Red Shark

The Red Shark turned south onto a new heading into the Yellow Sea. To avoid contact with PLAN naval vessels or reconnaissance aircraft, Commander Tongsun Park had shaped a course that lay west of the Chinese Shandong Peninsula. Even so, radar emissions from a PLAN Harbin SH-5 flying boat on anti-submarine patrol out of Qingdao appeared on the Red Shark’s ECM. The amphibian lingered beyond visual range for almost a half hour before fading to the north.

Satisfied that they had not been detected, Park commanded, “Comrade Navigator, we will hold this course until south of Shidao, then we will submerge.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Park knew there was absolutely no room in the schedule for slippage; timing was everything, and he’d had drummed into his brain the absolute necessity of delivering the cargo when promised.

His and his crew’s curiosity about the three lead casks loaded aboard the Red Shark at Nam’po had been tamped down by the presence of DPRK Internal Security Forces. Lashed to the deck in the torpedo room, the casks had been viewed by the crew with deep suspicion, if not outright fear. Even Park thought he sensed an aura of evil emanating from them, but he dismissed it as superstition. Meanwhile, provisioning, crew training, and the repairing of a fuel cell leaking hydrogen had kept Park’s mind focused on the potential difficulties involved in such a long submerged voyage in a new submarine, that, while highly advanced, had also proven balky.

Park climbed a ladder to the bridge high atop the Red Shark’s sail and assumed the conn from his first officer. As the submarine steamed steadily south, Park thought about the lead casks: small enough to fit through the submarine’s thirty-inch-diameter hatches, it still took eight men to lug one. Park, after signing the custody documents, had been about to ask one of the officers what was in the casks, but he’d thought better of it. They would report it, and upon his return to Nam’po, he’d be arrested. No, his job was to command the Red Shark and deliver the cargo, not to ask questions.

“Comrade First Officer,” the bridge speaker croaked, “this is the navigator. Please inform the captain that we have crossed the line south of Shidao.”

“Comrade Captain—”

“Submerge the boat,” Park commanded.

The train slid silently out of the old red brick Tokyo Station close by the Imperial Palace, rapidly built up speed, and within seconds was rocketing past ugly concrete apartment blocks, traffic-clotted expressways, and sprawling auto factories. A half hour later, Tokyo’s drab industrial plain gave way to its less claustrophobic suburbs.

Fumiko, tense, still shaken, returned from the toilet at the end of the car. “I spotted a man who looked at me as if he knew me. He’s five rows back on the opposite side.”

Scott started to turn, but Fumiko tugged at him. “No, don’t.”

“I’ll check him out.” Before she could stop him, Scott was up and gone.