Strike Zone

by Dale Brown

Chen Lo Fann thought of his grandfather, whose body he had just come from cremating.

  The letter in the old man’s desk—a letter Ai knew of, though he seemed not to have read—directed that the meeting between the two heads of state be stopped at all costs.

  What was his duty as Chen Lee’s grandson? Should he use the weapon as Lee clearly wished? Or should he choose his time?

  Duty demanded he carry out his grandfather’s wishes. The way was clear.

  The endless surging of the universe, as he interpreted the Tao, or “way.”

  The way that can be spoken is not the true way.

  Life and death were as one, different stages in the never-ending river. His grandfather’s death, his own—these were meaningless. Duty was constant. Duty lasted longer than the poor clay and ashes of a single day.

  “Prepare,” he told Professor Ai. “We will strike during the meeting, as my grandfather wished.”

  Dreamland

  2100

  JENNIFER GOT UP from the computer station and bent her head straight back. Her vertebrae all seemed to crack at once. She felt a surge of energy, and if it weren’t for the fact that they were close—very, very close—to a breakthrough, she would go for a run. Instead, she stretched and twisted her way across the lab to the coffee counter. A fresh pot had just finished sifting through into the carafe; she poured herself a cup and took a few slow sips.

  Dog’s voice had surprised her during the video conference earlier that morning; he seemed to have aged ten years since she’d last seen him.

  Maybe that meant she was over him.

  Good.

  She went back to the computer, which had just finished running a search of an NSA database. The computer had deposited three lines of hexadecimals on her screen; not taking any chances, she recorded them on the blank yellow pad at the station, then entered each one into the second search program she and an assistant had customized earlier in the day. A set of computers across the country at Fort Meade, the NSA headquarters, began rumbling through a vast array of intercepted and logged transmissions, trying to match the scripts she’d just harvested. Six keystrokes later, a Navy computer began doing the same.

  The screen flashed. It had found the radio.

  Several radios.

  “Oh,” said Jennifer aloud to the empty lab. “Now I get it.”

  She picked up the phone to call Major Catsman, who was over in the Dreamland Command Center getting ready to update the Whiplash Force in Taiwan.

  “I know how they do it,” she said when the major came on the line. “Basically they’re using buoys and a commercial satellite. I should be able to narrow down the ship, but I’m going to need some help from the Navy. High-level help. We have to tap into their collection of NOSS intercepts, the Sigint data they collect to track ship movements.”

  “Who do I talk to?” asked Catsman.

  Hangar 43C, Taichung Air Base, Taiwan

  1600

  ROLLING TOWARD THE small room at the far end of the hangar, Zen realized he hadn’t spoken to his wife, Breanna, in more than two days. While she’d certainly understand, he felt a pang of guilt, and told himself he’d catch up with her as soon as he could.

  Dog—just in from Brunei with Penn and the two Flighthawks—was already holding forth on the latest plan. Danny and Stoner had come down from Taipei, along with a driver and Sergeant Liu; the rest of his Whiplash team was due in a few hours, aboard Dreamland’s souped-up MC-17, which was en route with one of the Ospreys tucked inside its cavernous tummy. A contingent of Marines from the Philippines was due to arrive at the airport no later than 2300; they would add a little more muscle to the assault.

  Danny and Stoner had worked out a straightforward plan to secure the factory site at Kaohisiung. Penn would launch a laser-guided E-bomb at the start of the assault, wiping out all unshielded electronic devices at the target site. Whiplash would parachute in, secure the building, and hold it. The Marines would come in with the Osprey as well as some small boats, providing backup and extra security. The devices would be evacked out via the Osprey to this airport—the hangar area would be secured by more Marines—and then taken away by the MC-17 to Brunei.

  Stoner would ride with the Marines in the Osprey, carrying backup detection gear and his own hot link back to Dream Command, where a team of experts would be providing real-time analysis of the data the assault team gathered. Major Alou and Penn would fly offshore, with two Flighthawks—one piloted by Starship, the other by Kick, providing cover. About the only difficulty Danny could see was persuading the Marines to take what was drawn up as the secondary role in the operation.

