by Andrew Watts
She approached a round metal hatch in one corner of her living quarters and spun the large metal wheel that sat atop it. It was stiff at first, but then it unwound quickly. When the hatch was completely unlocked, she opened it and crept down the ladder inside. She shut the hatch behind her and continued down the ten-foot cylinder that was big enough for a man carrying supplies to fit through.
The vertical shaft she climbed down emptied into a round concrete tunnel. She had only walked it twice, but both times she had been amazed at how long it went on. It took her about fifteen minutes to get from one side to the other. Fifteen minutes to walk across—or through, to be more accurate—the island. She began her third trip through the tunnel, ignoring the pain she felt as she realized that her black low heels weren’t the most comfortable shoes she could be wearing. She had endured combat in some of the harshest spots on the planet. She could handle uncomfortable shoes.
The tunnel was dry and well lit. It curved back and forth through the dark rock of the island. There were no doors or alternate paths to take—just rounded concrete ceilings going on and on as far as the eye could see. Like the entrance to the Comms building, the door on the other side had a digital keypad. There was no vertical shaft to climb this time, however. Just a large metal door. She typed in the code and heard an electronic beep followed by a click as the door unlocked. The door opened to reveal a long, steep set of stairs that went up into oblivion. She began marching.
Lena’s footsteps echoed as she walked up the stairs. As she ascended, she heard more and more voices speaking Mandarin. She also heard the digital orchestra of computers, keystrokes, and high-tech communications. The stairway curved around into a cavernous room with dim blue lighting and the bustle of a dozen Chinese military and intelligence operatives going about their daily routines. Several sat in front of TV screens that had live feeds of the consultant meetings on the other side of the island. They typed furiously as they listened, taking notes and adding commentary that would later be carefully scrutinized. Others monitored radar and radio transmissions to a nearby fleet of Chinese naval vessels.
A lone white man—the American—walked up to Lena and held out his hand. “Lena Chou, nice to finally meet you.” He looked her up and down. “You having fun over there?” He was the only one in the room who was speaking in English.
Lena ignored the American and turned to the watch supervisor, “What’s the latest?”
A short, serious man with grey eyes and a raspy voice answered in Mandarin, “Ma’am, the latest weather report remains similar to this morning’s. Additionally, our amphibious support ship is now in helicopter range, but they have told us that it will be very difficult for them to fly in this weather. They asked me to convey to you that it would be wise to request air support in emergencies only until the storm fully passes.”
Lena frowned. “I understand.” She looked up at the TV screen that showed the classroom. “Keep your men’s eyes on David Manning. I think that he suspects something. He was out that first night. I think he saw the helicopter. Watch him carefully.”
The American cocked his chubby head and said, “David saw something?”
She studied the American’s face. She didn’t know how he had been allowed to spy for the CIA. She saw him as a disgrace. His disloyalty to his own country was despicable, regardless of the fact that he now claimed loyalty to her own. She would rather slit his throat and have fewer men than rely on him in a combat situation. He embodied all that was wrong with Americans. He was fat, lazy, pompous, and obnoxious. Worst of all, he had no sense of honor. To think what she’d had to sacrifice, all in the name of duty and honor. This man knew nothing of sacrifice.
Lena replied to his question. “Yes. David Manning likely saw something.”
“What did he see?”
“The second night. When Bill Stanley was extracted. You know Bill now. I believe you accompanied him back here this morning, correct?”
Tom said, “Yes.”
Lena said, “Well, David may have seen that extraction process. And if he did, that has likely compromised our position on my side of the island.”
“How do you not know whether he saw it or not? I saw those camera feeds in your control center just now. Can’t you see everything that is going on over there?”
Lena sighed. This man was beneath her. “We have video feed for the classroom only. We are constrained by time, I am afraid. The opportunity to host the consultants here on the island did not come with much prior warning. We prioritized the classroom. It is, unfortunately the sole area under surveillance. I monitor the status of our consultants, and I check in every few hours with the control center. The control center supervisor has standing orders if I don’t call in.”
Tom looked amused. “Really? That gets a little dicey for you now, doesn’t it? Think you can handle that all by yourself?”
“Yes, actually. But I’m not by myself. I have an assistant with me.”
Tom raised his eyebrows and said, “Just one?”
“Just one.”
“Who is it? Anyone from the list I saw?”
Lena didn’t answer. She turned and walked out of the room. A young Chinese soldier with a clipboard followed her. She dictated orders to him as she walked and he wrote down everything she said. Tom hustled to keep up.
They walked down a hallway with metal grate floors, then went up several sets of stairs. Tom was huffing and puffing by the time they got to the fifth floor. Lena walked with the endurance of a marathoner. They left the stairway and entered another long, narrow hallway. One side of the passage was the same dark grey concrete that all of the structures on the island were made from. The other wall had long plexiglass windows that looked into an enormous cavern. Lena stopped and stared out the window. A dozen men in hard hats were working inside. One had on a welding mask and sparks sprayed from the torch he held.
