Perilous Skies (Stony Man)

by Don Pendleton

“Shit,” Hawkins said, and crab-walked over to Manning and Hawkins quickly. He felt around the body armor covering James’s abdomen—body armor that looked as if it had been exploded from the inside.

  James seem to spasm when it was touched.

  “Hurts, motherfucker.”

  “You broken?” Hawkins demanded.

  “Check Manning,” James said.

  Hawkins looked at Manning. “Gary? You all right?”

  “Busted my headset,” Manning said as he pulled off the shattered plastic and a dangling wire to show Hawkins. His eyes weren’t focused and his voice seemed distant, and Hawkins could see well enough that Manning’s head had taken some damage, as well.

  “Shit,” McCarter said. “Phoenix, we are out of here.”

  McCarter himself shouldered Gary Manning to his feet, and began walking him out of the valley, away from the battle. Encizo and Hawkins gathered up James, who placed his feet on the ground without bearing weight.

  James was struggling in their grip, trying to watch their backs, but the valley was silent, until they heard a rush of air, like a vigorous fan, over their heads.

  Now, David McCarter knew, the shit was really going to hit.

  He turned back in time to see a silent flood of commandos emerge from the forest and coalesce on the warehouse, and he was amazed at the number of them. Even in the dim light of the jungle night he guessed there were more than fifty.

  The Chinese really wanted those aircraft—and wanted to make sure that nobody else had them.

  The warehouse door swung open as the assault was renewed and several gunners emerged with their hands in the air. There was a rattle of machine-gun fire, and the men were gunned down where they stood. Then came an answering burst of gunfire from above their heads as the tiny stealth jet swooped down low and peppered them with gunfire.

  Even as the Chinese troops took fire and several of them fell, others began lobbing grenades into the open warehouse while others directed gunfire at the sky. There were bursts of fire inside the warehouse.

  The small stealth jet was already making a quick U-turn over the top of the jungle, and it came diving down again, firing tracers, and then targeting the men who were now fleeing through the valley. Behind the plane, the warehouse was quickly becoming a ball of flame. The aircraft inside, along with their crates, and the plywood walls of the building itself—all of it flammable—was going up fast. The Chinese were in quick retreat now, their mission accomplished—almost. They had destroyed all the aircraft in the warehouse. But there was one aircraft left at the Malaysian site.

  From out of the jungle perimeter came a blast of heavy rocket fire. It was an antiaircraft gun.

  The Chinese had indeed come in well prepared.

  And the slow-moving, low-flying stealth jet was no match for a ground-based antiaircraft rocket, once it got a bead on the vehicle. The launcher unleashed rocket after rocket, which slammed into the body of the jet and sent it plummeting into the middle of the valley, already a mass of broken parts and melting plastic.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “Ali Zordun. An ethnic Uyghur who’s made a career in materials production at a factory he owned in the East Turkistan region of China,” Barbara Price stated.

  Zordun’s face appeared on the screen.

  Hal Brognola was there, in the War Room, sitting at the conference table with Price and Kurtzman. There were others at work in the room. The older black gentleman, dapper in a jacket and tie, was Huntington Wethers; the attractive redhead was Carmen Delahunt. Both were part of Kurtzman’s cybernetics team and they were huddled around a terminal with Akira Tokaido.

  “Zordun has run highly engineered materials production operations—plastics, ceramics, fibers—at the same manufacturing campus in China. He’s a troublemaker and a capitalist, from the PRC point of view, but he’s always brought good business into China so he was given a long leash,” Price said. “He was considered one of the bright technical minds in China. Unfortunately his expertise is in process, not development. He’s been accused time and again of industrial espionage—stealing proprietary materials research and making the stuff in his own factories, undercutting the patent holders.”

  She related what they had learned from Noah Brezius about Zordun. Zordun had actively courted Brezius for his developments in ceramic matrix composites. He did license some of Brezius’s early CMC technology legitimately, but when Brezius came up with the material that enabled the stealth aircraft, Zordun really became excited. But this time, the processing of the CMC was too sophisticated for Zordun to replicate on his own. He needed Brezius to assist in getting the production variables right.

