by Marc Cameron
“We’ve been operating inside the nine-dash line most of the day. I’m seeing a few Chinese patrols on the radar, but they’re way off. Looks like one of our Navy ships is conducting a freedom of navigation cruise eleven miles east, not far from the Vanguard Bank. That should keep any Chinese patrols from pestering us. Pilot says we’re less than five minutes out, with open seas between us but for a couple of fishing boats.”
“No pressure,” Clark said. “But I’m surprised you’re still at it.”
“Me, too. The first two rigs were squeaksville. Nada.”
“I thought you only had two rigs on the menu today,” Clark said.
“We did,” Chavez said. “But a very helpful roustabout on the second rig said he’d seen a bunch of old computers stored on DK454. Thought we’d pay them a surprise visit. Gerry’s friend was happy with us doing a last-minute audit, but it took a little longer than anticipated to get us set up with another chopper, such as it is.” Chavez looked around the cabin as he spoke, noting the odor of oil and something that he thought might be overripe bananas. “Anyway, we shouldn’t be more than two hours once we’re boots on the ground at this last stop.”
“Copy,” Clark said. “Head on a swivel. No such thing as a routine job in the middle of the ocean, especially when that ocean is disputed real estate.”
“Roger that,” Chavez said.
All the offshore drilling rigs they were visiting that day were located well within their Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ. They were also inside what the Chinese called the nine-dash line, a bulbous hanging loop on their maps indicating Beijing’s sovereignty over more than eighty percent of the South China Sea—including all the fish, shipping lanes, and, most important, the minerals beneath the seabed. Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Vietnam all took great umbrage with China’s map, since the line cut well into each of their respective EEZs. A court of arbitration had ruled that the PRC had no claim to the territory, their nine dotted lines notwithstanding. For her part, Beijing didn’t appear to give a rat’s ass about the court’s finding, and continued to build installations on the Paracel and Spratly Islands, dredging up the seafloor to build more islands and ramming vessels that got in their way. President Ryan strongly condemned this bullying behavior, which Ding thought was probably one of the reasons Gerry Hendley’s friend with Lone Star Oil had been persuaded to become a silent partner in DK454. The twenty-six trillion dollars of unexploited hydrocarbons beneath the South China Sea might have had something to do with their decision as well.
A joint Vietnamese, Russian, and U.S. venture in waters claimed by a hostile foreign power, Chavez mused. What could possibly go wrong?
Evidently, Lonnie Taylor, the CEO of Lone Star Oil, smelled something rotten, and called his old buddy Gerry Hendley to see if some of his investigators might conduct a forensic audit, snooping for any signs of industrial espionage or outright theft.
Clark’s voice came over the line again, buzzing against Chavez’s back tooth.
“Has Junior found anything?”
Most of the team was going to the rig, but Jack Ryan, Jr., had drawn the short straw and was stuck in the main office in Ho Chi Minh City, combing through files while Clark continued Lisanne Robertson’s training and the others got to load up for a scenic flight in this bucket of spinning bolts.
“A few anomalies,” Chavez said. “Lots of traffic going back and forth between the Rosneft people on-site and some unknown IP addresses in Russia. He anticipates being done about the time we are.”
“Okay.” Clark gave a low grunt. “Like I said, head on a swivel.”
Chavez stuffed the cell into the pocket of his slacks, reset the small boom mic from his headset so it brushed his lips, and double-checked with the pilot.
His ears told him they were beginning their descent.
The pilot, one of Lonnie Taylor’s men from Texas, gave Chavez a quick sitrep.
“Copy,” Chavez said, and then held up four fingers to confirm that the other three Campus operatives each knew they were four minutes from touchdown.
Directly across from Chavez, Dominic “Dom” Caruso gave him a thumbs-up and then turned to continue staring out the scratched window at the choppy waves a thousand feet below. Adara Sherman sat beside Caruso. The wiry blonde with a pixie cut leaned on Caruso’s arm while she scrolled through her phone. This was the closest they ever got to a public display of affection, though it was no secret that they were making a life together.
