Strike Zone (16 page)

“What if this came off a ship?” he said.

“The Chinese carriers were under surveillance the whole time,” said Zen.

“Not a carrier,” said Dog. He leaned over the map, practically putting his face on it. “There were plenty of ships that would be within range.”

“Their destroyers, their patrol ships—everything was covered,” said Zen. “The Navy wouldn't miss something like that.”

“What if you launched from a civilian ship?” asked Dog. “Is it possible?”

“You tell me,” said Stoner.

“You'd need some sort of catapult system,” said Zen. “Even then, it might be hard. One of the reasons the Flighthawks are air-launched is the stealthy characteristics would make it difficult for them to get airborne in a short distance. Besides, those other ships are not Chinese.”

“Maybe it's not Chinese,” said Stoner.

“You could overcome the launch limitations,” said Dog. “Part of the reason the Flighthawks are air-launched has to do with their mission, working with EB-52s. There are other ways to go.”

“Sure,” said Zen. “Hell, anything's possible, at least until we see what we're dealing with.”

“Well, hopefully that happens today. You coming with us?” Dog asked Stoner.

“I have some people to talk to here,” said Stoner. “Zen said he didn't need me.”

“I got it covered.”

Zen and Stoner still weren't getting along, although to their credit they hadn't let whatever personal animosity was between them get in the way of the mission.

Yet.

Colonel Bastian checked his watch. It wasn't quite seven-thirty
A.M.
here, which would make it about 1530 or three-thirty in the afternoon the day before back home. He needed to check in with a whole roster of people back at Dreamland—Major Catsman, Ax, Danny Freah, and Rubeo—before the flight briefings. He was also supposed to update Jed Barclay, though that could wait until he was aboard
Raven
.

He also wanted to give Jennifer another try. She hadn't answered any of his calls.

“Are we set?” Zen asked.

Dog took another look at the map. It bothered him that he had an inexperienced man running the Flighthawk that would cross over Chinese territory, but tracking the clone definitely called for someone of Zen's skill. And the EB-52s had different specialties, so they couldn't be easily swapped.

The thing to do, Colonel Bastian realized, was to switch places with Alou. This way, if things got too hairy with the Chinese in the early going, he'd be there to take care of it.

Made sense. He ought to be the guy with his neck on the line.

“I'm going to take
Penn
,” he told Alou. “We'll swap seats. I want my neck on the line up there if we're flying that close to China.”

“Your call, Colonel,” said Alou. “One way or the other's fine with me.”

Dog nodded. Alou was typical of a certain type of officer common in the Air Force. Easygoing and generally quiet, they were pros who tended to do their jobs without much flash or complaint. They didn't have the balls-out aggressive manner of a Mack Smith or a Zen before his accident—or even a Colonel Bastian, for that matter. But their steady approach and calm demeanor would generally carry the day when the mud hit the fan. Most of them, certainly Alou, didn't lack for personal courage; they just didn't strut about it.

“All right,” Dog said. “I have to go talk to the folks at home. I'll see you in a half hour or so.”

Aboard the
Dragon Prince
, South China Sea
0806

C
HEN
L
O
F
ANN
gripped the side of the seat as the small helicopter pivoted toward the fantail of the trawler. The Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm 108 settled into a hover about a foot and a half above the deck of the ship. Chen Lo Fann nodded to the pilot, then
undid his seat belt and opened the door, holding himself precariously as the wash from the overhead blades beat the salty air against him. It was just a bit too high to step down comfortably; with as much patience as he could muster, Chen Lo Fann took hold of the side of the plane and lowered himself carefully to the deck. He ducked away; the pilot in the aircraft waited until one of the crew members waved, then he revved the rotor, lifting and speeding off, flying back in the direction he had come.

The captain of the ship met Chen Lo Fann with a salute, though Fann had told him many times that was unnecessary. After a brief report that basically repeated everything he had already been told, Fann followed the captain downstairs to the command post for the robot plane.

