“Got the new switch, heh?”
“Right here. I’ll be about a half hour.”
“Okay.”
Dong climbed the stairs and began to clear up his mess. The new switch was unnecessary but he fitted it anyway and then made his wire joins, cleaning up the clutter and replacing the ceiling panels. He checked the electrics all through the room, dumped the trash in a bin and strolled downstairs. It was exactly fifteen minutes before seven.
“That it?” said the guard.
“That’s it for me. You can lock up now. I won’t be back. Lights all working, computers all working. See you tomorrow.”
“’Bye, Mr. Quinlei.”
Dong walked back along the street to his car, went to the driver’s side and stared back the way he had come. The guard must have gone into the building, because he was no longer outside. So far as he could see, the street was completely deserted. And he dashed for the big building, pulling open the door and ducking inside, his heart pounding.
And now he had to hurry, because the guard could return at any moment and he would wonder why the car was still there, maybe even walk along to find out.
Dong hit the iron stairs running, taking them two at a time, charging upward to the seventh floor. When he arrived he shot back the two bolts and stepped carefully out onto the roof. He ducked down and edged along to the chimney block, then reached up and undid the trash tie, removing the gray plastic cover in one movement. Then he edged up onto the sloping part of the roof and stared through the lens at the crosshairs. The submarine had not moved, nor had the viewfinder, and he was looking at the precise spot on the deck of USS Seawolf he had fixed on yesterday.
Then Quinlei Dong, husband of Lin, father of nine-year-old Li, switched on the laser machine that would guide an American bomb toward the first major nuclear catastrophe in the entire history of Canton. He watched the little green light flicker, then harden up, and he knew the invisible laser beam was lancing across the jetty, over the heads of the massed ranks of China’s naval guards, pinpointing a spot on the ship’s casing, illuminating it for the incoming bomb, which, right now and for the next six hours, could not miss.
He waited for a few seconds, looking out over the parapet at the American submarine. Even at this hour, early on Sunday evening, there was unusual activity around the great underwater ship. He could see a group of four men in white laboratory coats talking to uniformed officers on the casing; three other men were walking back across the gangway. He could see, on top of the sail, at least four uniformed figures on the bridge. Guards were everywhere.
Dong ducked down before they saw him and moved quickly back to the door, quietly bolting it behind him. He flew down the stairs to the first floor and reached the steel door to the outside. He pushed it open a crack, and to his horror heard voices and footsteps. For one appalling moment he thought he had been seen, and that a patrol was on its way in to search for him.
He eased the door shut and waited. Then he opened it again and there was silence. Up ahead he could see two guards disappearing around a corner. He checked again that the street was clear; then he slipped outside, and walked resolutely the 50 yards to his car. He started it quickly and drove around the back of C Block, avoiding the guard to whom he had spoken earlier.
At the main gate, he was stopped and asked if he had finished his work. Dong replied that he had, and that he had advised the other guard that he could lock the building up.
“Okay, sir…see you tomorrow?”
“’Specially if the lights don’t work in B Block!”
The duty guard laughed and waved him through the gates for the last time. Thirty minutes from now, he and Lin and their little boy would be on the road south toward Kowloon, where the American agent had new identities for them all. Dong and his little family would be on the evening flight to Hawaii, and then Los Angeles.
Lt. Commander Olaf Davidson and his team had deflated their Zodiac, buried it with most of their equipment, and left the original rendezvous point on the distant southern peninsula of the island. And now Catfish Jones and Al, fully armed, faces blackened, carrying the big machine gun, were moving into a spot right above the new landing beach a half mile from the jail, still in sight of the patrol boat, which had just left the jetty.
Olaf himself was up in the SEALs’ hide with Hank, overlooking the jail, checking off Rusty Bennett’s list of guard times, numbers and patrols both inside and outside the wall. The slightest change in the pattern would be noted and assessed. But so far the SEAL commander had recorded every movement precisely as it had been for the previous two days and nights. The only minor variation was the seven-minute lateness of the patrol boat’s departure and the arrival earlier in the afternoon of a big Russian-built helicopter. There were, however, still only two on the landing pad, as there usually were, according to Rusty’s report.
Down at the beach, in the gathering darkness, Catfish had the night-sight binoculars trained on the jetty, where two seamen had cast off the patrol boat’s lines and now stood talking. Rusty’s notes said they always left the area as soon as the boat departed and returned to the dormitory. Catfish hoped they would do the same in the next half hour, otherwise he and Al would have to kill them.
Meanwhile Al made ready the signaling lights and established the machine gun in a position covering the approach to the jetty. If the big SEALs landing party was sighted and the Chinese swarmed down to the beach to repel them, the first 50 of them would never get past the wall of.50-caliber bullets that would spit death at them, straight out of the jungle.
Up in the hide, Olaf Davidson checked his watch. It was 2103. The guard change outside the jail had taken place right on time, and he could see the four men walking in pairs slowly around the jail. If things went according to plan, this was their last patrol. The boys would be in less than two hours from now.
Lt. Commander Joe Farrell glanced up at the island. The red light signaled four minutes to launch. Ahead of him, through the cockpit window, he could see the brightly lit runway stretched out in front. All around him the launch men were moving into position. Even stationary, the big engines screamed at the slightest touch on the throttle of the supersonic F/A-18 McDonnell Douglas Hornet.
The aircraft would effortlessly carry 7.7 tons of bombs if necessary, but tonight she carried just one, the 14-foot-long Paveway with its laser-guidance system and 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead.
Two minutes went by, and now the light blinked to amber. The crewman crouching right below Joe, next to the aircraft’s nose, signaled him forward and moved underneath the fuselage, locking on the thick catapult bridle.
High above him the light turned green. The “shooter,” Lieutenant Dale, pointed his right hand at the pilot and raised his left, extending two fingers: Go to full power right now.
Joe Farrell opened the throttle, releasing the howling, murderous energy of the engines. Lieutenant Dale flattened out the palm of his hand, staring hard at the pilot: Hit the afterburners.
Lieutenant Commander Farrell saluted formally and leaned forward, tensing for the impact of the catapult. The shooter, his eyes locked into Joe’s, saluted back. Then he bent his knees and touched two fingers of his left hand onto the deck.
He gestured Forward! and the crewman on the catwalk just to the left of the aircraft hit the button on catapult one, and ducked low as the massive force of the wire flung the big fighter jet off the blocks.