Retribution

III. Finders Keepers

General Mansour Sattari paced the long hall of the mosque’s auxiliary building, waiting for word of his son.

That Captain Val Muhammad Ben Sattari had launched the final phase of the elaborate plan, there could be no doubt. India and Pakistan were at war, and had spent the day before trading accusations at the UN that each had tried to annihilate the other. The American President had gone on television and claimed that the U.S. had prevented nuclear weapons from exploding after the missiles were launched and would now work for peace, but CNN also reported that the power grids in both countries had been wiped out — a sure sign to General Sattari that several nuclear weapons had exploded, regardless of what the U.S. said. That meant his son had succeeded in his goal.

Now, if only Allah, blessed be His name, saw fit to carry Val back to him unharmed. Then he would launch his own goal — overthrowing the black robes who had ruined his life, and his country.

The general continued to pace, his shoes squeaking on the tile. He was alone in the building, and knew he would be for several hours. This was good — he did not want others to see his impatience as he waited for news from his son. He believed that a general must always maintain an image of calm and control, even in the most trying times.

Unlike the prayer hall of the mosque, this building was nearly brand new, and while the architect had preserved the ancient style of the older structures, no expense had been spared on the lavish interior. The floors were marble from the best quarries in Italy. The walls were wood veneer taken from East Africa. Even the furniture, hand carved by Iranian craftsmen, was finely wrought.

General Sattari stopped his pacing as the music from the television in the assembly room suddenly blared, announcing another bulletin. He folded his arms and listened as an American anchorman began running down the “latest” on the situation. This turned out to be primarily a rehash of earlier reports, the only exception being the news that the U.S. President had sent an aircraft carrier to the region.

Sattari frowned. He considered going into the room and changing the channel to Sky News, the British network. But he’d done that twice already, only to realize that CNN’s information was more up to date. And so instead he simply resumed his pacing, noting to himself that the fact that news was simply trickling in was an indication of how complete the destruction had been.

The Marine Corps Osprey fluttered left and right, ducking in and out of the spotlights as it descended toward the deck. At eighty-four feet counting the spinning rotors, the aircraft’s tilt-wings extended well over the sides of the narrow-beamed ship, so it looked to Danny as if the Osprey would tip the Abner Read up from the stern when it landed. But the ship remained steady, and within a few moments two members of the crew had fastened restraints to the Osprey’s body to keep it from slipping off the deck. When they were done, the forward hatch of the Osprey opened and two Marines stepped out.

“Dancer, we meet again,” shouted Danny to the trim figure that led the way forward.

“I had a feeling you’d be in the middle of things,” said Lieutenant Emma “Dancer” Klacker, shaking Danny’s hand. “This is Major Behrens from the general’s staff. He’s the general’s intel geek.”

“Major.”

“Captain Freah’s the Dreamland crazy who helped stop the pirates a few months back in the Gulf of Aden,” Dancer told her companion. “I told him another operation like that and we’d make him an honorary Marine.”

“This may be his chance, then,” said Behrens.

Danny led the way to the Abner Read’s Tactical Center, which the ship’s captain had loaned them for the briefing. The holographic table at the center of the space displayed a three-dimensional map of northern India; Dreamland’s map of the possible locations of the warheads had been superimposed on the layout. Danny quickly sketched out the situation.

The U-2 had spotted two missiles in a mountain valley south of the Pakistan-India border. Fired by India, the weapons had crashed in the high desert two hundred miles from the coast. The Bennett had identified another seventy-five miles to the northeast, closer to the border on lower land. The remaining warheads — twenty-five — were still to be found.

“This area has the most promise,” said Danny, pointing to a spot in the southern Thar Desert. “You can see from the projections there may be as many as six here, all launched from Pakistan. The Bennett will look there next.”

Danny explained that both countries lost their power grids, throwing them into chaos. Things were even worse in the wide swath of territory affected by the EEMWBs, where all electronics had been wiped out, even those that ran on batteries or could be connected to backup generators off the grid. It included all of the areas where the missiles were thought to have gone down. With the exception of three small radars on the west coast, the military installations in the rest of India were either using their radars intermittently or not at all because of power problems. The Indians had two phased-array, long-range warning radar aircraft. One had been wiped out by the T-Rays and crashed near Delhi. The other was patrolling the east coast of the country, helping to monitor a Chinese fleet there.

The Chinese, meanwhile, had ordered the stricken aircraft carrier Khan to return to port. It was still north, near Pakistan, preparing to go south. Even if it remained where it was, Danny said, it was in no shape to challenge their operations.

“Our real handicap right now is low-level reconnaissance. The Megafortress isn’t equipped with Flighthawks. That should be remedied by this evening. Which brings me to another problem — we need to get our top Flighthawk pilot down to Diego Garcia so he can help out.”

“Where is he?”

“Catching some z’s in a rack,” said Danny.

“He’s aboard ship?” asked Dancer.

“He’s been running the Werewolf and training the Abner Read’s crew to handle it themselves. We were hoping you could take him back to the Lincoln and fly him down to Diego Garcia. We can arrange refuels.”

Dancer turned to Major Behrens. Danny stared at her face. She was a serious, serious temptation, even for a married man.

Especially for a married man.

He just barely managed to look away as Dancer turned back.

“I think the general can persuade the captain of the Lincoln to spare an airplane,” said Behrens. “Or we can arrange something with Ospreys. We’ll work it out.”

“Good,” said Danny. He sensed that Dancer was staring at him and kept his own eyes focused on the table. “How soon can you get people on the ground, and what’s the game plan?”

“Major, Lieutenant, I’m sorry I was busy when you arrived,” said Storm, striding into the room unannounced. “Welcome aboard.”

Danny stepped to the side, thankful for the interruption. He was married, he reminded himself. And this was work.

But damn, Dancer looked even more gorgeous than he remembered. The Marine camo uniform somehow accented her dusky rose face, and it didn’t hide her trim hips. She wore her black hair in a tight braid that looked part Amazon warrior, part beauty queen.

“We’re happy to host you,” continued Storm. “Make us your operations center.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” said Major Behrens, “but we’ve already set up temporary ops on the carrier. Our ship is on her way; she should be close enough to handle full operations in fifty-six hours.”

“You’ll be done by then,” said Storm gruffly.

Danny kept his smile to himself. Storm liked to be in the middle of the action.

“Hopefully,” agreed Dancer. “In the meantime, Captain, we’d be grateful of any support you can give. This is one of the best ships in the Navy,” she added, turning to Behrens. “It’s the future. I’ve seen the crew in the action. They’re very good.”

“What about you, Captain Freah?” Storm asked, pretending to ignore the compliment — though he’d shaded slightly. “Where are you going to be?”

“You’re coming with me and the assault team, aren’t you, Captain?” asked Dancer.

“Wherever we’re needed,” said Danny, holding her gaze for the first time since she’d come on board.

It felt good — too good, he knew. But he didn’t break it, and neither did she.

Dancer’s unsolicited compliment about the Abner Read didn’t lift Storm’s mood. Having shot off all his missiles in combat, he found himself nearly impotent just when things were going to turn hot again. True, he had torpedoes, but they were intended primarily for use against submarines and had nowhere near the range of Harpoons. Nor would they be much good against airplanes.

And the more he thought about it, the more he was sure he was going to face airplanes very soon. Not from the Indians, but from the Khan.

The master of the Chinese ship resented the fact that they had picked up his pilot. Storm could tell from the brief communication he’d sent, almost a blowoff, when they’d shipped the man out in the Sharkboat. And the Khan was still north, clearly planning something.

“Captain, you have a minute?” asked Eyes as he started for the bridge.

“Sure,” he told his exec.

“In private?”

Storm nodded, then followed Eyes forward to the galley, a short distance away.

