by Dale Brown
“There’s a little airport at Kampung,” said Cowboy, naming one of the emergency alternatives the squadron had briefed. “It’s near the coast. You might make that.”
Turk had to look it up on the map. It was a small airport near the coast. It was reachable—but only if he went straight there. Which presented a problem.
“I can get there if I go over Indonesia,” he told Cowboy.
“Better to do that than crash.”
“Yeah.”
Indonesia snaked around Malaysia on the western coast. Turk picked a spot that would take less than three minutes to cross.
He tuned to the printed radio frequency of the tower at Kampung but couldn’t get a response to his hail; neither could Cowboy.
“Place may not be big enough to have a tower,” said Cowboy.
“It has a published frequency,” said Turk.
“Remember where we are, Air Force. This ain’t America.”
“Roger that.”
The Indonesians had apparently been monitoring the flight, for he got a warning as he approached their territorial waters. He didn’t respond to the initial hail, holding his course; by the time the controller radioed again, he was approaching land.
“I have a fuel emergency,” he answered, deciding honesty was the best policy.
“Unknown flight, you are ordered to exit Indonesia airspace.” The controller had a British accent.
“I intend to. I have a fuel emergency,” he repeated. “I am heading for an emergency landing.”
Turk wasn’t exactly sure what the controller would say; anything from a threat to shoot him down to a gracious offer of assistance was possible. Instead, the controller simply said nothing, which was just fine with him. The Indonesians weren’t about to scramble any of their aircraft after him in any event; all of the repercussion would happen after he landed.
Assuming he landed. Then again, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t care what the Indonesians did at all.
He was over their land long enough to picture himself in an Indonesian jail eating spiders and ants for dinner. It wasn’t a pleasant vision, but he soon passed into Malaysian territory, where more mundane worries took over: how far could the F-35B glide without fuel?
The airport was fifteen miles away.
“Walsh, how are we coming with that tower?” Turk asked the Whiplash techie.
“Airport is closed. Has been for months,” responded Walsh. “I’m looking at the field—pockmarked pretty bad. Rebels attacked it two or three times before they finally shut it down.”
Turk was about to say that it would have to do when Bitchin’ Betty interrupted.
“Warning,” said the automated voice. “Fuel emergency. Fuel emergency.”
“No shit, you told me that already,” he said.
“Turk, can you make it?” asked Cowboy.
“I can make it,” said Turk, tightening his grip on the stick. The runway was five miles away, somewhere in the shadows of the land ahead, unlit and unready for him to land.
DANNY FREAH STARED out the Osprey’s side window at the ocean. There was still a full hour before dawn, but he could see the ripples on the surface without night vision.
“The submarine is no more than ten miles from us, if that,” he told the pilot. “Can we get into a search pattern?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Osprey moved into a gentle arc toward the point Turk had given Danny. No matter how advanced it was, the submarine that grabbed the UAV had to be somewhere nearby, but the Osprey lacked gear to track it. The task force with the Marine MEU off the northern shore of Malaysia had antisubmarine assets, but the nearest vessel in the task force was over six hundred miles away.
“You sure it didn’t just crash into the water?” asked the pilot. “I mean—submarine picking it up? Pretty far-fetched. For rebels, I mean.”
“Not really,” said Danny. “Drug smugglers use them off the coast of Florida and the Southeast all the time.”
“Drug dealers?”
“These are small subs.”
“A lot of money in drug dealing. Can’t see it out here.”
Danny didn’t answer. The pilot didn’t entirely understand what they were dealing with, but who could blame him? Small submersibles cost less than a large pleasure boat, but still—why would anyone spend so much money on such high tech to help a band of ragtag rebels?
Ragtag rebels who’d nearly overrun a Marine base, granted.
They’d do it if they were testing their gear. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn he was up against Dreamland itself.
But then that was why he’d been tasked out here to begin with.
“Colonel, I have no contacts anywhere within ten miles,” said the pilot. “What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Take another few circuits,” said Danny reluctantly. “If we don’t see anything, let’s go home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“CAN YOU GO vertical?” Cowboy asked. He’d zipped ahead to check the runway.
“No way,” said Turk. “Even if I knew what I was doing. Not enough fuel.”
“How much?”
“It’s reading zero.”
“South end of the field is beaten to shit. I’m thinking you have less than fifteen hundred feet of good cement to land on.”
“Yeah.”
“Tight but doable.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Come on, Air Force. You’re Superman.”
“Thanks,” said Turk, who was feeling anything but super.
“Come ten degrees north and you’ll line up.”
Turk made the adjustment. The Bitchin’ Betty circuit was having a stroke, warning about fuel, speed, altitude, and the fact that he hadn’t brushed his teeth in a week. None of this would be a problem, he told himself, if he could just see the damn runway. It was ahead somewhere, but even the vaunted low-light abilities of the F-35’s helmet couldn’t pick it out.
As he pushed over a cultivated field, Turk thought of using it, but by then it was too late.
“You see the runway?” asked Cowboy.
“Negative, negative.”
“Push your rudder, dude. You’re off three degrees.”
