The infiltration up the Yongding New River from Bohai Bay was just under forty kilometers, well within the SDV’s sixty-six kilometer range. The mini-sub could go as fast as eight knots, but Cole and Collins had decided that five would be a more manageable cruising speed, and both men knew that it would often be far less than that as they entered shallower waters.
Figuring an average speed of only about three to four knots for the entire journey then, Cole expected to be at the RV point near the Changshen Expressway in five to seven hours. Cole’s CIA contact had agreed to meet the team on the G25 at four the next morning, exactly seven hours away. If they were early, then they would wait in the dark for the man to arrive; if it looked like they were going to be late, then they would have to risk increasing speed to make up the time. Seven hours was already a worst-case scenario according to their plans, but Cole knew that even the best laid plans might go completely wrong.
The SDV was fully out now, and the divers were disconnecting the hoses and pipes which fed the mini-sub from the dry dock. Cole watched the lead diver through his night-vision goggles as he gave the signal that the SDV was now fully under the pilot’s control, and felt the vehicle turn in the water as Collins led it round to face towards the Chinese coast.
The two men turned and nodded towards each other, and then Collins pressed the throttles and accelerated the tiny submarine inwards towards Bohai Bay.
Cole checked the instruments, visible through the night-vision goggles, and was pleased to see that they were making good progress. It had been a long time since he’d travelled via SDV, and he had forgotten what a rapid and maneuverable form of transport it was.
Collins was an excellent pilot too, keeping the mini-sub as low as it would go, careful to avoid the marine traffic above. They had been travelling for an hour now through the murky depths of the Bohai Sea, warped into an eerie, virtual reality green by his goggles, which at once made things clearer but also more disorientating.
Once again, he was glad that Collins was taking the lead; despite his recent session back at Coronado, there was no way Cole would have been as slick or smooth as the young Team Six man.
Cole was monitoring the sonar and GPS, preparing for the next set of directions — the vital route through Bohai Bay and into the Yongding New River. The bay was filled with inlets and harbors, most of which led nowhere; if the SDV entered through the wrong passage, at best they would reach a dead end and lose precious time, or else find themselves in the wrong river going away from Beijing. At worst, they would be found and perhaps even killed.
They were getting close now, and Cole checked the instruments again and again, using his hands to inform Collins of their route. It was strange, his body in and out of the SDV, the undersea world around him black and green, the dark waters silent except for the faint hum of the battery and the whir of the shielded electric propulsion unit; it was like a video game and not at all like real life. Yet he knew that if they made a mistake, things would become real all too quickly.
He was monitoring the GPS system when he felt the SDV lurch suddenly to starboard, the entire vehicle ripped to the side, Collins’ body collapsing onto him, his own grip on the fuselage slipping, knocking him out of the SDV altogether.
His head span, the green and black images spiraling in front of his eyes, unable to focus; his hands reached out, securing themselves to the mini-sub’s frame, pulling himself blindly back towards it before it carried on without him and he was lost forever.
What the hell had happened?
Collins was struggling with the controls, attempting to correct the wildly tilting pitch of the SDV, but it was being pulled hard through the water and even with the throttles open completely, the batteries at full power, the ship merely turned, unable to get forward motion.
Cole’s mind sharpened in an instant, his vision cleared, and he looked in at Collins, who shook his head in confusion.
Cole looked around, turned his head upwards, saw what looked like the hull of a ship high above them, checked the sonar for confirmation. Looking at Collins, he pushed his palm down twice, telling him to cut the power; then he disconnected himself from the central open-circuit air unit and swam past the rear compartment, knocking gently twice on the hull, the message for the other four F1 operators to stay where they were. He knew they would be concerned, ready to burst out of the SDV all guns blazing, but wanted to keep them inside for now, unwilling to compromise the mission.
Cole thought he knew what had happened, and burst into action, swimming powerfully around the body of the SDV as Collins throttled back on the power, maintaining the ship’s position in the water.
Cole pushed through the inky waters to the starboard side, checking the rudder, confirming what he’d thought; it had been caught in a fishing net from the marine trawler above them. His hazy green and black imagery showed thick rope netting, fish flicking back and forwards inside, part of the net caught on the starboard blades.
Holding onto the SDV with one hand, he withdrew his knife with the other and started to cut, aware that the longer they stayed here, the more time the fishing vessel would have to register the weight of its catch and start to haul in the net; and the last thing Cole wanted was for the SDV to be pulled up alongside a Chinese boat just a few hundred meters from the Chinese coast.
He sawed away at the net frantically, just one single twine wrapped around the rudder; but it was thick and heavy, and it was going too slowly; already Cole could feel the net starting to be pulled in.
Cole let go with his other hand, pulsing his legs to keep in motion with the vessels as he secured the rope now with that hand, cutting even more frantically with the other.
He could see the hull above him more clearly now, the net being pulled inexorably closer; he looked back to the net, saw fish swimming past from the hole that he was pulling open, hands working with savage rapidity.
The hull was growing bigger, bigger, and Cole cut even harder, acid in his muscles building up until the pain was excruciating, but he ignored it completely and continued to saw, and saw, and saw, until…
The rope suddenly went slack, Cole’s knife finally passing through, separating the SDV starboard rudder from the fishing net, and Cole clamped down on the fuselage and gave Collins the hand signal to go, go, go!
Collins didn’t need telling twice and immediately burst forwards, throttles open, propelling the SDV fast through the waters, away from the prying eyes of the fishermen above, Cole’s body being dragged alongside the mini-sub, no time to climb back in.
But eventually, finally, the SDV slowed, out of the danger zone, and Cole swam around and climbed back into the open cockpit, securing himself back onto the central air system, breathing a sigh of relief.
He wondered what Navarone and the others must have thought, pulled around in the complete dark of the rear compartment with no idea what was happening, and was glad once again that he was in the front.
Terrifying though it was, at least he knew what was going on; and that, as he well knew, was always half the battle.
2
‘Mr. Vice President,’ the secretary greeted Clark Mason with wide-eyed surprise, ‘what an honor, we had no idea you were coming here today.’
Mason smiled back, suave and charming as always. ‘Oh really?’ he said earnestly. ‘I was sure that my office had made the arrangements. Could you show me through to the director?’ He smiled again. ‘I’m sure he’ll see me.’
The secretary nodded her head, flustered, and picked up the internal telephone to call through to Dr. Bruce Vinson, Director of the Paradigm Group.