Links jumped back in, knowing he was going to lose his audience if he didn’t intervene. “And, sir, that may be connected to another mystery. In the antisubmarine group, we’ve been focusing on the Directorate offensive at Pearl Harbor and then out at sea. But the attack, of course, began in space. And when you speak with our DIA colleagues about that, they’ll tell you that one target didn’t make sense, a particular NASA research satellite. We’d assumed that the Directorate had gotten their intel wrong and thought it was a clandestine spy satellite. That’s why Dr. Shaw is here. Doctor, could you tell the admiral what your project at NASA focused on?”

“It was originally designed to collect Cherenkov radiation for research into the origin of black holes. But because NASA wanted to show Congress ‘tangible results’ ” — Shaw put that phrase in air quotes, as if to show his disdain for applied research — “it was also used to study nuclear power plants and the real and potential dispersion of radiation after events like the Fukushima and Maine Yankee incidents.”

Darling cut in. “So, sir, I ran down the old Pentagon budget funding for R and D programs and found that back in the twentieth century, the Office of Naval Research did some studies that showed that tracking a reactor via the Cherenkov radiation it emitted was theoretically possible. But the subject was never really explored. It wasn’t just that the project had a low likelihood of success; it was that even if it worked, there wouldn’t be much of a payoff for us. Our entire sub fleet was nuclear, while the Russian and Chinese subs that were the most problematic for us were the quiet, diesel-driven ones. There were no incentives for investing in that kind of research. ONR assumed that no one other than us was advanced enough to do it, and strategists worried that if we made the effort, well, the research might get out, and we would just be doing the other side a favor.”

Links jumped back in. “We have to conclude that they made a breakthrough and discovered how to track the Cherenkov radiation, which allowed them to de-stealth and target our submarines, as well as anything else powered by a nuclear reactor. And that solves both mysteries, the attacks at sea and the targeting of Dr. Shaw’s satellite. Because if you and the other side both had that ability, you would want to make sure the other guys lost it, so you’d take it away from them, even if they hadn’t known they’d had it in the first place.”

The admiral didn’t respond for a full ten seconds. But his jaw clenched and a single bead of sweat formed at his temple. Then his words poured out in the quick cadence of someone who cannot quite believe what he is saying and so wants to get it out as fast as possible.

“This theory sounds like an improbable mix of drunken gossip and answers looking for questions. Which means it’s probably correct. And if it is, we have a very, very serious problem.”

Major Conan Doyle aimed for the break in the reef, navigating the standup paddleboard out through the mellow swell. The Boeing D-TAC microcomputer strapped to her forearm vibrated, indicating she was close to the rendezvous point. She’d been wearing the standard-issue black plastic device the morning of the invasion, part of the emergency kit used to communicate securely with downed pilots. Three days after the convoy raid, it had suddenly pulsed with an incoming message.

A quick scan of the stars overhead, the shore behind her, and the jet-black ocean farther out showed nothing.

Had she incorrectly decoded the message? She dropped to her stomach and used the paddle to hold the board against the current, feeling a sharp hunger pang as she lay prone. She should have taken a blue before she left, but she wanted to conserve them.

The microcomputer had been left where the signal burst had said it would be. Now it had told her to come here. Earlier, Nicks had revealed that the group had it at four-to-one odds that it was a trap.

“That’s why God gave us grenades,” Conan replied.

And so here she was, exposed. “The real reason you want to go,” Nicks had said, “is so you can wash your clothes.” That was true. She’d paddled out barefoot but kept on the pants that she’d worn for two months straight.

A twitch beneath the surface caught her attention. Something had moved. Something big.

The innate animal sense of being near something bigger and more powerful chilled her immediately and blocked out her hunger pangs. It was like pounding a handful of stims. Doing that wasn’t her style, though. Everybody was different. Some people needed stims when they entered the breach. Others needed focus. Beta-blockers worked best for her, as she was naturally keyed up enough.

She held herself steady on the board, fighting to keep her legs from shaking. Another dark glimmer beneath the surface. A faint eddy whirled in front of her.

Even if she’d had a gun, she couldn’t have shot it. Directorate sensor balloons would vector a patrol to the area, and she’d be on the rack within an hour as Chinese and Russian interrogators cut her open and pumped her full of drugs. Combat medics had their golden hour to save a life. The Directorate interrogators had their golden hour to exploit it. Or so she’d heard. It would be better to die here, alone in the jaws of a giant, than be rent into pieces, physically and mentally, by the opposition.

The water stirred maybe twenty feet from the board’s nose as the dark form closed in. This was it, then.

Doyle got to her knees and changed her grip on the paddle; now she wielded it like a sword. The irony, she thought, that Conan had no real blade when she needed it most.

A dark fin sliced the water’s surface. She raised the paddle over her head. At least, she thought, her last act as a Marine would be a violent one.

She brought the paddle down with all her might just as the wave glider’s tubelike hull broke the surface of the water. The paddle bounced off the hard black plastic, and Doyle fell off her board and into the sea. She found herself swimming alongside the manta-ray-shaped drone, running her hands over it to convince herself it was not a shark. These nearly undetectable vehicles used almost no electricity. They relied on the ocean waves’ energy, rather than traditional engines, to drive them forward. Doyle’s D-TAC buzzed again to indicate that the wave glider had established a network connection with the microcomputer. A faint green message reported it had downloaded a series of files, and then another message told her what to do.

To open the cargo hatch, she first had to pull off a collection of trash hung on the vessel’s foils. The drone must have transited through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Inside the vessel’s hold were two waterproof duffle bags. The way their camouflage pattern shifted to match the rippling ocean surface and then the paddleboard’s deck made it clear something important must be inside.

When Vice Admiral Wang Xiaoqian stepped through the holographic globe onto the raised podium in the center of the room, all conversation stopped.

There was no longer a need for his old classmate to introduce him. Most of the audience he had never met in person, but they all knew Admiral Wang’s face from the viz updates. The newscasters called him “the new Sun-Tzu,” the architect of the new victory who had been inspired by the wisdom of old. He knew it was not a true assessment of his place in history, merely a creation of the Information Ministry’s algorithms and driven by what tested best with the public. It was pleasing, all the same, and more important, it created a new responsibility to be seen and heard. That was the reason for holding the briefing in Shanghai, rather than Hainan: to ensure the civilian leaders felt involved.