Retribution (24 page)

“Missile five is down. Missile six is closing to ten miles.”

Dog’s turn slowed the Megafortress, but even had he been going in a straight line, there was no chance of outrunning the remaining enemy missile. At 1,400 knots, it was traveling more than twenty miles a minute.

“Stinger ready,” said Sullivan, breathing hard.

“Arm autodefense,” Dog told him.

“Stinger autodefense.”

The sky flashed white.

“Our Anaconda took down the last missile,” said Rager. “Wow.”

Brian Daly, who’d been silently manning the ground radar station during the entire incident, let out a whoop.

“All right, guys,” Dog told them. “We still have two more aircraft to worry about. Let’s stay on our game.”

S
TARSHIP SURVEYED THE AREA OF THE CRASH, THE VIDEO
camera in the nose of the Flighthawk recording the roughly two-mile swath where the missile had crashed. He could make a reasonable guess about what had happened. The missile had scraped against the side of the mountain peak, slammed across the second, causing an avalanche, and then landed—in pieces—on the small plain in front of him.

But where was the warhead? The debris trail petered out at the edge of a solid plain.

He’d already pulled his nose up when he realized that the plain wasn’t a plain at all—it was a small lake.

He also realized something else—people were crouched at the far end, watching the Flighthawk as it zipped by.

They weren’t just admiring the black shape as it sailed past the full moon either. Something flared from the ground as he passed—a shoulder-launched missile, aimed not at the U/MF, but at the Megafortress almost directly above.

“S
TINGER MISSILE
!”
SAID
S
ULLIVAN
,
PRACTICALLY SHRIEKING
over the interphone.

“Flares,” said Dog. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers.”

Dog had dealt with shoulder-fired missiles dozens of times before, but even he felt his heart begin to race as the decoys showered behind the Megafortress.

The FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-launched missile was designed as an easy-to-use, no-hassle-to-maintain antiaircraft weapon that could be fired by soldiers in the field with minimal training. There were several variants, but this was almost certainly an original FIM-92A model, the type given to mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan to use against the Russians there, and then later sold to terror groups around the world.

Once launched, the missile homed in on the heat source its nose sensor had locked onto, flying over the speed of sound and able to climb to about three miles. At 2.2 pounds, its explosive warhead was relatively small, but nonetheless deadly. The fuse worked only on impact, which made the use of decoys less effective. On the other hand, it also meant that the weapon had to actually strike something to go off.

The Megafortress’s four turbojets were sexy targets for the missile’s seeker, red hot magnets that pulled it onward. The
Bennett
’s altitude was its one advantage; while the airplane was almost directly over the man who had fired the missile, the aircraft had been at 10,000 feet, the very edge of the Stinger’s lethal envelope. Dog mashed the throttle, knowing he’d need every ounce of power to get away. As the decoys bloomed behind him, he twisted sharply, taking roughly five g’s and trying to cut as close to 180 degrees as possible.

The turn and flares made it hard for the Stinger to sniff its target, and by the time the Stinger realized it had to turn, it was too late. The rocket propellant in its slender chassis spent, the missile tumbled back to the ground.

“Starship, you see who fired at us?”

“Got a glimpse, Colonel.”

“They Chinese troops?”

“Negative. Look like guerrillas, some sort of irregulars. Dressed, you know, kind of like natives, farmers or something.”

“Pretty clear they’re not farmers,” snapped Dog.

“Maybe they’re growing missiles,” said Sullivan.

The rest of the crew laughed—more to release tension than because the joke was funny. But it was a good sign, Dog thought; they were starting to get used to dealing with combat.

It wasn’t, however, a time to relax.

“Two Sukhoi-27s, early models, flying straight for us,” said Rager, summarizing the situation for Dog. “Two hundred nautical miles from us. From the northeast. Chinese. They’re subsonic, 500 knots, 23,000 feet. Behind them there
are two helicopters, 10,000 feet. Type ID’d as Harbin Z-5 Hound. Troop carriers.”

