Act of War

by Brad Thor

  To add insult to injury, he saw the captain lose his balance as they entered the salon. The man recovered quickly, but it hadn’t escaped Cheng’s practiced eye.

  “What can I get you to drink?” the hostess asked. “Rum runner?”

  “No,” Cheng snapped. “No more alcohol, for anyone.”

  The hostess looked at the captain, who waved the retort away. “Give us a minute, will you, Angie?”

  The woman stepped out onto the rear deck with the princelings and closed the glass door behind her.

  “My crew work for me, not for you,” the captain then said. “You don’t tell them what to do.”

  The man had stepped on Cheng’s last nerve. Pulling out his pistol, he grabbed Medusa by his shirt, yanked him closer, and placed the barrel right under his nose. It sent bolts of pain through his injured shoulder, but it was a necessary show of force to earn the man’s respect. “Until we safely arrive in Cuba, this is my boat, and all three of you are my crew. Is that clear?”

  The captain put up his hands, palms out, and replied, “Crystal clear.”

  “I want you to sober up. Is that also clear?”

  “I’ll have Angie put on coffee.”

  “Good,” Cheng said, letting him go and reholstering his pistol beneath his shirt. “Now, I want you to show me our route, as well as the contingencies. Heaven forbid anything should happen to you, I want to make sure the rest of us will make it.”

  “Heaven forbid,” the captain repeated, fully grasping the threat that had just been made. “Let me get Angie started on the coffee.”

  He waved the hostess back in and pointed Cheng toward the bedrooms, one of which functioned as his office with all of his charts.

  “No,” Cheng insisted. “After you.”

  Shaking his head, the captain turned and led the man down the narrow gangway.

  His office was dominated by a large map table with barely any space to maneuver around it. He signaled for Cheng to enter, but Cheng opted to step only halfway in and lean against the door frame.

  “Suit yourself,” said the captain.

  He turned up the marine radio so he could listen in on the traffic and then selected a map from one of many hung upon a rack bracketed to the wall.

  Splaying the map on the table, the captain grabbed a pencil as well as a protractor, and was about to indicate where they were in relation to Little Torch Key when he heard a noise from the hallway and saw the panic in Cheng’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 61

  * * *

  * * *

  The roar of the shotgun blast was deafening, even out on the aft deck where the princelings were watching the frenzied sharks gathered off the stern.

  Immediately, the mate, Jimmy, cut the engines and when the students looked up at the bridge, they saw him looking at them with a pistol in his hand. Angie, the hostess, appeared in the salon with a sawed-off shotgun. From behind her, the captain came dragging the bloody body of their chaperone—the man who had collected them in Boston and was supposed to get them to Cuba so they could fly home. The man had never told them why, only that it was life and death, and that they were not to question his orders. While he bought their food or gassed up the van, they all whispered that it had to be because China was finally going to war with the United States.

  The scene was beyond shocking. The men gasped. Daiyu screamed. The corpse was covered in blood and almost his entire face was missing. None of them had ever seen such a grisly sight.

  If it weren’t for the clothing and the bits of jet-black hair that remained, they never would have even recognized him. Daiyu Jinping knew it was him, though. She could see the bandage beneath his shirt, on his left shoulder.

  “Listen up!” the captain ordered, dragging the corpse onto the deck and dropping the legs with a thud. “There’s been a change of plans. Angie is going to hand each of you a cell phone. I want you to call your families back in China and tell them you’ve been kidnapped. In the draft folder of each of those phones are wiring instructions along with a price. If your family pays, there’ll be no problem. If they don’t, then this is what’ll happen.”

  The captain nodded at Jimmy, who came down from the bridge and tucked his weapon into his waistband. Together, they bent down, lifted the body, and threw it off the back of the boat. The sharks immediately went to work, tearing it apart.

  “Tell your families they have one hour.”

  The captain took the shotgun from Angie, who then removed five fully charged iPhones from a bag and passed them out to each of the horror-stricken princelings. They watched the sharks rip at their chaperone’s flesh and were unable to look away.

  “The cameras on those phones don’t work, by the way,” said the captain, attempting to break the spell of the sharks, “so don’t get any bright ideas. Tell them your situation, send them the wiring instructions, and hang up.”

  Looking at his mate, the captain then said, “Let’s take a little cruise, Jimmy. Not too far out. I want to make sure we remain within cell service, so our bank can let us know as soon as that money starts rolling in.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” the mate said as he bounded back up to the bridge and fired up the engines.

  “Angie,” the captain called to the hostess, “I think I’d like that rum runner now.”

  “Anything you say, Captain,” the young woman replied as she disappeared inside to fetch his drink.

  The faces of the young Chinese were a mixture of shock, fear, and contempt. The captain smiled and motioned for each of them to hurry up and make their calls. One by one, they all started to dial home.

  As soon as the calls had been placed, Angie collected the phones and the students were herded into the salon. After their hands and feet were bound, they were ordered to sit on the floor. While Jimmy piloted the yacht, Angie sunned herself on the rear deck and the captain sat in a comfortable chair near the students, shotgun across his lap, sipping his drink and watching satellite TV.

