Empire Rising (13 page)

Another stop at an automated ticket machine procured the necessary tickets to board the Line 9 train, and Christine followed Peng through the turnstiles to the loading platform. The subway was cramped, allowing Peng and Christine to meld into the throng of people. While they waited, Peng made a short phone call with his cell phone. The train arrived a few minutes later, and the mass of bodies moved almost as one into the white and red cars.

Peng grabbed one of the center poles in the subway car as the doors closed behind him, swinging around and stopping Christine in front of him, keeping her faced away from the platform. After a quick glance at the subway car's other occupants, Christine's grip on the pole tightened; there were far fewer Caucasians on the subway compared to the Intercity Express railway, the odds of her standing out much greater. That fact was not lost on Peng. With one hand high on the pole and another gripping an overhead strap hanging from the ceiling, he did his best to shield Christine's face from others inside the car. None of the other passengers paid any attention to Peng or Christine, however.

The subway train resumed its journey with a lurch, stopping every few minutes at additional stations. Staring over Peng's shoulder at the reflection in the window, Christine tried to determine whether PLA soldiers or police officers were stationed at the platforms at each stop. There were none she could see, and she sensed Peng relaxing as they worked their way down the Line 9 stops without any sign of passengers being scrutinized as they got off. At each stop, more passengers got off than on, the throng of people thinning until there were fewer than a dozen passengers remaining, most of them sitting on the hard plastic seats lining the sides of the subway car.

The train ground to a halt at the Donghai Road station, the twenty-fifth and last stop along Line 9, and the doors whisked open. Peng waited until the car emptied, then took Christine by the hand, following closely behind two couples engaged in conversation. There were no soldiers or police officers on the platform, only a few passengers awaiting the train's arrival. After a short ride up an escalator, Peng and Christine emerged into the open night air, the subway exit illuminated by harsh white lights.

The subway emptied into a parking lot abutting a two-lane road leading away from the station. The two couples in front of Christine continued toward one of the cars, while Peng and Christine turned right toward a passenger drop-off and pick-up area. From the corner of her eye as they made the turn, Christine noticed someone following about a hundred feet behind them. She squeezed Peng's hand.

“I know,” Peng said. “He was on the platform waiting for the train.”

Christine stared ahead as they walked, fighting the urge to turn and get a better look at the man following them. Her brief glimpse had captured few details—a Chinese man of medium height and build wearing a black leather jacket over blue jeans.

Peng quickened his pace, which Christine matched, and during a subsequent turn to the right, Christine noticed the man was the same distance behind them, matching their pace exactly. As they headed down the final stretch of sidewalk, a black sedan turned the far left corner of the parking lot, speeding toward the pick-up area.

Peng spoke firmly. “When I say, run to the car. Understand?”

Christine nodded, then glanced behind her again. The man was speaking into the sleeve of his jacket. When he spotted the approaching sedan, he began sprinting toward them, pulling a pistol from inside his jacket.

“Run!” Peng shouted as he spun around, pulling his pistol from inside his jacket.

Christine broke into a sprint as the black sedan squealed to a halt at the pick-up area. Two shots echoed in the darkness and Christine felt a sting in her right arm. Her upper body twisted to the left and she lost her balance, tripping and falling onto the pavement. She hit the sidewalk hard, rolling to a stop a few feet later. Peng was suddenly there, dragging her to her feet as a second black car turned the corner of the parking lot. Its blue-tinted headlights switched to high beam as the car bore down on them. Christine resumed her sprint toward the waiting sedan, glancing briefly behind her. The man who had been following them was sprawled facedown on the sidewalk.

Peng reached the car first, opening the rear door. Christine dove inside and Peng jumped in after her, the tires squealing as the sedan sped away with the door still open. The door slammed shut as the sedan took a hard right, followed by an immediate left.

Christine buckled her seat belt as the car took another hard right, turning onto a highway entrance ramp. Her body pressed against the car door as they sped up the curving ramp. The car's trajectory straightened and she sank into her seat as the sedan accelerated. Over the driver's shoulder, she noticed the speedometer passing two hundred kilometers per hour and climbing.

