End Game

II Impossible!

Deputy Defense Minister Anil Memon stared at the table, trying to master his rage as India's Prime Minister continued to speak about the need for a "measured response" to the latest provocation. The minister claimed that there was no obvious link between the attack at Port Somalia and the Pakistanis — an absurd claim in Memon's opinion. Memon knew that he should hold his tongue, but finally he could not.

"Who else would have launched the attack?" he said. "Who else has connections to these pirates?"

"We have no proof of connections," said the Prime Minister.

"They are Muslims. What other proof do you wish?" Memon ignored the disapproving stare from his boss, Defense Minister Pita Skandar. "They will attack again and again. They will strike our ships. They do not wish to see us prosper. Anyone who does not realize that is a fool."

"You haven't proven your case," said the Prime Minister.

"How many of my sailors must die before you consider it proven?" said Memon.

"They are my sailors too, Deputy Minister," said the Prime Minister, his anger finally rising. "More mine than yours."

"Then let us act. Mobilize. Send the new carrier to blockade the Pakistani ports."

"My deputy speaks with passion," said Minister Skandar softly. "Take into account that he is young."

"I assumed he spoke for you," said the Prime Minister.

"He goes further than I. I would not block the Pakistani ports quite yet. But the Shiva should set out immediately. Its trials are complete. We must show that we are resolved."

The Prime Minister nodded, then turned to the Chief of the Naval Staff for his opinion. The discussion continued for a few minutes more, but Skandar's recommendations had clearly set the course, and within a half hour the meeting concluded.

Memon, feeling defeated and frustrated, sat in his seat as the others began filing out. When he finally rose, Skandar touched his sleeve, signaling that he should stay. Cheeks flushing, Memon sat back down.

"You win no points by being too fiery in the cabinet room," said Skandar.

"The Muslims must be behind this," said Memon. "They are the only ones who benefit. The intelligence services simply are inept in gathering evidence."

"We must examine everything in context."

A large man, with a shaved head and an emotionless smile, Skandar appeared almost godlike. But of late Memon had begun to wonder if the man generally referred to as the "Admiral" was simply old. Not quite thirty years before, he had distinguished himself as a young officer in charge of a raiding party in the 1971 war with Pakistan. Promotions quickly followed. In time, Skandar became the head of the Naval Staff, the highest uniform post in the navy.

In 1994, Skandar retired to run for congress. Winning election easily, he had been asked to join the Prime Minister's government as the Defense minister. The old admiral at first demurred, but soon was persuaded that he could do much to help the services.

Memon had been among those who helped persuade him. The admiral's "price" for agreeing was that Memon would join him as deputy minister. He'd done so, despite the fact that he had hoped for his own minister's portfolio. Like many other young Indians, he saw Skandar as the one man in the government with enough stature to bring India's military into the twenty-first century.

The admiral had done better than any one of them, Memon included, might have hoped, adding aircraft to the air force, tanks to the army, and above all ships to the navy. It thrilled Memon, who wished India to take her rightful place in the world. But of late Skandar had seemed only an old man, talking of abstractions rather than actions.

"Admiral, the context is before our eyes," Memon told him. "We are being attacked."

"In the next century, who will be the superpowers of Asia? Russia is a shadow of herself. We pick over her bones to build our own forces. The United States? They are preoccupied with Europe, Taiwan, and Japan, spread so thin that they cannot afford to send more than a token force to the Gulf of Aden."

"China is our ultimate enemy. I realize that," said Memon. "But you're worrying about fifty years from now. I'm worrying about today."

"Our actions today will determine what happens in fifty years." Skandar smiled. "You're still young. Full of fire. That is admirable."

At thirty-eight, Memon did not consider himself particularly young. But since he was half Skandar's age, the comment was not meant unkindly.

"What do you think of joining the Shiva?" added Skandar.

Memon had been instrumental in the conversion of the ship from the Russian, Tiazholyi Avianesushchiy Kreyser, or Heavy Aircraft-Carrying Cruiser, Kiev. To Memon, the Shiva epitomized India's new aggressiveness, and he would love to be aboard her. Its captain, Admiral Asad Kala, was an old acquaintance.

But why was Skandar suggesting it? To get him out of New Delhi?

"I would like nothing better than to join the Shiva," said Memon warily. "If you can spare me."

"Good, then." Skandar rose. "You should make your plans immediately."

"This isn't a B-1, Captain. You're not going to get up over that mountain unless you start pulling the stick back now."

Jan Stewart clenched her teeth together but did as she was told, jerking the control yoke toward her. The EB-52 Megafortress lifted her nose upward, shrugging off a wave of turbulence as she rose over Glass Mountain at the northern edge of Dreamland's Test Range 4. As soon as she cleared the jagged peak, Stewart pressed the stick forward, aiming to stay as close to the mountain as possible. But it was no good — though a vast improvement over the B-52H she had been converted from, the Megafortress was still considerably more comfortable cruising in the stratosphere than hugging the earth. Her four P&W power plants strained as Stewart tried to force gravity, momentum, and lift into an equation that would get the plane across the ridge without being seen by the nearby radar sentry, a blimp hovering two miles to the west.

The computer buzzed a warning:

DETECTED. BEING TARGETED.

Stewart sensed her copilot's smirk. If only it had been Jazz, or anyone other than Breanna Stockard.

"Defense — evade — ah, shit," Stewart said, temporarily flustered.

ENEMY LASER LOCKED.

"ECMs," said Stewart, back in control. "Evasive maneuvers. Hold on."

"ECMs," acknowledged Breanna.

Stewart banked hard and nailed the throttle to the last stop, trying to pirouette away from the laser targeting them. Her efforts were not in vain — the airborne antiaircraft laser fired and missed by about fifty yards. But the respite was brief. The EB-52 couldn't rebuild momentum quickly enough, and the laser recycled and sent a full blast at the cockpit. Several thousand joules of energy — simulated— struck the ship just aft of the pilots' station. The blast fused the satellite antenna and blew out the assorted electrical circuits, as well as punching a six-inch-wide hole across the top of the fuselage. The emergency panel in front of the pilots lit up like a Christmas tree, and alarms sounded throughout the aircraft. Ten seconds later a second salvo burned a hole through the metal covering the fuel bag immediately behind the wings. The temperature in the fuel delivery piping increased tenfold in an instant, and an explosion ripped across the plane's backbone.

"We're dead," said Breanna.

Stewart leveled off silently, easing back on the thrust as Breanna called the test range coordinator to acknowledge that they'd been wiped out.

"Roger that," said the coordinator. "Got you on that second blast. Good work."

"You want another run?"

"Negative. We've got plenty of data. Thank you very much."

"Pleasure is ours," said Breanna.

Stewart ground her back molars together, stifling a scream. She took the Megafortress up through eight thousand feet, circling at the eastern end of the range before contacting the control tower for permission to land.

"Tower to EB-52 Test Run, you're cleared to land. What's wrong? Didn't you have your Wheaties today?"

"Test Run," snapped Stewart, acknowledging the clear ance but not the sarcasm. The controller chortled as he gave her information about the wind, rubbing in the fact that she'd just had her clock cleaned by a pair of robots in a blimp and an ancient C-130.

"You're getting better," said Breanna as Stewart rolled toward the hangar bunker.

"Don't give me that, Stockard. I really don't need a pep talk from you. I got toasted."

"The purpose of the exercise was to get toasted. We're just guinea pigs."

"I could have made it past the ridge if you hadn't made me pull up," said Stewart angrily. "I had plenty of clearance."

"The computer would have taken over for you if you hadn't pulled back on the stick."

"The safety protocols are too conservative."

"Why are you so touchy? It's only a test. Nobody's keeping score. If we'd gotten through on that pass we would have had to take another run anyway."

"I could have made it," insisted Stewart, powering down at the signal from the crewman outside.

