Armageddon

Chapter 45

Jed Barclay put the phone down and stared at the desk. He felt a little like a diver who’d come up from a great depth a touch too quickly; the events unfolding in Brunei had left him slightly disoriented. Islamic rebels were in control of the capital and at least two other cities; the sultan was missing, the military was in disarray. The Brunei navy’s two new patrol ships, purchased from Russia within the last six months, had been sunk overnight. There was no word on the whereabouts of the Brunei’s Megafortress. Officially, Malaysia claimed that it had not helped the guerilla forces, but that seemed highly unlikely.

The CIA was preparing a brief on the Islamic terrorists, citing evidence of a new organization involved behind the scenes known as al Qaeda. Funded by a Saudi millionaire, the group was closely connected with the government of Afghanistan, where it had established training camps for terrorists. The head of the group was a man named Osama bin Laden, a fanatic millionaire dedicated to wiping out the Great Satan — America, of course.

Jed had heard of al Qaeda before, of course, and even knew that it had connections with Islamic extremists in Indonesia and Malaysia, but the collapse of Brunei had been nothing short of remarkable. It seemed impossible that a relatively small band of outsiders, no more than ten thousand according to the CIA estimate, had taken over the country. And yet they appeared to have done just that, perhaps succeeding largely because the idea was so outlandish that it didn’t appear possible.

“Jed? Are you ready?”

Jed looked up and saw his boss, Philip Freeman, standing in the doorway.

“Yeah,” said Jed, standing. “I have the latest from Brunei. It’s pretty ugly.”

“How ugly?”

“Capital has definitely fallen. Sultan is missing,” said Jed.

“Sultan is dead?”

“Unsure. Just missing, at this point.”

“Where’s the Megafortress?”

“Not clear. We’ll have a satellite over the country in about thirty-five minutes. The NSA is working on some intercepts as well.”

Freeman nodded grimly. “Come along.”

Jed followed the national security advisor as they walked over to the White House situation room, where the president had asked his military and national security advisors to meet. President Martindale had not yet arrived, and Jed started talking to some of the Pentagon staffers who were standing along the back wall. He quickly realized that he had much more up-to-date information than they did, and one or two had only a vague notion of where the tiny nation was located. Brunei had been far down on nearly everyone’s priority list until today.

“Gentlemen, ladies, thank you for coming at such an ungodly hour,” said the president as he strode abruptly into the room. “I realize I’ve destroyed the weekend for most of you and I apologize. Let’s get started.”

Brenda Kelly, a State Department aide who had just flown back from Brunei, gave a brief overview of the situation there. Several times she emphasized the kingdom’s importance as an oil producer. Jed took over with details about the government’s collapse, finishing with the fact that an ASEAN emergency meeting scheduled for the next morning Brunei time had been postponed an hour ago because of the rapidly changing situation.

“The question is, do we care about Brunei?” said Arthur Chastain, the secretary of defense. Chastain could be blunt, but the comment was brutal even for him. “Brunei is a minor country in a small corner of the world, certainly not worth the expenditure of our blood.”

“You’re wrong,” blurted Jed. “Aside from its importance as an oil producer, it’s important b-both strategically and as a sy-symbol,” said Jed. His stutter had a habit of appearing at the worst possible times; he sped on, knowing the best strategy for dealing with it was to ignore it. “Brunei helps balance Malaysia and Indonesia in the region. It provided a base during the operations against China. It’s been a more stable ally than the Ph-Ph-Philippines, all things considered. And also, these terrorists have to be taken seriously. This is just the start for them. We have to beat them here.”

“They’re just poor rabble-rousers,” said Chastain. “Poverty’s the problem with all of these people.”

“No one is poor in Brunei,” said Kelly.

“And they have the Megafortress,” added Jed. “It is not a weapon we’d want in terrorists’ hands.”

“Absolutely not,” said the president. “At the minimum, we want to take it back or destroy it.”

“And the maximum?” asked Chastain.

“The maximum is what we’re here to discuss,” the president told him.

Chapter 46

The new orders came just as they were boarding the planes. Dog pulled Danny aside on the apron near the hangar a few feet from the MC-17. Danny’s men — along with two small scout helicopters and Dreamland’s mobile command trailer — were already aboard Dreamland’s version of the versatile McDonnell Douglas cargo plane.

“Brunei’s going all to hell,” Dog told him. ‘The Megafortress is at the International Airport in the capital. Mack Smith can’t be located at the moment. The president wants to make sure the terrorists don’t operate the aircraft.”

“We going to blow it up?” asked Danny.

“It may come to that, depending on the situation,” said Dog. “There’s been some contact with Prince bin Awg, who’s asked for the aircraft to be preserved if not recovered. The president wants us to scope out the situation and destroy the plane only if necessary. I’d like to see exactly what’s going on.”

“What about Deci Gordon?”

“He’s hiding with some people outside the capital. He called into our center a while ago. He seems okay for now. I’ve spoken to Breanna by phone,” Dog added. “She’s in Tokyo. She’ll be joining us in the Philippines.”

Dog explained that, rather than going to Brunei International Airport as they had planned, the Megafortresses and MC-17 would land at a Philippines airfield, using it as a temporary base.

“I’ll take Pennsylvania and do a survey of Brunei as soon as we arrive,” continued Dog. “We’ll check the oil platform we were going to use as the LADS base, double-checking that it’s okay. If possible, we’ll operate the helicopters out of there.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to work,” said Danny. “The platform doesn’t have a dedicated helipad.”

“Then we may have to improvise. You told me the structure of the building had been designed for a landing deck, it just wasn’t installed.”

“The plans say that. We’ll have to get in and check it before we can land.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“If we’re going to get people off the island, we should land directly at the airfield,” said Danny.

“Not until we know what the situation is,” Dog told him. “And I doubt we could hold it with just the Whiplash team”

“Where’s the navy?” asked Danny.

“There’s a carrier group several days away. They won’t be offshore and in a position to conduct operations until the end of next week. This has caught everyone by surprise, including us.

“We’ll get some satellite intelligence over to the MC-17 via the Dreamland network,” added Dog. “It’s daytime over there right now. By the time we get over there with the travel time and time change, it’ll be late at night.”

“Understood,” said Danny. “We’ll try to sleep on the flight over”

Dog was piloting Pennsylvania, an AWACS-equipped radar version of the EB-52, which was also carrying two Flighthawk U/MF-3s strapped to her wings. The robot planes would be piloted by Zen, who was already in his specially adapted seat on the Flighthawk control deck on the Megafortress’s lower level. The area had once been used by the B-52’s offensive team; Zen sat roughly where the navigator would have had his post before the aircraft was overhauled.

Kevin McNamara, Dog’s copilot, was going through the preflight checklists with the help of the computer when Dog slipped into the driver’s seat next to him.

“Welcome aboard, Colonel,” said McNamara. “We’re just about ready to give these turbines a twist and see what they can do.”

Across from the Pennsylvania sat the Indianapolis, getting a last minute check from the ground crew. The “Indy “ — like the “Penn,” named after a famous battleship — was an almost mirror image of the Pennsylvania, with a long snout and a slight bulge for her radar gear about midship. Indy had not yet seen action, but the man at the helm, Major Merce Alou, was a veteran of several Dreamland deployments. The two Flighthawk pilots — Starship and Kick, who would each control one U/MF-3 — had done themselves proud over the South China Sea and Taiwan barely a month before.

Dog glanced across at the other plane’s lit cockpit and saw Major Alou. He gave him a thumbs-up and got one in return.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” he told McNamara, punching up the computer screen that controlled the engine start.

Chapter 47

Sahurah watched quietly as the brothers brought the limp bodies to the shaded area at the side of the sultan’s compound, composing them respectfully.

Commander Besar was brought up last. The blast that had killed him had struck him in the back and neck, nearly severing his head from his body. The men who set him down were grim-faced; one appeared to be near tears. Sahurah considered scolding them, for surely Besar was now at bliss in Paradise.

If so great a sinner as Besar could find peace, why could Sahurah not?

“Cars!” said one of the men near the front of the compound, relaying the word from a lookout.

Sahurah left the others to care for the bodies and went out to the front. Three vehicles came up the drive. The first and last were filled with heavily armed men, crammed four across, front and back.

The middle car contained the imam and the Saudi. The imam pushed open the door and got out with a smile. “You have done well, Sahurah. So well!” he shouted, and he clasped Sahurah to his chest.

“The brothers have done their duty,” said Sahurah.

“And you remain humble!”

The imam seemed to be chiding him. But did the Prophet not direct a believer to know his proper place, to master overweening pride? If the great patriarchs, if the rulers and teachers had not boasted, how could such as Sahurah?

“We have not found the sultan,” reported Sahurah. “He escaped from the compound during the fighting.”

“A small matter in the context,” said the imam, waving his hand. “The capital is ours. Within a few days, we will control the entire country. The future is great, Sahurah”

“Yes”

“More work remains,” said the imam. “But we must give praise to Allah for the triumphs so far.”

