A few minutes later, Williams told him, “The one on the deck is taking the lazy way back, Cancha. He’s flying figure eights, moving toward the south at around twenty knots. The tanker and the other fighter are now two-five-zero miles south of us.”
“Must be, he’s got a boat down there, Nitro.”
“We going to look?”
“Maybe just a quick peek.”
Dimatta pulled his throttles back and eased the hand controller forward. The nose of the MakoShark angled downward, and he put it in a wide left turn, spiraling downward.
Williams changed the range of the radar to the fifty-mile sweep, and the target appeared at the very edge of Dimatta’s CRT.
As they reached 8,000 feet, Dimatta began to level out and line up on the target. It was dead ahead on a heading of 188 degrees. It was forty-four miles away at 2,000 feet above the sea. The HUD readout showed his own speed at 600 knots.
The screen blanked out as Williams cut off the radar.
“We want to make the pass to our left,” Williams said. “That’ll put dark sky above us. We go in straight, he may get a visual.”
“Roger, Nitro.”
Dimatta made a shallow S-turn to the left.
“I’m staying passive,” Williams said, and the screen went to a direct visual. Dark seas, darkening skies.
Stealth aircraft, or no stealth aircraft, radar that actively sought targets — emitting signals — was detectable by opposing forces. The electronic countermeasures package aboard most military aircraft was capable of locating signals generated in most radar bands, from D to K. As they passed over the wells, they picked up a few chirps on the I-Band threat receiver from active radar operating from the wells. Williams squelched them out.
The threat receiver chattered.
“The German down there has a J-band,” Williams said. “May be a Foxhunter radar.”
“Tornado,” Dimatta said.
“Or Eurofighter. They’re supposed to have them, too.”
“Cancha do an IR check?”
“Coming up.”
Five miles away from the fighter, Williams did a quick infrared scan, picking up several heat sources. He fed them all to the computer.
“The airborne target has twin turbofans and a six-five percent chance of being a Eurofighter, Cancha. No read on the others. Behind us, we’re getting a couple of the wells. The small target to the south is probably a small boat.”
“He’s escorting it out of the area.”
“Good bet.”
“How badly do we want to know details, Nitro?”
“Amy’ll want to know all about it.”
“Okay,” Dimatta said. “I’m going to turn right onto the target. You go full mag on visual.”
“Roger. Go two-six-zero. Let’s take it down some.” Dimatta turned right until the HUD gave him 260 degrees. He bled off power and the MakoShark began to descend.
The cruiser had its running lights on, and Dimatta easily picked it out of the gloom that was magnified twenty-five times on the screen. Between the fore and aft lights, however, was a grayish white blob.
The HUD showed him at 3,000 feet.
“Where’s that German?” Dimatta asked.
“Damned if I know. I’ll put IR on the small screen … Okay, got him still at two thousand, six miles at bearing three-four-one.”
That put him on Dimatta’s right.
“Soon as we get an ID, Nitro, I’m climbing out of here to the left.”
“Chicken.”
The cruiser grew rapidly on the screen.
“Got it!” Williams said. “Hit it, Cancha!”
Dimatta advanced his throttles and started a climbing left turn.
“Greenpeace, was it?” Dimatta asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got it on tape.”
Dimatta pressed the transmit button on the hand controller. “Alpha One, Delta Green.”
“Delta Green, Alpha reading.” It was Overton’s voice. “Alpha, we had a visual on a Greenpeace boat being run out of the target area. We suspect that it was fired on by a Eurofighter.”
“Green, you have a description of the boat?”
Williams broke in. “Estimate forty feet, probably wood, white with large letters spelling Greenpeace along the hull. Current position seven-seven-degrees, nine-minutes north, four-degrees, three-minutes east.”
“Roger, Delta Green. Well see if someone from NATO or the CIA can’t run them down and talk to them. Alpha out.”
On the intercom, Dimatta said, “If that boat captain took a missile off the bow, he’s probably running damned scared.”
