by Dale Brown
Bingo. The target.
“Computer, target,” he said, designating it with his hand. The screen changed instantly, putting up a blinking yellow triangle that boxed the spec he had pointed at.
Yellow meant not yet.
The computer warned that he was being tracked by the Patriot radar. He fired everything he had — flares, chaff, prayers.
Red.
“Gotcha,” he said, pressing the trigger.
The screen blinked, then went blank.
The computer had taken over. He’d been shot down by the Razor laser.
Zen, exhausted, threw himself back in the chair. There was a gasp from the crowd, then a loud round of applause.
Dog slapped him on the back. “Take a bow, Major.”
Zen looked up and gave the colonel a sardonic smile.
“I think the computer scored it as a tie,” said Dog.
The others were now gathering around his station. Zen reached over for his coffee, which was propped on a small table near his wheelchair.
“That was some performance,” said Congresswoman Sue Kelly, a Republican from New York. “You really had those computers going.”
“Thanks,” said Zen.
“And you almost got the blimp,” she added enthusiastically.
“Almost,” said Zen.
Of course, “almost” meant he’d lost the exercise, though that didn’t seem to matter to them. And it certainly didn’t bother Dog, who would now use the exhibition to talk up his favorite ugly-duck weapons system, the LADS blimp.
The blimp’s shape and structure were not terribly different from the basic design airships had used since roughly 1910. It was a fattish sausage, with its inner skeleton made of carbon-fiber material that helped keep it light. The engine was a hydrogen-cell powered propeller shielded within a baffled area at the lower end of the rear. It could do fifty knots or so — not particularly fast but respectable for a lighter-than-air vehicle. The sensors employed by the unit were housed in a flat pod that hung at the bottom of the bag. The pod, and two-thirds of the blimp, were covered by a lightweight plastic panel and an array of advanced LEDs, or light emitting diodes, which were powered by the engine and a strip of solar electric cells at the top of the craft. In simple terms, the LEDs — considerably more advanced than the ones used in consumer products, though the basic principles behind their functioning remained the same — tinting reflected light to create an optical illusion. The system was optimized for daylight skies — not only would it not blend well against a forest, for example, but it also had some difficulty at dusk. Even during the day, if someone were to stare at the vehicle for a long time, they would probably realize that there was something not quite right about that part of the sky. But at a distance to a casual observer, the LED system was the closest thing to a magician’s magic cloak of invisibility ever invented. Once problems with voltage spikes and the infrared signature were worked out, the system was likely to represent as big a revolution in warfare and surveillance as the first-generation Stealth Fighter had.
The blimps were visible on radar, and by very finely tuned infrared systems. The radar problem could be taken care of — as it had been in the demonstration — by placing jammer units close to the blimp but not actually in it, preventing an attacker from homing in on them. The IR problem was more difficult to overcome, but even the sensors in the Flighthawk could not pick up the blimp until the aircraft was within roughly two miles.
“Now remember, there’s a lot of work to do yet,” Dog told the crowd as the airship rode toward them. “You can see, though, how it comes in steadily even though there’s a good wind today out of the west. High winds have been a problem for lighter-than-air ships since their invention.”
“Is that a problem at thirty thousand feet?” asked one of the congressmen.
The airships’ ability to fly that high — it actually had been taken to over forty, and larger ships could go much higher — was classified. Dog made a show of acting perplexed, then answered.
“I thought I heard a question about altitude. I can only say we fly very high around here. And our altitude at the moment would be limited by sensor abilities to something oh, just out of the range of normal anti-aircraft guns. But no, that’s not a problem.”
There were some nods and appreciative winks. Zen shook his head, admiring the way the colonel handled the VIPs. For a guy who didn’t like politics and Washington BS, he sure could play the bigwigs when he had to.
Dog continued, waxing poetic about the system. The colonel was totally sold on blimps — with or without cloaking LEDs — as a low-cost way of providing radar and other sensor coverage over remote areas in the future. Much larger blimps were also being studied as low-cost equipment movers, and to hear Dog tell it, the day of the lighter-than-air vehicle was just around the corner.
The VIPs started drifting away toward the LADS landing area, watching the six-foot aircraft slide downward. Zen snickered as the aircraft’s controllers — it was flown entirely from the ground — pulled one last trick out of their hats: the LED system flashed, making the airship disappear into the background for a moment. Then the crowd of onlookers seemed to appear in the sky; as they settled down, they were replaced by a message: “Welcome to Dreamland.”
The VIPs applauded heartily.
“Everything’s PR,” said Zen, shaking his head.
“Yes,” said Ray Rubeo. Rubeo was the head scientist at the base, and its resident cynic.
“You should be happy, Ray,” Zen told the scientist. “Your computer beat me.”
“A draw is not a victory,” said Rubeo. He put his hand to his ear, squeezing the tiny gold earring there. “You flew well, and probably were only held off because your two students cheated.”
“Want to go for two out of three?”
