Chapter Twenty-Three.

USSMONTANA(SSN-823)

EN ROUTE TO TAIWAN STRAIT

SOUTH CHINA SEA

APRIL 2012

Montana's fly-by-wire system hovered the 377-foot submarine at exactly one hundred feet as Mitchell and his team flooded, exited, reentered, and blew out the lock-out trunk with lights on and in total darkness. The drills were completed within the first six hours after leaving Subic Bay, while still in warm seas.

It was, admittedly, unnerving to stand in that trunk in total darkness while the water rose. All Mitchell could think about in those last few seconds was an accident and the warnings offered by the two SEALs.

The twenty-one-hour trip to Xiamen Harbor was otherwise uneventful. Mitchell and his Ghosts listened to stories, shared some of their own, and the lies per nautical mile grew to astronomical proportions.

As they neared the harbor and the end of their journey, Montana "rigged for ultraquiet," with the sub's interior bathed only in red light. All nonwatchstanders remained in their bunks, and television or other leisure activities were prohibited. Even the galley was closed.

The captain told Mitchell that they were sweeping the entire harbor, their fathometer and minesweeping sonar actively probing under and around the sub with impunity because of the horrendous day and night noise level of numerous small craft and shipyard construction activity.

The sun had just set, and under the cover of darkness, the captain extended a photonic mast to photograph and measure laser IR ranges for potential drop-off sites.

Using those pictures, Mitchell and Gummerson met to determine a location, choosing a spot near the southeast tip of an unnamed and uninhabited sand spit.

"Looks good," said Mitchell.

"Yes, and don't worry. I'll get us in within a thousand feet so you won't have far to swim, and I'll still have about two hundred fifty feet of water around me."

The captain went on to say that hovering with her keel at one hundred feet would still keep the tip of Montana 's sail at forty-eight feet below the surface. He said he hadn't seen any ship in the harbor that drew that much water, fully laden.

"You must live right, Scott," he finally added. "We're at high tide, and it's a spring tide."

"So that's good?"

"It's excellent. Spring tides are really high or low when the sun and moon are lined up, and we get their combined gravitational pull. You get to swim in a little closer to the beach, and I get a few more feet under my keel."

"Great."

"And one more thing. Sunrise is at oh five twenty-four. If you're not in the water before then, we'll return every night, same time, until the National Command Authority gives me a direct order to terminate the operation. I'm not in the habit of leaving personnel behind."

"Neither am I, sir. And I appreciate that. But if you have to bail on us, we'll just highjack a rickshaw and head west."

The captain grinned. "I'm sure you will. Now I'll have our drop-off point forwarded to your higher, and they'll get it to the agents you'll link up with onshore."

"Thank you, sir."

Within fifteen minutes, Mitchell and the other eight members of his team were standing in the cold metal confines of the lock-out trunk. "Everybody good to go?" he asked.

Eight thumbs lifted.

They had donned wet suits and goggles and had buckled on their Draeger LAR-Vs, which were worn on their chests.

The LAR-V was a self-contained breathing device specifically designed for covert operations in shallow water. Mitchell and his Ghosts would breathe 100 percent oxygen, and their exhaled breath would be recirculated in the closed-circuit system through a filter that removed the carbon dioxide. Consequently, the Draegers allowed them to swim without the bubbles produced by conventional scuba gear.

Each operator also carried an equipment pack, a Px4 Storm SD pistol, and a rifle or two of his or her choosing.

SEAL Chief Tanner, a blue-eyed being of pure muscle, stood outside the hatch and lifted his thumb. "Remember, Captain, slip that beacon in one of your rebreathers on the beach. Chief Phillips and I'll be about ten minutes behind you to pick up the gear."

"Roger that, Chief."

Tanner sealed the hatch and signaled to flood the lock-out trunk.

The water rose and wasn't too cold at twenty-four degrees Celsius. They slipped the rebreathers into their mouths, and once submerged, the hatch opened, and they swam out into fluctuating curtains of darkness.

During the brief crossing to the beach, Mitchell remembered Chief Phillips's instructions to spread out, putting about twenty meters between themselves, so that they didn't surface as a group but as individuals. He also said to try to stagger their dashes from the water.

So they'd given each operator a number, beginning with Jenkins and ending with Mitchell. He slowly lifted his head as his knees scraped bottom and watched as, one by one, his team made it onto the barren shoreline, according to the preplanned sequence.

Behind them, to the southeast, lay the resort island of Gulangyu, its multicolored lights winking in the haze. Mitchell slid his mask onto his forehead and grimaced over the water's nasty stench. He dragged himself closer and removed his fins, leaving on his wet shoes, and rushed onto the shoreline.

There, he and the others stripped out of their gear, piled it up for the SEALs, then Mitchell set the beacon and gave the hand signal to move out.

They hustled off, heading west through a fairly dense forest toward the opposite end of the spit, where a long pier jutted out into the channel between themselves and the mainland.

A lone wooden fishing boat, lights off, was roped up at the end of the pier and idling loudly, its engine exhaling plumes of black smoke. The boat could barely accommodate six people, let alone nine or ten.

Mitchell gave another hand signal, and the team bolted from the forest and out, onto the pier, keeping low.

Once at the boat, a bald, bespectacled Chinese man with a sizable paunch lumbered up to the gunwale. He raised his voice above the coughing inboard, his English surprisingly good: "Everyone come aboard. Quickly now, quickly. And who is Captain Mitchell?"

"I am," Mitchell answered, climbing over the rail and cramming onto the deck.

"Hello. They call me Buddha. I'm taking you across the channel to a small pier used only by the fishermen. We have two trucks waiting. You will change in the trucks."

"Outstanding. And that's a good name you have."

"I think so." Buddha moved to the wheel, shouted to Nolan and Hume to get the ropes, then he throttled up and steered them away from the pier.

They sat below the gunwale, out of view, and Mitchell dug out his Cross-Com earpiece/monocle from his pack. He slipped the unit over his left ear, tapped the Power Up button, and issued the voice command: "Cross-Com activated." In three seconds he was on the network.

The screen glowed to life, and he immediately issued several more voice commands, bringing up his first support asset, that streaming satellite video from the castle itself, and even as the image sharpened from static to an overhead, night-vision-enhanced picture of the four silos and single rectangular building, Mitchell watched as a lone helicopter landed in an adjacent field. "Right on time," he whispered.

The trip across the channel took but fifteen minutes, and as they neared the fishermen's pier, Buddha cut the throttle way too late. They slammed so hard into the pylons that the rail actually cracked.