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  There were no beacons or lighthouses to guide their retreat through the dangerous seas. Black water crashed against the angled hull, spraying a thick, salty mist high into the air that opaqued the cabin glass. Takishi thought that it was like trying to look through a thin veil of milk. The ship accelerated, riding the swell, then slowed, boring through the mass of water at the bottom of the pitch, only to repeat the process.

  He pushed it too far.

  Kinoga smiled at Takishi.

  Takishi smiled back, denying the admiral satisfaction. Yes, indeed, he would be getting satis-faction soon.

  But right then he was infinitely more concerned with Kinoga’s ability to outrace the rapidly ap-proaching aircraft.

  Two Chinese Shenyang J8D fighter/interceptor aircraft cut through the night sky. Last year, a J8D fighter had bumped an intruding American P3 reconnaissance aircraft, setting off a firestorm of geopolitical machinations. The MiG-21 knockoffs sucked the cloudy night through their turbines and spit it out the backside in a twirling vapor. The pilots carved through the thunderheads, feeling their way in the night as they searched for that magical bit of airspace where they could range the enemy ships with their weapons, while remaining out of harm’s way from any retaliatory means the ships might possess.

  Their instructions were to prevent the seaborne intruders from escaping.

  They were beginning to circle the ships to the east into what was international airspace, the ungoverned common area where contests could take place fairly; much like a dueling field. And so, after repeated warnings via their communications systems, the two fighters separated to begin the destruction of the invading fleet.

  Each pilot acquired radar lock on a ship and fired a missile.

  By Takishi’s calculations, they had to be close to international waters and their relative safe harbor from Chinese attack. The plan was for them to turn southeast and aim toward the island of Yonaguni, whose port would indeed provide shelter and whose proximity to Taiwan would offer the intended ruse.

  Then it happened. Takishi heard the steady, high-pitched sound of radar lock screeching through a speaker in the cockpit.

  “What’s that?” Takishi asked nervously.

  Ignoring Takishi, Kinoga studied the night sky, watching the two bright flashes punch through the cloud cover and streak through the blackness, searching for an illusory target—his ship. He reached down and pressed a gray button, employing additional countermeasures. He released three SIREN electronic chafflike rockets, hoping to confuse the missiles by sending a strong electronic signal from a battery-powered amplifier floating beneath a parachute. The SIREN rockets screamed into the air, quickly deploying their parachutes and high-technology merchandise below.

  “What the hell is going on, Kinoga? You went too far! Now we are in combat!” Takishi screamed.

  Kinoga lurched at Takishi and grabbed the lapels of his heavy jacket. He moved his face within centimeters of Takishi’s, who could smell the captain’s stale breath.

  “Don’t question my authority on my ship!” Kinoga hissed. “I am the captain. I am in charge. Now shut up before I throw you overboard and grieve your accidental loss before the prime minister!”

  Takishi’s body was limp in Kinoga’s powerful grasp. His back against the wall, Takishi ran one hand lightly over the pistol inside its holster beneath his jacket.

  Kinoga stepped away and returned to his duties, smiling as he watched the rockets seduce the enemy missiles, breaking the radar lock on his vessel.

  Takishi silently urged the ship forward, not wanting to know how close they had come to being hit. Let’s move, Takishi thought, as the missiles veered away and screamed ineffectively into the water, which quickly drowned their potency.

  Ling watched the pursuit on the radar screen. He saw the three aircraft quickly circle to the east of the ships as one escaped into international waters. He applauded as the missiles struck two radar images. Perhaps he would not be shot if the pilots could kill them all. Plus, this was way less boring.

  “We’ve hit two,” the pilot called back to the central command.

  “Good work. Kill the one moving east, then the rest,” the section chief responded.

  The pilots pulled out of their attack formation and swung east again, bearing down on the fleeing radar image. Acquiring radar lock, each pilot removed the safety from his weapons control with the flick of a gloved thumb. They had the intruding ship in their sights. Suddenly, twelve F-16 aircraft pushing squawk codes of the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing of the Hualien Air Force Base, Taiwan, intercepted the Chinese aircraft, appearing as a mass on the two pilots’ radar screens and warning them that they were prepared for combat.

