Clive Cussler
and Boyd Morrison
TYPHOON FURY
Odessa Sea (with Dirk Cussler)
Havana Storm (with Dirk Cussler)
Poseidon’s Arrow (with Dirk Cussler)
Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler)
Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler)
Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler)
Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler)
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure
Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex!
Night Probe!
Vixen 03
Raise the Titanic!
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
The Romanov Ransom (with Robin Burcell)
Pirate (with Robin Burcell)
The Solomon Curse (with Russell Blake)
The Eye of Heaven (with Russell Blake)
The Mayan Secrets (with Thomas Perry)
The Tombs (with Thomas Perry)
The Kingdom (with Grant Blackwood)
Lost Empire (with Grant Blackwood)
Spartan Gold (with Grant Blackwood)
The Cutthroat (with Justin Scott)
The Gangster (with Justin Scott)
The Assassin (with Justin Scott)
The Bootlegger (with Justin Scott)
The Striker (with Justin Scott)
The Thief (with Justin Scott)
The Race (with Justin Scott)
The Spy (with Justin Scott)
The Wrecker (with Justin Scott)
The Chase
Nighthawk (with Graham Brown)
The Pharaoh’s Secret (with Graham Brown)
Ghost Ship (with Graham Brown)
Zero Hour (with Graham Brown)
The Storm (with Graham Brown)
Devil’s Gate (with Graham Brown)
Medusa (with Paul Kemprecos)
The Navigator (with Paul Kemprecos)
Polar Shift (with Paul Kemprecos)
Lost City (with Paul Kemprecos)
White Death (with Paul Kemprecos)
Fire Ice (with Paul Kemprecos)
Blue Gold (with Paul Kemprecos)
Serpent (with Paul Kemprecos)
The Emperor’s Revenge (with Boyd Morrison)
Piranha (with Boyd Morrison)
Mirage (with Jack Du Brul)
The Jungle (with Jack Du Brul)
The Silent Sea (with Jack Du Brul)
Corsair (with Jack Du Brul)
Plague Ship (with Jack Du Brul)
Skeleton Coast (with Jack Du Brul)
Dark Watch (with Jack Du Brul)
Sacred Stone (with Craig Dirgo)
Golden Buddha (with Craig Dirgo)
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
Built to Thrill: More Classic Automobiles from Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt
The Sea Hunters (with Craig Dirgo)
The Sea Hunters II (with Craig Dirgo)
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (with Craig Dirgo)
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published in the USA by G. P. Putnam’s Sons 2017
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2017
Copyright © Sandecker, RLLLP, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Artwork by © Lee Gibbons. Image credits: © Topfoto, © Plainpicture, © Shutterstock and © Alamy
ISBN: 978-1-405-92769-7
Sergeant Daniel Kekoa Soldier in the 24th Infantry “Hawaiian” Division.
Captain John Hayward Biochemist in the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Juan Cabrillo Chairman of the Corporation and captain of the Oregon.
Max Hanley Vice president of the Corporation, Juan’s second-in-command, and chief engineer of the Oregon.
Linda Ross Vice president of Operations for the Corporation and U.S. Navy veteran.
Eddie Seng Director of Shore Operations for the Corporation and former CIA agent.
Eric “Stoney” Stone Chief helmsman on the Oregon and U.S. Navy veteran.
Mark “Murph” Murphy Chief weapons officer on the Oregon and former U.S. military weapons designer.
Franklin “Linc” Lincoln Corporation operative and former U.S. Navy SEAL.
Marion MacDougal “MacD” Lawless Corporation operative and former U.S. Army Ranger.
George “Gomez” Adams Helicopter pilot and drone operator aboard the Oregon.
Hali Kasim Chief communications officer on the Oregon.
Dr. Julia Huxley Chief medical officer on the Oregon.
Kevin Nixon Chief of the Oregon’s Magic Shop.
Maurice Chief steward on the Oregon.
Luis Navarro Inspector in charge of prisoner transfer.
Captain Garcia Captain of prison transport vessel.
Zhong Lin Field agent.
Abby Yamada Chief computer cryptanalyst.
Langston Overholt IV The Corporation’s CIA liaison.
Salvador Locsin Leader of the insurgents.
Nikho Tagaan Locsin’s second-in-command and marine engineer.
Stanley Alonzo Interior Ministry bureaucrat and mole for the insurgency.
Mel Ocampo Biochemist hired by the insurgency.
Maria Santos Biochemist hired by the insurgency.
