Retribution (11 page)

He lay on his back for a few minutes, an hour—it was impossible to tell how long. Clouds covered the moon then slowly slipped away. Finally, he shifted Breanna off him, sliding her weight away gently.

Far in the distance, he heard a groan.

The sound was so faint he wasn’t even sure he’d heard it at first. Then he thought it was an animal. Then, finally, he realized it had come from his wife.

“Bree,” he said, pushing up. “Bree?”

Zen rolled her onto her back, then undid her helmet strap, still not daring to look at her face. Without the ability to kneel, he had to shift himself around awkwardly until he was sitting and her head was resting on his thighs. He closed his eyes and removed the helmet, prying as gently as possible, cradling her head down to the ground.

Her face was badly bruised. Zen guessed she’d hit the plane going out, probably harder than he had.

She looked peaceful, except for the purple welts. She looked like she was sleeping.

Tears came to his eyes. He was sure he’d imagined the
sound; sure she was dead.

Until her lips parted.

Cautiously, he pushed his face down to hers. She was breathing.

“Bree?” he said, pulling back upright. “Bree?”

She didn’t say anything, but he thought she stirred.

“I’m here, baby,” he said, leaning back down as close as he could. “I’m here.”

Aboard the
Bennett,
over the northern Arabian Sea
0243, 16 January 1998

“S
EARCH PATTERN IS COMPLETE,
C
OLONEL,”
E
NGLEHARDT
told Dog as the Megafortress completed the last orbit. “Nothing.”

“The
Lincoln
’s search assets will be up within the hour,” added Lieutenant Sullivan. “We’ve given them the flight projections Dreamland ran.”

His men were subtly telling him that it was time to get on with the rest of their mission—finding the warheads. They had roughly six hundred miles to go before getting into the search area.

Dog pushed a long breath from his lungs.

“All right.” Dog couldn’t quite force enthusiasm into his voice; he had to settle for authority. “Mikey, get us on course. I’m going to take another shot at taking a nap. Wake me up when we’re starting the search.”

“You got it, Colonel.”

Dog tapped the back of the pilot’s seat and started for the upper Flighthawk bay. Daly put up his hand and stopped him as he passed.

“We’ll find her, Colonel. Starship or someone will get her. And Zen. Don’t worry.”

Dog patted the sergeant on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” he told him. “I know we will.”

Southeastern Iran,
near the coast
0200, 16 January 1998
(0300, Karachi)

G
ENERAL
M
ANSOUR
S
ATTARI PACED THE LONG HALL OF THE
mosque’s auxiliary building, waiting for word of his son.

That Captain Val Muhammad Ben Sattari had launched the final phase of the elaborate plan, there could be no doubt. India and Pakistan were at war, and had spent the day before trading accusations at the UN that each had tried to annihilate the other. The American President had gone on television and claimed that the U.S. had prevented nuclear weapons from exploding after the missiles were launched and would now work for peace, but CNN also reported that the power grids in both countries had been wiped out—a sure sign to General Sattari that several nuclear weapons had exploded, regardless of what the U.S. said. That meant his son had succeeded in his goal.

Now, if only Allah, blessed be His name, saw fit to carry Val back to him unharmed. Then he would launch his own goal—overthrowing the black robes who had ruined his life, and his country.

The general continued to pace, his shoes squeaking on the tile. He was alone in the building, and knew he would be for several hours. This was good—he did not want others to see his impatience as he waited for news from his son. He believed that a general must always maintain an image of calm and control, even in the most trying times.

Unlike the prayer hall of the mosque, this building was nearly brand new, and while the architect had preserved the ancient style of the older structures, no expense had been spared on the lavish interior. The floors were marble from the best quarries in Italy. The walls were wood veneer taken from East Africa. Even the furniture, hand carved by Iranian craftsmen, was finely wrought.

General Sattari stopped his pacing as the music from the television in the assembly room suddenly blared, announcing another bulletin. He folded his arms and listened as an American anchorman began running down the “latest” on the situation. This turned out to be primarily a rehash of earlier reports, the only exception being the news that the U.S. President had sent an aircraft carrier to the region.

Sattari frowned. He considered going into the room and changing the channel to Sky News, the British network. But he’d done that twice already, only to realize that CNN’s information was more up to date. And so instead he simply resumed his pacing, noting to himself that the fact that news was simply trickling in was an indication of how complete the destruction had been.

Aboard the
Abner Read,
northern Arabian Sea
0310

T
HE
M
ARINE
C
ORPS
O
SPREY FLUTTERED LEFT AND RIGHT,
ducking in and out of the spotlights as it descended toward the deck. At eighty-four feet counting the spinning rotors, the aircraft’s tilt-wings extended well over the sides of the narrow-beamed ship, so it looked to Danny as if the Osprey would tip the
Abner Read
up from the stern when it landed. But the ship remained steady, and within a few moments two members of the crew had fastened restraints to the Osprey’s body to keep it from slipping off the deck. When they were done, the forward hatch of the Osprey opened and two Marines stepped out.

