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beaded chain lying against the dead man’s chest, he placed some rocks on top of Peterson. They would be too heavy for an animal to move. Then he placed a GPS in the dirt about ten meters from the rock formation. He pulled out his compass, shot an azimuth to the south, and determined he would follow the ridgeline of the mountain he had scaled.
    As the sun rose, Matt picked his way carefully along the rocky ledge.

CHAPTER 4

    Same Night, East China Sea

    With the knowledge that Matt Garrett was on the island of Mindanao, former Japanese Naicho agent Taiku Takishi, had shut off his satellite phone and begun his portion of the plan. He held on tightly to a metal rail as the Taiwanese-built and Japanese-operated Kuang Hua VI attack ship cut through the dark sea with purpose. Its gray hull burst from the swirling fog and tracked against the racing thunderheads above—a ghost ship emerging from another time and suddenly finding its way.
    A storm was approaching from the north. The worst kind. The wind kicked the ocean into white-peaked swells, testing some of the small crew. Takishi’s worried face reflected weakly off the cabin window as the GPS navigation device flashed that they had passed their mark. He had just completed a twenty-four-hour flight schedule and was weak from travel. Now this.
    He cast a skittish glance at Admiral Saigo Kinoga, thinking, We’ve come too far.
    “Admiral?” Takishi muttered, watching the radar device.
    Kinoga ignored him. Takishi knew that the admiral had commissioned the craft just two years ago. It was the newest of the Japanese attack boats. Her two Mitsubishi diesel engines and gas turbines turned the two screws, getting her about thirty-five knots in the rough seas. She churned through a massive swell, pitched to the top, and rode the crest downward, only to bore through another wall of water.
    Takishi doubted that Kinoga appreciated a politician such as him riding shotgun on his mission. In a way, Takishi admired the admiral, who had been a young officer in the Imperial Navy before Takishi was born. Takishi saw his own face reflecting off the windscreen in the dim cabin light; he tried to hide his fear, forcing a passive countenance.
    Kinoga shut the engine. The boat yawed, listing hard. Takishi stumbled in the cockpit and saw Kinoga smile.
    “What do we have for defensive measures, Admiral?”
    Kinoga took measure of Takishi briefly and said, “Four Hsiung-Feng II missiles for ship-to-ship combat. If successful, they will not be necessary.”

    The Chinese Maritime coastal defenses were aware that a ship was about to enter its twelve-mile offshore territorial boundary. Seaman Ling, the young radar analyst, had waited, believing the intruder to be a wayward fishing vessel. He had seen, on other nights, fishing ships enter, then leave the twelve-mile limit in the East China Sea.
    Ling was bored and not exceptionally interested in his day job. When not performing compulsory service as a radar analyst in the People’s Liberation Army, he wrote code, hacked computers, and sold online Viagra. Now that was exciting. Watching the sonar blip appear every ten seconds was worse than watching the paint dry on the rocks he and his peers were forced to beautify on the weekends near the front gate of the base. He yawned as he watched the radar image inch its way across the red line superimposed on his screen. Still he hesitated, watching the light flash on and off, creeping forward. He fully expected the fishermen to turn away after realizing their mistake. Taiwan wasn’t his concern, even if the political and military leaders of his country had declared the confederate island nation Chinese public enemy number one. They were capitalist, and so was he. So who gives a shit, Ling thought. They would never attack the mainland.
    “Another boat,” Ling said to his section chief, who was peering over his shoulder.
    “Stealing our fish again.” The section chief sighed, hardly taking notice. 
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