End Game (42 page)

“OK,” said Dork. “Major, you ever play telephone?”

“Huh?”

“You know, where you whisper a message in someone's ear and they pass it on? We could do that here.”

“Isn't the purpose of that to show how mangled a message can be?”

“Well, yeah, but it's better than nothing.”

“All right, it's a good idea, Dork. Set it up. Hey—you just got yourself a new nickname: Telephone.”

“I think I like Dork better.”

 

“Y
OU WILL PROCEED AS DIRECTED
. E
MERGENCY VEHICLES ARE
standing by,” the Indian pilot told Breanna.

Ain't that sweet, thought Breanna. Prison cells too, no doubt.

“Can you give me a course heading and a—um, a—uh…” Breanna continued to stall. “Distance. I need a distance.”

The Indian pilot, clearly losing patience, told her to change her heading forty degrees—
now.

“Zen has control of the Flighthawk!” said Bullet, the last link in the communications chain. “Needs another two minutes to get behind them.”

“Tell him I'm going to descend a bit,” said Breanna.

“The Indian fighters are right on our back now, Bree,” said Stewart.

“Visual range?”

“Not yet, but very close. Just about within range for an A-10 heat-seeker.”

“Lou, be ready to turn the Stinger radar on as soon as I say.” Breanna pushed the nose of the Megafortress forward,
descending. Five minutes on this course—five minutes to the sea.

But so what? The Sukhois could easily follow them there.

“American aircraft—you are ordered to change course or face the consequences.”

“He's activated his gun radar,” said Stewart. “I think he'll close and try throwing some warning shots across the bow.”

Come on, Zen, Breanna thought. Hurry up with that Flighthawk.

 

Z
EN COULD SEE THE TWO
I
NDIAN FIGHTERS AHEAD
,
FLYING
parallel and very close to the Megafortress's tail.

“Megafortress descending!” said Dork.

“Sixty seconds.” Zen flexed his hand around the joystick. The Indian pilots, so focused on what they were doing, had not bothered to check six—or maybe they had looked behind their aircraft and missed the diminutive Flighthawk.

“Can you get both planes?” Dork asked.

Maybe. But he couldn't guarantee it.

“No,” said Zen. “Tell Breanna to take the one to the west with the Stinger air mines. She has west. Confirm.”

The Flighthawk pushed on steadily. He was two miles away—the screen began blinking red.

“Confirmed. She has west.”

“Ready!” yelled Zen as the screen went solid red.

“Ready!” yelled Dork.

“Go!” Zen began firing.

 

B
REANNA PUSHED THE
M
EGAFORTRESS TO HER LEFT AS HARD
as she dared, throwing the rear Stinger battery in the face of the Indian fighter. At the same time, the Stinger began firing even though it couldn't possibly have locked on its target yet.

The
Levitow
began to shake. Tracers were popping to its right.

“Going for the coast!” Breanna shouted, her words intended for Zen. “Stewart—what's our status?”

“
Bandit One
breaking off.
Two
is still behind us.”

Breanna started to push the nose of the Megafortress forward, wanting to increase her speed and give Zen some room to work with as he went for the other fighter. As she did, the Megafortress started to flail to the side, and within seconds she was fighting a yaw.

 

Z
EN GOT TWO LONG BURSTS INTO
B
ANDIT
O
NE
,
ENOUGH TO
draw smoke from her tailpipe. He let the fighter go, turning to try and get some shots on the other one.
Bandit Two
rolled away, just as a hail of air mines exploded behind the Megafortress.

As Zen followed the Indian plane downward, he caught a glimpse of the damaged EB–52. It was much worse than he had thought—the right wing had several large cracks running through it, with gaps big enough to see the foam protection for the fuel tanks. The starboard tailplane had been chewed up; less than a quarter of it remained.

