Armageddon

Chapter 23

When he first read the alert on the morning briefing, Jed couldn’t believe it. According to the Associated Press, a lone gunman had shot up a restaurant in the capital of Brunei. Two people had been killed and several more injured, but the casualty list could have been considerably longer if a lucky shot had not severed the wire on the man’s explosive vest.

Terrorists in Brunei? It seemed inconceivable.

It was incredibly inconvenient, since the president was due to announce the sale of three Megafortresses to the kingdom today. Dreamland had already been ordered to have the aircraft ready for delivery within two weeks.

Jed glanced at his watch. It was a bit early to call his boss, but he knew he’d better get some bulletins out on this right away.

Chapter 24

Breanna listened as Mack recounted the incident in the restaurant, and the oddly detached reaction of the government officials afterward.

“So they think he’s just a nutcase?” she said, finally.

“They don’t want to deal with reality,” said Mack. “That kid had a Romanian submachine gun. That’s pretty rare in Brunei.”

“You think he’s tied in with what happened to Zen and me on the beach?”

“Has to be:’ said Mack. “I think there’s a whole network of extremists running around. But as soon as I ask any serious questions, all I get are dumb-ass smiles from my fellow defense ministers.” He said the title as if it were a slur.

“Maybe it’s time for you to get out.”

Mack frowned but said nothing.

“You want me to hang around for a few days longer?” she asked.

Mack shrugged. “Nah. My guys are probably about as up to speed as they’re going to get.”

“Don’t be too hard on them, Mack. They’re not terrible pilots. They just need more flight time. Same with the equipment ops. Deci’ll work with them for a few more days. They’ll get it together.”

“Yeah. The whole country is not very serious about the military here. That’s the problem,” said Mack.

“Well you’re turning it around.” She meant the compliment; Mack was working hard at straightening out the air force — surely harder than she would have thought. “McKenna’s working at it, too.”

“She’s good,” said Mack. “Maybe I ought to send over to Canada for more contract pilots.” He got up. “Listen, Bree, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“Don’t mention it,” she told him.

“I’d buy you a drink but I have a pile of things to go through.”

“It’s all right. I have to get up early tomorrow for my flight. It leaves at 4 A.M. If I miss it, I’ll be here until Tuesday”

“You stopping over in Japan?”

She shook her head. “I was thinking of it, but I want to get home”

“Don’t blame you:’ he said, his voice almost wistful.

Chapter 25

Dog realized that things between him and Jennifer had been derailed for reasons unknown — at least to him. Rather than spending a lot of time analyzing why, he decided to go on the offensive. Big time.

He made sure all of his work was squared away early Friday afternoon, skipping both breakfast and lunch to get his various duties finished. Chief Master Sergeant Terrence “Ax” Gibbs, who functioned as a combination right-hand man and ward healer in the stripped-down Dreamland hierarchy, ran interference for him. He also facilitated the first strike in the operation, helping Dog arrange for a dozen roses to be delivered to Jennifer’s lab first thing in the morning.

The roses sat in a makeshift vase — a sawed-down Coke bottle — on one of the tables near the entrance to the computer lab. As Dog came into the lab, Ray Rubeo had just gotten down on his knees next to Jennifer, seemingly praying over something on the computer.

“You never struck me as the religious type,” said Dog.

“Colonel. Hmmph,” said Rubeo, giving Dog his usual scowl.

“Problem?”

“Just the usual avalanche,” said Rubeo. “We need more personnel, Colonel. I need coders. Real coders.”

Rubeo made a similar plea at least once a week, and usually Dog would cut him off after a few words. But today the colonel let the scientist go on, using the opportunity to watch Jennifer working over the nearby computer. She pounded the directional keys, repeating numbers to herself as she stared at the screen.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

“So when do we get more personnel?” asked Rubeo finally. “We may be able to get some extra heads as part of the Megafortress program,” Dog told him.

“The Megafortress? Why?”

“Because we’re selling three to Brunei.”

“Piffle,” said the scientist.

“Piffle? In what way?” Dog continued to watch Jennifer, who was absorbed in the screen.

“Piffle in that they’re about as useful to Brunei as a toaster is on the Australian outback,” said Rubeo. “And we shouldn’t even be wasting our resources on the EB-52. The unmanned bomber and satellite stations are much more important — they’re the future, Colonel.”

“Ray, sometimes you’re just too much to take,” said Dog. He looked over at Jennifer, still staring at the screen. “But I love you anyway.”

“More piffle,” said the scientist, muttering to himself as he left the room.

Finally alone, Dog put his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said.

“Mmmmm. “

He ran his fingers along the back of her neck, tickling the light down that grew there. “Come on. You’re taking the rest of the day off. And the weekend.”

“I am?”

“Yes you are. I cleared it with the base commander.”

“Ax?”

“Very funny.”

“And what am I doing with this time off?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

“I really have to work.”

“No, as your commanding officer, I order you to take the weekend off.”

“I think that’s a violation of military law.”

“I think you’re right,” said Dog, gently coaxing her to her feet so he could kiss her.

“Do I have to pack?”

“Your suitcase is already in the car.”

Jennifer leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, letting the sound of the tires on the pavement soak through her body. The steady hum hypnotized her the way a rocking chair did. Dog was trying, really trying. Roses, a weekend away — she had to admit he was really trying.

Did she still love him?

That was a difficult question, one she couldn’t answer right now.

Maybe Monday.

The car began to slow. Jennifer opened her eyes just as Dog turned off the highway onto a narrow, dusty back road. She had no idea where they were; she wasn’t even sure if it was still in Nevada.

A plane engine roared nearby and a shadow passed over the car. Dog turned left and a trio of small airplane hangars, each not much larger than a garage, appeared across a chained entrance.

“You have a plane here?” she asked.

“Borrowing it from a friend,” said Dog.

“Really? You can fly a light plane?”

He started to laugh and she felt embarrassed, realizing how silly the question was.

“It does take more adjustment than you’d think,” Dog told her. “Not that I’d ever admit it to anyone but you.”

He put the car in gear, driving past the small chain separating the road from the airport lane. He got back out and rechained it — there was something charming in the informality of it all, even if it wasn’t exactly the most secure facility in the world. The small airstrip was all about informality — Dog rolled down the window before driving any further and stuck his head out.

“Have to make sure no one’s trying to land,” he told her.

It wasn’t a joke: just after they crossed the apron to the hangars, a small Cherokee came in, passing within twenty or thirty yards of the car. A short, balding man wearing a grease-stained flannel shirt appeared from the side of the hangar as Dog parked the car.

“Hey, Colonel!” he yelled. “Been waitin’ all day for you”

“Traffic was tough,” said Dog, winking at Jennifer.

“And hello to you,” said the man, bending low to Jennifer. Dog introduced the man as William T. Goat.

“Billy. Get it?” said Goat, who owned the tiny airfield as well as the services connected to it. Goat had been in the air force, working as a maintainer, or aircraft technician. The air operation, land and all, had been in his family for four generations.

“Great-grandfather was a barnstormer,” said Goat, showing them to their plane. “Supposed to have flown under the Brooklyn Bridge upside down”

Goat went over some details of the aircraft quickly with Dog. Jennifer climbed in; within a few minutes Dog had joined her in the cabin, worked through a checklist on a laminated card, and started up the engine.

“You know, I’ve never been in a plane this small,” said Jennifer as they taxied out to the head of the runway — a grand total of forty yards away.

“Nothing to it,” said Dog. “All you do is sit and relax.”

The engine’s growl turned into a loud whine, and the plane bolted forward.

“I think—” she started, but before she could finish the sentence the plane lurched upward. Jennifer felt her lungs bump into her stomach.

“Oh boy,” she said when she finally got her breath back. “Oh boy.”