“Yes” Sahurah saw now that he had denied the Lord his just thanks, and felt ashamed.

“I have heard that an American was taken prisoner at the airport,” said the commander.

“I was not aware of that,” said Sahurah. “My work has been here”

“Yes. It would be good if you were to take charge of him. He may prove valuable in the future. He was the head of the sultan’s air force.”

“I will look into it immediately.”

“There are anti-aircraft missiles there,” added the commander. “A crew has been sent from Malaysia to train our people to use them. You should select some of your best men to learn. There may be a counter-attack.”

“Understood.”

“We will have control of the nation very shortly,” said the commander. “Very shortly.”

“For the glory of Allah,” said Sahurah.

The imam smiled and got back into the car.

Chapter 48

McKenna crouched amid the rocks as the speedboat cut its engine and coasted toward the shoreline. The two Brunei policemen with her started to rise.

“No,” she said sharply. “Wait until we’re sure of them.”

The men immediately dropped back into a crouch. McKenna picked up her binoculars as the speedboat turned parallel to the shoreline, drifting for a moment. There were five men in it, all armed with large guns — machine-guns, she thought, something on the order of Minimis, the Belgian weapons known in the U.S. as M249s.

The man at the wheel was bin Awg.

“All right,” she told the two policemen. “Carefully.”

As the men moved down to the water, McKenna worked her glasses up and down the shoreline, making sure no one had managed to sneak past the guards she’d posted. Two dozen members of the Brunei police force had rallied to the small camp at the very tip of the country. McKenna’s wing-man had recommended the old airfield when it became clear they couldn’t land at the airport; until today it had mostly been used by helicopters and very light aircraft. The strip was barely wide enough for the A-37Bs. It was long, at least, and, if you ignored two mud holes at the right side about a quarter of the way from the northern end, smooth and solid. She thought she could get the Dragonflies off it with a full or nearly full load of fuel and weapons. Of course, to do that, she’d need jet fuel.

Ammunition would be nice, as well.

McKenna waited until Prince bin Awg was ashore before going down to greet him.

“The sultan is here?” asked the prince.

“He’s fine”

“He must leave now,” said bin Awg. “I’ve arranged safe haven in the Philippines.”

“Why?” said McKenna. She headed for the trail back to the camp.

“You don’t understand. He’s in great danger.”

“Of course I understand. But his duty is to liberate his kingdom and protect his people,” said McKenna.

“His duty is to preserve himself while we do that,” said bin Awg. His strides lengthened as he found the trail.

“I disagree,” said McKenna.

“It’s not up to you”

“Or you.”

The prince argued with his uncle for more than a half hour, but the sultan would not be convinced. The only concession he made was that he would not personally use a rifle unless desperate measures were called for.

McKenna — who heard the argument through the thin walls of the office they had taken as their headquarters — wasn’t sure whether those conditions might not be met at any moment. They were getting different reports from the radio and the one telephone line that remained working. Guerillas — Islamic terrorists who had been operating against Malaysia until a few days before — had taken over the capital and much of the northern portion of the country. While a good number of Brunei policemen and soldiers had fought bravely, the country had largely been taken by surprise. Sadly, a number of government officials had been less than brave, fleeing their posts at the first alarm.

Brunei was by nature a land of peace. That was its greatest problem now — when the unthinkable came, it was difficult to respond.

McKenna worried about Mack Smith and the Megafortress. She assumed that he had turned around once he saw the airport had been taken over, but in the confusion there was no way to know.

The sultan came to the door of the small room he had adopted as his headquarters and called in McKenna, along with the local police chief, who had rallied his men to the camp.

“The prince and I have discussed his request, but I am staying with my people where I belong;” announced the sultan in Malaysian.

“Good,” said McKenna.

Bin Awg frowned but told the others what he knew of the situation in the rest of the country. Small army and police units were continuing to resist in the area south of the capital. Many men had gone underground and were said to be loyal, waiting only for leadership. The army’s third brigade had been untouched by the first wave of the attacks, and had set up a defensive perimeter around Medit in the southern part of the country, where it had been conducting maneuvers. It had armored personnel carriers and reconnaissance vehicles. Additional units were in control of Sukang, but were under heavy fire.

The navy had lost its two Russian patrol ships as well as two other smaller coastal patrol boats. Some of the remaining vessels had rendezvoused in the South China Sea under command of the assistant defense minister for the navy.

The prince recommended that the sultan join up with the main army group, which was roughly fifty miles away across a rough jungle.

“We may be able to bring in a helicopter at nightfall,” said the prince.

“How about getting some fuel for my airplanes?” said McKenna. “We can support the troops there.”

“I don’t know if we can find any. Fuel is hard to come by.”

McKenna told him about the tanker filled with jet fuel that Mack had arranged; it should be nearly offshore by now. In the meantime, fuel could be purchased from the Indonesians in the south.

“Get it up here by boat. We’ll carry it up to the airfield. Or better yet, use those helicopters you have. Get us some ammunition for the guns and we’re in business.”

Prince bin Awg started to speak, but the sultan cut him off. “Make it so,” he said.

The prince bowed his head.

Chapter 49

Mack Smith folded his arms and pushed his back against the chair in the small room in the basement of the civilian terminal building. The side of his face had swelled where he’d been hit earlier; his lower lip sagged and his nose felt like it had been broken. But he was otherwise physically okay.

His pride sure hurt like hell. Taken by surprise on the tarmac by jerks in white pajamas with beach towels on their hair — how the hell was he ever going to live that embarrassment down?

Mack had been interviewed twice; in both cases the interviewers’ English was so poor that he hardly understood them when they asked his name, let alone their other questions. The men ended up shouting at him, but seemed under some restraint not to hit him. He’d simply waited them out until they left.

Mack figured that eventually the sultan would rally his troops and retake the airport. The question was how to survive in the meantime. He’d been a prisoner before — and in fact, had been captured by real Islamic madmen and transported all the way from Somalia to Libya. These guys were amateurs in comparison.

The hallway outside the room was carpeted, and Mack had no warning that someone was approaching until the door opened. A thin man in his mid- or late twenties entered the room. Unlike the others, he wore khaki fatigues and had on a bulletproof vest. He seemed confident, his step deliberate. Two of the pajama-boys with submachine guns came in behind him, standing by the door and pointing their weapons at Mack.

“You are an American:’ said the man. His English had an accent that sounded similar to the accents the Brunei officials Mack dealt with had; it was polished, and vaguely British.

“That’s right,” said Mack. “What are you?”

“I am Commander Sahurah Niu,” said the man. It was a simple declaration, not a brag. “Your name is what?”

“Mack Smith.”

“Smith is a very common name.”

Mack shrugged. “That’s what I’m told.”

“You are a pilot?”

“Sure”

“You flew the large aircraft?”

“Yup.” There was no use lying about that.

“Yup?”

“Means yes,” said Mack.

Sahurah’s eyes seemed to search Mack’s face, as if he were trying to look for clues that his prisoner could be trusted.

Yeah, trust me, Mack thought to himself. Trust me so I can screw you big time.

Once I come up with a plan.

“The big aircraft — it is a bomber?” asked the man.

“No,” said Mack. He wasn’t sure how much information Jalan or the other pilots would give the guerillas, so he had to be careful with his lies. But he wanted to steer them away from the possibility of using the aircraft as an offensive weapon.

On the other hand, if they thought it might be useful, maybe they’d put him in the cockpit A few high-g maneuvers and he’d be free.

“It’s a radar plane,” said Mack. “It, uh — the radar searches for other aircraft. It’s like an early warning system. It can be very useful when you’re under attack.”

“It contains no weapons?”

“Defensive weapons,” said Mack. “It can defend itself.”

Sahurah changed direction, asking how long Mack had been in the country.

“Couple of weeks,” he said.

“Where did the sultan go?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

“We control the city. We will find him. When will the Americans come?”

“Which Americans?” Mack asked.

“Your marines,” said Sahurah.

“Any second,” said Mack.

Sahurah turned to one of the men at the door and said something in Malaysian. The man nodded and left.

“You will be fed,” he told Mack. “A cot will be brought. If you are mistreated, the man who does so will be punished”

“That’s awful nice of you,” said Mack, unable to control his sarcasm.

“No, it is merely the way the law directs a prisoner be treated,” said Sahurah, interpreting the words, not the tone. “I remind you that if you attempt to escape, you will be executed.”

“That’s the law, too?”

“Yes,” said Sahurah. He bowed his head slightly, then turned and left the room.

The pain in his head was so intense that Sahurah had to pause in the hallway and rub the sides of his temples in an effort to get it to stop. He had much to do and could not afford to stop now, even for such pain. He needed to find men who could tell him about the aircraft here; he needed to survey weapons, to prepare defenses for a counterattack, to make sure all of the brothers were being fed, to find a way to welcome the new recruits who were sure to pour in to their lines now that the decadent order had been swept away.