Breanna sighed, and pretended to busy herself with the postflight checklist. She'd had Stewart fly as pilot to give her more experience behind the stick, not to show her up. Stewart had the qualifications to be a lead pilot, but so far she just wasn't hacking it. Hopefully it would come in time.

If her personality let it.

"Hey, Bree, Dog's looking for you," said Danny Freah, sticking his head up at the rear of the cockpit area. "What's up?"

"We're moving out. You'll never guess where." "Mars."

"I wish. Going back to the Gulf of Aden. We're going to work with Xray Pop and the infamous Captain Storm. Hey, Stewart, you're invited too. Looks like your first Whiplash deployment is about to begin."

"Great," said Stewart, her tone suggesting the opposite.

"Newbies buy."

"Screw yourself, Captain."

"What's buggin' her?" said Danny after the pilot left the plane.

"Doesn't like to buy," said Breanna.

By the time Breanna and Danny got to Conference Room 2 in the Taj Mahal, Colonel Bastian had started the briefing. A large map at the front of the room showed northeastern Africa, the Gulf of Aden, and part of the nearby Indian Ocean. Somalia sat like a large, misshapen 7 wrapped around the northern and eastern shores of the continent. During its last deployment, the Dreamland Whiplash team and the Megafortresses supporting it had seen action on land and above the sea at the north, where the Gulf of Aden separated Africa from the Saudi peninsula. Today, the eastern shore of the war-torn country was highlighted, with a large X near the town of Hando on the Indian Ocean.

"I'm going to start by giving you all some background on political situation here," said the colonel. "As many of you already know, pirates have been roaming the Gulf of Aden for nearly a year. They've been taking advantage of trouble elsewhere — specifically in the Balkans, in the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan — to prey on oil tankers and other merchant ships traveling through the gulf."

"While the cat's away, the mice do play," said Major Mack Smith down in front. He turned around, smiling for everyone behind him, as if he were in junior high and had just made the most clever statement in the world.

"The Navy sent a small warship called the Abner Read into the gulf a few months ago," continued Dog, ignoring Smith. "Some of us supported them. We won a major victory against the strongest group of pirates two months ago. Things have been relatively calm since, with some sporadic attacks but nothing on the order of what we'd seen before.

Yesterday, however, there was a major attack on Port Somalia, an oil terminal that has just been opened by the Indians. The Indians are blaming Pakistan and are threatening to retaliate. That's not sitting too well with the Pakistanis, who say they had nothing to do with this attack. Both countries have nuclear weapons. Our satellites have detected preparations at the major Indian ballistic missile launching area and at its Pakistani counterpart." "Saber rattling," said Mack.

"Our immediate mission is to beef up Xray Pop, the task force that the Abner Read heads. We're going to help it figure out who's behind the attack. We're also going there to show both sides just how serious a matter this is."

"Blessed are the peacemakers—" said Mack.

"Thank you, Major, but I can do without the running commentary," said Dog. "We will be under the operational command of Xray Pop's commander, Captain 'Storm' Gale. A lovely fellow."

Everyone who had been on the last deployment snickered.

Dog turned to the projection behind him, using a laser pointer to highlight an X on the eastern coast of Somalia at the north.

"This is Port Somalia. It's an oil terminal, the end point for a pipeline the Indians have paid to be built to deliver oil from northern Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. It's part of an ambitious network that they are constructing that will give them access to oil from the entire Horn of Africa, all the way back to the Sudan. A second port is planned to open farther south later this year."

The colonel clicked the remote control he had in his left hand and a new map appeared on the screen behind him. India sat at the right, Somalia on the left. The Arabian Sea, an arm of the Indian Ocean, sat between them. Above Somalia was the Saudi peninsula, with Yemen at the coast. Iran and Pakistan were at the northern shores of the sea, separating India from the Middle East.

"To give you some idea of the distances involved here," said Dog, "it's roughly fifteen hundred miles from Port Somalia to Mumbai, also known as Bombay, on the coast of India, not quite halfway down the Indian subcontinent. Three hours flying time, give or take, for a Megafortress, a little less if Lightning Chu is at the controls."

The pilots at the back laughed. Captain Tommy Chu had earned his new nickname during recent power-plant tests by averaging Mach 1.1 around the test course, defying the engineers' predictions that the EB-52 could not be flown faster than the speed of sound for a sustained period in level flight.

"Timewise, we are eleven hours behind. When it is noon here, it is 2300 hours in Port Somalia, same time as Mogadishu. Problem, Cantor?"

Lieutenant Evan Cantor, one of the new Flighthawk jocks recently cleared for active combat missions, jerked upright in the second row. "Uh, no sir. Just figuring out days. They're a half day ahead. Just about."

"Just about, Lieutenant. But don't do the math yet. We'll be based at Drigh Road, the Pakistani naval air base near Karachi. We'll use Karachi time for reference. That's thirteen hours ahead. A section of the base has already been cordoned off for us. Problem, Lieutenant Chu?"

"Just trying to figure out how many watches to wear," said Chu.

"Why Karachi?" said Breanna.

"Mostly because they won't object, and they're relatively close," said Dog. "But we'll have to be very, very aware that we're in an Islamic country, and that our presence may be controversial to some."

Controversial was putting it mildly. Stirred up by local radicals, civilians near the air base the Dreamland team had used in Saudi Arabia during their last deployment had come close to rioting before the Megafortresses relocated to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

"We'll have four Megafortresses: the Wisconsin, our old veteran; and three newcomers, the Levitow, the Fisher, and the Bennett."

The choice of the planes was not haphazard; all were radar surveillance planes, with both air and sea capabilities. Information from the Megafortresses's radars would be supplied to the Abner Read via a link developed by Dreamland's computer scientists, giving the small littoral warrior a far-reaching picture of the air and oceans around it. Additionally, an underwater robot probe called Piranha could be controlled from one Flighthawk station on each plane, and special racks and other gear allowed the Megafortresses to drop and use sonar buoys.

"We'll rotate through twelve-hour shifts, with overlapping patrols, so there are always at least two aircraft on station at any one time," continued Colonel Bastian. "Lieutenant Chu has worked up some of the patrol details, and I'll let him go into the specifics. We're to be in the air as soon as possible; no later than 1600."

The trip would have been long enough if they'd been able to fly in a straight line — somewhere over nine thousand miles. But political considerations forced them to skirt Iran and Russia, adding to the journey.

"I believe everyone knows everyone else on the deployment. The one exception may be Major Mack Smith, who's back with us after a working vacation in the Pacific. Mack has been pinch-hitting for Major Stockard while he's on medical leave for a few weeks, and he'll continue to head the Flighthawk squadron during the deployment."

Mack, ever the showoff, turned and gave a wave to the pilots behind him.

Though he'd helped develop the Flighthawks, he had extremely little time flying them. That wasn't a serious deficiency handling the odd piece of paperwork at Dreamland, where Zen was only a phone call away; it remained to be seen what would happen in the field.

"One question, Colonel," said Danny Freah, whose

Whiplash team would provide security at the base. "How long are we going to be there?"

Dog's mouth tightened at the corners — a sign, Breanna knew, that he was about to say something unpopular. "As long as it takes."

"I'll just say I can'tgo."

"No way. You can't do that."

"Sure I can do that. You're my husband."

"Yeah, I do seem to remember a ceremony somewhere." Zen laughed. The two nurses at the other end of the room looked over and gave him embarrassed smiles.

"Jeff—"

"No, listen Bree, it's fine. Things are going great here. I still can't eat anything, but other than that, I'm in great shape. I may even go for a walk later."

"Don't joke."

"I'm not joking. It was a figure of speech." Zen pulled his gown primly closer to his legs. When the phone call was finished, he'd go back facedown on the bed butt naked, but somehow it felt important to preserve what modesty he could.

"The operation was OK?"

"Bing-bing-bing. Didn't feel anything. Laser looked pretty cool. The nurse are great," he added. "I won't describe them or you'll get jealous."

