Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (13 page)

 
          
“I
got a problem over here, boys,” Briggs said. “I’m real low on ammo. Maybe two
or three more bursts and I’m out.”

 
          
“Same
here,” Wohl said.

 
          
Patrick
checked his magazine and found he had just a handful of rounds remaining—not
enough for even a halfsecond burst. “How about your Stingers?”

 
          
“One
on the fantail.”

 
          
“Two
starboard.”

 
          
“One
on the bow,” Patrick said. “And there’s no way we can outrun that frigate.”

 
          
“I
just got a call—the Egyptian Navy is dispatching two Perry-class frigates,”
Luger reported. “ETE sixty minutes. They’ve launched patrol aircraft and
helicopters, too.”

           
That was good news, Patrick thought,
but they wouldn’t be on time before the Libyan warship struck.

 
          
He
hesitated, but only for a moment. For the second time, he was going to lose
another base ship to enemy attack. The Iranians had sunk another commando
carrier, the S.S.
Valley Mistress
, in
the Persian Gulf, killing several dozen men. That incident had brought Patrick
out of his first retirement to start a campaign of revenge against the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards that had captured the survivors. He was determined not to
allow that loss of life again. “Abandon ship,” Patrick ordered. “All crewmen to
lifeboats. Right now.”

 
          
“Patrick—”
Dave Luger began.

 
          
“This
means you, Dave,” Patrick interrupted. “We’ll stay up here with whatever
weapons we have left and hold off that frigate as long as possible. Then we’ll—”

 
          
Suddenly,
Hal Briggs shouted, “Hey, Dave, is that a FlightHawk on the launcher over on
the starboard side raising up to launch position?”

 
          
“A
FlightHawk?” Patrick asked. “Dave, how did you get a FlightHawk ready so fast?”

 
          
“I
didn’t do it, Muck,” Luger replied. “I just noticed it elevating too. It’s
already spun up its guidance system. I didn’t do it from here. I don’t know .
..” He paused, then shouted,
“Missile
inbound!
A missile just lifted off from that frigate
... a second missile just launched
! Two missiles inbound!
Sea-skimmers, accelerating to point nine Mach, range twenty-five miles!”

 
          
“Get
your asses on those lifeboats now!” Patrick shouted to the two MANPADS crew
members with him, pushing them toward the lifeboat stations on the port side.
He grabbed his last Stinger missile and dashed down the starboard side of the
salvage ship. He saw the FlightHawk on the amidships launch rail, but he
couldn’t see what weapons, if any, it was carrying, or any other markings that
would tell him which UCAV it was. Just as he reached the fantail alongside
Briggs and Wohl, the FlightHawk unmanned combat air vehicle blasted off from
its launcher on deck.

 
          
“Good
job, Dave,” Patrick said. “Now get to the lifeboats.”

           
“I’m telling you, Muck, I didn’t—”

 
          
“Contact!
Here they come!” Briggs shouted. “Man, they’re damned low. I don’t know if the
Stingers will be able to lock on them.” But he raised his Stinger, aimed, and
fired. Seconds later, the first antiship missile, a Russian- made SS-N-2C Styx
missile, exploded in a brilliant ball of fire. Patrick’s Stinger missile missed
the second antiship missile, but Chris Wohl was ready with his Vulcan cannon
and destroyed it seconds before it hit. This time, the starboard side of the
Catherine
was showered with unspent
rocket fuel and fiery bits of the obliterated warhead. It was a very close
call.

 
          
“Lifeboats
away,” they heard Dave Luger report. “One lifeboat starboard, another on the
port side, ready and waiting for you guys.”

 
          
“How
many of those big missiles does that frigate carry?” Briggs asked.

 
          
“Koni-class
frigates carry four SS-N-2s,” Luger responded.

 
          
“Then
I’ll stay to see if they fire any more missiles,” Patrick said.

 
          
“I’m
staying too,” Hal Briggs said.

