Retribution

VI. Borrowed Time

“So I hear Rocky Balboa finally got his mitts on Dreamland,” Margaret McGraw said when she called Jed to brief him on the latest round of NSA intercepts related to the warhead recovery mission.

“How’s that?”

“Oh, don’t give me the I’m-above-all-the-infighting line, Jed. I know you know what’s going on. Admiral Balboa pulled a coup.”

“Dreamland is being folded back, um, um, into the c-c-command structure.”

“There’s a positive spin for you. What are they going to do with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re not kicking you out too, are they?”

“N-N-Not that I know.”

“Kissing up to Balboa, huh?”

“No.”

McGraw laughed. She was a section leader in the NSA analysis section. Jed had met her only once or twice in person, but had spoken to her several times a week for more than a year.

“To work,” she said. “There’s a definite connection between the Kashmir guerrillas and China. They’re going crazy looking for the gadget.”

“Gadget” was McGraw’s way of saying warhead. She summarized a set of NSA intercepts and decrypted messages, then told Jed that the CIA had somewhat similar information from “humanint”—human sources, or spies.

“Word is, though, DIA and Navy intelligence are poopooing it,” added McGraw. “They think China is neutral.”

“Why?”

“Because the words ‘Navy’ and ‘intelligence’ don’t go together?” McGraw laughed. “Did I ever tell you what DIA stands for?”

“Like twenty times,” said Jed.

“Aw, ain’t that cute — you’re turning red.” McGraw chuckled.

“How do you know that?” said Jed, who was.

She laughed even harder.

“The Ch-Ch-Chinese have been firing on Dreamland aircraft,” said Jed.

“Absolutely. But, see, it hasn’t happened to a Navy ship, so they still think China’s neutral,” said McGraw. “I’m forwarding you a report on what we have. We have traffic back and forth, but the encryptions are good. We haven’t broken them.”

“When will you?”

“Don’t know. Not my department. It’s immaterial,” McGraw added. “What do you think they’re talking about? The price of tea?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. Well, let’s wrap this up, hon. I don’t want to keep you from any hot dates.”

Zen woke thirsty, his entire body aching for water. For a second he thought he was home, and he reached his hand toward the small table at the side of the bed, where by habit he usually kept a bottle of springwater. But of course he wasn’t at home, and instead of finding water, his hand swung against the side of his makeshift tent, collapsing it.

The struggle to fix the shelter took his mind off his thirst for a few minutes, but the craving soon returned. His lips felt as if they had shriveled into briquettes of charcoal. His throat had turned to rock, his tongue to sand.

There was about a half liter left in the bottle from his survival pack. How long could he make that last?

Grudgingly, Zen pulled himself to a sitting position and picked up the bottle. Two sips, he told himself. Small ones.

The first was small, but on the second his parched lips took over and he caught himself gulping.

Enough, he told himself, capping the bottle.

If he was thirsty, Breanna must be even more so.

“Hey, are you awake? Bree? Bree?”

He touched her gently, brushing away her hair. Then he moved his hand to her shoulder and pushed more firmly, as if she’d overslept the morning of a mission.

“Bree, come on now. Come on. Got some water. Let’s go.”

She didn’t move. She was breathing, but still far away.

Was she even breathing?

Zen uncapped the bottle and dripped some of the water onto his fingers, then rubbed it onto her lips, his forefinger grabbing at the chapped flesh. It didn’t seem like enough — he cupped his hand in front of her mouth and dribbled it from the bottle, pushing it toward her mouth. But she didn’t drink, and the water slipped away to the ground.

“Come on, Bree. We can’t waste this!”

For a moment he was angry at her, mad as he hadn’t been in months, years — since his accident, when he was mad at everything and everyone, at the world.

“Damn it, Breanna. Get the hell up. Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”

He balled his hand into a fist and pounded his own forehead. The anger disintegrated into fear. Slowly, he recapped the bottle. Tucking it away, he sucked the remaining moisture from his fingers, then crawled out of the tent to see what the new day would bring.

Storm stood on the deck, ignoring the spray as the ship’s low-slung bow ducked up and down in the waves. In order to provide the smallest possible radar signature to an enemy, the Abner Read was designed to sit very low in the water, which meant the deck of its tumble-form hull was always wet. It was not exactly a good place to stroll, even on the calmest of days.

Storm liked it, though; standing on it gave you the feeling that you were part of the water. The salt really was in the wind, as the old cliché had it, and that wind rubbed your face and hands raw. It flapped against your sides, scrubbing the diseases of land away, rubbing off the pollution of politics and bureaucratic bullshit.

Should he defy Woods? The admiral was wrong, clearly wrong — even if the Chinese weren’t preparing the Khan for an attack, even if they had no intention of breaking the truce, wasn’t it in America’s best interests to sink her?

Especially since she had a nuclear weapon aboard.

Sink her. It would take less than a half hour now.

The opportunity was slipping through his grasp. The Khan would be out of range in a few hours.

A gust of wind caught him off balance, nearly sending him off his feet.

Storm steadied himself. He would follow his orders, even if they were misguided. It was his job and his duty. Besides, Eyes would never go against the admiral. He would have to lock him up.

No, that was foolishness. Woods had taken his moment of glory away out of jealousy, and Storm knew there was nothing he could do about it but stand and stare in the Khan’s direction, knowing that somewhere in the future they would meet again.

Lieutenant dancer was waiting for Danny when the Osprey touched with its water-logged load at the Marine camp in the Indian desert. The sun was just starting to rise, and it sent a pink glow across the sand, bathing the woman in an ethereal, angel-like light. It was a good thing Jennifer was with him, Danny thought, because he wouldn’t have trusted himself otherwise.

“Captain Freah, welcome back,” said Dancer, stepping forward and extending her hand. “Glad you’re in one piece.”

“Never a doubt,” said Danny. “How are you, Lieutenant?”

Dancer gave Jennifer a puzzled look. “How did you get here?”

“We needed an expert to look at some of the wiring and circuits on the missiles,” said Danny. “And Jen was available. She jumped in with the Whiplash team.”

“You’re qualified to jump?”

“Jumping’s the easy part,” said Jennifer. “It’s the landing that’s tough.”

Dancer turned back to Danny. “Captain, we have to talk. What happened out there?”

Danny explained about the stillborn baby and the disaster that had followed its birth. Dancer had already heard a similar version of the story from the Marines who were on the mission — including Gunny, who had made it a point to say that he’d advised against sending the men.

“He did,” said Danny. “I take responsibility for my men.”

“The general is worried about how it will look public-relations-wise,” said Dancer. She seemed to disapprove as well, though she didn’t say so.

“Nothing I can do about that.”

Dancer nodded grimly. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” said Danny.

“I have to talk to the pilots,” said Dancer. “I’ll be back.”

“Sure.”

Danny watched her trot away. His attraction toward her hadn’t faded, though it seemed to him she could have been more supportive.

“Lieutenant Klacker’s a pretty unique Marine,” said Jennifer.

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s OK, Danny. I know.”

“Know what?”

She laughed. “Nothing.”

“No, seriously, Jen. Know what?”

“Nothing…You have a crush on her, that’s all.”

“No, I don’t.”

Jennifer laughed even harder.

“I’m married,” said Danny, wondering if he was talking to Jennifer or to himself.

Jennifer smirked, then changed the subject. “Where do you think I can find something to eat around here?”