The women — neither of whom was under fifty — blushed.

"I love you, Jeff."

"I love you too, Bree. Take care of yourself, all right?" "You're sure?" "Shit yeah." "I'll call."

"Call when you can."

"Jeff?" "Yup?"

"I love you." "I love you too."

Captain Sattari's knee, bruised in the recent action at Port Somalia, started to give way as he climbed from the back of the Mercedes. He grabbed hold of the door to steady himself, pretending to admire the splendor of the private villa three miles east of Chah Bahar on Iran's southern coast. Being thirty-nine meant the little tweaks and twists took longer to get over.

The villa was something to admire; its white marble pillars harked back to the greatness of the Persian past, and its proud, colorful red tower stood in marked contrast to the dullness that had descended over much of the land in the wake of the mullahs' extreme puritanism. Jaamsheed Pe-vars had bought the house before he became the country's oil minister. He was one of new upper class, a man who had earned his money under the black robes and thus owed them some allegiance. A decade before the small company he owned had won a contract to inspect oil tankers for safety violations before they entered Iranian waters. Inspection was mandatory, as was the thousand dollar fee, only half of which went to the government.

"Captain?" asked Sergeant Ibn, getting out from the other side.

"Impressive view."

Sattari shrugged off his knee's complaints, and the men walked up the stone-chipped path that led to the front door.

A servant met them, bowing with the proper respect before leading them through the portico out into a garden where his host was waiting.

"Captain Sattari," said Jaamsheed Pevars, rising as they entered. "I greet you on your great success."

As Sattari started to take his hand, he saw Pevars was not alone. The captain immediately stiffened; visitors generally meant trouble, usually from the imams who were constantly demanding more progress. But the man with his back to him was not one of the black robes. As he turned, Sattari was startled to see it was his father. Smiling broadly, General Mansour Sattari clasped the younger man to his chest.

"Congratulations on your success," said the general.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you."

"And Sergeant Ibn. How are you?"

"Fine, General. Happy to see you."

"And I you. Are you watching over my son?"

"The captain needs no one to oversee him."

The general beamed. A servant came with sparkling water, setting down a large glass for the visitors.

"A great success," Pevars said. "You have proven the concept. Now it is time to push the Indians further."

"We are prepared."

"Are you?" said the oil minister. "There have been questions."

"Questions?" said Sattari. He glanced at his father. Was that why he was here? Did the general doubt his own son?

"Some of the black robes are demanding a return on the investment," said Pevars. "The price of oil has sunk so quickly lately that they are becoming concerned. The timetable—"

"We're completely ready."

"The sooner you can press the attacks and instigate the conflict, the better," added Pevars. "The commodities market shrugged off the attack."

"They will not be able to ignore the next one."

"My son is wondering why I am here," the general told

Pevars. "And I should explain to him. Some of the imams in the council want to make sure the Indians are punished. And they want the war between the Indians and Pakistan to show that the Chinese cannot be trusted."

"I can't guarantee a war," said Sattari. "The idea was to affect oil prices, not start a war. I have only a small force, four small aircraft and one large one, all primarily transports. I have one old ship, a hulk that just today we have covered with new paint. My four midget submarines are useful as transports but carry no weapons besides what a man can hold. I have thirty-six commandos. All brave men, all ready to die for Allah and Iran. That is the sum of my force."

"You were chased by the Americans," said his father.

"Yes. They complicated our escape."

The Americans were a great enemy of Sattari's father. A year before, a small force of commandos and aircraft had attacked one of the general's installations in the North, destroying a secret antiaircraft laser he had developed. The strike had lessened his influence in the government; naturally, he wanted revenge.

"There was a rumor that you ran from them," said Pevars.

"Who said that?"

"One of the black robes," said his father.

So that was what this was about. Sattari guessed that the imam had a spy aboard the Mitra who had radioed back a report of the action before they reached port.

To be called a coward after the success of his mission! That was typical of those fellows. It was a favorite tactic, to tear down everyone else.

But did his father think he was a coward? That was an entirely different matter.

"I did not run," Sattari said. "Exposing our force would have been idiocy. Worse than cowardice."

"I'm sure," said the general. "Do not let lies depress you."

"I won't."

"Some sweets," said the oil minister. He clapped his hands for the servant.

"What do you have for me, Airforce?" asked Storm as Starship stepped onto the bridge.

"I was hoping I might have a word in private."

"This is private enough," said Storm, glancing around the bridge. There were only two other men on the bridge, one manning the wheel and the other the bridge navigation system. But as far as Storm was concerned, the entire ship's company could be here. He expected everyone aboard to show discretion where it was appropriate, but otherwise there was no place for secrets. The Abner Read was a small vessel. Everyone eventually ended up knowing everyone's business anyway.

"Captain, I was going to ask, considering that we now have two other men trained to handle the Werewolf, and that the Dreamland people are going to be based at Karachi—"

"You angling to leave us, mister?"

"I was thinking I might be more useful working with the Whiplash ground team, providing security. They can't deploy the Werewolves there without another pilot because of commitments at the base."

"Request denied. We need you out here, Airforce. You're the only pilot worth a shit on this ship."

The young man's face shaded red.

"Don't thank me," added Storm. "Just do your job."

"Yes, sir."

Starship snapped off a quick, confused salute and left. Storm went back to studying the holographic display. They were two miles north of 'Abd Al-Kuri, an island off the tip of Somalia. The submarine they had chased the other night had not reappeared. Nor, for that matter, had the guerrillas.

The intelligence people back in Washington had no idea who had launched the attack. The Indians were blaming the Pakistanis, but as far as anyone could tell, they had no evidence except for decades' worth of animosities. Storm— who also had no evidence beyond the faint submarine contact — thought the Chinese were behind it. They were rivals for dominance of Asia, and it was possible they wanted to tweak the Indians' noses while the world was preoccupied elsewhere.

"Eyes, what's the status of the Dreamland patrols?"

"Due to start at 1800 hours. Looks like your old friend Colonel Bastian is taking the first patrol himself."

Storm gritted his teeth. Bastian had proven himself a decent pilot and a good commander, but he was also a jerk.

Better that than the other way around, though.

"Have them report to me as soon as possible," Storm said.

"Aye, Skipper. The Indian destroyer Calcutta is about a hundred miles east of Port Somalia. They should reach it in three or four hours. I thought we might send the Werewolf down to greet them. Let them know we're here."

"If the circumstances allow, be my guest."

Colonel Bastian put his hand on the throttle glide and brought the engines up to full takeoff power. The Megafortress rolled forward, quickly gaining momentum. As the plane touched 200 knots, the flight computer gave Dog a cue to rotate or pull the nose of the aircraft upward.

He did so, pushing the plane up sharply to minimize the noise for the surrounding area, much the same way a 747 or similar jet would when taking off from an urban area.

Passing through three thousand feet, the colonel trimmed the aircraft and began flying her like a warplane rather than an airliner trying to be a good neighbor. His copilot, Lieutenant Sergio "Jazz" Jackson, had already checked the systems; everything was in the green.

The ocean spread itself out before the aircraft as Dog banked the Megafortress westward. A cluster of small boats floated near the port; a pair of freighters chugged slowly away. A Pakistani gunboat sailed to the south, its course marked by a white curve cut into the blue paper of the sea.

Starting with his copilot, Dog checked with the crew members to make sure the computer's impressions of the aircraft jibed with their experience. Immediately behind the two pilots on the flight deck, two radar operators manned a series of panels against each side of the fuselage. The specialist on the right, Sergeant Peter "Dish" Mallack, handled surface contacts; the operator on the left, Technical Sergeant Thomas "T-Bone" Boone, watched aircraft.