  • • •

  Forty-five minutes later, the mate slid down the ladder from the bridge, stuck his head in the salon, and said, “Captain, come quick. We’ve got a problem.”

  Several of the princelings looked up hopefully.

  “Angie,” the captain yelled, “get in here and keep an eye on them.” Handing her his shotgun, he added, “If they move or make a sound, shoot them. All of them.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” she replied and fixed the students with one of the coldest stares they had ever seen. The woman was obviously no stranger to violence and meant business. Not a single princeling made a sound.

  From where they sat, with their backs against the couch, they could see out the opposite window. On the horizon a bright orange dot had appeared and was coming closer.

  Soon enough they could not only see the U.S. Coast Guard chopper but hear the pounding of its rotors.

  When it was almost overhead, there was a voice from the helicopter’s loudspeaker. “This is the United States Coast Guard. Drop your weapons and halt your vessel.”

  From outside, the students heard two shots, and they exchanged terrified glances.

  There were two more shots and then suddenly the engines went dead.

  “You! Inside the vessel,” the voice boomed over the PA once more, “come out with your hands up!”

  “Do as they say, Angie!” the captain yelled. “Do it now!”

  “No!” she screamed back.

  The helicopter could be heard repositioning outside and suddenly a heavy rope hit the aft deck. Seconds later, men in tactical gear with submachine guns slid down and stormed the salon and bridge.

  The hostess tossed aside the shotgun just before being slammed to the floor by the Coast Guard team. Wrenching her arms behind her back, they FlexiCuffed her as two men raced forward to check the rest of the yacht.

  A chorus of “Clear! Clear!” rang out as they searched each room and then returned to the salon. As they did, their colleagues entered and threw both the captain and his mate
to the floor and made them lie, facedown, with their hands FlexiCuffed behind them.

  Within fifteen minutes, two U.S. Coast Guard ships were on scene. Once the Chinese students had been transferred over to one of them, that vessel turned and headed back for land.

  It was then that the head of the tactical team cut the boat’s “crew” loose.

  “You boys play rough,” said Sloane as she rubbed her raw wrists.

  The Coast Guard officer smiled. “You should have seen those kids’ faces. They were freaked out.”

  “That’s nothing,” Chase replied as he sat up. “You should have seen their faces when we chucked that John Doe to the sharks. They’ll never look at shark fin soup the same again.”

  “Don’t drop that,” Harvath said as two team members prepared to transfer the cooler containing the Nashville EMP device over to their vessel.

  Standing up, he walked into the galley, removed his phone from the drawer, and called Nicholas, who was back at the NCTC working with the NSA.

  “Did the Chinese buy it?” he asked.

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” Nicholas replied. “When those kids phoned home, Chinese intelligence began tracing the calls immediately. Not long after that, Ho’s phone started ringing. Because Medusa was his asset, they blamed him for everything getting screwed up.”

  “Good,” said Harvath. “As soon as we’re ready to allow the princelings to call home, I want Stephanie Esposito listening in. Let’s make sure we see this thing across the goal line.”

  “You got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, tell Ren Ho he’s one step closer to getting his son back.”

  “Will do,” Nicholas replied. “Good luck interrogating Bao Deng, or should I say Tai Cheng?”

  “Tell the Old Man I’ll call him once we have something.”

  With that, Harvath disconnected the call and walked down to the master stateroom. Lying on the bed naked, except for his briefs, was Tai Cheng.

  After Sloane had stepped into the gangway and Tasered him, Harvath had hit him with a syringe full of ketamine. They had dragged him into the master stateroom where they stripped off his clothes, including the bandage on his shoulder, put a piece of duct tape over his mouth, and hog-tied him with FlexiCuffs.

  After dressing their disfigured, dark-haired John Doe corpse from the Miami morgue and splashing it with pig’s blood, Sloane fired a blank shotgun round and Harvath dragged the mutilated body out for the princelings to see.

  As the middleman between the Second Department and the smuggler known as Medusa, Ho had indeed been helpful. He had provided more than enough intel for the FBI to arrest the boat’s owner and its crew.

  Ho had in fact cooperated every step of the way, including giving up the locations of all the cell members in each city and explaining how the EMP devices worked. He had even detailed how they had been smuggled into the country and who had been involved. He had explained how China’s military intelligence division worked, who had been involved with Snow Dragon, and who had conceived of it. He talked at length about Colonel Jiang Shi and his mantra that they would turn out the lights and America would be made to bow to China.

  Ho was an intelligence jackpot, and Harvath had been completely honest when he had said that for his cooperation, the man would get his son back.

  Harvath had also been completely honest when he had promised Tai Cheng that he would see to it that he got to Cuba. But instead of Havana by boat, he’d be flying from U.S. Naval Air Station Key West to the GITMO detention camp at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

  CHAPTER 62

  * * *

  * * *

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Harvath had balked at the idea of being picked up in a limousine, but the powers that be had insisted. It was out of his control, so he gave in and went along with it.

