by Dale Brown
“Jesus, Bastian! What are your people trying to do?” bellowed the general. “Do you know how that’s going to look? Can you imagine when the media gets hold of this? My God!”
Dog explained that they had video of the incident that would back them up. Samson felt as if a sinkhole had opened beneath his feet.
“Admiral Woods knows about the incident,” Dog added. “He’s ordered our men back to Base Camp One. But I needed one to help check the lake where the warhead is.”
At least it’s not just my orders he disregards, Samson thought.
“That’s our situation,” said Dog. “Things are a little busy here, General. If you don’t mind I’m going to get back to work.”
“Yes,” said Samson, not sure what else to say.
“Admiral Woods for you, General,” said Catsman as the screen changed back to a large-scale situation map. “He’s a little piqued at being woken. I told him you wanted to give him an important update.”
“I might as well talk to him now,” said Samson sarcastically. “While he’s in a good mood.”
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over Pakistan
2357
STARSHIP TOOK TWO QUICK PASSES OVER THE GROUP AT the lake to get an idea of how many men were there and what other surprises they might have.
There were nine. He could see Kalashnikovs and one grenade launcher, but no more Stinger missiles. Two or three pack animals—from the air they looked like camels, though the pilot suspected they were donkeys—were tied together a short distance away.
Starship pushed the Flighthawk closer to the earth as he widened his orbit, trying to find supporting units that might be hiding in the jagged rocks nearby. There were no roads that he could see, and if there was a warm body in the neighborhood, the infrared scan couldn’t find it.
The mountains were as desolate as anyplace on earth, emptier even than the desert where most of the warheads had landed. The nearest village looked to be a collection of hovels pushed against a ravine about five miles to the east. A road twisted about a mile below the settlement; Starship spotted two paths connecting them but found no one on them.
“Should I take these guys out, Colonel, or what?”
“Let’s wait until the Osprey is a little closer,” Dog told him. “They may pull the warhead from the lake and save us some work.”
“Roger that.”
DOG DECIDED IT WAS PRUDENT TO KEEP THE BENNETT WELL above the ground, establishing an orbit around the area at 40,000 feet, high enough that the black Megafortress could neither be seen nor heard from the ground. With the Osprey still about an hour away, he had the two radar operators take short breaks, sending Sullivan back to monitor their equipment while they got some coffee and relaxed for a few minutes. It wasn’t much of a break, but it relieved the monotony a bit and let them know he was thinking of them. They were warming to him slightly, but he still wouldn’t have gotten many votes for commander of the month.
The Dreamland Command channel buzzed with an incoming message from General Samson.
“Colonel Bastian, good morning again.”
“It’s just about midnight here, General.”
“Woods is not particularly pleased, but I think he’ll accept the fact that you had no choice but to shoot down the Chinese. What the hell are they up to?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t spoken to Jed Barclay about it. He may have an opinion.”
“Jed Barclay?”
Dog explained who Jed Barclay was and how he liaisoned with the different agencies involved in operations.
“Well, I’ll see what he knows,” said Samson.
“There’s one other thing,” said Dog, sensing that Samson was about to sign off.
“Well?”
“We still have two crewmen missing. The Navy has been doing the search but—”
“Where are they missing?”
“The mid-Indian coast. I’d like to supplement that. I’d like to dedicate one of our radar surveillance planes full-time to the mission.”
“Recovering the warheads takes precedence. The President wants that done. That’s where your efforts have to be concentrated.”
“They’re our people, sir. No offense meant to the Navy.”
Samson frowned. “I’ll talk to Woods. We’ll get a better effort out of them.”
“I don’t mean that they’re doing a bad job,” said Dog. “Just that we can help them do a better one.”
“I told you I’ll take care of it,” said Samson. “Keep me updated.”
The screen blanked.
“Nice to talk to you too,” said Dog.
