Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (22 page)

48

USS
Valkyrie
, South China Sea

Garrison stared out at the vast, jet-black expanse. It was a strange thing to do, to spend months away from home, trapped on a gigantic floating metal city, surrounded only by sea and sky. Not for the first time, he was asking himself what made him do it when the personal price had been so high. Sure, he wanted to serve his country – to be a role model, even a hero. But the eff ect on his own life had been a cruel reversal of that dream. He knew what it had done to his marriage. As for his son . . . Tommy had said that he had followed him into the navy to get closer to him: his exact words. He was killed in Afghanistan at nineteen. And Marcy had never explicitly blamed him but it was there in her eyes. The deaths of Olsen and his team and then the conversation with Kovic had brought back memories of that terrible day. And now Kovic was back on the satphone, with more crazy stories.

Only this time something was diff erent. Against his better judgement, he found himself believing every word.

Garrison had met Admiral Chang Wei only twice; once on the first Sino–American joint manoeuvres, a pointless exercise that had nothing whatsoever to do with naval matters and everything to do with politics. There, he had been respectful but aloof, barely able to hide his disdain for the whole venture. The second time was more purposeful, to flesh out the strategy for their anti-piracy campaign here in the South China Sea. Then, Garrison had noted a disturbing change in the man, as if his arrogance, barely restrained before, had burst out and taken charge. His opposition to the mere idea of the US policing waters so close to China was something he made no secret of. There were many orders Garrison had had to follow regardless of what he thought of them, but that was all part of military
life. Without obedience the whole proposition was blown. Chang had done his part, gone through the motions of cooperation, but all the time Garrison couldn’t get it out of his mind that there was another agenda driving him. And although the sea looked empty from the command bridge, he knew damn well that over the horizon the Chinese Navy – Chang’s fleet – was watching his every move, just as he was watching theirs. Something about the way Chang was positioning his fleet bothered him. And then there was the unrest in Shanghai. Two separate things – until Kovic put them together.

‘You still there, sir?’

‘I was thinking.’

‘Are you aware of the implications of this, sir?’ There was an impatience in Kovic’s tone.

‘Naturally I am. You sound like hell, Kovic. You looking for exfil?’

‘Negative, sir, attractive as that sounds. There’s more to be done here.’

‘So what is it you want me to do?’

‘Raise the alarm about Chang with the Pentagon.’

‘You briefing your people – Cutler?’

‘Not till I’m back in Shanghai. I want to do that face to face. It’s going to be difficult for him, accepting the idea that he was set up by Chang. When you speak to the Pentagon don’t use me as the source. It will be dismissed as ass-covering.’

‘How you gonna get off that mountain?’

‘I’m working on that now, sir.’

Garrison thought he could hear gunfire in the background.

‘You under attack?’

‘Kind of.’

‘You better watch out, Kovic. If what you’re saying has any substance, any substance at all—’

‘Absolutely, sir, will do.’

And with that he was gone.

49

Huangshan Mountains

Kovic dropped the satphone into his pack. A second later, the cable car jolted to a halt.

‘Fan-fucking-tastic.’

At least this time he wasn’t to blame. The auxiliary battery power was Zhou’s discovery; it kept the cable car going if the mains electricity was cut, which thanks to Qi it was. He had blacked out the whole complex, plunging all the subterranean rooms into darkness. And for good measure he had also jammed their backup systems. The whole mountaintop was literally powerless. The cable car was the only moving part left – until now.

The helicopter explosion had taken out a substantial number of Tsu’s men and distracted many more. The survivors, thinking there was more to come, had taken cover underground, which gave Kovic and his crew some time to organise their escape with only limited resistance. And as Zhou had also managed to disable the security system, all but a few stragglers were locked in. Kovic was delighted. His team had all come good. But now they were suspended on a tiny platform, a thousand feet from the ground, unable to move.

Eventually Wu spoke up.

‘So, what we gonna do?’

There was a definite change of tone towards their leader. Just the state of him saw to that. Every part of his body whipped, beaten or slashed. The soles of his feet were now huge scabs from being flogged, and he had lost a couple of teeth when Tsu smashed him over the face with the Glock. He glanced sideways, causing a new increment of pain to shoot across his jaw.

‘See that rope?’

A large coil of cord was tethered to the side of the platform cage,
quite long, but almost certainly not long enough. He tried to infuse his voice with optimism.

