Piranha

Chapter 3 Ghosts in the Jungle

Until you actually did it, patrolling the ocean sounded like the sort of easygoing assignment a pilot and crew could do with their eyes closed. Especially a crew like the one aboard Quicksilver. Breanna Stockard had flown the Megafortress platform for so long, the plane and its complicated systems seemed to have grafted themselves onto her body, and vice versa. Chris Ferris, her copilot, had been with the program nearly as long, and had worked with Breanna through all of Whiplash’s important deployments. The newcomer on the crew, Torbin Dolk, had proved his worth in Iran, and even he seemed tied into the crew’s shared ESP. they took turns sleeping on the long flight to South Asia, and while they couldn’t quite be called bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they were nonetheless ready when they finally began their surveillance track.

Thirty minutes later, they were bored stiff, butts dragging lower than the troughs in the waves. Even Breanna had to fight to keep her attention focused on the mission and the plane she was flying.

All of the Dreamland Megafortresses were hand-built from older B-52’s. All had their own personalities as well as configurations, but they could be broken down into three main categories.

The general-purpose Megafortresses were essentially highly efficient bombers with the capability of acting as mother ships for up to four Flighthawks. IOwa was the leader of this class, intended to be configured for roles such as attack and long-range patrol.

The second category of Megafortress added a powerful onboard radar to the EB-52 skeleton, giving it nearly the ability of an advanced AWACS, but able to operate in an extremely hazardous environment. To accommodate the radar dome, these craft, around the forward wing area, had a prominent bulge. Though it was nowhere near as immense as the massive saucers that say atop a standard E-3 Sentry, Galatica or “Gal” belonged to this category. Her powerful radar altered the flight characteristics of the aircraft as it revolved, necessitating changes in the control computer to compensate.

The third category of Megafortress added electronic interception and eavesdropping equipment, along with a suite of ECMs that could turn a Spark Vark green with envy. These planes included Raven and Quicksilver. Their automated telemetry gathering skills were on call here.

They would record all electronic transmission from and to the Indian weapon, augmenting the data gathered by the EB-52’s powerful radar suite and the visual data from the Flighthawks. They weren’t just spy planes, however; armed with Tacit-Plus anti-radiation missiles, they could do the job of two or three different planes, protecting an attack package as effectively as a coordinated group of Wild Weasels, Spark Varks, and Compass Call aircraft.

There were other possibilities for the type. The Army was very interested in adapting the plane for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System or JSTARS role, another mission currently filled by aircraft of the 707 type.

JSTARS E-8As, which had made their debut during the Gulf War, used Army and Air Force technology to track ground warfare units and targets; they could do for ground-attack forces what AWACS did for fighters. In theory, a Megafortress could accomplish the same thing while getting even closer to the action and delivering weapons itself. In fact, a good portion of the JSTARS technology had originally come from the Air Force’s Pave Mover and related programs, which were already incorporated in the development base of the “standard” EB-52.

Various other improvements for the Megafortress were in the works, including new engine configurations, but the program itself was now fairly “mature.” With production models ready to go, it had a certain set character to it — and, of course, it already had its own project manager, Major Alou.

The B-5 Unmanned Bomber Platform was wide-open, a vast cloud of potential waiting to be shaped, like the Megafortress had been when Bree joined the program. It was also the sort of program a captain could ride to a colonelcy and beyond.

Was that important? Was that what she was worried about?

No way. She wanted to be promoted.

Even though it would strain her marriage.

Zen was due for promotion soon, and with his record no one was going to stand in his way. That would almost certainly mean going to Washington. He hadn’t served in the Pentagon, and for someone like Zen the Pentagon was a necessary and expected ticket to be punched. He’d be there already if it hadn’t been for his accident.

What did that have to do with anything? She’d be at Dreamland and he’d in D.C., one way or the other.

Give up the B-5? Why? Because it wasn’t a “real” plane?

Maybe she was worried about something else. Maybe there wasn’t room to have a two-career family.

So she’d do what? Quit? Play Suzy Homemaker?

Bullshit. She was to Suzy Homemaker as Zen was to …

A Pentagon paper-pusher. He’d never last a week there, even in a wheelchair.

“Coming up to Cathay,” said Chris Ferris. His voice had a cackle to it, accented by the interphone circuit shared throughout the airplane. He’d spent considerable time coming up with an elaborate list of code words for the various coordinates on their mission chart and, for some reason, thought they were amusing as hell. “Cathay” was the release area for the Flighthawks. “Byzantium” was the southernmost point of their patrol orbit; “Confucius” was the northern point.

It could have been worse. Bree had put her foot down on a list of kung-fu heroes.

“Ten minutes to launch area,” she told Zen, who was below on the Flighthawk deck.

“Ready to begin fueling, Quicksilver,” he told her.

“All right. Chris?”

“As Li Po would say, ‘The sun rises with anticipation.’ ”

“Li Po would be a Chinese philosopher?” Bree asked innocently.

“My barber,” he answered, guffawing.

Zen watched the countdown impatiently, waiting for the Megafortress to being the alpha maneuver that would increase the separation forces and helped propel the Flighthawk off the wing of the big plane. The vortices thrown off by the Megafortress were a complicated series of mini-tornadoes, but the computer and untold practice sessions made the launch almost routine. As the Megafortress dipped and then lifted away, Zen dropped downward with the Flighthawk, hurtling toward the sparkling ocean; the plane’s engine rippled with acceleration. He pulled back on the stick, rocketing ahead of the Megafortress. No amount of practice, no amount of routine, could change the thrill he felt, the electricity that sparked from his fingers and up through his skull as gravity grappled for the plane, losing — temporarily at least — the age-old battle of primitive forces.

And yet, he was sitting in an aircraft more than three, now four miles away, flying level and true at 350 knots.

“Launch procedure on Hawk Two at your convenience, Hawk Leader,” said Bree.

“Ready when you are, Quicksilver.”

They launched the second Flighthawk, then worked into their search pattern, a 250-mile narrow oval or “race-track” over the ocean. The earlier spin around the surveillance area had shown there were a half-dozen merchant vessels in the sea lanes but no military vessels. Likewise, the sky was clear.

“We have a PS-5 at seventy-five miles,” said Chris, reading off the coordinates for a Chinese patrol plane coming south from the area above Vietnam. Known to the West as the PS-5, the flying boat was designated a Harbin “Shuishang Hongzhaji,” or “marine bomber,” SH-5 by the Chinese; the SH-5 had limited antiship and antisubmarine capabilities. With a boat-shaped hull and floats beyond the turboprops at the ends of its wings, the PS-5 belonged to an early generation of waterborne aircraft.

Anything but fast, the PS-5 was lumbering about three thousand feet above the waves at 140 knots. Zen noted the location, which was fed from Quicksilver’s radar systems into C³. the long-range sitrep map showed the patrol aircraft as a red diamond in the left-hand corner of his screen, moving at a thirty-degree angle to his course.

Just beyond it were two circles, civilian ships on the water, one a Japanese tanker, the other a Burmese freighter, according to a registry check performed by Lieutenant Freddy Collins. Collins handled the radio intercept gear, and had been tasked with keeping tabs on ship traffic as well. The other specialist, Torbin Dolk, handled the radar intercepts and advanced ECMs, backing up and feeding Chris Ferris, the copilot.

“Getting some hits just beyond our turnaround point,” warned Torbin. “Radar just out of range.”

“Unidentified ship at grid coordinate one-one-seven-point-three-two at two-zero-zero-one,” said Collins. “Could be a warship.”

“Roger that,” said Zen. He pushed the Flighthawks further ahead of the Megafortress, running close to the edge of their control range at ten miles.

“Looks like a destroyer,” said Collins.

“On its own?” asked Bree.

“There may be something beyond it but I can’t pick it out.”

“Definitely something out there — I have two Su-33’s at two hundred thirteen nautical miles right on our nose,” said Chris. “They don’t see us — turning — looks like they’re high cap for somebody.”

“Have another destroyer — looks like we have a location on the entire Chinese Navy,” said Collins.

“Radar contact is Slotback; we’re out of range. Computer thinks Su-33’s or Su-27Ks, same thing,” said Torbin.

“That would fit with the Shangi-Ti, the Chinese pocket carrier,” said Collins. “Should be right about the edge of their patrol area.”

The Su-33—originally designated Su-27K by the Russians — was a Naval version of the potent Su-27, most of its modifications were minor, helping adapt the fighter to carrier landings and midair refueling. It could be configured for either fighter or attack roles, and despite its alterations remained as maneuverable as any piloted aircraft in the U.S. inventory. The Chinese air-to-air missile systems were not particularly advanced, but nonetheless got the job done, and the 30mm cannons in their noses tossed serious hunks of metal in the air.

“Okay, that puts the carrier one hundred nautical miles beyond Confucius,” said Chris Ferris, collating all the data.

“Typical CAP?”

“Usually two Sukhois in the air; they should have two others ready to launch. They have to go one at a time so it takes them a bit to cycle up. Endurance is limited. We don’t have a lot of data on what sort of refueling procedures they use. Carriers are brand-new.”

“What do you say we change our patrol area to get a better look at them,” said Bree. “Roll tape from four or five miles away. What do you think, Hawk Leader?”

“Hawk Leader copies,” Zen told his wife. “I’ll wave to them.”

“Roger that.”

Danny Freah curled his fingers around one of the handholds at the side of the helicopter as it took a sharp turn to the left, riding the nap of the jungle valley toward their destination. It was his first ride in the Dreamland Quick Bird, a veritable sports car compared to the Pave Lows and the MV-22 Ospreys he was used to.

Starting with a Mcdonald-Douglas MD530N NOTAR (for no tail rotor) Little Bird, the engineers had made several modifications to the small scouts. The most noticeable was the reworking of the fuselage, trading its thin skin for faceted carbon-boron panels similar to the material used in the body armor Whiplash troopers dressed in. even though comparatively light, the panels were too heavy to cover the entire aircraft. However, the protection offered by strategically placed panels meant the aircraft could take a direct hit from a ZSU-23 at a hundred feet without serious damage.

Uprated engines compensated for the weight penalty; the single Alison turboshaft that motivated a “normal” Little Bird was replaced with a pair of smaller but more powerful turbo based on an Italian design. The techies joked the motors had been taken from supercharged spaghetti makers; they were in fact intended for lightweight hydrofoils and had a tendency to overheat when pushed to the max. However, the little turbos delivered over seven hundred horsepower (actually, 713.2) apiece, compared to the 650 generated by a standard Alison, itself no slouch. The fuselage now had a triple wedge at the bottom, the blisters helping accommodate additional fuel as well as adding hard-points for Hellfire missiles and other munitions. A pair of 7.62mm chain-guns were embedded in the oversized landing skids, so that even when on a transport mission, as it was now, the aircraft was never unarmed.

I was impossible to effectively reduce the helicopter’s radar signature; flying more than a few feet off the ground would make it visible to any powerful active radar. The NOTAR helped funnel its heat signature, however, making if difficult to detect with infrared gear. It was relatively quiet as well, and could cruise at just over 170 knots; its top speed was beyond 220, though no one was entirely sure, due to the performance limits placed on the engines until the overheating problems were solved.

The Quick Bird couldn’t quite keep up with the Osprey, which cruised around four hundred knots, nor did it have the range of the Pave Low or even the ubiquitous Blackhawk, but the little scout was clearly an improvement over the AH-6 Special Forces-optimized Little Bird, and that was high praise indeed. Easily transportable by cargo plane, two had been packed inside “Quickmover,” the MC-17 that brought Danny and his team to the Philippines. Without breaking a sweat, off-loading them at the Philippines Air Force base had taken the crew less than ten minutes.

Danny glanced at the paper map in his lap, trying to correlate it and the satellite snaps he had on his clipboard with what he was seeing out of the bubble of the helo cockpit. The southeastern islands of the Philippines were pristine jewels of unfettered nature, wild amalgams of jungle, volcano, and desert island. The Quick Birds’ destination sat on the side of one of these gems, now less than five minutes away. Somewhat overgrown, the base had served as first a Japanese, and then an Allied, airport during World War II. Afterwards, it had seen use as a reserve and emergency airstrip and then a remote training area, its concrete ran nearly 2,500 yards, more than enough for the Megafortresses to land and take off — once the jungle was cleared away and steel mesh put down to even out the rough spots.

“There it is,” said the help pilot, pointing ahead. “We got that spot at the north end we’ll try for, Cap,” said the pilot.

“Good,” said Danny. The satellite photo seemed to show about seventy-five yards of clear area at the northern end, but even without pulling up his binoculars, Danny could see there were thick vines covering a good portion of it.

“Couple of clear spots I think,” added the pilot, dropping his airspeed to hover.

“Let’s survey the area before we land,” said Danny. “I know you don’t have too much fuel, but I’d like to get a feel for the terrain first.”

“Not a problem,” said the pilot, radioing the second helo.

The airstrip edged out over the sea, paralleling a cliff that hung over a rock-strewn, sandy beach. The light-blue water revealed it was partly protected by coral reefs. Just to the south was a jutting stone, an oddly shaped piece of yellow rock that would provide a good point for one of their radar surveillance units. A road had once wound into the jungle near the southwestern end of the strip; from the air it seemed almost entirely overgrown.

Though it wasn’t visible, a village lay about seven miles to the south, at the extreme tip of the island. According to their briefing papers, there were less than a hundred people there. The rest of the island was uninhabited.

“All right, let’s get down and get to work,” Danny told the pilot.

The Quick Bird managed to find a clear spot on the gray-brown concrete big enough to land nearly side by side. Gear off-loaded, the two choppers tipped forward and rose, leaving Danny and his six men alone with a collection of flamethrowers, buzz saws, and other jungle-removing gear.

