

He got the impression of two men, both of them intent on catching up with the van. He was sure that they had not seen him.

As soon as they were gone he jumped up, hurried across the road, and raced up the driveway, conscious that the mission clock was counting down in earnest now.

The road was steep and switched back several times. In a couple of minutes he reached the top, the road splitting left and right around a fountain in front of the low, rambling, steel-and-glass house. The fountain was operating, and there were lights on inside the house. Anyone watching from the outside would have to assume that nothing suspicious was going on up here. No one was trying to hide anything. Life as normal.

Holding his hands in plain sight out away from his sides, McGarvey headed to the right around the fountain. The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. He couldn’t see anyone at the windows, but he got the distinct impression that he was being watched, and that guns were pointed at him.

A wooden footbridge arched gracefully over a winding pond that contained large golden carp. When McGarvey got to the other side the front door opened and Joseph Jiying stepped out. He wore jeans and an open-collar shirt. He was unarmed.

“Good evening, Mr. McGarvey. I’ve gotta say that you being up here is one big surprise.” Jiying had spent eight months working in Langley on an exchange program. McGarvey had gotten to know him and some of the others; all of them dedicated, and most of them pretty good intelligence officers.

“I’ve come for Peter Shizong.”

Jiying looked beyond McGarvey toward the empty driveway. “Did you come alone, on foot?”

“I have a van waiting on the road below. But we don’t have much time. There’s a PRC delegation along with a Taiwanese police escort on its way up here from the airport to arrest him.”

Jiying’s expression didn’t change except that his eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s news to me.”

“They didn’t want you to do something stupid, like try to take off or barricade yourselves up here.”

“My people would have warned me by now.”

“Maybe not if they were ordered by someone high enough to stay out of it.” McGarvey could see that Jiying didn’t want to believe what he was being told, and yet he could see the truth to it. “If I can get him out of here in time, the PRC won’t be able to take him.”

“They’d turn Taiwan upside down.”

“They probably would. And if you knew where he was, you’d be made to tell them. You know that.”

Jiying shook his head, more in anger and frustration than in denial. “There’s too much at stake, dammit. We’re winning. We’re finally starting to make points. We’re the good guys here—”

One of his men appeared at his elbow, looked pointedly at McGarvey, then told something to his boss. McGarvey did not understand the Chinese, but he caught the urgency. The expression on Jiying’s face changed to one of anger and resignation.

“There was no reason for you to come all this way in secret to lie to me, was there,” he said. “There are seven Taipei Special Services Police Humvees on the Keelung Highway.” He said something to his man that clearly upset him. He tried to argue, but Jiying barked a command at him, and he left.

“How close?”

“They just turned onto Grass Mountain Road. I hope the van is well hidden.”

“It’s just past the driveway. Is there another way down from here for me?”

“There’s a path on the other side of the house. It’s steep, but you should be able to make it.”

“There’s room in the van for all of us.”

Jiying shook his head again. “You’ll need time to make it down the hill and then get the hell out. We can delay the bastards all night if need be.”

McGarvey understood that it was the only way. “All we need is a couple of hours, Captain. After that give it up. Don’t get yourselves killed.”

A faint smile curled his lips. “Believe me I’ll do my best to make sure I die an old man in my own bed.”

The commando returned with a bemused Peter Shizong. Jiying said something to him in rapid-fire Mandarin. Shizong looked at McGarvey, asked Jiying a question, and when he was given the answer he nodded.

“It seems as if I am to go with you, sir,” he said.

“I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of spying on the United States for the People’s Republic of China.”

“You’ve come all this way,” Shizong said with a hint of amusement. “Will you read me my Miranda rights?”

McGarvey had to smile. “If you wish, and if I can remember them from watching NYPD Blue.”

“Beijing has sent someone to arrest you,” Jiying said seriously. “And my government has agreed to hand you over. Tonight.”

Shizong suddenly understood the gravity of the situation. “I see.”

“You need to go right now, Peter,” Jiying said. He brought his heels together, placed his hands at his sides, and bowed formally.

Shizong did the same. When he rose he said something in Mandarin to Jiying, and then turned to McGarvey. “I have no idea how you mean to get me out of here in one piece, but then some really extraordinary things have happened to me in the last couple of months.”

Jiying hustled them to a broad veranda on the west side of the house, where the rock-strewn hill plunged steeply a couple hundred feet to a line of trees.

