Retribution

V. Long Day’s Night

The MiG-31 had been created during the height of the Cold War with one goal in mind: shoot down B-52s.

On a spec sheet, it was an awesome aircraft. Its twin Soloviev D-30F6 power plants could push the plane over 1,600 knots at 60,000 feet; the aircraft was capable of breaking the sound barrier even at sea level. A two-seater, the Foxhound came standard with so-called look-down/shoot-down radar, allowing it to defeat the ground-hugging tactics of bombers and cruise missiles, which ordinarily took advantage of radar reflections from the ground to pass invisibly at very low altitude toward their target.

But the MiG-31 had one serious drawback: While it could go very fast in a straight line, it was about as maneuverable as a heavy freight train on a sheet of ice. The faster it went, the wider its turning radius; if a nimble aircraft like the F/A-18 could be said to turn on a dime, the Foxhound needed ten thousand quarters.

As built, the B-52 wasn’t known for cutting X’s in the sky either, but the aircraft responding to Dog’s pulls had been radically transformed before joining the Dreamland flock. He pushed his left wing down, trading altitude for speed as he pirouetted away from the intercept the MiG jocks had plotted.

“They’re changing course,” said the copilot, Kevin Sullivan. “Range is now 175 miles. Still closing.”

“Looks like they insist on saying hello,” said Dog.

“I have two launches,” said Rager at the airborne radar. He gave the location and bearing — the missiles were coming from the aircraft.

“They launched from that range?” said Dog.

“No way — those planes don’t even have their weapons radar activated,” said Sullivan, monitoring the Megafortress’s radar warning receiver. “And we’d be too far for them to lock onto even if they did.”

“Computer IDs missiles as Vympel R-27s, based on radar profile,” said Rager.

“Gotta be wrong,” said Sullivan.

While potent, the missile’s range was roughly 130 kilometers, or seventy miles, half what it had been fired at. The R-27—known to NATO as the AA-10 Alamo — came in several different “flavors,” defined by the guidance system used to home in on its target. By far the most popular version used a semiactive radar, following guidance from its launch ship. For that to have been the case here, the radar in the Foxhound would have “locked” on the Megafortress; the characteristic pattern was easily detected, and a warning would have sounded had it occurred.

“Definitely missiles in the air,” insisted Rager. “Heading for us.”

“ECMs, Colonel?” asked Sullivan.

“Not at this distance,” said Dog. “Those missiles will crash long before they’re a real threat.”

Hawk One was covering Danny’s ground operation, while Hawk Two was conducting the search for warhead I-20. Dog told Starship to keep the Flighthawks where they were; the Megafortress could deal with the MiGs on its own.

The Chinese pilots he’d encountered in the past ranged from very professional to serious cowboys. None, however, had wasted missiles by firing them at such long range.

So what were they up to?

“Stand by for evasive maneuvers,” said Dog, pushing the Megafortress into a sharp turn, then dropping her toward a mountain range he’d seen earlier. He swung the Megafortress so it would beam any radar aboard the MiGs — flying parallel to the waves, which made detection more difficult.

“MiGs are changing course,” said Sullivan. “So are the missiles.”

“All right. They have passive detectors,” said Dog. “They’re homing in on our radar.”

“Why’d they launch so early?” asked Sullivan. “We’re well out of their range.”

“We should be,” said Dog.

Dog took another turn, lengthening the distance the missiles had to travel. The missiles stayed with the Megafortress, and corrected once more as he took another leg south.

“They’re approaching what should be the limit of their range,” said Sullivan, tracking them.

“Kevin, broadcast on the Chinese frequency. Tell the MiG pilots that if they continue their hostile action, they will be shot down.”

“Kind of late for that, don’t you think, Colonel?”

“Broadcast it anyway.”

“No acknowledgment,” reported Sullivan a few seconds later. “Missiles are now fifty miles and closing. They should have crashed by now.”

“Target the missiles with the Anacondas,” said Dog.

“Targeted. Locked.”

“Open bay.”

The aircraft shook as the bomb bay doors opened.

“Fire,” said Dog.

Most missiles, even the sophisticated Scorpions, clunked when they left the bomb bay dispenser, dropping awkwardly for a few seconds before they fired up their motors and got under way. But the Anacondas leapt from the aircraft, lit up and ready for action. They made a distinctive whooosh as they sped away, the missiles shooting directly under the fuselage and then veering upward.

“Foxfire One,” said Sullivan, employing the time-honored code for a radar-guided missile launch. “Missile one away. Missile two away.”

“The MiGs have fired two more missiles,” warned Rager.

Dog started another turn, pushing the Megafortress so he could put the Megafortress head-on to the Chinese aircraft. He knew from experience that in a two-on-one matchup, Chinese pilots would typically go in opposite directions as they closed, aiming to take wide turns to get on their target’s tail. While the strategy made sense in many two versus one encounters, it wasn’t particularly effective against a Megafortress, which could use its Flighthawks to fend off one of the aircraft at long range while concentrating on the second plane.

These pilots, however, moved closer together as the Megafortress came to their bearing, the wingman looking to protect the lead’s tail as they approached. While it might just have been coincidental, Dog concluded that they knew how Megafortresses fought and were trying different tactics.

“Target the bandits,” said Dog.

“Locked.”

“Fire.”

Starship struggled to remain focused on the Flighthawk screen as the Megafortress jerked through a series of evasive maneuvers. Reconnaissance was an important mission, surely, but he felt as if his real duty was fifty miles away, taking down the Chinese fighters.

They were a lot faster than the Flighthawk. That was a serious advantage, and the first thing the remote pilot had to do was decide how to counter it. Starship — who had fought against MiG-31s only in a simulator, liked what he called the in-your-face attack: He’d fly the Flighthawk on a course that crossed in front of the MiG at very close range, close enough for the aircraft to seem to shoot out of nowhere. Success depended on the Flighthawk being invisible until the very last moment, which was possible because the radars in the export versions of the MiG-31, like most aircraft, couldn’t see the U/MF until it was in extremely close range.

The downside of such an attack was that there was only a very small window to fire. You had to be right on the cannon as you came in, then swerve hard and maybe, maybe, get a chance at another burst as the aircraft moved away.

Starship was daydreaming so much about what he would do that he almost missed the computer cue as it flashed in his screen: POSSIBLE SEARCH OBJECT SIGHTED.

He tapped the boxed highlight, then turned the Flighthawk to the north to get a better view.

“Missile one has obliterated enemy missile,” reported Sullivan. “Two — enemy missile two is gone.”

The second missile was so close to the first that shrapnel from the exploding Anaconda missile had taken it out.

“Retarget Anaconda Two for one of the other missiles,” said Dog calmly.

“Roger that. Retargeting. Missiles three and four are on course — Chinese aircraft starting a turn to the west, coming for our tail, I bet.”

Dog was already tracking the aircraft on his own screen. The MiGs had slowed down somewhat but were traveling at nearly twenty miles a minute. They launched two more missiles — and then Sullivan practically leaped from his seat.

“Knockdown, knockdown! We got Bandit One. Two! We got Two! Oh wow! Holy shit. Holy shit!”

Dog pushed the Megafortress closer to the nearby mountain peaks, aiming to drop as close as possible to a jagged pass. Even though it was nighttime, the aircraft’s computers synthesized a crisp view before him, detailing the nooks and crannies in the peaks nearby. Dog pushed the aircraft toward the rocks, pitching hard on his left wing to get as close as possible.

A proximity warning sounded, telling him he was within one hundred feet. He ignored it.

“Missile three is off the screen,” said Sullivan. “Anaconda is targeting missile four.”

Rager gave him some ranges and speeds on the other two missiles. Again they all appeared to be passive radar homers.

“Target the last two missiles with Anacondas,” Dog told Sullivan.

“Two more aircraft, at long range, Colonel,” said Rager. “ID’d as Shenyang J6s.”

“Hold that thought, Sergeant,” said Dog. “Sullivan, take out those missiles.”

