Strike Zone (19 page)

No one else said anything as he pulled on his headset. Mack glanced toward the prince. His face was red.

Probably, he couldn't be jailed for what was just a dumb-ass mistake. Court-martialed, sure.

But jailed?

If they did jail him, would it be in Brunei or the U.S.?

A communication came in from the Australian frigate.

Mack listened as the prince gave his position and intentions; they were homeward bound.

“Scared those buggers off, mate,” said the Australian. “Good for you.”

Obviously, it wasn't a flag officer talking. Bin Awg acknowledged with his ID, but said nothing else.

“I, uh, I—” started Mack. He intended to apologize, but apologies had never exactly been his strong suit. His tongue froze in his mouth.

“Major?” said the prince.

“Um.”

“Major Mack Smith, you have just done something
I wish I had the guts to do ten years ago. You sent the devils packing. This is a great moment. A very, very great moment.”

If Mack had had trouble speaking a moment before, he was utterly speechless now. He wanted to tell the prince that, in all honesty, he was exaggerating by a country mile.

Then he thought he'd apologize, say he hadn't thought the gun was loaded, and throw himself on the mercy of the court. Maybe the prince might say a few words on his behalf.

But nothing came out of his mouth.

Bin Awg turned to him. “Well done. Well, well done.”

“Uh, thanks,” was all Mack could manage to get out of his mouth.

Aboard
Penn
, over the South China Sea
1424

D
OG CHECKED THE
SITREP. They had Chinese J-11s to the south of them, J-11s to the west, a big ol' Russian Coot, and even a U.S. Navy P-3—but no ghost clone, at least not that they could see. He hoped
Raven
was having better luck.

“They're getting to be at bingo now, sir,” said the copilot, whom Dog had asked to keep track of the Flighthawk status. “Bingo” in the Flighthawk referred to the point at which they had to refuel.

“
Hawk One
, this is
Penn
. How's your fuel state?” said Dog.

“Getting edgy,” replied Starship.

“What's edgy?”

“Uh, we're getting there.”

Dog shook his head. The nugget was like a kid who'd been swimming in a pool all afternoon and didn't want to get out even though his lips were chattering and his body was blue. As long as he didn't admit being cold, he wouldn't be.

Didn't work that way with jet fuel, though.

“
Hawk One
, have you discovered the secret to perpetual motion?” Dog asked.

“Um, excuse me, Colonel?”

“Time for you to refuel, no?”

“Yes, sir. I'm ready.”

“All right, let's radio the fleet that we're breaking off and going home,” Dog told the entire crew.

S
TARSHIP SLID BACK
in his seat as the computer took the Flighthawk in and began the refuel.

He was tired and more than a bit frustrated. All that flying and no sight of the ghost clone.

Not to mention the fact that the Chinese fighters had stayed well clear of him.

“Tired?” Kick asked.

“Nah,” said Starship.

“Zen's probably tracking him right now.”

“Yeah.”

“You hear what happened with the Brunei Badger?”

“Something happened?” Starship had been too intent on his own mission to bother with anything that didn't concern him.

“Couple of J-11s buzzed them just about an hour ago. Mack Smith sent them packing with a burst of cannon fire across their bow.”

“Live gunfire?”

“No shit,” said Kick.

“Wow. He allowed to do that?” Starship's ROEs strictly forbade him from firing except in the most dire of circumstances, and if he had tried that Zen would have found a way to kick his butt back to Dreamland.

“Got away with it. Nobody's complaining.”

“Those the planes we saw earlier?”

“Yup.”

“They were probably just out of fuel,” said Starship. “They were operating at the edge of their range.”

“Yeah, well, that's not the way the Brunei prince sees it. They're sending airplanes out to escort them back to a hero's welcome. I'm not making this up.”

“Man, I wish I had Mack Smith's life,” said Starship as the computer buzzed him. The refuel complete, he took over from the electronic brain, ducking down and then zooming ahead of the
Pennsylvania
to lead her back to the base.