“There’s a temporary mess tent in that direction,” said Danny, pointing. “They may not have anything hot.”

“As long as it’s edible.”

“That may be pushing it as well,” he said.

“What’d he say?” demanded Blow as soon as he saw Sergeant Liu.

“What do you mean?” Liu asked his fellow Whiplasher.

“Did Captain Freah say something about what happened?”

Jonesy, silent, stared at them from a nearby stool. The sun had just come up, and Liu found its harsh light oppressive, pushing into the corner of his tired eyes.

“You know Cap,” said Liu. “He said what he was going to say already. Case closed.”

“It ain’t closed, Liu. We’re going to be up to our necks because of this.” Blow shook his head and made the loud sigh that had earned him his nickname. “Man, I don’t know.”

“There wasn’t anything we could have done differently,” Liu told him. “I believe that.”

“Is anybody else gonna? We shoulda kept quiet about it. Shit.”

“No, we did the right thing,” said Liu. “God has a plan.”

“God?” said Jones.

“Yeah.”

Jones continued to stare blankly toward him. Liu wanted to tell him — both of them, but Jones especially — what he had felt in the water, what he’d realized, but he couldn’t put it into words. He’d passed some sort of line, not in understanding, but in trusting — but how did you say that? The words would just sound silly, and not convey a tenth of the meaning. He couldn’t even tell himself what had happened.

“I don’t know,” said Blow. “I think they’re going to court-martial us. There’ll be an investigation.”

“Colonel Bastian will understand,” said Liu.

“He’s not going to be in charge of it. We’re supposed to go to the aircraft carrier to talk to Woods. The admiral. You know what that will be like.”

“We know what happened,” said Liu. “And the smart helmets will back us up.”

“Nobody’s going to believe that’s the whole story.”

“They’ll just have to.”

“It really went to shit, didn’t it?” said Jonesy.

Less than forty-eight hours into his command, and already he was scheduled for a tête-à-tête with the National Security Advisor, Defense Secretary, and Secretary of State — not bad for someone whom the Chiefs of Staff had obviously decided to shunt aside, General Samson thought, checking his uniform.

Of course, he also had three men who might be charged with a war crime. Even if he could blame that on Colonel Bastian, the stain might spread to him. Samson had decided he’d have to handle the issue with kid gloves. Certainly he’d defend the men, especially if there was evidence that they weren’t to blame. But if push came to shove, three sergeants weren’t worth jeopardizing his career over.

“They’re ready for us, General,” said Major Catsman.

“How do I look, Natalie?” Samson asked, presenting himself.

“Very good, sir.”

Samson smiled appreciatively. Use a woman’s first name, defer to her judgment on aesthetics, and they’d follow you anywhere.

Catsman could be salvaged, as long as he surrounded her with enough of his own people. He needed a good staff officer, someone who knew the place well, so he could avoid the land mines while reshaping the place.

Catsman led Samson down the main hallway to the elevator. Inside, they had to wait for the security devices to take their measurements.

“We’re getting rid of that thing,” said Samson impatiently.

“General?”

“The biometric thing or whatever the hell it is that’s wasting our time.”

The elevator jerked the doors closed, as if it had overheard. Samson wondered if maybe it had — there was no telling what the eggheads had concocted here.

The video conference had already begun by the time Samson arrived. Colonel Bastian’s red-eyed, stubble-cheeked mug filled the center screen.

“The aircraft were definitely Chinese,” Colonel Bastian was saying. “Absolutely no doubt.”

“Were you over their territory?” asked Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman.

“Not for the better part of the engagement.”

“Which means you were at one point.”

“After we attacked, certainly.”

“Before then?” asked Hartman.

“I’d have to review the mission tape. The border there is tricky.”

“Do these new weapons pose a threat?” asked Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain.

“We can neutralize them now that we realize they exist,” said Dog. “We’ll use radar-emitting decoys.”

“What weapons is he talking about?” Samson asked Catsman.

He thought he was whispering, but his voice was picked up by a nearby microphone and transmitted over the network.

“Good evening, General,” said the Secretary of Defense. “We’re speaking of the radiation homing missiles the Chinese used against the Bennett.”

“I see,” said Samson. Had he been briefed on this earlier? He didn’t think so, but then he’d spent the day listening to so many reports about weapons systems that he couldn’t be sure.

“The missiles aren’t the major threat,” said Bastian. “As more of the power comes back and the military in both India and Pakistan turn their attention back to their borders, it’s going to be difficult for us to operate up there all. The Marines and our Whiplash people are operating very far from the coast — too far. We have to wrap it up quickly.”

“I’m of the opinion that we wrap it up now,” said the Secretary of Defense.

“There are only three warheads left,” said the Secretary of State. “If we don’t get them, someone else will. Terrorists, most likely.”

“The Ch-Ch-Chinese are helping them,” said a young man Samson didn’t recognize.

“Who is that?” Samson asked Catsman. “He has a terrible stutter.”

Again, Samson thought his comments were private. But the session was conducted with open mikes, and everyone on the line heard. The young man — Jed Barclay — turned beet red.

“NSC liaison,” said Catsman.

“Navy intelligence has a different view,” said Admiral Balboa. “They don’t see a link. The Chinese actions can be explained by their own internal needs. And you were over their territory, Bastian. You shouldn’t have fired.”

“I was under fire already,” said the colonel. “I did what I had to defend myself and complete my mission.”

Samson felt torn. Bastian was surely correct, and one of his people; the general felt he should stick up for him. But on the other hand, Balboa was the head of the Joint Chiefs, and the lieutenant colonel’s tone was hardly respectful.

“And then there’s the matter of that baby,” said Balboa. “Wait until the media gets a hold of that. Al Jazeera, or whatever that damn Arab television station is — they’ll crucify us.”

“I take responsibility, Admiral,” said Bastian.

That was just what Samson wanted to hear. The colonel explained the circumstances, adding that the entire incident had been caught on video.

“So we’ve heard,” said Balboa. “I, for one, haven’t seen it.”

“As tragic as it was,” said Admiral Woods, “it does appear to have been an accident. The Dreamland people uploaded some of the digitalized recording of the event. Obviously, I still want to speak to the men, but from what I’ve seen—”

“I’m looking into it personally myself,” said Samson, protecting his territory. “I’m going to speak to them. I’ll make a full report.”

Woods frowned. There would be a question of jurisdiction and priority — the men were under Samson’s command but had been operationally controlled by him. Who took precedence?

As far as Samson was concerned, he did. He prepared for a fight, but before he could say anything else, the Secretary of State changed the subject.

“Where are the other warheads?” asked Hartman. “How long before they’re found?”

“Colonel Bastian is the best source on that,” said the admiral.

“We’re not sure,” said Bastian. “Probably in the far border areas around western Pakistan and northern India, near the Chinese border. The scientists are still refining the estimates.

Additional U-2s and Global Hawk drones have arrived in the area and are flying at night, using infrared and low-light sensors. The scientists are tweaking some of the image reading data to make them more effective. Dr. Rubeo can give you the technical information on the search plots and everything related to them.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Ray Rubeo.

Rubeo was sitting quietly at a front console on the right, head stooped down as if he were one of the engineers and techies monitoring systems — so low-key, in fact, that Samson hadn’t noticed him until now. The general kept his displeasure in check as the scientist flashed a brief presentation on the screen showing the possible locations of the three missiles. The presentation was brief and professional, but it still angered Samson — he should have seen it first.

