Beyond All Limits

1

The accommodations could have been worse, thought Kang Xing, National Minister of Defense, as he stretched out on the carved wooden bench in the Wuyingdian, the Hall of Martial Valor.

Located to the west of the Forbidden City’s Gate of Prosperous Harmony and opposite the Hall of Literary Glory, the ancient building was just one of many similar mini-palaces he and the other ministers had occupied since their arrest three days earlier. They were being kept on the move, and Kang knew it was less due to Wu’s fear of a rescue attempt as it was an effort to keep them constantly on edge. If they were allowed to relax, they could start to think about making plans of their own, and that would be the last thing that Wu would want.

Most of the generals from the Central Military Commission were behind Wu, and had stayed to support him. Kang, meanwhile, was quite happy where he was; he had no wish to be associated with General Wu — in public, at least — and had suggested to the man that it made sense for him keep an ‘insider’ among the gathered prisoners — the remaining members of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China, the men and women who had essentially ruled the nation, until very recently at least.

The two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission who also served on the Politburo, both generals in the People’s Liberation Army, were right by Wu’s side back in the Zhongnonhai compound, the modern seat of China’s government which rested next door to the Forbidden City. They were helping constitute the new military regime which would rule the nation, loyal aides to General Wu.

As the sole military officer remaining with the Politburo, Kang Xing would perhaps be treated with suspicion, but he explained to Wu that his insights would be invaluable, and the new paramount leader had finally agreed.

He would only tell General Wu what he wanted him to know, of course; in fact, he had recently given the general a snippet of information that he really hoped the man would act upon. But the main reason for his wanting to stay behind with the rest of the group was because he didn’t want his protégé, Vice Premier Chang Wubei, to be without his influence.

Indeed, Kang’s guidance of Chang was about to reach a time of critical importance. If Wu didn’t want the men and women in this room to make plans, then he was too late already — Kang had enough for all of them.

They were being informed of nothing outside the walls of the Forbidden City — all the better to keep them psychologically off-balance — but Kang knew exactly what Wu would be doing. After all, he had subtly suggested a large part of it himself. But even if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out — even before the coup, the general had used his influence to position naval forces in a prime position to attack the Diaoyu Islands. He had been surprised that Tsang Feng hadn’t seen it himself; but then again, he reminded himself, this was the exact reason why the man had been removed in the first place. No eye for military maneuvers; no stomach for war.

Taiwan would be next, of course; oil profits notwithstanding, the Diaoyus were a mere stepping stone towards China’s rightful reclamation of the important island of Taiwan, illegally taken by the treacherous forces of Chiang Kai-Shek and his diabolical Kuomintang, along with half of China’s gold reserves over half a century before.

Wu would waste no time in taking it back, Kang was sure.

Good for him.

Kang smiled lazily as he reclined back further on the bench.

‘Xing?’ a furtive voice whispered, destroying his attempt at relaxation. It had to be Chang; nobody else would dare disturb him.

Suppressing his annoyance, Kang sat up on the bench and looked at the man before him through his hooded eyes. Chang was sweating, Kang was disgusted to see, and it had nothing to do with the early June heat that was just starting to bring the stifling humidity of summer to their great city. The man was scared and — what was worse — he was showing it.

This, Kang decided, would not do at all; it did not fit with any of his plans.

‘Wubei,’ Kang cautioned sternly, ‘get a grip on yourself. Have you gone mad? You cannot let the others see that you are afraid. Remember what we talked about — this is your great chance, and I am not about to see you make a mess of it.’

‘My great chance?’ Chang whispered, amazed. ‘How can you say that? How can you sit there and be so calm? Are you not worried?’

Kang shook his head slowly, disappointed that the young man did not have more faith. If Kang trusted him to know more, he would be truly amazed, Kang knew; indeed, Chang wouldn’t have been able to believe Kang’s foresight, his courage, his absolute determination.

He wouldn’t have been able to believe it, which was exactly why Kang hadn’t told him everything; his volatile, precious personality wouldn’t have been able to tolerate it.

But Chang Wubei was Kang’s man for a reason — and a large part of that reason was his openness to manipulation. Kang really shouldn’t have been surprised that Chang was finding it hard to cope. But the bottom line was that he had to learn to control himself better.

‘One of the skills you need to master,’ Kang advised him quietly, ‘is how to mask your emotions. You say how can I not worry. What makes you think I am not worried? I know that at any moment the doors here may burst open, and we may all suffer the same fate as President Tsang. My heart is beating hard in my chest, just the same as yours. The art is in not showing it.’

Kang swept his eyes around the room at the members of China’s Politburo, scattered about the hall in small groups — some shouting boisterously, others whispering nervously.

‘Look at them,’ Kang said with disdain. ‘Lost without someone to lead them. They are all thinking the same thing — those who can see past the possibility of being shot, that is. They’re thinking if Wu fails, and we are reinstated, who among us will assume the role of Paramount Leader? They think it, but they daren’t do anything about it. This is your time, Wubei — time to impress people, time to take charge.’

‘But what about Hua?’ Chang asked. Hua Peng was the Premier, the prime minister of Tsang’s regime and the logical choice to replace Wu if things were to suddenly change.

Kang smiled. ‘You let me worry about Hua, you just do what I tell you. Do you understand?’

Chang nodded his head uncertainly. ‘Yes… Yes, I do.’

Kang pointed across the hall to a small bronze of a duck in flight. ‘The duck,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen them sitting calmly on the water, yes? Sitting calmly, peacefully, although under the water its little feet are kicking a hundred beats a minute, all the time scrabbling for survival. That is me, Wubei. That is you.’ He turned back to Chang, hooded eyes staring straight at him. ‘If you are to become leader when this is all over, you cannot let anyone see what is going on under the surface.’

General Wu De, Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China, strode into the Hall of Martial Virtue, a wide smile breaking underneath his thick, oiled mustache.

‘My friends,’ he said, arms open, ‘my friends. How are you?’

He laughed heartily then, watching as all eyes turned to him, to the armed soldiers who entered with him, to the black-robed man who stood right by his side, the glass eye in his scarred, shaven head enough to make everyone just a little nervous. That was the joy of Zhou Shihuang, Wu’s three-hundred pound personal enforcer; his ability to make people nervous.

Wu had received reports that — although he had given order for the members of the Politburo to be constantly moved around in order to confuse and disorient them, they were still gathering in groups to chat and to organize plans against him. His source had highlighted one individual in particular that was a distinct threat to him.

But Wu didn’t want to confine the entire Politburo to cells, and he had no desire to kill them — such a move would be a public relations disaster with the people he wanted to lead, as well as a dangerously volatile challenge to international diplomacy. Besides which, they were useful as hostages, and might even decide to join him after being given some time to consider their options.

But he did want them to consider such options in the correct light; one in which Wu De was their leader, and they obeyed without question.

To make sure this situation occurred, Wu was about to play one of his favorite games; kill a chicken to train a monkey.

‘It has come to my attention,’ he began as he strolled through the hall, passing the cowering politicians, ‘that some of you are already thinking about what will happen if I am gone. Who will lead, now Tsang is dead? Well,’ he said with a smile as he stopped next to Hua Peng, ‘the answer is simple. Hua Peng is your Premier, is he not? Logically then, he will replace me. Unless…’

In the blink of an eye, Zhou Shihuang swept past his master, with a speed that belied his immense bulk. In one fluid move, the huge man seized the arm of Hua Peng, wrenching the wrist back towards his hand, breaking it like a twig. In the next instant, with Hua’s child-like screams still filling the air of the hall, a crushing side kick came stamping down, destroying Hua’s kneecap with a sickening crack.

And then — even before Hua’s body could collapse to the floor — Zhou reached out to take hold of the Premier’s head, twisting it savagely between his hands, snapping the neck cleanly and silencing the screams forever.

General Wu watched the body fall to the floor with great satisfaction, before turning back to the other Politburo members.

‘Let there be no more talk of what might happen, yes?’ he asked. ‘I suggest you all accept that things have changed, and agree to follow my leadership.’

But Wu knew something else altogether would result from Hua’s sudden death — with the Premier out of the way, division and segregation would spread throughout the Politburo as each one of them vied for a chance at the top slot. There were four Vice Premiers who would be keen for advancement, just for starters.

The group would be hard pressed to organize a resistance of any kind now, too consumed with political in-fighting and ambitious back-stabbing to unite against Wu. They would therefore be weakened and broken, and much easier to subjugate in the long term.

Everyone in the hall was silent, and Wu surveyed them slowly, eyes meeting each one in turn — careful not to smile when he met the hooded, knowing eyes of his old friend Kang Xing — and then, satisfied that the lesson had been learned, he nodded once.

‘That was unfortunate,’ Wu said, ‘but I do have good news. Today our forces will attack the traitors of Taiwan. We will reclaim it as our own, one more step on our journey towards a new Chinese Empire.’

He looked down at the body of Hua, gestured toward it with his hand. ‘This was regrettably unavoidable,’ he said, ‘but I will not let it despoil this special day. I trust you will not let it do so either.’

The threat clear, his work done, Wu turned on his heel and left the Hall of Martial Valor, the dead chicken left on the floor behind him, a clear sign for the monkey.

Class was over.

2

Jake Navarone dropped his bags to the hot cement as he looked around the naval base, hands on his hips. It had been a long time.

Naval Base Coronado was a consolidated military installation which held eight separate naval facilities across 57,000 acres of San Diego County. One of these was Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, which itself contained the Naval Special Warfare Center — home to the legendary SEAL training school which made men out of boys.

Navarone had undergone his own training here, at the tender age of eighteen, just out of high school, and he remembered well the twenty-four week Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course — by far the most grueling period of his year of basic training for the teams. The dropout rate was said to be as high as ninety percent and, looking back, Navarone thought that was about right for his intake too. Most of the people he’d met in those early days had failed to last the course. And even now, after years in the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group which was more popularly known as SEAL Team Six, BUD/S was still the toughest training he’d done, and he looked around the base with mixed feelings. There was pride, certainly; but still, even after all these years, there was a slight hint of trepidation, as if he was still that long-haired eighteen year old boy stepping off the bus for the first time.