“Another time, Major,” said the scientist, walking away.
* * *
Dog spotted Jennifer walking toward Zen’s station as the blimp dropped into a hover. He turned to Major Natalie Catsman, his second in command, and asked her to take over for him. She nodded.
“I have to tie up a few things, but I’ll meet everyone for lunch,” he announced. Then he walked swiftly toward Jennifer.
She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a light blue T-shirt. Even in those simple clothes, even with her hair military-short, she was beautiful, ravishingly beautiful.
And she was angry with him, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.
Dog waited while Jennifer and Zen discussed the parameters of the exercise they’d just flown. Zen started to laugh.
“Good morning, Jen,” said Dog, finally breaking in. He saw her whole body stiffen, inexplicably tensing up. Dog ignored it, turning to Zen. “You flew very well, Major. Your guys did a good job, too”
“I almost got your blimp,” Zen said.
“Either way, we would have looked good,” said Dog. “You going to be at lunch? The congresspeople can’t get enough of you.”
“I’ll do my bit for the team.”
“I appreciate it.” Dog turned to Jennifer. “You have a second, Doc?”
She shrugged, then followed as he walked toward the hangar.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“You weren’t at the apartment when I came back.”
“I had to work.”
“I’m sorry I had to leave. I know you were trying to make it a surprise. I just …”
The words stopped coming. He wanted to tell her — what, exactly?
That he loved her, damn it. But he couldn’t get that to come out of his mouth. Maybe it was because he was her boss, maybe it was because he was a good decade — well, decade and a half — older than her.
Maybe it was because the sun glinted off her hair and made her look like an angel. He just couldn’t say anything worthwhile. And so he said nothing.
“I’ve got some work,” she said. Her hand reached to her shoulder, as if to flick back her hair.
It was an old habit, one she hadn’t completely erased. Something flashed into her face — pain maybe, a grimace of recognition.
“Dinner later, you think?” suggested Dog.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning.
He watched her walk away, feeling as impotent as he ever had in his life.
Chapter 20
Brunei, near the capital
10 October 1997, 0600
Sahurah saw him as he walked from the house.
How young he is, thought Sahurah. Sixteen or seventeen.
The boy turned and went up the path. Sahurah waited a moment longer, then began pedaling his bicycle in the opposite direction, riding away from the small, well-kept house where the recruit lived with his mother and father and five sisters.
An only son in heaven. The parents would be proud.
Sahurah reached the intersection and turned right, pedaling more slowly now. The center of town was on the right. He took the turn and continued past the mosque, not daring to raise his eyes as he turned up the drive of an office building and pedaled around the dirt lot. There were no cars, and Sahurah saw no one. He rode back to the road, saw that the string was still tied to the post — a sign from the two men he had posted as lookouts that all was well. Then he turned right again and went to the end of the street, turning into the driveway of the last house and riding into the back.
The property had not been occupied for some time — it belonged to the mosque — and the jungle had begun to reclaim the yard, pushing close with large trees and brush. Sahurah put his bicycle down in the weeds where it could not be seen, then walked up the back steps into the house.
The recruit was in the back room as instructed, sitting in the middle of the floor.
He was smoking a cigarette. Incensed, Sahurah went to the young man and grabbed it from his mouth, throwing it against the wall.
“Where did you get that?” Sahurah demanded in Malaysian.
The recruit was so terrified he could not speak. Sahurah looked down at his face and again thought to himself, he is young.
Too young.
And yet some might have said that of Sahurah himself only a few years before.
“Stand, and let me look at you,” Sahurah said roughly.
The recruit rose and turned around. How old was he? Sixteen? Fourteen? Old enough to be a soldier in jihad?
But this was not Sahurah’s concern. The imam had already decided, and his own job was simple. He did not even need to know the boy’s name.
“Come with me,” he told the recruit, walking to the next room. He knelt at the side of the floor and removed two boards, then pulled up a small case. He unsnapped the lock and opened it. A small weapon sat inside.
The gun was an INDEP Lusa submachine gun. Made in Romania, the weapon fired nine-millimeter bullets. It measured only seventeen inches with its stock folded, and weighed barely five and a half pounds. The barrel could be removed to make it lighter and shorter, even easier to hide; Sahurah decided to do this.
He had three magazines. Two would be used for training. “Come,” he told the recruit. “We have much to do, and only a short time.”
Chapter 21
New Lebanon, Nevada
9 October 1997, 2005
“So when are you coming home?” Zen asked Breanna when she called the apartment. It was just past 8 P.M. in Nevada; over in Brunei it was a little after eleven o’clock in the morning.
“Supposed to leave tomorrow,” she told him. “But it looks like I’m going to have to take a commercial flight to Japan. Since I’m going to be there anyway, I was thinking of staying in Tokyo for a day or two.”
“Why?” asked Zen.
“Because it’s Tokyo,” she said.
“Well, yeah, Tokyo.”
