End Game (12 page)

“Come!” he yelled.

Lieutenant Cantor burst through the door as if he were running from a mob.

“What's up, Cantor?” Dog asked him.

“Colonel, I gotta talk to you. I really gotta talk to you.”

“Seat.” Dog pointed. “Sit.”

Cantor pulled out a chair. “Colonel—it's Major Smith.”

“I know he's pain in the ass,” said Dog. “But his post is only temporary. When we get back—”

“That's not it, Colonel. I just don't think he's ready to fly the Flighthawks on his own. Not two.”

“Listen, Cantor, Mack has worked with the program before. He's just rusty.”

“He hasn't flown in combat. He can't handle two planes. He'll get his ass kicked. Not that I wouldn't,” added Cantor.

“Lieutenant, I don't particularly like Mack Smith. But he was shooting down MiGs before you joined the Air Force.”

“In planes. That's the problem, Colonel. He's flying the Flighthawk as if he were flying an F-15 Eagle, or maybe an F-16.”

“Mack's a cowboy, I'll give you that,” Dog told the lieutenant. “Most days I wonder how he manages to fit his head into a helmet. But…”

Dog paused. He realized that he was reacting defensively, partly in reaction to a decision he had made—putting Mack in temporary charge of the Flighthawk program—and partly to a much lower ranking officer questioning the competence of a superior officer. But Cantor was not being disrespectful or insubordinate. His only offense was the fact that he wore a lieutenant's single bar.

And that Cantor took his policy of inviting “open discussion on any topic whatsoever” seriously.

“I understand your concerns,” said Dog. “I think they're serious, and I think you've presented them in the proper manner. They're now my concerns. OK?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fair enough. We ready to fly?”

“We will be, Colonel.”

“Good.”

Cantor nodded, then got up and left. Watching him, Dog
worried that he'd come off as too patronizing. He'd meant everything he said, but now that it was out of his mouth, it seemed a little phony-baloney.

For the first time since they deployed, he wished Zen were there.

Las Vegas University of Medicine,
Las Vegas, Nevada
1700

T
HE DREAM WAS EXACTLY THE SAME
. T
HE ONLY DIFFERENCE
was that Zen started shouting as soon as he smelled the smoke.

When he finally managed to escape from semiconsciousness, Zen found himself surrounded by doctors and nurses on the table used to measure the nerve impulses. He looked up at a sea of anxious faces.

“Hello,” he said bashfully. “I guess I was dreaming.”

“Jeffrey, are you all right?” asked Dr. Vasin.

“Oh, yeah. I'm fine.”

Vasin looked skeptical, but merely nodded, then left the room. The others began poking and prodding. When they were done, a male aide came and helped Zen dress.

“Dr. Vasin wants to talk to you in his office,” said the aide as he helped Zen slide into his wheelchair.

Zen wheeled himself down the hall to the doctor's office.

“Come in, come in,” said Vasin, still wearing his concerned grimace. “How are you feeling?”

“Bored, actually.”

“Bored?”

“Yeah. I'm not used to lying around all day. I'm sorry I fell asleep.”

“It is good that you were so relaxed.” Vasin raised his head, but kept his eyes fixed on Zen, as if he were looking at him through the bottom half of a pair of bifocals. “Can you tell me about your nightmare?”

“Ah, it was nothing.”

“Please.”

Reluctantly, Zen gave him a quick summary, adding that the dream recurred often.

“Like this?” asked Vasin.

“The part with my wife and the fire is different. A little. It started a few days ago.”

“You're worrying about your wife?”

“Not really.”

He realized it was a lie as the words left his mouth. Breanna wasn't the sort of woman you worried about. And she'd certainly proven that she could take care of herself. So why was he worried?

“Yeah, maybe I am. A little.”

“Are you concerned about walking?” asked Vasin.

“Sure.”

The answer seemed to mollify the doctor—but only for a moment.

