They landed one after the other, coming in low and flaring at the last moment, their black chutes and body armor blending in with the sky, then the close shadows of the night-drenched wharf.
Holmes took out a guard who was lighting a cigarette as they landed. With sound suppressors affixed to all the weapons, his two shots to the man’s chest sounded like loud coughs.
The team wrapped their chutes, harnesses, and oxygen tanks, then dropped them over the edge of the wharf into the South China Sea. After a weapons and commo check, they began to move.
The cargo ship was docked at the end of the wharf. A single guard stood beneath a light at the gangway. Like the other one, he wore the green uniform of the Chinese army. A billed Mao hat rested on his head. He carried an AK-47 at his shoulder. The thing about guards was that they spent their entire lives preparing for a single moment when they had to be ready. It was a minuscule number of guards who didn’t eventually succumb to the boredom inherent in such a task. This man was no exception. He’d found a place to lean, and by the rocking of his head, he was back and forth between the waking world and his place on Mao’s Long March.
Walker had the Stoner out of its case, the optics installed and ready. He helped the guard along his way with a 7.62mm nudge through the head. The guard’s hat popped off as his torso rocked back; then he slumped to the ground.
Another guard ran down the gangway. He’d been obscured by the railing. He was fumbling with a walkie- talkie on his hip when the Stoner coughed again. The QD sound suppressor was about a foot long and extended the barrel length of the Stoner by about six inches. The extra weight was a surprise to negotiate, Walker realized. The first round took the guard in the hip, shattering it and spinning him around. The second round took him in the upper back, exploding a fist-sized hole out of his chest.
That left three more guards somewhere aboard the ship.
Holmes ordered Walker to find a high point, then took the other SEALs and quickly made their way along the dock to the gangway.
Walker already knew where he was going to go. He’d spied a place atop one of the cargo containers that was hidden from view on both sides. Hoover had been ordered to stay with him, so the dog could watch his six.
It was a quick climb to the top and Walker lay prone as he aimed through his sight. If anyone showed up, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
16
MACAU WHARF.
Fratty loved his Super 90 more than he’d loved any other weapon. He slept with it. He’d filed down the trigger to make it as sweet, quick, and easy as gunfighter’s pistol. He’d never even fired a shotgun until he’d joined the SEALs. He’d concentrated on firing different automatic rifles and pistols, mesmerized by the ability to fire more and more and more rounds one right after the other. But once he’d felt the sheer power of the Super 90, it was love at first shot.
Holmes had him moving first in the formation. He swept left and right as he ran at a crouch. He knew the others were behind him. He didn’t need to look back. He trusted his fellow SEALs implicitly.
They arrived at the gangway unnoticed—Fratty, Laws, Holmes, and Ruiz. Both MP5s were deployed inside the line of SEALs, bookended by the Super 90s. The only sounds in the night were the waves lapping at the dock and the grand tinkle of laughter from the cruise ship just off the coast. On the ground lay both guards with gazes staring off to the sky.
Laws reached down and grabbed one of the walkie-talkies and shoved it into his cargo pocket.
Then they moved onto the ship. It wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but it was big enough to be seaworthy and to have a central hold. The access hatch was open and a dull light emanated from within. Lights were also on in the wheelhouse, but as far as Fratty could tell, there was no one in there. He reminded himself that he could still be on camera, so they had to move quickly and quietly.
Holmes and Ruiz remained back, while Laws and Fratty moved to the ship’s stern. Fratty took lead, with Laws moving left, right, and also rear, using the barrel of his MP5 to sweep through the possible dangers that might come into his field of fire. That way he wouldn’t have to re-aim—he’d already have barrel on target. They soon cleared the main deck, checking behind containers and over the edges of the rails in the event someone was hammocked on the other side.
The wheelhouse was two stories tall, common in pre-eighties ships. Many of those that were still seaworthy kept to the coastlines, but ships this size had crossed both major oceans since before the founding of America, bringing wheat, gold, weapons, and slaves to and from brave new worlds. This ship didn’t have any of those things in the hold. If they were to believe the Triad enforcer, it was something much worse. Fratty couldn’t wait to find out what.
Laws flex-cuffed the doors to the crew compartment and the engine room, both located at the base of the wheelhouse. The Teflon cuffs wouldn’t stop anyone from getting out but would sure slow them down. He stepped quickly up the stairs and shoved the barrel of the Super 90 against the window, only to find an empty control room. He opened the door and stepped inside, wary of tripwires and booby traps. They found the lights and equipment turned on. A cold cup of tea sat on a counter beside a crumpled package of Chinese cigarettes and a glass ashtray holding a mound of butts and ash.
Fratty paused to check the computer equipment on the bridge. He also checked to see what operating systems they were using. Overly simple. If he decided they needed to use the ship for something—like a battering ram or a diversion—he’d be ready. He reported this to Holmes through the MBITR. Holmes told him to stand fast for a moment while he reconned the hold.
Fratty stared out the window and tried to make out the FNG across the way. He was green and he still thought with his pecker, but he’d make it. That is, if he kept his head down and away from Holmes. There was some history there, even if the boy didn’t know it.
Try as he might, he couldn’t locate Walker. The boy had made himself invisible. That was a good thing. Fratty glanced around the control room. It was like pretty much every other modern ship. There was no steering wheel like the ones ships had in the old movies, but a host of digital readouts and analog switches instead. By the model numbers, Fratty could tell that the ship’s electronics had been updated sometime in the late 1990s.
His gaze fell on a calendar. Not a Chinese calendar, but a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders calendar. The Cowboys might be America’s team, but those cheerleaders were the world’s darlings. Fratty had seen their posters and pictures in more Third World shitholes and Arab palaces than he cared to count.
“Clear. To me,” Holmes said.
Fratty and Laws grinned. Now to see what was in the hold.
17
MACAU. CARGO SHIP’S HOLD.
The entrance to the hold reminded Ruiz of the West Virginia mines his family called home.
With a flick of a switch, the hold went from nightmare to green. Ruiz descended carefully down the steel- cored stairs. First into the hold, he stared eagerly through the green-tinged darkness, examining each shadow for movement or an untrue color, like a deeper green or a deeper black.
The hold ran the better part of the length of the ship—probably sixty meters. All of that space was filled with row upon row of wooden boxes. Each about six by six by six, they were packed so closely together that there was little room between the topmost crates and the deck above. Nor was there any room between the crates. That also meant there was no air circulation. Only here and there was there more than an inch or two, usually because of an odd-shaped crate. The Ruiz clan knew volumes about this subject, having been on one side or another of a cave-in