“The road is just below the trees,” Jiying told them.

It was finally starting to get dark. The city of Taipei was coming alive with a million pinpricks of light. What sounded like a fighter jet passed overhead to the south.

One of the commandos called something from inside the house. It sounded urgent.

“We’re out of time. Take it easy going down and good luck,” Jiying said.

McGarvey started down the hill first, and once they were out from under the veranda it was a little easier to pick out the path. At first he went slowly for Shizong’s sake, but within thirty feet he realized that the much younger man was in very good shape and as surefooted as a mountain climber, so he picked up the pace.

They reached the bottom in five minutes and made their way through the dense stand of trees. They came out about twenty yards beyond where the Fiat was parked at the side of the road, facing downhill. McGarvey could not see the van, but he suspected that Preston had pulled into the driveway another thirty or forty yards farther down the hill. The road up to Lee’s house was just beyond it.

“Is that our transportation?” Shizong whispered.

“No, they followed us up from Taipei. There’s two of them.”

“PRC supporters?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to kill them unless I have no other choice.”

“They wouldn’t return the favor, believe me,” Shizong said. “What are we going to do?”

“Wait until the delegation from the airport arrives. These guys might follow them up the hill.”

“They might not—” Shizong said when they spotted lights coming up the road around the curve. They could hear the Humvees’ exhausts hammering off the side of the hill, and after they had all turned up Lee’s driveway the night got relatively quiet again. But the Fiat did not move.

“Shit,” McGarvey said, half under his breath. He took out his pistol. “Wait here,” he told Shizong, and he stepped out on the road. Keeping his eye on the car for any sign of movement, and his pistol hidden behind his leg, he walked down to the Fiat. As he got closer he could see the two men inside, but they were not moving, and it wasn’t until he was on top of them that he saw why.

They were both alive and frantic with rage. Hanrahan and Preston had gotten the drop on them and had duct-taped them to their seats. They were covered head to toe except for their noses and eyes.

McGarvey motioned for Shizong to come ahead when Hanrahan stepped out of the darkness below and waved them on. Shizong stopped in his tracks, suddenly not sure what was happening.

“Get the van,” McGarvey called down to Hanrahan, keeping his voice as low as possible. He hurried back to where Shizong was about ready to bolt.

“I don’t know—”

“It’s okay, Mr. Shizong,” McGarvey said. The man was only in his twenties, and despite his intelligence, training and charisma he was still just a young man faced with a very uncertain and potentially deadly situation. “There’s a submarine waiting for us off Keelung. If we can get you aboard, we’ll take you to Honolulu. It’s either that or Beijing. But you can’t stay here any longer.”

The van, its headlights off, nosed out from the driveway.

Shizong looked at the van and then back at McGarvey. “Do you think that I can find some old Superman comics in a shop there?”

McGarvey spread his hands, at a loss. “I imagine you can.”

“It’s a present for someone,” Shizong said, and he motioned toward the van. “I believe that our ride is waiting for us.”

Hanrahan was holding the side door open for them. Just as they reached the van they heard gunshots from above, and again Shizong was stopped in his tracks. He turned back, and McGarvey grabbed his arm.

“We have to go now,” McGarvey said urgently.

“Those are my friends up there.” Shizong tried to pull away.

“And they’re also Taiwanese intelligence officers who risked their lives to pull you out of Xiamen. They’re buying us some time.”

“They might be killed.”

“Yes, they might be,” McGarvey said harshly. “So might we.”

Shizong gave him a look of genuine anguish, and McGarvey wanted to tell him: Welcome to the club. You now have blood on your hands like the rest of us. But he didn’t say it because it was too cruel, too without feeling or compassion. It was this business; it made people into its own terrible mold, not the other way around. Shizong still had his idealism. McGarvey hoped that it would last at least a little longer.

They clambered into the van and even before Hanrahan had the door shut, Preston took off down the hill like a rocket, the sounds of gunfire up at Lee’s mansion intensifying.

2120 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

Harding was in the control room studying the chart. The water didn’t get deep for another five miles offshore, and the Han-class submarine blocked the way. There was no real contest if it came to a battle. But he didn’t think that the Chinese skipper wanted to start a shooting war any more than the rest of them did.

He glanced at the boat’s master clock. McGarvey had given himself until midnight local before he should be considered overdue. There was no way to tell what was happening ashore. Technically that wasn’t his responsibility. His boat and his crew were.