Dolap Insurgent soldier and Locsin’s cousin.
Beth Anders Art theft investigator and appraiser.
Raven Malloy Beth’s bodyguard and former U.S. Army Military Police investigator.
Udom Leader of drug gang.
Alastair Lynch Interpol duty station official in Bangkok.
Gerhard Brekker Leader of South African mercenary squad.
Altus Van Der Waal Brekker’s second-in-command.
Greg Polten Civilian biochemical weapons expert.
Charles Davis Greg Polten’s assistant.
General Amos Jefferson Director of biochemical weapons testing at Dugway Proving Ground.
The tunnel exploded.
Sergeant Daniel Kekoa dropped to the ground and covered his head as the M4 Sherman tank that had fired on the ragged entrance was thrown backward a dozen yards by the gigantic secondary blast from inside the tunnel. The thirty-ton tank flipped over and landed on its turret before a loose shell inside tore it apart in a fireball.
When debris stopped raining down around him, Kekoa staggered to his feet, his ears ringing from the deafening explosion. Dozens of American soldiers lay dead or writhing in pain. He turned over the nearest man down. The vacant eyes and chunk of shrapnel protruding from the soldier’s chest showed that he was beyond help.
Kekoa shook his head in disgust at the deadly foul-up. The briefing from Army Intelligence indicated that this particular tunnel sheltered enemy soldiers defending the island fortress strategically located at the mouth of Manila Bay. Kekoa had called in the tank to prevent a suicidal banzai attack, which had become commonplace with the fanatical Japanese. But there had been no indication that the tunnel might also contain large quantities of explosives close to the entrance.
Captain John Hayward crouched nearby in one of the many craters created by the American pre-invasion bombardment, his hands still over his ears. Kekoa reached down to haul him to his feet. The slight man, with brown hair and circular-framed glasses, was shaking.
“All clear now, Captain,” Kekoa said. “I told you I’d get you through this battle in one piece.” Of course, Kekoa could make no such promise, but what else was he going to tell this officer whose safety the Army had entrusted to him?
“Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate that.” Hayward took in the carnage with wide eyes. “What happened?”
“Must have been an ammo dump inside the cave. Your boys in the OSS told us the ammunition would be stored farther down the tunnels.”
“They’re not my boys. That intel came from a different part of the Office of Strategic Services. I’m not a spy, Sergeant Kekoa. I’m a scientist in the Research and Analysis Branch.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised, given the way you carry that carbine.”
The mission briefing had been just that: brief. The battalion commander had specifically asked for Kekoa to babysit Captain Hayward and follow his orders while keeping him alive. Everything else was on a need-to-know basis only, and as a grunt in the 24th Infantry “Hawaiian” Division, Kekoa apparently didn’t need to know anything. All Hayward had told his unit was that he needed to get inside the underground fortress before the Japanese could destroy it.
The tadpole-shaped island of Corregidor and its howitzers guarded the entrance to Manila Bay, one of the largest harbors in the Pacific. The strategic outpost, also known as The Rock, was four miles long and little more than a mile across at its widest. As a U.S. commonwealth, the Philippines had been the last bastion to fall during the initial Japanese onslaught at the outbreak of the war, holding on until the island’s forces surrendered in May of 1942, two months after Douglas MacArthur had been evacuated.
Kekoa was leading his unit as part of the operation to retake Malinta Hill on the island’s tail. Its vast grid of tunnels was bisected by a twenty-four-foot-wide main passageway that had served as a hospital and MacArthur’s headquarters. Dozens of smaller tunnels branched out from the main one, a bomb-proof network so large that it not only housed munitions, food, and water for a huge garrison that could withstand a siege for months but also had room for the thousand-bed hospital. In the three years since the Japanese conquered Corregidor, they had fortified their positions, digging out additional tunnels to augment the extensive system built by the Americans, some of which had been collapsed intentionally before the 1942 surrender.
Hayward’s target was inside one of those tunnels.
Kekoa took stock of the dozens of casualties and found out that two of the men who had died were in his platoon. Kekoa had served with both of them in the National Guard in Honolulu before joining the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then fought side by side with them during the invasions of New Guinea and the Filipino island of Leyte. They weren’t the first men he’d lost, and judging by the insanity of this mission, they wouldn’t be the last, either.
The explosion had closed off the entrance. They had to find another way in. Under Hayward’s direction, Kekoa gathered his platoon and headed toward the south side of Malinta Hill. The sound of rifle fire and artillery blasts continued nonstop from around the island, and Kekoa was bathed in the stench of gunpowder and burnt flesh.
