Rising Sea

by James Lawrence

  “In your opinion, the Chinese are definitely going to figure out it was me.”

  “Yes, you’ve been to too many ports, made too many refueling stops and repairs to hide the association from the Chinese. It’s a data analysis exercise and just a matter of time before they crunch the numbers and identify you.”

  “Even if they know it was me, so what? Building naval bases in international waters and claiming the territory and all of the natural resources that come with it isn’t exactly legal either. If they have a problem with what we did they should take it up with the US Government.”

  “I don’t know what the Chinese will do. But I’m sure they will do something severe,” Cheryl said.

  “You need to disappear. Once the Chinese start looking at me, they’re going to find you and that could be dangerous,” I said to Cheryl.

  “Where should I go?”

  “Langley, you’re safest inside a CIA safe house.”

  “I’ve gone that route before, and I don’t want to repeat it. I’ve given this some thought. I think we should go to the Bahamas.”

  “Why?”

  “The house is easily fortified and defended; it would take a major military-style assault to penetrate. We’ll get early warning because we’ll know immediately if a group of Chinese land on the island because they’ll stick out like a sore thumb. I’d feel safer and more comfortable there than in a CIA safe house.”

  “We’ll consult Mike. See what he thinks.”

  “In the meantime, we’ll stash the pirate loot and move our gunfighters to Eleuthera.”

  “That works for me.”

  “Can you provide ISR once we get to Eleuthera?” I asked David.

  “I’ll put in a request as soon as we’re done.”

  “What else can you tell us about this Pirate Queen?” I asked David.

  “Quite a bit. I’ve done considerable reading over the past few days.”

  “Why don’t you stay for dinner. I have a booking at the Number 1 upstairs. We can order the tasting menu, get the matching wines, and you can fill us in on this pirate wench.”

  David held our attention for the next three hours with stories of the pirate queen. He’s a brilliant man with an amazing memory. The Balmoral clock tower atop the hotel struck ten when we were putting David into a car to send him home. The snow had stopped, and the empty street was so quiet we could hear the echo of the bells off the surrounding buildings.

  “That clock’s been three minutes fast since it was built in 1902. I read that in the brochure,” I said to Cheryl

  “Why not fix it?”

  “This place was originally built by a railroad; the clock was set three minutes fast so that people wouldn’t miss their trains next door at the Waverley Place train station. Now it’s kept that way out of tradition.”

  Cheryl and I retired to our room. I went to the window and pulled open the drapes. We were in the JK Rowling Suite, where she wrote the final Harry Potter book. Outside, a fresh blanket of snow covered the grey stones of Edinburgh Castle. The only light came from a couple of streetlamps reflecting against the snow under the heavy cloud cover. Edinburgh Castle in the distance had a dark Hogwarts quality to it. It was very much in contrast to my mood which, after a Michelin starred meal, an abundance of very high-quality spirits, and the inspiration of David’s tales of pirate conquest, was very upbeat.

  “What do you think of the décor?” I asked.

  “There’s a picture of Sean Connery with Ursula Andress wearing a bikini in the bathroom,” Cheryl said in a disapproving tone.

  “No doubt about it; this place has class.”

  “Class; is that what you call it?”

  “We should stay with the Bond theme. Tonight can be The Man with the Golden Gun night; I’ll be 007 and you can play the hot Asian girl.”

  “How do you know there was a hot Asian girl in that movie?”

  “There’s a Man with the Golden Gun movie poster hanging in the bedroom and it has a hot Asian girl in it.”

  “Who played Bond?”

  “Sean Connery.”

  “Who was the Bond girl?”

  “No idea on who the actress was, but if my memory is correct, the character was named Chew Mee or something like that.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “It was a different age. This place is great—Harry Potter and James Bond themes, a super restaurant, a bar with five hundred different whiskies. If I find a pistol range in the fitness center, I’m never leaving.”

  “It’s a bit much.”

  “If you think this place is too much, then I better cancel our trip to Disney World.”

  Chapter 10

  Beijing, China

  Huang wore a surgeon’s mask over his face as he walked to the Ministry building. The pollution level was at its highest level in months; a pall of grey smoke hung in the air, so thick it blocked the sun. He passed through security and entered the empty elevator. His team of researchers occupied the entire eleventh floor of the high rise. When he arrived at his office, the reaction from his secretary was the first sign something was off.

  “What is it, Ming?” he asked.

  “The Minister is inside your office waiting for you.”

  “Have you brought him tea?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent, please have mine sent in and leave us in privacy,” Huang said as he entered his office.

  “Minister, it’s an honor to have you visit.”

  ‘Huang, I need an update. You’ve done excellent work, but I’m under a lot of pressure to deliver results. I’ve been in the intelligence business long enough to know that pressure doesn’t hasten results, but our detractors in the PLA are sowing seeds of failure to the higher-ups and I could use some good news.”

  “We have made progress, Minister. We don’t yet have all of the answers you seek, but I can give you everything we have if you have the time.”

  “That would be most helpful, Colonel Huang.”

