Strike Zone

V Vaporized

Dog did everything but call a time-out, trying to settle his people down so the situation could be sorted out.

Besides a thorough search of the harbor site and a look at the sinking ship, they needed to review all the data gathered during the exchange. Dog quickly confirmed that this was going on, then went to Jed at the Pentagon.Now was the time for Washington involvement, he thought, though he was far too tactful to say that.

For now, anyway.

“Looking good, Colonel,” said Jed. “We confirm the so-called ghost clone is down.Dragon Prince is split in half; bow is gone. Navy asset R-1 is arriving now.”

R-1 was a specially equipped A-6 Intruder that carried a sensor array beneath its belly that would send live video (including near-infrared) back to the fleet, and from there back to the Tank. The destroyers, meanwhile, were close enough to see the flames from the stern section in the distance. “We’re ready to alert the authorities,” added Jed. “The ambassador is en route to the airport to meet with the Taiwan president.”

“Why the airport?” asked Dog.

“The president pushed up his flight to Beijing,” Jed said. “They’re getting out early in case there are any protestors at the airport.”

Dog’s attention was diverted by the feed from Hawk Three, which showed that one of the Chinese submarines had begun to submerge.

“They don’t look like they’re carrying out rescue operations,” Zen said. “They took in a few commandos, that’s it. Other sub is still on the surface, but looks like they’re bugging out too. Nothing big came aboard either one.”

“Roger that. We’re alerting the civil authorities,” said Dog.

With the clone down, Jennifer went back to helping the team studying the data on the Taiwanese computer. She scrolled through the decrypted emails, trying to see if anything there might be useful.

The information had been translated by a computer program into English. It was not exactly perfect, but it saved considerable time and could highlight key words; anything of special interest could be reviewed by a language specialist, either at Dreamland or back East at the NSA.

Three emails spoke of packages, which an NSA analyst guessed meant bombs, though of course that was just speculation. The “meat” of the emails was simple:

The last string of numbers appeared to be part of the encryption that the computer couldn’t unlock, though it was impossible to tell.

Jennifer began looking at more of the data on the computer. Apparently the men in the plant had initiated a scrubber program, and much of the drive had been erased. Danny’s team had located other computers, but they seemed to have been hit by the E-bomb. Data on all of them might be recoverable, but they would have to be analyzed back at Dreamland.

Package checked and sent. Probably the bomb.

Or the UAV.

Or lettuce.

She got up and went to look at the station where they were analyzing the video from Zen’s encounter with the UAV, checking pictures of the fuselage to see if a bomb had been carriaged below the fuselage. One of the technical experts had enhanced the image of the Taiwanese plane being launched from the ship; the image had been generated completely from radar, in some ways a more interesting technical feat than the creation of the UAV itself. Jennifer watched in fascination as the techie put the display into freeze-frame, then dialed in a program that analyzed the structure of the aircraft.

“Are those vertical tabs?” Jennifer asked, pointing at two bars that protruded from the area near the top of the wing root.

“Probably just weird radar echoes,” said the engineer. The frame advanced; the pieces remained on the aircraft.

“If they weren’t echoes, what would they be?” Jennifer asked.

“Hooks to recover the aircraft or hoist it onto the catapult.”

“Or launch it from a plane,” said Jennifer. “Like the U/MF-3 Flighthawk.”

“Sure.”

Jennifer went back to her station. An NSA analyst looking at the data had just sent an instant message suggesting the number stream after “package” in the third email might be a key for a code to activate the bomb. Jennifer called it back.

The repetition at the end of the number stream looked familiar, though by itself it seemed to mean nothing. She pulled over her laptop and brought up the code they had prepared for taking over the UAV.

There were similar sequences in the tail of the communications streams, though she had no idea what they stood for.

A coincidence?

If the NSA analyst’s guess was correct, then the intercepted communications might mean that the ghost clone had been carrying a nuke when they first encountered it.

But that was impossible — Jennifer turned to the screen on her right, clicking into the stored data to bring up the analysis prepared from the early intercepts. The performance seemed to rule out any bomb.

Unless the code unlocked something in the com stream. Maybe it was part of an encryption key.

What if the package was another UAV? Because maybe you’d want to know the key it used for communications.

Maybe. She needed to look through the rest of the data.

No time for that if there was another plane.

“Ray — I think there’s another clone, another plane,” she said aloud. “Look at this.”

Danny watched the Marine teams checking in with their captain, listening as they reviewed their findings. The men worked smoothly, running through the different piles of recycled material as if they’d done this sort of thing a million times before.

“We’re getting some hits on one of the Geiger counters,” the Marine captain told Danny. “In the battery section.”

“Let me check it out,” said Stoner.

“You have to get the protective gear on,” said the Marine.

“Yeah,” said the CIA officer, walking toward the shed anyway.

Danny shook his head, then went over to check with Liu and Boston in Shed One.

“Never been in a nuke factory before,” said Liu as Danny poked his head through the hole at the back that the two troopers had cut for access.

“Looks more like a machine shop,” said Danny.

“I thought it’d at least look like a science lab or something,” said Boston. “We gonna glow when we get out of here?”

Danny laughed. They hadn’t detected any serious radiation levels; a visit to the dentist posed a greater health threat.

A pair of Marines had begun carting out computer equipment. Boston, helping them, picked up a large memory unit and brought it out to the Osprey.

“The guys back at Dreamland say they assembled them right in this area here,” said Liu. “Didn’t even use a clean room.”

Danny looked around the building. It did look like a machine shop. Not even — an empty shed with a few large machines, bunch of computers.

Was it that easy to build a bomb?

He began walking around the shed, wondering to himself how difficult his job might be in five or ten years. If a private company could build a nuke, when would some crazy fundamentalist in the Middle East do so?

There were crates against the wall, vegetable crates.

“Bomb squad took out two five-hundred-pounders,” said Liu, referring to a small squad of demo experts tasked to deal with the weapons. “Said they didn’t have fuses and couldn’t go off, but nobody wanted to take any chances. Leave them for the authorities.”

“They came in these boxes?” said Danny, pointing.

“Don’t know. The boxes were there. I don’t know if they were crating them. Couldn’t figure it out.”

“I saw some boxes like that in Taipei,” said Danny. “In a hangar there.”

“Just vegetable boxes. Bring lettuce and stuff around, like that.”

“A lot of lettuce gets eaten in Taipei.”

“Tons.”

Danny flicked his com control to talk to Dreamland.

With the Taiwanese and American authorities now arriving on the scene of the sinking,Raven and its Flighthawks were reduced to the role of spectators. Zen let C³ take both Flighthawks in a general patrol pattern; it was the down part of the mission, and once he had his own aircraft squared away, he turned his attention to his two young protégés aboard Penn.

Zen shook his head as Starship and Kick engaged in some good-natured banter over how close the Chinese Communist missile had come to splashing the Osprey before Starship managed to get his Flighthawk in the way. The joking started a bit off-color and then went quite a bit further; about the only word that could be repeated in polite company was “road.”

“All right guys, let’s not forget we’re working,” Zen told them finally.

He felt more than a little proud, as if he were a high school basketball coach whose team had just won the championship. It wasn’t that bad a metaphor, actually — they were clucking away like high school kids, their jokes on a sophomore’s level.

At best.

“Check your fuel,” he added. “I don’t want you walking home.”

Starship’s retort was cut off by Dog on the interphone.

“Zen, I want you in on this. Go to the main Dreamland channel.”

He clicked off without saying anything else to the two Flighthawk pilots, listening as Ray Rubeo detailed an argument for another UAV.

“We’re trying to get a line on that plane,” added Rubeo. “The surveillance equipment that Captain Freah placed shows the other still in the hangar.”

“What plane?” asked Zen.

“Chen Lee’s companies have two 767s. One is in Taipei on the ground but we’re looking for another that they seem to have leased a few months back,” explained Dog. “The UAV has handles that could be used for an air launch. We have someone en route to the airport to take a look at it.”

“Let’s get north,” said Zen.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Dog.

Fann checked the course marker. The UAV had a range just over fifteen hundred miles, but that was without the extra weight of a bomb, and flying at medium to high altitude. Professor Ai had calculated that its fuel would take it roughly a thousand as presently configured. They were just approaching the thousand-mile mark now.

The longer they waited, the less possibility there was of the small plane running out of fuel. But it also increased the chance that they would be found.

He checked the map and his watch again. In less than two hours, Beijing would be destroyed.

No — the communists would be destroyed. The capital,his capital, would be intact.

He would return to Taipei, a hero.

And a criminal, in the eyes of the communists and their collaborators in the present government. Undoubtedly he would be killed. But death merely meant a change; it was no more permanent than life.

Waiting increased the chances of success, but it would also allow him to see the explosion. He would witness the moment of his grandfather’s triumph with his own eyes.

“We are in range,” said Ai.

“We will wait as long as possible. I calculate an optimum launch in twenty minutes,” he told the scientists.

“The communists are reacting to action by the Americans. They are scrambling fighters, alerting their troops. I’ve seen the radar and radio intercepts and—”

“We will wait as long as possible.”

According to the manual, a “stock” B-52H could make 516 knots at altitude. B-52s had long ago ceased to be “stock,” and in practice the typical Stratofortress’s hull was so cluttered with add-ons and extra gear that even 500 knots in level flight could be more fantasy than reality.

Dreamland’s EB-52s — which in most cases had started their lives as B-52Hs — contained no external blisters to slow them down. Thirty-something years of work on jet engine technology allowed their four power plants to do the work of the original eight more efficiently, and the use of more alloy and composites in the wing and tail structures did the same for the airfoil. In short, if an entry for the Megafortress’s top speed were to be made in a reference book, it would be listed at close to 600 knots, along with an asterisk indicating that, depending on the configuration of the power plants and the load the massive plane carried, it might do considerably better.

Dog, with full military power selected, passed the 600-knot mark as he pushed northward through the Taiwan Strait, the two U/MF-3s leading the way.

