"Even if she's a compromise. Because in the long run, it's not the weapons load or the sonar suite or the technology that makes a sub work. It's the caliber of the men who sail on her, her crew. And we have the best in the world."
"I'm with you there, Commander. And I wish you the very best of luck with your new command."
Funny. The way Blakeslee said the words, it was as though he'd added "because you'll need it" at the end.
2
Captain Jian stood on the catwalk extending along the length of the cavernous submarine pen, leaning on the railing as he watched the arrival of the Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen, an Arabic name meaning "Holy Martyrs." Other People's Republic naval officers and men stood to either side, watching in silence. How many of them, he wondered, know just what is at stake here?
His own vessel, the Yinbi de Gongji, was already moored inside the base, starboard-side to in Mooring Slip One. Working parties labored on her deck, carrying cases of provisions aboard from the dock and handing them down through deck hatches. The Yinbi would be ready for sea soon. Jian would be glad to be free of the dank-walled, confining closet of the Small Dragon sub pen and out beneath the waves of the open sea once more.
The shelter was necessary for the moment, a haven safe from the prying scrutiny of American spy satellites. It was important that the Yankees not be aware that the Yinbi de Gongji was operational and in these waters… at least, not yet. With luck, the Yankees still thought she was at Darien, unaware that the sleek and deadly shape now moored at the shipyard construction dock was a shell of plastic and plywood.
An elaborate deception, carried out under the thick cloud cover of an approaching typhoon, had enabled the Yinbi de Gongji to slip out to sea unobserved. The passage south to Small Dragon had been uneventful. Now, all he wanted to do was to complete the resupply and get back to sea.
But first, there was this small and unpleasant formality.
He could see two men squeezed together in the weather bridge of the submarine as it entered the shelter. One was almost certainly the Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen's captain. The man reached up and removed his cap in salute; Jian ignored the gesture, pretending not to see. Line handling parties on the dock stood ready as the incoming vessel approached Slip Two, sidling up toward the dock port-side to. The submarine's black hull, the rectangular tower of her sail, passed slowly through the glare of spotlights suspended from the latticework of struts supporting the shelter's high ceiling.
The flag hanging limply from the foreign submarine's mast was that of Pakistan, but that was a lie, of course. Or, rather, it was a political misstatement. The submarine, a Kilo-class diesel electric boat, had recently been purchased by Pakistan from the Krasnaya Sormova shipyards in Russia, but the Pakistani admiralty, Jian thought, had no idea who was actually crewing that vessel… or why. Shuhadaa might be operating under the flag of Pakistan for the moment, and her captain and most of her officers and crew were Pakistani nationals, but her first officer was Saudi, and an Afghani reportedly was aboard as well.
And the doctrine under which she sailed was that of al Qaeda.
How deeply, Jian wondered, did the political cabal within the Islamabad government extend? They were playing a deadly game over there, one with terrifying consequences should they be found out by the United States.
Officially, of course, Pakistan was an ally of the United States in the so-called War on Terror. The CIA had established a covert presence in that country during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Almost two decades later, the U.S. had coordinated much of its military campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda from Pakistan. But the government in Islamabad was less than perfectly stable, and religious fervor and factionalism ran deep. There were plenty of people within both Pakistan's government and the military who admired Osama bin Laden and the small army of Islamic imams, mullahs, and clerics who continued to repeat and elaborate on his inflammatory, anti-American rhetoric.
The truth of the matter was that Pakistan desperately needed American foreign aid and would do almost anything to keep that pipeline open and flowing. But some individuals and certain cliques within Islamabad's centers of power continued to work behind the scenes, not against American interests directly, but in support of the numerous factions, cells, and networks throughout the Islamic world that continued to wage a shadow war of unrest, revolution, and terror against the Western behemoth.
So far, the People's Republic had managed to stay out of that particular tiger's lair, despite the fact that a significant percentage of Chinese — especially in the western provinces — was Muslim. The PRC officially was an atheist state, at times militantly opposed to religious activity that might threaten Beijing's authority; the state's ongoing policy of suppression and subversion in Tibet was a case in point. Now, however, the state apparently had reasons for covertly supporting al Qaeda.
That reasoning was utterly beyond Jian's understanding.
Eighteen years in his nation's naval service had left him with the ability to turn the occasional blind eye to bureaucratic idiocy or incompetence. One needed such convenient blindness at times simply to survive. This, however, was infinitely worse than the typical clumsiness of Beijing's bloated party system. The possibility of a full-fledged war with America was all too real, and Jian knew exactly what the consequences of such a conflict might be. The knowledge left him feeling bitter, angry, and trapped. His two options — and at the moment he could see only two — were to carry out his orders without question, without thinking, and in so doing involve his country in a war that no one could possibly win; or to refuse those orders, a decision that would mean the end of his naval career, possible imprisonment, and disgrace for his wife, both of his children, his father, and his father's politically powerful brother.
His face impassive, he stared down at the long, rectangular upright of the Kilo's sail, passing slowly now almost directly beneath his position on the catwalk.
Where, he wondered, was his path of duty, and was it also a path of honor?
Captain Abdullah ul Haq replaced his cap on his head as the Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen slid serenely beneath the catwalk perch of the Chinese officers. He was pretty sure he recognized his opposite number— Captain Jian — among them, and felt a small stir of resentment at the man's deliberate slight, his refusal to acknowledge ul Haq's cordial salute. The alliance was off to an uncertain start.
Not alliance, ul Haq reminded himself. A relationship of the moment only. The marriage between the Maktum and the People's Republic of China was one strictly of convenience and expediency. Not all within the Maktum thought it was a good idea to ally with infidels.
Maktum — the word meant, roughly, "closed mouth" or "sworn to silence" — had arisen in Pakistan during the evil days of America's invasion of Afghanistan and the destruction of the Taliban. Beginning back in the early nineties as a clique of officers within Pakistan's military, dedicated to fundamentalist Islam and the creation of an army-backed theocracy in Islamabad, the Maktum had been instrumental as a pipeline for key Taliban and al Qaeda leaders fleeing the far-flung nets of the American forces attempting to capture them in Afghanistan. They'd helped bin Laden himself escape the trap at Tora Bora, smuggling him first across the border into northern Pakistan, and then eventually to a safe haven in Indonesia.