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  “No way,” he said. “The Directorate sub we were following was too far away from the Warner to be able to get any kind of pinpoint tracking. And there were no transmission traces. If their sub had communicated the Warner’s position back to Hainan, we would have caught it. Besides, that sub was too busy running from us to do anything. About the time the Stonefish were firing, it was sinking. We got it, that’s one thing I am certain of.”

  “Could they have used your comms to track the Warner, maybe even gotten into ATHENA?” asked Links. “Did you pick up anything like that?”

  “Nope, nothing. Have you thought about big-data collection from environmental sensors, like how those fishermen kept detecting our Trident missile subs off Bremerton a few years back? Or what about space-based underwater detection? Tracking the IR or even something like the Bernoulli effect, from the water distortion?” said Darling. “Maybe a Ouija board?”

  “We’ve run them all down. The sensor one is out, as you have to seed the area beforehand. There’s no trace of that, plus the Chinese are picking up our sub traffic everywhere, no matter where we go. The Oregon paid the price for us testing that theory off the Aleutians. Space-based detection is the working theory, but no one knows how the Chinese could manage that either. NAASW is looking at synthetic aperture radar as an option for undersea detection,” said Links. “During the Cold War, there were some attempts to make that work in tracking Soviet boomers, but nothing stuck. More important, they can’t cover an ocean area without broadcasting enough energy down from space that we’d pick it up.”

  “How about the other way around?” Darling suggested. “How about magnetic detection of the sub’s hulls? That’s the working theory at the analysis section we have set up down at the B-ring urinal.”

  “No, that’s another Cold War tech that was tried and failed,” said Links. “It just doesn’t work from space. There’s too much backscatter to pull out anything metallic at that range. They’d be plinking pretty much every piece of metal on the sea floor with Stonefish warheads. Plus, you also have the mystery of how they were able to track the subs and the carriers but couldn’t pinpoint the escort ships,” said Links.

  “Maybe the escorts weren’t worth the trouble? Maybe the Chinese didn’t have enough missiles?” said Darling.

  “No way. You think they’d try to save a few bucks if they could take out all of our Aegis ships?” said Links.

  “So if that’s the case, it’s something that’s letting them track the nukes,” said Darling.

  “Yep, which puts us at, as we call it in the intelligence community, square one,” said Links.

  “So the real question is, what’s so special about a nuclear reactor?” said Darling. “If you want to find one from really far away, you have to be able to collect whatever it emits. But, shit, at range it’s never going to emit anything more than low-level Cherenkov rays.”

  “What did you say?” Links asked with a catch in his voice.

  “Cherenkov rays,” said Darling. “Did you sleep through the nuclear physics class at the Naval Academy? It’s what gives nuclear reactors their blue glow, something about charged particles passing through the medium that surrounds the nuclear reaction at different speeds than light. Some Russian named Cherenkov discovered them like a hundred years ago. He won the Nobel Prize for it.”

  “Star Trek. You bastard,” whispered Links to himself. He tossed his wallet onto the desk with a shaking hand. “Lunch is on me. I’ve got to run, got an idea.”

  “Whatever, man. Your DIA analyst better be worth it.” Darling picked up the wallet and was just beginning to stand when he heard the security door shut with a heavy thud.

  Moana Surfrider Hotel, Waikiki Beach, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

  “Ms. Shin, please, over here,” said the voice box, translating the guard’s Chinese into English. The guard was male, but the device had been set to speak in a digitized voice that matched the gender of the person being spoken to. Carrie wasn’t sure if it was a joke or if some Directorate scientist had concluded that if a woman heard a female voice coming out of a burly, armed male Directorate marine, she would somehow find it more reassuring than a male’s voice.

  “Okay, okay,” Carrie said. She put her arms out and threw her head back, cruciform-style, her long hair reaching to her waist.

  “We have selected you for extra assurance measures,” the marine said. He stood at about her height but had around twice her mass in muscle. The telltale acne and thick neck showed how he had gotten so big. So many of their marines had that look.

  “Do you understand?” said the voice box.

  “Yep,” said Carrie.

  “The Directorate appreciates your compliance,” said the device. That was the latest phrase the voice boxes were spitting out. She couldn’t tell if it was what the guard had actually said or if it was just a stock phrase from an automated setting.

  The chem swabs tickled when they ran down her arms and legs. It felt like a spider exploring her.

  “I am complete,” said the voice box.

  She opened her eyes. The swab had not turned red, as it would have if it had detected explosives. Instead, it was a light brown. The guard looked quizzically at the swab, unsure of what the earthy substance was.

  “It’s okay,” said Carrie. “It’s makeup, from my arm. I cut myself cooking.” She ran her fingers across her cheeks as if putting on foundation and flashed a smile.

  The voice box translated for the marine, who nodded, paused, and then muttered a phrase she could barely hear.

  “Thank you for your compliance,” the box said. By this time the marine was looking to the next person in line.

  She walked away slowly, calming herself, unconsciously rubbing the thin scabs on her arm. At least this check hadn’t been as bad as the checkpoint at the bus station; there, the guard made her bend over and speak directly into the voice box on his belt. She caught a glimpse of Waikiki Beach across the street and for a moment she found herself thinking of her fiancé, the sunset walk on his birthday. The wind had been up that night.

