Strike Zone d-5

by Dale Brown

  Meanwhile, the Osprey hovered over the battery reclamation area. As powerful as the craft was, it hadn’t been designed as an excavator. It groaned and ducked, power plants moaning. Trotting back toward the site, Danny realized he’d have to call it off before it became damaged. Before he could hit his com control, the tilt-wing aircraft lurched backward, then suddenly shot upward — the stone had broken free.

  “All right, Boston, set the explosives up,” he said, making his way back toward the area.

  “No need to — we can get in. The Osprey pulled the block a couple of yards away.”

  There was a shout in the background.

  “What’s going on?” demanded Danny.

  “Marines are okay. One with two broken legs swears he’ll beat the crap out of anyone who tries helping him walk.”

  “Where’s Stoner?”

  “Inside somewhere. We’re working on it.”

  Aboard Raven

  0320

  Hawk Three notched forty thousand feet, slowly but surely gaining on the 767. But this was another wild-goose chase, Zen realized; not only had the ID checked out but the pilot had spoken to controllers at the Shanghai airport. It was a combi flight, with a dozen passengers and cargo, and it would be landing in about fifteen minutes.

  Two fresh Mirage 2000s had been scrambled northward from Taiwan. Bumped by their afterburners into Mach + territory, they would have the Boeing in sight about sixty seconds or so after Zen did. Their fly-by-wire controls and a subtle but significant change in the design’s center of gravity made the planes much more maneuverable than the Mirage III they outwardly resembled. While Zen would still — rightly — prefer an F-15 in a dust-up, the ROC interceptors could definitely hold their own.

  The same might be said — albeit much more grudgingly — for the Shenyang F-8IIMs now being vectored in to check out the Mirages by a ground control unit south of Shanghai. The Shenyangs were as fast as the Mirages and might be as maneuverable, though from what Zen had already seen of Mainland pilots, he doubted their ability to outfly their island rivals.

  C3’s tactical section plotted their intercept — everybody was going within visual range at roughly the same time.

  The computer blinked at him, as if asking: Want to see what would happen in a three-way brouhaha?

  And then there was yet another J-7, now within three miles of Hawk Four, flying toward Raven from the northwest. He was now within radar-missile range of the Megafortress.

  “Raven, what do you want me to do with that J-7?” Zen asked.

  “Stay on his wing,” said Dog. “He ought to be bingo soon.”

  “You want me to make him see me or not?” asked Zen. The radar in the J-7 was not adept enough to pick up the stealthy U/MF.

  “Negative. No sense losing the element of surprise. He hasn’t turned on his weapons. He’s not much of a problem.”

  “Hawk leader,” acknowledged Zen, somewhat disappointed that he couldn’t scare the bejesus out of the fighter pilot. He put Hawk Four into a bank, turning parallel as the other plane approached. He would accelerate and ride about two miles behind the J-7 as it came in.

  Or not — the fighter abruptly rolled its wing and turned toward the Mainland.

  “Getting boring,” Zen told Dog.

  “Well, stay awake long enough to check out that 767,” said Dog. “Then we can go home.”

  “Roger that. I think this has all been a wild-goose chase.”

  “Better than the alternative.”

  * * *

  “We’re getting into our fuel reserve,” Delaney told Dog on the flightdeck. “If we have to duck those idiot commies on the way back, we may run into trouble.”

  “How much time before Zen gets within viewing range?”

  “Still a good eight minutes.”

  “That’s not going to kill us.”

  “Famous last words. Those F-8s are coming hard.”

  “They’ll probably turn around like everyone else.”

  “Says you.”

  “You sound like a pessimist, Mr. Delaney.”

  The copilot laughed. “Guess I am.”

  Dog checked in with Jed Barclay back in D.C. “We have one last flight to look at. IDs have come back good and it looks like it’s clean. More than likely they never had a bomb to begin with.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Jed.

  “Sure is,” said Dog.

  On the Ground in Kaohisiung

  0330

  Stoner paid no attention to the noise in the hall, figuring it was Danny coming for him. He continued to work at the documents; they were a kind of personal history, detailing Professor Ai’s mother’s flight from the Mainland.

  Ai didn’t want to take back China so much as destroy it. His mother had been accused of being a whore or traitor — the words weren’t clear to him.

  “Mr. Stoner,” said one of the Whiplash troopers from down the hall.

  “Yo!” yelled Stoner.

  Boston trotted into the room, two Marines in tow.

  Stoner looked up from the desk. “I need to talk to Captain Freah.”

  “Gotta come up to do it. We’re not in line of sight, and we’re too deep under the concrete for the sat transmission. That would be why your radio didn’t work,” the sergeant added.

  Stoner smiled. He realized he hadn’t even tried it.

  “Mr. Stoner?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Hang on a second. Let me finish this one section here. Then we gotta go find your boss. Quickly.”