When they reached their new position, Kekoa and Hayward crouched in a foxhole to plan the assault.
When he asked Hayward for orders, the captain hesitated and then asked, “What do you suggest?”
“Have you ever been in battle before, sir?”
“I think you know the answer to that. My office is in the new Pentagon building. This is the first time I’ve been outside the United States, let alone under fire.”
“What do you do in Washington?”
“I’m a biochemist.”
“I don’t even know what that is. What I do know is that it’s suicide to go into those tunnels before we’ve cleared them out.”
Hayward gave him a halfhearted grin. “I thought you promised to get me through in one piece.”
“I’ll do my best, sir. But these defenders are fanatical. I’ve heard from soldiers in some of the other battalions that they’re strapping bomb vests to their chests and running at us kamikaze-style. The battle plan is for our troops to get close enough to the tunnels to dump gasoline down the openings, light it on fire, and then seal the entrances up to burn through all the oxygen.”
“That’s exactly why we need this mission to succeed,” said Hayward. “We need to get inside before that’s done.” He looked around, then lowered his voice so the other men couldn’t hear. “Do you think I want to be here, Sergeant? I have a wife and two children in a nice house in the Virginia suburbs. I was a college professor at Georgetown before this all started. I am not a warrior.”
“Then why are you here, sir?”
Hayward sighed with resignation. “I can’t tell you much, but you deserve to know the stakes if you might die for my sake. You can see where this war is going, right? The way we’re hopscotching islands northward?”
Kekoa nodded.
“The war is nearly over in Europe. It’s just a matter of time until Germany gives up, which means the U.S. will turn all its resources to this side of the world. Our government has said we’ll accept nothing less than unconditional surrender, so what do you think the ultimate goal in the Pacific is?”
“The invasion of Japan.”
“Right. Look around you. We’re fighting like mad for every yard on this tiny rock. Now imagine what it will take to conquer the home islands with every citizen willing to fight to the death for their beloved Emperor.”
Kekoa frowned. “I don’t want to land on the beaches of Japan any more than the next guy, but if that’s what it takes to end the war, I’m willing to do it.”
“My research group believes there is something in these tunnels that could make the cost of taking the home islands too terrible to conceive.”
Kekoa stared in disbelief at Hayward and waved his arms at the destruction around him. “Worse than this?”
Hayward nodded solemnly. “You’ve heard the rumors that the Army is manufacturing half a million Purple Hearts in anticipation of the invasion of Japan?”
“That’s the scuttlebutt.”
“It’s true.” The captain scientist pointed toward the tunnel complex. “But if we’re right about what’s in there, it won’t be nearly enough.”
Kekoa grimly nodded at Hayward. “We’ll get you in there. Where do you need to go once we’re inside?”
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Hayward said. “I’m looking for a lab in one of the Navy Tunnels. It may have collapsed in the original Japanese invasion, but the enemy could have dug it out since then. There should be a small entrance on the south side of the hill.” He pulled out a map and showed Kekoa the spot he was talking about. Kekoa frowned and checked his own map.
“Mine doesn’t have an entrance there.”
“Trust me,” Hayward said. “It’s there. That is, if the Japs didn’t seal it.”
Kekoa assumed the captain had read his file and knew his mother was Japanese, like the parents of many of the men in his division. But Hayward didn’t seem at all concerned that Kekoa was a potential traitor, which boosted the captain a few notches in his eyes.
Kekoa cautiously guided his men to the place Hayward had pointed to on the map, and, sure enough, there was a tunnel opening concealed by the remaining shrubbery that hadn’t been destroyed by the bombardment. If the captain hadn’t led them here, they never would have seen it.
Kekoa called for more tank support and was surprised when he got an instant response in the affirmative. Obviously, Hayward must have had more pull than he realized.
Another Sherman trundled its way to the tunnel entrance. This time, Kekoa ordered everyone to cover before it fired. The tank blasted the tunnel with a high-explosive round. There was no secondary explosion. Anyone inside had to be dead, but Kekoa ordered the tank to fire three more shells as insurance.
He called his flamethrower team forward and ordered the platoon to follow them in. Every twenty feet, a jet of fire would shoot forward to clear the path of hiding Japanese Marines, illuminating the otherwise darkened tunnel.
Kekoa didn’t like having daylight framing him in silhouette as he moved into the tunnel. He glanced behind him to see Hayward clinging to his carbine as if it were a talisman.