“Coffee, sir?”

“No, I’ve had my fill,” said Storm. “What’s up?”

“I’m wondering if we’re going to have an option on what port we put into, and if so, I’d like to make some suggestions,” said Eyes.

“Port?” sputtered Storm.

“Aren’t we going to get—”

Storm didn’t let him finish. “We’re not going into port. Not now. Do you understand what we’re in the middle of?”

“We’ve done our part,” said Eyes. “Between the action earlier—”

“What’s gotten into you, Eyes?”

“What do you mean, Storm?”

“You don’t want to quit, do you?”

“Quit?”

“You’re talking about going home.”

“Captain, we have no more weapons. We have to replenish.”

“We have plenty of fuel.”

Eyes frowned. “I’m just trying to get the men the best place for R and R.”

“You’re talking about shore leave at a time when we should be fighting,” said Storm. He felt his whole body growing warm. “You need to be coming up with a plan to deal with the Khan. Their captain is up to something.”

Eyes put his coffee down on the table. “We have no more Harpoons, Storm. Or Standard missiles. We have no fresh vegetables. The ship has been at sea for over a month. That’s twice as long as we’d planned.”

“Don’t be a defeatist. We’ll get resupplied once we meet the Lincoln.”

Eyes frowned. “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant commander picked up his coffee and started to leave.

“Were are you going, mister?” snapped Storm.

“I was just going back to my duty station, sir.”

Storm wondered if he should relieve Eyes. He couldn’t have someone with a negative attitude as his number two.

No, he thought. His exec was just tired. He hadn’t been to sleep for a day and a half, at least.

“Go get yourself some rest, Eyes,” Storm told him. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”

“I feel fine, Captain.”

“That was an order, mister.”

Eyes stared at him for a moment. “Aye aye, Captain,” he said finally. “Aye aye.”

“Colonel, if I can make a suggestion?”

“Absolutely, Mike,” Dog told Englehardt.

“If I drop the Megafortress to five hundred feet and walk her as slow she’ll go, the low-light video camera in the nose will get us an excellent picture.”

Ordinarily, Dog would have readily agreed — the jagged terrain was making it hard for the radar to “see” what was on the ground. But they had spotted a Pakistani ground unit to the north just as he came back from his brief nap.

“How close are the Pakistanis?” Dog asked.

“Two miles almost directly north,” replied the pilot. “They’re on that east-west road just over the rise, right on their side of the border. We can get down and then away before they even know what’s going on.

“There are just two deuce-and-a-half troop trucks,” he added, using the American slang for a multipurpose six-by-six troop truck. “Worst they’re going to have is a shoulder-launched missile. It’s not going to be much of a threat.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dog said. “I don’t want them coming over to see what we’re interested in. Or radioing for help.”

“Wouldn’t their radios have been fried by the T-Rays?” the copilot, Kevin Sullivan, asked. “We haven’t heard any transmissions.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The EEMWB that knocked out the missile was detonated farther south,” said Dog, who had helped design and implement the detonation plan. “They may have driven into the area afterward. We can’t count on them having been affected.”

“We can take them out with the Harpoons,” said Sullivan. “Not going to be a problem.”

“Firing on them is a last resort,” Dog told him.

“Let’s fake them out,” said Englehardt. “Make it look like we’re interested in them, buzz them, then look for the warhead on the way out.”

“Maybe.”

Dog examined the ground radar plot on Sergeant Daly’s screen. The two trucks were in the middle of the road. It occurred to Dog that the vehicles themselves might have been disabled by the T-Rays. Even if that weren’t the case, they might have strict orders not to go over the border — though the line was marked here only on maps, not on the ground.

What would he do if they made a move to get the missile?

The admiral had made it clear that he could use whatever force he needed to protect his people, and to recover a warhead once it was spotted, but as usual, the orders couldn’t cover everything. It seemed clear that he wasn’t permitted to fire on them in this case, before the warhead had been identified and at a moment when they posed little threat. But what if they moved toward it? Could he fire then, even though he hadn’t ID’d the missile?

“Colonel, what do you want to do?” asked Englehardt.

“Take another nap,” laughed Dog. Then he got serious. “Hold this orbit and continue to monitor the Indians. I’ll talk to Danny and the Marines. When they’re close enough to come for the warhead — if it is in fact a warhead — we’ll make our move.”

“That may be an hour at least, Colonel.”

“By my calculations, your coffee will hold out for at least another six,” said Dog. “We can wait until then.”

“Careful on that coffee, sir,” said Sullivan. “That’s our backup fuel supply.”

It started to lighten. Dawn approached, stalking over the ocean behind a cover of clouds.

Voices echoed in Zen’s head, murmurs and echoes that he couldn’t quite decipher. He thought he heard birds, then a cow, then a dog barking. Finally he was sure that someone was calling to him. But the island — more an oversized rock with a pebble and sand beach punctuated by black hunks of igneous stone — remained empty.

Breanna was alive. That he was sure of. What he didn’t know, and couldn’t, was how badly she was injured. She was unconscious, her breathing shallow. From what he could tell, she wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and her bones seemed to be intact. He assumed she was in shock, and maybe suffering from hypothermia.

He could do almost nothing for her. He propped her head up, took off the survival vest and the rest of her gear. Her flight suit was sopping wet, but he thought she’d be warmer in it.

Zen was cold and wet himself. He decided that when the sun finally rose, he’d strip to his underwear and lay his clothes out on the rocks to dry.

He had his personal Beretta and two sets of small “pencil” flares. He had four candy bars and four granola “energy” bars, which were basically cereal pressed together with fruit and sugar. He had a survival knife. He had fishing line and a small poncho.

His matches and lighter were gone. So were the extra bullets for his gun. And his med kit.

Breanna’s radio was in her vest, along with her med kit, which had a small Bic-style lighter in it. He left her weapon strapped in its holster, but took her extra clip.

Zen turned on the survival radio and monitored the rescue frequency or “Guard band” for a few minutes, trying to see if anyone was around. The “spins”—times when he was supposed to broadcast — had been set at five and thirty-five minutes past the hour. But the routine was useless without a working watch.

Breanna had one. He leaned over her, then slipped it gently from her wrist. It was four minutes past the hour.

Close enough.

He switched the dial on the radio to voice and broadcast, nearly choking over the phlegm in his throat.

“Zen Stockard to any nearby aircraft. Zen Stockard to any American aircraft — can you hear me?”

There was no reply. He tried a few more times, then put the radio down.

Zen looked down at his wife. He slid his thumb over to her wrist, feeling for her pulse, and began counting the heartbeats, but stopped after ten.

What the hell was he going to do if it was beating slow? Or fast? What the hell was he going to do, period?

He was going to get someone on the Guard band and get the hell out of here, that’s what.

The clouds had passed to the east, but there seemed to be more coming from the west. He needed a shelter to keep Breanna dry if it rained again.

He could turn the poncho into a tent. There weren’t any sticks handy, but he could rig something by piling the rocks on either side. There were certainly enough of them.

It was something to do, at least. He patted his wife gently, then began crawling toward the nearest loose stones.

Dog didn’t know where exactly to put himself. He felt like he should be in the pilot’s seat, running the show, but he was far too tired to be at the stick. The jumpseat at the back of the flight deck was too far from the action to see what was going on. And sitting at either of the auxiliary radar operator seats made him feel as if he was looking over the operators’ shoulders.

So he ended up more or less pacing around the flight deck, in effect looking over everyone’s shoulders and making them all uncomfortable.

His body, meanwhile, felt as if it was tearing itself in two. He’d had so much of the high octane coffee Sullivan brewed that his stomach was boiling. Fortunately, the Megafortress upgrades included an almost comfortable lavatory, because he was visiting it often.

