Since it was close to the village, it seemed likely that someone had already seen it. The area was in the zone affected by the T-Rays, and isolated to begin with. Maybe the villagers had no one to tell.
“I think we’re best off sticking with the present plan, and go after I-17 at dusk,” Danny finally told the colonel. “Would it be possible to keep it under surveillance in the meantime?”
“Doable.”
“One other thing, Colonel—I’m wondering if we could bring up a few more men from the Whiplash detail, along with more of our gear. The Marines are great, but they’re stretched kind of thin. Admiral Woods wants everything found and out ASAP.”
“We only have three men to run security at Diego Garcia as it is,” said Dog.
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“The only thing they’re doing there is watching the lizards.”
Dog knew that it wasn’t quite the no-brainer Danny made it out to be. While Diego Garcia was among the most secure bases in the world, some of the gear the EB-52s carried was so classified the Navy security people would not be authorized to enter the hangars. While the chances of a problem were remote, any resulting security violation would have severe consequences for the commander.
“All right,” said Dog finally. “Get them up there.”
“Thanks, Colonel.”
An atoll off the Indian coast
Date and time unknown
THE BOAT WAS SURPRISINGLY SMALL, MORE LIKE A LOG IN
the water than a canoe. Zen flattened himself on the rocks, watching as it made its way across the shallow lagoon toward the area where he’d spotted the first turtle. Whoever was in the boat didn’t seem to notice him.
He considered slipping into the water but decided that he’d make too much noise. There was no way to escape—unless he was extremely lucky, eventually he would be spotted.
He’d never done very well depending on sheer luck to get by. And maybe he wanted to be found. He needed to get help for Breanna. No one was answering his radio hails; the person in the boat was the only alternative.
The Megafortress had been attacked by Indian planes and missiles, but maybe they thought they were going after a Chinese or Pakistani aircraft. The military wasn’t necessarily antagonistic toward Americans; on the contrary, the Indians had often helped U.S. forces, at least before this conflict.
Maybe the person in the boat would be friendly. Maybe the Indians didn’t hate Americans and this Indian could be persuaded to contact someone without telling the authorities.
But he knew it didn’t matter, because Breanna was going to die if he didn’t get help.
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She might even already be dead.
Zen shook his head, chasing the idea away. Then he stood.
“Hey!” he yelled, waving his hand. “Hey! Over here!”
The figure in the boat turned his head in Zen’s direction, but the boat kept moving, crossing in front of him.
“Hey,” repeated Zen. “Help,” the word “Help” coming from his mouth as a bare whisper.
He was too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit defeat.
Breanna would die because of his ego.
“Hey!” Zen yelled. “Help! Help!”
The boat slowed, then began to turn in his direction. The oarsman was short, small—young, Zen realized, a teenager or even younger.
Zen pushed himself around and sat, arranging his useless but bruised and bloodied legs under him. They seemed to ache ever so faintly. He hadn’t experienced the phenomenon in quite a while. He’d been told it had to do with reflex memory stored deep in his brain and nerve cells.
The boat was so shallow it got within a foot or two of the shoreline before beaching. A boy of perhaps nine or ten knelt in the bottom. His oar looked more like a battered stick than a paddle. He stared silently at Zen, perhaps five yards away.
“Hello,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”
The boy looked at him quizzically.
“Do you speak English?” asked Zen. He’d assumed that everyone in India did, though this was not actually true.
“English?”
The boy nudged his stick against the rocks but did not reply.
“I’m American,” said Zen. “USA.”
“Sing sons?” asked the boy.
Zen didn’t understand.
“I’m a pilot. My plane had trouble and crashed,” he said.
“I—there’s another pilot. We need to contact our base.”
“Singsons? Simsons.”
“You mean the TV show?” asked Zen. “The Simpsons?”
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“You know Simpsons?”
“Bart Simpson?”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “You know Bart Simpson?”
“Watch him all the time.”
“Bart?”
“We’re good friends,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”
The young man looked at Zen suspiciously, then jabbed his stick against the rocks and quickly pushed away.
“Hey, come back,” said Zen. “Don’t go. Don’t go.”
But the kid had already turned around and was speeding away.
“Well, that worked,” muttered Zen. “Maybe I should have told him Homer was my uncle.”
Dreamland Command
2300
RAY RUBEO GOT DOWN ON HIS KNEES SO HE COULD GET
closer to the computer screen.
“You’re sure this is where they discovered warhead I-17?”
he asked.
“That’s the GPS reading from the Flighthawk,” the operator told him. “I verified it off the Megafortress.”
“You look like you’re praying, Ray,” said Major Catsman, coming down the ramp toward him.
“I may be, Major.” Rubeo frowned at the map. “We’ve found one warhead outside of the search parameters.”
“And?”
Rubeo sighed. There was no explaining things to some people.
“It’s not possible for it to be outside of the search area,” he told Catsman, rising.
“Well, obviously it is.”
“Yes. That’s my point,” said Rubeo. “What we have here is all math—Newton’s laws applied. We know exactly where the missiles should have fallen if the T-Rays worked as we 168
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think they did. So the only possible conclusion is that the T-Rays did not work in that manner. The T-Rays must not have disabled all the systems on the missing missiles. My guess is that the engines didn’t shut down when we believed they did.”
“Are you sure?”
“It will be useful to examine the missile at I-17,” said Rubeo. “Maybe there is some shielding of some components and not others. Perhaps the T-Rays do not work as we believe they do. There is always a distance between theory and reality, Major. The problem is to measure that distance.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I’d like one of our people to look at it closely.” Rubeo picked at his earlobe.
“Danny Freah will be securing it.”
“With all due respect to Captain Freah, I don’t believe his expertise lies in the area of electronics. I was thinking of Ms.
Gleason. She is twiddling her thumbs on Diego Garcia. She would be of more use there.”
“All right.” Catsman folded her arms. “Did you have to piss General Samson off so completely, Ray? Couldn’t you have been just a little more polite?”
“I don’t do polite.”
“You should learn,” said Catsman, turning away.
Diego Garcia
1300
JENNIFER GLEASON TAPPED GENTLY ON THE SMALL LAPTOP
as she rose. Wires snaking from the computer connected to a missile a few feet away. Tom Crest, one of the weapons engineers on the Anaconda team, looked up from one of the circuit boards in the warhead assembly.
“Still?” he asked.
“The anomaly is still there,” said Jennifer. “Even though the circuit checks out at spec on the bench, you’re getting RETRIBUTION
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some sort of error that has to be coming from the hard-ware.”
“I’ll be damned if we can find it. It doesn’t come up more than one time out of a thousand.” Crest got up from the missile. “Jeez, it’s hot. You mind?”