“Should be two intersections down,” Hayward whispered. “On the right.”
Kekoa motioned for his team to keep going until they reached the intersection and turned. They got another twenty feet when banshee-like screams wailed from down the pitch-black tunnel, followed by pounding footsteps.
“Light ’em up!” Kekoa yelled and dropped to the ground, pulling Hayward with him.
The flamethrower gushed to life, shooting thick sheets of blazing liquid down the tunnel. That should have stopped the Japanese in their tracks, but they kept coming despite the inferno. Four men rushed through the wall of fire as if it were nothing more than a light breeze and launched themselves at the soldier handling the flamethrower and his partner. Before his partner could get a shot off, they viciously stabbed both Americans with bayonets even as they burned.
Seeing that there was no way to save his flamethrower team, Kekoa shouted, “Open fire!”
Bullets poured down the tunnel from every available man. Even Hayward was firing.
Yet the Japanese still kept coming. Kekoa could see the rounds hitting them, but incredibly they wouldn’t go down, like they were straight out of a Superman comic.
Kekoa got onto his knees and fired at the head of the closest one coming at them. His body went down in a heap, still on fire. At least they weren’t indestructible.
He turned to the next one, who pounced on Kekoa before he could bring his weapon to bear. Kekoa blocked the bayonet with his rifle and kneed him with a savage hit to the midsection. It didn’t seem to do a thing.
In the dim light, Kekoa could make out a few details. These Marines weren’t like the nearly starving soldiers who were charging at his fellow troops on the rest of the island. This man was muscled like a bodybuilder, and the single glimpse of his eyes that Kekoa saw flashed a feral lust for blood.
Kekoa could feel the bayonet getting closer to his throat. He was unable to push the enemy back, despite the terrible wounds the man had already suffered.
Then the Japanese soldier’s head flew sideways as a shot rang out from Kekoa’s right. Hayward still had his carbine at the ready as the enemy fell.
Before Kekoa could say his thanks, the last Japanese soldier rushed at Hayward, slashing at him with a machete. Hayward screamed and dropped to the ground. Kekoa unloaded the rest of his Thompson submachine gun’s magazine at the attacker, who finally lay silent. They prepared for more attackers but none came.
The remnants of the flamethrower’s output provided enough light to see. Kekoa knelt down beside Hayward, who was holding his side. Blood oozed from between his fingers.
Kekoa lifted him up. “We need to get you to a medic.” He started walking to the exit, but Hayward stopped him.
He grimaced in pain as he spoke. “Not before … I see what’s in this tunnel.” When Kekoa hesitated, he added, “That’s an order, Sergeant.”
Grudgingly, Kekoa supported Hayward as they walked farther down the tunnel. Two of his soldiers led the way, one of them now holding his dead squadmate’s flamethrower.
A hundred feet in, they reached a laboratory, with equipment that must have made sense to Hayward. There were also several file cabinets and a desk littered with papers. A faint hiss came from the tunnel.
“My camera,” Hayward said. “It’s in my pack.”
Kekoa reached in and found the camera, with a flashbulb attached. He handed Hayward off to another soldier while he snapped a photo of the equipment. When the flash went off, Kekoa noticed something on the ceiling down the tunnel.
“What is that?” he said to one of the men, who took a flashlight to investigate. When he lit up the spot, Kekoa realized in horror what he’d been hearing. On a set of dull gray bars strapped to the ceiling he could make out the Kanji characters for Explosive. The hiss was burning detonation cord.
“It’s rigged to blow!” he yelled. “Everyone out of here!”
“No!” Hayward protested. “We need the intel!” He lunged for a file on top of the desk and grabbed it before Kekoa could yank him away.
With the help of another soldier, Kekoa carried Hayward by the shoulders as they sprinted for daylight. Kekoa’s lungs burned from the exertion, but the thought of being trapped under thousands of tons of rubble kept him going. They were the last ones through the tunnel entrance when the underground fortress erupted like a volcano. The concussive force flung them to the ground.
The explosives must have been linked to bundles in other tunnels because the entire hill shook from multiple aftershocks. Trees were uprooted and rocks tumbled down the slopes, raising a cloak of dust so thick that Kekoa couldn’t see more than fifty feet in any direction.
He found Hayward lying prone next to him, not moving. Kekoa flipped him over and saw that he was still breathing. His hand continued to clutch the file from the tunnel.
“Medic!” cried Kekoa. “I need a medic!” He looked down at Hayward, who opened his eyes. “Stay with me, Captain.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“That file almost got us killed.”