“We are still developing theories on what happened,” added Rubeo. “I can bore you with the technical details, or we can move on.”

His voice dripped with arrogance, but none of the others peeped.

“Until the President orders otherwise, we have to proceed with the operation,” said Chastain. “But it can’t go on indefinitely.”

“Indeed,” said Rubeo. “I would note that the power grids in the affected countries have now been offline for twenty-four hours more than our original projections predictions. We may be living on borrowed time.”

The tired chatter of the Bennett’s crew as they walked toward their quarters irked Michael Englehardt more than he could say. It wasn’t just that they were talking about a mission he should have been on; it was the fact that they were talking about Colonel Bastian in such glowing terms.

Ol’ Dog did this, and then he said that…Could you believe how he got the ship to stand still in the air? He sucked that Sukhoi right into the Stinger air mines…I’ve never seen anything like that…Can’t teach an old Dog new tricks — he knows them all…

And on and on and on until Englehardt thought he would puke.

It was his fault. He should have been on the mission himself, at least a copilot. He’d acted like a jerk. Bastian had blindsided him, taking over the plane, but still, he should have kept his mouth shut.

Not that it was fair. But now his days at Dreamland were probably numbered.

“You shoulda been there, Mikey,” said Sullivan as they entered the dormitory-style building they’d been given for personal quarters. “What a wild night.”

“I wanted to be there,” said Englehardt.

“Yeah.” Sullivan immediately turned away.

“Next time,” said Englehardt, trying but failing to sound optimistic.

Colonel Bastian rubbed his eyes and started to get up from the communications console in the Dreamland Control trailer.

“Hold on there, Tecumseh,” said General Samson, his voice vibrating the speakers over the unit. “Where are you going?”

“I thought we were done,” said Dog. “I was thinking—”

“There are a few things I wanted to speak to you about in private.”

“I’d really like to catch some sleep,” Dog told Samson. “I just got back from my mission.”

“That’s number one — what the hell are you doing flying missions?”

“What?”

“You have plenty of pilots out there now. Put them to good use. Yes, I understand the need for a commander to lead from the front,” added Samson, his voice somewhat more sympathetic. “But you’re spending far too much time in the air to actually do your job — your real job — of supervising the men. All the men, not just one plane crew.”

Dog was too tired to argue — and Samson didn’t give him much of an opening, moving right on to his next subject.

“I want full reports on all of the programs Dreamland is conducting. And a personnel review. How long will it take you to get that all together?”

“As soon as I get back I can—”

“I want you to start working on it immediately.”

“I have a mission here to run.”

“Devote as much time as possible to it. If you’re not flying, you’ll have more time. Those Whiplash men — I want to talk to them before they talk to Admiral Woods. Do you understand? They’re part of my command. I talk to them first. Not as a Navy admiral. Now do you understand?”

“Sure.”

“And another thing…”

Samson paused, obviously for effect. Dog felt so tired he thought he would teeter toward the floor.

“Briefings will now be done through me,” said the general finally.

“Which briefings?”

“Briefings with administration officials,” said Samson. “That’s my job. You provide the information to me. I interface.”

“Anything you want, General,” said Dog.

He reached over and hit the button to kill the communications. Then he got to his feet, suddenly feeling ten times more tired than when he’d come into the trailer, and he’d been pretty tired then.

“Bedtime,” he muttered, going to the door — where Mike Englehardt practically knocked him over.

“Colonel, can we talk?” said Englehardt.

“What is it, Mike?”

“Colonel, I want to, uh — apologize. I was a — I mean, I—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t sweat it, Mike.”

Dog started to push past. Englehardt grabbed his shoulder.

Surprised, Dog looked the pilot in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” said Englehardt. “I really want to fly. Pilot, copilot, whatever you say. As long as I’m in the cockpit.”

“Well, that’s good, because you’re going to take the Bennett on its next mission. Now let go of my arm so I can go get some sleep, all right?”

The day was warmer than the one before, but less humid, and if not for their extreme circumstances, he might have considered the weather perfect. Trying not to think of his thirst, Zen made several radio calls and rearranged the rocks that helped support their tent so a bit more sunlight fell on Breanna. Finally he began moving down to the water, intending to swim back to the spot where he’d caught the turtle the day before. He was just getting into the water when he heard a shout.

One of the boys was back, paddling his small boat.

“Bart Simpson!” called the youth. It was the youngest one, the first one he’d spotted.

“Hey, Bart!” Zen yelled back. He did his best to hide his surprise that the kid had returned.

The wooden hull of the boy’s boat skidded against the shore and he climbed out, pulling a pack with him.

Zen’s heart jumped.

“You brought a phone?” Zen asked. “Cell phone?”

“Phone? No.”

The boy dropped to his knees in front of him, plopping the bag between them.

“Eat for you,” said the kid, pulling a fist-sized package from the bag. It was wrapped in brown paper. A strong odor announced it was fish. The flesh looked purple.

“For me?” asked Zen.

“You.”

Zen devoured it. The fish tasted like bad sardines drenched in coconut and vinegar, but he would have eaten ten more handfuls had the boy brought them. He was so hungry he licked at the paper.

“So,” he said finally. “No phone, huh?”

“Why do you want phone?”

“I want to call my friends.”

“No phone. Who are you? Not Bart?”

Zen guessed that the boy had been quizzed by his parents or other adults when he went home with the turtle. They might be waiting for his answers now, to decide what to do.

He had no idea what was going on in the world beyond this atoll. He wondered if the Chinese had managed to use their nuke, and if so, if the Indians would blame them for the destruction.

“Is there a war?” Zen asked the boy, not sure how to phrase his question.

“War?”

“Did people die?”

The boy looked at him blankly. He was old enough to know what war was, but maybe his village was so isolated he had no idea.

“Where do you live?” Zen asked the child.

“Where do you live, Bart?”

“Where do I live? Las Vegas,” said Zen. “Near there.”

“Vegas?”

“Slot machines. Casinos. Las Vegas.”

“Springfield?”

Springfield was the fictional setting for The Simpsons television show.

“That’s not a real place, kid,” blurted Zen. “I live near Vegas. That’s real.”

The boy’s face fell.

“You know that’s a television show, right? Make believe?” asked Zen. He realized he’d made a mistake, a bad mistake, but didn’t know how to recover.

The kid started to retreat.

“Hey! Don’t go!” yelled Zen. “No. Don’t.”

But it was too late. The boy pushed the small boat into the water without looking back. Lying across the shallow gunwales, he stroked back toward the sea, turning right and quickly fading from Zen’s view.

Despite a two-hour nap, Jennifer was still feeling groggy when she sat down with Danny Freah and Dancer to review the situation with the experts at Dreamland Command. The possible locations for the three remaining warheads had now been narrowed down to approximately five-mile rectangles. New data from a pair of U-2s and a Global Hawk scouring the region near northern India and northeastern Pakistan would be available by nightfall.

“Tonight may be it,” said Colonel Bastian, coordinating the briefing from Diego Garcia. “Power is coming back all through the subcontinent, and both countries are pushing their militaries to resume patrols. And then there’s the Chinese.”

They were participating in the briefing via an external speaker and microphone hooked into Danny’s smart helmet. Jennifer couldn’t see Dog’s tired face as he spoke, but she knew what it would look like — thick, sagging bags beneath his eyes, taut lips, hollowed out cheeks.