Starship walked the Flighthawk over the rectangular slice of earth marked out by the search program, moving toward the highlighted box the computer claimed contained the warhead. All he could see was a square shadow at the edge of much rounder shadows. Freeze-framed and enlarged, it still looked pretty much like a shadow.

He took the Flighthawk around for another pass, dropping his forward speed to just over 110 knots, about as slow as he could go. But the image was not much better; it might be part of a missile control surface, like a tailfin, he decided, but it could also be ten or twenty other things.

He pulled up, circled around, and tried to replicate the course a missile would have taken getting there. Flying a straight line from the base it had been launched from revealed nothing. Then he realized that the theory that placed the missile here called for it to have veered off course sharply when the T-Rays hit. Dreamland Command hadn’t given him the course, but it wasn’t difficult to approximate, since the original projections showed where the missiles were when the EEMWBs went off.

Starship’s first plot was a straight line, angling sixty degrees from the point where the T-Rays hit the missile. Even as he swooped toward the ground, he realized that the missile wouldn’t have gone in a straight line; most likely it veered in some sort of elliptical curve. But he flew the vector anyway, passing just to the west of the squarish shadow and continuing over a rocky valley. The boulder suggested another theory — the missile had buried itself in an avalanche after it crashed.

As he circled back, he saw what looked like a gouge in the side of a rock peak opposite the first missile part. Starship did a 180, swinging back around and flying beyond the rocks.

The computer’s search program began IDing pieces of metal on a plain just beyond the rockslide.

“Flighthawk leader to Bennett. Colonel, I think I’ve got something.”

“Good, Starship. I’ll get back to you.”

The choking sound shook Zen awake, pulling him from a twisted dream of dark shapes and roiling winds. He grabbed at Breanna next to him, not sure what to do or how to help her, only that he had to.

Her body heaved against his. She must have something stuck in her throat, he thought, and he reached his arms and hands down, fishing for her stomach and diaphragm so he could perform the Heimlich maneuver.

He pulled once, violently jerking his fists against her organs. He’d done this in a first aid class years ago, but it felt nothing like this. He was amazed at how empty his wife felt, her body offering no resistance to his pressure.

She coughed and he pushed his hands up again. A gasping squeal replaced the cough, then Breanna began to wheeze. She shuddered, and Zen shuddered with her.

He held her as he had when they were first sleeping together, completely wrapped around her, so close that every movement she made registered in his own body.

Breanna breathed normally again. Gradually, Zen began to wonder what had happened. She couldn’t have been choking on something, he thought; she’d had nothing to eat. She hadn’t vomited. But he hadn’t imagined or dreamed it.

Gradually, he forced his mind to drift away from the possibilities of what had happened and focus on one thought — whatever had happened, she was still alive. He drifted for a time in a silver space between fatigue and dream before finally losing consciousness.

“Having trouble locking on that last missile, Colonel. I’m looking at it, but the computer refuses to accept it.”

“Keep trying,” Dog told Sullivan calmly. He got ready to turn the Megafortress around, intending to swing his tail toward the missiles so they could use the Stinger air-mine weapon in the tail.

Not to be confused with the shoulder-launched missile of the same name, the Stinger air mines were essentially large explosive disks that detonated near their target. When they ignited, they sent shards of tungsten into the path of a pursuer. Generally much more effective against aircraft, recent upgrades to the targeting radar and an increase in size had made them useful against missiles, but only as a last resort.

“Bandit missile four is down,” reported Rager. “Five and six still pursuing.”

“Sullivan?”

“Lock on Bandit missile six. Firing.”

The moment Dog heard the whoosh, he threw the Bennett into the turn.

“Stinger up,” he told Sullivan. “Get ready in case the Anaconda misses.”

“Missile five is down. Missile six is closing to ten miles.”

Dog’s turn slowed the Megafortress, but even had he been going in a straight line, there was no chance of outrunning the remaining enemy missile. At 1,400 knots, it was traveling more than twenty miles a minute.

“Stinger ready,” said Sullivan, breathing hard.

“Arm autodefense,” Dog told him.

“Stinger autodefense.”

The sky flashed white.

“Our Anaconda took down the last missile,” said Rager. “Wow.”

Brian Daly, who’d been silently manning the ground radar station during the entire incident, let out a whoop.

“All right, guys,” Dog told them. “We still have two more aircraft to worry about. Let’s stay on our game.”

Starship surveyed the area of the crash, the video camera in the nose of the Flighthawk recording the roughly two-mile swath where the missile had crashed. He could make a reasonable guess about what had happened. The missile had scraped against the side of the mountain peak, slammed across the second, causing an avalanche, and then landed — in pieces — on the small plain in front of him.

But where was the warhead? The debris trail petered out at the edge of a solid plain.

He’d already pulled his nose up when he realized that the plain wasn’t a plain at all — it was a small lake.

He also realized something else — people were crouched at the far end, watching the Flighthawk as it zipped by.

They weren’t just admiring the black shape as it sailed past the full moon either. Something flared from the ground as he passed — a shoulder-launched missile, aimed not at the U/MF, but at the Megafortress almost directly above.

“Stinger missile!” said Sullivan, practically shrieking over the interphone.

“Flares,” said Dog. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers.”

Dog had dealt with shoulder-fired missiles dozens of times before, but even he felt his heart begin to race as the decoys showered behind the Megafortress.

The FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-launched missile was designed as an easy-to-use, no-hassle-to-maintain antiaircraft weapon that could be fired by soldiers in the field with minimal training. There were several variants, but this was almost certainly an original FIM-92A model, the type given to mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan to use against the Russians there, and then later sold to terror groups around the world.

Once launched, the missile homed in on the heat source its nose sensor had locked onto, flying over the speed of sound and able to climb to about three miles. At 2.2 pounds, its explosive warhead was relatively small, but nonetheless deadly. The fuse worked only on impact, which made the use of decoys less effective. On the other hand, it also meant that the weapon had to actually strike something to go off.

The Megafortress’s four turbojets were sexy targets for the missile’s seeker, red hot magnets that pulled it onward. The Bennett’s altitude was its one advantage; while the airplane was almost directly over the man who had fired the missile, the aircraft had been at 10,000 feet, the very edge of the Stinger’s lethal envelope. Dog mashed the throttle, knowing he’d need every ounce of power to get away. As the decoys bloomed behind him, he twisted sharply, taking roughly five g’s and trying to cut as close to 180 degrees as possible.

The turn and flares made it hard for the Stinger to sniff its target, and by the time the Stinger realized it had to turn, it was too late. The rocket propellant in its slender chassis spent, the missile tumbled back to the ground.

“Starship, you see who fired at us?”

“Got a glimpse, Colonel.”

“They Chinese troops?”

“Negative. Look like guerrillas, some sort of irregulars. Dressed, you know, kind of like natives, farmers or something.”

“Pretty clear they’re not farmers,” snapped Dog.

“Maybe they’re growing missiles,” said Sullivan.

The rest of the crew laughed — more to release tension than because the joke was funny. But it was a good sign, Dog thought; they were starting to get used to dealing with combat.

It wasn’t, however, a time to relax.

“Two Sukhoi-27s, early models, flying straight for us,” said Rager, summarizing the situation for Dog. “Two hundred nautical miles from us. From the northeast. Chinese. They’re subsonic, 500 knots, 23,000 feet. Behind them there are two helicopters, 10,000 feet. Type ID’d as Harbin Z-5 Hound. Troop carriers.”

“Flighthawk leader, do you have the exact location of the warhead?” Dog asked Starship.

“Negative, Colonel. Looks like it’s in a lake. I haven’t confirmed it’s there.”

“Get on with Dreamland Command. See if the scientists can pin it down.”

“Roger that.”

The territory they were flying over was Indian but heavily populated by Muslims, and there were a variety of separatist groups active in the area. Some were suspected to be allied with Islamic terrorists, and even those that weren’t would find a ready market for a nuclear warhead. The question in Dog’s mind was what was China’s interest. Were they protecting their nearby border, or working with the people on the ground?

