Drake gave him a thin smile. “I think you already know the answer to that, boss.”
Nick stood up and stretched. “So I do.” He checked his watch and then grabbed two wet suits from the shelf above his bunk. He tossed one to Drake. “Get dressed, my friend. We’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 4
General Zheng Ju-long surveyed the trees passing by the windows of his sedan. They were beautiful—deep green and full, not like those sparse twigs in the hills above Beijing. He sighed. He hated the idea of leaving his beloved Fujian Province for the bustling, smelly metropolis of Beijing, but soon he would have to. Such was the price of destiny.
“Park the car outside the fence, Han,” Zheng told his driver.
“But, sir, you are the most senior general in all of Fujian. This is your facility. We can park at the front door if you like. There is no need to walk.”
“That is the point, Han. I want to walk. I want to taste the pure air before we enter the factory.”
Zheng closed his eyes. How would underlings like Han view him in the coming days? He was not abandoning Fujian—far from it—but could they see that? In time, they would understand. In time, they would see him as the Great Unifier in the tradition of his ancestor Koxinga. He would make them whole again.
All of them.
Han turned down a gravel road, and the trees abruptly ended, followed shortly by a high-security fence topped with a double stack of concertina wire. He parked the sedan next to a small guard station and then opened the rear passenger’s-side door, offering an arm to help Zheng lift his stout but aging frame out of the soft leather seat.
“Most honored General Zheng. We were not expecting you today,” said the guard, jumping to attention as Zheng approached his shack.
“Yes, that is as I intended,” replied Zheng. “And I would prefer to keep it that way. Please refrain from alerting the factory chief to my presence.”
Zheng said nothing more, casually lifting a hand to his graying temple to return the guard’s crisp salute. As he reached the main building, he glanced over his shoulder. He saw the guard hastily replacing the guardhouse phone in its cradle. Zheng smiled. He expected nothing less. The guard’s loyalty to his immediate superior was commendable. That was as it should be. Of course, he would have to be punished for disobedience. That was as it should be as well.
Dr. Tao Luo stood in front of his glass-encased office, feigning a conversation with his secretary. “General,” he said, bowing and subtly waving for his secretary to do the same, “what a most unexpected and yet delightful surprise it is to see you here.”
“I’m sure it is, Tao. I am here to inspect your progress. Kindly show me to the production floor.”
“If it would please the general,” said Tao, “we have a special unit set up in Laboratory Two for just such an occasion. It will be much quieter there than on the factory floor.”
Zheng waved his hand. “As you wish.” He smiled inwardly. Tao could not have produced a display in such a short amount of time. The factory chief was prepared for a surprise visit, and if he had the time for extraneous activities like setting up displays, then work must be proceeding smoothly here. Excellent.
Tao led the general down a long hallway. On one side, a floor-to-ceiling window looked out over the various production floors below. In each section, he could see one of the five massive state-of-the-art production units that he and Tao had procured for the factory. Four of them were humming away, producing detailed structural components for his weapons, each piece precisely tooled to a matter of picometers. The fifth machine lay dormant, but that would soon be rectified.
“Here we are,” said Tao, opening a door and stepping aside to allow the general to pass through.
Zheng nodded at Han as he entered, indicating that the aide should stand outside and wait.
Laboratory Two remained as starkly clean and white as the last time Zheng had seen it, several weeks earlier. Now, however, there was a display table in the center of the room. Three technicians in white lab coats stood at attention as Zheng entered. He waved magnanimously, indicating that they should relax. Then he surveyed Tao’s masterpiece. At more than four meters, the missile took up the entire length of the table. The light brown color of its exposed composite structure stood out well in the white room, allowing the general to see every seamlessly fitted juncture.
“As you can see, General,” began Tao, “we are now producing the full range of components for each major section: propulsion, control, warhead, and guidance.”
Zheng nodded, still inspecting the display. “I assume you have projected its range capabilities?”
“Three hundred fifty kilometers with the new solid fuel motor, covering more than enough distance from the Quanzhou launch site. Of course, once we have the precise composition and weight of the skin, that range may change a little.”
“Yes,” said Zheng, crossing his arms and placing a thick finger on his chin, “I see from the activity below that you have moved into mass production. What numbers have you achieved?”
“We already have one hundred missile bodies, complete with guidance packages and warheads,” answered Tao. “We will produce a hundred more in a matter of days. That should be more than enough firepower to overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses.”
Zheng dropped his arms. “I will determine how much firepower is enough,” he said.
Tao winced and bowed. “Of course, General. Once we have a production model for the skin, we can finish the first two hundred in less than seventy-two hours and then continue as you see fit.” He spoke his next words cautiously. “However, I cannot give you an accurate production timeline until we receive the sample radar-absorbent materials.”
Zheng returned to his inspection of the missile, but he cast a sidelong glance at Tao. “Don’t worry. I will have them for you soon.”
Three quick knocks on the door interrupted their discussion. Zheng waved for Tao to open the laboratory door. Han entered and bowed. “General Zheng, you have a telephone call from our embassy in Kuwait.”
