by Jack Slater
Though he had traveled to Asia many times over the course of a long and deadly career, the scale of the continent never failed to amaze him. China alone had almost one and a half billion citizens, and the country, while undoubtedly the largest, was just one of half a dozen such budding superpowers in this region.
One and a half billion souls, Trapp thought, turning the very concept of that amount of people over in his mind. It was almost impossible to imagine. China had a population five times larger than that of the United States, and an economy that was a roaring tiger, not a sputtering donkey.
He shook his head silently in the darkness.
The yacht was several miles off the coast, waves lapping lazily against its hull as it drifted without navigation lights. If he hadn’t been aware that a nuclear submarine was lurking somewhere in the depths of the ocean beneath him, cutting through the saltwater like a killer whale, Trapp would have thought he had died and gone to heaven. A cool sea breeze kissed his face, ruffling his dark hair and providing some respite from the overpowering, muggy heat.
Every now and again, a low thud rumbled the yacht’s hull, reminding Trapp of the real monsters that lurked in the deep. He reassured himself that the sounds were most likely the result of a flying fish colliding with the unexpected presence of his boat, but an older fear haunted him. The waters off the coast of Macau, he knew, harbored tiger sharks. They weren’t the deadliest, nor the meanest of the many species of man-killing sharks…
But then again, they wouldn’t need to be.
It would only take a single adventurous–or even merely confused–predator to take the first bite, and once his blood began to pool in the water, the waves would become a frothing feeding frenzy. In a matter of minutes, there wouldn’t be enough left of Jason Trapp to send home in a box.
Trapp’s gaze shifted out to sea and fell upon an enormous container ship several miles in the distance. It was little more than an outline in the darkness, a ghost passing through the night, bracketed by the navigation lights that warned the unwitting of its presence.
“Snap out of it,” he chided himself softly.
He turned and strode back into the yacht’s small bridge, checking the Chinese satellite navigation system to ensure that he was in the correct location. Just like the other ten times he had checked, he found he was. The tide was low, the waves almost non-existent, and while there was a light breeze, it wasn’t enough to push the heavy motoryacht off course.
The radio on the yacht’s dashboard crackled, and an unintelligible stream of Mandarin erupted from the unit’s speaker, a woman’s voice, in a clipped military tone. The words seemed to blend into one another, without so much as a pause for breath. Trapp’s command of the language was rusty. He’d picked up the basics on the Farm, but that was almost a decade ago, now–and even back then it would have been charitable to describe him as proficient. The CIA’s instructors certainly hadn’t.
He thought he had caught a couple of the words, regardless. Something about a boat. An unidentified boat.
Trapp checked his watch. Nineteen minutes, thirty seconds.
Damnit.
Time seemed to be moving slower now, as it always did in these situations. Trapp often wondered if there was a cruel god up there, tipping the scales and testing his resolve, making the seconds crawl as enemies closed in on every side.
He considered his options. There were few good ones, and pitfalls on every side. There were only two constants: first, that he could not allow himself to be captured, even if it came at the cost of his own life. And second, the USB drive could not be allowed to fall into Chinese hands.
The radio sounded again, and this time, if anything, the woman’s voice was even more insistent. A crawling sense of dread enclosed Trapp’s stomach. He had no doubt that someone out there had identified a boat where a boat was not supposed to be.
His boat.
And that spelled trouble.
Reflexively, Trapp checked his pistol. Even as he did it, he knew the action was fruitless. If a Chinese coast guard cutter emerged out of the darkness, it would be equipped with a fifty caliber machine gun on its bow, a weapon capable of cutting not just his body but the entire yacht in half with consummate ease. There would be no shooting his way out of this one.
Not this time.
He needed a better option, and needed it fast. He paced the small hardwood deck, chewing his cheek. He didn’t have long before a team of Navy SEALs would emerge from the inky blackness of the South China Sea, submachine guns at the ready, prepared to go to battle with any foe on his behalf, and die in the process if necessary.
But that salvation was twenty minutes away, and he might not have that long. He needed an edge of his own, a way to tip the scales. It came to him in a flash of insight.
Radar.
Trapp remembered the brochure, remembered that yachts of this class were sold with a navigation radar. He grabbed his flashlight, masking the beam in order to minimize any unwanted light emissions, and scanned the yacht’s control console.
He thanked his lucky stars that these million dollar boats were primarily built as rich toys for rich boys. They were user-friendly to a fault. Much of the console was taken up by a single touchscreen, which blinked into life the second his fingertips grazed it, illuminating the inside of the yacht’s luxuriously appointed cabin. Trapp grimaced. In the darkness, it was like a come and get me sign.
He flipped through the screens until he found the one he was looking for. A two-dimensional map of the area, bracketed on one side by a representation of the coast. Ghostly icons at the very edge of the radar’s range blinked in and out of existence, and contacts in the center, larger or smaller depending on the strength of the radar signal received in return, were given an icon commensurate with their size.
In the distance, far beyond even Trapp’s excellent night vision, the sea was alive with vessels. Large container ships drifting on set trade routes could be linked like constellations, and scattered all around them with smaller craft: pleasure yachts and fishing boats.
