9

SHANGHAI, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
2320 HOURS ZONE TIME; JULY 17, 2006

The fast attack squadron held to the center of the broad Huangpu River channel. Running on displacement with their hydrofoils retracted, their dark blue-gray paint rendered them all but invisible. The air around them was filled with the deep-toned rumble of idling diesels and the peculiar combination of miasmas unique to Shanghai: the wet sewer and seaweed stench rising up from the Yangtze estuary, the waxy, raw petroleum from the great Zhongxing refinery complex, and the dry, choking haze of an uncountable number of small charcoal fires.

To the west, the city itself was spectral, a place where the shadows had been granted free rule after the setting of the sun.

Upstream, in what had been the old Foreign Settlements along the Bunt, dilapidated 1930s-vintage skyscrapers were silhouetted against the sky, dark and jagged like some ruin of the Second World War frozen in time. For all of the city’s teeming millions, nowhere could more than a dozen lights be seen in a single sweep of the eye. There was no longer power to spare to illuminate the streets, and even such a simple thing as a lightbulb was now a precious commodity to be carefully husbanded.

Lieutenant Zhou Shan could recall when the night skyglow of Shanghai could be seen from forty miles off the coast.

That had been on his cadet cruise only a few short years ago.

Now he sometimes wondered if the night would ever be held at bay again.

The Five Nineteen boat was the trailer in the column, and Zhou’s helmsman steered by the pale plume of wake produced by the craft ahead. They possessed none of the night vision equipment available aboard some of the Fleet’s larger and more modern vessels, and even their elementary radar was useless in these confined waters.

The Five Nineteen was an old copy of an older design — the venerable Hushuan-class hydrofoil torpedo boat. No point defense beyond the manually operated twin 14mm machinegun mounts fore and aft. No guided weaponry at all except for the pair of massive 53VA antishipping torpedoes in their twin launching tubes. No extensive sensor suite. No countermeasures.

Probably no real chance of survival against a truly state-of-the-art enemy.

Zhou was not unduly concerned about the age of his small command. When one served in the People’s armed forces, one learned to make do with less than the latest and the best.

What was perturbing was not being able to maintain what he did have in the best condition possible. Beneath his fingers, he could feel where corrosion was eating into the paintless cockpit railing, and he could detect a faint, uneven slammer in the growl of the single engine they had on line.

Their apportionment of sea stores and spare parts, frugal under the best of conditions, had grown almost nonexistent over the past few months. What was worse, ever since the beginning of the war, the squadron had been sitting uselessly in its home base at Changshandau, slowly rusting away, while bandits and counterrevolutionaries tore the heart out of the People’s Republic.

When the squadron had been ordered south, Zhou had hoped that at long last they were being committed to battle — possibly even against the gangsters of the Kuommtang who had dared to return from their island kennels. Instead, they had been directed here to Shanghai, reasons unexplained.

Behind him the young officer heard tools clatter and bosun Hoong swear fervently in his thick North Coast accent. The bosun and two other of Five Nineteen’s deckhands were struggling with a frozen bolt at the foot of the hydrofoil’s stubby radar mast. That had also been unexplained — why they must be prepared to fold their radio and radar masts down parallel to the deck. Zhou was estimating that they must soon be coming to the second of the right handed bends in the river’s channel when he suddenly observed a shadowy form materializing out of the darkness, just off his course line. “Stop engines!” he snapped at his helmsman.

Over the transmission howl, he heard the voice of Captain Li hailing him. His squadron commander was holding the flag boat just off the central channel, one of his deckhands waving the other fast-attack craft past with a red lensed flash light.

“Is all well with you young Shan? No problems with the channel?”

“All well, Comrade Captain No difficulties.”

“Good. We are almost home. The squadron is being dispersed to separate moorages along the eastern side of the river. Stand on upstream until you clear the shipyards, then watch the left shore for a blinking signal light. Your signal will be short, long, short. Turn in toward it and follow the instructions of the guide. Are you ready to lower your masts?”

Zhou looked aft. “Just another few moments, Lieutenant,” Hoong gamted from deck level. “Yes, Comrade Captain We are prepared “

“Excellent Carry on, Shan.”

Zhou’s combination of frustration and curiosity drove him to call out once more.

“Comrade Captain, can you tell us what our mission will be here?”

“As it is everywhere, Comrade Lieutenant,” Li replied, a faint reproof in his tone, “to serve the will of the people.”

That left nothing more to be said. Zhou ordered his helms man to advance his throttle and the Five Nineteen boat gained way once more. They were coming up on the curve of the river, with Shanghai’s Fuxing Dao industrial district to starboard and the Hudong state shipyards to port. Watching the east bank intently, Zhou thought he had spotted his moorage beacon. Then he caught himself just before issuing the command to turn. This flashing light had quite a different source. Zhou realized he was looking at the rear face of the shipyard’s huge covered graving dock. The entry way had been curtained off with a wall of tarpaulins and light leaked through at one point, the harsh blue white flicker of arc welding.

Bringing up his night glasses Zhou panned them across the yard. As he did so he began to realize that more was going on within the seemingly dark and deserted facility than was first apparent. Trucks rolled past, running on hooded headlights. Many figures scurried through the shadows and more light leaks indicated that the lower floors of several of the machine shops and administration buildings were occupied and operating.

The young naval officer knew full well that shipbuilding, like most of China’s other heavy industry, had come to a near-complete standstill because of the war. Something very exceptional was taking place over there. So intriguing was this concentration of stealthy activity that Zhou almost missed the true signal being flashed in their direction.

“Helmsman, come left “

The Five Nineteen boat nosed in toward the bank, and the head of a pier solidified out of the gloom. For a moment, Zhou thought he was to tie up alongside it. Then he saw the guide atop the pier motioning them underneath it.

“Hoong! Lower the masts!”

“At once, Lieutenant.”

Zhou observed that the pier’s central pilings and underbracing had been cut away, leaving an empty shell. As the hydrofoil’s bow slid into the deeper, creosote-scented blackness beneath the decking, her hull squealed against preset fenders and dolphin boards. Moisture pattered on the decks. Reaching up from the cockpit Zhou’s fingertips brushed a sheet of wet canvas suspended horizontally overhead. He understood. His nation no longer had functional reconnaissance satellites, but their capabilities were well understood. The pier would shelter them from direct visual observation, and the water-soaked tarps would smother their heat signature, rendering them invisible to thermographic scanning.

The torpedo boat’s engine grumbled into silence and the ever-efficient Hoong began to direct the line handling in the glow of a single battle lantern. Zhou remained in the cockpit for a time longer, considering. There was something in the wind here. Something major. Something they were involved in now.

Perhaps he would find his piece of the war after all.

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