He grabbed the growler phone. “Sonar, this is the captain,” he said.

“Sonar, aye.”

“What’s our friend doing?”

“He’s still back there, skipper. Trying to be real quiet. But he’s got a noisy motor somewhere. Probably in his air-circulation system.”

“Any sign of the outboard?”

“Nothing yet.”

“How’s traffic topside?”

“That’s some good news, Captain. It’s thinned out.”

“Keep me posted, Fisher,” Harding said. He hung up the phone. He had to think it out for only a moment, then he looked up. “Come to battle stations, torpedo,” he said calmly.

“Aye, sir, battle stations, torpedo,” a startled Chief of Boat responded, and he began issuing orders.

“Load tubes one, two, three, and four, but do not open the outer doors.”

“Do we have a target, sir?” the weapons control officer asked.

“Start a TMA on Sierra Twenty-one. I want a continuous solution on the target, and I don’t want to lose it no matter what happens.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said, impressed. It was the first time he’d ever heard the captain speak that sharply. But God help the poor sorry Chinese son of a bitch if he so much as twitched a whisker.

Keelung

McGarvey watched the road from where he sat in the rear of the van. Traffic had slowed to a crawl outside Keelung because of a military roadblock. Some people tried crossing the fields in the steady rain to reach the railroad tracks, but soon got stuck because of the deep mud. Soldiers went on foot to arrest them.

“There were no roadblocks this morning,” Hanrahan said.

It had taken them more than an hour to drive the twelve miles from the Grass Mountain road. Time enough, McGarvey wondered, for the battle at Lee’s house to be finished, the house searched, and the PRC spies duct-taped inside of their car to be released and give them the description of the van? If that was the case, they would somehow have to bluff their way through because there was no turning back, the highway was impossibly clogged; and he wasn’t going to get into a shooting battle with Taiwanese soldiers doing their legitimate duties.

“What do you want to do?” Preston asked. “In the mood these guys are in it won’t take much to set them off.”

“We’re going to talk our way past them,” McGarvey said, an idea turning over in his mind.

“If they’re looking for us specifically, it’s going to be all over but the shouting once we get up there,” Hanrahan pointed out unnecessarily. They all knew it.

McGarvey turned and looked at Shizong who was hunched down in the darkness in the back. Their eyes met, and Shizong nodded and smiled. McGarvey turned back. “I’ll do the talking,” he told Preston and Hanrahan. “No matter what happens, there’ll be no gunplay. Understood?”

They both nodded.

It was another twenty minutes before their turn came. The highway was blocked in both directions, and there was just as big a traffic jam trying to get out of the city as there was trying to get in. Most of it was trucks trying to pick up or deliver goods.

A pair of APCs were parked beside the highway, their fifty-caliber machine guns covering both directions. There were at least five Humvees and a couple of dozen soldiers in battle fatigues, all of them armed with M16s and very serious-looking. There were two lanes of traffic in each direction, each lane with its own cadre of soldiers.

A sergeant and PFC came to the driver’s window. McGarvey reached over Preston’s shoulder and handed the sergeant his military ID, “I need to talk to your CO.”

The sergeant looked at the ID and then looked up at McGarvey. “Get out of the van, all of you,” he ordered.

“You’re going to be in a world of shit, Sergeant, if you don’t get your CO over here on the double. We have something here he’s got to see.”

“Get out of the vehicle—”

“Call him,” McGarvey ordered. “Now!”

The sergeant, a little less certain, checked McGarvey’s ID again, which identified him as a captain in the U.S. Navy. He stepped back and said something into his lapel mike. A minute later a young lieutenant wearing camos charged over, said something to the sergeant, and then came over to the van.

“Get out now,” he shouted.

“As you wish,” McGarvey said. “But there’s a friend of yours in back who wants to tell you something.” He pulled back and slid open the side door. His eye caught Shizong’s. The young man nodded. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do.

McGarvey and Hanrahan climbed out of the van as the lieutenant came around from the driver’s side where Preston had dismounted.

There were soldiers all over the place, sensing that something was going on, their weapons at the ready.

“Step away from the vehicle—” the lieutenant said, as Shizong appeared at the open door. Recognition dawned on the lieutenant’s face instantly. He was visibly shaken. Shizong had been on Taiwan television for more than six weeks. He’d become a celebrity.

