Edge of War

hospitalized for drug abuse. The picture showed her nearly naked.

Jing Yo scanned the other headlines inside. It was slow going. He could speak English better than he could read it, and he had to sound most of the words out first in his head, then translate them, as if someone were speaking inside his skull.

But he recognized the word “China” easily enough.

Senator Phillip Grasso has become a key player in the administration’s campaign to drum up support against China.

Grasso is rumored to be coming to New York today or tomorrow to meet with advisers for the President. He is said to be unconvinced.

The story was on the opinion page. Unconvinced about what? Jing Yo wondered.

But he was meeting with advisers. Jing Yo guessed that the scientist would be one of them.

“I wish to buy this newspaper,” Jing Yo told the waitress, stopping her as she passed.

“The Post? That rag’s been free since it combined with the Daily News two years ago,” she said. “Help yourself, hon. More tea?”

* * *

The man who answered the preprogrammed number on the cell phone greeted him in Mandarin Chinese.

“I need to speak to Mr. Wong,” Jing Yo told him.

“You will speak to me, and I will relay the message.”

“There is a news item on page O-2 in the newspaper.”

“Which newspaper?”

“The Post-News,” said Jing Yo, flipping the paper to the front. “I believe it is important. I think it will tell us where to find our man.”

“We will be in touch.”

19

Hainan Island, China

The boats rocked gently against the wharf, sheltered from the tide by a long sandbar and an elbow of trees that jutted from the land. The storm was well past by now, and light from the stars shimmered in the space between the waves and hulls. There were seven boats; they needed only two.

“Which ones, do you think?” Zeus asked Quach.

“The largest.”

They all seemed the same size, not much more than thirty feet long, the sort of craft used to take small amounts of merchandise to local markets. More critical than their size were the engines, but simply starting them would not be much of a test.

“We’ll take three,” said Zeus. “This way, if one fails, we can get rid of it.”

“As you wish.”

Zeus pointed to the first three vessels, and the marines moved in to take them.

The three he’d singled out had enclosed wheelhouses, small structures barely big enough for two people to stand in. Two had forward cabins as well. The engines on all three craft started right up, and within a few minutes Zeus’s small flotilla rendezvoused with the Zodiacs just beyond the sandbar. They transferred the flotsam bags and other gear, tied the extra Zodiacs to the boats, and continued south.

So far, so good — if you didn’t count the loss of the Zodiac and two men.

Solt Thi Jan had a large bruise on her forehead. Zeus suspected that she had hurt her arm and maybe some ribs as well, but she wouldn’t let him or any of the marines look at her. She wouldn’t even cough for him. He asked Quach to tell her to try, but Quach just shook his head.

“A big girl,” the Vietnamese spy told Zeus. “She takes care herself.”

“Maybe her lungs are hurt,” said Zeus.

“And how would you change that? You have a hospital?”

Zeus let it go.

Quach guided them to a small cove south of the fisheries so expertly that it was clear he had used it before. When Zeus suggested that Solt and two marines stay with them, Quach refused to even discuss it with her.

“Why would she stay?”

“She’s hurt,” said Zeus.

“She is fine.”

“I don’t know.”

“She is fine.”

The spy said this without any animosity, just a gentle insistence that for some reason Zeus found more difficult to deal with than hostility. The girl watched him talk, saying nothing. Finally he decided it was useless to argue, and had her brought on the boat with him. Christian and Quach took the second. They left two men on the third fishing boat, dividing the rest of the marines between them. The men pulled clothes from the sacks, changing so that they looked like Chinese fishermen. Solt put on jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, and pulled a cap over her head. She looked like a teenage boy, small for his age.

The boats they’d taken were solid, but their motors were considerably slower than the outboards the Zodiacs had used, and by 4 a.m. they had not yet reached the southern tip of Hainan. Zeus therefore modified the plan — rather than going ashore near their target area, they’d stay at sea, pretending to be fishing.

An hour later, they saw the outline of a Chinese destroyer in the distance, its silhouette framed against the gray twilight of the false dawn. Zeus recognized it from the silhouettes he’d studied as a Type 051 Luda-class destroyer: a long, lean vessel with two widely spread smokestacks and a pair of old-style missile launchers mounted amidships. Fairly old — the existing boats dated to the 1970s — the ship was still potent against other surface vessels and would be able to sink Zeus’s small fleet with a few shells from its 130 mm guns.

The few Luda-class ships remaining in the Chinese inventory were used for home defense. If Zeus remembered correctly from the war games, they would normally have been deployed much farther north, generally working in low-threat areas. The ships had limited surface-to-air capability, and their antisubmarine systems were antiquated. But their 130s made them good for naval gunfire support during an amphibious assault.

Which was great. The Chinese would not be surprised that the minisubs had gotten past the defenses, or that the helicopters supposedly carrying the antiship missiles were able to get close enough to fire their weapons.

The destroyer stayed on the horizon as they passed. Zeus stood on the bow in front of the forward cabin, watching the water ahead. The first fishing boats were just starting out from shore, heading toward their favorite trolling grounds. They passed quickly, leaving the three strangers to themselves. They steered their boats a little farther from shore, keeping the island’s gray-brown mass to the left.

A jet took off from the airport to the northeast. It was a commercial airliner.

Business as usual, despite the war.

“Navy,” said one of the marines.

Zeus turned around. A Chinese patrol boat was approaching from behind. Unlike the destroyer he’d just seen, there seemed no doubt that it had spotted them. It was moving at a good clip, and a searchlight blinked on its deck.

“They’re going to board us and look at our papers,” Zeus told the marine captain. “Can you deal with the Chinese?”

“I will talk with them,” said Solt.

It was the first complete sentence in English Zeus had heard from her mouth.

“Are you sure?”

“It is why I am here, Major.”

“Get the bags in the nets and put them overboard,” Zeus told the captain. “Make sure the nets don’t break.”