General Wei sat quietly in his darkened office. It was very early in the morning and he was the only one in the building. Still in his uniform, he sat waiting with hands resting on the expansive black, polished desktop.
In hindsight, he supposed it had been inevitable. There were a thousand variables that could have easily yielded a different outcome, but deep down he knew it would eventually come to this. He had seen his share of battle, often skirmishes obscured by the veil of political posturing, but warfare was the same no matter where it was and no matter which uniform you wore.
Wei was one of a few soldiers who had ever made it so high up the military ladder without any strong political or blood relationships. In truth, he was an anomaly more than anything else. Born and raised by humble means, he’d entered the Chinese Army when he was only sixteen and the country was in the throes of the greatest political shift in modern Chinese history. It was an overthrow of the old regime by a new one that, in the end, would be different in words only.
His skills as a leader were recognized early in his career by one of the new government’s ideologists and guided him down a path of advancement that few would ever experience. But ironically, it was his skill of remaining politically neutral that helped Wei eventually become one of China’s most powerful military leaders.
But he had no illusions as to where his fate now lay. Wei was one of China’s only honest generals, perhaps the only one, which is why “the seven” selected him for this job. But when it was over, he would be too.
Wei jumped when his phone suddenly vibrated against the hard wood of the desk, illuminating the area around him in an eerie glow. Wei picked it up and looked at the screen. It was the message he had been waiting for: a message from Chao.
Wei read the text and put the phone down again. He sat for several minutes in the darkness. Deep inside, he had somehow hoped it wouldn’t come to this. That there was still some way out. There wasn’t.
There was a fleeting attempt at consolation, remembering an old proverb about the hardest decisions having to be made by the strongest men. It didn’t help.
He picked up his desk phone and dialed a number. The other end was picked up immediately. Wei gave the order and gently returned the receiver to his cradle.
As he usually did, Wei thought of his late wife: the most beautiful of souls whom he had ever known. What would she think of her husband now?
55
Alison dunked her tea bag several times before laying it to the side and taking a tentative taste from her mug. Satisfied, she removed the pouch and set it gently on the edge of her saucer. She raised the cup with both hands and took a longer sip.
“So what’s on your agenda today?” she asked.
Sitting across from her, Clay lowered his glass of orange juice. “I’ve got to find Will and go over the new satellite data. See what else we can find out.”
“In the lab?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I’ll see you there,” Alison winked. “I’ve got an appointment with Commander Lawton.”
Clay raised his eyebrows curiously. “Yeah?”
“Mmm hmm.” She returned her mug and grabbed a fork, picking through her bowl of fruit. “She’s interested in the work we’re doing with IMIS. I told her I would give her a full briefing on it. She also has some interesting things to share on the marine biology front with some of the work they’ve been doing.”
“That would be interesting. I’ll do my best to eavesdrop.”
Alison laughed. After a moment, her face became serious. “So, listen. This thing that you’re working on with Commander Lawton and Mr. Borger, it’s obviously classified. But we’re not going to get thrown off the ship again, are we?”
Clay smiled. She was referring to what happened last year on Captain Emerson’s Pathfinder, which required all of the civilian personnel to be unloaded in a hurry. “Well, hopefully not quite that fevered. But I believe we will need to get you ashore as soon as Chris and Lee are well enough.”
“How long is that?”
“A few days probably.”
Alison frowned. She began to speak but hesitated. “I wish…that we didn’t have to leave. I kind of like being here with you.”
Clay smiled again. “Kind of?”
She dropped her chin sarcastically. “You know what I mean.”
He chuckled and then looked deeply into her eyes. “Well, I like you being here a lot.”
Alison smiled nervously and reached up, fingering part of her long dark braid. She remembered how much John liked her hair braided. “This is the most time we’ve spent together. Of course, it’s far from an ideal date.”
Clay was about to speak when he noticed the ship’s First Officer enter the small mess hall and look around. Upon spotting Clay, he swiftly crossed the room.
“Commander Clay, you’re needed on the bridge.” He glanced apologetically at Alison. “Immediately, sir.”
Clay squeezed Alison’s hand. “Sorry. I’ll see you in the lab later.” As he stood up, he heard a loud and unmistakable sound. It was the ship’s giant anchor chain.
Once outside, both men ran toward the middle of the ship and up the nearest ladder. Another level up, they raced to the end of the catwalk where they yanked open the door and entered the bridge.
Clay approached Krogstad, who was standing at the helm and staring out the giant window through his binoculars.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said to Clay, dryly.
Clay followed his glare toward the shore. “What’s happening? Are we raising anchor?”
“Affirmative.” He handed the binoculars to Clay. “It appears our Chinese friends are preparing to leave.”
Clay could see the tip of the Chinese corvette slowly appear beyond the far end of the Georgetown seawall. At the same time, he could hear the tempo of the pounding anchor chain speed up outside.
“Sir,” the ship’s Communication Officer looked at Krogstad, “I have Admiral Langford on the line.”
“Good.” Krogstad nodded at his pilot as he picked up the receiver. “Bring us around.” He returned his gaze to the corvette as it continued sliding out into view. “Admiral Langford.”