“Lieutenant, come here for a moment, please, I would like to ask you something,” Shizong said. Then he switched to Mandarin.

The lieutenant, who had taken out his pistol, lowered it and walked over to the open door. He and Shizong shook hands, and Shizong began to speak, softly, slowly, his voice calm, reasonable, and sympathetic.

Some of the soldiers drifted closer so that they could hear. All of them recognized Shizong. Civilians from the trucks and cars came up, and soon there were at least one hundred people gathered in the chill rain to listen to Shizong, who never once raised his voice. It was, as Hanrahan would later recall, as if he was whispering in your ear; as if he was talking to you personally. It was clear that he affected everybody that way. It was the reason that the old men of Beijing were so frightened of him that they were willing to risk nuclear war to silence him.

At one point the lieutenant looked sheepishly at the pistol still in his hand. He holstered it, then bowed stiffly in front of Shizong. Without looking at McGarvey or the others, he turned and walked away, taking his soldiers with him.

“We may go now,” Shizong said. “There will be no further roadblocks.”

As McGarvey and the others were climbing back into the van, the APCs were already pulling back, and the soldiers were breaking off from their duties and hustling to the Humvees.

Preston started out, slowly at first but gaining speed as the traffic began to spread out. The rain and overcast deepened the night so that coming into a city that was under military blackout orders was like coming into some medieval settlement before electric lights had been invented.

McGarvey directed Preston past the railroad station to the vicinity of the fisheries warehouse and dock where they had come ashore. They parked the van in a dark narrow side alley and walked back to the still-unattended gate into the net yard.

As before there was no activity there, and this time they didn’t even see the guard. Fifteen minutes after leaving the van, they’d made their way down the ladder and scrambled aboard the inflatable, which was tied exactly where they’d left it. They pulled themselves out from under the long dock and began rowing directly out to sea, the rain flattening even the small ripples and hiding everything farther out than twenty yards behind a fine dark veil.

A half mile offshore Hanrahan shipped the oars, lowered the outboard, and started the highly muffled engine; the only question left was how four men were going to get aboard the submerged submarine with only three sets of closed circuit diving equipment.

2305 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

“Conn, sonar, I’ve got the outboard,” Fisher reported excitedly. “Bearing zero-one-zero, range four thousand four hundred yards and closing.”

“Okay, prepare to surface,” Harding told the diving officer. Paradise looked up from the chart he was studying and came over.

“We’re going to make a lot of noise,” he said. “The PRC captain will know that something is going on.”

“That’s right, Rod. But he won’t know what,” Harding replied. He wasn’t in the mood to explain what he was doing, not even to his XO. He had a good idea what McGarvey was facing and what he was trying to accomplish, and he was going to give the man all the help he could.

The diving officer relayed the captain’s orders, and the boat was made ready to come to periscope depth for a look-see before they actually surfaced. It was SOP.

“Keep a sharp watch on the target,” Harding told sonar.

“Aye, skipper.”

“Flood tubes one through four and open the outer doors as soon as we start up.”

“Aye, skipper,” the weapons-control officer responded.

“Bring the boat to sixty feet.”

“Bring the boat to six-zero feet, sir,” the diving officer said crisply, and they began noisly venting high-pressure air into the ballast tanks. Seawolf started up.

He had everybody’s attention now, and they were working as an efficient unit, exactly as they had been trained to do. The real test, however, Harding expected, was yet to come.

“Take Scotty and two other men and stand by the main stores hatch,” he told Paradise. “I won’t surface until they’re on top of us. But as soon as they’re aboard we’re getting out of here.”

“Are you expecting trouble?” Paradise asked. Dick Scott was their sergeant at arms.

“It’s possible, Rod,” Harding said. “Have Scotty break out the sidearms.”

2310 Local SSN 405 Hekou

Heishui was in his cabin looking at a photograph of his wife and daughter, when his XO called him.

“Captain, the American submarine is on the way up!”

“What are the conditions on the surface?” Heishui asked, putting the photograph down. Now was the moment of truth for his boat and crew; and for himself.

“We’re picking up the same small outboard engine as before, about four thousand meters out, and traffic is down to almost nothing. We show two targets, both of them outside ten thousand meters and both seaward.” Their new Trout Creek sonar suite rivaled that of just about any submarine anywhere. Heishui had a high degree of confidence in it.

“Send up the fire squad. But tell them to make certain they have the right target. If we’re lucky, we can end this right now and never have to engage the American submarine.”

