It was hardly an academic point. A tug was due to meet him within an hour here. Despite considerable work by his crew, they had been unable to restart their main engines. Their emergency backup power was supplied by an electric generator. They had manually rerouted it to provide power to the in-port maneuvering system, but could make no more than two or three knots, and even that required shutting down the rest of the electrical systems. The power arrangements meant they could only use the cannon. It would have to be aimed and operated manually, and even then there were doubts about what effect the power drain would have on the rest of the ships’ systems. It was unlikely they could destroy the platform before the men there called for reinforcements.
Still, it was not in Dazhou’s nature to do nothing. All his life he had seen boldness rewarded.
“We will move to the east side of the platform,” he told his crew. “When we arrive, we will send a boarding party. I will lead the party myself,” he added on the spur of the moment. “There are no more than three men on the platform; they should be easy to overcome.”
Brunei International Airport
0535
“They’re blowing up the fuel trucks,” said Mack as the Flighthawk tucked left and lit its cannon on the other side of the civilian terminal. He crouched down though he was several hundred yards away.
He had to hand it to Zen—he was an efficient SOB. Anyone else would have taken two or three passes. But here the pilot had gone for the trifecta, swooshing three trucks in the space of maybe ten seconds.
“Why are they doing that?” said Sahurah next to him.
Mack shrugged, though he knew the answer—they didn’t want the EB-52 to take off, but had decided for some reason to hold off on blowing it up.
Lucky for him.
“You saved my life,” said Sahurah as the Flighthawk swooped upward. “Why?”
Good question, thought Mack.
“Why did you save me, or not try to escape?” asked Sahurah when he didn’t answer.
“Just stupid, I guess,” said Mack, watching as the Flighthawk made another pass and another fuel truck erupted in flames.
* * *
WHY HAD THE INFIDEL SAVED HIS LIFE? WONDERED SAHURAH.
Had God moved him to do so?
Or had the devil?
What if neither had? What if he had acted solely on his own?
Sahurah put his hand on his hip over his holster, contemplating what had happened. He had been taught that Westerners, Americans especially, were thoroughly corrupt and without virtue. He’d seen ample examples of this during his life.
And yet the actions of his prisoner, surely meant to save him, were against every expectation. It was one thing for the man to be strong and brave—these were things he expected, considering that Mack Smith had an important position. But his actions were beyond that.
“Commander!” shouted one of his men, running toward him. Four other brothers, all with AK47s, trotted behind him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” said Sahurah. “Take Mr. Smith back to the building where he was held. Treat him with the greatest respect.” He turned to Mack. “Remember, you are a prisoner.”
“Hard to forget,” replied Mack, following them toward the building.
Over western Brunei, near Sukut
0540
McKenna banked her Dragonfly low over the river, giving the tops of the nearby trees a good look at her belly. The Brunei army had fortified positions on the northern side of the bridge that led to Sukut, and had only a few scouts on the south. She couldn’t see them because of the thick jungle canopy, nor could she tell if there were rebels there.
“You have a truck moving on the road,” she told the Brunei army unit on the ground. “Pickup type truck. Rear is, uh, looks empty.”
The army sergeant on the other end of the line thanked her. Unlike yesterday, the responses were sharp and very focused.
McKenna flew over the road and then banked north, looking for any concentration of militants. The citizens of Sukut had rallied to the small army and police force there, swelling their ranks with volunteers. Reinforcements were due soon from Medit.
“This is Dreamland EB-52 Pennsylvania to unidentified aircraft operating near Sukut. Identify yourself,” crackled the radio.
“Who the hell are you calling unidentified?” snapped McKenna. “Why are you using Brunei Air Force communications frequencies?”
“Identify yourself,” responded the voice.
“Just like an American,” answered the pilot. “Dreamland EB-full-of-yourself-52, this is Brunei-Air-Force-kick-your-butt-and-spit-in-your-eye A-37B Dragonfly Dragon One. You are in sovereign Brunei territory,” she added. “State your purpose and position.”