“Have you spoken to Dr. Hamm?” asked Vasin.

“The shrink? Just during the evaluations last week.”

Vasin grimaced at the word “shrink.” Hamm was a psychologist with a wall of certificates. They'd talked about the obvious: whether Zen wanted to walk again or not.

Duh.

“If you feel the need to discuss things, sometimes a specialist will assist you in placing things into context,” said Vasin.

“OK, thanks,” said Zen. He backed away half a turn of the wheels, then stopped. “Any reprieve on coffee and beer?”

“No caffeine or alcohol. You feel the need?”

“Just checking,” said Zen turning to go.

Drigh Road
2200

“N
O
, M
ACK
,
MY POINT IS
NOT
THAT
I
DON
'
T WANT YOU TO FLY
. Nor am I relieving you of your assignment.” Dog jabbed his finger in the air as he spoke, underlining each point. “My point is, only two people have been able to handle two Flighthawks at a time in combat—Zen and Starship. In both cases they flew the aircraft in combat for considerable time before handling two.”

“There's always a first time.”

Dog could practically see the steam coming off Mack's head. “I don't want you launching two planes.”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do? Leave one home? That's bullshit, Colonel. What if one goes down?”

“You bring both. You keep one in reserve. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” His tone would have made a drill sergeant proud.

“Good,” said Dog, matching it.

Somehow it seemed easier to deal with people when they were being unreasonable, Dog decided as he walked over to his aircraft.

 

A
N HOUR LATER
D
OG CONTACTED
S
TORM
,
TESTED HIS THEORY
and found it wanting. Explaining to the captain what he thought had happened was more frustrating than talking to a wall.

“It's that airplane, and the others that you saw like it, that we have to look for,” said Dog. “They're the key to this. Not a submarine. The submarine doesn't exist.”

“Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, Bastian.”

“I didn't see it, the Indian destroyer didn't see it, and most importantly, you didn't see it. You're telling me the
Abner Read
would have lost a Kilo. I just can't believe it.”

The backhanded compliment mollified Storm slightly. His tone softened infinitesimally as he continued.

“I could see those aircraft unloading guerrillas for the attack on Port Somalia,” Storm told Dog. “But not carrying a torpedo for hundreds of miles. We don't even know where they flew from.”

“Yemen. Iran. Iraq. Somalia. We reposition the Megafortress patrol areas to watch those coastlines. They'll show up again.”

“And in the meantime, I don't have any air cover, and I can't use Piranha. Because you can't be in two places at the same time,” added Storm, sarcastically referring to the mission the other night.

“You have the Werewolves. And my pilot.”

“What about Piranha? We can't run that from the ship.”

Not only did they not have the control unit, but Piranha had to be within fifty miles of one of its control buoys to feed data, so that even if the
Abner Read
did have one, the robot would be of limited value.

“We'll put the probe into autonomous sleep mode until we need her again,” suggested Dog. “We'll park her out there.”

“We still need her now. We need to find that submarine.”

“Storm, you're obsessing about a submarine that's not there.”

“You don't understand submarine warfare, Bastian. This is what happens when you deal with a good sub and crew. You're never really sure they even exist.”

“You have to agree the plane is suspicious.”

“Find it, then—but keep Piranha in operation on the search grids my people direct.”

Dog killed the link before he said something he would regret.

Aboard the
Shiva
,
in the northern Arabian Sea
11 January 1998
0400

T
HE
P
AKISTANI TANKER WAS TWENTY MILES AWAY
,
TOO FAR TO
be seen with even the best pair of binoculars. But in the
Shiva
's combat control center, the tanker could be viewed from every conceivable angle, thanks to the two Sukhoi fighters and a helicopter flying near the tanker. The helicopter sent back live infrared video, which was displayed on a large television at the front of the combat control center.

To Memon, the combat center looked overwhelmingly chaotic and sounded even worse, with officers and enlisted personnel nearly shouting in an undecipherable patois. But he realized the tumult was actually highly organized, and that the singing voices were a sign that things were going well. The sound one did not want to hear as action approached, the admiral said, was silence.

