Hilo said to Juen, “I’ll come to the next meeting you have with the chief of police. You’re right that we need to coordinate better with the cops to find these lunatics and cut them down.” He ate the last crispy squid ball and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “But first, we’ve got a bigger problem to deal with.”
The Pillar glanced at his Weather Man, who passed a file folder across the table to Juen. It contained a stack of enlarged photographs. They appeared to be aerial images, taken from a helicopter, capturing sections of rocky shoreline and surrounding ocean. A shape that appeared to be a ship was circled with black marker. Additional photographs, taken with telephoto lenses, showed the ship in greater detail—an industrial vessel with an orange hull, its deck crammed with heavy equipment.
“What is this?” Juen asked.
“A prototype mining ship,” Hilo said. “Built by an Espenian company to dredge the ocean floor around Kekon for jade.”
Juen exclaimed, in incredulous outrage, “They can do that? In Kekonese waters?”
Shae said, “It’s currently located twenty-five kilometers off the coast of Euman Island. We were alerted to it by leaders of the Abukei tribes who fish in the area. The Espenian Navy controls those waters—in fact, given the number of battleships they have patrolling the Amaric, they control most of the waters around Kekon.”
Anden spoke up. “If the Espenian military is allowing this, shouldn’t it be an issue for the Royal Council to bring up with the ROE government?”
“They already have,” Woon replied. “It’s a diplomatic sore point. Relations have already been strained for years over the expansion of Euman Naval Base. Since the ROE wouldn’t budge on the issue, the KJA reduced jade exports to Espenia. It seems the ROE response to that is a typically Espenian one: search for someone else to buy from.”
“An Espenian company willing to dig through the ocean floor around Kekon,” Juen finished for him. “Will it work? Is there actually any jade to find down there?”
Wen answered slowly, but clearly. “I spoke to several geologists at Jan Royal University who think so. Rivers have been eroding the mountains of Kekon and carrying jade into the surrounding ocean for millions of years. And there’s also runoff from the mines being washed out to sea. The only question is whether it’s possible for anyone to profitably sift through all that water and gravel for enough tiny pebbles of green.”
“Art Wyles, the CEO of Anorco Global Resources, obviously thinks so,” Shae said. “The Espenian tycoon has invested hundreds of millions of thalirs into developing undersea mining technology. This ship is the first real test. Wyles is also supposedly high up in the powerful Munitions Society and has a lot of political connections.”
Woon Papi, who seemed to be more outspoken since marrying into the leadership of the Kaul family, grumbled, “If there’s any time when the cost of such a foolish and arrogant venture might pay off, it would be now, with the price of jade so high. There are reports that Ygutan has jade soldiers of their own, and the Espenians are desperate to stay ahead of their enemies. They’d like nothing more than to bypass the KJA altogether and have a reliable Espenian company mining jade for them.”
Juen put the photographs back into the folder. He’d noticed that the Pillar had not said anything further, allowing the rest of the family to explain. Up until now, the issue had been a political one. Now that the Horn was involved, it was a military one.
“Hilo-jen,” Juen said, smiling with the excitement and trepidation of being handled a truly unusual challenge, “this is not going to be easy.”
“I wouldn’t ask you if it was,” Hilo said. “I want that fucking ship destroyed.”
_______
A common misperception, even within the clan, Juen thought, was that jade ability and martial prowess were the most important traits of a good Horn. Juen was without question an accomplished fighter, but he hardly considered it to be the most important qualification for his job. Certainly not in this day and age, when as Horn, he had to manage thousands of jade warriors deployed in different cities and even in different countries. The clans had become too big to attack each other directly without mutual catastrophe, so they waged proxy wars via tributaries and allies, criminal gangs, spies, politicians, and journalists, which further complicated Juen’s responsibilities.
After Vuay had retired from the clan to take on a teaching position at the Academy, Juen had split the role of First Fist into three equal positions, all reporting directly to him—one to oversee Janloon, one for the rest of Kekon, and one dedicated to the management of White Rats. He’d folded Maik Tar’s former Nails into this latter branch, and focused on modernizing its operations and planting informers among the barukan in Kekon and Shotar and the Uwiwa Islands with the goal of gathering more intelligence on the Mountain’s activities. Juen had to constantly manage difficult people and limited resources and keep a thousand details organized in his mind. And now, he also had to deal with this foreign mining ship.