Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

Just then, Smith’s attention was drawn to a bustle of activity on Deep Ocean Explorer’s open afterdeck. Mitch O’Donnell, every bit the red-haired Irish roustabout, was flailing his arms wildly, clearly in a heated discussion with Sandy McDougal. From the sounds drifting up from the deck, it appeared the petite scientist was more than holding her own with the gruff Irishman. It seemed, from the snatches that Smith could catch, that McDougal wanted to get the Sea Raptor unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) into the water immediately to start a survey run. O’Donnell was every bit as profanely adamant that the newly modified submarine was not yet ready, that it required at least another day of testing.

Rex Smith sighed deeply and pulled himself out of the chaise lounge. He figured he had better get down there and intervene before the two hotheads actually came to blows. One of them could end up in the drink, and Smith knew them well enough by now to not take any bets on which one it would be.

“When did being chief scientist morph into being the playground monitor?” he grumbled under his breath as he started that way.

Just as Smith grabbed the ladder, Bill Bix stepped around the starboard side of the superstructure. The Deep Ocean Explorer’s captain was making one of his rare trips away from the bridge while the ship was underway. That alone was enough to cause Smith to pause and see what was up. Bix glanced down at the two bickering crewmembers, shook his head, and chuckled.

“Kids still arguing about their toy, huh?” The captain turned to Smith, all the humor dropping from his voice. “Rex, you see the latest? Just came over SOPAC News that ‘King Two-for-One' has gone and signed the Chinese deal. He all but gave them a navy base at Nuku’alofa and the rights to build an international airport on the island.”

Bix was clearly exasperated. King Tofuwanga II was derisively known by the moniker “King Two-for-One" for his propensity to sell any and everything on the islands of Tonga—where he was the nation’s leader—to finance his lavish lifestyle. King Tofuwanga had taken the historic graft and greed of his ancestors to an entirely new level, though, making deals with the Chinese for loans that were theoretically to be used to build a shipping terminal, factories, sumptuous new infrastructure projects, and even—from scratch—a Tongan international airline, to be owned, of course, by Tofuwanga’s government. Now those debts were coming due, little had been built with the money, and with practically no revenue, the king had no hope of even coming close to repaying them. The joke was that his people could hear him squeal as the Chinese tightened the screws. The shipping terminal, which handled very little shipping, would now become a navy base. And the airport, which serviced precious few flights, would almost certainly become a welcome host for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Tonga International Airlines? It still consisted of a single aircraft, whose only passenger was King Tofuwanga II when he wanted to visit Sydney for a few nights of entertainment in King’s Cross, or Bangkok for a week of who-knew-what.

Bix slammed his fist against the rail, his Australian accent becoming thicker and more difficult to understand as he grew angrier.

“Don’t we ever learn anything? Our fathers fought a long, hard war to stop the Japanese from cutting off Australia’s lifeline to the US. Hell, I lost two uncles when the Canberra went down during the Battle of Savo Island. Not to mention all the good people of these islands whose fathers and mothers suffered so much back then and who will now catch the brunt of all this corruption. All while we allow some two-bit Tongan grifter to give it to the Chinese without so much as a g’day?”

Smith put his hand on the skipper’s shoulder.

“Easy now, Bill. We don’t find something interesting out there on this run, Hitler could take over Tonga and it wouldn’t make any matter to us.” The scientist took the stub of the cigar from his lips and flipped it over the side, into the deep green water. “Let me see if I can just keep those two down there from murdering each other and try to salvage this situation. Let the politicians worry about the politics.”

Bix shook his head as he turned and walked away, back to his wheelhouse.

Ψ

Several of the seats in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence secure hearing chamber, hidden deep under the Hart Senate Offices, were empty, indicating members did not see the need to show up. Other senators had their laptops open, checking the day’s stock market update or poll results from back in their home states, clearly uninterested in the hearing about to be gaveled into session. Even though it was an open hearing, C-SPAN had not deemed this afternoon’s testimony worthy of television coverage. Not even on their third network.

At the table opposite the senators’ perch, behind a microphone and a printed name card, a stunningly beautiful Asian woman, maybe thirty-five years old, patiently waited. The name on the card was Li Min Zhou. When the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee finally opened the proceedings, only a few of the senators perked up and appeared even remotely interested in hearing the woman’s remarks. And a couple of those openly leered at the striking witness.

“Miss Zhou, we appreciate you coming here today at the behest of the...who was it, Pat?” A staffer whispered to the chairman. “Oh, yes. The junior senator from Virginia.” Senator Thad Murson was quite openly called the “Senator of the Navy.”

The chairman’s voice was almost a caricature of a Southern drawl. “We have an important vote on the Senate floor staring us in the face, I’m afraid, ma’am. Some banking bill the Democrats just had to bring up today when they thought we weren’t paying attention. We have a copy here of your statement, which we’ll certainly consider, so