The Brunei pilot and the others who had been with Smith had been shot in the cockpit unwisely by the brothers who took the plane. Apparently one of the soldiers who had followed Smith down the ladder had started to fire, and from that point on there had been little discipline among the attackers. It was a miracle that the American had been spared, though Sahurah did not know what exactly was to be done with him; surely he could not be trusted in the aircraft.

“Commander, the Malaysians who were sent to man the antiaircraft weapons are complaining about their air-conditioning.”

The voice sounded as if it came from the opposite end of the hallway, but when Sahurah turned he found the man who had spoken just a few feet away.

“What is their complaint?” asked Sahurah.

“The air-conditioning needs to function or their equipment will not,” said the man.

“Find Salem the Yemen and tell him that a technician is needed to repair it.”

“Yes, Commander;” said the man, spinning away immediately.

Sahurah once more closed his eyes. He wanted to rest. But God did not want him to, not yet. And he must accept the wishes of his Lord. He took a breath that filled his chest, then resumed his inspection of the airport.

Chapter 50

Zen waited as the computer that helped him fly the U/MF-3 Flighthawk counted down the time to launch from its mothership, the EB-52 Pennsylvania. Numbers drained in the main control screen, which replaced the visor in Zen’s helmet. The projections helped make it seem as if he were inside the small aircraft, and in fact he generally felt as if he were, as he flew. The screen was divided in half; the top showed a video supplied by one of three Flighthawk sensors at the front of the airplane, usually an optical feed, though he could select an infrared or synthetic radar view instead. The panel below this main screen was divided into three different views. The one at the right showed his instruments, or rather a summary of those important at any given moment. The one in the middle was a “sit rep,” or a situation representation, a kind of God’s-eye view that showed the Flighthawk, its mother ship, and anything else within fifty miles. The data was actually provided by a link with the EB-52, constantly checked and updated by the Flighthawk communications and control computer, dubbed C3. At the far left, Zen had a view synthesized from the long-distance radar feed from Penn’s AWACS-style radar, also presented as a God’s-eye view. He could change the displays as needed, but preferred this arrangement when he was just flying one aircraft.

The Megafortress tilted its nose downward, beginning a shallow dive that helped increase the separation forces on the robot aircraft, making it easier to launch. The computer hit zero and Zen felt his body shifting exactly as if he were sitting in the tiny little bird that rushed from the wing. The engine flared and he nudged his stick forward and slightly to the left, diving into an arc that would take him toward the oil platform they had to survey.

“Hawk One is away,” he told Dog, who was piloting the mothership.

“Penn acknowledges.”

“Platform at ten miles. Approaching as planned.”

Zen put his finger against the throttle slide, notching down his power as he approached the platform. The structure had a pair of exposed decks about twenty feet from the waves. The decks ran around three sides. At the rear of the platform sat what amounted to a prefab ranch house at the top. The platform was smaller than those Zen had seen in the Gulf of Mexico, and a bit less elaborate — there was only one satellite dish, for instance, and no helipad. The flat roof of the trailer was just big enough for the Quick Bird helicopters the Whiplash team was riding in.

There were no ships or boats nearby. Zen took the Flighthawk through an orbit about seven thousand feet over the platform, descending gradually to allow the infrared camera in the Flighthawk to get a good look.

“Clean so far,” Zen told Dog.

“We copy,” said Dog, who was looking at the feed on his own display.

Two more passes and he saw nothing.

“I’m going to clear Danny in,” said Dog. “Let’s head over toward Brunei International Airport and have a look at the Megafortress.”

“Roger that,” said Zen, starting to climb away from the ocean.

Chapter 51

The helicopter brought enough fuel for only one Dragonfly. McKenna decided she would use it to scout the jungle, then escort the helicopter to the stronghold. Assuming things went well, she’d take a run over the southern part of the kingdom and scout out positions for the army people at Medit and Sukang, where the last report had the army under constant fire.

The sultan gave her a tired but nonetheless enthusiastic smile as she headed for her plane. “I owe you a great deal, Miss McKenna.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“She’s a rough one, but a tough one,” the sultan commented in Malaysian to one of his aides, apparently forgetting she spoke it. “We need more of that.”

McKenna snorted to herself, then went to her aircraft at the end of the runway. Just as important as the fuel, Prince bin Awg had managed to find two mechanics to tend to the aircraft; they brought enough tools and parts with them that McKenna thought they could build one of the Dragonflies from scratch.

One thing about operating on a shoestring out of a jungle camp — there wasn’t a lot of hassle with the control tower. McKenna started her engines, checked her thrust, made sure the control surfaces moved in the right directions, and let it rip. The plane bucked as the wheels hit one of the mud holes — unavoidable because of the narrow path — but picked her nose up without a problem well before the trees.

McKenna tucked her wing toward the Belait River, which ran a crazy pattern up the southern Brunei countryside from the South China Sea. Both the river and the nearby roads, what little she could see of them, were deserted.

“Good to go:’ she told the helicopter pilot. “Let’s do it quick.”

“Brunei One,” acknowledged a familiar voice. The sultan, an experienced pilot, had taken the controls himself.

Chapter 52

Mack felt the cold hand grab his throat. He jerked nearly straight up and practically fell off the cot.

“I apologize if I startled you,” said the man who had interrogated him last night, Commander Sahurah Niu. “I trust you have rested.”

“Oh, yeah. Hell of a sleep. Thanks for the cot.”

“Put on your shoes and come with me,” said Sahurah.

“Come where?”

“I wish you to show me the aircraft.”

Mack frowned as if he were reluctant to do so, hesitating just long enough for Sahurah to tell him that, while prisoners had to be treated with respect, that commandment applied only to those who were obedient.

“All right,” said Mack, pulling his shoes on. He ran his hand over his jaw, scratching the nearly two-days-worth of growth there. “Can I get some coffee at least?”

Sahurah said something to one of the men at the door.

“The coffee will be brought to the plane. I wish to complete my tour before dawn.”

“I’ll take you wherever you want,” said Mack, hopeful now that he’d be free inside a few hours.

Chapter 53

Dog kept his eyes on the image displayed by the Flighthawk as he flew the Megafortress in a double-eight pattern about ten miles from the runway. He could see the Megafortress sitting in front of the hangar as he rode the Flighthawk in toward the large hangar in the military half of the complex. He couldn’t help but think about his daughter Breanna. A few days earlier and she would have been captured along with Mack.

Assuming he’d been captured. No one had heard from him, and it was possible that, like Deci Gordon, he had managed to escape and was simply hiding out.

Though that didn’t quite seem like Mack’s style.

“Any radars?” Dog asked his copilot, Kevin McNamara. “Negative”

“Hawkins, how are the radar sweeps looking?”

“Clean,” replied Lieutenant Jesse Hawkins, one of the two radar operators who had stations just behind him on the extended flight deck. “Quick Bird helicopters are approaching the platform. They’re running slightly ahead of schedule.”

“Good.”

“They have two guards on the road, no one close to the aircraft,” Zen told Dog. He nudged the Flighthawk down through four thousand feet, taking a slow turn above the hangar and parking area. Several Dragonflies were lined up near the hangar; Zen had been told during his visit that all of the aircraft were inoperable because of serious maintenance issues. Another Dragonfly sat wrecked near the end of the runway. The two helicopters used by the air force were missing, as were the three other operational Dragonflies; they knew from earlier reports that at least one of them had crashed after being hit by small arms fire yesterday.

Over on the civilian side of the vast complex, a 757 sat next to the terminal building and another aircraft sat alone at the far end of the parking area. That airplane looked like a 707; its nose slumped downward and Zen guessed that its front gear had been disabled.

Two Hawk anti-aircraft batteries guarded the airport, along with four Panhard M3 VDA anti-aircraft weapons. The American-made surface-to-air Hawk missiles were old models, though still deemed reliable by the Pentagon briefers. While they were potent weapons, they required a highly trained crew; Zen could tell from his radar warning receiver that their associated radars had not been activated. The Panhards were armored cars with a pair of twenty-millimeter cannons mounted on top; these could be fired by radar or manually sighted and as a practical matter were likely to be more of a hazard. But they, too, seemed silent.

“Have some activity near the terminal area,” said Zen, spotting it as he came back around. “Looks like there’s a gun emplacement on the road in, machine guns I think. That wasn’t there when I was here. I’m going to take a pass at rooftop level. Hold on — looks like somebody’s heading toward the Mega-fortress”

“Target the Megafortress,” Dog told his copilot. “Get ready to take it out.”

Mack recognized the low hush of the Flighthawk engine as it approached from the north.

Zen and his stinky, lousy timing, he thought to himself. He froze on. the tarmac.

“What?” demanded Sahurah.

“Down,” hissed Mack as the Flighthawk buzzed down less than a dozen yards away.