Navarone looked around and saw Mark Cole had paused where he stood too; but only for a moment, a brief flicker in the man’s eyes which was soon gone. He reminded himself that Cole had been trained here too, even before Navarone. He wondered what feelings the base conjured up for his boss; he couldn’t imagine the man being perturbed by anything. He was a rock, a special operations legend, and Navarone felt privileged to be on the same team, hand-picked. He must be doing something right, he supposed.

But the job with Force One wasn’t without its complications. Navarone had never married, but liked to spend his leave with his parents and his two much younger sisters back in Florida.

He’d only just got there, about to sit down to a dinner of grilled crayfish, when he’d received the emergency alert. Not even one full afternoon of peace.

But Navarone understood the fact that he was a volunteer; he didn’t have to do it. He didn’t need to be on Force One; hell, he didn’t have to be on Team Six either. He could easily leave, set up his own private security firm, be at home eating crayfish gumbo whenever he wanted.

But that wasn’t the life he wanted, the life he needed. He had an innate desire to be the best, the leader in his field. It just so happened that his field was covert military operations, and the best unit in the world was Force One.

How could he say no?

He saw the other members of his team hit the tarmac, jumping off the truck that had brought them here.

Chad ‘Country’ Davis was a six foot two, two hundred and twenty pound Delta Force operative who looked like he ate babies for breakfast and then flossed his teeth with barbed wire. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, the Rangers, and the US Army Special Forces before joining Delta, the man was as tough as old boot leather, the epitome of everything a commando was supposed to be; and yet Navarone also knew that he was a loving family man with a heart of gold. Whoever came across him over in China would never know that though, Navarone was sure. They would only see the Viking berserker, and it would likely be the last thing they ever saw.

Julie Barrington was the only female in the group, but she would be a tremendous asset. A long-time paramilitary officer with the CIA’s Special Activity Division, she was a unit leader for that organization’s elite Special Operations Group, and an expert with explosives and small-arms. Navarone had seen her on the range, and turned down her offer of a friendly shoot-off; there was no chance he could have won.

Sal Grayson was Air Force, a Pararescueman with the AF Special Operations Command. Among the best-trained troops in the entire US military, PJs — or ‘Para Jumpers’ — were taught how to infiltrate any type of enemy territory in order to save and rescue other military personnel. Navarone had the ultimate respect for Grayson — the man was able to put himself in the line of fire with the goal not to kill the enemy, but to rescue his brothers and sisters in arms. He would be the team medic, and Navarone could never hope for someone more experienced in combat trauma treatment.

The last person on the team was another Team Six man, Tim Collins. He was young compared to the rest of the group, but Navarone had worked with him many times in DEVGRU, and had found him to be talented and capable beyond his years. If Davis was the prototypical commando — big, strong and terrifying — then Collins was a schoolboy in comparison. But give him a sniper rifle, and he could hit some things Navarone couldn’t even see.

Navarone realized the group was top-heavy with SEALs — three out of the six of them — but he also understood that it was necessitated by the nature of their infiltration into Beijing, which Cole had explained to them in Forest Hills the day before.

They had travelled overnight after a full day of briefings at the Paradigm headquarters back in DC, and despite getting some sleep on the flight, Navarone stretched and yawned as he faced the lightening Pacific Ocean, the hazy red sun rising steadily behind him.

‘I hope you’re not tired, Navarone,’ Cole said, turning towards him with half a smile, ‘because you’re damn sure not going to be getting much rest before this thing is over.’

‘Don’t worry about me, sir,’ Navarone said with half a smile of his own. ‘I’m ready to shoot and scoot anytime you say so.’

‘Good,’ Cole said with a curt nod. ‘Then let’s get started.’

Cole had brought the team to Coronado for two main reasons. The first was to draw weapons and supplies. Water would feature heavily in their insertion, and the SEALs still had the best kit for such operations. The other reason was that it was home to the training wing for the SEAL Delivery Vehicle, the flooded mini-submarine they were going to use for part of their infiltration into Beijing.

The SDV was a key element of the SEAL teams, delivering a crew of two pilots and four passengers far further into an operational area than they would get by swimming alone. It was a large, electrically-propelled craft that looked not dissimilar to a torpedo. The two pilots, in full SCUBA gear, controlled the SDV from the semi-open front end, while the four passengers, also in SCUBA gear, travelled in the fully-flooded rear compartment.

Piloting the craft was a skilled job, and one that was only taught here in Coronado. That was why Collins was here, despite his relative inexperience — before joining DEVGRU, he had been an SDV pilot with SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One. Cole would be co-pilot for the insertion, and Navarone would stay in the back to keep an eye on the other three team members.

The day would be spent with basic familiarization for Davis, Barrington and Grayson, and a session of all-important re-familiarization for Cole, Navarone and Collins.

It didn’t trouble Cole unduly that they were openly here on the naval base, despite Force One’s covert status. It was a training center, and the people here were anyway used to covert ops; no questions would be asked, and no answers would be listened to even if they were. Boxes had been ticked in the right places all the way up to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and that was all anyone needed to know. As to what the six people were really up to, it was nobody’s business but theirs.

The idea for the insertion had come to Cole early on; there really hadn’t been any realistic alternative, he’d been forced to admit. Conventional means of infiltration such as parachute insertion were out of the question. There was no way that the airspace anywhere near Beijing could be penetrated without major reprisal. It might have been feasible to drop into the countryside somewhere well outside of the capital, but Chinese air defences were pretty decent even in the most uninhabited areas of the country nowadays — and even if successful, Cole and his team would then need to infiltrate possibly hundreds of miles overland, with all their equipment.

And so for the infiltration of Beijing, Cole knew he would have to go back to his SEAL roots — waterborne insertion.

He had called Olsen as soon as he’d had the idea — he needed to know if there was a submarine in-theater that could be used at short notice. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had snapped his fingers and Cole had gotten what he needed; right this minute, the Virginia-class attack sub, the USS Texas, was docked on the eastern side of Okinawa Island being fitted out to receive the SDV. Apparently it had been operating clandestinely around the East China Sea, probing the defences of the surveillance network which surrounded the crippled aircraft carrier. Cole wondered if the captain would be angry at being pulled off-task, or excited by the prospect of engaging in something rather more proactive. Cole supposed it would all depend on how much he had been told.

Cole watched his team mates as they filed onto the base and smiled; if anyone could get into Beijing and get the old government out to safety, it was them.

And, he had to admit, if anyone in the world was capable of killing General Wu, it was Cole himself.

Captain Hank Sherman smoked a cigarette impatiently, waiting on the harbor dock as the last bolts were secured to the specialist Dry Dock Shelter which was now fitted snugly on top of his submarine, right next to the conning tower.

A large metal canister, thirty-eight feet long and thirty tons in weight, it enabled a SEAL Delivery Vehicle to be transported to its theater of operations and then released clandestinely underwater to approach its target.

Sherman and the Texas hadn’t been with the USS Ford when it was hit; his sub had just left Guam after a minor refit, and had been heading out on patrol to the South China Sea. They’d been rounding the southern tip of Taiwan when they’d been informed. It had been the worst moment in Sherman’s long and storied professional career, and Sherman and his crew could swear that they felt the impact through hundreds of kilometers of open sea. They had been ready — and eager — for immediate retaliatory action. He well remembered being told by Admiral Kincaid Jones, Chief of Naval Operations — on the orders of the president herself — to stand down, not to enter the East China Sea, to leave the Ford crippled and alone.

There’d almost been a mutiny onboard when he’d informed his crew of the president’s orders, and he had felt like leading it himself. But his professionalism had won through in the end, and he had done as he was told. And in the end, he’d been forced to admit that his country really had no choice if she was to avoid war with China.

But, Sherman reasoned, why not go to war with China? Despite Chinese advances, her navy — in fact, her military generally — was still no match for that of the United States. It wasn’t all about who spent the most money, who had the most troops, who had the best equipment — although admittedly, all these things helped. No, Sherman knew it was the experience and expertise of the military personnel themselves who made the real difference — and China’s were still poorly trained, unmotivated, and inexperienced in comparison. Sherman had no doubts about who would win.

Still, he knew that nobody ever really won a war — too many lives would be lost to ever make it a political possibility. And then there was the thorny issue of General Wu’s mental state, and his readiness to use China’s unknown nuclear resources if pushed too far. And even Sherman knew that the possible rewards of counter-attacking China could never be worth the repercussions of nuclear war.

Sherman was a man who was used to conflict. From the Arabian Gulf to the Arctic Ocean, he had seen action all over the world and now — as captain of his own advanced attack submarine, he badly wanted to do something — anything — to help.

It had been Sherman himself who had come up with the idea of probing the Chinese defences, in preparation for a potential counterstrike if negotiations broke down. The LA-class attack sub USS Chicago had been accompanying the Ford, but it might as well have been hit too for all the good she could do now; the new Chinese government had ordered the submarines that were part of the carrier group to remain on the surface when they pulled out of the area, so that they could be monitored. Sherman had argued that the Chinese had no idea where the Texas was, and so wouldn’t know to look out for him so soon after the incident. But he was close — he could be there within a day and a half, ready to go silent and enter the lion’s den. There was opposition to his suggestions in some quarters — many felt that it wasn’t worth the risk of the Chinese finding out, that it would make things much worse — but Sherman argued that if the situation deteriorated, then the US navy would need as much intelligence on Chinese displacements as it could possibly get.

Admiral Jones had finally agreed, and Sherman had been slipping his near-silent ship in and out of the Chinese naval perimeter ever since, gathering data for future military action and — so everyone hoped — a rescue mission to the Ford.