Mainland China and Taiwan existed side by side in an intricate and highly charged relationship. On the one hand, their governments considered each other bitter enemies. On the other, there was a myriad of commercial relationships between the pair. Among those relationships were regular flights from Taipei to a number of Mainland cities, most especially Shanghai.

Such flights might give cover to a 767 loaded with a UAV and nuclear device, Dog thought.

“Raven to Dream Command. Major Catsman, have we located that other 767 yet?”

“We’re going over the airport right now,” said Catsman. “We have CIA assets on the ground.”

“Copy that.”

Dog looked over at his fuel panel. They had about three more hours of flying time before nudging into the reserve cushion, depending on what twists and turns Dog took.

He brought up another set of instrument readings on the configurable screen, focusing on his aircraft’s performance.Raven could have been used to set the benchmarks for a maintenance manual.

Come to think of it, it had.

“Danny, what’s your situation?” he asked Captain Freah, bouncing back onto the Dreamland line.

“We’re secure here. Still going over everything, but it looks about as clean as a diner an hour before the health department inspectors arrive. Authorities are at the gate,” Danny added. “We’re holding them off — got about another ten to fifteen minutes of searching to get through.”

“Roger that.”

Stoner saw the panel behind the vat of sulfuric acid a second or two after the Marines did, and had to shout at them to keep back.

“Very good chance the sucker’s booby-trapped,” he told the two men, who unlike him were wearing special chem suits with breathers to protect them from the acidic fumes.

It wasn’t that Stoner liked to take unnecessary risks; he knew people worked in this plant with the acid all the time, and figured his brief exposure was nothing like what they exposed themselves to.

Not that it was pleasant. He went to the floor panel and knelt down, instantly soaking his knees in the residue of a thousand car batteries. He could feel the material get sodden and start to tickle at his skin.

“Back,” he told the Marines, pulling out a long knife.

One of the men began to object; if the panel was booby-trapped, they had a special squad trained to defuse it. But Stoner had already found two wires with his knife; he pulled them up gently, scraped some of the insulation off, then checked the current with a small meter the size of pen top. A yellow light flashed on; he clipped another set of alligator clips to the wires and got a green.

“You’re fucking lucky,” said one of the Marines as he jimmied open the lock.

“How’s that?”

“Could have just as easily blown when it was shorted.”

“Well, only if my sensor here screwed up. It’s all right — my guess is it’s just an alarm and it was taken out by the E-bomb,” said Stoner, shining around the flashlight. “There aren’t any charges here.”

He’d suspected that; the acid would have made keeping explosives here fairly dangerous, especially with people working all around the area. What he hadn’t expected was that the panel led to a ladder, which disappeared downward.

“Come on,” he told the Marines as he positioned his NOD monocle and pulled out his Beretta. “Cover me.”

Kick leaned back as the computer took the Flighthawk further out into the harbor, still searching for any other Mainland boats or submarines. The Taiwanese port authorities, local police, and navy assets were all rushing to the area, and a search-and-rescue operation was under way.Penn had vectored in some of the SAR assets, but communication with the local units was torturous because of the different radio frequencies and, more importantly, accents. Still, several of the Mainlanders had already been recovered.

If he were in their place, he wouldn’t want to be saved.

“Major Alou is asking you to check that merchant ship out, just about head on at two miles,” relayed Starship.

“Yeah, roger that, thanks.”

“Easy man, you’re jerking your stick like you’re muscling a Hog,” added Starship. “This is fly by wire. Fly by remote wire.”

“You know, Starship, I really don’t need your help.”

“Fuck yourself then.”

“And fuck yourself back.”

Starship laughed. Kick started to laugh too.

Starship watched the small trawler grow large in the display. There were two or three people on deck, but the ship had no lights on at all.

He suspected the craft had launched the commandos they’d intercepted in the harbor. But they’d already run a check on the registry and found that it was owned by a company in the Philippines.

That would undoubtedly prove to be bogus, but at the moment there was nothing they could do about it.

Kick brought the Flighthawk across the bow in a gentle arc, still a bit unsure of himself as he flew. That was reassuring in a way. Kick would never be as good a pilot, even a remote pilot, as Starship; he could compare himself to Kick any time and know he was ahead.

It didn’t take away the jitter he felt in his chest, though. And he was thirsty, very thirsty. And for something more than the bottled water in the galley fridge at the back of the compartment.

“See any antiair?” Kick asked.

“Negative.”

“This has to be the ship. Think we ought to splash it?”

Starship looked at the shadow of the ship. They could say they saw someone with a shoulder-launched missile on deck — thought they saw someone.

Shoot out the rudder, stop the damn boat cold.

Be heroes.

That wasn’t their job, though.

“I think we better tell Major Alou it’s clean but suspicious,” said Starship. “Get the Taiwan or Navy people on it.”

“Yeah. Better. I’d love to nail the mother.”

“You and me both.”

Stoner could hear the sound of water dripping in the distance as he walked down the hall the ladder had led down to. Six feet wide and seven feet high, the passage ran straight for about ten feet, then took a sharp turn to the right.

Stoner stopped at the corner, his hand on the smooth concrete. There could be anything around the bend.

One of the Marines stepped forward with his M-16. Stoner grabbed the man’s shoulder, stopping him.

He wasn’t going to let anyone else do his job.

“Just cover me,” he said, and before the two Marines could stop him, Stoner had thrown himself onto the floor, sliding into the middle of the open space with his pistol ready.

The hallway was empty. It went on for about fifteen feet, then took another bend to the right. Stoner jumped up and scrambled down it.

The Marines were at most a half step behind him, their gear clacking as they whipped the noses of their rifles up and down across the space. One of the young men started forward. Stoner grabbed him.

“No — a motion detector. This bunker must’ve been shielded somehow against the E-bomb.”

As he finished the sentence, the space behind them exploded.

Zen requested a refuel for Hawk Three as Raven neared the north end of the Taiwan Strait. Dog acknowledged and started backing down his speed — anything over 400 knots made for a very difficult tank, even when handled by the computer.

The Taiwan air force, officially known as Chung-kuo Kung Chuan or the Republic of China Air Force, had launched several patrols, including a full set of submarine hunters to chase the commando craft in the south. A Grumman E-2T radar plane, escorted by a group of F-5Es, was just taking up a station in the strait to the north, its radar sweeping the area for Mainland attackers.

The E-2Ts were essentially the same aircraft as the U.S. Navy’s E-2C Hawkeye, extremely capable, fleet, airborne radar craft. The longish nose of the planes carried a forward-looking Litton AN-ALR-73 Passive Detection System antenna; three other antennas were stuffed into other locations in the plane. But the truly unique feature of the Hawkeye was its radardome, a twenty-four-foot flying saucer mounted over the wings and fuselage. The E-2T could find an airplane at roughly 260 nautical miles; the computers aboard allowed it to track at least six hundred air targets (later-model American planes could handle over two thousand). In practice, “only” forty or so intercepts could be controlled at one time; even so, that would allow one E-2T to nail more than half of the attack sorties in the Battle of Midway in one shot.

Zen listened to the Raven copilot exchange pleasantries with the Taiwanese as he came in for the refuel. The computer painted cues on the screen, making it unnecessary for the Megafortress to carry the director lights common on dedicated tankers like the KC-10. As the small robot closed, Zen turned the procedure over to C³, which fought through the rough eddies of air rushing off the Megafortress’s bulky body. As the robot plane slapped into the straw, the automated system aboard the Megafortress exchanged some code with the Flighthawk — the digital equivalent of “Fill ‘er up”—and the jet fuel began to flow.

Refuel complete, Dog checked their position against the GPS screen and turned the helm over to his copilot so he could stretch his legs. But before he could unsnap his restraints, Major Catsman’s overstressed voice came over the Dreamland channel.

“Colonel, we have an update on that leased 767 that Chen’s company owned,” said Major Catsman. “We’re still trying to pull together information, but it was moved to Hualin two weeks ago. It underwent work there to one of the wings.”

“Where is it now?”

“Unknown. We also think there may be another UAV but we haven’t anything definitive. The thinking here is that the alterations to the wing would have been to air-launch the aircraft, or possibly to carry a bomb.”

Major Catsman had already done some checking and narrowed down the possible suspects to three 767s.

“We should get the airports shut down,” said Dog. “Let’s get the Taiwan air force involved. I need a direct line to the general in charge. Can you set that up there?”

“Will do. Jed Barclay wants to talk to you in the meantime.”

“And I want to talk to him,” said Dog.

Stoner closed his eyes and pushed down his head, knowing he was going to die but not wanting to give in. It seemed like a waste to go out here, when he hadn’t even figured out what had happened to the bombs the bastards had made.

Dirt pushed into his pores. He couldn’t hear and he couldn’t see.

Poor fucking Marines. Poor Marines. Shit. He couldn’t let those guys die.

He pushed up against the massive blocks that had smothered his head. They began to give way.

I’m like Samson, he thought. Where is this strength coming from?

A light flashed in his eyes. He blinked.

Was this what death felt like? Did God really send an angel out to get you?

There was a groan behind the light.

One of the Marines.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even buried. One of the Marines had fallen on him, probably trying to protect him.

Idiot Marines, always trying to do their job.

The kid was breathing. Good. But the chamber was blocked off with rubble — he could see the pile reflected in the flashlight’s shadow as the dust finally settled.

“Stoner,” said the Marine with the light.

“Yeah, I’m here,” said the CIA officer, dragging himself up. The NOD lay on the ground; he didn’t even bother picking it up to see if it was working, turning on his wristlight instead.

“The charge was back in the main tunnel. It blew down the entrance.”

Stoner stood. “Help him,” he told the other Marine. “I’m going to see where this hole goes.”

“You think we’re trapped?” asked the Marine. There was no fear in his voice; he might have been asking about the daily special at a restaurant.