  While the site was being secured, Zen and Raven would head south to observe the ship Dreamland had just tagged as the possible UAV operator. With the help of signal intelligence the Navy routinely collected as it tracked ships on the ocean, the Dreamland team had matched seemingly innocuous radio transmissions to those Jennifer Gleason had ID’d as belonging to the UAV control mechanism. The transmissions had been traced to the Dragon Prince, a small oil tanker. According to Jennifer’s theory, it operated the UAV with the help of a network of buoys and a satellite, disguising transmissions to appear as routine navigational inquiries or as “junk” reflections from other systems. The latest intelligence, cobbled together from a variety of sources, showed that the ship was due in Kaohisiung harbor tomorrow.

  Undoubtedly to get the bomb.

  If the robot launched, Zen would destroy it. Raven had been tabbed for the mission because its computers had the UAV frequency data; Dog would take the helm.

  The Dragon Prince would be apprehended by two U.S. Navy destroyers in international waters after the ground operation was under way. The ships were already en route, though they had not yet been informed of their exact mission or situation.

  “Washington is worried about security concerns,” explained Dog.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Stoner. “The ship captains may not think it’s a high priority. They ought to have the entire situation laid out for them.”

  “It’s not my call,” said Dog. Zen realized from the sharpness in Colonel Bastian’s voice that he didn’t agree with the decision, but was prepared to carry it out. “The concern is not only to preserve the element of sur- prise, but to keep the Mainland Chinese from finding out. If they knew there were nuclear devices on the island, they might use that as a pretext to launch an all-out attack.”

  Major Alou brought up a few practical issues about which non-Dreamland frequencies would be used during the operation, as well as the availability of refueling assets that were being chopped from Pacific Command. Zen found his mind drifting as the discussion slanted toward minutiae; he worried about Kick and Starship, who’d be working without a net.

  And then he remembered he’d still forgotten to call his wife.

  What was up with that?

  He eyed his watch, waiting for the briefing to end.

  Bright Memorial Hospital, Honolulu

  1800

  (Dreamland, 2100)

  BREANNA STOCKARD HAD just finished packing her things when the phone on the bedstand rang. Thinking it was probably her mother—her mother had taken to calling her every hour on the hour—she blew off the first few rings. Finally, she reached for it, grabbing it just in time to hear whoever had been calling hanging up.

  Probably Zen, she thought, instantly angry with herself for not picking up the phone. She took her bag and went out, glad to finally be out of the small whitewashed space.

  As she rode the elevator downstairs, Breanna felt a surge of concern for her husband. She knew he’d deployed on a mission somewhere, but security concerns had prevented him or anyone else from saying exactly where he was or what he was doing. As a member of the military—not to mention the same elite unit—Breanna was expected to understand that there would be times when duty demanded she not speak to Zen. But it wasn’t easy, just as it wasn’t easy for the literally thousands of other men and women—and children—wh
o found themselves in similar situations around the country. Breanna accepted this as a given, a part of her life. Even so, as she made her way to the elevator, she felt an undeniable ache, a longing to be near her husband.

  The ache turned into something else in the elevator downstairs, something sharper, a jagged hole.

  Fear. She was worried about him, afraid that something was going to happen.

  She was sure of it. Convinced. Her hands began to tremble.

  The door opened. Bree’s mother stood a few feet away, talking to some other doctors. Breanna managed to bite the corner of her lip and pushed herself out of the elevator. She forced a smile and suffered through her mother’s greeting and introductions, looking toward the floor not out of modesty as her mother bragged, but hiding the emotion suddenly washing through her. She signed herself out, the words on the papers at the desk invisible behind a thick fog.

  Spotting a phone nearby, she gave in to the temptation to call Dreamland, even though she knew she wouldn’t get Zen himself. She dialed the number, her finger sliding off the keys.