“Had to take it,” Hayward said. His finger tapped a picture on the front next to Japanese characters. It looked like the leaf of some kind of plant. “Tell me what the cover says.”
“That can wait until …”
“No, it can’t,” he said between ragged breaths. “That’s why I asked for you. You know Japanese. Tell me. Please.”
Kekoa saw a medic running toward them, so he indulged the captain.
“It says Project Typhoon. Morale Division, Unit 731.” At the mention of Unit 731, Hayward’s face went even whiter than it already was. Kekoa didn’t know what that meant, but it obviously terrified the military scientist.
The medic began tending to his wound and injected Hayward with morphine. As the drug began to take effect, Hayward mumbled, “Where … is it located?”
“You mean this Morale Division?”
Hayward nodded, his eyes barely open.
“It doesn’t list the name of a base, if that’s what you’re hoping for,” Kekoa said, “but it does mention a city.”
“Tokyo?”
Kekoa shook his head. “Hiroshima.”
Eddie Seng stood at the curb of Da Nang International Airport’s arrivals area, just as he’d been instructed. The awning of the modern facility shaded him from the midafternoon sun, but it made the muggy July day only marginally more comfortable in his light wool suit. An elegant black limousine showed up as expected and glided to a stop next to him. Eddie was familiar with executive vehicles and immediately recognized it as a Mercedes Maybach V12, the crème de la crème of exotic automobiles.
The uniformed chauffeur walked around the front of the car and opened a wide door. Eddie entered a resplendent interior and settled into a soft cream leather seat, wondering if he would get out alive.
A man in a black suit, sitting in the middle rear-facing row of seats, waved a metal detector over Eddie to check him for weapons, but he had followed instructions and was unarmed. In the rear seat next to Eddie, Zhong Lin, field agent for China’s Ministry of State Security, stared at him as the car pulled away. Instead of a suit, he wore a black T-shirt and pants, and his thin lips were creased with lines, the sign of a longtime smoker. For a moment, Zhong said nothing, merely appraising the person he thought was a Taiwanese traitor known as David Yao.
Eddie had, in fact, grown up in New York City’s Chinatown, learning Mandarin and English simultaneously from his parents. Because his normal accent was bland in both languages, he’d spent the past two weeks in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, getting accustomed to the local dialect.
Most of his career with the CIA had been as a deep-cover operative on the Chinese mainland, so playing a part was nothing new to him. However, he hadn’t been this close to an agent from the MSS, China’s intelligence organization, since his CIA cover had been blown and he was forced to escape back to the United States. As a wanted fugitive, he’d been sentenced to death in absentia, with his face well known to China’s authorities. If Zhong Lin even suspected who he was, he would be whisked out of Vietnam in shackles to Beijing for a swift execution.
His current disguise was meant to prevent that from happening. The real David Yao was a member of the Ghost Dragon triad, one of Taiwan’s most notorious gangs. Yao was suspected of being responsible for numerous extortion, racketeering, and murder plots, but his mutilated body had been found floating on the ocean by a U.S. Navy ship two weeks ago. When the CIA realized that his corpse provided the opportunity for Eddie’s current operation, they asked the Navy to delay notifying the Taiwanese authorities of the discovery.
Like Eddie, Yao had been in his mid-thirties, lithe and athletic, but they never would have been confused for brothers. Completing the disguise required a radical transformation of his face—widened nose, bulked-up chin, reshaped eyes, and an added mustache and beard, as well as fake tattoos on his arms and neck.
After a few moments, Zhong said, in Mandarin, “You have the information we need?”
Eddie didn’t betray his relief at not being recognized. “It’s confirmed. They’re making the exchange on a train. All of the seats have been reserved, so there won’t be any other passengers, and the crew are all Vietnamese recruited and paid off by the triad.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere between Da Nang and Hue. They’ll text me which train it is so I can meet it at the station to pick them up when they arrive.”
“And the Ghost Dragons have the memory stick with them?”
Eddie nodded. He’d originally opened the dialogue with the Chinese Secret Service by telling them what kind of data was stored on the USB flash drive, a piece of information very few people on the outside knew. The Taiwanese Ghost Dragons, who were enemies of the communist regime on the mainland, had carried out a daring heist to steal the memory stick from an MSS courier. Eddie was playing Yao as if he were a traitor not only to his home country of Taiwan but to his brethren in the triad as well.
“Why are you doing this?” Zhong asked him.
“You know why,” Eddie replied. “Five million U.S. dollars.”
