I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was going to do about the smuggling problem on my land, but I felt that I should be doing something. I had meant to leave everyone be while the ship was in dry dock, but I decided to call and see if anyone was interested in additional work. Penny and Hawker were in.
I had taken some of the money we’d made from the Korean job and set it aside for a new helicopter. Shep had decided on a Sikorsky S-70, and was learning to fly it. We agreed that was probably a more important thing for him to be doing.
Andy said that he’d gotten enough material from our travels to begin work on a new novel to fuel his writing habit, and he wanted to get a good start on it. It kept him busy.
Jeff wanted to supervise the installation of the new turbine, but decided that he’d rather take a trip with us.
Jones was in Oklahoma visiting family, and we didn’t talk to her. The CIA knew that we did shady things, but despite working alongside us, there was a lot Jones didn’t need to know. How ironic that I was trying to keep secrets about my legitimate business.
We rented a large SUV when we arrived through the doorways to El Paso and bought camping supplies. We had brought along some electronic surveillance equipment.
We got Penny and I converted to human for the trip. All us people went to a gun show going on in the next county over. Everything is bigger in Texas, especially the political divisions, and it was quite a drive to get there. The nice thing about gun shows is that as long as you buy used, you can get just about anything you want for cash.
There were plenty of guns for each of us to pick from, and plenty of ammunition. After loading our purchases in the vehicle, we headed south.
We reached the property around dusk. There was nothing to indicate that we were “there,” but the portable GPS said the coordinates were right.
We had bought a couple of tents to stay in that night. The weather was good, and it was nice to sleep in the great outdoors without the pressures of someone trying to kill you.
The next day, we drove the perimeter of the property and placed security lights with motion detectors that charged their batteries during the day with solar panels. It took a little while to calibrate the detectors to pick up something man-sized but not plants moving in the wind or small animals.
The piece of land was rectangular and didn’t contain much in the way of lush vegetation. Mostly it was sagebrush and scrub. There were no trees. It may have been a decent place to actually test weapons. I had David working on getting the zoning permit changed. It might be a good idea to build the facility after all.
I called Agents Hudson and Malvern to tell them that security was marginally tighter. I wished I could tell them that no one in the company could possibly be involved because I was the only one who knew about the land, but revealing that would make them wonder why and bring greater scrutiny.
The security light wouldn’t do anything to actually prevent someone from trespassing, but the fact that they were there would make whoever was doing it realize that someone cared about this particular piece of ground and made them think twice.
We stayed one more night. It seemed a little wasteful to buy all the camping supplies and only use them for two nights. Also, none of the firearms had been touched. Maybe the local charity would take them. It was Texas, after all.
When we got back to El Paso, it was too late to catch a portal out, and we all needed a shower anyway. There are always places to stay near doorway-ports, and sure enough we found a motel. I had let my satellite phone battery run down, and plugged it in to charge. Shortly, it started ringing.
It was Hanley. “Where are you? You haven’t answered your phone.”
“I’m on personal business in Texas.”
Hanley paused, as if wanting to ask, but decided he had more important things to say. “Divers have just recovered that weapon you dumped.”
We had tossed the bomb out, but I had the presence of mind to mark the GPS coordinates. “Why did you think I should know?”
“After the two nuclear devices were detonated to begin the conflict, we naturally assumed that China was giving to North Korea a third one. What we recovered was actually a biological weapon.”
That was bad. Nukes were a weapon of mass destruction, but one that everyone had become accustomed to. They might be considered more humane than biological weapons which killed slowly. More importantly, China was a country that had signed the Biological Weapons Convention, agreeing not to use the things.
“What kind of bio-agent was it loaded with?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet, but does it matter? Anything would be bad.”
“True. This information hasn’t been made public, has it?”
“No. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever confront the Chinese publicly about it. Depending on how the press spun it, the citizens of the United States would be calling for blood. There are a lot of things I’d like to do to China, but all-out war isn’t one of them.”
China had been getting a lot of high-tech stuff lately, but they still fell behind the United States. China had four times as many people, though. A war would be bad for both countries. Not only would a lot of people die, but the United States depended on China for cheap goods, and China depended on the United States’ money.
“So you’re thinking covert action,” I said.
“You read my mind.”
“I’ll let you know when the ship is ready to go.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Who was that?” asked Nika, coming in.
“Hanley. It looks like we’ve got work lined up after the repair is finished on the ship.” I told her about the recovered weapon.