“Bennett to Danny Freah. Whiplash leader, what’s your status?”

Danny Freah’s tired face came onto the com screen. The camera in the smart helmet was located at the top of the visor, and the image had a fish-eye quality to it. It exaggerated the puffiness under his eyes, so the captain looked like he had two shiners.

“Freah. We’re about ready to bug out, Colonel.”

“We think we found the I-20 warhead. There are two problems. One, it may be underwater. Two, we have what look like local guerrillas on the ground, and the Chinese seem to be interested as well.”

Because of the location, it would take several hours for a fresh group of Marines to come in from the gulf. By then the guerrillas and/or the Chinese might have recovered the weapon.

Danny got hold of the Osprey pilots and discussed the situation. They could send one of their Ospreys with troops east; it would take roughly an hour and a half to reach the site. Reinforcements could include another bird, which would refuel them.

Assuming Dreamland Command could pinpoint the warhead and that divers could then find it, the Osprey could be used to lift it from the water. There was another problem, however: Of the twenty Marines and the handful of Navy technical people Danny could bring, only Danny was qualified as a diver.

And the three Whiplashers who had been at the Pakistani house.

“Admiral Woods’s chief of staff wanted all three of our guys sent over to the Lincoln ASAP,” said Danny. “In the meantime, they were to stay on the sidelines if possible.”

“It’s not possible,” said Dog. “Take whoever you need with you. I’ll clear it with the admiral. Assuming our guys are OK.”

“I don’t know about Jonesy or Blow,” said Danny. “They were both shot. The gear protected them, but they’re pretty, uh, you know…mentally, with the kid—”

“What about Liu?”

“I think he’s OK.”

“All right. As long as he can carry out the mission. Use your best judgment.”

There was a time, before Dreamland, before he ever engaged in combat, that Dog would not have asked whether his subordinates could carry out a mission he knew they were physically capable of. But having been through combat, he’d learned how it could wear at you over time. More important, he’d also learned that a good percentage of people didn’t realize the toll it took, and that most of the others would ignore that toll because they felt their duty was to perform the mission. His job as a commander was to make the call for them, insisting that they sit down when sitting down was the best thing for them, and the best thing ultimately for the mission.

Were they at that point? Seeing a baby die, seeing a husband self-destruct up close — these were somehow different than deaths in combat, however horrific. Having people you were trying to save turn on you at a tragic moment — how much more terrible was that than killing a sniper at long distance?

“Get over there, then, as fast as you can,” Dog told Danny. Then he killed the transmission and called the Cheli to back him up. He’d talk to Admiral Woods — and General Samson — as soon as he had the situation under control.

Though she had been finished only a few weeks after the Bennett, the EB-52 Cheli incorporated a number of improvements both subtle and significant. Like her mate, the Megafortress had been rebuilt from an earlier incarnation, in this case a Model H that had once served with the Nineteenth Bomb Wing at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. She was optimized for radar work and included the latest upgrades to both the airborne and ground search and surveillance radars, as well as software that allowed the bomber to target missiles launched by other sources. Like most Megafortresses, there were two Flighthawk bays, upper and lower. Unlike the Bennett, the upper Flighthawk bay was operational; instead of bunks, there were two more Flighthawk control stations, allowing the aircraft to control a total of eight robots, though for now she was equipped only with two. The Cheli’s uprated engines allowed her to take off with a full load without tapping the engines of the four Flighthawks she could hold under her wings.

The aircraft’s ECM suite had been updated as well. While not as comprehensive as the ELINT, or electronic intelligence, versions of the Megafortress, which could listen to as well as jam a wide range of communications, the Cheli could suppress antiaircraft fire from ground and aircraft by scrambling radar and command signals the way the now retired Wild Weasels once had. Dreamland’s wizards had studied recent encounters with the Chinese and updated the electronics to do a better job against their weapons. They had also added transcripts of the air battles to the computers that helped fly the plane, providing the Tactics section with better information on what to expect from the planes they encountered.

Her pilot, Captain Brad Sparks, was in some ways also a new version of the breed. Sparks had been at Dreamland as a lieutenant three years before, working briefly on the Megafortress project, where, among other things, he had helped perform a feasibility study on using the aircraft as a tanker. He’d transferred out just before Dog arrived, promoted to a captain and assigned to a B-1B squadron.

When Dreamland began getting involved in operational missions, Sparks realized he’d made a mistake and started angling for a comeback. He’d arrived two weeks before, and already he could tell it was the best decision he’d ever made in his life.

“Colonel Bastian for you,” said his copilot, Lieutenant Nelson Wong.

“Colonel, how goes it?” said Sparks, snapping his boss’s image on his com screen. The EB-52’s “dashboard” was infinitely configurable, but like most Megafortress pilots, Sparks kept the communications screen at the lower left, just below a screen that fed data and images from the Flighthawks.

“We’ve located another warhead, very far north,” Dog told him. “It’s in a lake. Looks like the Chinese are interested in it as well.”

“Hot shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you need us to do, Colonel?”

“These are the coordinates of the site. The Bennett will go north and try and divert the Chinese. I’d like you to back us up and help provide cover for the ground unit; they should be there inside of ninety minutes. How soon can you get up here?”

“Thirty minutes,” said Sparks, though he knew he was being optimistic — the Cheli was nearly five hundred miles away.”

“Be advised that the Chinese used long-range radiation-seeking missiles against us. They look like AA-10 Alamos but have at least twice the range. We took them down with Anacondas. We have two Su-27s approaching, and we’re unsure how they’re armed.”

“We’re on it, Colonel.”

“Alert me when you’re within ten minutes.” The screen went blank.

The cavalry to the rescue, thought Sparks before telling the rest of the crew what was going on. Getting back to Dreamland was the best thing he’d ever done.

Dog’s goal was simple — keep the helicopters from landing at the site. They were well within range of his Anaconda antiair missiles, but he had only two left. If he used them against the helicopters, he’d have only the Flighthawks as his defense against the Su-27s.

A much better option was to engage the fighters first, get them out of the way, and then deal with the helicopters. After telling Starship what was up, Dog turned the Megafortress in the Sukhois’ direction.

Unlike the MiG-31s, the Sukhois hadn’t followed him through his course changes. There was no question in his mind that they were heading toward the warhead site and had to be considered hostile, but he wasn’t sure if they were carrying long-range weapons like the other planes. He decided he couldn’t take the chance. His only option was to take them out before they were close enough to use their weapons.

“Range on Bandits Three and Four,” he said to Sullivan.

“Just coming up to 180 miles.”

“Stand by the Anacondas,” Dog told Sullivan.

“Standing by.”

“Target them and fire.”

The missiles whisked away from the Megafortress. Dog held his course, watching the MiGs continue to approach, clearly unaware of their impending doom. Only at the last second did they realize their danger, jerking desperately to the east and west as the missiles bore in.

It was far too late. The Anacondas exploded only a few seconds apart, obliterating the Sukhois so completely that neither crew could eject.

“The helicopters are all yours,” Dog told Starship. Then he dialed into the fleet satellite communications channel to tell Woods what was going on.

The harbin Z-5 Hound was a Chinese version of the Russian Mil Mi-4, a 1950s-era transport that typically carried fourteen troops and three crew members. Though the Chinese versions were improved somewhat, the basic design remained the same, a thick, two-deck fuselage beneath a massive rotor and a long, slim tail. The aircraft were pulling 113 knots, close to their top speed, flying twenty feet over the landscape.

They were easy prey for the Flighthawks. Starship kept the two U/MFs in a trail and took control of the first aircraft, flying a head-on attack against the lead helicopter. On his first pass he raked the cockpit and the engine compartment immediately behind it with 20mm cannon fire, decapitating the aircraft. There was no need for a second pass.

The other chopper tried to get away by twisting to the west, through a mountain pass. But the pilot miscalculated in the dark. By the time Starship turned Hawk One in its direction, the aircraft was burning on the side of the mountain, its rotors sheered off by a collision with the side wall of the canyon.

“Choppers are down,” Starship told Colonel Bastian. “I need to refuel.”