  Outnumbered, the Chinese pilots quickly turned and re-formed to cover one another. Speeding back into Chinese airspace, the fighters were joined by the People’s Liberation Air Forces and destroyed the remaining “ships” within their offshore zone, erasing any evidence of what had really transpired. They remained vigilant throughout the night, as a carrier battle group received word to deploy from Zhoushan and churn full steam ahead into the East China Sea.

  Takishi managed a smile as he knew that the F-16s were actually Japanese air defense forces. He had secured the squawk codes from a Taiwanese air force general in exchange for a generous “gift.”

  The F-16s conducted an aerial display worthy of an air show, providing cover for the retreating vessel.

  CHAPTER 5

  Takishi watched Kinoga pilot his ship as they continued to tunnel through the black, salty night. They finally split the lighthouses of Kubura and Irizaki, which guided them into a port tucked safely behind the rocky bluffs of Yonaguni, the southernmost of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands and a short 130 kilometers from Taiwan. As they arrived at the small pier, Takishi pondered the night’s activities. Their actions had given the impression that Taiwan was probing, if not provoking, China.

  Takishi was a master strategist, and he was certain that Prime Minister Mizuzawa had chosen the proper course for his native land. With North Korea and China possessing both the capability and the intent to dominate the Pacific Rim militarily, Japan could not let a few radical Muslims divert the world’s attention away from what really mattered: the geopolitical balance of power in the Pacific. His alliance with the Americans was simply a means to an end.

  Having performed his duties as a teenager in the Japanese Self Defense Forces, Takishi had migrated to becoming a clandestine operative with Naicho, the Japanese equivalent of the CIA, then ventured into the banking business, where he amassed a fortune. He was an expert marksman, mountain climber, and viewed himself as the ultimate Renaissance Man. He believed that there was nothing of which he was not capable. How many times had he climbed Fuji, he wondered? Why not Everest? Perhaps his ascent up his personal Mount Everest had begun two years ago over a few beers with an old Harvard Business School classmate.

  Nobody planned wars in a vacuum, Takishi knew, and he was no exception. His instructions from the prime minister had been as clear as they were vague.

  “Exploit this window of opportunity to our advantage. We have China and North Korea salivating now that the U.S. is focused on their upcoming Iraq war. And we have pressing resource and economic issues that we must confront. You are a Harvard man. Help me solve them.”

  Takishi knew that most people recognized a window of opportunity by the sound of its slamming shut; always in hindsight. But not Mizuzawa and especially not him. Takishi was proud of the phased operation he had begun planning right after 9-11. Whether the Americans had engineered that attack or not, he didn’t care. There were so many conspiracy theories about how the U.S. had invited Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, but he doubted them all. It was Japanese brilliance that had led to the most stunning victory in the history of the world, not American conspiratorial cunning.

  Takishi felt relieved as he spied his Shin Meiwa US-1A float plane, a Japanese air-and-sea craft with four Rolls-Royce AE 2100 engines that drove the amphibious c
raft’s four propellers, tethered just one pier away. The sun was already spreading its morning glow on the rugged terrain of the atoll, where Japanese explorers claim to have found a city that sank when the island broke away from the continent in the twelfth century.

  A sinking Japan, Takishi thought, was exactly what they were trying to avoid.

  “Satisfied, my friend?” Kinoga asked as he walked to the starboard ramp with Takishi, the morning brightness hurting his eyes.

  “Yes, I am getting satisfaction,” said Takishi. “I was much too bothersome to you last night, Admiral.” He snapped from his reverie as he held a stanchion at the top of the ramp.

  “It is good that you are not in my line of work—don’t ever pretend you could handle it.”

  Seagulls circled nearby, hoping for the ceremonial dumping of the ship’s slop bucket. Their loud squawks hurt Takishi’s ears, causing him to flinch and narrow his eyes. The fresh morning air returned some coherency to his thoughts.