Former Delta Force colonel Bartosz “Midas” Jankowski sat on the same row as Chavez, staring out the opposite window, scratching his dark beard in thought. Without looking, he raised four fingers to confirm he was up to speed.
Like Clark said, there were no routine missions at sea, but this one appeared to be about as close as it got.
Forensic accounting amid uncooperative people fell squarely into Hendley Associates’ swim lanes.
Adara glanced up from her phone. “There’s a pho place we should try when we’re done,” she said. “It’s near the hotel.”
Midas chuckled, still not taking his eyes off the waves. His voice crackled across the intercom on the headsets. “I’m betting there are five hundred pho places near the hotel. They ladle that shit here like we serve french fries.”
Dom raised a brow at his girlfriend. “He’s not wrong . . .”
“I’m thinking steak,” Chavez said. “But let’s keep our heads in the game. Adara and Dom, you chat up the crew once we land, make some new friends. Midas and I will take a look at the hard drives—”
The pilot’s voice broke over the intercom, interrupting them.
“Looks like you have a welcoming . . .” He paused for a beat, then said, “That’s not good. I’m seeing smoke . . . It looks like they’re throwing out life rafts.”
* * *
—
The Chinese MSS operative dressed as a fisherman stood upright in the small fishing boat, shielding his eyes from the sun, watching the Russian helicopter approach. He lowered the cell phone and glanced at his partner, an older man, also dressed in shorts and the stained cotton shirt of a fisherman.
“What shall we do?” the first man asked. “The smoke will convince most of the roustabouts to abandon the rig, but we have always known there could be Vietnamese losses. The inspectors on that helicopter are Americans. That will surely raise a stink.”
The older man toyed with a sparse crop of chin whiskers as he watched the chopper descend toward the landing pad on the superstructure of the drilling rig. The noodles he’d eaten for lunch wriggled in his gut like so many snakes. He hated boats, and wanted this mission to be over so he could step back on firm ground.
“These idiots are not supposed to be here,” he said. “Collateral damage cannot be avoided.”
The younger man punched a number into the mobile phone with his thumb, and then looked up for final confirmation before hitting send.
The senior officer gave a curt nod.
“Do it.”
* * *
—
Get us out of here!” Chavez barked as soon as he saw what was going on. A half-dozen workers had already taken the fifteen-meter plunge off the rig deck. Others worked their way down three sets of ladders to inflatable lifeboats bobbing in the chop below.
Still two hundred feet above the rig, the chopper pilot increased power and broke quickly to the right.
Adara leaned to get a better look out the window. “There’s a fi—”
A blast wave slammed into the Mi-17’s fuselage, lifting it suddenly skyward as if with a giant hand.
The explosive roar that accompanied the wave covered the pilot’s impotent curse as he lost all control of the helicopter.
Ding’s gut rose in his chest as the helicopter began to fall.
The pilot, still struggling to regain control, spoke over the intercom, his voice s
urreally calm now, considering that the aircraft was spinning wildly as it plummeted toward the sea.
“Not looking good, boys and girls!” He paused, seemed to regain partial control, and then another piece of the tail boom broke away. “Brace, brace, brace!”
9
Eleven miles away, the communication officer on the bridge of the USS Makin Island passed the word to the officer of the watch that he was receiving an emergency distress call from an offshore Vietnamese oil rig, noting that he’d heard the distinctly American voice of the pilot of an approaching chopper preparing to land almost simultaneously with the emergency call from the rig. The watch officer noted an inky black ball of smoke above the horizon to the west.
