Eyes stared at him for a moment. “Aye aye, Captain,” he said finally. “Aye aye.”
Aboard the Bennett,
near the Pakistan-India border
0400
“COLONEL, IF I CAN MAKE A SUGGESTION?”
“Absolutely, Mike,” Dog told Englehardt.
“If I drop the Megafortress to five hundred feet and walk her as slow she’ll go, the low-light video camera in the nose will get us an excellent picture.”
Ordinarily, Dog would have readily agreed—the jagged terrain was making it hard for the radar to “see” what was on 100
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the ground. But they had spotted a Pakistani ground unit to the north just as he came back from his brief nap.
“How close are the Pakistanis?” Dog asked.
“Two miles almost directly north,” replied the pilot.
“They’re on that east-west road just over the rise, right on their side of the border. We can get down and then away before they even know what’s going on.
“There are just two deuce-and-a-half troop trucks,” he added, using the American slang for a multipurpose six-by-six troop truck. “Worst they’re going to have is a shoulder-launched missile. It’s not going to be much of a threat.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dog said. “I don’t want them coming over to see what we’re interested in. Or radioing for help.”
“Wouldn’t their radios have been fried by the T-Rays?” the copilot, Kevin Sullivan, asked. “We haven’t heard any transmissions.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The EEMWB that knocked out the missile was detonated farther south,” said Dog, who had helped design and implement the detonation plan. “They may have driven into the area afterward. We can’t count on them having been affected.”
“We can take them out with the Harpoons,” said Sullivan.
“Not going to be a problem.”
“Firing on them is a last resort,” Dog told him.
“Let’s fake them out,” said Englehardt. “Make it look like we’re interested in them, buzz them, then look for the warhead on the way out.”
“Maybe.”
Dog examined the ground radar plot on Sergeant Daly’s screen. The two trucks were in the middle of the road. It occurred to Dog that the vehicles themselves might have been disabled by the T-Rays. Even if that weren’t the case, they might have strict orders not to go over the border—though the line was marked here only on maps, not on the ground.
What would he do if they made a move to get the missile?
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101
The admiral had made it clear that he could use whatever force he needed to protect his people, and to recover a warhead once it was spotted, but as usual, the orders couldn’t cover everything. It seemed clear that he wasn’t permitted to fire on them in this case, before the warhead had been identified and at a moment when they posed little threat. But what if they moved toward it? Could he fire then, even though he hadn’t ID’d the missile?
“Colonel, what do you want to do?” asked Englehardt.
“Take another nap,” laughed Dog. Then he got serious.
“Hold this orbit and continue to monitor the Indians. I’ll talk to Danny and the Marines. When they’re close enough to come for the warhead—if it is in fact a warhead—we’ll make our move.”
“That may be an hour at least, Colonel.”
“By my calculations, your coffee will hold out for at least another six,” said Dog. “We can wait until then.”
“Careful on that coffee, sir,” said Sullivan. “That’s our backup fuel supply.”
Indian Ocean,
off the Indian coast
Time unknown
IT STARTED TO LIGHTEN. DAWN APPROACHED, STALKING
over the ocean behind a cover of clouds.
Voices echoed in Zen’s head, murmurs and echoes that he couldn’t quite decipher. He thought he heard birds, then a cow, then a dog barking. Finally he was sure that someone was calling to him. But the island—more an oversized rock with a pebble and sand beach punctuated by black hunks of igneous stone—remained empty.
Breanna was alive. That he was sure of. What he didn’t know, and couldn’t, was how badly she was injured. She was unconscious, her breathing shallow. From what he could tell, she wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and her bones seemed to be 102
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intact. He assumed she was in shock, and maybe suffering from hypothermia.
He could do almost nothing for her. He propped her head up, took off the survival vest and the rest of her gear. Her flight suit was sopping wet, but he thought she’d be warmer in it.
Zen was cold and wet himself. He decided that when the sun finally rose, he’d strip to his underwear and lay his clothes out on the rocks to dry.
He had his personal Beretta and two sets of small “pencil”
flares. He had four candy bars and four granola “energy”
bars, which were basically cereal pressed together with fruit and sugar. He had a survival knife. He had fishing line and a small poncho.
His matches and lighter were gone. So were the extra bullets for his gun. And his med kit.
Breanna’s radio was in her vest, along with her med kit, which had a small Bic-style lighter in it. He left her weapon strapped in its holster, but took her extra clip.
Zen turned on the survival radio and monitored the rescue frequency or “Guard band” for a few minutes, trying to see if anyone was around. The “spins”—times when he was supposed to broadcast—had been set at five and thirty-five minutes past the hour. But the routine was useless without a working watch.
Breanna had one. He leaned over her, then slipped it gently from her wrist. It was four minutes past the hour.
Close enough.
He switched the dial on the radio to voice and broadcast, nearly choking over the phlegm in his throat.
“Zen Stockard to any nearby aircraft. Zen Stockard to any American aircraft—can you hear me?”
There was no reply. He tried a few more times, then put the radio down.
Zen looked down at his wife. He slid his thumb over to her wrist, feeling for her pulse, and began counting the heartbeats, but stopped after ten.
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103
What the hell was he going to do if it was beating slow? Or fast? What the hell was he going to do, period?
He was going to get someone on the Guard band and get the hell out of here, that’s what.
The clouds had passed to the east, but there seemed to be more coming from the west. He needed a shelter to keep Breanna dry if it rained again.
He could turn the poncho into a tent. There weren’t any sticks handy, but he could rig something by piling the rocks on either side. There were certainly enough of them.
It was something to do, at least. He patted his wife gently, then began crawling toward the nearest loose stones.
Aboard the Bennett,
near the Pakistan-India border
0540
DOG DIDN’T KNOW WHERE EXACTLY TO PUT HIMSELF. HE
felt like he should be in the pilot’s seat, running the show, but he was far too tired to be at the stick. The jumpseat at the back of the flight deck was too far from the action to see what was going on. And sitting at either of the auxiliary radar operator seats made him feel as if he was looking over the operators’ shoulders.
So he ended up more or less pacing around the flight deck, in effect looking over everyone’s shoulders and making them all uncomfortable.
His body, meanwhile, felt as if it was tearing itself in two.
He’d had so much of the high octane coffee Sullivan brewed that his stomach was boiling. Fortunately, the Megafortress upgrades included an almost comfortable lavatory, because he was visiting it often.
“Incoming from Captain Freah,” reported Sullivan.
“Great,” said Dog.
Sergeant Daly stiffened as he sat down next to him at the auxiliary ground radar station. Dog plugged in his headset 104
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and flipped into the Dreamland channel.
“Bastian.”
“Hi, Colonel. Good to talk to you again, sir.”
“It’s good to talk to you too, Danny. What’s your status?”