Shadow Catcher (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

W
here am I?

Nick stood on a dirt road in thick darkness. He could not remember how he got there. On either side of the road, he saw the high mud walls common to desert villages. They seemed to be closing in on him. He could not feel the ground beneath his feet. The sound of his own breathing echoed in his ears. Then he saw the mosque, its distinctive dome with the worn crescent carved into the west side. Suddenly he knew where he was. He knew what he had to do.

He had to save Danny.

Nick found his teammate less than fifty yards ahead, crouched next to a gap in the wall surrounding the mosque's small courtyard. Danny looked back at him. He stood up and waved as if they were meeting on a neighborhood street back home in Maryland, wearing that same ridiculous grin that he always wore.

“Get down, you idiot,” Nick whispered into his communications implant. “Stay there. Wait until I get to you.”

Danny did not respond. Instead, he disappeared through the gap in the wall like a ghost.

“Drake, I lost visual with Danny,” said Nick, rushing forward. “What's going on in that courtyard? Where is the target?” He had to get to his friend, but no matter how hard he ran, the mosque stayed fifty yards ahead of him.

“You can see what I can,” replied Drake, his voice mechanical, distant. “Check the image on your handheld. I've got nothing on the thermal.”

Nick checked the faintly glowing monitor attached to his Falcon ROVER handheld. The receiver pulled real-time thermal video from an RQ-7 Shadow UAV flying overhead. He held the small screen up to his eyes, but he couldn't focus his vision. He couldn't make any sense of the hazy green image.

The target, Zaman Ramiz, had smuggled a nuclear weapon out of southern Russia. The Triple Seven had chased him from Azerbaijan, across northern Turkey and into Bazargan, just across the Iranian border. Drake had stayed behind to fly the Shadow. Nick and Danny had crossed the border in pursuit. Now the arms dealer's men were dead, and Ramiz was holed up in the small mosque.

The whole village seemed to shift around him. Suddenly Nick was at the wall. Where was Danny? What a stupid question. He knew where Danny was. He was in that courtyard, and that courtyard was a deathtrap. He looked down at the handheld again. He still couldn't see the video feed. He put the receiver away and cautiously leaned into the gap to get a look with his own eyes. A spray of bullets ricocheted off the wall beside his head, kicking brick fragments and dust into his face.

“He just shot at me,” Nick shouted as he pulled back behind the wall. He tried to rub the debris from his eyes. “I need to know where that's coming from.”

Drake gave no response.

Nick had to keep the pressure on. He burst into the courtyard with his MP7 tucked into his shoulder, searching for a target, searching for his teammate. There, just ahead. Danny was lying motionless beside a wide, square fountain. The ancient stones were wet with blood.

Another burst of gunfire rang out from the shadows of the mosque. Nick felt two bullets slam into his vest. He dove into a prone position behind the fountain, shouting at Danny. But Danny did not answer.

Nick felt an icy grip crushing his chest. Pain radiated through his torso. He couldn't breathe. He rolled over and tried to rip off his Kevlar vest, but there was no vest. He wore no protection over his cotton undershirt. The fabric felt warm and wet against his fingertips. He raised his hand to his eyes. It was covered in blood.

Footsteps. Ramiz stood over him, a blur at first and then slowly coming into focus. The arms dealer smiled down from behind the barrel of his Stechkin machine pistol.

He pulled the trigger.

“Okay, that's really annoying.”

Nick fought to open his eyes. Drake's hand was on his arm, shaking him.

“Seriously, how does Katy get any sleep when you're home? You're thrashing around in your bunk and moaning like a creature from a low-grade zombie movie.”

Nick blinked until his small berth on the
Illustro
came into focus. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. After taking a moment to gather his wits, he rolled onto his side and glowered across the tiny room at Drake. “I wasn't moaning,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “And for the record, all zombie movies are low grade.”

“Not true. Zombies are the new vampires.”

“It'll never work.” Nick threw off the sheet and swung his feet to the floor. “A brooding, metrosexual zombie is still just an ugly dead thing.”

