Operation Barracuda (2005) (31 page)

As I study the submarine I realize it’s not a class I recognize. I remember reading a Pentagon report that was distributed to Third Echelon operatives regarding a new class of sub the U.S. military believed China was building. Known at the Pentagon as a Yuan-class sub, it is speculated to be a new type of attack boat that’s diesel-powered and built from indigenous Chinese hardware and Russian weapons. I quickly snap some shots of it with my OPSAT and move on to the next pen. There’s a little more activity inside this one so I’m unable to get a good look. I do, however, note that a sub is indeed in the pen and might be a nuclear-powered Xia-class.

The third pen is empty. No submarine at all. Yet there are several soldiers moving things around on the platforms on the sides of the slip, cleaning up after a launch operation or preparing for the arrival of a boat.

Then I recognize a guy in civilian clothes standing over a control board some forty feet away. It’s Oskar Herzog, now without the white in his hair and beard that made him look older. He’s talking with a man in a sharp-looking uniform whose back is to me. From this angle it’s difficult to discern his rank.

I carefully slide inside the pen and crouch behind three oil drums so I can get a better look. Finally, the man turns away from the control board and I’m able to snap a shot. It’s General Tun himself.

He and Herzog walk away from the control board and head in my direction. I hug the floor as they move past the drums and step outside. I quickly make sure no one is following them or watching, and then I slip out the door and tail them. They head straight for the command post, a small temporary building not far away from the pen.

After they go inside, I move around to the back of the small structure, where there’s a window at shoulder height. I reach into my backpack and find what I call my “corner periscope,” a device that’s really a lot like a dentist’s tool—it’s a thin piece of metal with a small round mirror at the end. The metal is bendable so I can adapt it to just about any kind of space. It’s best for looking around corners when you don’t want to be noticed but in this case I use it to look inside the window.

Well, well. A bunch of late-nighters. I’ve got all of them in one tidy package. General Tun, Oskar Herzog, and Andrei Zdrok stand over a worktable studying maps. Eddie Wu sits on a stool in the corner looking as if he’s about to nod off. And lying on a couch, barely awake, is Yvan Putnik.

I’m extremely tempted to lock and load and end it here and now. I press my implant and ask for Lambert.

“I’m here, Sam. What is it?”

I type in a text message: I HAVE ZDROK, HERZOG, PUTNIK, TUN, AND E WU TOGETHER IN CONVENIENT TARGET LOCATION. SHOULD I?

After a moment, Lambert says, “Do you know what they’re planning to do with the nuke and the MRUUV?”

I respond: NOT YET.

Lambert says, “Then you’d better wait. Please proceed with the primary directive. Then get the hell out. We’ll leave that other thing for the U.S. military. It’s not your job, Sam.”

Oh, man. Putnik is the one I really want. It’s my deepest desire to make the guy suffer for what he did to Katia. As I curse Lambert’s orders, I put the corner periscope in my trouser pocket and activate the T.A.K. on my Five-seveN. I aim it at the window and listen in on the conversation. Since the general can’t speak Russian and the Shop guys can’t speak Mandarin, they’ve opted for very bad English.

 

They do now,
I think.

 

I hear them shuffling about and finally all five men leave the structure and walk toward sub pen number two. I wait until they’re inside and then move around the back of the building. By doing so I discover metal rungs attached to the side of the structure, obviously there so soldiers can climb to the roof if they need to. I ascend to the top and come face-to-face with an infantryman who is very surprised to see me.

“Hello,” I say as I swing the butt of the QBZ-95 around and into his face. The guy plummets to the metal roof, making a bit more noise than I’d like. I quickly roll him against a ventilation pipe to conceal him a little and dump the Chinese rifle in the shadows. I don’t need it as long as I have my SC-20K.

There’s an open trap in the roof near the ventilation pipe. I look inside and see rafters along the underside of the ceiling. Perfect. I slip inside like a snake, grab hold and straddle a rafter beam, and scoot away from the opening. I’m now in the darkness and can see everything happening below me. General Tun has led his spectators to the front of the Xia-class sub and is directing soldiers to bring out equipment. A long coffinlike trunk is placed on the platform that runs alongside the boat. Inside is one MRUUV and it looks just like the one Professor Gregory Jeinsen drew up in the Pentagon. It’s long and cylindrical, about six feet long and maybe three feet in diameter—kind of like a cigar holder with flat ends instead of rounded ones. I aim the Five-seveN, adjust the T.A.K. frequency, and listen in.

 

Whoa. I get it now. The general isn’t planning to use his nuke on Taiwan at all. He’s using the MRUUVs to deliver the weapon as close as possible to a major American city on the west coast. Los Angeles, from the sound of it. And that’s his insurance policy for attacking Taiwan. He’ll let us know that the weapon is in place and will be detonated if we try to stop him from invading the little island. Since they’re using a submarine to launch the MRUUV, it’s going to be difficult as hell to track it. From what I understand of the MRUUV technology, it can be shot from the sub’s torpedo tube and then be guided remotely to its final destination. The sub doesn’t even have to be in American coastal waters; it can sit right on the edge of the international boundary and do its thing. Ingenious.

It’s time to get out. I begin to scoot backward along the rafter beam toward the opening when I hear a rumble down below. An entire platoon of armed men barges into the place. The sergeant runs to another uniformed officer, who in turn whispers something to the general. Then everyone looks up at the ceiling as the general is escorted out of sight.

