The Macanese waitress smiled as she handed a bottle of beer to her handsome customer. At a trim but muscular five foot ten, with brown hair and blue eyes, Scot Harvath was used to attention. As the waitress moved on to the next customer, the casino’s public address system crackled to life. First in Chinese, then Portuguese, and finally in English a voice announced that the Macau Observatory had elevated Tropical Depression Anita to Tropical Storm Anita. The nearby Guia Lighthouse was flying the “Number 8” signal, indicating that gale-force winds were expected. Patrons were advised that local authorities might close the islands’ bridges, as well as the connecting arteries with mainland China, without further notice.

We’d better wrap this up soon, Harvath thought to himself. The last report he had received from the U.S. Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Center had forecasted the depression would advance to the tropical storm stage, with winds blowing upward of seventy-two miles per hour. Anything stronger than that would amount to a full-blown typhoon, and he knew that at that point the mission would be scrapped. Scrapping, though, was unacceptable to Harvath. He had come too far to let his target go now.

Harvath pulled fifty more Hong Kong dollars from his pocket and placed another bet as he pretended to sip at his cold beer. He was sitting at a table with a mixed group of Anglos and Asians, all hard-core gamblers, none of whom had the good sense to make tracks before the storm got any worse. Next to him was Sammy Cheng of the SDU, the Hong Kong Police Force’s secretive counterterrorism unit. Harvath and Cheng had met several years prior, when Harvath’s SEAL team had been sent to Hong Kong to help the then-British counterterrorism unit improve upon their water skills.