The Art of War: A Novel Read Free

No, there was one moving … He watched it. A small blip—a boat. The boat moved parallel to the shore and headed west, toward the inner harbor, until the blip was blocked by the bulk of the freighter alongside.
    Zhang was on his fourth cigarette when the fog began to gray from the coming dawn. The South African was asleep in the captain’s chair.
    The dawn came slowly. Fortunately the fog began to lift, so more daylight reached the surface of the harbor. Then, finally, two cigarettes later, the sun rose into the remaining fog.
    The radio was squawking and the captain was on his feet, calling the kitchen for coffee. Zhang took a last look at the radar picture, scanned the harbor and the nearby freighter one more time with binoculars, then went below.
    The four men wearing scuba gear were standing in the passageway outside the fake fuel tank. They had on masks and flippers and were ready.
    “Use the lights as little as possible,” Zhang said. “Go.”
    They slithered into the water inside the tank, turned on the sled and dropped it through the door in the hull into the water. Then the last two submerged.
    The waiting had been hard. They would have to use lights to work under the freighter’s hull, and at night the lights might have been noticed. With day here, there was little chance.
    Zhang looked at his watch. Two hours, he hoped. If there were difficulties, perhaps three. They had to open the container that had been welded against the freighter’s hull well below the waterline, remove the bomb, reseal the container and bring the bomb here, to this yacht.
    There was no way they could get the weapon into the yacht. It was heavy—almost seven hundred pounds—and bulky, and there wasn’t sufficient room. They would suspend the weapon under the yacht with cables that attached to underwater hooks. Then they would load the sled, close the hull door, pump out the water and get under way.
    The underwater container had been attached to the freighter, which regularly made round trips between Shanghai and Baltimore, in a Chinese shipyard, and the bomb inserted. The container could ride along as part of the hull without the knowledge of any of the crew, who might talk, and hopefully would remain undetected by port authorities anywhere the ship called. Of course, the bomb could be triggered in any port, but this operation required deniability. The freighter would be long gone when the bomb detonated, months later, and would never have entered Hampton Roads. The yacht would take the weapon from the freighter and deliver it.
    The Chinese had thought about putting the bomb aboard the yacht in China, but concluded that if for any reason the yacht were searched and the bomb and Chinese scuba divers were found, Chinese culpability would be undeniable. So the freighter brought the bomb to America, and it would be aboard the yacht for the absolute minimum time.
    While he was waiting, Zhang Ping went to the kitchen and got a bowl of rice with pieces of fish in it, some chopsticks and a glass of hot tea. He ate there in the kitchen, drank the tea and poured himself another. When it was gone thirty minutes had passed. He climbed the ladders to the bridge.
    The South African, Vanderhosen, was nervous. He was walking the bridge, listening to the radio traffic, glancing now and then at the freighter.
    “If we are caught here, we will spend a long time in prison,” he said.
    Zhang didn’t think that comment worth a reply. Vanderhosen thought the Chinese were drug smugglers, an ancient, honorable, profitable profession, although criminal. If he had known about the warhead, he would have been petrified.
    Zhang paid little attention to the man, who didn’t have long to live. Vanderhosen, the first mate, the Russian couple and the two Ukrainian whores who decorated the upper decks in Mediterranean ports would be shot and buried at sea as soon as they were out of American waters. Then the Chinese crew would merely be delivering a yacht to a