The comment was so stupid and contemptible, that she wouldn"t bother to dignify it with an answer. Kim"s men marched Kellerman towards the mess hall, as they wound their way through the ship, there were signs of the vicious battle that had raged out of control. The floor was littered with cartridge cases and the bullet-strafed walls resembled something out of a vintage war film, the kind you saw on TCM. The thought of old movies sucked her mind away from the moment and delivered her home, to her walk up apartment in sunny Long Beach. What she wouldn"t give to be sitting there right now, relaxing back on the couch in front of her wide screen TV, eating popcorn and sipping Chardonnay, listening to the clipped annunciation of the black and white past. All her things were there, the pictures of her family, the shooting and the swimming trophies from school; the soft toys her mom had bought her many years ago, so worn and floppy now, as they sat collecting dust on their safe little shelves, knowing they could never be thrown away. Kellerman paused. Felt a rush of emotion. The walls of her apartment were pastel yellow-she hated pastel colors. Why in the h.e.l.l would she paint her home that way? When she got back, she would make changes, big changes. The gun barrel prodded her hard between the shoulder blades. The guard screeched at her, high pitched and insistent, but Kellerman had no idea what he was saying. Absently she said, "Alright, alright. Just relax would you?" As they reached the end of the corridor they were greeted by another guard, a thin mean faced specimen, who looked her over with restless eyes. The screeching guard began rattling off some kind of long winded explanation as to why they had come to visit but the guy with the restless eyes said nothing, just stared at them, his big wet lips parting to show a collection of squalid teeth.

Kellerman raised her hand to open the mess hall door, but restless eyes, covered her hand with his own and barred her way. His fingers were cold and clammy. He stroked the back of her hand and showed her his teeth close up, "Americans I like," he said with a heavy accent. "I like many times to come to your country," he added, his eyes lingering over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I like very much to make you acquaintance." He flashed his squalid teeth once again.

Kellerman squeezed a saccharine smile, and said, "You best let go of my hand now bucko, or the only thing you"ll be getting acquainted with is broken fingers."

The guy with the restless eyes nodded slowly, without comprehension. His wet little mouth drifted open once again, as though preparing to deliver further words of wisdom. But the guy with the screechy voice interjected. From the tone of his voice he was getting impatient. He underlined his impatience by jabbing the hard barrel of his rifle into the joints at the top of her spine. Kellerman hoped he had the safety on. One slip and the AK would blast her head clean off.

Fortunately, the guy with the restless eyes decided that the bidding of superiors took precedence over further chat and he swung back the heavy latch on the mess hall door. He hung the snub nosed rifle across his chest and swung the door wide. Mr. Screechy barked a command and pushed Kellerman into the room, she staggered forwards her brow creasing with annoyance. Turning, she snapped, "You better watch what you are doing with that thing, or I will have you wear it like a suppository. Regaining her composure, Kellerman brushed off her filthy tunic and turned to see a room full of glum faces staring back at her. No one said anything.

Kellerman sniffed, nodded and said, "I thought I would drop in, see how you were doing- not good is what I am guessing."

"Did you get the weapons?" Captain Pedro alvares looked ashen faced. Laying on the floor, half covered in a dirty bloodstained blanket, with ENS Mooney crouched faithfully by his side. alvares looked like he wasn"t going to make it.

Kellerman gave a quick nod.

"What was all the shooting about?" asked Mooney "Buchanan and me-we had a plan-it didn"t work out."

Deck hand Rosco Collins was unimpressed.

"No s.h.i.t, you and that idiot Buchanan you riled these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up didn"t you? What are they going to do now shoot us?"

"If they were going to do that, they would have done it already don"t you think Rosco?" "What the h.e.l.l do I know," snapped Collins.

"Caught in here, like a rat in a box? These tricky little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are probably going to make some kind of crazy ransom demand to the government and when the government don"t pay up, they will probably send the ship to the bottom, with every one of us on board."

"Ransom is not the motive. They want to patch in to the computer system."

"What the h.e.l.l would you know Kellerman? They shot Jennings and Scotty Gehringer, gunned them down like they were animals. Scotty had three kids and another on the way and Jennings, that big happy kid never hurt anyone; those sc.u.mbags didn"t even have the decency to let us take care of them, they just tossed the bodies overboard. Now I ask you, does that sound like a bunch of computer hackers to you?

"They are after the network, they want to disable the DART Buoys" said Captain Pedro alvares, quietly. "That"s why they want our ship. If they hack into the network from our system they will be able to knock out the Tsunami warning network. It will leave the entire Pacific coast vulnerable."