Chapter 26

The target sat at the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Dazhou Ti stared at the green and black shadows, waiting for the indicator at the center to show they were in range of the missile.

Dazhou had once marveled at the Barracuda’s technology, not simply the propulsion system but the gear that allowed his small crew to run the boat: the global positioning locator, the different screens for passive infrared detection, and the radar receiver, which showed if others were looking for them. The faceted sides of the vessel made it as difficult to see on radar as its low-slung profile and black paint made it hard to spot with the naked eye. The passive detectors and burst radar targeting system allowed them to operate nearly invisibly, minimizing the electronic signals that indicated a conventional warship’s presence as surely as a searchlight on an otherwise darkened deck. But now, barely six weeks since his first trial voyage, Dazhou took it all for granted.

“Captain, we are within range,” said the weapons officer. “Speed stablilizing at eighty knots.”

“Prepare the missiles.”

The weapons officer touched two buttons on his panel. The metal grate below Dazhou’s feet vibrated as the hatchway above the missile launcher separated. Information on the target — a large oil tank at the center of a tank farm near Muara on the northern coast of Brunei — was downloaded into the guidance system of the missile.

“Missile ready,” replied the crewman.

“Fire,” said Dazhou.

There was a snarl on the rear area of the Barracuda as the Exocet took off. The French-made anti-ship missile accelerated upward, approaching the speed of sound. After a few seconds, its nose tilted slightly downward and it began skimming along the waves, making it very difficult to track, let alone intercept. When it came within ten kilometers it would activate its own radar and use it to close in on the tank.

“On course,” reported the weapons officer, tracking the missile’s progress.

“Unknown contact bearing one-zero-eight, at thirty kilometers, making ten knots,” said the radarman. “Appears to be a patrol vessel. Brunei. One of their new Russian craft. Not close enough for positive identification.”

“Does it see us?”

“Negative.”

Dazhou was tempted to destroy the patrol ship, one of two recently purchased by the sultan to equip his paltry navy. But his orders from the general were to avoid engagements if possible. Striking the patrol ship, as tempting as it might be, might prematurely alert the enemy to the existence of his ship.

Turning back now meant there would be no chance of seeing the fire his missile would cause. But vanity was not among Dazhou’s weaknesses. The more difficult decision involved whether to proceed away at high speed or not. Taking the turn at high speed involved a tilt maneuver that made the craft visible by sophisticated radars, including the one aboard the Brunei ship. A slow turn, which for the Barracuda meant roughly twenty knots or a little less, kept the ship’s profile low in the water and almost surely invisible. But dropping the speed to turn would mean he’d lose the flight effect; he would be turning the Barracuda back into a “normal” ship. Not only would he lose his momentum, but he would have to wait until he was a good distance from the Brunei ships to pop up. The “takeoff regime” — the word they used for initiating the effect — could not be made radar efficient. And besides, achieving the thrust necessary taxed the cooling capabilities of the ceramic baffles at the rear; he would be visible on infrared. Dazhou had to decide: remain unseen but go slow, thereby increasing the length of the mission, or go fast and hope the men on the Brunei ship didn’t believe their sensors.

Throughout his career, he had taken the risky path, preferring its quick rewards. But there were no rewards in this case; he wanted to keep the ship secret for as long as possible.

“Rig for full stealth mode,” he told his crew. “Return to base as planned. Remain on passive detectors only.” The men moved silently to comply.

Chapter 27

Mack Smith groaned as the phone rang, then reached over to the side of the bed and picked up the receiver.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Mack, McKenna. We got some sort of terrorist thing going over at Muara. Looks like the navy’s screwing everything up. You want me to get the Dragonflies up?”

“Hold on a second.” Mack pulled himself upright, trying to will himself back to full consciousness. He hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep in weeks. “What exactly is going on?”

“Terrorists attacked a tank farm out near Muara, where petrol is stored before it’s picked up by tankers,” said McKenna. “Navy has a patrol boat in the area but they’re coming up empty. I want to launch Dragonflies to patrol the area.”

“What sort of attack?”

“I don’t have all the details yet. May have been some sort of missile or mortar rounds.”

“Missile? From terrorists? More likely they snuck in there and planted a bomb.”

“Could be. Should we get up in the air or not?”

“We have fuel?”

“We have fuel.”

“All right. Send up a two-plane patrol and have another stand by. You lead the first flight; report in when you know the situation. Get the Megafortress ready.”

“Done and done,” said McKenna.

“I may marry you yet, McKenna.”

For the first time since they’d met, she didn’t have a snappy comeback. “Coffee’ll be waiting at the hangar,” she said.

As he got dressed, Mack decided he would take Breanna up on her offer to hang around for a few more days; he could use an aggressive pilot in the cockpit of the EB-52. Then he realized that her flight home would have left an hour ago.

So he decided he’d take the plane up himself.

While Mack respected the capabilities of the EB-52, he’d never been particularly enamored with the plane. Early on during his stay at Dreamland, he had gone through the familiarization courses and did well enough to have been offered a pilot’s slot in the program. But for all the sleek modifications and sophisticated upgrades, the big jet was still a big jet, a lumbering bomb truck, a B-52. Mack Smith flew pointy-nose go-fast jets, not big ugly fat fellas.

But you did what you had to do. By the time he got to the airport, the ground crew was fueling the plane. Mack stopped at the tower where his ground operations center was coordinating mission information and getting updates from the other services. McKenna’s flight had taken off twenty minutes before and was patrolling over the tank farm, twenty miles away. Meanwhile, other guerilla attacks were reported on the outskirts of the capital.

Security at the airport was primarily provided by the army, but Mack had a small force of his own soldiers; after checking over at the hangar to make sure the Megafortress was nearly ready to go, he turned his attention to his ground force. He saw the apprehension in their eyes when he told them they were authorized to shoot to kill.

“But that won’t be necessary, Mr. Minister,” said the captain in charge of the detail, trying to reassure the men.

“It damn well may be necessary,” said Mack. “Anyone comes up to that gate and doesn’t stop when you challenge them, you shoot them. Make sure we have patrols around the whole perimeter, and double-check with the army. Tell them this is serious shit. Got me?”

The captain looked as if he had swallowed his lips. Mack looked at his soldiers — all eight of them, none older than twenty-three. They were well trained, thanks largely to the British, who had supplied instructors from the Special Air Service or SAS, the British inspiration for America’s Delta Force. Still, these were kids who had never had to fire their weapons in anger before; there was no telling how they would do until things were really on the line. Mack sensed that he should tell them something, leave them on a high note. Colonel Bastian did that sort of thing all the time, not so much with a speech but with his voice. Mack tried it now, making himself sound a hell of a lot more confident than he felt.

“Your job is to keep this place safe,” he said. “I’m counting on you.”

“Yes, sir,” said the captain.

“Good,” said Mack. He snapped off a salute, then walked back toward the hangar, wishing he could have come up with something more eloquent.

The Megafortress crew had arrived at the hangar and was suiting up. Mack called the two pilots over and told them he was coming aboard as commander and would fly, but both men were needed in the aircraft. The scheduled pilot looked relieved — which bothered Mack quite a bit, since in his mind that meant the man wasn’t aggressive enough. He himself would have thrown a fit if he were replaced, even by Dog himself.

Mack got his gear and went to check with the acting head of the ground crew. They were just topping off the tanks, moving a little awkwardly, both because of the hour and the fact that the plane and its systems were still unfamiliar. Mack longed for the snap of the air force’s Dreamland maintainers — God protect the airman, let alone a sergeant, who wasn’t in exactly the right place when Chief Master Sergeant “Greasy Hands” Parsons was scrambling to get one of his aircraft ready. But you didn’t really appreciate the job Chief Parsons and his people did until they weren’t there to do it.

