Checkmate

Fisher to stand up and turn around for gear inspection, then patted him once on the shoulder.

The second crewman slid open the cabin door. Legs braced at the threshhold, one arm braced across the door, he motioned Fisher forward. Fisher felt the whump-whump-whump of the Pave Low’s rotors in his belly. Cold mist blew through the door and he tasted salt on his lips.

At the door, the crewman cupped his subdermal against his ear, then said something into the microphone. He flashed five fingers at Fisher once, then again, then laid his palm flat: Steady hover at ten feet.

Fisher nodded.

The second crewman pulled a chem-light from his vest, broke it open, and shook it until started glowing green, then tossed it out the door. It hit the water and started bobbing in the chop. In the darkness, the glow would give Fisher a reference point for his jump. The crewman at the door stood aside and gave Fisher an “after you” flourish.

* * *

Body vertical, arms crossed over his chest, he plunged into the dark water. The thumping of the Pave Low’s rotors became muffled, and for a brief second Fisher allowed himself to enjoy the quiet before finning to the surface. He raised a thumb above his head. The red rectangle of light that was the Pave Low’s side door went dark as the crewman closed it. The helo lifted up, banked left, and skimmed away into the darkness.

Somewhere to his right, Fisher heard a rush of bubbles followed by a hissing whoosh. Thirty seconds later, a dot of light appeared in the darkness; it blinked once, then twice more. Fisher swam toward it.

* * *

The Los Angeles-class submarine USS Houston, SSN- 713, call sign Marlin, was sitting low in the water, deck partially awash, its sail looming out of the darkness like a two-story-tall building. A seaman was crouched on the deck at the head of a rope ladder. Fisher climbed up. If the crewman was fazed by picking up a lone man in the middle of the East China Sea, he showed no sign of it.

“Captain’s compliments, sir. If you’ll follow me.”

He led Fisher aft along the sub’s deck, past the sail, to an open escape trunk. At the bottom of the ladder, another crewman was waiting with a towel and a set of blue coveralls emblazoned with the Houston’s “Semper Vigilans” crest on the breast pocket.

Once Fisher was dried off and changed, he was led past the radio room and into the Control Center. The Houston’s captain, in a blue baseball cap with gold oak leaves on the brim, was standing at the chart table. Fisher was momentarily taken aback; this was an old friend.

“Welcome aboard, stranger,” Captain Max Collins said, walking over.

Fisher shook the extended hand and smiled. “Permission to come aboard.”

“Granted.”

“Good to see you, Max. Been a while.”

“Yeah, and as I recall, last time we didn’t have to pluck your sorry butt out of the water. You walked aboard like a regular human being.”

“Didn’t want you to think I’d gone soft,” Fisher replied.

Houston was home-ported in Apra Harbor, Guam, which is where Fisher had last boarded the sub for a mission. Before that, they’d worked together half-a-dozen times while Fisher was still attached to Navy Special Warfare. Arguably, Collins was one of the best “shoehorns” in the fleet, having earned a reputation for not only slipping operators into hard-target denied areas, but also getting them out alive again.

In Fisher’s case, Collins had once sailed the Houston twenty-two miles into North Korea’s heavily guarded Nampo harbor, all the way to the mouth of the Taedong River, then waited, dead silent, keel resting on the seabed, for eighteen hours as Fisher finished his mission and returned.

Characteristically, Collins attributed his success to his crew and to the Houston’s extraordinary “aural footprint”—or lack thereof. Driven by nuclear-powered, turbine-driven electric motors, Los Angeles-class submarines were so quiet they were known colloquially as “moving holes in the water.”

Collins grinned. “Going soft? Hell, Sam, I know better. How about a cup of coffee?”

* * *

They settled into Collins’s cabin, a cramped space with a fold-down desk, a bunk, and a small sink and mirror. As submarines went, it was luxurious. A steward knocked on the door and handed Collins a tray with two mugs and a carafe of coffee. Collins poured Fisher and himself a cup each. Fisher could feel the thrum of the Houston’s engines through his feet.

“I just got updated surveillance shots for you,” Collins said. “I see you’re invading another island all by yourself. Shame on you, Sam.”

Fisher sipped his coffee; it was hot and bitter and overcooked — the Navy way. He loved it. “Just being a good soldier, Max. So, how’s it look?”

“Ugly. What’s the story?” Collins caught himself and quickly said, “Never mind, I don’t want to know. With luck, we’ll have you there in fourteen hours. Get some sleep, then I’ll show you what you’re facing.”

39

As they always did, the sounds of a submerged submarine lulled Fisher into a deep sleep. The combination of the hum of the engines, the faint hiss of the water skimming along the outer hull, and the white noise of the air circulators acted as a tranquilizer.

He needed the sleep. He’d been going hard since the Trego, and as accustomed as he was to the lifestyle, he knew the stress and lack of sleep would eventually catch up to him, slowing his reactions and his thinking. Given where he was headed, he couldn’t allow that.

Four hours after Collins left the cabin, he returned and gently shook Fisher awake, waved a mug of coffee under his nose, and said, “Had enough beauty sleep?”

Fisher groaned and sat up, planting his feet on the deck. “You tell me.” He took the mug and sipped. It was scalding hot and salty.

Collins said, “Briefing in the wardroom in ten minutes.”

* * *

Fisher was there in five. Like the rest of the sub, the officers’ wardroom was a cramped affair: three sets of vinyl bench seats, tables bolted to the deck, and a small kitchenette in a side alcove. Pictures of the Houston, from her keel-laying to the current crew photo, lined the walls.

Waiting with Collins was his executive officer, Marty Smith. Fisher had never met Smith, but knew of his reputation. Halfway through his career, Smith had had a change of heart, leaving behind Naval Intelligence for a fleet posting, where he’d worked his way up the ladder of submariner billets — Supply and Admin, Weapons, Sonar, Engineering, to finally XO. In another five years he’d have his own boat to drive.

Fisher sat down and Collins made the introductions. “I asked Marty to sit in because of his intel background. He’ll have some insights on the material we’ve got for you.”

Collins opened the briefing folder and spread a series of ten eight-by-ten photos across the table. Each showed Shek’s island, Cezi Maji, from different altitudes, angles, resolutions, and formats, including infrared, EM, and night vision — all taken either by satellite or P-3 Orion flights while Sam had been en route to Kadena.

“A little background first,” Smith began. “Cezi Mali is part of the Zhoushan Archipelago at the mouth of Shanghai’s Hangzhou Bay. It consists of fourteen hundred islands spread across seventy miles of ocean. Of those, only about a hundred are inhabited. Cezi Mali is roughly seven thousand acres, or nine square miles.”

“Terrain?” Fisher asked.

“A good-sized cove and natural harbor on the north side of the island; on the south, east, and west sides, the place is a fortress: fifty-foot cliffs and narrow beaches. The interior is triple-canopy rain forest punctuated by exposed rock escarpments, peaks, and ridges.”

“Peachy,” Fisher said, taking a sip of coffee.

“Now, the fun part,” Smith said, pushing a photo across the table at Fisher. It was from a P-3, Fisher could see, but it was color-enhanced. Using a pen, Smith traced a faint white line that seemed to follow the contours of