“Whoa, watch it, Lobo,” Handyman said. She knew he wasn’t troubled by the G-forces so much as the fact that the Tomcat’s extended wings expanded its wingspan from thirty-eight feet to almost sixty-four. The inboard tip had to be reaching for the water. But she didn’t bother to reply; she knew where her goddamned wingtips were.
“Viper Leader, Viper Leader, this is Homeplate — are you sure it’s a civilian vessel?”
As she leveled out, the sea below her was black and smooth, a waxed floor in which she could see the reflections of stars. She knew that to the rear, matters would be different. There, the horizontal vortex of air uncoiling from each wingtip would be lashing the surface into a froth.
But all her attention was focused dead ahead, where the flame leapt into life once more.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.” Her finger had gone to the weapons selector switch. But… did she really have cause for action? Maybe this was target practice on some derelict boat. Or a legitimate shoot-out of some kind. Through her mind flashed the mantra of the few female Navy fighter pilots: Don’t fuck up; they’re watching you soooooo closely….
Then she saw the American flag dangling, shredded, from a pole on the remnants of the sinking boat’s fantail — and the red star painted on the side of the helicopter. Below her, the water was suddenly full of floating lumps. Lobo’s finger jumped back to the weapons selector switch. Too close for missiles, but the Tomcat’s M61A1 Vulcan cannon could shred that helo into a pile of tin cans…
… And drop it right on top of any possible survivors in the water.
Don’t fuck up….
Snarling, she slammed the throttles forward, turning the Tomcat into an arrowhead sixty-one feet nine inches long, and leaping toward the speed of sound.
Martin Lee clung to the rail of what had once been the starboard side of Lady of Leisure, but now substituted for her slanted deck. He had moved to the starboard rail from the stern only when the yacht began to roll over, yet even then he had stayed as close as possible to the stern. Wait for me right there, no matter what. What a fool he was; what a brainless, unthinking lackey. Now, with one arm wrapped around an upright and his body sprawled across the yacht’s slick fiberglass flank, he pretended to be dead. It was the only thing he could think of to do.
They had already shot most of the others. First they’d blasted Lady of Leisure herself, hammering rounds into her fragile body at the waterline, until she toppled over far enough to dump most of her passengers into the sea. Then the helicopter turned its attention to them. Circling slowly behind the bright eye of its searchlight, it picked out the passengers one by one and shot them, until the water turned scarlet-and-blue.
Lee watched all this from beneath his arm as he dangled against the side of the boat. He didn’t want to watch, but closing his eyes was much worse; the noise, the screaming…
He saw Pablo Cheung diving under the water, pursued by silver spears where slugs yanked bubbles after them. Cheung stopped diving and turned into a red rug drifting just below the surface. Lee saw Lisa Austin, the clothing designer, raise her hands toward the flames, and disintegrate. He saw the helicopter hesitate, its searchlight beam probing the water, scanning back and forth, then sliding back toward the yacht.
He closed his eyes. Tried not to scream as the light blazed over him, turning his eyelids red, prickling his skin like the heat of the sun…
Then he did scream as something crushed down on him, driving the wreckage of Lady of Leisure deeper into the water, boring into Lee’s ears, then releasing them so hard they popped. Water sprayed up around him, so dense he could not breathe. He jerked erect, gasping, his blood pounding in his ears. When he opened his eyes he saw the water falling back, and beyond that the helicopter’s searchlight beam jumping erratically between the sea and the sky. The helicopter was bobbling in the air like a toy on a rubber band, the silvery disk of its rotor nearly touching the water on one side, then the other, its machine gun blessedly silent. Finally it steadied again, hovered for a moment, then pivoted, lifted its tail high and raced away to the west.
A few moments later, the air thundered again and something flashed overhead; enormous, silvery, pursued by two long cones of flame.
Even before the burnt-kerosene aroma of jet exhaust reached him, Lee knew what had passed over. Clinging to the remnants of the Lady of Leisure with one arm, he waved frantically at the sky.
“What’s going on, TT?” Hot Rock demanded over the ICS. He banked his Tomcat slightly, maintaining his altitude at the prescribed fifteen thousand feet, searching the ocean below. He couldn’t believe this was happening. According to Lobo’s last radio transmission to Homeplate, the boat under attack was carrying an American flag. An American boat, clear out here — what were the odds? “Come on, what’s happening down there?”
“Hang on, hang on, I’m checkin’.” Hot Rock had long ago noticed that the more intense the situation, the more the accent of his RIO, Tony “Two Tone” Cappelli, reverted to its Brooklyn roots. “Getting nothing but surface clutter; looking straight down ain’t what AWG-9 is made for, you know?”
“Do you pick up the chopper at all? I see Lobo; she’s going around again. She didn’t take a shot, did she? Is the chopper still there? Talk to me, Two Tone!” Sweat slicked the space between his palm and the yoke. Blood sang in his ears.
“Lookin’ for your first kill, youngster? Well, I’m getting a little signal here, something maybe runnin’ west.”
“Should I chase it or not?”
“Hey, you’re the pilot. Or you could call Mommy and ask her permission if you like.”
Hot Rock felt as if cold water had been dumped over his head. He could hear his father’s voice: What’s the matter, Reginald? You scared to take the horse over that jump? Scared of a little fall? Your brother was clearing that jump before he was six years old.
He flicked the radio to tactical. “Viper Leader, Viper Two. I’m in pursuit of the helicopter. Repeat, in pursuit of the helo, departing on a heading of two three zero.”
“We’re right on the edge of the twelve-mile limit,” came Lobo’s clipped tones. “Watch your position.”
“Copy.” He was proud of how dry and sarcastic that came out. Just the way his father would have said it if someone had challenged his expertise.
Nosing the Tomcat over, he started searching the dark water ahead. Of course, odds were he wouldn’t spot the helicopter at all; the Tomcat wasn’t equipped with infrared targeting, and for that matter Two Tone could have just been picking up random surface clutter, the bane of airborne radar.
Then he saw something. “Tally ho!” he cried, the words for “target sighted” leaping automatically to his lips. That pleased him. He’d said exactly what he had been trained to say, without thinking about it. Perhaps everything else would work that way, too. “I see his rotor disk, TT. Right on the deck.” He licked his lips. “Um, he’s heading for the twelve-mile limit. Better call Homeplate for orders before we do anything; this is a weird situa — ”
Just then the voice from the Hawkeye interrupted. “Viper, Viper, you have incoming bogeys, bearing zero niner zero. Four bogeys, repeat, four bogeys inbound on your position. From their radars, they’re Flankers.”