‘Do a quick measurement; see if it reaches ground level. If it does, we fast-rope down.’

‘Without gloves?’

‘We’ll use our clothing.’

The others tried not to look too obviously at the rags he had left.

‘And if it doesn’t reach the ground?’

‘The tree canopy down there’s quite thick. We fast-rope – and pray.’

Wu went first, as he was the only one of them who had been trained to do this. Zhou, whose head for heights had been severely tested on this mission, followed. Whatever misgivings he had, he kept them to himself.

‘It’s like this. Either you try or I’m gonna have to leave you behind and you can hope someone switches the power back on, but I wouldn’t fancy your chances after that.’

Qi took his time, knowing there was no alternative but unable to bring himself to commit to the rope. His face was streaked with fear and sweat but this was no time for pity, in fact there was no time for anything. In the end he made quite a good job of it, trapping the rope between his feet, benefitting from his low body weight. Kovic watched him disappear into the foliage. Like the captain of a ship, he insisted on going last.

Then he bound his hands with strips of what was left of his shirt, and was preparing to go when something knocked him on the head. Whatever it was floored him, and he lost consciousness for at least a minute. A bullet must have grazed him because when he came to, blood was oozing down his forehead into his eyes. But the car had lurched forward. The power was back on. He was going up, not down, and someone was shooting at him.

Another shot twanged off the cage. Kovic had to get off the cable car – now. Already it had ascended at least five hundred feet. He had survived to this point, and there was no way he was going back up the mountain. There was nothing else for it. He gripped the rope and kicked out. The rope immediately chewed through the
makeshift bindings on his hands and his feet failed to get a proper purchase on the cord. He was falling, falling, the air around him soothing, cooling his wounds, even as the rope burned his hands. Another shot zinged past him as he hurtled towards the tree canopy. After that he blacked out again.

50

Always in the right place at the wrong time.

It had been said about him more than once. In Lebanon, searching the room next door to the one that was booby-trapped; in Iraq, in the seat behind the Humvee driver who took the bullet; in Afghanistan, in the one part of the base where the suicide bomber’s blast didn’t reach.

And now, after losing his grip, freefalling towards the earth and crashing through a network of branches, he had splashed down harmlessly, in a deep narrow lake. If he was religious he could have said it was God’s work, giving him a break after the night’s indignities.

He was wet and winded, but unmarked by the fall. He looked around at the tranquil woodland scene, an unspoiled pocket of the world not yet desecrated by man. Maybe someone was on his side after all. He was filled with euphoria. He had gone up the impossible mountain and come back down in one piece, having done what he set out to do. And the water cooled all his injuries wonderfully. But as he swam to the edge of the pool he knew that there was no time to waste, that events were gathering pace. Tsu had been thwarted, but Chang was unstoppable. The whole world order was under threat.

From his backpack he took out the satphone. He prayed to God, if he was there, that it still worked.

51

MSS HQ, Shanghai

Hannah moved swiftly through the subterranean corridors of the Golfball. More than ever, she felt like a stranger, an interloper. People stared at her. She was used to that, being one of so few women in the Ministry, but there was also the damage to her face from the bomb, which she had made no eff ort to cover up. She wanted people to know that she had been there and took some grim pride in the fact that unlike the rest of them she had first-hand experience of what was going on. So far no one was talking about the Director. That was expected. The shameful circumstances of his demise would already be a closely guarded secret. But how long did she have? No one had seen what she had done, but his guards had been close by, had known she was in the room. There would be questions. And even if they couldn’t prove it, she, an American-educated woman, in this time of paranoia, would make a perfect scapegoat. But all of this was blotted from her mind by what she was hearing now, the phone pressed to her ear as she headed for the parking garage. Surely Kovic had got it wrong.

‘Admiral Chang Wei is one of our greatest military heroes. He is revered for his devotion to the Party.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Hannah.’

‘Please can you lighten up on the profanities? He is one of my father’s oldest comrades.’

‘Yeah? Well your old man’s got great taste in friends.’

‘What’s more, he’s regarded as a standard bearer for all those who reject corruption.’

‘Okay, try this: Chang made no secret of his loathing of your pal Jin Jié as the shining example of everything he hates about the way China’s going. So if he wants to deliver the country from evil,
he should get the hell out. Tsu turned out to be Chang’s go-to guy for all his dirty operations; neutralising him isn’t going to stop the Admiral from world domination.’

