"Joey, now!" stage-whispered Beasley.
In unison they bolted up, hung out their windows, and shot both men, who dropped, even as a third soldier was emerging from the second truck.
Before he could get back inside to take cover, and before either Ramirez or Beasley could fire, the soldier's chest blew outward, and he slumped below his open door.
Ramirez detected movement in the passenger's seat. Yet another troop.
As he shifted his aim, a thump came from the canvas window in back, and blood clouded the windshield.
"Bravo Team, this is Diaz. You're clear now. We're coming down."
"Roger that," said Beasley.
Ramirez turned back into the SUV and slumped in his seat, taking long, slow breaths. "She could've told us they stopped," he snapped.
Beasley frowned. "She does that." He opened his door and started out of the SUV.
"So much for the quiet exit," said Ramirez, joining Beasley outside. They grimaced over the dead soldiers, the fourth lying in a pulp inside the other car.
The sight of death hardly bothered them. The ramifications of those deaths did. "They've lost contact with their unit."
"Yep. We have their attention," said Beasley with a groan. "Give me a hand with these bodies."
Ramirez snorted and gestured with his sling. "One is all you're getting."
SAND SPIT PIER
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Montana had slipped in under the patrol boat, gliding into the pass between Haicang and Gulangyu Island. She had headed northeast, coming around to the east side of the spit, where SEAL Chiefs Tanner and Phillips locked out and swam ashore.
Tanner had thought it was high time that he and his blond, freckle-faced colleague got more involved in the Ghost Team's exfiltration, and after the captain had briefed them on the mission and asked if they had questions, Tanner had answered, "Sir, SEAL Chief Phillips and I have just one question."
"And that is?"
"We don't understand why Mitchell and his team didn't join the navy."
Gummerson had grinned and dismissed them.
Now they sprinted up from the beach and reached the woods, where they wove a breathtaking path through the trees and neared the pier, just as Gummerson called to say there'd been trouble back at the boat dock. Four soldiers dead. More undoubtedly on the way. The Ghosts were loading up now, but they couldn't sit at the dock. They'd have to putter down the coast a thousand yards or so, slip up to another pier, and wait there, while hell broke loose behind them.
So Tanner and Phillips had even less time to get the job done. Wearing a pair of NVGs, Tanner studied the ferry and crane, just as the operator lowered a pallet of fifty-five-gallon fuel drums onto the pier under the watchful gazes of three members of the barge crew.
Tanner gave Phillips the signal.
They moved in.
FISHING BOAT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Mitchell had ordered Jenkins and Beasley to haul Buddha's body onto the fishing boat and lay him along the rail. Boy Scout lay beside him. The DIA had been emphatic about returning the bodies and not allowing them to remain in China, where they might provide clues that could topple an even larger network of spies still in the country, some of whom also worked for the National Security Agency.
Mitchell remained on the deck at the stern, monitoring the SEALs' progress via his HUD, while Jenkins took the wheel. They chugged slowly away from the pier, everyone down low, weapons at the ready. Dark waves thumped and lapped at the hull, and their foamy wake was quickly swallowed back by the harbor.
About a kilometer ahead, to the southwest, the pier jutted out from the sand spit, and Mitchell barely made out the silhouette of the crane with his naked eye.
"Well that didn't take long," said Diaz, pointing toward the stern.
A pair of headlights came down the shoreline road, and the vehicle appeared, another military truck turning toward the boat docks.
"Jenkins, throttle up a little bit," said Mitchell.
"You got it, Boss."
"Joey, how are you doing?" Mitchell asked, raising his voice over the engine's higher-pitched gurgles and whine.
"Alex gave me that shot," answered Ramirez. "Arm's numb."
"The dragon didn't pounce on Taiwan, but it stepped on us pretty good, eh?" asked Mitchell.
"Yes, sir. But it was worth it."
"I agree," added Diaz. "In more ways than one." She pursed her lips and nodded at Mitchell.
"Captain, I can see the patrol boat," said Jenkins. "And I'm not sure, but I think she sees us."
"Get up close to that pier!" shouted Mitchell. "Now!"
Mitchell brought up his tactical map and studied the patrol boat, red diamonds flashing over its dark outline displayed in his HUD.
A flickering light emanated from the end of the pier, and Mitchell zoomed in on that area, even as Jenkins said, "Fire on the pier, Captain."
"All right, everybody. Stand by. Let's see if they take the bait."
SAND SPIT PIER
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Tanner and Phillips had used a small amount of C-4 to set off one of the fuel pallets on the pier before dropping back into the murky water. Tanner swam toward the crane, while Phillips worked his way around to the fuel barge.
The patrol boat was already en route to investigate. If Tanner were the captain of that Shanghai, he, too, would want to know why his gas station was on fire.
Tanner swam around the crane's floating platform, keeping the crane between him and the oncoming patrol boat. The crane operator and his assistant had run down to the edge of the barge for a better look at the fire, allowing Tanner to climb up onto the platform and race across it to the crane's cabin, where he placed his C-4 then dove into the water, swimming hard and fast back toward the pier.
A minute later he came up under one of the pilings and stole a breath.
He waited another thirty seconds, then began to grow tense. Abruptly, Phillips's head popped up a few meters behind him. "We're all set. Come on!"
Together they swam along the pier, and by the time they reached the shore and huddled beside the first pair of pilings, the patrol boat was drawing up on the crane and barge.
"Ghost Lead, this is SEAL support. Get ready for a big salute to the Chinese who invented gunpowder!"
Tanner knew he'd catch hell for his glib remark over the radio, but he didn't care. He glanced over at Phillips, who was studying the patrol boat through his binoculars.
"They're almost lined up," said Phillips.
"Good."
"Don't move," screamed someone in Mandarin.
Tanner glanced directly up into the eyes of a man, presumably a member of the fuel barge crew, who was pointing a pistol down at them. Where the hell had he come from? How had he been so quiet?
Though his Mandarin was rudimentary, Tanner knew enough to get by. "All right, we will come with you."
"No, you don't move." The man glanced up and began screaming to those still aboard the fuel barge, something about him catching thieves who might be trying to hijack their shipment. He couldn't tell in the dark that they were Americans, especially while they wore their dive suit hoods.
Tanner exchanged a look with Phillips.
FISHING BOAT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Mitchell realized with a start that a third individual was at the end of the pier with the two SEALs, and his attempts to contact SEAL Chief Tanner went unanswered.