“All right, we have forty-five minutes before the helos get back with the rest of our gear,” Danny told his men. “Half hour after that, the mesh for the runway should start arriving, powder and Bison, I want a landing area hacked out so the helos can get down without breaking our stuff. Nurse, you and Jonesy do a perimeter sweep south and west. Pretty boy, Blow — you guys do the same north and east. No chances, okay? I’ll set up the com gear.”

Powder picked up one of the four flamethrowers they’d brought to burn off the undergrowth, and hoisted the pack onto his backk.

“Hold off on that, Powder,” Danny told him. “Don’t go starting fires until we have firebreaks and everything else in place.”

“Just making sure it works, Cap,” said Powder, flicking the trigger. The device didn’t light at first, and Danny half-worried that the sergeant would set himself on fire before he got it going. “Woo — what I’m talking about,” said Powder as a long red flame jetted from the nozzle.

“Sometimes I swear to God I’m a goddamn kindergarten teacher,” said Danny, shaking his head.

“Powder never made it to Kindergarten, Captain,” said Bison, taking out the chain saws. “Got left back in preschool.”

Powder put the flamethrowers back down. He took one of the large chain saws Bison had laid out and fueled. “Wait till I get this little humdinger goin’, Cap. Gonna call me Mr. Jungle.”

“Mr. Jungle Rot, more like it,” said Bison.

“Just get going,” Danny told them. “I want enough space for the MH-17 to land before nightfall so we can get the trailer in.”

The trailer was an RV adapted for use as Whiplash’s mobile command post.

“This is what I’m talkin’ about,” said Powder, revving his saw.

Zen could see the two Sukhois on his long-range scan as he approached. They were flying a figure-eight pattern over the aircraft carrier task force, their patrol circle never more than twenty miles from the surface ships. Unlike an American battle group, there was no radar plane aloft, and the carrier would be vulnerable to an attack by any aircraft equipped with American Harpoon missiles or even Exocets, which, at least in theory, could strike from about twenty-five miles away. Of course, the Chinese were probably counting on the radars in the Su-33’s to pick up approaching aircraft before they were in range to attack, a not unreasonable expectation — unless the aircraft attacking were American.

The Flighthawks were not equipped for surface attack, and the Megafortress was not carrying AGMs; nor were they authorized to attack the Chinese, or any ship for that matter. If they were, the Chinese would be out one pocket carrier. The stealthy Flighthawks began turning at five miles from the carrier, still undetected by any of the screening radars. Zen split the Flighthawks, riding Two ahead of Quicksilver and trailing with One, just in case the Sukhois finally got curious. But they didn’t.

“Two helicopters operating with the carrier,” reported Collins, who as analyzing some of the signal intelligence and magnified visual information they’d gathered.

“Probably looking for subs,” said Ferris.

“Torbin, do you have a plane near eight-four-zero, mark, three-two? Over that atoll” asked Ferris.

“Uh, something way down south there, beyond our range — probably just a bleep or an echo,” said the radar-intercept specialist. Zen could hear him punching the keys at his station. “Nothing. I’ll keep an eye on it.”

“No ships there,” said Collins.

“Probably just a weird flake out,” said Ferris.

They continued south, tracking over the mostly empty ocean. Zen tried to stay sharp by having the Flighthawks change positions, but this was a long and boring patrol, especially after the long flight to get out here.

“Okay, we have two ships traveling together, cargo containers. Tankers beyond that,” said Collins finally, feeding Zen the coordinates. He put Hawk Two in trail behind Quicksilver, then took One into a shallow dive toward the two freighters. Traveling roughly a mile apart, the ships were stacked with cargo containers, trailers that could be ferried by truck of train once ashore. The containers could carry just about anything, and it was impossible to tell from the air what they held.

Hawk One nosed through some thin clouds, continuing downward through three thousand feet. He could see an Australian flag flapping at the rear of the tanker about three fourths of a mile away. He slid his right wing up slightly, gliding over the starboard side of the vessel, the belly video cam freezing on the ship. Collins, meanwhile, checked all of the ships against their listing, keeping track of what was down there.

“Not a known bad guy in the bunch,” he said.

“Lots of little boats ahead,” said Zen, nudging back on the throttle so he was making just under three hundred knots. “Let’s take a look.”

The small boats were clustered around several atolls at the western side of their patrol run. Two or three were fishing boats, flat-bottomed boats similar to Chinese junks. The others looked like open whaleboats with large motors, odd vessels to be this far from land, Zen thought.

“Brief says there’s pirates and smugglers all through there,” said Collins. “Sometimes they off-load at sea.”

Contraband cargo often found its way to any of the various shores via boats; though the dangers were

Many, the rewards were high. Drugs, arms, and ammunition were perennial favorites, but the real moneymakers here were mundane items, like cigarettes, booze, and, of all things, women’s tampons. There was also the occasional cargo of humans and, for the big operators, automobiles.

“I’ll run over low and slow again,” said Zen. “See if we see any weapons.”

Most of the boats had two or three people in them; in a few cases they seemed to be tending nets. No weapons were visible.

The Chinese aircraft carrier had made good progress in the hour or so since they’d last seen him. Zen pushed the two Flighthawks into a one-mile separation, running seven miles in front of the EB-52 at 28,000 and 31,000 feet as they approached the group. The Sukhois were noodling along at about four hundred knots a good five thousand feet below the lowest U/MF.

“Turn at two miles,” said Bree. “Let’s get a full read on their radars, their electronics, everything.”

“Still not tracking us,” said Torbin.

The Su-33’s passed over the carriers as Zen started to make his turn. All of a sudden they hit their afterburners.

“Got their attention,” said Chris. “We’re on their radar. “Two bandits, bearing—”

“Yeah, I got ’em,” said Zen, who simply held his flight pattern as the Megafortress continued in its southern bank. The Chinese fighters apparently didn’t picked up the smaller planes with their passive gear or their eyeballs, because as they passed, Zen tucked down over their wings. Had he lit his cannons, the carrier would have had to scramble all available SAR assets posthaste.

The Sukhoi pilots jinked downward sharply, kicking out flares and tinsel, undoubtedly mistaking the small fighters for missiles.

“More aircraft coming off the carrier,” warned Torbin.

“They think the Flighthawks are missiles,” said Zen “Better ID ourselves as three planes.”

“Roger that, Hawk Leader,” said Breanna. “Chris—”

Before the copilot could respond, the RWR lit up.

“We’re spiked,” said Chris.

“Break it,” said Breanna coldly. “Evasive maneuvers. Tell them we’re not hostile.”

“Yup.”

The plane shifted left and right as Zen brought the Flighthawks around. The Sukhois had fired their missiles, then broken off — good, safe tactics, and in any events, Zen wasn’t in a position to pursue, since he had to stay close to the mother ship and wasn’t authorized to fire anyway.

“Broke it. We’re clean,” reported Chris. “Second set of fighters.”

“No radar missiles,” reported Torbin. “At least not active.”

“Tell ’em we’re peaceful,” said Bree.

“I am,” said Chris. “They’re not answering.”

Zen felt the big plane jerk hard to the right. The forward viewscreen from Hawk Two showed the pair of radar missiles ducking downward, decked by either ECMs or chaff or both.

“Bandits Three and Four are coming at us,” said Chris. “Twenty miles, accelerating. Looks like they want heater shots.”

“I’ll duck them off,” said Zen, flicking his wrist as he jumped back into Hawk One. One of the Sukhois was closing on the rear of the Megafortress and climbing at the same time, pushing the Saturn AL-31RM turbofans to the redline. Zen had a good angle to cut him off; he flicked the nose of Hawk One downward, running a direct intercept on the Sukhoi’s canopy. C³ gasped — to the computer it looked as if the pilot was going to put the plane’s left wing directly through the persipex. Once more, the relatively limited radar in the Chinese plane had trouble finding the slippery, Miata-sized interceptor until it was almost in its face; the pilot threw his plane over so sharply that the Sukhois began to spin. Zen whipped past, then circled back. The other Sukhois broke off. As Zen turned Hawk One back toward the Megafortress, he expected to see the Su-33 recovering and climbing out at the left side of his screen, but it wasn’t there. He selected the wider angle to find it spinning furiously toward the water.

“Bandit Three is in trouble,” said Chris.

“He’s going in,” said Zen. “He’s wet.” He jumped into Two momentarily, making sure that none of the other Sukhois were close enough to threaten the Megafortress. Then he took over One from the computer, riding down toward the sea as the plane augured in.

“No chute,” said Chris. “Shit. Shit.”

The Sukhois pilot’s own stupidity had led to his apparent death. Still, Zen felt a hole opening in his stomach.

“Two more planes coming off the carrier,” said Torbin.

“Chris, tell them we’re not hostile,” said Breanna.

“They’re either deaf or refusing to respond,” said Ferris.

“Did you try the preprogrammed Chinese message?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. SAM indications — they’re trying to lock us,” he added.

“Break them. I want to stay in this area and help them locate the pilots.”

“Going to be rough, Quicksilver,” said Zen, who saw on his screens the two fresh Sukhois were trying to get their radar missiles on the Megafortress as well.

“Roger that,” replied Bree. “Keep broadcasting. Evasive maneuvers. Tinsel. ECMs. Keep the assholes off us, Torbin.”

“Roger that,” said Torbin.

Zen spun Hawk One back north, directly over the area where the Chinese interceptor had hit the water. There was no sign of the plane. The churning waves looked a bit darker than the surrounding ocean, though that might have been Zen’s imagination.

“Homers in the air. Jamming-geez, they’re persistent buggers,” complained Torbin.

“AA-8 Aphids — way out of range,” said Chris.

The Russian-made antiaircraft missiles were IR homers whose design dated back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Designed for extremely close-range work, they were generally ineffective at anything over a mile. They were, however, highly maneuverable, and when one managed to stick on Hawk One’s tail, Zen found he had to twist to less than fifty feet over the waves before the missiles gave up on him. It skipped into the water like a rock flung by a schoolboy across a lake; the warhead separated and bounced several times before disappearing into a swell nearly a mile from the original point of impact.

By then, Zen had climbed back toward the spot where the Sukhois had gone in. A thin ooze had appeared on the surface; the camera caught twists of metal, plastic, and fabric as he flashed by.

The poor son of a bitch.

The poor stupid son of a bitch.

“Gun battery on the lead destroyer is firing!” warned Collins, his voice cracking. “I don’t know what the hell at; we’re about five miles out of range.”

The Chinese destroyer, a member of the Jianghu III class, began peppering the air with rounds from its 37mm antiair gun. Quickly, two other escorts joined in. their shells arced far away from the American planes, undoubtedly more an expression of frustration than a serious attempt to shoot down anything. Either because of the gunfire, or perhaps because they were running low on fuel, the first two Sukhois headed back toward the carrier. The plane that lost its wingmate also circled back toward the surface ships.

The two freshly launched Sukhois pushed menacingly toward the rear of the Megafortress. Zen’s long-range video scan showed the planes had launched with only thin heat-seekers on their wings.

“Stinger radar is tracking,” said Chris. “They’re just out of range.”

“Still not responding?” Bree asked.

“Negative.”

“Jeff, what do you think?”

“Sooner or later they’re going to hit something,” he told her. “But I think we can hold these two off, then hope they get a helo over the wreckage,” he added. Zen had worked with Bree long enough to know he was just reinforcing her own thinking. “Then we resume our patrol.”

“I concur. Collins — you getting all the transmissions?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. They’re going to love his back at the Puzzle Palace,” he added, referring to the NSA’s analysis section. Dreamland’s mission orders included provisions for forwarding intercept data to the spy agency, which would use them to update estimates of the Chinese military and its hardware.

Hawk Two was flying two miles north of the orbiting Megafortress, sitting between Quicksilver and the two Chinese planes. Zen told the computer to keep Hawk One in an orbit over the wreckage bobbing to the surface, then jumped back into Hawk Two. He nudged back on his speed, tilting his wing slightly to let the bandit on the left catch up. The Chinese pilot pulled up cautiously — a hopeful sign, since he could have angled for a shot.

Zen tried broadcasting himself, “spinning” the radio so that it scanned through the frequencies the Chinese were known to use. When he got no response, he went onto the Guard band, the international distress frequency that, at least in theory, all aircraft monitored.

“Hawk Leader to Chinese Su-33. If you can hear me, please acknowledge in some form. I understand you may not speak English. One of your aircraft ditched and I have the location marked for you.”

Nothing, not even a click on the mike. At the same time, the Chinese seemed to understand that the American planes were not being aggressive; the Sukhois pilot made no move to close on the Megafortress, or the Flighthawk for that matter, which would have been vulnerable to a close-quarters gun attack.

For about a third of a second.

“I have the coordinates for your aircraft,” Zen said. He read out the exact longitude and latitude where the aircraft went in. “He went into a high-speed spin at low altitude and hit the water,” said Zen.

“Liar! You shot him down.”

The voice was sharp in Zen’s ears. It had come from one of the Chinese pilots, but when Zen asked them to repeat as if he hadn’t heard, there wasn’t even static in response. He repeated the information from before, then began turning with Quicksilver, watching the Sukhois carefully.

Neither made a move. Quicksilver’s sophisticated eavesdropping gear picked up transmission between the planes and the carrier. The code was in the clear, making it relatively easy for Collins to process. Locked on the frequency, he fed the voice stream into the automated translator, which produced readable text that could be tagged, corrected, and augmented at his station. He then piped it on the fly to the copilot, who was also getting a feed of the radar data Torbin processed. It was almost like sitting in the enemy’s control room.

“Pair of helos coming our from the ship,” reported Chris. “One off the carrier, one I think from the cruiser. Uh, our library says these are Panthers, Aerospatiale AS 565’s, performance similar to the Dauphin, Dolphin — looks like basically the same aircraft here. French. Vectoring for the coordinates of the crash. Sukhois are supposed to, uh, wait — no, excuse me, they’re supposed to watch us, that’s all. Not engage.”