Aboard Marine Osprey Angry Bear One,
over western Pakistan
0130, 18 January 1998
JENNIFER GLEASON BALANCED THE LAPTOP BETWEEN HER legs, squinting at the close-set type as she continued her doctorate-level briefing in rocket science.
Or more specifically, rocket-guidance electronics, and how they interacted with T waves.
While the T-Rays had fried most of the missile’s circuitry, one of the solenoid valves and two electronic level sensors—parts used in the rocket motor itself—had apparently escaped damage. The experts at Dreamland theorized that something had inadvertently shielded these pieces. Jennifer hadn’t spotted any sign of deliberate shielding, she could not see a difference between the unaffected solenoid valve and another unit that had failed.
The first reaction at Dreamland was that she must have missed something, and they forwarded her reams of technical data. Having now read six different papers explaining how the systems worked, she had enough background to be as confused as the experts.
One of the T-Ray experts believed that whatever had shielded the parts simply vaporized during the crash. This seemed plausible, especially if what shielded the components had actually been part of something else, such as a temperature monitor for one of the fuel tanks. The shields used by the Megafortresses were not thick pieces of lead or other heavy metal, but a thin mesh of wires that ran current when the T-Rays hit. The shields were “tuned” to catch the radiation in the way a sound-canceling machine “caught” or neutralized sound; the shield’s trough effectively neutralized the T-Ray’s mountain peak. A thin-wire temperature sensor, or perhaps a radio antenna, might have accidentally provided a partial shield.
Jennifer thought it more likely that there wasn’t enough information about how the T-Rays worked, and that they were interacting with something else. If this were the case, it could take years before the problem was actually solved. In any event, she had to gather as much data as possible.
The Osprey jerked as it hit a bit of turbulence, and the Marine sitting next to her brushed against her. Jennifer shot him a glance. His eyes were fixed on the mesh deck between his combat boots. He looked young, nineteen or twenty at most, and very tired.
None of the men aboard the aircraft—she was the only woman—had slept much in the last forty-eight or seventy-two hours. Even Captain Freah, who ordinarily never looked tired, seemed beat.
She knew there was a good chance she looked as tired as they did. She brushed back a strand of hair from her ear, then turned her attention back to the laptop, bringing up another technical paper to read.
Sergeant Liu glanced around the cabin, nervous for the first time in as long as he could remember.
The sergeant didn’t consider himself a particularly brave man. On the contrary, he thought of himself as prudent and careful, not much of a risk taker. While others might view his job as exceedingly risky, in Liu’s view, working special operations was a good deal less hazardous than most combat jobs in the service. He continually trained and practiced, and worked with only the most qualified people. Missions were generally carefully planned and laid out. As long as you remembered your training and did your job, the odds were in your favor. There was no reason to be scared.
But he was nervous tonight, very nervous.
The image of the little kid being born stayed in his head. Possib
ly—probably—the child was dead before he was born, but he had no way of knowing.
Why had God sent them to the house if He intended on letting the child and its parents die?
A Catholic Chinese-American, Liu had always felt some solace in his faith, but now it seemed to raise only questions. He knew what a priest would tell him: God has a plan, and we cannot always know it. But that didn’t make sense in this case—what plan could He accomplish by letting a child die? Why go to such extraordinary lengths to send help to the baby, then snuff its life out? And the lives of its parents?
Liu looked up. Captain Freah was staring at him.
“You ready, Nurse?” Danny asked.
“Ready and willing,” said Liu, shrugging.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over Pakistan
0201
WHEN THE OSPREY WAS TEN MINUTES FROM THE LANDING zone, Dog gave Starship the order to take out the guerrillas on the ground.
Starship had the two Flighthawks moving in figure eight orbit over the lake. He took them over from the computer and brought them down so they could make their attacks from opposite sides, catching the men on the ground in the middle. With a split screen and left and right joysticks, he felt briefly as if he were two people, each a mirror image of the other.
Green sparkles flashed on the screen of Hawk Two—tracers, fired by someone on the ground unit reacting to the sounds of the airplane.