“If we are, Danny Freah’ll get us out,” said Stoner. He took his radio out and gave it to the Marine. “Make sure Captain Freah knows we’re here and take care of your buddy. I won’t be long.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zen ran Hawk Three ahead of Raven, concentrating on intercepting the first of the planes to be checked, a 767 supposedly chartered by an English tour group headed for China. The Boeing carried identification gear that could be queried to show its identity. As he drew close, Zen used the Ident gear; the registry jibed with the flight that had taken off. The gear was not foolproof, however, and they had to assume that anyone clever enough to manufacture the UAV and a nuclear device would have the wherewithal to fake an ID. Zen pushed the Flighthawk toward the aircraft, needing a visual to make sure the plane was in fact what it said it was.

The massive Boeing lumbered ten miles ahead, flying at 32,000 feet, about 5,000 below the tiny Flighthawk. Zen checked Hawk Four in the bottom screen — he’d had the computer take her in to be topped off, getting potential fuel problems out the way — then nudged Hawk Three ’s nose gently earthward so he could get a look under the 767’s wings. He had to check his speed, however;Raven had slowed to complete the refuel, and he got a warning from C³ that the connection was about to break.

“Zen, be advised we have some communications coming off the target plane indicating there are passengers aboard,” said Wes Brown, one of the Elint operators. “Cell phone communications.”

“Roger that,” said Zen.

The infrared cameras on the Flighthawk synthesized an image for Zen in the main screen, gradually sharpening their focus as he pulled closer to the tail of the massive airliner.

Clean.

“They don’t have a UAV,” Zen told Dog.

“Copy that,” said Colonel Bastian.

“Think they have a bomb aboard?” asked Zen.

“I doubt it, but the Taiwanese authorities are looking for a divert field so it can be inspected. Let ’em know you’re there, see how they react.”

Zen tucked his wing and slid away from the airplane, running down and then coming back up close to the cockpit area. As he rose, he contacted the pilot, asking him to identify himself. Though there was surprise in his voice, nothing the civilian captain said indicated he was flying anything but a charter packed with tourists. The sensors on the Flighthawk couldn’t get a comprehensive read on the interior of the moving plane, but there were clearly passengers aboard.

“Taiwanese are sending two F-5s north for him,” said Dog. “They’re going to order him home.”

“Roger that.”

“I have our second target north at one hundred miles, making 400 knots. We’ll take him next.”

“Hawk leader,” said Zen, acknowledging.

Jed Barclay listened as the secretary of defense and the secretary of state debated whether to inform the Communist Chinese of what was going on. The Mainlanders were already scrambling aircraft, probably in response to the Taiwan activity.

“They’ll just shoot all the planes down,” said Secretary of Defense Chastain. “I would.”

“If a nuclear device is exploded in China, they will retaliate,” answered Hartman.

“Not necessarily,” said the defense secretary.

“That’s what Chen Lee is counting on,” said the secretary of state. “It’s insanity.”

Jed glanced at the video screen from the White House, where his boss was sitting with the President, listening to the debate. Before leaving to come over here, Jed had given Freeman a briefing paper from the CIA that argued that Mainland China would not nuke Taiwan; instead, they’d invade the island using conventional forces. An appendix to the paper suggested that the communists would threaten America with nuclear missiles if it interfered.

“Can we stop all of the aircraft that have taken off in the last hour before they’re over China?” asked the President.

“We can get close,” said Jed. “But there’s no guarantee that we can stop them.”

“We can shoot them down ourselves,” suggested Hartman.

“In that case, I’d rather inform the Chinese and let them do it,” said the President.

“Then they may consider it a first strike and retaliate,” said Hartman. “They may obliterate Taiwan.”

“We’re not even sure that Chen launched his plane,” noted Freeman. “Let’s give the Dreamland people a little more time to work on it.”

“The way the intercepts are lined up right now,” said Jed, checking the feed from Dreamland that gave the planes’ positions, “Colonel Bastian is going to fly into Chinese territory just off the coast to check that last flight.”

“Then that’s what they’ll have to do,” said the President.

There were now four different flights of interceptors within fifty miles of Raven, two from Mainland China and two from Taiwan. The Taiwan flights — all F-5Es — were out at the end of their normal operating radius and would have to return to base fairly soon. The Mainland interceptors were J-8s, grouped in twos and also getting close to bingo. A pair of JJ-2 “Midgets” ordinarily used for training and not particularly adept at night operations were also in the air over Wenzhou on the coast, but were probably not much of a threat to anyone but themselves. Dog’s crew had its hands full sorting through the intercepted communications; Zen, meanwhile, pressed on toward the next craft they had been tasked to intercept, a 767 cargo craft.

“We’re on the Chinese ground intercept radars,” reported the copilot. “Tracking us. They’ll vector the fighters at us any second.”

Dog grunted in acknowledgment. A pair of spanking new Taiwanese Mirage 2000s had just selected afterburners, pushing their delta-winged airframes north to come up and take a look what was going on.

“Target plane is at ten miles,” said Zen. “Ident checks. Hailing him.”

One of the communist flights did the same to Raven, telling Dog he was violating Chinese airspace.

“Bullshit,” said Delaney. “We’re more than fifty miles off the coast.”

“Standard Chinese practice,” said Dog.

“Like I said, bullshit.”

Dog answered that they were in international airspace and pursuing their flight plan. While true as far as it went, the statement was not particularly informative, and the Chinese pilot countered that the American plane had better turn around.

“What’s his controller telling him?” Dog asked Wes, who was listening in on the frequency.

“Telling him to challenge us and take no nonsense or something along those lines,” said Wes. The transmission was in Mandarin, but the computer gear aboard Raven included a competent on-the-fly translator.

“Activating his weapons radar,” warned Delaney. “Asshole.”

The J-8 challenging them was roughly fifty miles away, and flying a nearly parallel course — there was no way the aircraft could hit the Megafortress with anything but four-letter words.

“Want to go to ECMs?” asked the copilot.

“Let’s not give him the satisfaction.”

Sure enough, the communist pilot gave up a few seconds later, turning back toward his base on the Mainland.

The 767 appeared on Zen’s screen, a blur at eight miles away. While the ID checked out, the pilot had not answered Zen’s hail.

The blur slowly drew into focus.

Was there something under the right wing?

Zen nudged the throttle for more speed, but got a warning from the computer that he was too far from Raven. He backed off, telling himself not to get too impatient. The two-engine plane slowly came into better focus.

The wing was clean.

Converting a civilian plane into a conventional bomber was not particularly difficult; a bomb bay could be cut into the floor in an afternoon with plenty of time left over for the crew to catch happy hour. Add some proper targeting gear, and the Boeing could be at least as accurate as the aircraft used in World War II. Of course, a 767 would never stand a chance against an interceptor or a ground-defense system — unless it had the element of surprise on its side.

“Wes, Target Two is not answering my hails,” Zen told the op upstairs over the interphone. “Why don’t you take a shot at it with the translator?”

“Doing so now, Zen.”

Zen continued to fly toward the plane, trying to get a look at the body. If there were bottom-opening doors beneath the fuselage, they weren’t obvious.

Unlike the 767 he had intercepted earlier, there were no cabin lights, even though he could see the outlines of windows.

“No answer,” said Wes.

“Try all frequencies.”

“I’ve tried every one known to man.”

“Dog, I think we may have found our target,” said Zen.

Jennifer took a sip of her Diet Pepsi as she continued to scan the NSA intercepts of telemetry being gathered in real time over the South China Sea by Elint satellites and an RC-135. She’d programmed the computer to tell her if anything came across similar to the segment from the email. Reams and reams of material were now being intercepted by satellite and listening stations all over the South China Sea, and even with the computer’s help, looking for the UAV would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Zen had just pulled close to one of the 767 flights. It wasn’t answering hails — this looked to be a good bet. She heard Colonel Bastian talking to the White House directly, asking for instructions.

They were going to tell him to shoot it down, she knew.

Jennifer reached to flick her hair back behind her ear, belatedly remembering she had cut it off.

Dog was telling Jed they had the plane.

Something in her reacted viciously to that. Anger at her lover, or ex-lover? She clicked on the circuit.

“Colonel, that’s not the plane,” she snapped.

“Jen?”

“That’s not the plane,” she insisted.

“You sure?”

She wasn’t sure at all — logically, it probably was. But she insisted she was.

Why?

Jennifer wanted to argue with him. She wanted to tell him to screw off. And she wanted everyone to see her telling him off.

She wanted to be right, and she wanted everyone to know it.

But she wasn’t, was she? Because it had to be the plane.

“Colonel Bastian, you are authorized to use all necessary force to terminate that flight if they won’t turn back,” said a deep, sonorous voice over the Dreamland Command frequency.

The President himself.

“It’s not the right plane,” Jennifer insisted. She slapped her computer keyboard, backing out from the intercept screen to the communications profiles stored earlier. The 767 had taken off from Taipei — they had some data from it somewhere in the vast storehouse of intercepts, didn’t they?

“Jen, this is Colonel Bastian. Can you explain?”

Fuck yourself, thought Jennifer. She began paging through data.

“Major Catsman?” said Dog.

“Um, just a second, Colonel. Jennifer’s working on something here.”

Zen had the plane fat in his target screen; two bursts from his cannon and it would go down. All he needed was an okay from Colonel Bastian.

A Chinese Chengdu J-7 was on a rough intercept from the northwest, its intentions unclear. It wouldn’t be a factor for another two or three minutes, however; by then this should be over.

As he waited, Zen checked Hawk Four, flying a routine trail behind Raven. He decided to put it into a preset position ahead of Raven called Escort Two; the robot would fly seven miles ahead of the mother ship’s left wingtip. That would give him a reasonable position to deal with the communist interceptor if it continued south and he was still hanging behind the 767.

C³ acknowledged his command, whipping the tiny plane forward. When he’d first learned to handle the Flighthawks, Zen would have insisted on taking the plane himself. But he’d grown to trust the computer, and knew he could concentrate on Hawk Three and the 767.

“Hawk leader to Raven. Colonel, what’s the story?”

“Dream Command is checking on something.”

“That J-7 is going to afterburners,” said Delaney.

“Coming for us?” asked Zen.