“You won’t be able to return to Taiwan. Not after this. The triad will know who betrayed them.”
“I don’t want to. It’s been clear for some time that I will never rise to my proper rank in the Ghost Dragons. I plan to find a woman in Melbourne, Australia, and settle there.”
Zhong shrugged. “If you’re willing to sell out your country, I’m happy to pay.” He tapped on his phone. When he was done, he said, “Two-point-five million has been transferred to your account.”
Eddie checked and confirmed that the transfer had been made. “And the rest?”
“When we recover the memory stick.”
Instead of turning onto the freeway, the Mercedes headed toward a private section of the airport.
“Where are we going?” Eddie asked. “You’re supposed to drop me off at the train station.”
Zhong smiled. “You didn’t think we’d leave you to warn your brothers that we’d be ambushing their exchange?”
“I told you, I’m through with them.”
“That’s what you told me. But why should I believe someone who has already lied to his comrades?”
The car stopped next to a Eurostar AS350 helicopter, its rotors spinning to life. Next to it was a second chopper full of black-clad men armed with assault rifles and carrying coils of rope.
“I know you have experience with the Taiwan Army,” Zhong said, “so you’re coming with us to make sure we get that memory stick.” The agent plucked Eddie’s phone from his hand and waved a detection wand over his body, checking for communication devices. The absence of telltale chirps satisfied him that Eddie wasn’t bugged.
The helicopter took off as soon as they were on board, with Eddie stuck between two Chinese agents in the back and Zhong next to the pilot in front.
“What are we doing?” Eddie asked over his headset.
“You’ll understand when we get there,” Zhong said. “How much are the Americans paying for the flash drive?”
“The Ghost Dragons wanted a hundred million, but the Americans negotiated down to half that.”
“Fifty million? Not bad, since there are only two potential buyers, us and the Americans. And, of course, the triad didn’t make us a similar offer. You better hope the data on that drive doesn’t fall into the hands of the Americans.”
Eddie feigned fear at the threat. “But what if the Ghost Dragons have copied the flash drive and are able to sell the data to the Americans later?”
Zhong shook his head. “Not possible. That drive has special encryption. It can only be read by mainframe computers kept at secure locations in China. If they try to read the files on the memory stick, it will automatically erase itself, rewriting the memory so the data can never be recovered. In fact, I hope the Ghost Dragons have tried to read it. My problem would be solved.”
“Then why do the Americans want it?”
“Because they have the only other computer system in the world that might be able to read it. But it’s currently located at the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade. As long as we obtain the memory stick before it gets back to the United States, we can be assured that it hasn’t been compromised.” Zhong turned and looked at him. “That’s why you’re coming along on this raid. If the memory stick isn’t where you say it will be, there is no limit to the pain you will experience until I find out where it is.”
Eddie gulped, his eyes wide with feigned fear.
“Do you wish to change your story?” Zhong asked. “I’ll be forgiving if you do so now instead of after a failed mission.”
Eddie shook his head vigorously. “I swear that the exchange is taking place where I said it would.”
Zhong held up Eddie’s phone. “You’d better hope the text comes through.”
The helicopters sped low across the mountainous jungle, paralleling the train tracks winding along the coast. A few minutes later, they both set down in a valley clearing.
As soon as the eight men exited, including Zhong and Eddie, the helicopters took off again.
Eddie looked around in confusion. It seemed like they were in the middle of nowhere.
“This way,” Zhong said.
They hiked through the tropical forest for ten minutes until they reached a slope, where Eddie could see the ocean. The train tracks far below disappeared into a tunnel.
“That’s our destination.” Zhong pointed at the mouth of the tunnel.
Now the coils of rope made sense. Trying to get on board the train by helicopter would have telegraphed their approach from miles away. Dropping down quietly onto the roof of the train when it exited the tunnel would be much stealthier.
“Do I at least get a gun?” Eddie asked as they marched toward the tunnel opening.
Zhong gave him a grim laugh. So did the other men. They kept walking.
If Zhong returned to Beijing empty-handed, Eddie was sure Zhong and the rest of his men would face a firing squad for their failure. The memory stick they were trying to recover and keep out of American hands held the names of every Chinese spy currently operating in the United States.
The squall arrived earlier than Luis Navarro expected. The forecast had said it wouldn’t hit until after sundown. Wind buffeted the front window of their 90-foot-long vessel, lashing it with sheets of rain. Visibility was limited. He looked behind him toward Negros Island, but he could no longer see the city of Dumaguete. The GPS unit said their destination of Dapitan City on Mindanao was still thirty miles away.