“Roger that,” said Dog.

To Samson’s great disappointment, Ray Rubeo had left Dreamland Command to supervise some tests in another part of the complex.

Samson didn’t intend to fire him — not yet, anyway. Given the administration’s interest in the missile recovery operation, there was no sense doing anything that might possibly derail it.

Or give critics something to focus on if the mission failed.

But he did want to put Rubeo in his place. And he would, he promised himself, as soon as possible.

“I’m not here to interfere,” Samson told Major Catsman. “I want you all to proceed as you were. But let’s be clear on this — I am the commander of this base, and of this mission. The Whiplash order is issued in my name. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Samson detected a note of dissension in Catsman’s voice, but let it slide. A bit of resistance in a command could be a good thing, as long as it was controllable.

“Update me on the process, please. Where specifically are our people? How many missiles have yet to be recovered? All of the details. Then I want to speak with Colonel Bastian, and finally Admiral Woods.”

“There is a bit of a time difference between Dreamland and the area they’re operating in,” said Catsman.

“I’m sure Colonel Bastian won’t mind being woken to brief me.”

“It wasn’t him I was thinking of, sir. Colonel Bastian is already awake, and on a mission. Admiral Woods, on the other hand…”

Samson smiled. He had tangled with Woods several times while deputy commander of the Eighth Air Force, and owed him a tweaking or two.

“Tex Woods and I go way back,” Samson told Catsman.

“Disturbing his sleep would be one of life’s little pleasures.”

Catsman gave him a tally of the warheads that had been recovered and a rundown on the overall situation; her briefing was, in fact, extremely thorough. And when she turned to tell a civilian at a console to make the connection to Bastian, the colonel came on almost instantaneously, his half-shaven face filling the main screen.

“General, I need to update you on a serious situation,” said the colonel from the cockpit of his Megafortress.

“Very good, Colonel. Fire away,” said Samson, noting the serious and, he thought, slightly subservient tone. Bastian was getting the message.

“We’ve engaged Chinese fighters,” Dog told him.

Samson felt his jaw lock as Colonel Bastian continued, explaining everything that had happened. The engagement surely was necessary — the alternative was to be shot down — but as Colonel Bastian freely admitted, it went against the standing orders not to engage the Chinese.

And then Bastian told him about the incident at the Pakistani farmhouse.

“Jesus, Bastian! What are your people trying to do?” bellowed the general. “Do you know how that’s going to look? Can you imagine when the media gets hold of this? My God!”

Dog explained that they had video of the incident that would back them up. Samson felt as if a sinkhole had opened beneath his feet.

“Admiral Woods knows about the incident,” Dog added. “He’s ordered our men back to Base Camp One. But I needed one to help check the lake where the warhead is.”

At least it’s not just my orders he disregards, Samson thought.

“That’s our situation,” said Dog. “Things are a little busy here, General. If you don’t mind I’m going to get back to work.”

“Yes,” said Samson, not sure what else to say.

“Admiral Woods for you, General,” said Catsman as the screen changed back to a large-scale situation map. “He’s a little piqued at being woken. I told him you wanted to give him an important update.”

“I might as well talk to him now,” said Samson sarcastically. “While he’s in a good mood.”

Starship took two quick passes over the group at the lake to get an idea of how many men were there and what other surprises they might have.

There were nine. He could see Kalashnikovs and one grenade launcher, but no more Stinger missiles. Two or three pack animals — from the air they looked like camels, though the pilot suspected they were donkeys — were tied together a short distance away.

Starship pushed the Flighthawk closer to the earth as he widened his orbit, trying to find supporting units that might be hiding in the jagged rocks nearby. There were no roads that he could see, and if there was a warm body in the neighborhood, the infrared scan couldn’t find it.

The mountains were as desolate as anyplace on earth, emptier even than the desert where most of the warheads had landed. The nearest village looked to be a collection of hovels pushed against a ravine about five miles to the east. A road twisted about a mile below the settlement; Starship spotted two paths connecting them but found no one on them.

“Should I take these guys out, Colonel, or what?”

“Let’s wait until the Osprey is a little closer,” Dog told him. “They may pull the warhead from the lake and save us some work.”

“Roger that.”

Dog decided it was prudent to keep the Bennett well above the ground, establishing an orbit around the area at 40,000 feet, high enough that the black Megafortress could neither be seen nor heard from the ground. With the Osprey still about an hour away, he had the two radar operators take short breaks, sending Sullivan back to monitor their equipment while they got some coffee and relaxed for a few minutes. It wasn’t much of a break, but it relieved the monotony a bit and let them know he was thinking of them. They were warming to him slightly, but he still wouldn’t have gotten many votes for commander of the month.

The Dreamland Command channel buzzed with an incoming message from General Samson.

“Colonel Bastian, good morning again.”

“It’s just about midnight here, General.”

“Woods is not particularly pleased, but I think he’ll accept the fact that you had no choice but to shoot down the Chinese. What the hell are they up to?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t spoken to Jed Barclay about it. He may have an opinion.”

“Jed Barclay?”

Dog explained who Jed Barclay was and how he liaisoned with the different agencies involved in operations.

“Well, I’ll see what he knows,” said Samson.

“There’s one other thing,” said Dog, sensing that Samson was about to sign off.

“Well?”

“We still have two crewmen missing. The Navy has been doing the search but—”

“Where are they missing?”

“The mid-Indian coast. I’d like to supplement that. I’d like to dedicate one of our radar surveillance planes full-time to the mission.”

“Recovering the warheads takes precedence. The President wants that done. That’s where your efforts have to be concentrated.”

“They’re our people, sir. No offense meant to the Navy.”

Samson frowned. “I’ll talk to Woods. We’ll get a better effort out of them.”

“I don’t mean that they’re doing a bad job,” said Dog. “Just that we can help them do a better one.”

“I told you I’ll take care of it,” said Samson. “Keep me updated.”

The screen blanked.

“Nice to talk to you too,” said Dog.

Jennifer Gleason balanced the laptop between her legs, squinting at the close-set type as she continued her doctorate-level briefing in rocket science.

Or more specifically, rocket-guidance electronics, and how they interacted with T waves.

While the T-Rays had fried most of the missile’s circuitry, one of the solenoid valves and two electronic level sensors — parts used in the rocket motor itself — had apparently escaped damage. The experts at Dreamland theorized that something had inadvertently shielded these pieces. Jennifer hadn’t spotted any sign of deliberate shielding, she could not see a difference between the unaffected solenoid valve and another unit that had failed.

The first reaction at Dreamland was that she must have missed something, and they forwarded her reams of technical data. Having now read six different papers explaining how the systems worked, she had enough background to be as confused as the experts.

One of the T-Ray experts believed that whatever had shielded the parts simply vaporized during the crash. This seemed plausible, especially if what shielded the components had actually been part of something else, such as a temperature monitor for one of the fuel tanks. The shields used by the Megafortresses were not thick pieces of lead or other heavy metal, but a thin mesh of wires that ran current when the T-Rays hit. The shields were “tuned” to catch the radiation in the way a sound-canceling machine “caught” or neutralized sound; the shield’s trough effectively neutralized the T-Ray’s mountain peak. A thin-wire temperature sensor, or perhaps a radio antenna, might have accidentally provided a partial shield.

Jennifer thought it more likely that there wasn’t enough information about how the T-Rays worked, and that they were interacting with something else. If this were the case, it could take years before the problem was actually solved. In any event, she had to gather as much data as possible.

The Osprey jerked as it hit a bit of turbulence, and the Marine sitting next to her brushed against her. Jennifer shot him a glance. His eyes were fixed on the mesh deck between his combat boots. He looked young, nineteen or twenty at most, and very tired.

None of the men aboard the aircraft — she was the only woman — had slept much in the last forty-eight or seventy-two hours. Even Captain Freah, who ordinarily never looked tired, seemed beat.

She knew there was a good chance she looked as tired as they did. She brushed back a strand of hair from her ear, then turned her attention back to the laptop, bringing up another technical paper to read.