Mack went over to the crew with the idea of telling them to move faster. As he approached, a look of horror spread over the face of the sergeant supervising the fueling operation.

Yelling at the man wasn’t going to get the job done any faster or better, Mack realized as he opened his mouth. Once more, Dog popped into his head as a model. He changed his message to something he hoped was encouraging—”Let’s do it, boys” — and gave them a thumbs-up.

Whether that worked or not, Mack couldn’t tell. He walked under the big aircraft and went up the fold-down steps into the belly, landing on the stripped-out Flighthawk deck. Then he climbed up to the flight deck, where he was surprised to find Deci Gordon, the Dreamland radar expert, at one of the operator stations.

“Deci, you coming with us?” said Mack.

“Figured you’d want me to.”

“Yeah,” said Mack. He started toward the pilot’s seat, then stopped, realizing from Deci’s frown that he’d somehow managed to say the wrong thing.

How would Colonel Bastian handle it? Mack asked himself.

Just like that, or even simpler, with a nod. But somehow, what worked for Bastian didn’t work for Mack. Mack turned and saw Deci frowning at him.

“Listen, I’d appreciate it if you came with us,” said Mack. “I really would.”

Deci looked at him, as if expecting a trick. Not sure what else to do, Mack nodded and climbed into the pilot’s seat.

They were off the runway in twenty minutes, which would have been a decent time for a scrambling Dreamland crew, Mack thought. McKenna checked in a few minutes after Mack cleaned the landing gear and began a wide patrol orbit, climbing up through fifteen thousand feet, en route to thirty-five thousand.

“Dragon One to Jersey,” said McKenna. “We came up negative on our search. No speedboat, no nothing.”

“Roger that,” said Mack. His patrol circuit took him over the ocean; Deci and the radar operator handling the surface contacts ID’d a freighter approaching from the west about ten miles away; it was the only sizeable ship except for Brunei coastal patrols in the area.

“Say, Mack, I think I have the Sukhoi again,” said Deci. “Planes we picked up the other day. Coming up toward the coast.”

“Feed me a vector,” said Mack.

Chapter 28

Dog had planned it all out so well that the cab was just pulling up to the flight service building as he shut down the aircraft after their flight from Nevada. They got in, and arrived just in time for their reservation at Il Cenacolo, an Italian restaurant a few miles northwest of the city, which Jennifer had mentioned once during a date. The host greeted them by name; Jennifer seemed to float across the room, and Dog thought to himself that things could not be going more perfectly.

It was at that moment that he heard the voice from across the room.

“Tecumseh Bastian, what are you doing in San Francisco?”

He closed his eyes, but he knew it was useless. His ex-wife had somehow managed to ruin the one perfect romantic moment of his life.

“Karen, how are you?” said Dog, turning in the direction of the voice.

Dr. Karen Melenger was sitting with three other women at a table near the side of the room. She rose, came over, and made a show of kissing his cheek. Dog stepped back and, with as much politeness as he could muster, introduced Jennifer.

“Your girlfriend?” said Karen. She held out her hand as if she were the Queen Mother and expected it to be kissed.

Dog thought he saw a smirk in the corner of Jennifer’s mouth. She said hello, declining the handshake without calling attention to it, and said how nice it was to meet a person Dog spoke so highly of.

It was a remarkably smooth lie, thought Dog, and even Karen seemed taken in. But Jennifer then made the mistake of suggesting that they all get together for a drink sometime.

Dog cringed, knowing Karen would accept — sooner, rather than later.

“Tomorrow night would be perfect,” she said. “The convention ends in the afternoon, but I’m not flying back to Las Vegas until Sunday afternoon”

“How lucky,” said Dog, nudging Jennifer away.

“Where are you staying?” Karen asked.

“At a hotel,” said Dog. “We’ll call you.”

“We’ll I’m at the Max,” said Karen. It was naturally one of the most expensive hotels in the area. “You won’t forget?”

“No.”

“Jennifer, make sure he doesn’t forget.”

“Tecumseh is definitely responsible for his own actions.”

“Yes, he is, isn’t he?” said Karen.

Chapter 29

“They’re still over Malaysian territory,” Deci told Mack as he turned the Megafortress in the direction of the Sukhois. “No indication they see us. Range is one hundred and fifty miles. They’re doing about five hundred knots, still at twenty-two thousand and twenty thousand feet, respectively.”

“You have that on your screen, Jalan?” Mack asked the copilot.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. What we’re going to do is run as close to them as we can but still stay over Brunei territory. It’s going to take us one loop down at the south before they’re in range to pick us up”

“You want them to pick us up?” asked Jalan.

“I want them to attack us,” said Mack.

“You think they’ll attack?” Jalan didn’t sound worried so much as surprised.

“Probably not,” said Mack. ‘But if they do, we want to be ready for them. And if they come over our border, we’ll have justification to follow them. I’d like to find out for sure where they’re operating from.”

“Yes, sir.”

One thing in Jalan’s favor, thought Mack: he didn’t point out that the only weapon the Meagfortress carried was the Stinger air-mine dispenser in the tail, which was designed to work against pursuing aircraft at close range.

“Be ready with the ECMs if we get close,” Mack told his copilot. The ECMs disrupted the guidance systems of enemy missiles, rendering them useless. “The computer can blind that sucker and any missile he’s carrying, don’t worry. These planes have done it a dozen times. It knows those avionics systems better than we know our names”

“Yes, sir.”

If the Sukhois were operating from the base Mack had seen on the satellite images, he’d have to fly fairly far from Brunei territory to get the proof he wanted. It was a calculated risk, given that he didn’t know whether or not there might be more aircraft. But he would have to take some risks to find out what the Sukhois were up to; ignorance was much more dangerous in the long run.

Mack checked back with his controller at the airport to see what the situation was. The controller had double-checked with the spy network to find out if there had been activity at any of the other airfields on Borneo; a few helicopters were missing from Kuching in the southwest, but otherwise the situation seemed to be status quo.

The situation with the terrorists, however, was anything but. The Royal Brunei Police Force now reported several disturbances and attacks throughout the kingdom; Mack told the liaison officer to call over to the headquarters and see if any of the units needed assistance.

“Already have. They’ve declined.”

“Call the regional offices, as well,” said Mack. “Let’s see if they have a different opinion.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Minister.”

The Brunei border ran parallel to his flight path about five miles off his left wing; it extended only about fifty miles south. Doing roughly four hundred knots, they would have to turn in six or seven minutes if they were going to stay over their part of the island.

“Sukhois are changing course, Mack,” said Deci.

“Where are they going?”

“Not clear at the moment. Heading …” Deci hesitated. “They’re coming west, picking up speed, uh, angling down a bit.”

The Sukhois had made a sharp left turn and started to descend from twenty thousand feet. The two Malaysian planes were now flying a course that would take them directly over the border. According to Deci, they hadn’t seen the Megafortress — they were not using their radars, a sign to Mack that they didn’t want to be detected. They had also selected their afterburners for a burst of speed as they dropped down closer to the mountain tops.

“Setting up for a bombing raid?” Mack asked Deci.

“Too soon to tell.”

“Get on with the liaison and have him send an alert.”

“Got it.”

Mack continued southward for another minute and a half, trying to visualize what the Malaysian jets were up to. They continued to descend, passing through seventeen thousand feet en route to sixteen; it wasn’t a rapid descent but by the same token they showed no sign of leveling off. They’d backed off the afterburners but were still moving very quickly, up around five hundred and fifty knots.

“There guerilla camps in that direction?” Mack asked. He meant the question for Deci but Jalan answered.

“There are guerillas along the mountain sides, yes, Minister, but on the south side, not north,” said the copilot.

“One thing I’d point out, this model Su-27 ordinarily wouldn’t be carrying air-to-ground weapons,” said Deci.