“And the crew,” Williams said, “is busy cleaning the decks.”
*
Milly Roget’s soft voice came over the intercom. “General, you have a call on direct line two.”
“Thank you, Milly.” Marvin Brackman punched the button on his oversized desk set and picked up the receiver. “Brackman.”
It would be Hannibal Cross or Harvey Mays. Line two was direct to the Pentagon.
It was Cross, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Marv, I just got back from State.”
“Were they diplomatic, Hannibal?”
“Oh, yes. And just as ineffective as usual.”
“The Germans wouldn’t respond?”
“They responded, but they didn’t. The oil fields are a private enterprise of Bremerhaven Petroleum, and certainly, the German Department of Foreign Affairs could not interfere in the workings of a private corporation. They know none of the details. They claim.”
“What about all the security the German High Command is providing?” Brackman asked.
“That’s only a normal precaution extended to any German national company. We ought to apply for citizenship, Marv.”
“Not damned likely, Hannibal. My grandmother on Mommy’s side was Jewish.”
“You hearing those rumors, too?” the chairman asked. “Are they rumors? I talked to Appleton over at DIA a couple weeks ago. He thinks the German military is quietly culling its ranks.”
“Maybe I’ll invite him up here for a chat.”
“Did our State people try Bremerhaven directly?” Brackman asked, to get back on track.
“Yes, but without success. The company professes to be utilizing new methods of exploration, and they’re restricting knowledge of their process. They say they’re afraid of industrial espionage.”
“Do we have anything out of the CIA on the oil company yet?”
“Hold on, Marv. I’ve got a sheet here somewhere. Yeah. The corporation itself is privately held, with some thirty shareholders. There are no public records, but the Agency estimates a total investment of close to twenty-five billion U.S. dollars. They have no idea of what the debt structure looks like. All of the officers of the corporation have clear records and histories.”
Brackman thought that over. “When it’s that clean, and that private, with that many bucks involved, Hannibal, I tend to suspect a facade.”
“The Agency does say something along the same lines. Here it is. Best estimate is that there are other investors, unnamed.”
“Uh-huh. So what do we do about it, Admiral?”
“Looking for a decision, are you?”
“If you’ve got one handy.”
“What’re your Themis people doing now?”
Brackman checked his watch. “Should be in the middle of another reconnaissance mission.”
“You find out what they learn, then get back to me. Personally, I think we ought to step up our surveillance.”
“I do, too, Hannibal.”
*
“They’re not oil wells, General Brackman.”
“You’re certain of that, Colonel Pearson?”
“I am, sir.”
“What are they?”
“That, I don’t know. But the heat generation is far too high for the typical drilling or pumping platform. I ran comparisons with data from offshore wells in the North Sea and off the California coast.”
&n
bsp; On his end of the scrambled radio circuit, Brackman went silent.
In the Command Center, McKenna, Overton, and Pearson waited. T.Sgt. Donna Amber was tending the console in the communications space, monitoring the satellite system relays.
Brackman came back. “Kevin, you still there?”
From the look on her face, Amelia Pearson still didn’t think that full generals should be on a first-name basis with lowly squadron commanders. It only went one way in public, however.
“Still here, General.”
“I want a nightly surveillance on those wells. Continue taking infrared. Maybe we’ll catch a door open, and get better readings.”
Maybe, but McKenna didn’t think so. “Got it, sir.”
“And I want a full update on all military installations, forces, and equipment on the German mainland. Make whatever flights are required. Let’s drop some sonobuoys along that underwater pipe.”
McKenna did some hasty calculations. “General, I need a couple more pilots in order to stay under the maximum hours. I want to move Haggar and Olsen into the MakoSharks.”
That alerted Overton, and his face reddened. “No way, Kevin.”
“I don’t think so, either,” Brackman said.
Pearson had a smirk on her face. Whether she was happy that McKenna wasn’t getting his way again, or unhappy that a female colleague was running into opposition, McKenna couldn’t tell.