“Yes, sir,” Lagao said.

Heishui took a long last look at the photograph of his family, then buttoned the top button of his uniform and went forward and up one level to the attack center.

“Flood all tubes and open all outer doors,” he ordered.

“Aye, sir.” The weapons officer repeated the orders.

“Prepare to get under way,” the captain told his chief of boat, an icy calm coming over him. It was just as good as a day as any to win or lose, he told himself. Live or die.

2320 Local On The Surface

“We’re on station,” Hanrahan said, checking his GPS navigator. The night was completely still except for the hiss of the rain on the water and the soft buzz of the idling outboard.

“They know that we’re here,” McGarvey said. He did a 360 and so far as he could tell they were completely alone on the ocean. “You’ll have to dive down, lock aboard, and bring up some more equipment—”

“But I cannot swim,” Shizong interrupted.

“You won’t have to do a thing, we’ll do it all for you,” McGarvey said. “Trust me.”

“Periscope,” Hanrahan said excitedly.

They all turned in the direction that he was looking in time to see the light at the top of the Seawolf’s periscope mast about eight feet out of the water, blinking in Morse code.

Hanrahan held up a hand. “Retreat one hundred yards. We will surface. Repeat. Retreat one hundred yards. We will surface.”

Shizong turned to say something, when a narrow pinpoint of red light appeared in the middle of his forehead. It was a weapons guidance laser and it seemed to come from somewhere to the right of the Seawolf, very low to the water. McGarvey drove forward, his shoulder catching Shizong in the chest and shoving him back.

“Get down,” he shouted.

Preston cried out in pain, blood erupting from a very large hole in his chest. He was flung to the side like a rag doll, out of the raft and into the water.

Hanrahan rolled out right behind him as they continued to take rounds from somewhere in the darkness. He grabbed a handful of Shizong’s shirt as he went. McGarvey, holding on to Shizong’s arm, followed him, the raft and the water all around them erupting in a hail of bullets fired from at least two silenced machine guns.

“Take Peter and get out of here,” he ordered urgently.

Hanrahan grabbed the floundering Shizong. “What about Tom?”

“He’s dead. Go!”

Hanrahan wanted to stay, but he started away from the deflated raft with Shizong in tow.

The gunfire stopped. McGarvey found Preston a few yards away, facedown in the water. He turned him over, but the man was dead as expected. Preston had taken a round in the middle of the back, which had mushroomed through his body, tearing a hole six inches wide in his chest. The bastards were using dumdums or explosive bullets.

He cocked an ear to listen. He could hear what sounded like a small outboard motor coming toward him. Off to his left a broad section of water for as far as he could see was boiling, as if someone had put it on the heat. It was the Seawolf on the way up.

Hanrahan and Shizong were gone in the darkness, and the motor was very close now. They were PRC, and they had been waiting out here for Shizong. How that could possibly happen didn’t matter now. They had probably scoped the raft with night-vision equipment, identified Shizong out of the four men, and had targeted him specifically. They were coming in to make sure he was dead.

McGarvey passed his hand over Preston’s chest wound, smeared the blood and gore over his face, and floated loosely on his back, his arms spread, his eyes open and fixed as if he were dead.

The motor was practically on top of him, and he had to let himself sink under the water for a second or two without blinking, without closing his mouth.

A black-rubber inflatable, almost the twin of the one they had brought up from the Seawolf, appeared out of the mist and came directly over to where Preston’s body had drifted. They slowed and circled, shining a narrow beam of light on his face. They said something that McGarvey couldn’t make out, then came over to where he was floating. They shined the light in his face, and he had to fight not to blink or move a muscle.

There were three of them, dressed in black night fighters’ uniform, their faces blackened. It came to him all of a sudden that they had gotten there the same way that he and Hanrahan had. They were off a submarine. Possibly a PRC boat that had been lying in wait just off shore for the Chinese attack on Taiwan to begin. The Seawolf coming in had missed it.

Something very large and black rose up out of the water to McGarvey’s left. One of the Chinese sailors said something urgently, and he gunned the outboard motor. As the inflatable started to pass him, McGarvey reached up, grabbed the gunwale line with his left hand, pulled himself half out of the water, and grabbed a handful of the tunic of the sailor running the outboard motor and yanked him overboard.

