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  Rivette was slightly behind her and to the left. He texted her a picture of the QBZ-95 assault rifle the man was carrying, along with a note:

  1200’ pt

  She showed an okay sign. The sentry could hit a point target precisely at that range.

  She texted: I’ll take him. You follow, cover.

  Now Rivette formed an okay sign.

  My God, I love this, he thought, his life proceeding from moment to moment with adrenaline and purpose. Just like when he was a kid in Los Angeles, he could afford to miss nothing.

  They rose. The sun was climbing to their right and gave them some cover in the shadow of the hill. They stayed within it, walking low. Several times Grace had been tempted to remove the mask. She did not like the fact that she could hear her own breathing in her ears. But the winds had shifted several times in just the half hour since they had arrived. It was not worth the risk.

  Rivette was carrying his Colt 9mm submachine gun. Grace knew it had an effective range of roughly one-quarter the Chinese weapon. That meant he could stop about 350 feet away and still cover her. She held up her hand to stop, pointed to a satellite dish that was at least thirty years old. Judging from the dung coating the latticed surface, the technology was only active as a bird refuge. The white dish sat on a fat metal cylinder.

  Hunkered low on his feet, Rivette made for it. As he ran, he kept his weapon pointed at the sentry who was looking out to sea. If the man turned, the last thing he would see was the American.

  Then we’ll be in a firefight, he knew—but at least the Chinese would not know about Grace. He could keep them busy while she made her way to the outpost. No one was better at a stealth approach than Grace.

  None of that happened. Rivette reached the spot unseen, and by the time he looked back Grace was already in motion. She was running toward the back of the outpost. The eastern side blocked her from the sentry’s view. He would only see her when she reached the front. From there, she had to cover about thirty feet of open terrain.

  She never made it.

  The shift changed at 7:00 A.M. and the replacement walked out as Grace had just started her snake-low approach to the sentry.

  The Chinese seaman hesitated from surprise. Grace did not. She doubled him over with a right side kick. When that foot came down she was right in front of the man. Her left knee came up into his bowed, open jaw.

  She ignored the sentry and, as the man she’d hit fell back, literally ran over him. Bullets splatted behind her; they were Rivette’s, chewing up the terrain between his partner and the sentry and driving the man back toward the cliff. He fell onto his belly and aimed at the young marine. By that time, Grace was pressed to the wall just outside the door. She threw back her hood so she could hear. The wall behind her was cinderblock. The Chinese would not be firing through it to try and get her.

  The sentry’s replacement stirred and she kicked him in the ear with a snap-kick from the toe of her boot. There was an audible crack and he flopped back down.

  Off to the southeast, Rivette was moving forward, driving the sentry back toward the sea cliff, making sure he did not have time or a sight-line to shoot her. The lance corporal’s shots were not random but precise and shifting; endless, droning fire would have given the guard a chance to get ahead of the bullets. Also, before long, Rivette’s supply would have run out.

  The men inside were shouting. Grace listened.

  “Send the pilot out to reconnoiter!” someone shouted.

  Smart, but stupid, Grace thought.

  “What are you bloody doing?” a man said in English. “Stop pushing—”

  “Get out there!” a Chinese seaman barked.

  She could not afford to allow this man to become a moving hostage, either for his sake or her own. Grace listened to the cold floorboards creak as she watched the door. She removed her right-hand glove, held it in her teeth, and wriggled her fingers in a spider maneuver so they’d be flexible. There was warmth coming through the door; whatever he was wearing, the fabric would not be stiff. His arms were apparently raised, because the first thing she saw move slowly through the door was an ivory-white sweater—

  Grace’s right hand shot across the doorway, palm facing the inside. She slapped on the garment, her palm hitting first and her fingers immediately curling around the wool like talons—an eagle grab. She did not use muscle to pull him out. That would have taken time and effort. She took a wide step to her left and dragged him with her. Surprised and off-balance, he literally fell to his left, following her.

  Gunshots cracked and missed him, though a circling albatross exploded in red and dropped beak-first.

  Grace immediately dropped to her knees, the man falling face-first with her. She kept her palm on the back of the man’s neck—not forcefully, but enough to communicate that he should stay down. He nodded into the dirt. She tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up. She motioned him to move from the wall slightly. He quickly obliged, scuttling two feet to the south. In case the sentry at the sea managed to fire a round in their direction, the rolling terrain offered the man protection.

  But that was not why she had moved him.

  Grace pressed herself back to the wall. The men inside were quiet but Grace heard the footsteps. Two pair. One pair was moving toward the window to her left. The shades had been drawn, probably by the Chinese, looking to conceal themselves.

  Dumb, she thought. The sun’s glare would have done that if they had been thinking. The Chinese and their tactical rulebooks. If they didn’t have a billion-plus people to throw at the world, few would take their aggression seriously.

  Leaving the South African, and still squatting, Grace made her way to the window. It was just over five feet away. Hanging just to the side, her back to the wall, and pulling her glove back on, she watched as the shade was drawn from the nine-pane window. She did not see a face.

  “There’s one man firing at Lung Chen,” a man whispered.