“We’ll know in a minute,” said Delaney.

Jennifer saw it on the screen as Dog nagged them again for an update. She pointed to the break in the transmission so Major Catsman could see as well.

“This back here is them saying they have radio trouble,” said Jennifer. She paged back to the translation screen, trying to get the right place.

She couldn’t find it, and for a moment she doubted herself, thought that her anger at him had made her unconscious mind invent it. She stabbed at the cursors.

Where is it? Where is it?

“Wait,” said Catsman, grabbing her hand. “Calm down. Go back. Just relax. We have time.”

Two backspaces.

“Colonel, it looks like the aircraft you’re querying was having intermittent radio trouble shortly after takeoff. They may not be able to hear your hails. I’m not sure why they didn’t turn back,” said Catsman. “But maybe you can get their attention visually.”

Jennifer pushed back from the screen. Tears were falling down her cheeks.

She hadn’t invented it.

“Are you all right?” asked Catsman.

Slowly, she nodded.

The major put her hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. “We won’t shoot down the wrong plane. We won’t.”

Zen accelerated over the right wing of the 767, pushing past the cockpit. The pilot in the big jet did what any self-respecting pilot would do when a UFO blasted across his bow — he ducked.

And took the aircraft with him. Fortunately, the big jet was athletic enough to handle the violent jerk on her controls fairly calmly — if rolling through an invert can be considered calm.

“Getting some radio flickers but nothing intelligible,” said Wes upstairs. “I think Jennifer’s right — I think he’s having radio problems and didn’t realize it.”

“Wouldn’t he have checked in with civilian controllers?” Zen asked.

“Well, given the situation between the two Chinas, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t talk to them at all, and vice versa. His flight plan has him heading for South Korea.”

Whatever the situation, the 767’s pilot appeared to realize he was in fact in trouble. Rather than coming back to his original course, he turned southward, as if he were heading back to Taiwan.

“Taiwan Mirages have him on their radar,” said Dog. “They’re going to hook up and escort him home.”

“Roger that,” said Zen. “But if he’s not our guy, who is?”

The Marine captain wanted to blow the bunker entrance with C-4, but Danny wouldn’t let him.

“That’ll kill them for sure,” said Danny. “Best bet’s to keep digging.”

“Sooner or later they’re going to run out of air,” said the Marine. “We can’t get those big blocks out of the way.”

“Maybe we can get some earthmovers from the city,” suggested Danny.

“God knows how long it’ll take to get them here.”

Danny stood back. Blowing the hole open looked like the only option — but it risked killing his men to save them. Even if they moved far from the entrance, the shock of the explosion might weaken the already damaged bunker.

The rest of the facility had now been searched; it seemed a good bet that the nuke was down there.

If they blew the concrete to bits, would they blow up the bomb as well?

No — because if it weren’t safed against accidental explosions, it would have gone off already.

Assuming it was there.

Go with a minimum charge.

“Set up the explosives,” Danny told the Marines reluctantly. “One of my men will help. Make sure the people inside know what we’re doing. Yo, Boston. Get over here and put some of your demo training to work.”

Stoner pushed through the dust, the dim beam from the flashlight dancing against the walls. The path had taken two turns and gone down two flights of stairs, widening somewhat as it went.

The bunker had definitely been intended as more than a place to hide a nuke or two. As he walked, Stoner worried that he would run into guards. He’d retrieved his hideaway Glock from his leg — the Beretta had been lost in the blast — holding the gun in his hand. The flashlight was strapped to his wrist, casting the shadow of the gun ahead as he walked.

He walked slowly, stopping every second or third step, waiting, listening.

What was this place? he wondered. A cement hole in the ground, a hiding place?

He turned the corner and something flashed in his face. He fired his gun and felt incredibly cold.

Cement and the tang of gunpowder stung his eyes. No one was there — he’d tripped another EMP-shielded motion detector. He was at the entrance to a paneled room.

He took a step, then froze, belatedly thinking of booby traps.

Fortunately, there weren’t any.

“My lucky fuckin’ day,” he said aloud.

The room itself was empty, except for a small couch. A Taiwanese flag hung on the wall. On the wall opposite it were some framed papers and scrolls. Most were in Chinese, but one was in Latin with a name written in Roman letters:

Ai Hira Bai

A diploma or certificate of some sort. He was in the professor’s lair.

A door on his right was ajar, revealing a bathroom.

To the left, a set of steps led downward. Stoner walked to them. Another light came on, but this time he was prepared.

The steps led to a small office dominated by a wooden desk with a glass top. Beneath the glass was a map of Mainland China. He reached for the top drawer, opening it gently. It was empty, except for an envelope with Chinese characters on it. Stoner’s ability to interpret ideographs was somewhat limited, but he thought the words meant “To the next generation.”

Boston watched the Marines set the charges amid the rubble. The passage was blocked by an extremely large and thick piece of the wall; to get it out of the way they had to use considerable explosives. There was simply no way of knowing what other damage it might do.

“How we looking down there, Boston?” asked Captain Freah.

“Uh, the charges are just about set,” the sergeant told him. “A good hunk of C-4.”

“Understood. Make sure you’re far enough away.”

“Yeah.”

“Something bothering you, Boston?”

“Uh—”

“Look, Sergeant, the thing about Whiplash is, you have an opinion, you share it. You got me? I didn’t pick you to join the squad because I thought you were stupid. I want to know what the hell it is you’re thinking. Talk to me.”

Boston had been in the Air Force for a while, but no officer had ever spoken to him exactly like that. While there were definitely good officers around, the usual attitude toward NCOs and enlisted men in general edged more toward tolerance than partnership.

Was Freah different?

Maybe it was the fact that they were both black.

Or maybe what he and Colonel Bastian and the others said was true — Dreamland was a team effort.

“I have a weird, weird idea,” offered Boston. “We could use that Osprey to pull some of these big suckers off. I saw this big crane helicopter do that once back home when this building—”

“Pull the charges out of there now,” said Freah, cutting him off. “Next time you get an idea, Sergeant, you share it right away, you got me?”

“Damn straight, sir,” said Boston. “Damn straight.”

Zen jumped into Hawk Four as the Chinese J-7 closed to within fifty miles of the Megafortress. The J-7 was essentially a MiG-21, with all the pluses and minuses of the venerable Russian design. Zen could take it in a heartbeat; as a matter of fact, the computer itself could handle the plane if pressed — C³ had shot down almost enough MiGs to rate as a bona fide ace.

The Chinese pilot repeated roughly the same challenge the others had, telling Raven they were in sovereign airspace and to get his Yankee butt home. Zen laughed; Chinese pilots seemed to think they could make up for the shortcomings of their aircraft by boasting. As a class, they had to rate among the most cocksure flyboys in the world — which was saying quite a lot.

Dog gave a bland reply and held to his course.

They had one more aircraft to check out, another 767 whose flight plan said it was heading for Beijing. The ID had already checked out.Hawk Four was about forty miles behind it; overtaking it at the present speed would take nearly eighteen more minutes, by which time the plane would be nearing landfall just south of Shanghai.

“Controller’s telling that J-7 to hang with us,” said Wes. “He’s got fuel problems, though.”

“Any transmissions from the 767?” asked Zen.

“Negative.”

“Zen, be advised we have a ground radar trying to track us,” said the copilot. “You see that on your screen? Fan Songstyle radar — getting some more action here.”

“Just flashed in,” said Zen as the icons indicating different ground intercept and guidance radars began to appear on his screens. The Fan Song radar was associated with Chinese V-75 SA-2 Guideline missiles, originally designed by Russia in the late 1950s but updated at regular intervals since. “Stealthy” did not mean “invisible”; the long-wave radar could detect the EB-52 at roughly ten miles. But unless the Megafortress had to fly directly over the site, it was unlikely to be successfully targeted. The Flighthawk was even more difficult to detect.

“We’re out of their range,” noted Delaney. “Fresh flight of Mirages en route from Taiwan coming up behind us, uh, should be on the radar in ten, a little less. Look here, J-7’s turning around. Looks like the skies are friendly once more.”

“Roger that,” said Zen, jumping back into Hawk Three and pressing toward the 767.

While the Osprey was brought in to move the debris, Danny Freah went to the staging point down by the harbor to speak with one of the Taiwanese officers in charge of the forces there. By now the government had been informed by Washington that an operation was under way to apprehend terrorists pursuant to existing treaties, but details were still waiting Danny’s completion, and in any event the Taiwan president had not yet been contacted.

The Taiwanese were angry but Danny wasn’t ready to explain what was going on or turn over control. While there were now more than a dozen Marines at the entrance to the site, the Americans would soon be outgunned, and in any event were under orders not to use lethal force against their allies. So Danny tried an old politician’s trick of diverting attention. He told the Taiwan officer in charge at the gate that the terrorists were probably Mainlanders and were suspected of having more forces in the harbor; they needed help checking the shorelines nearby. The officer retreated to consult his superiors; Danny also retreated, telling the Marines to appear as helpful as possible, but to stall before coming to find him.

Meanwhile, the Osprey hovered over the battery reclamation area. As powerful as the craft was, it hadn’t been designed as an excavator. It groaned and ducked, power plants moaning. Trotting back toward the site, Danny realized he’d have to call it off before it became damaged. Before he could hit his com control, the tilt-wing aircraft lurched backward, then suddenly shot upward — the stone had broken free.

“All right, Boston, set the explosives up,” he said, making his way back toward the area.

“No need to — we can get in. The Osprey pulled the block a couple of yards away.”

There was a shout in the background.

“What’s going on?” demanded Danny.

“Marines are okay. One with two broken legs swears he’ll beat the crap out of anyone who tries helping him walk.”

“Where’s Stoner?”

“Inside somewhere. We’re working on it.”

Hawk Three notched forty thousand feet, slowly but surely gaining on the 767. But this was another wild-goose chase, Zen realized; not only had the ID checked out but the pilot had spoken to controllers at the Shanghai airport. It was a combi flight, with a dozen passengers and cargo, and it would be landing in about fifteen minutes.