Dreamland
10 September 1997
2344

D
ANNY
F
REAH GOT
up from his desk in the security office, his eyes so blurry that he couldn't read any of the papers on his desk. He'd been staring at computer reports along with summaries of regulations, laws, and previous investigations for over four hours.

For all that, he probably knew less now than when he'd started. As head of security at Dreamland, Danny had extraordinary powers to investigate possible espionage;
he didn't even have to rely on Colonel Bas-tian's authority in most cases. Everyone who worked at the base had to sign long, complicated agreements that essentially stripped him of privacy and made Danny Freah Big Brother. If events warranted, he could tap their phones, read their mail, even enter their homes.

But what he needed in this sort of case was the ability to read people's minds. Because it just wasn't clear to him that anyone—Jennifer Gleason especially—had betrayed his country, knowingly or unknowingly.

Occasionally during the Cold War, technology theft was straight-out obvious—the Soviet Union produced a four-engine bomber based on a B-29 a few months after the plane landed in the country's Far East, for example. But much more often, the theft was considerably more subtle and nuanced.

The Soviet Tu-95 bomber, for example, had probably been influenced by American designs—yet it did not directly correspond to anything in the American inventory. Were similarities between American jets and advanced MiGs and Sukhois due to similar design requirements and constraints, or espionage? When was a copycat simply that—and when was it an act of treachery?

Danny needed more extensive data about the ghost clone before he could even decide whether there might be a case here. Even then, he'd need really, really hard evidence to take to Colonel Bastian—or to Bastian's superiors, if Danny decided the colonel couldn't be unbiased.

Cortend, on the other hand, worked on the premise that espionage had occurred, and therefore she
would find it. She didn't really care what effect she had on the base, much less on the people she was grilling. And because she wasn't conducting an official investigation—not yet, anyway—she could ignore a lot of the standard rules and procedures designed to prevent abuses. She bullied people into cooperating “voluntarily” and then screwed them, or tried to.

Danny wasn't like that. He didn't nail people without damn good reason to do so.

Should he?

Maybe Jennifer did know something, or had done something really wrong. She was pretty antagonistic, and hadn't been acting particularly, well, innocent.

She'd answered all the questions, though. She claimed she didn't remember the conferences or the paperwork.

Probably that was true. He couldn't remember back a few years himself. And as for paperwork . . . 

It was bullshit. The files were full of contact reports that no one ever looked at. Truth of it was, Jennifer Gleason rarely left the base, not even to go home, not even for a vacation. She was about as far away from being a spy as you could get. Knowledge, yes, but little opportunity, and dedication probably unmatched even at Dreamland.

Were his emotions getting in the way of his judgment? He liked Jennifer, and even more importantly, he liked Dog; if Jennifer were guilty, it would kill the colonel.

To his credit, Dog wasn't interfering. Clearly he didn't think Jen was guilty, but he wasn't interfering.

Danny glanced at his watch and decided he'd go catch some Z's. Maybe tomorrow one of the scientists here would come up with some new gizmo that would let him read minds.

U
NABLE TO SLEEP,
Jennifer pushed herself out of bed. Her legs and neck felt numb. She folded her elbows against the sides of her chest, then bent at the waist, stretching her muscles. The numbness stayed with her.

She walked from the small bedroom to the slightly larger living room, which had a kitchenette at the side. She sat on the couch, staring at the TV on the wall near the door but not bothering to turn it on. Jennifer pulled her feet up onto the couch, looking at her toes.

The numbness affected even them.

Was she going to stay in this hole the rest of her life?

Jennifer jumped off the couch, pacing across the small room. Cortend, Danny, Dog—they were all against her, weren't they?

They were all against her.

Did she deserve that?

Maybe she did.

Jennifer found herself at the small sink. A large paring knife sat at the bottom, next to a coffee cup from a few days before.

Did she deserve that?

She picked the knife up and felt the blade with the edge of her thumb. Only when she pushed hard against it did the numbness dissipate.

