As they did, Liu disappeared beneath the roiling surface of the lake. Danny glanced to his right, getting his bearings, then looked back, expecting to see Liu. But he wasn’t there.
He stared, waiting for his sergeant to reappear. Three or four seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.
Where was he?
IF IT WAS GOD’S WILL THAT THE BABY AND HER FAMILY DIE, thought Liu, what is His will now? If I just let myself sink beneath the waves, will He let me drown?
Pushed under by the rotor wash, Liu let his body drift down, toward the smooth rocks and shadows he’d seen before, toward the ghost that he knew waited here.
How easy it was to just let go, to just give up and die.
He took his breather away from his face. Almost immediately his lungs began to scream for water.
Liu drifted, expecting the baby to appear. He closed his eyes, then opened them. There were shapes in the water, strange shapes, but he recognized them all—the warhead being lifted, Captain Freah’s feet in the distance, some of the metal casing to the missile that they’d discarded earlier.
No ghosts. No easy way out.
If he stayed underwater until his lungs burst, then he would never know why it had happened. He would never know if it was part of another plan, if it was meant to push him toward something or if God had merely extracted some awful toll and wanted him as a witness to His power.
Did he really want to know?
Yes, answered Liu, pushing back to the surface.
* * *
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235
JENNIFER STARTED TO TROT TOWARD THE WARHEAD AS THE
Marine Osprey set it down on the beach.
“The Chinese are coming,” she told Danny, explaining what Dog had told her.
“All right. We’ll pack it into the Osprey and take it back to Base Camp One.”
“We have to make it safe first,” she said.
“That’ll take far too long. There’s a plane full of Chinese paratroopers on the way,” said Danny. “No. I’ll do it in the Osprey.”
“You’re crazy.”
“We have to get out of here.”
“I’ll safe it,” said Jennifer.
“In the Osprey,” said Danny, kicking off his flippers.
Not having an alternative, Jennifer nodded.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over northwest India
0303
ACCORDING TO COLONEL BASTIAN’S SITREP DISPLAY, THE
three aircraft approaching the warhead recovery area included one Sukhoi fighter and two Xian Y-14 transports. The Y-14s were Chinese versions of the Russian An-24 “Curl,”
military transport aircraft that he guessed were carrying paratroopers.
The screen also showed that the Cheli had moved far west during the encounter. Though it was hard to criticize the results of the air battle—five aircraft shot down—Sparks and his crew had put the Cheli in a poor position to deal with the other aircraft.
But that’s why the Bennett was backing him up.
“Cheli, what’s your situation?” Dog asked.
“Hey, Colonel. We have one bandit, two bogies heading in.”
“What do you mean bogies?” Dog said, cutting him off.
The slang term meant that the aircraft were unidentified; 236
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“bandits” were airplanes that were ID’d as bad guys, as these should have been. “Those are Xian Y-14 transports.”
“Computer is disagreeing with you there, Colonel. We’re showing them as Fokker F27s. Cowboy is on his way to check it out. I’m going to handle the other Sukhoi.”
Experience alone told Dog that the IDs were wrong; civilian transports did not travel in twos, much less behind a fighter escort.
“You’re not in position to make an intercept on that Sukhoi, let alone the transports.”
“We will be in five minutes.”
“Too long. I’ve got them,” said Dog. “Swing back toward the recovery area.”
“Colonel—”
“Swing back toward the recovery area.”
“Yes, sir.”
STARSHIP PULLED UP THE VIEW FROM THE UNDERSIDE
camera of Hawk One as the aircraft swung around the recovery area, watching the Osprey straining to pull the warhead from the water. The V-22 seemed to stand dead still, a bodybuilder hunched over a barbell. The aircraft started up slowly, moving toward the northern end of the mountain lake as it went. Starship could see a ripple of waves on the water, but the warhead itself hadn’t appeared as the Flighthawk passed by.
“Flighthawk leader, I need you to intercept those two Chinese transports,” said Dog over the interphone. “You see them?”
“On it, Colonel.”
Starship checked the sitrep, discovering that the airplanes were less than seventy miles away. He pulled back on his stick, automatically taking Hawk One from the computer’s control.
“The Cheli’s radar system is claiming that the aircraft are Fokker airliners,” added Dog. “We have them as Y-14s. Verify them visually.”
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237
Starship touched the talk button for his mike, allowing him to give a voice command to the computer. “Trail one, ”
he said, ordering the computer to fly Hawk Two behind the other Flighthawk.
“What do you want to do with that Sukhoi?” Starship asked.
“That’s mine. You concentrate on the transports.”
“Roger that.”
Aboard Dreamland Cheli,
over northwest India
0324
“WE JUST SHOT DOWN LIKE FIVE AIRPLANES—FIVE!—AND
Bastian’s mad at us?” said Micelli.
“I wouldn’t call him mad,” Sparks told him. “Just not happy.”
“It’s Cheech’s fault,” retorted the copilot. “We have bullshit IDs on those transports. Everybody knows they’re not civ-vies.”
“Hey, screw you, Micelli,” said the airborne radar operator.
“The radar says what the radar says. They’re not identing,” he added, using slang for using the automated identification gear.
“What can I tell you?”
“Relax, guys,” said Sparks sharply. “We went too far west getting out of the way of the Chinese missiles. Just play it the way it lays.”
Sparks pushed the Megafortress south toward the warhead recovery area.
“You with us, Flighthawks?” he asked.
“Roger that,” said Cowboy. “Got your six, big mother.”
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Aboard Dreamland Bennett,
over northwest India
0330
“MISSILE LAUNCH!” SHOUTED SULLIVAN, THE BENNETT’S
copilot. “Two—FD-60s. Pen Lung Dragon Bolts.”
“ECMs.”
The FD-60 was a medium range semiactive radar homing missile similar to the Italian Aspide, which by some reports had been reverse-engineered to create it. Unlike the missile they had dealt with earlier, Dog had considerable experience with the Dragon Bolt, and was confident the electronic countermeasures would sufficiently confuse it.
“Range is forty miles,” said Sullivan. “Sukhoi is changing course.”
As soon as it fired its missiles, the Chinese plane swung eastward. Dog held his own course steady, figuring the Sukhoi was looping around to get closer to the transports.
“He may be running away,” said Sullivan as the Sukhoi continued to the east.
“No, he’s going to swing back and protect the transports.
Where are those missiles?”
“Missile one is tracking. Missile two is off the scope.”
“Keep hitting the ECMs.”
“We’re playing every song the orchestra knows, Colonel.”
THE LEAD TRANSPORT WAS A SMALL GRAY BLIP IN THE SIMUlated heads-up display screen at the center of Starship’s station. According to the computer, the aircraft had turboprop engines, was moving at 320 knots, and was definitely a Xian Y-14. But Starship knew he couldn’t trust the computer’s ID; he had to close in and get visual confirmation.
But the computer was so integrated into the aircraft he was flying that even a “visual” was heavily influenced by the computer’s choices. The image he saw wasn’t an image at all, it was constructed primarily from the radar aboard the Megafortress. The computer took the radar information, along with RETRIBUTION