“When will we attack?” Memon asked Captain Bhaskar, the ship's executive officer.

“I'm afraid I don't have time for your questions, Mr. Memon. I have work here.”

He turned and walked toward the radar section, Memon's eyes burning a hole in his back.

“The marines will take off in twenty minutes,” said a lieutenant who was standing nearby. He was tasked to maintain communications with the ship boarding team; Memon could not remember his first name but resolved to find a way to help him in the future. “Two Sea King helicopters. We'll see their positions on this screen here. They will be accompanied by a Mk42B with Sea Eagle missiles.”

The Mk42B was a special version of the Sea King helicopter equipped with antiship missiles and special search radar. All of the Sea Kings were variants of the Sikorsky
SH-3 built by Westland; in America, the originals were known as Sea Kings, with an Air Force version called the Jolly Green Giant.

“When the aircraft are airborne,” continued the lieutenant, “the admiral will give the tanker the order to stop and be boarded. The marines will secure the ship and the search will begin. The divers will arrive in a second wave, once the tanker is secured. No inch of the tanker will be left unexamined.”

“And if they launch a torpedo at us in the meantime?”

“We will be at safe distance and detect it instantly. The decoys will be launched to detonate it a mile from the ship. The hull of this ship is considerably better protected than the
Calcutta,
and even if we were to be struck, we would survive. And the tanker will be dealt with mercilessly. The jaws of hell will receive it.”

“Yes,” said Memon. “That would be most appropriate.”

Aboard the
Levitow,
taking off from Drigh Road
0412

M
ACK FELT THE
M
EGAFORTRESS LIFT UP ABRUPTLY BENEATH
him as it came off the runway. Somehow being a passenger made him feel out of sorts. It wasn't just that there was no way to anticipate the tugs and pulls of flight properly. It was the fact that you were just along for the ride, like you were a passenger in a bus. And who wanted to be in a bus?

He was still sore at Bastian for demanding that he fly only one plane at a time. That seemed ridiculously cautious. The argument that only Starship and Zen had handled two in combat was ridiculous; the same could have been said about them before they did it. He'd done fine on his last sortie.

However, he would follow his master's orders. No sense
going against the old graybeard, especially with his daughter at the helm of the plane. She'd be tattling in no time.

Mack shared the Flighthawk control compartment with Ensign Gloria English, who would be taking over as Piranha pilot once they reached their station. The ensign was a Navy girl; he didn't hold that against her, but unfortunately her face could sink a thousand ships. Even though she had literally nothing to do for the next two hours, English was busy at her station, examining previous mission tapes.

“
Levitow
to Flighthawk leader. Mack, we're climbing through ten thousand feet,” said Breanna a short time later. “You're going to want to start getting ready.”

“You don't have to tell me my job, Captain,” snapped Mack. “I have it under control.”

“I don't doubt that. Flight plan calls for a launch in ten minutes. We'll be over international waters—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the drill.”

 

S
AME OLD
M
ACK
, B
REANNA THOUGHT AS SHE PREPARED THE
Megafortress for the Flighthawk launch. He'd seemed a little more mature over the past few months, but bad cream always curdled in the end.

“Captain, we have two Sukhoi Su-33s orbiting directly to the west, fifty miles,” reported Stewart. “Flying at twelve thousand feet. One helicopter as well. Additional aircraft from the south—three helicopters. All aircraft are Indian.”

“Where are they coming from?”

“Believe the Indian warship to the south,” said Stewart, tapping the configurable display in front of her. Data from the surface and airborne radars were forwarded to her station when they were operating, giving her a much longer-range view than normal.

“Ship on the surface,” added Stewart. “Oil tanker.”

“Flighthawk leader, be advised we have a pair of Indian Sukhois ahead,” Breanna told Mack.