Retribution

IV. New Sheriff in Town

Even for a major general, getting to Dreamland was not an easy task. General Samson had to first fly to Nellis Air Base, and from there arrange for a helicopter to ferry him several miles to the north. A pair of Dolphin helicopters — Americanized versions of the Aerospatiale Dauphin — were tasked as Dreamland “ferries” and used regularly by personnel trekking to the base. But Samson couldn’t make the trip with the assortment of engineers and other riffraff who used the Dolphins. So a helicopter had to be found for him and the three staff members traveling with him. The chopper, in turn, needed a crew. Much to Samson’s surprise, it turned out that not just any crew could be used to fly to the base; Dreamland’s security arrangements were so tight that only personnel with a code-word clearance were allowed to land at the base’s “dock.”

The official reason for this was that planes had to cross two highly classified testing areas to get to the dock. But since clearance came from the colonel’s office at Dreamland, Samson was convinced that the actual reason had to do with a personal power play on Lieutenant Colonel Bastian’s part. He simmered while a crew with the proper clearance and training were found.

The idea that a lieutenant colonel — a mere lieutenant colonel — could effectively hold up a major general fried Samson’s gizzard. He knew Bastian wasn’t at the base, of course, but that was irrelevant. The lieutenant colonel undoubtedly knew that he had a good thing going here and had instituted a series of bureaucratic hurdles and practices to keep anyone from getting too close a look.

Samson’s mood deepened when the helicopter ferrying him to the base was ordered to halt about fifty meters over the perimeter. And halt meant halt, not hover — the helo pilot was told to put his chopper down on the desert floor and await further instructions.

“What the hell is going on?” demanded Samson as the old Huey touched down.

“Orders, sir.”

Samson was about to express his opinion concerning the validity of the order with several expletives when he spotted a jet making what looked like a bombing run in the distance. At first he thought the aircraft was very far away. Then he realized it was actually a miniature aircraft. It carried diminutive bombs—125-pound so-called “mini-munis” being developed to help ground soldiers in urban settings where larger bombs might cause civilian casualties.

The attack aircraft was a sleek, wedge-shaped affair, with air intakes on the top of the body and what looked like fangs at the front. These were apparently some sort of forward wing or control surface, and Samson guessed that they accounted for the airplane’s twisting maneuver after the bombs were dropped — the jet veered almost straight up, dropped suddenly, and ended up backtracking on the path it had taken to the target area.

Remarkably, it seemed to do this without a noticeable loss of speed. Samson knew this was probably mostly an optical illusion — the laws of physics and aerodynamics made it impossible to completely change direction like that without losing speed — but even allowing for that, the airplane was several times more nimble than anything he had ever seen.

“General?”

Samson turned his attention back to the front of the Huey just as a mechanical voice broke into the helicopter’s interphone system.

“Huey 39, you are ordered to follow Whiplash Osprey 5. No deviation from your flight path will be tolerated.”

“What the hell?” said Samson. “I thought we were cleared.”

“We were, but it’s the way they do things,” said the pilot. “Security is tight.”

“Tight security is one thing—” Samson began, but before he could say anything else, a shadow descended over the front of the aircraft and their path was blocked by a black Osprey.

This was Whiplash Osprey 5, which differed from standard-issue Ospreys in several respects. Besides the black paint scheme, most noteworthy were the twin cannons mounted under the rear of the fuselage, pointed ominously at the Huey’s cockpit.

A second Osprey zipped in from the rear, pulling alongside the Huey just long enough for Samson to see that it had heat-seeking missiles on its wing rails.

“Follow him,” snapped Samson, folding his arms angrily.

Danny Freah pushed back the soft campaign cap the Marines had loaned him and surveyed the base area. In less than twenty-four hours the makeshift camp had swelled from a few tents in the rocky hills to a small city. Six Ospreys sat in formation on the nearby plain. Across from them, three sideless tents housed the fifteen warheads that had been recovered thus far. Two different teams of scientists and military experts were going over the weapons, examining them before crating them for transport to the USS Poughkeepsie. The ship was still a good distance away, but making decent speed. Present plans were to start shipping the warheads around midnight, though there were contingencies for an earlier evac if necessary.

The nuclear devices represented a variety of technologies. Pakistan’s eight were all of similar design; according to the experts, they were relatively straightforward and not large, as nukes went, though fully capable of leveling a city.

The rest of the weapons were Indian, with warheads ranging in yield from five kilotons — very small, as nukes went — to 160 kilotons, roughly the same class of explosive power as the W62 on the U.S. Minuteman III ICBM. The discovery of the latter surprised the experts; until then, it was believed that India’s biggest warhead was in the fifty to sixty kiloton range.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Lieutenant Dancer as Danny contemplated how many lives the warheads would have claimed had they gone off.

“I usually get a whole dollar,” he told her.

“Have to wait for payday for that.” Dancer smiled at him, then shaded her eyes from the sun. Her skin looked as soft as a rose petal’s. “We have the last two Pakistani warheads secured. The Ospreys are en route. Any sign of activity to the south?”

“Negative,” said Danny. “Radio traffic is picking up, though.”

“Mmmmm,” said Dancer. She gazed toward the coast, probably thinking it would be a good thing to get the warheads out as soon as possible.

He was thinking about other things — none of which were military.

Dancer unfolded a small sketch map with an X drawn at each of the verified warhead locations. Four more warheads, all Indian, had been spotted; Dancer reviewed their locations, pointing to two at the very northern edge of her map. Six more missiles had to be found.

“The warheads at I-6 and I-8 are going to be much harder to retrieve,” she told Danny. “I wonder if you’d lead that team.”

“Be glad to.”

The warheads she’d referred to had crashed about two hundred miles to the east in Pakistani territory. The Pakistani army had a decent-sized military post less then thirty miles away, and the Indians had an unmanned listening post ten miles south. The electronic surveillance equipment there was thought to have been fried by the T waves, but a truck was spotted in the area, and it was suspected that the Indians were working hard to get it back on line.

“You coming with us?” asked Danny.

“I have my work cut out for me here,” Dancer told him. “And hopefully we’ll be launching another mission as soon as the other warheads are found.”

“Shame,” said Danny, feeling as if he’d been turned down for a date.

Most of those in the Situation Room regarded Robert Van Houton as little more than a political hack, and so eyes glazed over when he warned that China would be extremely interested in the nuclear warheads the U.S. had punched out of the sky. It didn’t help that his monotone voice made it sound as if he was simply repeating vague concerns others had voiced earlier in the meeting. Even Jed Barclay, not a dynamic speaker himself, realized Van Houton wasn’t coming across very well as he briefed the cabinet members on the latest developments.

“We’re not going to attack the Chinese,” said Defense Secretary Chastain finally.

“I’m not suggesting that,” said Van Houton defensively. “What I’m saying—”

“I’ve spoken to Tex Woods,” said Admiral Balboa. “He concurs that there’s no need to get into a conflict with the Chinese. The aircraft carrier Khan is out of it — they can’t even launch aircraft. Of course, if they attack our people, we’ll defend ourselves.”

“Um, it’s not the Khan we h-h-have to worry about,” said Jed. “The Ch-Ch-Chinese may be helping terror groups.”

“Not that old bugaboo,” said the Secretary of State. “With all due respect, Jed, every time there’s a conflict somewhere, you guys bring up terrorists. Thank you, but the Pakistanis and Indians are quite capable of blowing up the world on their own.”

“There have been interceptions from the NSA,” said Jed’s boss, National Security Advisor Philip Freeman. “There is talk going on between some of the radical Sunni groups and the Chinese. Some of this involves the bin Laden group.”

“Nonsense,” said Balboa. “Navy intelligence says that’s impossible. The Pakistanis think the weapons were destroyed. The terrorists take their lead from them.”

“Not entirely.”

“Iran is the country we have to worry about when it comes to terrorism,” said Balboa. “Tell the NSA to find some evidence from that direction, and we’ll bomb Tehran back to the stone age.”

Vice President Ellen Christine Whiting rolled her eyes. She was chairing the meeting while the President flew to New York to address the UN.

“Anything else, gentlemen?” she asked, looking around. “The warhead removal mission is continuing, and we should have most of the warheads out by noon our time tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Jed and Balboa simultaneously.

Jed felt his face turn red. Balboa’s scowl made it clear that he resented him even being here; there were no other aides at the session.

“I’m sure the President will be very pleased with this update,” said Whiting. “Gentlemen, thank you for your time.”

In some ways, Diego Garcia was a haven from the world at large, a beautiful gem dropped in an azure sea. Palm trees swayed ever so slightly on a soft breeze, and the sand and sky made the place look more idyllic than Tahiti.

Of course, if she was going to be on an island paradise, Jennifer Gleason thought, she would have preferred being alone with her lover, rather than sharing him with a force that now topped two hundred. She also would have greatly preferred that he paid more than scant attention to her.

Her C-17 had beaten Dog’s Megafortress to the island by several hours, which made it possible for her to greet him when he arrived. But instead of the joyful hug she’d envisioned — or even a lousy peck on the cheek — Dog merely grunted a hello and went off to bed.

Alone.

Now, roughly twelve hours later, he seemed more irritable than ever. He was holding court in his room, growling rather than speaking to the crews of Dreamland Bennett and the Cheli, the recently arrived EB-52.

“We don’t know how long their defenses are going to be knocked out, so we have to make the most of the time we’ve got,” said Dog. He looked up and saw her at the door. “Ms. Gleason, can we help you?”

“I brought you some coffee, Colonel.”

“Thanks, I already have some.”

Dog turned his attention abruptly to the others. Jennifer felt as if she’d been slapped in the face.

“I have a lot to do,” she said. She squatted down and placed the cup on the floor, then walked away.

Even though he had slept for more than ten hours after getting back to Diego Garcia, Dog felt anything but rested. He certainly had more energy, but it was an unsettled energy, vibrating wildly inside him. At the same time, his body felt as if it were a heavy winter coat wrapped tightly around him, making it harder to move.

“The rest of the missile sites are believed to be in the east,” he told the others. “We’ll have two missions. Number one, attempt to verify the remaining sites using the Flighthawks for low-level reconnaissance. And number two, we’ll be providing air cover for the teams operating to the west of Base Camp One. The Navy planes can back us up, but they’re a little too far from the Lincoln to stay on station around the clock. Everybody got it?”