The Megafortress's array of radars allowed it to "see" aircraft hundreds of miles away. The actual distance depended on several factors, most of all the radar cross section of the targeted aircraft. Under the right conditions, an airliner might be seen four hundred nautical miles away; a stealthy F-22, shaped specifically to avoid radar, could generally get well inside one hundred before being spotted. MiG-29s and Su-27s, the Russian-made fighters common in the area, could reliably be detected at two hundred nautical miles.

The surface search was handled by a radar set developed from the Nordon APY-3 used in the JSTARS battlefield surveillance and control aircraft. Again, its range depended on conditions. An older destroyer could be spotted at roughly two hundred miles; very small boats and stealthy ships like the Abner Read were nearly invisible even at fifty miles under most circumstances. A radar designed for finding periscopes in rough seas had been added to the mission set; an extended periscope from a Kilo-class submarine could be seen at about twenty miles under the best conditions.

Downstairs from the flight deck, in the compartment where the navigator and bombardier would have sat in a traditional B-52, Cantor was preparing to launch the aircraft's two Flighthawk U/MF-3 robot aircraft. The unmanned aerial vehicles could stray roughly twenty miles from their mother ship, providing air cover as well as the ability to closely inspect and attack surface targets if necessary.

The Flighthawks were flown with the help of a sophisticated computer system known as C³. The aircraft contained their own onboard units, which could execute a number of maneuvers on their own. In theory, a Flighthawk pilot could handle two aircraft at a time, though newer pilots generally had to prove themselves in combat with one first.

The Megafortress carried four Harpoon antiship missiles and four antiaircraft AMRAAM-plus Scorpion missiles on a rotating dispenser in the bomb bay. A four-pack of sonar buoys was installed on special racks at each wingtip.

"How are you doing, Cantor?" Dog asked.

"Just fine, Colonel."

"How's your pupil?"

"Um, Major Smith is, um, learning, sir."

"I'll bet," said Dog.

"I'm good to go here, Colonel," said Smith. "Everything is rock solid."

"That's good to hear, Mack. Don't give Cantor any problems."

"Problems? Why would I do that?" Dog was too busy laughing to answer.

The torpedo was not a good fit. At 4.7 meters long— roughly fourteen feet — it just barely fit beneath the smooth round belly of the Sparrow. More importantly, at roughly seven hundred kilograms — a touch over fifteen hundred pounds — it represented nearly twice the aircraft's rated payload, making the plane too heavy to take off with full fuel tanks.

But the limitations of the small, Russian-made seaplane were almost assets. For the Sparrow could "fly" across the waves at a hundred knots on a calm night like this, approaching its target at two or three times the speed of a conventional torpedo boat or small patrol boat, while being quite a bit harder to detect than a conventional aircraft. When in range, about ten kilometers, it could fire the weapon, and then, considerably lighter, take to the sky and get away.

Which was the plan.

"Target is now fifty kilometers away," said the copilot. Their target, an oil tanker bound for India, was being tracked by the largest aircraft under Sattari's command, an ancient but serviceable A-40 Beriev seaplane sold as surplus by the Russians some years before. The aircraft had just passed overhead at eighteen thousand feet, flying a course generally taken by a transport to India from Greece.

"Begin turn to target in ten seconds."

Captain Sattari grunted. He was still angry over the meeting with the oil minister and his father earlier — so mad, in fact, that he had bumped the pilot from the mission and taken it himself. Not because he felt he needed to prove his courage or ability, but to help him master his rage.

Flying had always helped him in this way. It had nothing to do with the romance of the wind lifting you into the sky. No, what settled Sattari was the need for concentration, the utter surrender of your mind and senses to the job at hand. Plan ning the mission, checking the plan, then flying it as precisely as possible — the process freed him, chasing the demons of anger and envy and frustration from his back, where they hovered.

"The A-40 reports that there is a warship south of the tanker," reported the copilot. "Heading northward — three miles south of him. An Indian destroyer."

A destroyer?

"Are they sure it's Indian?"

"They've overheard transmissions."

The tanker was a more important target, but if the black robes wanted to provoke a war, striking a destroyer would certainly make them angrier.

And no one could call him a coward then.

"Compute a new course," said Sattari. "See if it's possible to strike the destroyer if we use the tanker as a screen. We can always drop back to our original prey."

"MiGs are scrambling off the new field at Al Ghayda," T-Bone warned Colonel Bastian. "Two aircraft, MiG-29s. Just about one hundred miles from us, Colonel."

"Mack, Cantor, you hear that?"

"Roger that, Colonel. We'll meet them."

Dog keyed in the Dreamland communications channel to alert the Abner Read.

"Abner Read, this is Wisconsin. We have two MiG-29s coming off an airfield in Yemen. We expect them to be heading in our direction."

"Bastian, this is Storm. What are you doing?"

"Minding our p's and q's, Captain. As normal."

The Navy commander snorted. "Are you where you're supposed to be?"

Dog fought the urge to say something sarcastic, and instead answered that they were on the patrol route agreed to earlier. "I would expect that you can see that on the radar plot we're providing," he added. "Is it working?"

"It's working," snapped the Navy captain. "What's with those airplanes?"

"I assume they're coming to check us out. The Yemenis gave us quite a bit of trouble when we were out here a few months back."

"If they get in your way, shoot them down."

"I may just do that," said Dog. "Wisconsin out."

"Sounded kind of cranky," said Jazz.

"Most pleasant conversation I've ever had with him," Dog told his copilot.

Cantor glanced at the sitrep panel in the lower left-hand corner of his screen, making sure the Flighthawks were positioned properly for the intercept.

"Fifty miles and closing," Cantor told Mack. "Weapons radar is off."

"Yeah, I can see that," said Mack. "You're lagging behind me, cowboy."

"We're going to do this like we rehearsed," said Cantor. "I'm going to swing out. You get in their face."

"Flying wing isn't the most efficient strategy."

"We're not flying F-15s, Major. This is the way Zen teaches it."

"Oh, I'm sure it'll work against these bozos," said Mack. "I'm just pointing out, it's not the best strategy to shoot them down."

"We're not supposed to fire at them."

"Hey, don't bitch to me. Complain to Colonel Bastian."

I will, thought Cantor. I definitely will.

Mack steadied his forearm on the narrow shelf in front of the control stick, listening as the Wisconsin's copilot attempted to hail the MiGs. The bogeys were doing about 500 knots; with his Flighthawk clocking about 480, they were now about ninety seconds from an intercept.

If he'd been in an F-15 or even an F-16, the MiGs would be toast by now. An F-22—fuggetaboutit. They'd be figments of Allah's imagination already.

Mack jangled his right leg up and down. Unlike a normal aircraft, the Flighthawk control system did not use pedals; all the inputs came from a single control stick and voice commands. This might be all right for someone like Zen, stuck in a wheelchair, or even Cantor, who'd probably been playing video games since he was born, but not for him. He loved to fly. He had it in his belly and his bones. Pushing buttons and wiggling your wrist just didn't do it.

"They're breaking," said Cantor.

"Hawk One."

The MiGs, which had been in a close trail, were getting into position to confront the Megafortress. Mack started to follow as Bogey One cut to the east, then realized the plane was closer to Hawk Two.

"I got him, Major," said Cantor.

"Yeah, yeah, no sweat," said Mack, swinging back to get his nose on the other airplane.

"If they go for their afterburners, they'll blow right by you," warned Cantor.

"Hey, no shit, kid."

The computer's tactics' screen suggested that he start his turn now, recommending that he swing the Flighthawk in front of the MiG to confront it.

"Wrong," Mack told it. Doing that would take him across the MiG's path too soon, and he might even lose the chance to circle behind him. Instead, he waited until his MiG began to edge downward. Then it was too late — the Yemen pilot opened up the afterburners and spurted forward, past the Flighthawk, even as Mack started his turn.

"He's going to use all his fuel, the idiot," muttered Mack, putting his finger to the throttle slide at the back of the Flighthawk stick. Even so, there was no way he could catch up with the MiG; it was already flying well over 600 knots.

