Typhoon Season

FOUR

The sky above Hong Kong was a shimmer of purple silk as General Ming Wen Hsien strode toward the administrative wing of the Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army. At the door, he paused to take in the view of Hong Kong’s lights soaring up against the twilight. The scene looked like one of the postcards sold in the lobbies of the fancy Central District hotels.

With his aide just behind him, Ming entered the building and saluted a surprised-looking desk sergeant. “Remain where you are,” he said, as the guard started to stand. “Do not notify the commanders I am here.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the sergeant stuttered.

Ming moved through the reception area and down a long corridor. At the closed door of the main conference room, he signaled his aide to wait, then opened the door and strode in.

He scanned the changes to the room since his last visit — April 21, 1997. That had been the greatest day of his life — the day the British Crown had, at last, turned the military garrison over to its rightful owners. On that day, this room had been bare of furniture; the English had taken theirs away, of course. Now it contained a circular conference table and matching chairs, sideboard and audio-visual equipment cabinet, all made of teak hand-carved in dragons and the fishes of good fortune.

The furnishings had clearly been chosen not for utility so much as the way they complimented the room’s original walnut paneling and plush wall-to-wall carpeting.

Ming kept the disapproval off his face. He knew that Major General Wei Ao was responsible for the decor in this room.

Three men sat at the conference table, staring at him first in anger, then surprise. Then they were on their feet and bowing respectfully. And so they should. Ming represented the ultimate authority — not just the PLA, but the entire Chinese Communist Party. In the People’s Republic, all members of the State Central Military Commission also served on the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission — “Two organs with one leading body.” For the PLA, military and politico-social goals were the same.

At least, this was the belief and the goal, especially in the so-called Special Administrative Region. Ming let his gaze scan the group standing around the long table. The men had, he noted, positioned themselves equidistantly around the table, as if to illustrate their separation: Political Commissar nearest the door at eight o’clock, Coastal Patrol at four, and the Major General of the Army firmly enthroned at the twelve o’clock position. They all wore the special Hong Kong uniforms of their departments — dark green for the Army, white for the Coastal Defense Force, khaki for the Political Commissar. The only consistent feature was the shoulder blaze shared by all: the scarlet bahinia blossom of the Hong Kong SAR.

On the day the garrison became Chinese once again, there had been five Major Generals in this room. Unfortunately two of them — the commanders of the Air Force and Navy contingents — had recently died. Filling their positions would be no easy task; it took a special kind of officer to work in the SAR.

Ming fixed his gaze on Wei. Fortunately, the old Army leader was not one of the newly deceased. He had been in command of the entire Hong Kong garrison since the Handover, and got dubbed “First Among Equals” by local newspapers, in sardonic commentary on what the Hong Kongese considered a top-heavy command structure.

Ming marched directly around the table toward the old soldier, who immediately shifted his squat body to his left. The other two moved as well, rearranging themselves to maintain at least one empty chair between them.

Then they all sat, with Ming now at twelve o’clock.

Yeh Lien, the Political Commissar, cleared his throat. “Comrade General Ming, this is an honor. Perhaps we missed the message that you were coming.”

“There was no time for niceties. The Central Council is concerned about the incident with the American yacht. None of your reports on the incident are acceptible. How is it possible the perpetrators of this crime were not apprehended?”

Old Wei, First Among Equals, shook his head. “This incident occurred in international waters and airspace — the provinces of the Navy and Air Force. Unfortunately, both these forces are currently under the command of inexperienced officers. They were not certain how to respond. Until new commanding officers arrive — ”

“Until that time, you will be held responsible,” Ming said coldly. “You are commander of the entire SAR garrison, are you not?”

Wei drew himself up. “I am. But remember, General, we must all operate under standing orders which forbid us from initiating a ‘potentially hostile encounter’ with foreign military forces — especially the Americans. It happens that several U.S. Navy jets reached the SOS area before we did, and since they were in international airspace, our commanders elected to stand off. As per orders.”

Ming stared at him flatly. “The Americans claim otherwise. In fact, they claim that the People’s Liberation Army was responsible for the attack on the yacht itself.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Wei shouted, to a chorus of agreement from the other two officers.