He’d have shaved before he came on duty. He wouldn’t have waited for hot water, just scraped his chin clean as quickly as possible.

But thorough. He had a system that he never deviated from.

“Any word on Zen and Bree?” Danny asked as the briefing came to an end.

Dog paused a second longer than normal before answering, and that half of a half second told Jennifer everything. She could almost feel his chest expanding in the next moment as he took in a breath — a stabilizing breath — before answering.

“Nothing yet,” said Dog.

“They’ll find them.”

“Yup.”

And then he was gone, without even saying anything to her.

It took Jennifer a minute or two to return her thoughts fully to the operation. By then Danny and Dancer had drawn up a plan for dividing the Marines into three groups and retrieving the warheads once they were located.

“Wait,” she told them as they started to get up from their camp chairs. “Who am I going with?”

Dancer glanced at Danny, then said to her, “You’re staying here, aren’t you? There are more tests you have to do.”

“The tests are a waste of time,” Jennifer replied. “I can help disable the weapons.”

“I don’t think we need you, Jen. No offense,” said Danny.

“I’ll go with Dancer,” she said.

“I have one of the Navy guys,” said Dancer, referring to the members of the nuclear team. “The other will be with Gunny on the third team.”

“So who’s going with you?” Jennifer asked Danny.

“Just me,” he told her. “I’ve done this a couple of times now.”

“What if you get hurt? You have no backup.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m going to get something to eat,” she told him. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

Twice, Zen thought he saw aircraft crossing the sky. Not wanting to carry anything that would make it difficult for him to swim back, he’d left the radio back at the tent. All he could do was stare at the sky, trying to make the wisps of clouds form into something tangible.

He had no luck with turtles. Perhaps he had found the only two on the small atoll yesterday, or maybe the one that escaped had somehow alerted the rest of the species. He sat for a while in the shallow shelf, staring at the water around him, and then just staring, wondering what to do next.

Sooner or later someone would hear one of his broadcasts. They’d track them down and then come for them. There was no place on earth so desolate that someone somewhere wouldn’t come across you.

But what if the unthinkable had happened, if he and Bree, and the kids they’d seen yesterday, were the only people left?

He couldn’t get the idea out of his mind.

Tired, and convinced that there were no more turtles, he pushed his way back to the sea. He turned his head so the side of his face barely touched the water and began gently stroking back to Breanna.

He didn’t see them until he was only a few yards away, and then all he saw were their legs, brown and scarred.

Zen’s heart jumped. He raised his body, pushing his gaze upward until he could see their backs and then their heads. There were three of them — boys. They were arrayed in front of the tent, standing a few feet away from it in a semicircle. If they’d had sticks or any sort of other weapon, he would not have been able to control his rage. As it was, he just barely managed to stay calm.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” he yelled.

The three kids turned around. The one on the right was the older boy who’d come yesterday. The others were about his age.

“So what’s happening?” Zen asked. He pushed himself up the incline toward the tent, then pulled himself into a sitting position so he sat near their legs. “One of you guys bring a phone?”

“You’re American,” said one of the boys. He had a light birthmark on his cheek, as if someone had pressed a thumb to his face at birth.

“Yeah. That’s right. Where are you from?” Zen asked.

The boy gestured. “Here.”

“I didn’t see your house.”

The kid laughed again, then said something to the others, probably sharing the joke.

“I was wondering if you guys could help me get in touch with my friends,” said Zen. “I need some sort of phone.”

He wasn’t sure if what he said was too colloquial or too fast, or if the boys simply didn’t want to help him. In any event, they didn’t respond, still talking among themselves. Zen felt his pulse quickening, his apprehension suddenly stoked. The kids might not have weapons, but there were rocks all around.

The gun was in the tent.

“So what do you guys do?” he asked loudly, trying to break through their conversation and gain some sort of control over the situation. He pushed himself to the right, angling a little closer to Breanna. “What’s school like?”

“School?” said the young man who’d been there the day before.

“Well, you guys speak English pretty well. I’m sure you go to school.”

“Where do you go to school?” asked the boy with the birthmark on his face.

“Actually, I’m done,” said Zen. “Stanford University. I studied engineering. You ever hear of it? Stanford? California?”

When they didn’t respond, Zen asked if any of them wanted to be engineers when they grew up.

“You are a pilot, not an engineer,” said the boy with the birthmark. He said it quickly, with a bit of anger — he thought Zen was trying to trick him somehow.

“That’s right, I am. But usually you study something else too. Flying is one thing, and you want to learn other things. People study all kinds of things. Literature, sometimes. A lot of engineering and science. Math. Fun stuff. For me.”

The boy made a face.

What did he think of when he was twelve or thirteen? Zen wondered. He needed to make conversation, to say something that would make a connection. He didn’t want to sound desperate, though clearly he was.

“Do you guys like to fly?” he asked.

“Fly?” said the boy from yesterday. “We can’t fly.”

“In planes. When I was your age, that was all I thought about. Flying.”

“How did you get here?” demanded the boy with the birthmark. His tone was more aggressive than before.

“Our plane was shot down,” Zen said. “The Chinese and Pakistanis were going to attack your country. We got in the way.”

“The Muslims are scum,” said the boy with the birthmark. The others began speaking with him in their native language. They seemed to be vying with each other to make the strongest denunciation of their enemy.

“Was there an attack on your village?” asked Zen.

The young men ignored him. Their conversation had shifted; the boy who had been silent gestured at Zen, telling the others something.

Zen slid closer to the tent. He had no doubt that he could fight them off if they piled on him, but if they were clever, if they picked up rocks, if they attacked Breanna instead of him, he wasn’t sure what would happen.

“Can you guys get me a phone?” he asked. “A cell phone? I can call my people.”

They ignored him, and started walking up over the hill.

“Water?” Zen asked. “Can you bring us some drinking water?”

They made no sign that they heard him, and within minutes were out of sight.

Money didn’t help very much in the far northern reaches of Pakistan. Knowing people did.

Fortunately for General Sattari, he knew people.

A distant cousin of Sattari’s ran a madrassa religious school in the foothills about a hundred miles north of Islamabad. Though not a spy himself, the cousin had helped Iran establish a spy network here, and in turn the Iranian government had helped his school, supplying texts and a small stipend that paid for about a dozen students at a time. They shared space with an assortment of farm animals, including chickens and goats, in a small, white brick compound tucked into the hillside.

“I am honored to help you,” said his cousin when Sattari arrived. “You should have given me more notice.”

“Had it been possible, I would have,” said the general, following him into a small sitting room at the front of the building. “But your lights are out. How did you get my message?”

“There are no power lines here.” His cousin gestured to the candles. “This is how we see all year round. I have a generator in the back,” he added. “It supplies what we need for the computer, and to charge the satellite phones. We are not like the Saudis. They are the ones with the money to burn. So much that it makes them foolish.”

The Saudis were Sunni teachers who ran schools throughout northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Many were aligned with men like bin Laden, who used them to help train supporters sworn to wage holy war against the West. While Sattari did not much mind the results, he considered bin Laden and his ilk amateurs incapable of inflicting real damage.

“I’ve heard the Saudis have been active here,” said Sattari. “There are rumors they have made a pact with the Chinese.”

“Yes. They are looking for fallen aircraft parts,” said his cousin. “They offer a good reward.”