Rosco Collins stared slack jawed. Kellerman frowned, as worrying questions began rolling through her mind. Predicting earthquakes and ocean tsunami waves was a difficult operation that involved millions of dollars of highly complex equipment. Why would a bunch of rag-tag pirates from North Korea want to interfere with that? What the h.e.l.l were they up to? Even if they took the network down for a matter of hours what advantage would that offer? Seismic events were by their very nature highly unpredictable. So why would they try and take out the early warning network-unless they wanted to cover up some kind of man made phenomenon-like a nuclear weapon exploding. Kellerman"s blood ran cold-A high yield nuke could create a wall of radioactive water two hundred feet high. Without the DART system the Pacific coast would be destroyed, millions of Americans would die and the ocean would be polluted for centuries to come.

48.

Oahu, Hawaii Karyn banged on the door of the black van and stood back. When the door opened, she reached in with a quick movement and caught the guy by the neck. He was young, kind of cute looking with a mop of unkempt hair moussed across the top of his head, like he was some kind of fashion magazine model. Problem was, he smelled bad, a covert-ops stink that said he had been lurking inside the van for a double shift at least. Karyn pulled him clear of the van and cracked him hard across the back of his head with the pistol. He went down like he"d been hit with pipe wrench. His face impacted the hood of the car parked directly behind the van and his unconscious body rolled into the gutter. Karyn gave him a three count with her weapon held ready to pop him if he made a move-he didn"t, so she spun to her right to cover the inside of the van. There was no one else inside, just a covert communications rig, complete with video screens and a satellite uplink system-standard Fed kit. The engine of the van suddenly burst into life-the driver must have seen her in his rearview and gotten spooked-probably figuring that he could blow the scene and motor out of trouble.

That wasn"t going to happen.

Karyn moved around to the driver"s side door and popped it open. The driver, a thickset guy with a red topped buzz-cut swiveled fast in his seat and tried to kick her in the head. It was a clumsy move, telegraphed so far in advance he might as well have sent her a text message to tell her it was coming. Karyn feinted out of the way and pointed her weapon at the driver. "Get out the pa.s.senger side and make it fast. You mess me around and I will blow you a new one."

The driver threw Karyn a sleazy look, "You won"t get away with this lady. No one messes with the FBI and gets away with it."

Karyn stared at him, her eyes flat and deadly, "One more word out of you and I will hurt you bad-you up for that Red?"

The driver licked his lips, his pale freckled hands tightening for a brief moment on the steering wheel. Then, he lunged out of his seat, his thick ham-hock arms flailing like he was trying to fly. He realized he had misjudged just as soon as he had committed himself, but by the time that realization came, it was already too late. His soft, over- nourished body hit the roadway like a side of ham falling onto a butcher"s block, and there he lay, his eyes fluttering, like he"d just walked into a wrecking ball.

Karyn stepped over the driver. She climbed into the cab of the van and threw it into gear. In the rearview she could see what remained of the takedown team chasing out of the alleyway. Instinctively, she profiled downwards, below the dashboard and hammered her foot on the gas. The first bullets came in short bust increments. Karyn stayed down. The van cut out onto the boulevard with a squeal of tires. Horns blared, onlookers hollered and screamed and the bullets came fast and hard, a full-auto firestorm, tearing into the back of the van. Karyn popped her head clear of the dash and jammed the gas pedal into the floor. The van lurched and veered, as every over-torqued cylinder in the engine powered up in unison. The rear end fishtailed out, rebounding off parked cars. Karyn accelerated away, making distance. The bullets had stopped now, no more pitter-pat-pat of metal on metal, but the ominous throb of traffic noise that moved into the vacuum told her the night wasn"t over, not by a long shot.

There was no going back to the Hawaiian Gardens hotel, the location was compromised-it had to be given the level of Federal involvement. Jack Senegar had been right, there was something very bad going down on the island of Oahu, something Deng Tao and his megalomaniacal friends wanted to stay hidden from public view- some dark secret they would go to any lengths to protect.

Karyn thought back to her meeting with Honolulu Police Chief Donald Mlama and FBI Station head Ted Congo. That half-pint punk Congo was involved deep, that much was now certain. No doubt his own personal murder team had been front and centre in the Tex Johnston slaying, probably the very same creeps she had seen off tonight. If so, Special Agent Congo was about to find out what it was like to be hunted. He would be on his guard certainly, but he had a fiefdom to protect and that made him vulnerable. Operators like Congo always had a point of weakness, no matter how tough they thought they were, Congo had introduced that weakness on their very first meeting-his name was Donald Mlama head of the HPD. Karyn smiled. She turned the block, got off the main drag then pulled up in a darkened alleyway. There would be an APB out on the van for sure, every cop and Federal Agent on the entire Island looking for her. But they weren"t dealing with just another criminal on the run. They were dealing with a deep cover a.s.sa.s.sin from the CIA. Karyn pulled out her on her iPhone and ran the PDF of the Mlama file Senegar had given her. Dawn was fast approaching and by then she would know everything there was to know about Police Chief Donald Mlama.

