He had no good answers. And so he’d sat staring out his window as the sun dropped over the western sea, trying not to think more than necessary, taking advantage of his last period of calm within the chaos. He would need all his wits upon arriving at his destination.

The aircraft rattled and shook through the night sky. After a while it passed high above the booms and derricks of the Haiyang Shiyou deepwater oil platform, turning westward toward the Spratly archipelago. Wei knew then he was finally close. There was another expanse of blue, and soon he was over the group’s outer islands, all clumps of green forest and sapphire atolls and white sandy coastlines.

The plane nosed down, leveled, rolled left and right, then nosed down and leveled again on its approach to Yongshu Jiau, Fiery Cross Reef, which in fact went by many names. The fishermen had called it tuwu—meaning unexpected—back when it was a half-sunken slab of rock that would tear the keels off their ships if they relaxed their guard.

But that was a different era. Now the fishing fleet guarded the reef, armed and ready, the boats anchored around it in a defensive ring. This was Dangerous Ground in more ways than one.

As his pilot shed more altitude, Wei suddenly became oblivious to the rattling and shaking of the plane. Even his tired achiness seemed to fade. What he saw below held him captivated.

Fiery Cross’s transformation into a man-made island was breathtaking, a marvel of Chinese invention and industriousness. The semisubmerged rock had become an island a mile across and two long, with multiple landing strips, groupings of air defense towers, barracks and four hexagonal concrete structures around the edges—its technical complexes, as they called them.

Wei’s gaze fell on the enormous dome at the northwest side of its harbor. There. That’s where it is.

He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and waited to land. Minutes later, he felt his stomach lurch from deceleration as the plane hit the ground.

A reception party was waiting with three black BJ80 SUVs parked nose to tail behind them. Four sailors in dress whites on the tarmac, two more ceremoniously outside one of the cars. General Wei trotted down the stairs behind his aides, exchanged salutes, and was led toward the vehicles. He smelled salt in the breeze and heard the ocean all around him. It seemed to breathe quietly as he strode across the tarmac.

Calm within the chaos.

Wei’s aides got into the last vehicle. One of the white-uniformed men outside the middle SUV held open its rear door for him. He made certain not to look stiff as he slid in and adjusted his legs, exhaling with relief only once the door was shut.

The convoy drove off toward the dome.