“Ditto,” Lambert said.
Grimsdottir spread her hands. “All I can give you are the facts: The engines aboard the Tregowere purchased by Song Woo International, which has an account with Shinzhan Network Solutions, and that same account is paying for satellite Internet access for the island of Cezi Maji in the East China Sea.
“Which in turn may or may not be home to a recluse, who may or may not be insane, and who may or may not be alive,” Fisher said.
“That’s about the size of it,” Grimsdottir said. “Except one last detail.” She clicked the remote at a nearby flat-screen; the image of a heavily jungled island appeared. “According to reliable reports, Cezi Maji has a security system worthy of a military base: patrol boats, sensors, armed guards, and fences. Whether that’s Bai Kang Shek out there or not, I don’t know, but somebody’s pretty serious about their privacy.”
Fisher stared at the image for a few seconds, then said, “Sounds like an invitation to me.”
38
PAVE LOW HELICOPTER, EAST CHINA SEA
THREEhours and one midair refueling after leaving Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, the Pave Low’s pilot slowed the craft to a hover. The vibration that had been been jarring Fisher’s butt and back for the last six hundred miles diminished to a tremor. The pilot’s voice came over Fisher’s subdermal. “Sir, we’re at the rendevous point.”
“Radio contact?”
“None. We’ll wait them out. You know how squids are; probably got lost.”
“Play nice, Major.” Fisher checked his watch. They were on time; the submarine was late. “How’s your fuel?”
“We’re good. Thanks to whatever mojo you’re carrying, we’ve got a Comet all to ourselves.”
“Comet” was short for Vomit Comet, the nickname for the KC-135 Stratotanker, which did double duty as an in-flight refueling aircraft and a zero-g simulator for astronauts—the latter achieved through rapid climbs and sudden dives that left the occupants weightless and often violently nauseous. Currently, a Stratotanker from Kadena was orbiting above them at 35,000 feet, waiting to top off the helo should it become necessary.
Seated across from him on the bench were the Pave Low’s two gunners/specialists. As they had been for the last hour, they were engrossed in a game of gin. Accustomed to ferrying dangerous men into dangerous areas, Pave Low crew members took everything in stride and didn’t ask questions. Aside from a nod as Fisher had climbed aboard, neither man had paid him any attention.
The MH-53J Pave Low was a special operator’s dream. Designed to covertly insert soldiers into denied areas, and then extract them out again, it was fast, quiet, and equipped with an avionics package that left nothing to chance: FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared Radar), inertial global positioning system (GPS), terrain-following and terrain-avoidance radar.
Fisher glanced out the window. The helo’s navigation strobes were turned off, but thanks to a full moon he could see the ocean twenty feet below, its surface chopped into mist by the rotor wash. This was another Pave Low specialty—the hover coupler, which, in conjunction with the GPS, could keep the helo fixed precisely over a spot on the earth, give or take six inches.
Ten minutes later, the pilot was back in Fisher’s subdermaclass="underline" “We’ve got company, sir. Marlin is on station, ready for pickup.”
“Roger,” Fisher said. “Tell them five minutes.”
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Ten feet will do. Don’t wait around.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep, go home. Thanks for the ride.”
He caught the attention of the two specialists, then pointed to himself and jerked a thumb downward. They went into action. The cabin lights were switched to red and life vests were donned. The first crewman motioned for Fisher to stand up and turn around for gear inspection, then patted him once on the shoulder.
The second crewman slid open the cabin door. Legs braced at the threshhold, one arm braced across the door, he motioned Fisher forward. Fisher felt the whump-whump-whumpof the Pave Low’s rotors in his belly. Cold mist blew through the door and he tasted salt on his lips.
At the door, the crewman cupped his subdermal against his ear, then said something into the microphone. He flashed five fingers at Fisher once, then again, then laid his palm flat: Steady hover at ten feet.
Fisher nodded.
The second crewman pulled a chem-light from his vest, broke it open, and shook it until started glowing green, then tossed it out the door. It hit the water and started bobbing in the chop. In the darkness, the glow would give Fisher a reference point for his jump. The crewman at the door stood aside and gave Fisher an “after you” flourish.
BODYvertical, arms crossed over his chest, he plunged into the dark water. The thumping of the Pave Low’s rotors became muffled, and for a brief second Fisher allowed himself to enjoy the quiet before finning to the surface. He raised a thumb above his head. The red rectangle of light that was the Pave Low’s side door went dark as the crewman closed it. The helo lifted up, banked left, and skimmed away into the darkness.
Somewhere to his right, Fisher heard a rush of bubbles followed by a hissing whoosh. Thirty seconds later, a dot of light appeared in the darkness; it blinked once, then twice more. Fisher swam toward it.
THELos Angeles-class submarine USS Houston,SSN- 713, call sign Marlin, was sitting low in the water, deck partially awash, its sail looming out of the darkness like a two-story-tall building. A seaman was crouched on the deck at the head of a rope ladder. Fisher climbed up. If the crewman was fazed by picking up a lone man in the middle of the East China Sea, he showed no sign of it.
“Captain’s compliments, sir. If you’ll follow me.”
He led Fisher aft along the sub’s deck, past the sail, to an open escape trunk. At the bottom of the ladder, another crewman was waiting with a towel and a set of blue coveralls emblazoned with the Houston’s “Semper Vigilans” crest on the breast pocket.
Once Fisher was dried off and changed, he was led past the radio room and into the Control Center. The Houston’s captain, in a blue baseball cap with gold oak leaves on the brim, was standing at the chart table. Fisher was momentarily taken aback; this was an old friend.
“Welcome aboard, stranger,” Captain Max Collins said, walking over.
Fisher shook the extended hand and smiled. “Permission to come aboard.”
“Granted.”
“Good to see you, Max. Been a while.”
“Yeah, and as I recall, last time we didn’t have to pluck your sorry butt out of the water. You walked aboard like a regular human being.”
“Didn’t want you to think I’d gone soft,” Fisher replied.
Houstonwas home-ported in Apra Harbor, Guam, which is where Fisher had last boarded the sub for a mission. Before that, they’d worked together half-a-dozen times while Fisher was still attached to Navy Special Warfare. Arguably, Collins was one of the best “shoehorns” in the fleet, having earned a reputation for not only slipping operators into hard-target denied areas, but also getting them out alive again.
In Fisher’s case, Collins had once sailed the Houstontwenty-two miles into North Korea’s heavily guarded Nampo harbor, all the way to the mouth of the Taedong River, then waited, dead silent, keel resting on the seabed, for eighteen hours as Fisher finished his mission and returned.
Characteristically, Collins attributed his success to his crew and to the Houston’s extraordinary “aural footprint”—or lack thereof. Driven by nuclear-powered, turbine-driven electric motors, Los Angeles-class submarines were so quiet they were known colloquially as “moving holes in the water.”