He had been incensed when the order had come for him to pull back, to return to the safe waters of White Beach Naval Base, a sheltered port in Nakagusuku Bay on the eastern side of Okinawa — far from the Chinese naval presence in the open waters northwest of the island. Had Jones lost his nerve, he’d wanted to know? Was there so little will to combat the Chinese that even reconnaissance missions were being banned?

But then he’d been told to await the arrival of the C-5 Galaxy and its cargo of the Dry Dock Shelter and SEAL Delivery Vehicle, and he’d instantly felt better.

The DDS and SDV meant special operations.

Which meant that things were changing up a gear instead of down — the US military was finally going in.

The Galaxy had arrived from Pearl Harbor just in time to meet Sherman’s sub, and its crew had gone to work immediately. As well as the engineers who were fitting the Dry Dock Shelter, there was also a team of trained divers from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1.

The SDV was a mini-submarine launched from the DDS, and used to infiltrate onto a target area further and faster than divers could hope to achieve alone.

Even though a team of SEALs had arrived from Pearl, Sherman knew that their job was merely to get the SDV out into the water — they were not the commandos who were going to go into action.

Sherman knew nothing about the special operations unit who would actually be performing the mission, only that they were travelling from a further location, and he would have to liaise with them at sea.

Despite his unease at not knowing all the details, Sherman was nevertheless grateful that it was the Texas which had been given the honor of running the blockade, and the potential dangers of his mission only made him happier.

He still hadn’t been given his full mission orders — apparently they would come once he had returned to sea — but he assumed he would be attempting to infiltrate the special ops unit onboard the USS Ford, the first action of what he hoped would be a full-scale rescue attempt.

He gazed across the dock at his beloved ship, its sleek black hull glowing wetly above the warm Okinawan waters. All base personnel had been removed from this area except for the skilled technicians who had flown in on the Galaxy, and the area was camouflaged from above by corrugated roofing and expansive blue netting due to the presence of Chinese surveillance drones which flew over the area on an increasingly regular basis. From the air, nobody could ever tell that an eight-thousand ton, three billion dollar, nuclear-powered fast attack submarine was resting beside the half-mile long Navy pier that stretched out into Nakagusuku Bay.

Captain Sherman checked his Rolex diver’s watch, then looked up again at the crew working away feverishly, determined to get the job finished within the shortest possible time. The DDS could be comfortably fitted and tested in three days, a timeframe that could be narrowed down to a single day in emergency situations. The specialist team working on the Texas right now had been given an even more onerous task — to fit the DDS in just twelve hours. Sherman wanted to get sailing by last light.

He had been told to set sail from Nakagusuku Bay by twenty hundred hours tonight, and head around the southern tip of Okinawa Island and then head back north towards the East China Sea. They would liaise with the special operations team before first light, and then Sherman would receive the rest of his orders.

He threw the butt of his cigarette onto the pier and ground it to dust under his boot, striding towards his submarine with a smile.

He couldn’t wait.

3

General Wu De adjusted his corpulent frame in his chair, getting himself comfortable for his first real press conference since becoming Paramount Leader of China.

He had made a brief statement to the Xinhua News Agency — which had since been seen worldwide — the day after he had assumed power. It had been mere window-dressing, a short speech just to let his people know who was now in charge. The Politburo was no more — the military reigned supreme.

Just as it should be.

For this television presentation, Wu had decided to speak from a chair, seated like the emperors of old. Indeed, the chair was more a throne really, and he hoped that the implication would be clear — China was emerging from decades of self-imposed exile to retake her rightful place at the head of world affairs.

Women from Xinhua’s makeup department made last-minute adjustments to his wide, fleshy face, and Wu was sure to catch their eyes, give them a knowing smile, an inviting nod. They would be his after the show, he had decided. That was now his right, and he would be sure to exercise that right whenever he had the opportunity.

It amazed him how far he had come since his early days in that foul, cesspit of an orphanage in Chengdu. He was forced to adjust himself in his seat again as he thought of Sichuan Provincial Orphanage, the memories having a physical effect on him that was less than comfortable. They had been dark times indeed, and Wu had had to struggle against fate herself to attain the status he now enjoyed.

He had joined the army at his earliest possible opportunity, just seventeen years old. The anger that dwelled within him, seething to the surface at any moment, would have seen him imprisoned in the civilian world; in the People’s Liberation Army, however, his ruthless streak saw him gain citation after citation for valor and courage in the face of the enemy. Before long, Wu had been a man going places, elevated to officer status and later given a place within the Communist Party, despite his socially questionable background.

He had attained all he had in life through ruthless manipulation, and savage violence. It had been the recipe of success for Wu, and he had no compunction to change his ways now. The only thing that was going to change, now that he was in charge of the world’s most populous country, was simply the sheer scale of the violence he would be responsible for.

He patted the backsides of the women with his thick, wide hands, winking at them, sealing their fates for his afternoon pleasures.

But first things first, he told himself, turning to the Xinhua cameras.

The women withdrew, the lights were focused on Wu and his throne, and the countdown came.

At the director’s nod, Wu began.

‘Tonight I come before you, my people, a troubled man. You all know me as a man of peace. When the US entered our territorial waters, I did not attack them, I did not kill them as was my right; I took defensive action against one aggressive ship, and asked the others to leave.

‘But now I discover that my diplomacy, my desire for peaceful negotiation, has been taken by some as a sign of weakness.

‘My people, I am horrified to tell you that today your country came under attack.’ Wu nodded his head earnestly. ‘Yes,’ he continued slowly, apologetically, ‘it is true.’

He knew the live statement would now cut to video of an incident in the South China Sea, footage of a Chinese Type 054A Frigate being hit by what appeared to be missiles; the deck was engulfed in flame and the ship slowly began to list until it sank beneath the waves.

‘Our own vessel, the Huangshan, a frigate of the PLA Navy, was sunk this afternoon by a Harpoon missile fired by the Taiwanese submarine Hai Hu. This was an unprovoked attack by the Taiwanese government, who obviously wish to capitalize on our current situation, take advantage while we are preoccupied with our change of government.’

The audience across China — and later the world — would now see radar tracking footage identifying the passage of the missile, the position of the Taiwanese submarine; and then the military ID photographs of the crew of the Huangshan, one hundred and sixty-five images rapidly flickering across the television screen.

‘The entire crew was killed,’ Wu’s voice said over the images with regret. ‘Every single sailor, dead — killed at the command of the Taiwanese government.’

Wu knew that the camera would be back on him now, and he was sure to make the disgust he felt plain across his face.

‘We — our beloved nation, our cherished republic — have been attacked,’ he exclaimed, hands slapping down onto the arms of his throne. ‘Without mercy! Without quarter! A cowardly attack meant only to kill!’

Wu shook his head as if in wonder. ‘Have we not been tolerant of Taiwan?’ he said. ‘Even though the land belongs to us, even though it was stolen from us, have we not been reasonable?’

Wu gestured at the camera, opening his arms, palms up as if in surrender to the situation. ‘Well,’ he said gravely, ‘no longer. My fellow generals and I have declared this barbaric attack on our naval fleet to be an act of war. And as such, we have no option, no recourse whatsoever, except for ourselves to reciprocate and declare war on Taiwan and her people.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘Her military will be crushed, and we will take back what is rightfully ours. I have notified the Taiwanese government of our intentions to defend our interests, and I promise you, my people, that Taiwan will be ours within days.

‘And I would like to take this opportunity also,’ Wu said, eyes clear and focused like laser beams at the Xinhua cameras, ‘to confirm that any nation that attempts to aid Taiwan in any way will be declaring war on the People’s Republic of China, and we will respond in kind. And please do not forget,’ he finished with a terrible, knowing smile, ‘that my will to use our nation’s vast resources is infinitely stronger than your own.’

‘Holy shit,’ said an amazed India Parshens, Secretary of Energy — and holy shit was right, Ellen Abrams had to admit.

President Abrams was seated at the head of the conference table which took up almost all of the available space in the West Wing’s Situation Room, the members of the National Security Council gathered round it with their complete attention.

Some members of the council already knew about the incidents occurring in East Asia, while others were only just finding out now. Parshens was one of them, and Abrams didn’t mind her outburst in the least — it was what they were all thinking.

They had just watched Wu’s broadcast on the flat-screen monitors which hung from every wall, a CIA-derived translation cutting across the bottom to transpose Xinhua’s own English subtitles.

It had been Bud Shaw — Director of the National Security Agency — who had informed her of the incident initially, having been briefed on surveillance images recorded by National Reconnaissance Office Key Hole satellites.

The information had been shared with military intelligence at the Pentagon, as well as CIA and Homeland Security, and it quickly became obvious what had happened — a Taiwanese submarine had fired upon, and sunk, a Chinese frigate.

Abrams had raced to call Rai Po-ya, the President of Taiwan’s Republic of China, but he had beaten her to it — the phone was already ringing when she got there.

Rai had assured Abrams that no order to attack China’s navy had ever been given, and he had no idea what was going on. The man had been terrified, and Abrams understood why — a Chinese invasion was a terrifying thing.

But why had the Hai Hu fired on the Chinese frigate? Abrams’ initial thought was that it was a clever ruse by Wu to create a pretext for his invasion of Taiwan, although there was no proof to back this up; not yet, anyway.

She hoped that she might learn something more at this meeting, as the American military and intelligence services had been working overtime to get to the bottom of this mess.

Abrams turned to Catalina dos Santos, eyes raised. ‘So what’ve we got so far, Cat?’

Dos Santos looked around the room, making sure that everyone was paying attention. She needn’t have worried; all eyes were locked on her.

‘CIA has discovered the name of the Hua Hin’s captain was Chen Chu-Sun — seemingly a model officer, except that his wife and children are reported to live in mainland China. Efforts to contact them have failed, and it is possible that they were used to influence Chen’s actions.’

‘Can that be proved?’ asked Clark Mason.

Dos Santos shook her head. ‘Not at present,’ she said, ‘but we are still developing intelligence as we speak. We should know more in the next few hours.’