  Aboard Raven

  0330

  With The F-8IIs on a northern intercept, Zen turned Hawk Four onto their noses and changed Hawk Three ’s course so he could fly by the 767 and continue out toward them. He was at 35,000 feet, about 8,000 higher than his target but lower than the Chinese Communist planes. He pushed his nose down slightly, figuring he would ride just above the airliner, close enough to get a good view but still give himself room to react to the Mainlanders.

  The image of the 767 appeared in his screen, synthesized first by the long-range radar. He switched back to infrared, getting the now-familiar blur. The computer counted down the intercept in the lower left-hand side of the screen, time over miles. As he passed the five-mile mark, he saw the faint glow of the cabin lights.

  “Looks like passengers aboard,” he told Dog.

  * * *

  Dog acknowledged and glanced at Delaney, who was already looking at him, probably ready with another warning about their dwindling fuel.

  Before the copilot could do that, Danny Freah interrupted on the Dreamland Command frequency.

  “Go ahead, Danny.”

  “I have Stoner here. He has more information.”

  There was a pause, some static on the line.

  “Colonel, I found some sort of document here prepared by the man who did most of the work on the UAV and some weapons. They do have a nuke.”

  “You sure?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s not an ordinary nuke — it’s a neutron bomb. A scientist named Ai Hira Bai developed it. I’m looking at what I guess you’d call kind of his life story. I haven’t translated everything. It’s kind of rambling about his past and family and the Japanese. He was close to Chen Lee, but apparently Chen Lee died.”

  “When?”

  “Not clear. Recently, according to this. My guess is that if they have a bomb they’ll try to detonate it over the capital, kill the Chinese leadership. They’ll take out the leaders but spare the buildings. I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” said Dog.

  “One other thing — they have two bombs, not one.”

  “Two? You’re sure?”

  “The symbol for two happens to be one of the first things I ever learned,” he said. “Looks like two missiles in a box. Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Aboard Island Flight A101

  0331

  Professor Ai felt the sweat starting to pour down the back of his neck. He was not worried about death; he was concerne
d with failure. They must launch the dragon plane with its bomb now, or they would fail. The communists and the Americans were too close.

  “It is time,” he told Chen Lo Fann through the aircraft’s radio. “We must act.”

  “Yes. Launch the plane.”

  Ai went through the procedure quickly, directing the pilot to begin his descent only a few seconds after he had ascertained all was ready.

  The small UAV fell free of the wing. Ai’s hands shook as he watched the plane’s progress on his computer screen.

  He tapped the command and severed the communications tie. The computer program aboard the UAV would carry it on its way.

  Now he could carry out his own plan.

  “Change course,” he told the pilot, giving him new coordinates. Then he got up to go to the back of the aircraft.

  * * *

  “He’s directing us to Shanghai,” the pilot told Chen Lo Fann.

  “Why?”

  “He did not say.”

  Chen Lo Fann sat back a moment, trying to puzzle out what Ai was doing. The UAV had been programmed to fly to the capital on its own; it no longer needed guidance. But what was Ai up to?

  And then Chen Lo Fann realized.

  “There’s another bomb on the plane,” he told the pilot, unsnapping his restraints.

  Aboard Raven

  0332

  The wing of the plane seemed to catch fire as Zen approached. The 767 bucked downward and then up, and his first thought was that it had been hit by a missile he hadn’t seen.

  Then he realized what was really going on.

  “Hawk leader — we have a launch from the airliner,” said Delaney, his voice about an octave higher than normal.

  “Roger that,” said Zen. He turned Hawk Three in the direction the 767 was flying. Mainland China lay in the distance, lights glittering in the dark night.

  A small circle of red exhaust slid down through the left-hand quadrant of Zen’s screen.

  The clone?

  Zen started to follow.

  Aboard Island Flight A101

  0334

  Chen found professor Ai hunched over a large crate in the rear section of the aircraft behind the control deck for the UAV.

  “Why didn’t you tell me there was a second bomb?”

  “Your grandfather forbade it.”

  “That’s not true,” said Chen Lo Fann. “My grandfather would not have done that.”

  “He didn’t tell you about the first weapon,” said Ai. “Or the UAV and this plane.”

  “But my grandfather would not have wanted to blow up Shanghai,” said Chen Lo Fann. “Why do you?”

  Ai Hira Bai didn’t answer.

  “Get away from the box,” said Chen. “We will not attack Shanghai.”

  “If there is only one attack, the communists may not respond,” said Ai. “This will guarantee war, and we will win.”

  “You want to destroy Shanghai. It’s where your people come from, isn’t it?”

  Anger flashed in Ai’s eyes, but he said nothing.

  “Away from the box,” said Chen. He took his hand out from behind his back, revealing the pistol he kept there.

  “The city deserves to be destroyed,” said Ai. “Everyone who collaborated with the communists deserves to be destroyed.”

  “Away from the box, or I will shoot you,” said Chen.

  Ai nodded his head, and started to get up. Too late, Chen realized he too had a pistol.

  The bullet tore into Chen’s left shoulder an instant before he fired his own weapon. For the first second, there was no pain. Surprised, Chen glanced at his arm, thinking Ai had somehow missed.

  Then the pain came.

