Strike Zone (11 page)

Their loss, obviously.

Cortend turned in his direction as he approached. Ordinarily he liked his women a little shorter, but she was definitely worth the climb.

“Hello, Colonel,” he said. “How goes the hunt?”

Cortend stopped. Her brown eyes focused on him with all the intensity of a Sidewinder homing in on a hot tailpipe.

“You are?”

“Smith—Mack. Remember? Hey, my friends call me Knife.”

She'd do for dinner.

“You like Vegas?” he asked.

“Las Vegas?”

“City of sin. Listen, I'm just on my way to hit a shower, then I'm going to split for dinner in the capital of sin. Come on with me and I'll show you around. I know some clubs that'll blow you away. The food is fantastic. You like to gamble?”

“Mack Smith,” said Cortend. She pronounced each consonant in his name.

“That's me. Call me Knife. Kind of a nickname.”

She turned to one of her captains. “Is he on the list?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“In the truck, Smith. We have some questions for you.”

Mack laughed. Cortend didn't.

“Yeah, well, maybe another time,” he said, shaking his head. But as he took a step toward the building, he found two of the lackeys blocking his way. At the same time, two of the security men got out of one of the SUVs.

“What's the story here, sugar?” Mack said.

Cortend walked over to Mack. They were about the same height—but suddenly Cortend seemed to tower over him.

“The story, sugar, is that I have some questions for you to answer, and you will answer them now. Got it?”

“But I'm kind of busy.”

“You're refusing to cooperate on a purely voluntary basis?”

The way she said the words made it clear to Mack that talking with her was about as voluntary as income tax. Still, he wasn't going to let some good-looking but hard-ass colonel screw up his night off.

“I wanted to take a shower,” he said.

“I doubt it will make you smell any better,” said Cortend, heading back toward her vehicle.

Outside Taipei, Taiwan
7 September
1100 (2000 Dreamland, 6 September)

C
HEN
L
O
F
ANN
waited on the bench in the antechamber, soothing his troubled mind by staring at his surroundings. He had spent considerable time here as a boy, racing through his grandfather Chen Lee's house; under ordinary circumstances, those memories would soothe him.

They failed to now. In fact, the more he stared, the further those days became, faded pages from a discarded book.

Chen Lo Fann had failed in his mission to provoke a war between China and India. The weight of that failure sat heavily on him, blocks of iron pressing him from every direction. Fann might believe in the endless surging of the universe, but it offered little consolation, for he must now face the one man he loved and feared above all others, and admit his failure.

Time passed; he did not note it.

One of Chen Lee's secretaries stood before him. Without saying anything, Chen Lo Fann rose and followed
the man through the hallway to the office where Chen Lee waited.

The old man stood gazing out the window. Taipei sat in the distance, a dirty gem in the rough land the old man had helped make prosperous. The old clock in the corner of the office ticked, slowly counting to itself as Chen Lo Fann waited for his grandfather to speak.

“Your mission failed,” said Chen Lee finally.

“Yes, Grandfather,” said Fann.

“History is a terrible force,” said the older man, still looking through the window. “It cares for no individual. It is like the ocean wave in that way. And yet it can be turned.”

Chen Lo Fann gazed at the back of his grandfather's white head. The old man had given him many lessons here, allowed him to watch and listen. Fann's education in America was nothing compared to those lessons.

“I have a second plan,” said Chen Lo Fann. “The ASEAN exercises can be disrupted.”

Chen Lee had clearly thought of this already, because he answered without his usual pause to consider.

“Simply disrupting them will not be enough. An attack must be provoked.”

“If the Americans participate,” said Chen Lo Fann, “I will succeed.”

The old man said nothing. Chen Lo Fann realized he had made the same promise in the matter of war between the communists and India.

“If the meeting is not canceled, we shall have to take graver action,” said Chen Lee. “Be prepared.”

He turned back to the window.