  As he watched the world pass by outside his window, he reflected on everything that had happened. Cheng had been difficult to break, but he had broken, and once he did, Harvath had handed him over to the team at GITMO. Based on what the princelings had told their families, the PSC and therefore the Second Department believed that Cheng had been shot and fed to sharks in the waters off Florida. The intelligence he provided would be extremely valuable to the United Sates.

  As Harvath had sent the GITMO team Ahmad Yaqub, Khuram Hanjour, and Tai Cheng all in the space of a week, the lead interrogator had thanked him and then suggested he take up some sort of hobby, fishing, for a while. The President, on the other hand, had other plans for him.

  Harvath had marveled at how President Porter had handled everything. Combined with the intelligence gathered by the SEALs in North Korea, the President had assembled an airtight case against the Chinese. Though he was outraged that any administration would secretly issue collateralized bonds and keep it from the American citizens, he had found a loophole.

  The Chinese had conducted an act of war against the United States. Their goal was to force America’s collapse so that China could collect on the resources it so desperately needed. The President found it only fitting that America’s debt to the Chinese, all of it, be nullified. The Chinese were apoplectic, but there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. They had lost legitimacy and they had lost face. The President intended to press his advantage for every economic and diplomatic benefit he could reap.

  For its role in helping to develop the EMP weapons, knowingly delivering them to the Chinese, and allowing Chinese soldiers to train for an American invasion on their soil, the President imposed crippling concessions on the North Koreans.

  President Porter was particularly moved by the story of Jin-Sang, the little boy the Gold Dust team had rescued from the North Korean labor camp. In addition to a multitude of demands on the DPRK economically and militarily, President Porter had forced the North Korean government to accept all types of inspectors, including the IAEA, Amnesty International, and the Red Cross. It was that or face total annihilation.

  Before the President had even picked up the phone to inform the Chinese and North Koreans of the consequences of their actions and the restitution they would be forced to make, he had consulted with America’s allies. Each of them knew that the same plot could have been carried out against their country, and they stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States, agreeing to back them on anything they chose to do. It was good for them to be reminded of who their friends and enemies were from time to time. They seemed to get the two mixed up on a disturbingly regular basis.

  As for the Chinese, the United States had one final demand. And until that demand was satisfied, the princelings would remain as guests in the United States.

  • • •

  Colonel Jiang Shi stepped to the window and watched the snow that had begun to fall outside. The seasoned logs in the fireplace snapped and popped as they gave off a bright orange flame. The opulent mountain retreat did little to lessen his dislike of China’s political class.

  The General Secretary and the rest of the PSC blamed him, of course, for the failure of Snow Dragon. He had thought about fleeing. He had money, contacts. Yet he knew eventually they would find him. While it wouldn’t be Tai Cheng, it would be someone just like him. Someone born with a predator’s instinct who knew nothing but the hunt. It would have been pointless to run. So he had gone to work, waiting to be summoned, waiting for a speedy trial and a bullet to the back of his head, with the bill sent to his wife. But neither the trial nor the bullet ever came.

  As it turned out, the General Secretary and the PSC were more concerned about coming up with a trump card, something they could give the Americans that would stave off the inevitable. They didn’t care what it was. They would throw any other country to the wolves in order to save themselves. Shi had never seen them so convinced that the Americans would unite the world against them in war.

  The Second Department worked around the clock, trying to develop a plan. On top of figuring out a way to avert war, contingencies were being made in case they did go to wa
r. It was in this arena that the PSC wanted Colonel Shi focused. Despite the failure of his Snow Dragon operation, they had finally come to appreciate his talent in unrestricted warfare. If war were to come, the PSC, the PLA, and the Second Department needed a concise plan for how to win it. The stakes had never been higher, especially as the PSC was convinced that the new American president was so incensed that he fully intended to launch a full-scale nuclear attack.

  That was why Colonel Shi had been invited to the PSC’s mountain retreat. The Chinese had agreed to unconditionally release the Americans from their debt obligations, but that hadn’t been enough. The United States had a bloodlust that couldn’t be sated. China needed a plan, a brilliant plan, and Jiang Shi had been told to have multiple options for them by the time they arrived.

  Turning from the window, Shi walked to the fireplace and added another log. His dinner sat on the table. He hadn’t had much of an appetite, but knew he needed to eat.

  Sitting down, he placed the elaborately folded napkin in his lap. As he did, he noticed a small, wooden gift box had been placed underneath.

  He opened the box and inside was a tiny figurine. It was a snow dragon that had been hand-carved from a small piece of ivory. With it was a crisp, white note card.

  Shi’s name had been beautifully written on one side in Chinese characters. Part of him wondered if this was a symbol of recognition from the PSC for everything he had done, or perhaps from the General Secretary himself—a man known for giving such exquisite gifts.

  Turning the card over, Shi felt his heart stop as he read words just as beautifully written, but in English:

  America bows to no one.

  Before Shi had any idea what was happening, Harvath had swung the garrote wire over the man’s head, pulled back as hard as he could, and crossed his hands.

  Colonel Jiang Shi struggled as the blood spurted from his neck, but only for a moment. The last thing he saw as he died was the snow falling just outside his window.