Piranha

by Dale Brown

  “It’s straightforward. First up, we get the control gear into the planes. By tomorrow night we should have two new probes. Beyond that, there are some tests and fixes I’d like to try. Oh, and I have a fix, no, not a fix, just a tweak, on the wake detectors—I’ll put that in first. Shouldn’t take too long; it’s a software thing.”

  “So how sensitive is the passive sonar?” asked one of the Navy people.

  “Good enough to follow submarines of the Trafalgar type at twenty miles. I have the diffusion rates, all the technical data here.”

  The officer had obviously asked the question to see how much she knew, and Jennifer, not so subtly, called his bluff, reaching into her knapsack for her laptop.

  “We’ve had a few problems with the amplitude when the temperatures shifts quickly, such as when you go into a different thermal layer. We think it’s hardware, though I’ve tried two different versions of the chip circuitry and had the same results, so I’m not sure. Here—maybe you have some ideas. Look at the sines, that’s where it’s obvious.”

  She started to unfold the laptop. The intel officer had turned purple. Delaford rescued him.

  “I think for now we better just stay focused on equipping the other planes,” he said.

  Jennifer gave the other man an overly fake smile and packed the laptop away.

  “How long to install?” Zen asked.

  “Three hours per plane,” she told him. She took a long strand of hair and began twisting it, thinking. “We’re going to route the com units through the Flighthawk backup gear and use the panels for the display. We didn’t have time to actually test it, but I think it’ll work.”

  Dog wanted to grab her, just jump her right there—it was as blatant as that, raw, an overwhelming animal urge. His eyes bored into the side of her head; she hadn’t looked at him after coming in, probably because she felt the same way.

  “All right. We need a fresh weather report. Storm should almost be out of the tracking area, which will make our job easier, at least until the next one comes through. They were talking about a twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour window, which means one full rotation. Then, the probe goes home.” Dog resisted the urge to pace—there simply wasn’t room in the small trailer. “Our Navy friends have worked on some idea about where some of targets may be located. We’re going to work with a group of P-3’s flying at a very long range on the west side of the Chinese battle group, from here over to the Vietnamese coast.”

  Dog’s hand slid across a massive area of ocean as dismissively as if it were a small parking lot.

  “If we find something or get a good hint, we launch. Quicksilver is up next. They replace us on station in six hours. Raven comes on six hours later. If there’s no launch, Quicksilver still helps the Navy with patrols, but we’ll take the next shift. Bu sometime tomorrow, or maybe the next day, Kitty Hawk should be in the patrol area and that will change things. I’m not sure exactly what the admiral had in mind at that point.”

  Dog’s lineup would mean at least twelve-hour shifts for the crews, with three or four hours prep, six hours on patrol, two or three hours to get back and debrief. No one complained—which didn’t surprise Dog in the least.

  He glanced over at Jennifer. She was looking at him, squinting ever so slightly.

  Of course she was looking at him. Everyone was.

  Dog forced himself to nod, shifted his gaze to Fentress, and nodded again. When he turned toward Breanna, he saw she was frowning.

  “Captain?” he asked her in surprise.

  “Nothing.”

  “Captail Williams will give us the latest on the Chinese and Indian forces,” Dog said, turning to the Navy officer. Williams had come from the G-2 section of Admiral Allen’s staff to facilitate intelligence sharing.

  “The storm slowed down the progress of the task forces.” He pulled out a small manila folder and handed some papers around. Dog glanced down at his and saw it was actually a cartoon rendering of the situation—on one side of the South China Sea was Donald Duck, on the other Mickey Mouse, both posturing on top of the aircraft carriers.

  “You draw this yourself?” said Zen, an obvious snicker in his voice.