There was a brief pause. McKenna began climbing and made sure her radar was in long-range scan. The scope was clear, though she knew the Megafortress’s stealthy characteristics meant it could be as close as ten miles away.
“Dragon One, this is
Pennsylvania,”
said another, older voice over the radio. “We are here to assess the situation.”
“Well, that’s damn American of you,” responded McKenna. “A day late and I’m going to guess a dollar short. What’s your location?”
“We’ve just finished eliminating the ground-to-air defenses at Brunei International Airport and disabled their fueling capacity.”
“What about our EB-52?” she asked.
“We haven’t touched it,” said the American. “It’s near your hangar at the base.”
McKenna felt a stab of pain in her ribs—she had hoped that Mack had been warned off and gone back to the Philippines. “Is the plane under the militants’ control?” added the voice.
”Unknown at this time.”
“The airport is clearly in militant control, as is the rest of the capital,” said the voice. “Do you have information to the contrary?”
Hopes, but not information, she thought to herself.
“Not at this time,” she answered. “Who are you?”
“Lt. Colonel Tecumseh Bastian. Who are you?”
“Brunei Air Commodore McKenna”
McKenna filled the Americans in on the situation as she knew it, without identifying the base she was operating from. She guessed that they were here primarily to make sure that Brunei’s Megafortress didn’t fall into the militants’ hands.
“Are you offering to help the sultan, who is the rightful and lawful ruler of this country?” she asked finally.
“We’re here to assess the situation,” answered the American.
“Well don’t take too long to choose up sides,” she told him. “Or there may be only one left.”
Off the coast of Brunei
0540
“Some sort of ship,” Liu told Danny over the communications circuit. He was standing a few feet away on the dock, using binoculars to examine the shadowy vessel. “Stealthy. Those triangular wings on the side allow it to skim over the water. Marines were talking about something like that to move troops in, but they’re a bit bigger.”
Whatever it was, it was moving, albeit very, very slowly, to the east of the platform. It remained several hundred yards away.
“Who does it belong to, Captain?” asked Boston, who was back by the ladder.
“Good question,” said Danny. “I’ll alert Dreamland Command. For the time being, Boston, Bison, you guys keep it under surveillance from the lower deck. The rest of us will continue searching the platform. Weapons locker would be particularly handy right now.”
“Gotcha, Cap,” said Bison.
Danny climbed back to the housing area, where Pretty Boy had set up the satellite communications gear. Danny’s helmet plugged in via an infrared link, and he found himself talking to Major Catsman in the command center. The vessel—or whatever it was—didn’t appear on any of the force listings or any of the intelligence briefings that she could find.
“It’s not an optical illusion,” said Danny. “I can replay the image I recorded with the helmet. It’s moving in the water. Pretty slowly, but it’s moving.”
“We’d like to see it,” said Catsman. “I’ll ask Colonel Bastian to overfly it. They’re over the southern portion of the country right now.”
Before Danny could reply, Boston broke in over the team circuit.
“Captain, there’s a boat coming out of the back of it. Looks like there’s a boarding party”
“Be right there,” said Danny.
Aboard
“Penn,”
over Brunei
0550
“I see where she’s heading,” said Lieutenant Hawkins, working one of the radar boards on the Dreamland EB-52. “Small strip, tiny—surprised she can get out of there.”
The lieutenant forwarded a map image with the strip marked out on it to Dog’s station. Dog zoomed out, getting a better idea of the location, and then brought up a satellite image from the library. The base was indeed tiny, but it was also near the coast and protected by rough terrain from neighboring Malaysia.
“Zen, let’s get an overflight of that area:’ Dog said. “Get an idea of what they’ve got there and whether their defenses can withstand an attack.”
“Sure she won’t try shooting me down?” said Zen.
“She may just take you on,” Dog told him. The pilot—McKenna—reminded him a bit of his own daughter. “But if you don’t think you can outfly an A-37B …”
“I can handle a Tweet, thanks,” snapped Zen, using the somewhat derogatory slang term for the aircraft’s trainer version, the T-37.
If the base seemed secure, Dog thought he might be able to air-drop supplies in. That would be exceeding his orders—but it was the right thing to do, as long as he could find a way to do it.