“Incoming from Captain Freah,” reported Sullivan.

“Great,” said Dog.

Sergeant Daly stiffened as he sat down next to him at the auxiliary ground radar station. Dog plugged in his headset and flipped into the Dreamland channel.

“Bastian.”

“Hi, Colonel. Good to talk to you again, sir.”

“It’s good to talk to you too, Danny. What’s your status?”

“We’re twenty minutes from our target area, P-1. What’s going on?”

“There’s a Pakistani army unit, two trucks, about two miles north of the possible warhead marked as P-3 on the Dreamland map,” Dog told him. “They haven’t moved, but they’re close enough to get over there in a hurry. We haven’t gotten low enough to verify that there is a warhead there.”

Dog explained that he wanted to check the site, and if it was a warhead, have Danny land there first.

“I got you,” said Danny. “You think they don’t know it’s there at all.”

“Exactly. The only way we can check it is by getting very low, and they’re likely to realize something’s going on. If they call for reinforcements, they might have a pretty good-sized force up here in a few hours.”

“Stand by.”

Dog furled his arms and leaned back in the seat, brushing against Daly as he did.

Dreamland’s present configuration scheme rarely called for all four stations to be occupied, but when the Megafortress went into service with regular Air Force units, all the stations would be filled. It occurred to Dog that another six or eight inches of space between the two stations would make things much more comfortable for the operators. There was room too, though it would call for a few modifications to the galley.

A small thing, maybe, but important to the guys on the mission.

“Colonel, this is Danny.”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“We’re going to change course. We’re maybe thirty minutes from point P-3.”

“We’ll scout it and give you a go, no-go, when you’re ten minutes away,” Dog told him. “What do your rules of engagement say about deadly force?”

“To defend ourselves and the weapon.”

“Good. If they make a move toward you, we’re going to use our Harpoons. Bastian out.”

Dog switched over to the interphone, sharing Danny’s information with the rest of the crew.

“I can get us over the warhead exactly thirty seconds before they hit their mark,” Englehardt promised.

“Excellent,” said Dog.

“No action from the Pakistanis,” said Daly. “They don’t seem to know we’re here.”

“They will,” said Dog.

Feeling disoriented, Starship followed his guide through the bowels of the aircraft carrier to the squadron ready room. He had heard carriers described as miniature cities floating on water, but the Lincoln seemed more like the underbelly of a massive football stadium. It smelled like one too, ten times worse than the locker room in Dreamland’s gym.

He thought he was somewhere in the maze of rooms below the flight deck and hangar — the playing field, to follow his metaphor — but how far down and where exactly, he had no idea. He’d gone down three flights of stairs — known to the Navy as a ladder, for some inexplicable reason — and through several hatchways — actually doors, though they looked like hatches to him. He had also learned the meaning of “knee knockers”—the metalwork at the base of watertight openings.

“Ensign Watson reporting with Lieutenant Andrews,” said his guide as they entered a cabin about half the size of the closet in Starship’s Dreamland apartment.

“Lieutenant Bradley,” said the balding man on the cot.

“Friends call me Brad.” He rose and shifted his coffee cup to shake Starship’s hand.

“People call me Starship.”

“Starship?” Bradley laughed. “You Air Force guys have the weirdest nicknames and call signs. You got a Buck in your outfit, I bet.”

“Uh, no Buck. A Dork.”

Bradley began to howl with laughter. But something about his smile made the laugh inoffensive.

“So, I hear you need the fastest sled ride to Diego Garcia that you can find,” said Bradley.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve come to the right place. Come on, let’s get you some coffee and gear, then go preflight.”

Starship wasn’t sure why a passenger would need to take part in a briefing, but figured that Bradley was just being accommodating for a visitor. His confusion grew as Bradley mentioned he’d need to know his hat size for the trip, meaning they were going to find him a helmet.

“Jeez, I didn’t think you guys took Osprey flights so seriously,” said Starship finally.

“Osprey?”

“We’re flying down on a V-22, right?” said Starship.

“Hell, no. You wanted to get there fast, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Admiral Woods arranged for you to backseat my Super Hornet, Lieutenant,” said Bradley.

“What’s a Super Hornet?”

“A toy you can’t have.” Bradley laughed. “The admiral says you need to be there fast. This is the fastest thing we can spare. Don’t worry. Just keep your hands inside the car at all times and you’ll be fine.”

The Super Hornet — officially, an F/A-18F — wasn’t your run-of-the-mill swamp boat. An upsized version of the all-purpose F/A-18, this Super Hornet was one of three being tested by the Navy before the aircraft entered full production.

Designed to replace the Navy’s heavy metal, the Grumman F-14, the new Hornet shared very little components with its look-alike predecessor and namesake. From the engines to the wings to the tail surfaces, the designers had reworked the aircraft, making it bigger, faster, and stronger. Close in size to an Air Force F-15C, it incorporated a number of low-radar section strategies, making it less noticeable to enemies at long range. It could carry about a third more munitions half again as far as the standard F/A-18s lining the Lincoln’s side.

As Starship buckled himself into his seat, Bradley gave him a quick rundown of the instruments and multifunction displays. Then the Navy pilot hopped into the front seat and got ready to rumble.

Engines up, the Super Hornet’s computer tested the control surfaces, recording the status of the aircraft equipment on the multifunction display.

“You ready for this, Starship?” asked Bradley.

“Good to go.”

Even though he had braced himself, the shot off the carrier deck jolted Starship. He felt like a baseball that had been whacked toward the bleachers. It took a good four or five seconds before he could breathe and relax; by then the Hornet had her nose pointed nearly straight up.

They climbed rapidly through the sparse cloud cover, the newly risen sun a giant orb below. Bradley turned away from the carrier’s airspace and began rocketing south.

“What do you think of the view?” asked Bradley.

“Very nice,” said Starship. Like the F-15, the backseater — technically an RIO, or radar intercept officer, in the Navy — sat in a clear bubble cockpit with a good view to the sides.

“So, you think you could handle this baby?” asked Bradley.

“Could I?”

“That’s my question.”

Starship scrambled to find the volume button to turn down the sound of Bradley’s laugh.

“I think I can handle it,” said Starship. He’d told Bradley earlier that he had flown F-15s.

“Take a shot,” the Navy aviator told him, and he gave the stick a little waggle.

Starship treated the aircraft as if it were a baby carriage, holding it gently level and perfectly on course.

For about five seconds.

Then he gave the stick more input and snapped into a right aileron roll. He came back quickly — the Super Hornet seemed to snicker as she pushed herself neutral, as if asking, Is that the best you can do?

The aircraft was very precise, and while the stick required a bit more input than the Flighthawk’s, it felt sweet.

“So do you have your hand on the stick yet, or what?” asked Bradley.

Starship did a full roll, then another. He nudged himself into an invert — a little tentative, he knew — and flew upside down for a few miles before coming back right side up.

“So you do know where the stick is,” said Bradley, laughing.

“Can I go to afterburners?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Starship lit up the power plants. The dash through the sound barrier was gentler than he expected; he did a half-stick 360 aileron roll, then recovered, starting to feel his oats.

“Better ease off on the dinosaurs or we may end up walking to the tanker,” suggested Bradley.

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I know exactly how you feel. Nice plane, huh?”

“I could get used to it.”

“Beats flying robots, I bet.”

“They have their moments,” said Starship, pushing his stick left and taking about four g’s as he got on course. “But there’s a lot to be said for sitting in the cockpit yourself.”

She was like a thoroughbred released from the chute, f licking her mane back as she bared her teeth and charged down the track. She put her head down and galloped, hard and proud, determined to hit her marks.

The Megafortress charged 150 feet over the Pakistani trucks at about 500 knots, loud and low. Looking like startled spectators at a horse race after a thoroughbred jumped the fence, the half-dozen Pakistani troops dove for cover.

