by Rob Wood
The Buddha frowned, and his gaze burned into Cao Kai.
“Please answer our questions succinctly and without equivocation, Colonel.”
Cao Kai nodded and dropped his eyes in a measured, deferential way. He did not know the man working him. However, he had known, all his life, people like him. After all, he was one. And he knew how to play this game.
“I am happy so to do,” Cao said. “I am very happy to be participating in the American business. Moreover, it is my belief that our governments should make common cause in defeating terrorists and cutting the umbilical of drug money that nourishes them. There is no more important step to insure stability in the world among civilized peoples. As you may know,” he said, “China has a civilization that stretches back more than 5,000 years. Hu Jintao and the Central leading comrades have on several occasions issued important directives on the problem of illegal drug smuggling from the Golden Crescent.”
“Of course. Well put, Colonel. But what do you yourself know about drug-funded terrorism? Do you have personal experience that may be relevant?”
“Terrorism—it is one of the three great evils,” Cao paused and stared mournfully into his whiskey. “And it lies just beyond our western borders. Drug trafficking groups at home and abroad collude with each other to build up international passage into Xinjiang by organization and deliberation. There is the terrorism. And yes, to answer your question, succinctly, I have considerable experience. It was a chief part of my portfolio of responsibilities in PLA security.”
“Where? You are talking about . . .?”
“I’m talking about the Golden Crescent. With Afghanistan at its core. That area produces more opium than any place in the world. The Taliban have a dominant presence there, so it should be no surprise that they are intimately involved.”
“We know that,” the Buddha nodded.
“And how much do you know,” asked Cao, “about the increasing scale and organization of Golden Crescent drug smuggling, especially the growing links between domestic Chinese traffickers and Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asian drug rings?”
“Not enough and it concerns us,” Buddha wagged his head slowly from side to side. “We know there’s a connection to the Taliban. And ultimately, what doesn’t market in China is exported by the drug rings. Exported to the West.”
Cao nodded. “We don’t know enough either. However, we have access to Pakistani and Afghan police data. I doubt you have such resources. After all, it would be difficult to develop these sources of trust at the same time you are prosecuting a war there.”
“And what are you doing with your information?” Buddha asked.
“Xinjiang Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau’s Anti-Drug Corps have strengthened their campaign to block up the source and dam up the river. They struggle forcefully against the Golden Crescent.”
“In other words, you haven’t done much that is meaningful.”
“The police force there has too few men, too little money, and too little understanding of the tribes involved. We Han don’t even speak the language. It makes interrogation difficult. Despite this, we have intercepted many shipments.”
The two men were silent for a while.
“We should work together.” Cao said.
Buddha smiled as if he had been given a pleasant little gift.
“Have you thought of using Air Force application of herbicides on the growing areas?” Cao asked.
“There is no better way to alienate the local community of farmers,” said Buddha. “It doesn’t do to take money out of the hands of indigenous peoples struggling for survival.”
“And, of course, it complicates matters when you depend on these people for intelligence in the war in Afghanistan,” Cao said, shrugging his shoulders and opening his hands in front of him to say, with body language, “Isn’t it a pity?”
“We have made some progress in drug interdiction,” Buddha suggested.
“A good strategy.” Cao validated the thought with a curt nod. “It is my experience that there are only a handful of big players there, those who aggregate the production of many small farmers and make sales to the Taliban. Some are themselves both aggregators and terrorists. Those are key targets.”
“You are talking about Uighurs?”
“I am talking about Uighurs,” Cao nodded. “These are the same people running the big drug operations that fund the Taliban. Frankly, we would like to get rid of these people—but we lack the sophisticated reach of your anti-terrorist strike teams.”
“We have the technology, of course,” Buddha said. “But we lack information confirming whom to target. We have no intention of being indiscriminate. We need to know where taking out a target has benefit—in fact, more than benefit, it has to be of high value.”
Cao nodded. “I understand. Perhaps I can help you there. I have a high-value target in mind.”
