Strike Zone (18 page)

The CIA officer nodded.

“Ah, good. Come with me. We're off.”

“Off?”

“We've got to get to Kampung Ayer,” he said in a thick and proper English accent. “That's where our acquaintance is.”

A few minutes later, Stoner found himself in the stern of a small water taxi, speeding toward the floating island that lay in the mouth of the capital, an ancient tongue stuck in the ocean's shallow bay. Built largely on stilts, the water village, a maze of wooden promenades and buildings lashed together with thin ropes, was home to more than thirty thousand people. The air had a pungent odor; the water went from deep blue to an almost coppery red as they drew closer to the village.

Conrad gave the taxi operator a few directions and they began threading their way through a narrow lagoon. Two turns later, they stopped in front of a large white structure that looked like an American double-wide trailer. The rusted tin roof boasted two large satellite dishes at its apex.

“Off we go,” said Conrad.

Stoner got out. The taxi backed up and sped off.

“We'll get another, don't worry, old chap. Plenty hereabouts.”

The two men walked up the plankway to the building. Stoner was surprised to find a cool interior and a thick, new-looking carpet. A young man sat at a desk that could have been a reception area at a better doctor's office in the U.S.

“Cheese in?”

“Ah yes, Mr. Conrad. Please go.”

Stoner followed Conrad through the door into what looked like a small den. A large TV screen filled one side; CNBC was on. Near the television a man in shorts and T-shirt sat on a leather couch, a phone at his ear. He had a pair of laptops out—one on the floor, one next to him on the couch. Conrad pushed over a large chair for Stoner, then got another for himself. The man on the phone—Cheese—continued to talk for a while, mentioning some sort of stock he wanted to short—then finally concluded the conversation.

“Listen, I got to go,” he told whoever was on the other line. “I have MI6 and the CIA sitting in my office. Yeah, looks like I got big trouble.”

He punched the phone, then rose, jabbing his hand toward Stoner. “James Milach. They call me Cheese because I made a killing in Kraft. No shit.”

Stoner shook his hand. “Stoner.”

“Beefeater told me. You figure it out yet?” he added, turning toward Conrad.

“Still working on it.”

“Thinks he may be related to Conrad, the author. Except what he doesn't know is, Conrad was Polish,” said Cheese, sitting back on his couch.

“There is a possibility I'm related,” Conrad told Stoner. “And the author traveled through here. I, of course, was raised in London. Unlike Cheese, who is so obviously an American. Though he has settled in rather well.”

Cheese wasn't paying attention. He looked at the laptop, then studied the stock screen at the bottom of the TV. “I hate these stinking time delays.”

“I've been trying to come up with a list of chip
fabricators,” Stoner said. “Ones that are active in Asia, that have custom capabilities but would work quietly for another country. I've looked into official sites, but I'm told that—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Beefeater told me all about it. I can help. Hang tight a sec, okay?”

Cheese grabbed his phone and quickly punched a combination of numbers. “Hey, screw what I told you yesterday. Dump 'em. Yeah. I don't care. Buy IBM or Intel. Whatever. Just do it. Quick.”

“Cheese spends an inordinate time thrashing about in the stock market,” said Conrad.

“Why don't you just use your laptop and make your own trades?” Stoner asked.

“Oh, I do. But sometimes when you want to make certain moves, brokers are useful. You may have to spread things around. It's more a hobby these days. Then again, there's always hope I'll come up with something to beat Kraft and get a new nickname.”

Conrad chuckled.

“So you can help?” said Stoner.

“Chip fabricators. Processor chips doing really high-grade stuff. Not a lot of them in Asia that aren't, you know, say, under a government's thumb. My bet would be Korea,” said Cheese.

“Yes,” said Stoner. Another officer had checked on the Korean plants very extensively, and had assured him they weren't involved.

“All right, so forgetting Korea, what do we have, right?” continued Cheese. “We're talking very high-end processors and no questions asked. Right?”

Stoner nodded.

“I know of a factory in Thailand. I'd start there.”

“Others?” asked Stoner.

“My assistant will get you a list. But forget it. If it isn't that Thai place, it isn't anywhere. Anything you need, they'll do. Of course, if you look at the customs records, what few there are, you'll see they only make chips for VCRs and TVs, that sort of thing. Don't believe it.”

“Can they do memory chips and CPUs? Specialized work?”

“One of their partners was a Taiwan company owned by Chen Lee. You hear of him?”

“No.”

Cheese smiled. “His company ever goes public, you want a piece of it. He's the king of salvage. Anyway, he withdrew his financing or something about a year ago. I don't know the whole deal. Supposedly it was a top operation, though why they located there, I wouldn't begin to guess.”

“Maybe so nobody would come around asking questions.”

Cheese shrugged. “Anyway, they'd make something for you. They're desperate. Or they were.”

“Were?”

“I believe they're bankrupt, now that Chen cashed out.” Cheese jumped up. “I got to hit the treadmill down the hall. You guys want to come or are we done? I got sweats if you want. Shower when you're done.”

Stoner looked at Conrad. His red face had turned beet red at the prospect of exercise.

“I think we're done,” said Stoner. “If I can get that list.”