  The grind of rubber wheels on asphalt behind her snapped her out of the memory, and she leaped to the right, onto the sidewalk. The hybrid-electric Wolf armored personnel carrier glided quietly by as the Directorate marine manning the machine gun on the roof offered a timid wave.

  Adrenaline pumping, she strode purposefully through the four columns of the hotel’s grand entrance and shivered despite the heat and humidity.

  Before the war, she’d had to use the staff entrance. The gleaming white hotel had been built just three years after the American annexation in 1898 on land originally owned by the Hawaiian royal family, so having both the guests and the staff use the main entrance was part of some Directorate propaganda about how the Chinese forces were there for similar reasons, to ensure security, but they, unlike the Americans, would show respect for the “true” citizens of Hawaii. The Directorate was real big on who had been on what island first. But whether you were native, hapa (of mixed ethnicity), or from the mainland, you still had to go through the screening checkpoint out on the street.

  Inside the hardwood-floored lobby, Chinese soldiers, sailors, and marines, along with a few civilians, lounged about, drinking, and chatting. Just as it was back in World War II, the old hotel had been converted into a hub for shore leave. She passed through the lobby and went out to the back porch. From her perch at the sports-equipment-rental desk, she couldn’t see the ocean, but she could hear it. That counted for a lot.

  “That was amazing,” a man’s voice said, taking her out of her thoughts. He spoke English without one of the translator devices. “What a beautiful sport it must be for those who are truly skilled.”

  He set a still-wet longboard against the wall. There was a brief pause as he stepped back to make sure it would not topple over.

  �
�It’s a lot to expect for anyone to pick up in just an hour,” said Carrie. “I bet you did great.”

  “I spent most of my time swimming next to the board, not riding it,” said the officer. He was clearly fit, washboard abs, but not bulked out by chems like so many of them. His hair was cropped short, but in a stylish manner. She guessed it had been done professionally rather than in the military assembly line.

  “The sport of kings is not for everyone,” she said, offering a wink. “I know we’re not supposed to ask questions of the guests, but where’d you pick up English? Yours is excellent.”

  “UCLA, where else?” he said, raising two fingers in the sign that went along with the UCLA alma mater song.

  “Go Bruins,” she said, smiling slightly.

  “Listen, I could really use a lesson,” the officer said. “Sorry, I should introduce myself. My name is Feng Wu. My friends in LA called me Frank.”

  Carrie looked down at her tablet.

  “I can set you up with one of the hotel instructors, no problem. They’re great. Several of them were pros before all this,” said Carrie.

  Frank leaned closer, dripping seawater on the counter. He smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

  “You’re a great teacher, I bet,” he said.

  “Well, I’m not that good . . .” she countered.

  “I can pay you, or give you an extra ration card if you want, or whatever else.”

  Carrie pressed lightly on the scab on her arm.

  “There’s no need for that. Helping out is part of our job, actually,” she said. “Any of us can offer the guests our services. I just thought you would want someone more experienced.”

  “When should we meet?” he said.

  “Monday night is when the outgoing tide’s supposed to be best,” Carrie said. She tilted her head slightly, giving him a glimpse of her neck.

  “That’s a long time to wait! How about tomorrow night?” he said.

  She smiled back, looking him in the eye.

  It wasn’t just her beauty that made her gaze so striking; it was that she was the first local to look at him directly since he’d arrived in Hawaii. All the others tried to avoid eye contact, some mix of shame and fear. She didn’t have that; instead, she was just — what, normal? More like the American girls he remembered fondly from before all this.

  “If you are going to be my student, you have to learn to trust me. We’ll meet next Monday. The moon will be full, and so amazing,” she said. “I know just the place, it’s quiet and there’s not a better break on this side of the island.”

  “It is a date, then,” said Frank.

  USS Zumwalt, Mare Island Naval Shipyard

  From the water right now, Jamie Simmons thought the Zumwalt looked less like floating death and more like one of those ramshackle floating tidal towns off what used to be Indonesia, people weaving sheets of metal, plastic, and wood into improbable geometries to create homes.

  What Vice Admiral Evangeline Murray thought of the Z, Simmons could not tell. She’d hardly spoken to him during her waterside tour of the ship. But her eyes didn’t stop moving. She was coming to understand the ship, Simmons felt, in a way he’d never bothered to. At one point, she had the launch brought up alongside the hull, and she put her hands on the ship like a healer and closed her eyes. What she heard or saw, he did not know. What he did know was that she had a status within the Navy that was unmatched. She’d been the first woman to command an aircraft carrier strike group before the war. More important, she’d been fortunate enough to be serving as president of the Naval War College when the shooting started, meaning she’d escaped both the Stonefish missiles and the congressional inquiries that had decimated the senior ranks.

  She signaled for the launch to return to the pier.

  “Captain, before we go aboard, I want to say that it is an honor to meet you,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of heroes in this country right now to inspire us. Your leadership and experience is invaluable and I just want you to know that if this ship does not work out, I will personally ensure that your talent is not wasted.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” said Simmons.