The targeting box on the screen for Hawk One began to blink, indicating that the computer thought he was almost close enough to shoot. Starship held off for another few seconds, then opened fire just as the tracers turned in his direction.
The effect was brutal and efficient, lead pouring into the men who’d tried to shoot him down little more than an hour earlier. Only two of the men on the ground seemed to escape the first pass, running to the north and throwing themselves on the ground as the Flighthawks passed east and west.
Starship cleared both of the robot planes upward, circled them around, and then pushed into a new attack, this one with the two aircraft in a staggered trail, so that Hawk Two flew a bit behind and to the right of Hawk One.
“Ground attack preset mode one,” he told the computer. “Hawk Two trail.”
He handed Hawk Two off to C3, allowing the computer to fly as his wingman. In the preset, Hawk Two would act like a traditional wingman, primarily concerned with protecting the leader’s tail and only firing after Hawk One had ended its attack.
Starship nudged his stick gently right, moving Hawk One on target. The Flighthawk did not use pedal controls like a manned fighter; instead, the computer interpreted inputs from the stick and took all of the necessary actions. Even so, Starship jabbed his feet against the deck, working an imaginary rudder to fine-tune the approach. He could have been an old-time Skyraider driver, jockeying his A-1A into the sweet spot as he looked for his enemy.
As good as the Skyraider was, it could never have turned as quickly back to the left as he did when he finally saw his targets hiding near a rock formation. He let off a pair of long bursts, then rocketed upward, getting out of the way for Hawk Two. As soon as the nose of the aircraft tilted up, Starship changed seats, so to speak, swapping control of the planes with the computer.
The targeting box was flashing red, but Starship couldn’t find the soldiers. Finally, he saw something moving at the very left edge of the target reticule. He kissed the stick gently with his fingers, holding his fire even though the computer declared he couldn’t miss.
When he finally did shoot, the nose of his plane was about a half mile from his targets. He walked the bullets left and then right, pulverizing the rocks as well as the men who’d tried to hide in them.
“Hawk leader to Bennett. Enemy suppressed, Colonel. You can tell the Osprey it’s safe to land.”
“Roger that, Hawk leader. Good going, Starship.”
Aboard Marine Osprey Angry Bear One,
northern India, near China
0206
DANNY FREAH LEAPT FROM THE OSPREY AND RAN BEHIND the Marine pointmen as they raced toward the men the Flighthawk had gunned down a few minutes before.
Twenty millimeter shells did considerable damage to a body, and even battle-hardened Marines didn’t linger as they surveyed the dead.
If they had been farther west, Danny would have thought the mangled bodies belonged to Afghan mujahideen. He had briefly worked as an advisor with mujahideen fighting the Russians a few years before, instructing them at a small camp in northern Pakistan. Some of those same men, he believed, were now sworn enemies of the U.S. They or their brothers had participated in a number of attacks against the U.S. military, including a suicide bombing of the USS Cole in the Persian Gulf.
“Looks like they were using sat phones to communicate,” he told Colonel Bastian after the remains had been searched. “I have two of the phones. One of them is pretty shot up, but maybe the CIA can get something off of them.”
“Anything else?”
“Negative,” said Danny. “I’d sure like to know if they’re working with the Chinese.”
“For the moment, we have to assume they are,” said Dog. “Did Dreamland Command give you possible search coordinates?”
“Northeastern quadrant of the lake. We’re on it, Colonel.”
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over Pakistan
0210
“BIG PACKAGE COMING FOR US COLONEL,” WARNED Sergeant Rager at the airborne radar station. “I have six Su-27 interceptors, Chinese, on their way from the north, 273 miles. Two aircraft, currently unidentified, behind them. Large aircraft,” he added. “Maybe transports, maybe bombers. Can’t tell.”
Dog keyed the Dreamland channel to contact the Cheli. Despite its pilot’s optimistic prediction earlier, the Megafortress was still about ten minutes away.
