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Kekepi, Pacific Ocean
Monday, 10 May
0622 Local Time
From the plush sofa in the salon aboard the Kekepi, the man known as Mr. L typed a short, coded phrase into a heavy-duty laptop. The laptop was attached to an encryption device and satellite antenna that would take the phrase, garble it, compress it further, and squirt it into the ether as a tiny blip of a transmission, virtually undetectable to any listeners who might wish to intercept it. The message would update his commanders—not based in Pyongyang, as he’d led Kanoa to believe—with a status code relaying that the intercept of the LNG carrier was underway.
A flurry of activity would ripple through the small suite of offices housing the Institute for Policy Implementation. Located in an office complex in the Changping District in northwest Beijing, the Institute was a unique experiment of combined operations from several bureaus and divisions, from the Military Intelligence Division, First Bureau, to the PLA’s Second Department. It included elements of the PLA’s special operations forces—in this case, the troops led by Lieutenant Peng, aka Manu Ho. Rarely known to play well together, the various Chinese military intelligence forces had formed the Institute for Policy Implementation to plan, coordinate, and execute the false-flag operation code named White Swan.
Key to the operation’s inception had been Mr. L’s recruitment of angry American and potential rebel Kanoa Ino. With the seeds of violent protest present in the form of Kanoa’s band of disaffected Hawaiians, Mr. L’s superiors pieced together a joint operation with multiple goals.
Objective one: teach the Americans a lesson regarding their meddling in Taiwan—though Mr. L had little confidence the lesson would sink home, as objective two ensured blame would be deflected onto the demon of the Americans, the hapless North Koreans. Objective three was a bonus, though not insignificant by any means. If “Manu Ho” and the Hawaiians should succeed in capturing the Golden Sun and steering it into the channel connecting Pearl Harbor with the open sea, they would weaken the operational capabilities of the US Pacific Fleet for a period of time. Once the boat was placed in the channel, Mr. L would enter a series of keystrokes on his satellite phone and remotely blow the demolition charges planted by Ho’s men. This would scuttle the massive LNG carrier in the narrows of the channel, blocking Pearl Harbor like a cork in a bottle, which would deny the US the use of their vital Pacific refit-and-refueling base and severely hamper US naval operations in the Pacific Rim.
Mr. L closed the laptop. Morning sun powered in through the east-facing windows of the salon, forcing him to squint. His stomach complained at his lack of attention to biological concerns—it had been a long night, and the stress of dealing with the barbarians had prevented him from eating. With all of them gone except for the baboon, Kimo Ekewaka, his stomach was putting in a reminder for sustenance.
Kimo Ekewaka. As though thinking about him had conjured the ugly giant, Kimo entered the salon and grunted an acknowledgment as he passed through. Mr. L sneered at the man’s back. In his silly sports uniform and black combat pants, the man walked barefoot through the glass doors at the rear of the salon and down the ladder. Headed to the crew quarters and his captive victim, no doubt.
Mr. L shuddered. No matter. Ekewaka and the woman were loose ends that would soon be tied off, along with other Hawaiians. Once Mr. L had sunk the Golden Sun, he would give the order for his men to go down to the crew quarters and gun down both victim and tormentor. The Kekepi would head out to sea, leaving Ho and his men to escape via a different route—one unknown to Kanoa and his people, who would be left hanging, martyrs to their idiotic cause. It would interesting to see how the Americans reacted to the evidence and whether they’d have the strength to confront North Korea—
A shout from outside drew his attention.
Mr. L frowned and crossed the salon. He took the companionway then the ladder that led to the pilothouse. There, a Special Forces commando with knowledge of piloting ships the size of the Kekepi was seated at the wheel. Sergeant Wei, if he remembered the man’s name correctly.
“What is happening, Sergeant?” Mr. L demanded.
The man pointed off to the starboard side of the ship. “A vessel approaches. A pleasure craft smaller than this one.”
#
KIMO STOPPED BY THE soldier guarding the woman’s cabin and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Go get some food or sleep, or go fuck yourself some other way.”
The soldier recognized the dismissal if not the words. He nodded crisply and trotted away.
Kimo entered the small cabin and stopped, confused for a second by the empty beds. Where did she—ah, the door to the head is closed. “Locking yourself in the bathroom won’t help, sistah. You might as well come out so I don’t get too mad.”
Silence.
He tried the handle, which of course was locked. “Fine, we do it the hard way.” Kimo reared back and smashed the door with his heel—and rebounded as the door refused to budge. He was cocking his leg to kick it again, the first trickling of anger simmering into his veins, when he noticed the hinges on his side of the door. It opened outward.
“Oh, I’ma gonna take special time with you,” he growled.
After pulling a combat knife from a scabbard on his belt, Kimo jammed the point between the latch plate and the door, digging at the spring-loaded bolt where it entered the latch. He jimmied and pried at the gap, the wood crackling as he widened it. Kimo shifted his grip and shoved the blade deeper. He put his weight behind it and heaved.
The door popped open and banged him in the shoulder. He stepped into the head. It was empty.
#
KEKEPI, Pacific Ocean
Monday, 10 May
0625 Local
Mr. L blinked to confirm the evidence. Sure enough, a white-with-blue-trim yacht motored toward them on a converging course. Sun glinting off the window prevented him seeing inside, but on the foredeck lounged a white woman in a bright-pink two-piece bikini. The woman tottered to her feet and tilted her head back to drain the last few drops from a champagne bottle. As she stood, the top of her suit fell off, revealing her bare breasts. She seemed not to notice or care.
“You got any more bubbly?” The woman’s slurred voice came to Mr. L through the open glass doors leading to the narrow strip of deck along the starboard gunwale. She had addressed the question to Private Xiao, who stood just outside the door.
