Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (40 page)

The bulky marine walked carefully at the edge of the lapping ocean water, placing one foot in front of the other right where the fresh sand was wiped clean with each pulse of the ocean. He looked over his shoulder to be sure that nobody caught him in such a forlorn mood. Even in the dark, the sag of his shoulders would have been a giveaway to the other marines, who feared him.

It was the beauty that did it. For somebody who did not spend much time reflecting, he'd come to understand that Hawaii's best weapon against any occupier was its beauty. It made you let down your guard.

He had told his men living out of the beachfront houses near Ehukai Beach that he needed to make sure the guards at the far point weren't sleeping during watch. This was a rest-and-relaxation assignment after the past few weeks of tough urban patrols, his men not knowing if that kid in the alley was just taking out the recycling or getting ready to toss a Molotov cocktail their way. The beach, known as the Banzai Pipeline to the local surfers, was too rough for landing craft and too open for any of the damn insurgents to use as a hideout. He knew it was safe ground. But the men knew these facts also, and Bo worried his unit would become slack. He would find out in a few more minutes if he had to dole out another beating in order to encourage better attentiveness.

A few paces behind Bo and about thirty feet from shore, a pair of straw-like antennae emerged from the choppy water. They twitched and then disappeared.

As Bo walked on, lost in his thoughts, the antennae reappeared ten feet from the shore, then quickly vanished again. They emerged again at the water line, attached to a small black lobster.
²⁰
It advanced by alternating between crawling along the ocean's bottom on its eight legs and using the force of the water's swell to help it glide toward the shore.

Bo continued to walk along the beach, his body armor, weapon, and helmet a dark silhouette against the sky. The lobster began to stalk its prey, starting and then stopping again, the water covering it.

Bo thought he heard something and pivoted on his heel. He flipped down his night-vision goggles but saw nothing moving in the tree line.

As the lobster made a final sprint
²¹
to close in on its prey, Bo instinctively turned, swinging his rifle out toward the dark ocean. Nothing but the water splashing around his boots. He brought the rifle down and cursed himself for being so jumpy.

The water receded, revealing the small lobster a few feet away, its body covered in matte, sandpaper-rough, purple-black ballistic carbon. Before Bo could react, the robot fired a small dart into his leg, dropping him instantly. The poison was a synthetic derivative of a sea snake's venom and had him unconscious within a second.

As he lay face-down in the water, drowning, six dark figures emerged at the waves' break line and bodysurfed their way ashore. They slowly eased past Bo, crawling on their stomachs and elbows to the water line. Then they waited, scanning the beach for threats, holding suppressed HK 416 rifles.
²²
They wore ultrathin wetsuits that matched their heat signatures to the ambient temperature of the water around them. They were almost invisible to the naked eye, lacking the telltale humps of rebreathing units. They had made the hour-long swim to shore without oxygen tanks,
²³
their bodies flush with trillions of micron-size nanoscale devices that provided far more oxygen than normal red blood cells. The technology had first hit the mainstream at the Tour de France three years ago, causing the race to go on indefinite hiatus but piquing the interest of DARPA program managers working on human-performance modification.

After waiting for ten minutes in the surf, the six dark figures slithered one by one into the trees. Two of them dragged Bo's body deep into the thick undergrowth of mangrove trees.

The lobster scurried along the beach, following Bo's path, darting back to the water when the moon broke through the clouds in order to avoid the splash of light on the sand. Then the machine crept carefully forward as a single figure emerged from the forest at the turn in the shoreline.

The robot beamed the image back to the six who'd taken cover. Even on the small view screens of their tac-glasses, they could see the fatigue of the person coming out of the trees. The figure wore torn clothes and walked with an obvious limp.

The robot scuttled forward and then paused ten feet behind the figure. One of the hidden commandos hissed a challenge through a tiny speaker set in the robot's carapace.

“Sugar Bowl Resort.”

“Best skied in February,” responded the figure, slowly turning, pointing a Chinese-made QBZ-95 automatic rifle at waist level and then noticing the tiny robot below.