 
          
“I’m
not leaving,” Chris Wohl said with pure titanium in his voice. “We’ve got two
Stingers and some ammo left— that should be enough for the last two SS-N-2s.”

 
          
Patrick
nodded. He was happy to have such good fighters and close friends on that
fantail with him. He had no way to fight off two big antiship missiles by
himself, but he had been ready to order both of them to the lifeboats anyway.

 
          
“Here
they come, guys,” Hal shouted. It seemed as if he barely had time to raise his
Stinger missile before he fired. The antiaircraft missile missed, plunging into
the sea without ever locking onto the target. Wohl’s cannon fire hit the
missile, but it still continued on, skipping across the ocean like a stick of
dynamite thrown across a pond before slamming into the
Catherine
near the bow. Patrick’s last Stinger missile shot missed
as well, and the second SS-N-2 Styx missile hit just aft of the first missile’s
impact point. The ship shuddered, which soon progressed with terrifying speed
to an earthquake-like trembling. The deck heeled upward, slammed down hard,
then heeled up again. The bow was already going under.

 
          
It
took every bit of strength for the three commandos to struggle to the port-side
lifeboats. Luger had already lowered a boat to the water and had its engines
started, and it took only seconds for the three to climb down, unfasten their
lines, and motor away from the
Catherine.

 
          
Through
his electronic visor, Patrick could see the big Libyan frigate on the horizon.
It was already turning toward them—the rapidly sinking salvage ship could no
longer screen them. The lifeboat could only putter along, barely making five or
six knots—the frigate would catch up to them in no time. Moments later he saw a
muzzle flash, and seconds later a huge geyser of water erupted just a few dozen
yards away—the Libyan frigate was already firing on them!

 
          
Wohl
was twisting and pulling the lifeboat’s tiller, trying to spoil their
targeting. “Come and get us, sucker,” he muttered. “Just hope there’s nothing
left of me when you catch up to me.” Another geyser of water and an
earsplitting
BOOM!
erupted, closer
this time—they were getting the range. Another couple shots and ...

 
          
Suddenly
a fountain of fire appeared on the horizon. “Something hit the Libyan frigate!”
Patrick shouted. “The FlightHawk! It must’ve kamikazied on the frigate! Not a
moment too soon!” On the command net, he radioed, “Wendy, this is Castor. Are
you in contact with the Egyptian patrol ships? They should be able to screen
you against any other Libyan fighters. Are you heading toward Egypt?” No
response. “Wendy, you copy?”

 
          
“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.

BLYTHEVILLE
,
ARKANSAS
 
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING

 
          
“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 matronly- looking 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-thiities,
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 purple, and I’m proud and pleased with what you’ve done with my company
since then. You’re a good guy, Jon. That impish spoiled-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.”

 
          
“No.
I guess it wouldn’t.” Jon sighed. “I can’t believe Paul’s gone. We were almost
the same age. He was teaching me how to sail. We were buddies. I felt closer to
him than I did to Patrick.”

 
          
She
massaged his shoulders a bit more until he moaned with pleasure, then patted
his shoulder, hard, in the direction of his office door. “Let’s go, Doctor.
Let’s meet the Duffields.”

 
          
“Remind
me who they are again?”

 
          
“You
know who they are,” Helen said, rolling her eyes with mock exasperation. “Conan
David Duffield is the retired founder of SumaTek, the largest very-high-speed
integrated-circuit design company in the world and the pioneer of
nanotechnology. We have used SumaTek chips in our designs for ten years. He’s
in his late forties, degrees from Rutgers and Cornell, he’s into French and
Napa Valley wine, humane treatment of animals, and private schools, including
providing scholarships to good students who otherwise couldn
^?
t
afford a private-school education. His new acquisition company is called Sierra
Vistas Partners. He’s the money guy—he buys, rehabilitates, grows, and sells
distressed high-tech companies.”