"They know where we'll be, Major," said Cantor. "They can't see us yet but they learned from the encounters back in November."

"Big deal," said Mack under his breath.

Cantor pulled his Flighthawk back toward the Mega-fortress, aiming to stay roughly parallel to the other fighter's path. The MiG-29 Fulcrum was an excellent single-seat fighter, highly maneuverable and very dangerous when equipped with modern avionics and weapons. But it did have some shortcomings. As a small aircraft, it could not carry that much fuel, and teasing the afterburners for speed now would limit what it could do later. And their limited avionics meant the Flighthawk was invisible to them except at very close range. Guessing where it was wasn't the same as knowing.

As soon as the Yemen jet turned to try and get behind the Megafortress at close range, Cantor made his move, trading his superior altitude for speed and surprise. He reminded himself not to get too cocky as it came on, staying precisely on course and resisting the temptation to increase his speed by pushing his nose down faster.

"Bogey at one mile; close intercept — proximity warning," said C³, the Flighthawk's computer guidance system.

"Acknowledged, Computer," said Cantor. He gave the stick a bit of English as his target came on. The Flighthawk crossed in front of the MiG in a flash, its left wing twenty yards from the aircraft's nose. As he crossed, Cantor pushed his stick hard to the right, skidding through the air and lining up for a shot on the MiG's hindquarters.

He didn't quite get into position to take the shot, but that didn't matter. The MiG veered sharply to the west, tossing flares and chaff as decoys in an effort to get away.

"Hawk Two has completed intercept," Cantor reported. "Bogey One is running for cover."

Starship acknowledged the radio call from the approaching Indian destroyer, identifying himself as an aircraft from the Abner Read. He was ten miles northeast of the ship, the Calcutta, too far off for them to realize that the aircraft was too small to hold a pilot.

"Werewolf One, our commander wishes you to pass along a message to your commander," said the radioman aboard the Calcutta.

"Sure," said Starship.

"He salutes Captain Gale on his many victories. He hopes that he will have an opportunity to visit the Abner Read in the future."

"I'll relay the message," said Starship.

Starship circled over the Indian warship twice, then began heading back toward the Abner Read, close to 250 miles away. He double-checked the auxiliary screen showing the status of Werewolf Two—the computer was flying the aircraft in a routine patrol pattern around and ahead of the ship — then turned his full attention to the sea in front of him. An oil tanker was about a mile and a half northwest of him, low in the water with its full load.

Something else was there, too — a plane almost in the waves, moving at 100 knots, about five miles north of him.

"Werewolf to Tac," said Starship. "Hey, check this contact out!"

Captain Sattari grinned as the torpedo fell off its rail.

Freed of the weight, the Beriev rose abruptly. Sattari caught a glimpse of his well-lit target five miles off, just beyond the oil tanker. He banked and tucked back closer to the waves, trying to keep the plane no higher than fifty feet, where it should not be seen by the destroyer's Russian-made radar system.

It would take the torpedo less than three minutes to run to its target. The destroyer would undoubtedly detect the fish once it cleared the tanker, and take evasive maneuvers when the torpedo was detected. But he'd gotten close enough to narrow the odds of escape; the torpedo was designed to home in on its target, and if the crew aboard the destroyer was not swift, he would score a great victory.

Pointless to even think about it now, he told himself, finding his new course.

"Aircraft!" said his copilot, manning the passive infrared sensors. "Helicopter!"

"Where?"

"Three miles to our southeast." "Pursuing us?"

"Uncertain. His radar is operating. He may see us." Sattari squeezed the throttle for more power.

"MiG Two continuing toward us at a high rate of speed," Jazz told Dog. "Open the bay doors." "He's not targeting us, Colonel." "Bay doors."

"Bay."

The rumble of the missile bay opening shook the aircraft. Dog double-checked his position, then reached to the communications panel.

"Yemen MiG-29, this is EB-52 Wisconsin. You can get as close as you like, but if you get in my way you're going to swim home."

"Big words, yankee-man."

Dog laughed. "I guess he told me."

"Ten miles, sir."

"Relax, Jazz. He just wants to prove his manhood so the rest of squadron will buy him beers."

"They're Muslim, Colonel. They don't drink alcohol." "That was a joke. Ease up." "I'm trying."

Having blown the intercept, Mack tried desperately to think of some way to save face as he swung back toward the Wisconsin. He was pretty far out of the picture now, five miles behind the MiG, which was still picking up speed as it came at the Megafortress. If this had been more serious, the bogey would have launched its missiles by now.

Of course, if it had been more serious, the Megafortress would have launched its own antiaircraft missiles.

Game or not, he knew he'd had his fanny waxed, and he needed to get revenge. He watched as the MiG changed course, turning to the west away from the EB-52. The computer, drawing its probable course in the sitrep screen, momentarily showed it breaking off, but it quickly caught on — like its companion, the plane was angling for a highspeed run from behind, a good position to launch heat-seekers.

Mack was too far behind the MiG to follow and too far ahead of the Megafortress to follow Cantor's strategy and cut the MiG off behind the plane. So instead he began his own turn to the west — he'd make his intercept after the MiG passed the EB-52.

And, just to make the experience special, he'd toss a few flares in the MiG's face as he went by.

The Yemen aircraft came at the Megafortress at 550 knots, clearly not interested in riding alongside the American plane. This suited Mack perfectly, and he began climbing out ahead of the EB-52, ready to trade the height for speed when he wanted.

"Hawk Two, what the hell are you doing?" demanded Colonel Bastian.

"Just getting ready to say hello."

"Stay out of my flight path. I have a job to do here."

Grouch, thought Mack.

"This looks a lot like those contacts we had the other night," Starship told Eyes as he scrambled to follow the aircraft he'd just spotted. The slow-moving plane, about five miles north of Starship's Werewolf, was so low the sensors showed it on the surface of the water.

"Good, copy, we concur here. Track him."

"Yeah, I'm on that." Starship swung the Werewolf westward as the bandit continued to pick up speed. The image in the forward-looking infrared showed that the airplane had two engines set high behind the wing; it was small, almost surely a civilian aircraft. The threat file in the Werewolf's combat computer couldn't identify it.

Starship followed at about two miles, ratcheting his speed up as the strange aircraft continued to accelerate. Starship tucked his Werewolf downward, trying to get a better look at the underside of the craft. But the other plane was so low to the waves that he had a hard time; he kept jerking his hand involuntarily as the shadows changed on the screen. Finally he backed off his speed, dipping so close to the water that he nearly ditched.

"Definitely no weapons," he told Tac. "Looks like a civilian craft. Are you going to contact them?"

"Stand by," said Eyes, his voice tense.

The distance between the two aircraft had widened to four miles. Starship began to climb and accelerate. As he did, the bandit veered to the east.

"He's climbing," Starship told Tac.

"Werewolf, Indian destroyer Calcutta is reporting it's under fire. They've been torpedoed. Stand by to render assistance."

"What do you want me to do with this aircraft?" "He has no weapons?"

"Negative. Look, maybe he launched the torpedo."

"Way too small for that. We'll hand him off to Dreamland Wisconsin. Get back over to the Calcutta. They need assistance."

"Roger that," said Starship, changing course.

Dog stayed on his course as the MiG-29 closed in behind him. If the plane showed any hostility — if it simply turned on the radar used to guide its missiles — he would shoot it down with the Stinger antiair mines in the Wisconsin's tail. He'd do the same if the aircraft flew as if it would crash into him. But the pilot gave him a half-mile buffer, flying below and off his right wing, close enough to win some sort of bragging rights back home but not quite enough to justify an aggressive reaction.