  “Who is here?”

  That would require the observer to move. The face moved cautiously toward the middle pane on her side. The glass would be strong but not strong enough.

  Once again, Grace flexed her now-gloved right hand. She formed a leopard fist—all five fingers tightly bent and held firm against her palm. The knuckles were pointed up, the palm toward the window. She saw the face and was already in motion as the face saw her. She rolled her back off the wall, an upward corkscrew move, and at the same time propelled her palm into the pane. The glass exploded inward, causing the seaman to gasp and jump back.

  The other man fired in that direction, bullets destroying the other panes.

  The men inside were only distracted for a few moments, but in that time Grace had turned and run back to the open door.

  The man with the gun was momentarily paralyzed by her arrival. She front-kicked his automatic up and out of his hand. Then she drove her left hand, a leopard paw, into his throat. Even as he gagged and stumbled back she turned toward the man at the window.

  The African radio operator was already in motion, bear-hugging the man around the chest and driving him into a desk. The furniture moved back and both men fell sprawling, but the seaman still had his gun.

  Grace ran over and stomped on his wrist. The man’s fingers reflexively flew open and he released the semiautomatic. She picked it up and turned to the other man as the radio operator rose and punched down hard at the seaman’s face.

  Grace swore.

  She had heard the other man hacking and gagging, trying to recover from the neck-strike, but he had not been immobile. Grabbing a backpack, he had run to the window that faced west and was just jamming it through. Then he dropped to the floor and Grace realized why. She ripped off her mask.

  “Get down and cover your ears!” she yelled to the radio operator as she dove to the opposite side of the room, landing flat behind the desk. A moment later, the bag exploded.

  A red-yellow blew through the shattered window, taking out the remainder of the frame. Shar
ds of glass and wood splinters traced wide, dizzying courses through the room, followed by the smoke. Grace smelled thermite.

  “Stay down!” she cried as a second, much larger blast rocked the outpost. The ground itself shook, the walls and ceiling rattled, and the entire room went red as the helicopter exploded. The outside wall was pelted with metal, followed by a rain of debris on the roof.

  * * *

  Rivette had used the distraction of the explosion to rush his prisoner. If his training had taught him anything, it was to focus on only that which was an immediate danger. Even if Grace had just gone up in smoky particles, there was nothing he could do about it. But there was something he could do about the sentry.

  The seaman had watched the blast and was not aware of the lance corporal swinging in from the opposite direction and putting a warm gun barrel to the back of his collar. The seaman surrendered and stood, arms raised. The two walked toward the burning tableau, the helicopter in formless, melted ruin and the outpost intact but half-concealed in blowing smoke.

  The man in the white sweater had risen when two Chinese appeared in the doorway, their arms raised, followed by Grace and an African. The latter had the only gun among them.

  Rivette removed his mask. “All clear?”

  “No one else,” Grace said.

  “Thermite?” Rivette said, sniffing as they arrived.

  “I didn’t even think about it,” Grace said angrily.

  “It came with Raeburn,” the pilot said. “I’m Captain Velts, by the way. You are?”

  “Where is Raeburn?” Grace asked, shaking her head firmly in answer to his question.

  “He left with a Chinese patrol, by boat,” said Sisula.

  “Left?”

  “Was forced to go,” Sisula said. “He’s a doctor, name of Raeburn. He came to help Commander van Tonder and Lieutenant Mabuza, who took our helicopter to Prince Edward.”

  “I wondered about your own transportation,” Grace said.

  “Now we’re stranded here,” Sisula said.

  Grace thought for a moment. “No,” she announced as she returned to the partially shattered outpost. “We are not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Pretoria, South Africa

  November 12, 7:12 A.M.

  The attack on Batting Bridge had been tracked into the mountains to the west, where three people fell ill but did not die. Williams received this information from the woman who met their C-21, Deputy Chief of Navy Caroline Swane. Williams said he was encouraged by the quick degradation of the disease germ.

  “Not half so much as we,” the forty-nine-year-old naval officer replied. Her large eyes were heavy-lidded, as though she had not slept for some time. Her brown uniform was crisp but spotted with perspiration. Williams was sure the already eighty-degree temperature and unobstructed sun were only partly responsible.

  The trio saw Grace Lee and Jaz Rivette off and had been shown to a spacious—and subtly armored—van for the ride from the Thaba Tshwane facility to their next destination. The men placed their gear in back, declining the driver’s efforts to do so. Williams followed Breen inside, where he learned that they were not going to see Minister Barbara Niekerk. He had spent the better part of an hour reading up on her background.

  “We are headed a short distance to Defence Ministry Headquarters,” she told Williams, who was beside her, and Breen, who was sitting across from her. “There are new developments.”

  Breen’s expression said he was alert for a hustle. Having no choice for now but to cooperate, Williams remained hopeful.

  The woman said, “Minister Niekerk was at one point—around 2009—involved in a research project with Dr. Gray Raeburn, who was serving then, as now, with the navy’s Military Health Service. They were working on a cure to the AIDS virus and made, I’m told, admirable progress. Until the cure proved as potentially deadly as the disease.”

