Chapter 1 – A chance meeting
Shanghai, China
Day 1
IT WAS DORA FRANKEL’S chance meeting with her old school friend at Shanghai Pudong International Airport that unwittingly triggered the chain of the events that would rouse Rex Dalton, his wife, Catia, and their military dog, Digger, from their brief retirement from the world of covert operations.
Dora arrived at the airport on time to check in and had an hour or so spare for shopping before flying to her friends and family in Hong Kong where she grew up. She didn't live in Hong Kong anymore; she met her knight in shining armor, Robert Frankel, while doing modeling work in California and married him. That’s where she lived now.
Dora was a head-turner; she had been all her life. She was a tall and elegant sixty-five-year-old, with beautiful, wrinkle-free skin and a toned body that was the envy of women forty years younger. Her face was one romance writers studied when they described their heroine. In her younger days, she was one of Hong Kong’s top models, so popular that when she wore an outfit to a public event, the next day, top clothing stores would have the same outfit on their shelves and sell it out in hours.
She was about to enter a fashion store when she heard a man’s voice behind her. “Dora? Is it you?” Turning, she smiled. “Benjamin! What a pleasant surprise . . .” She hesitated; there was no mistake. The man was Benjamin Yatsir, her old friend from school, but he looked disheveled, stressed, withered. “How are you?”
“I’m well. How about you?”
A few minutes later, when the pleasantries were out of the way, Benjamin told her he had just arrived on a flight from Beijing and that he had time for lunch before having to return to the lab where he worked. Benjamin grew up in Hong Kong and had attended the same school as Dora.
With their lunch orders in front of them and the server out of the way, Dora leaned forward toward Benjamin and said, “Ben, excuse me, but you don’t look well. When I saw you a year ago you looked well, but now . . . you look troubled . . . anxious, and you’ve lost weight. What’s going on?”
“Ah, just work stress, the usual. There’s so much going on, and I’m struggling to keep up. Maybe it’s the age thing sneaking up on me.”
“Ben, you’ve never been a good liar. I know you better than your siblings. Out with it.”
It took a few more rounds before Benjamin relented. “I didn’t lie when I said it’s about my work.”
“What about your work, Ben?”
“As you know, it was your brother who got me appointed as the lead researcher at Zexian Biomed, for which I’ll be eternally grateful but . . . there is a problem. I suspect a big one.”
“What is it, Ben? Is there something you want me to talk to David about?”
“Yes, there is, but let me tell you what it is first.” Ben smiled wryly.
“Sorry, I’m worried about you.”
“We study zoonotic viruses, viruses that are transmitted between animals and humans, and then human-to-human. And we have made significant progress and some major breakthroughs. In other words, on that front, things are, or rather, were going well. Then two months ago, three officials working for the MSS turned up at Zexian Biomed and called Dr. Zheng Xuefeng and me into a private meeting.”
The MSS was the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence, security, and secret police agency responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, and political security. They have been described as one of the most secretive and brutal intelligence organizations in the world.
Dora raised her eyebrows inquisitively when Ben paused.
“Well, they ordered us to stop all research projects we were working on to concentrate all our efforts on the study of a new pathogen, a virus, which they gave to us in vials. They didn’t tell us where the pathogen came from, only that it was Zexian Biomed’s job to sequence its genome. To find out how it would spread, through bodily fluids, through the air, physical contact, etcetera. Also, they wanted to know about the gestation period and what impact it would have on the human body. And most important of all, they want us to find a cure and vaccination for it.”
“Without knowing where and how it originated? That sounds irrational.”
“Totally. And add to that, we were given no access to humans who’d been infected by the virus. They told us that the virus was contained, no one had been infected. That was a big lie. But I’ll get to that soon.
“The next thing they did was order us to call every staff member into the staffroom where officials told them that they were a ‘privileged’ group who had been selected to work on a very prestigious but very top-secret project for their country in the interests of national security. Everyone then had to fill out and sign a form pledging us to absolute secrecy. The document was very specific about the dire consequences of discussing any of what we were doing at the lab with anyone outside our workplace as I'm doing now.
“Dr. Zheng has been ordered to ensure that all our research is meticulously documented and uploaded to a secured server every day. We’re not allowed to make copies of the data or any document created by us, neither are we allowed to print anything.”
“Draconian,” Dora murmured.
“Absolutely. Especially the fact that we’ve come to realize they’ve placed all of us under surveillance.”
“You mean as in being followed?”
“I don’t know about being followed, but our telephones and mobile phones, work, and personal are all tapped. Our internet activities are being monitored, work and personal.”
“Why?”