“It’s unusual that they have actual biological weapons,” she said. Nika had some experience in foreign relations, so I trusted her words. “Many countries probably maintain small quantities of biological agents for secret testing, but the expense and liability of creating a real weapon is prohibitive.”
“And then they were just giving it away to North Korea,” I said. “Maybe that means they have more?”
“It is possible. I agree that we should do something.”
I got on the phone and ordered gear to protect against biological weapons. The marshmallow suits and the whole deal. After that, I called Andy and Shep to advise them on the situation. I figured Jones already knew.
“Really?” said Andy. “That was just the plot twist I was looking for.” I heard computer keys clicking the in background.
“But to be honest,” he said, “it sounds like serious business.”
That it did. Until the nuclear Tomahawks had come aboard, I had never considered using any kind of mass destruction weapon myself. Even with the missiles at hand, I couldn’t think of a situation where I would be willing to fire one. And the Navy still hadn't taken them back.
The next day, we returned to Norfolk. It would still be a couple of weeks before the ship was ready to go, but we could use the time to plan. I miserably realized that I couldn’t even take a working vacation without it getting interrupted by work.
Getting everything sorted out and repaired on a damaged ship is difficult. It’s not like every wire and pipe is labeled at intervals along their entire length. Some of them didn’t take too well to patching, and required total replacement.
Adding to that, you can’t just pop the hood on a ship. Generally, an engine change involves a lot of cutting torch work. In our case, it seemed easier to just make the hole where the shell had struck larger and take it out through the side. The new turbine wasn’t in pieces and was harder to fit back in.
There was other work going on, too. A crew was modifying the funnel to better integrate it into the superstructure. Not only would this reduce the heat signature a little, but it made the ship look slightly different. Another crew was repainting the hull oxide red and modifying the fake company logo on the superstructure. Odds were good that Heinlein was now a marked ship and needed as much disguise as she could get.
Meanwhile, Shep was still working on the new helicopter. The S-70 was the civilian version of the Black Hawk used by the military. In addition to being larger and more powerful than the old helicopter, the cockpit was completely electronic. Even an experienced pilot like him needed practice when going to a new aircraft.
Jones had showed up in the area again, and was working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. She was well regarded there, and having a direct involvement in the Korean conflict probably impressed the other spooks even more. Knowing Jones, she would get tired of the attention soon and come hang out on the ship again.
Andy had taken my suggestion of a system of cameras aboard the ship and was supervising the installation. The required controls for that, and some new hardware that had just come out, inspired him to revamp the equipment in the CIC.
The rest of us worked on whatever needed to be done. It was nice to be ashore once in a while, but I think we all subconsciously wanted to be back out at sea. If I’d been interested in philosophical discussion, there might have been something to that.
I went up to Langley one day. Hanley wanted to talk. We got a private room somewhere deep in the CIA headquarters building.
“Did you hear what happened to Nevis?” he asked.
“I haven’t heard from him in a week or two.”
“He’s being investigated for mishandling the Navy’s money, or something like that.”
“Yeah, the last time he had me on the phone it sounded like he was in some kind of trouble. He seemed to think I was in on it.”
“There was even a news report on it. Sally Townsend, from CNN, did it. Wasn’t that the same reporter that you—”
“Yeah.” Jones had evidentially told him what we did to the reporter.
“Small world.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I think you should know what you’re dealing with before you go playing with bio weapons.”
He gave me a list of things to read and then discussed them. Most of it was basic, such as suspected locations for the Chinese biological weapon production facility. Since they weren’t supposed to have them at all, all the information was spotty at best.
Hanley also told me safety precautions to take when handling biological weapons. Most of which I already knew or were just plain common sense.
“So what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked.
“I hate to give someone like you such an unspecific assignment, but for now, I just want you to either destroy the Chinese biological weapons program, or get them to shut it down. If I think of something more specific, I’ll let you know.”
That was almost like handing me a blank check. I was now actually looking forward to going back. I said goodbye to Hanley and went back to the shipyard to spread the news.
A week later, we were almost ready to set sail. Heinlein was refloated and left the dry dock. Other than a few welding seams that were hard to see, no evidence remained of the damage done.
We’d made a few changes to the interior. A second coffee maker had been placed in the bridge, next to the helm seat, which had been replaced with a more comfortable chair. Below, an unused cabin had had the doorknob changed so that it was lockable from the outside, just in case we ever needed to hold someone captive again.