Most of the boats moved sedately, in set patterns, or with no particular intention at all.
All but one.
A single icon zipped across the screen at a frightening speed, on a vector that would bring it directly to the yacht that Trapp was currently standing on. According to the scale at the bottom of the screen, Trapp estimated that the boat was several nautical miles away – but it was closing fast.
He glanced up through the glass windshield that protected the yacht’s small bridge and oriented himself, tracking his eyes through the darkness until he settled on the unknown vessel’s chosen route. It wasn’t hard to pick the oncoming boat out of the blackness that had settled on the ocean like a thick winter blanket. It dwarfed his own yacht, an illuminated bridge sitting at least fifteen feet off the surface of the water. Beyond that, it was impossible to make out any details. Then again, he didn’t need to be able to read the number stenciled on the side of the cutter’s hull to know that, in about seven minutes, he was going to be in a whole world of hell.
“Fuck,” Trapp growled.
The word neatly summed up his current predicament. Put simply, he was screwed. The Sunseeker yacht’s engines were frighteningly powerful, capable of propelling the boat at speeds of over thirty knots. He had no doubt that no matter how fast the boat chasing him was, he would at least push it to its limits if it came to a drag race.
But there was one problem with that option. Well, actually there were a number of problems with it, but Trapp’s mind focused on one in particular. If he moved from this very spot, then the SEALs on the USS Cheyenne would emerge from the depths of the ocean, only to find their package long gone.
The Sunseeker’s engines were built for speed, not fuel economy, and Trapp had no doubt that even if he could outrun it, they would guzzle through his limited fuel supplies long before the larger boat ran dry. Running wasn’t an option.
Trapp slammed his fist down on the yach
t’s navigation console, chewing his lip with frustration. He was boxed in.
Unless…
Perhaps there was a way out of this, after all. He would be putting his life in the hands of the man upstairs, but he had done so dozens of times before, and a Hail Mary play had never failed him on those occasions.
You can only push your luck so far…
Trapp bit down on the warning. His subconscious was correct, of course, but in an entirely meaningless way. He only had two choices: wait for the Chinese to apprehend him, which they would eventually, or do something that they would not expect.
And since he had made a career out of always choosing the latter option, Trapp decided that right now was no time to change the habits of a lifetime.
He pushed a button on the console in front of him, and the yacht’s powerful engines thrummed into life, coughing violently before they settled down. He brought the yacht around, so that its bow faced into the dark of the ocean, and glanced at the radar console to ensure that the path ahead was clear.
Plotting a route through the maelstrom of coastal sea traffic felt like playing an 80s arcade game–one wrong move, and the expensive yacht would collide with a steel-hulled container ship many thousands of times its size. The larger ship probably wouldn’t even register the impact, but the luxury yacht certainly would. Trapp had taken a liking to the sullen Communist Party official trussed up below decks, and had no great desire to send the man to an initially fiery, then very wet demise.
Still, the mission was more important than one man’s life – and that held true whether that life was Trapp’s own or Secretary Liu’s. It was a risk the experienced operative was willing to take, if it meant getting the job done.
Trapp set the yacht on his chosen course, crossing his fingers one last time as the powerful engines turned the saltwater below his feet into white spray, sending the yacht surging forward through the ocean. He thought about going below decks to wish Liu good luck, but decided against it. He turned to leave the cabin, and was almost away before he stopped. He turned back, drew his side arm in one swift movement, and fired several rounds into the communications console. The small LCD screen on the front died instantly, a bullet hole cracking the glass. A singed smell filled the humid air, and satisfied the system was out of operation, Trapp left, snatching a small waterproof bag from a neatly organized shelf as he did so.
“Sorry, buddy,” he muttered, imagining the apoplectic complexion on Liu’s face when the crooked communist discovered the damage to his yacht.
If he was alive to discover the damage, that was.
The Chinese GPS unit in his other hand looked waterproof–at least, Trapp hoped that was the case. With the American satellites seemingly out of action, his only chance of making the pickup destination in the right place at the right time rested–ironically enough–in China’s hands. He entered the coordinates for the rendezvous destination into the device and watched as the icons indicating his own position, and that of his destination, began to diverge.
It was time to go. At thirty knots, it wouldn’t take long for the yacht to outpace the range of the mode of transport he was planning on taking. And the success or failure of the next few minutes would rest entirely on timing.
As the yacht’s engines growled, sending the hull of the luxurious boat cutting through the water with the relentless grace of a marine predator, Trapp jogged slowly to the back of the boat, checking that the flash drive was still prepared to take a one-way trip to the depths of the ocean, in case he was indeed captured.
When he was certain, Trapp put the GPS device to one side and checked his pistol. He had one spare magazine and half a dozen rounds left in the one currently loaded. It wasn’t enough to put up much of a fight. But then again, if he allowed himself to get mixed up in a gunfight in the middle of the empty ocean, thousands of miles from home, then it was already too late.