“I think I know. You see, when we compared the genome of this virus with the known viruses that are harmful to humans, we found signs of gene splicing. In other words, gene sequences of other viruses have been inserted into this new virus, which we call the Shanghai Strain.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Dora, that this virus is manmade. It’s not something that happens naturally—it is a lab-engineered virus.”
“Oh my God!”
“The thing is, China may be engaging in biological activities with the dual-use application. In other words, in this case, they’ve engineered a virus that can potentially be weaponized. And that is a violation of the terms of the international Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), of which China is a member.”
“We’ve got to stop it, Ben.”
“Yes, we have to . . . if it’s not too late already.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there are no restrictions on the staff to talk to each other, and that’s how we became aware of a new virus that’s causing havoc in parts of the city. At first, the staff was mentioning about people that they’ve heard of that contracted the flu and a week or so later died. Then the stories became closer to home as people they knew became ill and died. Within a few weeks, this small group of about thirty people knew about more than one hundred deaths from this new flu.
“Within a few more weeks, stories were doing the rounds in the lab that the funeral homes in some regions of Shanghai were working overtime; smoke spewing out of their chimneys nonstop, day in and day out.
“We believe this virus we’ve been given to study is the one that’s causing this new flu.”
“But there’s nothing in the news.”
Benjamin grinned. “Are you surprised?”
Dora shook her head. “No, I guess not. Over the ages, China has earned its moniker as the land of the lie.”
Benjamin continued and told her that one morning when on his bicycle on his way to work, he passed by one of the larger funeral homes and saw hundreds of people waiting in line. So, he stopped and asked the people what they were in the queue for, and several answered that they were all waiting to collect the cremated remains of their loved ones. He saw a few walking away with a ceramic urn and also a few walking away without any urn. He then found out from the emptyhanded ones that the funeral home couldn’t cremate the bodies fast enough; there was a waiting list of two to three days.
Back at the lab, a day or so later, one of his co-workers said she saw several delivery trucks waiting on a side street that led to the backside of this funeral home. Her curiosity took over, and she asked one of the truck drivers what they were doing. The answer was they were delivering ceramic urns, and for the past few days, they had delivered a thousand urns a day to funeral homes in Shanghai.
“Ben, why has David not been told about this? After all, he is one of the directors.”
“I told you, we’re under orders not to talk to anyone on the outside. Dr. Zheng is being forced to send false reports to the board of directors. For the last two months, every report to them was false.”
“Oh my God!”
Just then, Dora’s flight was called. For a moment, Dora contemplated ignoring it, but then Benjamin stood and said he would accompany her to the departure gate.
At the gate, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’ll tell David the moment I set foot in Hong Kong. In the meantime, please take care of yourself and send my regards to Sally.”
“I will. Have a safe trip.”
Dora went through the check-in, and when she turned to wave at Benjamin, an ice-cold shiver ran down her spine when she saw two men in dark suits approaching him from behind. He couldn’t see them, not yet. She waved, and he waved back.
She turned and proceeded to board the plane, and when she looked back for the last time, she saw Benjamin being led away by the men in dark suits. She had no way of knowing who they were, but, in the light of what Benjamin had just told her, she suspected they worked for the dreaded MSS and that her friend was in serious trouble.
Chapter 2 –
The Seven Seas
Rome, Italy
42 Days ago
IT ALL STARTED ONE night over dinner at CiPASSO Vineria-Bistrot, a charming little bistro in Via dell’Orso on the bank of the Tiber in Rome, Italy. Rex, Catia, and Digger were with Declan Spencer and his girlfriend, Simona Bellucci, and Spencer was telling them about the origins of the phrase “the Seven Seas.”
Declan Spencer was a retired Navy SEAL Commander living his dream of captaining his own yacht and sailing the world. The TOMATS was not his yacht, but he was her captain for life. The yacht’s name derived from the first letters of Ernest Hemingway’s short novel The Old Man and the Sea—TOMATS. She was a luxury superyacht. Two-hundred and seventy feet of it, three-quarters the length of a football field, and thirty-seven feet wide. A masterpiece, custom-designed and built by some of the world’s leading exterior and interior designers.
“The phrase ‘Seven Seas’ goes back to ancient times. Different cultures at different times in history defined their own Seven Seas to refer to the bodies of water along their trade routes, regional bodies of water, or exotic and faraway bodies of water,” Spencer explained. “The Greeks’ Seven Seas were the Aegean, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Black, Red, and Caspian Seas, and the Persian Gulf. To the Medieval Europeans, it was the North Sea, Baltic, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Black, Red, and Arabian Seas. When North America was discovered, the mariners’ started referring to the Seven Seas as the Arctic, the Atlantic, the Indian, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico.”
