by Dale Brown
The boy came down and grabbed at the turtle. Zen pulled it toward him. The kid started talking rapidly, and Zen couldn’t understand.
“We need,” said the younger boy finally. “You give.”
“Why do you need it?” asked Zen.
He couldn’t understand the answer. The turtle had been difficult to capture and kill, and Zen was hardly confident he could get another. But simply turning the boys away would be foolish.
“If I give it to you, can you bring me a cell phone?” said Zen.
Now it was the boys who didn’t understand.
“Phone,” said Zen. He mimicked one. “T-r-rring-ring.”
“Phone,” said the younger boy.
“Yes. Can you bring me one?”
“Phone.”
“I give you the turtle, you give me a phone.”
“Phone, yes,” said the older boy.
It seemed to be a deal. By now it was getting dark, and the boys managed to explain to him that they had to leave. They told him that they would be back the next day.
Or at least he thought that’s what they said.
As soon as he gave them the turtle, they lit out for the eastern side of the island, where they had apparently left their boats. Zen immediately regretted the deal, sensing he’d been gypped. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He checked on Breanna, still sleeping fitfully, then retrieved the stick the older boy had tossed aside, and with it and the driftwood he’d gathered the day before he managed to start a small fire.
A strong foreboding overcame him as he went to Breanna, intending to pull her a little closer to the fire. He closed his eyes as he crawled the last few feet, fearing he would find her dead.
She was still breathing, more rhythmically it seemed to him.
“Can you feel the fire here?” he asked her.
She made no sign that she heard.
“Come on down with me a little. It’ll warm you up a bit. Just a bit.”
He cradled her upper body on his lap and pushed closer to the fire. It wasn’t much, but he could feel the warmth, and hoped she could too.
Zen told his wife about the boys. “Funny that they know the Simpsons, huh? I told them I’m Bart’s best friend. Maybe they’ll come back for an autograph.”
He remembered the radio. He hadn’t broadcast all day.
He reached into his pocket for Breanna’s watch to check the time, but it wasn’t there.
Had he put it in his other pocket? He swung his body around and reached to his left.
It wasn’t there either. He began to search feverishly, sure it was somewhere in his flight suit—then not sure. Had he left it in the tent? Given it back to Breanna? Where was it?
Where the hell was it?
It’s the little things that make you crazy.
Zen heard the voice, but he knew it was only in his head—a snatch of a memory, part of a lecture someone had given during his survival training. The point had been: Don’t obsess over things that aren’t important.
He didn’t need a watch. Time was irrelevant. They’d be listening for him around the clock.
Zen went to the radio and made several calls, but there was no answer, and even the static sounded far away.
Tired, he poked at the fire. It was dark, and with the embers glowing a faint orange, he huddled around his wife and drifted off to sleep.
Southeastern Pakistan
1900
DANNY FREAH STUDIED THE IMAGE FROM THE I-17 LANDING zone in his smart helmet, mentally plotting the Ospreys’ ingress into the site. They had just swung south of the nearest village and were about ten minutes from the landing area.
“When you make your cut north,” he told the Osprey pilot, bending down over the console that separated the two aviators at the front of the aircraft, “you have a straight run to the target. There’s a slight rise to the road. It looks like there’s a high spot overlooking it and the missile as well.”
Unlike the Dreamland birds, the Marine Ospreys weren’t set up to receive the video image. Once they got close, though, their forward looking infrared radar would provide a good view.
The pilot put up his hand, gesturing to Danny that they were now five minutes from the landing zone.
“Clean,” said Danny.
Behind him the Marines got ready to hit the dirt. Even though this was the third warhead they’d recovered today, the men still tensed as they gathered near the door. Danny could smell the sweat as their adrenaline picked up and they got ready to go.
The Ospreys bucked slightly as they pitched toward the ground. The rear ramp opened and the Marines swarmed over the desert, anxious ants swarming an abandoned picnic basket.