27
PIRATES!
The red and white turret lights lit up Chang’s face like war paint. His jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed to a ferocious scowl. He jerked a semi-automatic off the wall, along with a scope and magazine.
“Mind if I join you?” Purdy said calmly, selecting what looked like a first cousin to an SR-25 automatic rifle, as well as a fistful of clips.
“Good,” grunted Chang. He bolted for the door and catwalk that led to the deck.
“I’m right behind you, Purdy,” muttered Cochrane, another scoped semi-automatic in hand, field glasses hanging around her neck. “I went to sniper school, too.”
They jumped out on the catwalk, then right back into the wheelhouse, as a light jazz of pings skittered around them. The ricocheted rounds kicked paint chips off the walls and into the air, like fake snow in a paperweight.
Two pirate boats, flat in the water, were closing fast. The entire 40-foot length of each boat was lined with wild men, whooping and blazing away with small caliber machine guns. It wasn’t that it was well aimed, it was the sheer volume of the discharge that was daunting.
Outside, they saw Li Yuchon crouched behind a deck rail, holding on and shaking.
“Who are they? Where did they come from?” asked Cochrane, as five random rounds shattered the wrap-around glass above them.
“Could be North Korea,” said Purdy. “Could be organized crime. Maybe refugees from Sumatra who would starve to death otherwise.”
“Has anyone thought about farm aid or micro loans on Sumatra? “
“Damnit, Cochrane!” snapped Purdy, as he ducked under a shower of sparks and paint chips. “This is one time where it pays to shoot first and ask questions later!”
“That was sarcasm, Purdy!”
There was a sudden lull in the volley, and Purdy said, “I’m going aft to get at the lead boat, you go forward.”
They burst out of the doorway and down the catwalk, Purdy in the lead. Then someone bellowed “No!” and Cochrane was lifted into the air, a big hairy arm around her belly. Chang grabbed the rifle from her. “No!” he repeated. He waved the rifle left and right, looking around desperately. Another burst of fire chattered on the railing.
Chang could see no one but Li Yuchon and tossed the rifle to him. Without meaning to, the boy caught it, falling back flat on the deck.
“Male chauvinist pig!” Cochrane spat.
“Sticks and stones. . .” said Purdy, shaking his head. “What are you always telling me about Asian gender prejudice? By the way, you better be here when I get back. I’d miss your sarcastic sense of humor.” With that, he scrambled off toward the stern, where the lead pirate ship was closing fast.
Cochrane turned to see Li Yuchon, knees drawn toward his chest, hugging the rifle like a cuddle toy. She squared her shoulders and walked toward him, not even flinching as the patter of machine gun rounds snapped sparks at her feet.
She knelt beside him, put an arm under his shoulder and drew him up into a sitting position. She stroked his shoulder and upper arm, put her face close to his and said softly, “You and I n
eed each other. Together, you and I will do a brave thing. I need you. And I will help you.”
Li Yuchon turned slowly toward her, his eyes big as saucers, his lip quivering.
Cochrane looked over her shoulder at the life saver just behind them. She stood up, lifted it off the wheelhouse wall and tossed it some 25 feet over the side. It bobbed there happily. The pirates, so close now she could read every facial expression, hooted, pointed, and laughed.
Then Cochrane resumed her seat by Li Yuchon, put her arms around him, and straightened him into a three-point sitting position.
“This rifle is a clone of the SR 25 semi-automatic out of Titusville, Florida,” she said, her mind checking the mental notes from long-ago training.
Li Yuchon looked at her blankly.
“It’s a good gun.”
She turned his body to face outward, drew the stock to his shoulder, and pushed his left arm out along the base of the muzzle. She let the muzzle rest on a ship’s rail for more stability.
With her cheek pressed against his, deliberately taking deep breaths, she urged him into a relaxed state, a Zen state.