“I’m looking for something myself,” said Sattari. “And I can pay more than the Saudis. But it is imperative that I get to it before they do.”

A young man entered the room with a tray of tea. He placed it on the table in front of them, then poured them both a cup. Neither Sattari nor his cousin spoke. When the young man left, Sattari’s cousin closed his eyes and bent his head, reciting a silent prayer of thanks.

Sattari bowed his head out of respect for his cousin.

“I think we may be able to assist you,” said his cousin, lifting his cup. “Warm yourself, and then we will talk.”

The more he thought about it — and unable to sleep at 4:00 a.m., it was all he thought about — the more Samson realized Dreamland was not big enough for both him and Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian. And the more he thought about that, the more he realized that he was better off dealing with the problem sooner rather than later, and in person.

But Bastian was also on to something, leading from the front. Being out there in Diego Garcia, where the action was — that was the secret of his success. Dreamland’s high-tech communications gizmos kept him in touch with what was going on back home. Then when the big shots wanted to talk to him, where did they see him but in the thick of things? No wonder he had such a sterling rep.

He could do that himself, Samson thought. He had to do that himself.

And now. Right now. Before Bastian was too big to deal with. He’d go directly to Diego Garcia and assert his personal control.

It would mean leaving someone else in charge at Dreamland while he was gone. The only practical choice was Major Catsman; the few staff officers he’d brought with him were still working out where the restrooms were. She would no doubt be ineffective in dealing with Rubeo, who, despite having toned down his antagonism, showed no sign of actually coming to heel. But Bastian was the bigger problem, Samson decided; once he was dealt with, the other dominos would fall.

The general sat down at the desk in the small VIP apartment he’d commandeered and pulled out the base directory. At a good-sized command, the directory would be a substantial phone book listing the various officers, their responsibilities, and contact information. The Dreamland directory, by contrast, was barely twenty pages long, and most of the listings were for civilian scientists and supervisors.

That was going to change, ASAP. They were seriously undermanned. He needed money, he needed head count, and he was going to get both.

Samson found the officer responsible for scheduling and assigning flights and, despite the hour, called him at home.

“This is Samson,” he said when the groggy captain picked up the phone. “What’s the status of our VIP aircraft?”

“What VIP aircraft, sir?”

“What does Bastian use to get around? Where is it?”

“The colonel doesn’t have a VIP aircraft. Generally on a Whiplash deployment he would be one of the pilots, and is assigned to that aircraft.”

“What about a nondeployment?”

“Well, it would depend, I guess—”

“How would he get to Washington, Captain?”

“Commercial flight.”

Samson shook his head. “I need a plane that can get me to Diego Garcia, and I want it ready immediately. Understood?”

“Sure, General. What sort of plane do you want?”

“One that is waiting for me on the runway no more than two hours from now,” said Samson, and hung up. Then he put a red X next to the captain’s name in the directory.

Dog stood on the cement apron just outside the Dreamland Command trailer, watching as the Cheli took off. The Megafortress looked like a vulture in the red light of the horizon-hugging sun. In addition to a Flighthawk beneath each wing, she carried a pair of radar decoys; Sidewinder antiair missiles were loaded at the wingtips.

Two additional warhead sites had been tentatively identified about a hundred miles apart in the area north of Jamu, technically in India though the border was in dispute. The Cheli and the Bennett would each support a separate recovery mission. If the third warhead was positively located, whichever aircraft was closer would swing over to cover that recovery.

Power had been restored in about a third of southern India in the past few hours; even if the third missile wasn’t found, Dog feared this would be the last mission they would undertake.

“Feared” because when the mission was over, the search for Breanna and Zen would end as well.

While the search for the two pilots was continuing, an unspoken adjustment had already been made. While no one said so, the mission had become more a recovery than a rescue. This long after a bailout, the odds of finding either alive was very slim. The searchers, of course, knew that, and would make subtle adjustments, no longer pushing themselves to the limit.

Dog wasn’t quite ready to make the adjustment himself. But neither could he pretend that it was likely he would see his daughter or son-in-law alive again. All he could do was stare at the Cheli, watching it disappear into the purple sky.

Danny Freah pushed up the visor on his smart helmet as he clambered down to the missile, deciding there was enough light from the moon to see without using the night-vision shield. The weapon seemed to have skidded to a landing as if it were a disabled aircraft, perhaps after a glancing blow against a nearby cliff as it descended. Aside from a large gash at the side of the housing below the warhead assembly, much of the missile was still intact.

A light flashed as Jennifer Gleason snapped a photo of the overall location before descending to examine the warhead.

“You want to take a look at this, Captain!” yelled one of the Marines near the warhead.

“Hey, Jen, something’s up,” yelled Danny, starting to trot down the embankment. About a third of the way, he tripped over something and began to slide on his back, sledding down the hill until his foot caught on a large boulder.

Cursing, he got up and stalked to the missile. He expected some good-natured ribbing from the Marines gathered around the warhead, but they were silent, staring at the banged-up metal.

One of the access panels on the warhead had separated from the rest of the skin just enough to let light shine through from the inside.

Light. The internal works had not been completely fried.

Jennifer knelt down in front of the panel without saying a word. Danny watched as she took a star-head screwdriver from her small pack of tools and gingerly unscrewed the panel. A bank of LEDs on the circuit board were lit.

“Huh,” she said.

Danny reach to the back of his helmet for the communications button.

“You see this, Dreamland?”

“Yes,” said Anna Klondike. “Stand by. And please tell Ms. Gleason not to touch anything.”

During the whole flight, pilot Michael Englehardt felt out of sync, as if he’d stepped into a movie moving about a half frame faster than he was.

It was ironic. He’d been so keyed up for the sortie before it happened, so ready to go — and so mad at Dog for taking him off the last mission — but now everything just seemed wrong. Or he seemed wrong, almost out of place. The crew didn’t respond to him the way they used to. In the space of twenty-four hours, less, they’d become strangers. And so had the plane.

“Indian radar site just powered up,” said his copilot, Kevin Sullivan. “Shouldn’t be able to see us from this distance, but it may catch the Osprey on the way out. We’ll have to alert them.”

“Yeah, roger that.”

“You want me to do that?”

“Yeah, jeez, come on, Kevin. Do it.”

“Two aircraft from the southeast,” announced Sergeant Rager, the airborne radar controller. “At 250 miles. MiG-29Bs. Must be out of Adampur.”

Englehardt’s heart began to pound, and suddenly his throat felt dry. He checked his position on the map, then double checked, basically stalling for time.

What was he supposed to do?

He’d been in situations like this dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times — in simulations. He’d always handled it then.

Now?

Now he was still moving a step behind. What was going on?

“Flighthawk leader to Bennett—you want me to send Hawk Two out that way?” asked Starship, downstairs in the Flighthawk bay.

“Roger that,” he said. “Check them out. Copilot — Kevin, they challenge us?”

“Negative.”

“Radar, continue to track. If they continue on course, we’ll ask their intentions. If they show hostile signs, we’ll shoot them down.”

His voice cracked as he finished the sentence. Englehardt winced, hoping no one else would notice. Then he reached for the water bottle he kept tucked in his pants leg, his throat bone dry.

Jennifer got down on her belly so she could see the interior of the weapon better, then pushed the electronic probes toward the two points at the far end of the circuit board. The narrow, needlelike probes felt as if they were frozen solid. Anna Klondike had assured Danny that taking the measurements would not cause the weapon to explode. But Jennifer had had too much experience with integrated circuits gone bad to feel completely at ease.