Danny had Starship give him the widest possible view of the area from the Flighthawk; after making sure it was clean, he tapped the pilot on the shoulder and went to join the men as they took control of the area. Two fire teams ran full throttle to the highway, moving in opposite directions so they could observe and stop any traffic if necessary. Four men went toward the village, setting up a post where they could watch for anyone approaching them.
“Secure, Captain,” said the ranking Marine NCO, a gunnery sergeant named Bob McNamera, who, like gunnery sergeants throughout the Corps, was called Gunny. “Ready to take a look at our Easter egg?”
“Let’s get a look,” said Danny, starting toward the warhead.
It was larger than the last two. Much of the fairing was burnt, and the ground around it was scorched. Bits and pieces of rocket were scattered behind it in an extended starburst pattern.
“This one’s a different missile than the others,” Danny told Dreamland Command as he scanned the area with his smart helmet’s built-in camera. “Bigger.”
“Very good,” replied Ray Rubeo over the satellite connection.
“Different procedure for disarming?”
“We’re determining that right now, Captain. What exactly is the ETA of Ms. Gleason to the site?”
“Huh?”
“When is Ms. Gleason expected to arrive?”
“Ms. Gleason isn’t expected to arrive.”
Rubeo cleared his throat, then explained that Jennifer Gleason was en route with the rest of the Whiplash ground team.
“Are you kidding?” Danny said. “They’re supposed to parachute into our camp in India an hour from now.”
“It would be useful for Ms. Gleason to join you at the scene,” said Rubeo. “Sooner rather than later.”
“Who told her she could do a night jump?”
“Who tells Ms. Gleason she can do anything?”
Aboard MC-17 Quickmover,
over northwestern India
1955
“CHANGE IN PLANS, JEN,” SAID SERGEANT LIU AFTER HE clambered down the ladder from the cockpit area. “We’re going to go out a bit farther north than originally planned.”
“OK,” she answered, gripping her jump helmet. She was sitting with the other Whiplashers on a row of plastic fold-down seats at the side of the large cargo hold. The big aircraft was empty except for a small pallet of gear that would be dropped with the team.
“You sure you don’t want to hitch up?” Liu asked.
“I hate tandem jumps,” she said.
“It’s a high altitude jump at nighttime.”
“I’m Army qualified, Sergeant.”
Liu gave her a dubious look, but it was true. A year before, she had suffered the ignominy of a tandem jump into Iran. She liked the excitement of parachuting, but didn’t like being tethered to someone else. So she’d gone to the trouble of completing a parachute course with a former Army Ranger and master combat jumper.
“Qualified” was a relatively low standard—a soldier could earn the basic Army parachutist badge with five jumps, only one of which was at night. Liu and his men would do five jumps in a single day just to stay sharp. And HALO jumps—high altitude, low opening—weren’t even part of the program.
“I’ve had three night jumps, all with more gear than I’m carrying now,�
� added Jennifer, sensing Liu’s objections. “And I’ve done thirty jumps, including three HALO. OK? So I don’t need a keeper.”
“Hey, I jumped with her, Nurse,” said Sergeant Geraldo “Blow” Hernandez. Blow was also the team jumpmaster. “She’s got the goods.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“It’s gonna cost you,” said Blow.
“Not if I hit the ground first.”
Southeastern Pakistan
2010
“GLOBAL HAWK SHOWS A CAR COMING, CAPTAIN. DRIVING from the east.”
Danny couldn’t believe the bad timing. The Whiplash team had just gone out of the aircraft.
“How fast?”
“Hard to tell,” said Gunny. “Ground team can’t see him yet. You want us to nuke him?”
Danny knew what the sergeant meant, but it was still a poor choice of words.
“Let’s see if he goes fast enough to miss them,” Danny told the sergeant. “Better for all of us if he just drives on.”
“Your call,” said the Marine, his tone leaving no doubt that he disagreed with Danny’s decision.