“Sir, we can’t get you the coverage you want and still meet the regulations.”
“To hell with the regulations,” Brackman said. “You manage to ignore them, McKenna, unless you can use them in your favor. You can go ten per cent over on flying hours. I’ll follow that up with a written directive.”
“Still … ”
“Besides, you’re going to get some additional help from the Fifth Interceptor Wing.”
McKenna struggled with the designation. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it, unless …
“The Soviets, General?”
“That’s it. Your contact will be the wing commander, a Colonel Pyotr Volontov.”
“No shit. Uh, no shit, General.”
“No shit, McKenna.”
Six
Pearson’s alarm chirped at six A.M., and she was instantly awake. She rubbed the grittiness out of her eyes, then turned on the small lamp in her sleeping cubicle. She freed herself from the Velcro straps that pinned her against the cushioned bulkhead. Opposite her by four feet was a communications panel for intercommunications aboard the station. It included a small television screen. Some people went to sleep by watching Casablanca instead of by reading. In an elastic-edged fabric pouch above the panel were the books by which Amy Pearson went to sleep. Currently, she was in the middle of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and wondering why she had not read it before.
Below the communications panel was her personal locker, just about the only private area allowed her, or anyone, on board the station. Opening the twin doors, she retrieved a fresh jump suit, underwear, and her hygiene kit. She unzipped the curtain and pushed out into the corridor, then aimed herself toward the six hygiene stations. At six in the morning, only one was in use — identified by the amber light — and she let herself into a vacant stall.
Stripping out of the loose, baggy-legged sleeping garment that most of the enlisted men called a potato sack, she stuffed it into the dirty laundry hamper. Pearson used the vacuumized toilet, then gave herself a bath with a damp sponge. The only thing she really missed in her assignment on Themis was a long, steamy shower every morning. Floating in front of the sink, which was really a basin surrounding a vacuum nozzle, she brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth with mouthwash, and spat into the vacuum port. None of the women on board worried about makeup. After combing out her hair, which took a while, she slipped the headband in place. She might have to have her hair cut, the next time she was earth side, she thought. She was beginning to look like something out of the ’60s San Francisco. The legs, too. She used an electric razor on them. After donning bra, panties, and jumpsuit, she repacked her hygiene kit and took it back to stow in her cubicle.
Pearson was assigned to the Spoke Sixteen residential module, the one limited to military personnel. The outer end of it was the dining/recreation space, and five people were present by the time she arrived. It was a busy place, usually, with people going on shift, coming off shift, or wiling away the time between sleep and work. Pearson’s days were intentionally long, and like the MakoShark pilots, she did not have a set work period.
S. Sgt. Delbert O’Hara, the chief steward, was stocking one of the three food stations mounted against the bulkhead common to the sleeping cubicles. Almost all of the station’s food was pre-prepared earth side, brought up in refrigerated bins, and stored in the hub. As needed, it was transferred to the dining modules. O’Hara, who reported to Deputy Commander Milt Avery, but might as well not have, was responsible for the menu, and he did a credible job with what he had to work with, making frequent changes in what the machines had to offer. Over time, in fact, he had devised new recipes of his own for the specialists on earth to develop into pouchable products. O’Hara had also labeled each of the three dispensing stations — “Junk,” “Back Home,” and “Cuisine.”
Pearson kicked off from the corridor edge and drifted up to the Cuisine station.
“Good morning, Delbert.”
“Morning Colonel.”
“What’s new here?”
“Not much on the breakfast side,” the sergeant said. “But try the Back Home. I just loaded a Texas Omelet that’ll knock your socks off. If you had socks.”
Pearson smiled at him. “You guarantee it?”
“Don’t need to. Major Munoz had three of ’em this morning.”
“That’s a five-star rating.”
“Damned tootin’.”