Ming raised a hand, creating instant silence. “You all deny any involvement, then?”

Now came a barrage of angry affirmation. Ming watched their faces closely. “The Americans say they have both evidence and witnesses,” he said.

“Then let them present this evidence,” Yeh, the Political Commissar, said.

“Yes, let them present it,” echoed Chin of the Coastal Defense Force.

Ming eyed Chin. He was by far the youngest of the garrison commanders, only fifty, but that did not excuse the man’s helpless incompetence. His having a cousin in a position of power on the State Council was a different matter. Ming felt fortunate that he’d managed to limit Chin’s command assignment to the CDF, the least glamorous of all China’s military branches. And the least likely to get the fool into serious trouble.

Ming addressed the table at large. “Let me explain our difficulty. Since even before the Revolution, Hong Kong has been the government’s connection to the foreign world. For now, sustaining it is a necessary evil. The People’s Republic ohas long-term projects under way here; their progress must not be interrupted. This means that to the rest of the world, the image of the SAR must remain one of stability and safety. You will all be approached by the Hong Kong media concerning what happened to the Lady of Leisure. Since the State does not currently control the news media here, we must all agree on a correct version of events, to balance whatever lies the Americans intend to tell the world.”

“What correct version?” Wei asked. “How can we know what to say to the Americans if we don’t even know what evidence they have?”

Ming looked at the staring faces around the table and squelched a surge of anger. Wei was a soldier of the old school, tough but lacking in personal vision; Yeh was a blind idealogue; Chin a cretinous lump. In losing Hsu and Po, the SAR garrison had lost its best military — and political — minds.

“Comrade Major General Wei,” Ming said, “I’m sure you have studied your Sun Tzu.”

“Of course.”

“Then you know that Sun Tzu taught this: The wise general conquers because he has foreknowledge. He employs spies in the enemy camp.”

“You’re saying we have spies?” Wei said. “In America?”

Ming offered a small smile. “And closer to home as well. It is not even necessary to infiltrate our own people. It is only necessary to provide the proper incentive to Americans already in place.”

“Money,” Yeh said.

“What else? Money is Hong Kong’s national product. And thanks to it, we have already learned the broad outlines of what the Americans claim happened to that yacht. Now we need only to create our own story to fit the same circumstances….”

“Semtex,” Lieutenant Jim “Bomber” Marsh said. “There’s no question about that.”

Batman nodded grimly. If anyone would know, it would be the SEAL officer assigned as Special Forces Advisor to the carrier’s staff. Although the explosion had disintegrated the chunk of Lady of Leisure’s hull in which it had been contained, in doing so it inevitably left behind a particular signature: a distinctive blast pattern, particular chemical deposits, certain bits of debris, all of which were like fingerprints to an expert. Even without specialized demolition training, Batman knew that Semtex was a very popular form of plastic explosive, equivalent to America’s C-4 but much more widely available. Terrorists had made it the favored clay of their bloody art.

Batman realized that against all odds, he had been clinging to the macabre hope that the explosion had been some kind of accident — the spontaneous combustion of a fuel tank on board the salvaged hull, perhaps. That would be better than the thought that someone had succeeded in sneaking a massive bomb on board Jefferson. No — in getting the U.S. Navy to place the bomb there themselves. My God, if they’d had time to lower the wreckage onto the hangar deck, as they’d planned… with all those parked planes and jet fuel…

“What about the fuse?” he asked. “How was this damned thing set off?”

“Can’t be sure,” Bomber said. “What didn’t go up in smoke went over the side. But judging by the sequence of events, it was probably a pressure-sensitive trigger. When the weight of the wreckage settled on deck — boom.”

“What, you mean the Chinese guessed we’d be putting that particular chunk of wreckage on board Jefferson? That doesn’t seem credible.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Lab Rat said, “Maybe the bomb wasn’t meant for us at all.”

Batman frowned at him. “Explain yourself.”

“Maybe its real purpose was to finish off the Lady of Leisure; it wasn’t supposed to go any further than that. Not pressure detonated, but it had a bad time — a dud. We just got… unlucky.”