Blood trickled from her finger. She stared at the red dots, watched the flow swell.

Slowly, she brought the knife upward toward her neck. She ran it up against her chin and then the cheek, the way a barber would drag a safety razor.

Was there no way to make the numbness go away?

With a jerk, she grabbed a bunch of her long hair between her fingers and the sharp blade of the knife. She tugged. The hair gave way.

Again.

Again.

Aboard
Raven
, over the South China Sea
1444

Z
EN CHECKED HIS
fuel state, then hit the mike switch.

“I think we're just about wrapped up,” he told Alou. “I won't jettison the antenna until we're ready to refuel,” he added. “Looks like, oh, ten minutes?”

“Roger that,
Hawk Two
,” said Alou. “Be advised we're intercepting communications now between a ground controller and a flight of Chinese F-8IIs—hang tight.”

While the pilot and the officer handling the intercept data sorted through the radio traffic to figure out what was going on, Zen brought his Flighthawk south and began descending. He had to visually inspect the area where the antenna would fall to make certain it wouldn't hit anyone—or be retrieved before it sank.

“F-8s are coming out to say hello,” Alou told Zen. “Going to afterburners. Apparently pissed off about something that happened south of us, over the ASEAN fleet. Let's go ahead with the refuel.”

“Roger that. Preparing to drop trailing antenna,” said Zen. He checked his screen, went to the sitrep, then let the computer take the bird, holding it at 8,500 feet when he gave the command to release the antenna. A puff of smoke rippled from the rear of the Flighthawk; a set of charges no larger than firecrackers blew the mesh into sections, destroying any value it might have for an enemy. The metal that didn't disintegrate settled in the water.

“J-8s are in radar range,” said Alou.

“Roger that.” Zen took back control of the Flighthawk, climbing upward. He passed through fifteen thousand feet going toward twenty-five, where
Raven
was waiting with its probe already out for the refuel. It took a few minutes to climb and line up correctly, moving in toward the waiting straw like a kid homing in on a root beer float in an old-fashioned ice cream shop. Zen throttled back, hit his computer-generated marks, then prepared to give up control to the computer, which would fly the actual refuel. But just then the RWR buzzed in his ear, warning him that the Chinese pilots had turned their radar into targeting mode, as if they were preparing to fire guided missiles at the EB-52.

“Coming at us hard,” said Alou.

“Holding off on refuel,” said Zen. He rolled out to defend his mother ship.

One F-8—still on afterburner—shot in from the northwest, riding about a quarter mile away from the EB-52 at nearly the exact same altitude.

Four hundred meters sounds like a lot, but it's not a particularly wide margin when one plane is doing 380 knots and the other is up well over 600. It was ridiculously
close for the Shenyang F-8. While admittedly fast—the delta-shaped arrow could top Mach 2.2—the Chinese design had the turning radius of an eighteen-wheeler pulling three trailers and none of the finesse.

As it came across
Raven
's bow, its pilot threw the plane into a hard turn north, probably surpassing nine g's. It was a wonder he didn't pass out.

Meanwhile, the other F-8 took a slightly more leisurely approach, backing off his throttle and trailing his partner by a good ten miles. He turned slightly and took a course that would take him directly beneath
Raven
.

By maybe two feet.

“Could be he needs some gas,” said Alou.

“I wouldn't be surprised,” said Zen. “I'm going to get in his face.”

“Hang back. Better that he doesn't try turning and hit into us.”

“All right. Look, I'm going to have to refuel.”

“Yeah, roger that.”

The second F-8 pilot, perhaps finally realizing that he couldn't share the same space as the EB-52, banked about five miles from
Raven
's tail. Zen pushed back toward
Raven
as the Chinese planes pulled north.

“Let's do the refuel while they're running away,” he said.

“Bring it on in.”

But Zen had no sooner started up toward the boom when the F-8s turned back and headed toward the Megafortress.

“What's with our friends?” asked Zen.

“Who knows,” said Alou. “Maybe they're looking for flying lessons.”