Chapter 69
The Pacific Ocean
Senior Captain Zhao Meili stood on the bridge of her ship heaving beneath the heavy swells. She held the binoculars tightly to her eyes, scanning the windy skies until—there!—a chute fluttered open and the man beneath its canopy began his hazardous descent.
The Fuzhou’s last port of call was the remote Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and now she was steaming across the vast Pacific toward the Panama Canal.
The passage of the Chinese warship through the canal would prove a symbolic repudiation of America’s outdated Monroe Doctrine.
It would also demonstrate the strategic threat China’s blue-water Navy posed to the Western Hemisphere.
Zhao had been selected for this assignment because of her distinguished service record, her aggressive instincts and preternatural skill in tactical warfare. No one was better suited for this mission.
But now that mission had been interrupted by Admiral Qian’s urgent call ordering her to a new location on a matter of utmost national security.
He told her in no uncertain terms that China’s future was at stake.
To prove his point, he gave her permission to destroy any opposition to her mission, even if that meant taking on the Americans.
Nothing could have pleased her more.
Zhao’s star was swiftly rising, but even she could scarcely believe Qian’s promise of an early promotion to rear admiral upon successful completion of the emergency reassignment. He described this mission as the most important of her career, and perhaps in all of China’s history.
Zhao turned her binoculars to the Fuzhou’s inflatable racing toward the landing zone.
Spray blasted beneath its rigid hull with every strike of the rough sea’s high-rolling waves.
Under the best of circumstances, a parachute jump like this was problematic.
But in today’s weather conditions, the foolhardy decision could prove fatal to the man beneath the swinging canopy.
Zhao had to admit the man had guts. It also spoke to his desperation to get to her ship.
Admiral Qian’s instructions were clear. The man coming out to her vessel would oversee the operation. She was to grant him every privilege as well as unwavering obedience to his every instruction. Zhao noted the underlying anxiety in her superior’s voice.
Of course she readily agreed despite deeply resenting the need for any kind of supervision. But she knew the interests of the Ministry of State Security took precedence over all else, including the plans of the proud and mighty Chinese Navy.
Zhao turned her glass back to the parachutist. She watched in horror as his chute thrashed in the high winds, hurling the man in all directions as he plummeted toward the ocean. He hit the water with a thunderous cannonball splash several hundred yards from the proposed landing zone.
The inflatable turned sharply and headed for the tangle of chute scabbing the surface. The captain panicked.
The man was nowhere to be seen.
★
The inflatable cut sharply as the seaman turned the wheel and slammed down the throttles, landing the boat just inches from the black chute floating on the surface like an oil stain.
The chief petty officer in charge leaned over the bucking hull, holding on tight with one hand against the rising swells that threatened to throw him off.
The chutist fought desperately against the tangle of cords and canopy wrapped around him, sputtering and coughing seawater like a man near to drowning.
The chief petty officer grasped one of the chutist’s hands and pulled him with a thunderous grunt halfway up onto the hull.
The seaman driver charged over and grabbed two fistfuls of the chutist’s black tactical jumpsuit in his thick hands.
A moment later, the two sailors managed to haul the half-drowned security man into the bottom of the boat, still snarled up in cords.
The seaman pulled a razor-sharp knife and cut the cords away as the petty officer lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth.
He had to shout over the whistling wind and crashing waves.
“Captain Zhao! We have him!”
“What is his condition?” Zhao asked over the crackling speaker.
The sailor glanced over at the man, now smiling as he pulled off his chutist’s goggles and flashed two thumbs up.
“Director Peng is alive and well. We’re heading back now.”