Batman closed his eyes briefly. “Unlucky.” He looked at Bird Dog, who had yet to say a word. Batman was ambivalent about this particular officer. At one time he’d described Bird Dog as a “good man” — but that had been before Cuba and all the childish nonsense Bird Dog had pulled down there. Add to that the man’s seeming inability to transpose all his book learning to real-life situations… and you had to wonder, what was the use of including him in these meetings?

On the other hand, where would Rear Admiral Batman Wayne be if nobody had ever given him a break? And Bird Dog could fly, there was no doubt about that. Lately, he’d even shown some signs of gaining a little maturity.

“Commander Robinson?” Batman said.

Bird Dog raised his head, and his hands slid over the tabletop — he seemed at a loss without his usual notebooks and charts. Then he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I’m inclined to agree with Commander Busby. This seems like an awfully complicated way to get a booby trap on board Jefferson. Especially since if damaging us was their goal, why didn’t they do a better job?”

“A better job?” Batman said. “We lost ten sailors in that blast, Commander. Six aircraft are in the shop, and one Sea Knight is on the bottom of the South China Sea.”

Bird Dog placed his hands in his lap, but his jaw was set. The guy had moxie, you had to give him that. “I know all that, sir. But it seems to me the damage could have been much worse. They could have loaded more explosives on the wreck, or used a shaped charge or some kind of incendiary chemical. They could have holed the flight deck, blown the parked planes away, taken out the antenna array… they could have tried to really hurt us. But they didn’t. So that tells me they didn’t intend to.”

Batman stared at him a moment longer, then turned toward Bomber. Bomber cocked his head and raised one eyebrow. “It’s true, they could have rigged something with a lot more muscle behind it.”

“Here’s another piece of evidence in that direction,” Lab Rat said. “At the time of the explosion, we detected no increased Chinese military activity in the area. If they’d intended to soften us up with a booby trap, wouldn’t they have taken advantage?”

“Answering that kind of question is your department, Commander.” Batman caught himself, sighed. “Damn it, it goes against my instincts to think we got damaged by an explosion and it was just a… fluke. You can’t strike back at a damned accident.”

There were grim nods all around the table.

“All right. We’ll report that this was an accident of sorts. No retaliation.”

“Sir…” Bird Dog said. “If I may make one more suggestion.”

“Go ahead.”

“It might be best if the Chinese don’t even learn about the explosion. Even if it was an accident… well, us being hurt by that bomb… it makes us look stupid.”

Batman noticed that Lab Rat was nodding. “You mean we lose face.”

“Face is important to the Chinese,” Bird Dog said. “No point in giving them ammunition against us.”

Batman nodded. “I’ll make sure to note your suggestion in my report, Bird Dog. It’s a good one.”

Bird Dog smiled and visibly relaxed.

But not Batman. Although the “accident” theory should make him feel less threatened, the opposite was true. Because he’d just realized what that theory meant, strategically speaking: They were right back where they’d started. Nowhere.

The only people who knew what was going on around here were the Chinese.

As Ambassador Sarah Wexler rose to her feet at the long table, she managed not to glance over at her counterpart from the People’s Republic of China, Ambassador T’ing. Controlling her expression took a much greater effort.

It was hard to believe that the Spratley Islands affair had occurred only four years ago. On that occasion, the results for China had been so devastating that the U.S. had deemed it necessary to provide Beijing with a face-saving cover story: that the downed Chinese aircraft had been caught in a freak typhoon.

Privately, of course, insiders in both countries knew that the “typhoon” had taken the form of Carrier Battle Group 14 of the U.S. Navy. You would think that the Spratley Islands affair would have taught China the grave dangers of throwing its weight around, even in Asia.

But now… this.

“I’m sure,” Ambassador Wexler said to the assembled dignitaries, “you’re all aware of recent, horrible events in the South China Sea. Two days ago, an unarmed, private yacht owned by an American businessman was attacked and sunk by a military helicopter of the People’s Republic of China. The result was the deaths of more than sixty people of a half-dozen nationalities.”