“Dreamland Bennett to Cheli. Brad, looks like the Chinese want to crash the party.”
“Roger that, Colonel. We’re ready.”
Dog scowled, now a little suspicious of Captain Brad Sparks’s overarching optimism. He told Sparks that he wanted him to take the Cheli north and intercept the Sukhoi at long range.
“Shoot them down with your Anacondas,” Dog said. “Use them at long range, in case the Chinese have more passive radiation seekers. The MiG-31s fired at about 140 miles.”
“Roger that, Colonel. You told me. We’re good. Copy everything.”
“Get the lead out, Sparks,” Dog added. “Our people are sitting ducks on the ground there.”
Karachi, Pakistan
0210
GENERAL MANSOUR SATTARI PULLED HIMSELF FROM THE rear of the Mercedes and stepped into the chilly predawn air. Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he walked down the dark path toward a squat cement building in one of Karachi’s poorer districts. Like most of the rest of the country, power had not yet been restored, and the only light came from the dim reflection of the moon, peeking from behind a veil of thin clouds.
The door of the house opened as Sattari approached.
“General, my general, how good to see you,” gushed the tall man who stood on the threshold. “I received word two hours ago—an honor.”
“Thank you, Razi,” said Sattari. “May I come in?”
“Of course, of course. My manners.”
Razi was the size of a bear, and awkward in his movements; he pushed back and knocked into a small table as he made way for his guest. Two chairs were set up in the front room, with an unlit candle between them; Razi gestured for Sattari to sit, then bent to light the candle. The light made small headway against the room’s dimness.
“How are you, General? I was sorry to hear about your son.”
“Yes.”
“I am assured that the burial was prompt and proper,” said Razi, reaching to the floor and picking up a large manila envelope. “The location is on a map. The people who discovered the body were devout Shiites.”
Sattari nodded. He opened the envelope and looked inside. He coul
d see that there were two photographs, intended to seal the identification. He hesitated, then pulled them out, determined to confront the bitter reality.
His son’s face was bloated from the water, but it was definitely him. Sattari slipped the pictures back inside the envelope.
“I greatly appreciate your service,” the general told Razi. “You have done much for me.”
Razi nodded. Now the second in command of the Iranian spy network in Pakistan, his father had served with Sattari in the days of the shah. Not quite as tall as his father, who had been a true giant, he had inherited his hard gaze.
“And so, what are the Pakistanis up to?” Sattari asked, changing the subject.
“In chaos, as usual. Some want to make peace with the Indians. Some want to continue the war. They are so disorganized. They have not even been able to mobilize to recover the missiles that the Americans disabled.”
“Can they be recovered?”
“The Americans are already hard at it. That is what we have heard, anyway. There is no reason to doubt it—the Americans are everywhere.”
“Yes,” said Sattari.
“The Chinese are doing the same thing, we believe,” said Razi. “They are very, very busy. They have made an alliance with the bearded one, the Saudi. An alliance with the devil.”
Sattari had nothing but disdain for the Saudi, a Sunni fanatic who had built a terror network by giving money to every psychotic madman in the Middle East. The Saudi hated Shiites, and hated Iran.
Still, there was a saying: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“What is the Saudi doing?”
“He has offered money for the recovery of a weapon, that much we know. And, from the two camps he had in the Baulchistan, some followers were sent north. They must be looking for it. Perhaps the Chinese helped him. Rumors…” Razi was silent for a moment. “The Pakistani army actually tried to stop them, but after a gun battle they slipped away.”
“The Chinese are helping him?”
“It is not clear,” said Razi. “One of my people works at the Chinese consulate, the headquarters for the Chinese spy operations. There was a meeting a day ago, with a representative of the Saudi. After that, more activity. Their cryptologists were so busy they could not go home. The consulate is one of the few places in the city with its own power and satellite dishes,” he added. “Even the local government has asked to use them.”