Two fresh Mirage 2000s had been scrambled northward from Taiwan. Bumped by their afterburners into Mach + territory, they would have the Boeing in sight about sixty seconds or so after Zen did. Their fly-by-wire controls and a subtle but significant change in the design’s center of gravity made the planes much more maneuverable than the Mirage III they outwardly resembled. While Zen would still — rightly — prefer an F-15 in a dust-up, the ROC interceptors could definitely hold their own.

The same might be said — albeit much more grudgingly — for the Shenyang F-8IIMs now being vectored in to check out the Mirages by a ground control unit south of Shanghai. The Shenyangs were as fast as the Mirages and might be as maneuverable, though from what Zen had already seen of Mainland pilots, he doubted their ability to outfly their island rivals.

C³’s tactical section plotted their intercept — everybody was going within visual range at roughly the same time.

The computer blinked at him, as if asking: Want to see what would happen in a three-way brouhaha?

And then there was yet another J-7, now within three miles of Hawk Four, flying toward Raven from the northwest. He was now within radar-missile range of the Megafortress.

“Raven, what do you want me to do with that J-7?” Zen asked.

“Stay on his wing,” said Dog. “He ought to be bingo soon.”

“You want me to make him see me or not?” asked Zen. The radar in the J-7 was not adept enough to pick up the stealthy U/MF.

“Negative. No sense losing the element of surprise. He hasn’t turned on his weapons. He’s not much of a problem.”

“Hawk leader,” acknowledged Zen, somewhat disappointed that he couldn’t scare the bejesus out of the fighter pilot. He put Hawk Four into a bank, turning parallel as the other plane approached. He would accelerate and ride about two miles behind the J-7 as it came in.

Or not — the fighter abruptly rolled its wing and turned toward the Mainland.

“Getting boring,” Zen told Dog.

“Well, stay awake long enough to check out that 767,” said Dog. “Then we can go home.”

“Roger that. I think this has all been a wild-goose chase.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“We’re getting into our fuel reserve,” Delaney told Dog on the flightdeck. “If we have to duck those idiot commies on the way back, we may run into trouble.”

“How much time before Zen gets within viewing range?”

“Still a good eight minutes.”

“That’s not going to kill us.”

“Famous last words. Those F-8s are coming hard.”

“They’ll probably turn around like everyone else.”

“Says you.”

“You sound like a pessimist, Mr. Delaney.”

The copilot laughed. “Guess I am.”

Dog checked in with Jed Barclay back in D.C. “We have one last flight to look at. IDs have come back good and it looks like it’s clean. More than likely they never had a bomb to begin with.”

“That’s a relief,” said Jed.

“Sure is,” said Dog.

Stoner paid no attention to the noise in the hall, figuring it was Danny coming for him. He continued to work at the documents; they were a kind of personal history, detailing Professor Ai’s mother’s flight from the Mainland.

Ai didn’t want to take back China so much as destroy it. His mother had been accused of being a whore or traitor — the words weren’t clear to him.

“Mr. Stoner,” said one of the Whiplash troopers from down the hall.

“Yo!” yelled Stoner.

Boston trotted into the room, two Marines in tow.

Stoner looked up from the desk. “I need to talk to Captain Freah.”

“Gotta come up to do it. We’re not in line of sight, and we’re too deep under the concrete for the sat transmission. That would be why your radio didn’t work,” the sergeant added.

Stoner smiled. He realized he hadn’t even tried it.

“Mr. Stoner?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hang on a second. Let me finish this one section here. Then we gotta go find your boss. Quickly.”

With The F-8IIs on a northern intercept, Zen turned Hawk Four onto their noses and changed Hawk Three ’s course so he could fly by the 767 and continue out toward them. He was at 35,000 feet, about 8,000 higher than his target but lower than the Chinese Communist planes. He pushed his nose down slightly, figuring he would ride just above the airliner, close enough to get a good view but still give himself room to react to the Mainlanders.

The image of the 767 appeared in his screen, synthesized first by the long-range radar. He switched back to infrared, getting the now-familiar blur. The computer counted down the intercept in the lower left-hand side of the screen, time over miles. As he passed the five-mile mark, he saw the faint glow of the cabin lights.

“Looks like passengers aboard,” he told Dog.

Dog acknowledged and glanced at Delaney, who was already looking at him, probably ready with another warning about their dwindling fuel.

Before the copilot could do that, Danny Freah interrupted on the Dreamland Command frequency.

“Go ahead, Danny.”

“I have Stoner here. He has more information.”

There was a pause, some static on the line.

“Colonel, I found some sort of document here prepared by the man who did most of the work on the UAV and some weapons. They do have a nuke.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah. It’s not an ordinary nuke — it’s a neutron bomb. A scientist named Ai Hira Bai developed it. I’m looking at what I guess you’d call kind of his life story. I haven’t translated everything. It’s kind of rambling about his past and family and the Japanese. He was close to Chen Lee, but apparently Chen Lee died.”

“When?”

“Not clear. Recently, according to this. My guess is that if they have a bomb they’ll try to detonate it over the capital, kill the Chinese leadership. They’ll take out the leaders but spare the buildings. I’m pretty sure about that.”

“Thanks for the advice,” said Dog.

“One other thing — they have two bombs, not one.”

“Two? You’re sure?”

“The symbol for two happens to be one of the first things I ever learned,” he said. “Looks like two missiles in a box. Yeah, I’m sure.”

Professor Ai felt the sweat starting to pour down the back of his neck. He was not worried about death; he was concerned with failure. They must launch the dragon plane with its bomb now, or they would fail. The communists and the Americans were too close.

“It is time,” he told Chen Lo Fann through the aircraft’s radio. “We must act.”

“Yes. Launch the plane.”

Ai went through the procedure quickly, directing the pilot to begin his descent only a few seconds after he had ascertained all was ready.

The small UAV fell free of the wing. Ai’s hands shook as he watched the plane’s progress on his computer screen.

He tapped the command and severed the communications tie. The computer program aboard the UAV would carry it on its way.

Now he could carry out his own plan.

“Change course,” he told the pilot, giving him new coordinates. Then he got up to go to the back of the aircraft.

“He’s directing us to Shanghai,” the pilot told Chen Lo Fann.

“Why?”

“He did not say.”

Chen Lo Fann sat back a moment, trying to puzzle out what Ai was doing. The UAV had been programmed to fly to the capital on its own; it no longer needed guidance. But what was Ai up to?

And then Chen Lo Fann realized.

“There’s another bomb on the plane,” he told the pilot, unsnapping his restraints.

The wing of the plane seemed to catch fire as Zen approached. The 767 bucked downward and then up, and his first thought was that it had been hit by a missile he hadn’t seen.

Then he realized what was really going on.

“Hawk leader — we have a launch from the airliner,” said Delaney, his voice about an octave higher than normal.

“Roger that,” said Zen. He turned Hawk Three in the direction the 767 was flying. Mainland China lay in the distance, lights glittering in the dark night.

A small circle of red exhaust slid down through the left-hand quadrant of Zen’s screen.

The clone?

Zen started to follow.

Chen found professor Ai hunched over a large crate in the rear section of the aircraft behind the control deck for the UAV.

“Why didn’t you tell me there was a second bomb?”

“Your grandfather forbade it.”

“That’s not true,” said Chen Lo Fann. “My grandfather would not have done that.”

“He didn’t tell you about the first weapon,” said Ai. “Or the UAV and this plane.”

“But my grandfather would not have wanted to blow up Shanghai,” said Chen Lo Fann. “Why do you?”

Ai Hira Bai didn’t answer.

“Get away from the box,” said Chen. “We will not attack Shanghai.”

“If there is only one attack, the communists may not respond,” said Ai. “This will guarantee war, and we will win.”

“You want to destroy Shanghai. It’s where your people come from, isn’t it?”

Anger flashed in Ai’s eyes, but he said nothing.

“Away from the box,” said Chen. He took his hand out from behind his back, revealing the pistol he kept there.

“The city deserves to be destroyed,” said Ai. “Everyone who collaborated with the communists deserves to be destroyed.”

“Away from the box, or I will shoot you,” said Chen.

Ai nodded his head, and started to get up. Too late, Chen realized he too had a pistol.

The bullet tore into Chen’s left shoulder an instant before he fired his own weapon. For the first second, there was no pain. Surprised, Chen glanced at his arm, thinking Ai had somehow missed.

Then the pain came.

He fired again, but Ai had already collapsed. Chen took a step toward the scientist. The bullet had blown off a good part of his skull.

Pain seared Chen’s body, and Chen felt what his grandfather had felt before he died of the heart attack. He slipped down to his knees, his good arm grabbing at the crate that held the nuclear weapon. There was a digital arming device at the front. It blinked at him. As Chen Lo Fann tried to focus on the digits and make out the control, the pain rushed across his body.

It’s armed, he thought. Then he saw darkness and felt himself fall to the floor of the cabin.

“F-8s think it’s a missile,” said Delaney.

“Is it?” Dog asked.

“Not sure.”

“Can we get it with an AMRAAM-plus?”

“I can’t get a lock.”

“Get one.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dog leaned on the throttle slide, coaxing the power plants for more juice.

“Gonna screw up our fuel.”

“Mind what you’re doing,” said Dog. “Zen, we’re launching a Scorpion.”

“Roger that.”

“Bay,” said the copilot. The plane shuddered as the bomb bay door opened so the AMRAAM-plus could be fired.

“Locked—”

“Go!” said Dog.

Delaney launched. A second later, the Mainland planes turned sharply in front of them.

“They think we’re firing at them. They have ECMs active,” said Delaney. “That patrol plane over the mainland, fifty miles away — it’s some sort of airborne AWACS type, jamming.”

Dog ignored him. The techies liked to call the AMRAAM-plus guidance system “particularly robust,” meaning it was hard to jam. But the distance was another matter. The target had been over forty miles away when the missile was launched. While the air-to-air missile could hit Mach 4, it was operating at the very edge of its effective range.