She paused to scan the table. So far, no face had assumed the shape of its owner’s political inclination. She went on in the same voice of controlled outrage, describing the assault on Lady of Leisure by quoting almost verbatim from the transcript of the sole survivor of the attack. She left out only such details as the name of the man who had commanded the attacking vessel, such tidbits being more useful in behind-closed-doors negotiations.

As she spoke, she glanced around the table. Sure enough, delegates from nations friendly to the United States looked outraged; those from unfriendly countries appeared scornful or, at best, impassive.

T’ing seemed barely interested.

She bit back her anger and went on. “If it weren’t for the timely intervention of a United States Navy fighter plane on routine patrol from the aircraft carrier USS Jefferson, it’s safe to say there would have been no survivors of this tragedy at all. No one to have brought this story before the public. As it is, we have such a survivor, as well as the eyewitness testimony of four American aviators — including the heroic pilot who drove the attacking helicopter off without firing a single shot of her own. We also have physical evidence of the most conclusive and terrible kind — pieces of wreckage and the corpses of one hundred and sixteen men and women, all riddled with twenty-two millimeters bullet holes — the same caliber as the cannons mounted on PLA Navy Z-9 helicopters.”

She looked around again, matching everyone eye for eye. T’ing’s face remained impassive, his eyes half-closed as if he were listening politely to a folktale recited by a child. Again, she reined in her anger.

“This murderous assault,” she went on, “would, of course, be unconscionable no matter where it occurred. However, it’s all the more disturbing because the site is Hong Kong, which is of crucial importance to the economic well-being of the entire Southeast Asia region. The wanton massacre of the Lady of Leisure is certain to rekindle the doubts felt by many nations regarding the trustworthiness of China’s pledge to honor the provisions of the Sino-British Agreement of 1985. The massacre of the passengers on Lady of Leisure represents an unprovoked act of aggression so extreme it eclipses even the student killings in Tienanmen Square. It…”

She realized T’ing was coming to his feet, rising as slowly and inexorably as the mercury in a thermometer. She fell silent, surprised by an act of rudeness she’d come to expect of the Cuban and Libyan representatives, but never of the Chinese.

When he had everyone’s attention, T’ing said, “Your passion about this matter is understandable, Madame Ambassador. However, the fact that an atrocity occurred in the vicinity of the People’s Republic of China does not automatically mean we are responsible.”

Wexler remained silent.

“The People’s Republic of China denies any knowledge of, or involvement in, the act of piracy and murder you describe. We remain completely committed to the agreement under which the illegally annexed Hong Kong territories were returned to our control.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the attack upon the American yacht was not, in fact, carried out by personnel or equipment from the People’s Liberation Army. Major General Wei Ao, the officer in charge of the Hong Kong garrison, assures us that all PLA personnel and equipment were accounted for on the evening in question; the records supporting this claim are available for anyone’s review.”

Wexler knew that the value of such documents was equal to the ash they would make when burned. “What of the witnesses, Mr. T’ing?” she asked coldly, refusing to sit.

T’ing’s eyes shifted her way briefly, then back to the table at large. “We believe that this incident was the result of an illegal narcotics transaction. We know that one of the guests aboard the yacht, Pablo Cheung, was a notorious racketeer and drug dealer in Macau; Macau itself, yet another illegally sequestered fragment of Chinese territory, is a haunt of gangs and gangsters as terrible as America’s own Chicago or New York. As for your witnesses, Madame Ambassador, by your own admission one of them is a very frightened and no doubt shocked young man, who might or might not have himself been involved in the narcotics activities aboard the yacht. Perhaps he really thought the attackers were in military equipment, perhaps he can’t tell the difference — or perhaps he fabricated that detail. How would we know? He has been questioned only by representatives of the United States, who can hardly be considered neutral in this matter. And this, despite the fact that this man is a citizen of China, not the United States, and the People’s Republic has repeatedly asked for his return.

“As for your other so-called witnesses, they are fighter pilots of the United States Navy… and I doubt I need to remind anyone at this table that no one is quicker to look for an excuse to involve her military in situations where they do not belong than is the United States.”