Dog swung the Megafortress out of its orbit, lining her up for a direct shot at the airport.

“I have the Megafortress,” said McNamara. “It’s far enough from the civilian side of the airport that we shouldn’t cause any collateral damage there, but the hangar in front of it will be wiped out, along with most of the apron. If it’s fueled, it’ll be a hell of a fire.”

“Understood,” said Dog.

“Range is ten miles,” said the copilot.

“Bay,” Dog told him, giving the order to open the bomb-bay door. A GPS-guided smart bomb rotated to the bottom of the launcher, ready to fire.

“I could be mistaken,” Zen said over the interphone. “But I think that’s Mack near the plane. I’ll go back through the video freeze-frame images in a second. That might even have been Deci with him, wearing a flak jacket.”

Dog immediately started to level the plane, breaking off his attack.

“Colonel?” asked McNamara.

“Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on down there,” Dog told him. “I’d prefer not to have to kill our people.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was his walk that had given him away — Zen would recognize that strut anywhere. And sure enough, the enlarged image in the screen had the familiar buzz cut and crooked smile that said Mack Smith had an ego so large most days he didn’t need an airplane to get off the ground.

“You sure it’s Mack?” asked Dog.

“Looks like him. The flight suit looks like his, and there aren’t too many six-foot Anglos around here. His cowboy boots, I think.”

The boots, made from alligator, cinched it for Zen.

As Zen swung the Flighthawk over the airport again, he told the computer to push the infrared sensor settings to their maximum setting. The Megafortress was a dull brown in the screen — the engines weren’t on.

“I don’t think she’s fueled,” he told Colonel Bastian. “Nobody aboard.”

“You think we could land and pick them up?”

Zen was just about to tell him that was too crazy an idea when McNamara broke in.

“Radar up!” warned the copilot. “One of the Hawk missile batteries.”

Zen mashed the throttle as the radar-warning indicator showed that he was being targeted.

“Out of there, Zen,” Dog said. “Everybody hang on.”

“Missiles in the air!” shouted McNamara.

Chapter 54

Danny Freah could see the shadow of the derrick in the distance, rising up over the platform a few miles away. The Dreamland Quick Birds had made good time getting here.

A good thing, too. The helicopters were many things — fast, reliable, heavily armed — but comfortable they were not. Their seats had about as much padding as a metal washboard.

Danny pulled on his smart helmet, which allowed him to communicate with the rest of his team and the helicopter pilots. The helmet’s visor included a panel that could be used to display feeds from video and infrared cameras at the top of the helmet, as well as images from other team members and an array of sensors.

“All right, we do this the way we drew it up,” Danny told them. “Team one rappels down, then team two. We secure the facility, make sure the roof can take the helicopters’ weight, then land. Questions?”

Danny waited for Boston’s wisecrack. He was almost disappointed when it didn’t come.

“Sergeant Liu, we, ready?” he asked Liu, who was heading team two in the second chopper.

“Ready, sir.”

“All right, pilots, your move.”

Unlike conventional helicopters, which used tail rotors to help them maneuver and remain stable in flight, the Quick Birds used a system similar to the “Notar” McDonnell Douglas had developed for the MD 530N version of the basic design. The innovative design made the small helicopter even more maneuverable, and the pilot was able to swing in close to the large metal framework as he and Danny gave it the once-over.

“Let’s do it,” said Danny.

The three men who’d been sitting in the rear compartment had already readied their ropes, anxious to get out of the cramped quarters of the scout. Danny was the last one down, his boots clunking on the metal roof of the small building that sat above the double deck of the platform. Just as he let go of the rope he lost his balance; he managed to pitch back and fall on his butt — undignified, but far better than falling on his face, and light-years ahead of going off the side.

“First deck is secure,” said Sergeant Geraldo Hernandez. “Bison, where are you?”

“Yo, right behind you,” answered Sergeant Kevin “Smokes” Bison.

“Going downstairs.”

Danny felt the rush of wind from the second helicopter overhead as he jumped down off the roof. He checked the time on the status bar at the bottom of his smart. They had about ten more minutes to decide whether the helicopters were staying or not; after that, the mission plan dictated that the choppers head back to the Philippines and return later in the day. Even the Dreamland helos couldn’t carry enough fuel to linger very long.

The door to the enclosed office and rest area was locked. Danny drew his pistol, and fired once point-blank at the lock. The bullet had a specially designed metal slug as its payload; it worked like a sledgehammer, removing the lock.

MP5 ready, Danny sprung the door open with his foot, staying back in case there was a reaction. After a few seconds, Sergeant Jack “Pretty Boy” Floyd inserted a telescoping wand with a fish-eye camera into the open space; it fed a shadowy image into their smart helmets.

“Clear,” said Pretty Boy.

Danny moved quickly into the large room, still on edge. A beach chair sat on the far wall; a bag of clothes or linens was nearby it. There were two open doorways on Danny’s right. The smart helmet sensors couldn’t see very far into the rooms.

“Right first,” said Danny. Pretty Boy checked both rooms with the telescoping eye; both were clear, as was a shower and restroom area inside the second room.

The rest of the team, meanwhile, landed. Sergeant Liu had begun inspecting the interior of the building.

“Bad news, Cap — this’ll never hold the helicopters. There’s supposed to be braces here,” said Liu, pointing at the wall area. “This is just Sheetrock through here. We’re lucky this held us.”

Danny went over to it. The plans that he had seen showed a trio of thick girders running across the center of the building area, and the plan notes had indicated that the roof was strong enough to brace an additional deck or helipad.

“Guess they don’t believe in building inspectors in this part of town,” quipped Boston.

“Shit,” said Danny. He glanced at his watch — three more minutes. “I’m going to check that dock area we saw,” he told Liu.

“Want me to watch your back?” asked Boston.

“Secure the two decks and see if you can figure out the electric situation. That generator is supposed to be on the first floor somewhere.”

Chapter 55

Dog instinctively threw the Megafortress into a hard zag as soon as the missile warning sounded.

“Tracking us,” said McNamara.

“ECMs. Break it.”

“Trying.”

The HAWK MIM-23 was an excellent anti-aircraft missile, but it was an American weapon and in theory it should be easy for the electronic counter measure system to confuse. Theory and practice weren’t quite the same thing, however. McNamara reported that one of the missiles was continuing toward them, its speed closing in on Mach 2.5.

“Hang on,” shouted Dog, and he put the Megafortress onto her wing, just barely ducking thé missile. The computer complained that he had exceeded flight parameters and tried balancing the different forces, working hard because of the second Flighthawk that was still attached to the right wing. The Hawk exploded off the right wing and the Megafortress slipped into a spin, her momentum corkscrewing around, and the aircraft’s wings lost her grip on the sky. A second missile exploded nearly a half-mile away, but now gravity and momentum were much more worrisome enemies.

Dog had learned to recover from spins very early in his training as a pilot, but the sharp smack of gravity multiplied by the harsh twist of surprise made his hand slow to respond. His head felt as if it were being forced to the left; he fought it at first, concentrating on his skull rather than the aircraft. It was only a moment’s hesitation, but had they been much lower, it might have been fatal. Finally Dog’s instincts and training came through; he stopped worrying about his head and was able to move with the plane, willing it under control and pulling up as the altimeter dipped down just below a thousand feet.

“Shit,” managed McNamara as they started to climb. Dog looked right; his copilot was holding his left arm, which he’d smacked up during the plummet. “I think I broke my arm.”

“Target the HAWK control van,” Dog told him.

“There’s a backup”

“Both of them”

“If we do that, we won’t have any bombs left for the plane on this run,” said McNamara.

“Target the HAWK vans”

“Yes, sir.” The copilot groaned.

“You okay, McNamara?” asked Dog, ready to bring up the targeting screen himself.

“No:’ he said. “But I’ll nail those mothers with my toes if I have to.”

As the Megafortress slapped downward, Zen struggled to keep his Flighthawk straight and level. He had to fight against his instincts to do this; his stomach told his head they were in a spin, and his head wanted to move his hand and legs to get them out of it.

His legs.

The idea taunted him, a devil just out of reach as he held the stick steady. A black cloud began to rise around him; Zen felt himself choke, and waited to hear the Megafortress’s alarm indicate that they were on fire.

He coughed again. The cloud started to recede.

The Flighthawk was nearly head-on for the HAWK missile battery.

“Targeting screen,” Zen told the computer. A pipper appeared in a shaded area before his eyes. “Dish,” he said, telling the computer what he was aiming at. The pipper immediately turned from gray to yellow, indicating that he was close but not quite on target.

Zen moved his hand slowly toward the screen. The pipper began to blink yellow, then changed to red.

He pushed down on the trigger and bullets streamed from the front of the robot plane. He moved the stick very gently left and right, cutting an oval pattern through the metal before pulling off.

“Zen, we’re taking out the HAWK batteries with our bombs:’ said Dog.

