Power and Empire

by Marc Cameron

  The typhoon worried him at first, but it had turned northward, leaving Holloway and his little boat to their duties of gathering signals intelligence from any PRC or DPRK subs plying the waters of the East China Sea. Masquerading as a fishing research vessel, Meriwether ran a zigzagging surveillance run out of Naha, heading for Taipei to refuel before making the return trip back to Okinawa.

  It should have been a straightforward mission, but now the storm track had changed again.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” his navigator, a nautical engineer named Rockie Bell, said, tapping the radar screen on the console at the helm. She was sharp, a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and one of the few real sailors on the boat.

  “I know,” Holloway said. “Damn thing’s moving west again. We can duck into Keelung City on the north end of Taiwan if need be.” He nodded to the forecastle. “I’ll be out on deck a moment.”

  Holloway left the pilothouse through the side door and made his way forward. Instruments were all well and good, but he preferred to look at the waves and sky for important information. He didn’t particularly like what he saw.

  The muggy air was clear above, but a line of black clouds to the east made him clench his teeth. The sea was already heaping up and a stiff wind blew at least thirty knots, carrying with it the heavy smell of rain and ripping foam and spray off honest eight-foot waves.

  Holloway turned to walk back inside, but a sudden jolt, like an earthquake rippling along the deck, nearly threw him off his feet. He looked through the pilothouse window at Rockie, who shrugged.

  A rogue wave, maybe?

  Holloway felt Meriwether shift under him as the stern swung around, broadside to the wind. They were slowing.

  Stumbling back inside on the rolling deck, Holloway glared at his navigator. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I’m trying to raise engineering now,” she said, microphone in hand. She tapped the instrument panel on the console. “Engine temperatures are through the roof.”

  The fire klaxon sounded a half-second later, followed by the voice of Don Patton, the twenty-six-year-old ship’s mechanic, halting and breathless.

  “Scavenge fire in the diesel . . . crankcase explosion,” Patton said.

  “Steam it out,” Holloway ordered.

  “I’ve done that, Skipper,” the mechanic said. “Fire’s under control.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “A few burns,” Patton said. “But not as bad as the diesel.”

  “How long until you can get her running again?” Holloway asked.

  There was a long pause as Meriwether swung around, broadside to the gale, at the mercy of the approaching storm.

  “I’m not sure it’s even—”

  Holloway cut him off. He didn’t want fatalistic talk.

  “Give me an estimate.”

  “I’ll do my best, Skipper,” Patton said.

  “That’s all I can ask, son,” Holloway said. “So long as you understand that we’re about to get a very uncomfortable saltwater enema if this typhoon hits us while we have no power.”

  “Aye, sir,” the mechanic said.

  “I’ll send Rockie down to see to your burns.” He nodded to the navigator, who was already grabbing the medic bag from under the console.

  Holloway took a deep breath, cursing at his own stupidity.

  He’d taken out a green crew on a ship he didn’t quite trust. It didn’t matter how much the suits back in Anacostia had wanted him to hurry. He knew better. DIA wasn’t to blame for this. He couldn’t even blame the previous mechanic for faulty diesel maintenance—though that was surely the cause.

  The little spy ship groaned, turning again before the wind, wallowing in the middle of a vast and unfriendly ocean. There was a lot of tech on board that the Chinese navy would just love to get their grimy hands on—if the typhoon didn’t sink her first.

  Whatever happened, the blame rested squarely on Holloway’s shoulders. He was the skipper and he’d disregarded his rule of threes.

  • • •

  Clark estimated it would take him less than a minute to cover the forty meters to the dock. Most people who tried to swim that far underwater ended up flailing around and wasting energy trying to go too fast for fear of running out of breath. Clark would swim at a walking pace, gliding rather than powering through, because if you fought the water, you always lost. Holding his breath wouldn’t be an issue. Staying on course in the chocolate-brown lake water would be the challenge, that and timing his arrival so Muffin Top was facing the other direction.