49.

Langley, Virginia In the packed CIA situation room, Jack Senegar regarded his laptop closely and frowned. "We got ourselves a development Admiral, and an ugly one at that."

Admiral William Arthur Kane looked unimpressed. "So spit it out then Laddie. Let us know the nature of this development, so we might a.s.sess its relevance to the task in hand."

"According to the National Oceanographic Data Centre in Silver Spring, Maryland, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Nautilus has just dropped off the grid and the entire DART network has gone black."

"Ocean research? What in the wild- tarnation are you talking about?" fumed the Admiral. "This is no time to be worrying about those dolphin loving pseudo civilians and their petty little problems. We have an operation in hand Laddie and I would thank you to remember that."

"This is an escalation," said Senegar, his face grim. "First we get the communications outage over on the Islands, followed by surge interference, then a knock on to the telecoms hub and now satcom outages over the entire region. What is more, every NOAA station between Hawaii and San Francisco is off line. Someone is playing a dirty game with us Admiral and I want to know why."

"We will find out, have no fear of that Jack, I have birds in the air." The Admiral gave the nod to his a.s.sistant, a sandy haired Lieutenant named Parker, who began pounding away at his keyboard and barking commands into his communications head set. Parker detailed longitude and lat.i.tude coordinates, followed by a series of coded commands. Then, with his work completed, he looked to the Admiral for further instruction.

The Admiral steepled his fingers together and looked at the wall screens. "We will have RQ-4 coverage in just under nine minutes, global hawks from CSG-9 will fly by those nerds from NOAA and find out exactly what the situation is-if indeed there is a situation."

Senegar nodded. "We have encountered a big upsurge in cyber a.s.saults, recently, many of them originating from locations in the Far East. The pattern is worrying Admiral."

"The Chinese?" asked the Admiral grimly. "I have received intelligence of this of course, but such gamesmanship is all part of the continued struggle for supremacy over our enemies-or compet.i.tors-as those spineless patsies in Washington are so fond of calling them."

Jack Senegar nodded, while he found the Admiral"s gung-ho words rather blunt, he agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly. "We have to consider the sensitivities of global players, no matter how distasteful such compromises might be. We are working a covert play here Admiral, we have to have to issue a measured response."

"Sensitivities? What kind of Washington weasel word is that Laddie? If those noodle- noshing communists are planning an attack on the United States of America we need to get the President in here and go to DEFCON1

immediately."

Senegar gave the Admiral a tight look. "The President is in Los Angeles, meeting with world leaders at this very moment. We need to finesse this Admiral, think containment over escalation." "Containment Laddie?" the Admiral narrowed his eyes and said, "We are way beyond containment. This thing is about to blow bigger than a factory full of Mexican firecrackers. I suggest we move decisively, or the repercussions will be very ugly indeed."

"You have to work with me on this Bill. If we let this run away from us, our enemies will disappear into the long gra.s.s. We have to work smart-a series of clinical strikes at the covert level, that way we kill the problem at the roots." The Admiral frowned. "I don"t like it Laddie, not one bit and I have to tell you consequences are not a consideration when it comes to the security of the United States of America. I don"t give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n if the President is in La-La land kow- towing to a bunch of slimy foreigners. If this situation even looks like going hot, we will unleash the dogs, am I clear on that Laddie?"

Jack nodded, "We will need the Presidential seal, on that Admiral."

That is the problem with this G.o.dd.a.m.n with this country-red tape everywhere, those liberal regulators are turning this proud land of ours into a facsimile of Communist Russia." The Admiral paused, drew breath, then said, "You want me to ring POTUS now? I got the sonofab.i.t.c.h on speed

dial."

"No need for raised pulses Bill, POTUS has an even tighter schedule than usual right now. An informal lunch with the other World leaders at the Jonathan Club in Santa Monica, followed by a sit down policy session at the Beverly Wilshire. I don"t want him bothered by some picayune situation we can close out by dinner time."

The Admiral tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. "If POTUS is shaking s.c.h.l.o.n.gs in Hollyweird, that means that d.i.c.k Hanssen is keeping the big chair warm in the oval office. I don"t trust that spineless little carpetbagger. That sonofab.i.t.c.h would suckle every Ayatollah in Iran if he thought he could turn a buck out of it." The Admiral pursed his lips thoughtfully then said, "I take it you are keeping d.i.c.k appraised of the unfolding situation?"

"Strictly on a need to know basis." "Does he know we are going to go live with this?