“Hawk leader,” he acknowledged, pulling the Flighthawk up and away from the airport.

Chapter 56

Mack crouched on the cement, watching as the black shadow of the Flighthawk darted across the empty field to the south, going after the radar dish that guided the anti-air missiles. The front of the tiny aircraft blossomed red; a moment later he heard the quick stutter of the plane’s cannon. By the time the sound died the wedge-shaped aircraft had flickered upward, from this angle seeming to rise straight up, a puppet pulled by the strings of heaven.

“Out of here,” Mack yelled. “Away from the military side of the airport:’ He got up, saw Sahurah still on the ground near the Megafortress, then reached back and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him to his feet.

They’d gotten about thirty yards when the first bomb exploded. The target was a good distance away, but the shock of the five-hundred-pound warhead threw Mack abruptly toward the pavement. He got his left arm out, skidding across the concrete. Cursing, he stumbled back to his feet just as another bomb hit. He saw a geyser of smoke rising over the area near the HAWK trailers.

Something grabbed at Mack; he turned and found Sahurah clutching him. Blood ran down his hands. Mack instinctively picked him up, hauling him over his back and starting to run toward the terminal building. After a few steps his pace slowed to a walk.

He heard the whine of an approaching Flighthawk and threw himself down as it passed. Sahurah’s weight pressed against his upper body and made him slam his chin against the concrete. Mack cursed, rolled over to his back, and edged up on his elbows, dazed and unsure now where the hell he was.

Danny surveyed the dock area from the ladder, using the range-finder in the smart helmet as a measuring tool. The dock was eight feet wide, which would make it a precarious perch for the helicopters. Nor did the sections look particularly stable or long. There was no way they were getting the helicopters down here.

“Freah to Quick Bird One. Jack, you guys better head back,” he told the pilot. “We’ll do an assessment on that roof. In the meantime, come up with a plan to shore it up. Worst case, you can fly the grid in overnight.”

The grid was a portable landing area that could be set up over either the deck or the housing area.

“I was thinking we could land on derrick two,” replied the pilot. “The backup platform.”

“Negative,” said Danny. It was more than a mile away and they’d have no way of getting back and forth until the MC-17 dropped their zodiacs along with additional supplies. “Let’s just do this the way we drew it up”

“You got it. We’ll be back.”

The helicopters banked low, saying good-bye before heading off. The Whiplash team would be on its own for the next several hours.

Danny came up the ladder and joined Liu on the lower deck, where they had found a generator and a barrel of diesel that the sergeant estimated would last at least forty-eight hours. The motor balked at first, but within a few minutes they had it up and running, and the interior lights came on in the building area and around the platform. A floodlight came on below, illuminating the dock-area; Danny went back to look for a switch; he found one inside a metal box near the hatchway to the area below. The switch was stuck, and when he tried prodding it with his knife the handle broke off, leaving no easy way to turn the light off. Frustrated, he decided to climb back down and see if he could unscrew the light; if not he’d just shoot the damn thing out.

Danny had to get down to the dock and then climb up a nearby support beam, but once he did he found another switch box with a control inside that was considerably easier to use and the light snapped off. He shimmied back down to the dock and started to go back to his men. As he did, he noticed a thick black shadow about a hundred yards from the southwestern leg. His first thought was that it was an oil slick, but the edges seemed too linear. Then he thought it must be some sort of optical illusion, a shadow cast by the platform in the dim predawn light. He took a step up and then down, trying to puzzle out how it was formed.

And then, as he watched, the shadow began to move.

“Liu,” he said softly, “come down to the dock area real, real quiet. I’m on the ladder. Take one other person with you. Everybody else, hold your positions and be real quiet.”

Chapter 57

“No way that was anything but an unguided, lucky shot,” said McNamara, talking about the missile that had nearly clocked them. “They may have gone to the K-band range-only-radar when we jammed but I’d bet they had a general direction and just launched.”

Dog, completing the system check with the computer, didn’t respond. Lucky shot or no, the HAWK anti-aircraft system wasn’t something you could operate merely by throwing a switch. These weren’t raw kids they were dealing with. Whoever had been in the guidance trailers knew what they were doing.

They were also now dead. Both GBU-30s — also known as JDAM or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, bombs that steered themselves to specific GPS points — had struck their targets dead-on. The five-hundred-pound warheads had obliterated the guidance trailers and everything nearby.

“What’s the situation down there, Zen?” Dog asked.

“The trailers are fried. More missiles on the launcher at the south side. First launcher fired all three I think. Couple of gun batteries but they haven’t done anything. Hang on,” added the pilot, turning his small craft around for another survey.

“What about the Megafortress on the ground?” Dog asked.

“Same as before. The people who were going toward it ran back for the terminal. One of them was definitely Mack, but I think the person with him was a local, or maybe one of the guerillas. There are a bunch of guys in white clothes near them. I had an idea,” he added.

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t we eliminate the fuel trucks so the Megafortress can’t be refueled,” said Zen. “Keep it grounded for a while without doing any damage. Brunei Air Force only has one tanker. That was one of Mack’s big gripes. There are six over on the civilian side but they’re all parked by an auxiliary building. I can shoot up the pumping apparatus as well, but I’m not sure if there’s a backup.”

“They’ll just bring another truck in,” said Dog.

“At some point, maybe. But if you’re looking to keep them on the ground without taking apart the plane completely, that might work.”

It was a temporary measure to be sure, but it would be adequate for now. If the militants made any move to fuel it, they could still use the Flighthawk to disable it. Dog also could have Indy take a shot at cratering the ramp area from the military side of the airport.

“Let’s do it,” he told Zen.

“I’d like to launch Hawk Two,” added Zen, referring to the second Flighthawk.

“I don’t think we can;” said McNamara. “I have a fault on the program screen.”

“Nothing here,” said Zen.

“Can you do it with just Hawk One?”

“Not a problem.”

“Go„

Dazhou Ti turned the optical viewer to the left, making sure that the helicopter had gone. The viewer, similar to the periscope on a submarine, allowed him to survey the area without using his detectable sensors. Its field of vision was limited, however; he could see only a small swatch of the ocean or sky at a time.

The helicopter had left two or three men at the platform, but who they were wasn’t clear. He suspected either Australians or Americans, since he had not recognized the aircraft type as Malaysian — or Bruneian, for that matter.

It was hardly an academic point. A tug was due to meet him within an hour here. Despite considerable work by his crew, they had been unable to restart their main engines. Their emergency backup power was supplied by an electric generator. They had manually rerouted it to provide power to the in-port maneuvering system, but could make no more than two or three knots, and even that required shutting down the rest of the electrical systems. The power arrangements meant they could only use the cannon. It would have to be aimed and operated manually, and even then there were doubts about what effect the power drain would have on the rest of the ships’ systems. It was unlikely they could destroy the platform before the men there called for reinforcements.

Still, it was not in Dazhou’s nature to do nothing. All his life he had seen boldness rewarded.

“We will move to the east side of the platform,” he told his crew. “When we arrive, we will send a boarding party. I will lead the party myself,” he added on the spur of the moment. “There are no more than three men on the platform; they should be easy to overcome.”

“They’re blowing up the fuel trucks,” said Mack as the Flighthawk tucked left and lit its cannon on the other side of the civilian terminal. He crouched down though he was several hundred yards away.

He had to hand it to Zen — he was an efficient SOB. Anyone else would have taken two or three passes. But here the pilot had gone for the trifecta, swooshing three trucks in the space of maybe ten seconds.

“Why are they doing that?” said Sahurah next to him.

Mack shrugged, though he knew the answer — they didn’t want the EB-52 to take off, but had decided for some reason to hold off on blowing it up.

Lucky for him.

“You saved my life,” said Sahurah as the Flighthawk swooped upward. “Why?”

Good question, thought Mack.

“Why did you save me, or not try to escape?” asked Sahurah when he didn’t answer.

“Just stupid, I guess,” said Mack, watching as the Flighthawk made another pass and another fuel truck erupted in flames.

Why had the infidel saved his life? wondered Sahurah.

Had God moved him to do so?

Or had the devil?

What if neither had? What if he had acted solely on his own?

Sahurah put his hand on his hip over his holster, contemplating what had happened. He had been taught that Westerners, Americans especially, were thoroughly corrupt and without virtue. He’d seen ample examples of this during his life.

And yet the actions of his prisoner, surely meant to save him, were against every expectation. It was one thing for the man to be strong and brave — these were things he expected, considering that Mack Smith had an important position. But his actions were beyond that.

“Commander!” shouted one of his men, running toward him. Four other brothers, all with AK47s, trotted behind him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” said Sahurah. “Take Mr. Smith back to the building where he was held. Treat him with the greatest respect.” He turned to Mack. “Remember, you are a prisoner.”

“Hard to forget,” replied Mack, following them toward the building.