Fifty feet away, one of the dark figures stood, two open hands in the air, and remained motionless until the rifle was lowered.

“Aloha and welcome to paradise. I'm Major Doyle, Twenty-Second Marine Air Group but more recently, ah, detailed to what we call the North Shore Mujahideen.”

“We're familiar with your work. Hell, you're a celebrity back home, Ms. Die Screaming,” said the man, who was clad in a green, gray, and black tiger-striped wetsuit. “I'm Duncan, proud member of the Dam Neck Canoe Club. It is an honor to meet you.”

Conan considered the reference to the U.S. Navy base in Virginia and the fact that he hadn't given a last name or rank.

“SEAL Team Six for an extraction team? I guess it's me that should be honored.”

“I believe there may be some confusion, Major Doyle,” said Duncan. “Who said we were your extraction team? We're the advance party.”

Tallyho, Low Earth Orbit

Sir Aeric K. Cavendish stared at the helmet in his lap and then bounced it on his knee like a soccer ball. The helmet floated away slowly and then rebounded against what would have been the ceiling if there were an up or a down here. It was his first time in space, and he was enjoying it far more than his time in goal in the match with Leeds, heretofore the peak of his pleasure-rich existence as a tycoon. Zero gravity was remarkable. His body, always a source of secret disappointment, was no burden to him here.

The
Tallyho
had originally been
²⁴
called the
Virgin Galactic 3
, a space plane designed to take off like a conventional aircraft and then blast into orbit. Cavendish had bought it for a song after the original owner had gone missing in a balloon accident. It was partly out of admiration for the man and his inspirational lifestyle, and partly because it was a good deal he couldn't resist. Even a billionaire should not be above a bargain, particularly when it involved a one-of-a-kind aircraft.

He looked out at the space plane's wing. The only time he had ever seen anything so brilliant was that necklace he'd given to Miss Ukraine after forcing the manager of the Harry Winston in London's Mayfair
²⁵
to open at three in the morning. The look on her face when he'd fastened the necklace around her swanlike neck and then simply walked away had been priceless, though the tabloids had reported it cost fourteen million dollars. He was pretty sure that story would be in his obituary, which hopefully would not appear anytime soon. What wouldn't be in it was how Miss Ukraine's visit two nights later had turned his extravagant gift into a worthwhile investment.

No, this was more brilliant, in every sense of the word. The
Tallyho
's surface was coated with nano-manufactured diamonds, baked into the aircraft's composite skin. The bet, and Cavendish's engineers swore the science was sound, was that the diamonds would render the Tiangong's laser weapons useless against the
Tallyho
. The coating would work only briefly, though, as each time the laser beam lashed the spacecraft's surface, it would ever so slightly fuse the composite material and the diamonds. Totally impractical for the military, of course. It was a one-off trick. But as with Miss Ukraine, it was a bet worth taking.

The inspiration for the diamond idea he'd kept secret, like Miss Ukraine's visit, but in this case because it was so mundane. He'd come up with the concept at the bankruptcy auction of a famous rapper turned fashion mogul. Blinging an entire Cadillac Cascade SUV was certainly in poor taste, but the image had stuck with Sir Aeric.
²⁶

Cavendish studied his reflection in the helmet floating in front of him for another instant, and then he checked his watch again and smiled.

“It seems they are not going gently into that good night,” said Cavendish. “Gentlemen,” he called, “I would like to request your help in evicting those squatters from my property.”

“You heard the Sir, boys,” said Best. “Time for a walk.”

Corner of Mission and Kawaiahao Streets, Honolulu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

Twenty-one kills. Twenty-two if you counted the single brown hair from the American officer who was listed as missing in the Directorate records. Had he been her first kill? Or was he a casualty of the war? Was that all it took to unleash this inside her? A single death? Or was there something more?