“That's undead, thank you very much,” said Drake, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

Nick regarded his friend with a curious look. After the briefing with Walker, Drake hadn't said two words to anyone for the rest of the night, even during the dive planning. Now he had slipped into his old self like nothing happened.

“What?” asked Drake.

“Are we okay?”

Drake stood up and stretched. “Need-to-know is Walker's call, not yours. You followed orders. I would have done the same.”

“Really? All's forgiven, just like that?”

“I overreacted. In the grand scheme, this team is more important than one man.”

“Noble words,” said Nick, nodding slowly. He raised an eyebrow. “Then what about the colonel? Is he forgiven too?”

“Ahem.” Drake coughed and looked away. “So, uh, another nightmare.” He plopped back down on the bunk, put his hands on his knees, and stared Nick in the eye. “Don't tell me, Danny again? It's been six months. You have to let him go.”

“It was my job to protect him. I let him down. I let his wife and kids down.”

“Danny made his own choice,” said Drake, shaking his head. “He ignored your order to hold his position. You got Ramiz
and
the nuke. I don't think you let anyone down.”

Nick looked down at his chest, half expecting to see the bruises where the arms dealer's bullets had slammed into his vest, but those wounds had healed months ago. He was lucky he hadn't taken a round in the head like Danny. The family had to have a closed-casket funeral. Nick fed them the official cover story, that Danny had been in a helicopter crash. He looked up at Drake. “If I go down like Danny, will you lie to Katy like I lied to his wife?”

Drake gave him a thin smile. “I think you already know the answer to that, boss.”

Nick stood up and stretched. “So I do.” He checked his watch and then grabbed two wet suits from the shelf above his bunk. He tossed one to Drake. “Get dressed, my friend. We've got work to do.”

CHAPTER 4

G
eneral Zheng Ju-long surveyed the trees passing by the windows of his sedan. They were beautiful—deep green and full, not like those sparse twigs in the hills above Beijing. He sighed. He hated the idea of leaving his beloved Fujian Province for the bustling, smelly metropolis of Beijing, but soon he would have to. Such was the price of destiny.

“Park the car outside the fence, Han,” Zheng told his driver.

“But, sir, you are the most senior general in all of Fujian. This is your facility. We can park at the front door if you like. There is no need to walk.”

“That is the point, Han. I want to walk. I want to taste the pure air before we enter the factory.”

Zheng closed his eyes. How would underlings like Han view him in the coming days? He was not abandoning Fujian—far from it—but could they see that? In time, they would understand. In time, they would see him as the Great Unifier in the tradition of his ancestor Koxinga. He would make them whole again.

All of them.

Han turned down a gravel road, and the trees abruptly ended, followed shortly by a high-security fence topped with a double stack of concertina wire. He parked the sedan next to a small guard station and then opened the rear passenger's-side door, offering an arm to help Zheng lift his stout but aging frame out of the soft leather seat.

“Most honored General Zheng. We were not expecting you today,” said the guard, jumping to attention as Zheng approached his shack.

“Yes, that is as I intended,” replied Zheng. “And I would prefer to keep it that way. Please refrain from alerting the factory chief to my presence.”

Zheng said nothing more, casually lifting a hand to his graying temple to return the guard's crisp salute. As he reached the main building, he glanced over his shoulder. He saw the guard hastily replacing the guardhouse phone in its cradle. Zheng smiled. He expected nothing less. The guard's loyalty to his immediate superior was commendable. That was as it should be. Of course, he would have to be punished for disobedience. That was as it should be as well.

Dr. T
ao Luo stood in front of his glass-encased office, feigning a conversation with his secretary. “General,” he said, bowing and subtly waving for his secretary to do the same, “what a most unexpected and yet delightful surprise it is to see you here.”

“I'm sure it is, Tao. I am here to inspect your progress. Kindly show me to the production floor.”

“If it would please the general,” said Tao, “we have a special unit set up in Laboratory Two for just such an occasion. It will be much quieter there than on the factory floor.”

Zheng waved his hand. “As you wish.” He smiled inwardly. Tao could not have produced a display in such a short amount of time. The factory chief was prepared for a surprise visit, and if he had the time for extraneous activities like setting up displays, then work must be proceeding smoothly here. Excellent.