“OK,” she told Danny as the needles made contact. “Take the reading, please.”

“Zero.”

Jennifer pulled the probes back, then straightened.

“Well? What did they say?”

Danny put up his hand. He was wearing his smart helmet, visor up, listening to the experts at Dreamland.

“They say there’s about a twenty percent chance that it’s armed,” he told her. “If that’s the case, it can go off at any time.”

“No way.”

“You want to talk to them?”

“Yes.”

Danny pulled off his helmet and put it on Jennifer’s head. It felt heavy, and she had to steady it with both hands.

“This is Jennifer Gleason.”

“And this is Ray Rubeo,” said the scientist. “Why am I talking to you?”

“This bomb is armed?”

“There is a possibility.”

“If it was armed, it would have exploded by now.”

Rubeo snorted.

“Don’t you think?” Jennifer added, slightly less sure of herself.

“The fail-safe circuitry is dead,” said Rubeo. “Now is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“You have the experts there. What do they think?”

“They are divided. We have steps for you to take.”

“Is it going to blow up if I do the wrong thing?” Jennifer asked.

“It may. It may very well go off if you do the right thing.”

“I wish you had a sense of humor, Ray. Then I would think you were joking.”

Starship corrected slightly as the Indian MiG tacked gently to the north. The MiG was still on a dead run for the Megafortress, about a hundred miles away. The two planes were closing in on each other at a rate of about seventeen miles a minute.

“Bennett, this is Flighthawk leader. I’m about two minutes from the MiGs. What’s your call?”

“Let’s find out what their intentions are,” said Englehardt. “Sullivan, see if you can contact them.”

The pilot’s voice sounded a little shaky. Starship had flown with him once or twice, not long enough to form an opinion. He seemed tentative, but then the prospect of combat could do that the first time you faced it. Starship remembered his first combat sortie — he’d emptied his stomach as soon as they landed.

“Indians don’t answer our radio calls,” said Sullivan.

“Try again,” said Englehardt.

The Indians called the MiG-29 “Baez”—Eagle. The models coming toward the Bennett were the initial version produced by the Mikoyan Opytno-Konstruktorskoye Byuro in the 1980s. A twin-engined, lightweight fighter-bomber, the MiG-29 was an extremely maneuverable aircraft, and generally came equipped with a pair of medium-range R-27 Alamos and four shorter range R-73 Archers. The MiG was considerably faster than the Flighthawk, but had one serious disadvantage — its N019 coherent-pulse Doppler radar could not see the Flighthawk until it was in extremely close range.

The attack pattern Starship mapped out took advantage of that; it was unlikely that the MiG driver would know he was there until the first bullets began smashing through his fuselage.

Assuming Starship got the go-ahead to fire. While the MiGs had not answered the calls from the Bennett to identify themselves, they hadn’t made any overtly aggressive moves, either.

Hawk Two was now a minute away.

“Bennett, how are we proceeding here?” Starship asked.

“Just hang on a minute, Flighthawk leader,” said Englehardt.

“Roger that,” said Starship, throttling back.

Englehardt couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He just couldn’t think.

A voice inside his head seemed to be screaming at him: Don’t blow it!

I won’t.

Don’t!

“Still nothing,” said Sullivan in the copilot’s seat. “They obviously know we’re here.”

“Their attack radars on?”

“Negative.”

Not answering their hails was provocative, Englehardt thought, but not threatening. His orders of engagement were pretty clear that he was to fire only if threatened.

On the other hand, if he let these planes get much closer and they did turn on their attack radars, it might be too late to get away.

“Bennett, this is Flighthawk leader. What do you want me to do?” asked Starship.

A good, legitimate question, Englehardt thought. And his good, legitimate answer was — he didn’t know.

“I don’t see these planes as a threat to us at the moment,” he told Starship.

“What if they’re carrying dumb bombs and are going to use them on the recovery team?” asked Sullivan.

He wants us to take them down, Englehardt thought. Maybe he’s right. Better safe than sorry.

“I have a suggestion, Bennett,” said Starship.

“Make it,” said Englehardt.

“Let’s move our orbit away from the ground team. See if they follow. I’ll keep Hawk Two near them, ready for an intercept.”

Good, Starship, good.

Englehardt wondered why he hadn’t thought of it — it was a simple, obvious move.

“Good. Let’s do that,” he said. “Sully, we’re going east.”

“Hey, I got something on the ground, on the highway that runs to the valley,” said Sergeant Daly, working the ground radar. “Four trucks, Humvee-sized. Moving through the passes. Real hard to get these suckers on radar with these mountains and vegetation. Yeah, all right — they’re about ten miles from the recovery area. Four of them.”

“Tell Captain Freah,” said Englehardt, the screech creeping back into his voice.

“Nothing,” said Danny Freah. “Zero. No current.”

“Very good, Captain,” said Klondike. “Now we’re going to try the oscilloscope readings.”

Danny passed the information on to Jennifer, who sighed and sat back from the warhead, fluttering her fingers as if trying to get rid of a cramp.

“Can we take a short break?” Danny asked.

“As long as you need.”

Before Danny could acknowledge, there was a buzz on the line, indicating that someone else on the Dreamland network wanted to talk to him. He switched over to channel two, where Kevin Sullivan, the copilot of the Bennett, warned him about the ground units.

“They’re about ten miles south of you,” Sullivan warned. “Coming up that road that cuts back and forth through the valley. They’re hard to track because of the terrain and trees.”

“Copy that.”

Danny yelled to the Marine sergeant in charge of the detail, telling him to pass the word about the trucks. Then he switched back to Dreamland Command.

“How much longer before the warhead is safe to move?” he asked.

“Three more steps,” said Klondike.

“How long will it take?”

“Five minutes, maybe. But first we have a series of tests. If we get the wrong result—”

“We have ground troops moving in our direction,” Danny told her. “If I can get the hell out of here before they arrive, I’d be a very happy man.”

“Stand by.”

Danny flipped back to the Bennett. “How fast is that ground unit moving?”

“Not very fast,” replied Sullivan. “Maybe fifteen miles an hour. That road takes a lot of turns and switchbacks.”

“Can you give me a visual from Hawk One?”

“Affirmative. Stand by.”

“No, I’m going to have to get back to you,” said Danny. “I’ll talk directly to Starship.”

He ducked down to Jennifer and pulled off the helmet. “We have troops coming up the road in our direction. Find out the quickest way to get this thing ready to move. Then give me the helmet back, OK?”

She bit her lip, then nodded and took the helmet.

Starship turned Hawk Two away from the MiGs, then took over Hawk One. Slipping down toward the unit the ground radar had spotted, he cut between a pair of 3,000 foot cliffs and shot into an open valley.

The jagged road twisted and turned across what looked like a dry streambed. A dozen men were riding on the backs or tops of the four vehicles, which had their lights out.

“Starship, you with me?” asked Danny Freah.

“Yeah, here we go, Captain. This is a live feed.” He banked, and took another run up the road, this time from the rear of the column. “Four trucks, a dozen guys or so hanging on them. They’re moving pretty slow. About forty minutes away from you, maybe a little more.”

“Yeah, listen, take a run all the way up that road for me again, OK?”

“On it.”