“Zen, sometimes I think you are the most boring person in the world. It’s Tokyo! There are temples there, museums, restaurants, sights — I’d even like to ride on the trains.”
“Like a sardine?”
“You wouldn’t want to look around Tokyo if you had a few days off?”
“Oh sure, if Godzilla was around.”
“What would you do?”
“Besides rushing home to the arms of my darling wife?” He took a sip of his beer.
“Don’t be a wise guy.”
“I’m not being a wise guy. If I were in Tokyo — I know what I’d do. I’d check out the Tokyo Giants. Supposed to be a great baseball team”
“Zen.”
“Well, not compared to American baseball, of course. But good for Japan”
Zen laughed as his wife made a flustered sound.
“All right, they could probably beat, say, the Cincinnati Reds. But not the Dodgers,” he added.
“Be serious.”
Speaking of baseball, the Dodgers should be on by now. He put his beer between his legs on his lap and bent his head to hold the phone on his shoulder as he rolled his wheelchair into the living room.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Breanna continued. “What do you think about what we were talking about in Brunei?”
“What do I think about what?” he asked, stalling as he looked for the television remote. He knew what she was referring to. The game came on. The Dodgers were ahead of the New York Mets, two to zero, bottom of the second.
“I meant, about a family,” said Breanna.
They had spoken about a “family” — a euphemism for having a baby — for all of ten minutes in the car going over to the beach.
“I’m sorry, I was fiddling with the TV. What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. We’ll go over it when I get home.”
There was a certain tone in her voice that Zen called the “husband can’t win” tone.
“Maybe we should talk about it when you get home,” he said.
“We should,” she answered, a little too forcibly.
“So if you play tourist in Tokyo, when will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“I vote for straight home. I miss you,” he said.
“I miss you, too.”
“But if you want to stay,” he added, “I understand.”
“I’ll think about it, babe. You take care of yourself.”
“I always do” Zen smiled at her, though she couldn’t see him. “You take care, too. They figure out what those Sukhois were all about?”
“They’re still pretty baffled. Same with the ship. Jed seems to think the Islamic guerillas who have been fighting in Malaysia are looking for easier targets.”
“I could see that,” said Zen. He was glad she was getting the hell out of there, but saying that he was actually worried about her somehow seemed out of bounds. “How’s Mack doing? Come on to you yet today?”
“I told you, he hasn’t at all since I’ve been here,” said Breanna.
“Yeah, right.”
“No. He’s — you won’t believe this, but he’s changed. He’s more — I don’t know. More mature.”
Zen laughed so hard he nearly spilled his beer. “Right. Mack Smith, mature. What a concept”
“I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve been sitting in the sun too long, babe. Mack Smith?” He laughed even harder.
“All right, all right. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll try to call before the plane takes off. It’ll be early afternoon your time.”
“Sounds good,” he told her, hanging up.
Mack Smith? Mature? Changed?
Mack Smith!
Zen began to laugh so hard tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
Chapter 22
Brunei
10 October 1997, 1310
She was beautiful, he had to give her that. Mack watched Ivana Keptrova turn heads as she walked across the restaurant toward his table. Tall and thin, with dark features and a simple strand of pearls as her only jewelry, she had a regal appearance. She wore a black business suit, with a skirt that stopped just at the knee; on someone else it might have seemed boring, even dowdy, b
ut on Ivana Keptrova it seemed as sexy as a piece of lingerie.
Mack rose and took her hand. She swept down into her chair, smiling at the waiter, who faded toward the back for a moment and then reappeared with a bottle of champagne.
“It’s the only thing worth drinking while discussing business,” she told Mack, holding her glass up for a toast. “Or for pleasure.”
Mack played along, very careful about taking minute sips of wine. He listened to her talk about Prince bin Awg and the sultan as if they were all close personal friends; he feigned interest in her talk about the navy, which she was apparently supplying with new patrol boats.
“What I’m interested in are fighters,” he told her finally. “Sukhoi Su-27s.”
“A very good airplane,” she said. “The newer models especially. We have upgraded the avionics to a point where they rival the F-15s.”
“The ones I’m interested in are older,” said Mack. “They’re used”
She made a show of confusion. “We can always find inexpensive alternatives,” said Ivana. “But I was under the impression that the sultan wanted frontline equipment.”
“I’m talking about two aircraft that Malaysia’s operating on Borneo.”
“Malaysia?”
He had to admit, she was good. Mack had no idea if she was bluffing or truly ignorant.
“Malaysia or Indonesia,” said Mack.
“Neither country has purchased new Sukhois from Russia,” said Ivana.
“What about used?”
“I don’t believe so, darling.”
“So, you don’t know anything about them?”
“Quite honestly, no. Sukhois to Indonesia? They haven’t the funds.”
“My theory is Malaysia,” said Mack.
“Well, perhaps they purchased some surplus weapons from another country. Have you considered the Ukraine?”
“I’ve considered many things,” said Mack, bluffing himself.