I visited Dr. Games. I explained that I was about to leave again and said that I hoped whatever I did didn’t end up on the news. She told me to carefully consider my actions. I said that I would try.
I also made sure to see David before leaving. We hadn’t heard back from the Department of Agriculture agents. In the case of the government, no news is good news. He told me that my records were audit-proof, which hopefully translated into NCIS-proof. Hey, they had a TV show with a similar title, that probably meant they were good at their jobs.
Before departing the area, we stopped at the bulk freight terminal and filled the empty third hold with grain. It was the only one on the ship that actually functioned to carry cargo. Someone might remember Heinlein as a warship in disguise, but actually carrying some goods might help throw the trail off.
Of course, there was no way we would make money off of the tiny load, but the CIA was paying expenses on this one, so that was irrelevant.
It was a couple of weeks later, after transiting the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean again that we arrived in Taiwan. That had given us time to prepare and make plans.
Taiwan sat about one hundred miles from China. It would be a decent place to stage our operations from. Unfortunately, the longer we had to stay that close to China increased the likelihood that someone would figure out who we were.
It had taken a lot of thinking to come up with a plan. The first issue was locating the facility, or at least the place where the weapons were being stored. It would be difficult for someone who was Chinese to locate a secret biological weapons facility. For Caucasians or ponies, particularly those who don’t speak the language, it would be impossible.
That didn’t leave many options for us. We could simply wait and watch, but that would probably take a while, and the CIA was better equipped for intelligence gathering anyway. It looked like the best option would be to do something to force a reaction.
The easiest way to track the weapons would be to spot them while they were being moved somewhere else. The Chinese might move them if they thought that the weapons weren’t safe where they were.
So the real challenge became how to convince someone that the weapons were vulnerable. Since we didn’t actually know where they were, we were going to have to rely on bluffing and hope it worked.
Hawker volunteered for the job. We concocted a story that she’d slept with a CIA officer and he had told her that something big was happening. When pressed for details, he revealed that the CIA knew about the biological weapons and was planning a raid. She had come to China in the hopes of selling the information.
Now, we only had to hope that they believed her and didn’t hold her as a spy. From her image, it seemed plausible enough that she would have a one-night hookup. It also seemed unlikely that she would be working for an intelligence agency.
That just left the problem of getting in contact with the right people. We had gotten her a ticket to Beijing; after that was up to her. I trusted Hawker to pull it off. Despite the image of adult films, it did take a little bit of acting talent and brains to get to the level of success that she’d had before retiring from that industry to work with us.
I talked to Hanley about the plan. He didn’t like the idea of telling the Chinese that the CIA knew about the weapons, but agreed that it probably had the best chance of forcing something to happen. He said he would do what he could to help.
After that, it was just a matter of waiting. We sent Hawker out, and she spent two days in China. She looked none the worse for wear upon her return.
“I talked to the police, and when they learned what I wanted they managed to get me an audience with a man from the Ministry of State Security. I don’t know whether he believed the story or not, but he gave me a thousand pounds sterling and told me to come back if I learned anything else.”
Well, at least they were receptive to the idea. Now we just had to wait and watch.
In the next few days, we loaded up the number three hold with small electronics and hauled them to Japan. It would make us a little less suspicious than being tied to the pier only a hundred miles from China.
I heard from Nevis again. It was about the same call as before, only he sounded a little more desperate this time. I made sure to give him the same reaction. I also added that I was in the Far East, and was not in a position to do much even if I could.
We had just slipped the lines to depart from Japan when Hanley got back to us with good news. The Chinese had indeed done some scrambling after Hawker’s visit. Unfortunately, it had been to pull a few ballistic missiles from storage.
He sent us a package of information. They were DF-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles. DF apparently stood for Dong Feng, which was Chinese for “east wind.” Some of the missiles were in horizontal storage, in tunnels bored into a mountain. For usual launch, they would be rolled out and elevated to vertical before firing. They had enough range to cover the top part of the world, from Alaska to Europe. Other than the fact that some of them were missing from their storage, Hanley couldn’t tell us anything more.
“How do we know that this has anything to do with biological weapons?” I asked.
“The ballistic missile is just the delivery system,” Shep reminded me. “The payload could be anything.”
“We have some questions to answer. What are they planning to shoot at? Why do they want to use a biological weapon?”
