by Jeff Rovin
The uniforms did not have a spot of paint upon them, a natural hazard of at-sea touchups in oceanic wind.
The twin gasoline engines pushed them along at twenty-five knots. Standing in the enclosed bridge, Raeburn heard the tarp fluttering in the elongated stern. He turned and caught a glimpse of the rails used for mine laying. They were empty.
Because they were used, or idle? he wondered.
He began to feel that this was not just another example of the slow-burn Chinese expansionism. Perhaps the opportunity was so great that the methodical Chinese nature was shoved aside.
That’s how wars start, he thought. With the impulse or impatience of just one man.…
The trip to the northern coast of Prince Edward Island took the better part of an hour due to contrary currents and the need to go wide of land to keep from being slapped back against it. They were actually about a half mile north of the corvette by the time they reached it. Once there, the lieutenant colonel directed them to Ship Rock.
The large, narrow, high slab of land resembled a schooner coming to anchor in the natural cove. At its closest approach to the island, Ship Rock was just under one hundred feet from shore. The top of the elongated mass was flat and mossy green, the walls sheer and craggy. Only the “rudder” section of the islet was truly accessible.
That was where Raeburn had buried the virus, deep in the ancient bedrock. The day did not seem so remote to him as they came at the island from the very angle he had those many years ago.
The same large, lumpy rocks sat at the northeastern waterline. Raeburn remembered from his reading, at the time, that the islands were built over tens of millions of years from piled-up silt, gravel, and the remains of dead sea creatures. It was compacted, but not in a way that would crack and fissure like granite or basalt. That made it ideal for burying the concrete container. It would become part of the earth, just as the root of a tree becomes part of a walk.
Just before Raeburn reached Ship Rock, he saw the two amphibious planes coming in low across the sea. He could see their lights and the reflection off the sea. They vanished behind the promontories of Prince Edward, their shadows dragging behind. It was dark, and since they would be looking ahead at the wreckage, he did not know if they would have noticed the patrol boat or the corvette.
The lieutenant colonel turned his eyes back toward their destination. They were on the moonless side of the cliff and Raeburn indicated for the pilot to turn on spotlights. The twin lamps snapped on, throwing a figure eight on the rock. The visor had a slight polarization for bright-light situations and gave the view a barely perceptible red tinge. What he saw caused his brain to hiccup for just a moment: What the hell was he looking at?
The materials had been buried diagonally in the cliff behind an edge-worn pyramid of a boulder some seven feet high. The rock butted up against the wall, providing concealment and shelter from the elements. Around it were smaller rocks that had served as a platform for the doctor and his team to work.
At Raeburn’s direction the boat had cut its engines and circled to the south of the rock. That outcropping was the same but the once-stubbled but uniformly surfaced cliff behind it was scarred to the point of grotesqueness. The excavation he had made, not far from the waterline, had been eroded shut by the elements, as he had expected. But there was new damage.
Three small holes had been drilled in the selfsame spot he had selected. They were aligned, each about a foot apart. The site could have been selected purposely—but more likely it was practical, the best place to stand. The holes themselves were small, the size of a handheld tool. Raeburn’s conclusion would have been that a geologist or climatologist had been here collecting samples. But the holes were not all there was. They were simply a way in, like construction engineers used to plant dynamite in rock.
But TNT had not been employed here. The driller had used a powerful acid.
And not with a glass pipette. It had been poured in, burning away rock, so a core sample could be gathered in a stainless steel tube.
The rock below the holes was scarred, marked with deep rivulets, rotted. There were meandering cuts like a river seen from space—a microcosm of the macroworld, strangely fractal. The doctor counted seven in all. In some spots the fissures were so deep that their depths were lost in shadow.
And the smooth rills went down, to and below the waterline. The sea fingered its way in, water cascading in each of the narrow channels. The fact that the water was not filling the cavities suggested they went deep. Perhaps the acid had connected with air pockets below the surface, deep in the base of the rock.
That could have released gases that would have helped the bug to rise, Raeburn thought.
What a maddening scenario: something presumably safe had been the ideal medium to release the bacteria from captivity.
The Chinese were speaking but the lieutenant colonel had no idea what they were saying. He continued to look ahead, watching the interaction between the water and the rock, considering what the saline content in the sea would have done to the bacteria. The organism was not a halophile. As engineered, it did not bond with sodium in the human body. Otherwise, it would have become stuck on arterial walls. The rush of salt water would have been another impetus for the bacteria to leave the breached containment area. That, plus the fact that the sea temperature was warmer than the rock.
How did I fail to consider all of this? he reprimanded himself. Though he knew the answer. Because he and Krummeck were in a rush to dispose of the thing.
As they neared, depending on the angle, Raeburn could swear he saw tortured expressions and figures in the etched stone. They moved when the light did, reaching, twisting, elongating—
The man with the gun used his free hand to tap the doctor on the side of his visor. The Chinese made a shrugging motion.
“What do we do?” Raeburn said in his hollow, filtered voice. He pointed to himself and then at the hellish carving. “I go out.”
The man slapped his chest. He was going too.