The pilots and crewmen nodded.

“Sparks, brief us on the Anacondas,” Dog said, turning the floor over to Captain Brad Sparks. The Megafortress pilot had worked extensively with the missiles during their development and testing.

“Hardest thing about using them,” said Sparks, “is pressing the button.”

Everyone laughed. Sparks was a bit of a cowboy and an occasional ham, but he was playing to a friendly audience.

As the briefing continued, Dog found his thoughts drifting to Breanna and Zen. They still hadn’t been found. Given how much time had passed since they went out, things didn’t look good.

No debris from the wreck of the plane had been found, but the Navy had investigated two slicks on the waves in the search areas. It was possible that the stricken EB-52 went straight under. But it was also possible that the plane crashed farther west of the search sites. If so, Breanna and Zen might still be alive. Dog knew that all he could do was hope for the best.

“All right,” he said as the briefing broke up. “Let’s get dressed and do a preflight at the hangar. We want to be in the air very quickly,” he added. “So come ready to roll.”

He got up from his chair, signaling the end of the meeting. As the others were filing out, he asked Lieutenant Englehardt to stay behind.

“What’s up, Colonel?”

“Mike, I’m going to take the pilot’s seat on the Bennett today.”

“That’s my spot.”

“You slide over. Sully gets bumped,” said Dog. He meant that Englehardt would sit in as copilot, with Sullivan remaining behind.

“Listen, Colonel, if you have a problem with me—”

“Why are you flying off the handle, Mike?”

“I’m not flying off the handle,” said Englehardt, his voice giving lie to his words. “It’s just that I figured I’d be flying this mission. I earned it.”

“You’re acting like a two-year-old.”

“I can pilot that plane, Colonel.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“Everybody’s going to take it that way, like this is a demotion, like I’m not good enough.”

“If you’re so concerned about that, maybe you shouldn’t be flying for Dreamland at all. Tell Sullivan he’s bumped. I’ll meet you at the plane.”

“The hell with this.”

Englehardt’s face had turned red. Dog sensed the pilot knew he’d made a mistake and wanted to find a way out gracefully. Maybe on another day he might have found a way to help the younger man; he thought Englehardt was a good pilot, and though at times tentative, had a bright future. But he wasn’t in a helping mood.

“You have a problem, mister?”

“Maybe Sullivan should fly instead of me, then,” said Englehardt.

“Good,” said Dog. He grabbed his small flight bag and strode from the room.

Zen slept like a baby, everything around him muffled, his body surrendering to unconsciousness. He had no dreams that he could remember, and the rocks that made up his bed had no power to jab him or stick in his ribs. The makeshift tent covered him like a grave, keeping him not just from the elements, but from worries.

And then he woke.

His body felt as if it were tied up, bound in heavy cable.

He heard his wife next to him, her breaths shallow and sounding like moans.

He patted her gently, then crawled from the tent, his stomach rumbling for food.

The wood he’d brought back sat nearby, a pathetically small assortment of bleached branches and sticks. He flipped them over, hoping the sun would dry the bottom parts out better. Then he tried the radio.

“Major Stockard to any American force,” he began. “Stockard to American force. I’m a crewman from Dreamland EB-52 Levitow, lost over the Indian peninsula, lost in the Indian Ocean.”

Zen continued, giving what he thought their approximate position had been when they jumped. He repeated his message several times, pausing to hear a reply, but none came.

Was it possible that their attempt to stop the war had failed? If so, much of India and surely all of Pakistan would have been wiped out by nuclear attacks. Very possibly the U.S. and China were at war right now. And if that was true, who would hold back?

The possibilities were too awful to contemplate.

Zen knew the EEMWBs had worked; they’d lost contact with the Flighthawks the moment the missiles exploded. But he had no idea what happened afterward.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. But what was the plan now? He was an invalid on a bleak island, alone with his unconscious, possibly dying wife.

He could give in. He could throw himself into the tide and let himself be swept away. He could give in.

But he knew that instead he’d start the fire in a few hours, once the sticks dried in the sun a bit. And try and figure out something for food in the meantime, something more filling than the few bars he’d salvaged from their survival vests.

There might be fish in the shallow water near the pinched middle of the atoll, Zen thought. If so, he could spear them with his knife, or better, kill them with rocks. He’d get a bunch of little fish and fry them in the fire.

Zen leaned back into the tent, checking on Breanna. Had he examined her for injuries when they landed? He couldn’t remember now. He must have — but he couldn’t remember, and so he checked again, gently loosening her flight suit, still damp, and running his hands over her skin. It was clammy and cold, sticky; it seemed to belong more to the sea than to Breanna.

There were bruises, but he didn’t see any gashes, and if bones had been broken, the breaks weren’t obvious.

“I’ll be back,” he told her after zipping her back up. “I’ll be right back.”

Storm practically danced a jig as the Osprey appeared over the horizon.

“All right now, men! Look alive! Jason, Josh — clear the deck there. Look alive! Look alive!”

The Osprey — a black, cannon-equipped Dreamland special operations version — swept in over the forked tail of the Abner Read, her arms steady. The craft matched the ship’s slow pace, then began to rotate. The helipad on the Abner Read was tiny, and the Osprey had to face toward the stern so its cargo could be off-loaded.

The aircraft lurched to port as she descended. Storm’s heart lurched with it. But the pilot quickly got it back under control, setting down on the narrow confines of the Abner Read’s deck.

“Very good! Very good,” shouted Storm as the rear hatchway opened. “Look alive! Look alive! Let’s get those missiles assembled and into the bow tubes!”

“Captain?”

Storm turned. His executive officer was standing in the portal to the robot helicopter shed, which had been cleared as a temporary loading and work area.

“Eyes. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, Captain.”

“Ready for full duty?”

“Yes, sir.”

Eyes looked like he was going to say something — an apology probably. Storm held up his hand. “No explanation necessary. We’re all burning the candle at both ends.”

Storm stepped back as a work crew brought the first missile crate out of the aircraft.

“What exactly are we planning to do next, Captain?” asked Eyes.

Surprised that Eyes hadn’t gone back to work, Storm turned around. “Next? That’s up to the Chinese.”

Eyes didn’t reply.

“Well, get back to your station,” said Storm. “Get down to Tac. Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Becoming a chief master sergeant in the air force — or achieving a similar rank in any of the services, for that matter — requires an unusual combination of skill, knowledge, hard work, and determination. A man or woman who becomes a chief arrives at that position with an impressive range of information at his or her fingertips.

Part of this is the result of sheer longevity and experience; it can accurately be said that a chief master sergeant doesn’t just know where the bodies are buried, but buried a good number of them himself.

Another part is due to the network of friends, informers, and other hangers-on an enlisted man builds during his career. And, of course, initiation into the rites of chiefdom brings a new chief into contact with the elder members of the tribe, who view each new member as an important link in the chain that holds the Air Force together. Chiefs may not necessarily get along, but they can always be counted on to rally to the side of a fellow chief master sergeant in matters both large and small, aware that the cause is greater than any personal animosity.

Dreamland’s administrative side was run by a chief among chiefs, Sergeant Terence Gibbs. Ax, as he was universally known, had served as Colonel Bastian’s right-hand man since prehistoric times. The colonel thought he had pulled strings to get Ax transferred to Dreamland with him when he took over the command, but in truth it was Ax who pulled the string that needed to be pulled. Letting Colonel Bastian believe otherwise was a strategy Ax had taken from page one of the chief ’s handbook.

Though only at the base for two years, Ax knew more about Dreamland than anyone, with the possible exception of Greasy Hands Parsons, who was, after all, a fellow chief.

Ax’s intelligence network extended far beyond Dreamland and even the Air Force. Information was a chief ’s currency, in many cases as valuable as money or even tickets to the Super Bowl — several of which Ax managed to procure and distribute each year. There was generally not a facet of Air Force life that Ax did not know once he decided it was important. He’d put considerable effort into building an efficient early warning system, capable of alerting him to the slightest pending move that would affect him or his command.

So it was amazing — dumbfounding, even — that when Major General Terrill “Earthmover” Samson (aka Terrill the Terror, in some circles) was appointed to be Dreamland’s new commander, Ax did not know it until several hours after the fact. Worse — far worse, as far as he was concerned — he didn’t know that Samson had decided to forgo protocol and play a surprise visit to the base several days ahead of schedule until Samson was well on his way.

In fact, Ax learned this so late that he didn’t arrive at the helicopter landing strip until the general and his staff were stepping out of their helicopter under the watchful eyes of the base security team. It was an intelligence failure of monumental proportions, though Ax would not be at leisure to contemplate its implications for several hours.

“General Samson, good to see you sir,” he shouted loudly. “You’re, uh, several days ahead of schedule.”

“I move on my own schedule,” growled Samson.

“Yes, sir. Major Catsman is waiting for you.” Ax stiffened and pumped a textbook salute, as stiff and proper as any he had delivered in the past ten years — which was damning with faint praise, since he had perhaps saluted twice.

Samson returned it with a scowl.

“Why isn’t the major here herself, Chief?” demanded the general.

“Begging the general’s pardon, but there’s a Whiplash action under way. Things get a little — hectic.”

Samson frowned. Ax smiled ever so faintly in response, then turned his head toward the two airmen he had shanghaied to carry the general’s bags. Within a few minutes he had the security team placated and the general and his people en route to the Taj Mahal, the nickname for the base’s administrative center.

Samson’s arrival at the Taj caused another stir. In order for him and his aides to tour the base, biometric measurements and readings had to be taken from all of them. Samson balked, saying it was a waste of his time.

“Only about ten minutes per person,” said Ax. “It’s standard procedure.”

“Do you get major generals visiting this base often?”

“We’ve had a few,” said Ax.

Samson started for the elevator that stood at the center of the lobby. He got in, as did his aides. Ax stayed in the lobby.

“The thing is, sir, if you’re not in the computer, it won’t allow you access. You can get in the elevator car, but it won’t go down. And now that you’re in there, it won’t move until you’re out. I can get this straightened out.”

