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“We don’t have the fuel.”

“Victoria. We have to. It’s close. The men who were with me are going to get killed or captured if we don’t go.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Your door-gunners are going to need to lay down covering fire. I can help.”

Fuck it. “Alright, I can give you about ten minutes. But that’s all. And just so you know, we might get wet later because of this.”

“Ten minutes should do. It’s two miles down the road.”

“Where’s the landing site?”

“The road.”

She shook her head and made sure her external comms were switched to the right frequency. This was more important than radio silence. “Seven-six, seven-one.”

Plug came over the radios. “Go.”

“We need to make a quick detour.”

“Boss, I’m real low on fuel.”

“Me too. Ten minutes… and tell AW2 to lock and load.”

Another double click of static on the UHF radio told her that he would comply.

As she pulled in power and they gained altitude, the nose dipped forward and they stayed low to the ground, following the road.

Chase said, “Oh, Victoria, one more thing. If you see any helicopter drones around here, let’s try and shoot those suckers down. Okay?”

She shook her head. What the hell was her brother involved in?

19

Lena’s jeep pulled up to the platoon of Leishen Commandos near the Ecuadorian town. She had gone back to the additional platoon of Chinese commandos and directed them along the road to the other side of the forest, near the town. The idea was to surround the Americans. It had taken the second Leishen platoon much longer than expected to get to the road on the other side of the woods.

She appeared to be too late.

“What happened, Major?” she asked the first platoon commander.

“Ms. Chou, the Americans set a trap for my men. Once we were over the stream, they set off explosives and cut down many of us with automatic weapons fire. We were eventually able to push them back, but our forces were greatly slowed. We pursued them through the jungle and to this town. When we arrived, they were getting into two US Navy helicopters.”

She cursed, then looked up at him. “You are sure they were Navy?”

“Yes, several of my men are fluent in English. They saw the markings on the side.”

“Then what happened?”

“The helicopters picked them up one at a time. The other helicopter was circling and began firing with high-caliber weapons onto our positions in the jungle. We were unable to stop them.”

“Which direction did the helicopters head?”

“West, ma’am.”

“Out to sea?”

“I would assume, yes. We are very close to the coastline.”

She frowned. “This is troubling. I will need to get to the communications center immediately. Let’s go.”

* * *

Lena’s jeep came to a screeching halt right outside the communications trailer.

She knocked hard on the door. An armed guard inside the trailer opened up the spy hole and verified who was on the other side. Improved security measures, she noted. Too little, too late.

She entered the trailer and looked for the senior man. “I need to reach the island. Please patch me through.”

It took about five minutes for her to be on the phone with the duty officer in the Red Cell’s operations center. “I need to speak with Jinshan. Can you connect me?” she asked.

“Please wait.”

Another five minutes until she heard the old man’s voice. “Lena, is this you?”

“I’m afraid I have bad news, Mr. Jinshan.”

“Lena, what is it?”

“Sir, it appears that the equipment we have been using to track our military assets without alerting Chinese leadership may have been compromised. The hardware known as the crypto key has been taken from the mobile communications center in Manta.”

“Taken by whom?” Jinshan said.

“We believe that they were Americans. A special forces unit.”

“Are you sure that they were Americans?”

She thought of telling him how she knew. That she’d had Chase Manning in her sights. Then she changed her mind. She would never admit that to anyone.

“I’m sure, Mr. Jinshan. I saw several of their faces, and their equipment. And they were picked up by US Navy helicopters. Their first attempt to escape was several hours ago, on another set of helicopters. We were able to shoot those two down.”

The other side was silent. Then Jinshan said, “So it has begun. I had hoped for a more deliberate start.”

“I apologize, sir. But it appears that we must now take action.”

“Please wait one moment, Lena. I must confer with Admiral Song.”

It was a full ten minutes before Jinshan got back on the line. “Admiral Song and I will take care of this from here. You were right to inform me of this, and right to take extreme measures to prevent the crypto key from falling into the hands of the Americans. We are not ready for that level of information disclosure yet.”

“Sir, is there anything else I can do to help?”

“Not now, Lena. Admiral Song is sending a message to his naval units in the Eastern Pacific as we speak. We have an idea of where the crypto key has likely gone. And we will take steps to ensure that it does not go any further.”

20

“Captain in combat,” yelled one of the petty officers on watch in the Farragut’s combat information center.

The destroyer had just finished conducting its underway replenishment with the supply ship. The “breakaway” song was playing on the 1MC. One of the modern traditions on board many Navy warships was to play a popular song over the ship’s speakers as a way to celebrate the successful completions of the replenishment at sea. Today’s song was from the Doors.

“Turn that damn song off,” said the captain.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“OPS. Where the hell is OPS?”

“Here, sir.” The ship’s operations officer stood behind one of the sonar stations.

“What’s the status of the helicopters?”

OPS walked over to one of the computers and changed the display in the center of the CIC. “Sir, they checked off with us about one hour ago. They were out of communications range… here.” He moved the cursor from the symbol that represented their ship over to an X with the tag “HELICOPTER OFF STATION.”

“And how far from the coast were they?”

“About fifty miles, sir. Air Boss told me that she expected to be back up with us”—he looked at his watch—“any minute now.”

The ship’s communications officer burst into the room, holding up a clipboard. “Sir! HF radio transmission…” He was out of breath, like he had been running.

“Not now, COMMO.” The kid was still trying to make it up to him that none of their satellite communications ever worked. Ever since the captain had chewed him out in front of the wardroom at dinner that night, he had worked around the clock to try and improve their HF systems, as well as retrain his men. This was probably some incremental fix he had just made, the captain thought.

“Sir, please forgive me, but this is critically important.”

The captain turned. He hated the way this kid talked. Like he’d gone to some snooty Ivy League school. “What is it, COMMO?” he asked, annoyance in his voice.

“Sir, the helicopter, sir. They’re on their way here. Some of their passengers have been trying to reach us with their HF radios since they’re so far away.”

The captain rolled his eyes. “Well, what did they say? Come on, I don’t have all day.”