End Game (23 page)

“There, over there,” shouted Boston, pointing to the west. “Those lights are the Osprey's.”

Danny turned and saw two beams extending down to the water. Reaching into a pocket sewn under the Draeger vest, he took out a small waterproof pouch. Inside the pouch was a pencil flare, a small signaling device intended for emergency pickups like this. The flare was designed to work even in the water, but getting it ready was not the easiest
thing in the world. He took in a mouthful of foul seawater before managing to set it off.

Boston flipped onto his back and paddled nearby.

“You look like you're in a goddamn pool,” said Danny, his teeth starting to chatter.

The Osprey's rotors kicked up a strong downdraft, and a swell pushed Danny under. He had to fight to the surface.

“Grab on, grab on!” yelled Boston, who'd already gotten hold of the cable. “Come on, Cap.”

Danny threw himself at his sergeant, thrashing around until he managed to hook his arm around the other man's. He got another mouthful of water before the cable began winching upward.

“They told me you were out of your mind,” Boston repeated. “Damn good thing!”

“Damn good thing,” Danny said to himself, twisting as the cable hauled them to safety.

Allegro, Nevada
1710, 12 January 1998
(0610, 13 January, Karachi)

Z
EN FLIPPED THROUGH THE TELEVISION STATIONS AS HE RESTED
between dumbbell sets. He wished it were baseball season; baseball was the perfect sport to watch when you were only half paying attention.

He stopped on CNN, put down the remote control and reached back for the weights. He took a long breath and then brought the dumbbells forward, doing a straight pullover.

“A CNN special report—breaking news,” blared the television.

Zen ignored it, pulling the weight over his head. He'd let his workout routines slip because of the procedures. He hadn't swum since last Saturday, and the weights felt heavy and awkward.

“We have a live report from Stephen Densmore in Delhi, India,” said the television announcer.

Zen, concentrating on the exercise, lowered the dumbbells toward his waist, then pulled them back overhead. As he brought the bars back behind him to the floor, the newsman began talking.

“Over a hundred people were reported killed and at least that number are missing following the early morning clash between Indian and Chinese naval vessels off the Pakistani coastline. An oil terminal in Karachi was said to have been destroyed in the fighting.”

“Karachi?” said Zen. He let the weights drop and rolled over to his stomach. The screen showed a still photo of an Indian naval vessel said to have been sunk.

“Where was this?” Zen asked the TV. “Where?”

But the network cut to a commercial. Zen waited patiently through a spot for Folger's coffee, but instead of adding more details when they returned, the anchor cued the weatherman. Zen crawled toward the end table and reached for his phone.

Aboard the
Abner Read
,
northern Arabian Sea
13 January 1998
0610

“A
IRFORCE
,
WHY DID YOU PUT THE
W
EREWOLF DOWN INTO
that ship?”

Starship shifted uneasily. He'd actually forgotten all about that, sure that Storm was going to ball him out for losing the Werewolf to the Indian missile.

“I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time, sir.”

Lame, completely lame, but what else could he say?

Storm shook his head. “Do you realize the Chinese could have grabbed the Werewolf at any moment?”

“That might be a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, they weren't expecting anything and I was only there for a minute. Not even. I was always right under the opening for the elevator. I could just escape straight up.”

“That's not the point.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You took a big risk, mister. A
huge
risk.”

Starship nodded.

“Officially, you're on report,” said Storm. “That was a foolish thing to do.”

The furrows in the captain's brow deepened; he looked like a gargoyle about to spit stone.

“Unofficially,” added Storm, “that was the ballsiest thing I've ever seen anyone ever do.”

Starship was confused, but he was even more confounded as Storm formed his hand into a fist and hit his shoulder with a roundhouse so powerful he was nearly knocked off his feet. The captain wore a grin that covered half his face.

“Way to go, Airforce,” Storm told him. “The intelligence geeks back at the Pentagon are going apeshit over this. It's the coup of the year. You keep this up and you'll be a permanent member of the team.”

“Thanks, sir,” said Starship, rubbing his shoulder.

National Security Council offices,
Washington, D.C.
2021, 12 January 1998
(0621, 13 January, Karachi)

J
ED
B
ARCLAY KNEW
ONE
OF HIS PHONES WAS RINGING
,
BUT
couldn't figure out which one it was until the third trill. Then he pulled his personal cell phone out of his pocket.