“Yeah,” said Mack. The early Su-27s were intended primarily as interceptors, but they did have some capability to drop bombs, and in any event might have been upgraded to do so. “You talk to ground?”

“Passed it along. Entire army is already on alert.”

“Minister, two helicopters approaching Brunei territory southwest of Labi,” said one of his operators. It was the first time the crewmen had called out a contact on their own.

“Good work,” said Mack. He clicked into McKenna’s frequency. “Yo, Dragon One, I got a job for you. Stand by for a brief.”

McKenna acknowledged the information about the helicopters and snapped onto the new course, her hand slapping the throttle to full military power. Her wingman, Captain Yayasan, acknowledged tersely when she called over to make sure he was following along.

“Pedal to the metal,” she told him. “Look sharp, eh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Bruneians didn’t particularly like taking orders from women, and McKenna could hear the resentment in her wing-man’s voice.

Have to kick his butt when we get down, she thought to herself.

“Make sure your cannon is ready and keep your head in the game,” she told Yayasan. Not expecting a response, McKenna leaned forward against her restraints, urging the A-37B to get a move on. At roughly one hundred miles away, it would take just under eight minutes for them to get there. By then it might be too late.

The Sukhois took another sharp turn to the northwest, now at five thousand feet over the Limbang River Valley. They were still over Malaysian territory.

“I think they’re aiming for one of the guerilla camps at the southwest side of the river,” said Deci.

“What do we have near there?” Mack asked.

“Police barracks on the other side of the border,” said Jalan.

Mack punched up the map on his left-hand display screen, studying the border area. He was just over three minutes away.

“Deci, can we jam the Sukhois?”

“Uh, you mean screw up their bombs with ECMs?”

“Exactly”

“No way. Unless it’s an air-to-ground missile working off a GPS system, and even then it’d have an internal backup.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to get in their faces,” said Mack.

“Minister, are you sure they’re going to attack our barracks?” asked Jalan.

“Not at all,” said Mack. “But I don’t intend on giving them the chance”

He reached to the throttle slide at the side of his seat, coaxing more power from the EB-52’s four engines.

“It’s going to get a bit twisty at the end:’ he told his crew. ‘The pilot has put on the no-smoking sign. Please fasten your seatbelts. Remember to keep your hands inside the car at all times.”

He pitched the plane onto her wing, sliding down in a three-dimensional pirouette as he got the Megafortress’s nose turned toward the border post. The EB-52 growled at him as the G-forces shot up exponentially, but it complied nonetheless, speed increasing as he dove down toward the border. The copilot began reading off the altitude as the altimeter ladder revolved downward. Meanwhile, the Sukhois had not altered course.

“Try getting them on the radio,” Mack told Jalan. “Tell them they better not go over the border.”

Jalan broadcast on the Malaysian air-force frequencies, but got no response.

“They’re sixty seconds from the border,” said Deci.

“There they are!” said Jalan. His voice lost its professional calm and he jerked his hand toward the windscreen, pointing out the window toward the two airplanes, black blurs in the lower left-hand quadrant of the glass. “Motherfuckers.”

It was the first curse — in English at least — Mack had heard from a member of his crew.

“You’re starting to get the hang of this piloting thing, Jalan,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

“Computer’s optical system confirms they’re carrying bombs beneath their wings,” said Deci. “Something in the 250-pound range”

Mack held to his course to the last possible second, then pulled sharply on the stick, sending the EB-52 into a controlled skid across the sky in front of the two Sukhois.

“Where are we? Our territory or theirs?” he said as gravity slapped his head and chest back against the ejection seat.

“Ours!” managed Jalan.

“Stinger:’ Mack told the computer. “Track one.”

“Target tracked. Target locked,” replied the computer. A bracket had appeared on his HUD, boxing the lead Sukhoi.

“Fire.”

Six airmines flashed from the rear of the Megafortress. The airmines were essentially unaimed canisters of metal shards which exploded behind the rear of the Megafortress, producing a cloud of engine-killing shrapnel. The Malaysian jets, belatedly realizing they were in trouble, dove violently away, then escaped to the north. The computer recorded a minor hit on its target, but not enough to take it down.

“They dropped their bombs in the jungle:’ said Deci. “They definitely missed the border post — they may have landed on in their side of the border.”

“Great,’ said Mack, wrestling his wings level and preparing for the inevitable counterattack. “ECMs. Full suite — play every song in the jukebox.”

The Sukhois’ weapons radars tried desperately to poke through the electronic fuzz kicked out by the Megafortress’s countermeasures. The radar warning detector indicated that the planes were carrying R-27Rs, known to NATO as AA-I0 Alamo-As. These were radar-guided anti-air missiles, efficient killers but easily confused by the Megafortress. One of the Malaysian pilots fired anyway; the ECMs blew out its brain circuitry and sent it sailing off to the west.

Mack cut sharply east then back south, and found himself head-on toward the two jets, only two thousand feet above them and separated by roughly five miles. The position in theory favored the interceptors, who could easily turn and get behind him, where they would be in a good position to fire heat-seeking missiles.

It was what Mack wanted them to do; he intended on suckering one close enough to dish out the airmines as he used flares to knock out the heat-seekers. But they didn’t play along. Instead, one aircraft broke east and began to climb, possibly trying to position himself for a front-quarter attack from above. The other Sukhoi turned and dropped down on the deck.

If Mack wanted to escape, all he had to do was hold the stick steady. But instead he put his wing down, intending at first to tack back west; just as he started to turn he came up with a better idea and rolled the plane into a loop to change direction.

It would have been a great idea if he had been flying an F-22 or F-15, much smaller planes designed to challenge Newton’s laws with some regularity. The Megafortress reacted by pushing her nose sideways and drooping her Y-shaped tail. The spine of the aircraft began to bend, and the computer belatedly screamed at its pilot for exceeding all reasonable bounds of stress and strain. Mack could feel the pressure himself — his head felt as if it were being pummeled from every direction. He managed to. get the aircraft upright and straighten her wings — just in time to narrowly miss getting clipped by the thoroughly confused Sukhoi pilot, who sailed over his wing.

“Stinger. Track one. Fire when locked.”

“Target tracked. Target locked,” replied the computer. “Firing.”

Mack had no time to check this barrage — the second Sukhoi was diving on his tail from four miles.

“Minister—”

“I see him, Jalan. Relax. Stinger. Track.” Mack pointed at the touchscreen where the plane was painted by the EB-52’s radar.

The computer replied that it was out of range.

“Stay with him, baby,” Mack said.

The computer complained that it did not understand the command.

“Range, three miles,” said Jalan. “He’s launching missiles.”

“Flares,” said Mack calmly.

“Target tracked. Target locked,” said the computer.

“Fire.”

As the airmines dished out behind them, Mack pushed hard on the stick, initiating a series of hard zigs to avoid the missile that had just been launched. It turned out to be unnecessary — one of the airmines immolated the missile. The Sukhoi, unscathed, broke off.

“Enemy is accelerating north,” said Jalan.

“He’s going to run out of fuel,” said Mack. “Let’s encourage that.” He twisted around to follow.

The helicopters were SA 330 F Pumas, French-made military helicopters that could carry sixteen troops as well as weapons to support them. The helicopters were unloading men via ropes as McKenna approached in her Dragonfly; they refused to answer her hails.

They were also clearly in Brunei territory.

“Mine’s the one on the right,” she told her wingman. “Shouldn’t we consult with the minister before opening the engagement?” replied Captain Yayasan.

“He’s busy,” said McKenna as she swooped into the attack. The Cessna’s sturdy frame shrugged off the four and a half Gs she threw at it, twisting into a dive that put its nose head-on for the side of the lead chopper. The Dragonfly’s nose gun was aimed through an optical sight; McKenna leaned forward and tilted her head, steadying her focus as she moved her plane into the sweet spot of her target. She juiced the trigger and a stream of 7.62-millimeter shells flew from the minigun.

