Retribution (34 page)

She found Danny near one of the trucks.

“Where’s the warhead?”

“That way. Hang on a second—one of the Marines thinks he saw some movement up near those rocks. We’re checking it out.”

A guerrilla lay perhaps twelve feet away, his torso riddled with bullets. Jennifer stared at it, waiting while Danny talked to other members of the team.

“All right,” he said finally. “But you stay next to me.”

“I intend to.”

“By the way—the corporal’s mike was open in the Osprey,” added Danny. “Anybody ever tell you you curse like a Marine?”

“Most people say worse.”

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over the Chinese-Indian border
2355

T
HIRTY SECONDS AFTER THE
A
NACONDAS LEFT THE
B
ENNETT’S
belly, the MiG launched its own missiles. Englehardt had anticipated this and turned the plane away, hoping to “beam” the radar guiding the missiles.

“ECMs,” he told Sullivan.

“They’re on. Missiles are tracking.”

“Chaff. Stand by for evasive maneuvers.”

He put the Megafortress on her wingtip, swooping and sliding and dropping away, just barely in control. He pushed back in the opposite direction and got a high g warning from the computer, which complained that the aircraft was being pushed beyond its design limits. Englehardt didn’t let off, however, and the airplane came hard right.

There was a loud boom behind him. A caution light popped
on the dash. For a moment he thought they’d been hit. Then he realized that engine one had experienced a compressor surge or stall because of the change in the air flow rushing through it.

The compressor banged, then surged a second time. Easing off on the stick, he reached to the throttle, prepared to drop his power if the engine didn’t restart and settle down on its own.

“Missile one is by us,” said Sullivan.

Englehardt concentrated on his power plant. The exhaust gas temperatures jolted up, but the power came back. He babied the throttle, moving his power down and steadying the aircraft.

“Splash the MiG!” said Sullivan as their Anaconda hit home. “Splash that mother!”

Englehardt felt his pulse starting to return to normal. He slid the throttle glide for engine one up cautiously, keeping his eye on the readouts. The engine’s temperatures and pressures were back in line with its sisters’; it seemed no worse for wear.

“What happened to that second missile the MiG fired?” he asked Sullivan.

“Off the scope near the mountains,” said the copilot. “No threat.”

“Rager, what’s near us?” Englehardt asked. His voice squeaked, but it didn’t seem as bad as earlier.

“Sky is clear south,” answered the airborne radar operator.

“Starship, what’s your situation?” Englehardt asked.

“
Hawk Two
is a mile off your tail.
Hawk One
is orbiting the recovery area. Both aircraft could use some more fuel.”

So could the Megafortress, Englehardt realized.

“
Cheli,
this is
Bennett
. What’s your position?”

“Our Flighthawks are just reaching the recovery area,” said the
Cheli
’s captain, Brad Sparks. “We’re right behind the little guys.”

“All right. I have to tank. We’re heading out.”

“Roger that. Word to the wise—the Indians have been powering up their radars all night. We ducked one on the way to the Marine site. I wouldn’t be surprised if their missiles are back on line.”

An atoll off the Indian coast
Time and date unknown

T
HE NIGHT DRIFTED ON, MELTING AWAY EVERYTHING BUT
Zen’s stoic shell. His thirst, his anger, all feeling and emotion vanished as the hours twisted. He woke, and yet still seemed to be sleeping. As if in a dream, he pushed himself up on his arms and crawled from the tent, cold, an animal seeking only to survive.

He’d strapped his gun to his belt before going to sleep. It dragged and clung against the rocks as he moved, part of him now. He reached the remains of the driftwood where he’d made the fire the other night and pushed up, sitting and staring at the darkness.

There was a plane in the distance.

Zen took a slow, measured breath.

The aircraft was very far away.

He took another breath, yogalike, then leaned back and took the radio from the tent.

“Major Stockard to any aircraft. Dreamland
Levitow
crew broadcasting to any aircraft.”