  Zordun found a high-paying customer for the stealth aircraft substrate in the Chinese government. He also realized that he was getting in too deep with the PRC. They would never allow him to market his material.

  Zordun got out of China early. He left his home and his factory and never returned. Brezius believed that the PRC put its own people into the plant to continue production of the CMC, but they would have been stymied as soon as they had to calibrate for a fresh batch of raw materials.

  “Brezius claims only he had the knowledge needed to crunch the numbers on the raw material specifications in such a way as to get the right end-product characteristics,” Price said.

  “Is that his ego talking?” Brognola asked.

  “We think he’s being honest,” Price said.

  “So the Chinese have a very limited supply of the material. But surely they could reverse engineer it, eventually.”

  “Maybe. Maybe they already have. But in the meantime, they pursued Zordun. He was a man on the run for months—trying to stay ahead of the Chinese, who wanted to shut him down, at the same time he was trying to start a new production plant outside China. Brezius was getting paid big-time consulting fees by Zordun, but he was also seeing the increased danger from China and it made him nervous. Brezius even admitted to helping with the design of molding machinery for the stealth aircraft, but by then he was in fear for his life. When he returned from the test-molding runs in Malaysia he was a nervous wreck. He called Zordun and bowed out of helping any further. Then Brezius went into hiding.”

  Brognola nodded. “So where is the Zordun factory?”

  “Nobody knows. Brezius never knew where it was going to be. He was certain Zordun was cutting him out of the operation anyway, as soon as his technical usefulness was exhausted. Zordun wouldn’t have wanted Brezius to be walking around with that knowledge. Zordun would have known he’d be a target as soon as the aircraft went on the market.

  “But,” Price added, “we and the Chinese may both be on the verge of locating Zordun.”

  Brognola raised his eyebrows.

  “There was at least one other stealth plane in Malaysia that did not join in the ground strike against the Chinese forces,” Price said. “It left the scene quickly about the time the Chinese rolled out their antiaircraft artillery. We’re tracking it, and it has now left Malaysia and is heading out over the South China Sea. It’s very likely headed back to some sort of safe haven. It’s unlikely that it knows it can be tracked. It may very well be headed back to the Zordun base of operations.”

  “But we can track it?” Brognola insisted. “Throughout that part of the world?”

  “Thanks to the Worldwide Weather News new satellite deployment, we can,” Kurtzman said. “The system we’ve pieced together utilizing their hardware appears to be holding together as long as we keep finding and feeding localized air traffic radar for auto-comparative purposes.” He nodded back at the three members of his cybernetics team. “It’s keeping them hopping. But I think we can do it.”

  “How does Worldwide Weather News feel about us appropriating their satellite?” Brognola asked.

  “We’re not sure. They must know they’re being hacked, but as long as they maintain partial functionality of their system they’re not going to shut the whole thing down. They can�
�t see what we’re doing with the satellite. I assume they’re scrambling to find a way to block the hacker.”

  “They won’t block Tokaido?” Brognola said.

  “Unlikely.”

  Brognola nodded. “Fine. But, Barb, you said the Chinese may soon know the location of the Zordun facility.”

  “That’s the real issue,” she said. “It seems the Chinese are tracking the same stealth plane we are.”

  “How is that?”

  “Not using our methods. Something more crude,” she said. “We tracked at least four Chinese air force aircraft in the vicinity of that battle very soon after the warehouse went up in flames. They did some sort of a high-altitude chemical dump—a liquid solution containing heavy metals. It blanketed the vicinity for several square miles, and the solution adhered to the second stealth aircraft. Whatever was in that solution, it appears to be effectively reflecting radar on a specific frequency. It is giving the Chinese the ability to keep track of the thing from a very short range. One of the Chinese aircraft from Malaysia has followed the stealth plane out over the South China Sea, and has been sticking to its tail, keeping a very tight window. It’s also staying well above the stealth jet, presumably so the stealth jet won’t know it’s being followed.”

