The Ghost War

The explosion cut through the destroyer’s half-inch-thick steel hull, tearing a twelve-foot hole just above the waterline. For a few moments, chaos ruled. The 8,000-ton warship shuddered with the impact, then began to list. Water roared through the hole in the armored plates, flooding the turbine room. Eleven sailors died in the explosion, and six others were swept into the ocean, their bodies never recovered. Fuel poured out of a line burst by the explosion, setting off two small fires.

Still, Williams was proud of the way his crew and his ship responded after the explosion. The years of emergency training had paid off. Within three minutes, the Decatur‘s firefighting squads had put out the fires, the most serious threat to the integrity of the ship. Within seven minutes, the bulkheads were sealed and Williams had his first damage report. And five minutes after that, the most seriously injured sailors had been evacuated and were receiving medical attention in the infirmary, awaiting helicopter transfer to the Reagan.

At that point Williams allowed himself to think for the first time of what the Chinese had done. The sub was gone. The explosion had damaged the Decatur’ s sonar gear, and even if he could find the sub, Williams was in no position to chase it. Not with his boat crippled, not facing this silent submarine and mysterious supertorpedo. Already the Navy had begun to search for the sub, moving a half-dozen surface ships and three attack submarines toward its last known location. Williams wondered if they’d find it. It had sure sneaked up on his sonar operators, and they graded above average every time the Navy tested them. The Chinese had obviously improved their technology in the last couple of years. The fleet was going to have to be much more careful out here, Williams knew that much.

He knew something else too. New torpedoes, new sub, new whatever, the Chinese had made a big mistake today. Did they really think that the United States wouldn’t punish them for what they’d done?

32

WELLS SNAPPED AWAKE.

And wished he hadn’t. Lava burned through his right shoulder, the one he’d dislocated in Afghanistan. He twisted his head, looking around, trying to get his bearings. He seemed to be… he was… hanging off the ground, trussed like a pig in a slaughterhouse. His wrists were handcuffed over his head, dangling from a steel chain attached to the wall behind him. His ankles were pulled up behind so they were at waist height and attached to shackles mounted directly to the wall. His knees and shoulders bore all his weight, and his body tilted forward, over the cement floor. If his arms were cut loose, he’d slam his head on it before he could get his hands down to break his fall. He tried to hold himself still; the slightest twitch caused the pain in his shoulder to spike, tendons catching fire one by one.

Wells looked around the room. His pants, shirt, and shoes and socks sat neatly in a corner. But they hadn’t taken off his black, Halloween-themed boxers. Exley had tried to switch him to boxer-briefs, promising that they’d flatter him, her only effort to upgrade his wardrobe. Now he was glad he’d refused. Though even formfitting shorts might be less ridiculous than smiling jack-o‘-lanterns. Trick or treat indeed. What underwear went best with torture, anyway? Wells supposed the question was unanswerable. Black might be good choice. Hide the blood.

A tiny part of him admired the precision of the setup. His captors could get at his face, his legs, his neck, his everything, without repositioning him. Escape was a fantasy. The shackles were so tight he could hardly feel his hands and feet. He would be up here until they let him out. Or he died.

THE CELL AROUND HIM wasn’t reassuring. Twenty feet square, with only a couple of battered wooden chairs for furniture. Windowless, of course. White-tiled walls. The floor stained with dark whorls, remembrance of agonies past. A drain set in the middle of the floor, to ease the disposal of blood and vomit. A sour smell, half locker room, half slaughterhouse. The only comforting item was the security camera mounted in a corner, its black-rimmed lens making slow circuits of the room.

At the end of the cell, a wide steel door with a tiny peephole. But Wells couldn’t hear anything of the world outside. The walls were soundproofed, he supposed. He had no idea where he was, or even if it was day or night, though he didn’t feel as though much time had passed since his arrest. As soon as they’d gotten him out of the courtyard, they’d knocked him out with some kind of fast-acting anesthetic. Maybe the same stuff he’d used on Kowalski’s men.

Wells’s stomach tightened. Shafer had been right. Cao Se was a treacherous bastard. Or maybe the mole had given Wells up somehow. Either way the Chinese had known he was coming. Now he would just have to take his punishment, and stick to his story.

James Wilson. Thirty-seven. His first trip to China. Prunetime.com. Here to recruit engineers. A three- bedroom split level. Palo Alto. A wife. Jennifer, a doctor. Two kids, in grade school. Amanda and Jim Jr. Button- down blue shirts and pressed khakis. Marathons in his spare time. A comp sci degree from the University of Illinois. The biggest mistake of his life: passing on a job offer from Google in 2001. Until now, anyway. He didn’t know what he’d done, but this was all a misunderstanding. They had to let him go.

Would they believe him? No chance, Wells thought. But maybe he could make them doubt themselves, slow them down. At least notify the embassy, get the diplomats involved.

Wells knew he didn’t deserve what was about to happen. And yet he wondered if he did. Primordial justice for the killing he’d done over the years. Or maybe for something more: For the way his country had walked away from the Geneva Conventions. For Abu Ghraib and the ghost prisoners whose names the CIA had never given to the Red Cross. For water-boarding and stun guns and the torture that the lawyers had decided wasn’t torture at all. For the madness that had descended on Iraq since the invasion, the uncounted men and women and children who’d died because the fools in the White House told themselves the mission was accomplished back in May 2003. And the soldiers who’d been blown to bits because armchair generals in the Pentagon thought armored Humvees were a luxury, not a necessity. For everything that had happened in the lost days since 9/11.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. A stupid, stupid way to think. He wasn’t America, and the agony he was about to face would be real, not metaphorical. And yet Wells clung to the idea that he was due for this, for whatever happened next.

He didn’t know how else to endure it.

THE DOOR AT THE FAR END of the cell slid open, and the two power forwards who’d grabbed him at Tiananmen walked in. They were dressed for a workout, wearing T-shirts and sweatpants. They wore latex gloves and cheap rubber galoshes and carried identical zippered canvas bags. Metal batons dangled from belts on their hips.

Three more men followed. Wells recognized them all. The first was the man who’d put the black hood over his head. He’d seen the other two only in photographs. They wore PLA uniforms with stars on their collars.

Cao Se. And Li Ping.

Li and Cao stood at the back of the room silently as the third man rummaged through a bag he held. Wells tried to understand why Cao was here. Did he want to see the fool he’d duped? Was his presence intended to signal Wells that he ought to confess, that the Chinese already knew everything and it would be pointless not to? But then why not just say that? Why play this brutal game? Or did Cao want to let Wells know that he wasn’t alone, that Cao was still on the American side and had come to save him?

Maybe, though the odds were long. Anyway, he couldn’t possibly find out unless Li and the others left him and Cao alone. Meanwhile, Wells had to keep playing the role of terrified American tourist, an act that shouldn’t be too difficult.

“I don’t know who you guys think I am, but you’re making a mistake,” Wells said.

No one responded. The third man pulled a black box, slightly bigger than an eyeglass case, from his bag. He stepped toward Wells and held the box open so Wells could see what was inside.

A small set of pliers, and three scalpels. The steel blades gleamed under the lights. Wells’s stomach clenched. Use the fear, he thought. Any civilian in your position would be terrified. “Please don’t do this.”

Again the man reached inside his bag. This time he pulled out a red-painted metal canister that looked like