The Panthers were, in fact, Chinese version of the sturdy French utility chopper. They rode slowly toward the wreckage, skimming around the area three times before settling into hovers above some of the flotsam. Two figures jumped from one of the aircraft, undoubtedly divers recovering some of the wreckage.

“I have a radar at two hundred miles south,” reported Torbin. “Uh, belongs to a missile — SS-N-127 That’s wrong, but it’s definitely targeting.”

“Give me a heading,” said Breanna. “Hawk Leader—”

“I’m with you,” said Zen, pulling Hawk Two around and tucking tight to the EB-52 as it began to accelerate south.

“Lost it,” said Torbin.

“The container ships,” reported Collins a few minutes later. “I have an SOS. Fire. People in the water. Doesn’t look good.

A lifetime ago, American Aircobra P-39s had flown off the hard-packed dirt beneath Danny’s feet. An unusual design for an American aircraft, the original models were hopelessly outclassed and outnumbered by the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero-Sen, otherwise known as the “Zero,” one of the best early design of the war. The Aircobra was nonetheless a decent performer and a tough aircraft. Those that had flown from his base had played an important role helping to mop up Japanese resistance and provide air cover over a wide swath of the nearby Pacific.

Other aircraft had used the base as well — P-38’s, some P-40’s, B-25’s, B-26’s, and on several occasions B-29’s. but if the ghosts of old machines could be said to haunt a place, it was the spirit of the P-39 that remained: tough, somewhat misunderstood jungle fighters who spit 37mm bullets from their nose and drummed through the air with a guttural hum.

Danny Freah didn’t believe in ghosts — and yet he sensed something watched him now as he trudged up the hillside. He slid his helmet visor down and clicked into IR scan. The Computer’s shape-recognition program flashed a bright blue pinhole in a brighter blue circle at the top right-hand corner, showing that it was operating, but aside from a few rodentlike creatures about fifty or sixty feet away, the jungle was empty. Danny held his new MP-5 in his right hand as he climbed up slowly, stepping gingerly. The wrap on his knees held them tight, their thick band doing some of the muscles’ and ligaments’ work holding the two halves of his legs together. The injury didn’t bother him as he sidestepped down the hill; in fact, he thought it was easier than working on the stair machine, which was part of his regular rehab assignment.

Jemma would be heading back home by now. He could see her jaw set, her slight nod to the man asking if he could take her bags at the hotel.

A flicker of blue print at the right side of his viewscreen sharply brought back his attention. A yellow shape materialized from the foggy green and black shadows.

“CAT” said the legend below the small shape at the base of the tree.

Danny switched from IR to magnified optical, popping the scene magnification to five times. The computer was close — the Philippines leopard cat was roughly the size of a house tabby, though it wasn’t likely to run up to Danny and ask for a bowl of milk. It stared in his direction, peering curiously from between the rattan and tree trunks. It curled its lip, hissing, then darted away.

Something else moved, fifty yards farther down the slope. Danny flicked back to IR mode, scanning slowly. A figure floated across his screen, ghostlike.

It took a moment before he realized the figure was actually in the trees. The computer, meanwhile, realized the figure was human. It didn’t note any weapons.

The ghost began moving downward. The program now had measurements to work with; just under five feet, one hundred pounds.

More a kid than a man, and unarmed, Danny thought. He watched as the Filipino began to move through the woods, pushing through the underbrush. He followed slowly, as quietly as he could. There weren’t supposed to be people here.

Danny hunkered down as he came to a narrow stream. It coursed down a run of odd rocks; the far bank was exposed. He waited until the figure was no longer visible, then picked his way across and continued downward in the direction the figure had gone.

He debated whether to try talking to the Filipino or not. He’d memorized a few words on the way out; while it was likely the person would know English — a large number of Filipinos used it as their second or even first language — Danny reasoned that using the national language would at least show he was trying to be friendly. The words for good morning—magandang umaga po—stuck in his head; he couldn’t quite remember the combination for good afternoon, which was very similar—magandang hapon po or something like that.

Hapon, like harpon, only without the R.

Magandang hapon po.

He could link to Dreamland Command and get a native speaker whispering in his ear if he had to. He’d take the first shot on his own, make the effort.

Danny pushed toward a thick clump of vegetation clustered around a row of gnarled tree trunks. He struggled through about ten or twelve feet of thick bamboo before he could see beyond. Finally, he saw a swamp and pond about twenty yards across, beyond the edge of the thickest brush. Two small patches of dull brown appeared about twenty-five yards to the left just above the shoreline, partly obscured by rocks or old tree trunks. High magnification showed they were sheets.

IR view picked up the embers of a fire beyond them. a cooking fire, probably; the vegetation was too thick to see clearly.

A whistle broke the silence. Danny looked toward the water as a duck darted downward, grabbed something from just the surface, and then flapped its wings in an arc away, the prize in its beak.

The person he’d been following was crouched at the edge of the water, thirty-five yards away.

Watching him? Or the whistling duck?

Danny thought of standing and waving. Before he could decide, the figure turned and moved away, walking slowly, without alarm, past the sheets. There looked like there might be a hut there, but Danny couldn’t get an angle to see.

He’d have to find out more about the camp. Maybe go in there, find out who these people were. At the moment, though, there were more important things to do — he could hear the distant thump of helicopters bringing in supplies.

Couple of people in the jungle weren’t much of a threat, especially if they stayed were they were. He’d set up a sensor picket, keep tabs on the ridge and the valley until he decided what to do, or got some advice from the colonel. They might have to move these folks out.

They could use that stream for a sensor line. Put some video cams on the swamp and pond. There looked like only one way across the water and deep muck, off on the right, not counting the sharply rising slope to the left.

Danny began moving back up the hill, pausing every so often to make sure he wasn’t being followed. It was presumptuous to think of moving the people who lived here. How the hell would he feel if someone snuck into his neighborhood, spoke a few words in halting English, claimed to be long-lost friends, then said, sorry, you gotta go? We have a top-secret? We have a top-secret airfield in your backyard and we cant; have you stripping over it.

But that was the way it went sometimes.

As Colonel Bastian took a fresh gulp of coffee, he told himself the scratch in his eyes was due to the ventilation system’s lack of humidity. Under other circumstances, he’d been snoring in bed. He’d put in a long day, and unlike the crews that had flown out to the Philippines, didn’t have an opportunity to take a nap; he always felt he ought to be the one in the Command Center

when the shit hit the fan — as it was now. He rubbed his eyes, then began pacing near the large screen at the front of the room.

The Chinese aircraft had gone down on its own, obviously because the idiot pilot decided to play cowboy with the Megafortress. The Chinese were out-of-their-minds furious about it; they’d already filed a protest note in Washington claiming it had been shot down. While the politicians postured, Dog considered the more important development: the sinking of the container ship. The attack seemed to have been the work of the weapon they were supposed to be gathering data on, the Kali missiles, apparently launched at long range by a diesel-powered snorkler—seemed and apparently being the operative words, since Quicksilver had been too far away to gather meaningful data on the weapon or launch platform.

Had Breanna simply ignored the Chinese aircraft and continued on her patrol, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Not that she necessarily should have. Still …

According to the analysts who had examined the data, the radar indications and probable warhead size showed interesting parallels to the Russian SS-N-12, a very large antiship missile known as “Sandbox.” But the SS-N-12 was far too big to fit into a submarine or be launched from beneath the water.

Presumably anyway.

“Sir, stand by for communication from the White House Situation Room,” said the lieutenant at the com console. “Mr. Barclay.”

“Go,” said Dog.

The lieutenant’s fingers pounded on his keyboard. Jed Barclay’s pimple-strewn face flashed onto the screen. He had deep black bags under both eyes; back East it was around three in the morning.

“Colonel, uh, Jed Barclay here.”

“Go ahead, Jed.”

“Pacific Fleet’s making some noise. The boss man wanted me to give you a heads-up. USCINCPACCOM’s throwing a territory fit.”

“Acknowledged,” said Dog, who actually would have preferred to say something else.

“Whiplash order is being reviewed. They’re going to look for an opinion from you,” added Jed.

“Opinion on what?”

“Whether the Megafortresses can stop ships from being sunk.”

“Okay, we’ll start working on it.” Colonel Bastian wasn’t sure they could; they had no ASW weapons on the Megafortresses. Besides, protecting shipping was a Navy task, and if that became the primary mission, the Pacific Fleet would surely get the job. Their most likely role would be working with PACCOM as they had with CENTCOM in the Middle East, thought the personalities here were considerably more prickly.

“I think the Navy may suggest escorts, flagships, like they did in 1987 with tankers in the Persian Gulf, the oil crisis,” added Jed. “But most of the fleet is still up near Taiwan and Japan, uh, due to the situation on the mainland. The other major assets are near India and the Gulf — I guess you know that. So, uh, they’re scrambling to figure out where to allocate what. I don’t know how long it will be before there’s a decision. Might be days or weeks.”

“Okay,” said Dog.

Barclay blinked.

“Maybe you ought to catch some Zs, Jed,” said Dog. “Have you slept since you got back?”

“Thanks, Colonel.” Barclay managed a weak smile. “You look a little tired yourself.”

“A little.”

“You have any more information about the Chinese plane?” asked Jed.

“NO. I imagine the pilot make it,” said Dog. “Zen had a Flighthawk nearby and we don’t have any video showing an ejection, let alone a chute.”

“Yeah. Tough luck for him.”

Dog nodded, thought he felt more sympathetic. While the Chinese pilot wasn’t exactly an ally, it seemed a waste that he had died. Dog hated the idea of any pilot dying in accident, even if he’d caused it himself.

“Um, State may contact you,” added Jed. “They’re a little behind the curve on this, so they may need a full, uh, briefing. Director says do it, but you have to watch their clearance.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“Nothing on Kali,” said Jed.

“Then what’s the sense of briefing them?

“Yeah. Not my call,” said Jed, which Dog had learned was Jed’s standard response when he agreed something didn’t make sense, but his boss hadn’t listened to the reasons. “I guess you have to do what you can do.”

“All right, Jed. We should have the cargo planes on the Philippines tonight,” added Dog.

“I’ll keep you updated,” said Jed.

“Thanks.” Dog killed the connection himself with his remote control, then clicked onto the Quicksilver circuit to update them.

Cargo stretched across the water like so many icebergs. The fantail of the ship jutted upward from the water, its large screw looking like a bizarre metal daisy waiting to be plucked. Zen brought the Flighthawk down for a pass at two thousand feet, his airspeed bleeding back under two hundred knots. He could see bodies in the water; two or three appeared to be clinging to something, and there was a man on one of the floating cargo containers.

“I think we have survivors,” he told Breanna. “I’m going to take another pass and try to get better video. You might want to radio any ships that are coming.”

“We’re in the process of making contact now,” she told him. “We’re going to pipe your feed up here.”

“Hawk Leader,” acknowledged Zen.

He checked Hawk Two, still in trail above and behind Quicksilver, then turned Hawk One around for another run. The feed off the robot plane was being pumped back to Dreamland, were it could be analyzed for potential survivors, as well as any hazardous cargo or weapons.

The merchant ship that had been sailing ahead of the container vessel when it was struck had made a large, cautious turn in the water and was approaching the debris field slowly. It hadn’t yet lowered boats into the water. In answer to the SOS, another vessel, a tanker, was about ten miles away, coming north at fifteen knots. Several miles beyond the tanker, but making better time, was a cruise ship. Collins had ID’s the tanker and cruise ship already — the Exxon Global and the Royal Scotsman—and now Ferris clicked in to say they had acknowledged his message that there survivors in the water. The closer merchant ship, meanwhile, did not answer on any of the frequencies the copilot tried, even as it continued at a snail’s pace toward the bobbing containers.

“Hawk Leader — we’re getting something twenty miles west of than tanker — odd reading on the water,” said Ferris. “Could be our sub getting ready to surface. We want to change course to check it out.”

“Yeah, go for it,” said Zen, immediately turning toward the coordinates.

Hawk One cruised in range just in time to see a submarine rise gently above the waves, the black, elongated oval of its conning tower pushing aside the water. Zen slid around the sub at just over three thousand feet; Collins ID’s it as a Russian Kilo, a diesel-powered boat that according to his brief usually didn’t operate this far south.

“This bastard that sank the container ship?” questioned Zen.

“Not sure who it is,” said Collins. “We don’t have any transmissions. I’m piping your feed to Dreamland, but they can’t ID it either. Probably Chinese, not Indian.”

“You think the Chinese sank the ship?”

“Stand by, Hawk Leader,” said Collins, undoubtedly so he could talk to Dreamland people uninterrupted.

Zen took two passes low and slow, but failed to pick up and identifying marks. Like nearly all modern designs, the sub had no bow gun or surface weapons, beside its torpedoes and mines, and seemed to be taking no hostile action. It didn’t use its radio either; the only emissions coming from it were from a relatively short-range surface search radar, which Torbin announced was a “Snoop Tray.”

“Checking on his handiwork?” Zen asked.

“Can’t tell for sure what he’s doing,” answered Torbin. “But I don’t think these guys carry cruise missiles. Assuming he’s Chinese.”

“Thinking is, definitely Chinese,” said Collins, coming back into the discussion. “Container ship almost certainly got nailed by a cruise missile, so odds are this guy’s clean. Container ship was supposedly going to Pakistan, so the implication is that might have been a motive; that, or target practice.”

Zen had dealt with the Chinese and their proxies before; he didn’t trust them not to have sunk the ship.

“Ship captains are requesting instructions,” said Ferris. “One of them got the sub on his radar; now they’re all chattering about it.”