“Dancer, we meet again,” shouted Danny to the trim figure that led the way forward.

“I had a feeling you’d be in the middle of things,” said Lieutenant Emma “Dancer” Klacker, shaking Danny’s hand. “This is Major Behrens from the general’s staff. He’s the general’s intel geek.”

“Major.”

“Captain Freah’s the Dreamland crazy who helped stop the pirates a few months back in the Gulf of Aden,” Dancer told her companion. “I told him another operation like that and we’d make him an honorary Marine.”

“This may be his chance, then,” said Behrens.

Danny led the way to the
Abner Read
’s Tactical Center, which the ship’s captain had loaned them for the briefing. The holographic table at the center of the space displayed a three-dimensional map of northern India; Dreamland’s map of the possible locations of the warheads had been superimposed on the layout. Danny quickly sketched out the situation.

The U-2 had spotted two missiles in a mountain valley south of the Pakistan-India border. Fired by India, the weapons had crashed in the high desert two hundred miles from the coast. The
Bennett
had identified another seventy-five miles to the northeast, closer to the border on lower land. The remaining warheads—twenty-five—were still to be found.

“This area has the most promise,” said Danny, pointing to a spot in the southern Thar Desert. “You can see from the projections there may be as many as six here, all launched from Pakistan. The
Bennett
will look there next.”

Danny explained that both countries lost their power grids, throwing them into chaos. Things were even worse in the wide swath of territory affected by the EEMWBs, where all electronics had been wiped out, even those that ran on batteries or could be connected to backup generators off the grid. It included all of the areas where the missiles were thought to have gone down. With the exception of three small radars on
the west coast, the military installations in the rest of India were either using their radars intermittently or not at all because of power problems. The Indians had two phased-array, long-range warning radar aircraft. One had been wiped out by the T-Rays and crashed near Delhi. The other was patrolling the east coast of the country, helping to monitor a Chinese fleet there.

The Chinese, meanwhile, had ordered the stricken aircraft carrier
Khan
to return to port. It was still north, near Pakistan, preparing to go south. Even if it remained where it was, Danny said, it was in no shape to challenge their operations.

“Our real handicap right now is low-level reconnaissance. The Megafortress isn’t equipped with Flighthawks. That should be remedied by this evening. Which brings me to another problem—we need to get our top Flighthawk pilot down to Diego Garcia so he can help out.”

“Where is he?”

“Catching some z’s in a rack,” said Danny.

“He’s aboard ship?” asked Dancer.

“He’s been running the Werewolf and training the
Abner Read
’s crew to handle it themselves. We were hoping you could take him back to the
Lincoln
and fly him down to Diego Garcia. We can arrange refuels.”

Dancer turned to Major Behrens. Danny stared at her face. She was a serious, serious temptation, even for a married man.

Especially for a married man.

He just barely managed to look away as Dancer turned back.

“I think the general can persuade the captain of the
Lincoln
to spare an airplane,” said Behrens. “Or we can arrange something with Ospreys. We’ll work it out.”

“Good,” said Danny. He sensed that Dancer was staring at him and kept his own eyes focused on the table. “How soon can you get people on the ground, and what’s the game plan?”

“Major, Lieutenant, I’m sorry I was busy when you ar
rived,” said Storm, striding into the room unannounced. “Welcome aboard.”

Danny stepped to the side, thankful for the interruption. He
was
married, he reminded himself. And this was work.

But damn, Dancer looked even more gorgeous than he remembered. The Marine camo uniform somehow accented her dusky rose face, and it didn’t hide her trim hips. She wore her black hair in a tight braid that looked part Amazon warrior, part beauty queen.

“We’re happy to host you,” continued Storm. “Make us your operations center.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” said Major Behrens, “but we’ve already set up temporary ops on the carrier. Our ship is on her way; she should be close enough to handle full operations in fifty-six hours.”

“You’ll be done by then,” said Storm gruffly.

Danny kept his smile to himself. Storm liked to be in the middle of the action.

“Hopefully,” agreed Dancer. “In the meantime, Captain, we’d be grateful of any support you can give. This is one of the best ships in the Navy,” she added, turning to Behrens. “It’s the future. I’ve seen the crew in the action. They’re very good.”

“What about you, Captain Freah?” Storm asked, pretending to ignore the compliment—though he’d shaded slightly. “Where are you going to be?”

“You’re coming with me and the assault team, aren’t you, Captain?” asked Dancer.

“Wherever we’re needed,” said Danny, holding her gaze for the first time since she’d come on board.

