“Clear belowdecks.”
Ping went to the bridge and checked the radio. He keyed the mike three times on the bridge-to-bridge frequency. The submarine, at periscope depth, would hear this and know that the first part of his mission had been a success.
He turned to his men. “Stow your diving gear and get ready. The speedboat should be here any moment now. When they arrive, we need to fill it up with gas. We will then board it and head inland. We must be ashore before dawn. Does everyone understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Nods from his men.
So far, so good. Ping wondered what the island would have in store for him once they reached the Americas.
She would know.
Lena Chou. Ping had heard of her — most of them had. Ping had even seen her once, when he had attended training on the island a month ago. But he had never spoken to her.
She was a shadow. An elite blend of intelligence operative and special forces warrior. One of Jinshan’s special spies. Rumor had it that she had been embedded with an American intelligence agency until recently. Her cover blown, she was now operating as Jinshan’s personal cleaner, fixing and improving their espionage and special operations capability at the tip of the spear.
“There it is, Lieutenant. The range finder says two thousand meters.” One of his men was looking through a night vision telescopic lens.
Ping checked his watch. “Excellent.”
When the long cigarette speedboat finally pulled up alongside, Ping’s men threw out bumpers and tied it up. They began pumping fuel from the mothership to the go-fast.
Lena Chou stepped across to the mothership. “Who is in charge?”
“I am Lieutenant Ping, Miss Chou. My men and I are now at your service.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ping. We’ll need to get to shore before dawn. Once there, we’ll be able to get your men into civilian attire before we journey north. How much have they told you about this assignment?”
“I know that that we will be traveling through Mexico and into the United States. My men are prepared for anything.”
“I’m sure they are, Mr. Ping. This won’t be hard. But we’ll need to keep a low profile. How many of your men speak Spanish or English?”
“All of them speak English, ma’am. But some better than others. Two are fluent in Spanish.”
She nodded. “That will do.”
Ping noticed a dark figure in the speedboat, lying in a heap. He seemed to be groaning.
“Who is he?”
“He is with me.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Seasick.”
Ping smiled.
One of Ping’s men walked up to them, balancing himself on the rail as the waves rocked them back and forth. “We’re finished fueling, sir.”
Then Lena walked over to the radios on the bridge. She tuned up a frequency and began transmitting. She spoke several times, but nothing she said made any sense to Ping. It was gibberish. Or code.
“Miss Chou?” Ping knew that it was not smart of her to make any radio transmissions. The US military would be able to triangulate the transmission. The American intelligence collection agencies would be able to match her voice to their data. They would surely be looking for her voice…
Lena continued speaking for one full minute. Then she turned off the radio and faced him. “When investigators evaluate this vessel, they will likely take fingerprints and see that I was here. Intelligence agencies will match my voice to the radio call I just made and know the transmission location. There are those who would like to see us fail. They are looking for me. This will throw them off my scent.”
“I see.” He looked over towards the speedboat. “We should not waste time, then.”
Lena nodded at Ping, who said, “Everyone on the speedboat.” He then asked Lena, “Do you think we should do anything with the bodies?”
She said, “Dump them over the side. That should be good enough.”
Ping barked orders to his men. The corpses were dumped unceremoniously into the black ocean. Splashing sounds echoed every few seconds. Then the rumble of the speedboat’s engine announced their imminent departure, and everyone hopped aboard.
Lena pushed the throttle forward, and they raced to the northeast.
3
David Manning sat on the beach under an oversized umbrella. The clear greenish-blue water of the Gulf Coast lapped gently against the sugar-white shore. His three-year-old daughter was building a sandcastle near the surf with his wife, Lindsay. Their baby slept in the shade next to him.
Henry Glickstein walked up, smearing his face with thick globs of sunblock. He wore a gardener’s straw hat, oversized sunglasses, and a Tommy Bahama tee shirt.
“Sorry you had to come down when the water’s still a little chilly. You’ll have to come back when the weather warms up. But don’t come in April — that’s when all these young college kids get here and ruin everything.”
David said, “Oh no, this is still great, Henry. Can’t thank you enough for letting us stay here for a few days. It’s warm enough for Maddie to play in the sand. That’s all we need.”
“Sorry about the drama last night. I should have known better than to let the riffraff in when you guys were here.”
The prior evening, Henry had had a visitor show up unexpectedly at his home. Apparently, she was a waitress at one of the less-than-reputable establishments in nearby Pensacola.
David’s wife Lindsay had smelled stripper on her from the moment she’d walked in the door. Bleach-blond hair and fake… well, everything. While David had been amused, Henry had been embarrassed at her often inappropriate and less-than-intelligent additions to the conversation. But David suspected that Henry hadn’t been interested in her intellect. Lindsay’s eyebrows were permanently raised and her chardonnay glass permanently full for the evening.
The young woman had stayed for the barbecue they were having, but then left abruptly after dinner when Henry had said that he wasn’t going to be able to go out with her that night.
“She was, ah… nice?” It was the best David could offer. She couldn’t have been more than thirty years old.
Henry smiled, as if it were a compliment. “Yeah, she loves that I was on the news.” Glickstein shrugged, then sat in the empty beach chair next to David. “So you hear from any of the group? The Red Cell folks, I mean?”
The Americans who’d been freed from Chinese custody in the Red Cell had been transported to a US military base.
“They’re being given medical treatment and doing interviews with government officials. I’ve seen some of the debrief reports.”
“The interviews with our government this time?” Henry smiled.
“Let’s hope so.” David snorted. “We’ve flown their families out to be with them. They should all be arriving back home soon, I think.”
“We, now, is it?”
“Yes, sir. I guess it is.” David was now working full-time as an analyst for the CIA. He had only been working in the job for a few weeks and was still getting used to it. He was assigned to the interagency SILVERSMITH team — a program created in response to China’s increased hostility towards the United States.
David was part of the reason the SILVERSMITH operation had been started. He had been an unwitting participant in a Chinese espionage operation. Twenty Americans — Henry Glickstein among them — had been led to believe that they were joining a CIA-sponsored Red Cell. The Red Cell was made up of US defense, intelligence, and technology experts whose mission was to create a plan for China to invade the United States.