It was a spectacular work of construction. One of their newest submarine pens. The dark blue water on the ground level was empty of submarines at the moment. Two nuclear fast-attack submarines would fit, however, when they arrived. The opening of the cave was four hundred yards down and emptied into the ocean near the pier. Lena had been told that several dozen of these covert bases had been constructed in the past three years. It gave her a sense of pride to see the quality and precision with which the Chinese military worked.
Lena looked at the production site and said, “Tell me, Thomas, why did you betray your country?”
His face flushed. He said, “It’s Tom. And screw you.”
“Oh, please…take no offense. I simply wanted to understand how the transformation occurred.”
Tom shifted his weight and looked at her suspiciously. He said, “Fine. You wanna know? It’s because America isn’t what it used to be. I was in the CIA for eighteen years. I worked my ass off. I spent more time in shithole countries around the world than I care to remember…swatting at mosquitoes and listening to bad guys talk on cell phones. The pay was shitty. The job was shittier. After Iraq, the private sector got hot. And they paid real nice. So I jumped ship.”
Lena could see his eyes darting around as he replayed his life. What was sad was that he probably hadn’t given much serious thought to it. He lacked depth. He wasn’t a thinker. He was a pawn. That was fine. The world needed pawns. But she despised this one.
Lena said, “And?”
He looked at her. “And…the private sector played by a different set of rules. They weren’t driven by patriotism but by dollars. Everything started to become clearer for me. The game you and I play, Lena…it’s the same no matter what side you play it for. Once I went to the private sector, I got access to a lot of information. Sometimes our company sold it to the Americans…sometimes to other countries. And the thing about the private sector is…you can move around a lot. Competitors will pay you more money to come work for them and spill your guts. So this loyalty thing really started to get overrated for me. I bounced around a few times…worked for all of
the major players. I started doing work in Beijing for a small shop there. When you guys approached me…I saw it as just another opportunity to join a competitor. An opportunity. That’s all life is. A collection of choices and tradeoffs. There is no loyalty. No country or company is going to look out for you. They only care about themselves. Patriots are idiots. They can keep their flags and medals. I’ll be rich and on the winning team.”
Lena listened without betraying her emotion. This man was truly a pig. Mr. Jinshan had coaxed him into this role. Tom had helped them, that much was true. Much of his information had assisted their project greatly. They wouldn’t have been able to get many of the consultants if not for him. But she despised what he stood for. Meeting Americans like Tom made her believe in this cause. Lena knew that religion and those who loved it would serve as a scapegoat and motivator for many of the common folk. But to her this war had nothing to do with religion. It had everything to do with strength and weakness. This man was weak. Weak in the mind and weak in his convictions. He gave in to his desires. Probably went whoring any chance he got. He sacrificed nothing and believed in nothing of true value. That was how he’d gotten so fat. America had gotten fat. Europe had gotten fat. While much of the world starved. Lena would help to trim the fat and reset the balance.
She motioned for him to approach her. He leaned forward.
She bent in close to his ear and whispered, “I want you to know how thankful we are here for your service. But please…in case you have any doubt, know that my personal belief is that you are nothing more than a highly paid prostitute.”
She backed away and stared straight into his eyes.
His mouth dropped open. His face grew red. “I…I have helped you. And your country. How dare you…” He fumed, but didn’t add anything else.
She stood facing him, not backing down. After a moment, she turned and walked away, leaving him standing there, questioning everything.
She called back to him as she walked, “Come on, Thomas, let’s go chat with our friend Bill…”
Bill’s cell was eight feet by eight feet, and the ceiling was fifteen feet high. It was almost pitch black. A small crack under the door where the hallway light peeked in was the only illumination he had. They played some type of white noise at all times. It was beginning to drive him mad. He didn’t know how, but they must know when he was trying to sleep. That was when they turned up the volume. It was like a cross between the old sound of static from a wrong analog TV channel and a bee buzzing in his ear.
A jingle of keys. Then the door opened and the light from outside temporarily blinded him.
Lena and the American that had escorted Bill from the Chinese ship both stood at the door’s entrance.
Bill cowered when he saw them.
Lena gave him a bright smile. “Hello, Bill.”
He didn’t answer. Bill ran his hand over the stubble of his unshaven face. He was a mess. He looked back at Lena through tired, watery eyes. He stomach ached with hunger, and he was so exhausted. He wanted nothing more than sleep and a hot meal.
They treated him the same way here as they had on the Chinese ship. They piped the noise into his cell at all hours on the ship, too. He didn’t know how often they fed him because they had removed his watch on the first day on board. The first few nights on the boat he’d felt sorry for himself. He’d cried and been scared and missed his wife. But then he’d gone through a few days with little food and even less sleep, and he’d stopped feeling sorry for himself. He’d willed himself on, and started praying a lot. For food, mostly.
When they did feed him, it was just a little rice and some water. Usually they emptied his piss pot, too. He didn’t even smell the stench anymore.