Danny waited for the car to come into view. If only the Whiplash team had jumped, he could have told Liu and the others to change their landing spot to avoid being detected. But he felt that was too much to ask of Jennifer.
She really shouldn’t have been on the mission at all.
“Guy’s a slowpoke,” said Gunny, who was watching the car with a set of night glasses.
Danny glanced toward the sky. The team would be opening their chutes just about now.
“We may make it,” said Danny hopefully.
“Your call.”
“Yes, it is.”
THE SHOCK OF WIND AS SHE HIT THE SLIPSTREAM BELOW the jet sent a chill through Jennifer so severe that her legs shook. Even with the Dreamland night-vision technology embedded in the smart helmet, all she could see was black.
“Damn,” she told herself.
That was as close as she would come to admitting that she’d bit off a little more than she could comfortably chew. She pulled her arms and legs back closer to her torso, shaping herself into a frog position as she plummeted downward. The altimeter in the smart helmet was somewhat distracting—the default display flashed large numerals in blue as the jumper descended—but she did like the infrared night view, which bathed the world in a warm green glow.
It didn’t feel like she was falling. The sensation was more of flying, sailing through the air at a tremendous clip. For all her intellectual skills, Jennifer loved to push her body; running and rock climbing were regular pursuits. Skydiving wasn’t quite as much fun—there was too much prep involved, which meant she had to plan quite a bit with her schedule. But it was definitely a rush.
The smart helmet showed her where she was compared to her designated landing zone. She tilted her arm and left leg, leaning back to the right spot.
A tone sounded. Jennifer yanked the ripcord, and within moments the loud hurricane rush transformed into something gentler. This wasn’t the lullaby of a bassinet slowly lulling a newborn to sleep: she had to work, checking her canopy with the aid of a wrist flashlight and then steering according to the cues given by the helmet. The parachutist and her parachute were a miniature aircraft, capable of flying literally miles before touching down.
Jennifer didn’t have to go quite that far. With her chute and lines looking good, her course set, she enjoyed the view. There were small huts in the distance, a car on a road, the Osprey and work team.
The digital altimeter counted down her altitude: 200 feet…150…100…
The helmet blacked out.
Her legs locked. She tried to relax them, tried to relax everything, taking a deep, long breath.
The ground grabbed her before she could exhale. Jennifer tumbled hard to her right, skidding ignobly and twisting completely around three times before coming to a stop against a pile of very hard rocks.
DANNY FREAH SAW THE FLASH OF THE BRAKE LIGHTS JUST as the first Whiplash trooper sailed across the landing zone toward his touchdown. The auto was a mile away, and slightly ahead of the parachutist as he landed, but Danny decided he just couldn’t take a chance.
“Nab him,” he told Gunny. “As gently as possible.”
“Will do,” said the Marine cheerfully.
Danny turned his attention to the team landing around him. Suddenly, the night was filled with the sound of a woman cursing her head off—Jennifer Gleason had come in hard twenty yards away from him. Danny ran over and found her rolling up her parachute.
“Hey, Jen, you keep that up, the kids are going to learn a whole bunch of new words,” he said.
“Stinking fucking helmet.”
Danny couldn’t help but laugh.
A fresh string of expletives exploded from her mouth. “It’s not funny, Freah,” she told him. “The stinking helmet blacked out just before I landed.”
“Did you have it in default mode? If so, it reverted to standard view five seconds before you landed. You should have set it to a custom mode if you wanted it to continue counting.”
Jennifer expanded her vocabulary to include a description of what could be done to default mode. The description defied the laws of physics, though Danny made it a point never to argue science with a scientist.
“Where is the stinking bomb at?” she said finally.
“This way,” said Danny.
She seemed to be limping as she followed.
“You want an ice pack on that knee?”
“Just show me where the son of a bitch is.”
