“The weather’s hell out there,” she told her men. “Let the chutes deploy automatically. Just enjoy the ride.”
Given the intensity of the storm they were flying into, it was probably suicidal to go out now. She reached for the throttle slide, pushing for more speed, hoping to maybe get beyond the storm, or at least through the worst of it.
“Fire in the Gat compartment,” said Chris. “We’re going to blow.”
Breanna heard a rumble and then a pop from the rear of the plane. She reached down to the yellow handle at the side of her seat.
“Three-two-one,” she said quickly, and the universe turned into a tornado.
Chapter 7
In the hands of the gods
Philippines
August 28, 1997, 1847
The screen blanked.
“Get them back,” Zen told Bison.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” said the sergeant sitting at the com panel.
Zen pushed his chair back and then forward at an angle, as if realigning himself would make the picture from Quicksilver reappear.
“Get them back,” he said again, this time his voice softer.
“They’re off-line,” said Bison. “They were hit—they may be down.”
Zen pushed backward and wheeled to the door. One of the two navy people in the trailer said something, but Zen didn’t hear the words and wasn’t about to stop to ask him to repeat them. he had to reach awkwardly to open the door, pushing with his other hand on the wheel; he nearly fell out of his chair and down the ramp as he burst outside, downward momentum the only thing keeping him in the seat. He mastered it, got his balance, and continued to the oversized tent where Major Alou and the rest of the flight crew were just starting to brief for their mission. The fabric sides were rolled up.
“Merce—Quicksilver is down,” said Zen. “We need Iowa now.”
Without waiting for Major Alou to acknowledge, he wheeled back onto the path and headed for the aircraft.
It took nearly twenty minutes for the crew to get the Megafortress airborne. It was totally good time—the plane hadn’t been refueled, and the work on meshing the Piranha and Flighthawk systems was far from complete. Every second stretched to torturous infinity.
In the air, the buffeting pressure of the fresh storm system held them back. Zen launched the Flighthawk and pushed ahead, scanning through the thick rain even though they were still a hundred miles from the coordinates of Quicksilver’s last voice transmission. Other resources were being scrambled from the fleet, but at the moment they were the only ones on the scene, and certainly Bree’s best chance.
The storm was so severe, both the Chinese and Indians had landed all of their planes. The thick cloud cover made it impossible for satellites to scan the ocean, and at points Zen had a difficult time separating the waves from the much he was flying through. Ten miles from the gray splatch of sky where Quicksilver had been lost, he felt his arms and shoulders sag. Zen leaned his head forward. The fatigue nearly crushed him, pounding his temples. He saw Bree on their wedding day, the blue and pink flowered dress tight against her hips in the small chapel. Her mouth trembled ever so slightly, and when the minister had her repeat the words of the vows, she hesitated over “richer or poorer.”
Did not, she said that night, cuddled against his arms.
Did too, he told her.
Didn’t, she said a thousand times later.
Too, he replied.
But there’d been no hesitation on sickness. Ever.
“Commencing visual search.” Zen tightened his grip on the U/MF’s control and pushed the plane through a reef of wind and rain. Clouds came at him in a tumble of fists; the small plane knifed back and forth as it fell toward the dark ocean. Finally, he broke through the worst of it, though this was only a matter of degree; at three thousand feet he found a solid sheet of rain. Leveling off, Zen gingerly nudged off his power. Not exactly optimized for slow flight in the best weather, the U/MF had trouble staying stable under two hundred knots in the shifting winds. Zen had his hands and head full, constantly adjusting to stay on the flight path. But he needed to go as slow as possible, since it increased the video’s resolution and, more importantly, the computer’s ability to scan the fleeting images for signs of the survivors.
At least concentrating on flying meant he couldn’t think about anything else.
“Coming to the end of our search track,” said the copilot above.
“Roger that. Turning,” said Zen.
Zen selected IR view. The rain was too thick for it to fight through, and finally he decided to flip back to the optical view. Two long circuits took them slightly to the north. Iowa’s look-down radar fought through the storm to scan the roiling waves, but the conditions were severe. Zen punched over the waves at just under a thousand feet, convinced the U/MF’s video cams—and his eyes—were the best tools they had, at least for now.
A distress call came over the UHF circuit as one of the Sukhois ran out of fuel before he could complete a landing on his storm-shrouded carrier.
“Poor shit,” said somebody over the interphone circuit without thinking.