by David Poyer
“A notable name in China’s long history.”
“Yung Lo was the first Ming despot, a ruthless usurper and murderer,” said Mi, speaking for himself now in a serviceable though accented English. “Capable, ambitious, and cruel. But effective.”
“If one must be cruel, one should at least be effective.”
“It was Yung Lo who sent out the fleets to the south. Though I understand it is not a well-known event in the West.”
Byrne began to pay attention to what had seemed up to now a fairly innocuous conversation. He took a sip of his drink, knowing his role at this moment was less to understand or respond than to recall and transmit, word for word, if possible, whatever message would shortly be conveyed. “I’ve heard of it. But perhaps the admiral would like to enlighten me further?”
“Gladly,” said Mi, tapping a cigarette out and bending his head as the aide snapped open an engraved Zippo. The smoke rose toward the hovering dragons like an offering. “In 1405, the emperor sent out a great expedition under the eunuch Cheng Ho. The first fleet consisted of sixty-two vessels, with twenty-eight thousand men on board. In his seven cruises, Cheng Ho brought under the tutelage of the Middle Kingdom countries from Java all the way to East Africa. Including every state bordering what even you still call the China Sea.”
“I seem to recall, however, that his visits, grand though they must have been, were never repeated.”
“Unfortunately, that is true. The Mongols were growing in power outside the Wall. The Mings had to shift their attention back to the northern steppe. Save for that, Asia might have been spared the interlude of European exploitation and hegemony.”
“And been subject instead to the benevolent attentions of the—how did you put it?—‘ruthless’ Mings.”
The admiral smiled faintly. “Let me ask you a question. Please, answer not in your diplomatic capacity, but as an officer with some influence in the U.S. Navy. As I ask not in an official capacity, but as part of the brotherhood of the sea.”
“I understand. Though my influence, as you call it, is very small.”
“The recent encounter between your aircraft carrier battle group and our forces, west of the Luzon Strait. What is your navy’s view of that incident?”
“We regarded it as an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Byrne said carefully. “That’s why we didn’t make a public statement.”
“I don’t see it in that light,” said Mi. “As a matter of fact, the next time a provocation like that occurs so close to our coast, within waters that are historically Chinese, I believe we should send up our latest aircraft, shoot down your carrier planes, and sweep your very small number of overrated ships from the sea.”
Byrne felt disbelief, then rage at the nakedness of the threat but disguised both reactions with a bland smile. “You mean we are a zhi laohu,” he said, using the old Maoist phrase. “A paper tiger.”
The admiral gave a short, harsh laugh, one that the intelligence officer, who had visited many countries and heard many different kinds of laughter, had never encountered before. “We no longer use that expression, Captain,” Mi said. “But there seem to be elements in American military circles who still do not understand the changes that have taken place in China. They seem to think this is still the era when your Asiatic Fleet was permitted even to violate the Long River. It is time they understand those days are past.”
The attaché thanked the admiral for his interest. After a few more remarks, mainly about the Danish ambassador’s stately wife, the Chinese excused themselves and strolled away.
Jack Byrne stood alone again, swirling his drink as he contemplated what was obviously a back-channel message from some faction within the Chinese armed services. What precisely did it mean? And to whom should it go? Mi had made it clear he wasn’t speaking as a government representative. If Byrne forwarded it through embassy channels, State would simply file it. And the next time the Navy exercised in those waters, the Chinese might very well carry out their threat.
It wasn’t the first incident like this. It was part of a pattern; one that spelled danger, and that if continued could end in confrontation and catastrophe for both sides. Someone had to lay down a marker. Draw a line. Make it clear that there was a limit.
Standing beneath the golden dragons, Byrne said to himself, We’re going to have to come to some understanding with these bastards.
PROLOGUE III
MANHATTAN
HE had a name, but not the one he used in daylight. He had a face, but he revealed it to no one. Save to those who looked on it as their last sight on earth.
Through this crowd of beings driven by unthinking desire he moved with the purpose and fixity of the eternal stars.