This morning’s boat ride had been bumpy and confusing. He couldn’t understand why the American guy, Tom, would be helping them. But Bill had been so fatigued that he’d barely spoken to him. This was the first day the Chinese had let him out of the ship’s brig since the helicopter had dropped him off a week ago. One quick ferry to the island this morning and he’d been thrown right back in a cell. At least this one didn’t rock. The relentless seas had made him dry heave.
Lena repeated herself with an edge in her voice. She said, “Hello, Bill.”
Bill spoke through parched lips. “What do you want from me? Are you going to let me go?”
Lena said, “No, Bill. I’m afraid not. No one can leave. That’s why you’re here. Because you wanted to go home. And because you had knowledge of the timing of our ARES execution that others did not. I may have been able to convince you to do your patriotic duty and stay on the island for a few more weeks. But I couldn’t have you alerting the others that the attack is planned for much sooner than they believe. If they found out, they might not see the need to keep quiet and make all of these excellent plans. And we can’t have that.”
Bill curled up into a ball, holding his knees on the floor.
“Bill, you’re going to be alright. I just wanted to come by and say hello. Pretty soon you’ll be reunited with many of the other consultants. Your work will continue. If you do well, you’ll be treated well. If you do poorly, you’ll be treated poorly. Is that clear?”
Bill sniffed, looking up at her. He then looked at Tom. “You took me here on the boat today. You are American, right?”
Tom was still frowning from his recent interaction with Lena. He said, “Yeah.”
Bill said, “How can you do this to people from your own country?”
Lena looked at Tom. She cocked her head, interested in hearing his answer.
Tom grew defensive. He said, “I’m not the only American helping out. I’m not even the only American on this island that’s helping out. It’s a new world order, bud. Better get used to it.”
Bill said, “Who else? Combs?”
Tom looked at Lena. Neither said a word.
Bill didn’t need to hear the answer. That was one of the few things that Bill had given thought to as a prisoner. He knew Combs was dirty. Ever since he had seen that disgruntled, balding excuse for an officer glaring at everyone over his clipboard and thrilled at the prospect of having authority over them—he’d known he was a strange guy. In his cell, Bill realized that he was exactly the kind of eccentric, loner oddball that got off on spying as a way to prove that he was better than everyone else. It was obvious in the way he held himself that he felt superior to everyone in the room.
Lena and Tom didn’t need to tell Bill that the Major was in on it. He knew. And the smart-ass grin on this guy Tom’s face was all the confirmation he needed.
Tom just smirked and looked at Lena. She didn’t smile back.
Lena said, “You’ll see all of your friends soon enough. Tom will be back to go over some questions with you here soon. Some details that we need. I just wanted to let you know that I expect to hear good results from these conversations. Bill—do you understand?”
Bill nodded. He would try to resist. But if they offered him food, he would probably end up telling them whatever they wanted to know. He was so hungry.
“Good.”
Lena and Tom backed up and closed the cell door with a loud clang.
They walked back toward the room filled with Chinese personnel and computer screens.
10
All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. —Victor Hugo
It was lunchtime when David was finally able to speak to Natesh and Henry alone in his room. He had tried to talk to them in passing throughout the day, but with the Major and Natesh whipping the class into production mode, there was no time. He felt sick listening to all of the plans and seeing them written up in the summary document so precisely.
David siphoned Henry and Natesh over towards the barracks before they went into the cafeteria to eat. They started to ask him questions, but he shushed them until they closed the door in his room.
David said, “We need to act today—while the storm is moving in. I saw the other side. I swam t
here this morning.”
“You swam there?” said Natesh.
“Yeah. Listen. I saw Bill. They have him as their prisoner. I didn’t get a good look, but I’m pretty sure he was tied up. There were two Asian guys and they both had machine guns slung over their shoulders. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say they were probably Chinese. And I saw the guy that sent me here. One of the directors at my firm. Name’s Tom Connolly. He must be in on it. I mean, there can be no doubt now, right?”
Henry said, “Oh my God…”
“Are you sure it was them?” said Natesh.
“Positive. I’ve been thinking about this. I could see how, if this were a legitimate CIA operation, Tom could be here to help out. By itself that doesn’t mean anything. But with Bill on that boat—and the way they looked. It was all wrong. Lena said that she sent Bill home to his sick wife. We now know that she lied about that. And they all looked Chinese. I’m sorry, but that’s too strange to be legitimate.”
Natesh said, “I am not as familiar with how the CIA does business, but is it possible that these Asian men are just CIA employees or contractors that they have working for Lena?”
Henry frowned.
David looked skeptical. He said, “Natesh, I think that the holes in the Swiss cheese are starting to line up. Sure. Maybe the CIA hires a bunch of contractors that are from the local regions they operate in. But that boat sure looked like the kind that is used on board Navy ships. If I was a betting man, I’d guess it came from a Chinese warship.”
Henry said, “And why do you think Lena and the Major are pushing us to get this done today so quick? Do you really think they’re worried about communications getting knocked out? Or does Lena suspect that we’re on to her? I think she’s trying to suck as much out of us as possible before the hammer drops.”