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Gray sank back in his seat. “How certain is your agent’s data and extrapolation?”
“We’ve consulted with a dozen other seismologists. Ten of them concur. Two do not.” Aiko stared straight out at them. “It’s why—a few days ago—when I had heard of your group’s arrival in Hong Kong, I had thought perhaps you were already made aware of the threat and had come to investigate. I made some discreet inquiries.”
“Inquiries that reached the wrong ears,” Painter added. “Especially as Chinese intelligence surely already had you on their radar. They must have believed you posed some threat to their own efforts to recover the sub.”
Gray sighed. “So, the Chinese outsourced our assassination, hiring mercenaries.”
“To mask the Chinese government’s own involvement,” Kat added. “To give them plausible deniability for our deaths.”
Gray rubbed his forehead. “And, of course, if Valya’s outfit heard about it, how could she refuse to take it up? It offered her the perfect chance to carry out her long-festering vendetta—and get paid to do it.”
“What do we do now?” Kat asked.
Painter sat straighter. “First, we need to get your children out of harm’s way. That’s already being arranged. Kat, I’d like you to accompany them and join me back in D.C. We’re heading into deep water—both literally and figuratively—and I could use your intelligence expertise in coordinating TaU and Sigma’s efforts. Plus, with the threat of something catastrophic happening in such a politically volatile area, it’s going to take someone with your experience and contacts to keep this from escalating into a global war.”
Kat nodded. “Of course.”
“Monk, you’re to take Kowalski and head out to Titan Station and join Director Higashi’s agent. He is heading out on an exploratory trip to that area in the morning. I want you both there. Something strange is going on in that trench, and we need to know what it is before it’s too late.”
“What about me?” Gray asked.
“I’ll let Director Higashi explain. It might be a wild goose chase, but if not, I want you involved. Seichan, too, if she’s willing.”
“Involved with what?” Gray asked.
Aiko answered. “Six hours ago, word reached us of another avenue of pursuit by the Chinese, from an operative with Cambodia’s General Directorate of Intelligence.”
Kat’s brow wrinkled. “Cambodia?”
Aiko explained. “The search for the lost submarine is being orchestrated out of Beijing, but from the start, there has been a flurry of communiqués with a Chinese installation at the Réam Naval Base in Cambodia. Despite denials by both Phnom Penh and Beijing, it’s a poorly kept secret that China constructed a secret military research installation there, a strategically significant site in the Indo-Pacific region. The scientists at the site are said to be testing new weaponry and equipment.”
“And your Cambodian contact?” Gray asked. “What has he told you?”
“It was from him that we learned about the supposed recovery of a handful of submariners. But then, a short time ago, he also reported that a strike team had been dispatched to Singapore to secure something from a museum there.”
Gray scowled at the unusual tack of this conversation. “From a museum?”
“On the campus of the National University of Singapore. The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum.”
“What could they want from there?” Gray asked.
Aiko shrugged. “We don’t know.”
Painter lifted a brow. “That’s what we want you and Seichan to find out. And if possible, to secure it instead.”
Monk did not look happy with their assignments. “I’m off to the high seas with someone who likes to blow stuff up. And you two get to go on a museum heist.”
Gray glanced to Seichan, who hadn’t spoken a word. She stood with her arms crossed. From the hard set of her lips, she was still furious atthe attack. From the pinch in her brow, she was already calculating, weighing the odds. If the Chinese had dispatched a team to Singapore, there was no doubt who Seichan hoped to find there.
She finally uncrossed her arms and gave Painter her answer.
“Sounds like fun.”
8
January 23, 5:02A.M.ICT
Phsar Réam, Cambodia