“Yes, Grandfather,” said Chen Lo Fann. He bowed, then left the room.

Dreamland Commander's Office
2050

Z
EN ROLLED HIMSELF
inside the office, surprised to find that everyone else was already there. Stoner had started the brief on the mission without him.

Zen banged against an empty chair getting in; no one seemed to notice.

“Major Stockard can give you the hard details,” said Stoner, nodding toward him. “Basically, we get their attention by flying near their territory, and then make like we're testing a new weapon. The weapon is just a Hellfire missile with an ELF transmitter, but it's different enough to attract attention. So if the clone is a spy plane, it'll be worth checking out. You want to take over, Zen?”

“You're doing fine.”

Stoner ticked off a list of areas to probe, starting with China and then moving to Vietnam—it was possible the Russians were using that country as a base. The ASEAN exercises were taking place about two hundred miles to the east of northern Vietnam.

“We're going to locate in Brunei,” interrupted Colonel Bastian. “I realize it'll be a haul, but the facilities are first-rate. There's no doubt about that,” said the colonel.

Dog added by way of explanation that Dreamland would be fulfilling a secondary diplomatic mission by being located in Brunei. It was clear to Zen that Dog didn't particularly like that part of the assignment, but
he soldiered on with it, noting that the kingdom was constructing a new military air base near the international airport in the capital. The facilities would be made available to Dreamland, carte blanche. The sultan was rolling out the red carpet, a gracious host.

“The State Department is sending a babysitter,” added the colonel. “There's some protocol crap we have to deal with. It won't get in your way, I promise.”

The colonel ran down a tentative schedule on deployment—first thing tomorrow morning.

Really
first thing: 0400.

Everyone in the room was used to dealing with rapid deployments, but 0400 was going to be tight, and Zen watched the concern rise on Major Alou's face. Alou, who would be in charge of the Megafortresses, had to round up full crews for two aircraft, get support people in place, move supplies, fuel.

“Major Alou, problem?” asked Dog.

“What the hell language do they speak in Brunei, anyway?”

Everyone laughed.

“Malay and English,” said Stoner. “You'll be able to get by very well with English.”

“Zen, problem?” asked Dog, turning to him. “I know you were looking for a deployment next week.”

Zen shrugged. He'd already told two of his best Flighthawk trainee pilots to stand by. Rounding up the maintainers and other technical people would be a pain—but not particularly out of the ordinary. Most of the key people wore pagers when they were off campus, for just such a contingency.

“We can do it,” said Zen. “We just have to hustle.”

“I know it's impossibly short notice, but those are
our orders,” said Dog. “I'm going on the mission myself, and will serve as one of the Megafortress pilots. Major Catsman will stay here and take care of the farm. Questions?”

The colonel paused for his usual quarter of a second before slapping his hand on the desk and rising.

“Let's do it, then.”

“Colonel, what's the story with Jennifer Gleason?” asked Major Alou. “Is she under arrest or something?”

“Jennifer?” said Zen, taken by surprise.

Dog turned to Danny Freah.

“Jen is being questioned about possible security violations,” said Danny.

“What violations?” asked Zen.

“I can't get into details,” said Danny. “Look, my advice for everyone is to simply cooperate and answer whatever questions that come up. It's just an informal inquiry, not an investigation.”

“That's bullshit,” said Zen. He turned to Dog. “Jennifer? A spy? Shit.”

Dog started to say something, but Danny interrupted. “Colonel Bastian can't comment on anything in any way that would be considered prejudicial.”

“That's bullshit,” said Zen.

Dog put up his hand. “All right. Obviously, because of what we do we're under special scrutiny. All of us, not just Jennifer.”

“I wanted her along to handle the computers and whatnot,” said Zen. Technical staff often accompanied the Dreamland team on missions, even those in combat zones.

“You better find someone else,” said Danny. “At least for a couple of days.”

“Colonel?”

“Is she essential for the deployment?” asked Dog.