Each of the stations had six selections, and Pearson opened the second Plexiglas door of the Back Home station, extracted a pouch labeled “Texas Morning,” and shoved it into the microwave. While it was cooking, she got herself an orange juice and “Coffee, Black.” The juice was already cold, and the coffee already hot.
She looked around. The porthole was showing a slice of earth, heavily clouded this morning. The large-screen TV was mercifully blank. The big mural of Tahiti appeared serene. A lieutenant from the nuclear section was playing one of the dozen electronic games lined up against the outer bulkheads. The dining rooms on Themis were the only places where one could actually find a table and chairs. Not that anyone actually sat in them; they strapped themselves in to maintain position while playing checkers, chess, backgammon, or cards with game pieces that were lightly magnetized, as were the tabletops. And some people liked to eat sitting down, or appearing to sit down.
Two sergeants were engaged in a mean game of chess, soft drinks floating nearby.
That left Kevin McKenna sitting alone at a table by the port.
He smiled at her.
So she clamped her breakfast pouches in one hand, pushed off toward him, and caught herself as she reached the padded chair opposite him.
He actually released his restraining strap and stood up, holding onto his coffee.
“Good morning, Amy.”
“Good morning.” She strapped herself down, and McKenna refastened his own straps.
“You’re looking radiant this morning.”
“Come on, McKenna. I look the same every morning.”
“I know. That’s what brightens my day.”
Shaking her head, she pulled the sipping tube free from the side of the orange juice pouch and took a sip.
McKenna said, “You’re actually going to eat O’Hara’s Tex-Mex special?”
“If Tony can handle it, I can.”
“Hoo-kay, but remember the Tiger has a stomach lining made of depleted uranium alloy.”
Almost all of the food served was in finger-food form. Handling silverware was too much trouble, when the peas were going to fly away, anyway. Some hot m
eats were served with tongs. Liquids were something of a problem, too. No gravy or sauces, unless they were imbedded in the mashed potatoes and meat.
Pearson peeled the plastic zipper open, rolled the covering down, tested the heat of the eggy roll with her forefinger, and took a bite of her Texas Omelet. She chewed twice before she got zapped.
“God … damn!” she blurted.
Over by the food stations, O’Hara grinned and called, “I caught one of your socks, Colonel.”
“Isn’t that the best damned jalapeno pepper you ever tasted?” McKenna asked.
She sucked on her juice, but had the feeling nothing would relieve the spicy coating on her tongue and the inside of her cheeks.
“It is good,” she said, determined to finish it now.
By the fourth bite, her mouth was acclimated, but she thought she would feel the heat until midmorning.
At least, McKenna didn’t laugh at her. He asked, “What’s on for today, Amy?”
“At one o’clock, I’ll give the squadron a briefing.”
“Covering?”
“The photos Dimatta got on the last run, for one thing. We got quite a few more naval vessels. Then, I’ll background you on some of the principal players.”
“Who, for instance?”
“The tail numbers you identified on the two Tornados makes them part of the First Squadron of the Twentieth Special Air Group assigned to New Amsterdam. The wing commander is a Colonel Albert Weismann, a good old boy who’s been around for quite a while.”
“What’s the makeup of the wing?” McKenna asked, then sipped from his coffee.
“A little strange, from what the DIA has in its files. There’s two squadrons of Tornados and Eurofighters — commanded by Major Gustav Zeigman and Major Wilhelm Metzenbaum, a squadron of transports, and one of helicopters.”
“That is a bit weird. Lot of variety for one wing.”
“Yes. It looks to me as if an entire wing is devoted to support of the well sites. Then, there’s Admiral Gerhard Schmidt.”
“Who’s he?”
“The missile cruiser Hamburg turns out to be his flagship, and Schmidt’s assigned as commander of the Third Naval Force. Now, Schmidt’s an old hand, too, in his early sixties, and the data says he’s a hell of a naval strategist and tactician. By all rights, he should be in command of a fleet.”
Delta Blue Page 11