“Go ’way! Go ’way!” Xiao yelled. Per standing orders, he was making an effort to remain covert and held his sidearm at his back, out of sight of the woman.
“Why you bein’ so darn orn’ry?” the half-naked woman groused. “We’re outta booze. Comprendo savvy that, Charlie?”
“No booze! Go ’way!”
Maybe it was the air of stillness around the woman, as though no other revelers were present on the approaching craft, that raised Mr. L’s hackles. Or maybe what bothered him was the fact that he couldn’t see past the sun’s glare on the smaller yacht’s windows. What disturbed him most, he concluded, was the sudden appearance of the boat in the middle of the ocean just moments after they had launched attack teams to hijack a ship. Party girl or not...
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “Alert your men.”
“For naked woman?” Wei’s voice carried a trace of a sneer.
“Go ’way!” yelled Xiao from the railing.
The oncoming boat idled closer, its rails only ten meters from the Kekepi’s.
“Wait, wait, wait.” The woman pitched her champagne bottle overboard and reached into the towels strewn about her feet. “I’ll trade you a little sumpin’, sumpin’...”
“You leave—”
The woman stood with an object in her hand. The towel slid away to reveal a black shotgun with a pistol grip. Mr. L jerked in surprise at the boom when it fired. Private Xiao caught the blast at a distance of less than eight meters, the pellets expanding to a cloud that shattered his chest and flung the private backward into the salon.
At that moment, a figure popped up through an opening atop the smaller yacht’s bridge, forward of the radar dome. A thin black man, Mr. L noted dispassionately, with an AK-74. The black man aimed his weapon at the Hatteras, then everything disappeared as Sergeant Wei shoved Mr. L in the side and tackled him to the deck. Glass blew apart, and bullets spanged off chrome and steel. The angle from the pilothouse to the man’s firing position was steep, so the best he could do was annoy them or perhaps get lucky with a ricochet.
Still, it was... deeply concerning to come under such heavy fire when least expecting it. And Mr. L was unarmed. Mr. L stared into at Sergeant Wei’s angry eyes as they huddled under the hail of bullets.
“I think the men alerted,” Wei said.
#
YEAGER HELD TIGHT TO the rail as Victor swung the stern of the Guppy around to meet the stern of the Hatteras yacht. Both boats featured swim decks at the rear—low water-level platforms that allowed easy boarding for swimmers. Monalisa had warned them that the deck on the Hatteras could be in the raised position, which would make a transition more difficult, so Yeager was happy to see the other yacht’s deck was almost on level with their own.
Pettigrew had dropped back to single fire, plinking away at random, more to draw attention forward than to hit anyone. The rush of green sea between the two yachts boiled as Victor feathered the steering jets on and off. Compared to the Hatteras, the Guppy was a toy boat in a bathtub. The bigger yacht could eat two of the Cobalt and have a few dinghies as leftovers.
Victor’s seamanship wasn’t the greatest, and the Cobalt coldcocked more than kissed the bigger ship. When the two boats banged together with a grind of fiberglass, Monalisa’s shout of protest rose over the bark of Pettigrew’s firing.
“Sorry, chica!” Victor yelled back.
Yeager hopped onto the bigger yacht and crouched into a firing position, weapon extended. For clearing a tight space, he’d opted to carry Monalisa’s Wilson Combat .45 and a pocket full of loaded magazines. There was nothing he hated worse than a bad guy grabbing his rifle barrel as he approached a blind corner. Victor would be close behind with the Ruger M14 to lend superior firepower, along with Pettigrew and his AK.
On each side of the swim platform, ladders led to a higher deck. A closed portal faced him from the middle of the rear bulkhead. He wasn’t eager to open a blind door and see what waited on the other side, so he chose the starboard-side ladder and inched his way up.
Yeager scanned the next deck as his eyes cleared the top of the ladder. The stairwell opened onto a covered deck with outdoor seating and a table in the middle of the space. Beyond the seating area, glass doors led deeper into the ship. On the port side, opposite his position, another ladder led to the deck above. The only way forward was through the doors or up the far ladder. The table and chairs would offer a little concealment but zero-minus-zero cover. Somewhere in the bowels of this mega-yacht was his wife, and somewhere else was a terrorist with his finger poised over the button, ready to blow up an LNG carrier off the shore of a densely populated city.
Yeager fired two shots through the glass doors, which left two neat round holes in the glass. Nothing happened for a second, then the world blew apart from the other side of the doors. Automatic rifle fire shattered the glass and spanged off the metal tables and chairs.
Yeager ducked out of sight. Anytime, Por Que. Any-fucking-time...
#
VICTOR JUMPED ONTO the swim deck, and a second later, shots battered the air above him. He ducked and scuttled to the bulkhead, banging his shoulder into the closed portal, where he hunkered down to ensure that nobody shot his ass off.
“Hey, Por Que!” Yeager yelled from the starboard-side ladder. “Could use some suppressive fire. Whenever you’re ready!”
Always impatient, Abel Yeager. Nag, nag, nag. “Coming, Lucy! Hold your horses!”
Victor took two steps to port, and the bulkhead door flew open, knocking him backward toward the sloshing green water of the Pacific. Out stepped a Tokyo-eating monster with a face of concrete, wearing a red jersey with a white number 16 emblazoned on it. Joe Montana zapped by gamma rays and turned into the Thing. And in case his face didn’t scare people to death, the fucker had brought a knife.
Victor backpedaled as the blade swished past his face. His heels found the edge of the swim deck, and when the backstroke came from the giant with the knife, he had no choice. Victor executed a back-buster dive with a half twist, holding the M14 with a death grip.
“Yeager! Watch out!” Then he hit the water.