‘You said the captain’s name was Chen Chu-Sun,’ White House Chief of Staff Martin Shaker said. ‘Does that mean he’s dead?’

Dos Santos nodded. ‘Yes, him and the rest of his crew; the PLA Navy responded instantly, blew the submarine out of the water.’

‘So you think it was all a set-up?’ Shaker asked.

‘We think that’s a distinct possibility, yes,’ Abrams interjected. ‘It makes no sense at all for Taiwan to attack China, absolutely no sense at all. To my mind, it’s the same as Hitler using his own troops to attack that German radio station in Poland, to create a pretext for the invasion. Nothing else makes sense.’

‘Unless the captain of the Hua Hin went rogue?’ suggested John Eckhart, National Security Adviser. ‘A man with his own personnel vendetta? Just one lone madman?’ He looked at dos Santos. ‘Have we managed to get his file yet?’ he asked. ‘Can we assess his background? Mental state?’

‘Not yet,’ dos Santos admitted, ‘but we’re working on it, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense have offered us full cooperation.’

‘But we do have other indicators that it was a set-up,’ Pete Olsen announced, his bulky frame ensconced in full military uniform as he sat two places down the table from the president. ‘The Chinese military have already moved in — from positions they had already taken up prior to the attack on the Huangshan. In this light, we can also see the invasion of the Senkaku Islands as a preliminary step in taking Taiwan, as the Chinese military will be using those islands as staging posts.’

‘So what are you saying, Pete?’ said Mason, eyebrows knitted.

‘I’m saying that elements of the People’s Liberation Army, Navy and Air Force were all lined up to invade Taiwan before they had any reason to, and that the attack on the Chinese frigate was just the catalyst — or, rather, the excuse — Wu and the other generals needed for that invasion to go ahead.’

‘But they can’t possibly have thought that we would believe them!’ India Parshens said, still struggling to come to terms with what was happening.

Abrams shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter what other countries believe,’ she said sadly, ‘only what we can prove. And at this stage, all that can be proven is that a Taiwanese submarine opened fire on a Chinese frigate and killed her entire crew. Wu is just reacting as he would be expected to, especially by his own people.’

Dos Santos nodded. ‘Let’s not forget that the Xinhua broadcast was to a large extent aimed at drumming up support from his own people. He has taken over the country by force, taken away the ‘elected’ government, and he will have no idea how long he can hold onto such power for. This attack on a Chinese ship gives him something to rally the people behind; he’ll invade Taiwan — an island most mainland Chinese believe should be theirs anyway — and he’ll be admired and loved for it.’

There was silence in the room for a time, as the ramifications of Wu’s actions began to sink in.

‘So what are we going to do about it?’ Parshens asked, breaking the silence.

‘What can we do?’ Abrams said candidly. ‘We have no defensive agreements with Taiwan, and in fact, under the ‘one China’ doctrine we haven’t even officially recognized her government since we recognized Beijing in 1979. China has a de facto reason to go to war with Taiwan — engineered perhaps, but legitimate as far as anyone can prove at this time — and our hands are tied.’

It pained Abrams to admit it, but what she had said was the truth. There was simply nothing that the United States could do to help Taiwan, and she inwardly cursed General Wu. A clever bastard, she had to admit, but a bastard nevertheless.

What concerned her most was what would happen next. If Wu succeeded in taking Taiwan — which he surely would, if given enough time — then when would be his next target? Abrams had already started to field the phone calls from China’s worried neighbors — India, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, the list of panicking Asian nations was growing by the hour.

Abrams sighed inwardly, careful not to let the rest of the council see her agitation. The invasion of Taiwan was already underway, and there was nothing anyone could do to help her.

She could only hope that Mark Cole was able to stop General Wu before too many people were killed in the process.

Clark Mason watched Ellen Abrams closely, as he always did at these meetings. He was probing for a weakness, anything he could use against her.

She seemed to pause momentarily, and Mason could see — although she tried to hide it — that the situation was getting to her.

And why wouldn’t it? She was between the proverbial rock and the hard place, unable to help Taiwan and with the whole Asian continent clamoring for US assistance, lest Wu set his sights on them. And without leading by example, without retaliating against China in some way, what weight would be given to US promises in the future?

Mason didn’t envy her at the moment, but he could sense — like a shark in bloody waters — that there was a hint of opportunity here. If Abrams failed in the eyes of the public to show strong leadership, to at least offer token resistance to General Wu’s wholesale takeover of China and her territories, then her position could arguably be so weakened that her presidency would become untenable.

And who would step into her shoes, once the crisis was over and the world had returned to the status quo?

Yours truly, Clark Mason thought with a sly grin, the Vice President of the United States.

Ready to assume the presidency itself, if the current president was unable to perform her duties to the expectations of the American people.

The thought reminded him of the last time he had tried something like this, hoping that Abrams’ handling of the bioweapon threat the previous year would create a similar opportunity. That opportunity had never come, but something else suddenly struck him with that memory — the voice of Doctor Alan Sandbourne.

He knew where he had heard it before.

It took him a while to digest the knowledge, to accept it as true, but in a few short seconds, he was sure. He had no doubt about it at all.

He had heard Sandbourne’s voice piped through the speaker system of this very room, during the bioweapon crisis. Only the name attached to the voice was Mark Cole, a deniable covert operative — a government assassin — codenamed ‘the Asset’.

He had never seen the man, had only seen pictures before his plastic surgery — but Mason was sure he was not mistaken. Doctor Alan Sandbourne was Mark Cole.

And what did that mean?

It didn’t take long to figure out — Mark Cole was on Abrams’ payroll, maybe as an individual contractor, maybe even in command of his own damn hit team.

As the meeting droned on around him, Mason withdrew his cellphone and texted his assistant. ‘Get everything you have found on Sandbourne and the Paradigm Group to my office. One hour.’

Mason pocketed his cell and turned back to the meeting, hiding his smile.

He was not a man who missed an opportunity.

4

Mark Cole felt the wind ripping through the cabin of the Black Hawk helicopter which now hovered over the dark seas, his target obscured below him.

Cole and the rest of the Force One team had finished up their training in Coronado, drawn their equipment and been flown out to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam the previous afternoon.

Cole had been pleased with his experience in Coronado, each and every individual now comfortable with the SEAL Delivery Vehicle they would be using. Everyone was experienced in such operations anyway, but it was always nice to be reassured. There was also always the question of how individual operators would gel as a team — but again, it turned out that Cole had nothing to worry about on that score either.

One of the requirements for secondment to Force One was an operator’s ability to work alone when they had to, or to be able to instantly integrate into a team if that was what the mission dictated. As such, Cole had selected personnel of such a high caliber that — after only a few hours of familiarization — they were able to work together as if they’d done so for years.

They were like world-class musicians, each at the top of their game, asked to play together — after only a short time, the very best would always come together in fluid harmony, uniting as one as if they had always played that way.

The aviators from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment of the US Army had already arrived in Guam by the time Force One was there, ready and waiting to go.

The pilots of the 160th SOAR — the ‘Night Stalkers’ — were the best in the world, able to fly in and out of combat zones without detection, in a wide range of specially modified aircraft. The Sikorsky MH-60 Black Hawk stealth helicopter was one such vehicle, its fuselage altered with the harsh angles and flat surfaces of stealth technology that helped it to avoid many typical radar systems, its rotors configured and adjusted to reduce noise to an absolute minimum.

The Black Hawk’s position over the northern waters of the Ryukyu Islands, in the southern end of the East China Sea, wasn’t quite enemy territory — it was still outside China’s claimed territorial waters — but nobody knew quite how much surveillance the Chinese military had operating in the area, and no chances were being taken. The aircraft — and the huge Virginia-class submarine which waited below it — might still be discovered, and then all hell would undoubtedly break loose.

Despite Cole’s decades of experience, he still felt the cold knots of fear clawing at his belly, telling him to pull back, to abandon the mission, to go home. And as usual, he ignored those feelings completely, shutting them off with absolute mental control. As Mike Tyson’s boxing trainer, Cus D’Amato, had once said, the only difference between the hero and the coward was what they did with their fear. Everyone felt it, but the strong simply refused to give in to it.

The ropes were dropped from the open door of the Black Hawk and the team lined up, thickly-gloved hands waiting to take hold of the rappelling line which would take them to the waiting submarine.

But this was no simple exercise; the submarine was being moved up and down, side to side by the large swells of the black nighttime sea, and to avoid detection had no visible lights running across its decks. There were people down there, somewhere, who would be busy tying off the rappel line onto the deck, to secure it so that all Cole and his colleagues had to do was to slide down and move off.

But with two moving vehicles, separated by thirty feet of pitch black air, joined by a single rope, there was a lot that could go wrong. If the sea pitched suddenly one way and pulled the rope taut, the chopper would have to disengage it to stop itself being dragged down into water; and if the helicopter was accosted by an unexpected air current, the rope would also have to be discarded.

And in both cases, there might well be Force One members still sliding down it. Cole didn’t visualize what would become of anybody caught out in this way; he’d spent enough useless energy on negative thoughts, and now it was time to act.

The loadmaster, looking down with the assistance of his night vision goggles at the submarine riding the swells thirty feet below, was waiting for his opposite number on the black deck to confirm the rope was anchored.

Cole’s feet edged closer to the door, gloved hand wrapped round the rappelling line, waiting for the loadmaster to clap his shoulder and send him out into the dark emptiness beyond the chopper’s door.

Captain Hank Sherman was far from happy; still, he never was when his submarine was ordered to surface in unfriendly waters.

He had thought it would have made more sense for the special forces team to be taken onto the boat back at White Beach — that way they would never have had to perform such a risky boarding. But he’d been told that the operation was due to be conducted to a very tight time frame, and the USS Texas had to set off before the team was en route or else they would never make their final destination.

Wherever the hell that was, Sherman thought angrily. But he knew that such a quickly mounted operation was absolutely predicated upon secrecy, and his anger subsided as he accepted the necessity of compartmentalization. Still, he thought the captain of the ship might at least be told where the ship would be headed.