Professor Ai met him at the door.

“Commander,” said the professor. Despite his age, his manner was humble, a sign of respect not for Chen Lo Fann himself, but for his grandfather. Chen Lo Fann knew this and accepted it as proper.

“There is news?”

“Much,” said Ai. He explained what he had observed from the encounter between the communists and the Megafortress the day before.

“They are due in a few hours,” said Ai. “The Australians were checking a position with another ship. The communist dogs will react again. One of their patrols will come south. If their instruments are confused, an accident is inevitable,” Ai said. “If we use the repeater devices aboard the UAV to blind and confuse the mongrels, it may be possible—”

“An accident will not give us the provocation we
need,” said Chen Lo Fann. “The Americans must attack the Chinese, or vice versa. Both must be convinced that the other started the conflict. It must be done quickly.”

“That will not be easy.”

“Whether it is easy or not, it will be done.”

“Yes,” said Professor Ai.

Brunei IAP
1000

M
ACK
S
MITH THOUGHT
Bin Awg was a bit of a blowhard—albeit a rich one who didn't mind spending his money—but his opinion changed the moment he stood under the nose of the Tu-16 Badger C.

At that moment, he became convinced that the prince was one of the most generous and wonderful human beings on the planet, with a connoisseur's eye for vintage aircraft.

A one-time member of the Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskovo Flota—the Soviet naval aviation branch—the aircraft had had a rather checkered history after being decommissioned sometime in the 1980s. It had flown briefly with the Polish air force, put in a few months in East Germany (where it had allegedly worked as a weather plane, according to the somewhat unbelievable records supplies to bin Awg; more likely it was some sort of spy plane), and finally been “loaned” to Indonesia as part of a program by the Soviets to convince that country to purchase updates for its twenty-two-member fleet of Badger Bs. When the loan period ended, a series of complicated financial
dealings resulted in the plane being deeded to the Indonesian air force, which then put it up for sale as surplus material.

It was at that point that bin Awg had obtained it, and after considerable time and expense restored it to 1961 condition. Though technically part of the Brunei Air Force—it had military insignia—it was in fact one of the prince's private airplanes, and not included in the regular chain of command or inventory.

The design of the Tu-16 dated to the early 1950s, and in fact some elements owed their origin to the Tu-4, a Russian knockoff of the American B-29 Superfortress, the famous aircraft that had helped win World War II. Though only a little more than half the size of a Megafortress, the plane was
large
—its wings spanned a nudge over 108 feet, and a tape measure pegged from nose to cannon tip at the tail would notch over 114 feet. (Before being refurbished as a Megafortress, a B-52 spanned 185 feet and measured 160; Megafortresses typically added ten to the length but shaved off an even two with the composite wings. The real difference was in potential weight at takeoff; a Badger might tip the scales—and just make it off the ground—at 167,110 pounds; a B-52 could get up with over 500,000 and an EB-52 with even more, though it rarely was configured with that much weight. The Tu-16 might be more favorably compared to a B-47, another Cold War veteran that served as a medium bomber in the American order
of battle.)

Mack didn't particularly like the Megafortress and had turned down an offer to become a pilot in the program. But that didn't mean that he didn't appreciate
old birds, and standing beneath the Russian Cold War bomber, he felt something like love.

Lust, really, since Miss Kelly was coming along for the flight. She had a nice hourglass thing going on with khaki pants and a button-down shirt that might have been just a size too small.

“Look at those engines,” said Mack, belatedly turning away to pat the air intake cowling of the Mikulin RD-3M turbo. “This sucker is a serious hot rod.”

“It does look big,” said Miss Kelly doubtfully.

“Come on, let's go up inside her,” said Mack.

“Shouldn't we wait for the prince?”

“He'll catch up. Come on. We won't break anything.”

The boarding ladder extended just in front of the forward landing gear, opening into a typically bare-bones Soviet-era cockpit. There were three seats on the flight deck—a swivel seat belonging to the forward gunner was mounted in front of the electronic gear racks at the rear of the deck—with a station for a radar navigator-bombardier in the nose.