Wexler drew herself to her full height. “If you’re accusing the United States government of trying to take advantage of this tragedy to — ”

“There is a word for what you are showing now, Ambassador,” T’ing said. “ ‘Paranoia.’ I have accused no one of anything; I merely recite historical fact. I’m sure the governments of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Korea and many other nations will agree.”

T’ing bowed and sat.

Wexler did not. She continued to recite the official United States position on the massacre, but in the back of her mind, she wondered.

T’ing had interrupted her. Stood up and cut her off. For him, that was the equivalent of hysterics. Either that, or he wanted her to think he was hysterical.

No. After all these years as an ambassador, she’d learned to trust her instincts. Something was very wrong here, beyond even the murder of one hundred and sixteen innocent people. As awful as the massacre had been, there was some deeper work going on. Of course, the disguise of one motive behind another was business as usual for the Chinese, who were steeped in the teachings of the semi-mythical Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu: “All war is deception.” But the Lady of Leisure massacre seemed to be more than mere sleight-of-hand to mislead an international audience. If even T’ing was out of the loop…

What was going on in China?

“Looks like war to me.”

Petty Officer Jackson Ord waited a moment, then pulled his head out of the small compartment set into the side of Tomcat 304 and saw that one of the tow tractors used to haul planes around the hangar had pulled up next to him. Behind the wheel sat Petty Officer Orell Blessing, a Vipers ball cap perched on his red head. Jackson didn’t want to talk to Orell, far less listen to him, but what could he do? He longed for the last few days, when Orell had been gone on leave to Hong Kong.

You didn’t ignore Orell Blessing. Didn’t kid him about his name, either. Orell was six and a half feet tall, no matter which way you turned him. Barely made it through the passageway doors. Rumor was he could carry five tie-down chains in each hand, one hooked over each finger… and those chains weighed twenty-five pounds apiece.

There were a lot of terrific things about the Navy — good, regular food; clean rooms; good work; more money than he could spend — but Orell Blessing was not one of them. He was one of those white-on-white dudes who, under all the grinning and back-slapping, really didn’t believe that the Confederate Army got its ass whupped in the Civil War. Suspected the blacks would all come creeping back to their slave cribs any time now. Navy was full of dudes like that, but most of them you could ignore. Not Orell.

The only time Jackson felt belittled by having greasy hands, by being a junior petty officer in the U.S. Navy, was when Orell chugged up on his tow tractor.

But right now, Orell wasn’t looking at him; he was staring across the hangar bay at the three rows of body bags and chunks of blasted, burned fiberglass lined up there. What was left of yesterday’s “incident.” People said the morgue couldn’t hold all the bodies and shit; it had reached its limit. So they put that stuff in here, the way they used to lay the dead out in the parlor back home, for people to pay their last respects. Except these bodies were in black bags, and had no relatives on the ship. Seemed like bad luck, having them there.

Not that he’d say any of that to Orell. He glanced around to see if his shift supervisor, Petty Officer Rinaldo, was in sight. Wasn’t. That figured; guys who outranked you weren’t ever around when you needed them. And Orell never came around when Jackson was with any brothers, either. Wiping his hands on a rag, Jackson said in a carefully neutral voice, “I don’t got time to talk to you right now, man. Busy with this hydraulics line.”

“Don’t got time to talk to me, eh?” Orell said, grinning, and winked. Guy came from West Virginia white trash, got dumped out of his division for shit details all the time, couldn’t even qualify as a Plane Captain, but acted like he had some degree from Harvard. “Got lots of time to fix that baby gonna drop bombs on your yellow brothers though, right?”

“What you talkin’, man?”

“What I talkin’? I talkin’ look around you. I talkin’ pay attention. We got us lots of airplanes and bombs here. And now we’re gonna use ’em, and guess what? Not one of ’em’s gonna land on whoever shot up that yacht. We don’t even know who those people were.”