  “Just keeping things in perspective,” said Williams. He dished out another version—this one a detailed sketch based on the latest reports. “Probable area of the Indian submarine is that crosshatch just to the east-southeast of the lead Chinese carrier, which is where they launched from. They haven’t found it yet, at least as far as we know. Good submarine captain—and I think we have to assume this fellow’s at the top of the heap—would use this storm to skitter around, get a new location. The Chinese don’t have an all-weather ASW capability, not from the surface anyway, their submarines may be different story, but as you can see from the diagram, they’re still at best a day away from joining the aircraft carriers. Even then, frankly, their probability of intercepting the Indian boat is not going to break double digits.”

  The Indian aircraft carrier had managed to link up with the cruisers and destroyers. If everyone steamed toward each other at flank speed, they could be firing at each other within twenty-four hours.

  “More likely, they’ll just shadowbox,” said Williams. “Plenty of opportunity for you to get information about the submarines. Yesterday’s show of force by Iowa seems to have dampened some of the war fever; the diplomacy’s at high pitch.” Hoping to fire a diplomatic flare of his own toward the Dreamland contingent, Captain Williams added, “By the way, that’s a good name for a Megafortress. Her Navy namesake would be proud.”

  The sailor handing the chow line in the mess tent saw Danny Freah approach. “More eggs, Captain? Be your third helping.”

  “Problem with that?” said Danny lightly.

  “No, sir,” said the Navy seaman, lifting the metal cover on the serving tray. “No, sir. Good to seem someone with a healthy appetite.”

  “It’s good cooking, sailor,” said Danny, though truth was the eggs were rubbery at best. Most likely they were powdered or flash-frozen or whatever the hell they did to eggs these days. Still, he took another full helping, then went back to his table.

  He was putting off talking to Colonel Bastian. He’d already put it off since last night, when he could have caught the colonel before he turned in. This morning he could have grabbed him before his briefing session. Danny could have—should have—interrupted him.

  Powder was right about the girl. That was no reason, none at all, not to do his job. She wasn’t the same woman, and he wasn’t in the same situation.

  But she didn’t present a threat, nor did her village. He knew that in his bones.

  They couldn’t keep her in the med tent; he had to deal with her before Peterson went over his head, which he might already have done.

  Or Stoner. The spook thought he was God, just about. Spy with attitude. He would get involved soon too.

  Danny was trained to be cautious, to think about what he was doing before he acted. He was also trained to act, not to sit on something for a day—days, really, if you argued he should have moved the village right away.

  He sure as hell wasn’t trained—wasn’t paid—to get caught up in emotions and buried memories. Maybe Jemma was right; maybe it was time for him to quit.

  And do what? Run for office? What good would he do?

  Right wrongs, like Jem always said.

  That was what he was doing now.

  “Hey, Cap, you probably want to get over to the med tent,” said Bison, leaning down next to him. “Stoner’s hassling the prisoner.”

  “Shit,” muttered Danny, getting up quickly.

  He found Stoner sitting across form the woman in a chair. She was talking in English, her face red. Danny started to say something to the CIA officer, but Stoner stopped him by putting up his hand.

  “They burned the house first,” continued the woman. “The houses were huts, not even as sturdy as this. Two people we have never seen again. These are the people you call saviors.”

 
; “I didn’t call them saviors,” said Stoner. His voice was flat, as unemotional as a surgeon asking for a fresh scalpel.

  “We want only to live in peace. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You’re not in a good place,” said Danny, taking another step toward her. Her cheekbones were puffed out and her hair brushed straight back; her anger made her seem more like a woman.

  “Where would you have us live?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you turn us over to the government, they will massacre us.” She looked at Danny defiantly for a moment, then turned back to Stoner and began to cry.

  “Mr. Stoner, a word,” said Danny. He turned and went out of the tent. When the CIA officer appeared, he walked a few feet away.

  “She telling the truth?” Danny asked him.

  “I told you there’d be a sob story.”

  “Sob story—two people being killed is hardly a sob story.”

  “What would you call it?” Stoner asked.

  “A fucking massacre—an atrocity.”

