“It’s starting to get light outside,” Jeff said as he peered upward through the plastic sphere. The solid black water column had evolved into hazy tones of turquoise.
“Sun’s coming up,” Yuri noted. An hour had elapsed since he throttled back the minisub.
Amazed by the dive, Jeff said, “The water… it’s so beautiful.”
Yuri ignored Jeff’s enchantment. “Check Meng’s bindings. She could wake up anytime now.”
“Okay boss.”
Once Yuri took command of the Lian and the submersible, Jeff started addressing him as boss.
“Everything’s cool,” Jeff reported.
“Thanks.”
“Are we any deeper yet?”
Yuri shifted in his seat, uncomfortable in his damp trousers. “Not much. It’s just a hundred meters or so deep here.”
“This is going to take forever.”
“According to the chart, the bottom is flat in this area. It’ll be another hour before we see much of a change. But even after that, we’ll still have twenty miles to go before we reach the real drop off.”
“And we’re sitting ducks the entire time.”
Yuri instantly deciphered Jeff’s latest idiom. “The reduced speed helps but until we dip below the thermocline, we’re naked.”
* * * *
With eyes sealed and slumped to the side of the seat, Meng Park eavesdropped on the crosstalk between the barbarians. She’d regained consciousness several minutes before the Asian tugged on the bindings that anchored her wrists to the armrests.
The Asian’s English was flawless. From her years as a college student in the U.S., Meng determined that he was American born. She was not certain about the other thug. Although he was fluent in English, she detected a slight accent, which she couldn’t place.
Meng took a peek, her third since the knockout drug wore off.
Good, it’s getting lighter!
She again prayed to Guanyin.
Send Jun to rescue me—and to dispose of these vermin.
* * * *
Captain Zhou Jun and the officer in charge of the China Coast Guard security detail were inside the Lian’s bridge alongside the windscreen. The sun had emerged twenty minutes earlier. The research ship’s engines idled. The sixty-four-meter cutter from CCG Hainan’s Second Flotilla loitered two hundred meters to the south. China’s Coast Guard was part of the People’s Armed Police Force. The PAP, in turn, was controlled by the Central Military Commission, which allowed Zhou to assume operational control of the cutter.
After the PLAN helicopter landed on the cutter and Zhou transferred to the ship, he ordered the Z-9D Dauphin pilots to return to the Lian and wait until the Coast Guard cutter caught up. Low on fuel, the helo returned to shore after Zhou boarded the Lian.
Captain Zhou scanned the horizon to the southwest with a pair of binoculars. Finding nothing of interest he lowered the glasses. Discouraged, he muttered, “Where are they?”
“Could they have returned to Sanya?” asked the CCG lieutenant.
“That would make no sense at all,” Zhou said, frustrated. “Call your helicopter again.” He referred to another version of the Z-9 Dauphine deployed from the Coast Guard base at Sanya.
The lieutenant used a portable radio he carried to contact the helo. The crew reported no sign of Lian’s runabout. The CCG Dauphine had flown on a heading for Da Nang at an altitude of two hundred meters. It exceeded the RIB’s maximum possible range by fifty kilometers.
When Zhou had boarded the Lian after the Coast Guard assault team secured the ship, he noticed that the RIB was missing. Stored on the ship’s stern deck near the A-frame control station, the twenty-four-foot inflatable served as the ship’s tender and was also used to support the deployment of scientific equipment. With its thirty-knot speed, the RIB also made an ideal getaway platform.
Zhou stepped to the navigator’s station; the Coast Guard officer followed. Zhou studied the digital chart before facing his subordinate. “They’re tricky bastards. They set the ship on a course to Da Nang to throw us off. The RIB isn’t headed there…it’s going to rendezvous with another boat.”
The lieutenant caught on straight away. “We need to expand the search!”
“Exactly, you call your flotilla commander and tell him I want every air asset he has available launched immediately plus all of his floaters. If we have to, we’re going to search every ship, boat and skiff within a hundred twenty-kilometer radius of our position.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Zhou entered the Lian’s radio room. He needed to update S5.
Just hang on Park. We’re on the way now.
Another hour would pass before Zhou discovered he had erred.