  Barbara Price pulled a map of Southeast Asia up on the big screen. The map showed East Malaysia and the path of the fleeing stealth jet.

  “The Philippines,” Brognola said. “That would be an ideal spot for such a manufacturing facility, right?”

  “We don’t think so,” Price said. “We have identified every known specialty ceramic materials plant in the Philippines. There are no plants in-country that can process the CMC material Brezius developed. In-centrifuge simultaneous firing, knitting and foaming. There’s nothing we know of in the Philippines that can do it.”

  “Where then?”

  “Following the current route, could be anywhere. Japan has all kinds of high-tech CMC molding capability. South Korea does, as well.”

  Brognola’s eyebrows shot up. “What about North Korea?”

  Price and Kurtzman exchanged a look. “That occurred to us, as well. They can’t possibly have the technology in-country unless they brought it in very recently. Of course they would be eager to get their hands on state-of-the-art military technology.”

  Brognola massaged his brow. “That would be a problem. A worst-case scenario.”

  “We just don’t know where that plane is going right now, Hal,” Price said. “We have Phoenix Force in the air regardless, and they’ll be able to insert themselves wherever this aircraft happens to land.”

  Brognola nodded. “How is Phoenix?”

  “Black-and-blue,” Price said. “James was hit by a round in the back. He seems to be okay. Full range of movement despite extensive bruising. He claims he’s fine but we’ve got a full battery of testing scheduled for him upon return home. Manning has a mild concussion and took a few stitches to the head. Nothing debilitating.”

  “We can’t afford for anybody to be debilitated right now,” Brognola said. “Tell me again, Barb, why you made contact with the Chinese secret-service military branch.”

  “I was hoping to save James and Manning, that’s why. They were pinned down,” Price snapped. “The forces that the Chinese had on-site were significant—far more than I ever would have estimated. There was no way we were going to fight our way out of that situation. I took a gamble.”

  “And do you think,” Brognola asked, “that they actually responded?”

  “It’s hard to say. Phoenix Force reported that they did halt hostilities long enough for Phoenix to pull out.”

  Brognola nodded. “They were not cooperating,” he said. “They were giving us an out so they could get in and destroy the jets in the warehouse.”

  “Or they simply used our intelligence to pull their own forces out of harm’s way during the stealth jet airstrike, and that just happened to give Phoenix an escape,” Price added. “But it achieved my goal. James and Manning were, in fact, given a window of opportunity to extricate themselves.”

  Brognola turned to watch the big-screen display, where the stealth aircraft seemed to be stationary over the South China Sea. But, indeed, it seemed to be on course to skirt the Philippines.

  Zordun couldn’t have a factory in China.

  Japan and South Korea were quite a distance from the distribution hub in Malaysia.

  “Oh,” Brognola said.

  He fished an antacid out of his pocket and chomped it—and then another one.

  “It’s in Taiwan,” he announced.

  “Possibly,” Price said.

  “Zordun is in Taiwan. It makes sense logistically. They’ve got the high-tech manufacturing infrastructure. They’ve even been vocal about supporting the World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur rights inside the PRC. Check for the facilities. Check for any sign of Zordun in Taiwan.”

  Kurtzman shook his head. “Hal, I really hope you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not. But I was mistaken about saying North Korea being the worst-case scenario. Taiwan is. And the worst-case scenario is what we’re getting.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Price had no idea what instincts were telling Brognola with such certainty that they would track the Zordun operation to Taiwan, but the big Fed was an intelligence genius. She trusted his instincts.

  Kurtzman began making a thorough sweep of Taiwanese industry. Meanwhile, he pulled Carmen Delahunt off air-traffic-control programming and dedicated her efforts to looking for other signs of Zordun in Taiwan. He had almost certainly changed his identity, or else the Chinese and Stony Man Farm would have identified his location long ago. But even under a new identity, there would be other signs pointing to him. Particularly if he had started his own factory in-country. That would require significant paperwork, exchanges of money, and perhaps even biometrics were now on record. Any of these records could include traces of the old Zordun identity.