Rex smiled. “Declan, I’ve often heard you talk about your desire to sail the Seven Seas. So far, since you became the captain of the TOMATS, you’ve only sailed the Aegean, Adriatic, and Mediterranean. You’re four short. Which seas are we sailing next?”
Rex, Catia, and Digger had permanent residence on the TOMATS in terms of an agreement with her owner, John Brandt, of Crisis Response Consultancy, CRC, a private military contractor specializing in black operations on behalf of their clients, such as the CIA and other US Security Agencies. CRC was Rex’s former employer. Their other residence, when not on the TOMATS, was Catia’s apartment in Rome, close to the Piazza di Spagna at the bottom of the famous Spanish Steps.
“The Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea in that order.”
Catia laughed and raised her glass in a toast. “Hong Kong, here we come!”
They all clinked their glasses and shouted, “Buon viaggio!” Italian for bon voyage.
The three-deck TOMATS was equipped for ocean travel with ultra-modern stabilization technology, advanced communications equipment, a helipad, and every nod to comfort that one could think of. It had a range of six thousand nautical miles, a top speed of seventeen knots, and a cruising speed of fifteen. It was powered by two Caterpillar diesel engines producing close to five thousand horsepower.
Apart from the comfortable lodgings for the crew members, there were accommodations for fourteen guests in seven plush staterooms. There was a hot tub, sauna, Turkish bath, infinity pool, gym, dining room, and several lounges. One of the lounges had been repurposed to house the sophisticated electronics gear and computer equipment that could be concealed when necessary. Another was turned into a secured communications room. Inside the latter was, among others, an impenetrable encrypted satellite video system and the latest communications technology.
***
From Rome to Hong Kong
36 Days ago
A WEEK LATER, THE TOMATS was stocked, fueled up, and lifted anchor from the Port of Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy. Setting out on a journey of more than eight thousand nautical miles that took them through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden past the Horn of Africa, across the Bay of Bengal, past the Andaman Islands, through the Malacca Strait, past Malaysia, on to Singapore.
In Singapore, Rex and Catia’s best friends and former colleagues at CRC, Josh and Marissa Farley joined them before they set out on the last leg of their voyage to the South China Sea and Hong Kong 1,460 nautical miles, four days’ sailing away.
It was the longest time Rex, Catia, and Digger had ever been on the TOMATS uninterrupted. And it was the same for the crew members. There were two chefs, six Navy SEALS, four of them with wives or girlfriends and two single, four Delta Force guys, two with wives and two single, plus Spencer and his first mate. Rex, Catia, and Digger, like Spencer, were permanent residents. The idea of having Special Forces operators as the crew was Spencer’s. When John Brandt asked him to come up with an idea of how the yacht could be put to good use, he contacted a few US Special Forces commanding officers, former colleagues, and told them about the exceptional holiday deal for Special Forces operators where they could spend some of their R&R on a luxury yacht, free of charge, food and accommodations included.
It was a winner. Spencer had a long waiting list of very keen operatives who wanted to spend time on a luxury yacht, even if it meant they had to attend to menial chores. The fact that they could bring a wife or girlfriend with them as long as they performed crew duties made it even more appealing. Even the chefs were military personnel. Since the launch of the TOMATS more than two years ago, the yacht had served as CRC’s mobile mission control center for two covert missions conducted on behalf of the CIA.
Thirty-one days after leaving Rome, the TOMATS lowered her anchor at the Lantau Yacht Club in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong.
Discovery Bay was an upmarket residential area of six hundred forty-nine hectares located on Lantau Island, close to Hong Kong’s Disneyland and International Airport. The area was comprised of garden houses, high-rise residential buildings, a twenty-seven-hole golf course, a two-hundred-sixty-two-berth marina, two clubhouses, the first private, manmade beach in Hong Kong, international schools, two shopping malls, and the largest oceanfront alfresco dining area in Hong Kong. The area had a little over twenty thousand residents, about fifty percent of whom were expatriates from more than fifty different countries.
Automobiles were not allowed on the island except by special permission. There was an electric bus system in operation every day from six a.m. to midnight. There were no bus stops; one simply waved down a bus driving by and never had to wait more than five minutes.
The island was very pet-friendly. Digger loved it there because of the pristine beaches where he could go swimming with his pack, Rex, Catia, Josh, and Marissa. And, of course, the adults and kids loved him. Maybe it was because he was so shrewd at begging for their ice cream, which they gave him, despite Rex’s failing objections.
Language was not a problem; everyone spoke at least English and Cantonese. Rex spoke both.
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