Prince Edward Island, South Africa
November 12, 9:20 A.M.
“Follow my lead” was as cloudy a guideline as Rivette had ever received, the language being Chinese with Grace’s expression fully hidden behind a mask.
Just move when and where she does, he told himself.
The good news: the language of “9mm” is universal.
The dinghy, with its four armed, masked seamen, seemed a little thin in the dozen-capacity boat. That was probably because the Chinese did not have enough masks to go around for more. If so, that was useful information.
As the dinghy approached the open door, the QBZ-95 light rifles were raised by all but the man steering at the rear. He slowed when they were about two hundred feet away, the blue-ray boat swaying from side to side almost as much as it moved forward.
Grace had angled the door so that the sun was reflected off the glass.
She leaned out and spoke in Chinese, shouting through her mask.
The men in the dinghy were restless, Rivette thought. They probably had not gotten a lot of sleep since becoming an invading force.
One of the men shouted back.
Grace turned to Rivette. “I told them I am the translator for a South African defector who can help them. They want us both to come out.”
“They’re gonna see I’m armed.”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” she said. “Just hold up your hands.”
Grace held the edge of the doorway and dropped the four feet to the float. She held one of the forward aluminum struts that attached the pontoon to the aircraft. The only place Rivette could go was behind her—as she intended.
“Sawubona!” the lance corporal shouted as he swung out.
The dinghy bobbed nearer as the Americans held tight to keep from slipping on the sea-slick access panels atop the float. There were two planks for seats in the roughly eleven-foot-long vessel. Two of the Chinese were looking up at the aircraft, trying to see through the glare.
Rivette’s pulse rate jumped, as it always did. Just as involuntary, his fingers wriggled beneath the thin, thermal gloves. In his mind, he was running through take-down options if the seamen suddenly decided to open fire. They shouldn’t. Grace would probably want to get to the patrol boat without incident, as the guests of these men. However, if something went wrong, Rivette knew, through drilling more than from their one previous mission together, how Grace would move faced with three adversaries at this specific distance with fierce firearms.
The matter was decided when the propeller suddenly died. Blocked by the aircraft, so, for a moment, did the wind. The pilot howled behind his mask.
The Chinese jerked their weapons to the right and Rivette looked inside the cabin. The heel of the pilot’s boot was pressed against a black knob on the instrument panel.
“Shit,” he moaned.
The Chinese would investigate. The pilot would blab. The matter was decided.
Grace was already in motion as the Chinese were diverted. Her arms were open wide at her side in crane form as she literally flew onto the dinghy. She drove her stiff pinfeathers, her ridge hands, into the masks of the two seamen in front, knocking them back. Since she could not hope to retain her footing on the soft-bottomed boat, she went into a somersault.
Rivette had clear shots at the remaining seamen. Only one of them was armed. First blood was always politically dicey. The rules of engagement had always embraced a shoot-second policy. That approach got GIs killed. The lance corporal put a bullet in the arm of the armed man then turned on the seaman in back. That man—showing training or smarts—had drawn a knife and was about to disable the dinghy with a downward thrust.
Hold, Rivette cautioned, watching Grace.
She had seen it too, and panther-leapt on all fours, putting her shoulder into the man and knocking him overboard. Her jump brought her halfway over the back of the dinghy. She came down, cat claws extended, and grabbed the seaman before the currents could carry him away. Her knees braced against the inflated aft edge, she hauled him back in.
The first two seamen had recovered and Rivette shouted at them. They might not understand “Stop!” but he was sure they’d recognize his I’m-not-shitting tone.
The men froze. Grace crept back to the forward part of the boat, collecting weapons. When she got onto the float, she threw the knife and all but one of the guns into the sea.
“They’ll be looking for military issue,” Grace told Rivette. “You know how to handle it?”
“Competed with the Type 97 civilian variant of—”
“Good.”
Grace returned to the seaplane and side-kicked the pilot in the cheek. The mask blunted the blow slightly but there was still an audible crack and a moan.
“Your balance is restored,” she said to him. After lingering to unscrew the throttle and propeller knobs, Grace turned away.
“I don’t know what that means, but next time we tie the feet,” Rivette said.
“It means he hurt us with aggressive yang and will need yin to heal,” she said as she went back to the float.
Rivette still did not understand, but he was accustomed to that with Grace. As long as she was happy.
The woman went back to the dinghy and, in Chinese, told the men to file into the aircraft. One assisted the wounded man, pressing a glove to the wound. Once they were inside, crammed in the small space between the door and the seats, she took a radio from one. The patrol boat probably would not expect a report, given the difficulty of speaking behind the masks. But they might give orders. Then she ordered the two men nearest her to remove their parkas.
The men hesitated. She doubled the nearest man over with a palm heel strike to the gut. He was straightened immediately courtesy of a knee to the chin.