Sergeant Liu glanced around the cabin, nervous for the first time in as long as he could remember.

The sergeant didn’t consider himself a particularly brave man. On the contrary, he thought of himself as prudent and careful, not much of a risk taker. While others might view his job as exceedingly risky, in Liu’s view, working special operations was a good deal less hazardous than most combat jobs in the service. He continually trained and practiced, and worked with only the most qualified people. Missions were generally carefully planned and laid out. As long as you remembered your training and did your job, the odds were in your favor. There was no reason to be scared.

But he was nervous tonight, very nervous.

The image of the little kid being born stayed in his head. Possibly — probably — the child was dead before he was born, but he had no way of knowing.

Why had God sent them to the house if He intended on letting the child and its parents die?

A Catholic Chinese-American, Liu had always felt some solace in his faith, but now it seemed to raise only questions. He knew what a priest would tell him: God has a plan, and we cannot always know it. But that didn’t make sense in this case — what plan could He accomplish by letting a child die? Why go to such extraordinary lengths to send help to the baby, then snuff its life out? And the lives of its parents?

Liu looked up. Captain Freah was staring at him.

“You ready, Nurse?” Danny asked.

“Ready and willing,” said Liu, shrugging.

When the Osprey was ten minutes from the landing zone, Dog gave Starship the order to take out the guerrillas on the ground.

Starship had the two Flighthawks moving in figure eight orbit over the lake. He took them over from the computer and brought them down so they could make their attacks from opposite sides, catching the men on the ground in the middle. With a split screen and left and right joysticks, he felt briefly as if he were two people, each a mirror image of the other.

Green sparkles flashed on the screen of Hawk Two—tracers, fired by someone on the ground unit reacting to the sounds of the airplane.

The targeting box on the screen for Hawk One began to blink, indicating that the computer thought he was almost close enough to shoot. Starship held off for another few seconds, then opened fire just as the tracers turned in his direction.

The effect was brutal and efficient, lead pouring into the men who’d tried to shoot him down little more than an hour earlier. Only two of the men on the ground seemed to escape the first pass, running to the north and throwing themselves on the ground as the Flighthawks passed east and west.

Starship cleared both of the robot planes upward, circled them around, and then pushed into a new attack, this one with the two aircraft in a staggered trail, so that Hawk Two flew a bit behind and to the right of Hawk One.

“Ground attack preset mode one,” he told the computer. “Hawk Two trail.”

He handed Hawk Two off to C³, allowing the computer to fly as his wingman. In the preset, Hawk Two would act like a traditional wingman, primarily concerned with protecting the leader’s tail and only firing after Hawk One had ended its attack.

Starship nudged his stick gently right, moving Hawk One on target. The Flighthawk did not use pedal controls like a manned fighter; instead, the computer interpreted inputs from the stick and took all of the necessary actions. Even so, Starship jabbed his feet against the deck, working an imaginary rudder to fine-tune the approach. He could have been an old-time Skyraider driver, jockeying his A-1A into the sweet spot as he looked for his enemy.

As good as the Skyraider was, it could never have turned as quickly back to the left as he did when he finally saw his targets hiding near a rock formation. He let off a pair of long bursts, then rocketed upward, getting out of the way for Hawk Two. As soon as the nose of the aircraft tilted up, Starship changed seats, so to speak, swapping control of the planes with the computer.

The targeting box was flashing red, but Starship couldn’t find the soldiers. Finally, he saw something moving at the very left edge of the target reticule. He kissed the stick gently with his fingers, holding his fire even though the computer declared he couldn’t miss.

When he finally did shoot, the nose of his plane was about a half mile from his targets. He walked the bullets left and then right, pulverizing the rocks as well as the men who’d tried to hide in them.

“Hawk leader to Bennett. Enemy suppressed, Colonel. You can tell the Osprey it’s safe to land.”

“Roger that, Hawk leader. Good going, Starship.”

Danny Freah leapt from the Osprey and ran behind the Marine pointmen as they raced toward the men the Flighthawk had gunned down a few minutes before.

Twenty millimeter shells did considerable damage to a body, and even battle-hardened Marines didn’t linger as they surveyed the dead.

If they had been farther west, Danny would have thought the mangled bodies belonged to Afghan mujahideen. He had briefly worked as an advisor with mujahideen fighting the Russians a few years before, instructing them at a small camp in northern Pakistan. Some of those same men, he believed, were now sworn enemies of the U.S. They or their brothers had participated in a number of attacks against the U.S. military, including a suicide bombing of the USS Cole in the Persian Gulf.

“Looks like they were using sat phones to communicate,” he told Colonel Bastian after the remains had been searched. “I have two of the phones. One of them is pretty shot up, but maybe the CIA can get something off of them.”

“Anything else?”

“Negative,” said Danny. “I’d sure like to know if they’re working with the Chinese.”

“For the moment, we have to assume they are,” said Dog. “Did Dreamland Command give you possible search coordinates?”

“Northeastern quadrant of the lake. We’re on it, Colonel.”

“Big package coming for us Colonel,” warned Sergeant Rager at the airborne radar station. “I have six Su-27 interceptors, Chinese, on their way from the north, 273 miles. Two aircraft, currently unidentified, behind them. Large aircraft,” he added. “Maybe transports, maybe bombers. Can’t tell.”

Dog keyed the Dreamland channel to contact the Cheli. Despite its pilot’s optimistic prediction earlier, the Megafortress was still about ten minutes away.

“Dreamland Bennett to Cheli. Brad, looks like the Chinese want to crash the party.”

“Roger that, Colonel. We’re ready.”

Dog scowled, now a little suspicious of Captain Brad Sparks’s overarching optimism. He told Sparks that he wanted him to take the Cheli north and intercept the Sukhoi at long range.

“Shoot them down with your Anacondas,” Dog said. “Use them at long range, in case the Chinese have more passive radiation seekers. The MiG-31s fired at about 140 miles.”

“Roger that, Colonel. You told me. We’re good. Copy everything.”

“Get the lead out, Sparks,” Dog added. “Our people are sitting ducks on the ground there.”

General Mansour Sattari pulled himself from the rear of the Mercedes and stepped into the chilly predawn air. Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he walked down the dark path toward a squat cement building in one of Karachi’s poorer districts. Like most of the rest of the country, power had not yet been restored, and the only light came from the dim reflection of the moon, peeking from behind a veil of thin clouds.

The door of the house opened as Sattari approached.

“General, my general, how good to see you,” gushed the tall man who stood on the threshold. “I received word two hours ago — an honor.”

“Thank you, Razi,” said Sattari. “May I come in?”

“Of course, of course. My manners.”

Razi was the size of a bear, and awkward in his movements; he pushed back and knocked into a small table as he made way for his guest. Two chairs were set up in the front room, with an unlit candle between them; Razi gestured for Sattari to sit, then bent to light the candle. The light made small headway against the room’s dimness.

“How are you, General? I was sorry to hear about your son.”

“Yes.”

“I am assured that the burial was prompt and proper,” said Razi, reaching to the floor and picking up a large manila envelope. “The location is on a map. The people who discovered the body were devout Shiites.”

Sattari nodded. He opened the envelope and looked inside. He could see that there were two photographs, intended to seal the identification. He hesitated, then pulled them out, determined to confront the bitter reality.

His son’s face was bloated from the water, but it was definitely him. Sattari slipped the pictures back inside the envelope.

“I greatly appreciate your service,” the general told Razi. “You have done much for me.”

Razi nodded. Now the second in command of the Iranian spy network in Pakistan, his father had served with Sattari in the days of the shah. Not quite as tall as his father, who had been a true giant, he had inherited his hard gaze.

“And so, what are the Pakistanis up to?” Sattari asked, changing the subject.

“In chaos, as usual. Some want to make peace with the Indians. Some want to continue the war. They are so disorganized. They have not even been able to mobilize to recover the missiles that the Americans disabled.”

“Can they be recovered?”

“The Americans are already hard at it. That is what we have heard, anyway. There is no reason to doubt it — the Americans are everywhere.”