Captain Garcia ordered the first mate to cut back on the throttle. The smaller escort boats on either side slowed to match their speed. The officers manning the deck machine guns on both boats looked miserable in the downpour.
“What are you doing?” Navarro demanded. “Don’t slow down.”
The first mate looked to Garcia, an old salt who obviously wasn’t used to his orders being countermanded. “Inspector, if we stay at full speed in these conditions, we could be swamped.”
Despite being younger and more compact than the captain, Navarro wasn’t intimidated. “The chief of the Philippine National Police has put me in charge of this mission and I order you back to full speed.”
“You may be in command of the mission, but this is my boat. Do you want to make it to Mindanao or not? If the chief of the PNP were here, I think he’d want to live.”
“You know who we’re carrying,” Navarro said.
Garcia nodded. “And I want him off my boat more than you do. So let me do my job.”
Navarro grumbled but didn’t push it further. His country’s reputation for sunken vessels was well known. With a population of over one hundred million scattered across the seven thousand islands comprising the Philippines, a vast amount of commerce and transportation was done by water. Dozens of boats and ships went down every year, many of them in storms just like this one.
He couldn’t afford to alter the plan for this operation. Their prisoner, Salvador Locsin, was the most wanted man in the country, the leader of a splinter cell of the New People’s Army, a communist insurgent group dedicated to overthrowing the democratic government of the Philippines. Talks between the government and the rebels had dragged on for years, and Locsin had grown tired of the stalemate. His terror campaign had targeted important officials and government facilities, causing dozens of deaths and destroying several buildings. How he was funding his efforts was still a mystery, but Navarro intended to find out as soon as they got him to a secure interrogation room.
Thanks to an anonymous tip, he’d been captured in a raid in Kabankalan City. However, with thousands of rebels on Negros Island loyal to him, getting him off the island had proven perilous. The first attempt to transport Locsin back to the capital of Manila was by air, but the rebels mounted a failed attack at the airport, damaging the plane and killing three officers in the process.
The decision, then, had been to fake another attempt at flying him out from a different airport on the island. At the same time, Locsin was taken by road to Dumaguete, where three boats were waiting. There were fewer rebels on Mindanao, so flying him off that island was thought to be much less hazardous.
The walkie-talkie on his belt squawked. The voice was panicked. “Senior Inspector Navarro, you need to come down here right now!”
“What is it?” Navarro replied.
“Officer Torres is dead.”
When he heard the news, Captain Garcia, who had seemed wary but calm about the storm, looked at Navarro with fear. He stepped next to the first mate and inched the throttle forward.
“I’m on my way,” Navarro said.
Navarro took the stairs two at a time down to the hold. The fishing vessel had been modified by the police force as a prisoner transport. In place of the freezer where mackerel or tuna might have been stored, tiny barred cells had been installed with only enough room for a prisoner to sit on the steel bench.
When he reached the hold, he saw Torres sprawled on the floor in front of one of the cells. His head was cocked at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide and staring. Two other officers stood behind him.
Navarro stalked forward, enraged at losing another man. “What happened?”
The older officer glanced nervously at the cell, then looked at Navarro. “Torres was going to use the head. I guess we weren’t paying attention because, the next thing we knew, he was on the floor with a broken neck.”
Navarro looked at the sole prisoner on board. Salvador Locsin sat on the bench with his eyes closed, smiling beatifically. Ropey biceps strained at the sleeves of his shirt, the veins in his forearms looking as if they were about to explode from under the skin. His black hair draped across his forehead, where it mingled with the beads of sweat trickling down his face.
Navarro, furious, stared at his men and jabbed a finger in Locsin’s direction. “Didn’t I warn you not to get too close to his cell?”
“But he looked like he was asleep when Torres got up,” the younger officer protested. “How could he break someone’s neck through the bars?”
Navarro walked over to the cell, stepping between Torres’s legs. Both of the officers brought their weapons up to cover him.
“You’re going to answer for that, Locsin,” Navarro said.
Locsin replied in an unfamiliar dialect of one of the over one hundred and seventy languages native to the Philippines. Navarro knew only the country’s two official languages, English and Tagalog.
“Come on, Locsin,” Navarro continued in English. “I know you understand me.”
Locsin opened his eyes. His irises were so dark that they seemed to merge with the black of his pupils. Navarro nearly stumbled backward from the force of his gaze, an evil that seemed to stab at his very soul.