“Tell them to proceed with the rescue,” snapped Breanna. “Collins, if you can figure out what the hell radio frequency they’re using, advise the submarine to help out or get lost!”

“We don’t have a precoded message for that,” said Collins. “Not in Chinese.”

“Do it in English. Use every frequency you can think of — Russian and Indian as well as Chinese. Hell, try Dutch and French too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Collins.

“Sub’s moving southward, changing course,” said Zen. He brought Hawk One down to five hundred feet and rode the sub bow to stern. There were three or four men in the tower; no weapons visible. Hawk One was moving too fast to get a good look at uniforms, let alone faces, and the freeze-frame didn’t make it any clearer. “Looks like they’re headed toward the damaged ship. If they try to interfere with the rescue, I’m going to perforate their hull.”

“It may come to that,” said Bree. “Lets drop down a bit and make sure they know we’re here.”

“They’d be awful blind not to,” said Zen. He did a quick check on Hawk Two; its systems were all in the green and the computer had it in Trail Two, one of the preset flight patterns programmed into the Flighthawk’s onboard systems. To save communications bandwidth, a number of routine flight operations and patterns were carried aboard the robot, allowing it to perform basic functions without being told precisely what to do. In Trail Two, it homed in on the mother ship, staying precisely three miles off the V-shaped tail, varying its altitude and position as it flew, pretty much the way a “real” pilot would.

“Uh-oh. Got another sub surfacing,” said Chris as the Megafortress spiraled down toward the ocean. “Five miles beyond the cruise ship.”

“On it,” said Zen, jumping into Hawk Two as the Megafortress changed course to get a look.

In the few minutes it took to get in range, the submarine was already fully surfaced. Its conning tower was longer than the first sub’s, shaped like a rounded dagger with the knifepoint facing backward. Otherwise, the sub itself seemed to be roughly the same shape and size as the Kilo.

“Not in our library,” said Chris. “We’ll want to route video on this to Dreamland.”

Zen had the Flighthawk down to two thousand feet. Tipping the wing gently, he cruised around the submarine, trying to go as slow and steady as possible. There were no markings on it, let along a flag, but he felt sure this was what they’d been sent to find — the Indian hunter-killer that was blowing Chinese ships.

“Zen, they think it’s a modified Kilo,” said Chris Ferris. “But the conning tower looks like an Akula, which is a nuke boat. They’re real interested in this; it’s off their maps.”

Zen nudged lower for another pass. They’d just scored a major intelligence coup, but Zen wasn’t particularly impressed.

“What’s the Kilo doing?” Zen asked.

“Moving toward the wreckage,” answered Ferris. “Still on the surface. Think they’ll spit at each other?”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” said Zen. “As long as they don’t interfere with the rescue.”

“Collins, see if you can hail them.”

“Trying to communicate with them now,” said Collins. “Nobody’s acknowledging. Wait, here we go.”

Collins switched off for a few moments, then came back on the interphone to explain he had spoken to the captain of the cruise ship, who said he would do nothing to endanger his passengers or crew. He’d asked if the Americans would guarantee their safety.

“Tell the captain we’ll do what we can,” Bree said.

“He doesn’t seem to think that’s good enough,” he reported back. “He’s holding off. I gotta think the others are going to do the same, Captain.”

The sitrep showed Collins was correct: the surface vessels were no longer moving toward the debris field.

“We have a pair of Sukhois inbound,” warned Chris. “Coming at us at zero-ten, one hundred miles away, about five hundred knots.”

“Air-to-surface radars active,” said Torbin. “Two more planes behind them.”

“I confirm,” said Chris.

“I can jam,” said Torbin.

“Hold on till they’re in firing range,” said Breanna. “I’ll make the call then. In the meantime, let’s see what Dreamland thinks.”

“Gotcha, Cap.”

Zen turned Hawk One back toward the floating debris field. As the sun slipped steadily downward, a storm front approached, and while this was a warm part of the ocean (near the surface, the water temperature was roughly thirty degrees Celsius or eighty-six degree Fahrenheit), it would feel cold if you stayed in it long enough. No way the people clinging to the tops of the container ships and the debris in the water were going to make it through the night. They had to be rescued now.

“Orders remain to take no hostile action,” Breanna reported.

“Okay, but how do we get these guys to close in and pick up the survivors?” said Zen.

“Working on it, Jeff,” she told him.

“If we can get the subs to take their dispute outside, we can probably reassure the civilians,” said Chris. “Maybe get them to move this catfight to the south.”

“You want to try suggesting that to them?”

“I can give it a whack,” said the copilot. About a minute later, he came back over the interphone to announce no one had answered his broadcasts.

“Well, let’s show these jokers we’re serious,” said Bree. “Zen, I’m going to take it down low and buzz both of them, all right?”

“Hawk Leader.”

“Chris, keep track of the Sukhois. Open bay doors.”

“Open bay doors?”

“I want them to think we’re prepared to fire. We’re going to two thousand feet — no, one thousand. I want them to count the rivets.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was a serious calculated risk — at one thousand feet the Megafortress would be easy picking for a shoulder-launched SAM. On the other hand, the move was sure to get their attention. Collins began broadcasting an all-channels message, telling the submarines to stand off while the surface ships made the rescue.

“How are those Sukhois?” asked Bree as she dipped her wings toward the waves.

“Five minutes to firing range,” said Chris.

“Keep an eye on them,” said Bree. “Hang with me, Flighthawks.”

Zen rolled Hawk One just ahead of the big Megafortress as she pulled level. He tightened Hawk Two on Quicksilver’s tail; if one of the subs did fire a heat-seeker, he hoped to be close enough to help suck it off.

The video on Hawk Two caught one of the crewmen aboard the first Kilo covering his head as Breanna came over. The others had thrown themselves to the deck. The second submarine had started to change course south when they reached it.

“Maybe they got the message,” said Collins.

“They’re broadcasting?” Bree asked.

“Negative,” said Collins.

“We have communication from a Navy plane,” said Chris. “They’re en route; about two hundred and twenty nautical miles to our south-southwest. Call name is Pegasus 202.”

“Tell them to stand of until we what the Sukhois are doing,” said Bree.

As Zen edged back toward the debris field, he saw one of the freighters was once again moving toward the survivors. A small boat was being lowered from its side.

“Okay, this is shaping up,” he told the others, passing along what he was seeing. Breanna began a wide, banking track to take the Megafortress back up to a more comfortable altitude.

“Hold on. Somebody’s broadcasting to the civilian ships, in English,” said Collins. “Telling them to stand off. They want them to move out of the area. It’s the sub, that Kilo — definitely Chinese.”

“Pipe it in,” said Bree.

The accent made the words difficult to decipher quickly, but it was clear the speaker did not want the civilians nearby. Breanna clicked her transmit button when he paused, identifying her plane, then asking the speaker to do the same. There was no answer at first, then the speaker repeated, more or less, what he had said before, adding that the Chinese Navy had the situation under control.

“Other sub is diving,” said Chris.

“Those suckers are going to start shooing at each other,” Torbin warned. “Sukhois are tracking.”

“Collins, tell the civilian ships to move back,” said Bree. “Torbin, see if you can jam those radars so they can’t lock—”

“Missiles in the air! Sukhois are firing — AGMs — ship missiles, I mean. Shit!”

“PACCOM wants to talk, sir,” said the lieutenant just as Dog was going to take a quick break. “Admiral Allen.”

“Don’t they sleep out there?” asked the colonel, returning to his console.

“It’s only about nine in Pearl.”

“Rhetorical question,” said Dog. “Let ’er rip.”

The screen at the front of the room blinked white, then transformed into a high-resolution video feed showing a small office area filled with a half-dozen frowning Navy commanders. The script at the bottom of the screen identified the source as CinCPacSIT, a top-level secure facility for Pacific Command. Admiral Allen, with his sleeves rolled up, stood in front of a large map table, his face as red as the flag used to provoke the proverbial bull.

“What in hell are you doing out there?” Allen demanded.

“Excuse me?” said Dog.

“Bullshit on that.”

“With all due respect—”

“Stow it, Bastian. What is happening out there? Why are you picking a fight with the Chinese?”

“I’m not, sir.”

“Are you trying to be the second coming of Brad Elliott?”

“Colonel Bastian hadn’t expected Admiral Allen to be happy about the incident. But he didn’t anticipate the personal attack. Nor did he appreciate the comment about General Elliot. “Sir, I’m operating under strict orders,” he told the screen, controlling his own rising anger.

“What yahoo gave the order to start a war with China?” demanded Allen. “I want an explanation, Bastian.”

Allen made an obvious attempt to control his temper, his hands pulling down the sides of is shirt.

“As you can read on the Web net,” Dog said, pausing between nearly every word, “two Sukhois Su-33’s took off from a Chinese carrier and approached our aircraft while on routine patrol. They seemed to think the U/MFs were missiles, they took evasive action, and one of the Chinese pilots put is plane into an unrecoverable spin. His loss was regrettable.”

“I don’t believe it happened that way,” said Allen. “You’re telling me the Chinese pilots are that bad?”

“I’m not critiquing the flying abilities of the Chinese, sir.”

“Why wasn’t I notified immediately?”

“By?”

“Damn straight. You didn’t even clear the mission with my people.”

“It’s not my role to inform you.” Dog wasn’t exactly sure what had happened — generally, the theater commander would be notified of an important operation by Washington, and the Navy certainly had had input prior to the Whiplash Order being issued. It was possible Allen had been bushwhacked by Washington — but it was also possible he was trying to exert control over Colonel Bastian and the operation.

Which wasn’t going to fly.

“This isn’t over, Colonel,” said Allen. The feed died with a pop that sounded very much like an explosion.

“I wouldn’t think we’d be that lucky,” Dog told the blank screen.

Breanna steadied the plane at nine thousand feet as they sorted out the attack. The Chinese planes had launched eight missiles and then immediately begun to turn back north.

“I’ve got a lock on one Sukhois,” reported Chris. “We can shoot him down.”

“Negative,” said Breanna. “Let’s focus on the missiles.”

“Eight in the air, skimming down in a pattern similar to Exocets,” he told her. One of the standard Megafortress simulation routines used the Scorpion AMRAAM-pluses to shoot down French-made Exocet antiship missiles. Though slightly outside of the Scorpion’s design parameters, properly handled, the execution was not difficult. Except they only had four Scorpions, and ordinarily would use two apiece on the target to assure a hit.

“What’s their target?” Breanna asked.

“I’d guess the sub,” said Chris.

Torbin concurred. “There’s no way they’re going to come close to the sub, though,” he added. “It’s going to take them another four minutes to get into the area. If they’re Exocets, or something like them, they’ll run on inertia guidance, pop up, and then hit whatever they can in the area.

“They’re moving at just over five hundred knots,” said Chris. “We can get two.”

“Let’s target them singly,” Breanna told him.

“Not a high-percentage shot.”

“Target them,” she told her copilot.

“Tracking. They’re low.”

“Bay.”

“Bay open. We’re locked.”

“Go.”

“Fire Fox One,” he said, indicating that a radar missile was being launched. The Scorpions rolled off the launcher as soon as it rotated into position.

“ECMs,” said Breanna after the last air-to-air missile had left.

“Working,” said Torbin. “Not going to have much of an impact until they pop up and look for a target. May not work even then, I’m not sure what we’re looking at.”

“Do your best,” said Breanna. “Chris, see if you can plot out a course to have us sweep in front of them and dish out Stinger air mines. Maybe we can out enough shrapnel in the air to knock them down.”

“I was just playing with that. I think we can get a shot at two, but there are two on outside patterns sweeping around in an arc,” he told her.

“Missiles are tentatively ID’d as VJ-2’s, back-engineered Exocets,” said Torbin. “But I don’t know. They were launched from sixty miles, which ought to be beyond their range.”

“Let’s not get too hung up on their exact specifications,” said Breanna. “Are they communicating with the Sukhois for guidance?”

“Negative,” said Collins.

“Alert civilians,” she added. “Though I’m not sure what good that’s going to do.”

Chris hit a button that popped a flight path onto Bree’s navigation screen. “Here’s the course, Captain. Kind of a stutter step with a V in it. I don’t know.”

“Doable,” said Breanna as the three-dimension overlay swirled around on the lower-right screen area. Her mind and body translated the sweeping arcs into a succession of forces; her muscles rehearsed the pulls.

“Two minutes to pop-up,” said Torbin.

“Hawk Leader, this is Quicksilver,” said Bree. She could feel her tongue and cheeks tightening, a clipped precision taking over her brain. “We’re going to try and take out two of those remaining missiles. It doesn’t look like we can reach numbers three and eight on that targeting screen Chris downloaded to you.”

“They’re mine,” said Zen.

“Missile one is a home run!” interrupted Chris as their first AMRAAM hit its target.

“Thanks, Jeff,” Bree told her husband. “Hang on. This is going to be a bit of a ride.”

She took a breath, then put her hand on the throttle slide, goosing the engines as she tucked her wings, pirouetting the big plane in the sky. The massive Megafortress responded as nimbly as an F/A-18, turning with the grace of a veteran ballerina. Bree felt the impact all across her body, the cells in her speed suit inflating as they pulled over seven Gs.

She’d never feel that flying the B-5. She’d be sitting in a bunker at Dreamland, commanding the plane through a series of dedicated satellites. Gravity would be just another formula on the screen.

“Chinese sub is diving,” said Collins.

“Smart man,” said Torbin.

“Missile Two missed. Suck,” said Ferris.

“All right. Full suite of ECMs.” She told Torbin.

“We’re singing every songs we know, backwards and forwards,” he answered, working his gear.

“Chris, give us chaff as we start the sweep. Anything we can do to confuse them.”

“Okay. We can get that number-two missile in the sweep.”

“Hang on.”