  “If you could gather your crew, the prime minister has given me the authority to award you and your men the Imperial Cross.”

  Kinoga hesitated, ever suspicious. But the Imperial Cross was the highest military decoration, and his men had earned it.

  “Why are you so generous, Takishi?”

  “It’s not my idea, Kinoga. Our prime minister instructed me that if you successfully completed the mission, your men were to receive the Cross,” Takishi said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Do you not believe we deserve the medal?” Kinoga scoffed.

  “What I believe is irrelevant. Your men accomplished the mission, and they deserve the prime minister’s compliments.”

  “Very well, I will be in the cockpit debriefing the men.”

  Kinoga assembled his six men while Takishi debarked and walked to a black limousine waiting near the pier. Inside the small room, Kinoga told his men to sit. They did so at a rectangular wooden table.

  “You performed a difficult and sensitive mission for your motherland last night. You should be proud,” Kinoga said, his mouth dry and sticky. “Whether you know it or not, you all have taken part in the first of a series of activities that will lead our great nation back to its rightful place. Because of your actions last night, the Japanese Empire will rise again.”

  The sailors, all hand-chosen by Kinoga, were weathered seamen who wanted only the best for their country. They all nodded with approval at Kinoga’s words.

  Kinoga then individually congratulated them, reminding them of the secrecy of the mission.

  “Your prime minister will reward you highly for your accomplishments,” said Kinoga, facing the table with his back to the door. He heard the door open with a metallic squeak.

  Before he could turn around, a whisper shot through the room. Kinoga fell forward at his men’s feet, bleeding from the skull.

  Standing in the doorway was Takishi, holding a silenced machine gun at his side.

  He smiled and finished his business.

  “And it is good you are not in my line of work, Admiral,” he said, stepping over the bodies.

  Leaning over the admiral’s corpse, he whispered to the man’s lifeless face, “Politics? This is about national survival, my dear friend.”

  Takishi, who used the moniker “Charlie Watts,” pulled out his satellite-enabled phone and sent a text message to his contact, “Mick Jagger.”

  Satisfaction.

  A moment later Mick Jagger sent a return note:

  Let it bleed.

  Indeed, Takishi thought. If you only knew.

  Takishi boarded his Shin Meiwa as the men in the black limousine moved to dispose of the attack boat.

  CHAPTER 6

  Takishi was a busy man. That morning he had flown nearly nineteen hundred kilometers from Yonaguni to Davao City, Mindanao, to meet quickly with the Abu Sayyaf leader there.

  He stooped and stepped down the ladder of the Shin Meiwa. The new version of an endangered species of an airplane, with its upgraded Japanese computer avionics and GPS technology, made the vessel perfect for Takishi’s purposes.

  As he stood on the steaming runway, the bright sunlight and intense Mindanao heat rapped him in the face. He was tired from the previous night’s seafaring activities, and the humidity further sucked his strength. Yet, he was more at home there than bouncing around the cockpit of Kinoga’s attack boat. Dismissing the thoughts of killing the admiral and his men, Takishi was focused on his next task. So much to do.

  Meeting Takishi on the tarmac was Commander Douglas Talbosa, a snake-eyed man who led the entire Abu Sayyaf movement in the Philippines, having engineered several attacks and kidnappings over the past decade. The more spectacular, the better, because the money would pour into the Abu Sayyaf coffers once they were able to post onto the Internet the images of death and destruction. Talbosa was unusually tall for a Filipino, nearly six feet, and wore an Australian bush hat with one side flipped up. Takishi looked at him and thought the man at least had some style.

  That an emerging Muslim extremist terror network existed in that remote southern isle of the Philippine archipelago was no surprise to Takishi. He knew that Al Qaeda was seeking areas that lacked governance, and the hundreds of islands that constituted the Republic of the Philippines were impossible to govern effectively. The remote islands presented the perfect sanctuary ingredients: desperate, uneducated peasants, isolated terrain, and clandestine routes of ingress and egress.

  Those ingredients were perfect for Takishi’s plan as well.