All in good time, Hank, he told himself. All in good time.

He was on top of the conning tower, the night air hot and sticky but relieved ever so slightly by the feint breeze drifting in from the west. But although it was soothing for him, the breeze also meant that the waters were becoming a little choppy, the swells beginning to rise.

It wasn’t anything to worry about unduly; this time of year, the weather could become a lot worse at any moment, terrific downpours coming out of nowhere and destabilizing his submarine far more than the gentle rocking it was experiencing at the moment.

But every second spent above the surface was one more than Sherman was comfortable with; the entire purpose of a submarine was that it was hard to detect, and it was hard to detect predominantly because it operated below the water. Like all submariners, Sherman had an ingrained hatred of surfacing his ship in any area other than a naval base of the United States.

Not that this particular area was being patrolled by the Chinese, at least not as far as anyone was aware. The ‘ring of fire’ that surrounded the downed USS Ford was further southwest, in the triangle made between Taiwan, the Ryukyus, and the Chinese coast from Fuzhou to Hangzhou. The Texas, and the Black Hawk above her, were just outside that envelope.

Sherman had also been informed about the invasion of Taiwan, which was now in full swing, and knew that this meant there would be less effort made to patrol this particular area. He had been amazed that the Chinese were pushing ahead so quickly, and wondered if Taiwan was to be his mission, and not the Ford as he’d first hoped. Was the special operations unit going to be landed on Taiwan to help repel the attack?

Well, he’d find out soon enough if this landing went smoothly.

He was watching his men secure the rappelling line, right next to the attached Dry Dock Shelter when the message came over the radio.

‘Sir,’ the voice said urgently, ‘we’ve detected a Chinese sub.’ Sherman recognized the voice of Luke Dennison, sonar operator from the sub’s Combat Direction Center, and his heart leapt in his chest, his hands gripping the metal guardrail, knuckles turned white. ‘And it’s heading this way.’

Major Levi Trautman, pilot of the Blackhawk which hovered in the dark skies about the Texas, received the message loud and clear; they were potentially compromised, and a decision had to be made immediately.

Abort, or get everyone off the chopper as soon as humanly possible.

A veteran of over one hundred special forces missions, Trautman wasn’t the sort of man to abort unless he was being fired upon by vastly superior numbers, and his engines were out, and some of his crew had been shot. And maybe not even then.

He wasn’t scared of a Chinese submarine; even if the ship was armed with surface to air missiles, it wasn’t likely that they would be able to get a tag on the Black Hawk, launch, and hit it; the MH-60 was too well-protected, too agile and too fast for that to be a concern. But if the Texas had ID’d the submerged Chinese ship, then the Chinese sub had almost certainly got a fix on the Texas. And the real problem was that — if the chopper was picked up on radar as well — it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that a special ops team was being taken on board.

But Trautman was willing to bet that his aircraft hadn’t been spotted yet. It was one thing for a submerged ship to pick up on an eight-thousand ton craft in the same body of water; it was another thing altogether for it to pick up a light, stealth-enhanced airmobile unit thirty feet above that water.

He informed Captain Sherman of his opinion, delighted that the submariner was of the same mind, then changed channels to send his orders to the loadmaster. ‘We have possible enemy contact in the water,’ he said calmly, ‘so get those troops off the chopper, and do it now.’

He received confirmation, and prepared to bug out as soon as the coast was clear.

Cole got the message over his own comms system and knew they would have to get down to the deck as smoothly, and as quickly as humanly possible; the captain would want them safely ensconced in the sub, and the sub back down in her natural underwater environment, before the enemy craft was able to get a fix on what was going on.

Cole cursed inwardly; he knew that if the chopper was seen, then the Chinese would immediately understand that a special ops mission was underway.

But, he told himself, the chopper wouldn’t be seen; the Night Stalkers were the best, and Major Trautman was arguably their best man. If the team got down in one piece, the Chinese would be none the wiser.

Knowing what was at stake, Cole was moving before the loadmaster even clapped his shoulder, hands wrapped around the line as he hurled himself out into the warm, moist, pitch-dark night.

Captain Sherman watched through his night vision goggles as the troops rappelled down the line, one after the other in tight formation; the first one landed, taking the impact with supple, buckling knees, disengaging and moving off to the side to allow the next one to hit the deck behind him; then the next, then the next, then…

Holy shit!

As Cole’s second-in-command, Jake Navarone was at the back of the group, making sure everyone left smoothly and securely.

As soon as he saw the form of Julie Barrington disappear into the inky black below him, he too stepped out of the doorway, gravity sending him instantly down the line towards the Texas.

And then the unthinkable happened; either a giant swell hit the sub or else an updraft caught the chopper, but suddenly the line went taut.

Navarone knew immediately, instinctively, what would happen next; to save the chopper being brought down, the line would be released. He was still twenty feet in the air.

Time seemed to be suspended.

In the pitch dark he could only feel the sensations ripping through his body, unable to see anything at all; his stomach lurching upwards at the rapid descent, the line pulling him sideways, snapping him back.

‘Clear!’ he heard below as Barrington landed on the deck, and he knew he was alone now, the last man left on the line, and he willed himself to fall more quickly, as if sheer force of will would increase the force of gravity.

And then he felt the line going slack, and didn’t know whether the ship or the chopper had corrected themselves, or if the safety trigger had been activated and cut the rope loose.

He had been travelling for several seconds now, and decided that he couldn’t just wait and see what would happen; he had to take matters into his own hands.

He let go of the line and pushed himself forward through the warm dark night as he dropped, trying to follow the original path of the rappelling rope, hoping that he would land on the deck of the submarine, praying that he hadn’t miscalculated, that he hadn’t been higher than he’d thought, that he wouldn’t break his legs when they impacted the metal deck, or that he wouldn’t end up in the water, the crew of the sub having to waste valuable time looking for him, rescuing him as the Chinese sub moved ever closer.

But then his feet struck metal and the impact wasn’t too bad, his knees buckled in the way he’d been trained.

And then one of his feet slipped, and he felt it going, sliding over the side of the boat, his landing point compromised.

His arms waved about as he tried to correct his balance, but it was too little, too late; his body was tilting at too great an angle, and then he was falling, legs gone from under him, hands clawing as he tried to grip the side of the sub as he fell.

But then he felt strong hands gripping him, pulling him back up, hauling him up to the deck.

The downdraught from the Black Hawk was gone, and Navarone knew that Captain Trautman was already on his way out of there; he could no longer hear even the subdued sounds of the chopper’s adapted rotors.

What he could hear was the voice of Mark Cole, close to his ear, the man’s hands releasing their tight grip on Navarone’s combat fatigues as his feet settled back on the slick, wet deck.

‘That’s what I call an entrance,’ Cole said, and his face was so close that Navarone could see him smile. ‘Now let’s get below deck before the captain has a heart attack.’

‘Yes sir,’ Navarone said with a smile of his own, following as Cole led him towards the open hatch below deck, and the safety of the submarine’s interior.

5

Taiwan was his.

There were scraps of resistance that would have to be mopped up, but the capital city of Taipei had fallen, and the government of Taiwan’s so-called ‘Republic of China’ had fallen with it.

A part of Wu was surprised that it had been achieved so quickly, but then the other part accepted it completely; after all, that had been the plan all along. The military of that tiny nation was no match for the might of the People’s Republic in full fury, and invasion plans had been secretly plotted and rehearsed for months leading up to the actual act itself.

There had been an initial naval bombardment of key coastal bases, followed by strategic airstrikes of other military and government installations. For two days straight, Taiwan had been hammered down like a stubborn nail until it was entirely unable to defend itself, her own pitiful naval and air forces reduced to nearly nothing. And then the troops had landed, sweeping through the land — rightfully known as the 23rd province of the People’s Republic of China — with almost no resistance whatsoever.

After all these years, all of Taiwan’s tough talk, it had taken Wu just three days to return the island to the true Chinese nation.

And it had all been done with an absolute minimum of civilian casualties. There had been many military deaths, of course — one couldn’t bombard a country with artillery and missile strikes without some people dying — but Wu was pleased that it was the right people who had died. And the civilians were being treated well, as per Wu’s strict orders. After all, if Taiwan was now to fall under the protection of his own government, it was as well that her people accepted it quickly; and good, fair treatment would help immeasurably with that.

Wu relaxed into the opulent throne he had had installed in the operations center beneath the government buildings of Beijing, monitoring the situation far to the south with a feeling of tremendous satisfaction. The interior of the Zhongnonhai compound, next to the Forbidden City and north of Tian’an Men Square, was all but unknown to outsiders, the basement rooms even less so. But it was from here that Wu would control the fate of Asia; and then, perhaps, the entire world.

Those cowards, he thought with sweet contempt. Key government figures, including Taiwan’s president, had obviously seen the writing on the wall and had fled the country before the first PLA troops had stepped ashore. Just like Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, who’d fled the mainland in the first place back in 1949 to set up their ‘wartime capital’ in Taipei.

And now, for the first time in over seventy years, Taiwan was back in the hands of the real Chinese government, back where it belonged. Or, Wu corrected himself, it was now in the hands of the real Chinese military, which had assumed the role of a de facto government under his own leadership.

Which was even better.

He smiled again as he envisioned President Rai Po-ya and his ministers calling around Asia, begging other countries to take them in; and every time, being told ‘no’.

The message was clear — nobody on the Asian continent wanted to upset China by giving succor to her enemies; they were scared that if they got onto Wu’s radar, then they would be next.

It had been Australia that had finally let them in, right at the last minute, although she had stopped short of allowing Rai to set up a ‘government in exile’ in her territory; she had simply granted them safe harbor, nothing more.

Wu stretched back, his stiff neck cracking audibly, his huge shoulders grinding.