The Megafortress’s flight computer projected the intercept course on her HUD display as an orange dash along a crosshair at the center of the screen. Breanna moved her hand on the stick gently, holding the plane precisely onto the line. The approaching missiles were not yet visible to the naked eye, but the radar handed their positions to the computer, which obligingly painted them as red arrow-heads on the screen. Truth be told, this was almost as fly-by-numbers as anything she did in the UMB. Breanna didn’t have to be in the plane at all — and, in fact, didn’t really have to do anything more than tell the computer to follow the dotted line.

She loved the pull of this plane around here, the feel and idea of it as it swayed in the air, the long, swept wings and their variable leading and trailing edges tilting Quicksilver at a thirty-degree angel as the chaff canisters popped out in the air, spreading a metallic curtain above the ocean. She loved the hard hit of gravity as she cranked the plane 180 degrees, holding her turn so tight the computer complained, dishing up a stall warning. She snickered — she knew this aircraft better than any computer program, and it was nowhere near its performance envelope and was miles away — miles — from stalling or even losing more momentum than she wanted.

“Thirty seconds to intercept!” said Chris, his voice rising like the high soprano of a boy in a children’’ choir, the excitement overwhelming him.

What computer could do that?

“Here comes the zags,” Bree told her crew. She slammed the plane hard south, dipping her wing momentarily and then gliding into a banking climb. The plane’s tailbone jutted down, tracking the targets.

“Firing,” said Chris.

Breanna held the plane against the staccato rumble, rising and sliding across the air, standing the massive, heavy plane up at nearly fifty degrees as the engines groaned, walking Quicksilver across the sky as if she were a dolphin skipping across the waves. Gravity and adrenaline punched against each other barely balancing the contrary forces.

Sex might be better than this, but some nights it could be damn close.

Zen pushed the Flighthawks away from the Megafortress. He had to turn the U/MFs, then trade altitude for acceleration as the missiles came on, as if they were pursuing fighters. The VJ-2’s were flying low, relatively straight courses. Shooting down the small, fast-moving missiles was not an easy task: C³’s tactics section estimated the odds at under fifty percent apiece.

Forty-three and thirty-eight, to be exact.

The two missiles were separated so far apart that Zen had to stick one U/MF on each. He’d have to let the computer take one of them — thousands and thousands of hours and experience showed it was nearly impossible to control both robots successfully in a high-speed furball.

Quicksilver’s tracking gear guessed at the missiles’ targets from their courses. The missile arcing in from the west was flying for the tanker; the other had the cruise ship in its sites.

No-brainer. Give the computer the one on the tanker. It had the easier shot besides.

“Computer, take Hawk Two. Complete intercept. Destroy target.”

“Computer acknowledges.”

Zen jumped into Hawk One as the plane whipped through a turn to get on the Chinese VJ-2’s tail as it came on. There was so much electronic tinsel and ECM fuzz in the air, the computer warned the command signal had degraded; Zen pushed away the warning, pushed away everything but the streaking gray blur that whipped into the bottom corner of his viewscreen. He had his throttle slide at max, his stick pressed forward slightly, the Flighthawk at a shallow-angle dive over the rear of its target. His pipper glowed yellow, then pulsed, then went back to yellow. He pushed his nose down harder, trying to get his gun on the missile. The white blur of the cruise ship illuminated the other end of his screen, the ocean swirled into blue.

He had yellow. He had red. He pressed the trigger as the missile tucked hard right. Zen shoved his stick to follow, his tail flying up, the Flighthawk wallowing in the air.

A red triangle. Zen nailed down the trigger, pushing a stream of 20mm bullets into the rolling silver-gray blur sliding diagonally toward the right corner of his screen.

Firing 20mm bullets at an aircraft while flying between four and five hundred miles an hour is an iffy thing. The laws of motion get complicated; not only are you dealing with the momentum of both aircraft, but the actions of the bullets and gun greatly complicate the equation. A relatively small aircraft like the Flighthawk could be greatly affected by the spin and recoil action of the revolving Gat, even though these were reduced in the modified M61 it carried in its nose. The bullets, meanwhile, reacted in several dimensions at once, torn between their own momentum and that of the plane. With a target as relatively thick as the tail section of a Sukhois fighter-bomber, the complicated physics made a direct hit hard enough; reduce the target size by a factor of thirty or so, and hitting the bull’s-eye became exceedingly difficult.

None of which consoled Zen for missing.

Though the waves were now less than a thousand feet away, Zen hung on, still holding his nose down. The cruise ship grew rapidly into the size of a brick. He sprayed shells at the sea, and saw the swells grabbing them. At a hundred feet, Zen got a proximity warning, pulled up slightly, and kept firing. The splutter of bullets sailed all around the spinning gray cylinder. Suddenly, the stream connected. The missile shot into a somersault and then exploded. Zen yanked back on the stick, said, “Computer, take One,” and jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Two.

The computer had already started to fire. Its target jerked left, then nosed up. Zen overrode the computer, pressing the trigger though his pipper was yellow. The ocean suddenly was all he could see — the missile was riding straight into the water.

He jerked upward, thinking the ship had been saved. But even as he did, he caught a large splotch of black in his face, and realized he was a lot closer than he’d thought to the tanker. Even before climbing back and spinning around to get a good view of the battle area, Zen realized the missile had survived just long enough to find its target, slamming into the side of the vessel at five hundred knots.

Mark Stoner stepped off the helicopter swiftly, ducking reflexively as the whirling rotors whipped grit against his face and clothes. He moved quickly toward the edge of the concrete, lugging his two Alice packs with him. The concrete ran surprisingly smooth, though there were a few spots where men were working on burning up roots and vines, and at the northern end a bulldozer and a buzz saw or two were hacking down a thick row of overhanging trees. Overall, the strip looked long, wide, and amazingly well-prepared.

The Whiplash people had established a sensor perimeter, using audio sensors, land radar, and optical and IR mini-cams tied by land lines to a sandbagged area about ten yards off the southern end of the airstrip. Stoner spotted it and began walking in that direction, ignoring the wind whipping from the wash of the Chinook that had deposited him on the island. Captain Danny Freah, the young Air Force officer who headed the deployment team, stood with his hands on his hips looking over the shoulder of a Whiplash trooper as they surveyed the array of video tubes.

Stoner recognized the captain’s frown; he’d seen it on the face of every one of is superiors when he was in the Navy. Bastards must be issued it the day they graduate officer’s school.

“Captain,” said Stoner.

“Hey,” responded Danny. “Be with you in a second.” He leaned over his man and began tapping one of the two keyboards. About twice the size of a computer keyboard, it had two rows of oversized buttons at the top and several fat sections of others on either side of the QWERTY layout. There were tiny legends on several, but most merely had letters and numbers, like “A4” and “DD-2.”

“Impressive,” said Stoner when Danny straightened. “Shows you the whole perimeter?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

“What’s that?” One of the video screens was focused on two pieces of cloth stretched in a clearing beyond a small pond.

“Looks like a little village,” said Danny. “Its beyond the ridge, down the rift, maybe a mile, little less.”

“I can get them moved,” said Stoner. He reached into his pack for his satellite phone.

“That’s not necessary. Not yet,” said Danny.

“No, it is.”

“My call here,” said the captain.

“No, it’s not.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set — another officer expression Stoner was very familiar with.

“With all due respect, Mr. Stoner, I’m responsible for security here. My call.”

“This is my mission,” said Stoner flatly. He pushed the cover of the phone up, and dialed his Agency liaison in Manila, the deputy station chief.

He’d hit the last digit when the captain’s thick black hand folded around the phone.

“No,” said Danny.

Stoner took a deep breath and straightened his body, fully relaxed except for his grip on the phone. If he jerked his knee up and pushed his left elbow, the Air Force officer would fall to the ground with a collapsed windpipe.

“Let me spell it out,” said Danny, still holding the phone. “There are no more than a dozen people there. At the moment, they’ve made no move to come up over the ridge, and they have no way of communicating with the outside world. The other side of their camp is covered by another swamp. I have the only path out under video surveillance, and I have the beach opposite them under watch as well. If we move them, we’ll make a lot of noise and potentially a lot of fuss. It’s definitely an option, but I’d like to hold if off until necessary. I can take them prisoner in a half hour if need be. They’re unarmed, and they’re not getting away.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” said Stoner. He heard the words of his Zen master at the back of his head, telling him to breathe, telling him to maintain the center of the burning candle flame in his chest.

“Granted,” said Freah. “But this is the best way to proceed if we’re going to keep this base covert.”

The captain was a young guy, with an impressive war record. He probably also thought he could deck Stoner if it came to that.

“Captain, please let go of my phone,” he said gently. “We’ll do it your way — but let me just tell you something.” He paused, waiting for the officer to let go of the phone. Released, he brought his arm down and bowed his head — then in a flash put his arm at Danny’s neck, fingertips precisely on the two common carotid arteries. “Do not touch me again. Sometimes reflexes can be deadly.”

He pulled his hand back quickly.

The Whiplash trooper who’d been watching the video cams was standing behind him, his MP-5 pointed at Stoner’s head.

“Good point,” said Danny — whose pistol was out and pointed at Stoner’s stomach.

The flames licking up form the blackened metal were surprisingly small. The smoke, on the other hand,

furled in all directions, a massive squat funnel that stretched all the way toward the debris field where the first ship had gone down. Zen took Hawk Two through the thick hedge of black, and gray; not even the high-tech array of sensors on the Flighthawk could penetrate it.

“Can’t quite get a visual,” he told Breanna. “I think she’s broken in two, but still attached, if you know what I mean. Like a twig that snapped but it has the top back attached.”

“Copy that,” she replied. “Be advised they’re repeating their SOS and saying they’re abandoning ship.”

“Hawk Leader.” He banked as he cleared the heavy smog. A small portion of the rear of the tanker was visible below the smoke; he came back and crossed through the clear space, maybe eight or nine feet over the waves. A Zodiac-type rubber boat had been set into the water and was pulling away.

“I see the crew,” said Zen. “What’s up with that cruise ship?”

“They’re still southeast,” said Collins. “Moving at about four knots.”

Zen pushed the Flighthawk skyward, toying with the idea of buzzing the liner. But that would serve no purpose; you really couldn’t blame the captain for getting the hell out of there.

“Tell him there’s a Zodiac with the crew of the tanker heading in his direction,” Zen said.

“The captain says he’ll stand by to pick up survivors, but they have to come to him,” said Collins.

Zen brought Hawk Two back over the Zodiac. There were six or seven men in the boat.

Six or seven. How many manned a ship like that? Had to be more.

Damn. Damn.

“Hawk Leader, we’re getting pretty far into our fuel reserves,” said Breanna. “We’re talking to Dreamland now — we can land at the Philippines.”

“Hawk Leader.”

“How’s your fuel?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have to refuel,” he said.

“We’ll get into an orbit. We’ll hold here until the last possible second,” added Breanna.

“Yeah.”

Zen pushed Hawk Two into a bank, sliding toward the Zodiac. Someone in the front of the small boat waved. He wagged his wings in recognition.

Poor SOB was probably cursing him out.

“Navy Orion is now zero-five away,” said Chris. “I gave them the lowdown,” he added. “They claim they can see the smoke from where they are.”

“Yeah,” was all Zen could say.

When lieutenant Colonel Bastian put his hands to his neck and stretched them backward, his vertebrae cracked so loudly the lieutenant at the communications desk jerked his head around.

“Just a little stiff,” said Dog. He glanced toward Major Lou “Gat” Ascenzio, who’d come in to spell him nearly an hour before. Gat — he’d earned his nickname as an A-10A “driver” in Iraq — was a recent arrival at Dreamland, assigned to head the tactical satellites and related projects. “I’m going to grab some Zs,” Dog told him. “Anything comes up, beep me, all right?”

“Yes, sir. You ought to get some rest.”

“Thank you, Major,” snapped Dog — Gat’s habit of restating the obvious annoyed the hell out of him. But as Ascenzio started to frown, he added, “It’s all right, Gat, I know I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

He took the elevator upstairs, then walked out to the Taj’s lobby, where the security staff jumped to attention. One asked if he needed a driver; Dog declined.

“Walk will do me good,” he said.

The air had a dry, crisp quality, a sharpness that took away his fatigue. The stiffness that had twisted his upper body and legs evaporated before he’d gone more than a half mile.

His mind, however, remained in knots. Three men were missing from the tanker the Sukhois had hit; an untold number on the container ship had died, and the survivors still hadn’t all been picked up. Then were was the Chinese Sukhois pilot, apparently still lost at sea.

Arguably, Quicksilver had saved countless lives by shooting down the other antiship missiles. Somehow, that didn’t assuage his conscience.

What if Allen was right? What if the plane incident started a war with China — a real war this time, the kind of war Brad Elliot had tried to prevent? The Chinese military was still potent; after all, that was undoubtedly their point now in the South China Sea.

What if they simple encouraged their Islamic allies in a campaign of terror? Six months, a year from now, something might happen in a quiet corner of the U.S. Would it be his fault?

They’d done everything they could to save lives, not take them. Yet the Chinese were unlikely to see it that way. Hell, not even Admiral Allen saw it that way, and he wasn’t exactly China’s best friend.

Dog turned down the access road toward his bungalow, a low-slung contemporary-style ranch that looked over a boneyard: hunks of old aircraft nestled in the starlight. Most were simply planes that had been parked here for storage and then forgotten. The inventory showed several B-29’s and B-50’s, as well as three C-47’s (or DC-3’s, as they were known in civilian guise). There were also the remains of Dreamland failures, aircraft tested here that didn’t quite make the cut or no longer had much value. The shadows were a graphic reminder of the old Latin maxim, carpe diem; your time came and went very quickly.

