As the others were filing out, he asked Lieutenant Englehardt to stay behind.
“What’s up, Colonel?”
“Mike, I’m going to take the pilot’s seat on the Bennett today.”
“That’s my spot.”
“You slide over. Sully gets bumped,” said Dog. He meant that Englehardt would sit in as copilot, with Sullivan remaining behind.
“Listen, Colonel, if you have a problem with me—”
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“Why are you flying off the handle, Mike?”
“I’m not flying off the handle,” said Englehardt, his voice giving lie to his words. “It’s just that I figured I’d be flying this mission. I earned it.”
“You’re acting like a two-year-old.”
“I can pilot that plane, Colonel.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“Everybody’s going to take it that way, like this is a demotion, like I’m not good enough.”
“If you’re so concerned about that, maybe you shouldn’t be flying for Dreamland at all. Tell Sullivan he’s bumped.
I’ll meet you at the plane.”
“The hell with this.”
Englehardt’s face had turned red. Dog sensed the pilot knew he’d made a mistake and wanted to find a way out gracefully. Maybe on another day he might have found a way to help the younger man; he thought Englehardt was a good pilot, and though at times tentative, had a bright future. But he wasn’t in a helping mood.
“You have a problem, mister?”
“Maybe Sullivan should fly instead of me, then,” said Englehardt.
“Good,” said Dog. He grabbed his small flight bag and strode from the room.
An atoll off the Indian coast
Time and date unknown
ZEN SLEPT LIKE A BABY, EVERYTHING AROUND HIM MUFFLED, his body surrendering to unconsciousness. He had no dreams that he could remember, and the rocks that made up his bed had no power to jab him or stick in his ribs. The makeshift tent covered him like a grave, keeping him not just from the elements, but from worries.
And then he woke.
His body felt as if it were tied up, bound in heavy cable.
148
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
He heard his wife next to him, her breaths shallow and sounding like moans.
He patted her gently, then crawled from the tent, his stomach rumbling for food.
The wood he’d brought back sat nearby, a pathetically small assortment of bleached branches and sticks. He flipped them over, hoping the sun would dry the bottom parts out better. Then he tried the radio.
“Major Stockard to any American force,” he began. “Stockard to American force. I’m a crewman from Dreamland EB-52 Levitow, lost over the Indian peninsula, lost in the Indian Ocean.”
Zen continued, giving what he thought their approximate position had been when they jumped. He repeated his message several times, pausing to hear a reply, but none came.
Was it possible that their attempt to stop the war had failed? If so, much of India and surely all of Pakistan would have been wiped out by nuclear attacks. Very possibly the U.S. and China were at war right now. And if that was true, who would hold back?
The possibilities were too awful to contemplate.
Zen knew the EEMWBs had worked; they’d lost contact with the Flighthawks the moment the missiles exploded. But he had no idea what happened afterward.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. But what was the plan now? He was an invalid on a bleak island, alone with his unconscious, possibly dying wife.
He could give in. He could throw himself into the tide and let himself be swept away. He could give in.
But he knew that instead he’d start the fire in a few hours, once the sticks dried in the sun a bit. And try and figure out something for food in the meantime, something more filling than the few bars he’d salvaged from their survival vests.
There might be fish in the shallow water near the pinched middle of the atoll, Zen thought. If so, he could spear them with his knife, or better, kill them with rocks. He’d get a bunch of little fish and fry them in the fire.
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Zen leaned back into the tent, checking on Breanna. Had he examined her for injuries when they landed? He couldn’t remember now. He must have—but he couldn’t remember, and so he checked again, gently loosening her flight suit, still damp, and running his hands over her skin. It was clammy and cold, sticky; it seemed to belong more to the sea than to Breanna.
There were bruises, but he didn’t see any gashes, and if bones had been broken, the breaks weren’t obvious.
“I’ll be back,” he told her after zipping her back up. “I’ll be right back.”
Aboard the Abner Read
0700
STORM PRACTICALLY DANCED A JIG AS THE OSPREY APpeared over the horizon.
“All right now, men! Look alive! Jason, Josh—clear the deck there. Look alive! Look alive!”
The Osprey—a black, cannon-equipped Dreamland special operations version—swept in over the forked tail of the Abner Read, her arms steady. The craft matched the ship’s slow pace, then began to rotate. The helipad on the Abner Read was tiny, and the Osprey had to face toward the stern so its cargo could be off-loaded.
The aircraft lurched to port as she descended. Storm’s heart lurched with it. But the pilot quickly got it back under control, setting down on the narrow confines of the Abner Read’s deck.
“Very good! Very good,” shouted Storm as the rear hatchway opened. “Look alive! Look alive! Let’s get those missiles assembled and into the bow tubes!”
“Captain?”
Storm turned. His executive officer was standing in the portal to the robot helicopter shed, which had been cleared as a temporary loading and work area.
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Eyes. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Captain.”
“Ready for full duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
Eyes looked like he was going to say something—an apol-ogy probably. Storm held up his hand. “No explanation necessary. We’re all burning the candle at both ends.”
Storm stepped back as a work crew brought the first missile crate out of the aircraft.
“What exactly are we planning to do next, Captain?” asked Eyes.
Surprised that Eyes hadn’t gone back to work, Storm turned around. “Next? That’s up to the Chinese.”
Eyes didn’t reply.
“Well, get back to your station,” said Storm. “Get down to Tac. Go.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dreamland
1800, 16 January 1998
(0700, 17 January, Karachi)
BECOMING A CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT IN THE AIR FORCE—or achieving a similar rank in any of the services, for that matter—requires an unusual combination of skill, knowledge, hard work, and determination. A man or woman who becomes a chief arrives at that position with an impressive range of information at his or her fingertips.
Part of this is the result of sheer longevity and experience; it can accurately be said that a chief master sergeant doesn’t just know where the bodies are buried, but buried a good number of them himself.
Another part is due to the network of friends, informers, and other hangers-on an enlisted man builds during his career. And, of course, initiation into the rites of chiefdom brings a new chief into contact with the elder members of the RETRIBUTION
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tribe, who view each new member as an important link in the chain that holds the Air Force together. Chiefs may not necessarily get along, but they can always be counted on to rally to the side of a fellow chief master sergeant in matters both large and small, aware that the cause is greater than any personal animosity.
Dreamland’s administrative side was run by a chief among chiefs, Sergeant Terence Gibbs. Ax, as he was universally known, had served as Colonel Bastian’s right-hand man since prehistoric times. The colonel thought he had pulled strings to get Ax transferred to Dreamland with him when he took over the command, but in truth it was Ax who pulled the string that needed to be pulled. Letting Colonel Bastian believe otherwise was a strategy Ax had taken from page one of the chief ’s handbook.