At the center of the flight deck was an observation roof or “astrodome.” Behind this on the upper fuselage sat a pair of 23mm cannons; two other sets of the antiair guns were included in turrets in the belly and tail. The original model included another cannon in the nose—it wasn't clear whether the designers had intended this for strafing or dogfighting, neither of which the plane would have been very good at. Bin Awg's modifications had removed it; the space was needed for the updated avionics and radar gear.

Had the Badger been left completely stock, the nav's seat up front in the nose would have seemed more than a little claustrophobic. Not only did he have
to squeeze under the pilot and copilot to get into the compartment, but in the C model the forward-looking radar blocked off the view. But the prince's updates enabled a different radar to be used and installed in the chin area; to replace it in the nose he had purchased a glass house from the Chinese, who were still making their own version of the plane, dubbed the Xian H-6. The navigator thus had the best seat in the house.

Mack pointed this out and eagerly helped Miss Kelly slide down and into the seat. She had just gotten snugged in when the prince climbed aboard, dressed in his flight gear; he wore a G suit despite the fact that the cabin was completely pressurized.

“Major, very good. And you have our guest installed.”

“Your Highness,” said Mack. “Ready to rock?”

“Yes,” said the prince, his tone slightly distant. He moved forward and took the pilot's seat—a slight disappointment for Mack, who nonetheless slid into the copilot's slot. The sultan's nephew pulled out a clipboard and began working through an extremely lengthy checklist.

And working. And working. He didn't merely turn a switch on; he found it, touched it, double-checked it against the list, made sure he knew all the positions, tentatively checked to see that all the selectable positions were indeed selectable, consulted the list, put the switch into the proper detent, rechecked it, went back to the list, nodded to himself, then penciled it off before proceeding.

Understandable for a complex dial, perhaps, but a bit much for a simple two-way toggle. Especially given the thick sheaf of procedures he had to work through.

“Can't beat these old planes,” said Mack, hoping to hurry him along.

The prince smiled indulgently.

“We taking off soon?”

“In good time, Major. We plan the flight, then fly the plan.”

“Well, sure.”

They'd done that earlier, actually, but the prince saw fit to do it again. He was a demon of a partier, but when it came to aircraft, there was not a more careful or conservative man in the world. Mack tried to get involved in the checklist as an ordinary copilot—though his intention really was to hurry the procedure along—but the prince considered it mostly a solo act. Mack had everything he could do to keep from nodding off until the engines finally spooled up.

As the old red dog nudged along the runway, Mack felt his pulse rate start to climb. It didn't hurt that Miss Kelly chose that moment to twist back toward the flight deck, exposing a good portion of cleavage.

“This is it,” she said giddily.

“Yeah,” said Mack. “It really is.”

Aboard
Raven
, over the South China Sea
1153

Z
EN SAT BACK
in his seat aboard
Raven
, watching the diagnostics screen fly by as the prelaunch checklist for the U/MF-3 Flighthawk continued. The words hawk one ready flashed on his screen. By convention, the robot aircraft was dubbed “
Hawk One
.” Each U/MF in the air was called “Hawk” and numbered by the computer system, generally by launch sequence. The green
color-coded screen told Zen that everything was optimum and routine.

But not for him. For Zen was actually sitting in an aircraft twenty miles from the plane preparing to launch
Hawk One
. The robot's mothership was
Penn
; its pilot was Starship, who had just finished the preflight check without help from Zen. Zen felt a bit like an anxious father, watching his son take his bike out for the first time without training wheels

Zen still wasn't quite used to watching while others flew the Flighthawks. He'd never be used to it, to be honest.

Even worse, he'd lost his last protégé, Captain Kevin Fentress, over this very ocean not two weeks before.

Fentress was good, too good to lose. Zen had ridden him hard, much harder than Starship and Kick. He wanted to think it had made a difference.