The first wave of bullets spit downward and to the left of the helicopter. McKenna eased the pressure on her stick and fired again, managing to get a few dozen rounds into the lower portion of the helicopter’s fuselage before losing her angle on the chopper. She stomped the throttle and roared overhead, spinning on her wing as she angled for a second approach.

The helicopter shot upward, jinking back and forth as it tried to get away. McKenna couldn’t line up her plane quickly enough for another shot as she crossed back. She growled at herself, slapping her knee as if she were an animal that had tried to enter the wrong paddock on her family’s farm. She took this turn wider, coming around a bit more slowly and more consciously taking her time, aware of the adrenaline rush threatening to scramble her brain. She angled slightly to the right of the helo and about two thousand feet above it as it skimmed down close to the vegetation, desperate to get away. McKenna tilted her body with the plane’s and gave the gun a tentative tickle. She had the range down; as the first bullets sailed into the rotor she stomped her rudder pedal and nailed the trigger down, walking a stream of lead back and forth across the engine housing. Wisps of black smoke appeared at the side, but the helicopter did not go down.

“Dragon Two, how are you coming with that helicopter?” she asked her wingmate, climbing over Malaysian territory. She banked around for another run on the helicopter, figuring it would take one more pass to put it down; the 7.62-millimeter gun in the Dragonfly’s nose was a very light weapon by aircraft standards, and while being on the receiving end was no fun, its bullets did not have the sheer oomph of larger weapons like the twenty-millimeter and thirty-millimeter cannons carried by most frontline interceptors. But the helicopter had begun a hard tilt to the left, its tail rising. It flew onward for a few hundred meters, a duck winged by a hunter’s shotgun shell. Then it plunged into the hillside, flames erupting in a stream behind it.

“Two, what are we doing?” McKenna barked as she started south. She saw the other Dragonfly about a mile and a half away, on her left, above her by at least three thousand feet. She leveled out, not sure of the situation.

“Two? Two?” she snapped.

When her wingman still didn’t respond, McKenna began to fear that he had been hit. She had already started in his direction when she saw the shadow of a helicopter fleeing to her right. Cursing, she turned to pursue, but the helicopter had jinked down and managed to get behind a row of trees. By the time she finally saw it, it was scooting past a small town, flying deep into Malaysian territory. As McKenna checked her position in the sky she saw puffs of black cotton swirling off her left wing and realized for the first time that she was being fired at.

Time to call it a day.

“Two, what’s your situation? Please advise,” she said.

McKenna did a quick instrument check, knowing her fuel was getting low — it was actually a bit better than she thought, not quite hitting her reserves.

“Two? Is your radio out or what?” asked McKenna again. “Two,” said the other pilot finally. She could see Yayasan’s aircraft, well over hers and a tiny black dot in the sky.

“Were you hit?”

“Negative.”

While McKenna was sincerely concerned for the safety of her fellow pilots, and especially those on her wing, that wasn’t the best response, given the circumstances.

“Get back to the airbase,” she told him.

“Two,” he said, wisely guessing there was no sense in doing anything more than acknowledging.

Mack had no hope of keeping up with the Sukhois as they pumped dinosaurs into their afterburners. The dual Saturn Al-31 FMs pumped out over thirty thousand pounds of thrust, taking the Sukhois up over Mach 2, at least for a brief moment.

Mack plotted a course toward the area where he thought their airfield was. But as he started to pursue, the ground controller relayed a request from the police for assistance at Badas, a small city in the south-central portion of the country. They claimed they were under attack by helicopters.

“Not on our screen,” said Deci.

Nonetheless, Mack felt obligated to check it out at close range. They overflew Badas, taking a pass below a thousand feet. Whether that had any effect or not, the police reported that the attackers had fled.

A few minutes later, another request came from the authorities in Muara, north of the capital. Mack directed his second flight of Dragonflies into the area, orbiting with the Megafortress overhead. But even the low-flying A-37Bs couldn’t be of much help as the situation unfolded; two terrorists were holed up in a residential area at the eastern end of the city. After a thirty-minute gun battle, the men immolated themselves, destroying the shanty they had holed up in as well as the two on either side.

With the Sukhois gone for the moment and no fresh helicopter attacks — real or bogus — reported, Mack decided to take the opportunity to refuel the Megafortress and give the crew a rest. He also wanted to see if he could come up with some air-to-air missiles for the aircraft, and needed to check on the Dragonfly pilots.

Mack had Jalan land; the copilot came in a little fast, but the vast runway gave him plenty of margin for error. All in all, the crew had performed pretty well, and Mack made sure to give them attaboys as they shut down. He unsnapped his restraints and went down to the runway, planning to change and then shoot over to the tactical center at the tower.

Prince bin Awg’s car was sitting in front of the hangar. Mack walked over to the car, but instead of the prince he found a staff member from the central defense ministry.

“Prince bin Awg needs to see you right away,” said the man. “I’ll be right with him once I get out of these duds and check with my people,” said Mack.

“The prince’s orders were to bring you directly to town”

“Yeah, very good,” said Mack, starting to walk away.

The aide got out of the car. He was about six-two, with shoulders that looked like they could bounce a cement truck. “The prince gave his orders,” said the man.

“No shit,” said Mack, annoyed. “Have a seat, asshole, I’ll be right with you”

Two of Mack’s security people came out from the hangar. Maybe because of that, the aide stayed back by the car. Meanwhile, Mack went into the life-support shop, a small area at the side used for maintaining and changing into flight gear. The two women in charge of the shop began clucking at Mack as soon as he walked in.

“One at a time,” said Mack. He had trouble with their accents when they weren’t excited.

“Miss McKenna under arrest,” blurted one of the women. “They took her away.”

“What?”

The women explained that six soldiers had come to the gate demanding to see McKenna soon after she landed; mindful of his orders, the security team had denied them access — and then been threatened with being shot. McKenna was called over and apparently agreed to go with the men.

“Why are you saying she was arrested?” asked Mack.

“They said that.”

“The whole world’s gone mad,” said Mack. He left his flight suit on but took a moment to make sure his pistol was loaded. Brown, his maintenance officer, appeared near the doorway.

“Minister, we have difficulties—”

“Can the minister crap and spit it out, Brown,” said Mack. “What’s up?”

“We — our fuel is gone.”

“Send the trucks over to the civilian side of the airport and take what we need,” said Mack.

“But—”

“Give them a chit or whatever paperwork you want. Get the fuel.”

“Yes, sir, Minister.”

“What’s our weapons situation?”

Brown stuttered but managed to report that they had four five-hundred-pound bombs and exactly two dozen smaller 250-pounders, along with some rockets and flares.

“What happened to our request for Sidewinders and AMRAAMs?” Mack asked.

“You made it only last week, Minister.”

“We need those weapons now. Why did they take McKenna?”

“Commodore McKenna? Who took her?” Brown’s face blanched.

“Look, Brown, here’s the situation. Whether the sultan likes it or not, whether Brunei likes it or not, some serious assholes have decided to shoot up the country. I think Malaysia’s helping them. We’re going to need everything and anything we can get our hands on.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Look, if you’re not up to this, you tell me now, because I’m relying on you here,” said Mack. “I need that Megafortress ready to fly as soon as possible. The same with the Dragonflies. Can you do it?”

Brown nodded. “Yes, Minister.”

“They’re trying to take over your country, Brown. I’m telling you. That’s what this is about. We’re not going to let them, right?”

Finally, he’d struck the nerve.

“No, Minister,” said Brown, his face flushing with anger now. “No, we will not.”

“Damn straight, Jack.”