Makin Island’s skipper, Captain Roosevelt “Rosey” Jackson, had been on the weather deck, watching the Marines practice their marksmanship off the fantail, when the call came in. The officer of the watch called him and the XO in immediately. He’d already notified the Prebble, their escort destroyer, to prepare to adjust course to steam in the direction of the explosion. They were guests of the Vietnamese, with standing orders to assist in deterring Chinese aggression with their presence. And Chinese aggression wasn’t exactly in short supply in these waters. Every sailor’s first thought when a distress call came in was that a PLA-Navy or Chinese Coast Guard ship had bullied a smaller vessel again, or even rammed it, putting lives in danger.
“Good job,” Jackson said to the young lieutenant standing watch in his absence, noting their course and speed as soon as he entered the bridge. Captain Jackson was known far and wide as a deckplate officer, a servant leader who mentored and encouraged even his most junior subordinates to show initiative. Toward apparent danger was the right direction to be moving. “What have we got?” he asked, addressing the sailor at the radio.
“Distress call came in four minutes ago, Captain,” the twentysomething radar operator said, his eyes locked to the screen. “I’m picking up broken static that I believe to be someone transmitting from a handheld VHF. Could be people in the water.”
“Very well,” Jackson said. “Let’s get both the Seahawks and the 53 in the air. They can drop rescue swimmers and life rafts, start rescuing any survivors while we’re en route.” He turned to the radar tech. “Anyone else coming to the party?”
“Negative, Captain. I have two PLAN frigates eight miles to the north. Chinese Coast Guard Cutter 3901 is fifteen miles to our east. None of them appear to be making a move toward the location of the distress call at this point.”
“They’re timing our response, no doubt,” Jackson said. “Seeing how long it takes us to clean up whatever mess they’ve made. All ahead full.” He turned to Laura Kelso, his executive officer, who repeated the order to the helm. On the Makin Island, the petty officer first class actually driving the ship was able to increase the ship’s speed using throttle control from the bridge, rather than the traditional telegraph system, to make engineering aware of the captain’s orders.
Jackson caught Kelso’s eye. “XO, have the birds report back to us as soon as they have visual.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Commander Kelso said, and went to work.
A Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock, or LHD, the USS Makin Island was easy to confuse with an aircraft carrier. At 843 feet long, she was not a small ship, but still a football field shorter than a Nimitz-class big deck. Designated LHD 8, she carried a variety of armament and aircraft, the type and number varying depending on their specific mission. Today, in addition to the CH-53 Sea Stallion and the two MH-60 Seahawk helicopters Captain Jackson had already sent ahead, LHD-8 had a complement of two SuperCobras, eight V-22 Osprey tilt rotors, and four Harrier Jump Jets. But even the Sparrow Missiles and MK-38 chain guns paled in capability compared to the eight-hundred-strong U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit on board.
Sometimes called a Marine Uber, Makin Island’s purpose was to move this impressive fighting force to project American might. Line officers sometimes tended to look down their noses at officers in the Gator Navy—the men and women who, for all practical purposes, drove the Marines around. Captain Jackson loved his Marines, and he had no doubt they would do anything for him, even if that meant risking their lives to jump into the water and save a bunch of Vietnamese oil workers if he ordered them to.
“ETA twenty-two minutes,” Commander Kelso said. Like Jackson, she was an Annapolis grad. She expected nothing extra for it, and kept her ring-knocking to a minimum, intuiting early on that with this skipper past accomplishments mattered far less than present duty. Everyone on the ship knew that Jackson’s uncle had been President of the United States until he was assassinated. But Rosey Jackson never mentioned that part of his past. His father had taught him well. There was tremendous gravitas in the things a man left unsaid.
* * *
—
Of all the training the U.S. government had afforded Ding Chavez, the thing he’d hated most was the dunker. At a nod from the sadistic instructor, the mock–helicopter cockpit slid down a rail, slammed into the surface pool like it was concrete, and then inverted as it sank to the bottom. Chavez had never been afraid of flying, or the water, but he’d dismissed the dunker as serious overkill. He was a ground pounder, an infantryman. If he went down in a chopper he would either walk away or his shit was toast. He saw no need in getting jerked around on a million-dollar government carnival ride with water up his nose and a couple of Navy divers waiting in the deep end, laughing into their regulators while they watched him try to figure out which way was up. Clark had mandated the training for every member of Rainbow, and Chavez had pretended to be on board. The man was his father-in-law, but he’d hated every sputtering minute of it.