Bandit Two
, still concentrating on the Megafortress, swung into position to fire his heat-seekers. Tucking his nose down, Zen got the Sukhoi in the middle of his crosshairs and sent a stream of bullets across its wings, across its fuselage, across the burning hulk he turned the plane into.

“Scratch
Bandit Two
,” he told Dork, pulling off. “I'm going to bird-dog over the coast.”

It was then that he finally noticed that the Megafortress was moving back and forth in the air, each swing a little stronger.

 

D
ESPERATE TO CONTROL THE SHIP
, B
REANNA HAD
S
TEWART
dial back power to engine one as she tried to rebalance her aircraft. It helped, but it also cost more airspeed. The water, at least, was just ahead, beyond a thick line of factories and boats.

“Radar—Top Plate—there's a patrol boat off shore,” said Stewart. “Correct that—a frigate. They'll have Geckos.”

“Gecko” was the NATO code word for SA-N-4s. The missiles would be potent under any circumstance, but the Megafortress would be an easy target now.

“Where are they?”

“Ten miles ahead.”

“ECMs.” Breanna had the plane back almost completely under control, the yaw reduced to a wobble. Her altitude was now below fifteen thousand feet. Forget the missiles, she thought, they'd be low enough for the antiaircraft guns by the time they got close to the frigate. “I'm going to go north,” she said. “We need to get some distance between us and that ship.”

As she prepared to bank, the Megafortress abruptly dropped thirty feet.

 

Z
EN TURNED THE
F
LIGHTHAWK BACK TOWARD THE
M
EGAFORTRESS
. As he came close, he saw a chunk of the right wing's skin fly off, pried loose by the plane's violent shakes and the wind's ravenous appetite. He couldn't tell for certain, but he thought the cracks he'd noticed before were longer.

They weren't going to make it.

“Tell Breanna to select the view from
Hawk Three
,” he told Dork.

 

B
REANNA ALTERNATELY WRESTLED AND COAXED THE AIRPLANE
, knowing it was a losing battle. The only question was where they were going to crash.

She preferred ditching at sea, where the shot-up plane wouldn't kill any civilians when it crashed. It would also be arguably better to bail there, since they might have a chance of being picked up by a U.S. ship or even the Osprey, rather than the Indian authorities.

“All right, crew, here's what we're going to do—we're not going to make it much farther. We have six ejection seats and eight people. I'm going to go out with a parachute from the Flighthawk deck. We'll draw straws for the other place.”

“I volunteer,” said Stewart.

“I'm sure everyone will volunteer,” she said. “That's why we're drawing straws.”

 

Z
EN HAD ALREADY DECIDED WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO WHEN
Dork passed the word. He turned the Flighthawk over to the computer, then pulled off his helmet.

“Doesn't make any sense for me to use the ejection seat. I have nothing left to protect,” he said. “I'll take my chances dropping.”

“But Captain Stockard said—”

“I outrank everyone aboard this aircraft, including my wife,” said Zen, pushing himself up out of the seat. “Besides, I'm a much better swimmer than anyone else here. I can make it to the coast if I have to. You guys won't. Yo, Bullet, this chair's for you. Grab a brain bucket and saddle up.”

Aboard the
Shiva
,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0706

M
EMON SAW
A
DMIRAL
S
KANDAR MOUTHING THE WORDS BEFORE
he heard them, as if he were watching an out-of-sync motion picture.

“You are ordered to abandon ship,” said the admiral calmly. “I repeat. Abandon ship.”

The ship's fantail was now well out of the water, and the list to starboard so pronounced that Memon could see only the water outside the ship. He'd managed to get to his feet but gone no farther since the first explosion. He had no idea how much time had passed; it seemed both an eternity and a wink.

Down below, one of the armament stores had caught fire, and weapons cooked off with furious bangs. The explosions seemed fiercer than those caused by the American missiles, more violent and treacherous, as if the ship were being torn up by demons.

The ship's crew began moving in slow motion, following
routines established during drills they'd hoped never to perform in real life. One by one the Defense minister bid them farewell.