Tao led the general down a long hallway. On one side, a floor-to-ceiling window looked out over the various production floors below. In each section, he could see one of the five massive state-of-the-art production units that he and Tao had procured for the factory. Four of them were humming away, producing detailed structural components for his weapons, each piece precisely tooled to a matter of picometers. The fifth machine lay dormant, but that would soon be rectified.

“Here we are,” said Tao, opening a door and stepping aside to allow the general to pass through.

Zheng nodded at Han as he entered, indicating that the aide should stand outside and wait.

Laboratory Two remained as starkly clean and white as the last time Zheng had seen it, several weeks earlier. Now, however, there was a display table in the center of the room. Three technicians in white lab coats stood at attention as Zheng entered. He waved magnanimously, indicating that they should relax. Then he surveyed Tao's masterpiece. At more than four meters, the missile took up the entire length of the table. The light brown color of its exposed composite structure stood out well in the white room, allowing the general to see every seamlessly fitted juncture.

“As you can see, General,” began Tao, “we are now producing the full range of components for each major section: propulsion, control, warhead, and guidance.”

Zheng nodded, still inspecting the display. “I assume you have projected its range capabilities?”

“Three hundred fifty kilometers with the new solid fuel motor, covering more than enough distance from the Quanzhou launch site. Of course, once we have the precise composition and weight of the skin, that range may change a little.”

“Yes,” said Zheng, crossing his arms and placing a thick finger on his chin, “I see from the activity below that you have moved into mass production. What numbers have you achieved?”

“We already have one hundred missile bodies, complete with guidance packages and warheads,” answered Tao. “We will produce a hundred more in a matter of days. That should be more than enough firepower to overwhelm Taiwan's defenses.”

Zheng dropped his arms. “
I
will determine how much firepower is enough,” he said.

Tao winced and bowed. “Of course, General. Once we have a production model for the skin, we can finish the first two hundred in less than seventy-two hours and then continue as you see fit.” He spoke his next words cautiously. “However, I cannot give you an accurate production timeline until we receive the sample radar-absorbent materials.”

Zheng returned to his inspection of the missile, but he cast a sidelong glance at Tao. “Don't worry. I will have them for you soon.”

Three quick knocks on the door interrupted their discussion. Zheng waved for Tao to open the laboratory door. Han entered and bowed. “General Zheng, you have a telephone call from our embassy in Kuwait.”

Zheng turned back to Tao and his technicians. “My apologies, gentlemen. I must take this call, which may be good news for all of us. In the meantime, keep up the good work.”

* * *

Zheng reclined in the backseat of his sedan, watching with satisfaction as Han took the disobedient guard by the lapel and struck him across the face. As he lifted his satellite phone to his ear, he motioned for his aide to continue the punishment. “Go ahead, Wulóng,” he said into the phone. “I am secure on this end.”

“General Zheng, your operatives are in position.” The caller spoke in perfectly even tones, his voice as smooth as ice. “The Americans are here as well. It appears as though your intelligence is accurate.”

Zheng nodded. “Good, good. After so many years, I am glad that my source remains reliable. Still, it is when you are closest to the object of your desire that it often fades away. Tell my men to proceed with extreme caution. And Wulóng”—Zheng reached out his window and waved to Han, who released the bloodied guard, letting him collapse onto the gravel—“tell them that I want no survivors.”

CHAPTER 5

T
hin metal shavings rained down through the water like gently falling snowflakes, glistening in the white beam of Nick's dive light. After less than a minute of drilling, he removed the bit from the small hole in the side of the bomb to let it cool. He could not afford to overheat the casing that surrounded the fuze. A mistake like that might end his mission with a premature bang.

Nick lay on his side with his back pressed against the partial barrier that separated the B-2's left bay from its right. The bomb, like its twin, rested on the closed bomb-bay doors of the left bay. Both weapons had dislodged from their rack during the last, failed salvage, arming the fuzes.