The pilot remotely angled the spotlight to the waterline and the Chinese officer who was to accompany Raeburn was helped into a backpack. The two men went on deck. The railing consisted of two tubes, knee- and waist-high. They held the higher rail as they moved forward across the slippery deck. The rubberized deck and aluminum hull were thick with spray, some from waves but most of it kicked up by the wind; the large, semicircular cove created something of an accelerator, spinning the air toward the pebbled surface of Ship Rock. The engines were practically idling, used only to steer as the current moved them forward. The pilot skillfully maneuvered them so the prow was facing away from the stone. It wasn’t going to be possible for them to work from the deck; they would have to get a foothold somewhere on the low rocks, which were greasy with moss.
The cowl of the outfit created a hollow, constant drone in Raeburn’s ears, a combination of wind and sloshing surf. Moving was awkward due to the multiple layers of clothing, and it was cold. Their perspiration turned icy and chilled them unremittingly. It took effort to focus. Reaching the prow, the Chinese seaman opened a gate in the rail, reluctantly but finally putting his gun in a deep pants pocket.
Where the hell am I going to run to? Raeburn thought as he studied the roughly twenty square feet of erosion-flattened rocks that lay below the scarred rocks and alternately above and below the swirling tide. It struck Raeburn as strange, these many years later, but one of the things he remembered from the long-ago visit here was the strength of the tides. They were at their peak now. Coming at night, hiding from van Tonder’s patrol, encroachers would have had room to move, to crouch, to push themselves into stony nooks.
The seaman descended first. He gripped the lowest rung of the ladder, which was chest-high, even as he stood on the rocks. He let go only when the unpredictable rocking of the vessel threatened to yank him from his perch. He nearly skidded on the dark brown surface but managed to reach the ledge right beside the excavation. He planted his back against the
surface and motioned Raeburn over.
The South African hesitated. If he went over, the waves would carry him off before his escort could even push off the wall. The impatient sailor motioned him again, more insistently.
Turning, the lieutenant colonel backed down the ladder. The salt water already made the rungs an uncertain footing and he held the sides of the ladder tightly. Reaching the rocks was actually a blessing: at least they were steady. He pushed off from the boat and half walked, half slid to where his companion was waiting. The man grabbed him by the sleeve, Raeburn turning his face toward the man and showing him an alarmed expression.
The South African shook his head. “Don’t pull my goddamn suit! There’s a deadly bug here, ass!”
The Chinese could not understand the words but he received the message. He carefully released his grip. Raeburn put his palms against the rock wall to steady himself then used it for support as he shimmied toward the eerie and abstract carving.
The three holes were shoulder high. Someone about his height had put a bit in there and leaned into it to turn—by hand. There was none of the external smoothness that would suggest a rapidly, evenly boring drill. He looked down at the open channels. He looked down in the widest one, as deep as his bulging face plate would permit.
The seaman tapped him and turned, presenting his backpack. Raeburn understood. He unzipped the side, angled the contents into the light, and removed a flashlight. He shined it into the opening.
The view, as far as he could see, was of a foreign, surreal landscape. The acid had indeed cut a path to the excavation they had made. The slime-covered concrete bunker was in there, about four feet below the waterline. Its top had holes created by dripping acid, ten in all, each no wider than a few inches. But the penetration had been sufficient to expose the sealed containers of bacteria to the acid.
Raeburn looked at the other man. He wanted to tell him there was nothing there, but the Chinese would not believe him—and there was also the matter of finding a way to destroy the thing. Reluctantly, the lieutenant colonel nodded.
The seaman took the flashlight and shined it on the surface of the water. He knelt, looking at the wall of compacted rock. He picked up a tiny stone and scratched at it, like some primitive man trying to start a fire. Where he struck he left a deep white scar.
Satisfied, he rose and dropped the rock and motioned Raeburn back to the boat. There was, for the first time, no urgency in the man’s movements. The meaning was clear. The Chinese obviously knew the local tides as well. They would wait until the late-evening ebb and then they would go in through the ledge itself to extract the contents.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
USAFRICOM C-21, Atlantic Ocean
November 11, 10:30 P.M.
It was dark outside the windows of the giant aircraft, and both Williams and Breen were asleep in their seats.
Grace and Rivette were not. They were sitting together, studying maps of the two islands where they were bound, and checking stats about temperatures—both air and water—winds, and poisonous flora and fauna. Grace downloaded the digital images and data into her smartwatch. Yemen had been an on-the-fly operation against loosely organized bands. Prince Edward was a mission against the Chinese military. She wanted to be thoroughly prepared.
With some regularity, they would receive updates from the Defense Logistics Agency, no sender ID, but very little that pertained directly to their assignment. They were mostly interested in up-to-the-minute weather reports and temperatures. Since both martial arts and marksmanship were not well served by ice or other slippery substances.
“Couple of unoccupied sheds on the tiny island, military outpost on Marion,” Rivette said.
“We should reconnoiter the outpost first,” she suggested. “It would have communications the Chinese would have to control.”
“Agreed. What kind of landing party would they use?”
“A large one, which is why we should approach with caution. They’re not making a secret of their presence so they’ll probably have lookouts.”
