39
Apo Island
November 3, 4:00 p.m. CST
“It doesn’t look much like utopia right now,” George said. “But for me, Apo Island holds the promise of paradise.”
It was late afternoon, and we’d dropped anchor near the steep sides of the volcanic speck. George and I stood in the wind on the forward observation deck, huddled in our anoraks, where only two mornings ago we’d been playing Go and enjoying croissants in the sunshine.
Now the day was prematurely dark, the sun invisible behind a thick shroud of cumulonimbus clouds. The waters were deep green and whitecapped, the beaches gloomy, the trees bent in the gale. During the day, Typhoon Kiko had veered northward, away from a direct hit on the Negros area of the Philippines. But the weather remained rough. The fishermen had retreated, and the tourists had vanished to the resort on the other side of the island. Our Chinese escort hovered at the far horizon, reluctant to engage the Philippine authorities in these waters.
George and I might have been alone in the world.
Wind whipped my hair across my face, and I peeled it back.
“How do you stay calm?” I asked George over the sound of wind and waves.
“It has taken many years of practice to accept what I cannot control. Which is nearly everything in life.”
I braced myself against the railing. “Mind if I borrow some of your serenity? I could use a little extra tonight.”
“You appear serene.”
“It’s a facade.”
“Everything you need is inside you. Your mind is a sanctuary, your heart a still place.”
I punched his shoulder. “You sound like a Buddhist monk.”
He laughed. “I probably would have run off to Tibet and become a monk if it weren’t for Li-Mei. That woman was like a typhoon in her own right. Totally out of my control. Then I discovered the joy of AI. With those two things and the children, my life seemed set.”
A door opened behind us, and Connor joined us at the railing. He turned his back to the wind and said, “It’s a go.”
George’s smile vanished. My stomach dropped. I gripped the railing, my gut seething with sudden nausea.
Connor snugged up the hood of his anorak. “As of half an hour ago, our escort departed on a heading that will take them north of the Philippine archipelago. We’re expecting them to then turn south as soon as they clear land and then aim for the Spratly Islands. All they’ve left behind are two militarized fishing boats that are having a rough time on the waves.”
George gave a thumbs-up. “Another correct analysis by Ren.”
“What kind of sonar do the fishing boats have?” I asked.
“Looks like a towed sonar array,” Connor said. “But their ability to detect our submersible is degraded thanks to Kiko’s seas. On top of that, I’ve adapted Red Dragon ’s sonar so that tonight we’ll throw out a bunch of active noise. They’ll be blind to what’s happening below the surface.”
“And Han?” I asked.
“My asset reports that he’s still in Lijiang. RenAI seems to be holding her own there.”
I stared out at the tumultuous horizon. “And if your asset is lying?”
“He very well might be. But we’ll be ready. Han makes it harder, but not impossible. Just stick to the plan unless you hear otherwise from me or George or the captain.”
I nodded. We’d run through all this earlier today in the war room.
Everyone had a role to play, spooled out on a strict timetable. George, Lukas—who had been fully briefed after Connor vetted him—and I would wait in our staterooms until just before 2:00 a.m., when the action would start. Peng’s position—as always—was on the bridge. The chief engineer, a British national, would be guarding the engine room against possible sabotage. Connor would place his team in designated areas: one man on the bridge, another in engineering. Two men would patrol, one in the crew and common areas, another outside. And two more would be in the garage, securing and guarding the entrance to the submersible.
Connor would oversee everything from the security hub located off the bridge.
After Peng sounded the security alarm, Lukas and I were to make sure all members of the crew made it to the muster point outside the citadel and then entered the panic room. We had twenty minutes to get the crew inside before the next step could take place.
Anyone who didn’t report was quite possibly working against us. They would be suspicious of a supposed attack well within Philippine territory and alert to the timing and would figure—correctly—that something else was afoot. I would report their names to Connor and let his men deal with them. The most important thing was to prevent them from spotting Li-Mei or the children. And to keep them from helping Han should MSS arrive.
Only four crew members were excused from the drill: Captain Peng, the chief engineer, the first officer, and Connor in his role as security chief. Of those, only the first officer was considered a spy risk. He’d been assigned to Red Dragon months earlier by the CCP. George couldn’t protest.
Once the crew was contained—including the first officer, who would be treated to a soporific in his nightly tea—Connor’s men would get George and his family to the submersible. Lukas and I would meet them there at 2:30 a.m. to assist.
The submersible would launch and rendezvous with the navy’s littoral ship. Sometime in the following days, the submersible would be found far from Apo Island, crushed by the ocean’s pressure. A terrible malfunction had sent it to the ocean floor. There were no survivors.