They were speeding along a three-lane expressway suspended above the water, a causeway connected to a shoreline glowing in the distance. Atop the concrete barriers on both sides of the expressway, lamp poles bathed the causeway in yellow light, reflecting off the water's black surface. Behind them, a car's blue-tinted headlights were soon joined by an identical pair.

The headlights disappeared frequently as Christine's car weaved in and out of traffic, but it didn't take long to realize the blue lights were gaining on them. Peng spoke to the driver in Chinese, his words short and strained, then turned to Christine, his eyes dropping to her arm. It wasn't until then that she remembered the sting that had caused her to trip and fall. Following Peng's eyes, she noticed the right sleeve of her tan sweater was stained dark red.

There was a hole in the sweater and Peng ripped a tear into the sleeve to get a better look. Blood was oozing from a bullet hole in her arm. Peng glanced around the back of the sedan and surveyed her clothing, searching for something he could use as a tourniquet. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could use or tear into a suitable bandage.

“We'll take care of it once we reach the transfer point.” He continued talking in Chinese to no one in particular. With two cars in pursuit only seconds behind, Christine wondered how they would make a successful transfer, whatever that entailed.

“Where are we headed?” she asked.

Peng turned and pointed toward a bright group of lights on the approaching shoreline. “Kiev.”

His answer confused her. Kiev was the capital of Ukraine. Yet he had pointed to the coast not far away. Straining her eyes, she noticed an object illuminated under the bright lights. Slowly, the silhouette of a ship formed.

An aircraft carrier!

An aircraft carrier was tied up along China's coast. She was about to ask Peng to explain when their car sped beneath a green traffic sign. Beneath the Chinese symbols, the English translation announced the exit for the Binhai Aircraft Carrier Theme Park, and the answer became clear.

The aircraft carrier looming in the distance was the
Kiev
. After the fall of the Soviet Union, China had purchased the
Kiev
and her sister ship
Minsk
, both carriers rusting alongside their piers. CIA analysts initially thought the
Kiev
and
Minsk
would be refurbished and enter service in the PLA Navy, but the two carriers were instead turned into tourist attractions. In the distance, Christine could see jet fighters on the deck of the carrier, static displays instead of functioning aircraft.

There was a loud pop and a bullet hole appeared in the back windshield, a dozen cracks spidering outward from the small hole. Two more holes appeared and a second later the windshield shattered into a thousand pieces, the glass ricocheting inside the back of the sedan. Peng pushed Christine's head down and yelled, “Stay down.” He turned and aimed out the back window, firing off three quick rounds.

Christine clamped her left hand over the bullet hole in her right arm, listening to the terse conversation between Peng and the driver between shots. The left window shattered beside her. The cars behind were gaining on them. Christine looked up as they passed beneath a sign announcing the fare for the expressway. Peering over the driver's shoulder, she spotted an eight-lane toll plaza spanning the expressway. They were traveling at 220 kilometers per hour, barreling toward toll lanes barely three meters wide, separated by concrete barriers painted with yellow and black stripes.

They weren't slowing down. Christine dropped her head as Peng swung his arm over her, shooting out the side window now instead of the back. Her eyes met Peng's for a split second as he ducked down, dropped an empty magazine from his pistol, and inserted another. He chambered a round and sat back up as he yelled to the driver.

Christine jerked forward against her seat belt as the driver hit the brakes, followed a second later by a jarring veer to the left. There was a loud crunch accompanied by a metallic screech, and Peng ducked down again, holding his hand up and firing out the side window into the car that was crunched up against theirs. Christine saw the tollbooth flash past them as their car passed through, creating a shower of orange sparks as the side of their car scraped the concrete barrier. At the same time, an explosion rocked their sedan, illuminating the night sky a reddish orange hue.