The inflatable immediately veered sharply to the left. McGarvey had taken a deep breath at the last moment. He dragged the surprised sailor underwater, the man taking a very large reflexive breath as his head submerged.

The sailor got very still within seconds and as McGarvey surfaced with the body the outboard was circling back.

He took the weapon, which he recognized by feel as a Sterling, from the dead man’s hands, reared up out of the water to keep the holes in the silencer casing free, and unloaded the weapon point-blank at the inflatable as it was practically on top of him.

The raft swerved widly to the right, flipping over as it collapsed from the explosive release of air from its chambers. McGarvey dropped the empty weapon and backpedaled, trying to put as much distance between himself and whoever was left alive as possible. But it wasn’t necessary. Except for the roiled water behind him, the night was utterly silent.

“Hank,” he called.

“Here,” Hanrahan replied from somewhere to the left.

“Do you have Peter?”

“Here,” Shizong called back, his voice surprisingly steady for a man who could not swim and found himself in the middle of the ocean.

A few seconds later a beam of light from the deck of the Seawolf caught McGarvey, and he turned and swam toward it as fast as he could manage. They still weren’t out of the woods. Not with a PRC submarine lurking around somewhere nearby.

2329 Local SSN 405 Hekou

“Sierra Eighteen is on the surface,” Zenzhong told the captain nervously.

“Open doors one and two,” Heishui ordered “Prepare to fire.”

“Captain, what about our men on the surface?” Lagao asked at his side.

Heishui turned and gave him a bland look. “It’s a moot point, Commander. Either their mission is already a success or they have failed. They can’t fight the crew of an entire submarine.”

“At least give them five minutes,” Lagao pleaded. “Some sign that they are alive and trying to make it back aboard.”

The Hekou had risen to thirty meters in order to lock them out, and then had settled back to one hundred meters behind and below the American submarine. There was no way that even an experienced diver could make that depth, nor was he going to put his boat and crew at risk by heading back up to rescue them. They knew what they were facing when they had volunteered.

“Three minutes,” Heishui said. “It will take us that long to get ready to fire.” He turned away.

2332 Local SSN 21 Seewolf

“We have three people aboard, and the hatch is sealed,” Paradise called to the captain.

“Get up here on the double, Rod, we have work to do,” Harding said. He switched channels. “Sonar, this is the captain. What’s the target doing?”

“He’s about two thousand yards out, skipper, just lying there. Bearing one-seven-five, and below us at three hundred feet,” Fisher reported. “I think he might have opened at least two of his outer doors when we were on the way up.”

“If there’s any change, let me know on the double,” Harding said. He hung up the phone. “Get us out of here,” he told the Chief of the Boat.

“Aye, sir.”

“Emergency dive to three hundred feet, come right to new course zero-six-zero, and give me turns for forty knots as soon as possible.” The submarine had to be at least one hundred feet beneath the surface before she could begin to develop her top speed submerged.

Trela relayed the orders and within seconds the Seawolf surged forward, her decks canted sharply downward and to the right.

“Don’t lose the solution,” Harding warned the weapons-control officer.

“No, sir.”

2335 Local SSN 404 Hekou

“He’s on the move, Captain,” Zenzhong shouted. “Sierra Eighteen is diving, and his aspect is definitely changing left to right.”

“He’s leaving in a big hurry; do you think that he knows we’re back here?” Lagao asked Heishui.

“Perhaps,” the captain replied. A million conflicting thoughts were running through his head with the speed of light, his family among them. But his blood was up. Serving on a Han-class submarine for any length of time meant certain death in any event from leukemia or some other form of cancer because the reactors leaked. Only the officers understood that for a fact, but most of the crews knew it, too. Love of country and the special privileges for their families were the incentives to serve. “No word from our crew on the surface?”

“No, sir.”

Heishuo gave his XO a look of sympathy, then turned to his fire-control officer. “Do we have a positive solution on the enemy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fire one, fire two.”

2336 Local SSN 21 Seawolf

“Torpedoes in the water!” Fisher called out. “Two of them, bearing onenine-five, and definitely gaining.”

“Turn left, come to flank speed,” Harding said calmly.

“Aye, sir, turning left full rudder, ordering flank speed,” Lieutenant Trela repeated.

“Time to impact?” Harding asked the sonarman.

“Ninety seconds, skipper.”

“Release the noisemakers as soon as we pass three-six-zero degrees,” Harding ordered. “Prepare to fire tubes one and two.”