  “The boat used by the divers who rigged the explosions is registered in the Bahamas. The name of the yacht is the Sam Houston.”

  “How do you know?”

  “From the frigate footage, we identified the vessel as an Azimut 64. Only 217 were ever built. We tracked the location of every yacht through multiple sources including insurance, boat registrations, marina records, and AIS tracking records. We narrowed down the possibilities to thirty-seven boats.

  “From the thirty-seven possible, we looked into the owners. The average yacht owner is not an underwater demolition expert. The depth at the location our frigate confronted the yacht is at least sixty meters and it’s close to a shelf that’s over one thousand meters deep. This was a serious technical dive and not something the average wealthy retired yacht owner could perform.

  “The only Azimut 64 yacht owner who fit the profile was Pat Walsh. He’s a former US Army Officer and he’s a CIA asset.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He operates a company out of Abu Dhabi named Trident. He’s an arms dealer who was very active during the fight against ISIS. He was and still is to some extent the CIA’s conduit of weapons to the Peshmerga. He has sometimes bought from Chinese companies and he’s had frequent contact with Chinese businesses and Chinese Intelligence.”

  “Do we have a file on him?”

  “I have requested his file from Chinese Intelligence, but it hasn’t been delivered yet.”

  “When did you make the request?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “I’ll put a rush on it. What else?”

  “Trident does more than supply weapons; they are also a paramilitary organization. They conduct covert operations for the CIA.”

  “Like creating tsunamis in the South China Sea?”

  “They would be a good choice. They’re not officially part of the US Government. As contractors, they allow for deniability.”

  “What other names do you have?”

  “The images ta
ken from our frigate captured five personnel. We assume one more was in the wheelhouse for a total of six. We don’t have a positive identity on any of the other members of Trident yet, but we’re working on it.”

  “Where’s Pat Walsh now?”

  “We don’t know. We tracked his yacht to a marina in Paphos, Cyprus; the yacht left the marina three days ago and hasn’t returned.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I have people watching the marina. We interviewed the marina staff and the crew of some neighboring boats.”

  “How are you going to find him?”

  “We’re covering every marina within fuel range, we’ll catch him when he stops to refuel or if he returns to Paphos.”

  “It would be good if you caught him. We would do well to learn more about Pat Walsh.”

  “Once we get the files from Intelligence, that will help.”

  “You will have them.”

  “In the meantime, we’ll continue to identify the yacht crew and to find the yacht.”

  “You’ve firmly established that it was the Americans who attacked us. This was the most critical information. I’ll make a report to the President.”

  “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  Chapter 11

  Switzerland

  We touched down in a Dassault Falcon onto a small airfield sixty miles outside of Geneva. Cheryl and I were seated across from each other as we looked out the aircraft window and watched a convoy of two armored cars led by a Mercedes sedan approach. We were high in the Alps and when the cabin door opened a bitter chill swept through the aircraft.

  The men removed a steady stream of chrome metal Zargo cases from the plane’s cargo compartment and moved them into the armored cars. When they finished, Cheryl and I deplaned and went to the back seat of a waiting grey Mercedes that was parked at the front of the convoy. The driver ignored us as he waited for a signal from someone to tell him the cargo was fully loaded. I saw the reflection of a hand wave in the passenger side rear view mirror and off we went.

  We drove into a large offloading bay that was carved into the side of the mountain. Cheryl and I got out of the Mercedes, climbed a short set of stairs onto the loading ramp, and were met by a Swiss gentleman wearing a Russian-style fur hat and a heavy wool jacket.

  “So very nice to see you again, Mr. Walsh,” he said as we approached the golf cart he was standing next to.

  “It’s good to see you as well, Mr. Hofstadter. Thank you for arranging this deposit on such short notice.”

  “No trouble at all,” he said, in a thick German accent.

  Thirty-six cargo cases were offloaded from the two armored cars and then loaded onto four narrow flatbed cars that were pulled by an electric tug. Once everything was loaded, Mr. Hofstadter went to one of the gates on the far wall, swiped a security pass, and opened the door to passage C. Our golf cart entered the passage and drove for ten minutes deep into the mountain. We passed numerous vaults on both sides of the solid rock corridor until we reached one marked C244. I got out and went to the vault door. The door was made of stainless steel and next to it was a biometric scanner. I swiped my card and then placed my hand on the reader. When the light went from red to yellow, I pressed my forehead to the retinal scanner until I heard the clicking of the vault door unlocking. The heavy vault door came toward me and then swung open to my left.

  Cheryl followed me inside the vault. The room was rectangular in shape, approximately thirty feet by sixty feet. The temperature and humidity in the room were climate controlled. Against the walls were pallets. Some held gold bars, others held stacks of currency, mostly dollars and Euros.

  “What’s all of this?” Cheryl asked.

  “This is my rainy-day fund,” I answered.

  “The Vault, as they call themselves, is not a bank. It’s just the most secure place in the world to keep valuables. The three most common items are gold, currency, and art, in that order. I keep a stash here for the next time the US Government decides to freeze all of my assets.”