Langford had just returned to his office and was leaning over his desk phone with palms on either side. “Captain Krogstad, go ahead.”
“Sir, the corvette is leaving port.”
“Are you sure?”
Krogstad could now see the faint image of the ship gradually emerging. “Pretty sure.”
“Damn it!” Langford turned his head in irritation. The White House was still ignoring his request to send reinforcements at the risk of inciting something with the Chinese. And now it was too late! He had only been authorized to send non-combat vessels, which may as well have been nothing at all. “How fast?” he asked.
“Slow. Maybe eight to ten knots.”
God damn it! “Okay, then block them in.”
Krogstad raised his eyebrows. “Block them in?”
“You heard me, Captain. I said block them in!”
“Admiral, we’re not close enough.”
Langford gritted his teeth, frustrated. Christ, was he the only one who understood what was at stake?! “Listen to me, Krogstad. I don’t care how you do it, but you are NOT to allow that ship to leave!”
“Admiral, may I remind you that this is a science vessel? We have no weapons.”
“I don’t care if you’re in a rowboat, Captain!” Langford bellowed. “Do whatever you have to do! Ram them if you have to!”
Langford hung up and immediately selected another line. When it was picked up, his voice had reached an angry pitch. “Get me the White House!”
Standing on the bridge, Krogstad peered silently at Clay and his First Officer, who were both still next to him. With a simple “aye,” he heard the line disconnect and returned the receiver to its cradle. He blinked, thinking, and finally looked at his pilot. “Full speed.”
Krogstad turned to his first officer. �
�Get everyone on this boat to the stern of the ship, immediately.”
The First Officer and Clay looked at each other. “Sir?”
Two decks below, Kelly caught up just as Alison had left the mess hall and was headed for the science lab. Kelly had just come from sick bay. It was determined that Chris had sustained a concussion, so the doctor wanted to keep them both resting for another twenty-four hours. Kelly left, promising to inquire about a cabin for them to use.
She walked next to Alison, watching her. “So, I take it you’re not in a big hurry to leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re kidding, right? I can see it all over your face, Alison.”
“Fine…I admit, it would be nice to spend a little more time with John.”
“I don’t blame you. He’s so dreamy,” she teased. “So, have you talked to him? About the…exclusivity?”
Alison eyed her as she stepped aside to let a female officer pass. “Someone is sure full of questions.” She continued walking but suddenly noticed she was alone. She turned around to find Kelly standing still, looking at her with folded arms. Alison rolled her eyes. “Okay, no. I haven’t. It’s not exactly the best time and place.”
“Ali, there’s no time like the present.”
Alison really wished she would stop saying that.
“Besides,” Kelly joined her again, “for all you know, he may just be about to ask you the same thing.”
They continued down the catwalk in silence, which was interrupted when they reached the door of the science lab. Alison yanked her hand back when Borger suddenly burst out through its door.
His eyes grew wide at seeing Alison. He searched past them with a look of urgency and instinctively grabbed her arm. “Alison, do you know where Clay is?!”
“Um, yeah. He just went up to the bridge.”
“Thanks.” Borger pushed his large frame past them and ran as fast as he could to the stairs, following the same path Clay had taken. However, unlike Clay, Borger was well out of breath by the time he stepped into the wheelhouse, just as Captain Krogstad’s first officer was coming out.
“Clay!” he blurted. “We got a problem!”
Clay raised the binoculars again. “We can see that, Will.”
“What?”
Krogstad gave Borger a hard stare. “Son, you need to get off my bridge.”
Borger wasn’t listening. “Oh geez,” he said, looking out the window with Clay. “Is it leaving?!”
“Mr. Borger!” Krogstad raised his voice.
Clay suddenly turned to Borger. “Wait a minute, what problem were you talking about?”
He looked nervously between Clay and Krogstad. “The mountain is on fire.”
“What mountain?”
“THE mountain. The Chinese camp. The source of the plants! The whole area is on fire!”
“Since when?”
“Since this morning. And it’s big!”
Clay and Krogstad looked at each other then spun back to the window. The corvette was still moving. And the Bowditch was accelerating quickly towards it.
“My God,” Clay said, “they destroyed what they couldn’t take!”
“That’s not the worst part,” Borger said. He lowered his voice so no one else on the bridge could hear him.
“What’s the worst part?”
“The Forel is gone. The Russian sub…it’s gone!”
“What do you mean gone?”
“Gone, as in not there anymore. The dock outside of Belem…it’s empty.”
Krogstad looked at Borger with a trace of worry. “When?”
“According to the satellite feed, it left last night.”
“Do you have a bearing?”
Borger took a deep breath. “I can’t be sure. It left in the middle of the night, when the ARGUS couldn’t see it. But I think my servers picked up a glimmer of it this morning. I’m not positive though.”
“And where did it look like it was headed?” asked Clay slowly.
Borger was almost afraid to say it. “Towards us.”
“Jesus Christ!” Krogstad cursed under his breath. The Bowditch was now surging through the calm water at sixteen knots. The distant Chinese ship was growing larger.
