He put his thumbs under the bottom of his T-shirt, gesturing.
“Go ahead and take it off,” said Jennifer. “If you don’t think you’ll get sunburned.”
“Nah.” Crest pulled his shirt off, revealing a surprisingly tan and fit torso. For an engineer, Jennifer thought, he was pretty good-looking.
Not that she was looking.
“I wonder if maybe one of the software revisions on the microcode was done erroneously,” she said. “You’ve checked everything else.”
“That was checked weeks ago.”
“Maybe the check was wrong. You’ve looked at everything else.”
“Looking at it again could take a couple of days.”
Jennifer shrugged. She was about to volunteer to do it when the trill of a bike bell caught her attention. She turned around and saw Sergeant Lee Liu approaching on one of the Dreamland-issue mountain bikes the Whiplashers were using to patrol the area.
“Jen, Major Catsman needs to talk to you right away.”
“Really? OK.” Jennifer shaded her eyes. “Any word on Zen and Breanna?”
Liu shook his head. “Sorry. Hop on and I’ll give you a ride to the Command trailer.”
“Where am I going to get on?”
“You can sit on the handlebars.”
Jennifer eyed the bike dubiously.
“Only take us a few minutes,” said Liu.
“All right. But look out for the bumps.”
RAY RUBEO, NOT MAJOR CATSMAN, GREETED JENNIFER
when she arrived at the Dreamland Command trailer.
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“I hope you are enjoying your South Pacific sojourn,” said Rubeo testily.
“Fun in the sun, Ray. Wish you were here.”
“We have a real job that needs to be done.”
Rubeo explained what had happened with the warhead located at I-17, and its implications.
“Twenty miles is only a four percent error,” said Jennifer.
“That’s not off that much.”
“The search areas are twenty-five percent larger than the formulas calculated,” said Rubeo. “Which means that the missile traveled considerably farther than should be possible.
It is far beyond the likely error rate.”
“Maybe the formula’s wrong.”
“Don’t you think I considered that possibility?”
It was a sharp response, out of character even for Rubeo.
Jennifer asked what was wrong. The scientist’s frown only deepened. Instead of answering, he changed the subject.
“The Whiplash team is going to recover the weapon in a few hours. It needs to be examined by someone with expertise,” said Rubeo.
“I’ll get up there as soon as I can.”
“When?”
“Soon, Ray. Relax.”
“That does not seem possible,” he said, and the screen blanked.
Jennifer got up from the communications desk and walked over to Sergeant Liu in the trailer’s common area. “How soon will the Whiplash Osprey be back?” she asked.
“Not for several hours,” said Liu. “What’s up?”
“I need to get up to the border area between India and Pakistan to look at a weapon with Captain Freah. I’d like to be up there in a couple of hours.”
“Couple of hours can’t be done,” said Liu. “But I do know how you can get up there just after nightfall. If you’re willing.”
“Tell me.”
“The ride will be a little, er, bumpy.”
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“It can’t be as bad as the bike ride,” said Jennifer. “I’m all ears.”
An atoll off the Indian coast
Date and time unknown
ZEN DIDN’T KNOW WHAT SORT OF FISH LIVED IN THIS PART OF
the ocean, but he did know that sharks were spread out across the globe. He knew too that they had an incredible sense of smell, and would come from miles away to strike bloodied prey.
He also knew that with the sun sliding low in the sky, there was no way he’d make it back to the tent before it got too dark to see, if he crawled over land. Swimming might take an hour at most; it was a risk he was going to have to take.
He pulled the knife from the turtle’s shell and held it in his teeth, ready to use. Then he pushed his way down to the water. Positioning himself at the edge of the water, he took a breath and started to swim. He held the turtle in his left hand, closest to the open sea, and stayed in water as shallow as possible. At times he felt his legs dragging against the rocks.
Except, of course, he didn’t. Because he couldn’t feel anything in his legs.
He pushed as well as swam, stopping several times because the knife made it difficult to breathe. He was nearly back to the tent where he’d left Breanna when he heard the voice calling to him over the waves.
“Friend! Friend of Bart! Where are you?”
He stopped paddling for a moment, listening as the voice called for him again.
Should he go back? Was it a trap?
Unsure, he decided his first priority was getting the dead turtle back to the tent. He took a few more strokes, then beached himself for good, crawling out of the water with the turtle, a little worse for wear but still intact. Even as he pulled 172
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
the animal onto the rocks, he worried a shark would rise up and snatch it from him, Jaws-style.
Zen slipped the knife in his belt and pushed up the rocks toward the tent. He had to stop twice, exhausted, to gather his breath. Finally, when he was about twenty feet from the tent, he looked up and saw a figure standing next to it.
“Bree!” he shouted.
Then he realized the figure was too skinny and short to be his wife. It held up a stick.
“Who are you?” he demanded, sliding his hand down to the knife.
“Whoareya?” said the figure.
“Simpsons?” asked Zen.
The figure took a step closer, coming out of the shadow. It was a kid, though not the same one he had seen earlier. He was older, a little bigger. He held the stick out menacingly, as if it were a spear.
“Who are you?” asked the youth.
“Hey, where’s your friend?” Zen asked. “The Bart Simpson fan?”
The boy didn’t say anything.
“Did he tell you I know Bart Simpson?”
There was a shout from behind Zen. He whirled, the knife out and ready.
It was the boy he’d seen earlier.
“You do know Bart Simpson?” said the kid.
“My best friend.”
The other kid shouted something and pointed. It took Zen a few seconds to realize he was pointing at the turtle.
“Food,” said Zen, gesturing at the dead animal. “I’m going to start a fire.”
Both kids started talking at once, first in a language he couldn’t recognize, then in English. Gradually, they made him understand that they had come to the island to hunt for turtles and wanted his.
While the two kids spoke English, Zen had trouble understanding their accents.
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“The turtles have to be bigger,” said the younger boy.
“We take,” said the older boy.
“I don’t think so,” Zen told him.
The boy came down and grabbed at the turtle. Zen pulled it toward him. The kid started talking rapidly, and Zen couldn’t understand.
“We need,” said the younger boy finally. “You give.”
“Why do you need it?” asked Zen.
He couldn’t understand the answer. The turtle had been difficult to capture and kill, and Zen was hardly confident he could get another. But simply turning the boys away would be foolish.
“If I give it to you, can you bring me a cell phone?” said Zen.
Now it was the boys who didn’t understand.
“Phone,” said Zen. He mimicked one. “T-r-rring-ring.”
“Phone,” said the younger boy.
“Yes. Can you bring me one?”
“Phone.”
“I give you the turtle, you give me a phone.”
“Phone, yes,” said the older boy.
It seemed to be a deal. By now it was getting dark, and the boys managed to explain to him that they had to leave. They told him that they would be back the next day.