Starship tucked the Flighthawk through a nearby canyon, then back up and over the low mountain before falling into the valley the road ran through. One of the passes was so narrow that the computer gave him a proximity warning as he shot through. Starship ignored it, tucking the Flighthawk to the right to stay with the trail.

He took a quick look at Hawk Two. The MiGs were about thirty seconds from overtaking it. So far they hadn’t changed course or acknowledged the Bennett’s repeated attempts to contact them. He notched up the Flighthawk’s speed, then jumped back into Hawk One.

“You see that ledge on my side of that tight pass?” Danny asked as Starship climbed over the recovery site.

“I think I know which one you mean.”

“Any chance you could get some rocks into it?”

“You mean start an avalanche?”

“That’s it.”

“Let me take another look.”

Starship brought the airplane around and swooped toward what looked like a sheer, solid cliff. He wasn’t sure the relatively small missiles the Flighthawk held would do much.

Now that he had the idea planted in his head, however, he started hunting for a place where it might work.

“There’s a spot about two miles south of you where a bunch of boulders are piled against the side of the road,” he told Danny. “There are some small trees holding them back, but I think if I put the missiles there we’d get something on the road. Downside is, if it doesn’t work, I won’t have any missiles to use against the trucks.”

“Give it a shot,” Danny told him.

“Roger that.”

“Indian fighters are passing the Flighthawk, still coming for us,” said Daly at the radar.

“Let’s move farther north,” said Englehardt. “Let’s see how far we can bring them.”

“Should we target these guys or what?” asked Sullivan. “They’re just about in range to fire at us.”

Englehardt started to say no, then reconsidered. If he let them fire first, could he avoid their missiles and fire the Anacondas?

He started to reach for the radio to ask for instructions, then stopped. His rules of engagement covered the situation — avoid firing except to protect the mission, and himself. He didn’t need authorization from anyone, or advice.

If he called Dreamland Control, he’d look weak, wouldn’t he? That’s what he was really worried about.

So what was he going to do? Was there a threat or not?

Colonel Bastian had been right to bump him the other day. He couldn’t make a decision.

Screw it.

Just make a decision. Either way. Do it.

He took a breath.

“Hold off on the Anacondas,” he said. “If they get hostile, we have a bunch of things we can do.”

“Roger that,” said Sullivan, not sounding particularly convinced.

The computer helping Starship fly the Flighthawk beeped at him when he boxed the rocks at the side of the cliff on the weapons screen, asking if he was sure he knew what he was doing.

“Confirm target,” said Starship.

The computer replied by turning the small aiming reticule red. Starship pressed the trigger button at the top of his stick and began dumping lead into the pile of rocks. They disappeared in a cloud of dust.

A fine mist of dirt still covered the area when he swung back, and even the Flighthawk’s radar couldn’t see whether the road had been blocked or not. Starship continued past, moving down the road toward the Indian column a few miles away. Apparently they’d heard the commotion; the trucks had stopped and the men were crouched around them and in the nearby rocks.

As Starship turned to come back north, the computer warned him that the MiGs were past Hawk Two.

“Bennett, what are we doing with those MiGs?” he asked.

“We’re going to lead them away from the ground party,” replied Englehardt.

“Well, yeah, roger that, but they’re inside fifty miles.”

“I know where they are, Flighthawk leader.”

Starship changed course, angling in the direction the Bennett was taking. The MiGs had slowed down but were still about three miles ahead, out of range of sure cannon shot for the robot aircraft.

He went back to Hawk One, bringing it up the road. The cloud of dust had cleared. The road was blocked — but only partially.

“You seeing this, Danny?” he asked Captain Freah.

“Roger that,” said Danny.

“Good enough?”

“It’ll have to do.”

Jennifer jerked back as the leds on the larger of the two circuit cards in front of her began to flash.

“Danny, I need the helmet right now!” she yelled, still staring at the lights.

Danny plopped the helmet down on her head, catching her ear in the process.

“Ray, I have blinking lights here,” she said, trying to make her voice sound calm. “What does this mean?”

“Move the helmet a bit so we can see,” said Rubeo.

He sounded real calm, she thought. But of course, why wouldn’t he?

“Jennifer, locate the green wire with the white striping at the left, and snip it.”

“Snip it? You told me five minutes ago we weren’t cutting anything.”

“The thinking has changed.”

“Why?”

“Ms. Gleason, there comes a time when you have to let the pilot fly the plane. Just cut the wire.”

Jennifer leaned over, took the narrow-headed wire cutters from the blanket where she had laid it out, and moved her hand carefully beneath the circuit board. Gingerly working her fingers against the strands, she separated the wire from the bunch. Her hand shook slightly; she steadied the cutters against their target with the forefinger of her other hand and snipped.

Then began promptly cursing, because she had caught her finger as well.

“Jennifer?” asked Rubeo.

“The lights are out,” she said, looking at the tiny balls of blood that seemed to percolate up from the red line on her finger where she’d caught it. “The LEDs are out.”

“Very good. One more step and the warhead can be moved.”

“How good an electrical conductor do you think blood is?” she said as the small spheres turned to a large drop and oozed off her finger.

“Surprisingly good,” replied Rubeo. “I wouldn’t test it.”

The terrain was so rugged to the south that the Marines manning the observation point there couldn’t even see the landslide. Sergeant Norm Ganson, in charge of the landing team security, didn’t trust the eye-in-the-sky assessment and sent two men down to assess the damage.

“Four vehicles, a dozen guys — we can hold them off, no sweat,” the Marine sergeant told Danny.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Danny replied. He trotted back to Jennifer, whom he found squatting next to the bomb, her left forefinger in her mouth.

“Jen?”

“We can move the warhead now,” she said, rising.

“What happened to your hand? It’s bleeding.”

“It got in the way. Can you spare anybody to attach those straps, or should I do it myself?”

It was their wedding, but not their wedding. Breanna danced in her long white dress, sailing across the altar of the church, into the churchyard, the walls and roof of the building vaporized by Zen’s dream. She floated on the air and he followed, alone in a white and brown world, stumbling on the rocks. The band played in a large, empty fountain, arrayed around a cement statue of a forgotten saint, his face chipped away by centuries of neglect. Every time he held his hand out to his wife, she danced farther away, moving through the air as easily as if she were walking. She lay herself down on a bench, holding her arms out to him, but when he arrived, she floated off, just out of reach.

A bird passed overhead, then another, then a flock. Breanna looked at them and started to rise. She was smiling.

“Bree,” he called. “Bree.”

As she glanced down toward him a look of sorrow appeared on her face, her sadness so painful that it froze him in place. He felt his heart shrivel inside his chest, all of his organs disintegrating, his bones pushing inward suddenly. He wanted to say more but her look stopped him, her sadness so deep that the entire world turned black.

And she was gone.

Englehardt knew he could beat the MiGs if they fired. He saw in his mind exactly what he’d do: jive and jab and zigzag while Sullivan hit the ECMs. He’d drop low, then come up swinging — fire the Anacondas at point-blank range.

The question was: What would he do if they didn’t fire?

“Still coming at us,” said Rager. “Slowing.”

Englehardt checked his position. The Bennett was close to the Chinese border — another problem, he thought; if he went over it, the Chinese might send someone to investigate as well.

That might be a good idea. He could duck out of the way and let the two enemies go at it.

“MiGs are thirty miles and closing,” said Sullivan.

