by Dale Brown
“Zen was there,” said Danny. “He’s at home right now.”
“I know the number,” said Jed. “Can you get a hold of Mr. Gordon?”
“Will do. And I’ll track down Breanna, if I can.”
“Thanks. We’ll be waiting.”
Chapter 31
Bandar Seri Begawan (capital of Brunei)
11 October 1997, 1710
“Mack, I agree this is a difficult situation, but we must use patience.” Prince bin Awg paced the length of his office in the modern-high rise overlooking the bay, the soles of his Italian shoes squeaking softly on the polished marble floor. “But it is a time for diplomacy, a delicate time.”
“Look, Prince, you know airplanes pretty well,” said Mack. “You’ve got a great collection of Cold War hardware over in your hangars. Those aren’t just pretty planes. The Russians and the Americans — the reason there wasn’t a nuclear war was that we were both matching each other. Those were serious war machines, and both sides had to be careful of the other.”
“What’s your point, Mack?” asked the prince.
“It means you have to show your resolve, not just to these terrorist punks, but to the Malaysians.”
“The Malaysians say they weren’t involved,” said bin Awg. “The helicopters were on a routine training mission.”
“Aw, that’s bullshit and you know it. They were clearly in our territory. And their Sukhois would have hit the police station if we didn’t stop them. You have to help me clear the red tape away so we can get missiles to shoot them down,” said Mack. “And we need F-15s. Or something. Hell, I’ll settle for the Sukhois Ivana Keptrova was peddling.”
“The sultan does not want to upset the current equilibrium?’ said bin Awg. “He’s put all our purchases on hold for the time being.”
“He better change his mind damn quick,” said Mack. “Or he’ll be the ex-sultan. Now where’s my pilot?”
“She was taken over to the central ministry to be interviewed. I’m sure she’ll be released after a few hours.”
Mack had already spun around and headed for the door.
“Mack!” said the prince.
Against his better judgment, Mack stopped.
Confusion and fear mixed in equal parts of the prince’s face. Bin Awg had not impressed Mack as a great statesman; it was clear he was used to the finer things in life and was a bit too fond of pleasure to make the personal sacrifices you needed to make to be a great leader, even in peacetime. But neither had he thought he was a coward or fool.
“Mack, listen,” said the prince, his voice firmer than it had been earlier. “I want you to succeed. Take the steps necessary, and I will do what I can. But there are procedures that we all must follow, even myself.”
Mack glanced at bin Awg’s hands, curled together in tight fists. He wants to be brave, Mack thought to himself, and he knows he has to be. But he’s used to having things laid out for him, and letting other people do the dirty work.
At least his heart is in the right place. That’s going to have to be enough.
“Just back me up, okay?” said Mack.
Bin Awg hesitated, then nodded.
“I’ll keep you informed.”
* * *
The fact that McKenna was at the central defense ministry allowed Mack to kill two birds with one stone. He and his two security men, weapons ready, marched up the steps and through the reception area, pausing at the desk where two Brunei policemen looked at them with jaws just about on the floor.
“Your country is under attack,” Mack told them. “And we’re kicking butt to protect it. I need more security people. So if you get tired of this bullshit desk job, you come see me. We’ll pay twice what they pay you here, and you’ll be patriots besides.”
Mack then spun and walked up the grand stairway before either man could manage to gather his wits. He marched to the office of the central minister, in theory his boss; the man was gone for the day.
Just as well, thought Mack, who then proceeded back downstairs, this time to the basement where McKenna was being interviewed about the helicopter incident. As they came down, one of the young men who had been in the lobby began tagging along. Mack looked at him for a moment, saw the man nod, and nodded back.
A guard stood outside the interrogation room. Mack walked up to him.
“Soldier, you’re at war. At a minimum, your sidearm should be ready to be used,” said Mack, pointing at the buttoned holster. “If you want to see real action, you join us at the airport.”
He slapped the door open and walked into the room, where McKenna sat behind a long table across from two white-haired officers.
“About freakin’ time, Mack,” said McKenna, pushing up.
The two officers looked at Mack in disbelief. One of them started to say something, but stopped as Mack’s soldiers came in behind him.
“Come on, McKenna, we got a ton of work to do.” said Mack, spinning around. “Can’t have you lolling around on your pretty butt all day.”
“Pretty butt? I think that’s sexual harassment,” said McKenna, hustling to keep up with him as he strode out of the room.
Chapter 32
New Lebanon, Nevada
0400
Though he would have flown past a dozen anti-aircraft batteries in a Sopwith Camel before admitting it, Zen slept very poorly when his wife was away. In fact, he hardly slept at all most nights. He was watching ESPN SportsCenter when the phone rang, and he snagged it on the first ring.
“Yeah?”
“Zen, it’s Jed. Hey, you awake?”
“Well no, I’m sitting here talking to you in my sleep, cousin. What’s the story?”
Jed brought him up to date on the situation in Brunei, where there had been somewhere around a dozen terrorist attacks over the course of the day. Zen flipped over to CNN as they talked, hitting the mute; there was no mention of the attacks.