  “That’s smart. I can see why you thought it would be a good place to keep our pirate treasure.”

  “This place is more secure than Fort Knox and there are no records or reporting requirements to any government.”

  “The other guys should use this place.”

  “Not enough time; the vetting process to get approved as a customer takes more than a year. Being a member here is not an easy club to join.”

  We watched the pallets on top of the flatbed cars get moved into the vault with a forklift. Once all thirty-six cases were accounted for and stored in place, I updated a hand-written inventory sheet mounted on the wall near the door and secured the vault. Our golf cart followed the tug out of the mountain. When we reached the end of the hallway, Mr. Hofstadter had to get out of the cart and open up the gateway to the loading bay. Cheryl and I got back into the Falcon and were back in the air less two hours from when we landed.

  When we arrived in Eleuthera we found Migos and McDonald were already there.

  “Any updates on Savage and Sorenson?” I asked.

  “They’re in Grand Cayman. They found a bank there willing to provide them with a safety deposit service.”

  “Are they still using the C130?”

  “No, they sent it back after they offloaded it in Grand Cayman.”

  “Where does Maria have you staying?”

  “We’re all upstairs in the main house.”

  “It’s going to be a lot less cramped than on that boat. At least everyone gets their own room.”

  “What are we supposed to be doing here, anyway?”

  “Laying low, staying in a defensive mode in case the Chinese decide to retaliate against us.”

  “Why here?”

  “It’s an easy place to spot a Chinese hit squad.”

  “Not a lot of Chinese visitors to Eleuthera?”

  “It’s not on the Chinese tourism list. Busloads of them show up in Abu Dhabi in the middle of the summer when it’s one hundred and thirty degrees, but so far in the Bahamas, even at peak tourist season, there are hardly any Chinese; it isn’t on the Chinese travel circuit for some unknown reason.”

  “So that’s why I get so many stares,” Cheryl interjected.

  “If the stares are from women, then yes. If the stares are from men, then probably not. You get leered at by guys from everywhere in the world,” I said.

  “What are we supposed to do while we’re here?” Sorenson asked.

  “We have a great beach with surfboards, boogie boards, paddle boards, and jet skis. We have an excellent gym that has enough free weights even for you. Tippy’s, the best bar and restaurant on Eleuthera, is right next door. This should be a vacation. Just make sure you don’t go anywhere alone and make sure you stay up on comms and that you’re armed at all times.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The Trident office is down the street a couple of miles. Most of you’ve never met Jessica in person. It might be a good idea to stop in and meet the girl who actually pays your salaries and runs the day to day of our little operation.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” McDonald said.

  “I have a new boat coming in the next couple of weeks. Once it arrives, I’ll need to go to Nassau to pick it.”

  “What did you get?” Migos asked.

  “AB 100.”

  “Is it nice?”

  “It’s the Sam Houston on steroids.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s a 100-foot yacht with a max speed of fifty-two knots.”

  “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “It is with three V-12 nineteen-hundred-horsepower engines powering waterjets and a space-age composite hull. It also has a two-thousand-mile range. It’s going to be awesome.”

  “What did that run you?” Migos asked.

  “A lot, but it’s worth it. I learned my lesson from last time. This boat is going to be registered by the CIA through a bunch of different
shell companies. It will never be traced to me. It’s my last boat.”

  “You avoided the question.”

  “Because if I told you, you’d ask me for a raise.”

  “I already got my raise. I have a ton of un-spendable shiny stuff from the deep parked in a bank vault.”

  “That’s true. I’m surprised none of you guys have turned in your retirement paperwork.”

  “I’m too young and virile to retire.”

  “Very true, plus the lifestyle of a swashbuckling, pirate-treasure-hunting mercenary suits you.”

  “It does. What are you going to name the new boat?”

  “Not sure. I’m still working on that.”

  “We’ll brainstorm for you. Help you out. Otherwise, knowing you, it will be the Sam Houston II.”

  “It would be, only that would defeat the whole purpose of having to sink Sam Houston I.”

  “Good, so we’re safe on that end. How about ‘Pirate Booty’? You get it, it’s a pun.”

  “Don’t help with the name Migos; I can do it myself.”

  The next two weeks were uneventful. The guys settled into a routine of working out, fishing, surfing, and hanging out at the few nightspots on the island. I spent the mornings surfing and then divided my afternoon time between my home office and Trident’s headquarters building in Governors Harbour.

  Cheryl managed our countersurveillance operation. She stayed in touch with David Forrest and Langley. Cheryl, over the years, had cultivated her own human assets on the island and she worked that surveillance network along with the electronic one provided by David.

  Mike made an unannounced visit. Maria brought him up to the top floor of the beach house to my office. I was sitting behind my desk and didn’t notice him until the elevator door opened.

  “What are you up to?” Mike asked. We shook hands and moved over to the sitting area.

  “The team is in hide mode. We’re not up to much of anything,” I said.

  “Keep them alert; the Chinese have definitely figured out it was us that took out their fake islands.”

  “How do you know?”