“That’s the trouble, Jicai. They know who they are. The world’s policemen, and they’re too big, too tough, and too damned clever to be challenged. But if we get our hands on enough of those Kilos to have a permanent force in the South China Sea, I’ll challenge them. I’ll wait it out, and I’ll sink one of their carriers. I live for the day when I sink one of them.”
“Tread carefully though, my honored friend Yushu. And remember the Gulf War in 1990. Our finest weapons helped to arm the Iraqis, and the Americans made them look like children in a grown-up world. They are very, very dangerous.”
“So am I, Jicai.”
The two men walked out into the snow, which was now scuffed and packed down by a million feet and just as many skidding bicycles. The Forbidden City towered in the background, and the northwest wind still blew raw across Tiananmen Square. It was no warmer and more snow was forecast. Both men pulled their Navy greatcoats around them, and the black staff car drew up alongside in slushy splendor.
“I’ll ride out to the airport with you,” said Admiral Zhang. “We’ll talk more about the deployment of the next submarines, and the escort plan we must make with the Russians. And I’ll try not to allow my anger to rise whenever I think of the US Navy. But if I could have one wish, it would be to blow up the Pentagon and everyone in it. I simply cannot accept that they wiped out two brand-new submarines and a hundred crew, without warning and without reasonable motive. And that no one is ever going to know.”
“We know, Yushu,” said Admiral Zu. “And perhaps that will be enough for our purposes.”
The snow began to fall again as the People’s Liberation Army staff car turned northeast along Jichang Lu on the thirteen-mile journey to Beijing airport. The time was 1300.
On the other side of the world, ten thousand miles away, it was nine o’clock on the previous evening, and the weather was not much better on the cattle-rearing prairies of central Kansas.
Great herds roamed through the snow, and cowboys fought their way through blizzards, getting feed to the more remote areas. It had been a long day, and everyone was tired at the big ranch that lies between the Pawnee River and Buckner Creek in Hodgeman County.
Beyond the wide wrought-iron gates, which bore the distinctive B/B brand of the immense Baldridge ranch, the lights still burned in the main house. Only one man was still awake, the new president of the family business, forty-year-old Bill Baldridge, a former United States Navy Lieutenant Commander.
He sat alone in front of a log fire, considering whether to buy another half mile of land along the southern bank of the Pawnee. It was expensive, but the river gave it added value, and Bill was thinking of expanding one of the Hereford herds in the summer. He was staring at the prospectus, mentally working out what he could reasonably afford to pay for the six hundred acres scheduled to auction the following week, when the phone rang in the far corner of the room.
He walked over and answered, “Baldridge.”
“Bill? Hi, this is Boomer Dunning.”
“Boomer! Old buddy. How ya been?”
“Pretty good. Busy, nothing too serious. How ’bout yourself? Enjoying retirement?”
“Yeah, right,” said Bill. “Never worked so hard in my life. The weather’s been hell out here for three weeks — snow, wind, and ice. Me and my brother have been out all day every day. My manager’s got the goddamned flu, my good horse, Freddie, is lame, and it’s a goddamned miracle I haven’t got frostbite. If this is retirement, lead me to a nuclear boat.”
Boomer laughed. “Then my call is fortuitous. Because I am on this line to take you away from all that.”
“Christ, you’re not offering me a job are you?”
“Hell no. Better than that. I’m offering a vacation.”
“What kind of a vacation?” Bill asked skeptically.
“A bit unusual. But it might be fun. A friend of my Dad’s, some Australian banker, has asked me to deliver a boat for him. I’ve only seen pictures, but she’s brand-new, a sixty-seven-foot sloop, Bermuda rigged, teak decks, power winches, big Perkins Sabre engine, the whole shebang. Looks very comfortable. All teak interior. Carries two foresails, and I guess she’ll go like the bejesus. She’s called Yonder.”
“Yeah? Where is she?”
“Right now she’s lying in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The banker sailed her down there himself from the Hamble in England, where she was built. Took him six weeks, with four guests, three serious crew, and a cook. I got a letter from him, says she handled the Bay of Biscay no trouble, in bad weather.”
“Where we gonna take her?”
“Hobart, Tasmania. Southeast corner of Australia. This guy’s building a hotel there, right on Storm Bay. That’s the huge yachting area out in front of the town.”
“Christ, Boomer. That’s a hell of a way from Port Elizabeth, isn’t it? It’s gotta be ten thousand miles.”
“No, less than six. He says five thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. We’ll take the Great Circle route, but we’ll stay away from the Antarctic. And right from the start we’ll be in the prevailing westerlies, dead astern almost all the way. The guy says she can make twenty knots on a run. It’s her best point of sailing, if you don’t lose your nerve.
“Anyway, we’ve no need to push it, and we won’t have the crew to race the boat all the way. You’d need a dozen pros for that. But we should average a good nine knots for a couple of weeks. That’d leave us two weeks to cover the last three thousand miles. We’d only need to average nine knots to make the journey in twenty-eight days. He says it gets done regularly in lesser boats in twenty-six days.”
“Roaring Forties, right?”
“Yup. Hobart stands on longitude 42.53S. And of course it’s midsummer down there.”
“Hell, you make it sound very attractive. When you thinking of going?”
“February. I got a month’s sabbatical while Columbia goes in for maintenance. I’m aiming to clear Port Elizabeth on February first. I gotta be back in New London March fourth. Jo’s coming with me. Her mom’s coming down from New Hampshire to look after the girls while we’re away. How about it, Bill?”
Former Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, still holding the land prospectus, demurred. Three thousand bucks an acre was a lot of cash for grazing land. “What’s it going to cost us?”
“Nothing. The boat’s completely equipped with all food and drink. She’s fueled up. The crew are paid for, three of ’em, plus the cook. Aside from their quarters, there are three big double berths, two bathrooms. It looks really great.”
“Yeah, but we gotta get there by air. And back.”
“You ready for the good news?”
“Hit me.”
“Still nothing. The guy’s flying us out to Port Elizabeth from wherever we are in the States, and home from Tasmania via Melbourne. He’s flying us up there in his own plane. It’s only about four hundred miles.”
“Jeez, this is getting better by the minute.”
“I told him this was a very serious journey. And that I would be happy to skipper the boat. But I would not do it unless I had another American sailor with me who I knew was a good navigator. I told him that would probably cost him four round-trip air fares. He never blinked. Said that since he was trying to get a seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar yacht safely across the world, he was not much bothered by five thousand bucks’ worth of air fares.”
“Sounds a bit too much fun, and a bit too good for me to pass up,” said Bill. “I have to bring Laura with me.”
“Good. Jo’s coming, too. It’s gonna be great. Who’s Laura?”