Dog walked up the short crushed-stone path to his door, his shoes crunching stones that reportedly had been smuggled in a duffel bag by the past commander of Dreamland, General Brad Elliot. It was undoubtedly an apocryphal story, but Dog liked it; it added a touch of eccentricity to a commander well known for his efficiency and precision.

He hit his access code for the lock, then pushed in the door. Cool air hit him in a wave, refreshing him. As he turned and locked up, someone grabbed him from behind, wrapping his arms around his neck.

Her arms around his neck. He pulled his assailant to his chest.

“Hi,” said Jennifer Gleason as they kissed. “About time.”

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Hours,” she said, and even though he knew it must be a lie, he apologized and kissed her again. He slipped his hands into the back of her jeans, beneath her ultrasensible cotton briefs, feeling the coolness of her skin. She folded into his body, sliding her own fingers to his buttons. Colonel Bastian moved his hands to her sides and lifted her shirt over her head; she writhed out of it like a snake shedding its skin, he undid her bra, her peach-sized breasts gently unfolding from the material. They kissed again, tongues meshing, lips warming each other, and still kissing they began walking toward the bedroom. They made love in a long moment that shattered the boundaries of time, then gave way to a warm bath of sleep.

Hours later, Colonel Bastian found himself walking down a long stairway, the entrance to a subway, maybe the Metro in Washington, D.C. The stairs were much longer than at any stop he’d ever been on. He knew he was dreaming, but felt fear.

He’d lost something and had to turn back. At first, he didn’t know what it was. As he reached the second landing, he saw the luminescent white rectangle thrown on the concrete floor by a light panel below the banister rail.

He was looking for his daughter. It wasn’t Breanna as he knew now — it was Breanna as a four-year-old. In real life, he’d rarely, if ever, been with her at this age. He’d been divorced right after she was born, and sent overseas besides; he didn’t see much of her until she was twelve or thirteen, when he was back in California, and then D.C. In the dream, she had been with him when he started down the steps, and now he felt panic that she wasn’t there.

He kept on going up the steps, turning and twisting with each flight, expecting, hoping to find her. His knees and calf muscles started to hurt, the tendons pulling taut.

Why had he let go of her hand? How could he have come so far without her?

He told himself it was a dream, and yet that made the panic more real. He walked and he walked, the staircase unending.

Jeff Stockard joined him, not as a boy but as a man. In the dream, Jeff could walk, wasn’t Bree’s husband or even in the Air Force, but just a friend of his, a man trying to help. He asked where he’d last seen her, and assured Dog she’d be just up the next flight.

He pushed on, starting to run. “Where is she?” he said out loud.

Finally, he woke up. It took forever for his eyes to focus. When they did, he saw Jennifer had gone.

It wasn’t a surprise really — she was a workaholic, used to keeping odd hours; he knew he’d probably find her over in one of the computer labs working on the latest project. In a way, her habit of sneaking out late at night was a blessing; it lessened the chances of others getting embarrassed if they happened to trop over her in the morning.

But he wished she were here now. He wished he could fold himself around her warmth, sink into her, fall back to sleep.

He pulled the covers over him for a moment, but when his mind drifted back to the dream, he pulled himself out of bed, got dressed, and headed back to Dreamland Command.

From the outside, the Whiplash mobile command center looked like an RV trailer pained dark green, with twelve squat wheels and an array of satellite dishes and antennas. Inside, it looked like a cross between a powerplant control room and a frat-house living area. About two thirds of the interior was wide open, dominated by a pair of tables just big enough for a serious game of poker. They could be joined together and extended by panels that folded up and out from their sides. At the far end from the door was a counter with several video monitors; a large, flat television screen sat against the wall. The monitors were worked from a dedicated control station that looked like a slight oversized personal computer desk; the gear tied into Dreamland Command via a dedicated secure satellite link.

On the other side of the partition was a bathroom, a storage area crammed with spare parts for the computers, a com section, and a tiny “suite” that was intended as a bedroom for the Whiplash commander. Since the trailer always had to be manned, Danny Freah had found it more expedient to sleep in a tent on their last deployment and intended to do so this time as well — assuming, that is, he ever went to bed. He’d been up since they landed.

Quicksilver’s crew sat at the pushed-together tables, going over their patrol for Stoner — and just as importantly, themselves. though exhausted, they’d described the encounters minutely, several times pausing to work out the exact details. Stoner listened impassively; his only comments were aimed at the Kali weapon. Unfortunately, the Megafortress had gathered relatively little data on the missile.

“So why are these guys shooting at each other?” Zen asked him finally.

“They don’t like each other,” said the spook blandly. “Advances their agenda.”

“Yeah.”

Stoner shrugged,

“All right, it’s getting late,” said Bree. “We can all use some sleep.”

“I have to finish uploading the data,” said Collins.

“Yeah, me too,” said Torbin. “The radar hits we got on the way back kind of distracted me.”

“Which hits were those?” Stoner asked.

“Couple of anomalies we read as we tracked back here. Looked like radars coming on real quick and then turning off, but they were real weak. Collins got some radio signals as well. We think they’re spy stations.”

Stoner glared over the map spread across the table.

“No ships out there?” he asked.

“Not that we saw,” said Breanna. “You have a theory?”

“There could be spy posts on these atolls here.” He pointed his finger at some brown dots on the map. “That might be one way the Indians or Chinese are keeping track of what’s coming down the pipe. Or the Russians. Or us.”

“Us?” asked Zen.

“You never know.”

Danny looked over at the islands, which were part of the Spratly chain extending southward. The Spratly Islands — more like a vast series of atolls — were claimed by several different countries, including China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. For the most part uninhabitable mounds of rock, they were valuable because vast gas and petroleum deposits were supposedly located beneath them.

Not that most of the claimants needed such a good reason to disagree.

“We can dogleg off a mission and check it out,” said Zen.

“What if it’s defended?” asked Breanna.

“That’s why we use a Flighthawk.”

“We could get on those islands with the Osprey,” said Danny. “Give them a real look. MV-22’s due here in about an hour.”

“Yeah,” said Stoner. Danny thought it might be the first time he’d said anything nonbelligerent since he’d landed.

“I think we ought to recon it first,” said Zen. “You guys got enough to do here. Besides, we don’t even have a real location for you, do we, Torbin?”

The radar intercept expert looked like a blond bear, shrugging and shaking head. “I can get it down to a few miles. We can pass it on to Major Alou, have them take a look if they get a chance.”

“All right.”

“Sooner’s better than later,” said Stoner.

The others looked at him. Danny saw Breanna rolling her eyes.

Good, he thought to himself. It’s not just me. The spook is a jerk.

Chen Lo Fann saw the two aircraft appear over the water, his powerful binoculars straining to follow them as they rocketed upward from the carrier.

The limitations of the Russian-made planes had been clear before the accident with the Americans, but Beijing had reacted with shock and dismay, sending a long, rashly worded message filled with outrage.

To his credit, the admiral in charge of the task force had not tried to hide what had happened; he could easily have blamed the Americans for the accident or even claimed they had shot down his plane. Instead, the transmissions back and forth to the mainland made it clear that he was a man of integrity. While his actions cold be questioned — he clearly should not have authorized his attack planes to fire at the Indian submarine from long distance — his honor could not.

Undoubtedly he would be rewarded for his honesty with disgrace.

Reinforcements were on the way.

Opportunity, Fann thought, yet the Americans had complicated the picture.

What if they prevented the inevitable confrontation? What if they forced the navies back?

Until the arrival of the Megafortresses, the American posture seemed clear. The Pacific Fleet, concentrating on protecting vessels bound for Korea and Japan, was too far north to intervene in a clash, nor did its commanders seem of much mind to do so. Diplomatically, there was a lean toward India, and relations with Mainland China were as low as, if not lower than, at any time since Nixon’s trip to Beijing a generation ago.

But the Megafortresses represented unwelcome change.

Chen had promised conflict. His position with the government rested entirely on that promise.

This was not a time for panic. Surely, fortune continued to smile. Within a day, if not hours, there would be two aircraft carriers sailing southward. The Indians must react to their presence.

Chen was sure the submarine would act tomorrow; he was staking is career on it. At that point, fortune would take over.

The Taoist master Lao Tzu said the river was king because it knew how to take the low path. The river did not shrink from its strength, but it bided its time.

The sea was merely the river at large.

The Megafortresses and their small escorts presented a difficult problem, but as Chen considered it, he realized they represented opportunity as well. Perhaps there was more potential than the mere conflict he had seen. Perhaps there was an opportunity others might only dream of.

Jennifer Gleason leaned back from the computer, rubbing her eyes.

“So?” asked Ray Rubeo, standing on the sides of his shoes. “Work or not?”

“It’ll work,” Jennifer told him.

“Good, let’s go tell your sweetheart. He’s still up in his office. I’ll have Commander Delaford meet us there.”

Jennifer felt her entire body flashing red.

“You know, Ray, you can be a real jackass,” she said, grabbing the Zip disk as it popped out from its drive.

“What?” asked Rubeo.

“We’re not in Junior high.”

“Hmmmph,” said her boss. He touched his small gold earring nervously, but said nothing else as they walked to the elevator. The computer labs were housed in the same underground complex as the Megafortress project, a convenient arrangement when Jennifer’s main responsibilities were the computers governing flight operations for both the Megafortresses and the U/MFs. Now, however, her duties were much more diverse. She often found she had to travel either to one of the other bunker areas or to Taj, the main administrative building that also housed Dreamland Command and some of the labs dedicated to the UMB. While she could have a car or an SUV, Jennifer found it much more convenient to get around by bike. As they walked down the ramp, she reached into her pocket and took out two large rubber bands, which she used to keep her pants legs from fouling the chain.

“You’re not cycling, are you?” hissed Rubeo.

“Why not?”

“We’ll take my car.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Rubeo said something under his breath.

“You shouldn’t talk to yourself, Ray.” Jennifer stopped and rolled the bands over the legs of her jeans, refusing to make eye contact. “It just reinforces the eccentric stereotype.” She took out another band for her hair and tied it back, then picked up the bike and rode over to the Taj.

She parked her bike — there was no need to lock it at Dreamland — and went inside to the notoriously slow elevator as Rubeo appeared in the lobby doorway. Finished with its complicated security protocol, the elevator doors began to close. Under other circumstances, Jennifer would have pushed the hold button, and clearly Rubeo expected her to, walking toward her nonchalantly.

Too damn bad, she thought to herself, letting them slam closed as she looked right at him.

Chief Master Sergeant Terrence “Ax” Gibbs met her in the hallway outside Dog’s office.

“Ma,am, pleasure to see you,” said Ax. “Colonel’s inside; I’m on my way to get him a little coffee. You want a little something?”

“Not really.”

He smiled. “A pineapple Danish maybe?”

“Well, you twisted my arm. Thanks, Chief.”

“You know, you really should call me Ax,” he said.

“I’ll try to remember.”

He smiled, bowed — actually, really, truly, bowed — then vanished through the door to the stairway.

Jennifer went into Colonel Bastian’s outer office, a medium-sized bullpen dominated by Gibb’s desk. Sally, a staff sergeant who oversaw much of the paperwork in Ax’s absence, greeted her and told Jennifer the colonel was inside on the phone.

“I have to wait for Dr. Rubeo and Commander Delaford anyway,” said Jennifer. She sat down in one of the metal folding chairs lined up against the wall. The metal chairs had recently replaced a set of plush velour seats. Jennifer suspected that was Ax’s doing, not Colonel Bastian’s. the chief master sergeant had a simple but straightforward philosophy regarding visitors — discourage them as much as possible. Most of the scientist grumbled privately about the hard seats; the military people didn’t seem to notice.

“So you beat me,” said Rubeo, entering the office. He looked out of breath, as if he had taken the stairs, though that was unlikely. “Congratulations.”

“I didn’t know it was a race.”

“The colonel is off the phone,” said Sally.

“He expects us,” said Rubeo. “Is Delaford in there?”

Before the sergeant could say anything, Rubeo pushed inside with a brisk but short knock. Jennifer followed a few paces behind; there was no reason to wait now.

“We’re ready to deploy Piranha,” said Rubeo before he even sat down. “The new E-PROMs will be down within the hour. All we have to do is select a recovery site for them to default to.”

“Already?” said Colonel Bastian.

Rubeo touched his small gold earring. “Of course.”

Anyone else saying that might have smiled. The scientist was dead serious and even a little dismissive.

Jennifer watched as a small smile curled at the corner of Colonel Bastian’s mouth. She hated calling him Dog; Tecumseh was such a beautiful, different name, and it described him perfectly — tough and solid, protective, yet capable in a gently way. It suggested thick muscles and, at the same time, nooks where you cold let your fingers linger.

“Some of the Navy people are drawing up plans for a makeshift warhead,” added Rubeo. “There are guidance issues, however.”

“I doubt it’ll be necessary.”

“Gives them something to do,” said Rubeo. “Otherwise, they tend to bother my people.”

That wasn’t true — the Navy people and the Dreamland scientists got along very well.

Ax opened the door, backing in with a tray of coffee and soda. Lieutenant Commander Delaford came in behind him, looking rumpled and tired. He’d left the computer lab about an hour before to take a nap.

“Don’t you ever knock?” Rubeo asked Ax.

“Hey, Doc, got you some of that green tea you like. Got some coffee for your Navy friend, needs it. Pepsi for you, ma’am. Diet, of course.”

Ax winked as he gave her the soda and Danish. She noticed she was the only one with pastry,

“Thanks, Chief.”

“Ax. Call me Ax. More papers for you, Colonel. When you get a breather.” He disappeared through the door.

“I’m just telling the colonel we’re ready to deploy,” said Rubeo. The tea actually seemed to have an effect — he seemed almost human.

Almost.