No one had an answer. All we could do was grasp at every straw we could find. The CIA analysts were working on it too, but there was only so much satellite footage to go on.
We got our first break when a container of unusual size and shape was brought to the port in Guangzhou. At this point, it seemed probable that it was a missile loaded with a biological warhead, but it wasn’t certain.
The container was taken below decks of a cargo ship and put out of sight. Surprisingly, security seemed light. Perhaps the Chinese didn’t want to attract undue attention.
By the time we found out about the ship, we had made it to Vietnam. While we waited for news, we had been doing some regional cargo ferrying. We hunted around for cargo going to Guangzhou and found a small load of textiles so we would have a reason to be there.
With a practically unguarded ship, it almost seemed like our obligation to have a look at the mysterious container. As the most experienced diver, I was automatically in. Jeff volunteered to go along.
It looked as if the ship was making ready to sail, perhaps the next morning, so we had to get the operation done quickly. It was too bad that the night was bright and clear, but it would have to do.
It was a little over a mile from our berth to the ship. We had learned that it was called Haiyang. We would travel underwater, of course, but the hard part was getting into and out of the water without being seen. We couldn’t really plan on that. A bridge to cross when we got there.
It wasn’t a good idea to fall into the water from a height while wearing diving equipment. The impact of the water could screw things up. I couldn’t just flutter down, either. Once again, I decided to do this operation as a person for disguise purposes.
Jeff and I rode the boat winch down. It was slower and a somewhat greater risk of being seen, but safer. We both had motorized scooters to pull us over to the ship. It was a little far for a round trip swim. Over the noise of various activities happening in the port, the buzz of the electric motors shouldn’t be noticed. We wore rebreathers to give us more time and to limit bubbles.
The water, like most industrial ports, was filthy. Oil and other pollutants I really didn’t want to think about. A shower and scrubdown afterwards were mandatory.
We could have had diving communicators, but with just the two of us getting the point across wasn’t much of a problem. To make the trip easier, we’d left the gear that wasn’t essential.
Upon reaching the ship, I eased my head above water to make sure it was the right one. The two of us slowly circled around it, looking for a way to get aboard. Unfortunately, most ships don’t have a conveniently placed ladder or rope. We hadn’t brought a grappling gun, either.
It looked like the only way aboard was to climb up onto the wharf and walk up the gangway. Someone would almost certainly see us, though. Even cargo ships usually have at least one person who keeps watch at night.
We both surfaced under the curve of the ship’s stern and talked quietly. It was not a great plan that we came up with, but the best we could do under the circumstances. Jeff would go to the other side of the ship and make some noise. Hopefully this would cause any guards to go investigate. Meanwhile, I would sneak up the gangway and find some way to get into the cargo hold.
I left my rebreather and dive fins with him. Once I was aboard, they would just get in the way. Jeff gave me time to get into position and then began banging on the hull and shouting.
I waited a few seconds and then sprinted up the gangway, keeping low. I got to the top and hid behind a ventilator. Jeff carried on for a short while and then disappeared underwater. Hopefully the Chinese would be more concerned with locating him than me.
I didn’t appear to be in any danger, so I found a hatch that led downwards. It went to the lower level of the cargo hold. I risked turning on my small flashlight and found the container. It was sealed on one end with what I judged to be explosive bolts, based on the fact that they had wiring leading from them. I guessed that when the missile was to be fired, the bolts would blow off and pop the cover off the container.
There were a couple of small access doors along the side. These I took to be for servicing parts of the missile. I opened one near the end where the warhead should be and…nothing. The container was empty.
Despite how pissed I was, I closed the door quietly and made for the stairs to go back up to the deck. I was almost there when I heard several sets of footsteps coming down. I turned the flashlight off and flattened myself against the bulkhead.
Four men with rifles and weapon lights came into the hold, luckily missing me. They looked like soldiers, not cargo ship guards. I slipped behind them and went quietly up the stairs while they searched the hold.
Why would heavily armed men quickly respond to a one-person break in on an otherwise unguarded ship with an empty missile container aboard? The obvious answer was that it was a planned trap and I had fallen right into it. This must be payback for baiting them.
At the top of the stairs, I heard voices and I edged around the corner to see several more soldiers. I tried to go back down, but at that moment the soldiers who had gone below started to climb the stairs. I was caught between the two groups with nowhere to go.
I put my hands up.