“China is an important trading partner for us,” Gumelar said.
“And to the United States as well,” Ryan said. “But we cannot let this behavior continue simply because they sell us phone parts.”
“You say we both know,” Gumelar said. “But I have seen no proof.”
“Oh,” Ryan said. “Believe me, Mr. President. Operatives of the Chinese intelligence service have stolen valuable computer technology on your soil. These same operatives have bribed members of your police force to arrest an innocent man and charge him with a capital crime. They have attempted to coerce a citizen of the United States into committing treason.”
“Mr. President,” Gumelar said. “I have heard nothing of Father West committing treason—”
Mary Pat Foley looked on stoically from her bulkhead seat.
“I’m not talking about Father West.” Ryan raised his hand and motioned for the passenger in the seat behind him to move forward. “Gugun, I’d like you to meet Senator Michelle Chadwick. It turns out she has quite a story to tell.”
“Senator Chadwick?” President Gumelar shook his head in disbelief. “I was under the impression that…”
“That I despise President Ryan?”
“Well,” Gumelar said. “Frankly, yes.”
“That’s a fair assessment,” Chadwick said. “But I despise spying for the Chinese even more. Everyone knows the President and I see eye to eye on very little. Unfortunately for the Chinese intelligence services, that means my word actually carries more weight, not less.”
Gumelar flushed red. “You have proof that China is involved?”
Chadwick held up her cell phone. “I do, Mr. President. I have a recording of the Chinese operative who was attempting to get me to spy on President Ryan. He admits they are willing to frame Father West with false narcotics trafficking charges in order to bait the Ryan administration with the possibility of his execution.”
“She came to me straightaway,” Ryan said. “Told me everything, cooperated with our director of national intelligence and FBI all along.”
“You plan to go public with this proof?” Gumelar said.
“I do, sir,” Chadwick said.
“And you should as well, Gugun,” Ryan said.
“Very well,” Gumelar said, tight-lipped. “I do not like being played for the fool.”
“Nor do I, my friend,” Ryan said. “There is a way for you to demonstrate that you are still in charge of this country — and to set things right today. What would you say if I asked you for a tour of the prison on Nusa Kambangan Island?”
58
Thirty-eight minutes after Calliope made her most recent jump, the KC-135 adjusted course slightly more eastward, in the direction of the Marshall Islands. The tail boom was extended again, and an approaching F-35 Lightning pilot began to speak with the crew of the Stratotanker. At the same time, the aircraft began a series of handshakes via data-link. Calliope instantly calculated the range of the strike fighter, read the list of weapons stores, and then waited to see how much fuel was transferred. She read, but did not care, that this F-35 was piloted by a USMC Major Goodloe “Oh” Schmidt. What did interest her, and cause her to spool up, was that this particular F-35’s onboard radio logs showed it had recently communicated with the USS Makin Island. Chatter from other aircraft going to and from the nearby ship filled the radio.
Calliope understood English commands, but the words were superfluous. Her language was raw data, and right now, the data showed that her target was almost within reach.
A millisecond later, while Major Schmidt’s F-35 Lightning was still in the process of taking on fuel, Calliope jumped, deleting herself from the Stratotanker’s systems, as if she were never there.
59
The first bullets snapped the air beside Ding Chavez’s head ten minutes after they crested the mountain. Chavez was fairly certain Habib and his friends were engaging in spray-and-pray tactics, but the rounds were close enough that one of those prayers was bound to get an answer sooner or later.
Konner dropped to his belly at the shots, peering around the base of a vine-choked tree at their back trail. His eyes appeared to glaze over, like he was stoned.
Chavez and Adara crouched beside him. Chavez had done enough work in this kind of environment to know exactly what the wiry Papuan was doing. Dense vegetation had a tendency to trick the eye, making it difficult to see anything but a wall of mottled green. Periodically allowing your vision to relax and unfocus helped give what Chavez’s instructors had called “jungle eye.”
Seeing nothing at the time, they were up and running again in less than a minute.
The dense foliage was alive with the buzz of insects and screeching birds, masking the noise of anyone’s approach. Vines, trees, and banana leaves formed an almost impenetrable mesh that was difficult to see through, let alone navigate, without leaving an obvious trail.
“How wide is the beach?” Adara asked as they half ran, half fell down the mountain.
“Maybe here to that banana tree, me think,” Konner said, pointing to a tree some thirty meters downhill as he moved. “Big hibiscus trees, then beach, then water.” He looked up at the thick canopy above, the way someone might check their watch. “It low tide now. Beach maybe little more wide.”
Another bullet whirred by, high overhead. Chavez chanced a look over his shoulder. His vision was too blurry to see much of anything anyway, but he knew Habib and his goons had made it over the mountain.
More rounds snapped in the air, followed by the distinctive report of an AK-47 behind them. One of the rounds neatly clipped a fat banana leaf above Adara’s head, sending it falling to the jungle floor.
“Voices!” Adara hissed, picking up her stride.
Chavez could hear little but the muffled whoosh of his own pulse in his ears. Adrenaline was a marvelous thing, but he’d been living off a steady diet of the stuff for the last couple of hours. He could handle fatigue, but the throbbing pain and nausea from his injuries pushed their way to the fore as the adrenaline ebbed. He was reduced to carrying his broken wrist as he ran to keep the bones from grinding.
The shots came more quickly now, peppering the foliage just a few meters to the right.
“How much farther?” Chavez asked through clenched teeth, panting heavily. It took so much concentration to speak he nearly lost his footing.
The Papuan’s hand shot out to steady him. “We goin’ downhill very quick,” he said. “Maybe five minutes.”
Chavez glanced at Adara, who met his eye.
“We’re trapped between these bastards and ocean,” she said. “They’re going to get to us before the ship does.”
“Me knows good hiding spot.”
More shots. Closer now.
Adara shook her head. “You think they could have people ahead of us?”
“I do,” Chavez said.
The Papuan grew wide-eyed as he reached the same conclusion.
He hefted the homemade shotgun and looked back and forth along the side hill, obviously trying to come up with an alternate plan. “They driving us to a trap.”
Littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth was fifty-six miles away when the comms officer received a call via satellite telephone. The female operative they were supposed to pick up informed them she and her partner were ten minutes from the beach and taking fire from an unknown number of pursuers.
The seas had become choppier and the powerful Rolls-Royce engines, based on the same engine that powered Boeing’s 777 jets, pushed the ship along just below thirty-five knots.