“I’d like to make another recommendation,” Rubeo told Colonel Bastian. “I want to add the UMB to the search matrix. It can survey the entire area and stay on station for nearly twenty-four hours. We could incorporate some of the testing schedule—”

“The B-5 has only had a dozen flights,” said Dog. “No way.”

“Colonel, the idea of Whiplash is to test new technology in real situations,” said Rubeo.

Dog grimaced — his own words were being used against him.

“The UMB has a long way to go,” said Dog. “There have been difficulties with the engines, as well as delays with the control surfaces.”

“The hydrogen-fueled engine would not be necessary for this mission,” said Rubeo. “Otherwise, Colonel—”

“And besides,” said Colonel Bastian,” the UMB’s pilot is in the Philippines.” He glanced at Delaford, silently reminding him with a half-nod that he knew nothing about the UMB and had not heard any of his highly classified discussion. Delaford had been at Dreamland long enough to nod in reply.

“The UMB pilot is superfluous,” said Rubeo. “Four different scientists, myself included, are trained to handle the plane. During simulations—”

“The simulations are not the real thing. We’ve got a lot of other things to worry about right now. Let’s not get too complicated. End of discussion, Doc.” He put his arms down on his desk and leaned forward. “Good work getting Piranha ready.”

“Yes,” said Rubeo.

“Thanks,” said Jennifer. His glance at her felt like a physical thing, a caress. “We got a few breaks.”

“I want to deploy Iowa as soon as possible,” said Dog, turning to Delaford. “We can use it to gather more data on the Indian submarine. We have a location from the last encounter.”

“I’m with you, Colonel,” said Delaford.

“Tonight if we can. I’ll fly it myself.”

“Ensign English and I will be ready,” said Delaford.

“We’ll want technical people as well.” Colonel Bastian turned to Rubeo. “How many other command sets for the device?”

“We’ll have the backup and one additional unit ready within twenty-four hours,” said the scientist. “But they’ll have to be installed in the Flighthawk bays. We can do two more planes. We’ll need two full teams, though. I’d say about—”

“I’m in,” interrupted Jennifer. “On the technical team, I want to go.

“It’s not your project,” said Rubeo.

“Baloney — I handled all the communications compressions, and the native intelligence sections on the probe. I just fixed the E-PROM for you. I should be there.”

“I’d agree,” said Delaford.

Rubeo rolled his eyes but gave up — on her, at least. “Colonel, if I may — your place really is at the Command Center. Captain Teijen can fly the aircraft.”

“I think I’ll make the call on personnel, Doctor, especially on military assignments. If you care to recommend more technical people. I’m all ears.”

Dog listened as Delaford and Rubeo ran down the possibilities of technicians to handle the mechanical systems of the Piranha device. They were talking about twenty people, a small portion of the development team but far larger than a normal field deployment under Whiplash. It was one thing to send military people into a combat zone, and quite another to put scientists there. Nonetheless, if they were going to use Piranha, they had to support it adequately.

“All right,” said Dog finally. “Pick the people you want. You and Ensign English will fly in Iowa. We’ll go straight out and deploy the device, assuming we can get a reasonable fix on the sub’s location.”

“We’ll be ready.”

Dog rose, indicating the meeting was over. There were two lit buttons on the bank for encrypted calls, indicating calls on hold. As the others got up and filed out, he put his eyes down at his desk, pretending to study the papers there. He didn’t want to be caught eyeing Jennifer, but it was difficult. Finally, he glanced up, and saw the slight sway of her hips through the doorway. It wasn’t in any way provocative, it was just walking — but desire rushed into his veins nonetheless. He sat back down in his seat, took a sip of his coffee, then punched one of the buttons on hold without waiting for Ax to tell him who it was.

“Bastian.”

“Um, Colonel, good,” said Jed Barclay. “Sir, uh, standby for the President of the, um, United States.”

Dog sat upright in his seat.

“Colonel, how the hell are you?” said President Kevin Martindale breezily. The President had taken a liking to Colonel Bastian early in his administration, and his tone always implied that they were friends.

“Sir, very well.”

“Good. Now I’ve had the full briefings, and even young Jed here has filled me in, but I’d like to hear from you — the Chinese plane. What happened?” asked the President.

Dog explained carefully and as fully as he could, then segued from that into a description of the ensuing engagement between the Sukhois and the Indian sub, which had resulted in the sinking of the oil tanker and the probable loss of three men.

“Thank you, Dog.” The President’s voice remained friendly; they could had been discussing a hunting trip where they’d come up empty.

“Sir, we do have plans in place now to track the Indian submarine,” Dog added.

“Well, you carry on, Colonel,” said the President. “I’m afraid I have some pressing matters.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” said Dog reflexively. It was doubtful that the President heard his last few words; the line had snapped dead before he finished.

His intercom buzzed. Dog picked it up and barked at Ax. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that was the President on hold?”

“Didn’t know it was the President,” said Ax. “It was Mr. Barclay, as far as I knew. And he wasn’t on hold more than ten seconds. Line two Admiral Allen. He’s spitting bullets.”

“Why?”

“Born that way.”

“Listen, Ax, I’m going to be deploying to the Philippines—”

“Camp Paradise, huh? Pack a bathing suit, and a raincoat — there’s monsoons this time of year.”

“Thanks. Make sure everything’s in order. Is Major Ascenzio still in the secure center?”

“Far as I know, Colonel. How long will you be gone?”

“A few days.”

“Just wanted to know how many signatures I’ll need to forge.”

“Very funny, Ax.”

Dog punched the phone button and got a tired-sounding lieutenant on Admiral Allen’s staff.

“The admiral wants to speak to you, sir,” said the lieutenant.

“That’s why I’m here,” said Dog.

“Tecumseh, what the hell is going on?” said Allen, coming on the line a few seconds later.

“Not exactly sure what we’re talking about, Admiral.”

“I hear from my sources you’re looking for authority to fire at Chinese vessels.”

“Not at all, Admiral.”

“Don’t give me that crap. What are you trying to do, Colonel? Start World War III?”

“Admiral — I don’t know where that rumor came from,” said Dog. “I haven’t asked for authority to do anything.”

“What happened with the tanker?” asked Allen.

“The Chinese aircraft were firing at an Indian submarine,” Dog told him.

“Which conveniently disappeared.”

“We have tape of the incident,” said Dog. He wondered if Allen was being sabotaged by enemies over at the Pentagon — or if he was the target. “The details should have reached you by now.”

“They haven’t. I want to see it.”

“I’m sure if you called over to the NSC—”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” said Allen.

“Admiral, my hands are tied.”

“From now on, you check with my people before running any more missions.”

“I can’t do that, Admiral,” said Dog. “And I won’t.

the line went dead.

From the way he looked at him, Zen could tell Stoner was wondering how he managed to get from his wheelchair to inside the airplane, and how he maneuvered once there. It was the sort of question everyone had, though almost no one asked.

There were a lot of things no one asked. At first, this was fine with Zen — he couldn’t stand bullshit sympathy, which was always in the air whenever an AB — an able-bodied person — asked about his useless legs. Gradually, however, people’s avoidance of the topic began to annoy him, as if by not saying anything they were pretending he didn’t exist. Now his attitude was complicated. Sometimes he thought it was funny, sometimes he thought it was insulting, sometimes he thought it was ridiculous, sometimes he thought it was almost endearing. Watching how a person handled the awkwardness could tell you a lot about them, if you cared.

In Stoner’s case, he didn’t. he didn’t like the CIA agent, probably because he’d copped an attitude toward Danny. He was one of those “been-there, done-that” types who spread a know-it-all air everywhere he went. Stoner had suggested he come along to get a firsthand look at things; Major Alou and Bree had thought it a good idea.

“We go up the ramp, Stoner,” Zen told him, pushing his wheelchair toward the ladder that led down from the crew area of the Megafortress. When Zen reached the stairway he swung around quickly, backing into the attachment device the Dreamland engineers had added to all of the Flighthawk-equipped EB-52’s. The Zen Clamp, as they called it, hooked his chair into an elevator they’d rigged to work off electricity or stored compressed air, so no matter what was going on with the plane he had a way in or out. Two small metal panels folded down from the sides of the ladder; Zen backed onto them and then pulled thick U-bolts across the fronts of is read wheels.

“Gimps going up,” said Zen, hitting the switch. He had to push back in the seat to keep his balance and avoid scraping his head; there wasn’t a particularly huge amount of clearance and, once moving, the elevator didn’t stop.

His greatest fear was falling out onto the runway. While it might be more embarrassing than painful, it was one bit of ignominy he preferred to avoid.

At the top, he backed onto the Flighthawk deck. He’d put on his speed-suit already, but Stoner would have to take one of the spares they kept during Whiplash deployment. He unlatched the wardrobe locker at the back of the compartment — an Eb-52 special feature — then wheeled back as Stoner came up.

“You have to put on a suit,” he told the CIA officer. “We pull serious Gs. Helmet too. I’ll show you how to hook into the gear when you sit down.”

Stoner selected the suit closest to his six-foot frame, pulling it over his borrowed jumpsuit. Zen stopped him when it was done, inspecting to make sure it was rigged right. It was, and he knew it was since he ‘d watched him suit up, but something about the spook’s presumption ticked him off.

“Life-support guy will be here by tomorrow,” said Zen, clearing Stoner to pass. “He’ll measure you up for a suit if you’re going to be flying with us.”

“This is fine.”

“Your seat’s on the left. Don’t touch anything.” Zen watched Stoner slip into the straight-backed ejection seat and begin to snap up. Ordinarily, he sat first — it was easier to maneuver into his seat if he could lean all the way over into the other station, but he could do it just as well with someone sitting there.

“Incoming,” he said, backing his wheelchair against his own seat. He set the wheel brake on the left side, then pushed his weight forward, beginning the pirouette into his seat. The techies had tried several modifications, including an experiment with a sliding track that let the ejection seat turn. They’d also played with a wheel-in arrangement that allowed Zen to use a special wheelchair during the mission, but they couldn’t make it ejectable.

Of course, he wouldn’t stand much chance going out. Unless, ironically enough, it was over water, where he could use his upper body to swim — something he did a lot during rehab.

He swung into place, curling his chest across and landing slightly off-kilter, but it was close enough. He wedged himself into place and pulled on his straps, then turned to Stoner, who’d already worked out the oxygen and com hook-ins on his own.

“All right,” Zen told him over the interphone. “Preflight’s going to take a while. You’re just a spectator.”

“Yes,” said the CIA officer.

“You see how to adjust your headphones?”

“Got it.”

“You can check the oxygen hookup—”

“Yes, I know.”

Been-there-done-that. Right.

Zen punched up C³ and went to work.

Upstairs on the flight deck, Breanna finished going through the main preflight checklist, then stretched her neck back and turned to Chris, who was doing another double check of the mission course they’d programmed earlier.

“So?” she asked.

“Ready to rock, Boss. You think we ought to give these atolls names?”

“Numbers are fine.”

“I’m thinking rock songs with a common theme. Say all Rolling Stones songs. Get it?”

“No,” she said.

“First up, ‘Angie.’ A, Angie. Get it?”

“Chris, maybe we should do the preflight again.”

“Your call. Next rock would be ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ ”

“That’s a Beatles song.”

“You are into this, huh?”

“How’s the weather?”

“Still sucks,” said Chris. “At least it’s not raining here.”

As he said that, lightening flashed in the distance.

“Somebody heard me,” said Chris.

“That or they’re reacting to your song titles.”

“Hey, I could do puns. Do not ask for whom the a-toll

tolls. John Donne,” he added, giving the name of the poet for the butchered line of verse.

They came off the runway swift and smooth, the big plane’s wings catching a ride on the stiff breeze blowing the storm front in. Breanna felt the wheels push up, the engines rumbling easily as they headed over the storm front. They got clear of the clouds and turbulent air, rising swiftly and then tracking toward the atoll.

“Angie in fifteen,” said Chris as they hit their waymarker.

“Quicksilver, this is Hawk Leader. Ready to fuel and prepare for launch,” said Zen.

“Copy that,” she said. “How’s our passenger?”

“Breathing.”

Zen’s voice told her Stoner had rubbed him the wrong way. The feeling seemed to be unanimous among the Whiplash people who’d dealt with him. Breanna was trying to withhold judgement. So far the only trait she’d formed an opinion on was his eyes — they were nice.

“Begin fuel sequence on Flighthawks,” she said. “Prepare for launch.”

The gear blew Stoner away. The video being fed from the robot plane onto the large tube in front of him looked remarkably clear and focused, even though the aircraft feeding it was moving at nearly five hundred knots.

Barclay had been right; the Dreamland people did know what they were doing. Touchy bastards, full of themselves, but at least they were competent. He could live with that.

Zen had said the large display was infinitely configurable, but it wasn’t clear exactly what that meant. Though it was intended as a second Flighthawk station, its flight-control section had been locked out, and there was no joystick or any switch gear to control the robot. He had figured out how to stop, slow, and replay the main video feed on a second, dedicated screen on his left. A slider and a small panel very similar to standard VCR controls worked the tube; he could also select a bird’s-eye or sitrep view and a map overlay. Undoubtedly the damn thing made coffee too, if you hit the right combination of switches.

An atoll began to grow in the left-hand corner of the main screen. Stoner heard the pilot grunting and groaning as he flew. He ducked his body with the aircraft, as if he were in the cockpit, not sitting here miles away.

Stoner wanted to ask him about his nickname, Zen. Practitioners of the way were rare in the military, and it was possible, maybe even likely, it was just a nickname. It seemed an improbably one, unless it had come before the pilot had lost the use of his legs. Jed Barclay was his cousin, but hadn’t said very much about Zen on the way out.

“Slowing for our run,” reported Zen. “No radar spotted, nothing active.”

“I have nothing,” said Torbin, whose gear scanned for radar emissions.