George Mèng had tragically perished at sea.
His family? Chinese and Philippine authorities would grill the crew. Had a woman and children been seen on board? Had anyone accompanied George into the submersible?
Their only answer would be some version of no, or I don’t know .
Meanwhile, in Australia—or somewhere, not in my “need to know” compartment—a family would arrive and take up residence with new identities, a new future.
It was a good plan. Straightforward. Not terribly risky for those of us on Red Dragon . If everything went according to plan.
A pretty big if .
“Nadia?”
Connor’s voice. I blinked back to the present.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
I forced a nod. “I’m good.”
I bade the men farewell for the moment. If all went according to plan, the next time I’d see them would be in the submersible’s garage.
Knowing I should eat, I picked up a turkey sandwich in the galley and headed toward my stateroom. Every crew member I passed gave me pause as I tried to assess whether they were on George’s side, neutral, or if they answered to one of our enemies. It was a task I’d done since we first departed for Shanghai, probing for weaknesses and loyalties. There were a lot of reasons to trust that most of the crew would either support us or remain neutral. For one, the majority of them would be in the panic room under the belief that we were undergoing a drill or an actual attack. For another, CIA background checks and the fierce loyalty and professionalism of any yachting crew helped me manage my panic. Whether we had one spy or five, if they tried to intercede tonight, Connor’s men would take care of them.
As I sat in my room, picking at the turkey sandwich, I ran through Charlie Han’s dossier in my mind. His family. His education. His ambitions. I mentally walked through the list of bullet points until only one remained: Han’s sister, Xiao.
Han had never forgiven George’s father for sending her away.
He was a man, I told myself. Just a man. He didn’t have superpowers.
I recalled the words of Mother Julian of Norwich. I’d heard them often during my childhood. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
I was still reciting her words when I set the alarm and dozed off.
Sometime in the night I dreamed I heard two booms from the depths. The rumbles became a single note in a whale’s song as I swam in the deep. The song faded and I sank further into sleep.
At 1:30 a.m., I was up and dressed. I waited for Peng to sound the alarm that would send me running to the main lounge with its access point to the citadel two levels below. I clipped my radio onto the waistband of my pants, ran the cord under my shirt, and fastened the mic to the neck opening of my long-sleeve tee.
I was cold despite the comfortable temperature of the cabin, gooseflesh running along my arms.
You can do this, Nadia. Cass’s voice.
I did a few jumping jacks and push-ups to get the blood flowing, pleased that I hadn’t lost the gains I’d made in Seattle. Pleased that the movement distracted me from my fear.
I was standing motionless, corralling my thoughts, when a light on the wall panel next to the door flashed red.
I stared. The light stopped flashing, there came a faint click, and the light flashed again.
Someone was trying to get in.
Our door codes—mine, Lukas’s, George’s, and the rooms used by Connor and his men—were changed automatically every night at midnight. Which meant someone had pulled data from the system before then.
My lips formed words without sound: All will be well.
I sent an encrypted text to Lukas and George and Connor. Lukas responded: same . The spies were at work, which meant something or someone had tipped them off. I checked the time. The alarm would sound in two minutes. I tucked Cass’s letter opener inside the case holding my radio and gripped the Taser that Connor had issued me.
I counted down. Three ... two ... one.
Through speakers all over the ship, the horn began to blare. Six short blasts followed by two long ones. Even though I had braced for it, the sound shot from my ears to my feet, a tidal wave of visceral panic.
All will be well.
I reached for the door handle.
I’d expected a fight. But the corridor was empty. The alarm had paused, and the only sound was the thud of my heart.
Holding tight to the Taser and stopping to clear each corner, I race-walked down the passage toward the stairs leading up to the main lounge. My radio buzzed. Connor.
“We have company. Get to the citadel and stay there until—”
His voice cut out. God. I tried to radio back, but when I pressed the talk button, a shrill squelch filled my ears, followed by the blare of music—a chorus of voices singing in Chinese to a martial tune.
Someone was jamming our comms.
Connor had warned of the risk. “If they jam us,” he’d said, “just continue on with your tasks, then head to your assigned muster point.”
I sucked in air as my throat tried to close. Assess, then panic.
Get to the lounge.
Then to the submersible.
Air found its way into my lungs. I ran.
At the top of the stairs, I jerked to a stop.
A dead man lay sprawled on the carpet. His eyes were open, the front of his shirt drenched in blood.
It was Dale Peterson, Connor’s man on internal patrol.
Probably this was supposed to be my fate if the door code had worked. Lukas’s fate, as well.
I forced myself to kneel and take Dale’s pulse. It was pointless, but also procedure.
“Miss Brenner!”