“P-3 object dead ahead, one mile,” said Englehardt as the Megafortress continued toward their target.

“No offensive action from the ground troops,” said Sullivan, watching the rear-facing optical video. “Look more startled than anything.”

Dog stared at the screen in front of him, which was projecting the forward video camera view. The desert rose up then fell off into a slope. In real time, the ground was a blur; Dog had trouble separating the rocks from the shadows.

Englehardt pushed the nose of the aircraft down to get closer to the terrain, then counted off his turn, beginning a wide, almost leisurely bank to the east.

“Paks are still doing nothing,” said Sullivan. “Scratching their heads, probably.”

Dog hit the preset for the video screen replay, showing what the camera had seen in the past thirty seconds. He slowed the action down, freeze-framing the ground they had flown over.

“This looks like it might be it,” he said aloud, zeroing in on a gray mound on the left side of his viewer. The shape seemed a little jagged, but there was a line behind it, as if the object had dug a trench as it skidded in.

The more he looked at the image, though, the less sure he became. Where was the body of the missile? Why would it have come in on a trajectory that would allow it to ski across the landscape before stopping?

“Dreamland, I need your opinion on this,” he said, tapping the button to make the image available over the Dreamland channel.

“I don’t know, Colonel,” said Englehardt, who’d brought it up on one of his screens. “Looks like a rock to me.”

“Definitely a warhead,” said Sullivan. “Skidded in and landed nose up in the sand. Look at it.”

“Dreamland Command?” said Dog.

“We are examining it, Colonel,” said Ray Rubeo. “We will have something definitive in a few minutes.”

Dog glanced at his watch. Danny and the Marines would be at the go/no-go point in exactly thirty seconds.

“You want another run, Colonel?” asked Englehardt. “I can come in from the opposite direction.”

“No,” said Dog. “But let’s let the Pakistanis see us orbit to their north. If they’re going to get curious, let’s have them get curious in that direction.”

He took one last look at the screen, then pressed the preset on the radio to talk to Danny.

The tone in his headset alerted Danny Freah that they were five minutes from the landing zone. Tucking the M16 the Marines had loaned him under his arm, he twisted his body left and right, stretching his muscles in anticipation.

Had they been in a Dreamland version of the Osprey, he would have been able to switch the view in his smart helmet so he could see the terrain in front of them. Then again, he thought, had he been in a Dreamland bird, he’d also be leading the mission. Right now he was basically a communications specialist, relaying information from Dreamland and the Bennett to Dancer, her sergeants, and the pilots of the three Marine Ospreys on the mission.

Once on the ground, Danny would work with two Navy experts to determine if the warhead was armed and could be moved. The men had been trained to handle American “broken arrow” incidents, cases where U.S. nukes had been lost or otherwise compromised. Besides his own training, he’d had experience disarming a live nuke two years before in Brazil.

“Danny Freah to Colonel Bastian. Colonel, what’s the status?”

“The experts are looking at the image right now. Shouldn’t be long.”

Danny turned and signaled to Dancer that they should go into a holding pattern. She’d just leaned into the cockpit when Dog came back on the line.

“It’s a warhead,” said the colonel. “Proceed.”

“Roger that.” He tapped Dancer and gave her a thumbs-up. The Osprey, which had just barely begun to slow down, picked up speed once more.

“What about the trucks?” shouted Dancer over the whine of the engines.

“I’m checking,” said Danny.

He had Dog describe the layout. The two trucks looked to have about six men in them. They were two miles from the warhead and maybe another half mile from the landing area. It looked as if they’d been ordered to the road and told not to leave it, but there was no way of knowing for sure until they landed.

“First sign of trouble,” added Colonel Bastian, “and we’ll fire a pair of Harpoons at them.”

“Acknowledged. Thank you, Colonel. We’re two minutes from the landing zone.”

Danny tapped Dancer on the shoulder and relayed the information. She gave him a thumbs-up. Her face was very serious, eyes narrowed, cheeks slightly puffed out, the shadow of a line — not a wrinkle, just a line — visible on her forehead.

“Marines! Make your mothers proud!” shouted Dancer as the Osprey touched down.

Danny went out with the corpsman and one of the bomb experts, toward the end of the pack. By the time he reached the warhead, the Marines had set up a defensive perimeter around it.

The scent of unburned rocket fuel was so strong, his nose felt as if it were burning. He’d run the whole way, and now had to catch his breath by covering his face with his sleeve. For a moment he thought he might even have to resort to the protective hood and contamination gear the Navy people had brought — gear that he knew from experience was so bulky he’d never be able to actually work on the bomb.

The warhead and upper end of the missile had buckled and split off from the body when they came to earth, skidding along the ground and making what looked like a shallow trench littered with rocks before stopping. On closer inspection, it was clear that the rocks were actually bits and pieces of the missile that had fallen off along the way. The warhead itself looked like a dented garbage can half submerged in the sand. The protective nose cone had been cracked and partly shredded, but the framework that covered the top portion of the missile remained intact. The black shroud of the bomb casing was visible below a set of tubes that had supported the cone section and the battered remains of instruments, electrical gear, wires, and frayed insulation.

Danny’s smart helmet was equipped with a high definition video camera, and he used it now to send images back to Dreamland Command.

“You getting this, Doc?” he asked, scanning the crash site and then bending over the warhead.

“I keep telling you, Captain, I’m not a doctor,” replied Anna Klondike a bit testily. “I wouldn’t associate with Ph.D. types.”

“I’m sorry, Annie. I thought I was talking to Ray Rubeo.”

“What Dr. Rubeo doesn’t know about nuclear weapons would fill a very large book.”

“How are you, Annie?”

“Cranky without my beauty rest. Please get closer to the base of the warhead,” she said, quickly becoming all business. “Scan down the body. Our first step here is to confirm that this came from a Prithvi SS-150.”

It took several minutes before the scientists were satisfied that it was indeed a Prithvi SS-150. The Prithvi family, derived from the Russian SA-2 surface-to-air missile, were all single-stage liquid fueled missiles; they differed mostly in terms of range and payload, though the family’s accuracy had also improved as the weapons evolved. The 150 could deliver a thousand-kilogram payload 150 kilometers.

As nukes went, the egg-shaped bomb Danny and the Marines were standing around was relatively small; its theoretical yield was fifteen kilotons, though members of the Atomic Energy Commission had told the Dreamland scientists its effective yield was probably ten to fifteen percent lower.

The difference meant the weapon’s blast would obliterate everything within 0.569 kilometers rather than, say 0.595. Since most people within 1.5 kilometers of either weapon would be burned or fatally radiated anyway, the difference was largely academic.

As he continued to pan the weapon, Danny could hear the scientists discussing the system among themselves in the background, sounding like they were looking over a new Porsche before it went on sale.

“So is this thing safe to move or what?” he finally asked.

“Please, Captain,” Klondike said from Dreamland Command. “This is going to take a little while. We’ve never seen a real Indian nuke before.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence, Annie.”

“You think you’ve got it tough?” she replied. “Ray Rubeo made the coffee.”

“Pakistanis are using their radio,” Sullivan told Dog. “They’re reporting helicopters and fighters in the area.”

“No points for accuracy,” quipped Englehardt.

“Yes, but at least now we know they have a radio,” said Dog, standing behind the two pilots. “Are they getting a response?”

“Negative.”

“How are we doing down there, Danny?” Dog asked over the Dreamland Command line.

“We have to start checking the circuits to make sure it’s dead,” Danny replied. “Then we can get it out of here.”

“You have an ETA on when you’ll be done?” Dog asked.

“Working on it, Colonel.”

Dog flipped off the mike.