  “In fact, they tell me we could use someone like you right now in Washington, perhaps more than out here,” said Admiral Murray. “You survived when nobody else did; that has a huge value to the war effort.”

  Simmons did not blink; he kept his eyes locked on hers. Was she evaluating him too, not just the ship? This was one of those moments with a black-or-white outcome: Lindsey or the sea. Safety or duty.

  “You’re right, ma’am. I don’t belong here,” said Simmons.

  She nodded and furrowed her brow.

  Simmons pointed toward the Golden Gate Bridge. “Admiral, this ship, or any ship we have, has to be out there at sea, where the fight is,” he said. “That’s where we belong.”

  He said it instinctively, then paused to question whether he was voicing his father’s opinions or his own.

  An elfin smile revealed the admiral’s yellowed teeth; unusual, because most people had had theirs whitened or replaced by her age. “That is for damn sure,” said Admiral Murray. “Now why don’t you introduce me to the crew.”

  They didn’t pipe the admiral aboard, as she preferred not to disturb the work at hand.

  “One thing that impresses me is all the camouflage here,” said Admiral Murray as they walked the deck.

  “It might look like camouflage, but the reality is that all the scaffolding and tarps are really necessary. We ended up having to do a top-to-bottom overhaul here,” said Simmons.

  As they approached a knot of crewmen — some in their teens, others decades older — clambering over a scaffold, the admiral said, “Tell me about the crew. How is the new mix going?”

  “The mix of generations has its strengths and weaknesses. We have the remnants of the pre–Zero Day fleet. I was given my choice of the best of my old crew, which I understand I have you to thank for. Then there are the draftees, some of whom have never seen the real ocean, let alone been out on it,” said Simmons. “But what they do know are computers; they’ve been with viz in one form or another since birth. They see problems differently than regular sailors, even sailors who were in the Navy when the war started.”

  Simmons pointed to a pair of teenagers with facial tattoos that were partially obscured by their brushed-titanium Apple glasses. The kids were having a conversation with one of the Mentor Crew.

  “And then, Admiral, there are our most experienced sailors, the Mentors, many of whom joined the Navy before the First Gulf War,” said Simmons. “With the sense of history the younger sailors have, they might as well have been on Noah’s crew for all that means to them.”

  “This is going to take some adjusting for all of us,” Admiral Murray observed, “and I don’t mean just those in the Navy. It’s the same everywhere now. People who wouldn’t have had a thing to do with each other a few months ago now have no choice but to join together, whether they’re growing food in a condo’s victory garden or working in the same shipyard. Bottom line, are the Mentors working out? We’ve had some conflicting reports from the other ships.”

  “On the Zumwalt, they prefer to be called the Old Farts. I had my doubts, ma’am, but the older guys drive everyone hard. More important, they know the old tech and its secrets better than anyone else.”

  Simmons led her farther astern.

  “You can’t separate the people and the technology, really. But it’s not just about the old gear. What we’ve done in upgrading the ship’s wireless nets will help us run the ATHENA replacement but give us some more protection against network attack.”

  “Local networking is going to be essential; focus on that,” she said.

  “These are the vertical launch cells for the cruise missiles,” said Simmons, continuing the tour.
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  “Magazine capacity?” asked Admiral Murray.

  “We’re at eighty now,” said Simmons. “But we have to reevaluate what that means while the Office of Naval Research is figuring out a new targeting system. Without GPS, they aren’t going to pack the punch we need. To have any kind of effect, we’d have to give up the magazine-allotment space for the air-defense missiles.”

  Admiral Murray leaned forward. “We’ve been working on a GPS replacement for years, but it’s the same story — it just isn’t panning out,” she said. “It’s now or never, but if it’s not ready in time, then you’ve got the right approach. Make up for lost accuracy with volume of fire. Use the space for anything that has a strike capability. We need to bring as much fire as we can.”

  They ducked beneath a tarp and stood before a slate-gray box with a honeycombed face. Known as the Metal Storm, it was a kind of electronic machine gun. But instead of dropping bullets in individual rounds to be fired out of a single barrel, one after another, here, bullets were stacked nose to tail inside the multiple barrels that honeycombed the device. Sparked by an electronic ignition, the rounds would fire off all at once, like a Roman candle.

  “For close-in defense, we’ve rigged the Metal Storm as well as the pair of laser turrets just above the bridge,” said Simmons. “Directed energy should do for single targets, while the Metal Storm can throw up a literal wall of bullets, thirty-six thousand rounds fired in a single burst.” He patted the box softly. “Some of the kids have also been playing with the software to speed up reaction times.”

  “Make sure you get that code to the fleet — we need to keep pushing the development,” she said.

  “The question is how effective it will be, and then how much of the air-defense missiles we can unload,” Simmons said. “The simulation models give us a pretty wide mix of possible outcomes.”

  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” said Admiral Murray. “I understand why you want to have both options when it comes to balancing this ship’s strike capability with its defense systems. But it’s a zero-sum game for what I need. I need Zumwalt to think of itself as a battleship if we’re going to use it.”