  Kurtzman followed his own gut instincts to guide their search.

  “We are going to concentrate our search in the southwest region of the country. The Port of Kaohsiung is one of the biggest container ports in the world, and Pingtung County is one of the biggest industrial centers in Asia outside of China mainland. If I were going to try to hide a specialty materials factory anywhere in Taiwan, I would hide it in plain sight—in Pingtung.”

  “I’ll start there,” Delahunt said.

  And that was where Kurtzman started, as well. His efforts paid off almost too well. There were a hundred specialty materials firms, large and small, in Pingtung County. A full third of the shops had specialty ceramics capabilities. But when it came time to drill down further, to find out if they had the special combined firing, fiber knitting and centrifuge capabilities, such information was simply not easily available.

  He resorted to scanning each company’s website, and Kurtzman found himself pounding the keys in frustration. This was going far too slowly. On the big screen at the end of the War Room, the stealth plane inched ever closer to Taiwan.

  Every mile closer that the plane advanced, the sooner international tensions would begin to boil.

  He flipped open his phone. “Gadgets? It’s Aaron.”

  Hermann Schwarz showed up in the War Room in minutes, still removing ear protection. He had been test-firing new weapons configurations with the Stony Man Farm armorer, “Cowboy” Kissinger. It was something to do to kill time while he waited for the possibility of a new assignment related to the current crisis.

  Surfing industrial websites was not exactly part of his job description, but it was something.

  “Anything to help,” he said. Kurtzman quickly explained to him what they were looking for. Schwarz began going down the list of thirty-odd specialty materials facilities in the Pingtung County of Taiwan, in the southwest corner of the country, looking for the capability to make the Brezius CMC material.

  Schwarz had not been in the meeting with Brognola, but he got a drift of
the situation from Kurtzman, and he could read the tension in the War Room. And he could see all eyes turn again and again to the plasma screen, where the stealth plane out of Malaysia crept along over the South China Sea and homed in decisively on Taiwan.

  As Schwarz scanned one website after another, he processed the information. China wanted this technology for itself. China wanted this technology very badly. China would be particularly eager to keep this technology from being manufactured and distributed to anybody, anywhere, with a million in cash.

  It would be particularly galling to the People’s Republic for the distribution to be coming out of Taiwan, the island nation that it coveted and claimed and had threatened again and again to conquer.

  Such a conflict could be very bad news for Taiwan and for Asia—and for the United States, which would be forced to intervene in some way.

  As Schwarz scanned one website after another, he found that he, too, was glancing again and again at the big plasma screen, where the small icon of the stealth jet moved inexorably toward the circle that signified Taiwan.

  * * *

  “BEAR,” SCHWARZ CALLED.

  Kurtzman wheeled over quickly when he heard his nickname, and Barbara Price joined him.

  “Shin Zed,” Schwarz said. “If you want a ready-made source for the CMC materials in the southwest corner of Taiwan, this is it. Nobody has the capabilities in larger quantities.”

  Price nodded. “We can send in Phoenix.”

  “This could be a long shot, Barb,” Kurtzman said. “Zordun could be getting his materials from a source elsewhere in Taiwan. He could have purchased the equipment to make the materials in-house. Zordun operations might not even be where I think they are in the first place—they could be elsewhere in Taiwan.”

  “I understand, Aaron,” Price said. “But it does make sense that Zordun would choose the industrial center in the southwest for his operations. He’s got the port, and any other port on the island would slow his delivery time to Malaysia. He’s got the critical mass of industrial infrastructure to hide in. And I seriously doubt that he would have had the time to put together his own in-house CMC specialty production on top of starting up the molding operation and assembly for the planes. It makes sense that he is using an outside supplier for the CMC.”