She slammed her pass down on the card reader and pushed through the double doors. Chang Wei, of all people. Was it possible? Did her father know anything about this? Was that why he wouldn’t listen to her?’

‘Are you still there? Look, I know the MSS only hears what it wants to hear but I thought you were above that. Or are you gonna tell me that in the daylight you’re just another of those drones sucking dick for preferment?’

She held the phone away in disgust, but she didn’t hang up. She would have completely discounted Kovic’s claims, but for the one small but terrifyingly significant detail – the texts that had emanated from the navy bureaucracy. Kovic was eff ectively telling her she was right. Now she felt completely alone, except for Jin Jié and this uncouth American barking down the phone.

‘So, anyway, you gonna get me outta here or what? Because the remainder of Tsu’s men are going to be crawling through the forest looking for us.’

‘Stay out of sight. Text me your location and give me six hours.’

She killed the phone and pointed the remote at her car.

52

USS
Valkyrie
, South China Sea

There was just the two of them in his quarters: Bale and Commander Garrison, his eyes fixed on the young radioman.

‘This stays in the room. No one outside is to know.
No one
.’

Bale nodded vigorously, his eyes shining with excitement. When he enlisted he had been told to keep his expectations low, just do what he was told and not to expect recognition. His MAINCOMM supervisor on the
Valkyrie
had chewed him out more than once for asking too many questions. And he had nearly fallen in the shit again for daring to speak to Garrison. But hey, look where it had got him. And now his supervisor was under strict orders to leave Bale alone to concentrate on his special project. Garrison had even given it its own codename –
Armature
.

Spread out on his desk was a large map of the Chinese mainland.

‘Okay, Bale, do your thing.’

‘I can input it to your laptop, sir.’

‘Just draw it in good old fashioned pencil, please.’

‘Yessir.’

Bale bent over the map and positioned Garrison’s parallel rule, a family heirloom from his grandfather’s sailing days. The first line he drew followed the path of the first stream of ‘noise’ he had picked up – from the North Korean border to the point in the mountains west of Shanghai. Garrison hadn’t shared the significance of this; in fact all he knew himself was that it conclusively linked the scene of his Marines’ annihilation with the mountain hideout Kovic had just called from. His first thought had been to communicate this straight to Washington, but some instinct kicked in which stopped him. The CIA would get to hear about it and however he played it, it didn’t look good for them. If what Kovic was saying was right,
Chang had led them into a trap. Langley might try and spin it or squash it. He wanted Bale to help him put some more flesh on it first.

‘Sir, you understand we don’t know what its content is unless someone in the NSA can decode it. And you gave me strict instructions not to forward it to them.’

‘Yeah, let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s concentrate on where it goes. See where that takes us.’

Bale consulted his notes and drew another line.

‘This starts in the same mountain location and goes out to Zhanjiang.’

‘The base of the South Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy.’

‘Yessir.’

‘Can you be more specific? Zhanjiang’s a big base.’

‘Well, sir, there are two streams with an interval of about five minutes between them. The first starts on land—’

‘It’s mobile?’

Bale nodded. ‘—and the second finishes on water.’

‘Okay, let me ask you this – how big a device would it need to be to generate this kind of stream.’

‘Sir, I don’t have that information.’

Garrison smiled.

‘I’m asking your opinion. Give me your best guess.’

‘It could be as small as a laptop.’

‘So the device is portable. Possibly carried by an individual?’

Bale wasn’t given to speculation but Garrison was pushing him.

He nodded. ‘I guess so, sir.’

‘Okay, this is good. Where else?’

Bale unrolled a large street map of Shanghai.

‘I’ve collected three streams coming from Zhanjiang.’

‘Coming into the city?’

‘No, going out – and from three different locations.’

Bale consulted his notes again and carefully drew three small crosses.

‘Let me look.’

Garrison bent over the map. The first he recognised. It was the
Navy Ministry. The second he didn’t know but the third . . . He felt the blood drain from his face. He looked away so Bale wouldn’t notice, kept his voice matter of fact and level.

‘Okay. Double-check those coordinates?’

He turned back to Bale and fixed him with a deathly gaze. ‘Absolutely no one else is to know about this, Bale. You come direct to me, as soon as you’re done. Doesn’t matter when, day or night.’

‘Understood, sir.’ Bale saluted and left.

The door closed. Garrison was alone, listening to the blood pulsing in his temples.