  His sunglasses shielded his eyes from the bright sun and the Filipino commander. The prop wash from the four propellers of the Shin Meiwa blew hot air against his back as he bowed. Fortunately, Takishi had worn his lightweight khakis for his final meeting with the Al Qaeda knockoff group.

  Talbosa returned the bow and said in broken English, “Good news. But first, Takishi, I should show you our plans for the entire operation again.”

  “I only have a few minutes, Talbosa, but I wanted to make sure we had no remaining problems.”

  “Yes, yes, no problem,” Talbosa said quickly with a heavy accent. “All operations are no problem. All good. Good news, too.”

  “What news?”

  “We have destroyed two ranger C-130 airplanes. My deputy, Pascual, is securing them now.”

  Takishi reflected a moment, glad his eyes were hidden by sunglasses. The Rolling Stones work quickly, he mused.

  “Yes, that is good news. Do you have all of the information and ammunition you require?”

  “We have most of what we need. Luzon will attack the Subic ammo point. No problem. They get the ammo from Subic for us and to keep the Americans from having it. No problem.”

  “Okay, you run your operation however you see fit. I’m here to make sure you have what you need. And congratulations on the victory.”

  “No problem. And Takishi, I have been inspecting your operation as well. It appears you have no problems also?”

  Takishi lowered his sunglasses and stared at Talbosa, whose face was rigid with sincerity.

  “No problems.” Takishi smiled.

  He offered his hand to the Filipino as they approached his aircraft.

  “Yes, it is all good. And remember, Talbosa …”

  “Yes?”

  “When you are done, you will be justly rewarded. Perhaps president?”

  “We want Muslim nation; that is all.” Talbosa was nonplussed. A warrior and devout Muslim, he was akin to the Taliban, who intersected with the poppy growers to fuel their insurgency. By whatever means possible.

  “One final thing,” Takishi said.

  “Yes? But hurry, I must meet with Pascual.”

  “There is an American somewhere on this island. It would be good to catch him and … do as you please with him.” Takishi looked down the long runway, away from Talbosa, wondering if they caught the significance of what he was saying. “Matt Garrett. He’s CIA.”

  “I understand, Takishi,” Talbosa said. “We will captu
re this man and make an example out of him.”

  “But no other Americans, clear?”

  “No problems,” Talbosa smiled.

  CHAPTER 7

  Takishi bid Talbosa farewell and boarded his plane. He fit a set of headphones over his ears as he sat in a strapped jump seat between the pilot and copilot, and told them to head to Cateel Bay.

  The Shin Meiwa pulled away from the runway with a short roll, its four powerful Rolls-Royce engines easily lifting the aircraft off the concrete instead of having to fight the suction created during a waterborne take-off.

  Ascending above Davao City, Takishi looked down upon the impoverished metropolis. There were a few modern buildings in the downtown area, like a pearl in a rotten oyster, but they quickly gave way to adobe structures, then to the thatch huts that dominated the outskirts of the city. Banana plantations and rice paddies formed odd geometric shapes beneath them, in stark contrast to the thick triple-canopy jungle of the highlands.

  His pilot cut the trim of the tail rudder, and the plane leveled into a smooth glide. Cateel Bay was only forty-five minutes away, just northeast of Davao City on the eastern coast of Mindanao.

  They flew above the tropical rain forest that dominated the mountains, which cut a jagged north-to-south path over the eastern portion of the island. A series of small agricultural and fishing villages dotted the east coast. Takishi could see groupings of thatch huts every twelve kilometers or so. Parked on the sandy shore were small wooden boats that the fishermen used for short ventures beyond the coral reef to harvest the rich waters of the Philippine Sea.

  He tapped the pilot on the shoulder when he saw the horseshoe of Cateel Bay. The pilot knew the route and nodded at Takishi. They began their descent, circling down from above. The tropical blue hue of the water became more evident as they floated downward. The pilot banked the Shin Meiwa, then leveled its wings parallel to the water. With its protective coral reef nearly a kilometer offshore, Cateel Bay was the perfect area in which to land an air/seaplane. There were no waves, and the beach was sandy, allowing the craft easy ingress and egress.