“In those temperatures? That wind?”
“They’ll fight for the privilege,” Grace said. “Manhood, nationalism—they’ll want to show ‘face.’”
“Like a goddamn gang back in L.A.,” Rivette said. “Well, at least we’ll get to see the countryside,” he joked.
“Have you ever been to South Africa?”
“Not even ancestrally, far as I know. Pretty small percent of Cajuns have that. We’re from North Africa via France, I’ve been told. You been there?”
Grace shook her head. “Nor the subantarctic.”
“You did cold-weather training, though.”
“Alaska,” she said.
“Same here. Probably not the same as what they got down south.”
“Wondering how they plan to get us over,” Grace said.
“Way we barged into Trinidad, I don’t think they’ll want to chute us in.”
Grace smiled. “I liked that, though.”
“You hit the deck butt-kicking,” Rivette pointed out. “A big-ass island, that’s something different. They’d see us coming.”
“My guess is they’ll put us in with the civilians working on the wreck. If anything else is happening on that island, the perps will want to avoid the investigators.”
“True. We also have the toxin to worry about,” Rivette went on. “Working with gas masks is a pain.”
“And it’ll be dark,” Grace said. “Most of the glass in those things is tinted. We’ll probably fall into the sea.”
“I swam with seals at the San Diego Zoo once, so I’m good with that,” Rivette joked.
Grace looked at him. “Was that something you were supposed to do?”
“Nah. Good training for this though, right?”
He had a point. Grace had never played by rules other than her own. Growing up in New York’s Chinatown, she used a devastating roundhouse kick to make her way into the male-centric world of kung fu. As a girl she would insert herself into the pick-up-style competitions in Columbus Park, getting thrown and leopard-punched—and learning, from that, how to fall. Then she figured out how to use her smaller size and speed to avoid being hit. Then she studied the techniques of using her core energy and technique to overpower anyone who relied on muscle.
When she finally enrolled in classes at age ten, in a Mulberry Street walkup, she was known as Big Yin—a tribute to her strong female center.
An update from Matt Berry reached the devices of all the Black Wasp members. It showed images of a Chinese presence on both Prince Edward and Marion Islands.
“Shit. You speak Chinese?” Rivette asked.
“Mandarin.”
“A dialect?”
“The official language of China,” she replied. “As opposed to Cantonese, which is regional.”
“So you’ll be able to talk to anybody we run into,” he said. “Make like I’m your prisoner or something in case we’re caught.”
Grace marveled at the way their age difference and upbringing gave them radically different views on life. Lance Corporal Jaz Rivette confronted the world as if it were a movie. Everything was a scene or an act or a con.
“Do you think you’ll have trouble fighting them?” Rivette asked.
“Chinese? No. I don’t see faces, I feel the negativity from the dontian, the ‘cauldron.’ Mindless aggression. It’s difficult to explain.”
“I don’t understand what you just said, but I dig that you’re in close—I’m not. And I think about that sometimes. Daylight, night vision, telescopic—I see them. Unless they’re an active shooter, I wonder if I would hesitate to put them down.”
“I hope so, but not for that reason. They may have intel. Anyway,” Grace went on, “with the hazmat masks I won’t be looking into anybody’s eyes. I’ll be trying to maneuver them so the sun is smack on the visor.”
The conversation was interrupted by another message from Berry. This was one thing that Grace loved about Black W
asp. Williams had age on them, Breen had rank, but everyone got the same updates for their own tactical evaluation and application.
Both young members read it. It was about the attack on Batting Bridge and an estimate of the numbers of dead. And something more:
SA Navy Sp Op being dispatched, details to follow.
Aggressive status anticipated vs. China.
“My concerns just became real,” Rivette said.
“I was just thinking that.”
“No, I mean really real,” Rivette said. “I was reading about the African leaders during lunch. Rear Admiral Mary-Anne Pheto came up during apartheid, did her share of subterfuge when she was ten. We get caught in the middle, we better think about who we’re willing to take out.”
Grace saw the weapons she had tucked into the backseat in front of her: the two hilted knives, one serrated; the hip packet of throwing stars; the short escrima sticks she used as batons.
“I can dole out ‘unconscious’ if I want,” the lieutenant said. “Anything you do spills blood.”
“Hey, I asked for tranquilizer darts but you know what I was told? Just what you said. ‘That’s James Bond.’ They offered me a .40-caliber poison-dart air gun if I wanted to make less noise. Point missed.”
“By who?” Grace asked. “You render an enemy unconscious, you’ve got to transport them or wait till they come around to interrogate and then kill them. You can’t leave them behind to talk.”
“Padre Hill, back at Pendleton, told me my intentions were good. That I had the heart of a missionary.” Rivette looked at his own arsenal, which sat in a leather gym bag at his feet. “I wonder if there was ever a killer missionary?”
“On the way home, read up on the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon,” Grace said. “The Knights Templar. You’d’ve fit in, sort of.”
“A knight?”
“Sort of,” Grace repeated. She turned back to her tablet. “I want to read up on the SAN—see what kind of tactics the DOD has on video.”