"He will-in due course."

The Admiral raised an eyebrow. "Those mouth-breathers in Congress will fall on us like starving jackals when they discover the nature of this operation. They will leave nothing to mark our demise save an ugly grease stain where our once proud careers rose to the stars-you realize that don"t you Jack?"

"If questions are raised, history will already have born testament to the justice of our cause."

The Admiral snorted. "You"ve got some b.a.l.l.s Senegar, big bra.s.s Irish b.a.l.l.s. If we ever come through this mess I am going to make sure those spineless goons in Congress erect you a statue in the Washington Mall."

Senegar nodded stoically. "Very kind I am sure. Let"s hope it doesn"t have my epitaph underneath."

50.

The Pacific As Kellerman"s mind swirled with the horrors a radioactive tidal wave would wreak on the Pacific coastline, the guard with the restless eyes burst into the room. Looking extra nervous. He held his AK47 held high and shouted, "All finish. You come now." He made emphatic jabbing motions with the rifle. Kellerman stood fast and raised her hands.

"Best do as he says Kellerman," said Captain alvares, his voice hollow but stern.

The guard with the screechy voice appeared at his comrade"s shoulder, his face flushed red and barked a command, his hard eyes prowling the room for any sign of dissent. Again, he made the unintelligible command, this time directly at Kellerman. She felt hot spittle settle against her face. She resisted the temptation to wipe away, preferring to stand defiantly.

"I am not going anywhere," said Kellerman quietly. "Unless my Captain receives medical attention he will die. He is bleeding to death, can"t you see that?"

There was a tense and angry pause. The guard with the restless eyes scanned the room, looking at every exhausted and desperate face. Then, finally, as his eyes flitted nervously between Kellerman and the wounded alvares, he said, "I have instructions American lady. You will obey. If you come now, I will get help for your friend."

Rosco Collins stood up and shouted angrily, "You give them what they want and they will kill all of us Kellerman."

The guard with the screechy voice moved forward quickly jabbing his AK47 aggressively and barking commands. Kellerman stepped in front of him, her hands raised and said, "I got no idea what you are saying, bucko, but you better say it more respectfully, because there isn"t a single person in this room who is going to be bullied by some spineless little weasel with a gun-are we clear?" Kellerman gave the thug an emphatic look, her eyes fearless and unwavering.

He looked at her a long moment, the cold black barrel of his machine gun staring into her face. His eyes burned with hatred. Finally, he motioned towards the door with a nervous jerk of his weapon. He couldn"t speak her language, but he understood her. He knew that he had encountered a strong and upright soul who wouldn"t be beaten down by intimidation and now he stood impotent.

Kellerman had him figured too, she knew that if she wanted to stay in charge of the situation she would have to make the next move, or face the possibility he would unleash his frustrated wrath on the prisoners. She moved towards the door, all the while keeping her eyes on the gunman, drawing him with her, so that the other members of her crew might be spared his wrath.

Outside, in the corridor, Captain Kim stood waiting, his tight little face filled with barely concealed animosity. "Well, Officer Kellerman, you have seen that your precious friends are alive and well, perhaps now you will be able to start the electrical systems and draw this most inconvenient experience to a close."

Kellerman shook her head and said, "Captain alvares has a serious gunshot wound. Unless he gets a blood transfusion and antibiotics he will die."

Kim gave her a cold look. "A most unfortunate consequence of your irresponsible actions Officer Kellerman, if your Captain dies, then you must look to yourself for blame. Without your most reckless actions the takeover of this ship would have been accomplished in a bloodless and quite civilized manner."

"You and your men came to this thing in a spirit of war," said Kellerman. "War has

consequences."

Captain Kim thrust out his chest. He gave her with a tight bitter look then very quickly he stepped forwards and struck her back-handed across the face. The power of the blow turned Kellerman"s head. She paused a moment allowing the sharp ringing pain of the blow to subside, then turned back very slowly to face him. Kim raised his chin and said curtly, "Our mission falls behind schedule. If you insist on causing further delay, your friends will pay the consequences. Am I clear Officer Kellerman?"

Kellerman frowned, dabbed at the rivulet of blood trickling out the corner of her mouth and looked at her b.l.o.o.d.y fingers thoughtfully. "I know what you are up to," she said. "It took me a while, but I have figured it out."

Kim gave a snort of derision, "Very smart Officer Kellerman, at least you like to think you are. But you are the very smallest of cogs. The big machine will operate either with, or without you. Your cooperation will merely determine whether you survive to see another day. I recommend that you choose life, as the bright new sun of tomorrow will rise against a very different world than that of today. The new order of mankind is coming. Join with us and witness the future as it was intended to be."

51.