  Stoner shrugged.

  “We’re not turning her over to the government, or the army,” said Danny.

  Stoner said nothing.

  “We’re not,” said Danny. “We’ll move them ourselves. Fuck those bastards—we’ll move them ourselves. Well? Say something.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Say you agree.”

  Stoner shrugged.

  Danny felt his anger rising so high he almost couldn’t control it. “What the fuck, man? What the hell—aren’t you human?”

  “We can move them. But sooner or later, the Army will find them again. We won’t have control over what happened then.”

  “You know.”

  Danny clamped his hand into a fist, stifling his anger. Would it do any good to tell Stoner what had happened in Bosnia? Probably not.

  It didn’t matter. He’d move them himself.

  “You going against me on this?” Danny asked.

  Stoner shrugged. “I’m not for or against it. It’s not really my business. There’s a communication network. I have NSA intercepts that are reporting on ship activity and transmitting.”

  “From here?”

  “They haven’t been able to pin down the location, which is pretty interesting. I guess. There are two kinds of transmission—radio, and something that goes underwater. Not all of it’s decoded.”

  “And she’s involved in that?”

  “I doubt it, but we won’t know till we look in her village.”

  Danny frowned, as if Stoner were saying he should have done this before.

  Which, in a way, he was.

  “The gear’s pretty sophisticated,” said the CIA officer. “They wouldn’t be able to hide it.”

  “Those atolls,” said Danny. “If there’s some sort of network, they’d have to be involved.”

  “Probably.”

  “All right,” Danny nodded. “We’ll go to her village ASAP. But here’s the deal—if what she’s saying checks out, we move her ourselves.”

  Stoner shrugged. Danny took that to mean it was okay with him.

  Dog figured he could sneak fifteen minutes away with Jennifer while the rest of the Iowa’s crew got the plane ready. He shouldn’t, of course—but rank had its privileges. Besides, Rosen and the others were fully capable of handling things on their own.

  Now, if he were really taking advantage of the situation, he would ask someone else to fill in for him as pilot, which he wasn’t.

  “Miss Gleason, if I could have a word,” he said as the others began filing out of the trailer.

  “Miss Gleason?” she said, her face red.

  “Um, Ms. Sorry.”

  “Miss Gleason”

  “Uh-oh, Colonel, you stepped in it,” said Zen.

  “Hmmmph,” said Breanna.

  “I had an idea about adding something to the com section of the computer,” said Dog. “A language translator. As part of the regular communication area. “We had—”

  “Which communication area?” she snapped. “In the flight-control computer, or the master unit? Tactical or the mission-spree areas?”

  She wasn’t angry with him, he told himself, she was just busting his chops.

  She was, wasn’t she?

  “Well here’s the situation,” the colonel told her, starting to explain how they had tried to talk to the Chinese yesterday.

  “Important officers in the Chinese military all speak English,” she insisted, absentmindedly taking a stray strand of hair and pulling over her ear.

  “They may speak it, but in the heat of the battle, they don’t understand it too well.”

  “You can have language experts on call at Dreamland.”

  Damn, she was being difficult. “In the heat of the moment, it would be easier if you could press a button and what you said was translated and broadcast,” said Dog. “It would prevent misunderstanding, and there’d be no time delay.”

  “Mmmm,” she said.

  “Can you insert some sort of translator into the communications sections?”

  “I’d have to think about it.”

  Busting his chops, definitely. He could see the start of a grin on her face, a slight hint.

  Man, he just wanted to jump in bed with her.

  “We should be ready to preflight in ten minutes,” said Rosen from near the doorway.

  “I may be delayed,” the colonel said. “I have to check back with Dream Command.”

  “You can do that from the flight deck, Daddy,” said Breanna. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say “Daddy,” Colonel,” she added in a tone of voice that left no doubt that she’d done it on purpose.