Now Jackson couldn’t resist looking toward the bow, at the rows of bodies. Two officers stood amongst the bags, heads close together in discussion. One officer was short and blond-haired, with glasses; Jackson didn’t know who he was. The other was Bird Dog Robinson, the pilot who usually flew this bird. Jackson hadn’t had much personal contact with Bird Dog, although the other plane crew members either loved him or hated his guts. Right now, both he and the blond-haired officer looked grim as hell.

He looked back at Orell. “Somebody kills Americans, we gotta do something.”

Orell grinned. “I agree. Absolutely. What we should do is load this here bird up and send it off to drop ordnance on a bunch of poor people didn’t do anything but go fishing last night. Know who lives in Hong Kong, Jackson? A few dozen billionaires, and about fifty million people living in shit, just like your family does back home. Nice, huh? Think about it. Who’s gonna die when we go deliver our payback for what happened to that yacht? The billionaires? Not likely.” Orell bobbed his head toward the corner, then turned and bobbed it in the other direction, toward the crew of technicians working on the bomb-damaged aft elevator. “A whole bunch of colored people gonna die for this. But there’s too many of ’em anyway, so that’s okay. You just make this plane work real nice, son.”

Orell winked, draped his massive, freckled hands over the wheel of the tow tractor, and hit the gas. As he pulled away, he had to turn abruptly to avoid three more men walking across the hanger floor. When Jackson saw who one of those men was, he almost crammed his head right back into the service bay, because it was Rear Admiral Wayne walking along right there. With him was some little Chinese guy in an oversized T-shirt and khaki pants, and a corpsman from the ship’s hospital.

But the Admiral didn’t glance his way, or even seem to be aware he existed. No doubt Orell would point out that was typical of officers. Wouldn’t mention — wouldn’t need to mention — that most of the officers were white, too.

“Excuse me, Petty Officer Ord.” Beaman’s voice came from between two parked planes. Jackson whirled, almost rapping his head on the corner of the open service hatch. Beaman was as black as the F-14 was silvery-gray, and would have been swallowed up by Orell Blessing’s shadow, but the Plane Captain was nobody to screw around with. “Maybe you’d like me to have Lieutenant Commander Robinson come over here and tell you what it’s like to fly a Tomcat when an improperly tightened hydraulic line gives way, and all the fluid leaks out of the control surface system. Would you like that, sailor?”

“Sorry.” Then he waved his wrench at the figures in the corner. “I was just wondering what’s going on.”

Beaman barely glanced across the hangar. “The brass have their work to do, Ord, and we’ve got ours.”

“But what do you think’s going to happen? Think we’re going to mix it up with the Chinese?”

“I don’t get paid to have opinions outside this hangar bay. I get paid for the same thing you do: making sure these birds are ready to fly when and if they do have to fight. And it so happens this bird has to be ready to fly tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“Yep. We’re going to be cycling planes pretty fast for the next few days.”

Jackson glanced toward the corner with the body bags. The Admiral was there now, bending over one of the bags, the Chinese man bending down with him. “Why?” Jackson said.

“Because they tell us to, Ord. Because they tell us to.”

“I don’t see him, Admiral,” Martin Lee said in a voice as thin as the gauze bandage taped over one of his ears. “Mr. McIntyre is not here, and he was not in the morgue. He is… his body is one of the missing.”

Batman nodded. It was amazing, really; from memory alone, Lee had identified every single one of the corpses brought back from Lady of Leisure, often based on no more than a piece of jewelry on a severed hand or the color and length of hair on a crushed skull. Still, eight bodies were missing — including Phillip McIntyre’s, it appeared. That wasn’t a bad ratio, considering all that had happened. And as for McIntyre, his disappearance was no surprise at all. Lee himself had stated that McIntyre was shot to death inside the yacht well before the helicopter arrived. Which meant his corpse was now feeding crabs at the bottom of the South China Sea.

But Batman said none of that. Instead, he put a hand on Lee’s shoulder. When the man turned, Batman held out his other hand and said, “Mr. Lee, thank you. I know this was difficult, but you were very brave.”

Lee stared at his hand for a moment, as if afraid it would not be attached, then reached out and shook it. “May I go home now? My wife was very worried over the phone. She is pregnant.”