Now, hanging by a nylon harness from the inverted floor of a rapidly sinking Russian helicopter, with his ass above his head, ears buzzing, and darkness fast closing in, Chavez found himself reliving every detail of his previous training. John Clark’s adage of doing something not until one got it right, but until one didn’t ever get it wrong, played out in spades. Without conscious thought, Chavez found the harness release and gave it a twist. Underwater, he didn’t fall to the ceiling as he would have on dry land, but floated, trapped inside the body of the sinking chopper.
Chavez’s first thoughts were for his teammates, and he found himself flooded with relief when a sweep to his left found an empty harness where Midas would have been. Chavez kicked forward, feeling in the darkness for the last place he’d seen Dom and Adara, his shoulder bumping into Midas as the former Delta officer performed the same search. Quickly running out of air, Chavez gave Midas a squeeze on the shoulder and pointed toward the cockpit. The pilot met them head-on, swimming his way aft to check on his passengers. With Adara and Dom apparently out, Chavez motioned toward the open door and followed the other two men out. He kicked toward the surface, feeling the searing pain of some unidentified injury in his neck. His lungs screamed for air. His ears chirped and whistled as the pressure against them dropped. Above him he could see light, legs dangling below the surface.
And fire.
Chavez broke the surface in a spot between the patches of burning oil and debris. He fought the pressing urge to breathe until he was reasonably sure he wasn’t about to sear his lungs.
The flames looked worse from below than they did up top, with small patches of fuel and rafts of burning plastic bobbing between the waves. Midas had been right beside him, so Chavez scanned for him first, and found him immediately. He was helping Adara get a wounded Dom Caruso into a yellow rubber lifeboat with the aid of two Vietnamese roustabouts, one of whom looked badly burned himself. A strong swimmer, Chavez used adrenaline to help him battle the chop, and he reached the raft in seconds.
Caruso’s left leg was bent unnaturally at the knee. His eyes gleamed with pain, but he was conscious. Looking outbound while Midas and Adara got him into the boat, he was the first to see Chavez in the water. “I’m good,” he sputtered, wincin
g as he slithered over the side of the tube.
Midas patted Adara’s shoulder, then turned, almost colliding with Ding.
“Holy shit, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Midas sputtered, wiping water away from his beard. “I was just coming back to find you.”
“I’m good to go,” Ding said, bobbing and clinging to a line on the side of the raft. “You and Adara?”
“Banged up but otherwise intact.”
Midas slipped over the side, and without another word, both men swam among the debris and began to drag survivors toward the bobbing rafts. They found their pilot first, alive, but one arm broken, the other burned, clinging to a piece of insulation foam. Injured on impact, the man’s first inclination had been to see to his passengers. Chavez and Midas returned the favor and got him back to the raft with Adara and Dom.
Twelve minutes post-explosion, there were nine survivors in Adara’s raft, and fifteen in a second that Chavez and Midas had lashed alongside the first. A third raft bobbed in the chop some two hundred meters away, and looked to contain at least a dozen men. The chopper pilot spoke Vietnamese well enough to learn that there had been fifty-six crewmen on the rig, which left over twenty still unaccounted for.
Chavez hauled himself into the raft, hoping the extra couple of feet in elevation above the chop would give him a better view. The water was warm, but exertion and the massive adrenaline dump of the explosion and crash left him and the others shaking violently, chilled to the core.
One of the Vietnamese drillers—with much younger eyes than Chavez’s—was first to see the choppers on the horizon.
“Probably Chinese,” the pilot said through chattering teeth.
Midas wallowed into a kneeling position on the rubber raft’s trampoline floor and shielded his eyes to get a better look.