Samson didn’t believe Ax until he had pressed all of the buttons and nothing happened.

“It will only take a few minutes,” said Ax. “If you’ll just come over to the security station…”

Samson stalked over to Security, nearly as angry as he’d been at the landing dock. His aides followed.

Or attempted to.

“I’m afraid — and no offense, sirs,” said Ax, making sure to spread one of his better chief ’s smiles across the arrayed majors and captains, “under a Whiplash order, you’re supposed to be confined to the non, um, technical parts of the base. Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t even be here in the Taj. We can do some temporary passes, but your access is going to be limited.”

“What the hell kind of rule is that?” said Samson.

“Begging the general’s pardon, but it would be a similar situation if somehow a busload of visitors had deposited themselves into his F-111 cockpit during his mission over Hanoi as a captain. Or when he personally led the squadron over Panama. The general would have been so busy dealing with the enemy, that even the presence of well-meaning onlookers, no matter their rank, would have been a distraction.”

Samson frowned. For a moment Ax wondered if he had found the proverbial exception to the old chiefs’ rule that it was impossible to lay it on too thick for a general.

“All right,” said Samson finally. “Let’s get the lay of the land for now,” he added, speaking to his entourage. “Stay wherever you’re supposed to stay.”

The men nodded in unison, as if their heads were connected by hidden wires.

“As for this other thing, though,” said the general, to Ax again, “I don’t see the purpose.”

Ax finally realized why Samson was objecting to the biometric recordings.

“The process, General, is pretty straightforward. You step into a small booth and the computer takes its readings. No human intervention. The information is encrypted right away, and isn’t even accessible to the operator. Security precaution, in case someone was trying to duplicate your biometrics.”

“Well, let’s get on with it, then,” said Samson.

“Step over this way, sir,” said one of the security sergeants, leading Samson to a spot on the floor where a laser and weight machine would record his measurements.

Lieutenant Thomson pulled Ax aside.

“Why’d you say that about the operator? He can see the measurement. What would be the sense of hiding it?”

“General’s getting sensitive about his weight,” whispered Ax. “Too many nights on the chicken and peas circuit.”

No matter how mundane the mission, how routine the flight, f lying an aircraft always gave Dog a thrill. It was the one thing he could count on to raise his heartbeat, the jolt that pushed him no matter how straight and slow the flight. Whether it was a Cessna or an F-22 Raptor, simply folding his fingers around the control yoke of an aircraft filled Tecumseh Bastian with a quiet passion.

He was going to need it. He sensed that the crew resented his replacing their captain. They were too well disciplined and professional to do anything to jeopardize their mission, of course, and Dog knew that he could rely on them to do their best when and if things got hot. But the quick snap in their voices when he asked a question, the forced formality of their replies, the lack of takers when he offered to get coffee and doughnuts from the galley — a thousand little things made it clear that he might have their respect and cooperation, but not their love.

Then again, in his experience, love could be overrated.

“Flighthawks ready to start their pass,” reported the copilot, Lieutenant Sullivan.

“Roger that. Flighthawk leader, proceed.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” said Starship downstairs. “I hope we’ll find something.”

“Me too.”

They had laid out their course north through the search area where Breanna and Zen were thought to have parachuted, hoping to put the long leg to some use.

It had been Englehardt’s suggestion.

“Flighthawks are at fifty feet, indicated,” said Sullivan. “Ocean appears empty, as indicated by radar.”

Was Breanna really gone? Dog struggled to push away the feeling of despair. He had a job to do. He couldn’t afford a moment of weakness.

“How are we looking, Airborne?” he said, trying to focus on his mission.

“Only friendlies, Colonel,” said Sergeant Rager at the airborne radar.

“Very good,” said Dog.

“Waymarker in zero-one minute,” said Sullivan, noting they were approaching a turn that would take them away from the search area. “Colonel, you want to extend the search?”

For the first time since they’d boarded the plane, Sullivan’s voice sounded almost normal.

“Much as I’d like to, Sully, I’m afraid we have other business,” said Dog. “Starship, we’re coming up to our turn.”

“General, i’d heard you would be visiting sometime next week.”

“You heard wrong,” snapped Samson. He frowned at the scrawny major, then looked past her toward the massive screen at the front of the room. According to the legend, the display showed a swath of land in Pakistan as it was being surveyed in real time by one of Dreamland’s Flighthawks.

The scale and clarity were unlike anything Samson had ever seen, even at the Pentagon. He could literally count blades of tumbleweed, or whatever the desert vegetation was called.

“This is part of the search for the disabled warheads,” added the major. “We’re providing assistance to the team assembled by the Seventh Fleet.”

“Yes,” said Samson. He turned his attention to the rest of the situation room, which the Dreamlanders called Dreamland Command. Workstations were set up theater style, descending down both sides of a center ramp toward the screen. Each desk was big enough for five or six operators, though in no case were there more than two people working at them. Most had a single person. With only two exceptions, the operators wore civilian clothes, appeared less than kempt, and were clearly not military — including a gorgeous blonde Samson had trouble taking his eyes off of.

No wonder Bastian wanted to keep this all to himself, he thought. The place was the military equivalent of the world’s biggest entertainment center.

“With all due respect, sir,” said a tall, skinny man in a tone that suggested exactly the opposite, “I’d request that you didn’t look too closely at the displays or question the scientists.”

“You’d request what?”

“Frankly, you shouldn’t be in this room at all, not during a mission.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The man fidgeted, his fingers moving up to his earlobe nervously. Samson was startled to see that he had an earring there.

An earring!

And he was trying to kick him out?

“Who are you?” demanded Samson again.

“Ray Rubeo. I’m the head scientist. And I’m afraid that while your security clearance may allow you to observe the operations themselves, it does not cover the specific weapons that are being tested as part of the operations. As a result—”

“Weapons tests?”

Rubeo frowned at him. “General, you really should leave. This is not a good time.”

“Now listen, mister—” began Samson.

“That would be Doctor.”

“I don’t give a shit if you’re a brain surgeon.” Samson turned to Catsman. “Major, what the hell is this?”

“Ordinarily, no one is permitted inside Dreamland Command during an operation,” she said.

“I’m your new commander. Do you understand what that means?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“If you’re interfering with the mission,” said Rubeo, “you’re going to have to leave. The President controls Whiplash missions once the order is given, not the Air Force.”

“Who made that rule up? Bastian?”

“The procedures predate him,” said Rubeo testily. “Check Presidential Order 92–14.”

Samson turned to Catsman, whose face had turned crimson.

Samson folded his arms, trying to control his anger. He was tempted — sorely tempted — to have the room cleared. But interfering with the mission was the last thing he wanted to do — especially since he could then be blamed for anything that went wrong. He forced himself to be silent, and stayed just long enough to keep his dignity and authority intact. Then with an abrupt “Carry on,” he left the room.

The shallow water at the west of the atoll didn’t seem to hold any fish. As he moved toward the southern end of the atoll, Zen spotted some seaweed growing a few feet from the sand. He pushed into the water and got a surprise — one of the rocks began to move.

It was a turtle, about two feet long, with a brown and white oval-shaped shell. Zen froze for a moment, unsure what to do. By the time he had unsheathed his knife, the turtle was gone.

There must be more turtles here, he thought. Or maybe some fish this one was feeding on.

Zen stopped moving and focused on the water. When he was sure there was nothing in front of him but seaweeds and rocks, he moved to his left, pushing through the water gingerly.

Nothing.

The most difficult part of being a fisherman was patience. Zen had the patience of a fighter pilot — which was to say, none.

He slid onto his side, pushing along in the water. Something moved to his right. He leaned over toward it.

Another turtle, this one only twelve or fourteen inches.

Zen swatted at it with his knife, but the creature dove away. Mud and rocks swirled up in a cloud. He fished in the water, then pulled back as the turtle’s beak suddenly appeared.

The turtle squirted away. Zen lunged and managed to get his left hand under it. He flung it upward, sending it crashing against a group of rocks closer to shore.

Pulling himself through the rocks and water as the turtle flailed upside down, he raised his knife, then stopped, paralyzed by the small creature’s struggle. Then his own instinct for survival took over and he plunged the knife straight down into the underside of the turtle’s shell.

The blade penetrated, but the turtle continued to struggle. It snapped its beak wildly, cutting the air as if it were its enemy.

Zen tried to pull the knife from the turtle but it was stuck. Unsure what to do, he let go of the knife. When he did, the creature slipped off into the water. Zen grabbed the handle of the knife as the turtle sank and threw the creature, blade and all, onto the rocks. It landed sideways, propped there, still struggling when he reached it.

Dazed and confused, its life ebbing, the turtle craned its neck in the direction of the water. Zen circled behind the animal, then took hold of its leg, dragging it farther ashore. The leg felt slimy and cold. It was a live thing, pushing against him, and once again Zen was paralyzed.

But he had to eat, and so did Bree. He picked up the leg and dashed the turtle against the rocks, smacking it so hard the shell cracked open. Then he grabbed a nearby rock and pounded it on the hilt of his knife, driving the weapon into the animal. Finally the creature stopped struggling, its life over.

Exhausted, Zen let the rock drop from his hand. Then he turned his attention back to the water, wondering if it might be possible to swim back to the pup tent rather than crawl.

As he did, something caught his eye.

A small boat was approaching, less than a hundred yards away.

Major Catsman and the smiling chief master sergeant tried to placate General Samson, suggesting he try dinner in the VIP dining room, but Samson wasn’t buying the bullshit they were selling. He was filled with rage toward the arrogant and ignorant scientist who’d threatened to have him booted—booted! — from Dreamland Command.

Undoubtedly this had been done at Colonel Bastian’s behest, Samson thought, since it was inconceivable that a mere civilian scientist would have the audacity.

What really irked him, however, was the fact that the military people hadn’t intervened. The world had truly turned upside down here.

Samson had thought that there might be room for Bastian under his command. Clearly, that was not going to work. The incident in Dreamland Command aside, Bastian’s outsized ego was on clear display when Samson entered his office. It was outfitted with well-polished cherry furniture fit for a king.

“When I was a lieutenant colonel,” muttered Samson to his aides as he surveyed the office, “I had a tin desk.”