Chapter 58

McKenna banked her Dragonfly low over the river, giving the tops of the nearby trees a good look at her belly. The Brunei army had fortified positions on the northern side of the bridge that led to Sukut, and had only a few scouts on the south. She couldn’t see them because of the thick jungle canopy, nor could she tell if there were rebels there.

“You have a truck moving on the road,” she told the Brunei army unit on the ground. “Pickup type truck. Rear is, uh, looks empty.”

The army sergeant on the other end of the line thanked her. Unlike yesterday, the responses were sharp and very focused.

McKenna flew over the road and then banked north, looking for any concentration of militants. The citizens of Sukut had rallied to the small army and police force there, swelling their ranks with volunteers. Reinforcements were due soon from Medit.

“This is Dreamland EB-52 Pennsylvania to unidentified aircraft operating near Sukut. Identify yourself,” crackled the radio.

“Who the hell are you calling unidentified?” snapped McKenna. “Why are you using Brunei Air Force communications frequencies?”

“Identify yourself,” responded the voice.

“Just like an American,” answered the pilot. “Dreamland EB-full-of-yourself-52, this is Brunei-Air-Force-kick-your-butt-and-spit-in-your-eye A-37B Dragonfly Dragon One. You are in sovereign Brunei territory,” she added. “State your purpose and position.”

There was a brief pause. McKenna began climbing and made sure her radar was in long-range scan. The scope was clear, though she knew the Megafortress’s stealthy characteristics meant it could be as close as ten miles away.

“Dragon One, this is Pennsylvania,” said another, older voice over the radio. “We are here to assess the situation.”

“Well, that’s damn American of you,” responded McKenna. “A day late and I’m going to guess a dollar short. What’s your location?”

“We’ve just finished eliminating the ground-to-air defenses at Brunei International Airport and disabled their fueling capacity.”

“What about our EB-52?” she asked.

“We haven’t touched it,” said the American. “It’s near your hangar at the base.”

McKenna felt a stab of pain in her ribs — she had hoped that Mack had been warned off and gone back to the Philippines. “Is the plane under the militants’ control?” added the voice.

”Unknown at this time.”

“The airport is clearly in militant control, as is the rest of the capital,” said the voice. “Do you have information to the contrary?”

Hopes, but not information, she thought to herself.

“Not at this time,” she answered. “Who are you?”

“Lt. Colonel Tecumseh Bastian. Who are you?”

“Brunei Air Commodore McKenna”

McKenna filled the Americans in on the situation as she knew it, without identifying the base she was operating from. She guessed that they were here primarily to make sure that Brunei’s Megafortress didn’t fall into the militants’ hands.

“Are you offering to help the sultan, who is the rightful and lawful ruler of this country?” she asked finally.

“We’re here to assess the situation,” answered the American.

“Well don’t take too long to choose up sides,” she told him. “Or there may be only one left.”

“Some sort of ship,” Liu told Danny over the communications circuit. He was standing a few feet away on the dock, using binoculars to examine the shadowy vessel. “Stealthy. Those triangular wings on the side allow it to skim over the water. Marines were talking about something like that to move troops in, but they’re a bit bigger.”

Whatever it was, it was moving, albeit very, very slowly, to the east of the platform. It remained several hundred yards away.

“Who does it belong to, Captain?” asked Boston, who was back by the ladder.

“Good question,” said Danny. “I’ll alert Dreamland Command. For the time being, Boston, Bison, you guys keep it under surveillance from the lower deck. The rest of us will continue searching the platform. Weapons locker would be particularly handy right now.”

“Gotcha, Cap,” said Bison.

Danny climbed back to the housing area, where Pretty Boy had set up the satellite communications gear. Danny’s helmet plugged in via an infrared link, and he found himself talking to Major Catsman in the command center. The vessel — or whatever it was — didn’t appear on any of the force listings or any of the intelligence briefings that she could find.

“It’s not an optical illusion,” said Danny. “I can replay the image I recorded with the helmet. It’s moving in the water. Pretty slowly, but it’s moving.”

“We’d like to see it,” said Catsman. “I’ll ask Colonel Bastian to overfly it. They’re over the southern portion of the country right now.”

Before Danny could reply, Boston broke in over the team circuit.

“Captain, there’s a boat coming out of the back of it. Looks like there’s a boarding party”

“Be right there,” said Danny.

“I see where she’s heading,” said Lieutenant Hawkins, working one of the radar boards on the Dreamland EB-52. “Small strip, tiny — surprised she can get out of there.”

The lieutenant forwarded a map image with the strip marked out on it to Dog’s station. Dog zoomed out, getting a better idea of the location, and then brought up a satellite image from the library. The base was indeed tiny, but it was also near the coast and protected by rough terrain from neighboring Malaysia.

“Zen, let’s get an overflight of that area:’ Dog said. “Get an idea of what they’ve got there and whether their defenses can withstand an attack.”

“Sure she won’t try shooting me down?” said Zen.

“She may just take you on,” Dog told him. The pilot — McKenna — reminded him a bit of his own daughter. “But if you don’t think you can outfly an A-37B …”

“I can handle a Tweet, thanks,” snapped Zen, using the somewhat derogatory slang term for the aircraft’s trainer version, the T-37.

If the base seemed secure, Dog thought he might be able to air-drop supplies in. That would be exceeding his orders — but it was the right thing to do, as long as he could find a way to do it.

“Dreamland Command to Penn,” crackled the radio. “Colonel, Danny’s reporting an unidentified vessel in the water near his position.”

“On our way,” said Dog, immediately changing his plans.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds to see that the boat was definitely headed for the platform. Danny came down to the lower deck, watching as the rubber boat came toward them. There were four men, paddling steadily. The team looked extremely disciplined — so much so that they reminded Danny of the SEAL team he had spent an exhilarating and exhausting week training with a year before.

“Dreamland, are you sure these aren’t our forces?” Danny asked, punching the back of his helmet to connect via the satellite. “These guys remind me of SEALs.”

“Not to our knowledge.”

“Cap, what do you think of going down to the dock? They can’t see the ladder from where they are.”

“Hold off, Boston” The last thing he wanted to do was kill four of his countrymen. “Dreamland — have we checked with the navy?”

“That’s negative, but to our knowledge, they’re not navy” He was authorized to protect himself. If these guys were SEALs, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That wasn’t going to be good enough if he was wrong, though.

“Liu, you got that high-powered telescope trained on these guys?”

“Still working on it, Captain.”

The vessel they had come from was definitely not American; it didn’t appear on any listing of U.S. forces that Danny knew of or that Dreamland could access. Then again, most of Dreamland’s equipment didn’t either. Whiplash itself was to be found nowhere, except as an insignificant security detail attached to a nonexistent unit at Edwards Air Force Base.

The boat was fifty yards away.

“Captain?” asked Boston.

“They have MP5Ns,” said Liu.

The same type of submachine gun SEALs used.

“Russian RPG in the bottom of the boat.”

“Fire!” said Danny.

Somehow Dazhou Ti sensed that they were under fire before he heard or saw the gunfire. He immediately reached to the motor of the boat — they’d kept it off so they could make a silent approach — and started the engine. The four-stroke pancake motor, adapted from a motorcycle design, was located completely underwater, except for the air intake and exhaust. It coughed then caught with a roar, lifting the prow of the rubber assault boat forward in a rush. As it did, one of Dazhou’s men fell back against him; the captain pushed him back upright but the man slumped to the left, his face and arm riddled with bullets.

“There,” shouted one of the others, pointing. The guns began popping, the loud staccato competing with the roar of the engine. A stream of lead ripped against the wall of the boat, puncturing some of the cells but not enough to threaten its buoyancy. Another of Dazhou’s men leaned to the side, then fell into the water; Dazhou kept his sight fastened on the dock area ahead.

He’d thought there were no more than three people here, but obviously there were.

Something roared behind him, and part of the platform crumpled and fell into the water — the Barracuda began to fire its cannon.

The first shell landed on the deck below them, rumbling through the metal framework with a groaning screech. The cannon flashed several times again, apparently without hitting the platform.

Meanwhile, the boat was continuing toward them. Danny emptied his magazine, then slapped in a fresh box.

“Liu, put a grenade on it if it gets close enough,” he told the sergeant as he ran in the direction of the ladder down to the dock. As he reached it, the enemy ship’s gun found its target once more and the platform rocked with three blows from the cannon. Danny fell near the railing; he looked over and saw Boston down below emptying his M4, a shortened version of the M16.

“What the hell are you doing down there? Get up, get up,” yelled Danny. Machine-gun fire peppered the dock near his man, and at least two slugs bounced off Boston’s carbon-boron vest. Danny couldn’t find the boat for a second; finally he saw it at the far end of the dock area. He fired his MP5 submachine gun, the bullets rattling out from the weapon, his whole body shaking. Someone in the boat began to fire back and Danny pushed back, out of the line of fire, and reloaded.

“Boston where the hell are you?”