“I said, I am dead already, aren’t I?”
Navarro composed himself enough to respond without faltering. “I don’t know what your punishment will be, but you’ll have to pay for your crimes.”
“I have, Inspector Navarro, and with a price more costly than you’ll ever understand.” Locsin closed his eyes again.
Navarro stepped back, and the two officers moved in as if they were going to pick up Torres.
“Leave him there,” Navarro said. “We’ll take care of him after we get the prisoner off the boat.”
The two officers looked at him in shock but didn’t challenge his command.
“What should we do about him?” the older one said, motioning with his rifle at the prisoner.
“Keep watch on him at all times. I want him alive for questioning. Wound him, if you have to, but don’t kill him.”
“Yes, sir,” they both said.
The engine suddenly wound down to idle, and the boat slowed to a crawl.
“Now what?” Navarro muttered as he charged back up to the bridge.
When he got there, Captain Garcia was on the radio, peering out the window, while the first mate spun the wheel away from their destination.
“It looks like the ferry is on fire,” Garcia said into the handset. “We’ve got survivors in the water, and more still on the boat. How long until you arrive?”
Navarro followed Garcia’s gaze to the foundering vessel, more than a mile off the port bow. The stubby car ferry’s stern was already awash, and smoke poured from the superstructure. Navarro counted more than two dozen people in the water, some wearing life jackets, others flailing as they tried to stay afloat in the waves.
“The nearest patrol vessel is at least an hour away,” said a voice on the radio that had to be with the Coast Guard. “We’ll notify any vessels in the vicinity to provide assistance.”
“Thanks. We’ll pick up as many as we can.” Garcia put the handset down and ordered the first mate to bring them alongside the survivors.
Aghast, Navarro said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Garcia looked at him in astonishment. “I’m rendering aid to a stricken vessel and its passengers and crew, as we are bound to do under maritime law.”
The smaller, more maneuverable escort vessels had already arrived at the scene of the accident and were pulling survivors aboard.
“You’re not stopping,” Navarro commanded. “You will continue on and complete this mission as ordered.”
“Are you insane? We can’t leave these people to die!”
“I already have a dead officer down there. Locsin is as cunning as he is vicious. What do you think will happen if we start crowding civilians onto this boat with him?”
“We’ll keep them up on deck.”
“No. They’ll interfere with the assignments of my officers. I won’t allow it.”
“And I will not violate my duty as master of this vessel. I won’t leave people to drown!” Garcia turned back to the first mate and waved for him to move toward the wreck.
Navarro’s hand went to his sidearm pistol. He didn’t want to use force, but the captain was leaving him no choice. He didn’t understand the threat that Locsin posed.
But Navarro didn’t have time to draw his weapon before a shrill voice shrieked over the radio.
“Transport One, this is Escort One! It’s a trap! They’re not ferry passengers! They’ve overpowered my men, but I sabotaged—” The officer was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot, and then the radio went dead.
Navarro looked back at the ferry and now saw that Escort 1 had turned and was heading back toward the prison transport. It was only two hundred yards away, and Navarro could see a man in civilian clothes on deck. He was swinging the mounted machine gun in their direction.
“Get down!” Navarro yelled as he threw himself at Garcia and tackled him to the deck. Thirty-caliber bullets riddled the bridge, shattering the glass and killing the first mate, who crumpled into the captain’s chair.
“Get us out of here!” Navarro shouted.
He peered out and saw Escort 1 start to weave back and forth, then it exploded. That must have been the sabotage the officer on Escort 1 had mentioned before he died.
Garcia scrambled to his feet and slammed the throttle to its stops.
“The navigation computer was damaged by the gunfire. I’ll have to guide us by compass.”
Navarro snatched up a pair of binoculars and saw that Escort 2 was now headed in their direction, its machine gun manned and ready to use when they were in range. “How long until we reach Dapitan City?”
“At least an hour, in these seas. We might be able to make better headway than that smaller boat. Depends on how long the squall lasts.”
Navarro recalled the captain’s conversation with the Coast Guard. “We should find out which direction the cutter is coming from and go toward it. Give me the radio.”
Garcia picked up the radio handset, chuckled ruefully, and tossed it to him. It had a bullet hole through it.
Navarro smacked his hand against the bulkhead in frustration at getting ambushed like a rookie cadet.
He got on his walkie-talkie and addressed his officers on the prison transport.
“This is Inspector Navarro. To every one of my men who is still alive, shoot to kill.”