Act of War

by Brad Thor

  Harvath was now ready to start asking other questions.

  “Who is their handler?”

  “I am,” Ho answered.

  “Where are your control files on the cell members?”

  “On my computer. In the den. The password is Samba477823//*.”

  “And the hardcopies?” Harvath asked.

  “Under the last stall in the barn. Beneath the hay is a trapdoor that leads to a storm cellar. All the files are there.”

  Harvath looked at Chase and said, “Take the HRT breachers with you to the barn. Make sure none of it is wired. Let me know what you find.”

  “Roger that,” Chase replied as he stepped out of the room.

  Harvath didn’t want to start messing with any of Ho’s computers, not if he didn’t have to. Nicholas could do just about anything, but the NSA would have the best chance of sucking all of the data out of them. At the very least, the hardcopies of Ho’s files should contain contact information for each of the cell members.

  Turning back to Ho, Harvath was about to ask him another question when his cell phone, as well as Sloane’s, chimed at exactly the same time. It was the tone they used for emails from the Old Man. Harvath didn’t take his eyes off Ho. If the email was important, Sloane would let him know.

  Scanning the brief message, she stepped over and whispered in his ear, “The Bureau found the remaining storage units in Seattle and Baltimore. The Old Man wants to know if there are any others. That’s priority number one. Once you have that, he wants Bao Deng. He wants you to find out who he is, where he’s going, and how we can get to him.”

  Harvath nodded and focused his full attention back on Ho. Choosing his words carefully, he moved the interrogation in a new and dangerous direction.

  CHAPTER 59

  * * *

  * * *

  NORTH KOREA

  In the time that they had been inland, the weather forecast had gone from bad to worse. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Fordyce looked at Billy Tang and said, “I’m putting my foot down.”

  “Fuck putting your foot down, LT,” Johnson interrupted. “I’m going to put my foot up his ass.” Pointing his finger right in Tang’s face he said, “You and Jin-Sang are coming with us.”

  The CIA operative didn’t know what he appreciated more, Johnson’s insistence, or that the SEALs had finally started calling the little boy by his correct name.

  “Listen,” Tang replied. “You guys need to think about yourselves. That storm’s coming. Look at how much wind we’ve got, and we’re not even at the coast yet. You’re going to need to double-time it to make your pickup.”

  “You let us worry about the pickup, Billy,” Fordyce said.

  “You’re going to rappel down that rock face with him and then swim him out in those swells? He’s so drugged up, we won’t be able to get him to hold his breath long enough to get down to the ASDS. That’s just stupid.”

  “I told you before, we don’t do stupid.”

  The CIA operative looked at the men. “I was wrong when I said I thought SEALs were honorable. You are honorable. But this isn’t open for discussion. You guys need to get back. It’s imperative.”

  “You’re right. This isn’t open for discussion.”

  Tang held up his hand. “Hyun Su and I can get him into South Korea. It’s going to take a few days, but we can make it happen. As long as Tuck gives me enough meds to keep him comfortable, everything will be okay. As soon as we get to Seoul, I’ll take him right to the embassy. They’ll want to debrief him and they’ve got an excellent medical team there. Besides, you can’t bring a kid who’s been exposed to a potentially drug-resistant form of TB onto a submarine.”

  Fordyce looked at him. “Are you finished?”

  Tang stood there, unsure of how to respond.

  Fordyce didn’t wait for an answer. “One of the dumbest things you can ever attempt,” he said, “is to tell a SEAL what he can’t do. We’ll let the medical officer decide on quarantine protocols. But we came in as a team and we’re going out as a team. I don’t give a fuck if the North Koreans suspect we were here. They’re so paranoid they suspect everyone. Now, you either learn how to follow my orders, or this time I will have Tucker shoot you. Is that clear?”

  The CIA operative had no idea how the SEALs were going to pull it off, but he trusted them. Shaking his head, he smiled and resigned himself to the fact that they were all leaving together.

