Chapter 29
Beijing
Zhang Tao felt something warm on his chin and realized all too late that a rivulet of drool had escaped the corner of his mouth.
In his periphery, he noticed an attractive young woman at a nearby workstation staring at him.
He wiped away the saliva with the sleeve of his shirt before turning his head and locking her in a glare. Her head snapped back to her screen.
His senses were faltering, as was his mind.
Zhang desperately needed sleep, but it was out of the question at the moment.
The meds would probably have prevented it anyway, but the ongoing crisis killed any chance of respite.
Nothing kept one awake at night more than the prospect of a bullet to the head.
And if he could not successfully retrieve Sky Fire, that was the most humane outcome he could expect.
“Three hundred and ten meters,” replied the weary ops-center chief. “Shallow for this area. The bathymetry maps also show the immediate area to be mostly flat. This will speed our recovery operation substantially.”
“What of the Americans?”
“Snow Dragon 2 reports no vessels or aircraft in the area.”
Zhang was encouraged, but not convinced.
Icebreakers weren’t equipped to detect enemy aircraft and submarines.
If the Americans were closing in on the crash site, they might not be detected.
Indeed, the lack of any clear response by the Americans felt ominous in itself.
He turned to Wu, who was, as usual, engrossed in something on her laptop.
“Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?” he asked.
“I brought down your airplane,” she said distractedly, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Is that not enough?”
Once again, Zhang bristled at her insolence. He tamped it down but made a mental note. He needed this woman’s expertise more than ever, but her usefulness was perishable. If he survived this crisis, he was going to make her pay. It might take months, or even years. But he would not forget.
Perhaps sensing his vindictive mood, she looked up and said, “If I had Sky Fire in my hands, I could make good use of it. But things are going as well as can be expected. Captain Yong has located the wreckage, and the mapping has begun. Sky Fire may be at the bottom of the sea, but if it can be recovered, I can rebuild the controller quickly. And I promise you, when I do, it will be better than Chen’s original. ”
Zhang wasn’t swayed. As a long-serving intelligence officer, he was profoundly familiar with hollow promises. They were the stock in trade of all upward-aspiring bureaucrats, even the technology experts.
That thought cascaded to another growing concern.
Before today he had never heard of Captain Yong Shiu, but with his career riding on the man’s competency, he had researched the Snow Dragon 2’s skipper.
What he found was not encouraging. By all accounts, the man was a poster child for guanxi—the career advancement via nepotism that ran rampant in the PRC.
This was hardly a surprise, but it instilled further anxiety.
The unknowns of what was happening began to weigh on Zhang. How long would it take to locate and retrieve Sky Fire? How were the Americans responding? What assets had they deployed? He knew the decoy ELT was in place, but had they taken the bait?
He pinched the bridge of his nose, careful to limit the pressure.
“Sir, a new image has just come in!” the chief said excitedly.
Zhang hurried to the man’s workstation and saw a single photo.
They had diverted a satellite for a fleeting pass over the decoy.
The image was dim and grainy, taken near the edge of the storm half an hour earlier.
Despite the poor quality, there was no question what they were looking at.
Like a great lumbering dragon, a submarine had surfaced next to their lure at the end of the earth.
An American submarine.
Just like that, many of Zhang’s questions were answered. And the game entered a brand-new phase.