He stopped, pushed the earphone into his ear mechanically. All he heard was static.

Why even bother?

Zen set the radio down. He pulled himself farther down the beach, staring at the edge of the ocean and the way the reflected moonlight on the tip of the waves seemed to grab at the air, as if trying to climb upward.

It was a vain attempt, a waste, but they kept trying.

If only I had that strength, he thought, continuing to stare.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over India
0015, 19 January 1998

S
TARSHIP WAS JUST ABOUT TO TURN
H
AWK
T
WO
OVER TO
the computer for the refuel when the
Bennett
’s radar officer warned of a new flight of Indian jets, this one coming at them from east.

“MiG-21s. Four of them. Coming from Hindan,” said Sergeant Rager.

The MiG-21s were somewhat outdated, and certainly less capable than the planes they’d just dealt with. But they couldn’t be ignored either.

“What do you want to do,
Bennett
?” Starship asked.

“Continue the refuel,” said Englehardt. “I think we can tank one of the U/MFs before we need to deal with them.”

“Roger that,” said Starship, surprised that the pilot sounded confident, or at least more assured than he had earlier.

Starship set up the refuel, then turned the aircraft over to the computer. He swung
Hawk One
toward
Bennett
’s left wing, then began pushing in so it could sip from the rear fuel boom as soon as its brother was done.

“Radar warning,” said Sullivan. “We have a SAM site up—SA-2s, dead ahead.”

Now things are going to get interesting, thought Starship, checking on
Hawk Two
’s status.

E
NGLEHARDT FELT THE BLACK COWL SLIP BACK OVER THE
edges of his vision. The
Bennett
was about three minutes from the antiaircraft missile battery.

Three minutes to decide what to do.

Plenty of time not to panic, though his heart was pounding again and his stomach punching him from inside.

The MiGs behind him complicated his options. He didn’t want to go in their direction anyway—he wanted to get to the coast. But turning south to avoid the SAMs might make it easier for them to catch up.

So? Use the Anacondas on them.

Hell, he could use the Anacondas against the SAMs.

His orders were to attempt to avoid conflict. But he’d already been fired on. Did that give him carte blanche? Or was the fact that he was no longer protecting the ground units rule, meaning he should do what he could to get away.

The first. Definitely.

God, he was thinking too much. What was he going to do?

“All right, let’s skirt the SAM site,” Englehardt said. “Turn to bearing one-eight—”

“If we go south, not only will we go closer to the MiGs but we’ll have more batteries to deal with,” said Sullivan, cutting him off. “There are a dozen south of that SA-2 site.”

“I know that,” said Englehardt sharply. “Just do what I say.”

In the silent moments that followed, he wished he’d been a little calmer when he responded. But it was out there, and apologizing wasn’t going to help anything. They set a new course; he moved to it, staying just on the edge of the SA-2s’ effective range.

What if they fire anyway? he wondered. What do I do then?

And as the thought formed in his brain, he got a launch warning on his control panel—the SAMs had been fired.

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border
0015

T
HE FIRST THING
J
ENNIFER THOUGHT WAS THAT THE WARHEAD
section had broken into pieces when it landed, and that the bomb had somehow managed to bounce away from the conical nose and the metal superstructure that held it above the propellant section. But as she stared at the wreckage, she realized that couldn’t be the case—there were cut screws on the ground, and the pieces of metal had been torched and hacked away.

She looked back for Danny Freah and waved to him.

“Somebody took the warhead,” she told him when he ran up. “It’s gone.”

“You’re sure?”

“They hacked it out. Look. See?”

“All right, look—the
Cheli
says there are Chinese helicopters headed in our direction. We have to get out of here, quick.”

“I want to take some of the electronic controls from the engines,” said Jennifer. “There’s some circuitry that they left behind. And pictures of the missile and damage. It’ll only take a minute.”

“You have only until the Marines start pulling back. Keep your head down.”

“Will do.”