           
“Hey, this company is not
‘distressed.’ ”

 
          
“I’m
not saying it is, Jon,” Helen said quickly. But they both knew better—the
combination of a downtuming stock market, a glut of fairly modem Russian and
Chinese weapons on the global arms market, and vastly lower defense spending
had depressed stock values and affected thousands of defense-related companies
all over the world, including Sky Masters Inc.

 
          
“His
wife is Dr. Kelsey D. Duffield, Ph.D.,” Helen went on. “I don’t have that much
info on her—she keeps more to herself. I hear she’s much younger than he is.
She’s the front person: she investigates and evaluates companies, then reports
to him.”

 
          
“What’s
her degree in?”

 
          
“Which
one? She has six or seven of them, including two Ph.D.s—electrical engineering,
math, physics, computer-language design, chemistry, and a couple others. Speaks
seven languages, plays concert-quality piano, writes music, and is an
expert-level downhill skier and chess player. They have one child—I don’t know
her name.”

 
          
“Sheesh,
is this the definition of a dysfunctional family, or what?” Jon quipped. Helen
scowled at him. “I’m only kidding. Sounds like a perfectly wonderful, albeit
super- overachieving family unit. Wonder what the little girl’s going to grow
up like?” Helen looked at him with a knowing smile—she was looking at him.
“Don’t answer that.”

 
          
“Can
we go now?”

 
          
“All
right, all right, let’s meet the whiz family. But after this, no more meetings
until our guys are safe.”

 
          
“Deal.”

 
          
“And
we are
not
selling them the company,”
Jon added. Helen said nothing. The answer to that question, at least for the
time being, was not up to them. “Let’s go.”

 
          
They
walked out of Jon’s office, and Suzanne escorted them to the conference room.
The folks waiting for them stood politely when they entered. Kelsey Duffield
was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties, her reddish-blond hair tied back behind
her neck. She wore a simple silk business suit and carried a thin briefcase,
and she had a good, strong handshake and a confident, pleasing smile.

 
          
“Very
pleased to meet you, Dr. Duffield,” Jon said as he stepped quickly into the
room, extending a hand and shaking hers enthusiastically. “I’ve heard a great
deal about you.”

 
          
The
woman’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not a doctor, Dr. Masters. Just a lowly CPA.”
Jon glanced at Helen, a bit confused and surprised by her misinformation—Helen
usually didn’t get the details wrong. Duffield turned and nodded to the man
standing beside her. “This is my associate and chief financial officer, Neil
Hudson. Neil, this is Dr. Jon Masters, COO, and Dr. Helen Kaddiri Masters,
chairman of the board.”

 
          
As
they shook hands, they heard a clatter. “Oh, dear, please be careful. Ladies
and gentlemen, my daughter. She seems to have a case of the dropsies today.”
Duffield rushed over to a sideboard, where a cute little brunette girl of nine
or ten had just spilled a cup of orange juice on her dress. The little girl
studied Jon for a long moment while her mother cleaned her up. Jon smiled at
her, and she smiled back. He found it cute that she had spilled juice on a copy
of a technical journal that she had in her lap. Her mother put the engineering
journal aside and put a well-worn copy of a children’s book of airplanes on her
daughter’s lap.

 
          
Jon
noticed that the girl was still staring at him, the smile gone, as Duffield
returned to the group. Jon winked at her, but she did not respond. Well, Jon
never did click well with little kids—probably why he was hesitating having
some of his own.

 
          
“Would
your daughter be more comfortable in the daycare center, with some other
children her age?” Helen asked. “It’s just across the courtyard.”

 
          
“Or
I’d be happy to take her to the park,” Suzanne offered.

 
          
Both
the elder and younger Duffields looked a bit confused. “No, she’s fine here,”
the elder Duffield said coolly.

           
The numbers guy, Hudson, looked a
little aghast for a moment; then, after Duffield glanced at him, he appeared as
if he was suppressing a chuckle. “Shall we get started?”