“Don’t do it, Captain,” McGarvey shouted, coming into the control room directly on Paradise’s heels.

Harding’s head snapped around. McGarvey stood dripping next to the plotting tables, blood covering his face, a wild look in his eyes. “Get out of here, Mac. Now!”

“Listen to me, Tom. We have to make the PRC skipper think that he’s destroyed us.”

“He very well might do just that.”

“Sixty-five seconds to impact,” Fisher reported.

“Tubes one and two ready to fire, Captain,” the fire-control officer said.

“If it can be done without risking our own destruction, we have to try it,” McGarvey argued. “That’s the entire point of the mission. Getting Shizong out of here in secret, or making the Chinese believe that he’s dead.” McGarvey shook his head. “They were waiting for us up there. They knew we were bringing him. And I lost one of my people.”

“Captain?” the Chief of Boat prompted.

“Release the noisemakers now,” Harding said. “All stop, rudder amidships.”

“All stop, rudder amidships, sir,” Trela responded crisply after only a moment’s hesitation. He hoped the old man knew what he was doing this time.

“Fifty seconds to impact.”

Harding looked at McGarvey and Paradise. “I’m sorry that you took a casualty,” he said. “Stand by to fire tube one, only tube one.”

“Stand by one, aye,” the weapons-control officer said.

“Sonar, this is the captain. want you to pull up the BRD program that we were given in Pearl. Feed it to the main sonar dome.” BRD was Battle Response Decoy system. The Seawolf was supposed to have tested it on the initial part of this cruise, but not under actual battle conditions.

“Aye, skipper, I understand. Forty seconds to impact.”

“I’ll tell you when to transmit. Just be ready.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harding motioned for Paradise to man the ballast control panel. “On my mark I want all aft tanks explosively vented.” This would fill them with water all at once, making the boat stern-heavy. She would sink to the bottom tail first.

“Thirty seconds to impact,” Fisher reported.

“Fire tube one,” Harding said.

“Fire one, aye,” the weapons-control officer said. “Torpedo one is away.”

“Sonar, conn. Stand by, Fisher.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Send autodestruct,” Harding told the weapons-control officer.

The man looked up. “Sir—?”

“Twenty seconds to impact.”

“Autodestruct now!” Harding ordered.

The weapons-control officer uncaged the button and pushed it. Their wire-guided HE torpedo, which had not had enough time to began searching for a target, exploded less than eight hundred feet from the Seawolf, and directly in the path of the oncoming Chinese torpedoes.

“Brace yourselves,” Harding shouted as the first tremendous shock wave hammered the hull.

Both Chinese torpedoes fired almost simultaneously, slamming the Seawolf’s hull as if they had been hit by a pair of runaway cement trucks.

“Transmit now,” Harding told sonar. An instant later the water all around them reverberated with the transmitted noises of a submarine breaking up; internal explosions, water rushing, bulkheads collapsing, even men screaming, machinery spinning wildly out of control and breaking through decks as the boat was torn apart.

Paradise was waiting at the ballast control panel, and Harding gave him the nod.

“Take us down.”

Paradise twisted the controls, air was vented out of the aft tanks, and immediately they began a rapid descent to the bottom. Harding reached up to a handhold on the overhead and braced himself. Everyone else did the same.

2340 Local SSN 405 Hekou

Heishui held the earphones close. He was hearing the noises of a dying submarine. It excited him and saddened him at the same time. More than one hundred officers and men were dead or dying beneath him.

He focused on Zenzhong and the other sonar operators who had done such brilliant jobs. He felt a great deal of respect and affection for them. For all of his crew. They had gone up against one of the best ships in all the U.S. Navy and had been victorious.

“Good job,” he said, smiling warmly as he took off the earphones and handed them to one of the sonarmen. “Our mission was a complete success, and now it is time for us to go home.”

Zenzhong was busy with his equipment. At least six distinct white horizontal lines were painted on his sonar display scopes. “We have many targets incoming,” he said. He marked them on the screen with a grease pencil as quickly as he identified them.

“Then we’ll thread the needle,” Heishui said. “And you will lead us to safety.”

Zenzhong looked up, his eyes wide, but then he started to work out the relative bearings of the incomings.

Heishui went back to the control room. His crew all looked respectfully at him. He smiled and bowed to them all. “Thank you. We have succeeded in fulfilling our orders. We will go home now.”

“What is our course and speed, Captain?” his Chief of Boat asked.