“Damn straight, Jack,” repeated Brown.

Mack almost smiled. Two members of his security team were standing near the aircraft.

“Yo!” he called to them. “Get over here”

The two men, neither older than nineteen, double-timed across the concrete.

“You locked and loaded?” Mack asked.

The men looked at each other.

“Jesus, even I know you look at the gun for the answer, not each other, damn it!”

The two men snapped to, holding their rifles at the ready.

“That’s what we want. Come on,” said Mack. “Let’s go see the prince.”

Chapter 30

Every fifth weekend, Danny Freah took a turn in the rotation as the duty officer in the Dreamland command center, an important though not exciting responsibility. Not that it was particularly onerous. It entailed staying on base from 4 P.M. Friday afternoon until 8 A.M. the following Monday. He had to periodically check in with the command center, which was a high-tech situation room linked to similar facilities at the various military commands, the Pentagon, and the White House. It also had high-speed satellite links to deployed Dreamland units.

Danny generally spent his time catching up on his official reading and, nearly as important, his sleep, sacking out in one of the small “ready rooms” located off the corridor of the center. The rooms were more like mini-dorm rooms; each had a bunk bed, a small television that had cable TV access, and a computer loaded up with games. Because they were located in a subbasement away from any machinery, the rooms were dark and quiet, and in Danny’s opinion by far the best places to catch real rest on the base.

Assuming no one woke you up.

“Sir!” shouted a voice somewhere in the blackness beyond his dreams. “Sir!”

“Boston, is that you?”

“Sir! An alert from Washington, D.C.”

Danny started to curse and roll out from under the blanket. As he did, the lights snapped on. The room was not locked and the standing orders called for the officer to be awakened personally.

“Center is requesting your presence,” said Boston, much louder than Danny thought necessary.

“Yeah, I’m coming, Sergeant. Relax.”

Danny stood up and pulled on his shirt. He slept in his pants, belt and all; he figured it was easier and saved potential embarrassment when the night people were women, which was occasionally the case.

Danny walked out to the command center, hoping whoever was on duty there had a full pot of coffee going. Unfortunately, that was not the case. He went over to the main communications console, typed in his password, and squinted into the retina scanner. The machine hesitated for a second, and Danny wondered if his fatigue might confuse it.

It didn’t, at least not fatally. The screen blinked, allowing the connection.

“Freah,” said Danny, picking up the secure phone.

“Captain, this is Jed Barclay over at the White House.”

“Jed? What’s up?”

“We’ve been tracking developments at Brunei and the national security advisor was wondering, uh, hoping he could get a direct report from your people there.”

“Right, yeah,” said Danny. “Uh, Breanna Stockard is on her way back to the States.”

“Can you locate her?”

“Yes, sir,” said Danny.

“Are there other personnel there now?”

He thought they had at least one technical expert there. Danny bent to the keyboard of the computer at his right, hunting and pecking his way to the information.

“Deci Gordon. He’s a wizzo — a radar intercept officer who handles the gear in the AWACS versions of the EB-52s,” said Danny. “We had some maintainer types over there until last week,” he added.

“We’d like to talk to anyone who might be able to give us on-the-spot insight,” said Jed.

“Zen was there,” said Danny. “He’s at home right now.”

“I know the number,” said Jed. “Can you get a hold of Mr. Gordon?”

“Will do. And I’ll track down Breanna, if I can.”

“Thanks. We’ll be waiting.”

Chapter 31

“Mack, I agree this is a difficult situation, but we must use patience.” Prince bin Awg paced the length of his office in the modern-high rise overlooking the bay, the soles of his Italian shoes squeaking softly on the polished marble floor. “But it is a time for diplomacy, a delicate time.”

“Look, Prince, you know airplanes pretty well,” said Mack. “You’ve got a great collection of Cold War hardware over in your hangars. Those aren’t just pretty planes. The Russians and the Americans — the reason there wasn’t a nuclear war was that we were both matching each other. Those were serious war machines, and both sides had to be careful of the other.”

“What’s your point, Mack?” asked the prince.

“It means you have to show your resolve, not just to these terrorist punks, but to the Malaysians.”

“The Malaysians say they weren’t involved,” said bin Awg. “The helicopters were on a routine training mission.”

“Aw, that’s bullshit and you know it. They were clearly in our territory. And their Sukhois would have hit the police station if we didn’t stop them. You have to help me clear the red tape away so we can get missiles to shoot them down,” said Mack. “And we need F-15s. Or something. Hell, I’ll settle for the Sukhois Ivana Keptrova was peddling.”

“The sultan does not want to upset the current equilibrium?’ said bin Awg. “He’s put all our purchases on hold for the time being.”

“He better change his mind damn quick,” said Mack. “Or he’ll be the ex-sultan. Now where’s my pilot?”

“She was taken over to the central ministry to be interviewed. I’m sure she’ll be released after a few hours.”

Mack had already spun around and headed for the door.

“Mack!” said the prince.

Against his better judgment, Mack stopped.

Confusion and fear mixed in equal parts of the prince’s face. Bin Awg had not impressed Mack as a great statesman; it was clear he was used to the finer things in life and was a bit too fond of pleasure to make the personal sacrifices you needed to make to be a great leader, even in peacetime. But neither had he thought he was a coward or fool.

“Mack, listen,” said the prince, his voice firmer than it had been earlier. “I want you to succeed. Take the steps necessary, and I will do what I can. But there are procedures that we all must follow, even myself.”

Mack glanced at bin Awg’s hands, curled together in tight fists. He wants to be brave, Mack thought to himself, and he knows he has to be. But he’s used to having things laid out for him, and letting other people do the dirty work.

At least his heart is in the right place. That’s going to have to be enough.

“Just back me up, okay?” said Mack.

Bin Awg hesitated, then nodded.

“I’ll keep you informed.”

The fact that McKenna was at the central defense ministry allowed Mack to kill two birds with one stone. He and his two security men, weapons ready, marched up the steps and through the reception area, pausing at the desk where two Brunei policemen looked at them with jaws just about on the floor.

“Your country is under attack,” Mack told them. “And we’re kicking butt to protect it. I need more security people. So if you get tired of this bullshit desk job, you come see me. We’ll pay twice what they pay you here, and you’ll be patriots besides.”

Mack then spun and walked up the grand stairway before either man could manage to gather his wits. He marched to the office of the central minister, in theory his boss; the man was gone for the day.

Just as well, thought Mack, who then proceeded back downstairs, this time to the basement where McKenna was being interviewed about the helicopter incident. As they came down, one of the young men who had been in the lobby began tagging along. Mack looked at him for a moment, saw the man nod, and nodded back.

A guard stood outside the interrogation room. Mack walked up to him.

“Soldier, you’re at war. At a minimum, your sidearm should be ready to be used,” said Mack, pointing at the buttoned holster. “If you want to see real action, you join us at the airport.”

He slapped the door open and walked into the room, where McKenna sat behind a long table across from two white-haired officers.

“About freakin’ time, Mack,” said McKenna, pushing up.

The two officers looked at Mack in disbelief. One of them started to say something, but stopped as Mack’s soldiers came in behind him.

“Come on, McKenna, we got a ton of work to do.” said Mack, spinning around. “Can’t have you lolling around on your pretty butt all day.”

“Pretty butt? I think that’s sexual harassment,” said McKenna, hustling to keep up with him as he strode out of the room.

Chapter 32

Though he would have flown past a dozen anti-aircraft batteries in a Sopwith Camel before admitting it, Zen slept very poorly when his wife was away. In fact, he hardly slept at all most nights. He was watching ESPN SportsCenter when the phone rang, and he snagged it on the first ring.

“Yeah?”

“Zen, it’s Jed. Hey, you awake?”

