Photon

The four friends planned to celebrate their retirement with a sailboat cruise to the Mediterranean … southern Europe.  As veterans, they finished their working careers at a military arsenal developing weapons.  One of them worked a new type of energy bomb … a Photon Bomb.  It was a skunkworks program.  Care was taken to put nothing on computers.  However, emails between the four discussed the project.

Chinese hackers picked up on the new weapon.  They wanted more but could not find anything on any government computer systems.  So, they conspired to intercept the four friends on their cruise and kidnap the expert.

China was expanding it geopolitical reach.  Under the guise of a revival of the old ‘Silk Road’ they were making allegiances with countries … one of which was Pakistan.  So, their hide their involvement with this nefarious action, they decided to use the Pakistani as their henchmen.