  Fordyce put his index finger behind his left ear and bent it forward, indicating that he was still awaiting a response.

  “Sir, yes sir,” Tang replied, throwing in a crisp salute.

  “You damn well better salute me. It’s the least you can do for the ass-chewing I’m going to get. Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to roll this out.”

  • • •

  The water was worse than any of them had anticipated. The incoming storm had picked up considerable strength and was roiling the sea with chop. Fordyce’s brilliant plan was looking much less brilliant by the second.

  Tucker and Johnson had argued over who would stay behind with Billy Tang and Jin-Sang. It would take two people to move the little boy and there was no way they were going to leave Billy alone. As the corpsman, and one hell of a gunfighter, Tucker won the argument. Johnson, though, was a stronger swimmer, and Fordyce was glad to have him as his swim buddy for the trip out to the ASDS.

  Hyun Su brought them all the way to the coast and made two drops. The first was half a klick in from the cliff the team had climbed less than seventy-two hours ago. After loading Tucker up with extra magazines, Fordyce and Johnson bailed out of the truck and Hyun Su continued. He would drop Billy, Jin-Sang, and Tucker on a strip of beach two kilometers north.

  The sound of the truck receding into the distance was replaced by the sound of waves pounding against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

  Roping up, Fordyce and Johnson double-checked their gear, stepped out over the edge, and rappelled down. As he watched the waves crash below, Fordyce knew he had made the right choice. It would have been a nightmare trying to get Jin-Sang out this way.

  At the bottom of the cliff, they rechecked the integrity of their drysuits, put on their swim gear, and did a final assessment before getting wet.

  Timing the waves so as not to get battered against the rocks, they picked their moment and jumped.

  It was a grueling swim, made just as difficult by the waves as by the current, which was as determined as it had been on their swim in to pull them off course.

  They swam using GPS as their guide. Once they reached their GPS point, Fordyce switched to a handheld acoustic locator to pinpoint the minisub. As soon as they were above it, they oxygenated their lungs, then took a deep breath and dove beneath the surface.

  Feeling their way along the structure, they came up into the ASDS through the moon pool in its belly. Johnson climbed out first and Fordyce handed their gear up to him.

  Once the gear was secure, Fordyce gave the pilots a new set of orders. After the moon pool was locked off, the pilots retracted their anchors and headed up the coast toward the beach.

  As the minisub made its way through the water, Fordyce and Johnson unpacked its lone combat rubber raiding craft. They were going to do this down, dirty, and in a hurry. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was the only option they had.

  When the ASDS arrived off the beach, the pilots deployed the anchors and cleared Fordyce and Johnson to launch. Opening the moon pool, the two SEALs kicked everything into high gear.

  Outside the minisub, they began inflating the CRRC and rose with it to the surface. The swells were even worse now, but Fordyce and Johnson focused on the task at hand.

  Marking their location on GPS, they attached the outboard engine, and moments later were moving.

  The waves pounded the crap out of them as they headed toward the beach. Riding prone up front, weapon out ready to engage the enemy, Fordyce took the worst of it. It felt they were under the water more than they were on t
op of it.

  By the time they hit the beach, Tucker and Billy Tang were already out of their hide and coming at them with Jin-Sang.

  Fordyce knelt in the sand to cover them as Johnson spun the craft around. As soon as he had it pointed back out to sea, the men laid Jin-Sang inside. Tang joined him and then Tucker and Fordyce helped get the boat into deeper water before leaping in themselves and taking their positions forward. Johnson rolled the throttle and the CRRC shot off into the waves. They had been on and off the beach in the blink of an eye.

  The ASDS had its comms antenna up and Fordyce radioed the pilots via UHF that they were on their way back.

  By the time they hit their GPS point, the minisub had already surfaced.

  They entered via the top hatch. Tang went in first, accompanied by a ton of water as a wave crashed right on top of them. As carefully but as quickly as they could, Johnson and Tucker handed Jin-Sang down to him. The ASDS was bobbing like a cork and it was difficult for Tang to maintain his balance. When the boy was safely inside, Johnson flashed Fordyce the thumbs-up and began feeding gear to Tucker, who had already climbed into the hatch.