“Wes, hail the pilot,” Dog said. “Tell him to turn around.”

Delaney launched a second missile, then snugged the belly of the Megafortress. The 767 was now visible in Raven ’s own infrared screen, a blur growing in the lower right-hand quadrant.

“Missile batteries coming up,” said Delaney. “We’re just about over their territory.”

“Wes?”

“Not answering.”

“Stand by.”

Dog reached to the com panel to key in Jed Barclay. He wanted the President’s direct command before proceeding. As he did, one of the equipment specialists behind Dog said something — the Taiwanese fighters were asking their base for permission to shoot down the 767.

And received it.

“Jed, here’s our situation,” he told the NSC op. “We think there are two bombs. If one is aboard the UAV, that leaves one for the 767.”

“Understood, uh, the President is on the line.”

“Colonel, stop him any way you can,” said Martindale.

“Yes, sir. Zen?”

“Hawk leader.”

“Have you done your duty?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“Your lessons are complete?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“Can you describe the Tao?”

The question shook Chen Lo Fann. He and his grandfather were in the midst of a large garden, with water burbling nearby. Chen was nine or ten.

“The Tao is the way,” said Chen. “The world — our fate — everything together.”

“The path we follow,” said Chen Lee.

“Yes,” said the boy.

“We will be reunited with our homeland someday,” said the old man. “But the path is not a straight one. Remember that life and death are mere steps on the path, as stones next to each other in the garden.”

The dream ended abruptly. Chen Lo Fann found himself staring at the bomb in the crate, numbers sliding away on the trigger device.

His grandfather had not wanted to blow up Shanghai; that was Professor Ai’s doing.

The digits drained to 1:00, then 0:59.

It would blow up in less than a minute.

Should he let it? Ai’s argument made some sense — two bombs would be impossible to ignore; the communists would have to respond.

But many innocent people would die.

Was Shanghai any different from Beijing?

Chen stared at the numbers.

:30

Bombing Shanghai was not his grandfather’s will. Chen Lee had made no secret of where the bomb was to be exploded.

The plane veered sharply to the left, shuddering as it turned, losing altitude.

Chen reached for the control. One of the characters on the fifteen-button panel read “Abort.”

He thought of his dream, but it provided no answers.

:10

If his grandfather had wanted to destroy Shanghai, he would have said so clearly, as he had made clear Beijing was his desired target.

:03

Chen Lo Fann reached to the device, ignoring the pain roaring in his chest and shoulder as he pushed the button.

Zen had the Flighthawk closing on the right wing of the 767, his targeting screen blinking yellow. He could see shadows through the windows of the plane, people moving around.

God, he thought, I’m going to kill dozens if not a hundred.

God.

What if there isn’t a bomb in that plane?

Zen had killed a fair share of people in combat, but this felt very, very different. He had no proof that there was a bomb in the airplane; Stoner had told him he thought Chen had enough material for two weapons, but that didn’t mean one was aboard the plane in front of him, or even that they had been made.

The windows seemed to grow, though this was an optical illusion. Zen pushed his nose down, the pipper just turning red.

He had his orders, lawful orders. They had come from the President himself.

What justification was that if he killed innocent men and women and children?

The pipper blinked. Zen pressed the trigger.

Three seconds later, his stream of bullets ignited one of the wing tanks of the 767.

“Both Scorpion AMRAAMs missed,” said Delaney. “I’m having trouble picking him up — the Chinese are jamming us, or trying to.”

“Hang with it,” said Dog. He checked the sitrep; they were about thirty seconds from crossing into Chinese airspace; in fact,Hawk Four already had.

“Now that they know we’re here, they’re going to use our radar to home in on us,” said Delaney. “If we turn it off, they’ll have a much harder time finding us.”

“Can we follow the UAV without the radar?” asked Dog.

“No. There’s no signal coming from the ghost clone for us to follow,” said Delaney.

“Then we’re going to have to leave the radar on.”

“Fan Song radar dead ahead,” said Deci Gordon. “We’re going to fly right over it. They’ll see us.”

“Jam it when it does,” said Dog.

“Flight identified as Island Flight A101 is on fire and descending toward the ocean,” reported Zen. His voice was as cold as the computer’s synthesized tones.

“Can you get Hawk Four on the UAV?” asked Dog.

“Those F-8s are coming for us,” warned Delaney.

“Zen, you’re going to have to shoot down the UAV,” repeated Dog.

“Roger that.”

Jennifer stared at the large screen at the front of the room. The Megafortress and its two Flighthawks were crossing into Chinese Mainland territory.

They were already being targeted by ground radars, surface-to-air missiles, interceptors — even a Megafortress couldn’t survive the onslaught.

God, she thought, let him live. Let him live.

She did love him. Even if he had failed her, she did love him.

“Jen, this is Dog,” he said to her.

“I love you,” she said, thinking it was a dream.

“The programming you uploaded earlier. Can we use it?”

It wasn’t a dream — he was talking to her. Jennifer felt her face flush deep red.

But there was no time to be embarrassed.

“You have to be within twenty miles. No, wait.” Her mind wasn’t clear. She shook her head, reached to pull her hair back behind her ear.

Nothing.

“The mother ship, you destroyed it. The UAV will be on its own. It’ll default — we may not be able to take it over.”

“How close do we have to be?”

“Twenty miles,” said Jennifer. “But listen, if it’s on default — it probably won’t deviate from its course once it’s set. But you can try it.”

“Understood. Thanks,” said Dog. “And I love you too.”

Zen had two tasks — protect the Megafortress from the F-8s, and overtake the ghost clone.

Fortunately, he had two planes.

He let the computer take Hawk Four in pursuit of the UAV, using the information piped down to the computer from Raven ’s sensors. In the meantime, he put Hawk Three on the noses of the two communist interceptors. They were swinging east to set up a rear-quarter attack, obviously planning on using their superior speed to close the gap behind the big American plane. Zen had to hang back and wait for them to get closer, his need to stay tethered to the Megafortress limiting his options. The Chinese defenses were handicapped by Raven ’s near-stealth profile, but its need to use the powerful search radar to find the UAV, and the fact that it had to fly a more or less straight line, nearly canceled that advantage completely. Once they were in the general area of the Megafortress, the F-8s could use Raven ’s radar as a beacon to show them where the plane was.

“Missiles!” said Delaney as the Chinese planes began to close in. A pair of radar homers had been kicked off from the lead F-8 at about thirty miles — probably too far to hit them, but they couldn’t take a chance.

The Megafortress’s ECM blared, not only killing the guidance systems in the missiles but giving the Shenyang pilots fits as well. Zen started an intercept that would allow him to slap the lead bandit with a cannon burst, then dip his wing and take on the wingmate.

The lead F-8 came on faster than he expected, its Liyang turbojet obviously feeling its oats. Zen got a shot, but just barely. The computer helped him put the bullets out in front of the Mainlander — in effect, the Chinese pilot ran into them. He got a hit, but it wasn’t enough to stop the plane.

It was too late to worry about it. He tucked his wing, the targeting screen going yellow as the second F-8 flew into range.

“Lead F-8 closing. He’s setting for heat-seekers,” warned Delaney.

“Stinger,” said Dog calmly, referring to the airmine unit in the Megafortress’s tail. A replacement for the tail cannon that had graced the original B-52, the Stinger spit out cylinders of tungsten-wrapped explosive. When the fuse in the airmines sensed a proximate object, they ignited their charges, sending a spray of hot metal into the air. The metal would shred a jet turbine as easily as a screwdriver puncturing a Dixie cup.

“Coming at us. Missile.”

Dog hit his flares and jinked left, then right. Meanwhile, Delaney worked the Stinger. The combination of the F-8’s speed and Raven ’s evasive maneuvers kept the Mainlander from serious harm; on the other hand, his missile missed and his evasive actions took him temporarily out of the game.

“We have two AMRAAMs,” said Delaney.

“Save ’em in case we need them to get the clone.”

“Shit,” said the copilot. “We’ve lost the UAV from the radar.”

Zen’s targeting cue framed the cockpit of the F-8. He saw the outline of his opponent and thought of the people in the civilian jet he had just been ordered to shoot down.

He pressed his trigger, but he’d already blown the shot.

Zen kicked himself mentally, then checked the sitrep to line up for another shot.

He didn’t have to — the Taiwanese Mirages were now in range of the F-8s. There was a whole lot of chatter in the air — two missiles were launched, then a third and a fourth. The Mainlanders decided the prudent thing to do was select afterburner and live for another day. They rode north, pursued by the ROC missiles.

A ground missile battery — a Chinese HQ-9, roughly the equivalent of the long-range Russian SA-10 on which it was based — came on-line as Raven crossed over Chinese territory south of Shanghai.

“We’re spiked,” said Delaney, meaning that the ground radar had found and locked on the aircraft. It could launch a missile at any time.

“Break it,” said Dog.

“Broke it,” said Delaney. The copilot’s voice had become hoarse.

“Good,” said Dog. “You have the UAV?”

“Not on the scope. Negative.”

“Wes?”

“No transmissions,” said the specialist, who was monitoring the airwaves. “Chinese know we’re here, though. About a million people gunning for us. Battery of FT-2000s antirad missiles trying to find us. Uh, some command problems there.”

The FT-2000 homed in on ECMs and other electromagnetic radiation; it was a real threat to Raven since the best and possibly only way to defeat it would be to turn off the countermeasures and other gear. They had no decoys aboard.

“Is it up?” Dog asked.

“Doesn’t appear to be.”

“UAV?”

“They don’t seem to see it. They think we’re the threat.”

“Do we have it?”

“Negative,” said Wes.

“If it’s going to Beijing, it’s got a good distance to travel,” said Delaney.

Dog remembered what Jennifer had said about the UAV — more than likely it would fly straight to its target, no fancy stuff in between. He plotted a line to Beijing on his multiuse display.

“If that’s the way we’re going, we’ll never make it,” said Delaney looking at the course he’d laid in.

“We better,” said Dog.