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over India
0019

“C
OUNTERMEASURES,”
E
NGLEHARDT TOLD HIS COPILOT AS
the SA-2s climbed toward the
Bennett.

“Already on it.”

“OK, OK.” Englehardt pushed his stick left, instinctively widening the distance between his aircraft and the missiles coming for him.

“MiGs are going to afterburners,” said Rager, monitoring the airplanes that were chasing them at the airborne radar station.

The MiGs had pulled to seventy-five miles from the Megafortress. Englehardt realized that they probably intended on firing medium-range radar missiles as soon as possible—in roughly two minutes, he calculated.

Huge amounts of time, if he kept his head. He’d be by the SA-2s by then and could cut back east as he planned.

God, did this never end? It was twenty, thirty times worse than a simulation. His brain felt as if it were frying.

“Stay on course,” he said aloud, though he was actually speaking to himself.

“You want me to target those MiGs with the Anacondas?” asked Sullivan.

“I have a feeling we’re going to need them when we get toward the coast,” Englehardt said. “Better warn the
Cheli
and Danny Freah that we’re attracting a lot of attention. They may get the same treatment.”

“Mobile missile site up! Akash missiles,” said Sullivan.

Unlike the SA-2, the Akash was a modern missile system guided by a difficult-to-defeat multifunctional radar. Developed as both a ground and air-launched missile, it could strike targets at two meters and 18,000 meters, and everything in between. But because its range was limited to about thirty kilometers, or roughly nineteen miles, Englehardt knew he could get away from it simply by turning to the west.

But that would bring him closer to the MiG-21s.

Which would be easier to deal with, the planes or the missiles?

The MiGs, he decided, starting the turn.

“Mike, what are we doing?” asked Sullivan.

“We’re going to avoid the Akash battery.”

“They haven’t launched.”

“Neither have the MiGs.”

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with some of these bastards,” said Sullivan. “And we’re getting farther from where we want to go. We have to get out over the water.”

“I am dealing with them,” snapped Englehardt.

He pulled back on the stick, aiming to take the Megafortress high enough so he wouldn’t have to worry about any more Akash sites.

“Starship—Flighthawk leader. Set up an intercept on those MiGs,” said Englehardt. He was angry now; he felt his ears getting hot.

“I still have to tank
Hawk One
,” said Starship. “They’ll be in range to launch before I can get to them.”

“Do it now, then tank.”

S
TARSHIP CURLED
H
AWK
O
NE
AWAY FROM THE
M
EGAFORTRESS
, then unhooked
Hawk Two
from the refueling probe, its tanks about seven-eighths full. The EB-52’s maneuvers to avoid the radar were becoming so severe that he couldn’t have continued with the refuel anyway.

He slotted the two ships into a loose trail as he sized up his opponents. If the MiGs kept coming for the Megafortress once they fired their missiles, he’d be in a good position to take on
Bandits Three
and
Four
, the northernmost planes. He plotted the intercept for the computer, telling it to take
Hawk Two
while he rode
Hawk One
onto the lead plane of the element,
Bandit Three
.

He’d just started his turn to get the Flighthawk on its intercept when the Indians began launching their missiles, medium-range R-27s, known to NATO as AA-10 Alamos. Each plane fired two, then immediately turned away. Starship broke off the attack; there was no sense chasing the planes now.

“We have two Mirage 2000s coming up from the southeast,” said Rager, identifying a pair of advanced fighter-bombers he’d just spotted on the radar scope.

“I have them,” said Starship, changing course.

O
F THE EIGHT MISSILES LAUNCHED AT THE
M
EGAFORTRESS,
two took immediate nosedives, either because they were defective or because they had been launched incorrectly. The Megafortress’s electronic countermeasures soon confused three more; they, too, disappeared from radar.

The last three climbed with the Megafortress, moving nearly three times as fast as she could. As they went to terminal guidance, closing in on their target, Englehardt called for chaff and began jinking through the sky, pulling a series of hard turns that left the missiles sucking air. When the last one blew itself up in confusion, he turned back westward.