Behind them, to the southeast, lay the resort island of Gulangyu, its multicolored lights winking in the haze. Mitchell slid his mask onto his forehead and grimaced over the water's nasty stench. He dragged himself closer and removed his fins, leaving on his wet shoes, and rushed onto the shoreline.

There, he and the others stripped out of their gear, piled it up for the SEALs, then Mitchell set the beacon and gave the hand signal to move out.

They hustled off, heading west through a fairly dense forest toward the opposite end of the spit, where a long pier jutted out into the channel between themselves and the mainland.

A lone wooden fishing boat, lights off, was roped up at the end of the pier and idling loudly, its engine exhaling plumes of black smoke. The boat could barely accommodate six people, let alone nine or ten.

Mitchell gave another hand signal, and the team bolted from the forest and out, onto the pier, keeping low.

Once at the boat, a bald, bespectacled Chinese man with a sizable paunch lumbered up to the gunwale. He raised his voice above the coughing inboard, his English surprisingly good: "Everyone come aboard. Quickly now, quickly. And who is Captain Mitchell?"

"I am," Mitchell answered, climbing over the rail and cramming onto the deck.

"Hello. They call me Buddha. I'm taking you across the channel to a small pier used only by the fishermen. We have two trucks waiting. You will change in the trucks."

"Outstanding. And that's a good name you have."

"I think so." Buddha moved to the wheel, shouted to Nolan and Hume to get the ropes, then he throttled up and steered them away from the pier.

They sat below the gunwale, out of view, and Mitchell dug out his Cross-Com earpiece/monocle from his pack. He slipped the unit over his left ear, tapped the Power Up button, and issued the voice command: "Cross-Com activated." In three seconds he was on the network.

The screen glowed to life, and he immediately issued several more voice commands, bringing up his first support asset, that streaming satellite video from the castle itself, and even as the image sharpened from static to an overhead, night-vision-enhanced picture of the four silos and single rectangular building, Mitchell watched as a lone helicopter landed in an adjacent field. "Right on time," he whispered.

The trip across the channel took but fifteen minutes, and as they neared the fishermen's pier, Buddha cut the throttle way too late. They slammed so hard into the pylons that the rail actually cracked.

"Sorry," Buddha said. "I'm a lover, not a sailor."

"Dude, you need some lessons," said Nolan as he helped tie up the boat.

A young man, probably in his mid-twenties, stood waiting for them by the trucks. The guy ditched his cigarette and cocked a thumb at the tarpaulin-covered flatbeds.

"Oh, you have to be kidding me," said Brown.

"Just get in," snapped Mitchell.