“Flighthawk leader, do you have the exact location of the warhead?” Dog asked Starship.

“Negative, Colonel. Looks like it’s in a lake. I haven’t confirmed it’s there.”

“Get on with Dreamland Command. See if the scientists can pin it down.”

“Roger that.”

The territory they were flying over was Indian but heavily populated by Muslims, and there were a variety of separatist groups active in the area. Some were suspected to be allied with Islamic terrorists, and even those that weren’t would find a ready market for a nuclear warhead. The question in Dog’s mind was what was China’s interest. Were they protecting their nearby border, or working with the people on the ground?

“
Bennett
to Danny Freah. Whiplash leader, what’s your status?”

Danny Freah’s tired face came onto the com screen. The camera in the smart helmet was located at the top of the visor, and the image had a fish-eye quality to it. It exaggerated the puffiness under his eyes, so the captain looked like he had two shiners.

“Freah. We’re about ready to bug out, Colonel.”

“We think we found the I-20 warhead. There are two problems. One, it may be underwater. Two, we have what look like local guerrillas on the ground, and the Chinese seem to be interested as well.”

Because of the location, it would take several hours for a fresh group of Marines to come in from the gulf. By then the guerrillas and/or the Chinese might have recovered the weapon.

Danny got hold of the Osprey pilots and discussed the situation. They could send one of their Ospreys with troops east; it would take roughly an hour and a half to reach the site. Reinforcements could include another bird, which would refuel them.

Assuming Dreamland Command could pinpoint the warhead and that divers could then find it, the Osprey could be used to lift it from the water. There was another problem, however: Of the twenty Marines and the handful of Navy technical people Danny could bring, only Danny was qualified as a diver.

And the three Whiplashers who had been at the Pakistani house.

“Admiral Woods’s chief of staff wanted all three of our guys sent over to the
Lincoln
ASAP,” said Danny. “In the meantime, they were to stay on the sidelines if possible.”

“It’s not possible,” said Dog. “Take whoever you need with you. I’ll clear it with the admiral. Assuming our guys are OK.”

“I don’t know about Jonesy or Blow,” said Danny. “They were both shot. The gear protected them, but they’re pretty, uh, you know…mentally, with the kid—”

“What about Liu?”

“I think he’s OK.”

“All right. As long as he can carry out the mission. Use your best judgment.”

There was a time, before Dreamland, before he ever engaged in combat, that Dog would not have asked whether his subordinates could carry out a mission he knew they were physically capable of. But having been through combat, he’d learned how it could wear at you over time. More important, he’d also learned that a good percentage of people didn’t realize the toll it took, and that most of the others would ignore that toll because they felt their duty was to perform the mission. His job as a commander was to make the call for them, insisting that they sit down when sitting down was the best thing for them, and the best thing ultimately for the mission.

Were they at that point? Seeing a baby die, seeing a husband self-destruct up close—these were somehow different than deaths in combat, however horrific. Having people you were trying to save turn on you at a tragic moment—how much more terrible was that than killing a sniper at long distance?

“Get over there, then, as fast as you can,” Dog told Danny. Then he killed the transmission and called the
Cheli
to back him up. He’d talk to Admiral Woods—and General Samson—as soon as he had the situation under control.

Aboard Dreamland
Cheli,
over northwest India
2320

T
HOUGH SHE HAD BEEN FINISHED ONLY A FEW WEEKS AFTER
the
Bennett,
the EB-52
Cheli
incorporated a number of improvements both subtle and significant. Like her mate, the Megafortress had been rebuilt from an earlier incarnation, in this case a Model H that had once served with the Nineteenth Bomb Wing at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. She was optimized for radar work and included the latest upgrades to both the airborne and ground search and surveillance radars, as well as software that allowed the bomber to target missiles launched by other sources. Like most Megafortresses, there were two Flighthawk bays, upper and lower. Unlike the
Bennett
, the upper Flighthawk bay was operational; instead of bunks, there were two more Flighthawk control stations, allowing the aircraft to control a total of eight robots, though for now she was equipped only with two. The
Cheli
’s uprated engines allowed her to take off with a full load without tapping the engines of the four Flighthawks she could hold under her wings.

