Act of War

CHAPTER 61

The roar of the shotgun blast was deafening, even out on the aft deck where the princelings were watching the frenzied sharks gathered off the stern.

Immediately, the mate, Jimmy, cut the engines and when the students looked up at the bridge, they saw him looking at them with a pistol in his hand. Angie, the hostess, appeared in the salon with a sawed-off shotgun. From behind her, the captain came dragging the bloody body of their chaperone — the man who had collected them in Boston and was supposed to get them to Cuba so they could fly home. The man had never told them why, only that it was life and death, and that they were not to question his orders. While he bought their food or gassed up the van, they all whispered that it had to be because China was finally going to war with the United States.

The scene was beyond shocking. The men gasped. Daiyu screamed. The corpse was covered in blood and almost his entire face was missing. None of them had ever seen such a grisly sight.

If it weren’t for the clothing and the bits of jet-black hair that remained, they never would have even recognized him. Daiyu Jinping knew it was him, though. She could see the bandage beneath his shirt, on his left shoulder.

“Listen up!” the captain ordered, dragging the corpse onto the deck and dropping the legs with a thud. “There’s been a change of plans. Angie is going to hand each of you a cell phone. I want you to call your families back in China and tell them you’ve been kidnapped. In the draft folder of each of those phones are wiring instructions along with a price. If your family pays, there’ll be no problem. If they don’t, then this is what’ll happen.”

The captain nodded at Jimmy, who came down from the bridge and tucked his weapon into his waistband. Together, they bent down, lifted the body, and threw it off the back of the boat. The sharks immediately went to work, tearing it apart.

“Tell your families they have one hour.”

The captain took the shotgun from Angie, who then removed five fully charged iPhones from a bag and passed them out to each of the horror-stricken princelings. They watched the sharks rip at their chaperone’s flesh and were unable to look away.

“The cameras on those phones don’t work, by the way,” said the captain, attempting to break the spell of the sharks, “so don’t get any bright ideas. Tell them your situation, send them the wiring instructions, and hang up.”

Looking at his mate, the captain then said, “Let’s take a little cruise, Jimmy. Not too far out. I want to make sure we remain within cell service, so our bank can let us know as soon as that money starts rolling in.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” the mate said as he bounded back up to the bridge and fired up the engines.

“Angie,” the captain called to the hostess, “I think I’d like that rum runner now.”

“Anything you say, Captain,” the young woman replied as she disappeared inside to fetch his drink.

The faces of the young Chinese were a mixture of shock, fear, and contempt. The captain smiled and motioned for each of them to hurry up and make their calls. One by one, they all started to dial home.

As soon as the calls had been placed, Angie collected the phones and the students were herded into the salon. After their hands and feet were bound, they were ordered to sit on the floor. While Jimmy piloted the yacht, Angie sunned herself on the rear deck and the captain sat in a comfortable chair near the students, shotgun across his lap, sipping his drink and watching satellite TV.

Forty-five minutes later, the mate slid down the ladder from the bridge, stuck his head in the salon, and said, “Captain, come quick. We’ve got a problem.”

Several of the princelings looked up hopefully.

“Angie,” the captain yelled, “get in here and keep an eye on them.” Handing her his shotgun, he added, “If they move or make a sound, shoot them. All of them.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she replied and fixed the students with one of the coldest stares they had ever seen. The woman was obviously no stranger to violence and meant business. Not a single princeling made a sound.

From where they sat, with their backs against the couch, they could see out the opposite window. On the horizon a bright orange dot had appeared and was coming closer.

Soon enough they could not only see the U.S. Coast Guard chopper but hear the pounding of its rotors.

When it was almost overhead, there was a voice from the helicopter’s loudspeaker. “This is the United States Coast Guard. Drop your weapons and halt your vessel.”

From outside, the students heard two shots, and they exchanged terrified glances.

There were two more shots and then suddenly the engines went dead.

“You! Inside the vessel,” the voice boomed over the PA once more, “come out with your hands up!”

“Do as they say, Angie!” the captain yelled. “Do it now!”

“No!” she screamed back.

The helicopter could be heard repositioning outside and suddenly a heavy rope hit the aft deck. Seconds later, men in tactical gear with submachine guns slid down and stormed the salon and bridge.

The hostess tossed aside the shotgun just before being slammed to the floor by the Coast Guard team. Wrenching her arms behind her back, they FlexiCuffed her as two men raced forward to check the rest of the yacht.

A chorus of “Clear! Clear!” rang out as they searched each room and then returned to the salon. As they did, their colleagues entered and threw both the captain and his mate to the floor and made them lie, facedown, with their hands FlexiCuffed behind them.

Within fifteen minutes, two U.S. Coast Guard ships were on scene. Once the Chinese students had been transferred over to one of them, that vessel turned and headed back for land.

It was then that the head of the tactical team cut the boat’s “crew” loose.

“You boys play rough,” said Sloane as she rubbed her raw wrists.

The Coast Guard officer smiled. “You should have seen those kids’ faces. They were freaked out.”

“That’s nothing,” Chase replied as he sat up. “You should have seen their faces when we chucked that John Doe to the sharks. They’ll never look at shark fin soup the same again.”

“Don’t drop that,” Harvath said as two team members prepared to transfer the cooler containing the Nashville EMP device over to their vessel.

Standing up, he walked into the galley, removed his phone from the drawer, and called Nicholas, who was back at the NCTC working with the NSA.

“Did the Chinese buy it?” he asked.

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Nicholas replied. “When those kids phoned home, Chinese intelligence began tracing the calls immediately. Not long after that, Ho’s phone started ringing. Because Medusa was his asset, they blamed him for everything getting screwed up.”

“Good,” said Harvath. “As soon as we’re ready to allow the princelings to call home, I want Stephanie Esposito listening in. Let’s make sure we see this thing across the goal line.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah, tell Ren Ho he’s one step closer to getting his son back.”

“Will do,” Nicholas replied. “Good luck interrogating Bao Deng, or should I say Tai Cheng?”

“Tell the Old Man I’ll call him once we have something.”

With that, Harvath disconnected the call and walked down to the master stateroom. Lying on the bed naked, except for his briefs, was Tai Cheng.

After Sloane had stepped into the gangway and Tasered him, Harvath had hit him with a syringe full of ketamine. They had dragged him into the master stateroom where they stripped off his clothes, including the bandage on his shoulder, put a piece of duct tape over his mouth, and hog-tied him with FlexiCuffs.

After dressing their disfigured, dark-haired John Doe corpse from the Miami morgue and splashing it with pig’s blood, Sloane fired a blank shotgun round and Harvath dragged the mutilated body out for the princelings to see.

As the middleman between the Second Department and the smuggler known as Medusa, Ho had indeed been helpful. He had provided more than enough intel for the FBI to arrest the boat’s owner and its crew.

Ho had in fact cooperated every step of the way, including giving up the locations of all the cell members in each city and explaining how the EMP devices worked. He had even detailed how they had been smuggled into the country and who had been involved. He had explained how China’s military intelligence division worked, who had been involved with Snow Dragon, and who had conceived of it. He talked at length about Colonel Jiang Shi and his mantra that they would turn out the lights and America would be made to bow to China.

Ho was an intelligence jackpot, and Harvath had been completely honest when he had said that for his cooperation, the man would get his son back.

Harvath had also been completely honest when he had promised Tai Cheng that he would see to it that he got to Cuba. But instead of Havana by boat, he’d be flying from U.S. Naval Air Station Key West to the GITMO detention camp at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.