“This rifle has a Leupold Vari-X Mil-dot scope to look through,” she said, adjusting for range, then tilting the rifle toward the life preserver. “Do you see the target?”
The life preserver filled the cross hairs.
“Yes,” Li said, as if in a deep sleep.
“Gently squeeze the trigger with me,” Cochrane said, guiding his hand to the trigger guard, then the trigger itself.
“Gently. . .” The rifle barked, the life preserver tumbled over, revealing a satisfying hole blown through its perimeter. Covered by the howling of the pirates, the gunfire, and the wailing of the ship’s claxon, the sound of the muzzle burst hadn’t shaken Li Yuchon at all.
“Well done,” she said, squeezing his shoulder.
“Each time you gently squeeze, you fire a round.” She lifted the rifle toward the pirate boat and again adjusted the scope for range. “Do you see shoulders, bellies and chests?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Squeeze the trigger with me—once, twice, three times.”
The rifle growled three times. She thought she saw one pirate collapse, another spin around holding his shoulder. There was no telling what happened to the third round.
“Again,” she said. They repeated the drill until the rifle would not fire. “We’ll load a new magazine,” Cochrane said, matter-of -factly locking a new clip in place. At the same time, she gauged the distance of the oncoming sloop. Too many pirates, coming too fast, too close. They didn’t have enough ammunition. They would be overrun.
“Our job is to turn that boat away,” she said simply, still stroking Li Yuchon’s shoulder. “To do that, we must shoot the man at the wheel in the wheelhouse.”
This was going to be a much tougher challenge than shooting into a crowded deck. Only the head of the pilot was visible. The rest of the body, and the wheel itself, were shielded by sheet metal and structural timbers that created a three-sided, roofed enclosure. The roof put the cabin interior partly in shadow. The cabin had window openings, but no glass. The best shot would be through the glass-less window.
“Focus on the head of the man at the wheel,” Cochrane said steadily, using the bland, velvet tone that hypnotists use to induce relaxation in a subject. “Focus. Breathe out slowly. Squeeze gently.”
Li Yuchon fired. There was no reaction in the wheelhouse. Cochrane picked up the field glasses slung around her neck and sighted on the pilot. “Once more,” she said.
Li fired.
“You are low and left of target,” she told him. “You are anticipating the recoil, and your right shoulder is pushing into the weapon, moving the barrel low and left. Try again.”
With the glasses focused on the wheelhouse, she saw immediately the hole punched low and left through the sheet metal.
“You’re doing well,” she lied, anxiety tightening her throat. “This time, squeeze your trigger finger right back into your palm. Breathe out. Steady. Fire.”
Releasing the trigger in this new fashion pushed the right hand slightly forward and out at the end of the trigger squeeze, moving the barrel high and right—enough to compensate for the twinge of anticipation in the right shoulder.
Through the glasses, Cochrane could see the pirate’s head jerk, and a bit of flesh pop forward at the point of entry in the pirate’s face. “Why does that happen?” she wondered absently, as if watching, safe and detached, from an armchair far away.
The pirate boat swerved off course, wallowing in an ungainly fashion. In a moment, however, it righted and, moving slower, closed on Cochrane, Li Yuchon, and the trawler. This meant someone new was operating the wheelhouse, although crouched well below window level.
“Yuchon,” Cochrane said. “Your weapon can fire close to 750 rounds a minute. The problem is we don’t have that ammo. But we can make them appreciate the rounds we do have. Fire three bursts into the center of that wheelhouse. Blow it apart.”
The boy fired. Wood chunks and wood slivers peppered the air around the wheelhouse. Jagged holes dotted the sheet metal sides. It was too much for whoever was inside. The pirate boat yawed right and accelerated out to sea, leaving a twisted wake behind to mark its path.
This time the whoops and shouts came from the trawler itself. Cochrane looked aft to see some of the trawler’s people raising their rifles in salute. Behind them, the first pirate boat was dead in the water. Bodies hung over the gunwales where they had fallen during the attack.
