"This is the Hammer," the pilot of the CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft replied. "Are you trying to call us?"
"I was wondering if Wendy got in contact with the Egyptian navy."
"Wendy's not on board, Castor," came the response.
Patrick's mouth turned instantly dry, and his knees wobbled, even though his legs were supported by the high-tech exoskeleton. "Say again, Hammer?"
"Sir, Wendy is not on board," the pilot acknowledged. "She told some of our passengers to lift off without her, that she was going in a lifeboat after she got a FlightHawk ready to attack."
"Wendy?" Patrick shouted. "Can you hear me? Where are you? Answer me!" He was breathing so hard into his helmet that he was in danger of hyperventilating. "I want a search of every lifeboat and every square inch of the Hammer! Turn this boat around! We're going back!"
But by the time they turned around, the S.S. Catherine the Great had slipped beneath the dark burning waters of the Mediterranean Sea. They searched for several minutes until they heard patrol helicopters from the Libyan frigate heading in their direction and they were forced to withdraw. The Libyans pursued them until Egyptian navy patrol planes forced the Libyan helicopters to return to their stricken ship, but by the time Patrick, Briggs, and Wohl were picked up by an Egyptian frigate, the area where the Catherine had gone down was surrounded by Libyan coastal patrol ships. There was no way they could return, and they easily outnumbered the Egyptian patrols. Patrick interrogated Wendy's subcutaneous microtransceiver, checking for life signs or even a position, but there was no reply.
Patrick could not bear to turn away from the spot where the Catherine had gone down. He didn't care if the whole world heard the strange high-tech-looking commando sobbing inside his battle armor.
CHAPTER 2
"I can't take a meeting today. Can't you see this place is a madhouse?" Jon Masters shouted when his assistant, Suzanne, interrupted him for the third time in the past hour.
"Jon, the Duffields have been waiting since yesterday…"
"I asked to reschedule the meeting."
"They've already rescheduled twice," Suzanne reminded him. "They've flown out all the way from Nevada each time. They're trying to accommodate you all they can."
"Have them try harder." He jabbed a finger at the door, dismissing her, then recited more commands into his voice-command computer terminal.
Suzanne sighed and gave up, but as she departed Jon's wife, Helen, who was the chairman of the board of their high-tech defense contractor aerospace company, Sky Masters Inc., walked in. Helen was several years older than her husband, but these days their age difference seemed to grow less and less noticeable. Helen was now wearing her dark hair a bit shorter, accentuating her long neck, slender face, and dark mysterious eyes; through the magic of laser surgery, she was also able to forgo the thick matronlylooking glasses she had worn since childhood. "Jon, we have that meeting with the Duffields right now. Let's go."
"I just got done telling Suzanne-"
"I know what you're telling Suzanne, but I'm telling you-we can't put this off any longer," Helen insisted. "Just a couple hours, that's all. A quick tour, review the prospectus, meet and greet, perhaps talk about the reorganization…"
"Helen," Jon began, rubbing his temples quickly with his fingers, "give me a break, okay?" He put his head down and concentrated on his self-massage, and Helen waited patiently for him to finish. Jon Masters was only in his mid-thirties, but his short, frizzy, rather unkempt hair looked like it was already turning gray at the temples, and many speculated he rubbed his temples more and more these days to rub the gray off. He had stopped wearing ball caps and drinking from big thirty-two-ounce squeeze bottles like a preschooler; and Helen, his wife of only a few years, noticed that her younger husband was starting to feel his age as well as look it.
It was about time, she thought. Jon Masters's entire life had been one adventure after another: his first of several hundred patents at age ten; his first million-dollar tax return by age eleven; his first Ph.D., from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age thirteen; control of the company, the one she had slaved for years to build, before age thirty. He had completely bypassed childhood and gone from infant to adult. Jon had never really known failure or pressure in his young life-he was always the one in control. Even in his clumsy, boyish, but charming courtship of her, he managed to learn how to charm and please a woman quickly enough to avoid losing her completely. He did not make her feel like just another conquest-he had learned well enough to avoid that trap.
"In case you've forgotten, Helen," Jon muttered, "Paul is dead; Wendy is missing; and Patrick, Hal, and Chris are being detained in Egypt." Sky Masters Inc. was the secret major weapons and technology supplier to former president Kevin Martindale's commando force, the Night Stalkers. It was not a closely guarded secret: Wendy, Patrick, Hal Briggs, and Chris Wohl were all employees of Sky Masters Inc., and Paul McLanahan, although employed as an attorney in California, had worked closely with Sky Masters for years on development of the Tin Man battle armor and other weapons. "I'm a little preoccupied right now."
"But the Duffields don't know any of that," Helen said, closing Jon's office door behind her. "We can't tell them several of our people are involved in secret commando attacks in Libya. We have to carry on as if everything is okay. If we don't, it'll look like we're just blowing them off-and we definitely don't want to do that."
"Helen, I thought all this shareholder and ownership and corporate-resolution stuff was your responsibility," Jon whined. "All I want to do is be an inventor, work in the labs, design stuff.. "
"You are also chief operating officer and the majority shareholder, so you have a say in everything that goes on," Helen reminded him. "Of course, you can always transfer all your shares to me, and then I can relieve you of your position as COO and largest shareholder and you can be just a regular salaried employee-just like you did to me six years ago."
"C'mon, now-you're still not mad about that, are you?" Jon asked with a faint smile.
"A guy eight years my junior who had never even owned a car before marches into the company I mortgaged my parents' house to start and takes over in just a couple years-what do I have to be mad about?" Helen responded. But she smiled at him and said, "Actually, I was impressed by what you did, even though I squawked and hollered every step of the way until I was purpl, and I'm proud and pleased with what you've done with my company since then. You're a good guy, Jon. That impish spoiJed-brat personality is almost gone, and you've turned into a regular guy." She paused, her smile warm and genuine. "The guy I love."
Jon looked up and smiled back. "And I love you, Helen." He sighed, then added, "And you can have the stock and the title. I don't want it. It's not worth that much these days anyway."
"Bull, Dr. Masters," Helen said. "If you didn't want it, you would have given it away long ago, or put it into a trust for the child you keep promising to make with me-if you'd ever go home and spend a night in bed with me. And don't worry about the stock value. Sure, it's gone down in recent months with the downturn in the NASDAQ, but with the sweetheart stock option deals you finagled, you're still a rich guy." She stepped over behind him and gently massaged his shoulders. "Besides, giving up the stock and your position in the company wouldn't relieve you of worrying about our friends, or mourning Paul McLanahan."