And all through the small of hours of Sunday morning, July 9, they pushed on southwest in moderate seas. Most of the crew slept, but Lieutenant Pearson considered it his duty to keep awake to try and get some kind of a handle on their position. So far the Chinese security had been red hot. There had not been a moment in time when even a two-word conversation had been possible without incurring the wrath of the guards. But Shawn thought and hoped things might ultimately become a little more slack in the following days, and it was his job to know approximately where they were.
His watch had been taken, along with everyone else’s, on their first day of captivity, but through the windows on the port quarter of the ferry he could just see a rose-colored hue to the sky, and he guessed it must be around 0600, maybe a half hour before sunrise. He had detected a slight decrease in speed and he had guessed at Macao around midnight. Six hours running at possibly 13 knots average would put them more than 70 miles along the South China coast from the mouth of the Delta. Shawn grappled for clarity, trying to remember the charts he had studied so often as Seawolf had made her way through the waters just south of here. But he could remember just two islands, one of them quite big, the other to the west, much smaller. The names escaped him. All he could think of was Sichuan Dao, in memory of his favorite Chinese restaurant back home in San Diego. Hell, it was something like that, anyway.
A half hour later, the sun had fought its way out of the Pacific Ocean and was firing already warm, bright beams straight through the upper deck. And as it did so, the beat of the engines changed, and the ship began to make a hard turn to starboard. Shawn could see a sharp navigational light flashing every five seconds on a distant headland. He was not of course to know it was positioned on the offshore island of Weijia, 400 yards south of Shangchuan Dao, which he had mistaken for a Chinese restaurant.
He could now see land all along the starboard side of the ship, but they seemed to be heading away from it at an oblique angle. Judging by the sun, Shawn guessed a northerly course of three-four-zero, but he was not able to see out of the port side because of a bulkhead.
And now the engines had slowed right down, possibly to a speed of only seven knots. Shawn guessed the captain was creeping through some badly charted shallows. He could see land up ahead through the open deck area, and it looked like a long flat shoreline, with a mountain range rising out of the jungle, possibly a half mile from the beach. He tried to get his bearings, confused by the fact that there was more open sea to the right of the land.
His best guess was that they were between islands, one to the right and one to the left, with the Chinese mainland a few miles to the north. He assessed that they were 80 to 90 miles along the coast from Macao, and that these must be the islands he had in his memory. The restaurant to starboard, the little one to port. But it was the little one to which they were slowly moving, through the sandy shallows.
Xiachuan Dao, virtually uninhabited for several hundred years, guardian of a military jail in which unspeakable cruelties had been enacted, lay dead ahead, its brightly lit torture chambers still intact after all these years.
6
Kathy O’Brien gazed at the unshaven, dishevelled figure of the man she loved. The admiral was sound asleep at his desk, leaning back in the big leather Navy captain’s chair, breathing deeply. It was a wonder he hadn’t frozen to death, since the air conditioner had been turned up and running flat out since midnight. The admiral liked it cold.
Kathy put down the dark-blue sailor’s duffel bag and kissed him lightly on the forehead, which had the effect of someone firing a cannon in the room. Arnold Morgan came hurtling back to consciousness after four hours’ sleep, like all ex-submarine commanders, in about one-tenth of a second. He jolted upright, focused on Kathy, and smiled.
“Hey, you found me,” he said superfluously.
“Arnold, my darling, this is not good for you. You have to get proper sleep.”
“I’ve just had proper sleep, crashed right here at around oh-five-hundred.”
“When I say proper sleep, I mean something a bit more relaxed, with clean pajamas, clean sheets, and a bed, hopefully next to me. Traditional stuff.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” he said, not really listening. “Quick, get the Chinese ambassador on the phone and tell him to get his ass in here right now.”
“Arnold, I’m not doing one single thing on this Saturday morning until you rejoin the human race. I want you to get showered, shaved, and changed. You’ve been in the same clothes for more than two days.”
The admiral shook his head. “There’s a crew of very frightened guys on the other side of the world who’ve been in the same clothes for more than two weeks. Anyway, I haven’t got any stuff here, and I can’t leave.”
Kathy pointed at the Navy duffel bag. “In there, sir,” she said with heavy emphasis, “you will find one shirt, one tie, one pair of shorts, one pair of dark socks, a pair of shoes, a dark gray suit, cuff links, your favorite soap, razor, green shaving gel, deodorant, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and aftershave. You will now report to that grandiose bathroom down near the pool and sharpen yourself up. When you return, in twenty minutes, you will find coffee and toast here. Who Flung Dung, as you insist on calling him, will be approximately ten minutes from his ETA. Is that more or less understood?”
“Christ,” said Arnold Morgan, “you’re more bossy than all of my wives put together.”
“I’m also dancing attendance on a very silly person who has no idea how to look after himself and thinks he’s still in a ridiculous submarine.”
The admiral grinned, picked up the duffel bag, and retreated aft, toward the bathroom, moving fast, with the unmistakable upright gait of one whose working life had been spent in military uniform.
When he returned he looked immaculate. And he kissed Kathy, told her that he loved her beyond redemption, and steamed into the toast and coffee, preparing himself to treat his incoming Chinese guest with the utmost politeness — a trait that came approximately as naturally to him as to an Andalusian fighting bull.
At 10:00 sharp, the ambassador arrived, looking, as ever, pensive and worried, but still smiling and ingratiating.
“Hello, Ling, old buddy,” said the admiral. “How are you today?…Good…good…siddown…want some coffee or would you rather have tea? Tea? Excellent, excellent…KATHY!!”
Even Mr. Ling looked mildly surprised that the admiral had apparently dispensed with the telephone system and preferred to stand in the middle of the room and unleash a kind of roar.
“China tea for my old friend Ling,” he said, smiling when Kathy moved smartly back into the room.
“It’s on its way, sir.” She smiled back, a little too sweetly.
“Perfect,” he replied, offering the ambassador from Beijing an armchair in front of his desk.
“Now, sir, I did ask you for a formal statement from your government, and I forgive you for its lateness. I presume you have it with you?”
“Yes, Admiral, I do. Would you like to read it?”
“Absolutely,” replied the admiral as he took the offered piece of paper, which plainly had been prepared in Beijing and been transported to Washington in the diplomatic bag. The words were predictable.
It was with much regret that we discovered the destroyer Xiangtan was in a minor collision in the South China Sea with a nuclear submarine owned by the United States Navy. And we do of course regret that you did not see fit to inform us of a patrol in our waters by such a warship. However, accidents can happen, and it has been our pleasure to answer a call for help from your Captain Judd Crocker.