  He fired again, but Ai had already collapsed. Chen took a step toward the scientist. The bullet had blown off a good part of his skull.

  Pain seared Chen’s body, and Chen felt what his grandfather had felt before he died of the heart attack. He slipped down to his knees, his good arm grabbing at the crate that held the nuclear weapon. There was a digital arming device at the front. It blinked at him. As Chen Lo Fann tried to focus on the digits and make out the control, the pain rushed across his body.

  It’s armed, he thought. Then he saw darkness and felt himself fall to the floor of the cabin.

  Aboard Raven

  0335

  “F-8s think it’s a missile,” said Delaney.

  “Is it?” Dog asked.

  “Not sure.”

  “Can we get it with an AMRAAM-plus?”

  “I can’t get a lock.”

  “Get one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dog leaned on the throttle slide, coaxing the power plants for more juice.

  “Gonna screw up our fuel.”

  “Mind what you’re doing,” said Dog. “Zen, we’re launching a Scorpion.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Bay,” said the copilot. The plane shuddered as the bomb bay door opened so the AMRAAM-plus could be fired.

  “Locked—”

  “Go!” said Dog.

  Delaney launched. A second later, the Mainland planes turned sharply in front of them.

  “They think we’re firing at them. They have ECMs active,” said Delaney. “That patrol plane over the mainland, fifty miles away — it’s some sort of airborne AWACS type, jamming.”

  Dog ignored him. The techies liked to call the AMRAAM-plus guidance system “particularly robust,” meaning it was hard to jam. But the distance was another matter. The target had been over forty miles away when the missile was launched. While the air-to-air missile could hit Mach 4, it was operating at the very edge of its effective range.

  “Wes, hail the pilot,” Dog said. “Tell him to turn around.”

  Delaney launched a second missile, then snugged the belly of the Megafortress. The 767 was now visible in Raven ’s own infrared screen, a blur growing in the lower right-hand quadrant.

  “Missile batteries coming up,” said Delaney. “We’re just about over their territory.”

  “Wes?”

  “Not answering.”

  “Stand by.”

  Dog reached to the com panel to key in Jed Barclay. He wanted the President’s direct command before proceeding. As he did, one of the equipment specialists behind Dog said something — the Taiwanese fighters were asking their base for permission to shoot down the 767.

  And received it.

  “Jed, here’s our situation,” he told the NSC op. “We think there are two bombs. If one is aboard the UAV, that leaves one for the 767.”

  “Understood, uh, the President is on the line.”

  “Colonel, stop him any way you can,” said Martindale.

  “Yes, sir. Zen?”

  “Hawk leader.”

  Aboard Island Flight A101

  0335

  “Have you done your duty?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “Your lessons are complete?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “Can you describe the Tao?”

  The question shook Chen Lo Fann. He and his grandfather were in the midst of a large garden, with water burbling nearby. Chen was nine or ten.

  “The Tao is the way,” said Chen. “The world — our fate — everything together.”

  “The path we follow,” said Chen Lee.

  “Yes,” said the boy.

  “We will be reunited with our homeland someday,” said the old man. “But the path is not a straight one. Remember that life and death are mere steps on the path, as stones next to each other in the garden.”

  The dream ended abruptly. Chen Lo Fann found himself staring at the bomb in the crate, numbers sliding away on the trigger device.

  His grandfather had not wanted to blow up Shanghai; that was Professor Ai’s doing.

  The digits drained to 1:00, then 0:59.

  It would blow up in less than a minute.

  Should he let it? Ai’s argument made some sense — two bombs would be impossible to ignore; the communists
would have to respond.

  But many innocent people would die.

  Was Shanghai any different from Beijing?

  Chen stared at the numbers.

  :30

  Bombing Shanghai was not his grandfather’s will. Chen Lee had made no secret of where the bomb was to be exploded.

  The plane veered sharply to the left, shuddering as it turned, losing altitude.

  Chen reached for the control. One of the characters on the fifteen-button panel read “Abort.”

  He thought of his dream, but it provided no answers.

  :10

  If his grandfather had wanted to destroy Shanghai, he would have said so clearly, as he had made clear Beijing was his desired target.

  :03

  Chen Lo Fann reached to the device, ignoring the pain roaring in his chest and shoulder as he pushed the button.

  Aboard Raven

  0338

  Zen had the Flighthawk closing on the right wing of the 767, his targeting screen blinking yellow. He could see shadows through the windows of the plane, people moving around.

  God, he thought, I’m going to kill dozens if not a hundred.

  God.

  What if there isn’t a bomb in that plane?

  Zen had killed a fair share of people in combat, but this felt very, very different. He had no proof that there was a bomb in the airplane; Stoner had told him he thought Chen had enough material for two weapons, but that didn’t mean one was aboard the plane in front of him, or even that they had been made.

  The windows seemed to grow, though this was an optical illusion. Zen pushed his nose down, the pipper just turning red.

  He had his orders, lawful orders. They had come from the President himself.

  What justification was that if he killed innocent men and women and children?