Red Shark

“Satellite head-counts,” Brodie said. “They’re almost always wrong.”

Jefferson said, “It’s the best we can do. We’re lucky to have anything.”

“Chief, I’d trust Ms. Kida’s numbers,” Scott said. “JDIH says there’s closer to thirty men on Matsu Shan, not twenty.”

“And if I were you, Scott,” said Jefferson, helping himself to coffee, “I’d trust the SRO’s numbers. Their data is damn good.”

Brodie said, “Colonel, you know as well as I do that those nose-pickers always count heads twice and miss the other ones. Shit, there could be forty, fifty Chinamen on that rock for all we know.”

Zipolski said, “Hey, Chief, what’s it matter, we ain’t pokin’ no stick in a hornet’s nest, just doin’ a sneak ’n’ peek.”

“One that could turn into a hornet’s nest,” Scott said. “Assume it will.”

The other SEALs kept silent as they followed the discussion. They knew that a mission’s success or failure hinged on good intelligence; bad intelligence was for losers.

Jefferson pulled a face on Scott. “How many spec-ops did you say you’ve been on?”

“Enough to know we can’t underestimate what we might encounter on Matsu Shan.”

“Hell, we don’t need a lecture on the basics,” Jefferson retorted. “We all know how this works. I mean, it’s good that Brodie posed the question, but I’m inclined to trust the SRO’s estimates. Trust me, this won’t be like Croatia.”

Scott ignored Jefferson’s snide reference to the bungled Balkans op and turned to Brodie. “I’ll bring it up and see what General Radford has to say. Maybe they have fresh data they can share with us.”

“Right, sir. Thanks.”

Jefferson said something but was cut off by the tone signal indicating an SVTC transmission was about to start. The blue screen rolled to the SRO seal, then a fuzzy picture of Karl Radford. His image was distorted by transmission through space and 500 feet of seawater, into the RDT antenna aboard the speeding Reno.

Radford adjusted his necktie and cleared his throat. “We on?” The image faltered but returned, clearer this time. “Commander Scott, Colonel Jefferson, men, good to see you.”

“Good to see you, sir,” Scott said.

The SEALs greeted Radford with nods and casual waves.

“We’ll be joined by Ms. Kida from JDIH headquarters in Tokyo, that is, if the patch can be made….” Radford looked off camera. “It is? Outstanding. Ah, there she is.”

The screen had split in half. Fumiko appeared on the left side, her image beamed to the Reno from a broadcast studio inside JDIH.

Scott saw that she had on a dark man-cut suit over a white top and that her long silky hair was pinned back in a bun behind her head. Though she looked austere and businesslike, Scott noted with pleasure that her eyes sparkled brightly and that her lips had been painted glossy red. He thought she looked as lovely as she had when they’d met for the first time at the safe house in Virginia.

After they exchanged greetings, Scott said, “How was your trip back to Japan?”

“The trip, oh, well, it was long,” Fumiko said coolly, adjusting her posture.

“You should have stopped off in Hawaii, spent a day at Waikiki.”

Fumiko looked down at papers in her hands.

Radford cleared his throat and said, “Gentlemen, we seem to have a gap in our coverage of the movement of Marshal Jin and his entourage from North Korea. Fact is, we’ve lost him.”

“Lost him…,” Scott said.

“We were keeping tabs on him right up through yesterday. Take a look.”

The screen went to green, then to an aerial view of a sun-spanked harbor at a low angle — less than twenty degrees off horizontal — taken from an over-the-horizon-looking KH-12 satellite. One of the satellite’s cameras zoomed in on a rusty cargo ship.

With the image in motion, a Mercedes-Benz limousine rolled up to the ship’s gangplank. Men in uniform poured into the picture and came to attention. A man in civilian clothes got out of the limousine and boarded the ship. Scott easily recognized Marshal Jin from briefing photos of him he’d seen earlier. Jin took a salute from the ship’s captain and disappeared from view.

“The harbor is Nam’po; the ship is the Sugun, a 1900-ton North Korean rust bucket. Note the chopper on her fantail,” Radford said. “An SA 365N Dauphin 2, in gray and olive drab, no markings. Ms. Kida, why don’t you take over.”