Fong cursed in Chinese and activated the ship's PA system. “Attention, Sergeant McCormick. If you do not answer the phone in the engine room the next time we call, I will execute one of your fellow terrorists.”
Fong nodded to his second in command, who re-dialed the number. One ring. Two rings. Then the soft tap of someone picking up a phone receiver.
“Having some engine troubles, Captain?” McCormick's voice was openly mocking.
Fong had no patience for such antics. “Sergeant McCormick, your stalling tactic will prove futile. Reinforcements are inbound from Taiwan. They will be here within the hour. When they get here, we will find you and kill you. Turn yourself in now and I promise I will not hurt you or your Lafayette Initiative associates.”
“That's an interesting proposal, captain. Let me confer with my friend here.” McCormick said loudly, “Hey, Sergeant Ivanov, how many of these crappy Chinese anti-tank rockets do you think it would take to sink the ship coming out to meet us?”
Volodya answered, “Well, sergeant, they're a knock-off of the latest Russian design. I'd say, oh, three or four shots below the waterline could knock out a whole destroyer. And, of course, the Chinese ship would not return fire against us for fear of destroying a whole ship's worth of ammunition.”
McCormick replied, “Hm. So I should just tell Captain Fong to go fuck himself then, shouldn't I?”
Volodya laughed. “Yes, you should, sergeant.”
Fong responded, “Perhaps I should speak more plainly, then. If you do not turn yourselves in within five minutes, I will execute Colonel Douglas.”
Silence. Fong asked sarcastically, “No more wisecracks, Sergeant McCormick? No more childish jokes?”
Volodya finally said, “You do that and I will fucking kill you. You hear me? You’re—”
The line clicked off. Fong grinned wolfishly as he glanced at his watch. “Four minutes, forty-five seconds.”
Time drained away slowly. Douglas and I locked eyes. Then Douglas looked to Taleb, who looked as stoic as ever.
We listened to Volodya and McCormick argue over the radio. “We can get there in a few minutes; if we leave right now we can get there in time,” Volodya said quickly.
“No, no, you said yourself, we can’t take all the soldiers holed up on the bridge. There’s just no way we can take them all out at once.”
Volodya answered angrily, “So you won’t even try to save Colonel Douglas?”
“Our war is more important than Colonel Douglas.”
“Fuck your war. Douglas is my comrade. He saved my life in Ukraine. He got me out of Russia. I’m going to save him,” Volodya concluded.
McCormick answered, “The hell you are. I can’t take the ship back by myself.”
A scuffle broke out on the radio as Volodya tried to walk away and McCormick grabbed hold of him, tossing him into a bulkhead. “Hold on, you son of a bitch,” McCormick nearly shouted.
Fong looked down at his watch. "One minute to go."
All of the Lafayette Initiative members on the boat heard the exchange between McCormick and Volodya. Douglas and I exchanged a glance.
Douglas gritted his teeth and said, his voice unsteady with pain, "Cortez, when you see Volodya and McCormick, tell them they did the right thing by not surrendering. Tell Volodya I would have fired his ass if he had done anything else."
McCormick and Volodya, listening over the radio, heard the order implicit in Douglas's words. Volodya, anguish in his voice, said, "Polkovnik Douglas, it was the honor of my life to serve with you. I promise you, none of those Unit One bastards will get off this ship alive."
Douglas said, ostensibly to me to fool Captain Fong, "Tell McCormick… he and Volodya must figure out a way to get off the ship and carry on the fight. Revenge can wait."
Fong flicked on the ship's PA system and said in a taunting tone, "Ten seconds, boys." He cocked his pistol theatrically into the speaker.
No one said a word. I dared not look at the clock.
Fong aimed the pistol straight at Douglas's head. "For my sons."
"For the King," Douglas said back to him, closing his eyes.
Fong fired twice. The echo of the shots reverberated throughout the ship as loudspeakers broadcast the execution.
For a moment, there was total silence on the ship. With the engines off, the place sounded like a graveyard.
Finally, Fong said, "Sergeant McCormick, you have five minutes before Mr. Taleb joins Colonel Douglas in Hell."
I snapped. "Hell?! If anyone's going to Hell, it'll be the guy shooting unarmed prisoners. If anyone's going to Hell, it'll be the psychopath murdering people to prop up the thieves in Beijing who ruined their own country and are trying to fix it by robbing Taiwan. If anyone's going to Hell, it's you!"
Fong shouted back, "That's enough! If you don't shut up I'll—"
I screamed, "You'll what? Shoot my knees? I'm already a goddamn cripple. Besides, shooting me won't make you right. It'll prove the opposite."
Fong had no response. Instead, he flipped the PA system on. "Four minutes."
Taleb looked straight ahead. After a minute, he began murmuring prayers softly in Arabic. His tone remained neutral, not the faintest hint of emotion creeping into his voice. I thought of Taleb’s fiancée — the man was obviously ready to rejoin her.
At the two minute mark, Dietrich said in a quiet, reasonable tone, "Captain Fong, your strategy is quite hopeless."
Unsteadily, Fong said, "Ah, the German finally speaks. Tell me, foreigner, why is my strategy hopeless?"
"You might or might not be planning to execute at most two more of us. If Sergeant Ivanov and Sergeant McCormick would let Colonel Douglas die before surrendering, why would they suddenly become amenable to the idea after you kill someone who is barely more than a stranger?"
Fong did not reply. Dietrich continued in his German-accented, rational tone.
"You can't get reinforcements here because McCormick and Ivanov can destroy anything that floats before it gets here. And, besides, every minute we're here raises the chance of an American air attack.”
Tilting his head, Fong said, “Explain.”
Dietrich said calmly, "Our communications team has doubtlessly told the Americans by now where we are. They will shoot down any other helicopters sent our way. They may have already done that, in fact."
Fong's face twitched. Suddenly, it made perfect sense why another helicopter had not already arrived — it had been shot down by the Americans, just as Dietrich said. In the aftermath of the pilot raid, the American F-22’s dominated the skies around Taiwan.
Dietrich elaborated, "The Taiwanese have also surely been notified. Eventually, they will cobble together a response. They may send paratroopers, stealthy boats, and who knows what else. The key strategic parameter here is that the U.S. and Taiwan control everything relevant to the present situation that happens outside of this room.”
Fong's voice was level as he said, “And you have a solution.”
“Negotiate with McCormick and Volodya. They will doubtless allow you and your men to leave the ship if you release Taleb, Cortez and me.”
Though none of the other Unit One soldiers had spoken English to this point, Fong's second in command said something quietly in Chinese, indicating that he must have understood Dietrich's suggestion. Fong's eyes narrowed as he considered the idea. He and his second-in-command began a rapid-fire discussion in Chinese.
Volodya's voice sounded in our ears. “Dietrich, you goddamn kraut, if you think I'm going to let Fong walk off this ship alive, you need to reevaluate your own 'strategic parameters.'”
McCormick responded, “Remember the last thing Douglas said to us? We need to get out of here alive. Dietrich made up some nice bullshit about the Americans or the Taiwanese coming to help us, but we have no idea if that's true. You think the Taiwanese would risk sending a Pelican over the Strait, where it could be shot down by any stray Chinese ship? The American F-22's are doing well over Taiwan, and maybe they even shot down a second Chinese chopper, but that doesn't mean they're going to send planes to destroy this ship anytime soon.”