He was used to the power already, having dreamed of wielding it for years, for decades. It wasn’t that he was anti-Communist; far from it in fact, he had been a loyal party member for years, and it was only partially because he had to be in order to attain the upper ranks of the military.

He thought the communist system had a lot to offer; the only trouble was, the party itself had become corrupted, no longer driven with the purity of spirit necessary to achieve greatness. As a result, China herself had become a shadow of what she could be, a sleeping giant forever cursed, never to awaken and use her might as she should.

But Wu had changed that in one fell swoop, and the world was simply not ready to deal with a China on the warpath. The speed with which Wu had crippled US influence in the area and achieved two major victories in the space of just a few days was testament to that.

But, Wu reminded himself, although the action had been short and sharp, the planning had been years in the making. He wasn’t the overnight success that some might think; the entire thing had been meticulously plotted and schemed.

He wished he could take credit for the idea himself, but Wu was forced to admit that he was only the tool; an effective tool, but a tool nevertheless. The artist behind the plot would never achieve the level of adulation — and fear — that Wu would, but he didn’t seem to mind. The real genius behind it all seemed to be content to skulk in the shadows, a puppet master controlling the strings of his playthings.

Except that Wu was no longer a plaything, he was the puppet master himself now, and everyone would soon be dancing to his tune. His old friend and ally would still be useful until this thing was truly over, but then Wu might have to arrange for an unfortunate ‘accident’ to befall him.

His eyes wandered to the huge man standing away to one side, the one good eye in his massive shaven head scanning the operations room constantly, always on the lookout for threats. Yes, Wu thought, when this thing is over and China had become the world’s leading nation, he would have no more use for the true genius behind the plot; and then Zhou Shihuang, the most frightening, most capable warrior Wu had ever met, would go and pay his old friend a visit.

And then there would be no more strings to be pulled, and Wu would be in charge of everything.

‘Could you please clarify the position of the US government regarding the crisis in Asia?’

The question came from Graham Norris of Fox News, a weasely little man that Clark Mason had a distinct disliking of, a dislike that was enhanced even further by the boldness of his enquiry. He thought the press had been briefed on questions like this? A briefing that basically said — don’t ask anything too difficult.

But Norris’s question had ripped right into the heart of the matter. What was the government’s position? It was… undecided. Wait and see. Hope for the best.

None of which Mason could transmit to the general public.

Damn him.

Mason took a breath as he looked around the trimmed gardens of Number One Observatory Circle, completely covered now by members of the United States press corps, with a select few foreign correspondents also in attendance. He wasn’t overly concerned by the intrusion; although it was his home, he had to remind himself that it was also a place of business. And more to the point, a temporary place of business, suitable only until he graduated to the White House itself. And he still had his estate in West Virginia, the cabin in Colorado and the beach house in the Bahamas with which to console himself.

It had been his idea to hold the conference here instead of at the White House; it would split the press coverage, give the staffers in the West Wing a bit of much needed breathing space. It also sent the message that America had everything under control, the Vice President wasn’t hiding and refusing to provide information or to reassure the public; no, he was addressing them from his own home, supremely confident.

He hoped that the footage would be replayed during his presidential nomination campaign in the years to come.

He finally turned his attention back to Norris, hitting him with an accommodating smile. ‘The word crisis is perhaps a bit strong at the present time,’ Mason said reasonably, ‘and it is important to keep things in context. At the moment, the problems are strictly regional, and deal with issues that are nothing new — the repatriation of the Senkaku Islands and of Taiwan have been long-standing goals of the People’s Republic of China.’

Mason noticed that the reporters were all set to pounce on this statement, and held up his hands to indicate that he wasn’t finished. ‘Now, I realize that this situation is unsettling — China is second only to the United States in terms of military power, and the fact that the military itself is now in charge is cause for great concern. Of course it is. But things are what they are, and we have to deal with reality rather than wishful thinking. General Wu and his compatriots are now in charge of the PRC, and we are dealing with them. It is not a policy of our government to interfere in the internal matters of state of sovereign nations.’

‘But what of the USS Ford? Are we making any progress on getting our people back?’ asked a correspondent for ABC.

‘That is an ongoing issue and one which I cannot comment on directly, but suffice to say that we are doing everything we can to make sure that we get them back. I would like to confirm, however, that they are in no immediate danger, and we are making solid progress with the negotiations.’

‘But isn’t it true that they are being held hostage? That General Wu is holding them under threat of destruction, in order to keep us from interfering with his plans in the area?’

It was Norris again. Damn the man! Who’d authorized his presence at this conference? Mason regarded him coolly, determined to destroy his career. He’d get started as soon as this conference was over.

‘As I said, the situation is sensitive and ongoing, and I cannot comment on the specifics. But it is true that the Ford received extensive damage, as you all know, and is currently unable to be moved. And at the moment — obviously due to Chinese operations in the area — the Wu regime is not allowing our own military into its territorial waters to effect a retrieval. However, we are expecting this situation to change as soon as things with Taiwan settle down.’

‘And the MDT?’ a British reporter asked on behalf of the BBC.

‘It is still officially in operation,’ Mason answered carefully. ‘But obviously it was an agreement entered into by the communist party government, and it is unclear at present what — if any — of those treaties are now going to be honored.’

‘What has been President Abrams’ response to those requests for aid from other countries in the region?’ a reporter from CNN wanted to know.

‘Those countries are currently under no direct threat, and the reassurances they have sought have only been in reference to existing arrangements, which of course we will continue to honor.’ Despite his experience of fielding such questions, his ease and poise in front of the cameras, Mason felt the first trickle of nervous sweat slide down the back of his shirt. The reporters were getting a little too close to the bone, and Mason knew he was going to have to cut the conference short, before it was too late.

‘How about Japan?’ fired back Norris before Mason had had a chance to conclude the session. ‘We have an agreement with them, don’t we? And yet Wu’s taken the Senkaku Islands, which we recognize as Japanese territory. How does that validate our other agreements, how do those nations feel about our will to help them?’

Shit.

The key question had been asked, the one Mason had hoped — in fact, had demanded — wouldn’t be asked.

Mason worked hard to control his anger, not to raise his tense shoulders, grimace or frown. Instead, he forced his face into what he hoped was a natural, winning smile and looked at the gathered reporters, into their cameras, ready to be beamed into the homes of the American people.

‘The situation is complicated,’ he said earnestly, ‘as I’m sure you well know. Prime Minister Toshikatsu and the Japanese government have yet to decide how they are going to deal with the matter, and it is not up to our own government to be presumptuous, nor to pre-empt their own reaction. But we will, as always, stand by our allies.’ He looked around at all the people gathered in his garden, making sure they all saw the truth conveyed by his eyes, his absolute sincerity. ‘And now I’m afraid it’s time to finish up here, so I’d like to thank you all for coming, and wish you good day. Press packs will be available as you leave.’

He turned from his podium furious with that bastard Norris. He’d have the man run out of DC before tomorrow’s breakfast.

But he was also furious with himself. Why did he agree to host the press conference in the first place? Why hold it in his own garden?

He had hoped to present himself as a smooth, impressive, powerful man who could be relied upon to take charge, be honest, and make a connection with the American people.

In short, he had hoped to show himself to be a future contender for the top job.

Instead, he had been hounded into a position where he’d had to all but admit to America’s impotence, her inability to play any meaningful role in the situation which could soon be unrolling across the Asian continent.

His face, his garden, his home — they would be played on television, across the Internet, interminably, inextricably linked to the inaction of the United States.

He would be the scapegoat for the government’s weakness in the face of adversity, and as he stormed back inside his house, he saw his dreams of the presidency crumbling before his eyes.

Unless…

Unless, he reminded himself, he could catch Ellen Abrams red-handed in illegal activity, up to her neck in murky death squads and unauthorized covert operations.

He raced to the phone, his mind made up.

It was time to make a little visit to the Paradigm Group.

6

Cole had been in submarines before, but had never been truly comfortable in them. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but there was something entirely unnatural about living in a small tin-can under the crushing pressure of millions of tons of water. Conditions were cramped and there was no natural light — the whole set-up was as far from natural as it was possible to be.

But humans are an adaptable species, and Cole was among the most adaptable of them all; and therefore, despite his internal misgivings, he had once again become used to the sensation of living underwater, reminding himself that it was only for another few hours. The crew might well be trapped in here for weeks, or even months, on end. In reality, he had nothing to complain about.

He had nothing but admiration for Captain Sherman and the crew of the USS Texas. They were filled with the courage that came from professionalism and realistic training, and were more than willing to venture into the well-patrolled enemy waters of the PLA navy.

Cole remembered Sherman’s reaction to being given his orders.

‘So are we hitting Taiwan?’ he’d asked.

Cole had shaken his head. ‘No,’ he’d said, ‘we’re being a bit more proactive than that this time. I need you to take us to the Chinese mainland.’

Sherman’s face had lit up, an NFL manager being told he was getting a shot at the championships this year. ‘Where?’ he’d asked, his eyes bright.

‘I need you to infiltrate us into the Bohai Sea,’ Cole had said, and he’d seen Sherman making instant calculations. Cole knew it would mean piloting the Texas not only through the disputed waters of the East China Sea, but then up through the Chinese-controlled Yellow Sea and up into the protected waters of the Bohai Sea, surrounded on three sides by the Chinese coastline. Only a madman would make such an approach.

‘Risky,’ Sherman had said, ‘but I’m game. I’m not for sitting around. I want to take the fight to the enemy. You using the SDV to infil up the river from Bohai Bay?’

Cole had nodded. ‘Yeah, but the less you know about it the better.’

Sherman had nodded his head, whistling in appreciation. ‘Hell, if you guys are willing to do that, who am I to complain about getting you there? Passing through the Chinese navy’ll be a piece of cake compared to what you’ll face if we get you there.’

Cole had clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘When you get us there,’ he’d said to the submarine commander with a smile, and Sherman had smiled right back.

