‘I suppose it will,’ Mason replied, looking back at the academic with daggers in his eyes, though his mouth formed a semblance of a smile. He pushed his chair back and stood, holding out a hand. ‘I’ll have to get back now actually, as a matter of fact. Thank you for your hospitality.’
Vinson shook the man’s hand, sensing that Mason knew he was being played with, and that he wasn’t happy about it one little bit.
But Vinson was a man who liked to play games, and Mason had come into his arena and demanded a shot at the champ. Who was Vinson to turn him down?
‘Not at all, old chap,’ Vinson said, clapping Mason on the shoulder and walking with him to his office door. ‘Any time you need anything, please feel free to come back. It’s been an honor having you here. Maybe you’d be good enough to sign the guest book on your way out?’
The look on Mason’s face was priceless — Vinson labeled it the ‘constipated monkey’. It was such an obvious effort to contain his rage that Vinson thought it hilarious; Mason managed a contorted half-smile, nodded once, and turned on his heel and marched off down the corridor to the elevators.
Bruce Vinson closed the leather-embossed door behind him and let out a great, rumbling belly laugh. He still couldn’t quite get over the look on Mason’s face; it was like dealing with a two-year-old. It was a shame that the man was also one of the most powerful in the entire United States.
Vinson stopped laughing and poured himself a glass of brandy. If there was one thing he had learned from this meeting, it was that Vice President Clark Mason was going to have to be taken care of, one way or another.
Vinson already knew about the man’s current mistress, along with a long list of previous dalliances, but that couldn’t really hurt him. Mason’s wife already knew about it, and the American public had long ceased to be shocked by such things. Bill Clinton was still remembered fondly, despite the cigar incident.
But Vinson was not without resources, or imagination.
And as he started to form a plan, he sipped at his brandy and once again started to chuckle happily to himself.
‘So Bruce thinks he’s serious?’ asked Pete Olsen, body ramrod straight in the easy chair in the corner of Abrams’ private study.
Ellen Abrams nodded her head. ‘I’m afraid so. It seems that my VP wants to get a bit of political capital out of the current situation.’
‘Son of a bitch!’ Olsen said, slamming his hand down on the arm of his chair, almost breaking it off.
‘What are we doing about it?’ Catalina dos Santos asked.
‘Bruce says he’s going to deal with it,’ Abrams said, ‘and I think we can trust him on that.’
Olsen nodded. ‘He’s a resourceful guy,’ he agreed. ‘Anything we can do to help?’
‘Just play it cool around Clark if he comes snooping around asking questions,’ Abrams said. ‘I’ve got an idea I might have some urgent jobs for him to do out of town though, so we shouldn’t be seeing him too much until this is over.’
‘Good play,’ dos Santos agreed, ‘let’s try and keep him out of the picture until Force One completes its mission. Do we know how they’re getting on?’
‘According to Vinson, they should be close to the Chinese mainland by now,’ Abrams said. ‘We’ll know soon enough if they’ve been successful.’
‘Report from the Texas is that they managed to get away in the SDV just fine, Captain Sherman’s sweeping back south as we speak,’ Olsen added. ‘Does the CIA have everything in place?’ he asked dos Santos.
‘As far as we can tell, they do,’ she said. ‘Although we don’t know many of the ins and outs surrounding their role. That’s between Force One and the agents on the ground.’
‘General Wu?’ Abrams asked. She had been as perturbed as Liu Yingchau to discover that their target had left the Chinese mainland.
‘Our sources indicate that he will fly back by military plane by tonight our time, early morning in Beijing, in time to make the Dragon Boat festival.’
‘How sure are we on that?’ Olsen asked.
‘Fairly sure,’ dos Santos replied, ‘but Wu is a law unto himself, and we won’t really know until he’s actually back there, on the ground.’
Olsen frowned. ‘There’s a lot that could still go wrong,’ he said. ‘Now, I know Cole and his teams are the best we have, but we have to face up to the fact that we may have to use one of our contingency plans.’
It was Abrams’ turn to frown. Of course, she had never agreed to place all her eggs in one basket, and had authorized planning for several contingency plans, all of which relied on far more military firepower than a single six-person squad. But although she had authorized such plans, she had no stomach for going through with them if she could possibly help it; even the best-case scenarios would result in hundreds of deaths, the worst-cases running into the millions.
‘I understand that we might have to push ahead with those operations, Pete,’ she said at last, ‘and I expect you to have everything in place should we need to move to that level. But let’s just hope and pray that things never get to that stage, for all our sakes.’
4
Cole hadn’t had time to consider the ramifications of nearly being caught by the fishing trawler; the possibility that someone on board had seen them, that an experienced fisherman had examined the net and realized it had been cut by a knife and not by the teeth of a large fish, that it wasn’t a real trawler but a disguised surveillance ship which was even now tracking them via sonar — these things touched the edges of his consciousness but were not allowed to take hold. He simply had no time. What would be would be, and there was no use wasting mental energy on things he had no control over.
So, with the threat of the possible consequences of their narrow escape banished from his mind, he fixed his concentration on the task he could control — that he had to control.
Getting the SDV out of Bohai Bay and into the inlet of Yongding New River.
He could literally see the hulls of the boats above him, next to him, behind him; and all the while Tim Collins was maneuvering the small submersible, head out to one side as he moved the manual control stick in smooth, practiced, fluid actions, the SDV magically following the inputs as it glided unseen through the busy waters.
Cole’s GPS was telling him they were right up at the harbor wall, his sonar confirming; he could even see it now through his goggles, a looming black mass lurking ahead through thick green shadow.
Cole placed his hand on Collins’ arm, gesturing with his other hand with two sharp actions to the side. Collins nodded, adjusting the stick slightly, the SDV sliding gently to the right, lining up towards the entry for the Beitangkou inlet towards Sanhe Island and the Yongding beyond.
The stretch of the harbor wall that Cole could see ahead of him separated the Beitangkou inlet from the twin waterways that led to Tianjin Port. Making a mistake at this stage would surely be fatal — Tianjin Port was one of the busiest marine traffic areas in the world. But even without the GPS, Cole could see they were headed for the right area — Beitangkou was far quieter as it didn’t lead directly to a port, and all the major shipping was immediately south of the SDV.
Collins let the SDV crawl along the harbor wall until it opened up into the broad inlet, and Cole felt the craft begin its turn into Beitangkou, to be finally free of the Bohai Sea and the immediate threat of the Chinese navy.