Etched with light like the gate of heaven, the square at night was a foretaste of hell. Cadaverous men offered drugs, their terrorfilled eyes the best argument against their wares. A man in a crusted vest thrust a flyer into his hand, a come-on for an “adult club.” Shabby video stores, topless bars, grimy peepshows where furtive women muttered promises with their lying, diseased lips. As he paused beneath the marquee that advertised live boys, the wind rose between the reefs of buildings, rattling grit and paper cups across the street. Music came from somewhere, distant, distant. Beneath it lay the unending rumble of the subway, a lead foundation under the violet wheels of arriving night.
Tonight the sacrifice selected herself.
“Get outta here!” shouted the cop at the corner of 42nd. “Move on, or I run you in!”
Her face was wide, thin-lipped below wedged cheekbones. Eyes dark as the coming night. She held her raincoat closed with one hand, turning to the silent man who’d stopped to watch. She shouted, “What I do? Told you, I got a gig tonight. You get off hasslin’ me—”
“What’s she done, Officer?” he said.
The cop whipped around. “Back off, mac! This ain’t your problem.”
“Maybe it is,” he wanted to say but did not. When the officer swaggered off, he followed her swinging stride down the pavement.
Just after sunset, but the square was swollen with light and noise. Taxis idled by, horns blaring. Lost youngsters drifted past, bleached hair long, rubber thongs binding wrists. Transvestites paraded in halters and heels. Canadians in shorts towed gaping pale children.
At Seventh the sidewalks suddenly clotted. Beneath the gaudy light, shoes grated on crowd-worn concrete; faces grimaced; lips mouthed shattered words of need and intoxication. Her heels clicked over crucified light. Above the buildings the sky glowed, a shield of phosphorescence damming back the dark.
She disappeared through a gated door. Faint, regular thuds seeped through the walls. He shouldered through after her, folding money into a red-lit hand.
Into a reek of smoke, alcohol, sweat, and electricity. Backlit faces above shadowed bodies. A storm surge of shouting. Shoving his way in, he craned around. Without success, she’d vanished like a stone dropped into the sea. He stood searching, then squeezed his way toward the runway. A blank-eyed hostess asked for his order. When he set the can down, the chilled metal rang hollow.
“Go through those fast!” shouted an old man. “You see how she went for me? I’s your age, ’d show her thing or two.”
The hostess was back, leaning over him, asking if he wanted more. He shook his head. He was getting up, resigning himself to another wasted night, when orange-and-red spots ignited and he froze, staring up.
She seemed to materialize from the black curtain. The bar went quiet, and in the silence she glided down the scuffed runway and kicked off gold platforms.
Music began, a heavy, rhythmic beat, and her eyes passed over the crowd, darkness on either side of those doors of night. Shinbones like reinforcing steel set in copper. Long thighs, bow-curved to slowly switching hips still hidden by the tail of the blouse.
The lights changed, from hectic red-orange to the hazy tubed purple of ultraviolet. The music changed, too. It became bare feet stamping dirt, the throb of hot blood, the slash of
a lion’s claw. Ultraviolet played like fire over triangled undershirts, false teeth, creased collars. Cigarettes gleamed from the dark like feral eyes. Smoke streamed like violet fog.
The blouse fluttered to the curtain, hung for an instant, glowing pearl against black, and fell.
The music accelerated. Now it was the lion’s leap, the jaws at the throat, the triumph of lust and death. She danced it with teeth bared and cords standing out in her neck, faster and faster, till the final chords crashed to a halt and her breasts heaved, her naked body a sweaty mirror as the lights rose again.
Their hands touched as he handed the money up. Her eyes locked with his, and he saw that she knew, that the bargain was accepted. Straightening, she did a slow grind, lips curled, and trotted away as cheers and whistles erupted.
“Damn,” whispered the old man. He raised his glass, grinning as if he’d discovered the back door to heaven. “Ain’t a man till you split a black oak.”
Outside, the clouds, lit from below as if by furnaces, streamed westward above the topless towers. Above them were stars and for minutes at a time a swollen moon.