These armed bunker busters were the main reason that Nick and Walker left the wreck alone for so long. Any shift during another salvage attempt could set one off, killing the crew and scattering the wreckage across the relatively shallow floor of the Persian Gulf, a smorgasbord of stealth materials for the enemies of the United States. Nick had to neutralize the weapons so that the team could raise the bomber to towing depth and move it out to deeper waters for scuttling. But he had never defused a five-thousand-pound bomb before. He carefully pushed the drill bit back into the hole, took a deep breath, and gently squeezed the trigger. There was a first time for everything.

Despite the claustrophobic conditions, Nick wished that Drake could have joined him in the bay. He could use the company. But the partially open doors of the other bay, half crushed against the seafloor, left only a tiny gap. Nick could barely squeeze through, even after removing his rebreather, mask, and tanks. With his broad shoulders, Drake could not follow. He had passed Nick's gear through the gap and then moved off to set up the air bags that would lighten the bomber for the salvage cranes.

Nick removed the bit to let it cool again, repeating the process over and over until he reached the seven-centimeter mark, just deep enough to penetrate the fuze casing. As he removed the bit for the final time, he let out a long breath. Halfway there. Unfortunately, the most dangerous and difficult part was yet to come. It might even prove impossible.

After a few moments' rest, Nick cracked open a drab green case and withdrew a monitor and a set of thin, melded cables. One cable held a fiber-optic camera and light, the other, a pair of tiny hooked pincers. He carefully slid the cable through the small tunnel and into the fuze casing. As the fiber-optic light illuminated the interior of the device, Nick's heart sank. The fuze had seen better days.

Long ago, during either the crash or the first salvage attempt, the fuze casing's vacuum seal had cracked, exposing the metal inside to corrosive seawater. Instead of the gleaming steel mechanism that he had hoped for, he found a rusty, brown nightmare.

Nick used a laminated diagram to identify the safing lever—a short arm with a loop on the end. He would have to pull that lever outward to manually disarm the bomb. A little round window next to the lever showed the status of the fuze. He checked his diagram. A red flag in the window meant the bomb was armed; a green one meant safe. He could clearly see red behind the glass.

It took several tries to get the pincers through the loop. The rusty buildup had narrowed the gap to a little wider than the eye of a needle. When he finally got both hooks seated, Nick gently pulled on the cable. The lever didn't budge. He tried again, gradually increasing the pressure until he feared the arm might break, but it had rusted solid.

Nick sat back in frustration. If he gave up, the team would have to attempt the salvage with at least one live weapon in the bay, an immense risk. Their only other option would be to detonate both bombs in place and destroy the bomber. The cleanup would take weeks, during which any number of hostile agencies might discover the operation. Nick was not willing to accept either scenario. He had one more trick up his sleeve. A forceful jerk might free the lever. It might just as well break the arm or set off the bomb.

There was no point in waiting. He leaned back, clenched his teeth, and yanked on the cable. Something snapped. He cringed.

After a long moment, Nick opened one eye and then the other. His gamble had paid off. The safing lever had broken free of the rust. With another, gentle tug on the cable, it clicked into place. The flag changed from red to green.

Nick sighed. One down.

The next bomb took half as long to disarm. Its vacuum seal remained miraculously intact. With no rust, the safing lever gave in to Nick's command on the first pull. Both bombs should now be so stable that no amount of jostling or shifting could set them off.
Should
was the operative word. Nick wished that he had some wood to knock on.

After packing up his gear, he switched on the transmitter in his mask. “Come and get me, Drake. I need you to hold my rebreather and tanks so I can get out of this hole.”

He heard no response, not even static.

Nick tapped on the base of his mask, hoping to jolt its transmitter/receiver to life. “Hello? Does anyone read me?”

Still nothing.

Nick had been so focused on his work that he hadn't noticed the sparse chatter between Walker and Drake fade away to nothing. Now he realized that the aftermarket radio in his mask was completely dead, probably a consequence of removing the mask at depth to squeeze into the bay.

He swam over to the gap and peered through. Drake was nowhere to be seen. If he wanted to get his teammate's attention, he would have to make some noise. But as he flipped his flashlight around to bang on the side of the bay, he caught a glint of steel from the seafloor. He panned the light back to the object. Just on the other side of the gap, its hilt sticking straight up out of the sediment, was Drake's knife.