“Begging the general’s pardon,” said Ax. “The colonel inherited this from the last commander, who was a major general. Rather than—”

“He’s disinherited. As of now, this is my office.”

“You’re moving in?” said Catsman.

“Major, what did you think my purpose in arriving here today was?” said Samson. Catsman was also high on his list of people to be replaced.

“Sir, we were under the impression—”

“Which impression is that?” thundered Samson.

Catsman seemed lost for words. “General Magnus, when he was in your position—”

“General Magnus had many things on his plate,” said Samson. “I am not him. Dreamland is my baby now. I saw no reason to wait several weeks before coming out here.”

“Well no, sir. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Samson turned to Ax. “Find some men to move Bastian’s things to a secure location.”

“Uh…”

“How long have you been a chief master sergeant, Mr. Gibbs?”

“We’ll get right on it, General.”

Maybe he can stay, thought Samson. Having someone around who knew where all the latrine keys were kept might be handy.

While it was often said that the wheels of government moved slowly, Major General Terrill Samson did not. Even though it was nearly midnight back in Washington, he got on the phone and did what he could to kick the paperwork into gear to move the transition forward and, most important, update the Whiplash order so it named him personally.

Then he decided to call the National Security Advisor personally to discuss his new command. If Bastian could work closely with the White House, so could he.

Thinking he would simply leave a message with the overnight staff, Samson was surprised to find that Freeman was working. But as soon as he was put through, he was met with more questions than answers.

“How many warheads have been recovered?” demanded Freeman. “What’s the status?”

“I’m not up-to-date on all of the operational details,” said Samson, caught off guard. “Generally, I let my people in the field — I give them full rein.”

“Well, when are we getting an update? I realize Colonel Bastian is busy, but the President needs to know. He’s addressing the General Assembly at the UN first thing in the morning.”

“Understood.”

“The President wants every warhead recovered. We want that accomplished before news of the operation leaks. It has to proceed quickly.”

“Of course,” said Samson. “I can assure you we’re working on it. We’re going to do it.”

“Good.”

“There is one thing,” said Samson. He told Freeman, as delicately as he could manage, that some “legal types” had advised him that Whiplash orders should be directed to him so that the proper chain of command could be followed. This would facilitate the process—“speed up the operation,” said Samson.

“Why is that an issue at this moment?” said Freeman.

“It’s not an issue,” said Samson quickly. “Legal types, though — you know the red tape that can get involved.”

“Dreamland is about avoiding red tape.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll look into having the order reissued,” said Freeman. “If it’s necessary.”

“I’m told it is. The lawyers — if you could have my name there specifically, instead of Bastian’s…”

“I’ll have someone work on it,” said Freeman.

“Hawk Two refueled,” Starship said, pulling the robot aircraft away from her mother ship.

As far as the pilot was concerned, the differences between the first generation and the upgraded U/MF-3D Flighthawks were generally subtle. The increased controllable range was the most noticeable change; depending on the altitudes, and to a lesser extent the atmospheric conditions, the Flighthawk could now operate at full throttle two hundred nautical miles from the Megafortress. The autonomous programming had also been improved, allowing the pilot to tell the computer to attack an opponent beyond the controllable range, then rendezvous along a vector or at a specific GPS point. The Flighthawk’s ground attack modes had also been upgraded, as had its capacity to carry small bombs and ground-attack missiles, a capability jury-rigged into the earlier models.

But it was still a robot. As Starship steered his two Flighthawks over the Indian desert toward their designated search area in Pakistan, he found himself longing to be behind the stick of a real airplane, like the F/A-18 he’d flown down to Diego Garcia in.

Robot planes were the future of the Air Force. But they just didn’t give you the same kick in the pants the heavy metal did.

He brought Hawk Two down through a thin deck of clouds, accelerating as he pushed toward a thousand feet. They were nearing the northern edge of a search zone designated as I-17, after the warhead that supposedly had crashed here. He was over Pakistan, and though marked on the maps as desert, the area was far from uninhabited. He saw a cluster of small houses on his left as he leveled off. There was no activity, however; he was in the zone affected by the T-Rays.

Starship checked quickly on Hawk One, which was flying an automated search pattern to the west. That area was much more desolate, without even a highway in sight as the Flighthawk trundled along at five hundred feet, moving at just under 200 knots.

Unlike Zen, Starship preferred controlling the Flighthawks from the standard control panels rather than using one of the flight helmets. He could see more at a glance, and had no trouble zoning out the rest of the noise around him.

He punched a preset to flip his main screen back to Hawk Two, then nudged the joystick to nose the aircraft downward. Just as he dropped through six hundred feet he spotted what looked like a large skid mark in the earth about five hundred yards to his right. The computer flagged it as well, sounding a tone in his headset.

Starship leaned Hawk Two gently onto her right wing, dropping his speed as he headed for the end of the ditch. He was moving too fast, however, and before he could get a good look was beyond his target. He came back around, lower and slower, and this time saw what looked like a garbage can half wedged in the earth.

“Colonel, I have something.”

“Roger that, Flighthawk leader. Give us the GPS points.”

Starship tapped the object on the screen, locking the data into the computer before transferring it. He put Hawk Two into an orbit around the warhead, then took control of Hawk One to begin a new search.

“Looking good, Starship,” said Dog a few minutes later. “Dreamland Command confirms that’s warhead I-17. One down, five to go.”

“We’re just about wrapped up here, Colonel,” said Danny, using his portable mike pack instead of bothering with the smart helmet. “We should be leaving for I-8 in about thirty minutes.”

“We’ve found I-17,” Dog told him. “It’s a little farther north than the projections show. There are some settlements nearby.”

Danny checked the paper map as well as his global positioning device. The device had been found about twenty miles outside of the projected landing points, the first time the projections had been wrong.

It looked to him as if the villages could be easily avoided. However, there was a highway just a mile northwest of the site; they’d be in full view when they landed.

Danny debated whether they could afford to wait until nightfall, when villagers would be less likely to interfere. Weighed against that was the possibility that the warhead might be discovered before they got there.

Since it was close to the village, it seemed likely that someone had already seen it. The area was in the zone affected by the T-Rays, and isolated to begin with. Maybe the villagers had no one to tell.

“I think we’re best off sticking with the present plan, and go after I-17 at dusk,” Danny finally told the colonel. “Would it be possible to keep it under surveillance in the meantime?”

“Doable.”

“One other thing, Colonel — I’m wondering if we could bring up a few more men from the Whiplash detail, along with more of our gear. The Marines are great, but they’re stretched kind of thin. Admiral Woods wants everything found and out ASAP.”

“We only have three men to run security at Diego Garcia as it is,” said Dog.

“The only thing they’re doing there is watching the lizards.”

Dog knew that it wasn’t quite the no-brainer Danny made it out to be. While Diego Garcia was among the most secure bases in the world, some of the gear the EB-52s carried was so classified the Navy security people would not be authorized to enter the hangars. While the chances of a problem were remote, any resulting security violation would have severe consequences for the commander.

“All right,” said Dog finally. “Get them up there.”

“Thanks, Colonel.”

The boat was surprisingly small, more like a log in the water than a canoe. Zen flattened himself on the rocks, watching as it made its way across the shallow lagoon toward the area where he’d spotted the first turtle. Whoever was in the boat didn’t seem to notice him.

He considered slipping into the water but decided that he’d make too much noise. There was no way to escape — unless he was extremely lucky, eventually he would be spotted.

He’d never done very well depending on sheer luck to get by. And maybe he wanted to be found. He needed to get help for Breanna. No one was answering his radio hails; the person in the boat was the only alternative.

The Megafortress had been attacked by Indian planes and missiles, but maybe they thought they were going after a Chinese or Pakistani aircraft. The military wasn’t necessarily antagonistic toward Americans; on the contrary, the Indians had often helped U.S. forces, at least before this conflict.

Maybe the person in the boat would be friendly. Maybe the Indians didn’t hate Americans and this Indian could be persuaded to contact someone without telling the authorities.

But he knew it didn’t matter, because Breanna was going to die if he didn’t get help.

She might even already be dead.

Zen shook his head, chasing the idea away. Then he stood.

“Hey!” he yelled, waving his hand. “Hey! Over here!”

The figure in the boat turned his head in Zen’s direction, but the boat kept moving, crossing in front of him.

“Hey,” repeated Zen. “Help,” the word “Help” coming from his mouth as a bare whisper.

He was too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit defeat.

Breanna would die because of his ego.

“Hey!” Zen yelled. “Help! Help!”

The boat slowed, then began to turn in his direction. The oarsman was short, small — young, Zen realized, a teenager or even younger.

Zen pushed himself around and sat, arranging his useless but bruised and bloodied legs under him. They seemed to ache ever so faintly. He hadn’t experienced the phenomenon in quite a while. He’d been told it had to do with reflex memory stored deep in his brain and nerve cells.

The boat was so shallow it got within a foot or two of the shoreline before beaching. A boy of perhaps nine or ten knelt in the bottom. His oar looked more like a battered stick than a paddle. He stared silently at Zen, perhaps five yards away.

“Hello,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”

The boy looked at him quizzically.

“Do you speak English?” asked Zen. He’d assumed that everyone in India did, though this was not actually true. “English?”

The boy nudged his stick against the rocks but did not reply.

“I’m American,” said Zen. “USA.”

“Sing sons?” asked the boy.

Zen didn’t understand.

“I’m a pilot. My plane had trouble and crashed,” he said. “I — there’s another pilot. We need to contact our base.”

“Singsons? Simsons.”

“You mean the TV show?” asked Zen. “The Simpsons?”

“You know Simpsons?”

“Bart Simpson?”

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “You know Bart Simpson?”

“Watch him all the time.”

“Bart?”

“We’re good friends,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”

The young man looked at Zen suspiciously, then jabbed his stick against the rocks and quickly pushed away.

“Hey, come back,” said Zen. “Don’t go. Don’t go.”

But the kid had already turned around and was speeding away.

“Well, that worked,” muttered Zen. “Maybe I should have told him Homer was my uncle.”

Ray Rubeo got down on his knees so he could get closer to the computer screen.