“The doctor’s given you a clean bill of health,” Batman said. “As soon as arrangements are finalized, we’ll fly you back.” He didn’t mention how difficult it had been to make those arrangements. For several hours the PLA had refused to allow any American military aircraft or surface vessels access to Hong Kong without prior “inspection.” At the same time, they were demanding that Jefferson immediately release the wreckage and corpses they’d recovered from Lady of Leisure. Catch-22.

Fortunately, the civilian aeronautical authorities in Hong Kong had quoted certain provisions of the Sino-British agreement, pointed out that American warships docked in Hong Kong all the time, and insisted that the return of Hong Kong citizens, living and dead, did not fall under the purview of national security. Rather to Batman’s surprise, the PLA had backed down.

Batman signaled the corpsman to take Lee back to sick bay. As the young man was led off, he hardly seemed to be aware of his surroundings, far less who he was with.

“Tough,” Bird Dog said, watching him go.

Batman nodded. “I wouldn’t want to have his nightmares for the next few nights.”

“Admiral,” Lab Rat said, “what were the autopsy results?”

Batman sighed and looked down at the body bags. “Officially, a couple of these people drowned. Of course, that was after they took a cannon hit or two. The rest were simply shot to pieces.”

“Except Mr. Lee.”

“Yes. He got lucky; he was hanging onto the section of boat that had all those explosives inside. Would you fire a cannon into that at close range?”

“And the Chinese are still claiming they had nothing to do with this,” Bird Dog said. It was not a question.

Lab Rat snorted, a rare display of disbelief from a man who had seen almost every form of misdirection and chicanery. “They just presented a theory at the U.N. claiming the whole massacre was part of a Hong Kong drug war. We’re talking a story as thin as my father’s hair, but some people have grabbed hold of it anyway. For some people, believing any old lie is a better than fighting China.”

Batman stared down at the body bags, thinking of the terror and agony they represented. “It’s my fault. I should have pushed for an immediate retaliatory strike before the Chinese got their bullshit on the table.”

“The Joint Chiefs would almost certainly have vetoed it,” Lab Rat said.

“I still should have made the request.” Batman shook himself. “Never mind. Okay, the explosion yesterday might have been a fluke, but we’re still in agreement that this whole thing isn’t over, right?”

“I’d say it’s just begun,” Lab Rat said.

“So would I,” Bird Dog said.

“Then from now on, we’re going to behave accordingly. There are thousands of American citizens in Hong Kong, with more flying in every day. We’re going to do our damnedest to make them feel safe here.”

Lab Rat nodded. “Good.”

“Admiral?” Bird Dog said.

Batman looked at him.

“If you’re increasing Combat Air Patrol, I’d like to request some air time. I’m getting rusty, if you know what I mean.”

“Do I ever,” Batman said. Then he remembered something. “No offense, Bird Dog, but I understand you’ve had a little trouble finding an RIO who wants to fly with you.”

Bird Dog’s eyes widened. “That’s not true at all, sir. Hell, before this trip I had the same RIO for longer than anyone else in the Navy. Gator Cummings. And my RIO, Catwoman — she loves to fly with me.”

Batman debated calling the young aviator on his rather freeform interpretation of events. Surely the aviator knew that everyone on Jefferson was aware of the circumstances of his split with “the same RIO” he’d had for so long. According to scuttlebutt, the RIO, Gator, had finally demanded transfer — not just to another pilot, but to an entirely different ship. “Back in Cuba, he put me into the water,” Gator had said. “Then I turned around and flew with him again in Turkey. After that, I started wondering if maybe I had a death wish. I decided to get as far away from that maniac as I possibly can.”

Gator was now flying with VF-91 off the USS Eisenhower.

Maybe Bird Dog had learned something from that whole experience — certainly, the youngster was trying hard to do well in his new position as advisor. Finally, Batman nodded. “Talk to CAG. Tell him I said it was all right.”

Bird Dog grinned with the palpable relief of any Naval aviator who hadn’t been in the air for a while. It made Batman long, more than ever, for the feel of a Tomcat strapped around his own body.

Across the hangar bay, in the entrance to the aft elevator, sparks showered down from welding arcs.