I jumped up and turned, Taser lifted.
Standing wide eyed and shaking on the top step was one of the crew. A tiny Thai woman named Chalita. She carried an armload of towels, as if she thought she’d do laundry while in the panic room.
“Miss Brenner!” Her voice was a squeak. “That man!”
“Hush,” I said.
From the fore of the ship came a faint purr. If every cell in my body hadn’t been attuned to Red Dragon ’s sounds, I wouldn’t have caught it.
It was the dive platform’s hydraulic arm, lowering the deck.
A solid thunk as the platform latched into place, followed by the echo of feet pounding.
Red Dragon had been boarded. And not by friendlies.
Chalita dropped the towels and stared at Peterson. “There really are pirates.”
I took her arm and steered her toward the main lounge and its access door to belowdecks.
“Run,” I said.
Belowdecks, thirteen crew members stood in an orderly line, scanning their badges as they entered the panic room. The benefit of repeated drills—everyone operated on muscle memory.
Three crew members were missing. The chief stewardess, the second engineer, and the purser.
I was hugely relieved to see Lukas. I pulled him out into the corridor.
“They killed one of Connor’s men,” I whispered. “Dale Peterson.”
Anger flashed in Lukas’s eyes. “Where?”
“In the lounge. And someone lowered the dive platform. I heard men boarding.”
Lukas took the blink of an eye to process that. “Which means most of our other defenses will have been deactivated.”
I peeled my fingers off Lukas’s arm. “With comms down, we can’t tell Connor or his men which crew members didn’t check in.”
A terse nod. “I’d like you to stay in the panic room.”
“I’d like that, too. Not happening.”
The twitch of his lips might have been a smile. “Then we stick to the plan and get to the submersible. See if there’s a chance in hell of launching.” His eyes took in my face. “You’ll need to stay frosty, Nadia. You ready?”
No.
“Bring it on,” I said.
As soon as the crew was locked down in the citadel, Lukas and I headed up the access stairs. He led the way, stopping at the top to kill the lounge’s lights and clear the area before gesturing for me to join him.
We were halfway across the room when lights flared through the windows and Lukas dropped to the floor, pulling me with him. He crawled on his elbows to the window and peered out.
“It’s a vessel labeled as the Philippine Coast Guard,” he said when he returned. “They claim to be offering help. Looks like our answer is no.”
“It’s not the coast guard,” I said.
He tipped his eyebrows at me. “You probably don’t believe in Santa Claus, either, do you?”
“Never did.”
“Well, you’re right. Connor showed me a photo. One of the men in that boat is Charlie Han.”
Rather than expose ourselves on deck, Lukas and I returned below and made our way through the technical area toward the garage.
Red Dragon ’s submersible was in a cavernous two-story wet dock, with a giant transom door providing access to the outside. Even before Peng sounded the alarm, Connor would have opened the transom door and flooded the dock, then readied the motorized ramp—which allowed the submersible to launch without a crane—and run a systems check. George and Li-Mei would have waited until 2:20 before leaving their hiding place and moving toward the wet dock.
Questions banged around in my skull. What if one of the spies had found them? Where were Connor and his men? Had others met the same fate as Dale Peterson?
Avoiding the more straightforward path, we turned left into the engine room. Machinery hummed and our footsteps rang on the metal floor. We squeezed past the engines and gearbox, then scrambled up a narrow flight of stairs to the lazarette, where equipment and gear were stored for use by the deckhands. We paused inside the entrance. All around us were neatly coiled ropes, tools used to repair lines and cables, spare blocks, and equipment even I couldn’t identify. A shed that ran the length of the back wall housed shelves for smaller items. A large workbench was bolted to the floor in the center of the room.
On the other side of the room from where we’d entered, a hatch led up to the deck via a ladder secured at floor and ceiling. Deckhands used the hatch while working up top to retrieve whatever equipment they needed from the lazarette.
Now, up above near the hatch, footsteps creaked. Lukas killed the lights.
Someone rattled the handle. A voice shouted in Chinese from farther away, the man above us shouted back, and then the hatch flew open.
Lukas and I darted behind the workbench as a light played around the room. Rain poured in. Wind rattled the laminated instruction sheets posted on the walls.
I peeked over the bench. The light had paused on the shed.
At the base of the door was a child’s toothbrush.
My hands rose to my mouth as if to stifle any sound.
That’s where they are, I realized. George’s family. Or were. In the shed. All they’d had to do was remove some of the shelving and the shed would be roomy, warm, easy to make comfortable. Ready access at night into the owner’s private area. And close to the submersible.
The light receded. More rapid-fire Chinese. Now two men stood up above at the hatch, shouting over the storm.