Zheng turned back to Tao and his technicians. “My apologies, gentlemen. I must take this call, which may be good news for all of us. In the meantime, keep up the good work.”
* * *
Zheng reclined in the backseat of his sedan, watching with satisfaction as Han took the disobedient guard by the lapel and struck him across the face. As he lifted his satellite phone to his ear, he motioned for his aide to continue the punishment. “Go ahead, Wulóng,” he said into the phone. “I am secure on this end.”
“General Zheng, your operatives are in position.” The caller spoke in perfectly even tones, his voice as smooth as ice. “The Americans are here as well. It appears as though your intelligence is accurate.”
Zheng nodded. “Good, good. After so many years, I am glad that my source remains reliable. Still, it is when you are closest to the object of your desire that it often fades away. Tell my men to proceed with extreme caution. And Wulóng”—Zheng reached out his window and waved to Han, who released the bloodied guard, letting him collapse onto the gravel—“tell them that I want no survivors.”
CHAPTER 5
Thin metal shavings rained down through the water like gently falling snowflakes, glistening in the white beam of Nick’s dive light. After less than a minute of drilling, he removed the bit from the small hole in the side of the bomb to let it cool. He could not afford to overheat the casing that surrounded the fuze. A mistake like that might end his mission with a premature bang.
Nick lay on his side with his back pressed against the partial barrier that separated the B-2’s left bay from its right. The bomb, like its twin, rested on the closed bomb-bay doors of the left bay. Both weapons had dislodged from their rack during the last, failed salvage, arming the fuzes.
These armed bunker busters were the main reason that Nick and Walker left the wreck alone for s
o long. Any shift during another salvage attempt could set one off, killing the crew and scattering the wreckage across the relatively shallow floor of the Persian Gulf, a smorgasbord of stealth materials for the enemies of the United States. Nick had to neutralize the weapons so that the team could raise the bomber to towing depth and move it out to deeper waters for scuttling. But he had never defused a five-thousand-pound bomb before. He carefully pushed the drill bit back into the hole, took a deep breath, and gently squeezed the trigger. There was a first time for everything.
Despite the claustrophobic conditions, Nick wished that Drake could have joined him in the bay. He could use the company. But the partially open doors of the other bay, half crushed against the seafloor, left only a tiny gap. Nick could barely squeeze through, even after removing his rebreather, mask, and tanks. With his broad shoulders, Drake could not follow. He had passed Nick’s gear through the gap and then moved off to set up the air bags that would lighten the bomber for the salvage cranes.
Nick removed the bit to let it cool again, repeating the process over and over until he reached the seven-centimeter mark, just deep enough to penetrate the fuze casing. As he removed the bit for the final time, he let out a long breath. Halfway there. Unfortunately, the most dangerous and difficult part was yet to come. It might even prove impossible.
After a few moments’ rest, Nick cracked open a drab green case and withdrew a monitor and a set of thin, melded cables. One cable held a fiber-optic camera and light, the other, a pair of tiny hooked pincers. He carefully slid the cable through the small tunnel and into the fuze casing. As the fiber-optic light illuminated the interior of the device, Nick’s heart sank. The fuze had seen better days.
Long ago, during either the crash or the first salvage attempt, the fuze casing’s vacuum seal had cracked, exposing the metal inside to corrosive seawater. Instead of the gleaming steel mechanism that he had hoped for, he found a rusty, brown nightmare.
Nick used a laminated diagram to identify the safing lever—a short arm with a loop on the end. He would have to pull that lever outward to manually disarm the bomb. A little round window next to the lever showed the status of the fuze. He checked his diagram. A red flag in the window meant the bomb was armed; a green one meant safe. He could clearly see red behind the glass.
It took several tries to get the pincers through the loop. The rusty buildup had narrowed the gap to a little wider than the eye of a needle. When he finally got both hooks seated, Nick gently pulled on the cable. The lever didn’t budge. He tried again, gradually increasing the pressure until he feared the arm might break, but it had rusted solid.
Nick sat back in frustration. If he gave up, the team would have to attempt the salvage with at least one live weapon in the bay, an immense risk. Their only other option would be to detonate both bombs in place and destroy the bomber. The cleanup would take weeks, during which any number of hostile agencies might discover the operation. Nick was not willing to accept either scenario. He had one more trick up his sleeve. A forceful jerk might free the lever. It might just as well break the arm or set off the bomb.
There was no point in waiting. He leaned back, clenched his teeth, and yanked on the cable. Something snapped. He cringed.
After a long moment, Nick opened one eye and then the other. His gamble had paid off. The safing lever had broken free of the rust. With another, gentle tug on the cable, it clicked into place. The flag changed from red to green.
Nick sighed. One down.
The next bomb took half as long to disarm. Its vacuum seal remained miraculously intact. With no rust, the safing lever gave in to Nick’s command on the first pull. Both bombs should now be so stable that no amount of jostling or shifting could set them off. Should was the operative word. Nick wished that he had some wood to knock on.
After packing up his gear, he switched on the transmitter in his mask. “Come and get me, Drake. I need you to hold my rebreather and tanks so I can get out of this hole.”
He heard no response, not even static.
