Kurt noticed brand names on the battery packs, quickly realizing they’d been repurposed from electric cars.
Near the front of the vessel were two seats arranged in a staggered formation. The rest of the hull was cargo space, flat, open, and dotted with anchors and attachment points to tie down and secure whatever was brought aboard.
“How much contraband can you haul in this thing?” Kurt asked.
“Almost three tons,” Rand said. “But we run out of space before we run out of buoyancy. Computer chips don’t weigh that much and refined earths are running five hundred dollars a pound these days. Million-dollar shipments each way. Our twenty percent adds up quickly.”
“Did I mention being in the wrong business?” Joe said once again.
Kurt laughed. “Got to hand it to you, you’ve made yourself invaluable to Western governments, who want those rare earths, and the Chinese, each of whom should theoretically be trying to stop you. Are you certain you want to go straight?”
Rand’s reply couldn’t have been simpler. “What good is all the money if you can’t enjoy spending it?”
Kurt could understand that. “Get us to Siabat Island unobserved and we’ll do whatever we can to help you get clear.”
Chapter 51
The journey north was a long one; even at eleven knots it took almost eight hours. That left plenty of time for thinking, resting, and talking. With the cargo compartment empty, there was plenty of room to stretch out. Kurt could even stand without banging his noggin on the overhead, something that was rare even in the largest of NUMA submersibles.
With Joe staying close to Pru for personal and professional reasons, Kurt ended up discussing Ahab with Rand, hoping to tease out what he might have been up to. He figured the best way to do that was to go back to the moment Ahab had disappeared.
“What happened after you rescued Ahab in this thing?”
“He was all shot up,” Rand said. “He needed doctors and a place where the Chinese wouldn’t look for him. I took him to Taiwan like I told you. I had contacts there. They found a hospital that would take him, no questions asked.”
“I’m sure he appreciated that,” Kurt said. “How long did he stay there?”
“A month or so,” Rand said. “They had to patch him up. Get the toxins out of his system. I took him back to Siabat when he was ready. First thing he did was ask me to bring him some equipment.”
“By that you mean weapons,” Kurt assumed.
“No,” Rand said. “We don’t trade in weapons. He wanted tech stuff from me. Parts and machinery. Avionics gear. Computers. I must have made a dozen trips to the island hauling that stuff. The weirdest thing I brought him was a set of mirrors that came from this telescope-manufacturing company. They weighed a hundred pounds each. Ahab was insanely specific about how they were to be shipped and stored. He did not want them getting damaged or warped.”
Kurt could see the picture forming. Ahab had an aircraft; he had the waveguide and the other important parts of the laser; he had technical information and design specs from Ridley; and now he had a pair of high-precision mirrors cast by some specialty optics company. He was building his own laser. But why?
“Who’s he working with?” Kurt asked. “Most of his old crew are dead or in prison.”
“He’s gotten friendly with the Taiwanese,” Rand said. “He linked up with them after his stay there. By the way they talk and all their tattoos, I’d say they’re the Free Chinese types, the ones who intend to fight China to the death if they ever try to take over the island.”
“You’ve seen these new friends personally?”
Rand nodded. “I’ve brought some of them over. Hard men. One of them was silent for eight solid hours. Made me really uncomfortable.”
“What does Ahab want from these guys?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he figures he owes them. Or maybe he hates the Chinese Communists as much as they do now.”
Kurt considered the information. If there was any country in the world that might pay more for the laser system than Russia or China, it would be Taiwan. A hundred miles of water was all that separatedthem from an angry neighbor that wanted to conquer and control them. An angry neighbor with the world’s largest army, a growing navy, and a lethal air force with thousands of combat aircraft and ten thousand cruise missiles in their arsenal.
Taiwan was also a technologically advanced country, one filled with scientists and engineers who could understand and reverse engineer what the Americans had done with the laser, allowing them to build copies on their own.
If Kurt understood it right, the Pentagon figured a fleet of thirty to fifty EAGL-equipped aircraft would be enough to put an impenetrable shield around the United States. A handful of such planes with overlapping fields of fire would make Taiwan untouchable. From high above the island, they could wipe out the Chinese air force as its jets took to the sky. They could fill the Taiwan Strait with spent and shattered cruise missiles.
The U.S. couldn’t sell a weapon like that to Taiwan without starting World War III, but it might be worth it for the Taiwanese government to steal the design, even if it meant the loss of all future support of the United States.
The idea almost made sense. But something was off.
To begin with, the notion of Ahab playing the white knight to the people of Taiwan didn’t quite fit. Helping others was not his way. Using them for his own ends was more on-brand.
