“Yes and no. There’s still a sizeable force on Hainan. They won’t stay there forever. And the CIA thinks there’s some sort of operation being planned against Hai Phong. The details are sketchy.”
“What sort of operation?”
Jackson shrugged. “Details are sketchy.”
“Get a hold of Frost and tell him to sharpen it up,” snapped Greene. Peter Frost was the head of the CIA. “Tell him to stop sending me the latest fake YouTube and Twitter posts, and get real intelligence.”
“One other thing you should know, George,” added Jackson, his voice notably lower. “The two American Army officers involved in the Hainan operation as advisers? They’re missing.”
“Missing where?”
“Hainan.”
Greene pursed his lips. Just what he needed — another public relations nightmare.
“Very possibly they’re dead,” added Jackson.
It was a horrible thought, yet in this circumstance their deaths would be far more desirable than their capture.
A terrible thought, especially for him. Would Nixon have thought that about his capture? And yet it was certainly true for the country.
Or at least for him.
Was that the same thing?
Absolutely not. He had to be clear about that.
“Keep me advised,” Greene told Jackson, opening the door to his private suite.
10
The turboprops made a loud, droning noise that reminded him quite a lot of the turbocharger he’d installed in his old Firebird.
Odd to be thinking of the ‘Bird now. She wasn’t nearly as nice as the Corvette he’d kept, but she had been a pretty car in her own right, old-school muscle and gas guzzler. He’d done a good job with her, and she’d paid him back nicely, returning a decent premium over what he’d paid when he sold her to a millionaire on eBay. At least he assumed the guy was a millionaire; he didn’t even bark about the price.
The Fokker banked sharply, pushing Zeus against Christian.
“Something’s up,” Christian told Zeus. “We’re turning north.”
“Solt’s got it under control.” She was sitting a few aisles away.
“I’ll bet.”
“You come up with a better plan, let me know.”
Casually glancing to his right and then left, Zeus tried to get a read on the other passengers. He could only see a handful. They were all Asian, probably Chinese. They didn’t seem particularly worried or thrilled to have escaped Hainan. He thought of striking up a conversation to see what they knew of the situation on the island, but decided it was too risky; there was no sense calling more attention to himself.
Zeus unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Where are you going?” asked Christian. There was panic in his eyes.
“Bathroom.”
Zeus glanced at the faces of the passengers as he walked toward the back of the cabin.
No other Europeans. Mostly men, mostly in formal business clothes. His own clothes, a baggy pair of cotton pants and a Western-style sweatshirt with a pseudo designer name, were probably among the most casual on the plane.
The restrooms were occupied. Zeus turned back toward the cabin, hoping that Solt Jan had seen him and would follow. But she didn’t.
The door to one of the commodes opened. Zeus stepped back to let a short, thin woman squeeze past. Then he went inside the restroom.
He needed to wash his face. The salt water from the ocean felt as if it had embedded itself into his pores. He rubbed the water from the faucet into his forehead and down across his cheekbones, to his jaw and chin. He filled his palms again and ran them over his face, trying to flush the salt and fatigue away.
He avoided looking in the mirror, knowing he looked terrible. He took a quick glance at his clothes — stolen from a gym locker, but reasonably close in size — then opened the door and went back out to his seat.
“We’re going to Zhanjiang,” whispered Christian as he sat down.
“How do you know?”
“Solt told me. She came by while you were in the restroom.”
“Okay.”
“She says there’re flights from there to Beijing. From there we can go anywhere. I’m not crazy about going to Beijing.”
“There’s always Pyongyang,” Zeus answered sarcastically, referring to the capital of North Korea.
“You’re a real comedian.”
“Did she say how long the flight was?”
“Didn’t ask.”
Zeus leaned over, trying to see through the window next to Christian. If they were going to Zhanjiang, it shouldn’t take very long. They would fly directly over the island, cross a small strait, and then reach the mainland not far from the city.
“Not even anything to read,” grumbled Christian.
“We’ll be down soon.”
“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.”
The pilot began speaking over the loudspeaker in Chinese. There was some rustling in the seats as he went on.
Zeus waited for him to finish, hoping he would repeat the announcement in English, but he didn’t. Finally, he leaned across the aisle.
“Excuse me,” he said to the sleepy-eyed man sitting opposite him. “I don’t speak Chinese. I wonder if you could tell me what he said.”
The man simply stared at him.
Two rows ahead, Solt Jan heard him talking and turned her head back. She got up and came back, kneeling down next to his seat. She looked as if she were genuflecting.
“The plane is diverting because of the war emergency,” she told him in a whisper.
“Uh-huh.”
“Zhanjiang is closed,” she added, her voice even softer. “The pilot didn’t say, but we are most likely going to Beihai. We will be able to continue from there.”
She shook her head, telling Zeus not to ask any more questions.
“Small airport,” she whispered. “But adequate.”
“We’re in your hands.”
She nodded, then went back to her seat. The aircraft had begun banking gently westward,
“Why do you think they closed Zhanjiang?” Christian asked.
“Need it for military operations,” said Zeus. “Has to be.” Probably in response to our fake attack, he thought. Zeus guessed there would be extra patrol flights now, the Chinese military in high paranoid mode.
Good. Though not necessarily for them.
The airplane leveled off. The harsh drone of its engines eased. Zeus wondered about the Vietnamese air force. They still had some flyable MiGs, but he doubted they’d risk them this far from their base. In fact, he tended to doubt that they’d risk them at all.
