Retribution (33 page)

Yes, thought Englehardt. Then no.

Anacondas?

He was way out of position for that. He’d have to use the Stinger.

They still hadn’t fired.

“Wait until they activate their weapons radars,” he told Sullivan.

“They don’t need their weapons radars,” said the pilot. “Hell, they can hit us with spitballs.”

“Starship, where are you?” asked Englehardt. He could feel sweat running down every part of his body, and his colon felt as if it was about to jump through his skin.

“
Hawk Two
is right behind
Bandit Two
.
Hawk One
is back with Indian helicopters.”

“Did you fire at them?”

“Just used my flares to get their attention. It worked.”

“Marine Osprey
Angry Bear
is up,” said Sullivan.

“Cover the Osprey, Starship.”

“Yeah, roger, circling back to cover them.”

“American Megafortress, you will leave the area,” said the Indian pilot.

“I intend to,” answered Englehardt. “Be advised that we are over Chinese territory.”

“They’re talking to their controller again,” reported Sullivan. “They’re saying a lot of something.”

“As long as they’re talking, not firing, we’re fine,” replied the pilot.

Aboard Marine Osprey
Angry Bear One,
over northern India
2215

G
RADUALLY
, D
ANNY
F
REAH LOOSENED HIS GRIP ON THE
strap near the bulkhead separating the Osprey cockpit from the cargo area. Finally he let go and looked at his palm. The strap’s indentations were clearly visible.

“We’re OK?” asked Jennifer Gleason, sitting on the bench next to him.

“Yeah. We’re good. The MiGs are following the Megafortress to the east. We’re out of here.”

Danny followed her gaze as she turned and looked at the warhead, snugged in the middle of the Osprey’s cargo bay. It seemed almost puny, sitting between the Marines and their gear.

“Funny that such a small thing could cause so much destruction,” Danny said.

“I was just thinking it looks almost harmless there,” said Jennifer. “Like part of a furnace that needs to be overhauled.”

“I guess.”

A tone sounded in his helmet. Danny clicked into the Dreamland channel.

“Freah.”

“Danny, a Global Hawk with infrared sensors just located the last warhead,” said Dog. “It’s fifty miles north of you.”

“OK, Colonel. Team Three is waiting at Base Camp One. They can be airborne inside of ten minutes. Take them about sixty to get there.”

“I’m afraid it’ll be too late by then,” said Dog. “The Global Hawk has spotted a pair of pickups near the site, and four or five men nearby. Looks like another two trucks are on their way.”

“Give me the GPS point,” Danny replied.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over the Chinese-Indian border
2230

T
HE
M
I
G
S STILL HADN’T MADE A THREATENING MOVE.
Englehardt locked his eyes on the sitrep, sizing up the situation. The lead aircraft was about three miles behind the Megafortress. He was in the Stinger’s sweet spot—but then again, the
Bennett
would be right in the sights of a heat-seeker or the MiG’s cannon.

The Stinger needed about twenty seconds to “warm up” once activated. Englehardt didn’t want to turn it on until he meant to use it; he reasoned that the Indians didn’t know it was there, and were thus more vulnerable to it.

The Dreamland channel buzzed.

“Go,” said Englehardt, opening the communication line.

“Mike, the last warhead has been found,” said Colonel Bastian. “Danny and the Marines are on their way. We want you to cover them.”

“Be happy to, Colonel, but I have a complication.”

Englehardt explained his situation. The colonel winced. But if Bastian thought he’d done the wrong thing, he didn’t say.

“They’re not hostile?” he asked.

“Annoying, definitely,” said Englehardt.

Dog continued to frown.

“Should I shoot them down?” Englehardt blurted. “The rules of engagement—”

“Take the MiGs south with you,” said Dog. “I’ll have the
Cheli
go northwest to cover Danny in
Angry Bear
. Have Starship escort the Osprey until they arrive.”

“Colonel, if—”

“Bastian out.”

Aboard Dreamland
Cheli
,
over the Great Indian Desert
2240

B
RAD
S
PARKS SMILED AS THE
M
ARINE LIEUTENANT GAVE AN
update on the ground team, which had just secured its warhead and was en route to Base Camp One. She had the sexiest voice he’d ever heard on a military radio.

“Did you copy, Dreamland
Cheli
?” she demanded.

“Just daydreaming up here, Dancer,” Sparks told Lieutenant Klacker. “Anyone ever tell you you have a sexy voice?”

“Your transmission was garbled,” responded Dancer coldly. “I suggest you do not repeat it.”

“Hey, roger that,” chuckled Sparks. “All right, I have your ETA at Base Camp One at fifteen minutes. Those Osprey drivers agree?”

“Good. Copy.”