“Well no, I’m sitting here talking to you in my sleep, cousin. What’s the story?”

Jed brought him up to date on the situation in Brunei, where there had been somewhere around a dozen terrorist attacks over the course of the day. Zen flipped over to CNN as they talked, hitting the mute; there was no mention of the attacks.

“I’ll tell you, that place is a lot more dangerous than people think,” Zen told his cousin. “And something’s going on with Malaysia. Bree said they picked up two Sukhois the other day that supposedly don’t exist.”

“Yeah, we’ve been looking into that. We think the Malaysian government may have purchased them from the Ukraine roughly a year ago, then had them shipped into the country. I won’t know for sure for a while.”

“You think they’re working with the terrorists?”

“I don’t know. There’s no evidence. As a fellow member of ASEAN, they should be allies.”

“Being allies hasn’t stopped people from going to war before,” said Zen.

“Agreed. If we had evidence that they were cooperating, we might be able to pressure them to stop.”

Good luck, thought Zen. He glanced over at the clock on the night table, hoping Breanna was long gone from there.

Chapter 33

The back of Sahurah’s head continued to pound as he got out of the car and walked slowly to the house. The pain had been with him since yesterday evening, a dull throb that receded at times, but never fully lifted.

A woman with her face covered met Sahurah at the door, staring at him a moment before removing the chain to open it fully. She had a machine pistol in her hand, similar to the one Sahurah had given the boy yesterday. Sahurah frowned at the weapon as he passed into the house. Women were useful in some situations, he believed, and certainly the faithful might follow the dictates of the Prophet, but to arm them was close to folly, and to depend on them at a moment of stress surely desperation.

The two young brothers at the end of the foyer, both equipped with AK47s, were much more reassuring. Sahurah recognized one — he had been in the boat for the beach mission — and nodded before passing by them to go upstairs to the room he had been given. Inside, he closed the door and lay down on the wide bed. He spread his arms out as if supplicating the angels for relief of his headache and tried to sink into the mattress beneath his back.

Just as the pain began to ebb, a sharp knock on the door brought it crashing back.

“Commander Sahurah?” said a voice he did not recognize. “Yes.”

“Commander Besar wishes to discuss the day’s events with you”

Sahurah opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling another moment, then closed them again. He pushed his right leg down so that it bent to the floor, and rolled his body to its side, rising like a wounded animal struggling to its feet. He went to the door, and was surprised to see that the messenger was a man nearly three times his age, with hair whiter than bleached cotton.

Sahurah followed him back down the stairs, through a pair of empty rooms, into a hallway that led to a suite at the back of the house. There was a pool and a patio to the left; the old man led him outside through a pair of French doors, gesturing to the semicircle of chairs just beneath the roof.

Besar sat with his back to him, flanked by a pair of women in Western-style bathing suits. The women were of Chinese extraction — no Muslim would dress so outrageously, surely. They sipped from tall glasses of liquor, both of them obviously drunk.

Pain poked into the side of his head, a hot spear breaking through the bone into the soft flesh.

“Commander Sahurah, sit, sit,” said Besar. He gestured and the women rose. Sahurah closed his eyes and they were gone.

“Besar,” he said, still standing where he had been.

“You don’t look well. And yet your operations have had exceptional results. Sit. Sit. Rest yourself.”

Sahurah managed to slide over to a nearby chair. He had the exact opposite opinion of his missions. The attack on the restaurant had killed only a few people, since the boy had not managed to ignite the bomb before being killed. He had helped plan other operations, including two attacks today on police stations that had demolished both buildings, but to take credit for their success when he himself had not expended any effort would be a great sin.

“Relax, my young friend. Relax. Have a drink.” Besar pushed a glass into his hands. Sahurah, suddenly thirsty, brought it to his lips, then smelled the bitterness of the liquid. He threw the glass to the ground.

Besar laughed. “Never to be tempted”

Sahurah’s head pounded or he would have yelled at Besar, who was always playing such tricks. Besar snapped his fingers, and someone walked toward them. Sahurah, his eyes still closed because of the pain, heard liquid being poured.

“Tea only, my friend, iced tea from China. A soothing drink,” said Besar.

Sahurah was not sure whether to trust him or not. He opened his eyes and saw the glass being held out to him. The young man with the glass trembled slightly.

“Is it tea?” Sahurah asked.

“Yes, Commander.”

“I will kill you if it’s not” Sahurah took the glass. It contained only tea.

“You really have to relax,” said Besar. “And remember the teaching — our sins are being cleansed by our actions.”

“Forgiveness is not a license to sin.”

“Life without sin is not possible,” said the other guerilla leader. “We are men, not angels. Even an ayatollah sins. The imam himself is not without fault; he has said so himself. You are not holier than a holy man, are you?”

Sahurah did not answer. Soon this would all be over, he told himself. He would soon receive the order from the imam to join his brothers in heaven. Sahurah prayed for that day; he prayed for release from the throb at the top of his head.

“Five hundred brothers from the Malaysian territory will join us by daybreak,” said Besar. “We will storm the sultan’s palace at eight, after the council arrives.”

“Five hundred?” said Sahurah. The number seemed incredible.

“Too little, you think?” For the first time, Besar’s voice was contrite, even concerned.

“I could do it with twenty,” said Sahurah, who had planned such a mission several months before.

Besar laughed lightly, then reached over and patted his knee. “You are thinking too conservatively now, Sahurah. We have the entire country to take over. Capturing the sultan is a priority.”

“How will we feed five hundred men?”

“From the sultan’s own kitchen,” said Besar, sliding back in his chair.

Chapter 34

Dog’s weight against her side felt reassuring, and as she stared into the dimly lit hotel room Jennifer realized she felt safe for the first time in weeks.

What was safety? Being comfortable? Being immune to attack? She’d been on combat deployments and in test aircraft and not felt vulnerable. It was when she’d been accused of being a traitor to her country — that was when she had felt vulnerable.

Why’? Because people didn’t believe in her? Or because she didn’t believe in herself?

Was she afraid that she might be a traitor? That she might not truly believe in all the things she professed to believe?

That her father, dead before she was born, might think of her as an unworthy daughter?

Dog rolled away onto his side. Jennifer slid over, pushing her hand up across his arm and then over his chest, clutching him from behind.

Tecumseh believed in her. He loved her. She could feel it like a physical thing, a coat she could wear. He was inattentive at times, maddeningly so. But he had many concerns, and the same could easily be said of her. His love, however, couldn’t be questioned.

She pressed her breasts against the muscles of his back, starting to drift back to sleep.

And then the phone rang.

“Rrrrr,” said Dog, the sound more like a snore than a word.

“Phone?” she muttered.

“Yeah.” He reached toward it, dragging the receiver to his ear. “Bastian,” he said.

Jennifer already knew that it would be Dreamland — and that it inevitably meant it was time to get up. She sighed, then swung out of bed to take a quick shower before dressing.

Chapter 35

“We have to get missiles for the Megafortress,” Mack told McKenna as he drove back to the airport. “I’ll try calling around and see if I can break through the paperwork crap. Maybe I can beg some out of Dreamland.”

“What do we need?”

“Sidewinders, AMRAAM-pluses. We could use older AMRAAMs if we had to.”

“How about Sparrows?”

“AIM-7s? I don’t know. I think the Megafortress can fire them off the rotating dispenser in the bomb bay, but I’m not sure,” said Mack. “I don’t know what sort of avionics link they need or if it was hardwired into the computer or what”

“Well, find out.”

“Well, no shit.” Mack saw her scowl and laughed. “But assuming I find out, what difference is it going to make?”

“I know where we can buy some.”

“Sparrow missiles? How?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” said McKenna. “But we can have them in a few hours, assuming we go to pick them up ourselves.”

“Where?”

“Philippines.”