“I am growing impatient!” Grace yelled.
The others undressed quickly. Rivette knew that she did not, in fact, ever lose her cool. But a blow was a blow and the seamen obeyed.
“Put one of them on,” she told Rivette. Hers was a little large but it would have to do. After pulling the hood on, she walked up to the ranking seaman. “What is your ID?”
“We haven’t one.”
Grace drew the knife strapped to her hip. She hooked it under the strap of the mask. That was her way of asking a second time.
“Albatross,” the man said.
“How many men left onboard?”
“Five.”
“That makes nine. Your crew should be—”
“One man died,” he said, shivering. “The sickness.”
Grace stepped back to the float and Rivette pointed into the cabin. “You might want to tell them there’s a first-aid valise in the back.”
“Thank you,” she said, and passed along the information. She told the Chinese it was all right to close the door. They did so at once.
“How do you know they won’t fly after us?” Rivette asked.
She showed him the knobs before tossing them in the sea. Then she used her elbow to disable the radio. Two strikes in the faceplate did the job. The moves were cold but they could probably rig a replacement for the controls and at least sail over to the recovery site on Marion Island.
Grace entered the dinghy followed by Rivette, who was fussing with the too-small parka, jamming his hands down the front and into the pockets.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She handed him the seaman’s radio.
“Remember this word: xìntiānwēng,” she said.
“Shin-wan-weng,” he said. “Is that the ID word?”
“Yes,” Grace said as she sat beside the motor and made sure the radio was on. “Hopefully, they’ll blame your mask and the engine noise for the muddle.”
“I’d like to see how you would have done with Sawubona,” he said, though his voice was drowned out by the throaty gurgle of the engine.
Grace was thoughtful, distracted as Rivette sat beside her.
“You think they saw the jets that brought us?” Rivette asked after practicing xìntiānwēng several times.
“The corvette would have.” She nodded.
“So they’ll be waiting for some kind of surprise, especially when they only see two of us.”
“This will be your show. We’ve got to get the doctor and we can’t let the Chinese get away with the bug. Not a lot of options going in.”
“No,” Rivette agreed. “We gotta do what it takes to make all that happen. Sting of the Wasp. Hey, you ever wonder if we’ll get STFted?”
“Never,” she replied.
Rivette did not know whether she never wondered that or whether she thought they would never get bloodied. He would ask again when he did not have the mask on. He liked and respected her Daoist beliefs and wondered what the ancient Chinese had to say about odds and luck.
Right now, though, he took the time to make sure the Chinese firearm was not frozen or stiff and that his own two weapons, under the parka, were in good working order.
Attracted by the landing of the aircraft, Commander van Tonder had gone to the western wall in time to see the action that took place some two hundred feet below.
Ensign Sisula had briefed him about the Americans and the plan, and the commander was eager to be a part of it. This was about more than the sovereignty of his homeland. It was about preventing the world from getting and exploiting another weapon of mass destruction.
Those were, to him, not just duties. They were moral trusts, akin to his deep religious convictions. He was proud of Sisula and, more than that, grateful for the help of whoever the two heroic Americans were below. In all his years of military service, he had never seen someone run at a boatful of primed firearms. And not just survive but win. He had no idea what their plan was going forward. He hoped it was as brash and as successful as what he had just seen. Tired and hungry, with a partner who was ill and cold, van Tonder feared that if they did not get relief soon, Mabuza would die.
Returning to the helicopter to run it for warmth—more to help the pilot than himself, since the sun was rising higher and warming the ridge—van Tonder gave the Americans a few minutes.
He was surprised to find Mabuza awake.
“Unless … I was dreaming … we’re in a war … with China,” the lieutenant said.
“It’s true,” van Tonder told him. The commander was smiling. “Tito, it’s great to have you back!”
“The sun … man … feel it.” The lieutenant tried to move.
“Easy, fella—”
“No, I have to … my ass is asleep.”
“You’re back.” Van Tonder grinned.
“What about … Ship Rock?”
“Still open, still toxic. Gotta find a way to shut that down before—there’s a Chinese ship down there, wants it.”
“Bastards.”
“Yeah. Sorry I can’t give you water—the mask. You have to keep it on.”
The lieutenant nodded and shut his eyes.
“Hey, help is coming. Americans are on the island, cutting loose.”
“You … helping?”
“About to.” The commander picked up the Milkor BXP submachine gun. “Sit tight, there’s a doctor somewhere around. We’ll get him.”
The lieutenant nodded again and, giving him a reassuring clap on the shoulder, van Tonder headed for the northern ledge.
His spirits were high and the step quick—until he neared the ledge and saw something he was not expecting or wanting to see.
The corvette was moving toward Ship Rock.