“You’re sure this is where they discovered warhead I-17?” he asked.

“That’s the GPS reading from the Flighthawk,” the operator told him. “I verified it off the Megafortress.”

“You look like you’re praying, Ray,” said Major Catsman, coming down the ramp toward him.

“I may be, Major.” Rubeo frowned at the map. “We’ve found one warhead outside of the search parameters.”

“And?”

Rubeo sighed. There was no explaining things to some people.

“It’s not possible for it to be outside of the search area,” he told Catsman, rising.

“Well, obviously it is.”

“Yes. That’s my point,” said Rubeo. “What we have here is all math — Newton’s laws applied. We know exactly where the missiles should have fallen if the T-Rays worked as we think they did. So the only possible conclusion is that the T-Rays did not work in that manner. The T-Rays must not have disabled all the systems on the missing missiles. My guess is that the engines didn’t shut down when we believed they did.”

“Are you sure?”

“It will be useful to examine the missile at I-17,” said Rubeo. “Maybe there is some shielding of some components and not others. Perhaps the T-Rays do not work as we believe they do. There is always a distance between theory and reality, Major. The problem is to measure that distance.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’d like one of our people to look at it closely.” Rubeo picked at his earlobe.

“Danny Freah will be securing it.”

“With all due respect to Captain Freah, I don’t believe his expertise lies in the area of electronics. I was thinking of Ms. Gleason. She is twiddling her thumbs on Diego Garcia. She would be of more use there.”

“All right.” Catsman folded her arms. “Did you have to piss General Samson off so completely, Ray? Couldn’t you have been just a little more polite?”

“I don’t do polite.”

“You should learn,” said Catsman, turning away.

Jennifer Gleason tapped gently on the small laptop as she rose. Wires snaking from the computer connected to a missile a few feet away. Tom Crest, one of the weapons engineers on the Anaconda team, looked up from one of the circuit boards in the warhead assembly.

“Still?” he asked.

“The anomaly is still there,” said Jennifer. “Even though the circuit checks out at spec on the bench, you’re getting some sort of error that has to be coming from the hardware.”

“I’ll be damned if we can find it. It doesn’t come up more than one time out of a thousand.” Crest got up from the missile. “Jeez, it’s hot. You mind?”

He put his thumbs under the bottom of his T-shirt, gesturing.

“Go ahead and take it off,” said Jennifer. “If you don’t think you’ll get sunburned.”

“Nah.” Crest pulled his shirt off, revealing a surprisingly tan and fit torso. For an engineer, Jennifer thought, he was pretty good-looking.

Not that she was looking.

“I wonder if maybe one of the software revisions on the microcode was done erroneously,” she said. “You’ve checked everything else.”

“That was checked weeks ago.”

“Maybe the check was wrong. You’ve looked at everything else.”

“Looking at it again could take a couple of days.”

Jennifer shrugged. She was about to volunteer to do it when the trill of a bike bell caught her attention. She turned around and saw Sergeant Lee Liu approaching on one of the Dreamland-issue mountain bikes the Whiplashers were using to patrol the area.

“Jen, Major Catsman needs to talk to you right away.”

“Really? OK.” Jennifer shaded her eyes. “Any word on Zen and Breanna?”

Liu shook his head. “Sorry. Hop on and I’ll give you a ride to the Command trailer.”

“Where am I going to get on?”

“You can sit on the handlebars.”

Jennifer eyed the bike dubiously.

“Only take us a few minutes,” said Liu.

“All right. But look out for the bumps.”

Ray Rubeo, not Major Catsman, greeted Jennifer when she arrived at the Dreamland Command trailer.

“I hope you are enjoying your South Pacific sojourn,” said Rubeo testily.

“Fun in the sun, Ray. Wish you were here.”

“We have a real job that needs to be done.”

Rubeo explained what had happened with the warhead located at I-17, and its implications.

“Twenty miles is only a four percent error,” said Jennifer. “That’s not off that much.”

“The search areas are twenty-five percent larger than the formulas calculated,” said Rubeo. “Which means that the missile traveled considerably farther than should be possible. It is far beyond the likely error rate.”

“Maybe the formula’s wrong.”

“Don’t you think I considered that possibility?”

It was a sharp response, out of character even for Rubeo.

Jennifer asked what was wrong. The scientist’s frown only deepened. Instead of answering, he changed the subject.

“The Whiplash team is going to recover the weapon in a few hours. It needs to be examined by someone with expertise,” said Rubeo.

“I’ll get up there as soon as I can.”

“When?”

“Soon, Ray. Relax.”

“That does not seem possible,” he said, and the screen blanked.

Jennifer got up from the communications desk and walked over to Sergeant Liu in the trailer’s common area. “How soon will the Whiplash Osprey be back?” she asked.

“Not for several hours,” said Liu. “What’s up?”

“I need to get up to the border area between India and Pakistan to look at a weapon with Captain Freah. I’d like to be up there in a couple of hours.”

“Couple of hours can’t be done,” said Liu. “But I do know how you can get up there just after nightfall. If you’re willing.”

“Tell me.”

“The ride will be a little, er, bumpy.”

“It can’t be as bad as the bike ride,” said Jennifer. “I’m all ears.”

Zen didn’t know what sort of fish lived in this part of the ocean, but he did know that sharks were spread out across the globe. He knew too that they had an incredible sense of smell, and would come from miles away to strike bloodied prey.

He also knew that with the sun sliding low in the sky, there was no way he’d make it back to the tent before it got too dark to see, if he crawled over land. Swimming might take an hour at most; it was a risk he was going to have to take.

He pulled the knife from the turtle’s shell and held it in his teeth, ready to use. Then he pushed his way down to the water. Positioning himself at the edge of the water, he took a breath and started to swim. He held the turtle in his left hand, closest to the open sea, and stayed in water as shallow as possible. At times he felt his legs dragging against the rocks.

Except, of course, he didn’t. Because he couldn’t feel anything in his legs.

He pushed as well as swam, stopping several times because the knife made it difficult to breathe. He was nearly back to the tent where he’d left Breanna when he heard the voice calling to him over the waves.

“Friend! Friend of Bart! Where are you?”

He stopped paddling for a moment, listening as the voice called for him again.

Should he go back? Was it a trap?

Unsure, he decided his first priority was getting the dead turtle back to the tent. He took a few more strokes, then beached himself for good, crawling out of the water with the turtle, a little worse for wear but still intact. Even as he pulled the animal onto the rocks, he worried a shark would rise up and snatch it from him, Jaws-style.

Zen slipped the knife in his belt and pushed up the rocks toward the tent. He had to stop twice, exhausted, to gather his breath. Finally, when he was about twenty feet from the tent, he looked up and saw a figure standing next to it.

“Bree!” he shouted.

Then he realized the figure was too skinny and short to be his wife. It held up a stick.

“Who are you?” he demanded, sliding his hand down to the knife.

“Whoareya?” said the figure.

“Simpsons?” asked Zen.

The figure took a step closer, coming out of the shadow. It was a kid, though not the same one he had seen earlier. He was older, a little bigger. He held the stick out menacingly, as if it were a spear.

“Who are you?” asked the youth.

“Hey, where’s your friend?” Zen asked. “The Bart Simpson fan?”

The boy didn’t say anything.

“Did he tell you I know Bart Simpson?”

There was a shout from behind Zen. He whirled, the knife out and ready.

It was the boy he’d seen earlier.

“You do know Bart Simpson?” said the kid.

“My best friend.”

The other kid shouted something and pointed. It took Zen a few seconds to realize he was pointing at the turtle.

“Food,” said Zen, gesturing at the dead animal. “I’m going to start a fire.”

Both kids started talking at once, first in a language he couldn’t recognize, then in English. Gradually, they made him understand that they had come to the island to hunt for turtles and wanted his.

While the two kids spoke English, Zen had trouble understanding their accents.

“The turtles have to be bigger,” said the younger boy.

“We take,” said the older boy.

“I don’t think so,” Zen told him.

The boy came down and grabbed at the turtle. Zen pulled it toward him. The kid started talking rapidly, and Zen couldn’t understand.

“We need,” said the younger boy finally. “You give.”

“Why do you need it?” asked Zen.

He couldn’t understand the answer. The turtle had been difficult to capture and kill, and Zen was hardly confident he could get another. But simply turning the boys away would be foolish.

“If I give it to you, can you bring me a cell phone?” said Zen.

Now it was the boys who didn’t understand.

“Phone,” said Zen. He mimicked one. “T-r-rring-ring.”

“Phone,” said the younger boy.

“Yes. Can you bring me one?”

“Phone.”

“I give you the turtle, you give me a phone.”

“Phone, yes,” said the older boy.

It seemed to be a deal. By now it was getting dark, and the boys managed to explain to him that they had to leave. They told him that they would be back the next day.

Or at least he thought that’s what they said.

As soon as he gave them the turtle, they lit out for the eastern side of the island, where they had apparently left their boats. Zen immediately regretted the deal, sensing he’d been gypped. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He checked on Breanna, still sleeping fitfully, then retrieved the stick the older boy had tossed aside, and with it and the driftwood he’d gathered the day before he managed to start a small fire.

A strong foreboding overcame him as he went to Breanna, intending to pull her a little closer to the fire. He closed his eyes as he crawled the last few feet, fearing he would find her dead.

She was still breathing, more rhythmically it seemed to him.

“Can you feel the fire here?” he asked her.

She made no sign that she heard.

“Come on down with me a little. It’ll warm you up a bit. Just a bit.”

He cradled her upper body on his lap and pushed closer to the fire. It wasn’t much, but he could feel the warmth, and hoped she could too.

Zen told his wife about the boys. “Funny that they know the Simpsons, huh? I told them I’m Bart’s best friend. Maybe they’ll come back for an autograph.”

He remembered the radio. He hadn’t broadcast all day.

He reached into his pocket for Breanna’s watch to check the time, but it wasn’t there.

Had he put it in his other pocket? He swung his body around and reached to his left.

It wasn’t there either. He began to search feverishly, sure it was somewhere in his flight suit — then not sure. Had he left it in the tent? Given it back to Breanna? Where was it?

Where the hell was it?

It’s the little things that make you crazy.