“Paks may be scrambling aircraft from Faisal,” said the airborne radar operator, Sergeant Rager. “Have two contacts coming up. Distant.”

“Types?” asked Englehardt.

“Hmmmph.” Rager adjusted something on his console. The computer identified aircraft at very long range by comparing their radar profiles with information in its library; depending on the distance, the operators used a number of other comparison tools to narrow down the possibilities.

“Old iron,” said Rager finally. “F-6. Pair of them. Bearing…looks like they’re making a beeline for the trucks.”

“Farmers, huh?” said Sullivan, since the F-6 was a Chinese version of the Russian MiG-19 Farmer, a venerable Cold War fighter.

A two-engined successor to the famed MiG-15 of Korean War vintage, the design had proven surprisingly robust. Reverse-engineered and updated by the Chinese, the plane was exported around the world. The Pakistani versions had been retrofitted with Atoll heat-seekers, and could not be taken lightly, especially by a Megafortress flying without Flighthawk escort.

Which was just fine with the Bennett’s pilots. While neither had seen combat, their basic Megafortress training included extensive simulated combat against F-6s, as well as more capable aircraft.

“Scorpions,” Englehardt told Sullivan. The long-range AMRAAM-plus missiles could knock the F-6s out of the air before they got close enough to use their heat-seekers. “I’m going to slide north.”

“Hold your course,” Dog told the pilot. “The Pakistanis are our allies. Let’s see what they’re up to before we start thinking of shooting them down.”

“Yes, sir,” said Englehardt, clearly disappointed.

The final arming circuitry on the Indian nuclear warhead appeared to use a two-stage process, detonating the weapon only after it had traveled for a specified period of time and passed back through a designated altitude. The altimeter had been fried by the T-Rays and crushed in the crash, rendering the warhead inert.

Probably. The weapons people at Dreamland were worried that the nanoswitches that initiated the explosion might have survived the T-wave bombardment and the crash, and could be activated by a stray current. Since they didn’t know enough about the weapon to rule that out, they decided to take further steps to disable it.

“The odds against some sort of accidental explosion are very long,” said Anna Klondike, trying to reassure Danny. “Much worse than hitting the lottery.”

“So are the consequences,” said Danny. “How long will it take to disassemble?”

“We’re still working on what we want to do,” she said. “In the meantime, please treat the weapon as if it were live.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” said Danny.

A beeping signal indicated that Dog wanted to talk to him, and switched to another channel on the Dreamland network.

“Freah.”

“Danny, we have two Pakistani aircraft approaching from the north. When are you getting out of there?”

“Unknown at this time,” he said, and explained what Klondike had told him.

“This could take a while, Colonel,” added Danny. “The scientists don’t want to make any guesses about the weapon.”

“Nor should they. Bastian out.”

Zen knew that his jury-rigged pup tent wouldn’t be featured in Architectural Digest anytime soon, but it did cover both him and Breanna and would keep them almost dry if it rained. There was no way to keep warm, however, and though he thought the temperature was probably in the seventies, he felt a decent chill coming on.

If he’d had the use of his legs…

The idea was poison. He pushed it away.

The best way to warm up would be to start a fire. He decided he would explore. He made three broadcasts on the emergency channel, close together; when no one responded, he tucked the radio under Breanna’s arm, then bent over and kissed her on the back of her head.

“I’ll be back, baby,” he told her, crawling up the shallow hill behind them to survey their domain.

“Broadcast on all frequencies,” Dog told the Bennett’s copilot. “Let’s make sure they hear this.”

“Ready for you, Colonel.”

“Dreamland EB-52 Bennett to Pakistani F-6 pilots vectoring south from Faisal. We are conducting a Search and Rescue mission for a downed U.S. pilot in the border area. We have located the airman and are attempting to recover.”

Dog waited for a response. The Pakistani planes were about 120 miles away, moving at just over 400 knots. That would bring them in range to use their air-to-air missiles in roughly fifteen minutes.

“Nothing, Colonel,” said Sullivan finally.

“Anything from the ground units?”

“Negative.”

“Let’s give it another try,” said Dog.

He repeated his message, again without getting an answer. The Megafortress was flying a lazy-eight pattern over the Marines, riding around and around at 15,000 feet. The Pakistani trucks were at the northeastern end of their racetrack, still sitting in the middle of the road doing nothing.

“We may be out of range of their radios,” suggested Rager from the airborne radar console.

“Maybe,” said Dog.

“Just about in Scorpion range, Colonel,” added Sullivan.

“We can take them,” said Englehardt. “They’ll never know what hit them.”

Dog got up from the auxiliary radar station and walked up to the front of the cockpit, looking over the pilots’ shoulders.

“Open the bomb bay doors,” he said. “Let’s make it easier for them to find us.”

Englehardt glanced over his shoulder, then passed the order to Sullivan.

The aircraft shuddered as the doors swung open. The open bay increased the Megafortress’s radar cross section, increasing the range at which the aircraft could be seen. Dog plugged his headset into the auxiliary console on the airborne radar side.

“Pakistan F-6s flying from Faisal, this is Colonel Tecumseh Bastian in Dreamland Bennett. I’m conducting a Search and Rescue mission over Indian territory. Are you authorized to assist?”

“Dreamland flight, please identify yourself,” said a voice in heavily accented English.

The transmission was weak but unbroken. Dog repeated what he had just told them.

“Dreamland USA — you are operating in Indian territory?”

“Affirmative. We have the situation under control at this time,” Dog added. “Be advised that we spotted two Indian aircraft to the southeast approaching Pakistan territory approximately zero-five minutes ago. We tentatively ID’d them as Su-27s. They are no longer on our radar. I can provide our last contact.”

The Pakistani pilots didn’t reply. Possibly they were checking with their ground controller.

“F-6s are turning,” said Rager. “Going east. Roughly on an intercept.”

“Dreamland USA — do you require assistance?” asked the Pakistani pilot.

“Negative. We are in good shape,” said Dog.

The Pakistani pilot requested the Indians’ last position and their heading. Dog gave them coordinates that would take the interceptors well to the east.

The Pakistanis acknowledged.

Sullivan began laughing as soon as the conversation ended.

“Good one, Colonel,” said the copilot. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d fall for it.”

“Neither did I,” said Dog.

“I’m not sure they did,” said Rager. “They’ve extended their turn — looks to me like they’re trying to sweep around and come at us from the east.”

“I don’t care what capabilities you have, Storm. You have orders. And you…will…follow them.”

Admiral Woods’s face grew redder with each word. Storm, sitting in his quarters and addressing the admiral through the secure video communications hookup there, squeezed his fingers into a pair of fists behind his back.

“Admiral, if the Khan is moving south, I should move with her. We should be prepared for anything she does. The Chinese—”

“We are prepared for anything she does,” said Woods. “The Decatur will trail her. And if she makes any aggressive move—”

“A Chinese frigate fired missiles at one of the Dreamland aircraft. That’s damn threatening.”

“Storm, we’ve been through this. You yourself said that was the result of a misunderstanding.”

“I believe I was wrong.”

“Based on what evidence?”

Storm had no evidence, but he had strong feelings. He strongly regretted arranging the trade for the Chinese pilot — he could have engaged the frigate with his torpedoes and deck gun.

“I’m just convinced,” he told the admiral. “I’m convinced they’re going to try something.”

“Then the Decatur and the Lincoln will deal with her. In the meantime, you have no weapons and must replenish.”

“So let me replenish off the Lincoln. All I need are a dozen Harpoons.”

“The Lincoln has only enough ammunition and stores for its own task force.”

“But if I have to go all the way to Japan, I might just as well head to San Diego. The ship is due back there for full evaluation in three weeks. By the time the contractors get everything together—”

“You…have…your…orders!”

