“Fucking idiot!”
She lunged for the console and turned the key to crank the Honda motor. The engine caught with a quiet cough, and she advanced the throttle, steering away from the inferno’s flickering glow for the jetty east of the breakwater. Wu Tian was supposed to have waited until well after she was gone to destroy the container, but now his recklessness had put her at risk. First, Xi Jian. Now, Wu Tian. Even her asset had disappointed her by not warning her of the operation’s failure.
She knew other vessels would respond to the fire, and she turned up her peacoat’s collar to guard against the stinging spray as she sped for the shore. A mile from the breakwater, she flipped a switch to turn on her navigation lights, guiding the RHIB between the boats racing in the opposite direction, bound for the burning merchant vessel.
Rounding the breakwater, she reached inside the waterproof glove box and removed her cell phone. Powering it on, she waited for it to connect to the nearest cellular tower, then opened the application disguised as a calculator. A notification banner indicated she had a waiting message, and she entered 9413, followed by the minus sign and 4059, then concluded the passkey by tapping on the equals sign. Instead of returning an answer, the calculator opened a partition that allowed her to send and receive encrypted messages over a satellite network.
Much like the modified Nintendo Switch she had given the hapless, lovesick Marine, the application offered her two options. She tapped on “Receive” and waited for her phone to query the orbiting satellites. After several seconds, the progress bar had reached one hundred percent, and she looked down at the screen.
1 NEW MESSAGE.
Without fear or hesitation, she tapped on the icon and waited for the message to download, dividing her focus between the phone on the console and the dark waters in front of her. When another window opened on the screen, she glanced down and read the message.
1. TARGET AIRCRAFT SURVIVED. OPERATION FAILED.
2. SEND INSTRUCTIONS.
She glowered at the screen, at first relieved the Marine had taken risks to inform her of the mission’s failure but annoyed by his presumption. He had proven useful in providing her with detailed maintenance logs for his squadron’s fleet of F-35C Joint Strike Fighters but hadn’t quite grasped the nature of their relationship. He thought he was her partner, at least a bishop or knight on the board instead of the pawn she played him for. She needed to consider how to rectify the situation before responding.
She closed the application and navigated to her phone’s native internet browser. The information she had just recovered was time sensitive, and she couldn’t afford to rely on her normal method of delivery via the consulate’s diplomatic channels. Mantis would want it delivered in person. She navigated to the website hosting a vacation rental forum and searched for the post she had made when first arriving in the United States a year earlier.
Hawaii, Maui, Sands of Kahana, 1BR.
Selecting it, she scrolled past half a dozen comments from legitimate users asking for more information, which she had provided to keep the post active while giving credence to her cover. When she reached the bottom, she saw that the last comment was hers.
Available for rent.
She had posted it before leaving the marina earlier that evening, signaling to Mantis that she was commencing the operation’s first phase. She clicked on the icon below to post a reply and tapped out a simple message, indicating the mission had been a failure.
Off the market temporarily for renovations.
Almost immediately, her phone vibrated with a notification she had received a message in Signal, a secure messaging application Mantis only used for time-critical communications. She knew Mantis was displeased, and she opened the application to read the cryptic message.
192.0.2.1
At first glance, it looked like a computer’s IP address. But Chen knew better. Mantis had presented her with the simple code to guide her to dead drop locations along the California coast. The first three-digit number was meaningless, a mere placeholder to disguise the code, but the other three numbers told her everything she needed to know.
“Shit,” she said, pushing on the throttle to keep the twenty-foot Brig Navigator at top speed until the last possible moment.
The first of the three remaining numbers was the priority. The lower the number, the more immediate the need to make the handoff. A “1” meant she had twenty-four hours to reach the location. A “2” gave her twice that. But a “0” meant she needed to drop everything she was doing and proceed there posthaste.
The next two numbers corresponded with a four-by-four grid she had long ago memorized. Beginning at one of the four corners, she counted spaces to land on the designated location. The starting corner changed daily, adding another layer of security to the already unbreakable code. Today’s assigned corner was the top right, so she moved down two spaces and in one.
Dexter Lawn.
While most of the locations were in and around the Bay Area, some were further south and easier to reach. Teeming with college students most of the year, Dexter Lawn would be nearly deserted this early in the summer. But that wasn’t the reason the spymaster had chosen that location for the drop.
She passed the 72nd Place Lifeguard Station on her left and slowed the RHIB to an agonizing crawl as she entered the inlet. An incessant ticking clock counted down in her head, reminding her of the urgency with which she needed to make the drive north. It took incredible willpower to keep her right arm from pushing forward on the throttle and ignoring the “No Wake” signs on her way to the slip.
“Zero,” she said.
Mantis had never used a zero.
The Marine could wait.
11
The FBI plane crossed the shoreline and went feet dry when its Stingray issued an audible alert, signaling the targeted cell phone had finally connected to it. The pilot looked down at the display in disbelief, recognizing the phone number Rick had given him, and quickly pulled up a chart overlay on the screen. The computer-generated icon of the cell phone’s location entered the channel into Alamitos Bay just north of his position.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, banking the Stationair north so he could aim its sensor pod at the target boat and gain a visual. He had almost given up on the target showing.
He selected the encrypted radio and keyed the push-to-talk rocker switch on the control yoke. “Delta One, Air One.”
“Go ahead, Air One.”
“Got a hit on your target cell phone entering the channel now. Should be in visual range shortly,” he said.
“Nice work, Air One,” the deep voice replied. “Remain on station.”
He glanced at his fuel, figuring he had another hour of loiter time before he needed to return to the Long Beach airport and gas up. He could stretch it maybe another fifteen minutes, but he didn’t want to go much beyond that without a really good reason. He had done his job and verified the target. Now it was up to Rick to do the rest of the work.
“Delta One, I’ve got about an hour of play time left.”
The FBI special agent double-clicked his microphone switch in reply.
Slewing the sensor pod’s crosshairs onto the channel, he zoomed in on a smaller boat where a lone figure stood tall at the center console. Using the driver’s height as a reference measurement, he estimated the boat was twenty to twenty-four feet in length; probably a Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat with a single outboard. It was far smaller than the other boats at the yacht club and probably only useful for short jaunts to and from a larger ship at anchor.