Lukas opened a drawer in the workbench; metal clinked faintly as he withdrew something. He had a gun. But if it came to violence, the quieter the better.
One of the men descended the ladder. The other lowered the hatch behind him. I heard footsteps running away and guessed that the second man had gone for reinforcements.
Lukas stood, and I glimpsed a large spanner wrench in his grip. He crept with a cat’s quiet footfall around the bench and toward the intruder, who was watching the shed. I rose at a crouch to peer over the top of the work surface, cringing. The man bent and picked up the toothbrush.
Lukas raised his arm and brought the wrench down at an angle, striking the man in the temple. The man crumpled.
I joined Lukas and we waited, breathing hard. The man lay on his stomach, head turned, the skull above his ear crushed and seeping blood.
I nodded toward the shed and mouthed “George.”
“George?” I whispered at the door. “Li-Mei? It’s Nadia Brenner. We need to get you out of here.”
A muffled cry sounded. The door opened, and a petite Chinese woman appeared, wearing a dive suit. Behind her were the boy and girl I’d seen in the family photo—Yú Míng and Baihu. They stared at me wide eyed. They, too, were wearing scuba suits.
Relief swept through me at seeing them, this family who, until now, had been only images from a photograph.
“Where’s George?” I asked, hoping Li-Mei spoke English.
“He and Connor went to ready the remora,” she whispered. “They should have been back by now. I hear men shouting. What is going on?”
I took her arm. “A remora? That’s the word he used?”
“Yes. Like the fish that attaches itself to sharks.”
“Not his Triton submersible?”
“No. The sub has already launched. As a decoy to draw off pursuit.”
The news came like a punch. Inwardly I cursed Connor for not sharing with me this final twist. But I also admired him. What I didn’t know, I couldn’t reveal.
“Where is it, Li-Mei? This remora?”
Another shake. “I do not know. George was to take us there. It is bad that he has not come for us.”
Lukas leaned in. “We need to go.”
“Give me one second,” I said, my breath coming hard.
I closed my eyes and pulled up a memory of Cass’s general arrangement plan. Her notes and sketches, the cheerful diver leaping into the ocean.
And ... images danced behind my lids. The faint lines she’d sketched on the hull in her drawing, the suggestion of a doorway that shouldn’t be. And a shark swimming nearby. Of course. I made the lines darker in my mind, pulled them into a rectangle, embellished their location on the hull below the waterline.
I opened my eyes.
Now I understood: the two booms I’d heard in the night hadn’t been part of a dream. The first sound had been that of a patch being blown off the hull, where it had concealed an outer hatch from the inspectors in Shanghai. That had probably been handled by a Navy SEAL. The second boom was the echo of a navy submersible attaching to Red Dragon like a remora to a shark, operated from the littoral ship by remote control. They’d waited to attach the remora until the Chinese ships with the most sophisticated sonar had left the area.
George’s original submersible was, as Li-Mei said, a decoy.
Footsteps pounded the metal floor in the engine room below us. Lukas pulled his gun.
“Nadia!” he whispered.
“Let’s go,” I said. Thinking of the man Lukas had killed, I glanced at the children. “Li-Mei, tell your children to close their eyes until we’re at the ladder. We’ll guide them.”
We fled up the ladder and through the hatch onto the main deck, closing and locking the hatch behind us. The main deck stretched wet and empty before us; for the moment, we were alone.
Above us Red Dragon rose against the sky, her surfaces shimmering in the rain. To the east, the clouds had lifted, and a few stars shone. The wind had eased as the remnants of Kiko passed through.
I turned to Li-Mei and the children. “We’ll get you to the remora. But first we need to get to the other side of the ship. Are you ready to make a run for it?”
They nodded.
“On three,” Lukas said, and counted.
The five of us sprinted across the main deck, the sound of our steps concealed by the drum of rain and the creak of the boat. Farther aft, a man in tactical gear stood at the railing, holding a rifle. All he had to do to see us was turn his head.
Then we were on the other side and crouched in the shadows.
“Where now?” Lukas asked.
“The hatch to the remora will be belowdecks,” I said. “Probably hidden behind an equipment locker or something equally large and unlikely. There will be an internal hatch, a wet/dry room, and a second hatch that connects to the sub.”
“Yes.” Li-Mei nodded. “That is what George said.”
Lukas’s gaze met mine. We both knew we were hoping for a miracle. George and Connor were almost certainly captured or dead. Access to the remora was likely closed off. Even if we could reach it, I had no idea if Li-Mei could pilot the sub. Or if she would leave without her husband.
One step at a time.
“We’ve got to try, right?” I asked.
His fierce grin flashed white in his beard. “How do we get there?”