He closed to within twenty feet before one of them became aware of his presence. The man snapped to his feet, looking around in bewilderment for a moment before remembering he’d set his AK-47 on the floor next to the table he was sharing with his partner. Juan kept coming as the man groped for the weapon and came up with it pointed straight at Cabrillo’s chest. He growled a warning, as his teammate gained his feet, his hands clutching an assault rifle of his own, though the sling had tangled around his hands.

“What is the meaning of this challenge?” Juan asked arrogantly in pitch-perfect Arabic. “I am Captain Hanzi Hourani, of the Syrian Navy, and a guest of your base commander, Admiral Ramazani.” The two guards blinked at him before one said in halting Arabic, “You are who?”

“Captain Hourani,” Cabrillo snapped testily. “For the love of the Prophet, I have been in and out of this building a dozen times in the past week. Surely you know I am here to watch the demonstration of your new miracle weapon, the torpedoes that will drive the Crusaders out of our waters once and for all.” Juan knew the Farsi speaker was catching every three or four words of his rapid-fire delivery, but it was the attitude more than the words that were important. He had to get them to believe he belonged here, despite the late hour. There was a walkie-talkie on the table next to an overflowing ashtray, plates of congealed food, and a rumpled heap of newspapers. If they called base security, the jig was up.

“I lost track of time touring the submarine,” Juan went on, then gave a trace of an embarrassed smile.

“That is not true. I fell asleep in the captain’s cabin, dreaming that it would be me to strike the first blow against the American imperialists.”

There was still wary suspicion in the guard’s eye, but the admission that a superior officer, though from a different navy, could succumb to the same fantasies as they did put the guard slightly at ease. He translated to his partner what Cabrillo had said.

It didn’t seem to make much of an impression. He barked at the first guard, gesturing with the barrel of his AK. The Arabic speaker asked to see Juan’s identification.

Juan withdrew a billfold and presented it to the senior of the two. As the guard looked it over, Juan plucked a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit up. The smokes were Dunhills, a vastly superior brand to the cheap local tobacco the men choked down, and he saw that both had noticed the distinctive flat pack. The guard kept the billfold and was turning to grab the walkie-talkie when Juan offered him the cigarettes.

He hesitated for an instant, so Juan thrust the pack closer.

“We must call the main security station,” the younger guard told him.

“Of course,” Juan said, jetting smoke from his mouth. “I thought you might enjoy a decent cigarette while they yell at you for not knowing I am authorized to be here.” Sheepishly, both men took a cigarette. Juan held the lighter for them. They only had time to exchange a look, following their first drag, before the fast-acting, narcotic-laced tobacco hit their nervous systems like a freight train. Both men crumpled wordlessly to the ground.

Cabrillo ground his cigarette into the floor with his foot. “Usually, boys,” he said, crushing out the guards’

smoldering Dunhills and tucking all the evidence into his pant pocket, “these things’ll kill you. In your case, you’ll be out for a couple of hours. However, I don’t envy you when your superiors discover your dereliction.”

The Corporation tried to keep their operations as nonlethal as possible. From the earliest planning stages of the mission, Cabrillo made sure the guards wouldn’t die doing their job just because Russia was illegally selling advanced military equipment.

That isn’t to say there wasn’t a lot of blood on Juan Cabrillo’s or the rest of his team’s hands, but they wouldn’t kill if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Juan was just turning away when the metal door leading to the outside was thrown open and a lab-coated technician flanked by two soldiers strode in. They saw the two unconscious guards on the floor under the table and Juan’s unfamiliar uniform. One guard brought his assault rifle up and shouted a challenge. The second said something to the first that Cabrillo didn’t need to translate to “I’m going for help” before he turned on his heel and vanished into the night.

In a minute, all three thousand sailors and support personnel were going to be descending on the dry dock like a horde of berserkers.

CHAPTER 3

AS THE SECOND GUARD WAS RACING FOR THE DOOR, A speck of ruby light appeared on the first guard’s weapon, followed an instant later by a silenced bullet that ripped the AK-47 from his grip amid a shower of blood from his mangled hand.

Juan didn’t hesitate. Linc or Eddie had immobilized the man, from their position on the raised platform above, and Cabrillo knew they would have the stunned technician covered with their silenced Type 95

bullpup assault rifles. He wheeled and took off after the fleeing guard. He accelerated with each pace, driven by his most stubborn trait, his inability to let himself fail. The guard was disappearing into the darkened naval base, and, if not for his khaki uniform, Cabrillo would have lost him in the gloom. In eight steps, he’d cut the sentry’s two-second head start to almost nothing, and, in another three, he lunged at the fleeing Iranian, grabbing the man around the knees in a tackle that would do a professional football player proud.

The two went down on the unyielding asphalt road. Juan had been protected by the guard’s body, but the sentry hadn’t been so lucky. His head slammed into the macadam with a sickening crunch, and their slide ripped his face open down to the muscle.

Cabrillo looked around quickly. There were a couple of darkened warehouses nearby, and, in the distance, he could see a four-story office building with a few illuminated windows, but he didn’t think he’d been spotted. He whipped a pair of FlexiCuffs around the unconscious guard’s wrists and hefted the man over his shoulder to jog back to the submarine pen.

When Cabrillo closed the door behind him, he saw that Eddie had cuffed and gagged the technician. He was dragging him to the secluded corner of the entry vestibule where he’d already hidden the two drugged guards. Juan dumped his burden next to them.

“That shaved a few months off my life,” he panted.

“Any chance someone saw you?” Seng asked.

“If you hear an alarm start wailing, you’ll have your answer. Any problems upstairs with the others?”

“One went for his gun. Linc has stopped his bleeding, and if he gets to a hospital in the next couple of hours he’ll make it. We wore face masks, and I was shouting in Mandarin, like we planned, and if those guys know their weapons they’ll recognize the Chinese-made Type 95s.”

“Coupled with the Czech ammunition we’re using, that should keep them guessing.” Max Hanley sauntered over, a wry grin on his face. “You just had to make this harder than it already is, didn’t you?”

“Come on, Max, if we didn’t up the risk we wouldn’t get the exorbitant fees we’ve all grown so accustomed to.”

“I’ll give up part of my cut next time.”

“Any problem with your guy?”

“His nap will last well into tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s go find those torpedoes.” In the first of the two large rooms under the elevated platform, they found a store of conventional Russian-made TEST-71 torpedoes, exactly like the ones the Oregon herself carried. It was in the second room, after Linc shot off the lock, that they found Iran’s newest and most lethal weapon. The room was taken up with workbenches, diagnostic computers, and all kinds of electronic gear. In the middle of the space were two shroud-draped shapes that looked a bit like cadavers in a morgue. Max strode over to one and whipped off the sheet. At first glance, the torpedo sitting on the mechanized trolley looked like the TEST-71s except it lacked a propeller. He eyed the twenty-five-foot underwater missile, especially its radically shaped nose. It was this feature that created a bubble of air around the torpedo and allowed it to cut through the water with virtually no friction.