“Uh, Jed,” he said, unsure who would be calling on the seldom used line.

“Jed, it's your cousin Jeff.”

“Hey, Zen. How's it goin'?”

“What's going on in India?”

“Oh—jeez. All hell's breaking loose.”

“Karachi was attacked. Breanna's there,” Zen added. “I figured you could give me some background.”

“Listen, cuz, I really can't talk about that on this line, you know?”

“Is Bree going to be OK?”

“Well, none of our people have been, uh, hurt that I know of.”

“I know that. I just talked to the base. That's not what I'm asking.”

“Yeah. Um. I still can't talk on this line.”

“What if I call you back from Dreamland?”

Jed knew that the Dreamland contingent was being pulled out of Karachi because of the volatile situation there. But not only couldn't he say so on a phone line that could be tapped, it wasn't his place to be handing out that information.

“Maybe. You don't sound like yourself,” Jed told his cousin. “You, like, worried about Breanna?”

“Damn straight.”

“She can take care of herself, though. I mean, Bree's been—”

“I'll call you in an hour.”

Zen hung up before Jed could warn him that he might be hard to reach; the National Security Council was setting up a meeting, and he expected to be called upstairs to help his boss prepare a presidential briefing any second.

Jed went back to his computer, looking at the images that had been forwarded from the
Abner Read
following the battle. The conflict had provided a wealth of tactical and strategic intelligence, but right now he just wanted something he could show the President to illustrate both the damage and the firepower of the ships involved.

The
Abner Read
had obtained particularly interesting video of the Chinese carrier
Deng Xiaoping
, thanks to the exploits of its Werewolf. Among the images Jed paged through were clear shots of the hangar deck, showing a number of planes in storage and even what looked like a weapons area. Wondering if the information might change the Pentagon's assessment of the relative power of the two fleets—the analysts had been calling the
Deng Xiaoping
and
Shiva
about even—Jed picked up the phone and called the Pentagon.

The Navy intelligence officer he wanted to talk to was away from his desk. So were two other people he called. He was about to try someone at the CIA who specialized in weapons assessments when his friend at the Navy called him back.

“You're wondering about the
Deng
?” said the lieutenant commander.

“I'm wondering if these images are going to change your assessment that the two task groups are evenly matched, or if the battle did,” Jed told him.

“Too early to say for sure, but it looks like the Chinese have a new anticruise missile weapon. There's something else even more interesting about the
Deng,
though.”

“More interesting?”

“You got W-AB73-20 there?” asked the officer, referring to one of the image's index numbers.

“Hang tight,” said Jed, swinging around in his chair to the keyboard. He cradled the phone against his neck as he found the photo.

One of the series taken of the
Deng Xiaoping
's hangar deck, it showed a pair of J-13 fighters, wings folded, roped off a short distance from the camera. There were two men near it; both had automatic rifles.

“OK, so I'm looking at it.”

“See those jets? They're guarded.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Kind of strange, don't you think?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Jed zeroed in and hit the zoom. “Are these guards? Or are these guys running up to the fight?”

“Jed, they're in the hangar of an aircraft carrier. They're guarding the plane.”

Oh, wow.

“Tai-shan?”

“That's the guess. We're studying the planes now. But, I'd say that's a real good guess. Plane types are right. We're digging into the equipment right now.”

 

“I'
M NOT FAMILIAR WITH
T
AI
-
SHAN
,”
THE
N
ATIONAL
S
ECURITY
Advisor admitted to Jed when he took the news to his office a few minutes later.

“Two years ago, the Chinese navy conducted a series of tests in the Gulf of Tonkin, using what was then a prototype
of the J-13,” said Jed. “They operated from a base that had been mocked up so it was similar to an aircraft carrier—the dimensions were later shown to fit one of the
Deng Xiaoping
's arms. The aircraft dropped practice bombs over the water. One of the mock missions was tracked, and from the bombing pattern, it seemed pretty clear that it was dropping a nuclear weapon. If you recall, this was right around the time the
Xia,
their only ballistic missile submarine, was taken out of service. But—”

“Wait, Jed,” said Freeman, nearly jumping from his seat. “You're telling me there's a nuke on that ship?”

