“Splendid,” said Cavendish, smiling. “Absolutely splendid.”
A flash of relief washed across Chang’s face. It felt like the tension in the room had completely lifted. Chang started to float toward an emergency suit, but the slight one in charge, the shopkeeper, shook his head. In his hand was one of their electric pistols.
“No, not you. I warned you that if there was any resistance, you all would die. I didn’t get so far in business without being a man of my word.”
Chang didn’t have time to protest that it hadn’t been his decision to resist, that it had all been Huan’s fault, before the 7.5 million volts from the Taser dart entered his body.
USS Zumwalt, Gulf of Alaska, Pacific Ocean
Captain Jamie Simmons stood in the lee of the helicopter bay and scanned the blue sky. Even with the chill that grew as they moved farther north, the rhythmic rise and fall of the following Pacific swell made the moment wholly pleasant. It was the kind of beauty that unexpectedly wormed its way into the experience of war.
“Captain, visual IFF signal just confirmed it’s ours,” said Seaman Eric Shear. Simmons took the oversize binoculars. There was an electronic icon in the viewfinder that prompted him to turn to the port side and look slightly up toward the incoming plane, three miles out and closing quickly. A repeating triple dash of lights confirmed the IFF — the identification, friend or foe — signal.
“We’d be dead by now if it wasn’t,” said Simmons. “Get the recovery crew ready.”
“Already standing by, sir,” said Shear.
The form of a gray General Atomics Avenger stealth drone appeared behind the lights. It moved fast and low, lower than any human pilot would dare take a plane, fifteen feet above the sea, the splash from the highest waves licking at its underbelly. The pilotless jet’s autonomous flight was nearing its terminus. With no other way to securely communicate with the fleet, Pacific Command had resorted to using what was essentially a twenty-million-dollar carrier pigeon. The drone’s first pass over the Zumwalt crossed the stern fifty feet off, far too close for Simmons’s comfort. As it pushed past, the jet waggled its wings slightly. At least somebody among the mission’s programmers had a sense of humor.
Tracking the next pass, Simmons saw the doors covering the internal weapons bay open. The jet slowed and ejected two bright yellow canisters, then it powered away to the east and dropped canisters to the rest of the ships in the task force. After that it went to full power and dove straight down into the Pacific. The drone disappeared in a violent splash, the sound of its impact lost in the faint wind.
The canisters gleamed as they were hauled aboard the Zumwalt and carried into the hangar bay, where a pair of techs disarmed the scuttle devices that would have melted the contents into a toxic mess with a chemical spray if someone had used the wrong access code.
“Ever think it would come to this, Captain?” said Cortez, eyeing the stack of foil packets.
“Never. When’s the last time you opened an actual letter, XO?” said Simmons, tearing open the foil and beginning to read the cover memo outlining the ops plan. “If Congress had known this war was coming, I bet they never would have shut down the U.S. Postal Service.”
“Some of these kids, I doubt they’ve ever held a letter, at least one written by another person,” said Cortez.
“I like how you refer to them as kids. Shows how far you’ve come, Horatio. Shows why I know you’ll do the right thing in whatever comes next.” Jamie paused, letting that sink in. He looked back down and read further, leaving Cortez standing awkwardly in silence. Then he folded the paper and returned it to the envelope.
“Pep talk’s over. We need to get to the bridge.”
Cortez looked back quizzically.
“PACOM reports Directorate space-based ISR has been neutralized, meaning we just disappeared from their overhead surveillance. There’s a new set of mission orders and a new destination. You can let the crew know they can put their mittens away. Full sprint south. It’s time to see if this ship is as stealthy as they say.”
Kahuku, Oahu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone
The hike from the beach was just as long as some of the previous treks Conan had done with the NSM, but it took only a fraction of the time. The SEAL fire team moved with confidence rather than the stop-and-go of the insurgents. Where the NSM would have waited and watched for an hour to ensure an intersection in the trail was free of guards, the SEALs moved right through, the tiny robotic lobster they called Butter scurrying ahead, clearing the way.
Conan thought their noise discipline was terrible. It wasn’t that they were loud; they were quiet, at least for predators. It was that they clearly had never been prey. They announced themselves with the small things, like the way they tightened a harness or wiped a hand across a sweaty forehead. They also took too many risks. Instead of steering wide of Directorate positions, they seemed to seek out every place the NSM had learned the hard way to avoid.
She didn’t understand why until they got to the first site, a cluster of houses being used to barrack a Directorate infantry platoon. She and Duncan went prone and wiggled to the lip of a small creek about seventy-five yards from the houses. She suspected they were preparing an ambush, which worried her. Even if they took out this unit, it would do nothing but bring the rapid-reaction force down on them. She’d heard stories about the SEALs’ arrogance, but this was going to get them all killed.
Conan was preparing to pull back and leave them on their own when Duncan set down his rifle. Using a flexible tablet strapped to his forearm, he compared the location to the map scrolling on the screen and then dropped a digital pin on the site.
“We’ve got the old GPS coordinates of almost everything on the island from before the war down to the inch — not that we can use it for navigation,” he whispered. “But we didn’t know where all their forces were located. Now we do. Where to next, Major?”
The hike took the whole day, and Duncan slowly filled his digital map with pins. Conan didn’t feel at ease until they slipped into trails of the Pupukea-Paumalu Forest Reserve, away from any population. Their journey ended with a hike up a stream in the East ‘O’io Gulch to the old Kahuku training center. The hundred-acre site had been built to train construction workers away from the view of tourists. Tucked into the back of a hill were a few buildings, a sixty-three-thousand-gallon water tank, and space for union apprentices to drive around excavators and loaders. It was now abandoned, the jungle rapidly closing in around it.
But what mattered to the team was the other side of the complex. Kahuku translated into English as “the projection.” The finger of the hill rose three hundred feet above the surrounding landscape. Laid out below them was the Kamehameha Highway, a golf course on its other side, still maintained as if the war had never come. Beyond lay a complex of three low-rise buildings set on a peninsula that had open views to the ocean.
“Just like the Chinese to take the best real estate, huh?” Duncan said.
“Turtle Bay Resort, the only major hotel on the North Shore,” Conan said. “And now headquarters of their regional quick-reaction force.” She pointed out the row of helicopters and small drones parked on the tennis courts west of the complex.
Duncan motioned for the team to set up a hide site and lay out the nylon shield bags. Conan still kept her wool blanket close. She watched as Peaches picked up the robotic lobster, placed a tiny cylinder on it, and then set it back on the ground and gave it the kind of gentle pat you would use to encourage a puppy. Duncan tracked his finger across the flexible tablet screen and placed another pin on the Turtle Bay complex. The tiny robot scurried off and disappeared into the bush.