  “Let me guess,” Williams said. “What they came up with got loose.”

  Perhaps because she was exhausted, the woman smiled and said, “Thank you, Commander Williams, for whipping ’round to the finish line. Your reputation for clarity and grasp was not overstated.”

  “I wasn’t aware I had one,” he said. “A reputation.”

  “The man we are going to see knows of your work. General Tobias Krummeck, our chief intelligence officer.”

  “I’ve met him,” Williams said. “I don’t imagine he was involved with Minister Niekerk’s original project.”

  “That, Commander, I do not know. When we had Dr. Raeburn’s name, we sought him out and learned that he had been sent to Prince Edward this morning. The flight was logged as a fact-finding mission authorized by General Krummeck. It remains unclear why a communicable diseases specialist went directly to the intelligence chief, but he did.”

  “Did the men have a social relationship?” Williams asked.

  “That does not appear to be the case,” the woman said. “And your inference bears exploring, Commander. The general was not unaware of the research project.”

  They pulled up in front of a columned white mansion at the corner of Nossob and Boeing Streets. The deputy chief of navy motioned for them to remain.

  “The general seemed disinterested in cooperating until I informed him that neither the doctor nor his pilot had been heard from since their departure,” the woman said. She regarded Williams. “I do not know why, but he agreed to talk only to you.” She nodded toward the guard standing at the door. “You’re expected.”

  Breen’s cautioning look returned.

  “I will remain here with Major Breen,” the South African officer added. “There are considerations I wish to discuss with him.”

  “It’s okay,” Breen told Williams. “The general obviously knows more about you than I do.”

  Williams did not miss the subtext. The criminologist missed nothing. Breen was on a mission with a man that the woman had called “Commander.” That was something the major had not known. That Williams had been in intelligence had probably been inferred—but the general knew it for a fact, more than the other Black Wasps did.

  “I’ll address that later, Major,” Williams assured him as he slid the van door back.

  Major Breen was too professional to let outsider status affect the mission. He was also too smart to waste by keeping him in the dark. Matt Berry’s orders be damned, it was time for the two men to have a talk.

  Williams went up the wide stairs, was checked through, and was directed to room 309.

  He took the ornate staircase to a third-floor warren of offices. Though the building belonged to a bygone era, it reminded him of Op-Center’s old headquarters—but up instead of down. People were moving through quiet halls, acknowledging those they knew and worked with, but not stopping to chat.

  An efficient adjutant was standing behind her desk when Williams arrived. The woman showed him directly to the spacious office in back, with bay windows that overlooked an old section of the city. General Krummeck rose. He came around his desk, hand extended, as the office door closed heavily.

  The general was a big man with the body of a bear but the face of a tiger. Strong, carnivorous qualities were what you needed to survive in this business. Krummeck was fortunate to possess them outwardly; it saved time.

  “It is good to see you again,” the officer said with apparent sincerity.

  “The same. I was thinking—the International Security Conference, 2016, wasn’t it?”

  “In Copenhagen, yes. But it took me some doing to find out exactly what a supposedly retired military officer with no known intelligence affiliation was doing there. Well, that was the key, wasn’t it? You were not affiliated with a very public organization.”

  “That is true.”

  “I had heard of your National Crisis Management Center when it was run by Mr. Paul Hood. We … learned that you two had met several times, so it was a natural deduction.”

  “It’s one of the great flaws in espionage that one never imagines al
lies spying on them,” Williams remarked. The statement flirted with being an accusation.

  “In our case, it was not for information but to justify a budget. You understand.”

  “Use the money or lose it.”

  Krummeck smiled benignly. “Coffee? Tea? Something else?” the general asked as he indicated a pair of facing armchairs.

  “Thanks, no. Deputy Swane said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yes. I was very happy to hear from Chief of Navy Roodt that you and a team were being fielded. We need trusted help on this.”

  “May I ask, General—the country … or you?”

  The men sat and Krummeck smiled, with teeth. “Both, Commander. You have people bound for Marion Island. They will need to go from there to Prince Edward. As you probably know, that is where this problem originated.”

  “Something you put there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A confidence you trust I will not break,” Williams said.

  “Unlike my enemies here, you have nothing to gain by my downfall. And you might benefit from a relationship that provides eyes-on intelligence regarding the Chinese in the South Indian Ocean.”

  Despite the indecency of using South African lives as leverage, dealings of this kind were to be expected.

  “I’ll keep your confidence, of course,” Williams assured him.

  Krummeck thanked him. Either the intelligence chief was trusting or, more likely, he was canny. If his participation in this “Exodus bug” were to become known—and at last, finally, there was confirmation that this was an engineered toxin—powerful international allies would help give him job security. Especially in the face of Chinese aggression.

  “Deputy Swane has briefed you, yes?” the general asked.

  “A little.”

  “That’s all she knows … a ‘little.’ Years ago, Dr. Raeburn was working with Minister Niekerk on an AIDS cure. The cure cured the disease but disabled the immune system, hardly a gain. I financed Dr. Raeburn’s continued efforts.”