Nick tapped on the base of his mask, hoping to jolt its transmitter/receiver to life. “Hello? Does anyone read me?”
Still nothing.
Nick had been so focused on his work that he hadn’t noticed the sparse chatter between Walker and Drake fade away to nothing. Now he realized that the aftermarket radio in his mask was completely dead, probably a consequence of removing the mask at depth to squeeze into the bay.
He swam over to the gap and peered through. Drake was nowhere to be seen. If he wanted to get his teammate’s attention, he would have to make some noise. But as he flipped his flashlight around to bang on the side of the bay, he caught a glint of steel from the seafloor. He panned the light back to the object. Just on the other side of the gap, its hilt sticking straight up out of the sediment, was Drake’s knife.
CHAPTER 6
Nick fought back a wave of dread as he stared at the knife.
“Drake? Are you out there?” His efforts were futile. He still heard no response. Something was wrong. The knife had not fallen onto the seafloor by accident. Drake had obviously stuck it into the silt as a signal, a warning.
There were hostile players in the water.
Nick slowed his breathing to focus his thoughts. If he shed his bulky rebreather and tanks to swim through the gap, he’d be a sitting duck for any intruders, blind and weakened as he struggled to re-don his gear. But shedding that gear was the only way to get out. Otherwise he may as well make the bay his tomb. He checked his air gauges. Too low. He couldn’t just wait it out. Besides, Drake might be in trouble.
As Nick wracked his brain for a solution, a little brown fish swam through the gap between the crushed doors and the seafloor, kicking up a cloud of silt. That inspired an idea.
Nick loosened his gear, preparing to shed it quickly, and then began to kick up as much sediment as possible and propel it through the gap. The cloud would mask his exit and deny a hostile diver a clean shot. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only plan he had.
He stripped off the miniature tanks strapped to his thighs, unbuckled the fasteners on his vest, and positioned his body just in front of the hole. After three deep breaths, he pulled off the rebreather and mask and pushed through the gap. On the other side, he remained just above the silt, working feverishly to put the rebreather back on. He allowed his fins to skim the seafloor and kick up more silt to maintain his smokescreen. Then he sensed a dramatic change in the light. Someone had fixed a powerful beam on his position.
Nick darted and rolled in the water, presenting his back to the light, hoping that the hard rebreather might provide some protection. He ignored his straps and fasteners and focused on donning and clearing his mask. Just as he opened his eyes and looked up, a small harpoon penetrated the silt cloud above him. He jerked his head to the left. The projectile missed by barely an inch. Grasping a tank in each hand, he shot for the only cover he could find, the cave formed by the bomber’s wing.
Under the shadow of the B-2, Nick whirled around to face his attacker, but he could see nothing through the dark, swirling cloud. He took advantage of the moment’s respite by strapping on his gear, finishing with the holster that held his rocket pistol, the Triple Seven’s answer to the standard harpoon gun. Designed and built in-house by Scott’s team, the weapon amounted to a compact rocket-propelled grenade. Its small club-shaped rounds were far superior to harpoon bolts—faster, with a more stable trajectory and fragmentation warheads that widened the damage envelope considerably.
Nick surveyed his surroundings. The crumpled bomb-bay door blocked his path to the right. Behind him and to the left, the wing sloped into the seafloor. There would be no attack from the rear or the flanks, but there would be no escape either. The only way out of this bizarre cave was back the way he had come, back toward an attacker that he could not see. Nick wondered if he had just made a fatal mistake.
He drew the rocket pistol from his belt and seated a round, but without a target, the weapon was not much use. And even with the pistol’s advantages, the chances of scoring a solid hit against a wary opponent were slim. Somehow he needed to regain the element of surprise.
The light reappeared, panning back and forth across the seafloor beneath the wing’s trailing edge. In the white beam, he could see the silt settling. Now he understood his opponent’s plan. The intruder was patient, unwilling to enter the cloud of sediment and sacrifice his advantage. He would wait for the dust to settle and the water to clear before pressing his attack.
After a short time, the light stopped panning and locked onto the spot where Nick had entered the cave. The beam formed a ghostly cone in the drifting particles. Nick watched it shrink as the attacker descended. He held his pistol at the ready, knowing he would only get one shot.
The beam slimmed, and then the flashlight itself appeared. There was no time to wait for a full target. Nick aimed just below the descending light and pulled the trigger. The pistol jerked in his hand with an audible thump. A rush of bubbles trailed behind the projectile as it accelerated away. The beam flashed up to Nick’s face. Through the dazzling white light, he could just make out the silhouette of his attacker and the shadow of a small harpoon gun aimed at his chest. He did not attempt to evade or spoil the attacker’s aim. He knew it wouldn’t matter. The man would never get the chance to fire.
The projectile found its target a millisecond later, snuffing out the intruder’s light in a surreal explosion, a spherical mass of blue fire and bubbles. The shock wave rippled out from all sides, hitting Nick like a punch in the chest even though he was several meters away. He shined his flashlight on the hostile and grimaced at the macabre effect of the fragmentation grenade. The man no longer had a left shoulder. In its place, a stringy mass of flesh and tissue. Blood poured from his body, tinting the water around him red.