  The heavy beat of rap music was still rolling down the grassy hill when Clark made it to the bottom of the finger ridge east of Zambrano’s. He kept low, on the far side of the hill and out of sight. Hours of surveillance had shown him that each of the triad sentries had his own method of patrol. Muffin Top spent a great deal of time gathering skipping stones on the shore, in between sauntering out the twenty feet or so of pier to walk back and forth a few times on the floating T where the boat was tied. The boat occupied most of the western arm, which made it more difficult to skip stones. Consequently, the chubby sentry spent a hair more time on the easternmost ten feet of floating dock—a fact that Clark intended to exploit.

  He entered the water silently, wearing the CamelBak and all his gear. The slow, deliberate movements came as second nature to him, and he was up to his chin in no time without creating even the slightest splash. He ducked his head under once, wetting his hair and face while he took the time to get a feel for the rocky bottom under his boots.

  In the Navy they’d almost always had a swim buddy—especially in the perilous world of the SEALs. The hazards of going it alone underwater were well documented. But the real world was a brutal place. Taking three deep breaths to saturate his lungs with oxygen, he worked his way around the point, slowly cutting the pie to bring the docks into view. Muffin Top was on the shore, his back turned, picking up stones. Anyone who hadn’t done their homework might think now was the time to go, but Clark didn’t need the man with his back turned now. He needed him with his back turned in forty seconds.

  The chubby sentry turned with his hands full of rocks. The second his lead foot hit the pier, Clark ducked beneath the surface and began his swim.

  The poor visibility that made navigation difficult also saved Clark from getting shot as he swam. Even so, he stayed as deep as possible, skimming just inches above the rocky bottom. He concentrated on keeping his strokes and kicks even, making certain to go in a straight line. Forty seconds later, he slipped under the darkness of the dock. It was relatively shallow and he was able to stand with his head above water. Long shafts of light showed through the wooden treads above Styrofoam floats.

  Muffin Top hummed softly at the other end of the dock, pitching stones one by one. This was the point where things grew difficult. Sentries were human beings. Enemy or not, they were somebody’s kid, somebody’s brother, uncle, or husband. Some of them sang and skipped rocks. But Muffin Top wasn’t just a security guard who happened to be working for the wrong guy. He was Sun Yee On triad, complicit in the slavery of at least the two girls up by the pool. He’d laughed his fat ass off when one of those girls had almost drowned. No, he could sing like Pavarotti for all Clark cared. That didn’t give him a soul.

  Wood creaked and swayed as Muffin Top walked to the east end of the dock. Waiting at the far end, just outside the edge, Clark brought the Glock up a fraction of a second after his face broke the surface, tipping the barrel slightly to let the water drain. The shot struck Muffin Top as he threw his first stone, straight through the bottom of his chin. The triad man teetered there for a moment, the rest of his rocks slipping from his hand, and then fell face-first toward the water. Clark rounded his shoulders, collapsing under the weight of Muffin Top’s body, mitigating the splash. Ready to duck and swim, he glanced uphill and breathed a
sigh of measured relief that no one came running down with guns blazing.

  Clark stuffed Muffin Top’s body under the edge of the dock and then, without looking back, swam past the boat to exit the water at the other end of the cove. He moved quickly, up the long finger ridge that ran along the west side of the house, opposite his earlier vantage point. He had about ten minutes until the guards shifted posts, if he was lucky.

  It took him five minutes to work around to the circular driveway behind the house. He would have put a guard up here, by the vehicles, but was glad Zambrano and Chen relied on a man in the trees a hundred meters away up by the gate. Clark hadn’t actually seen this one’s face, just enough movement when he’d driven by to know someone was there. The gate guy was too far away to be an immediate threat, but Clark would have to remember to watch his six once the rodeo began.

  Clark shrugged off the CamelBak in the relative safety of the cedar trees along the driveway. Music still thumped around the corner, muted some by the house. The sun was low, and though it was still plenty light, would soon fall behind the ridge, throwing the little valley into shade. There was a strong possibility Zambrano and Chen would go back in the house when that happened, which put more pressure on Clark. He wanted them outside to make this work.