“Yes,” said Sattari.

“The Chinese are doing the same thing, we believe,” said Razi. “They are very, very busy. They have made an alliance with the bearded one, the Saudi. An alliance with the devil.”

Sattari had nothing but disdain for the Saudi, a Sunni fanatic who had built a terror network by giving money to every psychotic madman in the Middle East. The Saudi hated Shiites, and hated Iran.

Still, there was a saying: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

“What is the Saudi doing?”

“He has offered money for the recovery of a weapon, that much we know. And, from the two camps he had in the Baulchistan, some followers were sent north. They must be looking for it. Perhaps the Chinese helped him. Rumors…” Razi was silent for a moment. “The Pakistani army actually tried to stop them, but after a gun battle they slipped away.”

“The Chinese are helping him?”

“It is not clear,” said Razi. “One of my people works at the Chinese consulate, the headquarters for the Chinese spy operations. There was a meeting a day ago, with a representative of the Saudi. After that, more activity. Their cryptologists were so busy they could not go home. The consulate is one of the few places in the city with its own power and satellite dishes,” he added. “Even the local government has asked to use them.”

“Do they know where the missiles came to earth?”

“The Pakistanis do not. The radars tracking them were wiped out by the American weapons.”

“The Chinese must,” said Sattari. “That is why the Saudi is working with them.”

“Or perhaps they just want his money.”

Sattari leaned back in his chair, thinking. Here was his opportunity after all.

Perhaps.

“I would like to go to Islamabad,” he said, making up his mind. “Is this possible?”

“Anything is possible, General.”

“Are there men there who can be counted on?”

“Yes.” Razi looked up, and their eyes met. “There is one thing, though.”

“What is that?”

“The oil minister was found dead in a mosque complex yesterday.”

“The Pakistani oil minister?” said Sattari, feigning ignorance.

“Our minister. Jaamsheed Pevars.”

“I had not heard that.”

The two men’s eyes were locked.

“My superior was a friend of Pevars,” said Razi.

“No one is closer to the oil minister than I,” said Sattari. “Are you sure that he is dead? I saw him myself just a few days ago.”

“Very sure. His murderer should be brought to justice.”

“As quickly as possible.”

Razi grinned faintly, then rose. “For myself, I did not like Pevars. Too corrupt. Come, let me give you the name of a man who might help you in Islamabad. You should leave immediately.”

They moved together in a dance, their bodies so close together they seemed to be welded, his leg between hers, her back nestled against his stomach. They rolled on the bed in a timeless trance, restless but peaceful in sleep, so used to the other’s movements that even their breaths were in sync.

Then something gripped him and he began sliding away, pulled back by a force greater than gravity, yet slower, more painful. He tried to cling to her but could not, found himself twisting in hot wind. An intense heat enveloped his head. His throat became parched, then burned. He was alone and felt empty, thirsty, for water and for her.

Alone.

Zen pushed himself away, rising on his chest in the darkness before twilight. He was sure that Breanna was gone.

But she wasn’t. He heard her breathing before he saw her, saw her before he felt her. He let himself slip back against her, trying to reassure himself that what he had felt was just a misshapen remnant of a bad dream induced by thirst and nothing else.

He was very thirsty but they had to conserve their water.

Perhaps this was what had caused his nightmare.

Thirst.

Zen wrapped his arm gently around his wife, cupping her breast. He tried to remember the first time he’d done that, concentrating not on the day or the time but the sensation, the way it had felt the first time to be in love. That was what he wanted to remember. He slid closer to Breanna, pressing his body on hers, huddling against the pain until the faint memory of falling in love lulled him to sleep.

The water was as clear as a pool. Liu moved his wrist light around, playing it in front of him as he slid downward. The large rocks at the bottom were smooth and shiny white, as if they’d been polished.

A piece of jagged metal lay on the floor of the lake to his left. He paddled to it slowly, still getting his bearings. The water wasn’t quite as cold as he’d thought it would be, but it was far from warm. The scuba gear stored on the Osprey was standard Navy gear, without the heating circuits that were part of the Dreamland equipment.

The metal twisted into a C, the curved end pointing toward a shallow ravine twenty feet away. Liu swam toward it, guided by the light from Captain Freah’s wrist as well as his own. The captain pushed ahead of him, then moved to his right. As Liu began to follow, a shadow emerged from the rocky bottom.

The baby. Not breathing.

It wasn’t the baby. Liu knew it wasn’t, but he had a hard time clearing the notion from his mind. He forced himself to look away, but the idea persisted, as if the ghost had managed to get inside his skull.

Danny Freah was waving at him. He’d found the warhead.

Liu pushed up to the surface, grateful to get away.

“Here!” he yelled to the others. “Here!”

Jennifer watched from the shoreline as the Osprey settled over the spot where Liu and Danny had surfaced. A metal chain and strap dangled from its belly; the strap would be connected to a hastily rigged harness that Danny and the sergeant had put on the warhead.

The noise from the Osprey was so loud that Jennifer almost didn’t hear Danny’s smart helmet beeping with an incoming communication. She put the helmet on, cleared the transmission, and found herself talking to Dog.

He stared at her for a moment, clearly taken off guard. Jennifer felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him — but of course she couldn’t.

“There’s a fresh wave of Chinese fighters on their way,” said Dog. “Two other aircraft as well. May be transports with paratroops; they’re a little too far away right now. What’s your situation?”

“We’ve located the warhead in the water. They’re rigging the Osprey to pull it out now.”

“How long before you get it out of there?”

“It’ll take a couple of hours at least. Safing it is an hour-long procedure.”

“Move it along as quickly as you can,” Dog said.

“Tecumseh, I know you’re mad, but I only did—”

“This isn’t the time. Bastian out.”

Nailing the Sukhois was as easy as pressing a button.

Or should have been. The targeting system was having trouble locking.

“I can’t lock number three, Brad,” said Steve Micelli, the Cheli’s copilot. “It just won’t lock.”

“Yeah, keep trying,” snapped Sparks. The pilot put his hand on the throttle glide, urging more power from the turbos.

“Targets are at 160 miles,” said the airborne radar operator, Tom “Cheech” Long.

“Yeah yeah, Cheech, I know,” said Sparks. “Come on, Stevie. Get the missiles locked and away.”

“Targeting Bandit Three,” said the copilot finally. “Locked. Firing missile.”

The Anaconda whipped away, sailing out from under the Megafortress’s nose. Two more followed in quick succession.

Then more problems.

“Lost Bandit Six entirely,” said Micelli.

“Steve, I’m going to get up and slap you on the side of the head if you don’t stop screwing around,” said Sparks. “And I’m only half joking here, dude.”

“I’m trying, Brad. I’m trying.”

Sparks glanced at his sitrep plot, which showed his position and that of the other aircraft in the sky. The Sukhois were moving at him from the northwest; he was nose-on with their leader, Bandit One, at 150 miles.

“Missile launch from Bandit One. Missile launch from Bandit Two,” warned the radar man.

“Steve?”

“Yeah — got it. ECMs.”

“Stand by for evasive maneuvers.”

As soon as the Anaconda missile was under way, Sparks threw the Megafortress into a hard turn south.

“Missiles are tracking us,” said Cheech. “Must be passive homers, just like Colonel Bastian said.”

“The ol’ Dog knows his stuff,” said Sparks, starting another turn, this one to the west. “Kill ECMs.”

“Moving at 2,000 knots,” said Cheech. “Coming for us. Both of them.”

“I only want to hear good news from you, Cheech.”

Sparks had turned the aircraft around so the missiles were now following him; he hoped to outrun them. The problem was, he didn’t know if it was possible, since he had no data on the missiles’ range. They were moving roughly 33 miles a minute to his ten.

“Hey, Flighthawk leader — you staying with me or what?” Sparks asked.

“With you,” said Lieutenant Josh “Cowboy” Plank. “We running away from these assholes?”

“Bite your tongue, Cowboy,” said Sparks. “This is merely a strategic retreat.”