Cole had seen little of the captain since then; he didn’t expect Sherman to second-guess his own mission, and Cole had no wish to get in the man’s way while he was involved with his part in it. The CDC would be a hive of quiet activity — the sub rigged for silent operation, everyone’s nerves on end as she tried to slip through the Chinese defenses.

Cole was resigned to this part of the operation; they would either get there or they wouldn’t. And if they didn’t manage, it would mean that they had been identified; and if they were identified, they would be blown right out of the water. It was useless to worry about things that he had no control over, and so Cole used the journey to go over his plans with his Force One colleagues — again, and again, and again. You could never rehearse too much, never plan too much. Time spent in preparation was never wasted.

They had been travelling underwater for over thirty hours now, and Sherman’s last report was that they had managed to pass through both the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea without detection. There had been three occasions when they had passed so close to enemy ships that Sherman had ordered the engines cut completely, but in the end they had not been spotted, and had carried on their way.

The journey into the heart of Chinese territorial waters was perilous, but Cole knew that the Virginia-class attack submarine was the most technologically sophisticated ship ever to set sail under the sea. It was the first submarine ever purpose-designed for multi-mission near-land operations.

Its high-yield steel hull, able to withstand colossal pressures, was covered in a seamless, rubber-like substance to reduce the escape of internal noise; and in contrast to a conventional bladed propeller, its propulsion system was designed as a duct-shielded pump-jet unit that reduced cavitation noise to enable quieter operation.

Sherman had captained the Texas for eighteen months now, after two tours on an LA-class attack sub, and confirmed that this ship was a real move forward over its predecessor. He had supreme confidence in her ability to avoid Chinese detection, and Cole was encouraged to share the man’s confidence.

He had been very impressed with the way that the Texas had managed to avoid the Chinese submarine that had acquired it on the surface during Force One’s nighttime entry, and it lent great credence to the technical statistics; once it had submerged and gone silent, the enemy craft simply hadn’t known were the Texas had gone. It had become invisible.

There was some worry that reports might go back about a US sub operating in the area, and that Wu might begin to suspect some sort of operation was underway, but Cole didn’t think it would matter. Wu would surely know that the US Navy would be probing the perimeter of China’s defenses, testing for future action. The Texas was outside of China’s territorial waters, and it would just be seen as the expected border patrolling that came with the ongoing situation. Wu would probably be more suspicious if there were no such sightings.

The work Sherman and his team had done in the early days of this conflict had also helped, of course; by probing the Chinese defenses around the USS Ford, they had already pinpointed the location of many of the PLA navy’s vessels, and therefore knew exactly where to avoid.

The snaking, serpentine route Sherman had led them on had perhaps not been the quickest from point to point, but Cole was convinced it had been the safest. The fact that they were still alive helped confirm it.

But now they were entering the Bohai Sea, a body of water that was almost entirely encircled by the Chinese coastline. There was only a narrow channel which led from the Yellow Sea to the Bohai Sea, little more than one hundred kilometers across — and over half of that was obstructed by small islands, leaving a true channel of less than forty kilometers in width.

Added to the complications was the fact that the Bohai Sea led to the all-important port town of Tianjin, which in turn serviced Beijing. In essence, all goods travelling by sea for use by Beijing’s population of twelve million citizens, passed through the Bohai Sea — which made it one of the busiest seaways on the planet.

But when Cole had developed his plan, he had known that this was the case; in fact, he was hoping that the sheer density of marine traffic in the area would help the Texas to remain undiscovered. The major problem would be coming too close to the surface in the shallower areas and being hit by a container vessel — that would really mess up their day.

Captain Sherman seemed to know what he was doing though, and he in turn had absolute faith in his crew, which Cole took to be a very good sign.

And while that crew had been doing its job, Cole had been doing his — hard at work with Navarone and the other members of his team, going through the upcoming operation play by play.

The Force One team had not interacted with the SDV release team from Pearl to any large extent, preferring to remain as covert and as anonymous as possible, although Cole had liaised with the officer in charge to discuss timings.

The operation was so secretive and compartmented that SDVT-1 wouldn’t even know where they were when they helped unload the mini-submarine from the Texas. They would swim out in full SCUBA gear, ensure the SDV left the DDS safely, disengage it from its platform and then seal the DDS back up before returning back inside, all the while completely unware of which sea they were operating in.

Cole wasn’t concerned about the SEAL team — they were consummate professionals, and could be relied upon to do their jobs exactly as they were supposed to. Unloading the SDV wasn’t without risks, but was for a large part a purely technical exercise. The real dangers would start once the SDV was underway.

The insertion into the Forbidden City would be complicated, and success would depend heavily upon the correct information getting to them; the ministers were being constantly moved, and Liu Yingchau, Force One’s contact in Beijing, had been tasked with getting an up-to-date location for them.

But it would be the extraction which would be the hardest part of Navarone’s job — the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China was the group which had been interned, and which Force One was expected to rescue, a group which traditionally consisted of twenty-five people; twenty-two now that Tsang Feng was dead and two other members had defected to Wu’s military regime.

Which meant that Navarone and his four teammates would have to somehow get nearly two dozen middle-aged politicians out of one of the most secure capital cities in the world, and then out of a country which was on a war footing with its neighbors.

Cole had come up with a plan to achieve this, and Navarone and the rest of the group had added suggestions and refinements which made it even better, but it remained an extremely complex task. Some might even have labelled it impossible.

Contingency planning allowed for things going wrong; if twenty-two was too many, then just the six remaining members of the Politburo Standing Committee would be rescued. This group represented the top leadership of the Communist Party, and would be the kernel for the government in exile which Abrams had covertly agreed to set up in Washington.

Of course, things could go even worse than this, but Cole decided not to dwell on things he couldn’t directly control. A large part of the operation’s success would depend on Liu’s getting everything into place in time, and Cole prayed that this would be the case.

Cole reclined onto his bunk, eyes closing, body relaxing. They would be in the Bohai Sea within the next six hours, and he didn’t know when he’d get another chance to rest. If he’d learned anything over the years, it was to rest while you got the chance. He knew the others would be doing the same.

The success of his own mission — to assassinate General Wu — was also not going to be entirely under his control. To get as close as he needed to the man necessitated several other variables all coming together as desired, and for that he was at the mercy of the CIA.

The US embassy in Beijing was still functioning — Wu wanted the status quo to remain as much as possible — and that meant that the CIA liaison officers were still available.

Before leaving the United States, Cole had been in touch with them and — with presidential authority — told them what he needed.

Unable to communicate with the outside world from the submarine, Cole was left to wonder if they had been successful. But time would tell, and all would be revealed when Cole finally got to Beijing.

But there was also a lot to worry about before he even got there, and so Cole decided to do the most sensible thing he could under the circumstances.

Within thirty seconds, he was sound asleep.

7

‘I’m sorry Prime Minister,’ Ellen Abrams said evenly, ‘but we cannot help at this moment in time.’

Abrams knew the response this would elicit from Toshikatsu Endo, Japan’s deeply worried chief politician; he would be angry, incensed, furious that American promises were being reneged on.

But Abrams simply couldn’t inform him of what was going on. If she was to tell him — or even hint at the fact — that a covert mission to kill Wu and rescue the communist Politburo was actually already in the process of being carried out, then it wouldn’t remain a secret for long.

Toshikatsu’s colleagues — and enemies — in Japan’s Diet were both waiting for any sort of news, any indication that the Americans were doing something to help. If Toshikatsu even suspected that this was the case, he would be hard pressed to keep it to himself in the face of such cross-party pressure. And that wasn’t even to consider the Japanese public itself, which was clamoring for answers, and which Toshikatsu had a responsibility to pacify.

And if Toshikatsu told anyone, the news would spread like wildfire, and would soon make its way to General Wu and China’s new military government. It was better to keep everyone completely in the dark on this one, Abrams realized. If she told Japan that America was unwilling to help her, then that would also get back to General Wu, and he would subsequently have his thoughts about American weakness confirmed. Such arrogance would be the man’s downfall.

‘You cannot help?’ Toshikatsu said breathlessly. ‘That is your final word on the matter? Despite Anpo?’

Anpo jōyaku was the common Japanese term for the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, a version of which had existed since as far back as 1952. It pledged US assistance in the case of an attack on Japan, territory which President Barrack Obama had confirmed included the Senkaku Islands back in 2014.

Abrams quietly cursed her predecessor for his commitments to those bits of rock; life would have been so much easier if he had not been quite so explicit.

As it was, Abrams was in direct breach of that agreement, and could see no way around the situation given the current conditions on the ground.

‘I’m afraid that the reality is that this entire situation is volatile and unstable; if we get involved directly, Wu might just decide to launch his nukes, we have no idea just what kind of man he is. And who do you think his first target is going to be?’

Abrams let that hang in the air for a moment, so that the terrifying notion could ingrain itself in Toshikatsu’s consciousness.

‘If you think that is a risk,’ Toshikatsu said reasonably, his composure regained, ‘then surely you simply can’t afford to stand back and do nothing. If he launches missiles at us, who is to say that you will not be next? And then where does it end?’

This was the time when Abrams wanted to reassure him, to offer him the small mercy of telling him about the Force One mission, however indirectly. We are not standing back. We are not ‘doing nothing’. Right now we have our best people infiltrating the Chinese mainland itself. If they succeed, then this thing might soon be over.

But she knew she couldn’t. America had to be seen to be reluctant to act, to want to avoid conflict; then Force One’s attack on the system would be all the more effective.

‘Prime Minister Toshikatsu,’ Abrams said resignedly, ‘I think you are going to have to accept the fact that you have lost the Senkaku Islands. It seems that the main reason that Wu wanted them was only to use them as a base for military action against Taiwan — a situation that we have no reason to get involved with. Our analysts suggest that Wu will curb his behavior after incorporating Taiwan back into the People’s Republic of China, and I tend to agree with them. He will want the PRC to be accepted by the world at large, so that he has a greater chance of staying in power.’