  The half-cup of chlorine granules dumped in the water bottle of brake fluid gave him about a minute and a half. He didn’t bother with the lid, but left the bottle upright beneath the gas tank. The mixture did nothing at first. Clark punched a hole in the rear of the gas tank with his Benchmade, large enough that fuel began to drain into the gravel beside the water bottle. This done, he rolled out from under the truck to crawfish back into the buckbrush along the driveway, well away from what he knew was about to happen. Roughly a minute and a half in, white smoke began to pour out from the edge of the truck. An instant later, Clark heard a rush of sound like a jet engine, and then a hollow whoompf as the fuel tank caught fire. Richie Rich, who was posted near the end of the house, heard the noise and trotted out to investigate, earning him two shots to the face from Clark’s suppressed Glock.

  Pigeon poked his head around next, and met the same fate.

  It would have been nice if they’d just keep offering themselves as targets, but sooner or later the others would get wise to the fact that their buddies weren’t coming back. When in doubt, Clark preferred to err on the side of action. He decided to press the issue, not wanting to give the folks on the other side of the house time to figure out what was going on. He shot a quick glance toward the road. The guard out there would notice the fire soon enough, and Clark wanted to be done with the other seven by the time he got here.

  He turned back around just in time to see Mini Fridge run out of the back door with a fire extinguisher. Instead of dropping the canister and going for a gun, Mini Fridge ducked his head and ran, intent on bowling Clark over. Clark brought the Glock around a fraction of a second too late, getting a shot off, but impacting the extinguisher instead of the man. Mini Fridge growled, lashing out with the aluminum cylinder, knocking the gun out of Clark’s hand and into the bushes.

  The short man looked at a now empty-handed Clark and laughed, moving his thick neck back and forth like a wrestler warming up. Surely the younger man was thicker and stronger than Clark. No doubt he saw only a granddad there in the driveway, soaked to the skin, no less. And in some ways, Mini Fridge was dead right. Clark was breakable—and the vagaries of age and passing time had robbed him of his once great strength, made him slower than he’d been.

  He was, however, still an incredibly accurate instinctive shooter.

  The Wilson Combat all but jumped into Clark’s hand as soon as he’d swept the tail of the windbreaker aside. He thumbed down the safety and brought the gun upward, indexing the target as naturally as pointing a finger. Clark shot three times in quick succession, twice to the chest and once to the head, in the event Mini Fridge was wearing a ballistic vest and decided to stay in the fight.

  Mini Fridge wasn’t—and he didn’t.

  The Glock was gone, hopelessly lost along with any semblance of surprise Clark had against the rest of the bad guys. He met Sasquatch head-on as the other man came running to investigate the shots from the .45. Clark gave him two more to investigate, these up close and from the hip. He reloaded a fresh magazine into the Wilson, tucking the used one into his back pocket in case he needed the remaining three later.

  By now, Zambrano and Chen were both on their feet. Neither appeared to be armed, but Zambrano lunged toward a side table for something. Clark shot him twice center mass, causing both the girls to scream and cower by their deck chairs. Lily Chen shouted something at the nearest triad goon. A glass tabletop shattered behind Clark as Geezer began to empty a pistol in his direction from the direction of the cabana. Bullets snapped off the concrete, at least one twanging off the surface of the swimming pool to ricochet into the trees. Clark returned fire, causing Geezer to retreat behind the cabana. Rattail shot then, from the other direction, catching Clark in a crossfire. The first round went wide, but the second took Clark in the calf. It felt like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer, but he could still walk.

  Clark sent another round toward Rattail to keep him honest, took a step, stumbled, and then regained his footing. He was in the open now. Geezer must have seen the wound and decided to press his attack, coming around the cabana, blazing away with his pistol. Clark shot him twice, in the shoulder and the neck, reloading a fresh mag as he spun immediately back to Rattail, hobble-walking toward the cover of a deck pillar as he kept the other man’s head down with spaced shots from the Wilson. He wanted Lily Chen, but Rattail put his body in front of hers, gallantly, and stupidly, absorbing two rounds from Clark’s .45. The man was tough and kept shooting long enough for Chen to shove Magdalena into the water—along with the metal deck chair that was chained to her ankle.