Zen heard the voice, but he knew it was only in his head — a snatch of a memory, part of a lecture someone had given during his survival training. The point had been: Don’t obsess over things that aren’t important.

He didn’t need a watch. Time was irrelevant. They’d be listening for him around the clock.

Zen went to the radio and made several calls, but there was no answer, and even the static sounded far away.

Tired, he poked at the fire. It was dark, and with the embers glowing a faint orange, he huddled around his wife and drifted off to sleep.

Danny Freah studied the image from the I-17 landing zone in his smart helmet, mentally plotting the Ospreys’ ingress into the site. They had just swung south of the nearest village and were about ten minutes from the landing area.

“When you make your cut north,” he told the Osprey pilot, bending down over the console that separated the two aviators at the front of the aircraft, “you have a straight run to the target. There’s a slight rise to the road. It looks like there’s a high spot overlooking it and the missile as well.”

Unlike the Dreamland birds, the Marine Ospreys weren’t set up to receive the video image. Once they got close, though, their forward looking infrared radar would provide a good view.

The pilot put up his hand, gesturing to Danny that they were now five minutes from the landing zone.

“Clean,” said Danny.

Behind him the Marines got ready to hit the dirt. Even though this was the third warhead they’d recovered today, the men still tensed as they gathered near the door. Danny could smell the sweat as their adrenaline picked up and they got ready to go.

The Ospreys bucked slightly as they pitched toward the ground. The rear ramp opened and the Marines swarmed over the desert, anxious ants swarming an abandoned picnic basket.

Danny had Starship give him the widest possible view of the area from the Flighthawk; after making sure it was clean, he tapped the pilot on the shoulder and went to join the men as they took control of the area. Two fire teams ran full throttle to the highway, moving in opposite directions so they could observe and stop any traffic if necessary. Four men went toward the village, setting up a post where they could watch for anyone approaching them.

“Secure, Captain,” said the ranking Marine NCO, a gunnery sergeant named Bob McNamera, who, like gunnery sergeants throughout the Corps, was called Gunny. “Ready to take a look at our Easter egg?”

“Let’s get a look,” said Danny, starting toward the warhead.

It was larger than the last two. Much of the fairing was burnt, and the ground around it was scorched. Bits and pieces of rocket were scattered behind it in an extended starburst pattern.

“This one’s a different missile than the others,” Danny told Dreamland Command as he scanned the area with his smart helmet’s built-in camera. “Bigger.”

“Very good,” replied Ray Rubeo over the satellite connection.

“Different procedure for disarming?”

“We’re determining that right now, Captain. What exactly is the ETA of Ms. Gleason to the site?”

“Huh?”

“When is Ms. Gleason expected to arrive?”

“Ms. Gleason isn’t expected to arrive.”

Rubeo cleared his throat, then explained that Jennifer Gleason was en route with the rest of the Whiplash ground team.

“Are you kidding?” Danny said. “They’re supposed to parachute into our camp in India an hour from now.”

“It would be useful for Ms. Gleason to join you at the scene,” said Rubeo. “Sooner rather than later.”

“Who told her she could do a night jump?”

“Who tells Ms. Gleason she can do anything?”

“Change in plans, Jen,” said sergeant Liu after he clambered down the ladder from the cockpit area. “We’re going to go out a bit farther north than originally planned.”

“OK,” she answered, gripping her jump helmet. She was sitting with the other Whiplashers on a row of plastic fold-down seats at the side of the large cargo hold. The big aircraft was empty except for a small pallet of gear that would be dropped with the team.

“You sure you don’t want to hitch up?” Liu asked.

“I hate tandem jumps,” she said.

“It’s a high altitude jump at nighttime.”

“I’m Army qualified, Sergeant.”

Liu gave her a dubious look, but it was true. A year before, she had suffered the ignominy of a tandem jump into Iran. She liked the excitement of parachuting, but didn’t like being tethered to someone else. So she’d gone to the trouble of completing a parachute course with a former Army Ranger and master combat jumper.

“Qualified” was a relatively low standard — a soldier could earn the basic Army parachutist badge with five jumps, only one of which was at night. Liu and his men would do five jumps in a single day just to stay sharp. And HALO jumps — high altitude, low opening — weren’t even part of the program.

“I’ve had three night jumps, all with more gear than I’m carrying now,” added Jennifer, sensing Liu’s objections. “And I’ve done thirty jumps, including three HALO. OK? So I don’t need a keeper.”

“Hey, I jumped with her, Nurse,” said Sergeant Geraldo “Blow” Hernandez. Blow was also the team jumpmaster. “She’s got the goods.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“It’s gonna cost you,” said Blow.

“Not if I hit the ground first.”

“Global hawk shows a car coming, Captain. Driving from the east.”

Danny couldn’t believe the bad timing. The Whiplash team had just gone out of the aircraft.

“How fast?”

“Hard to tell,” said Gunny. “Ground team can’t see him yet. You want us to nuke him?”

Danny knew what the sergeant meant, but it was still a poor choice of words.

“Let’s see if he goes fast enough to miss them,” Danny told the sergeant. “Better for all of us if he just drives on.”

“Your call,” said the Marine, his tone leaving no doubt that he disagreed with Danny’s decision.

Danny waited for the car to come into view. If only the Whiplash team had jumped, he could have told Liu and the others to change their landing spot to avoid being detected. But he felt that was too much to ask of Jennifer.

She really shouldn’t have been on the mission at all.

“Guy’s a slowpoke,” said Gunny, who was watching the car with a set of night glasses.

Danny glanced toward the sky. The team would be opening their chutes just about now.

“We may make it,” said Danny hopefully.

“Your call.”

“Yes, it is.”

The shock of wind as she hit the slipstream below the jet sent a chill through Jennifer so severe that her legs shook. Even with the Dreamland night-vision technology embedded in the smart helmet, all she could see was black.

“Damn,” she told herself.

That was as close as she would come to admitting that she’d bit off a little more than she could comfortably chew. She pulled her arms and legs back closer to her torso, shaping herself into a frog position as she plummeted downward. The altimeter in the smart helmet was somewhat distracting — the default display flashed large numerals in blue as the jumper descended — but she did like the infrared night view, which bathed the world in a warm green glow.

It didn’t feel like she was falling. The sensation was more of flying, sailing through the air at a tremendous clip. For all her intellectual skills, Jennifer loved to push her body; running and rock climbing were regular pursuits. Skydiving wasn’t quite as much fun — there was too much prep involved, which meant she had to plan quite a bit with her schedule. But it was definitely a rush.

The smart helmet showed her where she was compared to her designated landing zone. She tilted her arm and left leg, leaning back to the right spot.

A tone sounded. Jennifer yanked the ripcord, and within moments the loud hurricane rush transformed into something gentler. This wasn’t the lullaby of a bassinet slowly lulling a newborn to sleep: she had to work, checking her canopy with the aid of a wrist flashlight and then steering according to the cues given by the helmet. The parachutist and her parachute were a miniature aircraft, capable of flying literally miles before touching down.

Jennifer didn’t have to go quite that far. With her chute and lines looking good, her course set, she enjoyed the view. There were small huts in the distance, a car on a road, the Osprey and work team.

The digital altimeter counted down her altitude: 200 feet…150…100…

The helmet blacked out.

Her legs locked. She tried to relax them, tried to relax everything, taking a deep, long breath.

The ground grabbed her before she could exhale. Jennifer tumbled hard to her right, skidding ignobly and twisting completely around three times before coming to a stop against a pile of very hard rocks.

Danny Freah saw the flash of the brake lights just as the first Whiplash trooper sailed across the landing zone toward his touchdown. The auto was a mile away, and slightly ahead of the parachutist as he landed, but Danny decided he just couldn’t take a chance.

“Nab him,” he told Gunny. “As gently as possible.”

“Will do,” said the Marine cheerfully.

Danny turned his attention to the team landing around him. Suddenly, the night was filled with the sound of a woman cursing her head off — Jennifer Gleason had come in hard twenty yards away from him. Danny ran over and found her rolling up her parachute.

“Hey, Jen, you keep that up, the kids are going to learn a whole bunch of new words,” he said.

“Stinking fucking helmet.”

Danny couldn’t help but laugh.

A fresh string of expletives exploded from her mouth. “It’s not funny, Freah,” she told him. “The stinking helmet blacked out just before I landed.”

“Did you have it in default mode? If so, it reverted to standard view five seconds before you landed. You should have set it to a custom mode if you wanted it to continue counting.”

Jennifer expanded her vocabulary to include a description of what could be done to default mode. The description defied the laws of physics, though Danny made it a point never to argue science with a scientist.

“Where is the stinking bomb at?” she said finally.

“This way,” said Danny.

She seemed to be limping as she followed.

“You want an ice pack on that knee?”

“Just show me where the son of a bitch is.”

Danny got Jennifer over to the warhead, then went to check on the rest of his team. Liu and the others had landed about a quarter mile away, shading away from the car.

“Good to see you, Cap,” said Blow. “How’s Boston doing?” he asked, referring to Sergeant Ben Rockland. Boston had been hurt, though not seriously, apprehending the Iranian commandos who instigated the Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange.

“He’s going to be OK,” said Danny. “Listen, there was a car stopped up the road.”

“We saw it coming in,” said Liu.

“Run up there and see if you can help the Marines with the language,” said Danny. “Link back to Dreamland and use their computer translators.”

“On it,” said Liu.

A few minutes later Sergeant Liu, Gunny, and two Marine privates returned with a skinny Pakistani man who looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

“You gotta hear his story, Cap,” said Liu. “Claims his wife is pregnant and he’s going to fetch her mother.”

“They don’t have doctors in Karachi?”

“Doesn’t live in Karachi,” said Liu. “Lives about five miles up the road. She sounds like she’s in serious labor, Captain. Kind of like that breeched birth we had on the Iranian mission?”

“You guys deliver babies?” asked Gunny.

“We do all sorts of things, Sergeant,” said Danny.

Dog turned the stick over to his copilot and got up to stretch his legs. The crew’s resentment had diminished a bit, but he knew he still wouldn’t win any popularity contests.