He, didn’t answer. Danny pushed back to the edge of the deck area as the platform rocked violently with fresh salvos from the enemy ship. He thought he could get a grenade into the boat but didn’t want to with Boston exposed somewhere below.

“Boston, where the hell are you?” he said again, firing a short burst in the direction of the boat.

Chapter 59

Zen saw the flashes in the right side of his screen even though the radar was having the devil of a time picking up the low-lying ship near the oil platform. He changed the input to only optical and saw what looked like a Civil War-era Confederate ironclad with stubby, sharply angled wings on either side. A cannon was firing at the oil platform from what looked like an open porch at the top of the hull.

Zen pushed left, moving to get the Flighthawk’s nose on the cannon. The pipper blinked red then went solid; he waited a half second and then started to fire. His stream of bullets punctured the side of the ship immediately behind the cannon. He pushed his stick left, trying to run the slugs into it.

And then the targeting screen abruptly disappeared. He was out of ammunition.

The ladder down to the dock extended from an open hatchway on the lower deck. It was completely exposed to fire from the water. Further down at the end of the deck a pair of close-set girders dropped to the edge of the platform; Danny thought he could climb down them and be protected from gunfire by their bulk.

He half-crawled, half-ran to the railing there, moving his large frame gingerly into the open space. His right hand started to slip as he swung around; his left boot missed the strut that ran between the two pier pieces. Danny clamped the hand to the metal, trying to somehow rub it dry without actually losing his grip. For a moment he dangled freely against the side, his weight supported by only one hand. A thick bolt extended from the girder in front of him; he was able to grab it with his left hand, the submachine gun falling and hanging by its targeting wire to his smart helmet. He managed to get a foothold as a fresh salvo of cannonfire rocked the platform. The vibrations tingled in his hands and knees, but his grip was tight. Danny managed to work his way down, slapping his knee hard against the steel. He climbed toward the waves, able to peek through the space but not seeing much of anything.

“Boston!” he yelled as he neared the platform.

He heard a squelch or something over the circuit, but no answer. Danny pulled his gun to his right hand, then swung around to the dock. The boat had pushed against the far side; he could see people in front of it.

“Boston?” he yelled, but still there was no answer.

Vanity had brought Dazhou Ti to this point, and vanity now kept him from retreating. One of his men was dead, another overboard.

“Captain?” shouted his other crewman.

Dazhou didn’t answer. He knew he had made a grave mistake. They’d made it to the docking area, but there was no sense now going aboard; the Barracuda was pummeling it with shells.

And yet he wouldn’t throw the vessel into reverse.

Something moved in the water to the left of the dock and platform area. As he raised his gun to fire, a fresh round of bullets rained down from above. Dazhou turned his rifle upward abruptly and raked the spot; he continued to press the trigger even as the magazine was exhausted.

“All right,” he said in a whisper to himself. He reached for the motor, reengaging it. “All right”

Chapter 60

Dog came out over the water just as Zen announced that he had run out of ammo for his cannon.

“Bring up one of the AMRAAM-pluses,” Dog told McNamara.

“Uh, Colonel? An AMRAAM against a ship?”

“You have a problem with that?”

“Uh, no, sir, if I can get the computer to allow it.”

“Use the manual setting if you have to.”

“Yes, sir.”

McNamara busied himself with the targeting screen. Though they were less than fifteen miles from the vessel, the radar had difficulty locating it, let alone getting a lock. Dog could see the vessel in the enhanced video screen. The gun had stopped firing, and smoke seeped from the opposite side.

“Got a lock:’ said McNamara finally.

“Fire.”

Dazhou had just pulled the small boat around to retreat when the missile or bomb struck the side of the ship. It plowed right through without igniting. Dazhou stared in disbelief, the sun glinting into his eyes.

It couldn’t have happened, he thought. He couldn’t have seen it.

And then the Barracuda’s stern slid down to the port side, bobbed upward, and then down, disappearing. The nose of his ship — his great, wonderful ship — rose from the water like the mouth of a shark getting ready to clamp on its prey. It stayed upright for a moment, locked in his stare, then slowly slipped away.

“No!” he shouted. Dazhou took his fist and began pounding the side of his head viciously. His mistakes had killed his men — his mistakes had killed his ship.

“No!” he shouted. “No!”

Danny couldn’t see boston anywhere. He crouched at the side, unsure exactly what was going on.

The boat that had tried to land at the oil platform was gone. The enemy ship had stopped firing.

A Flighthawk buzzed overhead, spinning around the derrick at the top of the platform like a midget racer completing a test lap. Danny went to the edge of the dock just in time to see the enemy ship put its bow up into the air and slide down to a watery grave.

But where the hell was Boston? Had he been taken prisoner by the men in the boat?

Something moved in the water to his right. Danny spun quickly, pointing his submachine gun.

A boat.

Danny aimed but stopped himself from firing only at the last second.

It was Boston, in a small aluminum skiff.

Danny pulled off his helmet and yelled at him. “Boston, why the hell didn’t you answer me?”

“I been answering you!” the sergeant shouted back. “I told you I found the boat and was trying to fire at the rubber raft. Everybody’s been trying to tell you. Your radio’s out or something.”

Danny nearly threw the offending helmet into the water. He turned and went back up the dock, looking in the direction of the ship that had been sunk. Another ship had appeared in the distance.

“I found this boat and thought I could flank ‘em,” said Boston, coming up on the dock. “It’s a little aluminum thing. We used to use them for fishing on the lake.”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “All right. There’s another ship coming. Let’s get upstairs.”

Chapter 61

“They claim they’re a Malaysian salvage tug,” McNamara told Dog after he was able to raise the approaching ship on the maritime radio bands. “Damn nervous, too. They say they’re civilians, answering an emergency call from a Malaysian naval vessel.”

“Tell them they can recover the people in that small boat, but if they go within five hundred yards of that platform, we’ll sink them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How you looking, Zen?”

“Could use a refuel.”

“Now’s as good time as any,” said Dog. He started to climb, laying out a track where he could have the computer fly the Megafortress while the Flighthawk took fuel through the special boom below her tail. “Meet you at eighteen thousand feet.”

“Hawk leader.”

Dog checked in with Danny on the platform. His men had been bruised a bit, but none of the enemy’s bullets had penetrated their carbon-boron vests or helmets, and the cannon had done little damage to the platform. That tracked with U.S. navy experience during the Iran tanker war and the Gulf War, when some of the better-built platforms sustained hundreds and even thousands of rounds before being destroyed. Partly it was a function of the design of the platforms and their superstructure, and partly it was a function of the size of the bullets being fired — twenty or twenty-five millimeters just didn’t measure up to the mammoth shells Penn’s namesake had once dished out.

Dog clicked into the Dreamland Command frequency. “Dreamland, this is Colonel Bastian. Ask Major Alou if he can push up his schedule in Indy; we’re out of ammo. Then see if you can locate Jed Barclay and get him in touch with me. I have some information he’s going to find very important, diplomatic type information.”

“Right away, Colonel,” said Major Catsman.

Chapter 62

They gave Mack a breakfast of some sort of fruit and then left him alone in a basement room of the terminal. He spent the time stewing, berating himself for saving Sahurah rather than sending the idiot to the fuel trucks where he could have had the fiery death a terrorist deserved.

The concrete had scraped the palms of his hands and little specks of blood dotted the flesh; he had cut up the side of his face as well and could feel it swelling. Tired, he lay down on the floor next to the wall — there were no chairs or other furniture in the room — staring at the ceiling but not sleeping. He was still there when the door opened and two men came in.

“Mr. Mack Smith, you are to come with us,” said one of the men. He held a Beretta in his hand; Mack noticed that the gun shook slightly.

“Okay,” said Mack. He pulled himself up slowly. The other man stood back by the door with some sort of rifle; the gun had a folding metal stock and looked as if it had been cut down. Though both were in their thirties, the men were clearly nervous, and Mack moved as deliberately as possible, aware that their fear was probably twice as dangerous as their weapons. The light in the hallway hurt his eyes; he held his hand over his head as he walked to the stairway. The two men stayed behind him, and Mack thought of making a break for it when he reached the top. But there were other guards there, younger but just as jumpy, their bodies visually twitching as he approached.

The Brunei airport would never make a ranking of the busiest airports in the world or even Asia, but it looked positively forlorn now, an empty plain of concrete and roadways. Only two vehicles were in the parking lots as Mack was led from the building. One was a burned out Toyota that sat in a black heap near the main entrance to the terminal. The other was a white pickup truck, also a Toyota, idling near the access road a few hundred yards away. The men led Mack to it, then made him get up into the back.

This’ll be easy, he thought, envisioning jumping off the side. But then two other men approached with chains and manacles. They locked his hands and then chained his leg to the back of the truck with several sets of combination locks. Mack settled against the side, sweating in the sun until the truck set out.

