The video had been taken from hundreds of yards away, by a drone in mid-flight. It was too low resolution to allow lip-reading. But the body language spoke volumes. Kade, firm, resolute. Shiva, disappointed, frustrated.

“Kade didn’t give him the codes,” Feng said.

Nakamura nodded. Good.

“Have they identified where Lane’s being held?” he asked Feng. “Security around him?”

Feng shook his head. “Terahertz imagers.” He flipped to another image, showed the distinctive antenna shape of a stand-off T-ray sensor. “Drones detected it, stayed away.”

Nakamura drummed his fingers. They still needed to know more. What room was Lane in? What security? What surveillance?

Feng held up one finger of his cuffed hands, as if reading Nakamura’s thoughts.

“Here,” he said.

The display zoomed out into satellite imagery, panned out over water, then zoomed back in on a small island, a mile from Shiva’s home. Feng zoomed further. A shape, outlined in red by the image analysis AI.

The shape was angular, broken, with weird distortions. The pieces of a boat.

No. Not pieces. It was a boat, run aground, partially covered in chameleonware. Chameleonware that had been damaged, revealing pieces of the structure underneath.

What?

“Storm did this,” Feng said. “No sign Shiva’s looking for it.”

And then he looked up at Nakamura and smiled. “Could be people,” Feng said. “Shiva’s people. Human intel.”

There was only one way to find out.

Nakamura brought the sub in close to the beach, under the waves, then waited for nightfall.

“Let me come with you,” Feng pleaded. “I can help. We’re friends now!”

Nakamura chuckled. “You’re my prisoner, Feng. Not my partner.”

“You leave me on the boat?” Feng sounded outraged. “What happens if you get killed, huh? I go down to the bottom!”

“I’m not planning on getting killed, Feng.”

“Look, our goals the same!” Feng replied. “We both want Kade free! I’ll help you. I’ll be useful!”

“No,” Nakamura said. “Now clip your cuffs to the hardpoint.”

Feng hesitated for a moment, then did what he was told, locking his ankles and wrists to floor and ceiling of the sub’s fuselage.

Feng glowered at Nakamura. “You a real bastard, you know?”

Nakamura smiled. “I know, Feng,” he said.

Then he brought the sub up, pushed himself and the inflatable boat out the hatch.

“Grandpa!” Feng yelled as Nakamura pushed himself and the inflatable away.

Nakamura smiled and sent the sub the signal to seal itself up and submerge again.

Nakamura paddled the small boat in, not daring to risk the noise or IR emissions of engines. The boat’s skin shifted color to blend in with the waves. His own chameleonware suit rendered him nearly invisible. Its goggles extended his vision into the IR, into radio frequencies.