“You say it is acting most strangely?” said Yoshishu.
Koyama nodded. “It approached from the southeast along a course toward the American Air Force Base at Shimodate, an air traffic corridor used by their military aircraft that passes within seventy to a hundred kilometers of our island. While tracking it, we observed an object detach itself and fall into the ocean.”
“It dropped from the aircraft?”
“Yes.”
“Could you identify it?” asked Tsuboi.
Koyama shook his head. “All I can tell you is it appeared to fall slowly, as if attached to a parachute.”
“An underwater sensing device perhaps?” mused Kurojima, the Dragon Center’s chief director.
“A possibility, although it looked too large for a sonic sensor.”
“Most odd,” mused Yoshishu.
“Since then,” Koyama continued, “the aircraft has remained over the area in a circular holding pattern.”
Tsuboi looked at him. “How long?”
“Almost four hours.”
“Have you intercepted voice transmissions?”
“A few brief signals, but they were electronically garbled.”
“Spotter plane!” Koyama snapped as if seeing a revelation.
“What,” inquired Yoshishu, “is a spotter plane?”
“An aircraft with sophisticated detection and communications equipment,” Koyama explained. “They’re used as flying command centers to coordinate military assaults.”
“The President is a vicious liar!” Tsuboi hissed suddenly. “He laid a smoke screen and falsified his position to stall for time. It is clear now, he intends to launch a manned attack on the island.”
“But why be so obvious?” Yoshishu said quietly. “The American intelligence knows well our capacity to detect and observe targets of interest at that range.”
Koyama stared at the reflection of the plane on the radar display. “Could be a mission to electronically probe our defenses.”
Tsuboi’s face was hard in anger. “I will open communications with the President and demand he remove it from our waters.”
“No, I have a better plan.” Yoshishu’s lips parted in a bleak, wintry smile. “A message the President will understand.”
“Your plan, Korori?” Tsuboi inquired respectfully.
“Quite simple,” answered Yoshishu with emotionless candor. “We destroy it.”
Within six minutes, two Toshiba infrared surface-to-air missiles spewed from their launchers and homed in on the unsuspecting crew of the C-5. The defenseless, frighteningly vulnerable aircraft did not carry attack warning systems. It went about its business of monitoring Big Ben’s progress, circling the sea in blissful ignorance of the destructive terror streaking toward its great bulk.
Sandecker had stepped into the communications compartment to send a status report to the White House while Giordino remained in their office. Giordino stood hunched over the desk studying the marine geologist’s report on the undersea trench Pitt had to cross to reach the safety of the Japanese coast. He was plotting the distance for perhaps the fifth time when the first missile struck the aircraft and burst with a great roar. The shock and pressure wave knocked Giordino to the deck. Stunned, he had barely hoisted himself to his elbows when the second missile smashed into the lower cargo hold and tore a huge gaping hole in the belly of the fuselage.
The end should have been swift, spectacular, but the first missile did not explode on immediate contact. It passed through the upper waist of the aircraft between bulkheads and shot across the cargo bay, bursting as it penetrated the airframe ribs on the opposite wall. The major force of the explosion was thrust into the night air outside, saving the aircraft from tearing apart.
Even as he fought off the shock, Giordino thought, She must go down now. She can’t stay in the air. But he was wrong on both counts. The big Galaxy was not about to die. She was miraculously free from flames, and only one of her flight control systems was damaged. Despite her gaping wounds, she remained solidly in the air.
The pilot had put the crippled aircraft into a shallow dive before leveling out less than thirty meters above the sea on a southern course away from Soseki Island. The engines were running normal, and except for the vibration and restraining drag from the holes in the fuselage, the pilot’s primary concern was the loss of the elevator control.
Sandecker came aft, accompanied by the flight engineer to assess the damage. They found Giordino picking his way gingerly on his hands and knees across the cargo bay. Clutching a bulkhead support for dear life, he cast a jaundiced eye out the gaping opening at the sea that swept past like quicksilver.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll jump,” he shouted over the roar of the chaotic wind that pounded through the aircraft.
“I don’t fancy it either,” Sandecker shouted back.
The flight engineer stared in frightened awe at the damage. “What in hell happened?”
“We took a pair of hits from ground-to-air missiles,” Giordino yelled at him.
Giordino motioned to Sandecker and pointed forward to get out of the wind blast. They made their way to the cockpit while the flight engineer began a damage inspection of the shattered lower belly. They found the pilots calmly struggling with the controls, quietly conversing as though they were conducting a textbook emergency in a flight simulator.
Giordino sank wearily to the floor, thankful to still be alive. “I can’t believe this big bird is still flying,” he mumbled gladly. “Remind me to kiss the designers.”
Sandecker leaned over the console between the pilots and gave a brief accounting of the damage. Then he asked, “What’s our chances?”
“We’ve still got electrical and some hydraulic power and enough control to maneuver,” answered the chief pilot, Major Marcus Turner, a big ruddy-featured Texan, usually cheerful and humorous but now tense and grim. “But the blast must have cut the lines running from the main fuel tank. The needles on the gauges have made a drastic drop in only two minutes.”
“Can you stay on station beyond the range of the missiles’?”
“Negative.”
“I can make that an order from the chief executive,” said Sandecker gruffly.
Turner did not look happy, nor did he cave in. “No disrespect, Admiral, but this aircraft may come apart at the seams any second. If you have a death wish, that’s your business. My duty is to save my crew and my aircraft. As a professional Navy man, you know what I’m talking about.”
“I sympathize, but my order stands.”
“If she’ll stick together and we nurse the fuel,” said Turner unperturbed, “we might make it to Naha Airfield on Okinawa. That’s the nearest long runway that isn’t in Japan proper.”
“Okinawa’s out,” Sandecker announced curtly. “We get clear of the island’s defense systems and we stay within communication range with my man on the bottom. This operation is too vital to national security to abandon. Keep us in the air as long as you can. If worse comes to worst, ditch her in the sea.”
Turner’s face was red, and perspiration was beginning to drip from it, but he managed a taut smile. “All right, Admiral, but you’d better plan on a long swim to the nearest land.”
Then, as if to add insult to injury, Sandecker felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly. It was the communications operator. He looked at Sandecker and shook his head in a helpless gesture that signaled bad news.
“I’m sorry, Admiral, but the radio’s knocked out. We can’t transmit or receive.”
“That tears it,” said Turner. “We can’t accomplish anything by flying around with a dead radio.”
Sandecker gazed at Giordino, sorrow and anguish showing clearly in every deeply etched line in the admiral’s face. “Dirk won’t know. He’ll think he’s been abandoned.”
Giordino looked impassively through the windscreen to a point somewhere between black sea and black sky. He felt sick at heart. This was the second time in the past few weeks he felt he had failed his closest friend. At last he looked up, and strangely he was smiling.