Jed Barclay looked at the table as the debate continued on whether to alert the Chinese government to what exactly was going on.Raven had just crossed over land, so the incursion itself was evident, but the President’s advisors weren’t sure precisely what if anything to tell the Chinese.

The secretary of state argued that admitting the bomb existed would scuttle the summit before it started. The President asked if the UAV could be shot down without Chinese help.

Probably, thought Jed — but sooner or later the communists would take out Raven. If that happened first, and the UAV got away, they’d be blamed.

And that would undoubtedly lead to a full-scale nuclear exchange.

One of the Air Force experts was describing the radar and missile defenses in the corridor Raven had entered. He told the President that the Chinese ground defenses were not advanced enough to find, let alone track, the UAV or the Flighthawks.Raven ’s onboard ECMs, however, should protect it from most of the missile systems.

Balboa wanted to declare Raven a renegade unit. It wasn’t far from the truth, he argued.

Jed tried to speak but the words died in a mumbled stutter on his tongue.

“What do you think, Jed?” asked the President.

“I–I—”

“I think we can give them a few minutes more,” interrupted the secretary of state. “They’ve never failed us before. This is Dreamland we’re talking about.”

“No!” His voice was so loud it echoed against the paneled walls of the sit room. Everyone around him stopped and looked at him.

“I’m sorry, but not even a Megafortress can survive the gauntlet around Beijing. The multilayered defenses, the f-fact they’re flying in a straight line, and they’re also low on fuel. It’s not going to work. And the Taiwanese UAV — it’s not as fast as the Flighthawk or the Megafortress but it has a good lead. It may take another twenty minutes to catch. We don’t know what onb-b-board defenses it m-might have.”

“What’s your advice, Jed?” asked the President.

“Um, uh—”

Jed clenched his fist, trying to get the stutter to go away. “We have to tell the Chinese what’s g-going on.”

“That won’t remove the risk to our people,” said Chastain. “They still may be targeted.”

“We have to tell them everything,” said Jed. “They’ll think we set this up otherwise.”

He looked at the screen, trying to see his boss. What did he think?

Probably that Jed was a stuttering jerk.

“Jed’s right,” said Freeman.

“Make the connection,” said the President.

From thirty thousand feet, with no clouds and a starlit night sky, the Chinese countryside looked remarkably peaceful. By day, the heavily populated eastern portions of the country bustled with a booming, rapidly changing economy, but at night the country still looked as it had fifty or sixty years before, largely rural though well populated.

But Zen wasn’t relying merely on the optical feed. His screen was littered with purple blobs showing antiair radars, fingers grabbing for the stealthy little plane. The U/MF could zip right by them for the most part, its body too sleek to be picked up. Raven, however, had to fly a line directly through several of the blobs. It was making full use of its countermeasures to boink the radars. As of yet, no one had fired at them, but Zen knew that was only a matter of time.

A four-ship element of Su-27 fighters, purchased from Russia only a few months before, was bearing down on Raven from the north. Indeed, there were so many boogies in the air at the moment that Zen told the computer to show only those in the flight path or with a better than sixty percent chance of intercepting them.

The Taiwanese UAV had completely disappeared. Zen was sure it was still flying — he was convinced he’d have seen the crash. But where exactly it was, he couldn’t say. The only thing they had to go on was Stoner’s guess that it was headed toward Beijing, and Jennifer’s belief that it would have to fly a fairly straight course once it was out of its mother ship’s control.

“Pricks are calling us killers,” said Wes on the interphone.

He was talking to Dog, but Zen couldn’t help asking what he meant.

“Killer Fortress — they blame us for shooting down the SAR plane a few days ago. That’s what the controllers are saying,” said Wes. “They want us.”

We ought to let the UAV blow up Beijing, Zen thought. These were the same bastards who had put his wife in the hospital, nearly killing her. The same bastards who had killed Fentress and the others. Let them all fry.

Zen tightened his grip on the Flighthawk stick. He nudged Hawk Four further east as a JJ-7, a version of the Chinese-developed MiG-21 ordinarily used as a trainer, darted toward Raven. It fired a heat-seeker from seven miles out — obviously the pilot’s training hadn’t gotten very far — then kept coming.

“Turn off,” Zen told the pilot, speaking on his frequency in English. “If you don’t, I’ll nail you.”

Whether the pilot heard or not, he kept coming. Zen’s targeting screen went from yellow to red as the JJ-7 pulled to within three miles of the Megafortress. Zen pumped thirty rounds into the plane’s engine.

Fifteen seconds later, the canopy blew off and the pilot hit the silk.

Zen gave the computer Hawk Four, telling it to fly back into the escort position. Then he jumped into Three…

… and saw the dim glow of the Taiwanese UAV’s tailpipe fifteen miles ahead.

Dog shoved the Megafortress hard right as the first wave of Chinese surface-to-air missiles climbed in the air ahead of them. The missiles were the Chinese equivalent of SA-6s and would be easily confused by Raven ’s ECMs, but there were a half dozen of them, and with a warhead of just over 175 pounds, they couldn’t be completely ignored. Delaney tracked them and pointed out another barrage of antiair a few miles ahead. Dog swung back west, zigging around the missiles.

“We’re pretty visible up here,” said the copilot. “One of their radar planes is on a line to the east. I don’t think he sees us with his radar — I think he’s homing in on ours.”

“Can we get him with AMRAAM?” Dog asked.

“Sixty miles away,” said Delaney.

That meant no. It also meant that it was too far for the Flighthawks.

“Raven, I have our target visually,” said Zen. “He’s in the weeds, maybe ten feet AGL. Ten miles and closing.”

No wonder they hadn’t found the UAV, Dog realized; it was so low to the ground the radar couldn’t sort it out through the ground clutter — odd reflections of the radio waves off the terrain.

But flying that low also cut down on the UAV’s speed.

“Intercept in four minutes, a bunch of seconds,” added Zen.

“Are we close enough for Jen’s takeover program?” Dog asked.

“Negative,” said Zen. “It’s thirty miles away total. I’ll be close enough to shoot it down before you’re in range.”

“Missiles!” warned Delaney. “Breaking.”

The copilot said something else, but Dog lost it. Both of the operators at the stations behind him were now spending their time jamming radars and communications systems in their path. Dog had two more antiair missiles left aboard; he wanted to reserve at least one for the UAV, in case the Flighthawks missed.

“Sukhois on our six at twenty miles and closing,” said Delaney.

“When they’re close enough, let them have it with the Stinger,” said Dog.

“Yeah.”

“Colonel, I’m going to put Hawk Four on that flight of J-8s coming at us from the west,” said Zen.

Dog had to glance at the sitrep map to remind himself exactly which flight Zen was talking about. All of Raven ’s high-tech gear and whiz-bang computers, ergonomic controls, and audiovisual doodads couldn’t completely erase the limits of situational awareness. There were just too many threats for Dog to process everything at once.

“Go,” he told Zen.

“I have to let the computer handle it. It’s four on one — we may lose it.”

“Our priority is the ghost clone,” said Dog.

“Understood.”

“FT-2000 in the air!” warned Delaney. “He’s homing in on our ECMs.”

“Can we break it?” asked Dog.

“Only if you want everything else they’re firing to hit us.”

The four Chinese J-8 fighters came at Raven in a staggered line, each plane separated by about a mile and flying at different altitudes. The computer quickly recognized the pattern and calculated the best attack posture, prioritizing the targets in the order of the greatest threat to Raven. The strategy — a slashing attack that would take Hawk Four across the course of the flight and allow it to fire on at least two of the aircraft before maneuvering to catch a third from behind — was solid, and took into account the abilities of the enemy planes as well as the Flighthawk. It also gave the computer time to recover and change its strategy if the bandits drastically altered course and speed. The only problem with it was that by the time Hawk Four turned to catch the third plane, it would be out of communications range from Raven. Zen nonetheless approved the strategy as the best course, telling C³ to stay in dogfight mode even if the connection snapped — otherwise Hawk Four would have defaulted back to escort and tried to find Raven.

“Go for it,” he told the computer, using exactly the same tone he would have used for Kick or Starship.

The computer’s verbal translation system had been “trained” to recognize much of Zen’s slang, and took Hawk Four on the intercept.

Zen turned his full attention back to Hawk Three. The Taiwanese UAV was now just five miles ahead.

A warning flashed on his screen:

Connection loss in three seconds

Two more missiles exploded to the east of Raven. Dog saw a pair of Su-27s heading in from the northeast, coming on at about ten degrees off his nose. They were at twenty miles, firing radar missiles.

“They’re on us,” said Delaney.

Dog hit his chaff, then jerked hard to beam the Doppler radar guiding the missiles. The maneuver would put the Megafortress at a right angle to the radar, temporarily confusing it.

“FT-2000 is changing course,” reported Delaney. “It’s going for one of the missiles that was just launched.”

That’s our one lucky break, thought Dog.

“Raven—I need you closer. I’m going to lose Hawk Three.”

Dog jerked back toward the Flighthawk.

“Raven—you have to get closer.”

“I’m working on it, Zen,” said Dog. The throttle slide was at the last stop; he could hit the control with a sledge-hammer and the plane wouldn’t go any faster. “Wes, see if you can reach any of these units. Tell them we’re pursuing a cruise missile that’s going to attack Beijing.”

“But—”

“Do it, Wes,” said Dog. “Deci, try the control program Ms. Gleason uploaded earlier. I know we’re not in range yet but try it anyway.”

Lieutenant Deci Gordon was the other electronics operator. While he could dupe Wes’s controls, he was tasked at the moment to ID and fuzz radars.

“I have to clear the ECM board to load the program and use it. I won’t be able to bounce the radars,” explained the lieutenant.

“Do it.”

“On it, sir.”

Zen cut his speed, just barely keeping the connection to Hawk Three. The Flighthawk was undoubtedly a good deal faster and more capable than the plane he was chasing, but it was Raven’s speed that counted, and the big airplane was already huffing and puffing. All he could do was sit and wait, hoping Raven would catch up — and that the flak dealer Delaney was now warning about wouldn’t hit him in the meantime.