He waited for hours in an alley behind the club, far from the light. When she emerged alone, he followed her down the ways of the city.
His left hand, thrust deep into his pocket, clutched the bundle of nylon cable ties. The knife was cold against his right. His heart was pounding so hard sparks drifted at the edges of his sight. He had dreamed, yearned, imagined his way toward this night for so long. But he saw as he passed a dusty window that his face showed no eagerness, no passion, no emotion at all.
Till at Seventh and 41st cars lifted like offerings on metal jacks behind torn chain-link and darkness submerged them like the rising sea.
She struggled at first. Tried to scream, until he chopped her in the throat. At the last she pleaded with him for death.
There is an Angel of Death. There is a Sword of God.
Toward the approaching darkness I move without a face. His tool, His puppet, obedient to His will.
Fingers still sticky with the fragrance of a crushed and scattered rose.
I
THE SHIP
1
U.S. NAVAL SHIPYARD, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
THE 727 shuddered, bucking turbulent air as it passed over the rain-lashed Delaware. Lt. Comdr. Daniel V. Lenson looked down at the moored shoals of heavy cruisers, auxiliaries, destroyers. The mothball fleet, ships the Navy didn’t need now but thought it might someday. He was in civvies, slacks and a windbreaker; with sandy hair and gray eyes that were starting to gather sun wrinkles at the corners.
“There’s the old Des Moines,” said Comdr. Greg Munro, leaning to peer past him. “Started my career on her, when I was a seaman deuce.”
“Can we see Gaddis from here?” Lenson said.
“Should be over to the right—no, forget it; we’re coming in for the approach.”
Munro was the chief staff officer of Destroyer Squadron Twelve. It was Munro who’d called him at his stash billet in Norfolk the week before and asked if he was Dan Lenson, surface line officer, executive officer experience in frigates, coming in the zone for commander?
Dan had said, “Yeah, that’s me. Why?”
“Just out of curiosity, ever serve on a 1052?”
“I was on Bowen my second tour. Why?”
“Got any objection to taking one over on short notice?”
“You putting me on? Who is this, anyway?”
Munro had identified himself then and assured Dan it wasn’t a joke; they needed a short-fuze relief for the skipper of Oliver C. Gaddis. He advised Dan to say yes fast, before someone else heard about it. Gaddis was home-ported in Staten Island but had had a boiler explosion at sea and was limping into Philly for repairs. “I’ll be sketchy on this, but the commodore’s been thinking of slotting another player in there for a while now. It didn’t seem urgent, because of the circumstances of the command. But this latest … we called over to see who SURFLANT had in pocket. They said your board was coming up; if you had command time it’d help you out.”
“Well, I’m sure it would,” Dan had said. “Uh, sir, what do you mean, ‘the circumstances of the command’?”
“You’re what, a senior 0–4? With this in your jacket you’ll be a shoo-in.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Dan had a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. He also had a Navy–Marine Corps Lifesaving Medal for keeping his men together and alive through two days in the water after his ship had hit a mine in the Gulf. But along with them, his jacket held a letter of reprimand, a midtour relief, and more than one equivocal fitness report.
So at last he’d told the voice on the phone sure, he’d give it a shot. And now they were descending into Philadelphia International, past blasted-looking marsh and refinery towers bleeding a sulfurous pus into the sky, and the FASTEN SEAT BELTS light came on and the announcing system warned them to stay in their seats, to be prepared for rough air on the approach to their final destination.
* * *
MUNRO had been quiet on the plane, but in the taxi he cleared his throat. “OK, time for the details. Why you’re here, what we expect you to do.”
“Shoot.” Dan concentrated, determined not to miss a word.
“The commodore has lost confidence, as the saying goes, in Dick Ottero’s ability to command. I’m not going to cite you chapter and verse. It’s enough to say he’s been counseled before.”
An unpleasant thought occurred to Dan. “He knows he’s being relieved today, right?”
“I called him last night. Enough about him; let’s talk about the ship. You know we’re ramping down the frigate force, right?”
“Yeah, now we don’t have to worry about convoying the Army to Europe against submarine attack.”