  No one would be able to talk to her anyway. It was an open line. All she’d do was make other people nervous.

  The phone rang and was answered before she could hang up.

  “This is Breanna Stockard,” she told the airman handling the phone. “I—”

  “Captain, how are you?” said the operator, and before she knew it she was talking to Chief Master Sergeant Terrence “Ax” Gibbs.

  “Everybody’s who’s anybody is out seeing the world,” Ax told her. “If you know what I mean.”

  The twinkle in the chief’s eyes translated somehow into his voice. Breanna’s apprehension didn’t melt—it was too deep for that—but her hand stopped trembling and the ground beneath her feet felt solid again.

  “Something up?” asked the chief.

  “No, chief, thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Sure I can’t do anything for you?”

  “You have, kinda,” she said. “I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

  “Red carpet’ll be waiting.”

  Taichung Air Base

  2300

  BOSTON HAD NEVER worn one of the fogsuits before, and Sergeant Liu had to help him into it. Covered with a thin layer of LEDs, the suit was designed to emit light in a pattern that blended with the surroundings. In pitch black, of course, it was completely dark. But in a grayish setting it would appear gray, and on a splotchy brown background it would look splotchy brown. The technology was still being worked on at Dreamland, and the scientists predicted that within a few years, new versions would make foot soldiers practically invisible to the naked eye.

  For now, they were just extremely hard to see, especially at dark.

  Sergeant Liu unfurled the hood from the back of the suit, covering all but the visor area of Boston’s helmet. The six Whiplash troopers looked like aliens, ready to take over the earth.

  Or at least a small part of it.

  “Check your tasers,” said Liu.

  Because of the political ramifications of operating without authorization in an allied country, the White House had ordered the Whiplash team to use nonlethal weapons “to the extent practical and possible” to take down the factory. Each team member carried a special Dreamland shotgun taser as his primary weapon. The gun looked like an Olin/HK CAWS RHINO (Repeating Hand-held Improved Non-rifled Ordnance) Special Forces shotgun with a large box in front of the trigger area. Traditional tasers fired two darts at a target that were connected to the weapon by a wire, allowing the shock to be administered. While potent, the need for the wire limited most tasers to relatively short range—fifteen yards was an industry standard. That was perfect for many police applications, but would put a Whiplash trooper at a severe disadvantage.

  The Dreamland gun—officially known as T-3, though the troopers usually just called them tasers or sometimes phasers after the weapons used in the Star Trek sci-fi series—fired a shell containing two bullets that looked like the jacks used in a child’s game, except that their points were considerably sharper. The bullets housed capacitors charged as the gun was fired; the shock when they contacted a target was enough to put down a horse.

  While the weapon could fire its cartridges beyond a hundred yards, technical difficulties with the separation of the bullets meant the team had to decide between short or long-range cartridges, with effective ranges between five and fifty yards or forty and one hundred yards. In both cases, the bullets would not separate or set the charge properly before the minimum range, and beyond the maximum they tended to be wildly inaccurate. All team members carried clips packed with both sets of ammo, color-coded and notched so they were easily ID’d.

  The team members also carried standard-issue M-4s—shortened M-16s favored by Airborne and SF troops—or MP-5s beneath their fogsuits; they were intended only as weapons of last resort.

  “We’re ready, Captain,” said Liu over the shared team frequency in the Smart Helmet as the last trooper signaled he was good to go.

  “Good.” Captain Freah’s rich baritone reverberated in Boston’s helmet. “Now remember, the E-bomb will go off just as we hit the ground,” he added. “It may not get everything, and they may start looking for us once their lights go out. Questions?”

  Bison made a lame joke about plugging his taser into an outlet and charging the city for electricity.

  “Any real questions?” asked the captain, and the silence told Boston they were ready to board the plane.

