“Colonel, the air commander is reporting that there’s activity at that army base to the west,” said the Osprey pilot. “This place is getting damn busy.”
“I thought these bastards were negotiating a cease-fire,” cursed Danny.
24
The defense minister’s aide leaned over and whispered something in his boss’s ear. The two spoke quickly.
“I have a report that I must hear,” the minister told Zongchen and the others. “There is a confrontation — American aircraft are involved.”
“Which American aircraft?” asked Zen.
“Several. A black aircraft like a helicopter. And A–10 fighters—”
“You mean an Osprey?” said Zen.
“There is a major fight with rebels,” said the minister. “A rebellion in Mizdah. I must take this call.”
The aide handed him a phone. Zongchen looked at Zen.
“Excuse me a second.” Zen wheeled backward from the table. There was only one unit operating a black Osprey in Libya — Whiplash. He took out his satellite phone, hesitated a moment, then hit the quick dial for Danny.
Instead of getting Danny directly, the call was rerouted through the Whiplash system to a desk operative at Whiplash’s headquarters in the U.S. on the CIA campus. The officer was assigned to monitor and assist Danny and the team during operations; he was in effect a secretary, though no one would ever call him that. “Colonel Freah’s line.”
“This is Zen Stockard. I need to talk to Danny right now.”
“Senator, he is in Libya right now, in the middle of a firefight.”
“I know exactly where he is. I have battle information for him,” said Zen.
“Stand by, Senator.”
The line cleared, seemingly empty. Then Danny came on, as loud and clear as if he were in the same room.
“Zen, we’re in the middle of heavy shit here. Rubeo is on the ground and we’re trying to get to him. I got government and rebel forces on both sides.”
“I have the Libyan government minister here. I’m going to get a cease-fire.”
“That would be damn timely.”
“Give me your location. Then keep the line to me open if you can.”
“Near Mizdah.”
Zen put the phone in his lap and wheeled back to the table.
“If you want a negotiated peace,” he told the minister loudly, “call your forces off the Osprey at Mizdah they’re telling you about.”
Zen turned to Zongchen. “We need to tell the princess to get her people down there to stop as well.”
25
The Osprey roared overhead. Rubeo could hear almost perfectly now — the engines sounded like a pair of diesel trucks that had lost their mufflers.
The aircraft circled around, checking the nearby terrain as it came down to land.
“Follow,” Rubeo told Diomedes. He looked at Kharon, still gripping the crane spar. Kharon looked haunted, shocked into another dimension. “It’ll be all right,” Rubeo yelled at him. “We’re getting out this time.”
The aircraft settled down thirty yards away. Troopers leapt from the door at the side. Rubeo tried to run toward them but his legs wouldn’t carry him any faster than a walk.
Someone grabbed him. It was Sergeant Rockland — Boston.
“Come on, Doc,” yelled the sergeant, hooking his arm around so he supported Rubeo on one side. “Let’s get you the hell out of here.”
“The bot.”
“Yeah, yeah, the mechanical marvel.”
“Kharon, get Kharon.”
“We’re getting him,” said Boston. “Let’s go, let’s go. There are all sorts of people heading this way.”
Kharon curled his body down as the wind swirled around him and the robot rolled to the rear of the Osprey. One of the troopers ran beside him, gave him a thumbs-up, then turned and waved his gun back and forth, making sure there was no one there.
God, help me.
The bot continued inside the hull of the aircraft, moving forward. The side door was open, a trooper leaning through the open space, a safety belt holding him as the aircraft pitched upward. Kharon was a foot or two away.
The roar began to quiet. For a moment Kharon felt safe, untouchable. But then he noticed the darkness around him, the walls close by.
The closet.
Someone was yelling outside.
“Neil! Neil!”
His mother.
Kharon unfolded his fingers and then his arm. He took a tentative step. Someone grabbed for him. He pushed away.
Leave me alone!
Leave me!
“Neil!”
The sides closed in. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to be smothered.
The door was open in front of him.
With all his strength, he leapt for safety, ignoring the surge of pain in his leg, ignoring all the pain, ducking his head and driving ahead for the light.
By the time Rubeo realized what Kharon was doing it was too late. The Whiplash trooper at the door dove at him, but Kharon moved too fast: He leapt through the open hatchway at the side of the aircraft, tumbling down some one hundred feet to the rocks.
“Damn,” muttered Rubeo, sinking back onto the web bench at the side of the aircraft. “Oh damn.”
26
The Tigershark spit its slugs in a computer-controlled spurt, current and metal flashing in a dance of force and counterforce.
The rail gun had originally been conceived as an antiballistic missile weapon, and the computer program controlling it still bore that DNA, able to handle the complicated coefficients of speed, mass, and trajectory with quick ease. From a mathematical point of view, the fact that the warheads it was aiming at were comparatively small did not present a great difficulty; the formula always aimed at a single point in space, and as with any point, it had no dimension whatsoever. It was simply there.
But on the practical level, the predictable margin of error increased dramatically in an inverse proportion to the suitable target area; in other words, the smaller the target, the more likely the slug was to miss. To compensate, the computer spit out more slugs as Turk fired. While he could override this, it wasn’t advisable in an engagement with missiles, especially given that each individual encounter lasted only a few seconds at most.
But this did mean that the gun needed additional time to cool down between engagements, and even if the time was measured in fractions of seconds, each delay meant he might not reach Li in time. For the pilot stubbornly insisted to himself that he would in fact save her; that he would finally end in position to shoot down the last missile before it got her.
The Hogs completed their attacks and ducked away, firing chaff and working their electronic countermeasures. The Russian missiles were sticky beasts, staying tight to the trail of the planes they had targeted.
To the west, one of the MiGs had already been shot down, but that didn’t change anything for Turk — there were eight missiles in the air, and every one of them was homing in on the back of someone he needed to protect.
Danny’s voice came out of the buzz around his head. “Whiplash is away.”