  Once the CRRC was stripped, the two remaining SEALs scuttled it with their knives and let it sink as they dropped through the hatch and closed it above them.

  As soon as everything was tight, they gave the pilots the word to get moving. The sooner they were out of North Korean waters and back on the USS Texas, the better all of them were going to feel.

  Fordyce looked over at Jin-Sang. Tucker had placed a new mask on him and had wrapped the boy in a dry Mylar blanket. He was out of it, but not so out of it that he couldn’t sense the relief of the men around him. Slowly, Jin-Sang lifted his hand and flashed Fordyce a thumbs-up.

  The SEAL returned the thumbs-up and then began thinking of everything they needed to report back to Washington as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER 60

  * * *

  * * *

  LITTLE TORCH KEY, FLORIDA

  Tai Cheng exited the van and looked out over the flat, turquoise water. A soft breeze moved the fronds of the palm trees along the beach. He had never been to this part of the United States before. He had seen it only in pictures.

  His shoulder hurt like hell and he was exhausted, but they had made it. He was thankful to have had the foresight to pack a medical kit. The bullet wound to his shoulder had required repeated bandage changes.

  They had overnighted in truck stops, staying off the roads from ten in the evening until five in the morning. It had added fourteen hours to the journey, but had dramatically reduced their odds of being pulled over. Cheng had gathered up the princelings and had made it out of Boston without being apprehended. All he had to do now was see them the last 120 miles to Havana, or the “Plantation,” as the Second Department referred to China’s intelligence station there, and his assignment would be complete.

  Little Torch Key was a small island in the lower Florida Keys about thirty miles before Key West. It was so quiet the Dolphin Marina didn’t even have a restaurant, just a small bait-and-tackle shop with a gas pump and cold drinks. Cheng couldn’t have chosen a better rendezvous location if he had tried.

  He was dressed for an afternoon of fishing, as were the rest of the princelings. They had purchased the clothing outside Fort Lauderdale, along with sunscreen, snacks, and an enormous cooler in which he had hidden the device.

  Colonel Shi had warned Cheng to be careful around Medusa. The man held no loyalties except to himself. He would throw everyone overboard, including his crew, if it meant saving his own skin. He was lazy, which the colonel attributed to too much alcohol or too much sun, and he had very little honor. In other words, a typical American. But he was an exceptional smuggler and knew the waters from the Keys to Cuba like no one else. “Keep him sober and keep him focused,” Shi had advised.

  Cheng found the fishing yacht berthed exactly where he had been told it would be. It was a forty-five-foot Bertram with dual fighting chairs and an array of radar communications equipment. Cheng was particularly glad to see the radar array. If there was even a hint of trouble from the ship’s captain, Cheng planned on his own kind of mutiny. Without hesitation, he would throw the man and his crew overboard and complete the journey without them. He had come too far to be undone.

  Walking up to the vessel, he took the first mate and “hostess” by surprise. She was stocking beverages in a small fridge on the aft deck. As she bent over, the mate was rubbing himself against her. They were both white, sunburned trash.

  The mate was a lean, muscled man with teardrop tattoos near his left eye and a host of other body art that suggested he had seen the inside of a prison more than once. She was petite, with greasy hair, a bikini top, and jean shorts. At the small of her back was what Americans referred to as a tramp stamp.

  Cheng cleared his throat to get their attention. They were shameless. Neither seemed to be embarrassed to have been caught in such lewd behavior.

  “Skipper!” the lean man shouted. “Charter’s here!”

  It took a moment for the captain to appear, which led Cheng to believe the man had probably been in the head. Whether the visit was alcohol-related or not, Cheng had no idea at this point.