Markov looked out the car's window into the night at the vague outline of the complex of low-slung buildings. His eyes tracked to the faint silhouette of a steeple, like catching a glimpse of a dagger in the night. The power had been out in this area for a few days now. Insurgents had destroyed the transformer in the neighborhood, and the replacement parts from Shanghai would not be ready for another week, at least. The people here would think it a victory, though, hurting themselves out of spite just to make the other side work harder to win a love that would never come.
²⁷
That was the essence of insurgency.

He wondered if she really was in there. A Directorate mini-drone on an automated-presence patrol had recorded her walking down the street and entering the small wooden building. The drone's small size limited its onboard processing, meaning that it had to send its video feed back for analysis as it continued on its sweep. Carrie Shin's facial-recognition match had come seven minutes later, which was a lifetime in a hunt.

He needed to talk to her. If anyone was worth understanding in this war, it was her. What did he hope to find? That they were alike? Hunters, both of them?

Markov stepped out of the Geely sedan, keeping the vehicle between him and the target. The Directorate commandos crouched behind their civilian-style Great Wall pickups
²⁸
looked tense.
They'd better be
, he thought,
they're about to raid a church.

“Everyone ready?” said Markov. “And remember, Carrie Shin comes to us alive. You know what she looks like.” He paused and tapped the sizable opaque visor atop the assault helmet he wore. “I'll be in on the tac-view with you, so cue her up on contact.”

“All are in position, sir,” said one of the commandos. “We'll await your go order.”

Before Markov could respond, squealing tires made the men twitch, and the entire assault force turned and trained their weapons on the oncoming vehicle. It was a convoy of armored Geely SUVs, bookended by two APCs. The men noticed the flags flying from the front fenders of the third vehicle.

Of course, General Yu would want everyone to know it was him, confusing personal bravery with stupidity. The faint rhythmic thumping of attack helicopters circled overhead. A platoon of bodyguards exited and took up positions as General Yu jumped out of his vehicle, waving his pistol in the air like he was leading a cavalry charge. One of his aides knelt a few feet away, filming the general from below, which was meant to make the man look even taller in the video clips sent back home. He truly was a giant, the kind that didn't bother to think about where he stepped.

“Colonel, get everyone back. Across the street,” said Yu, taking charge of the scene as if it were his birthright, his command voice sounding like he was about to lead an army of thousands into battle.

“Sir, the men are already in position,” said Markov. The general looked down at the cameraman and scowled, putting away his pistol. Markov looked at him innocently and asked, “Would you like to give the attack order, General?”

“No, Colonel. I said pull them back. We're going to destroy the entire nest. My dead boys deserve their due,” said General Yu. Then a helicopter pilot's voice came over the headsets of the assembled commandos.

“This is Green Dragon Six. Target acquired, engaging in thirty seconds,” he said.

“General, I must strongly advise against this,” said Markov. “We need her alive. We need to know what she's done. Does she have a network? Is she operating alone? What are her ties to the insurgents? I need to speak with her. If you blow everything from here to Shanghai, we lose that chance.”

“I don't need to know. I don't need a date,” said Yu. “The threat needs to be eliminated. Entirely. When the smoke clears, we will learn all that we need to know: that she's dead.”

The thumping approach of the attack helicopter changed pitch as it began to dive toward the church.

“This will only backfire in publicity terms, flattening a church so soon after the school raid killed all those children. We're going to lose the entire population. You don't kill like this, not for one person. That's a card the losing side plays.”

“It's not for one person. It's for the twenty-one boys of mine she butchered. I am not writing another damned letter because of her. And what happened at that school is exactly why we're not going to go in and lose any more of my men. You wanted me to understand the foe? Well, they need to understand me,” said General Yu.

Markov tried to shout a further protest, but nothing could be heard over the deafening arrival of the twin-engine helicopter.

He cast a glance at the church and watched a young girl, maybe thirteen years old, towing two small toddler boys from an outbuilding and into the main parish hall, seeking its sanctuary. As they entered the wide wooden doors of the church, one of the little boys looked back at them and stared at the hovering helicopter until he was pulled inside.