Unlike the Bennett, the Cheli was only escorted by one Flighthawk; Cowboy didn’t have enough experience yet to handle two at a time, and there was no second Flighthawk pilot available.

“Missile one — bull’s-eye!” said Micelli. “Nailed him! Missile two — hit.”

Sparks listened with satisfaction as the copilot tallied the score — five Sukhois down.

“What happened to Bandit Four?” said Sparks.

“Still there. Missile is off the screen.”

Sparks had other things to worry about at the moment — the two missiles that had been launched at him were now just thirty miles from his tail. He began a series of hard jinks, pushing the Megafortress sharply left and right in the sky, hoping the trailing missiles would have a difficult time following.

“Stinger air mines,” he told Micelli. “Get ready.”

“Ten miles,” warned Cheech.

The air mines had a very limited range, and to make it easier for his copilot, Sparks had to hold the plane as steady as possible. Unfortunately, that would also make it easy for the missiles.

“Five miles. Stinger ready.”

“Well, shoot the bastards down!”

A chit-chit-chit sound erupted from the back as the air mines were launched. Sparks put his hand on the throttle, urging the power plants to give him a few more knots.

Sixty seconds later he realized they’d made it.

“Missile is off the scope,” said Cheech. “Gone.”

“I shot it down! I got it!” yelled Micelli. “I got them both. Yeah! Yeah!”

Sparks turned the Megafortress back in the direction of the Sukhoi and the two larger aircraft. They had altered their courses slightly, but were still moving toward the area where the warhead was being recovered.

“Computer is IDing those two aircraft as Fokker F27 airliners,” said Cheech.

“Go away,” said Micelli. The encounter had given him a serious adrenaline rush, Sparks thought, as if he could fly home without the airplane.

“No shit, that’s what it says,” said Cheech. “Two Airbus airliners.”

“You queried them?” asked Micelli.

“Computer did and it confirmed.”

“Bullshit. Try it again.”

“We’re too far right now. You think it’s going to be different?”

“All right boys, settle down,” said Sparks. “Flighthawk leader — yo, Cowboy, I want you to rustle on over there and scout those aircraft out. We’ll take the Suck-hoi.”

“Roger that, Cheli.”

The Osprey’s heavy rotor wash pushed Danny Freah downward as he waited for the aircraft to get close enough so he could attach the lifting chain. Liu treaded water near him, pushed the spray from his face while rubbing his face so hard Danny thought he was going to poke his eyeballs out.

Unlike their Whiplash-issue diving gear, the borrowed Navy sets didn’t have radios. A spotter stood on the shoreline, radioing to the pilot of the Osprey, who was also relying on two crewmen in the rear to help guide him.

His first attempt was way off, the chain closer to the shore than to them. As the Osprey moved sideways, the chain began to swing like a pendulum. Danny made a swipe, only to have the heavy strap at the bottom smack the back of his hand so hard he thought for a moment he’d broken a bone.

Liu lunged at it, grabbing the loop and wrapping his body around it. The Osprey’s momentum pushed him several feet through the water. Danny seized him as he began to twirl around, pulling him to a stop.

“This is almost funny!” yelled Danny.

The roar of the V-22’s engines overhead made it impossible to hear if Liu replied. Danny let go of him and, his hand still hurting, plunged beneath the water and retrieved the harness lead from the warhead a few feet below. They hooked the lines together, then swam backward to get out of the way.

As they did, Liu disappeared beneath the roiling surface of the lake. Danny glanced to his right, getting his bearings, then looked back, expecting to see Liu. But he wasn’t there.

He stared, waiting for his sergeant to reappear. Three or four seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.

Where was he?

If it was god’s will that the baby and her family die, thought Liu, what is His will now? If I just let myself sink beneath the waves, will He let me drown?

Pushed under by the rotor wash, Liu let his body drift down, toward the smooth rocks and shadows he’d seen before, toward the ghost that he knew waited here.

How easy it was to just let go, to just give up and die.

He took his breather away from his face. Almost immediately his lungs began to scream for water.

Liu drifted, expecting the baby to appear. He closed his eyes, then opened them. There were shapes in the water, strange shapes, but he recognized them all — the warhead being lifted, Captain Freah’s feet in the distance, some of the metal casing to the missile that they’d discarded earlier.

No ghosts. No easy way out.

If he stayed underwater until his lungs burst, then he would never know why it had happened. He would never know if it was part of another plan, if it was meant to push him toward something or if God had merely extracted some awful toll and wanted him as a witness to His power.

Did he really want to know?

Yes, answered Liu, pushing back to the surface.

Jennifer started to trot toward the warhead as the Marine Osprey set it down on the beach.

“The Chinese are coming,” she told Danny, explaining what Dog had told her.

“All right. We’ll pack it into the Osprey and take it back to Base Camp One.”

“We have to make it safe first,” she said.

“That’ll take far too long. There’s a plane full of Chinese paratroopers on the way,” said Danny. “No. I’ll do it in the Osprey.”

“You’re crazy.”

“We have to get out of here.”

“I’ll safe it,” said Jennifer.

“In the Osprey,” said Danny, kicking off his flippers.

Not having an alternative, Jennifer nodded.

According to colonel Bastian’s sitrep display, the three aircraft approaching the warhead recovery area included one Sukhoi fighter and two Xian Y-14 transports. The Y-14s were Chinese versions of the Russian An-24 “Curl,” military transport aircraft that he guessed were carrying paratroopers.

The screen also showed that the Cheli had moved far west during the encounter. Though it was hard to criticize the results of the air battle — five aircraft shot down — Sparks and his crew had put the Cheli in a poor position to deal with the other aircraft.

But that’s why the Bennett was backing him up.

“Cheli, what’s your situation?” Dog asked.

“Hey, Colonel. We have one bandit, two bogies heading in.”

“What do you mean bogies?” Dog said, cutting him off. The slang term meant that the aircraft were unidentified;

“bandits” were airplanes that were ID’d as bad guys, as these should have been. “Those are Xian Y-14 transports.”

“Computer is disagreeing with you there, Colonel. We’re showing them as Fokker F27s. Cowboy is on his way to check it out. I’m going to handle the other Sukhoi.”

Experience alone told Dog that the IDs were wrong; civilian transports did not travel in twos, much less behind a fighter escort.

“You’re not in position to make an intercept on that Sukhoi, let alone the transports.”

“We will be in five minutes.”

“Too long. I’ve got them,” said Dog. “Swing back toward the recovery area.”

“Colonel—”

“Swing back toward the recovery area.”

“Yes, sir.”

Starship pulled up the view from the underside camera of Hawk One as the aircraft swung around the recovery area, watching the Osprey straining to pull the warhead from the water. The V-22 seemed to stand dead still, a bodybuilder hunched over a barbell. The aircraft started up slowly, moving toward the northern end of the mountain lake as it went. Starship could see a ripple of waves on the water, but the warhead itself hadn’t appeared as the Flighthawk passed by.

“Flighthawk leader, I need you to intercept those two Chinese transports,” said Dog over the interphone. “You see them?”

“On it, Colonel.”

Starship checked the sitrep, discovering that the airplanes were less than seventy miles away. He pulled back on his stick, automatically taking Hawk One from the computer’s control.

“The Cheli’s radar system is claiming that the aircraft are Fokker airliners,” added Dog. “We have them as Y-14s. Verify them visually.”

Starship touched the talk button for his mike, allowing him to give a voice command to the computer. “Trail one,” he said, ordering the computer to fly Hawk Two behind the other Flighthawk.

“What do you want to do with that Sukhoi?” Starship asked.

“That’s mine. You concentrate on the transports.”

“Roger that.”

“We just shot down like five airplanes — five! — and Bastian’s mad at us?” said Micelli.

“I wouldn’t call him mad,” Sparks told him. “Just not happy.”

“It’s Cheech’s fault,” retorted the copilot. “We have bullshit IDs on those transports. Everybody knows they’re not civvies.”