It felt good—too good, he knew. But he didn’t break it, and neither did she.

D
ANCER’S UNSOLICITED COMPLIMENT ABOUT THE
A
BNER
Read didn’t lift Storm’s mood. Having shot off all his missiles in combat, he found himself nearly impotent just when things were going to turn hot again. True, he had torpedoes,
but they were intended primarily for use against submarines and had nowhere near the range of Harpoons. Nor would they be much good against airplanes.

And the more he thought about it, the more he was sure he was going to face airplanes very soon. Not from the Indians, but from the
Khan
.

The master of the Chinese ship resented the fact that they had picked up his pilot. Storm could tell from the brief communication he’d sent, almost a blowoff, when they’d shipped the man out in the Sharkboat. And the
Khan
was still north, clearly planning something.

“Captain, you have a minute?” asked Eyes as he started for the bridge.

“Sure,” he told his exec.

“In private?”

Storm nodded, then followed Eyes forward to the galley, a short distance away.

“Coffee, sir?”

“No, I’ve had my fill,” said Storm. “What’s up?”

“I’m wondering if we’re going to have an option on what port we put into, and if so, I’d like to make some suggestions,” said Eyes.

“Port?” sputtered Storm.

“Aren’t we going to get—”

Storm didn’t let him finish. “We’re not going into port. Not now. Do you understand what we’re in the middle of?”

“We’ve done our part,” said Eyes. “Between the action earlier—”

“What’s gotten into you, Eyes?”

“What do you mean, Storm?”

“You don’t want to quit, do you?”

“Quit?”

“You’re talking about going home.”

“Captain, we have no more weapons. We have to replenish.”

“We have plenty of fuel.”

Eyes frowned. “I’m just trying to get the men the best place for R and R.”

“You’re talking about shore leave at a time when we should be fighting,” said Storm. He felt his whole body growing warm. “You need to be coming up with a plan to deal with the
Khan
. Their captain is up to something.”

Eyes put his coffee down on the table. “We have no more Harpoons, Storm. Or Standard missiles. We have no fresh vegetables. The ship has been at sea for over a month. That’s twice as long as we’d planned.”

“Don’t be a defeatist. We’ll get resupplied once we meet the
Lincoln
.”

Eyes frowned. “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant commander picked up his coffee and started to leave.

“Were are you going, mister?” snapped Storm.

“I was just going back to my duty station, sir.”

Storm wondered if he should relieve Eyes. He couldn’t have someone with a negative attitude as his number two.

No, he thought. His exec was just tired. He hadn’t been to sleep for a day and a half, at least.

“Go get yourself some rest, Eyes,” Storm told him. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”

“I feel fine, Captain.”

“That was an order, mister.”

Eyes stared at him for a moment. “Aye aye, Captain,” he said finally. “Aye aye.”

Aboard the
Bennett,
near the Pakistan-India border
0400

“C
OLONEL
,
IF
I
CAN MAKE A SUGGESTION
?”

“Absolutely, Mike,” Dog told Englehardt.

“If I drop the Megafortress to five hundred feet and walk her as slow she’ll go, the low-light video camera in the nose will get us an excellent picture.”

Ordinarily, Dog would have readily agreed—the jagged terrain was making it hard for the radar to “see” what was on
the ground. But they had spotted a Pakistani ground unit to the north just as he came back from his brief nap.

“How close are the Pakistanis?” Dog asked.

“Two miles almost directly north,” replied the pilot. “They’re on that east-west road just over the rise, right on their side of the border. We can get down and then away before they even know what’s going on.

“There are just two deuce-and-a-half troop trucks,” he added, using the American slang for a multipurpose six-by-six troop truck. “Worst they’re going to have is a shoulder-launched missile. It’s not going to be much of a threat.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dog said. “I don’t want them coming over to see what we’re interested in. Or radioing for help.”

“Wouldn’t their radios have been fried by the T-Rays?” the copilot, Kevin Sullivan, asked. “We haven’t heard any transmissions.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The EEMWB that knocked out the missile was detonated farther south,” said Dog, who had helped design and implement the detonation plan. “They may have driven into the area afterward. We can’t count on them having been affected.”

“We can take them out with the Harpoons,” said Sullivan. “Not going to be a problem.”

“Firing on them is a last resort,” Dog told him.

“Let’s fake them out,” said Englehardt. “Make it look like we’re interested in them, buzz them, then look for the warhead on the way out.”

“Maybe.”

Dog examined the ground radar plot on Sergeant Daly’s screen. The two trucks were in the middle of the road. It occurred to Dog that the vehicles themselves might have been disabled by the T-Rays. Even if that weren’t the case, they might have strict orders not to go over the border—though the line was marked here only on maps, not on the ground.