“Negative as well,” said Collins, who was essentially an eavesdropper on radio transmissions.

“Rain’s moving in pretty fast,” added the copilot. “Wet down there, Zen.”

“I brought my umbrella.”

The storm front a few miles to the north covered the rest of the atolls with heavy rain and fog. Even their high-tech gear would have trouble seeing through it.

“Looks like a lean-to on that northern end,” said Zen. “Stoner?”

He turned to the smaller screen, rewinding and then magnifying. Three trees had been laid across a large rock near the water.

“Might shelter a canoe, swimming gear,” Stoner told him. He worked the slider, getting a wide-angle view. “Don’t see anything else.”

“Stand by for a second run-through.”

“Hawk Leader, we have an unidentified flight one hundred-twenty miles southwest of our target atoll, very low to the water,” said Ferris. “Course unclear at the moment. Not getting an identifier.”

“Hawk Leader.”

“Hold that — positive ID. U.S. Navy flight. An F/A-18,” said the copilot, who had used special gear designed to “tickle” an unknown plane and find out if it was friend or foe.

“Hawk Leader. We’re done on Angie. What’s next — Bella?”

“That would be Atoll Two,” snapped the pilot. “Jeff, I’m going to take it up another five thousand feet over this storm. It’s pretty fierce.”

“Hawk Leader.”

Stoner pushed his head toward the main video screen as the robot surveyed the next collection of rocks and coral. He felt the big plane tilt backward, the acceleration pushing him against the seat. If Zen felt it, he gave no indication as the Flighthawk looped twice around the atoll, its cameras covering every inch of ground.

“Nothing,” said Zen finally.

“I concur,” said Stoner.

“On to the next stop,” said Ferris, the copilot. “Should I tell our guests what they’ll win if the prize is behind door number-three?”

“Go for it,” said the pilot.

“A goat.”

“No sex jokes, please.”

Her voice was so serious it took Stoner a second to realize Captain Breanna Stockard was joking. She was gorgeous, cool, and obviously well-trained. Stoner had never like the idea of women in the military, and as a SEAL had never actually had to deal with any, but Breanna Stockard might make him rethink his attitude.

Too bad she was married.

The third target was much larger than the others, more an island than an atoll. It had a U-shaped lagoon and what seemed to be skid marks from a boat on the beach. There was a tarp covering something about twenty yards from the water, half-hidden by the trees.

“No radar operating,” said Torbin.

“That tarp is big enough for one,” said Zen.

“Yeah, interesting,” said Stoner. “Can you get a close-up?”

“Copy that,” said Zen.

A severe wind whipped the trees. Zen’s grunts and groans increased. Stoner guessed it was hard to hold the small place on course at low speed, but the video remained steady and in focus. They couldn’t find anything besides the tarp.

The nearby fourth target proved to be a pile of coral perhaps ten by fifteen meters. There was nothing on the jagged surface.

By the time they reached the fifth atoll, rain had begun to fall. The computer compensated, but the view on the large screen was still grainy. Oddly, the smaller screen seemed easier to read. Stoner watched the Flighthawk come over the island at just under 180 knots and two thousand feet.

“There’s a buoy in the water, a line up the beach,” said Zen.

Stoner put his face practically on the screen and still couldn’t see it.

“Here,” said Zen. He did something with his controls and muttered something to the computer that Stoner didn’t quite catch; the large screen flashed with a close-up of a small round circle in the water, boxed in by hash marks drawn by the computer.

“Could be part of a long-wave device,” Stoner told him.

“Panel — there’s a radar set. Look at it. Yeah, small. Infrared.”

The screen blurred.

“Too much rain,” said Zen. “Torbin, you have anything?”

“Negative. No transmissions of any type.”

“Same here,” said Collins.

They took two more runs over the island, switching back and forth between optical, infrared, and synthetic radar scans. None of them produced a very clear picture as the storm began to kick up fiercely, but there was definitely some sort of installation here.

“Maybe a long-wave com setup,” suggested Stoner. “Surface radar, sends information out to ships.”

“That radio mast in the tree?” asked Zen.

Stoner had trouble seeing the tree, let alone the antenna. “Don’t know,” he said finally.

“Who’s it working for?”

“Good question. I’d guess Chinese. Have to see the equipment, thought. Could be the Indians. Early warning, something comes south. Radar might scan a hundred miles, give or take. Like to look at it up close, on foot.”

“Yeah,” said Zen.

Zen took Hawk One up off the deck, rising through the clouds to get out of the storm. Even with the computer’s help, it was a hitch flying low and slow in the shifting air currents, their violent downdrafts and rain pounding on his head.

There were two more atolls nearby, both now covered by heavy fog, clouds, and rain. He took a breath, checked his gear — instruments were all in the green, everything running at spec — then plunged back downward. He ran over both a little faster and higher than he wanted, but saw nothing.

“We still have some time,” Bree told him as he came off his last pass. “We can check out those islands to the east as we head for the patrol area. Beyond that, though, we’ll have to call it a day.”

“Hawk Leader.” Zen punched his mission map into the lower left-hand screen, got himself oriented, then checked his fuel panel. It’d be tight, but he could wait to refuel after the flyovers, then launch Hawk Two. He touched base with Ferris to make sure that would be okay, and got an update on some ships they’d seen. Most were civilians, sailing well clear of yesterday’s trouble spot.

“Two Indian destroyers off to the southwest, in the thick of the storm,” the copilot added over the interphone. “If they stay on their present course, they’ll reach the patrol area about five hours from now, maybe a little sooner. Depends on the weather, though. They may not get anywhere.”

“Maybe they’re heading for that atoll we saw with the radar,” suggested Stoner.

Zen grunted. He resented someone else cutting into his conversation. He avoided the temptation to cut him off the circuit, which he could do with the Flighthawk control board.

“More likely they’re scouting for the carrier group to the south,” injected Ferris. “About a day’s sail behind according to the intel brief.”

“I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

Zen took Hawk One back toward the ocean, riding down through the angry carpet of whirling wind and water toward the target, a doublet of coral and rock. The thick drops of precipitation rendered the IR gear useless, and the optic feed was nearly as bad. The synthesized radar did the best, but the Flighthawk’s speed made it nearly impossible to get any details out of the view. The computer assured him there were no “correlations to man-made objects” on the first group of rocks. Approaching the second, he saw a shadow that might be a small boat, or perhaps a large log, or even a series of rocks. He came in higher than he wanted, catching an odd wave of wind. Two more flyovers into the teeth of the storm failed to reveal anything else.

“I think it was rocks,” said Stoner.

“We’ll analyze it later,” Zen told him.

“Hawk Leader, we’re starting to get close to pumpkin time,” Breanna told him.

“Roger that. I need to refuel,” said Zen, pointing his nose upward.

“Up scope.”

Admiral Ari Balin waited as Shiva’s periscope rose. His arms were at his chest, his eyes already starting to narrow. He placed his finger deliberately on the handles as the scope stopped climbing, then began his scan with deliberate, easy motion.

The gods were beneficent; they had lost the noisy Chinese submarine, and were now in the middle of a storm that would further confuse anyone trying to track them. it was the perfect preparation for the next phase of their mission, a sign that theirs was indeed the proper path.

Satisfied there were no other ships nearby, Admiral Balin stepped back. Captain Varja, the submarine’s commander, took his turn at the periscope. Where Balin was slow and graceful, the younger man was sharp and quick; it was a good match.

They had down well so far. The weapon had worked perfectly, and the information that had come to them provided two perfect hits. The real test, however, lay ahead.

“Clear,” said Varja, turning away from the scope.

“You may surface,” Balin told him. He felt almost fatherly as the diesel-powered submarine responded to the crew’s well-practiced routine; they began to glide toward the surface.

As built, the Russian Kilo class of submarine possessed an austere efficiency. Their full complement was no more than sixty men; they could manage twenty-four knots submerged and dive to 650 meters. While their reliance on diesel and battery power had drawbacks, they could be made exceedingly quiet and could operate for considerable periods of time before needing to surface.

Shiva—named after the Hindu god of destruction — had been improved from the base model in several respects. Her battery array was probably the most significant; they nearly doubled her speed or submerged range, depending on how they were used. The passive sonar in her nose and the other sensors in the improved tower were surely important, with almost half again as effective a detection range as those the Russian supplied — and the Chinese copied. For Balin, the advanced automation and controls the Indian shipyard had added were most important; they allowed him to operate with half the standard crew size.

They too were the fruits of Hindu labor and inspiration, true testaments to the ability of his people and their future.

“We are on the surface, Admiral,” reported Captain Varja.

“Very good.”

Balin’s bones complained slightly as he climbed the ladder to the conning tower, and his cheeks immediately felt the cold, wet wind. He struggled to the side fumbling for his glasses.

As he looked out over the ocean, he felt warm again; peaceful. Dull and gray, stretching forever, the universe lay before his eyes, waiting for him to make the future coalesce.

The Chinese aircraft carrier should now be less than one hundred miles away.

He put the glasses down, reminding himself to guard against overconfidence. His role was to fulfill destiny, not to seek glory.

“We will stay on the surface at present course for forty-five minutes,” the admiral told the captain. “The batteries will be back at eight percent by then.”

“I would prefer one hundred percent,” said Varja.

“Yes,” he answered mildly before going to the hatchway and returning below.

Dog ran through the indicators with his copilot, Captain Tommy Rosen, making sure the plane was in good shape as they headed onto their last leg of the flight. In truth, the meticulous review of the different instrument readings wasn’t necessary — the computer would automatically advise the pilots of any problem, and a quick glance at the special graphic displays showed green across the board, demonstrating everything was fine, but the routine itself had value. Checking and rechecking the dials — or in this case, digital readouts — focused the crew’s attention. It was a ritual practiced by pilots since shortly after the Wrights had pointed their Flyer into the wind at Kitty Hawk; it had saved many a man and woman’s life, quite a number without their even realizing it.

Checks complete, Dog spoke to each crew member in turn, making sure they were okay. Again, the ritual itself was important; its meaning was far deeper than the exchange of a few words. It was ceremony, a kind of communion, strengthening the link that would be critical in a difficult mission or emergency situation.

All his career, Dog had been a fast-plane jock, piloting mostly single-seat interceptors. You were never truly alone, of course; you had a wingman, other members of your flight and mission package, gobs of support personnel both in the air and on the ground. There was, however, more of a feeling of being on your own; certainly you were more independent than in a big aircraft like the Megafortress. Flying the EB-52 was entirely different thing. As pilot, you were responsible for an entire crew. Your family, in a way; they were always in the back of your mind.

“All right folks. We’re about twenty minutes out. After we land and have the plane checked, I’d like to try and get back up in the air as quickly as we can. I know we’ve all taken naps, and we’re going to pretend we’re refreshed, but — seriously, now — if anyone feels tired, talk to me when we’re down. I know how hard it is to adjust.”

He didn’t expect anyone to admit they were beat, but still, he had to offer them the possibility. Most of the target area was covered by a slow-moving storm that made it difficult to patrol, and would certainly hinder the launch of the Piranha device. Being ready to go might be academic.

The portion of the panel at the left side of the dash that Dog had designated for the com link flashed gray and the words “DREAMLAND COMMAND LINK PENDING” appeared at the bottom. Dog authorized the link, and Major “Gat” Ascenzio’s face beamed into the LCDs.

“Quicksilver thinks it has a location on the Indian submarine,” said Gat. “On the surface, about seventy miles from the Chinese carrier. They’re having a difficult time with the weather; hard to get a definitive read.”

“Can you patch us together?” Dog asked.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Gat. He turned away from the screen and the image popped gray. An instant later, the space was filled by a slightly scratched flight helmet.

“Hey, Daddy.”

“Captain Stockard, good morning. We understand you have a possible location on the submarine.”

“That’s affirmative. A long-distance contact. The Flighthawks haven’t seen anything and our radar looks clean, though the storm’s pretty fierce. We’ll transfer the data. Be advised the Chinese have aircraft aloft north of the target area.”

“Copy.”

“They haven’t challenged us. We’ve been giving them a wide berth; they’re doing the same.”

“Good.”

Dog waited while Rosen and Delaford worked on the details from the uploaded information. “We’re about two hundred and thirty miles away, as the Megafortress flies,” said the copilot finally. “Half hour we’re there. If we push up the power we could get in range to launch Piranha in twenty minutes; maybe even a little quicker. Assuming they moved at top speed after submerging, we still have about thirty-mile radius, and we can cheat north toward the Chinese, where they’d likely be going.”

not quite an exact match. It looked like it might be a bit harder to jam, according to Torbin, who immediately volunteered to try.

“Let ’em be,” said Breanna. “Chris, get on the line to Dreamland Command and tell them about this. They’re going to be very interested.”

The helicopter climbed into an orbit over the aircraft carrier. As interesting as it was, the Sukhois that had charged after the Viking were a higher priority; and so Breanna sidled in their direction, making sure to stay within ten miles of the Viking, the Sukhois stared to sandwich the Navy plane in a high-low hello-there routine; one Chinese pilot came in over the S-3 while the other came in below. Even at five hundred knots, it was doubtful the separation between the three planes added up to ten feet.

“They’re crazy,” said Chris. “They’ll hit ’em for sure. They can’t fly that well in the damn daylight, let alone in the dark.”

The radar shoed the Chinese fighters merging with the Viking and, looking at the display, it seemed as if they had crashed. Instead, they had simultaneously sandwiched the S-3 swooping across in opposite direction. It would have been an impressive move at an air show.

“All right, let’s see if we can get their attention so our Navy friend can drop his buoys,” Bree said, reaching for the throttle bar. The engine control on the Megafortress was fully electronic, and unlike the old lollipop-like sticks in the original B-52, consisted of a master glide bar that could be separated into four smaller segments. Unless the individual controls were activated, the flight