“Not essential. But—”

“At this point, I think Danny's right. Once Colonel Cortend is finished talking to her I'm sure she'll be fine to come back.”

T
WO HOURS LATER,
dog finally finished squaring away everything that needed to be squared away before he left with the rest of the team for Brunei. He needed to get sleep—if takeoff time didn't slip, he'd be briefing his flight in a couple of hours. But more important than sleep, he wanted to talk to Jennifer.

He wanted to call her. In theory, there was no reason not to.

It might not look good, however, not if there had been a real violation of security protocols. As unit commander, he would eventually have to deal with the matter.

He could recuse himself, of course. Probably he had to.

Or just put an end to the whole thing.

No doubt if he did that, Dreamland's enemies would seize on it as ammunition for
something
—what exactly, he wasn't sure.

He reached for the phone. No harm in calling her, for cryin' out loud.

He dialed the lab but then remembered that she had no computer access; Danny had had to cut it off as soon as he learned about the possible security breach, as minor as it was. He paused, trying to remember her apartment number without going to the directory.

When he dialed it, her voice mail answered.

Maybe she was taking this harder than he thought.

Or maybe she was out partying.

Before Dog could leave a message, there was a knock on the door. He looked up and saw Colonel Cortend spreading her frown across the threshhold, trailed by a Dreamland security team and several of her aides. He put down the phone and waved her inside.

“Captain Freah said you'd be here,” said Cortend, sitting in the chair nearest his desk.

“I often am,” said Dog. “I understand you've been questioning my people.”

“I've questioned several of your people, yes. On an informal basis. They've all volunteered to cooperate.”

Dog let that particular fiction pass.

“Let's get to the marrow on this,” said Cortend. “There's no need for fencing.”

“I'm a right-to-the-marrow guy myself,” said Dog. He slid back in his seat, knowing that Cortend had come to ask about Jennifer.

And perhaps exactly because that thought occurred to him, he glanced toward the door and saw her standing behind Cortend's aides, frozen, as if she'd taken a step inside before spotting them.

Was she really there? Or was it some strange trick of his imagination.

“Lieutenant Colonel Bastian,” snapped Cortend.

“Excuse me a second,” said Dog, rising. He turned his attention to Cortend for just a moment as he got up, and by the time he looked back at the door she was gone.

Gone?

Dog walked out into the outer office, past the reception area and then into the hall.

It was empty. The elevator was open.

Hallucination?

No, she'd definitely been here. Somewhere.

Jen would have taken the stairs. She'd seen Cortend's people or the back of her head, and split.

Wise move, really. Too bad he couldn't do that.

Dog walked back to his office. This time he pulled the door closed behind him.

“Sorry about that. Where were we?”

“You are seeing Ms. Gleason, are you not?”

“I don't think that's any of your business.”

“Colonel, let me remind you—”

“I'm not denying that I see her. But for the record, my personal life is my personal life.”

“Ms. Gleason is a civilian employee under your supervision,” said Cortend. “As a matter of law and regulation, it would be possible for her to charge you with sexual harassment.”

“Has she?” said Dog.

“She has not.”

“You don't really think she's a spy, do you?” he said, tiring of her games. His voice was considerably more level than he felt.

“I try not to form judgments before I finish my job,” said Cortend. “I understand the situation might be difficult for you.”

“And?”

“I have a number of technical questions that I'd like answered,” said Cortend, completely changing the subject.

Capitulation?

Or another one of her tactics?

“They have to do with compartmented areas, and I need to know what can be broached and what can't be,” Cortend continued. “If you wish, it can wait until morning.”

She didn't get up, and it was clear she wouldn't until he answered the questions.

“I have orders from the President. We're deploying at 0400.”

If Cortend was impressed, she gave no hint.

“We'll discuss it informally first,” she told him. “Then I can bring my people in. I want to be careful to delineate the areas, as my report will be read by—”