“Sit up,” he said. “You and I are going on a little trip. Move very slow—”

Fisher heard the thunk of the door latch being thrown. In that instant, as his eyes instinctively flicked toward the door, Lei had moved. His good hand was coming up and around. Fisher saw a blade flashing toward his face. He jerked his head backward, felt the blade slice the space where his neck had just been. The door opened. In his peripheral vision Fisher saw a figure standing at the threshold.

“Run!” Lei shouted. “Blow it! Blow it now!”

Fisher fired. Lei’s head snapped back. As he fell backward, Fisher saw a black quarter-sized cavity where Lei’s right eye once was.

“Warned you,” Fisher muttered, then turned and rushed out the door.

14

BACKin the corridor, he turned and headed toward the ladder just in time to see the crewman’s foot disappear from the top step. Fisher raised the pistol and fired, hoping for a lucky leg shot, but it was a half second too late. He started running.

Blow it,Fisher thought. Lei’s command could mean only two things: One, destroy something aboard the Duroc; or two, destroy the Durocitself. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach had him betting on the latter.

But why? And who commanded such respect and/or fear in these men that they would essentially commit suicide? Was it Lei, or someone bigger? Fisher shoved the questions aside.

As he reached the top of the ladder, he heard the forward door bang against the bulkhead. He stopped, pressed himself to the wall. Pistol extended, he slid forward until he could see the doorway. Clear. He sprinted forward, peeked into the corridor. To his left, the engine room hatch was open, revealing a ladder. A flashlight beam was playing across bulkhead below.

Fisher stepped to the hatch and peeked through. A figure was standing on the deck. The man raised his arm. Fisher jerked his head back. Two gunshots rang out. A pair of holes appeared in the corridor bulkhead.

“Give it up,” Fisher called. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it.”

No response.

“We can work this out. Just drop your gun—”

Footsteps pounded, then faded away.

Fisher peeked around the corner again, saw nothing. He started down the ladder. At the bottom, to his right, around a stanchion, he saw the glow of the flashlight on the other side of the engine. He stepped to the stanchion, pressed himself to it.

Something clanged. Like sheet metal clattering to the deck. Access cover,Fisher thought. Move, move now!

Gun raised, he stepped out.

The last crewman was crouched beside the engine, hands fumbling inside an access hatch.

“Stop!” Fisher commanded.

The man turned his head, stared at him for a few seconds, then turned back and kept working.

Fisher fired twice. The man grunted and rolled onto his side. Fisher rushed forward. He kicked the man’s gun away. It skittered across the deck. The man, barely conscious, let out a wet, bloody cough and grinned at him. “Too late,” he croaked.

Inside the engine’s access hatch, a blue LED readout blinked from 10 to 9, then to 8.

Fisher turned and ran.

WITHa countdown running in his head he was up the ladder in two seconds. He turned, charged up the bridge ladder, turned again, and headed for the door.

Five . . . four . . . three . . .

He threw open the hatch, rushed through, sprinted toward the railing, vaulted over it. Behind him, somewhere deep within the Duroc,there came a muffled crump.Fisher absently thought, First charge; fuel tanks will follow. . . .

It took him a split second to orient himself in the air. He looked down. The ocean surface rushed toward him. He curled into a ball, hoping to protect himself from the heat and shrapnel that was coming. Then he was underwater. All went silent.

Resisting the urge to kick to the surface, he flipped over and kicked hard, arms spread in a wide breaststroke. He heard a whoompand felt himself shoved from behind as the shock wave hit him. The air was compressed from his lungs. He started rolling.

When he stopped, he righted himself in the water. Above his head, the surface glowed orange for a few seconds, then faded. Lungs burning, his every instinct screaming for air, he forced himself to stay submerged. The danger now was pools of burning oil and fuel. If he surfaced into one of them, his lungs would be seared.

His heartbeat pounded behind his eyes and he felt a fuzziness creep into his brain as his body consumed the last molecules of oxygen left in his system.

Wait,he commanded himself. Wait. . .

He counted to five, then ten, and then seeing nothing above him, he kicked to the surface. He gulped air until his vision cleared, then looked to where the Durochad been.

There was nothing. Chunks of fiberglass and tiny pockets of burning fuel dotted the surface, but the yacht was gone, sinking toward the seafloor.

To his left he saw a twinkle of light. In the distance, still a few miles away, a searchlight played over the water’s surface. The Bahamian Navy and the FBI to the rescue,Fisher thought. It was time to leave.

He punched up the IKS’s control menu on the OPSAT and pressed buttons until the screen read, IKS: MODE: HOME TO SIGNAL. He keyed his subdermal. “Lambert, get Bird to the extraction point.”

“Status?”

“Mission clean.” No footprints, no evidence, no nothing. “Very clean.”

“Explain.”

“Later. I’m on my way home.”

He turned and started swimming.

SHANGHAI

KUAN-YINZhao heard a knock on his door, then feet softly padding toward his desk. He knew without looking who it was. Xun. His hesitant, mincing steps were unmistakable. Xun stopped before Zhao’s desk and stood quietly, waiting.

Zhao’s desk was covered in an array of newspapers from London, New York, Moscow, and Beijing. So far, the coverage was remarkably similar. No significant variations. The board was intact, all the pieces and players being taken at face value.

Zhao looked up. “Yes?”

“Message from Lei, sir. They’ve weighed anchor and are under way. The job is done.”

Zhao sighed. Even Xun’s voice was weak. The boy was smart enough, with degrees from Oxford and MIT, but he had no Lān-hút—no stones,as the Americans say. Xun was a distant nephew, one of the few with his family name left alive. This,he thought, is what I am left with.A boy who had a mind for this business, but no heart for the brutality it required to not only survive, but to rule. Given time, Xun might be a worthy successor to the empire; but time was a precious commodity. During war, time was a luxury you couldn’t afford to squander.

“No complications?” Zhao asked.

“No, sir.”

Zhao nodded. Another pawn steps forward, joining the first two, shielding the king.

“The emergency bands?”

“We’re monitoring. The island is small; it shouldn’t take long. May I ask, sir. . . .”

“Go ahead.”

“What are we listening for?”

“We’re listening for the faint scrape of our opponent’s piece moving across the board.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. Watch and learn.”

Zhao waved Xun out. Alone again, Zhao closed his eyes and visualized the board. He imagined his opponent reaching out, fingers hesitating over one piece, before lifting it from the board.

Your move.

15

THIRD ECHELON

HAVINGonly been gone for fifteen hours, Fisher was stunned at what had changed during that time.

The town of Slipstone was lost.

Within minutes of local environmental officials determining that the source of the water supply’s contamination was neither natural nor accidental, the small New Mexico town had became the focal point of a massive relief effort, starting with the President’s order to activate the Radiological Emergency Response Plan, or RERP.