  The child sank like a rock, dragged to the bottom by the heavy chair, obviously chosen for that purpose. Clark shot as he moved, emptying the .45 but hitting Chen at least once in the belly and knocking her to her knees as she attempted to drag the other girl into the water.

  Clark dove headfirst, eyes fixed on the struggling girl at the bottom of the pool. The shot probably wouldn’t kill Chen—not quickly enough, anyway. She’d surely crawl to Rattail’s gun and shoot Clark while he swam down to Magdalena. But he didn’t care anymore. If he did nothing, the girl would die. If Lily Chen got a gun, the girl would die. This way, at least, she wouldn’t die alone.

  Clark made it to the bottom of the pool with two powerful kicks. Magdalena Rojas reached for him, eyes wide, waving her arms, still struggling to pull the chair to the surface. Clark drew her close and gave her a quick rescue breath, suddenly finding his own limbs incredibly heavy. It was impossible to lift the deck chair, let alone swim to the surface with it. He considered dragging it up to the shallow end, but even that seemed a herculean task. Clark checked the leash connecting the chair to Magdalena, and found it to be a chain, not too big, but big enough he couldn’t break it by pulling. A small padlock held it in place. Hopeless . . .

  There was a splash behind him and he turned to find a new face, a female face, surrounded with billowing red hair, swimming toward him. Then Caruso was there, too, and Clark thought he must be dead. But if that was true, then Caruso and the redheaded FBI agent were dead as well. Then he remembered the bullet wound in his calf.

  Being dead hurt like hell.

  • • •

  Dominic Caruso dragged Clark to the shallow end of the pool. Callahan and Olson brought up the Hispanic girl and her deck chair while two other agents saw to a wounded Lily Chen, who now lay on the pool deck, screeching as though her guts were being torn out. One could dream, Caruso thought.

  Callahan helped Olson push Magdalena up on the pool deck to Trooper Sergeant Bourke and then waded into the shallows to stand beside Caruso. Water pressed the silk blouse against her skin.
/>   Clark coughed, blinking up at Caruso, then worked his jaw back and forth.

  “Shit,” he said. “Guess I’m not dead.”

  “Nope,” Caruso said.

  “But you are under arrest,” Callahan said.

  Caruso frowned. “Now, hang on. This was all in self-defense and you know it.”

  “Self-defense my ass,” Callahan scoffed. She wiped the water off her face and sniffed, looking down at Clark. “I’m happy you saved these girls. Don’t get me wrong. But you can’t just go all John Wick and then expect to walk away.”

  “Do what you have to do,” Clark said. “I don’t blame you.”

  “That’s special,” Callahan said. “So you agree to being arrested. That’s big of you, considering the pile of dead bodies left in your wake.” As she spoke, she helped pull Clark out of the pool and rolled up his pant leg to check the wound in his calf. There were other scars there. A lot of them, as well as a bunch on his neck. This dude had been around the block.

  “I’m not admitting to anything,” Clark said, coughing again. “But there may or may not be another one under the dock.”

  “Marvelous,” Callahan said. She nodded to the bullet hole. “Looks like a through-and-through, but it might have nicked the bone. You may have to walk with a cane.”

  “That’s probably not going to happen,” Clark groused. He glanced up at Caruso, eyes narrow. “How’d you find me?”

  “Not entirely sure,” Dom said, looking sideways at Callahan. “I think somebody might have screwed with my phone.”

  Clark groaned. “I’m lucky she’s better at investigating than you are at operational security. Anyway, Lily Chen will have a cell phone somewhere. And on that phone will be a number for her brother, Vincent. Our people need that number yesterday. Understand?”

  Dom nodded. “Copy that.”