“Shit,” said Mack. “Is this legal?”

“Legal for who?”

Mack snorted. “Okay. What about air-to-ground weapons? Smart bombs?”

“How about early model Mavericks?”

“I don’t know,” said Mack. “I can check though.”

“Well, check.”

The Maverick — officially known as the AGM-65 — was an American air-to-ground missile developed at the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s. It came in a variety of flavors, guided by infrared and video. Though old, it was an effective weapon, especially against tanks and other hardened targets.

“We need more small bombs for the A-37s,” Mack told her. “Can you get some?”

“We may be able to get all of this from the Philippines,” said McKenna. “There are some people there that Ivana knew. They’re a lot further down the food chain, though, and they’re going to be expensive.”

“Sultan’s just going to have to pay through the nose if that’s what it takes,” said Mack, slowing down as he approached the gate at the airport. A pair of army soldiers stood near the main gate; Mack got ready to stop but they didn’t challenge him, or the car behind them carrying his soldiers and the new recruits who had joined him from the defense ministry.

“They still aren’t taking this seriously,” complained Mack as they rolled through.

“They’ve been fat too long,” said McKenna.

“Ain’t that the truth” Mack sped toward the tower, where the army and police guard had been augmented by his own air force people. “I want to rotate the Dragonfly crews so we have airplanes in the air at all times. Yayasan can take the first flight with you in the morning—”

“I fired him.”

“What are you talking about? He’s one of our best pilots.”

“He was flying wing with me this morning. He lost his guts when I went after the helicopter.”

“You just fired him?”

“Soon as we landed. What good is a pilot who loses his nerve? He’s chicken.”

Mack might have said the same thing himself a few weeks before. But now he saw that there were many more jobs in the air force than flying planes. He could have found something for Yayasan to do.

“Okay,” said Mack. “You gotta do what you gotta do. But from now on, I do the hiring and firing, all right? We might have been able to use him on the ground”

She pursed her lips for a second as if she were going to pout, but then said, “Sit, yes, sir.”

“Fuck you, McKenna.”

“Any time, Mr. Minister. Anytime.”

Chapter 36

Dazhou Ti leaned forward over the weapons officer’s shoulder, looking at the screen. When they had drawn up the mission, they had not dared to hope for such luck — both of the Brunei navy’s new patrol vessels were sailing together in the direction of the oil platforms west of the Bay. The two ships were separated by less than a hundred yards.

The only question was whether to use his last Exocets on them, or to close in with his torpedoes and cannon.

Dazhou wanted to reserve the precious French-made missiles; he had only four, and there was no telling when or even if he might obtain replacements. But the two Russian-made Nanuchka-class ships were capable enemies. They had powerful surface-search radars, and as stealthy as the Barracuda was, it could not count on escaping detection once it began firing its cannon.

“Range is twenty kilometers on target one,” said the weapons officer.

“Prepare to fire.”

Dazhou turned toward the helmsman, who was holding to a steady course. Dazhou could see the speed sliding below two hundred knots on the screen, pushing down toward one hundred. While the engineers claimed that a launch speed of one hundred was optimum, Dazhou had concluded from their earlier missions that anything faster than eighty knots increased the margin of error unacceptably; the missile they had launched this morning had actually struck a storage tank beyond the one they were aiming at. The trick was to hold the craft steady at that speed, as it began to settle around eighty-five, losing the benefits of its stubby wings.

“Target is locked,” said the weapons officer. “Speed?”

“One-ten”

“Steady.”

“Ninety-five knots. Eighty-five.”

“Fire missile one.”

“Firing”

“Fire missile two”

“Firing.”

“Target two is changing course!” said the radar operator.

Dazhou looked across the deck at his screen. The second patrol vessel was turning eastward toward them.

“Prepare missiles three and four.”

“Ready to fire, sir.”

“Missile in the air!” warned the radar operator.

For a split second, Dazhou felt his breath catch deep in his chest. The Brunei navy vessel had fired one of its SS-N-9 Siren anti-ship missiles. The missile’s warhead carried roughly 6,600 pounds of explosives — more than four times the weight of the Exocet.

“Prepare for evasive maneuvers,” he said. Then he turned to the weapons officer. “Are we locked on the target?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fire. Both missiles.”

The ship rumbled with the launch as the slender French missiles jumped from their tubes behind the bridge area. The Barracuda then abruptly settled into the water. Dazhou’s decision to fire had cost him the wing in surface effect, making it almost impossible to race away.

But he had no intention of doing so.

“Evasive maneuvers. Chaff and ECMs,” said Dazhou.

The Barracuda lurched sideways as the helmsman tried to duck the incoming missile. A quartet of small mortars pumped shards of aluminum, copper, and tin into the air, creating a fog for them to disappear behind.

“Still tracking us,” reported the defensive weapons officer. “Continue evasive maneuvers,” said Dazhou calmly.

He stood over the radar operator’s station, watching the display.

“Still tracking,” reported the defensive weapons officer.

“ECMs are on?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Target one hit. Hit on target one,” said the offensive weapons operator.

Dazhou struggled to keep his head clear. The missile was still tracking them. He’d thought it would be easier to duck in stealth mode.

Should he have run?

“More chaff,” he said. “And flares as it closes.”

“Ninety seconds,” reported the radar operator.

“Strike on two! Strike on two!”

Yes, thought, Dazhou, we have sunk both. But that will be of small consolation if they hit us as well.

The Barracuda slapped left and right, then left again. The enemy missile continued to home in on them.

Dazhou went to the weapons station. They could use the small cannon as a last-ditch weapon and try and shoot the missile down from the sky. The twenty-millimeter gun was an excellent weapon and the SS-N-9 relatively slow moving, but still, they would have only a few seconds to hit it. The gun was in the nose of the ship and the craft would have to be turned to fire. They would also have to kill their engines to increase the odds of success.

“Come around so we can bring the small cannon to bear;” Dazhou told the helmsman.

“Aye, sir,” he said, already starting the turn.

“Still coming!” warned the radar operator.

It’s looking at our radar, Dazhou realized. The Russians had sold Brunei a radar homing device, and they had been smart enough to use it.

“Turn off the radar,” said Dazhou quickly. “Fire more chaff. Helm, resume evasive pattern.”

The mortars with the chaff roared at the back. The Barracuda hunkered down as her helmsman, worried that turning too sharply would tip them over disastrously, shunted left vaguely, then back right.

“Harder, helm,” said Dazhou. He reached to the control wheel, placing his hand on his crewman’s. He was not showing the man that he didn’t lack confidence in him — he was taking responsibility for the brash maneuver.

The Barracuda roared and shot left, nearly pirouetting around on its wing and flipping over as it tried to follow the harsh jerks on its controls. Dazhou barely stayed upright as they jinked across the ocean left, left then right and right again, left, right, left.

“Chaff!” he called again. “And flares.”

The diversionary weapons exploded from the rear.

Dazhou pulled his arm up. For a second, two seconds, he did not breathe.

And then he knew they were safe.

“Very good,” he told the helmsman, even before the defensive weapons operator and the radarman reported that they had lost track of the enemy missile.

“Head back toward our targets,” Dazhou said calmly. “Let’s make sure they don’t need to be finished off. Remain in stealth mode. Do not activate radar except on my command,” he added.

Within seconds, they were pointed back toward the two Brunei patrol ships. Both were on fire, one clearly taking water. A distress signal came over the radio band.

“Go no closer than ten kilometers,” Dazhou told his helmsman.

“Aye-aye, captain.”

His crew had performed well. He himself, however, might have realized why the SS-N-9 had stayed on them much sooner than he had. In truth, the earlier attacks had made him far too cocky; he should have approached without his radar as he had before.

An important lesson. He would remember to apply it tomorrow, when the stakes would be even higher.