“Admiral Bennington, General Kerstan here. We’re on your suggestion like a herd of wild grasshoppers at Hickam Field. Our people are furious about the Chinese attack and our losses. We won’t let a stone get left in place over here hunting that damn bomb.”
“Thanks, Kurt. I hope you get it. If you do, yell at us and we’ll send over enough lead shielding to keep any detonation signal from getting to it.”
The admiral hung up.
The talk went on for another hour. Murdock began to shift in his chair. The admiral stood up. Every man in the room shot to his feet.
“We’re repeating ourselves, gentlemen. We’ll meet here again at 1800 hours. Let’s hope we have some news, or some new ideas, by then. That will be all.”
The men filed out of the room.
Murdock and DeWitt stopped at the second of three desks outside the admiral’s office, and asked where the Chinese colonel was being questioned.
The chief looked at them questioningly for a moment. “Oh, you just came from the admiral’s office?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a restricted area. I’ll get you badges and a guide. It’s not far away.”
Five minutes later they met Dobler in an underground facility with a one-way mirror showing another room. Ching sat on one side of a bare wooden table, and a small, crew-cut Chinese man sat across from him.
Dobler turned down the loudspeaker.
“Nothing so far,” Dobler said. “They’re speaking Mandarin, so I don’t have a clue. My guess, just a warm-up chat.” Two video cameras recorded the scene from different angles.
Murdock turned on the speaker. Ching had switched to English.
“No, Zhang, you are the one who doesn’t understand. The others were gentle with you; they were polite and civil. I am through with all three. From now on you will answer my questions truthfully, or you will die.”
The Chinese colonel smiled. “It is easy for you to say, but you have no weapon. You are being recorded on videotape. I think you will not harm me.”
“I am a U.S. Navy SEAL. A SEAL never is without a weapon.” Ching reached to his left ankle and pulled up a.32-caliber automatic. The Chinese only smiled wider.
“I am not afraid of weapons.”
“First I will shoot you in the shoulder, break the shoulder bones, and ruin the rotator cuff. It’s more painful than you can imagine. I have the record in my outfit. Twenty-eight shots into a terrorist before he died. They said it was from bleeding to death.
“Now, let’s start over from the beginning. Your name?”
“Colonel Zhang Ding-fa.”
“You are a member of the Chinese Marines?”
“Yes, a full colonel.”
“You and six men in your group came to Hawaii as tourists?”
“Yes. It was simple getting in.”
“You know about the threat to set off a nuclear device in Pearl Harbor?”
“Only what you have told me.”
“Untrue. You were one of the prime planners of this invasion. Your true rank is that of vice admiral, commander of the Chinese North Sea Fleet.”
“That is not true.”
“You were the only ranking Naval officer who spoke good enough English, so you were drafted for the role to infiltrate and subvert the communications center and downgrade the size of the ‘goodwill’ fleet coming to Hawaii.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Then you are a vice admiral?”
“No.”
Ching shot the Chinese officer in the right shoulder.
The roar of the gunshot in the small room was like a dozen bombs going off at once. Ching couldn’t hear a thing. He watched Zhang. He had been thrown back against the chair by the force of the shot, but the force of the small round hadn’t toppled the chair. He screeched in pain, but he couldn’t hear himself.
“Two Navy SPs boiled into the viewing room outside the interrogation space.
“Heard a shot,” one of them said.
“Sound effect,” Murdock said. The SPs grunted, looked through the window at the men inside, and turned and left.
Gradually Ching sensed his hearing return. He waited until he could hear the prisoner moaning. He had slid the weapon back in his ankle holster soon after the shot.
Now he leaned toward Zhang. “Let’s try that question again. You are a vice admiral, correct?”
Zhang nodded. “Yes.”
“See how easy that was? Now we’re making progress. You knew about bringing a live nuclear weapon onto Hawaiian soil when you came, right?”
“Yes, I knew.” The prisoner gritted his teeth, evidently to stifle the pain between his words.
“Now, just where did those men who brought the nuclear device ashore hide it here on the Pearl Harbor Naval base?”
Ching watched him. Zhang looked up at Ching, started to say something. Then his eyes closed and he fell facedown on the table. Ching stared at the prisoner in surprise. Had he only fainted or was he dead?
11
Murdock, DeWitt, and Dobler watched through the glass as Ching tried to bring the prisoner back to consciousness.
Then Murdock went inside. Ching looked at him.
“What the hell, Cap. Nothing else was working. We don’t have time to play games.”
“He’s coming out of it,” Murdock said.
Zhang shuddered. Then his hands moved and his shoulders hunched where he lay with his chest on the table. Ching had bandaged the Chinese man’s shoulder and stopped the blood.
Zhang shook his head, then lifted it off his arms. Tears streamed out of his eyes. His face went white for a moment. Then his eyes half closed.
“You shot me!”
“I told you I would. The next one goes into your knee, so you’ll never walk again. Like the sound of that?”
“No.”
“So, back to the start. Where on our base has the nuclear weapon been hidden?”
“On the base. Weapon?” His face froze for a moment, then relaxed. “Yes, yes, I remember. Just don’t shoot me again. I have a low tolerance for pain. No one knew before this. The weapon is a class-three bomb for aerial delivery. It is forty kilotons and is in a heavy wooden crate. The crate has been put into a truck and three men who are in sailor uniforms and are Caucasians. They move it from site to site on the base. They think it’s a security test of the base. We told them it’s a nuclear bomb. They think it’s just an exercise.”
“It’s on the Pearl Harbor base?” Murdock asked.
The Chinese man looked up, seeing Murdock for the first time. “Ah. A commander. Shows more respect for my rank. Yes, a truck on Pearl Harbor itself. It was easy to come into the base with fake papers a week ago.”
“What kind of a truck is it?”
“Navy truck we stole. It is outfitted with nuclear energy warning signs, and more signs indicating that this is a nuclear energy testing unit, sniffing out any radiation leakage on the base or from the ships or nuclear weapons.”
“Good, Zhang. You’re doing fine. You might live through the day after all. Now, just where is that truck?”
“I have no idea. No control.”
“Where is it based?”
“This is an extra truck so it has no garage.”
“How many of these trucks are on-base?”
“Twenty-five. Some in repair, most on duty watching for any leakage.”
“Is the bomb fully armed, fused, and ready to explode?” Murdock asked.
“Absolutely. A threat is useless unless you can back it up.” The prisoner shivered. “I need medical attention. I want a doctor.”
Murdock left the room and found a phone in the observation area. He needed three tries to get the right office. It was the Radiation Search Facility. He dialed.