The admiral reached toward his screen, and the image on Storm’s video disintegrated into a tiny blue dot.

The admiral was jealous, thought Storm. Woods couldn’t stand the idea that he and his ship had made history.

Storm decided that Woods must be sending the Decatur to trail the stricken Khan because he was convinced the Chinese weren’t done. The Decatur was a conventional destroyer; if it finished off the Khan, it would take some of the shine off his own accomplishments.

Storm went out into the conference room next to his cabin to pace and consider his orders. The admiral hadn’t ordered him out of battle — he’d ordered him to replenish. Logically, if he could find another way to replenish, he could stay in the fight.

There was a replenishment ship about two days sail to the south, steaming toward the Lincoln task group, and another off the coast of Africa. But the radical design of the Abner Read called for special handlers to load its forward weapon pods, and neither ship was equipped with them. The alternative was to hand-load the littoral destroyer. This would involve taking the missiles from the containers they were transported in, slinging them across the open sea, and then manhandling them — gently, of course — into their launch boxes.

Doable, but not easy, and sure to require higher approval before proceeding. Higher approval meant talking to Woods, and Storm knew how that would go.

There had to be other sources.

Dreamland used Harpoons, didn’t they? Where did they get the missiles?

Diego Garcia.

Storm called his procurement officer, an ensign who told him he’d already checked with Diego Garcia; no Harpoon missiles were available there.

“You’re telling me there are no missiles on that base?”

The answer involved a lengthy explanation of the Navy’s supply system. Storm was in no mood to hear it.

He needed to put a chief petty officer in charge of keeping them armed and supplied, he thought. Someone who knew his way around the regulations, not someone who spouted them to him.

He was about to switch channels when the ensign offered a suggestion: “The Dreamland people may have some to spare. Maybe we could try them.”

The Air Force did use Harpoon missiles, but Storm wondered whether they were compatible. He knew that the ship-launched weapons contained a booster that the air-launched weapons lacked, but wasn’t sure what other differences there might be. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to determine that the missiles should work in the Abner Read, provided they were properly mated with the booster units.

The Abner Read carried six spares.

Storm clapped his hands together, then punched the com unit on his belt. “Communications, get me Colonel Bastian, would you?”

Dog watched the two Pakistani jets as they swung in toward them from the east. The aircraft were now about ten minutes away.

“What do you think, Colonel?” asked Englehardt. “Do we take them down or not?”

“They haven’t challenged us yet,” Dog told him.

“Respectfully, sir, if they have bombs, they could do some decent damage to the Marines before we can shoot them down.”

“I don’t intend on letting them get into a position to do that,” said Dog. “They’re not flying an attack profile. Change your course so we can go out to meet them. Plot an intercept so we can come around on their tails. Get us a little more altitude.”

Dog wanted to get the Megafortress close enough so he could see what the diminutive fighters had under their wings before they were in a position to threaten the Marines. But he knew that would make the Megafortress more vulnerable.

Bending over the center power console, he peered through the Megafortress’s windscreen. The two Pakistani planes looked like white pocketknives in the distance as the Bennett began her turn.

“Communication from the Abner Read, Colonel,” said Sullivan. “For you personally.”

“Not now.”

“They claim it’s urgent.”

Dog snapped into the frequency. “Bastian.”

“Colonel, this is Storm. I was wondering—”

“I’m just about to confront a pair of F-6 fighters here, Storm — make it damn quick.”

“I’m looking for some Harpoon missiles,” answered Storm.

“I haven’t got time—”

“Listen, Bastian—”

Dog switched to the Pakistani frequency.

“Dreamland Bennett to Pakistani F-6s. Did you find those Indian Sukhois?” Dog asked, watching the two planes approach.

“Negative, Dreamland USA. You are over Pakistan territory.”

“Acknowledged,” said Dog. “Our operations are to the southwest, over Indian land. We thought it would be prudent to fly over friendly territory as much as possible.”

“They’re trying to transmit the information back to their base,” said Sullivan when the fighters didn’t immediately respond. “Having trouble. The backup generators at the base seem to be giving them fits.”

The two Pakistani fighters spread slightly as the Megafortress turned. Dog watched the God’s eyeview screen on the dash closely — if the planes had any hostile intent, one would attempt to close on the Bennett’s tail, where a shot from the heat-seekers would be difficult to defend against.

“Coming up outside our wings,” said Sullivan.

Dog heard Englehardt blow a large wad of air into his oxygen mask. He’d undoubtedly been ready to flick the stick and call for flares — standard response to a missile launch.

“Pakistan F-6s, this is Dreamland Bennett. Are you free to assist? If so, we would welcome a high CAP,” said Dog, asking the aircraft to patrol above them and protect against high-flying fighters.

“Dreamland USA, we are not at liberty to assist you at this time. We are on the highest state of alert.”

“Acknowledged. Appreciate your taking the time to check on us,” said Dog.

“We just going to let them overfly the missile area?” Englehardt asked.

“At this speed and altitude, they’re not going to see much,” Dog told the pilot. “The Ospreys could be doing anything. We’ll stay with them as they make the pass.”

“No air-to-ground missiles,” said Sullivan, inspecting the aircraft with the Megafortress’s video.

“Power back a bit in case we have to get in their way,” Dog told Englehardt.

“Ready.”

But it wasn’t necessary. The F-6s began a turn northward well before they reached the area where the Ospreys had landed. Clearly, they were under orders to stay out of Indian territory.

“Dreamland USA, you’re on your own,” said the lead pilot. “Radio if you require further assistance from enemy fighters.”

“Roger that, Pakistan F-6. Thanks much.”

Every time Storm persuaded himself that Bastian wasn’t a bastard, a jerk, and worse, the flyboy colonel did something to show him how right his original opinion was.

Here, he had saved his people, just gotten them off the boat, for cryin’ out loud, and all the Dog-haired colonel could do was hang up on him.

Storm waited for his fury to subside, then told his communications specialist to get him the colonel again.

“Bastian.”

“What do you want me to do, Dog? Grovel?”

“What’s up, Storm?”

“I find myself short of Harpoon missiles. I’m told that the Air Force versions can be made to work with my ship’s weapons systems without—”

“Why don’t you resupply off the Lincoln?”

“It’s not quite that simple. Unfortunately, Harpoons are in short supply. I only need six.”

Storm hated the tone in his own voice — weak, pleading, explaining. He was about to snap off the communication in disgust when Dog answered.

“We have some. Have your people check with Captain Juidice on Diego Garcia. I’m not sure how we’d ferry them there; maybe one of the Whiplash Ospreys.”

“I won’t forget this, Dog,” gushed Storm. He could feel his face flush. “I won’t forget it.”

“Bastian out.”

Danny glanced at the two navy experts beside him, then slid his hand down below the bomb casing to the nest of wires.

“Keep the probes away from the wires,” Klondike repeated.

“Yeah, they’re away.”

“I want you to cut them in this sequence. Black, pure red, red with two black stripes—”

“Hold on, all right?” The wire casings were color coded for easy identification. But there were so many different codes that it wasn’t easy to tell them apart.

“I need another flashlight,” Danny said.

He took a breath, then pushed back close to the weapon. One of the sailors was already shining a beam on the wires; it just didn’t seem bright enough.

Danny felt as if someone was squeezing his neck.

“Here you go,” said the Navy expert, turning on another flashlight.

He located the first wire, nudging it gently from the rest of the pack, picked up the pliers with his right hand, pushed the nose toward the wire, then backed off and switched hands.

“How’s it going?” asked Lieutenant Dancer from behind him.

Her voice steeled his fingers and he began cutting, working methodically. Klondike had him move on to the fusing unit.

“What we think is the fusing unit,” she said, amending her instructions as she told him how to remove it.

