Warriors

CHAPTER 34

Operation Lightstorm,” C said. He replaced his soupspoon, sat back, and got his pipe going. “Heard of it?”

“No, sir. Can’t say that I have.”

“Good. I still have a precious few secrets from you.”

“Need-to-know is not what it used to be.”

“Hmm. You will remember that some years ago, back in 2009, actually, a brilliant American scientist and inventor vanished. Puff of smoke. The whole family, gone. Urban myth was he had gotten rather tired of the game and moved his whole family to Borneo. A genius protection plan, some wag said at the time.”

“William Chase?”

“That’s his name, yes.”

“I do recall that. Chase. The fellow who founded Lightstorm Advanced Weapons Systems. America’s preeminent twenty-first-century genius. My understanding is that he is gravely ill, sir. Although he hasn’t been seen in public in years, he’s apparently on life support holed up in one of his grand estates in the western United States. Utah, I believe, or the Front Range of the Rockies.”

Trulove nodded absentmindedly. Hawke was not at all sure he’d been listening.

“Cover story. Chase and his family — wife, Kathleen, and their two children — were all abducted from a street corner in Georgetown one foggy night and disappeared without a trace. They were on their way home from a birthday dinner for Chase’s wife at a local restaurant three or four blocks from their home. According to the live-in housekeeper, they never made it home.”

“Vanished into thin air? No witnesses?”

“Indeed. Imagine, Alex. A man and his entire family. A wife and two small children. Gone. My God. For reasons apparent only to themselves, the CIA and the White House immediately suspected the Chinese of the abduction. Although no mention of this incident was ever made public, of course. For delicate political reasons at the time, Washington could not go public with the administration’s suspicions.”

“And now?”

“Well. The Americans’ investigation is still ongoing, unofficially of course. The Chinese admit nothing, offended at the mere suggestion, et cetera, et cetera. But now, Alex, here’s the nub of it. The fighter you flew home to England has now been torn apart and examined from nut to bolt.”

C paused to refire his cigar.

“Yes, sir?”

“And what we found belies Washington’s nonsensical illness cover story. Chase holed up somewhere dying and all that bollocks.”

“Hmm.”

“Have a look at this.”

C pulled a shiny steel object from his pocket and handed it to Hawke.

“What’s this?”

“Part from your stolen jet engine. That bit was removed from the nozzle and delivered to me by courier this morning.”

“Why?”

“Have a look at it through this magnifying glass, Alex.”

Hawke took the glass and studied the object, turning it over in his hand.

“Ah. I see something… W… L… C… Carved by hand into the steel.”

“His initials. William Lincoln Chase.”

“My God. Proud of his work?”

“No. He was trying to get a message out. We knew instantly that only one man on earth was capable of designing that fighter you managed to nick from a carrier deck, Alex. Chase’s fingerprints are all over that bloody airplane. As the Yanks will find, I’m sure, all over that high-altitude drone you discovered in the hangar.”

“That fighter of theirs is an almost exact replica of our Euro F-35C Lightning. Only vastly more advanced avionics and weapons, defensive and offensive. That damn fighter can fly circles around anything we’ve got. I think I see where you’re going with this, sir.”

“Listen carefully. It could be argued that a single Chinese carrier, its battle group, and its fighter wing of stolen F-35s, with their attendant advanced weaponry and technology is, all by itself, more powerful than most nations. And there is another… threat.”

“I don’t like the way you said that.”

“I have no direct knowledge. But the Americans have uncovered evidence of something very, very troublesome. CIA has its lips sewn shut. No one is talking. But it’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“Some new undersea weapon capable of shifting the balance of power in the Pacific. Immediately. Hell, capable of shifting the balance of power around the world. Chinese money, but built in some secret location in North Korea, perhaps.”

“The NKs are involved in all this?”

“Up to their bloody eyeballs. As you well know, North Korea is officially China’s bitch. If China is the Dragon of the twenty-first century, which it clearly is, then North Korea? They are the Teeth of the Dragon. As you well know from your past visits to Pyongyang.”

“Vastly sharper teeth, it would appear, sir, since my last midnight dental examination in Kim’s workers’ paradise prison.”