“Hey, screw you, Micelli,” said the airborne radar operator. “The radar says what the radar says. They’re not identing,” he added, using slang for using the automated identification gear. “What can I tell you?”

“Relax, guys,” said Sparks sharply. “We went too far west getting out of the way of the Chinese missiles. Just play it the way it lays.”

Sparks pushed the Megafortress south toward the warhead recovery area.

“You with us, Flighthawks?” he asked.

“Roger that,” said Cowboy. “Got your six, big mother.”

“Missile launch!” shouted Sullivan, the Bennett’s copilot. “Two — FD-60s. Pen Lung Dragon Bolts.”

“ECMs.”

The FD-60 was a medium range semiactive radar homing missile similar to the Italian Aspide, which by some reports had been reverse-engineered to create it. Unlike the missile they had dealt with earlier, Dog had considerable experience with the Dragon Bolt, and was confident the electronic countermeasures would sufficiently confuse it.

“Range is forty miles,” said Sullivan. “Sukhoi is changing course.”

As soon as it fired its missiles, the Chinese plane swung eastward. Dog held his own course steady, figuring the Sukhoi was looping around to get closer to the transports.

“He may be running away,” said Sullivan as the Sukhoi continued to the east.

“No, he’s going to swing back and protect the transports. Where are those missiles?”

“Missile one is tracking. Missile two is off the scope.”

“Keep hitting the ECMs.”

“We’re playing every song the orchestra knows, Colonel.”

The lead transport was a small gray blip in the simulated heads-up display screen at the center of Starship’s station. According to the computer, the aircraft had turboprop engines, was moving at 320 knots, and was definitely a Xian Y-14. But Starship knew he couldn’t trust the computer’s ID; he had to close in and get visual confirmation.

But the computer was so integrated into the aircraft he was flying that even a “visual” was heavily influenced by the computer’s choices. The image he saw wasn’t an image at all, it was constructed primarily from the radar aboard the Megafortress. The computer took the radar information, along with data from other available sensors, weighed how much each was worth under the circumstances, and then built an image to the pilot that represented reality. Even at close range, when he was ostensibly looking at a direct image from one of the Flighthawk’s cameras, the computer was involved, enhancing the light and steadying the focus. So where did you draw the line on what to trust?

The two aircraft were flying single file, headed directly toward the lake. They were descending at an easy angle, coming down through 20,000 feet above sea level — relatively close to some of the nearby peaks, which topped 12,000. The lake and the valley it was in were about 5,000 feet.

Starship was approaching the lead plane just off its right wing. At ten miles he switched the main screen to the long-range optical view, but all he could see was a blur, and a small one at that.

Within five seconds he had closed to inside five miles. The starlight-enhanced image showed a dark gray plane with no civilian markings. It was a twin turbojet, high-winged, with its engines close to the fuselage. Admittedly, it looked a lot like the reference pictures of a Fokker that he had pulled up from the Tactics library. But the wing area was larger, and the angle of the fuselage near the tail just a bit sharper — according to the computer, which modeled the image against the references for him.

But the key for Starship were the passenger windows — round on the An-24, and round on the airplane in front of him. The Fokker’s were rectangular.

All aircraft carried an IFF — Identification Friend or Foe — system, designed to distinguish between civilian and military aircraft. While the Megafortress had tried ident earlier, Starship instructed the computer to query the airplane again. The transponders in the two planes failed to respond.

“Bennett, I have the lead turbojet aircraft in sight,” said Starship. “I confirm visually that it is an An-24. Be advised, its ident does not respond.”

“Roger that. Take it down.”

“Copy, Bennett.”

The Su-27 began a turn back toward the transports when it was about fifty miles from the Bennett, a little later than Dog hoped. His plan was to get close to the Su-27 and then spin in front of him just within range of the Stinger air mines.

He’d have to wait two whole minutes now before he’d be close enough to make the turn, and a lot could happen in that time. Including getting hit by the Sukhoi’s first missile, which was still tracking them.

“Missile one is still coming at us,” said Sullivan. “Ten miles.”

“Chaff. Crew, stand by for evasive maneuvers,” said Dog, even as he jerked the aircraft onto its wing. The chaff was like metal confetti tossed into the air to confuse targeting radars. The Megafortress dropped downward, away from the chaff, in effect disappearing behind a curtain. Dog pressured his stick right, putting the EB-52 into a six g turn.

The missile sailed past. Apparently realizing its mistake as it cleared the cloud of tinsel without finding an aircraft, it blew itself up — not out of misery, of course, but in the vain hope that its target was still nearby.

By this time, however, the Bennett was swinging back to the north. The Su-27 was approaching her nose from about two o’clock. The Chinese fighter pilot wanted to do exactly what Dog wanted him to do — get on his tail and fire his heat-seekers. Quicker and with a much smaller turning radius than the Megafortress, the Chinese pilot undoubtedly felt he had an overwhelming advantage.

Dog had flown against Chinese fighter pilots several times. They had two things in common: They were extremely good stick and rudder men, and they knew it. He was counting on this pilot being no different.

What he wasn’t counting on was the PL-9 heat-seeker the pilot shot at his face as he approached.

“Flares,” said Dog. He tucked the Megafortress onto her left wing, sliding away as the decoys exploded, sucking the Chinese missile away.

The Su-27 pilot began to turn with the Megafortress, no doubt salivating at the sight — the large American airplane was literally dropping in front of him, its four turbojets juicy targets for his remaining missile.

“Stinger!” said Dog. “Air mines!”

Sullivan pressed the trigger, and the air behind the Megafortress turned into a curtain of tungsten.

“Launch! Missile launch! He’s firing at us!” shouted Sullivan.

Dog throttled back hard and yanked back sharply on his stick, abruptly pulling the nose and wings of his aircraft upward. The aircraft’s computer barked out an alarm, telling him that he was attempting to “exceed normal flight parameters”—in layman’s terms, he wasn’t flying so much as turning himself into a brick, losing all of his forward momentum while trying to climb. The Megafortress shook violently, gravity tugging her in several different directions at once.

Down won. But just as it did, Dog pushed the stick forward and ramped back up to military power on the engines. This caused a violent shudder that rumbled through the fuselage; the wing roots groaned and the aircraft pitched sharply to the right. Dog eased off a bit, grudgingly, then finally saw what he’d been hoping for — two perfect red circles shooting past.

They were followed by a much larger one. This one wasn’t simply red exhaust — the edges of the circle pulsed with a violent zigzag of orange and yellow. Not only had the Sukhoi sucked a full load of shrapnel into its engine, but one of the exploding air mines had started a fire.

“He’s toast!” yelled Sullivan. A second later the canopy of the Chinese jet flew off and the pilot bailed, narrowly avoiding the tumult of flames as his aircraft turned into a Molotov cocktail.

Starship struggled to keep his Flighthawk on a steady path as the Megafortress jerked and jived through the air. This was the most difficult part of flying the robot planes: making your hand do what your mind told it to do, and not what its body wanted. The disconnect between what was happening on the screen — an aircraft in straight, level flight — and what was happening to his stomach was difficult to reconcile.

Starship put both hands on the control and lowered his head, leaving the Megafortress behind as he willed himself inside the little plane. He took Hawk One in a wide turn to his left, away from the military transport he’d just passed. Hawk Two, trailing by a little over two miles, followed. He thought of switching planes—Hawk Two would have had an easier shot — but the Megafortress’s shuddering sounds seemed to promise more heavy g’s to come, and he decided to stay where he was.

By the time he came out of his turn, the lead aircraft had made a turn of its own to the east. Its companion was following suit.

“Colonel, my contacts are heading away,” said Starship. “Should I pursue?”

“Stand by, Flighthawk leader.”

The Bennett leveled off. Starship checked the position of his airplanes on the sitrep; he was about eighty miles northeast.

“What’s the situation, Starship?”

“Looks like they’ve broken off and are heading home,” said Starship. “I’m not sure if they saw the Flighthawks or not—Hawk One was definitely close enough for a visual.”

“Save your bullets,” said Dog. “We’re out of Anacondas and we may need them for the ride home.”