I am so much a coward, thought Memon, that I cannot even move. I deserve to die a coward's death.

“You must abandon ship too,” Skandar told Memon. “Go. Save yourself.”

“I will stay,” said Memon. His throat was dry; the words seemed to trip in it.

Was it the coward's way to save himself?
He wanted to live, and yet he could not move.

“It is your duty to carry on the battle,” said Skandar. “I am an old man. It is my turn to die.”

There was no question that Skandar was brave, and Memon knew himself to be a coward. Yet their fates were the same. Here they were, together on the bridge, stripped bare of everything but nerve and fear.

“Admiral. You must live to help us rebuild and fight again.”

Skandar did not answer.

“Admiral?”

The sound of metal twisting and breaking under the pressure of water filled the compartment.

Memon wanted to live. Yet he could not move.

Skandar turned away and looked out through the broken glass at the sea. “In the next life, I will be a warrior again,” he said.

Before Memon could answer, the deck collapsed below them, and he and Admiral Skandar plunged into the howling bowels of the burning ship.

Aboard the
Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0706

S
TORM STRUGGLED TO WARD OFF THE PAIN AS THE
C
HINESE
aircraft began their attack from thirty miles off—too far for
their radars to lock on the slippery ship. They were relying on the guidance systems in their missiles to lock as they approached the target.

There were four J-13s, each armed with four cruise missiles. The
Abner Read
was an awesome warship—but she wasn't invincible. In simulated trials the ship had managed to shoot down seven out of eight missiles in a massed attack. More than eight missiles, and the systems and men running them were overwhelmed. His strategy would be to push the odds as close to his favor as possible.

They got one break—rather than firing all of their weapons en masse, the Chinese launched a first wave of only four missiles.

“Helm, hard right rudder,” he said. They turned the ship to lower its radar profile, making it more difficult for the missiles to acquire them on final approach. This also limited the number of Phalanx guns he could put on the missiles, but it was an acceptable trade-off if the Chinese were only firing four weapons at a time.

Two of the Chinese missiles quickly lost their target and exploded in frustration. The final two kept coming in their direction.

“Status!” barked Storm.

“Neither missile has locked, Captain.”

Storm studied the holographic display. The missiles
looked
like they were going too far east. They
looked
like they were going to miss, though not by much.

One did. The other veered toward the ship. Before Storm could even say “Defensive weapons,” the Phalanx operator had shot down the missile.

Four down. Twelve to go.

 

S
TARSHIP STAYED SOUTH OF THE
A
BNER
R
EAD
AS THE CLOSE-IN
weapons system fired; the automated system had mistaken Werewolves for missiles in the past, nearly shooting them down.

Besides his Hellfires and the chain gun, he had two
Sidewinder missiles for air defense on the Werewolf's wingtips. The Werewolf couldn't take on the J-13s in anything like standard air combat; it might be fast for a helicopter at 450 knots top speed, but that was far slower than the Chinese jets.

On the other hand, if he could set up the right circumstances, he knew he might be able to take one of the planes. As a fighter jock, he was aware that helicopter pilots were taught to turn and fly toward their attacker, staying as low to the ground, zigging, and making a straight-on shot hard to line up. As the pursuing fighter passed, the chopper should then turn and fire.

Assuming, of course, it was still in one piece.

The J-13s had split into two groups. Two tacked to the east and launched a fresh pair of missiles. A second group of two planes was swinging around to the west, obviously aiming for their own try from that direction.

“Tac, I'm going to the west and take on one of those fighters,” said Starship. “Probably
Bandit Four
.”

“Werewolf?”

“I'm going to take on one of these fighters. No, belay that,” he said, using a Navy term for the first time in his life. “I'm going to
nail
one of those fighters.”

 

“C
OLONEL
B
ASTIAN FOR YOU
, S
TORM
.”

Storm clicked into the circuit. “Gale,” he said.