The aircraft’s ECM suite had been updated as well. While not as comprehensive as the ELINT, or electronic intelligence, versions of the Megafortress, which could listen to as well as jam a wide range of communications, the
Cheli
could suppress antiaircraft fire from ground and aircraft by scrambling radar and command signals the way the now retired Wild Weasels once had. Dreamland’s wizards had studied recent encounters with the Chinese and updated the electronics to do a better job against their weapons. They had also
added transcripts of the air battles to the computers that helped fly the plane, providing the Tactics section with better information on what to expect from the planes they encountered.

Her pilot, Captain Brad Sparks, was in some ways also a new version of the breed. Sparks had been at Dreamland as a lieutenant three years before, working briefly on the Megafortress project, where, among other things, he had helped perform a feasibility study on using the aircraft as a tanker. He’d transferred out just before Dog arrived, promoted to a captain and assigned to a B-1B squadron.

When Dreamland began getting involved in operational missions, Sparks realized he’d made a mistake and started angling for a comeback. He’d arrived two weeks before, and already he could tell it was the best decision he’d ever made in his life.

“Colonel Bastian for you,” said his copilot, Lieutenant Nelson Wong.

“Colonel, how goes it?” said Sparks, snapping his boss’s image on his com screen. The EB-52’s “dashboard” was infinitely configurable, but like most Megafortress pilots, Sparks kept the communications screen at the lower left, just below a screen that fed data and images from the Flighthawks.

“We’ve located another warhead, very far north,” Dog told him. “It’s in a lake. Looks like the Chinese are interested in it as well.”

“Hot shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you need us to do, Colonel?”

“These are the coordinates of the site. The
Bennett
will go north and try and divert the Chinese. I’d like you to back us up and help provide cover for the ground unit; they should be there inside of ninety minutes. How soon can you get up here?”

“Thirty minutes,” said Sparks, though he knew he was being optimistic—the
Cheli
was nearly five hundred miles away.”

“Be advised that the Chinese used long-range radiation-seeking missiles against us. They look like AA-10 Alamos but have at least twice the range. We took them down with Anacondas. We have two Su-27s approaching, and we’re unsure how they’re armed.”

“We’re on it, Colonel.”

“Alert me when you’re within ten minutes.” The screen went blank.

The cavalry to the rescue, thought Sparks before telling the rest of the crew what was going on. Getting back to Dreamland was the best thing he’d ever done.

Aboard Dreamland
Bennett,
over Pakistan
2345

D
OG’S GOAL WAS SIMPLE
—
KEEP THE HELICOPTERS FROM
landing at the site. They were well within range of his Anaconda antiair missiles, but he had only two left. If he used them against the helicopters, he’d have only the Flighthawks as his defense against the Su-27s.

A much better option was to engage the fighters first, get them out of the way, and then deal with the helicopters. After telling Starship what was up, Dog turned the Megafortress in the Sukhois’ direction.

Unlike the MiG-31s, the Sukhois hadn’t followed him through his course changes. There was no question in his mind that they were heading toward the warhead site and had to be considered hostile, but he wasn’t sure if they were carrying long-range weapons like the other planes. He decided he couldn’t take the chance. His only option was to take them out before they were close enough to use their weapons.

“Range on
Bandits Three
and
Four,
” he said to Sullivan.

“Just coming up to 180 miles.”

“Stand by the Anacondas,” Dog told Sullivan.

“Standing by.”

“Target them and fire.”

The missiles whisked away from the Megafortress. Dog held his course, watching the MiGs continue to approach, clearly unaware of their impending doom. Only at the last second did they realize their danger, jerking desperately to the east and west as the missiles bore in.

It was far too late. The Anacondas exploded only a few seconds apart, obliterating the Sukhois so completely that neither crew could eject.

“The helicopters are all yours,” Dog told Starship. Then he dialed into the fleet satellite communications channel to tell Woods what was going on.