Danny got Jennifer over to the warhead, then went to check on the rest of his team. Liu and the others had landed about a quarter mile away, shading away from the car.
“Good to see you, Cap,” said Blow. “How’s Boston doing?” he asked, referring to Sergeant Ben Rockland. Boston had been hurt, though not seriously, apprehending the Iranian commandos who instigated the Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange.
“He’s going to be OK,” said Danny. “Listen, there was a car stopped up the road.”
“We saw it coming in,” said Liu.
“Run up there and see if you can help the Marines with the language,” said Danny. “Link back to Dreamland and use their computer translators.”
“On it,” said Liu.
A few minutes later Sergeant Liu, Gunny, and two Marine privates returned with a skinny Pakistani man who looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“You gotta hear his story, Cap,” said Liu. “Claims his wife is pregnant and he’s going to fetch her mother.”
“They don’t have doctors in Karachi?”
“Doesn’t live in Karachi,” said Liu. “Lives about five miles up the road. She sounds like she’s in serious labor, Captain. Kind of like that breeched birth we had on the Iranian mission?”
“You guys deliver babies?” asked Gunny.
“We do all sorts of things, Sergeant,” said Danny.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over Pakistan
2100
DOG TURNED THE STICK OVER TO HIS COPILOT AND GOT UP to stretch his legs. The crew’s resentment had diminished a bit, but he knew he still wouldn’t win any popularity contests.
Not that it mattered. He walked to the galley and started a fresh pot of coffee in the Zero Gravity Mr. Coffee. The sealed coffeemaker, which worked as advertised, was still rated by most of the technical people as their biggest contribution to mankind.
“Hey, Colonel, you got Ray Rubeo looking for you,” said Sullivan.
“Thanks, Kevin.”
Dog poured himself a half cup of the steaming java, then made his way back to his seat. Rubeo’s familiar frown was frozen on the screen.
“One of these days, Ray, you’re going to smile,” said Dog.
“It won’t be today. We’ve done some new calculations based on Ms. Gleason’s findings,” said the scientist, launching into an explanation of why the five missiles still missing had not been found. They all b
elonged to a subtype of the Prithvi family that had not been previously identified. According to Rubeo, solenoid valves that controlled parts of the engine had been shielded sufficiently so they had not been destroyed by the T-Rays.
As Rubeo’s discussion veered toward the technical, Dog cut him short.
“Do we have new projections of where they came to earth?”
“We’re working on them, Colonel. There are several variables involved. At a minimum, we believe that all of the missiles went much farther north.”
Rubeo had a map ready. The search areas included Kashmir and the borders of Afghanistan and China.
“Ray, this map has to cover a hundred thousand square miles.”
“It’s 225, 963.” Rubeo’s scowl deepened. “We are working on reducing it. We don’t entirely understand why the solenoid valve—and it was only one—on the missile at I-17 wasn’t affected. We should have this quantified in a few hours, depending on how quickly Jennifer works.”
“I’m sure she’ll work as quickly as possible,” said Dog. “What did she do? Set up a simulator in the Command trailer?”
“No, we’ve done the simulations. She provided the measurements and electric readings. I would have preferred—”
“Wait a second. Are you telling me Jennifer Gleason is on the ground in Pakistan?”
“Yes. I assume she checked with you before going…or is that an invalid assumption?”
Southeastern Pakistan
2115
DOG’S VOICE WOULD HAVE SHATTERED DANNY’S EARDRUMS if it weren’t for the special volume reducer built into the smart helmet’s headset.
“Why the hell did you let Jennifer jump into a battle zone?” demanded Dog.
“I didn’t let her do anything. Rubeo told me she was on the way. I thought you told her she could go.”
“Let me talk to her. Now.”
Danny walked over to the missile assembly. Jennifer was peering into the ruined and burned skeleton, examining bits of circuit boards with an oscilloscope.
“Colonel wants to talk to you,” Danny told her. “He’s hot. Real hot.”