“Which way?” demanded Turk.
“Right.”
Turk eased his foot on the pedal.
In daylight, this would have been a breeze. Why the hell couldn’t he see it?
His landing lights caught a blank expanse in front of him, then a seam in the ground—the edge of the runway just to the right, as Cowboy had said. Turk started to exhale, then realized he was flying in utter silence: the engine had just run out of fuel.
Bitchin’ Betty was not pleased.
“Yeah, yeah,” he told the machine. “Watch this.”
He held the airplane in a glide just long enough to clear the worst of the holes the rebels had dug with their mortar shells. The F-35B’s undercarriage groaned as he bounced across the ripped surface. It jerked to the right as he got the nose wheel down, but held enough concrete to brake just before hitting the turf at the far end of the runway.
Down! And in one piece!
Turk popped the canopy open and climbed up out of the seat. He suddenly felt cold and wet—he’d been sweating so much his suit was soaked through.
Cowboy passed overhead, wagging his wings.
There was a light in the sky a few miles off, coming from the south—it was the Marine Osprey from the base, heading toward him with fuel and a team of mechanics to patch up the plane.
I hope they got beer, thought Turk. And a lot of it.
11
The Cube
RAY RUBEO STARED at the large screen at the front of the conference room and its map of the area where the UAV and submarine had disappeared. A yellow circle showing the area the submarine could be in slowly expanded.
“Ray?” Breanna leaned across the table toward him. “Are you with us?”
“Yes. You said it’s the Vector program,” he recounted, still
staring. “Submarine launched UAVs. I agree.”
“The Vector program was a study for the Navy that Dreamland participated in,” Breanna told Reid. “It used the AI from Gen 4 in a sub-launched variant. The airfoils are different. Jennifer Gleason worked on both.”
“And this Braxton fellow?” asked Reid.
“He would have been involved as well.”
“The aircraft was recovered by a small submarine, roughly the size of a pleasure boat,” said Breanna. “There are a lot of similar craft in Australia and on our coast—rich people’s toys. They don’t go very deep or very fast, but they’re hard to detect by surface ships or planes that aren’t looking for them. And the Navy doesn’t keep track of something so small.”
“Yes,” said Rubeo. He got up from his seat and walked toward the wall, staring at the map.
“Wouldn’t it have to be pretty substantial to launch a plane?” asked Reid. “Even a small one.”
“They didn’t launch from the sea,” said Rubeo.
“How do you know?” asked Reid.
“You said it yourself, the submarine is too small. The most difficult problem to solve has to do with wings. The wingspan here is too large for the submersible we saw. The submarines are used for recovery only. And it may have been a backup in any event. Remember, it was being pursued, and its mate had been shot down.”
“I still see an Iranian or Chinese connection,” said Reid. “For me, the submarine clinches it. It could be working with a larger ship.”
“Braxton hates governments, all governments.” Rubeo pictured the young man: bright red hair, skin so white it seemed almost opaque. Quiet, as a general rule, but when he did talk, passion glared behind his bright green eyes. He was a pure libertarian, a young man who thought Locke was practically a fascist, and had in fact told Rubeo so one late night. Science had to be pure and divorced from the corruption of governments and anything that stole individual freedom.
So governments are a necessary evil? Rubeo had asked.
Governments are evil, period, Braxton answered.
“Politics and war make for strange bedfellows,” said Reid. “He may very well have decided that to accomplish his Kallapsis or whatever his nirvana is called, he needs to take temporary steps with temporary alliances.”
Reid went back to his spot at the conference table. Waving his hand over the surface, he brought up a virtual keyboard and commanded a small window to appear in the main screen. Typing furiously, he tapped into the joint intelligence network, then over to the Navy tracking site where the latest fleet data was kept. The program showed the last known positions of all fleet vessels, American and foreign. He zeroed in on the South China Sea, then filtered for submarines. The nearest submarines—both American vessels—were several hundred miles away; one was with the Marine task force and another was shadowing a Chinese carrier.
“I would expect that if they were working with the Chinese, we would see a Chinese vessel,” said Rubeo. “I realize it’s not definitive, but we have checked. I’ve checked.”
“I’ve requested antisubmarine assets be moved into the area,” added Breanna. “The problem is, the Navy doesn’t have a lot of them, and they’re stretched thin as they are.”
A patrol aircraft was being detailed from Japan and would be on station within twenty-four hours. But the Navy was scrambling to find not only a secure base closer to the area that it could use, but a relief plane to extend the search times. Antisubmarine air patrol was not glamorous, and with the demise of the Cold War, had never received the funding it deserved.
“At the moment, our elint drones are the best bet,” Breanna said. “We can go back and look at all transmissions in the area, and try correlating that with places that might be used as bases, both offshore and in Indonesia and Brunei.”
“It must be offshore,” said Reid. “If it were in Brunei or Indonesia we’d have picked it up.”
“In a way, it’s certainly simpler for us if it’s offshore. But the modeling of the possible airport hasn’t found any matches.”
“The modeling must be wrong,” said Reid.
“Obviously. Ray?”