Maybe it would get the Taiwan plane at least.

Raven rocked up and down but stayed on its course. Zen cursed to himself, pushing forward against his restraint.

Come on, damn it. Come on!

He tried selecting Hawk Four, which had been out of contact since firing on the second fighter in the attack group. The feed from Raven showed where it was — about five miles out of range, launching an attack on one of the Chinese fighters.

It had already splashed two of the Sukhois. Not bad for a bunch of electrons.

Raven shuddered beneath him. Something had just hit the plane.

Stinking Chinese. They didn’t deserve to be saved.

Come on, baby. Come on.

Something rumbled on Zen’s right — shrapnel from a missile had taken a nick out of the EB-52. Zen felt himself sliding left, even though the Flighthawk remained level.

The targeting screen blinked yellow.

Ten more seconds and he’d be in range. He could see the fat belly of the Taiwanese bomb strapped to the fuselage of the UAV.

Raven stuttered in the air, her speed and altitude plummeting.

Nine seconds. Eight…

Connection loss in three seconds

“Dog! I need six seconds!”

Engine four was gone, and the oil pressure in three was dropping. The computer helped Dog compensate as Delaney struggled with the defenses.

“I’m losing Hawk Three!” shouted Zen over the interphone.

The computer — prudently — wanted to shut down engine three. But Dog stayed with it, squeezing the last ounce of momentum forward, trying to keep close enough so Zen could complete the shootdown.

Just wasn’t going to happen. Even the Megafortress could not defy all the laws of physics at the same time. The EB-52 shuddered violently.

He was going to lose it.

They had to get closer to the Flighthawk, or the whole mission would have been a waste.

Dog pushed the nose of the big plane downward, picking up speed. They had a good deal of altitude to work with — but every foot made them more vulnerable to the air defenses.

“Missiles!” said Delaney. His overstressed rasp sounded like an old man’s last gasp for air.

“Zen, I’m going to try and dive as close to Hawk Three as possible,” said Dog. “After that, we may be bailing.”

“Roger that,” said Zen. “We need more speed — I don’t have the Flighthawk.”

“Wes, can you try that program Jen gave us again?” he said. “Just broadcast it?”

“I’m doing it,” answered Deci Gordon.

The Flighthawk screen flickered.

“Control,” said Zen.

Red pipper.

Yellow — no shot.

Zen pressed the trigger anyway.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire you goddamn son of a bitch.

Dog could see a pair of flak guns starting to fire off his right wing. The Megafortress was still too high to be hit — but it wouldn’t be in about twenty seconds or so.

Come on, Zen, he thought. Come on.

Zen let off the trigger, seeing the bullets trail far short of his target.

Beijing lay about a hundred miles away. The Taiwan UAV was going to make it.

The computer buzzed with a fuel warning and put a script up on the screen: He had ten minutes of flying time left at present speed.

Figures, he thought.

The targeting screen went yellow. The Megafortress shuddered, then started to yaw hard to his left.

Connection loss in three seconds

We’re toast, he thought.

And then, either because its own programming called for it to pop up so it could detonate its bomb, or because of the program Jennifer had prepared, the UAV pulled its nose up. The maneuver made it lose speed. Zen’s targeting pipper went red.

He fired.

He missed.

The ghost clone climbed off to his right.

“Sukhoi on our back, five miles, four,” said Delaney.

“Stinger,” said Dog.

“We’re out of airmines.”

“Flares.”

“No more expendables.”

“Can you launch an AMRAAM?” asked Dog, wrestling with the controls.

Delaney didn’t waste his tortured throat. The question wasn’t really serious — the AMRAAM-plus would have to go backward to do any good.

This was going to be it, thought Dog.

“Zen — we need you to take the target out now,” he said calmly. “Crew, prepare to eject. Begin the self-destruct sequences on the gear.”

The pregnant W danced upward and to the right. It must be answering Jennifer’s control sequence somehow, thought Zen, trying to follow.

As he tucked his wing to the right, he got a yellow firing cue. And then a ball of red fire opened above him — shrapnel from a Chinese missile.

His screen blanked. Hawk Three was gone.

Zen pushed back in his seat, finally defeated.

Son of a bitch, he thought.

They were going out. That was going to be fun — he’d be dead meat wherever he landed.

No way. He’d go down with the plane.

Zen reached to pull his helmet off but then stopped.Hawk Four had returned, flying off its left wing in Trail One, a preset position.

“Four,” he told the computer.

The main screen came on, along with a warning — he had five more minutes of fuel.

At this point, that was like having a full tank.

Zen accelerated over the stricken Megafortress. The Taiwan UAV was five miles ahead, still climbing.

The pipper began to blink.

Red.

He pressed the trigger. The 20mm shells spit out in an arc, falling to the left of the target. He nudged his stick, moving the stream slowly slowly slowly.

He eased off the trigger, pushed the stick hard to the right, felt Raven lurch in the air, fired again.

The Taiwanese UAV erupted in a fireball.

“He got it! He got it!” shouted Delaney.

Dog, following his own self-destruct checklist, had wiped out the coding in the computer that helped him fly Raven and was too busy wrestling with the plane to answer.

He could fly with two engines, even if they were on the same side. What he couldn’t continue to do, however, was duck enemy planes. And that Sukhoi behind was closing in for the kill.

“Dream Command, this is Dog — we have the clone down,” he said. “Repeat, we have the clone down.”

The answer came back broken up.

“We’re hit pretty bad,” added Dog. “We’re into our destruct checklist on sensitive gear. Be advised we’ve told the Chinese that we were targeting a cruise missile bound for their capital.”

Dog took a breath. He had gone against his orders to keep the mission secret, but in his judgment, the broadcast had made sense. Certainly the Chinese would find out about the attack at some point, and informing them now had been a valid attempt to save his people.

And screw anybody who second-guessed him.

“Dream?” he said, not hearing an answer.

“Washington is trying to contact the Chinese themselves and tell them what’s going on,” said Catsman through the static. Dog tried to ask for more details but got no response.

“Wes, have we wiped out all our radio antennas?” Dog asked over the interphone.

“Next thing on my list. I wait for your order unless, uh, unless it looks like you’re not going to be giving it,” said the lieutenant. Dog heard him mumbling to himself and punching his panel. “Colonel — the Chinese controllers are ordering their planes to stand down.”

“They don’t seem to be following orders,” said Delaney as tracers flashed over their wing.

Downstairs on the Flighthawk deck, Zen loosened his restraints.Hawk Four was low on fuel and now out of bullets, but it could still be of some use. He had the computer plot an intercept to the Su-27 behind them, and held on as it closed. The computer gave him two proximity warnings, then closed its eyes as the Flighthawk slammed into the front quarter of the Chinese plane.

But that was it. The fight was over. Four more planes were galloping in from the west, and two were closing ahead.

Zen initiated the self-destruct procedures. The first stage started a series of programs that wiped the drives and other memory devices. Then small charges began blowing up the Megafortress’s side of C³. The explosives were carefully calibrated to take out the circuitry but not damage the shell of the aircraft.

He took off his control helmet. The helmet was supposed to be physically destroyed with a small hatchet kept near the rear of the compartment. He had to lift himself from the ejection seat and get into his wheelchair to do that. He undid his restraints and pulled over the chair, wedging it into the space. As he pushed down to get in, the aircraft dropped twenty or more feet in an instant and he lost his balance, flopping back in the ejection seat rather than his chair.

So this was what it felt like to go down.

Zen remembered Stoner trying to tell him about the enemy he faced.

“They don’t trust us,” said Stoner.

Actually, he’d said that about Zen, hadn’t he?

Zen scooped up his helmet and pulled it back on. “Dog — jettison our weapons and put the gear down.”

“They’ll shoot us for sure.”

“No. They’ll either accept our surrender, or they’ll back off, thinking it’s a trap,” said Zen. “They will — they’ll think it’s a trap. They thought we lured their other planes close to us by making ourselves seem vulnerable and shot them down with a secret weapon. If we look defenseless, they’ll hesitate. They’re paranoid about us — they probably think we’re broadcasting the orders from their controllers. It’ll work. It’s our only shot, one way or the other.”

“The Su-27 pilots still aren’t responding,” said Wes. “Their controllers are just about screaming at them.”

Dog thought about what Zen had said.

If they put down their gear, dropped their weapons — would the Chinese figure they were surrendering and let them alone?

Maybe.

More likely, they’d think it was a trick.

But at this point, it didn’t make much difference. One of the Chinese planes rode in over their wing, slowing down and hanging so close he could have hopped from his wing to Raven ’s.

“Open the bay,” Dog told Delaney. “Eject the missiles. I’ll get the gear down.”

Delaney was too hoarse to argue. Dog lowered the gear, the plane objecting strongly. His airspeed dropped and he got a stall warning.

A fresh flood of tracers shot across their bow. The interceptors closed into tight formation all around them, adjusting their own speed as if they were flying an air show demonstration. Though they might have been temporarily confused, it was just a matter of time — seconds, really — before one of their bursts nailed them.

Dog reached over and hit their lights — everything, even the cockpit lights.

“Two on our tail, one on each wing,” said Delaney, his voice a croak.

“Wave at ’em,” Colonel Bastian said. “Show them we know they’re there. Wave.”

Dog turned to the cockpit window on his left and gave the high sign.

“Wave, Wes,” said Dog. “Like we have the whole thing under control.”

He waved again, then turned his attention back to the front of the plane. The tracers had stopped.

Was Zen right? Did the Chinese pilots think they were up to something? Had they heard the transmissions from the ground and finally decided to comply? Were they simply confused?

Or were they cats, taking a last moment to enjoy the fear of their prey before finishing him off?

“Wave, Wes. Smile at the bastards,” said Dog.

“Uh.”

“Wes?”

“The flight on our nose is asking for instructions,” said the specialist. “Sir, uh, we’re being asked our intentions.”

“Honorable,” said Dog. “Put me on their frequency.”