Not that it mattered. He walked to the galley and started a fresh pot of coffee in the Zero Gravity Mr. Coffee. The sealed coffeemaker, which worked as advertised, was still rated by most of the technical people as their biggest contribution to mankind.

“Hey, Colonel, you got Ray Rubeo looking for you,” said Sullivan.

“Thanks, Kevin.”

Dog poured himself a half cup of the steaming java, then made his way back to his seat. Rubeo’s familiar frown was frozen on the screen.

“One of these days, Ray, you’re going to smile,” said Dog.

“It won’t be today. We’ve done some new calculations based on Ms. Gleason’s findings,” said the scientist, launching into an explanation of why the five missiles still missing had not been found. They all belonged to a subtype of the Prithvi family that had not been previously identified. According to Rubeo, solenoid valves that controlled parts of the engine had been shielded sufficiently so they had not been destroyed by the T-Rays.

As Rubeo’s discussion veered toward the technical, Dog cut him short.

“Do we have new projections of where they came to earth?”

“We’re working on them, Colonel. There are several variables involved. At a minimum, we believe that all of the missiles went much farther north.”

Rubeo had a map ready. The search areas included Kashmir and the borders of Afghanistan and China.

“Ray, this map has to cover a hundred thousand square miles.”

“It’s 225, 963.” Rubeo’s scowl deepened. “We are working on reducing it. We don’t entirely understand why the solenoid valve — and it was only one — on the missile at I-17 wasn’t affected. We should have this quantified in a few hours, depending on how quickly Jennifer works.”

“I’m sure she’ll work as quickly as possible,” said Dog. “What did she do? Set up a simulator in the Command trailer?”

“No, we’ve done the simulations. She provided the measurements and electric readings. I would have preferred—”

“Wait a second. Are you telling me Jennifer Gleason is on the ground in Pakistan?”

“Yes. I assume she checked with you before going…or is that an invalid assumption?”

Southeastern Pakistan

Dog’s voice would have shattered Danny’s eardrums if it weren’t for the special volume reducer built into the smart helmet’s headset.

“Why the hell did you let Jennifer jump into a battle zone?” demanded Dog.

“I didn’t let her do anything. Rubeo told me she was on the way. I thought you told her she could go.”

“Let me talk to her. Now.”

Danny walked over to the missile assembly. Jennifer was peering into the ruined and burned skeleton, examining bits of circuit boards with an oscilloscope.

“Colonel wants to talk to you,” Danny told her. “He’s hot. Real hot.”

“What exactly is your objection?” Jennifer asked.

“You know very well what my objection is. You’re in a combat zone.”

“There’s no combat here. And I’ve been in combat zones before. We needed a specialist. I was available.”

“We have other experts. You’re a scientist, damn it.”

“I’m not made out of paper.”

“You’re more valuable back at the base,” said Dog. “You shouldn’t have gone to Diego Garcia in the first place.”

She could practically feel his anger in the long breath and pause that followed. Jennifer felt her own anger rise.

“I should have said something to you then,” Dog told her. “I was wrong not to send you back. But this—”

“Colonel, is there anything else?” she demanded.

“The next time…”

She waited for him to finish the sentence. Instead, he signed off.

Jennifer looked at one of the Marines standing nearby, a young private barely out of high school.

“Officers,” she said, shaking her head.

“Know what you mean,” said the man, nodding.

The Pakistani was so excited, and so distraught, that Danny decided his story had to be true. The question was what to do about it.

According to the man, his house had been without electricity, telephone, or running water for several days. His wife had gone into labor and he’d left her to get her mother, who lived in the nearby village.

The man practically hopped up and down, pleading that he be let go so he could get his mother-in-law. He interspersed his English with long sentences in Punjabi, convinced that Danny would understand if he spoke slowly and distinctly. He seemed to take the appearance of the Americans in stride, as if they belonged there; Danny thought it better not to press the issue.

But what should he do with him? Releasing him was too dangerous. On the other hand, it seemed that if they did nothing, the baby and its mother might die.

“Ya don’t even know if this woman he’s going to get can help her,” said Gunny.

Danny nodded.

“We can deliver the baby,” said Liu. “We’ve done it before. The woman could die without medical attention.”

“We’re not exactly a maternity ward,” said Danny. “We have other things going on here.”

He turned around and walked down the hill toward the rutted area where the missile had come to rest. A set of tarps had been erected to shield the work lights from the roadway. Jennifer Gleason was hunched over a mangled part of the body and the engine in the first third of the debris field.

“How’s it going, Doc?” Danny asked.

“Slow, Captain. I’m not an expert on these systems.”

“I thought you knew everything, Jen.”

“Ha ha.”

“How much longer do you need?”

“Two or three hours at least,” she said. “Are we in a hurry?”

“I want to be out of here before daylight.”

“Then let me alone.”

Danny went back to the Pakistani and Liu. Gunny was standing with them, trying to engage the Pakistani in a conversation about what was going on in the country. The man wasn’t interested in anything but his wife.

“Sergeant Liu, grab Blow and Jonesy and take this guy back to his house. Assess the situation and report back.”

“You got it, Cap.”

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Gunny.

“What’s up, Sergeant?” asked Danny, already suspecting the problem.

“Hey, no offense here, but, uh, sending those guys out there — you really think it’s a good idea?”

“It’s the best alternative.”

“I don’t know about that. For one thing, he may be lying.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“For another thing, Captain, what are you going to do if she is in labor? We going to deliver the baby?”

Danny shrugged. “Those guys have done it before.”

The Marine sergeant shook his head.

“Look, we’re not at war with these people,” Danny told him. “On the contrary, they’re our allies.”

“I don’t think I’d trust them much.”

“You don’t have to,” said Danny, turning to go check on the Osprey crews.

Samson flattened the paper on the desk, spreading his large hand across its surface. For all its high-tech gizmos, the Dreamland commander’s office still relied on a fax machine that used thermal imaging paper.

The letters were a little faint and the image crinkled, but he didn’t care. He could see what it said: The Whiplash order had been reissued, directed to Major General Terrill Samson, rather than Colonel Bastian.

Just in case.

He’d keep Rubeo through the deployment — being too vindictive would only hurt the mission. But once it was over, the egghead was history.

Samson got up from the desk. Bastian — or his predecessor, if the chief master sergeant was to be believed — had good taste in furniture, he decided. But the place was a little cluttered with chairs and files. The first thing he had to do was have them cleared out. He’d put them in the conference room next door, which he would now use as an office annex — a library.

He didn’t need a conference room. He wasn’t planning on doing much conferring.

“Begging the general’s pardon,” said Ax, still standing near the doorway, “but was there anything else this morning?”

“Yes, Chief, there is. I need a memo telling all department and section heads, all heads of testing programs, everyone from the head scientist to the janitor, that Dreamland’s entire agenda is now open for review. My review. Top to bottom. I want something that will convey urgency. I want it to sound…”

Samson drifted off, unsure exactly how he wanted it to sound.

“Like if they don’t do a good job you’ll sack them?” asked Ax.

“That’s it, Chief. Exactly.” Ax would definitely stay, Samson decided. “Have it on my desk before lunch.”

Technically speaking, chief master sergeant Terence “Ax” Gibbs was a bachelor. But in a very real sense, Gibbs was as married as any man in America. It’s just that his wife — his children, his relatives, his home, his family, his friends, his pets, his entire existence — was the U.S. Air Force.

But now it was time for a divorce. So as soon as he finished writing Samson’s memo — it took all of three minutes, and had a much more balanced tone than the general wanted — he went online and obtained the appropriate paperwork to initiate a transfer back to his home state of Florida, in anticipation of a separation from the service in a few months. And just in case Samson objected — Ax sensed he would, if only on general principles — the chief sent out a handful of private messages lining up support. Among the recipients were two lieutenant generals and the Air Force’s commanding general, giving him a full house to deal with any bluff Samson might mount.

He had worked for people like Samson at numerous points during his career. But he’d been young then. Age mellowed some people; for others, it removed their ability to stand still for bullshit. He fell into the latter category.

Lieutenant Colonel Bastian wasn’t the perfect boss. He was occasionally given to fits of anger; however well justified, fits of pique in the long run could be counterproductive. The colonel also insisted on keeping things at Dreamland streamlined, which for Ax meant that he had to make do with about a tenth of the staff he would have at a “normal” command. But Dog respected, trusted, and related to his people in a way that Ax knew Samson never would.

But this wasn’t about Samson. It was about Terence “Ax” Gibbs. If he worked things out properly, he would arrive in the civilian world just after Florida’s high tourist season. Prices on charter boats would be reduced, and he would be able to use a small portion of his tidy Air Force nest egg to set himself up as a boat operator.

Tough getting used to all that sun after decades of working indoors, but everyone needed a challenge, especially in retirement.

Having obtained the harpoons, Storm endeavored to get into position to use them. He remained on a southerly course toward the Indian Ocean. The Chinese aircraft carrier Khan, meanwhile, was heading in roughly the same direction, presumably intending to go around the southern tip of India and head home.

In the days when wind powered a sailing ship, a captain had a great deal of autonomy and could easily set a course that would bring him against an enemy; it was how many a master had won the accolades of triumph and treasure. Even a captain in the early Cold War era often had leeway to sail more or less where he pleased; there was simply no way for the admirals to keep complete track of him.

But Storm belonged to a different time.

“Why is your course paralleling the Khan’s?” demanded Admiral Woods over the secure link.

“We’re just remaining in a position to be of use if necessary,” said Storm.

“The Decatur is more than prepared to do the job,” said Woods. “The Los Angeles will meet it near Ceylon. Together they will trail it to its home port. You are to proceed to resupply.”

“I have resupplied,” said Storm. “I have Harpoon missiles and my ship is ready for combat.”

“Where did you get the missiles?”

“Dreamland gave them to me,” he said.

The admiral’s face turned even redder.

“We don’t have a full complement, but I have more than enough to sink the Khan,” said Storm.

“You will not sink the Khan. Storm, have you lost your mind?”

“I meant—”

“Let me talk to your executive officer.”

“But—”

“Now!”

