“Exactly,” she said. “If you’re going to be useful to me, then I can’t have you getting your submarines destroyed or have you making more enemies than you already have. I’ve been using disinformation to try to hide your existence from the world, but that has its limits. You’re becoming a known entity.”
“I need to keep my crew fresh. I need to keep them active to keep them proficient. You can’t stash me behind protective glass and wait until you need me.”
“That depends how you define protective glass,” she said. “I’m no idiot when it comes to submarines. You’ll have your missions, even if I have to spoon feed you easy ones.”
He exhaled smoke and calmed himself. Tactical retreat seemed his best option.
“We’ve been through a lot together. I see no reason to dive into more detail at the moment. It would only lead us to destructive paths of speculation and hypotheticals. Shall we delay clarifying the definition of your intent until a later date? I need my focus on the present mission.”
Her smile came too easily for his tastes. In her mind, he deduced, her veto carried absolute power, and he would gain no ground attempting to argue it in her aircraft.
“Of course, Pierre. I believe we understand each other as far as we need to for this chat. However, I do want to be obvious about one detail.”
“Go ahead.”
“No matter what happens in the Spratlys, I want Jake to come back alive. If you need to make a choice, the Rankin is expendable. The Australians can always buy another submarine.”
“Do you mean Jake specifically, or do you mean the Wraith, as the asset at your disposal?”
“Don’t be dramatic. Can you separate the two? I can’t.”
“Fair point.”
She stood, and he mimicked the gesture, recognizing the signal that his audience with the queen was concluding. Slinking around the table, she raised her arms to embrace him.
“Don’t worry, Pierre. I won’t do anything to upset Marie. I’m not in the habit of making wives jealous.”
He accepted her hug and air kisses aside his cheeks. Resisting the allure of her perfume, he disengaged and walked to the door where he descended the stairs and then sensed the tarmac beneath his shoes.
As the jet taxied away, he stood by his limousine door and watched his old friend-turned-tyrant depart. Between puffs of a fresh Marlboro, he wrestled for a perspective on his new relationship with Olivia McDonald.
As her airplane alighted in the distance, he surprised himself by uttering a simple summary of his assessment.
“Bitch.”
CHAPTER 11
Commander Wong checked his chart.
“It’s time to change course,” he said.
His gaunt executive officer presented a plasticized face.
“Sir, I agree that the lead ships should soon turn. However, I mark our own ship’s turn around the Louisa Reef in thirty minutes.”
“No,” Wong said. “That’s not what I meant. I mean this back and forth across the Malaysian land masses is wrong.”
“These waters are the most likely place where the Razak is hiding. You declared this yourself, and I agree. The Malaysian submarine lacks the endurance to transit far from its home.”
“Precisely,” Wong said. “And there’s been no sign of it despite our task force, maritime aircraft, and satellites hunting it for three days. We have a hundred conscripted men on fishing vessels, and they’ve seen nothing. We have passive sonar systems on merchant ships, and not a sound — including no sign of it imploding or sinking. We haven’t even sniffed a radio broadcast or navigation radar transmission that could be mistaken for the Razak.”
“This takes patience, sir, as you’ve taught me. The Razak will make a mistake. It’s only a matter of time.”
Wong tapped the chart and expanded its view.
“I know what I’ve taught you, and the lesson still stands. But that logic only applies if you’re hunting in the right place. I believe that we have been duped and hunt nothing.”
“The evidence is damning that the Razak attacked your brother on the Luzhou. The evidence is also convincing that the Razak has not returned to any Malaysian port. Our coastal spies are numerous and attentive, but they’ve seen nothing. Our target remains at large, sir.”
“Agreed. And since it has no air-independent propulsion system, it must snorkel soon. It must. In fact, it should have snorkeled already.”
“Per our estimates of its battery potential, it could have remained submerged since we entered the landmasses, but only if it has drifted without propulsion to conserve energy. It must snorkel soon.”
Wong thought of the stifling life inside a submerged diesel-powered ship. Even deep, the tepid waters guaranteed discomfort to a crew condemned to sip energy from its battery. Electrical systems and the minimal atmosphere-purifying machinery would consume every precious watt.
Deprived of air conditioning, fans, and showers, men would stink. They’d eat uncooked meals from cans. Garbage bags would accumulate in corners, reminding the sailors that danger prevented them from compressing and ejecting their trash. Shared toilets would fill with rancid excretions, with relief coming only after a sonar search suggested safe solitude. The stench of fear — a warranted fear — would pervade the vessel.
Wong accepted that time worked against the Razak and that a change of the hunting parameters would lead to its discovery.
“I would agree with you,” he said, “except that I challenge one of your assumptions. I believe the Razak hasn’t tried to reach its homeport. Its commanding officer foresaw our response and attempted an alternate tactic. He knew that our maritime aircraft would block his route home, he knew that our task force would come, and he knew that we would hunt him in the waters closest to his home.”
“It’s possible that he considered these factors. But if so, then where is the Razak?”
“Either a neighboring state is harboring it, or it remains north of us, hiding between the Spratly Island landmasses, praying that we lose patience searching for it and decide to take out our vengeance elsewhere, as we have begun to do with our assault upon the garrison on Mariveles Reef.”
“But why? Either case would only prolong the inevitable. The Razak doesn’t have the endurance to outlast its hunters, and our nation has the resources to continue pursuing it. And a collaborating state could only hide it for so long before it would be discovered.”
“I can’t answer that,” Wong said. “Nor can I fathom the insanity of that accursed submarine attacking my brother without cause. None of this absurdity makes sense, but I swear to you that sinking that vessel is the only answer that will bring me peace.”
“Then let’s find it, sir. You mean to search elsewhere?”
“Right. We are wasting our time looking between the Malaysian-owned Spratly landmasses and the Malaysian mainland. The Razak is not here.”
“What do you suggest, sir?”
Wong saw a newfound use for the floating dock that he once had blamed for slowing his task force. It provided the amphibious firepower to support a plan he would recommend to fleet headquarters in Zhanjiang.
“We send the Jinggang Shan and the frigates to threaten the local nations. They approach their populated coasts, regardless of their diplomatic standing with Malaysia, and we have our national leadership threaten shore bombardment and landings. Let our politicians glean information from the military pressure. Fear drives men to talk.”