He looked at her.
“If we can get close to one of these, can we take it over?” Breanna asked. “Since it uses our coding?”
“We’re looking for vulnerabilities,” he said. “There aren’t many.”
“Isn’t there a way to convince it that it belongs to us?” Reid asked.
“Only if Jennifer Gleason told it to,” said Rubeo. “And she doesn’t appear to have done that.”
12
Malaysia
DANNY FREAH RAN his hand over his head, mopping off the sweat, as he walked down the rear ramp of the Osprey after landing back at the Marine base. He’d never been a big fan of hot weather, and the wet heat of the South China Sea was starting to get to him.
Captain Thomas was waiting on the tarmac.
“Colonel, a word,” said the Marine officer, in a tone that suggested he was barely holding his temper. He turned and began stomping toward the bunker.
Danny had heard about Turk’s fuel problems, and while he would have preferred it if the pilot had contacted him before crossing Indonesian airspace, it was nonetheless far superior to allowing the aircraft to crash. Washington had already rung with the protests, and Danny was sure the heat was being turned on the administration. But he couldn’t figure how the fallout had gotten to Thomas—“stuff” might roll downhill, but the Marine ground commander had no role at all in the decision. At this point, the operation was Danny’s, and there shouldn’t be any “stuff” falling on any of the Marines, let alone Thomas.
Danny sighed to himself and followed along, prepared not only to defend his pilot but to tell Thomas the facts of life, as gently as possible. He was a good commander; no need for him to get bent out of shape.
Though cleared of major debris, the bunker looked somewhat worse for wear. Several piles of dirt lined the side, and a mangled desktop had been propped against the wall. The Marines had determined that the damage had been done by some sort of rocket rather than a mortar shell. There was no evidence yet about whether or not it was guided, but the direct hit made them strongly suspect that it was.
Thomas had reestablished his “office” in a small corner at the rear. His backup satellite link and other com gear had been set up on a portable table; a laptop was on the floor. It wasn’t the most private spot in the world, but the two other men in the bunker were wearing headsets.
“Where did you find Mofitt?” Thomas asked.
“Excuse me?” asked Danny, completely taken by surprise.
“Corporal Mofitt.”
“When, during the attack?”
“Yes. I need to know.”
It had only been a few hours ago, but so much had happened that Danny had trouble recalling the specifics of the incident. “I was running—he hadn’t made it to the perimeter forces,” he said. “He—I found him on the ground maybe fifty yards from them. No, I guess it was closer to the bunker, because I brought him back here. Or I started to. That’s when we got hit.”
“He had made it to the forces?” asked Thomas.
“No,” said Danny. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t get there. Because they hadn’t heard anything when I went back. What’s this all about?”
“Mofitt wasn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, we were outside of the bunker when the missile or whatever it was hit.”
“Before then. Somebody saw him standing in the compound, frozen, a little while before you came by,” said the Marine captain. “I think he froze under fire.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“He was fine the other day,” said Danny. That encounter was more vivid in his memory. “We had contact, we took fire, he shot back. He seems pretty reliable.”
“I’m going to have him shipped out ASAP.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
“No.”
Danny mopped the sweat off the side of his head. “What does he say about it?”
“His opinion isn’t worth asking.”
“He didn’t speak up for himself?”
“I haven’t talked to him and I’m not going to. I don’t need his side.”
Shipping the kid out was one thing, but not speaking with him was something else. Danny had met plenty of unreasonably hardass officers in his career, but Thomas didn’t come off like that. Maybe it was the fact that his people back at the base had been hit hard; very possibly he felt guilty over it.
Danny came around the desk. He didn’t want the captain’s men overhearing what he was going to say.
“I might dial it back a bit,” he told the Marine. “I’d talk to him first. Sometimes, jumping to conclusions—”
“Maybe you can afford a chickenshit in the Air Force. We’re Marines. We can’t.”
“I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to,” said Danny, still keeping his voice down.
“I’m not questioning your courage, Colonel,” said Thomas. “Even if your reputation didn’t precede you, I’ve seen you in action. You got more balls than half my men combined. And I don’t have any chickenshits here. At all.”
“I’m just saying you might lighten up and give him a chance to speak,” said Danny. “And not necessarily for his benefit either. You don’t want to come off like someone who just jumps the gun on guys. Talk to him, then decide what to do. Your other guys will notice that.”
“What would you do if one of your people froze under fire?”
“First of all, I’m in a slightly different situation.”
“How?”
“All of my guys are Tier One volunteers, with a lot of combat behind them,” said Danny, using the military term for top-level special operations units. Like the Navy’s DEVGRU and the Army’s Delta Force, Whiplash had extremely high standards and expectations. “But, regardless, if that happened, before I did anything I’d talk to him. If he was good enough to work for me in the first place, then I owe him the respect of hearing his side of the story.”
“Counsel him,” said Thomas.
“That’s the buzz word, yeah,” said Danny. “But whatever. I don’t know that I’d be trying to give him advice, but I’d talk to him. Maybe something happened that I didn’t see. That’s all I’m telling you.”