Sparks leaned back against the Megafortress’s ejection seat, arching his shoulders. As soon as the Osprey reached the base camp, the Navy boys from the
Abe
would take over; most likely they’d be free to go home. It had been a long, dull night, nowhere near as entertaining as their last go-round. But maybe that was what his crew needed. Their energy was off; no one was even laughing at his jokes.

Day on the beach at Diego Garcia might change that. Day on the beach with that hot little Navy ensign he’d spotted on the chow line the other morning would definitely boost his morale, at least.

The Dreamland channel buzzed. Sparks keyed the message in and found himself staring at Colonel Bastian.

“Hey, Colonel, what’s up?”

“Brad, we’ve found the last warhead. I need you to go north to cover the recovery team.”

“Kick ass, Colonel, we’re ready,” said Sparks. “Feed me the data.”

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border
2240

G
ENERAL
S
ATTARI PUT THE NIGHT GLASSES DOWN

“The mujahideen are there now,” he said, speaking not to the men who’d helped him but to himself.

Sattari pushed the binoculars closer to his eyes, watching the men walk through the wreckage. They didn’t seem to realize that the warhead had already been taken. Most likely they didn’t know what they were looking for. Most if not all were ignorant kids, lured from their homes in Egypt and Yemen and Palestine by the promise that they’d be someone important.

“Helicopter,” said one of Sattari’s men.

The general didn’t hear it for a moment. Then he heard the deep rumble reverberating in the distance. It wasn’t a chopper that he was familiar with, yet he had definitely heard the sound before.

An Osprey—an American Osprey.

“Quickly. It is time to go,” he said loudly in Urdu, walking to the truck.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over India
2335

S
TARSHIP TOOK
H
AWK
O
NE AHEAD OF THE
M
ARINE
O
SPREY
, scouting the site where the warhead had been located. Even with the live infrared image from the Global Hawk orbiting above to guide him, he had trouble pinpointing the missile
wreckage; to him it looked more like a slight depression in the landscape than anything else.

The pickup trucks, on the other hand, were clearly visible.

Starship slid
Hawk One
down through 10,000 feet, plotting the most efficient approach to the pickups. Almost immediately the piper in his gun sight screen began to blink red, indicating that he had his target. As the small reticule went solid red, he pressed the trigger.

While almost everything else in the Flighthawk represented cutting-edge, gee-whiz technology, the aircraft’s cannon was ancient; the M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling hadn’t been cutting edge since before the Vietnam War. But sometimes the old iron was the best iron.

The first few shots went wide left and low, but Starship held his stick steady, riding the stream of 20mm lead across and into the rear of the first pickup truck. As the vehicle exploded in flames, his bullets hit the cab of the second truck. He flicked right, perforating the engine compartment before his momentum carried him clear of the targets. He started to turn, moving a little faster than he wanted to, but couldn’t find anything or anyone in front of him, so he pulled up for another run.

He checked
Hawk Two
—still riding behind the MiGs shadowing the
Bennett
—then rolled
Hawk One
into a second attack. As he did, the Flighthawk’s computer warned that he was within ten miles of losing its connection to the mother ship. Starship glanced at the sitrep and realized he couldn’t complete the attack before losing the connection.

“
Bennett,
I need you to get closer to
Hawk One
,” he said. “I’m going to lose the connection.”

Englehardt didn’t answer. The Flighthawk and her mother ship were moving away from each other at close to a thousand miles an hour—or sixteen a minute.

“Disconnect in fifteen seconds,” warned the computer, using an audible message as well as the text on the screen.

“
Bennett!
Need you north!”

Starship felt the Megafortress lurch beneath him.

“We’re on it,” said Englehardt.

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border
2340

D
ANNY
F
REAH SQUATTED TO ONE SIDE OF THE PASSAGEWAY
between the Osprey’s cockpit and cargo area, watching as the aircraft headed toward the landing zone. He could see the Flighthawk’s red-yellow tracers arcing across the sky. Small bursts of green rose up toward the spray—ground fire.

“What do you think, Captain?” asked one of the pilots.

“I think we’re going in, if you can make it.”

“We can make it.”

Danny turned around and yelled to the landing team. “LZ is hot. Show these bastards what the Marine Corps is made of.”

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over the Chinese-Indian border
2343

“M
I
G
S ARE TALKING TO THEIR BASE AGAIN
,” S
ULLIVAN TOLD
Englehardt. “I’m betting they don’t like our course change.”

“How close is the
Cheli
?”

“Their nearest Flighthawk is still ten minutes off.”

Ten more minutes. Englehardt worked his tongue around his mouth, trying to generate a little more moisture for his throat.

“They’re dropping off,” said Sullivan.

For a moment Englehardt felt relieved. The Indians must be low on fuel by now, he thought, and were backing off and going home.

Then he realized that wasn’t the case at all.

“Evasive maneuvers. Give me flares!” he shouted, a second before the missile-launch warning buzzed on the cockpit dash.