“I’ll tell you, that place is a lot more dangerous than people think,” Zen told his cousin. “And something’s going on with Malaysia. Bree said they picked up two Sukhois the other day that supposedly don’t exist.”
“Yeah, we’ve been looking into that. We think the Malaysian government may have purchased them from the Ukraine roughly a year ago, then had them shipped into the country. I won’t know for sure for a while.”
“You think they’re working with the terrorists?”
“I don’t know. There’s no evidence. As a fellow member of ASEAN, they should be allies.”
“Being allies hasn’t stopped people from going to war before,” said Zen.
“Agreed. If we had evidence that they were cooperating, we might be able to pressure them to stop.”
Good luck, thought Zen. He glanced over at the clock on the night table, hoping Breanna was long gone from there.
Chapter 33
Brunei
1910
The back of Sahurah’s head continued to pound as he got out of the car and walked slowly to the house. The pain had been with him since yesterday evening, a dull throb that receded at times, but never fully lifted.
A woman with her face covered met Sahurah at the door, staring at him a moment before removing the chain to open it fully. She had a machine pistol in her hand, similar to the one Sahurah had given the boy yesterday. Sahurah frowned at the weapon as he passed into the house. Women were useful in some situations, he believed, and certainly the faithful might follow the dictates of the Prophet, but to arm them was close to folly, and to depend on them at a moment of stress surely desperation.
The two young brothers at the end of the foyer, both equipped with AK47s, were much more reassuring. Sahurah recognized one — he had been in the boat for the beach mission — and nodded before passing by them to go upstairs to the room he had been given. Inside, he closed the door and lay down on the wide bed. He spread his arms out as if supplicating the angels for relief of his headache and tried to sink into the mattress beneath his back.
Just as the p
ain began to ebb, a sharp knock on the door brought it crashing back.
“Commander Sahurah?” said a voice he did not recognize. “Yes.”
“Commander Besar wishes to discuss the day’s events with you”
Sahurah opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling another moment, then closed them again. He pushed his right leg down so that it bent to the floor, and rolled his body to its side, rising like a wounded animal struggling to its feet. He went to the door, and was surprised to see that the messenger was a man nearly three times his age, with hair whiter than bleached cotton.
Sahurah followed him back down the stairs, through a pair of empty rooms, into a hallway that led to a suite at the back of the house. There was a pool and a patio to the left; the old man led him outside through a pair of French doors, gesturing to the semicircle of chairs just beneath the roof.
Besar sat with his back to him, flanked by a pair of women in Western-style bathing suits. The women were of Chinese extraction — no Muslim would dress so outrageously, surely. They sipped from tall glasses of liquor, both of them obviously drunk.
Pain poked into the side of his head, a hot spear breaking through the bone into the soft flesh.
“Commander Sahurah, sit, sit,” said Besar. He gestured and the women rose. Sahurah closed his eyes and they were gone.
“Besar,” he said, still standing where he had been.
“You don’t look well. And yet your operations have had exceptional results. Sit. Sit. Rest yourself.”
Sahurah managed to slide over to a nearby chair. He had the exact opposite opinion of his missions. The attack on the restaurant had killed only a few people, since the boy had not managed to ignite the bomb before being killed. He had helped plan other operations, including two attacks today on police stations that had demolished both buildings, but to take credit for their success when he himself had not expended any effort would be a great sin.
“Relax, my young friend. Relax. Have a drink.” Besar pushed a glass into his hands. Sahurah, suddenly thirsty, brought it to his lips, then smelled the bitterness of the liquid. He threw the glass to the ground.
Besar laughed. “Never to be tempted”
Sahurah’s head pounded or he would have yelled at Besar, who was always playing such tricks. Besar snapped his fingers, and someone walked toward them. Sahurah, his eyes still closed because of the pain, heard liquid being poured.
“Tea only, my friend, iced tea from China. A soothing drink,” said Besar.
Sahurah was not sure whether to trust him or not. He opened his eyes and saw the glass being held out to him. The young man with the glass trembled slightly.
“Is it tea?” Sahurah asked.
“Yes, Commander.”
“I will kill you if it’s not” Sahurah took the glass. It contained only tea.
“You really have to relax,” said Besar. “And remember the teaching — our sins are being cleansed by our actions.”
“Forgiveness is not a license to sin.”
“Life without sin is not possible,” said the other guerilla leader. “We are men, not angels. Even an ayatollah sins. The imam himself is not without fault; he has said so himself. You are not holier than a holy man, are you?”
Sahurah did not answer. Soon this would all be over, he told himself. He would soon receive the order from the imam to join his brothers in heaven. Sahurah prayed for that day; he prayed for release from the throb at the top of his head.
“Five hundred brothers from the Malaysian territory will join us by daybreak,” said Besar. “We will storm the sultan’s palace at eight, after the council arrives.”
“Five hundred?” said Sahurah. The number seemed incredible.
“Too little, you think?” For the first time, Besar’s voice was contrite, even concerned.
“I could do it with twenty,” said Sahurah, who had planned such a mission several months before.
