Fight.
She lunged at the third man, slashing the blade at the air in front of his face. He deftly dodged the knife, then disarmed her in a flurry of strikes she never saw coming. Stunned, she countered with a quick jab and cross combination, but the blows to her ulnar nerves had left her arms feeling numb and heavy. Her target easily parried the punches, and she felt the jab of a needle in her neck before she could defend against it.
Lisa cried out just as a gloved hand clamped down over her mouth, but it was too late. The fast-acting drug had already taken hold, and there was nothing she could do but stare defiantly into the humorless eyes of the man standing in front of her.
Then, her world went dark.
5
Lieutenant Commander Ashley Mitchell glanced up from the paperback she was reading to look at the magenta line on the navigation display in front of her. The heavily modified Boeing 737–800 banked left as it reached the north end of the racetrack and began its turn back to the south. She rotated the lever to unlock the sun visor from the track over her left shoulder, then leaned over to stow it in the pocket next to her seat.
She looked through her side window onto the water beneath them. “There are a lot of boats down there,” she said, more to herself than anything.
“Ma’am?”
Ashley turned and looked at Logan, the young lieutenant junior grade who had just joined Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two as a replacement pilot. “Oh, nothing you don’t already know. Just looks like the Chinese are putting more and more boats in the water.”
Logan nodded, then returned to studying the material he had been given to prepare for the lengthy process of becoming an aircraft commander. Though she had come up through the normal patrol squadron community, she knew Logan’s experience wouldn’t be much different. Sure, the plane they were flying had “borrowed” its bureau number from an unfinished P-8A fuselage that had fallen off a train and into the Clark Fork River in Montana almost a decade earlier, but to the pilots, it flew just the same.
“Is that normal this time of year?”
Ashley shrugged and slipped her bookmark into the novel she had been reading. “Normally, they hold their large naval exercises in the spring. But occasionally, Russia will send destroyers, corvettes, and submarines from their Pacific Fleet to participate in a joint exercise.”
As the P-8A Poseidon rolled out on a southerly heading, Logan turned and looked through his side window at the crowded seascape beneath them. “Think any of those are Russian?”
“We can only hope.”
She knew Logan understood. Their squadron’s entire reason for existing was to serve as a communications intelligence platform and eavesdrop on the enemy to pinpoint their forces. In this part of the world, that included China and, if they were lucky, Russia. That hadn’t changed since the late 1960s when the Navy sent four-engine EC-121M Warning Star surveillance aircraft out over the Sea of Japan to monitor Soviet communications.
The voice of her tactical coordinator broke in over the intercom. “Ma’am, we’re starting to pick up some interesting signals patterns between smaller vessels.”
“Military?”
“I don’t think so,” Ed replied. “Seems like most are fishing trawlers, but they have military-grade equipment on board and are communicating with fleet headquarters.”
She knew the East China Sea was the responsibility of the East Sea Fleet of the People’s Liberation Army Navy based in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. It wouldn’t be unusual for smaller vessels that had been conscripted as part of a maritime militia to maintain constant contact with fleet headquarters.
“Maybe they are just routine position reports,” Ashley suggested.
“Tony doesn’t think so, ma’am.”
First Class Petty Officer Tony Delgado was one of their squadron’s most gifted cryptologists who also happened to speak seven foreign languages fluently — including both Russian and Mandarin. “What does he think?”
“He thinks they’re receiving deployment orders to…” Ed’s voice trailed off, and Ashley could hear Tony’s voice in the background over the ever-present hum of electronics. “Sorry, ma’am. He thinks they are being ordered south to support the South Sea Fleet.”
“And he’s sure these are fishing vessels?” Ashley looked over and made eye contact with Logan, who had been listening to the entire conversation through his David Clark headset.
“They are definitely trawlers. But your guess is as good as mine whether they are civilian, military, or MSS.”
Logan mouthed, What’s MSS?
Ashley held up a finger to let him know she would answer his question, then said, “Copy that. Have Tony draft his report, and let’s get it sent back to Pacific Fleet for analysis. The last thing I want to do is sit on something that could be a cover for a full-scale invasion.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
When Ed’s voice fell silent, she turned to Logan. “MSS is the Ministry of State Security — China’s intelligence and security agency.”
“They have boats?”
She nodded. “There’s been some evidence that they’re using fishing vessels as cover for surveillance gathering.” When she saw his dubious expression, she added, “Yeah, I know. Sounds funny when we’re the ones out here drilling holes in the sky doing exactly what we’re accusing them of doing.”
“It really is spy versus spy,” Logan said.
Ashley caught the reference to the comic strip published in Mad magazine depicting stereotypical and comical espionage activities. In her mind, it wasn’t far from the truth. Each side seemed to be caught in a never-ending struggle to gain an advantage over the other. But whereas the cartoon was always humorous and showed spies often trading victories, the real-world consequences of global espionage were far more serious.
“Let’s hope not,” she said.
6
Special Agent Emmy “Punky” King crested the rise on the Coronado Bridge, and her gaze fell on the city’s skyline, stretching north away from Barrio Logan. Its modern skyscrapers contrasted the ornate spired roofline of the Hotel del Coronado in her rearview mirror, and she felt like she was slipping through a wrinkle in time to transition from one world into another.
Her phone vibrated, and a notification popped up on the touchscreen display in the center of her dash. She tapped on it to read the message.
CALL ME.
Punky clicked the left paddle and downshifted the reinforced ZF eight-speed transmission as she swerved into the left lane and stomped on the gas pedal. The supercharged 6.2-liter V8 roared as she powered her Hellcat Redeye through eighty miles per hour onto the downward slope. The Hellcat didn’t have the panache of her dad’s old Corvette Stingray, but she had to admit it had a lot more power and a bit more in the way of gadgets.
Using the steering wheel’s controls, she selected the number for her boss and placed the call over Bluetooth while moving back into the right lane and outpacing the slower-moving traffic.
He answered the call after only two rings with a curt, “Camron Knowles.”
“Camron, it’s Punky.” Her nickname sounded strange, even as she said it. She had embraced the epithet from the moment her father’s best friend had bestowed it on her, but it had special meaning now.
“You’re coming into the office, right?”