Cochrane staggered back. She could see Chang hugging Li Yuchon. She could see Purdy sprinting toward her. She turned and puked over the railing.
They radioed the Vinson from the trawler. A little more than 48 hours later, the rendezvous was complete. They were picked up by a helicopter and flown back to the mother ship. Their arrival on the helipad was a real homecoming. Most of China Team was there to meet them, laughing, clapping, pumping the air with their fists.
Simmonds wore a smile that lit up his face like sunshine. He locked arms with them and waltzed them, like a proud father, through a gauntlet of backslappers and well-wishers.
It was good to be home, even if that meant racking out in a Navy berth, and rising to another of Partridge’s early morning meetings.
“Glad to have you back in one piece,” he said. He moved his pencil from hand to hand, as if that would help him find the right words. “From what I hear, you did your part to sweep piracy from the high seas. And I’m glad that distraction did not interfere with your primary goal of getting Zhang to commit to putting a plug in the Khunjerab Pass. Hopefully that will prevent an easy exit for the radioactive material taken from Daiichi.”
“She said she would handle it personally, sir.” Said Cochrane. “My guess is that’s where she is right now.”
“Time will tell,” said Purdy.
“Yeah, time has a funny way of coloring events,” said Partridge. “Since you’ve been away, there have been some interesting developments. For one thing, Langley is getting pretty heavily involved.”
“The CIA?”
“The same. They’re pressuring the folks at Naval Intelligence, claiming this is going to be their show and on their turf.”
“How do they figure that?” asked Cochrane defensively.
“Well, it’s where Afghanistan and Pakistan meet the Xinjiang border. This part of Pakistan is made up of an amalgam of independent tribes. You know it by the name Gilgit-Baltistan. The Khunjerab Pass—the CIA see it as their turf. They see it as integral to containing and weakening the Taliban through drug interdiction. They don’t want the Chinese involved. Any Chinese presence—they want to neutralize it.”
“The BBC claims they were even targeting Chinese workers in Afghanistan,” said Cochrane.
“Yeah,” nodded Partridge. “Langley looks at the People’s Republic of China as a competitor. Your friend Zhang is a fly in the ointment—a Chinese who’s altogether too influential the
re.”
“She is not Chinese!”
“I know. We’ve been over that. However, it seems they’ve got themselves a source who says Zhang is running drugs out of the Golden Crescent and thereby helping to fund the Taliban.”
“Who is this source?” asked Purdy pointedly.
“Real interesting fella,” said Partridge, who resumed tapping his pencil. “An up and comer. Seems he’s done a reverse merger with a near-defunct American biofuels company, trading their supposed expertise for his access to both Chinese nut oils and Chinese consumers. They’re having a big soiree in New York next month to excite interest among well-heeled dentists in the Hamptons and other venture capitalists.”
“What’s this guy’s bonafides?” asked Cochrane.
“Oh, he knows a lot about the Chinese war on drugs in Xinjiang. You see, he’s PLA Security. It’s our friend Cao Kai.”
“What? That’ s the same guy who’s trying to kill us.
Partridge narrowed his eyes and held Purdy and Cochrane in a cold stare. “And you have whose word on that? Lily Zhang, right? Actress. Uighur separatist. Drug runner.”
“Who’s calling her a drug runner?” protested Cochrane. “The CIA. It’s well known they’ve protected drug traffickers as information sources. Maybe Zhang’s just doing the same thing.”
“Maybe. Maybe.” Partridge admitted. “But look at it Langley’s way. Who would you rather credit as a source? A high-up PLA officer/entrepreneur who’s so Western he’s doing business in the Hamptons? Or the woman who fraudulently deceived the U.S. Consulate, defiled a corpse and embarrassed us in front of the Japanese authorities, and who either knows about—or has fabricated—a terrorist plot involving stolen nuclear material?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Cochrane stood to leave.
“Sit right where you are Ms. Cochrane,” ordered Partridge. “There’s more.”