Red Shark

“Picked her up twenty minutes ago, inbound from Chi-lung. About now she should be rounding the headland and making for the channel anchorage.”

“Roger that — out.”

“What is it?” said Jefferson.

“That,” said Scott.

They heard throbbing diesels. As they looked seaward, the White Dragon, darkened but for red and green running lights, hove into view around the headland, part of which formed the channel that led to the beach.

“Where the hell’s she been?” Jefferson said.

Scott and the SEALs moved quickly but silently off the beach into the mangrove for cover. Fat’s junk hove to and dropped anchor in the shallows. Lights came on around the pier, and several men carrying weapons appeared and boarded the motor launch. They cast off and swung out to meet the White Dragon. At the same time, a big black SUV rattled onto the pier and stopped.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Jefferson whispered into Scott’s ear. “I mean, who the hell’s aboard the White Dragon?”

Shortly, the launch pulled away from the junk and nosed alongside the pier. Scott and Jefferson, peering with miniature binoculars through the thick tangle of mangrove, saw Fat hoisted from the launch up on to the pier by a freight elevator installed between pilings. He waddled across the pier and stuffed himself into the SUV, which whisked him away up the service road cut into the bluff, to the back of the villa. Moments later all the lights around the pier and aboard the White Dragon went out, and the island once again groped into darkness.

“So maybe he’s meeting with the two gents he’s put up at the villa. To negotiate his fee,” Jefferson said.

“Let’s find out,” Scott said. He motioned to Caserta. “Get ready for takeoff.”

15

Beijing, China

At the Central Military PLAN Headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party a few blocks east of Tiananmen Square, Admiral Shi Yunsheng assumed his place at the head of an impossibly long conference table in the ornate Hall of Ministers. A small man, his mere presence compelled his fellow officers’ undivided attention and complete silence.

Shi, commander in chief of PLAN, chairman of its general staff, and head of the Ministry of Defense, gazed the length of the table at a dozen faces all turned in his direction, waiting for him to speak. Shi, known as a Purple Hat for the weighty duties he shouldered, wore a naval uniform decorated with blazing gold braid and row upon row of ribbons and medals. He had prominently displayed on his left breast the gold insignia of the PLAN Submarine Corps.

Shi cleared his throat. Each man, he noted with satisfaction, had lying in front of him a document to which he now made reference.