  The captain was grizzled and sunburned just like his crew. The word “redneck” flashed into Cheng’s mind. It looked as if the captain had not seen the sharp edge of a razor for several days. He wore a tacky button-down short-sleeved shirt and a pair of swim trunks. A gold ship’s-wheel medallion hung from a chain around his neck. In his left hand, he clutched a half-smoked cigar and a can of light beer. The man reeked of alcohol. Shi had been right to warn him.

  “Don’t just stand there, moron,” the captain barked at his mate. “Help these people aboard.”

  Cheng could already tell this was going to be a long voyage.

  The crew helped the party aboard, and after the captain had given them a brief tour and explained where everything was, including the life jackets, he fired up the twin Man 800s, the mate untied the vessel from the dock, and they shoved off.

  As they got under way, the hostess offered them welcome drinks. When one of the princelings asked for a scotch and two others asked for beers, Cheng scolded them in Chinese. They settled for Cokes instead.

  Cheng didn’t care for the man the Second Department had codenamed Medusa. He sat up on the fly bridge, piloting the yacht, alone and aloof. There was no depth to him whatsoever. This was obviously all about the money. Cheng had no doubt that the man would indeed sell them out if it served his purposes. He made sure to keep a very close eye on him.

  The hostess and the mate were another issue altogether. They were continually touching or passing too closely in order to rub against each other. Cheng hated Americans more than he could possibly express and couldn’t wait to get to Cuba.

  They had just entered open water when Cheng heard the engines throttle back and the boat begin to slow.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Why are we slowing down?”

  “We’re not slowing down, chief,” the mate said. “We’re stopping.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Yes, we are,” the captain said as he climbed down from the bridge and began grabbing fishing poles from the racks mounted to the side of the boat.

  Cheng stepped right up to him and got in his face. The smell of booze was overwhelming, yet Cheng didn’t budge. “You’re not being paid to take us fishing,” he ordered. “You’re being paid to take us to Cuba.”

  Medusa looked at him, his cigar clamped between his teeth, and replied, “Relax. You’re going to get to Cuba. In the meantime, we’re going to make sure we look like a fishing charter. If we don’t, I promise you we’re going to have trouble.”

  Turning to the princelings, the captain then asked, “Anybody want to try for sharks?”

  There were several nods from the young Chinese men, so the captain said to his mate, “Let’s toss out some chum.”

  After the fishing po
les were placed, the captain climbed back up to the bridge and began piloting the boat parallel to the Keys, not south toward Cuba. Cheng wasn’t in the mood.

  Climbing the ladder, he whistled to get the captain’s attention. “You’re wasting time. I’m sure there are plenty of fish en route to Cuba.”

  “And you’re pissing me off,” the captain replied, placing his cigar in the ashtray. Looking past Cheng, he yelled to his hostess, “Angie, bring me a rum runner.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper!” the slutty woman responded from below.

  Cheng had had enough. “Let me explain something to you.”

  “No,” the captain interrupted, “let me explain something to you. I know what I’m doing. This is my boat, my rules. You need to relax.”

  “I’ll relax when we get to Havana.”

  “You need a drink,” he replied. “Angie!” he yelled down to his hostess again. “Get our guest a drink.”

  “What I need,” said Cheng, “is for you to explain exactly how this is going to go. I don’t want any surprises.”

  Rolling his eyes, the captain snatched up his cigar, chomped down on it, and yelled for his mate. “Jimmy!”

  “Yes, skipper?”

  “Come up and take the wheel. I need to review the nav charts with our guest.”

  “Aye, aye, skipper,” the mate said, and as he waited for Cheng to step down from the ladder, he motioned to one of the students to take his place, dig in the bucket, and keep tossing out the chum. Once Cheng had moved, the captain climbed down and the mate was able to climb up.

  “Heading?” he asked.

  “South,” the skipper replied, locking eyes with Cheng. “Our guests are in a hurry.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” the mate said.

  Cheng hated the nautical-speak, he hated their boorishness, and he hated that his fate and the fate of his mission were in the hands of these idiots. He wanted to place bullets in all of them.