  Aboard Penn, over the Taiwan Strait

  2335

  STARSHIP TOOK THE Flighthawk from the computer as the launch sequence completed, tucking the U/MF down toward the water as Kick authorized his own launch. It was damn good to be back in action.

  He wasn’t feeling any jitters, and the pressure wasn’t even up to football game levels. The fact that Kick had his hands full with his own aircraft reassured him somehow.

  Bottom line, Starship knew he was twice the pilot Kick was. Having his rival next to him in the Flighthawk bay flying his own aircraft seemed easier to deal with than having him hovering over his shoulder.

  It didn’t hurt either that Zen was off in the other plane.

  “Hawk One is coming through 25,000 feet, on course and ready,” he told Penn’s pilot, Major Alou. “Systems are solid. Instruments are in the green. I’m ready, Major.”

  “Roger that,” said Alou, his voice so calm it sounded as if he were ready for a nap. “Preparing for alpha maneuver and launch on Hawk Two.”

  The big aircraft began to dip, sleighriding downhill as it fell into the launch maneuver for the other U/MF. The launch went perfectly; Starship saw his wingman pop onto the sitrep to the west, picking up speed as the computer and pilot double-checked their systems.

  “As we drew it up, boys,” said Major Alou. “Starship, you have the first run over the target area. Keep your altitude up; we don’t want anyone hearing us. You ready?”

  “Born ready,” said the pilot, tacking onto his course back toward land.

  Aboard Dreamland MC-17 Quickmover over the Taiwan Strait

  2355

  DANNY FREAH WAITED until he had the infrared feed from the Flighthawk before clicking the bottom of the visor to get the computer-interpreted view from the Dreamland tactical computer system. Located deep in the computer bunkers below the Megafortress hangars, the computers were sifting through the data supplied by the camera and radar in Hawk One, interpolating it with what was already known about the site.

  Building Two, their primary objective, was occupied by a single guard at the shore side of the compound. Another dozen men were nearby, in a building about a hundred yards away, most of them clumped in a basement suite they had identified as the security headquarters. The suite and its sensors would be blinded by the E-bomb, which would effectively fry any unshielded electronics within a half mile of its air-burst explosion. The bomb—actually a small laser-guided missile that could be controlled by Danny once launched—sat in Pen
n’s bomb bay, ready to go.

  “All right, listen up, you can see the schematic,” said Danny as the image of the site flashed into his team’s helmets. “As we planned it. Liu and Boston on Shed One. My team has the security headquarters building. Bison and Reagan, you have the approach. Make sure the Marines don’t kill us,” he added, knowing it would get a laugh from his men.

  Six Marines, all trained in SF warfare, were jumping with the team to help take control of the perimeter. They too were armed with nonlethal weapons—Remington shotguns, equipped with crowd-control shells, along with M-4s as backups. Frankly, the hardest part of his job so far had been convincing the Marines they had to stay behind his guys once they got on the ground.

  Two companies of Marines had squeezed aboard the Dreamland Osprey and would roar in once the Whiplash team was down. Four small boats sat about a mile offshore, filled with Marines, ready to race into the harbor. Danny had worked with a number of Marine units over the past few years and was confident that, despite a bit of jawing back and forth, they’d do as good a job as his troopers.

  What he hadn’t worked with before in combat was the fogsuit. It was a great idea in practice, certainly, and had done well during the exercises. But jumping from a large aircraft in the middle of the night was always a risky venture. If the bulky suit felt uncomfortable to him, he was sure it would feel uncomfortable to most if not all of the others.

  And being uncomfortable was never good.

  But it was too late to take them off. The light flashed. The ramp at the back of the aircraft cranked open. The wind howled.

  “We’re going,” he told Major Alou aboard Penn.

  “Missile launch is counting down,” replied the pilot over the Dreamland circuit.

  Bison, the jumpmaster, put up his fist.

  “Let’s go,” Danny heard himself say.

  Aboard Raven, over the Taiwan Strait

  15 September 1997

  0002