“Maybe two. There are two planes.”

“Let's go talk to the President right now,” said Freeman, already in full stride.

The President was entertaining a delegation of church youth leaders from Minnesota on a postdinner tour of the White House when Jed and Freeman were ushered into the Oval Office. Entertaining was the right word—he was demonstrating a sleight of hand trick he'd learned on a recent trip to Florida. The President was particularly fond of the trick, and was taking obvious glee in making a silver dollar appear in various ears of his visitors.

“But I see, ladies and gentlemen, that duty is calling, and I'm late for my next meeting,” said the President. “We're always burning the midnight oil here.”

He glad-handed the visitors as they left, mixing in variations of his silver dollar trick.

“Everybody loves magic,” said Martindale after they left. “Now if I could only find a way to pull silver dollars from congressmen's ears, I'd have no problem getting my budget passed.”

“There's a new twist in the north Arabian Sea,” the National Security Advisor told the President. “It's going to complicate things tremendously.”

Martindale's smile faded quickly as Jed told him about the images from the carrier and their implications.

“You're sure this is correct?” asked Martindale.

“The intelligence agencies are preparing a formal estimate,” said Jed. “But I checked the original intelligence on the program. It's a real match. A Chinese agent provided photos and a procedural manual.”

“The Chinese showed restraint by not using the planes when they were attacked,” said Freeman. “But can we count on that in the future? Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that the carrier is off the coast of India. China could be planning a first strike against the Indian leadership.”

“Are you suggesting we alert the Indians?” asked the President. “That could backfire—they might use that as an excuse to fire nukes at the carrier. They've already tried to sink it.”

Martindale got up from his desk. He still had the dollar coin in his hand. He played with it absentmindedly, twirling it between his fingers.

“India is not our ally,” said Freeman. “But then neither is China.”

“We can't allow a nuclear war in Asia. The consequences would be devastating,” said the President. “Even a conventional war. We need to get some distance between the two sides, work up something diplomatically, either in the UN or on our own.”

“Neither side trusts us,” said Freeman bitterly.

“See, they have something in common,” said the President sardonically. “How long will it take to get the
Nimitz
and its battle group into the area?”

“Two weeks,” said Jed.

“What if we sent a private message to the Chinese, telling them we know they have the weapon, and that if they try to use it, we'll sink their ship?” Martindale asked Freeman.

“For one thing, we'll be taking sides. For another, we'll be giving away intelligence that may help us down the road.”

“If they don't use the weapon.”

“True.”

“I'd rather sink it here than off Taiwan. We could blame the Indians somehow.”

“Maybe the Indians will sink it for us,” said Freeman.

“It may not be that easy to sink,” said Jed. “It came through the battle with the Indians.”

“We can sink it,” said Freeman.

“What if we positioned ourselves to attack the carrier once the planes appear on deck, and attack then? Could Dreamland and the
Abner Read
handle that sort of attack on their own?”

“I don't think that's wise,” said Freeman. “We're going to risk our own people for India?”

“India and China, and the rest of southern Asia,” said the President. “Is it feasible?”

Freeman turned to Jed.

“Um, they might. Another thing, um, they might be able to shoot down the planes.”

“All right. That might work,” said Martindale. “We'll discuss it with the cabinet.”

He picked up the phone and told the operator to contact the other cabinet members, along with Joint Chiefs of Staff, for an emergency meeting.

“I want Bastian in charge of this,” he said when he got off the phone.

“He's attached to Xray Pop, and Captain Gale on the
Abner Read
outranks him,” said Freeman.

“Captain Gale has lived up to his nickname ‘Storm' once too often for my taste. Bastian is the one I trust out there. I'll talk to them personally.”

Diego Garcia
1200, 13 January 1998
(1100, Karachi)

D
OG CLAMBERED DOWN THE
EB-52'
S LADDER
,
HIS THROAT
parched and his legs aching from the long flight. Diego Garcia was a small atoll in the Indian Ocean, south of India. Among the most secure American bases in the world—
surrounded by miles and miles of open ocean—it was also a four hour flight from their patrol area. Dog did not relish the idea of operating from here for very long.