Chapter 63

Breanna stepped out of the Beechjet, finally deposited on Philippine territory after what seemed like a marathon of short-hop plane rides. Dreamland had set up shop on a small corner of the airport, and the U.S. air force jet — actually a multi-jet trainer borrowed temporarily as a taxi — had deposited her about fifty yards from their hangar area; she could see the tips of a Megafortress V-shaped tail sitting over the building to her right. She passed through the double line of security — Filipino and regular U.S. air force, but no Whiplashers — and walked around to the back of the building, where the Dreamland Command trailer had been set up as a temporary headquarters on the tarmac. Inside, she found Major Alou getting ready for his mission to relieve the flight currently patrolling over Brunei.

“Just in time,” Alou said as Breanna walked in the door. “I can use a copilot. Russ’s stomach is acting up. He’s in the bathroom stinking it up.”

Breanna bristled at being made copilot — she had trained Alou on the Megafortress — but protocol and manners called for her to smile. Besides, she was eager to get into the action — whatever it was. “Sure,” she told him.

Alou recapped the situation — Jersey had been located at the airport; it was out in the open and an easy target. But at the moment it wasn’t fueled and didn’t seem likely to be used. Their orders directed them to preserve it for the sultan unless the terrorists made an overt attempt to use it as a weapon. They would patrol over the island and destroy it if any attempt was made.

Danny Freah and his Whiplash team had taken up a post on a platform offshore, which they intended to use as a base while deploying the LADS system. They had just fended off an attack by a high-tech Malaysian boat with the help of the other Megafortress. Their Quick Birds were being outfitted for. a return flight; the MC-17 had left a short while ago with supplies that would be parachuted nearby, allowing them to shore up the platform so the choppers could land there. The team had found a small boat which they would use to recover their Zodiacs; once the boats were inflated and operational, the rest of the material could be easily plucked from its floating containers. Indy’s job would be merely to watch and make sure no one came back for another go at them.

“Kick and Starship have the Flighthawks,” Alou added. “We may be able to share some of the video input with the Brunei army.

He pointed to a large map of Borneo that showed the areas of Brunei where the guerillas had taken over. Strongholds of loyalist troops were shaded in blue in the south of the country.

“The sultan has joined up with the army and is organizing a counter-offensive,” added Alou. “We’re not exactly sure what form it will take, but it looks as if they’re moving north”

“Are we authorized to help them?” asked Breanna.

“Not at this time. Our only mission is to make sure the Mega-fortress is not used by the rebels. We blow it up if it takes off. And we can protect our own people on the platform.”

The sound of a C-17 rumbling nearby shook the small trailer.

“That’ll be more of our technical people,” said Alou. “I’m going to have to see them; we want one of the engineers to go over in the helicopters and inspect the landing area before they set down.”

“What’s he going to do, jump?” asked Starship.

“He may if he doesn’t know how to rappel,” said Alou.

The heat and humidity almost knocked Jennifer Gleason down as she walked off the ramp of the big C-17, carrying a briefcase with two laptops and a backpack with extra clothes. The airplane had left from Dreamland several hours ahead of schedule, partly because the situation seemed more dire as news of the guerilla attacks came in, and partly because the Dreamland people couldn’t see the point in hanging around twiddling their thumbs once they were ready to go. Jennifer had spent the flight brushing up on the LADS technology, learning about the lighter-than-air vessels. While she knew a bit about the computer systems already, she wasn’t familiar with their operating procedures. The skins of the aircraft were made of a high-tech fabric containing LED matrices and what might be called a flexible plastic lens; the system made the airships almost invisible from a distance. The engines were also extremely efficient, thanks largely to recent inventions. But the rest of the airship design was hardly revolutionary, and materials aside, the small bag of air and its semirigid interior spine could have been designed fifty years before. Its simplicity was among its assets.

The blimps were controlled by a central ground station, which communicated with them via satellite. At present, the design allowed only one “live” receiver, which meant that the images from the system had to be uploaded back to Dreamland through a slightly kludgy arrangement that used Dreamland’s regular com channels. Turning over control of the blimps to another remote station, or to Dreamland for that matter, was a similarly laborious affair; the system had been designed with the idea that it would have its own dedicated command and control network for security purposes, and the present arrangement was actually a hack around those safeguards.

Jennifer spotted Major Alou near the C-17, talking with the loadmasters.

“Have we deployed LADS yet?” she asked after he said hello.

“Whiplash is in the process of launching two of the airships from the platform to cover the city. The helicopters will be bringing additional units with them as soon as they leave.” He glanced at his watch. “Which ought to be any second now”

“Great. Where are the helicopters?”

“Over beyond the second building on the right. Why?”

“Because I have to oversee the LADS technical operation.”

“You mean you want to go out to the platform?”

“How else would I do it?”

“And stay there?”

“How else would I do it?”

Alou gave the men a look and then motioned with his head toward the side. Jennifer followed him.

“You can’t stay out on the platform,” said Alou.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it’s dangerous. They’ve already been attacked.”

“Do we have other people there?”

“Well, the Whiplash team.”

“If they deployed LADS from there, that’s where I have to be.”

“No.”

Jennifer put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, Major. But I have a job to do. And you can’t tell me not to do it.”

“I’m in charge of the deployment.”

“No, you’re not,” she said. Jennifer felt her cheeks starting to burn.

“I mean — listen.”

“I’ve been on deployments before,” she said, turning and heading for the helicopters.

Chapter 64

Jed took the information Colonel Bastian had given him, double-checking what he could against the last CIA briefing and compiling it into a briefing paper and a PowerPoint slide presentation. His boss, Philip Freeman, had told him to bring it down to the White House situation room as soon as possible; Jed pulled the paper copies of the briefing page by page from the printer, barely making sure they were in order before starting for the secure area on a dead run. When he burst into the conference room a few minutes later, President Kevin Martindale was on the phone; Freeman motioned for Jed to come forward and give him the paper version of the briefing. Jed slid it over, and Freeman spun it around and separated the pages, showing one copy to the president and the other to the secretary of state, whose gray face turned even darker.

“Interesting,” the president told whomever he was speaking with. He leaned back in his chair and gave Jed a thumbs-up. He seemed somewhat tired, though as usual his voice was so calm he might have been chatting at a cocktail party.

“Well, perhaps you can explain then how one of your ships came to be firing upon an oil platform off the Brunei coast?” the president said finally to the person on the other end of the line. “Seems to have had some bad luck there.”

Jed started up the laptop presentation and then slid it over toward the president. A wry smile came over the president’s face; he looked a bit like a poker player about to reveal a hand filled with aces.

“I’m looking at an image of it in the water right now. Very interesting craft,” President Martindale said. He leaned forward to read the notes in the pop-up window on the screen. “What does this use? Surface effect technology? No — wing-in-ground effect? Wing-in-wave? Very impressive.”

The president looked at Jed. One of the CIA technology experts believed that the ship might have been built for Malaysia by China, but Jed had his own theory — the U.S. had experimented with some of the technology, and used parts built by a South Korean firm. He thought it possible that the plans were stolen somewhere along the way through industrial espionage; heads were going to roll if that was the case.

“Well, as prime minister, you’re in a position to do something about it, aren’t you?” said Martindale. He sat up straight, figuratively laying his cards on the table. “I expect to see concrete steps toward cooperation with Brunei forces within twelve hours. In the meantime, I’ve dispatched some of my own units to keep an eye on the situation. It would be very good if we could use one of your bases.”

The president listened, nodding as the Malaysian prime minister spoke. Jed slid out one of the sheets from his report, placing it so the president could see.

“Well that’s very good,” the president said finally. “I’m told you had some troubles at that secret base in the hills above Meruta where you were operating Su-27s until the other day. Rumor has it you bought those from the Ukraine — odd that the purchase wouldn’t have been announced, or shared with other members of ASEAN.”

The president smiled as he listened to the Malaysian leader’s continued excuses. After a minute or so, he interrupted.

“With all due respect, you have treaty obligations to honor. If you don’t honor them, I think you’ll find your position in the world community very, very tenuous.”

The president handed the phone to the secretary of state, who listened for a few more moments, said “Great,” and then hung up.

“They’ll cooperate,” the secretary announced. “We can use any of their facilities we want.”

“Dreamland preferred the, uh, hidden base,” said Jed. “Because it’s location is more isolated. Less chance for spies to see them coming and going. There are some security issues — we’re very short of personnel.”

“The Malaysians promised assistance,” said the secretary of state. “I think they’re sincere.”

“I doubt they’re sincere,” said President Martindale. “But I think they’ll go along with us for the time being. We’ve just given them carte blanche to attack the terrorists wherever they find them. I imagine they’ll use it to justify all manner of things. But for the moment, these terrorists are a bigger problem. Imagine what they’d do if they controlled a country like Brunei, with all its oil revenue. Jed, give Colonel Bastian the heads up. Get the Pentagon to send them more security personnel, Special Forces, whatever they need. Then you go get some sleep young man. You look as tired as I feel.”