Christine peered out the back window as a fireball billowed upward from the toll booth, and chunks of metal and concrete bounced down the expressway after them. The other car had impaled itself on one of the concrete barriers between the toll lanes. Christine breathed a sigh of relief, cut short as the second car emerged from beneath the fireball, rocketing through one of the toll lanes.

Peng pushed Christine's head back down and resumed firing through the back window as incoming bullets pinged off their car's metal frame and thudded into upholstery. Christine felt the car begin to slow and she looked up, wondering if they were approaching the exit to the Binhai Aircraft Carrier Theme Park. She noticed a hole through the headrest of the seat in front of her. Their driver was slumped over the steering wheel, blood oozing from the back of his head.

In less than a second, several things went through Christine's mind. The first was that they were still traveling over two hundred kilometers per hour. The second was the gradual drift of the car across the three-lane highway toward the right side of the road. The third was the realization that either she or Peng would have to jump into the front of the speeding sedan and take control of the car.

Christine turned to Peng as he continued firing out the back window. “The driver's been shot!”

Peng fired off another round at the car behind them, which was gaining steadily.

“What?” he yelled as he turned his head toward Christine.

But before she could reply, her face was splattered with warm blood. Peng's head jerked forward and blood started pouring out the left side of his head. It seemed as if time slowed down for the next few seconds; Peng's face went slack and his eyes turned vacant, then he slumped forward into her lap, blood pulsing from his head onto her slacks.

It was suddenly clear which one of them would have to jump into the front seat. But just when she thought the situation couldn't get worse, the driver slid off the steering wheel, pulling it clockwise as he fell toward the center of the vehicle. The car careened sharply to the right, directly toward the concrete barrier along the side of the road.

Her car would impact the barrier in only a few seconds, insufficient time for her to climb into the front seat, or even undo her seat belt and reach forward to grab the steering wheel. She barely had time to brace for impact.

Christine jolted forward as the car crashed into the concrete barrier. The sharp sound of cracking concrete and crumpling metal filled her ears, ending a second later; it turned peacefully quiet and it felt as if she were floating in air. The front of the sedan tilted downward, then plunged into the dark lagoon surrounding the aircraft carrier
Kiev
, moored a hundred yards on her left.

The car sank into the lagoon, tilted down at a thirty-degree angle. Cold black water began pouring into the car through the broken side and back windows. Christine took one last breath as her head sank beneath the water's surface.

Looking around through murky water with her hair suspended beside her face, she could barely see as she sank toward the bottom of the lagoon. But she didn't need to see; she could feel her way out of the sedan and swim to the surface. She fumbled for the seat belt release, finally locating it. But it wouldn't unlatch, no matter how hard she pressed it. Guessing it was the weight of her body due to the downward slant of the car, she pushed against the front seat with her legs, sliding her body back into the seat, easing the strain on her seat belt. She pressed again firmly, but the latch still wouldn't release.

Christine's desperation mounted. She couldn't hold her breath for much longer. She gave one final shove with her legs, pressing her body back against her seat, then pressed down on the seat belt release with all her strength. But it still didn't unlatch.

As she looked up toward the blue-tinted light shimmering on the water's surface, she became light-headed. The loss of blood and the sudden exertion, combined with the depleting oxygen in her lungs, had taken its toll. As her thoughts faded into darkness, she saw a bright flash of metal and felt strong hands slipping under her shoulders.

 

19

USS
NIMITZ

Night was retreating across the Pacific as Captain Alex Harrow stood on the Bridge of his aircraft carrier, supervising preparations for flight operations. Pointed into the brisk thirty-knot wind, USS
Nimitz
surged west into the darkness, plowing through ten-foot waves. Fifty feet below, a myriad of colored lights illuminated the Flight Deck, as the last of the first four F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets, its engine exhausts glowing red, eased toward its catapult. Along the sides of the carrier, additional Hornets were being raised to the Flight Deck from the Hangar below. As the twenty aircraft in Wing ELEVEN's first cycle prepared for launch, Harrow knew that twenty miles to the north,
George Washington
's air wing was doing the same.