He could have done without the note of uncertainty in the description, but when he was done, the scientists decided that the bomb was safe enough to move.

Which presented them with the next problem — they wanted time to study it before bringing it aboard the Lincoln.

“Why?” asked Danny.

“Just in case it blows up,” said Klondike dryly.

“So it’s all right to blow us up,” Dancer said sarcastically, “but not the squids.”

“Probably more worried about their delicate airplanes,” said one of her sergeants.

“Well, I’m all for getting the hell out of here,” Danny told them. “Given that the Pakistanis are two miles away.”

“We’ll just keep the weapons with us at P-1 for the time being,” said Dancer, “since we’re setting up camp there anyway.”

Meanwhile, a harness and a set of titanium rods were dug into place under the warhead. A pair of hydraulic jacks with balloon-style wheels lifted the rods up so the warhead could be set into another jack and gingerly rolled over to the Osprey. It took considerable grunt work, but within a half hour the nuclear weapon was being rolled up into the aircraft’s hold, where it was set into a veritable nest of inflatable stretchers and strapped to the walls so it couldn’t move. Danny, one of the Navy bomb people, and two Marine riflemen sat in the rear of the aircraft with the weapon; everyone else flew in the other two rototilts.

“This’ll be a story to tell our grandkids, huh?” said the Navy expert as the Osprey revved its engines.

“If it’s declassified by then,” replied Danny.

“Positive id on the last of the Pakistani warheads,” Major Catsman told Colonel Bastian.

“Good,” said Dog. He glanced at Sergeant Daly, sitting next to him. The radar operator’s eyes had narrowed to slits, his brows sagging toward the puffy skin below. “I think we’re about to call it a day here.”

“When was the last time you slept?” Catsman asked.

Dog changed the subject, going over the arrangements Catsman had made for handling communications with the U-2s and Marines recovering the nukes on the ground. Then he checked in with Danny, who was helping set up the warhead recovery base in a hilly section of the desert between India and Pakistan. So far, four Indian and two Pakistani warheads had been recovered, all without incident.

“Any word on Major and Captain Stockard?” asked Dog, trying to sound as unemotional as possible.

“Negative.”

“Alert me if there are any new developments,” he told Catsman. “I’ll check back with you when we land at Diego Garcia.”

“Roger that. Get some rest.”

“I will, Major. Thanks for the advice.”

By the time Danny Freah had a chance to stop and catch his breath, night had begun stealing into the rugged hills around him, casting long shadows over the temporary camp the Marines had hastily erected. Over fifty Marines guarded the perimeter, with additional sentries located to the north and south and a Marine Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicle orbiting overhead to provide constant surveillance. Flights of F/A-18s from the Lincoln were being rotated north to provide air support if any was needed.

For the moment, things were quiet, and neither the Indians nor the Pakistanis seemed to know they were there. The closest Indian troops were border patrol units nearly two hundred miles to the south.

Admiral Woods had decided that the warheads would be transferred to the USS Poughkeepsie. Laid down in the 1960s and designated as an LSD or “landing ship dock,” the Poughkeepsie had a long helicopter deck and could accommodate over two thousand tons of cargo, the ostensible reason for its selection — though the Navy experts told Danny the ship was so old no one in the Navy would care if the nukes took her down, unlike the Abe.

The Poughkeepsie, en route from maneuvers off Africa, was not expected to be in range for more than twenty-four hours. By then, it was hoped, all of the warheads would be recovered and the Marines ready to end their operations.

Danny ambled down the narrow path to the tent area, the fatigue of the long day slowing every step. It was a good kind of tired, he thought, the kind that came from a tough but successful mission. On the other hand, tired was tired.

Dancer met him as the trail gave way to the narrow plain where the Marines had established their command area.

“You look like you could use a good home-cooked meal,” she told him.

“If you’re cooking, I’m eating.”

“This way.”

Danny tried thinking about his wife Jemma. But she was far away, and they hadn’t been getting along too well anyway, and — and Dancer was right in front of him, just begging to be touched.

Somehow he managed to keep his hands to himself as she led him into the mess tent.

“Pot roast,” said Dancer. “Just like mom used to make. Of course, my mom was in the Army.”

She pointed at a tray of squished plastic packages containing vacuum-sealed meat and gravy — a Meals Ready to Eat version of pot roast.

“I thought you were cooking,” Danny said, laughing.

“Oh, I am,” said Dancer. She picked up one of the packages and dropped it into a tray of simmering water nearby.

“Lieutenant, I’m surprised at you,” he said, grabbed a set of tongs and fished the package out of the water. “That’s going to give it that plasticky taste. Come on. Let me show you how it’s supposed to be done.”

He picked up two of the packages and four metal plates, then went outside.

“Most important thing you have to do,” he told Dancer as he walked away from the tents, “is find the proper location.”

Danny picked a spot with a scattering of small and medium-sized rocks. He squatted down and quickly created a miniature fireplace. He made covered casserole dishes by covering a plate’s worth of food with another plate and placing them over the hearth, securing the tops with small stones.

“You forgot the charcoal,” said Dancer.

Danny smiled and took a pencil flare from his tac vest.

“No,” said Dancer.

“Learned this in high school,” he told her. He lit the flare, then set it under the pans. He arranged the rocks to help channel the heat to the food. “I was with the local ambulance squad. We used to do this when we were on standby at football games.”

“You seem more like you would have been playing football than waiting for someone to get hurt.”

“Couldn’t play football that year,” said Danny. “Bad knee. That’s why I became an EMT.”

“How can you parachute if you have bad knees?”

“That was my junior year. They got better.”

Danny had gone on to play — and star — as quarterback the next year, and even played in college, albeit for a Division III school. But he didn’t mention this to Dancer; it would sound too much like bragging.

The food had already been cooked before it was packaged, and long before the flare died out, the scent of warm meat and gravy filled the air.

“Only thing we need now is wine,” he said, pulling the pans off the fire.

“Wait!” said Dancer. She turned and trotted to the mess tent.

Now he did think of Jemma — how mad she would be if she saw him at that moment, ready to jump Dancer’s bones.

If she loved him so much, why wouldn’t she give up her job in New York, or at least spend more time visiting him at Dreamland?

And why didn’t Jemma want kids? She wouldn’t even talk about it anymore.

“Here we go,” said Dancer, returning. “Best I could do.”

She held up two boxes of grape juice.

“From the north side of the vineyard, I hope,” said Danny.

“Nineteen ninety-eight was a very good year for concord grapes.” Dancer tossed him a box. “The vintage has aged especially well since it’s been boxed.”

Danny laughed.

“This is good. Hot, but good,” said Dancer. “The flare definitely adds something.”

Before he could think of a witty reply, a sergeant approached and told them the Lincoln wanted to know what sort of supplies they’d need for the night.

“As much as we can get,” said Dancer, getting up. “Let me go talk to them. Hate to eat and run, Captain.”

Danny watched her go, unsure whether he was glad or sorry that they had been interrupted.

Zen’s island was shaped like the sole of a shoe. He and Breanna had come ashore near the toe. Roughly fifty yards wide, it was crowned by a large bald rock. It was cracked and pitted severely, but porous enough that the rain that fell soon after he arrived had drained away from the narrow holes./

The rock was the high point of the island, about twelve feet above sea level. Perched atop it, Zen could see more land in the distance to the east. Whether this was another island or part of the mainland, he couldn’t tell. Nor was he sure how far off it was. He guessed it was four or five miles, though it might just as well have been fifty since they were in no shape to swim it.

The heel of the atoll looked like a rock pile that had been disintegrating for decades, tumbling toward the middle of the island. It resembled a swamp, but one made of loose stone. Rocks parceled the saltwater into irregular cavities, none deeper than two feet.