Trapp threw one last, lingering glance over his shoulder, noting with shock that the onrushing coast guard cutter had halved the distance between their two vessels already.
This is going to be tight.
Standing on the rear deck of the Sunseeker, Trapp quickly began to undress. He removed his boots, pants and jacket, and tossed each item off the yacht one after another. He briefly wandered what the SEALs would think when a half-naked man emerged from the waves and asked them for a ride down to the Cheyenne.
And then he decided he didn’t care. If he’d made it that far, then it probably meant he was getting out of this mess alive.
He tossed the flash drive into the waterproof bag, along with his spare magazine, but kept hold of the pistol itself, along with the Chinese GPS unit. He sealed the bag shut, looped its strap over his shoulder, then turned to complete his final task.
A sleek, powerful-looking JetSki sat on the yacht’s rear deck. Trapp quickly unlatched it from its moorings, grunting as he heaved the heavy toy across the deck, scratching the wooden surface. The toy was finished with a shiny black coating, which Trapp hoped would fade into the night. He was pretty certain that it would ride too low over the water to be visible on the radar, but couldn’t be certain until he put it to the test.
With one last heave, he pushed the JetSki off the Sunseeker at a right angle to the yacht’s trajectory, watching as it crashed into the ocean, briefly submerging beneath the yacht’s powerful wash before, with agonizing slowness, it righted itself. Then, without further ado, Trapp dived into the sea after it, clutching the pistol in one hand and the GPS unit in the other. Each was as vital to his survival as the other, and he couldn’t afford to lose his grip on either.
The roiling sea swallowed Jason Trapp whole, the saltwater brushing up his nose and stinging his eyes. For a second, in the darkness, he wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. Beneath the surface of the water, everything was silent. He couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat, the rushing of blood in his ears.
And then the madness returned. The top of his head broke the surface of the waves, and Trapp gasped in a deep breath. All around, waves towered over him like snow-capped mountains, blocking out his view of the line of cars on the coast road, reminding him that in this environment, he was nothing more than an untested stranger.
Briefly, panic filled his veins, ice against the warm embrace of the tropical ocean.
The Sunseeker’s wash tossed his body about like a ragdoll, submerging his head once more, starving him of breath. And then for a second time, Trapp burst through, sucked in a mouthful of precious oxygen, and began to swim. The JetSki was already barely visible in the darkness, and though Trapp’s brain was screaming, protesting the lack of oxygen in his blood, he shut out the ancient terror of drowning, windmilling his arms, and cutting a path toward his salvation.
Trapp hoisted himself out of the water, collapsing onto the JetSki’s padded leather seat and sucking oxygen into his straining lungs. Rivulets of water ran down his bare skin, and salt stung at his eyes. A sense of exhaustion bore down on him like a tidal wave, threatening to unseat him entirely. It was all he could do to clutch on to his tiny vessel for long enough to recover.
Get moving.
The voice inside his head growled a warning, as it had done so many times before. Trapp knew that he wasn’t out of danger yet. There was no guarantee that the cutter had fallen for his bait.
If the larger vessel gave chase, rather than following the enticing, lit-up prize of the Sunseeker, then Trapp knew what he had to do. He would be forced to ditch the flash drive, then set a course for the shore. He couldn’t risk leading the SEALs into a trap.
Slowly, fighting against muscles that had almost given in to their exhaustion, Trapp brought the GPS unit to his face, praying that it was as waterproof as it promised. Thankfully, it was. A thin sheen of salt blurred the screen, but Trapp easily wiped it off. He was already almost a mile away from the rendezvous point.
Glancing at his watch, he realized he had only nine minutes left.
And then he realized he had a
far bigger problem to contend with. The Sunseeker’s glistening lights were already far into the distance, chased by a searchlight from the powerful cutter which was quickly making up ground. Already he could barely make out the sound of the two boats’ engines over the lapping of the waves against the JetSki’s hull.
But the cutter wasn’t the problem.
Another boat was emerging from the darkness. Trapp squinted, attempting to make out the source of the sound: higher-pitched, and harder-working as it chewed through the water. More Jack Russell than the thunderous, pedigree roar of the cutter’s engines.
Could it just be a coincidence? He struck that option down immediately.
Only one explanation made sense. The cutter had–somehow–detected the smaller radar signature of the JetSki, and detailed another vessel to come check things out. Trapp respected the skill of the radar crewman, if not the results of his tenacity.
This had just turned into a race.
The problem was, at top speed, the JetSki could cover a mile in a minute–and the rendezvous point was only sixty seconds away. Trapp realized that he would have to lead his pursuers on a merry chase for the next few minutes, or he would bring all hell down on his extraction team.
“Okay then,” he growled, revving the JetSki’s engine. “Let’s see what you got.”
22
Eliza Ikeda awoke from the darkness a second time. As before, confusion reigned in her mind. The world was black, and her stomach churning. But this time, the fog didn’t last. A piercing cold brought her back to her senses with a start.
She was naked.
Eliza choked air into her lungs as her chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, her body on the edge of panic. Why was she naked? Where was she?