“Dreamland Command to
Penn,”
crackled the radio. “Colonel, Danny’s reporting an unidentified vessel in the water near his position.”
“On our way,” said Dog, immediately changing his plans.
Off the coast of Brunei
0551
It didn’t take more than a few seconds to see that the boat was definitely headed for the platform. Danny came down to the lower deck, watching as the rubber boat came toward them. There were four men, paddling steadily. The team looked extremely disciplined—so much so that they reminded Danny of the SEAL team he had spent an exhilarating and exhausting week training with a year before.
“Dreamland, are you sure these aren’t our forces?” Danny asked, punching the back of his helmet to connect via the satellite. “These guys remind me of SEALs.”
“Not to our knowledge.”
“Cap, what do you think of going down to the dock? They can’t see the ladder from where they are.”
“Hold off, Boston” The last thing he wanted to do was kill four of his countrymen. “Dreamland—have we checked with the navy?”
“That’s negative, but to our knowledge, they’re not navy” He was authorized to protect himself. If these guys were SEALs, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That wasn’t going to be good enough if he was wrong, though.
“Liu, you got that high-powered telescope trained on these guys?”
“Still working on it, Captain.”
The vessel they had come from was definitely not American; it didn’t appear on any listing of U.S. forces that Danny knew of or that Dreamland could access. Then again, most of Dreamland’s equipment didn’t either. Whiplash itself was to be found nowhere, except as an insignificant security detail attached to a nonexistent unit at Edwards Air Force Base.
The boat was fifty yards away.
“Captain?” asked Boston.
“They have MP5Ns,” said Liu.
The same type of submachine gun SEALs used.
“Russian RPG in the bottom of the boat.”
“Fire!” said Danny.
SOMEHOW DAZHOU TI SENSED THAT THEY WERE UNDER FIRE before he heard or saw the gunfire. He immediately reached to the motor of the boat—they’d kept it off so they could make a silent approach—and started the engine. The four-stroke pancake motor, adapted from a motorcycle design, was located completely underwater, except for the air intake and exhaust. It coughed then caught with a roar, lifting the prow of the rubber assault boat forward in a rush. As it did, one of Dazhou’s men fell back against him; the captain pushed him back upright but the man slumped to the left, his face and arm riddled with bullets.
“There,” shouted one of the others, pointing. The guns began popping, the loud staccato competing with the roar of the engine. A stream of lead ripped against the wall of the boat, puncturing some of the cells but not enough to threaten its buoyancy. Another of Dazhou’s men leaned to the side, then fell into the water; Dazhou kept his sight fastened on the dock area ahead.
He’d thought there were no more than three people here, but obviously there were.
Something roared behind him, and part of the platform crumpled and fell into the water—the
Barracuda
began to fire its cannon.
THE FIRST SHELL LANDED ON THE DECK BELOW THEM, rumbling through the metal framework with a groaning screech. The cannon flashed several times again, apparently without hitting the platform.
Meanwhile, the boat was continuing toward them. Danny emptied his magazine, then slapped in a fresh box.
“Liu, put a grenade on it if it gets close enough,” he told the sergeant as he ran in the direction of the ladder down to the dock. As he reached it, the enemy ship’s gun found its target once more and the platform rocked with three blows from the cannon. Danny fell near the railing; he looked over and saw Boston down below emptying his M4, a shortened version of the M16.
“What the hell are you doing down there? Get up, get up,” yelled Danny. Machine-gun fire peppered the dock near his man, and at least two slugs bounced off Boston’s carbon-boron vest. Danny couldn’t find the boat for a second; finally he saw it at the far end of the dock area. He fired his MP5 submachine gun, the bullets rattling out from the weapon, his whole body shaking. Someone in the boat began to fire back and Danny pushed back, out of the line of fire, and reloaded.
“Boston where the hell are you?”
He, didn’t answer. Danny pushed back to the edge of the deck area as the platform rocked violently with fresh salvos from the enemy ship. He thought he could get a grenade into the boat but didn’t want to with Boston exposed somewhere below.