Did they find the guard I knocked out earlier? Or the guy on the roof? They’re sure acting like they know someone’s up here.

A soldier brings out a searchlight, sets it on the platform beside the sample MRUUV, switches it on, and shines it at the ceiling. He slowly moves it along each beam as every man in the place studies what it reveals. I stay perfectly still and pray that not too much of my body extends beyond the outline of the beam I’m on.

Another couple soldiers bring in a device that looks familiar. In fact, it’s the boom box sonic transmitter I saw in Hong Kong. They plug it in to an outlet, point the little dish at the ceiling, and turn it on. I can hear the familiar hum as before, but this time my implants are not affected. Thanks to Grimsdottir’s work and the operation Coen had me undergo in L.A., their sonic torture device is no longer effective.

The men look at each other questioningly. One man checks the machine to see if it’s working properly. He shrugs his shoulders. One guy shouts some orders. Men hustle back and forth. They’re not sure if I’m really up here or not. Meanwhile, Zdrok, Herzog, Putnik, and Wu huddle near the door, watching and waiting to see if their intelligence proves to be correct.

So far they haven’t seen me. Hell, I’ll stay here all day if I have to. As long as I don’t move I just might be safe. My biggest worry is how did they learn I’m here?

A man wearing civilian clothes walks into the pen from the front door. Before I have a chance to get a good look at him, he turns to Zdrok and his crew, has a word with them, and then moves onto the ramp by the sub. When he looks up at the ceiling, I feel my heart skip a beat. I now have the answers to a lot of questions. I now know how the enemy has been able to track my movements in Hong Kong, in L.A., and here. I now know how the Shop knew where I’d be and when.

Mason Hendricks, alive and well, shouts, “Fisher, you had better come down like a good boy. Otherwise they’re going to shoot you down.”

A
soldier brings in another searchlight and aims it on the trap in the ceiling, so I won’t be going out that way. To put it bluntly, I’m trapped. Sooner or later one of those light beams is going to catch a part of my leg or shoulder and it’ll be all over. The only thing I can do is to make it more difficult for them to see me.

But I have to risk moving to reach into my trouser pocket and retrieve three smoke grenades. The eye is most attracted by motion, so I inch my hand along my side as slowly as possible. I finally reach the pocket and unsnap the flap but I forgot that I placed my corner periscope in there, loose. The damned thing slides out and gravity does the rest. I watch in horror as the device falls to the platform, hitting it with a
ding
.

“There!” Hendricks shouts, pointing at me.

The soldiers aim their assault rifles as I reach into the pocket and grasp a grenade. I pull the pin and let it drop. The
boom
is louder than it is damaging, but the dark cloud of smoke it produces is what I really want. I quickly grab another one, pull the pin, and let it fall. Then the gunfire begins. The bullets spray the ceiling around me but I’m now able to scoot along the rafter beam out of harm’s way. I don’t move toward the trap door because they’ll be expecting that. Instead I go the opposite way with no clue as to how I’m going to get out of there. The gunfire continues to spread in all directions—they’re leaving no room for doubt.

There’s one other option. I reach into my backpack and grab my only wall mine. It takes me five seconds to activate it and another five to attach it to the ceiling. I set it to explode in ten seconds, which better be enough time for me to scoot along the beam far enough out of the way!

The men below are still blinded by the smoke and are wildly shooting their guns. The wall mine is a gamble I have to take. I’m counting on it to blow a hole big enough for me to get through and at the same time provide even more smoke to cover my escape.

I move to the far end of the beam I’m on and cover my head as bullets rattle the ceiling around me.

The building shakes with unexpected roughness, causing the beam I’m sitting on to jerk precariously and come loose! I hug the girder, feeling it sway with my body weight. I can’t see a damned thing—smoke has filled the place and I have no idea if I’m falling or hanging by a couple of steel bolts. After a moment my equilibrium calms down and I perceive the beam isn’t dropping, it’s just dangerously close to doing so. I flip down my goggles and turn on the night vision, which sometimes helps to see through smoke screens. It outlines some objects and I can now plainly see the big hole in the ceiling that’s at least six feet in diameter. The smoke will ventilate quickly so I’d better get moving.

The girder I’m hugging is still attached to the ceiling behind me by a few bolts. The end in front of me is hanging out into space above the slip. I have to inch my butt in reverse, move up the beam to the ceiling, and then grab hold of another girder to do a hand-over-hand in order to reach the hole. If I move too quickly, the girder I’m on will surely come loose. And of course the soldiers below are still firing their weapons into the air, creating a random hazard no matter what direction I go.

Ain’t this the life?

When I’m about five feet from the ceiling, I hear the bolts begin to give way. There’s a horrible wrenching sound behind me as I feel the beam jerk and drop a few inches. I can’t risk sitting on it any longer, so I focus on the stationary beam above my head and try to propel myself those five feet from a sitting position. This is where that Krav Maga training comes in handy. By using the muscles in my thighs and performing a painful stretch between my waist and arms, I’m able to
elongate
—that’s the best way I can put it—and give a little push-off at the same time. As soon as I do, the girder breaks loose and falls. For a split second I’m weightless in the air and then I feel my hands around the ceiling beam. I clutch it tightly, catch my breath, and then begin the hand-over-hand trip, twenty feet to the hole.