Heishui went to the plotting table and took the bearings of the incoming warships as Zenzhong gave them. They were almost boxed in, but not quite. One lane leading out to sea was somehow still open to them.

“Make our course three-five-zero, speed two-five knots,” he told the Chief of Boat, who immediately relayed his orders. At that speed they would be very noisy.

Lagao came over and studied the plots. “They have left us a way out,” he said.

“Either it’s a mistake for it’s a political decision on their part,” Heishui said, looking up. He felt at peace, but it was clear that his XO was troubled.

“Or it may be a trap.”

Heishui nodded. “Prepare a message for Admiral Pei. Tell him that we have succeeded and are en route to Ningbo.”

“When shall I send it?”

“Immediately,” Heishui said, and he turned back to the chart as his boat accelerated. There was no possibility that they would make it home this time. But their mission was a success. The traitor Shi Shizong was dead, and a war with Taiwan had been avoided. At least for the moment.

Two Weeks Later United Nations General Assembly

On the way up to New York from Langley, McGarvey had a lot to think about. There was a new, troubling situation heating up in the Balkans, more unrest in Greece, rumors that someone at the highest levels inside the Mexican government was in bed with the leading drug cartels, and Castro’s successor was courting Pakistan for nuclear technology.

The funeral for Tom Preston had been a quiet affair at Arlington, with only a handful of friends and relatives. He hadn’t been married, and there weren’t any children. There’d been some confusion about who he was, but the Taiwanese Coast Guard had finally gotten it figured out, and his body had been flown home.

The Chinese Navy and Air Force had finished their extensive exercise, packed up their toys, and gone home all of a sudden with no explanation about Peter Shizong, or about the apparent destruction of two submarines, an American boat somewhere off Taiwan’s north coast and a PRC boat a couple of hours later and fifty miles north. There were no survivors.

The media never got the last story, and at the diplomatic level China and the U.S. politely avoided mentioning the issue at all. It was, as far as both sides were concerned, a completely fair and equitable exchange.

That was a position that the Chinese would regret having taken, McGarvey thought with pleasure as he got off the elevator on the third floor. He crossed the hall and after he showed his credentials was allowed inside the sky boxes, where the translators worked looking down on the General Assembly.

Captain Joseph Jiying, in civilian clothes, jumped up from where he was watching the proceedings, a big grin on his face. “Good to see you, Mr. McGarvey,” he said. They shook hands.

“My friends call me Mac, and it’s really good to see you in one piece.”

“It was a little hairy there for a couple of hours, but we finally realized the error of our patriotic zeal, and we gave up. No casualties.”

U.S. Ambassador Margaret Woolsey had just come to the podium amid some polite applause.

“You might want to check out Chou en Ping. He’s the PRC’s ambassador to the UN,” Jiying said. He was enjoying himself to the max. “The poor bastard doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.”

“It’s not going to be so easy,” McGarvey said.

“You’re right, of course,” Jiying said, suddenly very serious. “Maybe it’ll take another hundred years for the mainland to recognize who and what Taiwan has become. Look how long it took before Hong Kong went back.” He smiled and nodded as a very large round of applause swept across the General Assembly. “But ain’t it great to win once in a while? You know, truth, justice, and the American way?”

Down on the floor Peter Shizong was slowly making his way to the podium, shaking hands as he and his UN-supplied bodyguards were completely mobbed by well-wishers.

McGarvey took a pair of binoculars from Jiying and tried to spot Chou en Ping and the Chinese delegation at their seats, but they had already gotten up and were marching up a side aisle for the exits.

He handed the binoculars back. “Gotta go.”

“What’s your rush, it’s just getting good,” Jiying said.

“I’m meeting a friend for drinks. And then our wives are coming up to join us.”

“Anyone I should know?”

McGarvey shook his head. “Just an old friend. A submarine driver. Good man to have around in a pinch.”

About the Author

DAVID HAGBERG is an ex-Air Force cryptographer who has spoken at CIA functions and traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean. He also writes fiction under the pseudonym Sean Flannery, and has published more than two dozen novels of suspense, including White House, High Flight, Eagles Fly, Assassin, and Joshua’s Hammer. His writing has been nominated for numerous honors, including the American Book Award, three times for the Edgar Allan Poe award, and three times for the American Mystery award. He lives in Florida, and has been continuously published for the past twenty-five years.