  “Colonel Bastian, I need a word,” said Danny Freah, squeezing inside. “Has to be private, sir.”

  “Well, I was just leaving,” said Jennifer.

  Dog managed to sit down in the chair without stopping her.

  “Have a good sleep?” asked Danny.

  “Yes, Captain, I did,” said Colonel Bastian. “Go ahead.”

  “The girl we picked up, from the village.”

  “We still have her?”

  Dog listened as Danny explained in detail what had happened, what the girl had told Stoner, and what Stoner’s team had discovered on the atoll stations.

  “I should have told you she tried to shoot me,” said Danny when he was done. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I—it’s a little hard to explain.”

  “You better try, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir. This isn’t an excuse.” Danny’s body seemed to deflate. “In Bosnia, there was an accident, an innocent woman trying to protect a kid.”

  As Dog listened, he noticed Danny kept shifting his hands awkardly. He’d never seen the captain so ill at ease.

  Dog rubbed his forehead, unsure exactly what to say, much less to do. conceivably, his captain could be charged with dereliction of duty for not taking the situation seriously.

  On the other hand, if this woman was just a housewife in the village—hell.

  “Search the village,” Dog told Freah. “Secure it.”

  “What about the atoll? I’d like to check it out ASAP.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to Woods. If you’re looking for force backup—”

  “I have what I need,” said Danny. “We’ll use the Marines here.”

  “Not without Woods’ okay.”

  “They’re authorized to secure the island.”

  “Not the atoll.”

  “Right,” said Danny. “One other thing. I want us to move the people in that village when we’re done. If we just turn them over to the Filipinos, they’ll be slaughtered.”

  “I doubt that’s true. I …”

  “We can move them ourselves. I’ll scout a new spot for them on the south part of the island. We can have them there tonight,” Danny said firmly.

  “Let’s find out what’s in the village,” said Dog. “In
spect it, then contact me.”

  “Can we move them? I have to know what I’m going to do with them.”

  “It’s not my decision,” Dog said. “It’s up to Admiral Woods, and probably Admiral Allen. They’ll deal with it.”

  “But they’ll take your advice.”

  “They may, they may not,” said Dog. “More likely the latter.”

  “You don’t like her at all, do you,” said Zen, rolling alongside Breanna as she walked to the Navy’s mess tent.

  “Please, Jeff, we’ve been over this a million times,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

  “Green-eyed jealousy. Hell hath no fury like a jealous lady.”

  “At least you know your clickés.” Breanna swung through the door without holding it for him. A fresh batch of pancakes was just being put out; she loaded a double-high stack on her plate.

  “Packing it in, huh?” said Zen when she returned to the table. He was sipping a cup of black coffee.

  “On a diet?” she asked, taking a bite of her pancakes.

  “Trying to get back my girlish figure.”

  “These are good,” she said. She tried changing the subject. “How’s FDR?”

  “We’re fighting the Depression,” said Zen. “You know what’s amazing?”

  “The fact that you’re actually reading?”

  “I read all the time before I met you,” said Zen.

  “Sports Illustrated and Penthouse don’t count.”

  “Penthouse Letters,” he told her. “Big difference.”

  “I was wondering where you picked up your technique.”

  “Roosevelt never really gave up trying to walk, not until he was in the White House,” said Zen, suddenly serious. “I think he really thought he would walk again. He kept telling people, next year. Next year. You know the thing he did with his legs, leaning on people? I bet he really thought he was walking. I bet he did.

  “Geez, Bree, you got to chew those things.”

  She stopped mid-bite—half a pancake slipped form her mouth.

  Zen laughed and took a sip of coffee.

  “Me, I’m a realist. I know I’m not going to walk again.”

  “Except when you were in ANTARES.”

  “Yeah. Well, the drugs did that,” he said. He looked into his coffee cup, then put it down and picked up a spoon, fishing out a fly. It was a minute or so before he began speaking again. “I understand what Frank was thinking.”