Toshikatsu was silent for a moment as he thought about what Abrams had said. Although it wasn’t true — that wasn’t what US intelligence analysts thought at all — she thought that it at least sounded reasonable.

‘That is not what my own people have concluded about the man,’ Toshikatsu said eventually. ‘They believe that Wu is a megalomaniac who wants to create a new Chinese empire — first in East Asia, then heading west. They think that the less we interfere now, the more we allow him to get away with, the bolder he will become. The policy of appeasement was — with hindsight — hardly the best way of dealing with Nazi Germany, wouldn’t you agree?’

Abrams fought hard to remind Toshikatsu that his country had fought with Nazi Germany; he was hardly in any position to lecture on the issue, even if he was right.

And, Abrams could admit, appeasement wasn’t the way to combat men like General Wu; taking the fight to them was always the better option, and the one she followed, despite her leading Toshikatsu to think the contrary.

‘I am confident in our position on the issue,’ Abrams said, wishing to bring the conversation to a close. ‘It is our belief that the trouble will end with Taiwan.’

‘And if it doesn’t?’ Toshikatsu pressed her.

‘Then,’ she allowed, ‘we will have to just cross that bridge if we come to it.’

She knew it wasn’t what Toshikatsu wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to tell him.

Now she could only wait and hope that the Force One mission was successful; because if it wasn’t, then a lot more people would have to die before this thing was over.

General Wu De swung his corpulent body off the four poster bed which took up nearly half of the chamber located in the basement rooms of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei. He was amused that it was all too similar to rooms that could be found under the Zhongnonhai government compound in Beijing, the Communist Party headquarters nestled right next to the ancient walls of the Forbidden City.

Perhaps communists and nationalists were not so very different after all, he mused, when you got right down to it.

Wu ignored the sleeping bodies of the three girls who lay next to him — secretaries from the presidential office — and strode naked to the telephone which rested on the credenza near the gilt-edged door.

Wiping the sweat from his face, he dialed a number which was answered immediately. ‘Update?’ he asked.

Wu listened as the report came through from the operations briefing room further down the subterranean corridors, and was pleased to hear that everything was still going well. Ports had been secured, along with airfields and ground force bases. Civilian deaths and casualties were still minimal — well below the threshold his advisers had said would precipitate an international backlash — and the only real problem now was what to do with all of the military personnel who had been forced to surrender.

The will to fight had deserted the Taiwanese military at almost the exact same moment that Rai Po-ya and the rest of his government had hightailed it to Australia. With no political leadership left to steer the ship, and in the face of overwhelming odds — Wu had sent a force of half a million across the water to reclaim Taiwan, assisted by the most sophisticated vehicles, weapons and equipment in the region — the Taiwanese generals had no wish to sacrifice their soldiers in a war that was unwinnable, and had stood down.

Out of three hundred thousand armed service personnel in Taiwan, less than two thousand had been killed by PLA forces, which now left a huge number for the PLA to police. At the moment, it seemed that they were being confined to their bases, which the PLA was turning into makeshift prison camps. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but Wu accepted it as a suitable temporary stop-gap.

He wondered about the will of Taiwan’s reserve forces — reputed to number three and a half million, although the number of people actually physically able to fight would be much less than this. But there would still be a lot of them, with basic military training.

Wu discounted the reserves almost as soon as he had thought of them. The military bases — and therefore all weapons and equipment — were safely in the hands of the PLA now, so what would they have to fight with? Pitchforks and kitchen knives?

Wu also understood the respect that the Taiwanese people had for the power of the PLA — or at least the fear, which was even more useful. And of course everyone on the island would know what Wu might do if pushed — withdraw his own people completely and wipe Taiwan off the face of the earth with his missiles.

But Wu had no wish for things to get to that stage. He truly wanted to welcome the people of Taiwan into the PRC, to make them a part of the one true China. And he knew that the best way of doing this was to win the hearts and minds of the people — to make them want to be a part of the People’s Republic.

The way they had been abandoned by their leadership was a good start — they would feel betrayed by Rai and the others, and would have been pleasantly surprised by the relative non-violence of the invasion. They were primed to listen to an offer of amalgamation, and Wu’s speech yesterday evening, symbolically made from the steps of the Japanese-designed, Renaissance-Baroque Presidential Office building, had been designed to win them over quickly.

The next morning he would fly back to Beijing, in time to make the Dragon Boat festival — another chance to meet the citizens of his new Chinese empire, to impress them with his grace and generosity. He was personally sponsoring the teams who would be racing in Beihai Park, to the north of the Zhongnonhai.

He was due to fly out in four hours, and wondered idly whether he should go back to bed. But there was no point — he was awake now, and would only feel worse if he went back to sleep now.

Except for the occasional visit to the members of the Politburo in the Forbidden City, Wu hadn’t left the Zhongnonhai in Beijing since this whole thing began, until his flight to Taipei the previous afternoon. He was weary, he was tired, and he felt his energy waning. It had been part of the reason why he had taken the girls to his chamber — the all-necessary pleasures of the flesh helped to keep his mind sharp.

But even in the middle of the night, he couldn’t fully rest — he had to know exactly what was going on at all times. A part of him knew he had to relinquish control at some stage — he had the entire Central Military Commission to help run things after all, a glut of senior military personnel to make sure everything was going as planned. But another part — the stronger part — simply refused to let go. What was happening now was his validation, what he had come to think of as the entire reason for his existence. It was bad enough that he hadn’t been here in Taiwan to oversee the invasion himself; but he at least realized that with his new position came new responsibilities, and the Paramount Leader of the PRC shouldn’t be leading the troops into battle himself.

But why not? Just because the leaders of all the other nations on earth were content to hide away from the realities of the wars they waged, why should that mean he was obliged to follow the same route? Maybe next time, he thought to himself, he would lead the army himself, just like the emperors of old.

He would be the Genghis Khan of his generation, and his people would love him for it.

Yes, he considered with a smile, that would be something to think about.

Despite not wanting to sleep, he looked over at the three attractive young women warming his bed, but finally decided against that too — they had already served their purpose, and Wu was no longer in the mood.

Instead, he gestured with his head to the corner of the room, where Zhou Shihuang sat in the shadows watching; always watching.

‘They’re yours,’ he said to the one-eyed man as he strode to the bathroom, clapping Zhou on the shoulder as he went. ‘Use them as you will.’

The smile that passed his bodyguards lips was unsettling, but Wu decided not to dwell on what Zhou wanted to do with them.

They had outlived their usefulness anyway.

8

Cole checked his equipment one more time as he waited to exit the submarine into the Dry Dock Shelter via the mating hatch.

He was wearing full SCUBA gear, including connections for the open-circuit air tanks inside the SDV which the team would be using for most of the infiltration. He also had a LAR V Draeger rebreather strapped to his chest, ready to be used when they were in the shallower waters inland, when people might notice the tell-tale bubbles released from an open-circuit unit. It would be nighttime of course, but you could never be too careful — the last thing Cole wanted was for some passerby to wonder why there was a trail of bubbles travelling along the water, and to inform the authorities. The chance of detection was pretty large as it was, without giving the enemy an unnecessary advantage.

He wore a full tactical rig over his wet suit, equipment and ammunition in waterproof compartments. On his leg was a stainless steel Smith and Wesson 686 .357 magnum revolver, perfect for its reliability in or out of the water, and he also carried an M4A1 carbine with suppressor. There were more modern rifles available — such as the FN SCAR, a weapon purpose-designed for use by US Special Operations Command — but Cole preferred to use what he knew, and the M4 had demonstrated its utter reliability over the decades.

Cole had placed a condom over the end of the M4’s suppressor to keep water out, and noted that all the other members of his team had done exactly the same. It wasn’t that the gun wouldn’t fire if the precaution wasn’t taken; it was just that the barrel would have to be drained before firing, a procedure that could leave them two seconds too late if they were discovered and had to open fire instantaneously. With the rubber in place, Cole could burst out of the water and start firing right away.

He carried a diver’s knife on the other leg to the revolver, and a dive computer on his wrist so that he could instantly see barometric pressure, depth and navigational information. Night-vision goggles hung from a strap around his neck.

Cole recognized that most of the things he carried were — for himself, at least — not meant to be used; they were merely for self-protection should his unit be discovered. His ultimate goal was to reach Beijing completely undiscovered, and assassinate General Wu with his bare hands.

The rest of his team would need their gear though, and were carrying even more than him, including an array of explosives and back-up weapons in large waterproof kit-bags.

Hopefully, Cole told himself, all he needed was a dry change of clothes.

If everything went according to plan.

Cole’s chosen method of Force One’s infiltration was to pilot the SDV through the busy waterway of Bohai Bay and past Sanhe Island into Yongding New River, which led inland towards Beijing.

It would have been ideal if the SDV could have taken them all the way to the Chinese capital, but Cole knew this wasn’t practical; the Yongding didn’t actually reach Beijing, and they would have had to divert along the Chaobai New River. But dams and shallow waters would make progress along the Chaobai impossible for the SDV past a certain point, even if its batteries were capable of travelling the two hundred kilometer distance.

And so Cole had planned to discard the SDV in a section of deep water of the Yongding and then swim using the rebreathers to a rendezvous point near the G25 Changshen Expressway. Here, they would liaise with the CIA contact, provided that all was well.

Cole knew that this was another potentially fatal part of the mission — they could be discovered leaving the water, or meeting the agent’s vehicle, or else the agent might not even turn up. Another possibility was that the agent had been caught and divulged the route, and Force One would be met by a battalion of soldiers.

Well, Cole thought, that’s what he’d brought the M4 along for. Just in case.

But even if they liaised successfully with the CIA agent, they still had to travel by road and then enter the city itself, and Cole had left this up to the CIA man, bowing to his superior knowledge of the area and the obstacles they might face.

Cole hoped the man knew what he was doing.

But as always, Cole reminded himself, it was first things first; and with that, he nodded at the other members of his team and passed through the access hatch into the DDS transfer trunk.

The operation had commenced.