417: Chapter 417 Flag Forces Three Aircraft Carriers

Carter grabbed his binoculars.

The first flag: the national flag of the Federation of Myanmar.

The second flag: the naval ensign of the Dragon Kingdom.

The third flag—a flag he had never seen before: a dark green background with a white silhouette of a baobab tree, its roots dug into the seawater and its canopy reaching toward the sky.

The fourth flag was the blue and white flag of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, hanging beside the international signal flag "H"—the letter flag signifying "This ship is exercising the right of free navigation."

Those four flags unfurled simultaneously in the five a.m. sea breeze, dyed gold by the morning sun.

Holland opened his mouth.

He recognized the first flag, the second was self-explanatory, and the third he had only seen in intelligence briefings—labeled: The flag of the Mozambique People's Defense Zone, planted two months ago by a man named João Mutale on the abandoned lighthouse in Palma Town.

Now, this flag was flying side-by-side with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea flag on the mast of a ten-thousand-ton destroyer, cutting into an international channel right in front of him, neither speeding up, turning, nor responding to any radar illumination.

Carter lowered his binoculars.

"Order—the entire fleet is to change course. Bearing zero-three-five, speed twelve knots, divert to the waters east of Madagascar."

"That means withdrawing from the Mozambique Channel—the order we received was to blockade it."

"The order has changed."

Carter signed his name in the logbook, his handwriting three parts messier than usual, the final letter dragging out a long tail that shouldn't have been there.

He knew he would face a court-martial after returning to port.

But he also knew that even if he didn't fire, didn't turn, and locked down a destroyer here, that DF-17 with a deviation of less than one meter could still smash through his flight deck from four thousand six hundred kilometers away, and his Standard-3 couldn't even catch up to its exhaust plume.

A blockade is only useful under the premise that the enemy cannot hit you.

Now that the enemy can hit you from four thousand six hundred kilometers away, what are you still blockading?

He mentally put a period on the so-called deterrence, closed the logbook, and stood up—only that cup of cold coffee remained on the desk, a ring of dark brown coffee residue accumulated at the bottom of the cup, like washed-out rust.

In the combat information center of the "Bhamo," the sonar operator took off his headset.

"Captain—the target formation has changed course. The "USS Dwight D. Eisenhower" battle group is accelerating to withdraw from the channel, heading east of Madagascar."

Senior Colonel Lin Haisheng did not answer.

He reset his stopwatch, walked to the forward deck, and stood under the bow flagpole.

The four flags snapped loudly overhead, the dark green background of the baobab tree flag penetrated by the morning light of the Indian Ocean, looking like a mangrove forest that had just surfaced.

He had grown up in Yulin Port and heard his grandfather talk about how Dragon Kingdom cargo ships passing through Malacca had to pay pilotage fees to Singapore—for a ten-thousand-ton vessel, the pilotage fees plus the demurrage for waiting for a berth were enough to buy half a building in Hainan.

Now, the twelve-thousand-ton displacement destroyer beneath his feet was cutting through the deepest shipping lane of the Indian Ocean right under the noses of three aircraft carriers, without slowing down, without explaining, and without mercy.

He spoke a sentence over the ship's internal broadcast, his voice half-scattered by the sea breeze, but every word nailed into the eardrums of the ship's four hundred officers and men: "Today—the Indian Ocean is no longer anyone's backyard."

Forty minutes later, in a dilapidated sailor's bar in the port of Maputo, João Mutale leaned against the bar counter and finished watching the live broadcast of the "Bhamo" breaking through the aircraft carrier blockade.

He turned the phone screen around to show General Makamo, Chief of General Staff of the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces, who was sitting opposite him.

The general, over sixty years old, had his forearms crossed and pressed onto the wooden bar top, his eyes fixed on the screen, his profile cast in a rusty reflection by the dim red neon light behind the counter.

The live broadcast image froze on that dark green flag—roots dug into the seawater, canopy reaching toward the sky.

"That flag," Makamo said, "the day it was planted on the Palma lighthouse, I thought it was just a piece of cloth plastered in the sea breeze."

João did not reply, waiting for the general to finish speaking.

"Yesterday, seven tribal chiefs from Cabo Delgado Province petitioned the president together, requesting to raise this flag at the provincial assembly, on the grounds that the natural gas terminal had been listed, land had been distributed to everyone's name, clinics were not charging fees, and that little machine in the clinic that reports malaria parasite density was more effective than the microscopes at the Maputo General Hospital."

"Today, it is hanging side-by-side with the naval ensign at the very top of a destroyer's mast."

Makamo tilted his head back and drank the last mouthful of Maputo sugarcane liquor in his glass, then set the glass down heavily on the counter, "It is not cloth. It is a nation."

He stood up and extended a hand to João.

When João grasped it, he discovered that this hand, which had once pulled triggers and signed death warrants, had no strength in it at this moment—not relaxation, but surrender.

"The president asked me to tell you—Maputo is ready to sign that joint natural gas development agreement. Not tomorrow, not next week, but now."

He pulled João's hand three centimeters closer to him, "But before I stamp the military order, you have to help me do one thing."

"Name it."

"The communication system of the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces—replace it entirely with a quantum encrypted network based on the Shuguang Cloud architecture. No compatibility with Eagle-Country monitoring stations, no CIA backdoors left, and no connection to any NATO-standard interfaces. Finish it in three months."

"If you can't finish it, my generals will be held in the CIA's grip until they retire."

"If you finish it—" he let go of his hand, took a metal badge from his inner pocket, and pressed it into João's palm.

The badge was the golden seal of the General Staff of the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces—a token of authorization capable of mobilizing all garrison troops. "Help me clear out all CIA safe houses in Maputo. Leave none behind."

João gripped the badge, its metal edges embedding into the calluses on his palm worn by rifle handguards.

He stood up, dragged the live broadcast replay back to the frame where the "Bhamo" cut into the center of the channel and the three aircraft carriers were forced to fan out and give way, and pushed the phone across the bar toward Makamo.

"No need to wait for tonight. Start now."

He pressed the encrypted communication key and coldly stated a codename: "Pass it on."

Eight seconds later, in the underground command center in Naypyidaw, seven thousand kilometers away, Old K typed a reply on the encrypted channel—"Shadow Blade is in position. Provide precise coordinates."

3:10 a.m. Maputo time.

Thomas Harper, station chief of the CIA Africa Operations Division in Mozambique, was curled up in the basement of an abandoned fish warehouse in the Maputo port area.

The basement was only twelve square meters, the wall plaster peeling off, and the air was filled with the smell of rust from sea salt corroding the tin roof and the ammonia stench of rat urine.

He had been hiding here for seven days—ever since the failure of "Operation Savannah" and the day Jial was hanged on the baobab tree, he knew his coordinates would sooner or later be entered into the encrypted command of that Myanmar satellite.

In front of him was a portable encrypted communication terminal, the blue light on the screen illuminating every wrinkle on his face like a dried-up riverbed.

The terminal was attempting to connect to the encrypted satellite link of Langley headquarters—the seventy-ninth attempt.

The progress bar on the screen climbed from zero to thirty-seven percent, stopped, and jumped back to zero.

Thirty-seven percent—every time it was thirty-seven percent.

He tapped the terminal casing with his knuckles, as if knocking on a door that would never open.

Then he heard it—overhead, the loudspeaker began to play a recording.