Choke Point

trouble with the supposedly foolproof nonreturn valve? Damn thing should have closed immediately when water tried to enter the air lines.

Hall raised his canvas-gloved right hand, moving his forefinger quickly clockwise through the salt air in the seaman’s traditional “up fast” signal to the hoist men, both winches now singing in unison. It would be six minutes till Albinski and Dixon were up, water spitting from the A-frame’s block and winch drum alike.

Then, suddenly, both winches began to labor, the umbilicals of both divers under enormous strain, the tension meter needle on each winch having swung hard right into the red, quivering. The winch man for Albinski’s line donned protective goggles. If the line broke above the surface under the strain, it would come across the deck like a bullwhip. “We’re near overburn, Frank,” the winch man warned.

Frank’s hand was still circling furiously. “Then fucking overburn! Go till there’s smoke!” He switched channels to the dry lab. “Lab, you getting this on the trace?”

“Yes, sir. Sonar’s recording.”

“Well?”

“Two suits in a huge tangle.”

“Both hoses severed?”

“Can’t tell in all this kelp shit.”

“As high density profile as you can.”

“We’re on it, Captain.” The shift from “Hall” or “Frank” to “Captain” measured the mood of urgency that had taken over Petrel’s crew of sixteen. Several of them in off-duty wet gear, now that it had begun to rain, coffee mugs in hand, were gathering at center deck aft of the dry lab’s overhang, from where they could keep one eye on the A-frame’s two blocks and one on the stylus racing across the sonar trace paper. The glacially slow reverse spin of the depth meter told them the two SEALs should reach surface in about five minutes, a few grim side bets being made on Dixon’s and Albinski’s chance of survival. The onlookers tried to make some sense of the sonar image, but like untrained eyes looking at aerial recon photos, the black and gray shadings against the white paper seemed nothing more than that.

“Smoke!” It was Dixon’s winch man. Everybody had expected Albinski’s winch to be the first to evidence malfunction since he’d been the first in trouble, but Frank recalled that the Dixon winch was older. The winch man slammed his foot down hard on the brake pedal.

The A-block’s depth needle stopped abruptly and Frank screamed, “Slower, you idiot! Tap it!”

Given the enormous weight of the kelp that had wrapped itself around the umbilical, such a sudden brake could exert enough torque to snap the cord as easily as an impatient fisherman jerking his line against a snag.

Albinski’s winch man was standing up now in his tractor spring seat for a better view of the A-block meter.

“Sorry, Captain!” said Dixon’s winch man. There was obviously nothing they could do till the block cooled.

A crewman was rushing out of the dry lab toward the smoking winch with a foam-nozzle fire extinguisher. “No!” yelled Frank. “Get back in the lab!” Christ, that’s all he needed, foam on the winch drum — soap on a rope, lose the vitally needed friction grip of the cord against the drum. “Try it now!” Frank ordered Dixon’s winch man over the agonized scream of Albinski’s winch.

Now the sonar showed the two divers at about the same depth, eighty-five feet, a “short dip” in the ocean compared to the dives Frank had supervised over the Marianas Trench, which was so deep it could swallow Mount Everest with another five thousand feet of water to spare. But right now the two SEALs, though in much shallower water, were in a much more dangerous situation — a dead weight lift.

“Smoke!” Now it was Albinski’s umbilical, but this time the winch man pumped the brake pedal to a stop, the winch hauling up Dixon groaning, the umbilical taut, completely devoid of any slack.

“Smoke!” Dixon’s line was overheating again, threatening to snap at any moment, the tether rope’s strands starting to “split ragged,” as the bosun explained to the cook’s young gofer. All bets as to how long it would take were now off. If both divers had gotten to their Bail bottle in time, there was still the question of their energy, nitrogen, oxygen, helium, and air running out.

“Sir?” It was Petrel’s second officer. “COMSUBPAC-GRU-9’s on the line. They want to know—”

“Not now.”

“The admiral’s asking—”

“Not now!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Nai hao,” came the greeting. At first Riser didn’t recognize the general. The commander of Nanjing’s 12th Military District had donned the traditional drab blue workers’ Mao suit instead of his uniform. Wu Ling, also in the drab blue uniform, looked on shyly.

“Ni hao,” replied Riser, extending his hand and nodding to Wu Ling. The general’s eyes smiled, and the sparse apology for a mustache momentarily became a straight line, his tobacco-stained teeth highlighted by expensive gold crown and bridge work, his breath so pungent it could have stopped the Shanghai Express. Riser wondered if his own breath was offensive. Mandy would, had, occasionally reminded him, “Daddy, I think you need a mint.” And since her death — the same thing had happened after Elizabeth’s fatal hit and run — he’d let personal habits slide, didn’t give a damn if he’d showered twice a day anymore, polished his shoes, or done the other things he habitually did.

“I am sorry,” the general said, “that the flight to Hangzhou was delayed. China Air is not very punctuated.”

“Punctual,” said Riser, immediately regretting the correction, which many Chinese, particularly higher-ups like Chang, often resented as typical of “Big Nose” arrogance. But Chang laughed easily at his mistake. “Punct-you- all?”

“Yes.” Riser smiled, seizing upon the general’s good humor to get to the serious questions he wanted to ask, and for which he’d risked the wrath of his boss by foregoing the official Moon Festival festivities in Beijing. Wu Ling trailed behind them, so deferential that it was immediately obvious to Riser that she was not going to be the source of much helpful information.

In the courtyard of the inner garden, Riser suddenly had a powerful sense of deja vu, so much so that despite his impatience to find out what Chang knew about Mandy’s death, he stopped walking, staring at the lanterns and the master’s study with its distinctive Ming furniture. He had seen this before, with his wife, but he and Elizabeth had never been to China, let alone Suzhou, together.

Chang was still talking. “I wanted to meet you here. One needs tranquility before—” He saw that Riser had fallen several paces behind him, the attache’s face reminding the general of the British politician Tony Blair, creased with worry lines that momentarily gave him the appearance of a much older man, an effect highlighted by the bereaved cultural attache’s uncharacteristically unkempt appearance.

Riser turned his gaze from the master’s study in the garden to the general. “Yes?”

“Perhaps you are not ready?” suggested Chang.

“For what?”

Obviously the American hadn’t heard him. “To go to the morgue.”

Wu Ling, Riser saw, had tears in her eyes, fighting hard to control her emotion.

“No,” Riser told Chang. “I’m not ready. But I have to, I suppose.”

“Quite so. I thought the garden might give you a chance to revive your spirits first. Perhaps I should have arranged it the other way around.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I’ve just — I feel as if I’ve been here before with my late wife.”

“You are correct.”

Riser stared at the general, completely nonplused.

“Some years ago,” the general explained, “this courtyard was copied in every detail and displayed in New