Dog saw Mack adjusting course to make a pass at the MiG just as it cleared from the Megafortress. Mack cut things considerably closer than the MiG driver did, not only twisting the Flighthawk to within a hundred feet of the Yemen plane, but shooting flares as he did. His timing was a little off, but the other pilot, either confused or panicked, jerked hard to the north and dove a few seconds after the encounter.

Part of Dog thought the Yemen idiot had gotten what he deserved: most likely, a pair of speed pants that needed some serious laundering.

Another part of him was angry as hell at Mack for acting like a two-year-old.

"Hawk Two, get your nose back into formation."

"Oh, roger that, Colonel," said Mack, just about chortling. "Did you see him?"

Luckily for Mack, the commo panel buzzed with an incoming transmission from the Abner Read on the encrypted Dreamland communications channel. As soon as Dog keyed in the communication, the face of Lt. Commander Jack "Eyes" Eisenberg appeared on the screen.

"Bastian, we have a possible submarine approximately two hundred miles south of us. It just launched an attack on an Indian destroyer. We'd like you to help locate it with your Piranha unit."

"We're not carrying Piranha," Dog told him. The undersea robot had not been ready when they took off, and it hadn't made sense to delay the patrol — facts that Dog had already explained. "Piranha will be aboard the next plane out. We have sonar buoys — we can drop those."

"Affirmative, good. Also, Werewolf has been following an aircraft just north of there. Airplane appears to be civilian but hasn't answered any hails. May be a smuggler. We'd like to find out what it's up to. Send one of your Flighthawks to pursue the aircraft."

"Bit of a problem there, Abner Read," responded Dog, doing his best to ignore the sailor's haughty tone. "The Flighthawk has to stay within twenty miles of us. We can't be in both places at the same time."

"I don't understand. How come the Werewolf can be so far from us?"

"The control and communications systems are different," said Dog. "Basically, the Flighthawks are considerably more difficult to fly and require a greater bandwidth than the Werewolf."

They also represented an older generation of technology — much had changed in the three years since they began flying.

"All right. Stand by." The line snapped clear.

"Dish, how close do we have to get to detect a periscope?" Dog asked the radar operator.

"Going to depend on too many factors to give you a guarantee," Captain Peter Mallack answered. "Specs say we should be able to nail him at fifteen miles, though. Of course, if he's on the surface—"

"What if he isn't using his periscope?"

"We won't find him without sonar buoys, or until Piranha's operating."

"Thanks."

"Bastian, what's your problem?" snarled Storm, appearing in the communications panel.

"Physics. I can't be in two places at one time," said Dog. "I can look for the sub or inspect your unknown aircraft, but not both."

"That's ridiculous — send one of your aircraft after this flight, and then get your butt down south and find this submarine. Drop your buoys. Jee-zus, Bastian. Since when do I have to tell you your job?"

Same old Storm, thought Dog, looking at the captain's red face.

"The Flighthawks were designed to stay close to the Megafortress," said Dog, keeping his voice neutral. "I don't like those limits myself, but we're stuck with them at the moment. Do you want me to follow the plane or to look for the submarine?"

Storm, apparently interrupted, glanced at someone else on the bridge.

"We can continue to track him with our radar," added Dog. "Out to about three hundred miles or so, maybe more depending on his altitude."

Storm turned back to the screen and raised his hand. "Hold on Bastian, hold on."

"Hey, Colonel, I have the aircraft on the viewscreen," said T-Bone over Wisconsin's interphone. "Computer can't ID it, but it's about the size of a Cessna. Two engines."

"You think there's a possibility that plane launched a torpedo?"

"Doesn't look big enough. Hard to tell from here, but guessing from the size of the engines and given his speed, I doubt he could have taken off with it. You might have a better idea."

"Doesn't look likely," said Jazz, who'd brought up some of the data on his screen. "If it's a smuggler, he might have been working with that tanker. Might be a seaplane."

"I'm not positive it's a seaplane," said T-Bone.

"Thanks. Stand by."

He glanced at the video screen at the lower left of his control panel. Storm was still busy, so Dog used the circuit to talk to Starship. "Wisconsin to Werewolf One. Starship, this is Colonel Bastian. How are you?"

"Busy, Colonel; just coming up to the Indian destroyer now. But OK, sir."

"Can you give us anything else on that aircraft? Was he aboard that tanker? Next to him? Had he been in the air and en route south?"

"Don't know on any of that, Colonel. I'm sorry."

Starship broke to answer a communication from the destroyer; Dog heard him being directed to the starboard side of the ship, where the destroyer had several men in the water.

"All right, Werewolf One," said Dog. "Contact us when you get a chance."

"Werewolf," said Starship quickly.

"Bastian?"

"Yes, Storm. Go ahead."

"Concentrate on the submarine. Where's the Piranha?" "The aircraft carrying it will be taking off in about an hour."

"Hurry it up. Get it over there ASAP."

"Roger that." Dog switched over to the interphone. "T-Bone, continue to track that aircraft Werewolf was after. Update me every few minutes."

Starship could see the Indian destroyer listing heavily to its starboard side as he approached. The torpedo had exploded close to the hull, but either by deft maneuvering or good luck, the Indian warship had sustained only a glancing blow. That was still enough to do heavy damage, however, and the crew was working feverishly to block off sections of the ship that were being flooded.

The Werewolf's searchlights made small circles on the foaming waves near the crippled ship. A small boat had disembarked from the destroyer and was approaching the area. Starship dropped the robot aircraft into a hover, concentrating on illuminating the area near the boat.

The Indian ship radioed to ask that he move toward the bow of the destroyer. It took a few seconds for Starship to understand what the radioman was saying through his accent.

"Roger that. Moving toward bow."

Large bits of debris floated near the ship. The Werewolf's search lamps caught a twisted pipe sticking out from the side of the ship, an obscene gesture directed back at whoever had attacked it.

Something bobbed at the far right of his screen, just outside the area he was illuminating. He nudged the stick, moving the robot helo toward it and zooming his optical video feed to full magnification.

A head bobbed in his screen.

"Calcutta, I have something," he told the destroyer. "Have the boat follow my beam."

He waited anxiously, lights trained on the seaman. The boat reacted in slow motion. Starship lost sight of the man for a second and started shouting. "Get over there, damn it! Get over there! Get him before he drowns! Come on! Come on!"

As the prow of the rescue boat came into view, the head bobbed back up. Starship saw someone in the boat reaching with a pole, but the man in the water didn't take it. The boat got closer; one of the sailors leaned out toward the stricken man. Starship kept the Werewolf steady, trying to stay close enough to give them plenty of light but not wipe them out with the wash of the rotors.

The man in the boat grabbed the stricken sailor by the back of the shoulders. He hauled him into the boat.

Starship's eyes were glued to the screen. He saw the head coming out of the water, and then the arms and the top of the man's back — and nothing else.

The man had been severed in two by the explosion.

Bile ran up Starship's throat. He threw his hand over his mouth but it was too late; some of the acid spurted out over his shirt. Eyes tearing, he tried choking it back down, struggling with his other hand to control the Werewolf.

Storm paced the bridge, anxious to get his ship south. The Abner Read was built for stealth, not speed; still, she could touch forty knots, a good speed for a small craft.

Right now she was doing 38 knots. Even if they held that speed, it would take roughly five hours to reach the destroyer.

"I'm going out for some air," he told the others. Then he walked out onto the flying bridge at the side.

No more than a platform that could be folded into the superstructure, the design of the flying bridge had been carefully calculated to have minimal impact on the Abner Reads radar signature. Not only was it the highest point on the low-slung ship, but it was one of the few dry and flat surfaces outside. The main deck sloped down and was often lapped with waves.

The salty breeze bit Storm's cheeks. The wind was coming up and he felt a chill. But it was a good chill, the sort of wind that reminded him why he'd wanted to join the Navy in the first place.

The aircraft the Werewolf had seen near the oil tanker bothered him. It seemed similar to the ones they'd spotted the night Port Somalia was struck. If it had been a little bigger, he supposed, it might have launched the torpedo itself.