Besar laughed lightly, then reached over and patted his knee. “You are thinking too conservatively now, Sahurah. We have the entire country to take over. Capturing the sultan is a priority.”
“How will we feed five hundred men?”
“From the sultan’s own kitchen,” said Besar, sliding back in his chair.
Chapter 34
San Francisco
0430
Dog’s weight against her side felt reassuring, and as she stared into the dimly lit hotel room Jennifer realized she felt safe for the first time in weeks.
What was safety? Being comfortable? Being immune to attack? She’d been on combat deployments and in test aircraft and not felt vulnerable. It was when she’d been accused of being a traitor to her country — that was when she had felt vulnerable.
Why’? Because people didn’t believe in her? Or because she didn’t believe in herself?
Was she afraid that she might be a traitor? That she might not truly believe in all the things she professed to believe?
That her father, dead before she was born, might think of her as an unworthy daughter?
Dog rolled away onto his side. Jennifer slid over, pushing her hand up across his arm and then over his chest, clutching him from behind.
Tecumseh believed in her. He loved her. She could feel it like a physical thing, a coat she could wear. He was inattentive at times, maddeningly so. But he had many concerns, and the same could easily be said of her. His love, however, couldn’t be questioned.
She pressed her breasts against the muscles of his back, starting to drift back to sleep.
And then the phone rang.
“Rrrrr,” said Dog, the sound more like a snore than a word.
“Phone?” she muttered.
“Yeah.” He reached toward it, dragging the receiver to his ear. “Bastian,” he said.
Jennifer already knew that it would be Dreamland — and that it inevitably meant it was time to get up. She sighed, then swung out of bed to take a quick shower before dressing.
Chapter 35
Brunei
1930
“We have to get missiles for the Megafortress,” Mack told McKenna as he drove back to the airport. “I’ll try calling around and see if I can break through the paperwork crap. Maybe I can beg some out of Dreamland.”
“What do we need?”
“Sidewinders, AMRAAM-pluses. We could use older AMRAAMs if we had to.”
“How about Sparrows?”
“AIM-7s? I don’t know. I think the Megafortress can fire them off the rotating dispenser in the bomb bay, but I’m not sure,” said Mack. “I don’t know what sort of avionics link they need or if it was hardwired into the computer or what”
“Well, find out.”
“Well, no shit.” Mack saw her scowl and laughed. “But assuming I find out, what difference is it going to make?”
“I know where we can buy some.”
“Sparrow missiles? How?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” said McKenna. “But we can have them in a few hours, assuming we go to pick them up ourselves.”
“Where?”
“Philippines.”
“Shit,” said Mack. “Is this legal?”
“Legal for who?”
Mack snorted. “Okay. What about air-to-ground weapons? Smart bombs?”
“How about early model Mavericks?”
“I don’t know,” said Mack. “I can check though.”
“Well, check.”
The Maverick — officially known as the AGM-65 — was an American air-to-ground missile developed at the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s. It came in a variety of flavors, guided by infrared and video. Though old, it was an effective weapon, especially against tanks and other hardened targets.
“We need more small bombs for the A-37s,” Mack told her. “Can you get some?”
“We may be able to get all of this from the Philippines,” said McKenna. “There are some people there that Ivana knew. They’re a lot further down the food chain, though, and they’re go
ing to be expensive.”
“Sultan’s just going to have to pay through the nose if that’s what it takes,” said Mack, slowing down as he approached the gate at the airport. A pair of army soldiers stood near the main gate; Mack got ready to stop but they didn’t challenge him, or the car behind them carrying his soldiers and the new recruits who had joined him from the defense ministry.
“They still aren’t taking this seriously,” complained Mack as they rolled through.
“They’ve been fat too long,” said McKenna.
“Ain’t that the truth” Mack sped toward the tower, where the army and police guard had been augmented by his own air force people. “I want to rotate the Dragonfly crews so we have airplanes in the air at all times. Yayasan can take the first flight with you in the morning—”
“I fired him.”
“What are you talking about? He’s one of our best pilots.”
“He was flying wing with me this morning. He lost his guts when I went after the helicopter.”
“You just fired him?”
“Soon as we landed. What good is a pilot who loses his nerve? He’s chicken.”
Mack might have said the same thing himself a few weeks before. But now he saw that there were many more jobs in the air force than flying planes. He could have found something for Yayasan to do.
“Okay,” said Mack. “You gotta do what you gotta do. But from now on, I do the hiring and firing, all right? We might have been able to use him on the ground”
She pursed her lips for a second as if she were going to pout, but then said, “Sit, yes, sir.”
“Fuck you, McKenna.”
“Any time, Mr. Minister. Anytime.”
Chapter 36
Off the coast of Brunei
2200
Dazhou Ti leaned forward over the weapons officer’s shoulder, looking at the screen. When they had drawn up the mission, they had not dared to hope for such luck — both of the Brunei navy’s new patrol vessels were sailing together in the direction of the oil platforms west of the Bay. The two ships were separated by less than a hundred yards.