Storm felt his legs tremble beneath the small desk where he was sitting. He knew the video camera was showing Woods everything he was doing, so he moved as deliberately as possible, picking up the handset on his desk and calmly asking Eyes to his cabin. When he returned the phone to its cradle, he looked at the screen, trying to narrow his eyes in a show of concentration and sincerity. It wasn’t a lie; he was being both focused and forthright. But he wanted his face to match what he felt.

“Admiral,” said Storm, “let me make my case. I simply want to be nearby if—”

“There is no case to be made, Storm. No ifs. No anything. Your ship is not to engage the Khan.”

“I’m talking about making sure the Khan leaves the area without being a threat,” said Storm.

“Flight operations from the Khan have stopped. They are no longer capable of even providing their own air cover,” said Woods. “I am not going to risk an international incident with them.”

“They’ve already shot at our planes.”

“Not in two days. And for all we know, Bastian egged them on,” said Woods. “Is that why he gave you the missiles? Are you two trying to start a war?”

“That’s unfair. We carried out orders—”

“Then carry out these.”

Storm clamped his teeth together, knowing that if he said one word he’d say a dozen, and if he said a dozen he’d say a hundred, each an expletive.

There was a knock at the cabin door. Storm got up and opened it.

“You wanted to see me?” Eyes asked.

Storm pointed to the video screen. Looking a bit bewildered, the executive officer sat down in Storm’s extra chair.

“Lieutenant Commander Eisenberg,” said Admiral Woods. “If Captain Gale makes an aggressive move toward the Chinese aircraft carrier Khan, you are to immediately relieve him of command. Is that understood?”

“I, well, uh—”

“Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“These are your orders, gentlemen. Since you have found a way to resupply and do not wish to rest, you are to sail to the area of the Cherbani Reef and act as a picket ship for any of our vessels moving toward the Lincoln task group. You are to go no farther south than twelve degrees longitude, and you are not to engage any ship — Indian or Chinese — without my explicit permission. Under any circumstances. Is that understood?”

“What if we’re fired on?” blurted Storm.

“Then you badly screwed up.”

“I have to be able to defend myself.”

“You better not be in a position where you need to.”

Eyes glanced at Storm. “Admiral, I’m not sure—”

“What is it that you’re unsure of, Commander? Following orders?”

“I can follow orders, Admiral.”

“Then do it.”

The picture dissolved into black.

Sergeant Liu believed the man was telling the truth, but he’d learned long ago that belief and reality were sometimes different things. He pulled the car off the road a half mile from the man’s house and sent Blow and Sergeant Kurt Jones up the road to check out the house. Ten minutes later Jonesy checked in over the short-range Whiplash channel.

“House is clear — this lady is about to drop an egg any second, Liu. Better get the mojo on.”

Jones hadn’t been exaggerating. By the time Liu and her husband got inside, the woman’s grunts were shaking the small two-room house. The only illumination came from a small kerosene lantern on a dresser set at the side of the room.

Jonesy’s flashlight, shined on the small bed where the wife was giving birth. “I can see the head, Sarge. A lot of hair,” he added. “I think Blow’s the dad.”

“Har har.”

Liu set down his medical bag and dropped to his knees. As he did, the baby’s head and upper torso appeared, along with a gush of meconium, the greenish liquid waste and birth fluids. The baby’s eyebrows appeared, then disappeared as the mother’s contractions starting to tug it back inside.

“You have to stay with us, little one,” said Liu, starting to grab for the newborn.

Just as he got his hands down, the mother’s body gave one last shudder. Her new son slid out into Liu’s arms. Jones reached in and cut the cord with his knife.

“Towels, swabs — we got to clean his face. Can’t let him eat this crap,” said Liu, cradling the infant in his arm so he could wipe the meconium from the infant’s mouth.

“It’s turning blue, Nurse,” said Blow, pointing as he handed over a towel.

The baby wasn’t breathing. Liu gave the child a gentle smack, but that didn’t seem to have an effect. He placed it down on the floor, bending over to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

As he did, the father began to scream and started pounding Liu on the back. Blow grabbed him and threw him against the wall. Then the mother started to scream too. Jonesy dropped down to hold her arms.

The only people in the room who were quiet were the baby and Liu. The sergeant struggled to get the infant to breathe. The infant seemed to gasp, but then gave up. The sergeant kept trying.

“Come on, kid!” shouted Blow.

“Let me try, Sarge,” said Jonesy.

Liu ignored them, working steadily though he was starting to give up hope.

The baby’s heart wasn’t beating. He started CPR.

“I’ll respirate,” said Blow, dropping down beside him.

They worked together, desperate, for more than ten minutes, long past the point that there was any chance of the baby surviving. Finally, tears streaming from his eyes, Liu put his hand out to Blow, signaling that it was time to stop. He looked up at the father, who shrieked and ran from the room.

“Damn,” said Blow, jumping up to get him.

Just as he reached the door, automatic rifle fire lit up the front of the house.

Dog looked at the latest projections of where the remaining missiles had landed. There was just too much territory to cover.

“You’re going to have to narrow this down, Ray,” he told the scientist. “You’re including Afghanistan and half of China.”

“That’s an exaggeration, Colonel,” said Rubeo.

“Not by much.”

“We’re working on it. We have a theory on the solenoid valves. We think that rather than surviving the T-Rays, some of them may have locked the engines open. Ms. Gleason is still gathering data.”

Dog frowned but said nothing.

“If we could find a second missile and examine it, we could narrow the projections down considerably.”

“Is there any projection you’re surest of?” Dog asked.

“Statistically, they’re all the same,” said Rubeo. “But there is one where the geography makes the search easiest. Unfortunately, it’s the farthest from the U-2’s present track.

“Then we’ll take it,” said Dog.

“It is I-20, northeast of Siakor on the border.”

Dog looked at the long finger marked on the map as the search area. It was at the extreme southeastern end of Pakistan, roughly 450 miles from the base camp Danny and the Marines were using in the desert.

“Colonel, has Major Catsman had a chance to speak to you about General Samson?” said Rubeo.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Major Catsman about that. I assume you’ve heard he’s replacing General Magnus.”

“That’s not exactly how it’s going to work,” said Rubeo. “He’s here. For the duration.”

“The duration?”

“It’s not going to be like the arrangement with Magnus. He’s taking over your job, Colonel. They’re going back to the arrangement that existed under Brad Elliott.”

Dog wasn’t surprised. Under ordinary circumstances, a base the size of Dreamland — let alone one of its importance — would be run by a general, not a lieutenant colonel. When he’d been assigned, everyone assumed he was there to close the place down.

Everyone except him. He’d fought for the Whiplash concept — a fighting force working closely with the developers of cutting-edge technology. The idea had proven itself long ago. And now the bureaucracy was catching up, folding Dreamland back into the regular hierarchy.

It was going to be a tough transition for a lot of people. Including himself.

“General Samson was making a distraction of himself in Dreamland Command,” continued Rubeo. “I nearly had him removed.”

“You what?”

“I can give you the entire sordid tale if you wish, Colonel, but I assume you have better things to do. In any event, it’s irrelevant. I’ll be handing in my resignation at the end of this mission.”

“What?”

“Yes, Colonel. It’s been a pleasure working with you too.”

“Ray—”

“You’ll excuse me, Colonel. I have work to attend to.”

The screen blanked. Dog stared at the black space on the dash in disbelief for nearly a full minute before turning to Sullivan and telling him to prepare for the course change.

Struck point-blank in the chest by the bullets, Blow fell back into the room. Liu scrambled to pull his Beretta from its holster and get out of the line of fire at the same time. A barrel appeared, then flashed. Liu brought up his pistol and began to fire. Before he realized it, he’d emptied the magazine into the Pakistani father.

Jones and Blow had both been shot by the father. Fortunately, they were wearing lightweight Dreamland body armor. Blow’s left ribs had been seriously bruised and possibly broken, but otherwise he was not seriously wounded. Jones had taken two bullets in the side, where neither did any damage; a ricochet had splintered some wood, which flew into his arm, cutting him, but that was the extent of his injuries.

The same could not be said for the Pakistani’s wife. Two of her husband’s bullets had struck her in the face, and another hit her heart. Any one of the wounds would have been fatal.

“This sucks,” groaned Jones. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were helping them, damn it.”

Liu paced the small room, not quite in a state of shock but not quite in full control of his senses either. The kerosene lamp flickered, casting its dim yellow shadows around the wretched scene. The dead infant lay nearby, its body splattered with blood as well as the green meconium it had been bathed in at birth. Blow had loosened his vest and was gingerly touching his side.

Jones suddenly rushed at the dead man and began kicking him. “You jackass. We didn’t kill your son. We were trying to help him.”

Liu grabbed him and pulled him out into the night. “It wasn’t our fault,” he said to Jones. “It wasn’t.”

“This sucks,” said Jones again. And then he started to cry.

Danny listened grimly as Liu recounted what had happened over the radio.

“Should we bury the bodies?” Liu asked.

“No,” said Danny. “Use the smart helmets to take as much video of the scene as possible. Leave things the way you found them. Leave the car. Come back by foot.”

“Take us about forty minutes, Cap.”

“Make it thirty. We’re just about ready to leave.”

Dog had never heard Danny’s voice tremble before.

“I take full responsibility for what happened, Colonel. I should never have sent them.”

“It was a tough call,” said Dog, not knowing what else to say.

“They’re on their way back now. They videotaped the scene. I told them to leave it the way it was,” said Danny. “They’re pretty broken up. I’ll evac them as soon as I get a chance.”

“We have to inform Admiral Woods,” said Dog.

“That’s my next call, Colonel.”

“They’re going to need to be debriefed.”

“I know, Colonel.”

There was nothing else to say, and nothing for Dog himself to do at this point.

No. He’d have to tell Samson. That was a conversation to look forward to.

Danny gave Dog a quick update on the warhead, then signed off. Before Dog could punch into the Dreamland channel and ask for Samson, Sergeant Rager sounded a warning.

“Colonel, I have two contacts at 250 miles, headed in our direction,” said the airborne radar operator. “Computer says they are Mikoyan MiG-31s.”

“Chinese?”

“Affirmative. They may be homing in on our radar,” Rager added. “They’re adjusting to our course. Looks like they’re going to afterburners. Colonel, these suckers are headed in our direction in a serious hurry.”