Maybe it was working with the submarine that made the actual attack. Or maybe the tanker.

There'd been a tanker nearby when he lost the other submarine as well. This was a different ship, but the parallels had to be more than a coincidence.

Didn't they?

The submarine might be the same vessel he had chased the other night, able to hide along the coast because its clever captain knew the waters so well. A Chinese Kilo, maybe.

But then what was the aircraft doing? Was it Chinese as well?

Storm decided the submarine was the key to the mystery. He would find it and then — since he couldn't attack — he'd give the exact location to the captain of the Indian destroyer, who no doubt would be anxious for revenge.

Assuming his ship didn't sink before then.

Storm allowed himself one more deep, luxurious breath of air, then went back inside.

Dog nudged the Megafortress into position to launch the first sonar buoy twenty miles north of the stricken destroyer. The Megafortress would set a large underwater fence around the area, waiting for the sub to make its move.

"What's the destroyer's situation?" Dog asked Jazz.

"Nothing new," said the copilot. "Still fighting the damage. They've had a couple of sonar contacts but they seem to have been false alarms."

As Dog and Jazz launched the buoys, Dish searched for the submarine's periscope. A half hour later they had covered every inch of the target area without finding anything.

"Best bet, he's sitting down about three hundred meters, just about as low as he can go, holding his breath and waiting for the destroyer to limp away," said Jazz.

"He'll be waiting a long time."

"He won't get by the buoys without us knowing."

Dog wasn't so sure about that. In theory, the hunters had all the advantages — the buoys could find anything in the water down to about 550 meters or so, and an extended periscope or snorkel could be easily detected at this range.

But the reality of warfare was never quite as simple as the theory, especially when it involved a submarine. Dog had worked with the Navy on sub hunts before, and they were always complicated and tricky affairs. In NATO exercises, submarines routinely outfoxed their hunters.

"Just a waiting game now, Colonel," said the copilot. "We'll get him eventually. We just have to be patient."

"For some reason, Jazz, being patient has always seemed the hardest thing to do," Dog said.

Captain Sattari felt the sweat rolling down his arms and neck. His clothes were so damp it seemed he'd been out in the rain. He was cold, and in truth was afraid, sure that he was being tracked by a powerful American surveillance radar, positive that some unseen fighters were scrambling along behind him to take him down. Every bit of turbulence, every vague eddy of air, sent a new shiver down his spine. He had the engines at maximum power; the airspeed indicator claimed he was doing 389 knots, which if true was at least thirty miles an hour faster than the engineers who made the plane had said was possible. But it was not nearly fast enough.

"We're at the way point," said his copilot.

"Yes," said Sattari, and he moved his aircraft to the new course. Oman loomed fifteen miles ahead.

If I can make it to the twelve-mile limit, he told himself, then I will be OK. In the worst case, if the Americans pressured the emir, they could blend in with the civilian government and escape.

Sattari scolded himself for thinking like a defeatist, like a refugee. He tightened his grip on the plane's wheel, flying. The surveillance plane must be far away, or surely it would have tried to contact him by now.

Unless it was vectoring fighters to intercept him. Or planning to alert the authorities on shore.

Oman was not as friendly toward the Americans as it once had been, and was unlikely to cooperate. Still…

"Two minutes to the landing, Captain," said his copilot finally.

The radar warning receiver switched off. They were no longer being watched — or was it a trick to make him think that?

Even when he saw that the landing area was empty, Sat-tari was not convinced he wasn't being followed. He taxied to the dock, then turned the plane around to make it easier for his copilot to get out and handle the refueling.

"Hurry," he told the copilot as he feathered his propellers. "I wish to take off as soon as possible."

"Is that wise? Shouldn't we wait a day or two?"

"No. If we are no longer being followed, it is best to leave right away. And if we are being followed, there is no sense delaying the inevitable."

Storm studied the Indian destroyer with his night glasses, examining the damaged ship from about a quarter of a mile away. The Calcutta listed six degrees to starboard — a serious lean, as Airforce put it when he described the situation earlier. But the damage had been contained. The Indian ship no longer appeared in danger of going to the bottom. More than twenty of her men had been killed or were still missing, another thirty or so injured.

With a crew of forty officers and 320 enlisted, the Calcutta displaced 5,400 tons, a good 1,200 less than a member of the U.S. Navy's Arleigh Burke Block I class, a rough contemporary. The Indian ship was a member of the Delhi class, a guided missile destroyer that used both Russian and western components and weapons system. A 100-millimeter gun sat on her forward deck just about where the torpedo had exploded. The antisubmarine torpedo battery aft of the gun had caught fire immediately after the strike and now sat charred and mangled at the side, a cat's claw of burnt metal. Storm guessed that the Indians' own weapons had caused many of the causalities.

"Corpsmen are ready to disembark," said the crewman in the Abner Read's fantail "garage."

"Proceed," said Storm.

A panel in the well of the ship's forked tail opened and a rigid-hulled inflatable boat sailed out and sped toward the stricken destroyer, carrying medicine and two corpsmen to help the Indians. Once the men were safely aboard, the Ab-ner Read would head eastward after the Pakistani oil tanker, which was now about fifty miles away.

Unless he could spot the submarine first.

"Eyes, what's the status of our treasure hunt?"

"Nothing, Storm. Submarine is nowhere to be found."

"What about Piranha?"

"It's been in the water two hours now without a contact."

Impossible, thought Storm. Impossible!

He thought of punching the bulkhead in frustration. Then, realizing he was only thinking about it, he smiled at himself. He had changed in the past few months.

"Keep on with the search," he told Eyes. "Tell the Dreamland aircraft controlling Piranha that we'll be heading for that oil tanker within a few minutes."

Zen rolled himself off the elevator into the lobby and saw his taxi waiting outside. He was glad: Despite the fact that he'd spent the day doing almost absolutely nothing, he felt exhausted.

The needles were already routine, as were the monitors, scans, and tepid herbal tea offered up by Dr. Vasin's interns in place of their overheated coffee. The light exercises they gave him to do with dumbbells were a bare shadow of his normal daily routine. So why was he so tired?

Partly because he wasn't sleeping. He missed Breanna, and found it difficult to sleep without her.

And he continued to have the dream. It distracted and annoyed him, kept him guessing what it was really about. Better that, though, than worrying about whether the experiments were actually going to do anything. So far, he felt exactly the same.

"I'll get the door for you, sir," said a young man, trotting ahead as he came down the hall.

Zen stopped. The kid was just being polite, but his goofy smile irked him. Zen forced a gruff "Thank you" as he rolled past.

A light spray of seawater wet Storm's face as the rigid-hulled inflatable drew close to the Pakistani oil tanker. The first boat had already deposited most of the shipboard integrated tactical team, and the SITT members were fanning out above.

The tanker's crew and its captain were cooperating, but

Storm wasn't taking any chances. The Werewolf, with Star-ship at the controls, hovered overhead. The aircraft's floodlights made it look like one of the riders of the Apocalypse, the gun at its nose a black sword as it circled menacingly around the forecastle.

Storm had decided he would go aboard personally, partly as a gesture of respect to the other captain, and partly to show him how seriously they were taking the matter.

"Secure, sir," said the ensign in charge of the landing team, speaking over their short-range communications system.

"Very good," said Storm. He'd exchanged his shipboard headset for a tactical unit, which had an earset and a mike clipped to his collar. He didn't bother with the helmet most of the boarding party wore, though he did have a flak vest on. "I'll be aboard shortly."

Storm checked back with Eyes as he waited for the boat to draw alongside the tanker.

"No sign of the submarine at all," Eyes said. "Piranha has gone to silent mode, just waiting. If it's nearby, she'll hear it when it moves out."

"Keep me informed. Storm out."