“Exactly. So Gaddis is being disposed of as excess, transferred overseas under the Foreign Military Assistance Program.”
Dan’s dreams suddenly froze, like buggy software. As the screen faded, he muttered, “Oh. Uh … when? Who’s it going to?”
“Here’s how it works. Once the Navy decides we don’t need a ship, the CNO decides if he wants to offer it as a foreign military sale asset. That’s handled out of something called NAVOTTSA—Navy Office of Technology Transfer and Security Assistance. I won’t bore you with the process, but it ends up with the gaining country signing what’s called a Letter of Offer and Acceptance.” Munro pulled a fat envelope out of his briefcase. “Your copy, plus the Security Assistance Manual, the Joint Security Assistance Training Regulation, and the Hot Ship Turnover Training briefing. She’ll be first of five frigates we’re turning over to the Pakistanis.”
The taxi’s tires droned. Looking out, Dan saw they were lifting on a long bridge. Past a cage of green girders the Schuylkill twisted like a strangling snake beneath a rainy sky. The pointed towers of downtown Philly pricked the clouds. Then across a brown waste of marsh he caught the gray island of a carrier, stacks and masts and the slab hulls of oilers and tenders.
“When’s it happen? The transfer?”
“I’m getting to that. This is what they call a ‘hot turnover’—where the original crew ramps down simultaneous as the foreign crew ramps up. There’s a total twelve-week turnover period. Gaddis was in week twelve when they blew one-alfa boiler—”
“How’d they blow a boiler?”
“One of the snipes, showing off. They were under way doing their engineering casualty control exercises, and in the course of that they go to put fire back in one of the boilers. They’d pulled fires in it, so it’s still warm, and one of the chiefs says, ‘Hey, we don’t use those goddamn books. Here’s how we do it in the real Navy.’ So he lit it off the back wall. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Usually it works. Unless you don’t purge before you relight.”
“Exactly what happened, and he hits it with a shot of fuel and kaboom.”
Dan said cautiously, “Not necessarily the skipper’s fault.”
; “Wait’ll you get there; you’ll see why we decided to clean house starting at the top. Now, normally the way this would work is the commodore would fly down, relieve Ottero, and leave the exec in charge till the Pakis get under way. But the commodore’s in Rosey Roads doing an exercise, and Lieutenant Commander Juskoviac’s really not command-qualified. So I’ll get you pointed in the right direction. The ship transfer officer’ll help if any roaches jump out of the process.”
Dan sat back. The closer he got, the less attractive it looked. A careless fireroom gang, a relieved skipper, an exec who’d have been acting CO—commanding officer—if not for him. Still, it was better than pushing paper in Norfolk.
A lofty ironwork gate. “Here’s the yard,” said the driver.
“Pier six. Straight down toward the river.” As Munro flashed his ID for the gate cop, Dan caught sight of a straggling line of what he at first took for strikers. Then he saw the signs. U.S. HANDS OFF IRAQ. PRAY FOR PEACE. He lifted his hand in a wave, searching their faces, drawing a quizzical glance from Munro. Then the cab was moving again, past the marchers into the bustle and grime of the yard.
* * *
THEY passed 1870s-era brick barracks, a parade ground, then slowed, bumping over patched asphalt along barbed-wire-lined alleys into the steamwreathed heart of the shipyard. A line of destroyers lay derelict and listing, rusting in the rain. Stone dry docks cratered the wet-glistening earth. Out of one loomed a mountainous hull, clifflike sponsons. USS Constellation, CV-64.
“Pier Six,” said Munro at last. The concrete shelf extended a quarter-mile out into the Delaware, into mist and river fog. “We better walk from here.”
She took shape slowly from the inchoate gray, as if she were steaming toward them over the gray-green river. He’d always considered the Knox-class frigates graceful-looking ships. About the same displacement as the Gearings he’d started his career on, but roomier and more modern, with aluminum superstructures and low-maintenance design. Strange to think they were already passing out of the Fleet, outmoded less by time than by the changing realities of world politics.