Seeing some large pieces of wood on the northern shore, Zen began crawling toward them. By now his hands were covered with small scrapes and cuts. The grit on the rocks ate at his skin as he went, and he had to stop every few minutes to gather his strength and let the stinging subside.

The first piece of wood was too well wedged in the rocks for him to pull away, and he had to settle for some smaller pieces, sticks actually, that had landed nearby. He wedged them in his flight suit and crawled along the shoreline to a piece about as long as he was. There was another piece, thicker but shorter, beneath it. All of the wood was bleached white and appeared to have been there a long time.

The sun had begun to set. Zen decided it would be faster and easier for him to swim back. He dragged the wooden sticks with him but soon realized he couldn’t hold it and swim at the same time. Returning to shore, he sat himself upright and reached down to his pants leg, thinking he could tear off some of his flight suit to use as a crude rope. But the flight suit was too strong to rip, so he had to resort to his knife, poking it gently against his calf and auguring a hole.

His lower leg had turned deep purple, covered almost completely by bruises.

The color shocked him. He couldn’t feel anything there, but thought his legs must have been badly damaged in the crash. Deciding they needed whatever protection they could get, he pushed the pant leg down and instead undid the top portion of his flight suit so he could use his T-shirt. This was easy to rip, and he soon had the sticks tied to his wrist.

Swimming on his back, he had no trouble at first; the heavy eastward current was mitigated by a long length of stone that jutted from the atoll and formed a protective arm. But as he tried to turn toward the west beach where he’d left Breanna, he found the current hard to fight. Within seconds he was being pushed away from the island. Turning over, he began swimming with all his strength, pushing through the swells as they beat rhythmically against his face. He managed to push himself back to the edge of the island, clinging to a rock until he recovered enough strength to pull himself up onto shore.

By now the sun had set. In the fading twilight, he dragged himself up the hill, trailing the wood behind him. He’d gotten no farther than halfway before it was pitch-black and he could barely see in front him. But he wasn’t about to stop. He felt his way forward, pushing up slowly and trying to be gentle on his legs.

It seemed to take hours before he found himself moving downhill. The sticks made a scratching sound that was almost funny, or at least struck him that way.

Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—a witch’s broomstick dragging along the ground because she was afraid of heights.

Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—the Jolly Green Giant, ripping his pants as he walked.

Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—the sound seemed outrageously funny, and he began to laugh. He was still laughing when he reached the rocky part of the atoll, where the shadows made it almost impossible to see where the tent was. He stared at the darkness, hoping to find some hint of the spot before pushing down. Thinking he finally spotted it, he set out, only to reach the water ten minutes later. He dragged himself back up in a diagonal without any better luck.

“Bree!” he called before starting a third pass. “Bree — hey, babe, where’s our tent?”

There was no answer. Though he hadn’t expected one, he felt disappointed.

“Bree? Bree!”

Nothing.

Zen resumed his crawl. The sticks tumbled and occasionally snagged alongside him. They were no longer amusing, and he even thought of letting them go. But he kept dragging them, and finally found the pile of rocks he had set at one edge of their shelter.

Breanna was still unconscious inside. He put his head next to her face, close enough to feel her breath on his cheek. He thought she was breathing better, more deeply.

“Hey, Bree. You awake?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer.

Zen laid the wood out near them. It was wet from having been in the water, and he was too tired anyway to try and start a fire; he’d do it in the morning. He made a broadcast on the radio but got no response. He repeated it again and again, but still no one answered.

It was amazing how long it had taken him to get the wood. He thought about it, trying to analyze what he might have done faster and better. Exhausted, he tried another broadcast, then crawled under the shelter, curled himself around his wife, and fell asleep.

“The United States and several other members of the United Nations have launched a massive diplomatic effort aimed at both sides, trying to convince them the futility of war—”

General Mansour Sattari flipped off the television. Somehow, the Americans had actually succeeded. The Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons had not exploded. The Americans had vaporized them without a trace!

The end of war — or so the idiotic news commentator said.

“It is good that you turn that drivel off,” said someone behind him.

Surprised, Sattari turned and found Jaamsheed Pevars standing in the doorway. Pevars’s face was ashen.

“I don’t trust the western media,” Sattari said. “It is full of lies.”

Pevars waved his hand, as if warning the general away from something. Then he turned and walked from the room. Sattari followed.

Jaamsheed Pevars was the country’s oil minister, and usually a most happy fellow — but then who wouldn’t be if he could divert a portion of Iran’s oil revenue to his own accounts? While he served the black-robed imams who ran the country, Pevars was enough of a maverick to back several alternatives, including Sattari.

The fact that the two men had gone to school in England together was, to Sattari’s way of thinking, more a coincidence than a help, but it had made a certain level of intimacy possible between them.

“The American super weapon will change everything,” said Pevars when they reached the small but luxuriously furnished office he kept near the front of the building. “The black robes are quaking in their shoes.”

“What?”

“How does one go to war with a nation that can pulverize your weapons in midair?” Pevars shook his head. “One of the imams has already asked if you were involved.”

“Me?”

Pevars shrugged. “Perhaps word of your son’s operation leaked.”

Sattari knew there was only one possible source of the information — Pevars himself. Undoubtedly, he had leaked word out when things looked to be going well, hoping to capitalize on the connection. Now his braggadocio and conniving meant trouble.

Not for Pevars, though. He was able to slither out of everything.

“How did the black robes find out about this?” demanded the general. “What do they know? The submarines? The aircraft?”

“Who knows what they knew? They seem to have heard…rumors.”

Sattari felt his anger growing. Rumors? Pevars was the only possible source.

“If the Americans have a weapon like this,” Pevars continued, “the balance of power will shift again. The Chinese—pffft, they are nothing now.”

“I would rather die than join an alliance with the Americans,” said Sattari.

“Who said anything about an alliance? An alliance? No, that is not possible. Peace, though — that is a different story.”

Sattari choked back his anger, trying to consider what Pevars had said. Peace with America — what did that imply? An oil agreement possibly, the sale of petroleum at some guaranteed rate.

Pevars would not be concerned about that.

Did the black robes intend to offer someone up as a chip for a new business agreement?

“I have information from the fisherman,” added Pevars.

“Finally,” said Sattari. The “fisherman” was one of their spies. “But why did he not send word directly to me?”

Pevars grimaced. “The submarine was captured. Two men were taken prisoner. All the others perished.”

“Which others?”

Pevars did not answer.

“The fisherman said all this?”

Pevars nodded.

Was that possible? The fisherman worked for him, not Pevars.

“You’re lying,” said Sattari.

“No. He was afraid to tell you because it involved your son.”

“You’re working with the Americans, aren’t you?”

“General, take hold of yourself. I know the loss of your son is a great blow. But surely he is in paradise now.”

General Sattari had realized this as soon as Pevars mentioned the submarine, but the words severed the last threads of restraint on his emotions. He threw himself at Pevars, launching his body at the other man as if it were a missile.

Pevars was slight, barely over 120 pounds, and much of that weight was concentrated in a potbelly. The general weighed twice what he did, and while no longer young, his daily regimen of exercise, along with the hardships he’d endured with his soldiers over the past decade, had kept his body tough and fit. He began pummeling the oil minister, smashing his head against the thick rug and lashing it again and again with his fists. If Pevars offered any resistance, it had little impact on Sattari. He punched the oil minister over and over, beating him as a hurricane beats the shore.

Blackness filled the room. It was not darkness but the opposite — a light so harsh that it blinded Sattari. He continued to flail at Pevars, emptying decades worth of rage from his body.

When the rage lifted, Sattari found himself sitting in the hallway, his hands and clothes covered with red blood.

“The Americans did this to me.” Sattari’s words echoed through the marble hall. “The Americans.”

He would find them, and take his revenge.