S
TARSHIP WAS JUST ZEROING IN ON A CLUSTER OF SMALL
arms f lashes at the landing zone when the Megafortress
seemed to plunge beneath him. He kept his hand steady, staying with his target and ignoring the urge to jump back into
Hawk Two
and battle the MiGs.

The key thing to remember when you’re flying two planes,
Zen always said,
is to finish one thing at a time.

Zen.

Starship lit the Flighthawk’s cannon. The ground in front of the aircraft began to percolate, dirt and rocks erupting from the landscape as the bullets hit. He gently wagged the stick back and forth, stirring the mixture of lead and rock into a veritable tornado.

He let off on the trigger and pulled up. He didn’t see any more tracers from the ground. If there were more guerrillas there, they’d taken cover.

“
Hawk One
orbit at 15,000 after targets are destroyed,” he told the computer. “Danny, landing zone is as clean as it’s going to get.”

E
NGLEHARDT PUSHED HARD ON THE STICK
,
THROWING HIS
whole body against it. The Megafortress twisted herself hard to comply, jerking to the right and pulling her nose up.

Between the sharp maneuvers and the cascading decoys exploding behind the plane, the heat-seeking missiles the MiGs had fired flew by harmlessly, exploding more than two miles away.

Now it was his turn.

His turn. His brain stuttered, as if it were an electrical switch with contacts that weren’t quite clicking.

“Stinger air mines,” he said. “Sullivan?”

“Targets out of range.”

“Fuck.”

Everyone on the circuit seemed to be hyperventilating. Englehardt turned his eyes toward the sitrep screen on the lower left portion of his dash. His position was marked out in the center—where were the Flighthawks and the MiGs?

A tremendous fireball flared in the corner of the windscreen—a partial answer to his question.

S
TARSHIP BROUGHT UP THE MAIN SCREEN OF
H
AWK
T
WO
just in time to see the robot turn away from the MiG it had destroyed.

“Good work, dude,” he told the computer. “I’ll take it from here.”

The second MiG had turned to the east after firing its missiles. Now about twenty miles from the Megafortress, it was banking through a turn that would leave it in position to launch its AMRAAMskis.

“
Bandit Two
is getting into position to attack,” said Starship over the interphone. “I’m not going to be able to close the gap before he fires.”

“Bennett,”
acknowledged Englehardt. Even with the one-word reply, his voice had a tremble to it.

“You want me to get him or are you going to use the Anacondas?” prompted Starship.

“He’s ours,” said Sullivan, the copilot.

“Yeah, we got him,” said Englehardt. “Anacondas. Take him, Kevin.”

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border
2350

J
ENNIFER
G
LEASON SNUGGED HER BULLETPROOF VEST
tighter as Danny and the Marines fanned out from the Osprey. Automatic rifle fire rattled over the loud hush of the rotating propellers. She had a 9mm Beretta handgun in her belt, and certainly knew how to use it. But she also knew that it wasn’t likely to be very effective except as a last resort.

She wasn’t scared, but standing in the bay of the aircraft with no way of making a real contribution made her feel almost helpless. A single Marine corporal had stayed behind with her, guarding the defused warhead; everyone else was taking on the guerrillas outside.

A bullet or maybe a rock splinter tinged against the side of
the Osprey. Jennifer jumped involuntarily, then put her hand on the pistol.

Two or three minutes passed without anything else happening. No longer hearing any gunfire, she took a step toward the door.

The Marine caught her shirt. “Excuse me, miss. The captain said you are to stay inside until he gives the OK.”

“It’s safe.”

The corporal frowned. “Sorry, ma’am. His orders.”

“Would you go outside?”

“Not the question.”

“Well what the fuck is the question?”

The Marine frowned but didn’t let go. He swung his other hand up and pushed the boom mike for his radio closer to his mouth. Jennifer folded her arms, waiting while the corporal called for permission.

“Captain says proceed with caution.”

“Caution is my middle name,” said Jennifer. She rushed down the ramp and curled behind the aircraft, staying low. She could see clusters of Marines on both the left and right; they were standing upright.

Jennifer trotted across the rock-strewn field of scrub and dirt, heading toward a jagged piece of metal that stood straight up from what looked like a dented garbage can. She knelt near the damaged missile part; it looked as if it were part of one of the oxidizer tanks located at the top of the weapon just under the warhead section.

“Where’s Captain Freah?” she asked a nearby Marine.

“That way.” He pointed across the field in the direction of the two trucks destroyed by the Flighthawk. “Careful, ma’am. We’re still mopping up. Those suckers were hiding in the rocks and grass.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Jennifer began walking across the moon-lit field, the grass and weeds gray in the light. There were pieces of metal strewn on the ground. Bits of wire and paper and plastic were bunched like fistfuls of confetti dumped by bystanders grown
tired of waiting for the parade to pass. She caught a whiff of burnt metal and vinyl from one of the trucks that was still smoldering up ahead.