The petty officer who headed the boarding team in Storm's boat leapt at the chain ladder on the side of the tanker as they drew near. He pulled himself up two rungs at a time, leading his team to the deck.

This is the way my crew operates, Storm thought, following. A seaman from the Abner Read met him at the rail and helped him over, then led him up to the tanker's captain, waiting with Storm's ensign on the bridge.

At nearly seven feet tall, the captain towered over Storm. A rail of a man, he gripped Storm's hand firmly when they were introduced.

"You were near the Indian destroyer when it was struck by a torpedo," said Storm, dispensing with the preliminaries. "Why didn't you stop?"

"They did not ask for our assistance." The Pakistani's English was good, his accent thin and readily understandable.

"You saw the submarine?" asked Storm.

"No. We did not understand what happened. It was only your man here who told me that the ship had been fired on. From our viewpoint, we thought they were simply testing their weapons. The explosion was in the water."

"Perhaps we could speak in private, Captain," suggested Storm.

"As you wish."

The tanker captain led him off the bridge, down a short flight of stairs to a small cabin nearby. A desk sat opposite a bunk at least a foot too short for its owner; the space in between was barely enough for two chairs.

"Drink?" asked the Pakistani. He produced a bottle of scotch from the drawer of the desk

"No, thank you," said Storm.

"Then I won't either," said the other captain. He smiled and put the bottle back.

"The Indian destroyer was hit by a torpedo. I'm sure it made quite an explosion."

"We were a few miles away." The captain spoke softly, and it was not possible to tell if he was lying or not. It seemed unlikely to Storm that he didn't realize what had happened, though if he had no experience with warfare, he might have been confused at first. "The Indians do not generally regard ships flying the Pakistani flag as friends," added the man. "They did not ask us for assistance."

"Would you have stopped if they did?"

"Absolutely." The captain leaned back in his chair. "Who fired the torpedo?"

"Possibly a submarine. Though it would have been possible for you to fire it as well."

The captain jerked upright. "Impossible."

"Not necessarily."

"Search my ship."

"I intend to."

The Pakistani captain frowned. "The Indians no doubt accused us. Probably they invented the submarine, and the torpedo. A hoax to cover their own incompetence. I would not be surprised if they blew up themselves by accident."

"There was an aircraft in the area," said Storm. "It was spotted after the attack. Did you see it?"

"I don't recall."

"What was he smuggling?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Come on, Captain. Don't make me order my men to tear your ship apart piece by piece. Was the airplane picking up medicine? Or was it delivering something?"

The Pakistani wore a pained expression.

"I know that many ship captains are poorly paid," said Storm. "In this region, one earns what one can."

"I am not a smuggler, Captain."

"Fine. We will search your ship."

"You have the guns. Do as you will."

Storm, frustrated but determined, got up. He paused at the doorway. "Information about the submarine would be very helpful."

"If I had any to give, I would."

"Search the ship," Storm told his ensign on the bridge.

"We've already gone over the deck, Captain. We haven't found any sign that they fired a torpedo, no launch tube, no sign of bolts or anything where it could have been mounted."

"All right. Keep looking. Find out what they smuggle. They must do more than run oil over to Pakistan. I want a full inventory, down to the last toothpick."

Dog undid his restraints and squeezed out from behind the stick of the Megafortress, taking a moment to stretch his legs before they began the trek back to their base. It had been a frustrating sortie. Not only had they failed to locate the submarine, but Major Smith proved himself an extremely annoying Flighthawk pilot, refusing to let the computer handle the robot during refuelings. The procedure was notoriously difficult; the Megafortress's large and irregular shape left a great deal of turbulence immediately behind and below it, and even Zen occasionally had trouble making the connection. For that reason, the routine had been hard-wired into both the Megafortress's flight control computer and C³, which directed the U/MFs. But Mack insisted on trying it himself — even though it took no less than five approaches for him to get in. Dog found himself becoming so short-tempered that he nearly let Jazz take the stick.

Mack and Storm. Between them, he was going to end up in an insane asylum.

Dog walked to the end of the flight deck, where a small galley complete with a refrigerator and a microwave had been installed. He ducked down to the fridge and found a small milk container, then reached into a nearby cabinet for a pack of oatmeal cookies. The techies complained about the crumbs, but there was something comforting about the old-fashioned snack, especially when you were having it aboard one of the most advanced warplanes in the world.

"Captain Gale for you, Colonel," said Jazz.

Dog sighed and flipped on the communications unit at the auxiliary station next to one of the radars where Dish was working.

"Bastian here."

"You have anything new?"

"Negative, Storm. I'd surely have told you if I did."

"We just finished turning that tanker inside out. Nothing." Storm squinted toward the camera. "I think it has to be some sort of Chinese sub."

"Why Chinese?"

"They hate the Indians. I'm going to return to the Indian destroyer. They have the damage under control. They're heading back east at sunrise. There's an Indian task group supposedly setting sail. I assume they'll meet up."

"All right."

"Tell your people — this task force is headed by a small battle carrier. It's a combination aircraft carrier and missile ship. It used to belong to the Russians. The Indians have fixed it up considerably. We'll have a full briefing for you. They have an air arm aboard — a dozen Su-33 Sukhois."

"We can handle them."

"Don't shoot them down," said Storm quickly. "I know you people are light on the trigger." "Anything else?"

"That's it."

"We're going off station in a few minutes. Levitow will continue controlling Piranha."

"Good," said Storm, his sharp tone suggesting the opposite as the communication screen blanked.

Dog straightened. He glanced over Dish's shoulder. The sergeant was busy fine-tuning the large screen in front of him, which showed that there were two ships, a cargo container carrier and a garbage scow, sailing twenty miles to their south.

On the other side of the aisle, T-Bone was tracking a pair of civilian airliners heading toward India, and a cargo craft flying south along the African coast. Except for their Flighthawks and the Levitow, the sky in their immediate vicinity was clear.

"Say, T-Bone, can you give me more information about that civilian plane we tracked?" Dog asked. "The one that was near the oil tanker."

"Don't have that much to give you, Colonel." T-Bone reached to a set of switches at the right of his console, fingers tapping quickly over the elongated keyboard. A radar plot appeared on the auxiliary screen to the right of T-Bone's station.

"This is the first solid long-distance contact we had."

T-Bone's fingers danced again. A new image appeared, showing Dog an enhanced radar view. T-Bone did a double tap on the lower keyboard at his right. A window opened on the screen.

"This is the spec screen where the computer — and me— tried to figure out what the hell it was," explained the sergeant. The computer used the radar return to analyze the aircraft's structure, identifying its type and capabilities. Depending on the range, it could also identify weapons the plane carried, which could also be done by analyzing the radars emanating from the plane. Knowing an enemy plane's type and capabilities before engaging it was an enormous advantage, and much of the work that went into perfecting the Dreamland radar system had been aimed at doing that. The onboard computer library had data on nearly everything that had ever flown, right back to the Army's Wright Model A.

"No hit in the library, see?" said T-Bone, pointing to the screen. "Light aircraft, civilian type, two engines far back on the fuselage. Looks like a small seaplane, with the engines up there to stay out of the spray. Hull is boat-shaped."

"Definitely makes sense," said Dog. "Why wouldn't we have seen him earlier?"

"Two possibilities. One, he was outside our range, flying in from the east. Two, he was on the surface of the water, probably at that oil tanker. If he's a smuggler—"

"Far south for that."

"Maybe they're changing tactics because the Abner Read has done such a good job farther north." "Maybe."

It wasn't that he didn't think Storm was doing a good job; clearly they were missing something.

"Get Dreamland Control. Send this information back. I want Dr. Rubeo to get some of his people on this. I want to know what type of aircraft this is, what's it's capable of.

Dish… "

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant, turning around.

"Get as much data as you can on the torpedo that damaged the Indian ship. Size, that sort of thing. Give that to Dreamland Command as well. I think this little aircraft is more of a problem than we know."