Englehardt once again thought of radioing for instructions. But there was no point in that — he’d only be told to use his judgment.

That was the Dreamland way, wasn’t it? You were on your own, trained to make the call. A Megafortress flying alone wasn’t “controlled” by an AWACS or even a flight leader — its pilot was on his or her own. If he wasn’t up to the responsibility, he didn’t belong in the cockpit in the first place.

So do it. Just do it.

And yet he balked, inherently cautious.

“Are they talking to anyone?” Englehardt asked.

“If they are, we’re not hearing it,” said the copilot.

Englehardt flipped over to the Dreamland Command channel to speak to Danny Freah.

“Captain, we have a couple of Indian aircraft up here taking an interest in us. Are you ready to get out of there?”

“We need ten more minutes.”

“I’m going to lead these planes away from the area. When you take off, have the Osprey stay low in that mountain valley. The MiGs shouldn’t be able to see them on radar.”

“Good. Copy.”

He had it figured out now: he’d fool the Indians, diverting their attention while the Ospreys got away.

Was that the smart thing to do? Or was he wimping? Maybe he should shoot them down.

“I’m going to try talking to those bastards myself,” said Englehardt. “I’m going to broadcast on all channels and see what the hell they’re up to.”

“Take your shot,” said Sullivan.

Englehardt identified himself and the ship, saying they were on a Search and Rescue mission and asking the Indians’ intentions. Once again they didn’t answer.

“Ten miles,” said Sullivan. “Still closing.”

“Get ready on the Stinger air mines.”

“Yeah,” said Sullivan.

The two MiGs had widened their separation as they approached. They flanked the Megafortress, then slowly began drawing toward her wings, still separated from her by a mile or so.

“American EB-52,” said one of the Indians finally. “Why are you over Indian territory?”

“I’m on a Search and Rescue mission for American fliers,” said Englehardt. “Why didn’t you answer my earlier radio broadcasts?”

The Indians once more chose not to answer. The Megafortress’s radio, however, picked up a succession of squeals and clicks, indicating they were using an encrypted radio system to talk to someone.

“Gotta be talking to their ground controller,” said Sullivan. “What do you think? Did he just tell them to shoot us down or leave us alone?”

By slowing down to match the Megafortress’s speed, the MiGs allowed Hawk Two to catch up to them. Starship angled Hawk Two toward the tail of the closest MiG, which was aiming itself roughly toward the Bennett’s right wing. The Flighthawk’s faceted body and absorbent skin gave it a radar profile about the size of a flying cockroach, and the black matte paint made it hard to pick up in the night sky. But even if it had been daylight the Flighthawk would have been nearly impossible for the MiG pilot to see; Starship had the plane exactly behind his tailfin.

“Computer, hold position on aircraft identified as Bandit Two.”

“Hold position.”

Starship took over the controls for Hawk One, still circling low over the recovery site. The Indian ground unit had stopped about a mile south of the landslide. The Americans, meanwhile, were getting ready to bug out.

This is going to work out, he thought. The Osprey was going to sneak away, and then the Megafortress would head over to Pakistan and go home without the Indians knowing exactly what was going on.

Then he noticed a flicker in the lower corner of Hawk One’s screen.

He pushed his throttle slide up to full.

“Hawk leader to Whiplash ground team — Danny, there are helicopters trying to sneak in up that valley behind the Indian ground units.”

Starship’s warning came just as the warhead was secured and the Marines had been ordered to return from their lookout posts. Danny needed a second to work out in his head where everyone was. Then he jumped in the back of the V-22, slipped through the nest of lines and straps holding the warhead in place, and ran to the cockpit.

“Helos coming up that road,” he told the pilot. “Can you get us out without them seeing us?”

“No way, Captain,” said the pilot. “I have to clear that ridge ahead or go right past them. Either way, they’ll see us.”

“All right. Go over the ridge as soon as we’re secured back here.” He switched his radio on. “Starship, see if you can slow those guys down a bit. We want to exit to the north.”

Starship took Hawk One straight at the lead Indian helicopter, a large Mi-8 Hip troop carrier. He got so close to the chopper that if he’d tipped his wing down he could have sliced through its rotors.

He cut over the second chopper — another Hip — then circled around for another pass. If either helicopter pilot had seen him, they didn’t let on; both aircraft continued flying through the valley. They were doing about seventy knots, flying so low that their rear wheels, which hung on struts off the side of the fuselage, couldn’t have been more than a foot off the ground.

“This time I’m going to get your attention,” said Starship. He pulled into the valley ahead of the helicopters, jammed his stick back and let off a bunch of flares, climbing into the night like a giant Roman candle. Both helicopters immediately set down. Their rotors continued to spin, and the sandstorm that had been following them caught up.

“Helicopters are down, Whiplash,” said Starship. “Get out of there while you can.”

American Megafortress! Why are you firing on our helicopter?”

“We’re not firing at all,” said Englehardt. “You’re sitting right with us.”

“Cease your fire!” repeated the Indian.

“MiGs are dropping back,” said Sullivan. “Getting into position to fire heat-seekers at us. Air mines?”

Yes, thought Englehardt. Then no.

Anacondas?

He was way out of position for that. He’d have to use the Stinger.

They still hadn’t fired.

“Wait until they activate their weapons radars,” he told Sullivan.

“They don’t need their weapons radars,” said the pilot. “Hell, they can hit us with spitballs.”

“Starship, where are you?” asked Englehardt. He could feel sweat running down every part of his body, and his colon felt as if it was about to jump through his skin.

“Hawk Two is right behind Bandit Two. Hawk One is back with Indian helicopters.”

“Did you fire at them?”

“Just used my flares to get their attention. It worked.”

“Marine Osprey Angry Bear is up,” said Sullivan.

“Cover the Osprey, Starship.”

“Yeah, roger, circling back to cover them.”

“American Megafortress, you will leave the area,” said the Indian pilot.

“I intend to,” answered Englehardt. “Be advised that we are over Chinese territory.”

“They’re talking to their controller again,” reported Sullivan. “They’re saying a lot of something.”

“As long as they’re talking, not firing, we’re fine,” replied the pilot.

Gradually, Danny Freah loosened his grip on the strap near the bulkhead separating the Osprey cockpit from the cargo area. Finally he let go and looked at his palm. The strap’s indentations were clearly visible.

“We’re OK?” asked Jennifer Gleason, sitting on the bench next to him.

“Yeah. We’re good. The MiGs are following the Megafortress to the east. We’re out of here.”

Danny followed her gaze as she turned and looked at the warhead, snugged in the middle of the Osprey’s cargo bay. It seemed almost puny, sitting between the Marines and their gear.

“Funny that such a small thing could cause so much destruction,” Danny said.

“I was just thinking it looks almost harmless there,” said Jennifer. “Like part of a furnace that needs to be overhauled.”

“I guess.”

A tone sounded in his helmet. Danny clicked into the Dreamland channel.

“Freah.”

“Danny, a Global Hawk with infrared sensors just located the last warhead,” said Dog. “It’s fifty miles north of you.”

“OK, Colonel. Team Three is waiting at Base Camp One. They can be airborne inside of ten minutes. Take them about sixty to get there.”

“I’m afraid it’ll be too late by then,” said Dog. “The Global Hawk has spotted a pair of pickups near the site, and four or five men nearby. Looks like another two trucks are on their way.”

“Give me the GPS point,” Danny replied.