“SIR!” called the sonar operator in front of them. He whipped around with his young eyes suddenly as big as saucers. “Sonar is picking up something in the water! I think it’s a torpedo!”
“WHAT?!”
Everyone on the bridge turned and stared at the operator, who looked back at his screen. “Five thousand yards, sir, and closing! It’s definitely a fish, Captain!”
“The Forel!” whispered Borger.
“That’s not possible,” said Clay. “The Forel was never combat capable!”
“Well, someone sure as hell forgot to tell them!” Krogstad barked. His gaze was trained on his sonar operator. “Speed?!”
“Eighty knots! Impact in approximately seven minutes!”
It was the worst possible thing Krogstad could face and he knew it. The Bowditch was not a combat boat, which meant they had no decoys. They had virtually nothing in the way of countermeasures.
Krogstad turned to his communications officer. “Try to jam it!” To the pilot, his next message could not have been clearer. “Now move this bucket of bolts!”
Their only chance lay in the ship’s massive diesel engines; more specifically, how much they could extend the amount of time before impact. They couldn’t outrun it, but every second they could add back to that clock was a second they could use. They might be able to jam the acoustical contact with the torpedo, but if it was “wire guided,” Krogstad knew it wouldn’t help.
Clay stared out the front window with a look of urgency. “Captain, the Oceanhawk!”
Krogstad looked below to the helicopter and the maintenance crew working on it. “Find the pilots!” he barked at Clay and then bolted through the outside door. From the catwalk, Krogstad leaned over the railing and yelled to the helicopter crew at the top of his lungs. “GET THAT CHOPPER IN THE AIR, RIGHT NOW!”
Richard Hines had served as Chief Engineer aboard the Bowditch for over nine years. Short, with a powerful chest and arms, he was no-nonsense. And he ran his crew with the same dogged efficiency as the oldest veterans.
Hines was standing below on the Quarterdeck when the phone blared behind him. A level below Hines, on the engine platform, the four enormous diesel engines were howling. They were now running at one hundred and five percent, a pace that could not be maintained for long. But what Hines heard when he pressed the receiver to his ear nearly straightened every strand of his short, dark curly hair.
Immediately, and without a word, he slammed the phone back down and grabbed the microphone for the engine room’s loudspeakers. “TORPEDO IN THE WATER!”
The startled crew of the Oceanhawk helicopter looked up at the bridge to see the Captain screaming at them. But it wasn’t until he repeated the command that they jumped into action.
If it weren’t for Clay, Krogstad would have overlooked the Oceanhawk until it was too late. It was a version of the Sikorsky S-70 family, and a multi-mission helicopter. Each variant was designated a special and unique military function. The UH-60 Blackhawk was designed for land based warfare. The “Rescue Hawk” was a naval search and rescue chopper. But the Oceanhawk was a SeaHawk variant, and SeaHawks were anti-submarine aircraft!
The problem was the new design. With a folding tail section, it allowed the helicopters to be stored in a much tighter space, but it also meant it took longer to ready the aircraft for flight.
They had less than seven minutes. How much less Krogstad didn’t know, especially with what he was about to do.
Even cutting out most of the pre-flight checklist, readying the tail section and firing up the twin engines would likely take more than seven minutes. But they had to try.
Clay had better find those pilots.
Clay was flying down the ladder to the main deck when the piercing siren sounded ov
erhead. Loud enough to be heard throughout the entire ship, everyone instantly froze in their tracks when they heard it. The siren stopped almost as quickly as it started and was replaced by Krogstad’s voice.
“All hands, move immediately to the stern of the ship! I repeat, move to the stern of the ship!” The next three words instantly struck fear into the hearts of the ship’s officers and crew. “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
The crew flew into action, ducking in and out of every room, pulling along their fellow sailors and anyone else they could find.
Clay pushed past the dozens of people who began filling the narrow catwalks, rushing toward the back of the ship. He spotted a senior officer and stopped him. “Where’s the flight crew?!”
In the science lab, Commander Lawton was urging everyone out quickly through the doors. She pushed her hands against both Alison and Kelly’s backs, following them out just behind Borger and two of her researchers. The catwalk outside was already filled with people, but Lawton kept pushing through the bottleneck.
Below deck, the ship’s engineering team was the only group who remained where they were. Chief Hines had one hand holding the phone to his ear, talking to the Control Room. With the other, he grasped the microphone tightly, shouting orders loud enough to be heard even over his crew’s double-layered ear protection.
This was no “buttercup” drill. This was the real thing. The giant SHT pumps were primed and ready, manned by two men on each side. Everyone else held their positions, with their infrared scopes dangling upon their chests.
“Four minutes, Captain!”
Krogstad’s communications officer kept shaking his head. “We can’t jam it, sir! It must be wire guided.”
Damn it! He knew the chances of jamming were low, given the age of the technology. It left Krogstad with only one option. He gazed through the bridge’s window again. He could clearly see the corvette now, much larger and beginning to turn out of Georgetown’s port. It was turning toward them. God damn it! Of all the ships to be on!
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