U.S.S. Seawolf

Cy Rothstein said nothing. He stared directly ahead, at which point, Commander Li stepped over the unseen line, and nodded to one of the guards.

Cy Rothstein saw him coming, slowly, a half-smile on his face, just to his left side. They say a soldier never sees the bullet that kills him, and the lieutenant commander never saw the vicious punch that slammed into his mouth, splitting open his lower lip and dislodging his two upper front teeth.

Stunned, unprepared for the pain, he briefly closed his eyes and gasped for air through his bleeding lips. He thus did not see the butt of the guard’s gun come slashing into his ribs, fracturing two of them with one blow.

He fell sideways off the chair, crashing to the floor, feeling the crunch of the guard’s boot raining kicks into his righthand ribs, feeling the staggering blow to the back of the head, which mercifully robbed him of consciousness. The lights went out in his mind, as well as the cell, as Commander Li left, in company with his two henchmen and the visiting scientist.

Out in the corridor there were now loud recordings being played of men screaming in agony. Linus Clarke had never been so afraid. And now his door crashed open, and Commander Li, with the two guards, made a swash- buckling entrance, all business. They siezed ropes from one of the three chairs and bound his legs to the legs of the chair. Then they bound his manacled hands to the bar across the backrest of the chair.

Commander Li stood in front of him and said, “Lieutenant Commander Lucas. You will answer each of my questions accurately and immediately, otherwise I am going to have you killed, not by summary execution, in the way I believe you witnessed with one of your colleagues, but in a more slow and deliberate way, which you will not enjoy…”

Linus was unable to stop trembling. Relentlessly Li continued, “Bruce Lucas, I understand you are the executive officer of the ship…correct? The second-in-command?”

Linus was too petrified to answer. He sat there unable to believe what was happening to him, an American naval officer in the opening years of the twenty-first century. He debated just telling the truth, answering the damn questions, then revealing who he really was in an attempt to save his life. Surely they’d never dare harm him if they knew who his father was?

But Li was becoming impatient. “BRING THE TOWEL!” he snapped. And the guard fetched a large white bath towel from the other chair, walked forward and draped it carefully over the head of Seawolf’s XO. For an insane moment Linus felt like a member of the Ku Klux Klan, without the eye slits.

He knew there was a large water barrel in the corner of the room, from which he had not been able to steal even a mouthful. And now he sat here under the towel, parched, hot and afraid, and he heard the tread of the guard’s shoes as he walked across the room and dipped something into the water.

He heard the slow walk of the man back toward him and then he felt the cool splash of water on the towel, right at the top of his head. Generally speaking it was not unpleasant. And then he heard the ladle dip in again, and again the water poured onto the towel. Then again, and then again.

By now the towel was becoming waterlogged, and it started sticking to his face, and he was trying to jerk it off his mouth and nose in order to suck in air from below. The more water, the heavier the towel became. And the heavier it became the harder it was to get it away from his mouth. Every time he sucked in, the towel sealed off his mouth and nostrils.

Linus began to panic. He understood he was in danger of either choking or suffocating, because by now the towel was so wet that the water was getting into his mouth and nose. Desperate now, he tried to stand, but that was impossible. He managed to get the towel off his mouth for a split second and gulped air, but the towel instantly smacked back across his face.

He had barely any air in his lungs, not sufficient even to blow the towel off his face. He flung his head forward and gasped air into his lungs. But it took all of his strength, and there was not enough air to exhale with any force.

“Jesus Christ!” he thought. “They’re trying to choke me, and they’re doing it…they’re just going to watch me die.”

He used the last of his energy to jolt forward and get the towel briefly off his face, enough for some air. But it came back, sealing his mouth and nose, and he somehow was pulling water out of the fabric and into his lungs. He tried to cough, but he had no air. And the towel was rammed against his face, and they were pouring more water.

Linus could not cry out. He could not breathe, and he could not fight the iron-hard clinging of the sopping wet bath towel. He lolled his head back and hurled it forward, but the towel was too wet now and it stayed right where it was, over his entire face. Suffocating him, very fast.

At which point Linus blacked out, toppling sideways, cracking his forehead on the floor, still tied to the chair. Only then did Commander Li stoop down and pull the towel off the bleeding head of Seawolf’s XO, in a truly grotesque sense saving his life.

7

1600. Monday, July 10.

Zhanjiang Naval Base.

Admiral Zhang Yushu now had his message of thanks and courtesies from the U.S. Navy’s CNO. But he remained in a state of general disquiet. It was all so utterly uncharacteristic of the arrogant men who ran America’s armed services. In his mind he believed it impossible that the admirals who had so imperiously removed his very own Kilo-class submarines from the face of the earth a couple of years earlier were now going to stand up for the plain and obvious kidnapping of a big United States attack submarine and its entire crew.

Zhang was nobody’s fool. He knew the American satellites were photographing Seawolf every few hours, and he knew the American admirals must be absolutely seething with anger. And yet they were now treating Ambassador Ling Guofeng like an old friend, believing messages from the People’s Liberation Army/Navy that no one in their right mind would take seriously.

But there was a ring of authenticity to the American communiques. Almost as if they were willing the Chinese explanations to be true, as if trying to avoid the possibility of confrontation, as if trying to avoid at all costs any harm coming to their precious crew. The West, he thought, so childishly preoccupied with the one disposable asset they too have by the millions and millions.

It was a bewildering situation, but the senior crew members were proving to be stubborn. Except for one. And he had insufficient technical data in his mind. Time was of the utmost importance. Zhang could only go on lying to the Americans for maybe another 10 days. Either that…or the Americans might attack, storming the Canton dockyard, with world opinion on their side. Admiral Zhang knew he could mount some kind of defense, but in the end the Americans would smash their way in using vastly superior weaponry.

Zhang never removed the thought from his mind of the war 15 years earlier in the Gulf of Iran. After all the precombat talk of the strength and battle-hardened skills of the Iraqi elite commandos, the Americans made them look like children, obliterating their forces, their land, their bridges, their armaments, and anything else that got in the way. He was struck with fear at the prospect of the Pentagon turning serious attention to the naval base at Canton, and then possibly Zhanjiang, Haikou, Humen and perhaps even Xiamen. But he wanted a fleet of Seawolves, and he had the wherewithal, right now, to achieve that aim. But he had to be very, very careful and take no chances. Especially with American prisoners. They must never be allowed to get out of China alive. And, above all, the Americans must not find them.

Zhang paced the office of Admiral Zu. “Are you still sure, my Jicai? Still certain the Pentagon believes us?”

“Yushu, I have said it many times before. You have in your hand the personal message from Admiral Mulligan, conveying to you his compliments, thanking you for your assistance, assuring you of his friendship. It’s like the old days when President Clinton was in power. They seem to value our friendship, they want our support and trade. And will do anything to avoid offending us.”

“Zu, I cannot explain to you strongly enough the vast gulf there is between this Clarke administration and the