Aboard
Raven
, over the South China Sea
1245

“T
HEY'RE TELLING THE
Sukhois to the south to come home,” said Captain Justin Gander, one of the intercept officers upstairs who was listening in via the Elint gear on the plane. A translation unit in the computer could give on-the-fly transcripts of voice messages.

Zen checked the counter in the screen on the left, noting that they were now about thirty seconds beyond the designated launch time for the dummied-up Hellfire. He wasn't sure why Starship had missed the launch.

“Sukhois are saying—having a little trouble with the translation—they're going to inspect another aircraft.”

“What aircraft?” asked Zen. The Sukhois were a good seventy miles south and back further to the west.

“They're calling it a Xian. Hang on—all right, registry is Brunei,
uh
, Badger belonging to the air force. Has a utility role according to our index. Uh, looks like it's on a routine patrol, just kind of flying around but not an official part of the exercise. Oh—VIP plane. Prince bin Awg flies it. Sight-seeing.”

“Great place for sight-seeing,” said Zen. “Our ghost clone show yet?”

“Nada. Got a lot of traffic out near Taiwan. We're reading pretty far.”

Zen grunted, preparing to bank the Flighthawk as they came to the end of their orbit.

“Zen, looks like they held off on the Hellfire launch because of civilian traffic,” said Merce Alou, who was piloting the plane. “They're giving positions to the Australian frigate.”

“Not a problem,” said Zen. He dipped
Hawk Two
into a shallow bank. As he took the turn he watched the view from the rear-facing video cam, which was using a computer-enhanced mode to show the antenna, whose silvery metal was nearly invisible to the naked eye. The web crinkled a bit as the direction changed, but Zen was able to keep it stretched out by nudging downward a little more.

“Turn complete,” he told Alou, who was timing his own maneuvers to the Flighthawk.

Aboard
Penn
, over the South China Sea
1246

S
TARSHIP SAW HIS
position drift toward the Chinese border over the ocean. He applied light pressure to the stick but couldn't seem to master it, the nose of the small robot stubbornly edging northward.

“You're going over their line,” said Kick.

“No shit.”

Starship gave up on the light hand, jerking the aircraft sharply to get back on course. The Flighthawk responded as it was programmed to do, veering sharply and changing course. The pilot cursed to himself but kept his cool, sliding back onto the dotted line provided by the computer.

“What are we doing,
Hawk One
?” asked Colonel Bastian.

“Controls getting a little twitchy,” said Starship.

He swore he heard Kick chortling to himself.

“The controls or you?”

“Me, sir.” Starship felt his cheeks burn.

“The Chinese are scrambling additional planes. We definitely have their attention,” said Dog, his voice calm. “Resume the countdown on the Hellfire and launch when you're ready.”

“Yes, sir. We're at thirty seconds.”

Aboard Brunei Badger 01,
over the South China Sea
1324

M
ACK COULD SEE
the idiot Chinese pilots coming toward them from the north, riding a quick burst from their Saturn AL-31FM turbos. The planes they were flying were license-built Sukhois Su-27s, known in China as J-11s and virtually identical to the Russian model, whose design dated to the late seventies and early eighties. Essentially an attempt to keep up to the frontline F-14 and F-15, the Sukhoi was a very good and capable aircraft, but even gussied up with a glass cockpit and thrust vectoring tailpipe, it didn't impress Mack. Zen could nail one of those suckers with his little bitty robot planes, which as far as Major Smith was concerned, said it all.

The lead Chinese pilot challenged them, calling them “unidentified Xian H-6” and asking what unit they were with.

“Usual Chinese bullshit,” grumbled Mack.

“What's going on, Major?” asked Miss Kelly.

“He's just jerking our chain,” Mack told her. “Pretending to think we're a Chinese aircraft. It's a game. They make believe they don't know who we are, so they can fly up close and show off. Goes on all the
time. Macho posturing. Don't be impressed.”

The interceptors started a wide turn, obviously planning to swing around and come across their wings.

“The Chinese can be quite aggressive,” said bin Awg. “They don't believe that Brunei should have an air force.”

“They don't think
anyone
should have an air force,” said Mack.

“They are precisely why we need an air force.”

“You got that straight, Prince,” said Mack. “Jerks. Don't let 'em push you around.”

Bin Awg broadcast his ID, course, and added a friendly greeting, all in Mandarin.

The Chinese didn't bother acknowledging.

Mack pulled out his large map of the area, working out how far the planes had come. The Sukhois were large aircraft and could carry a decent amount of fuel; even so, he figured these two jokers must be out near bingo—they'd have to go home soon.

The J-11s had slowed considerably, and as Mack had predicted split wide so they could bracket the Badger. Painted in white, the double-finned planes were trimmed in blue. They had what appeared to be R-73 Russian-made heat-seekers tied to their wings. Known as Archers in the West, the short-range missiles were roughly comparable to Sidewinders.

“Frick and Frack,” said Mack as the planes pulled alongside.

Miss Kelly laughed.

The backseater in the J-11 on the right had a camera. Mack resisted the impulse to give him the finger—it would be posted on the Internet tomorrow if he
did. No sense giving the Chinese jerks the satisfaction.

The Sukhoi on the right swung across the Badger's path, a few yards away. The prince struggled to hold his big, fussy aircraft steady and not hit the idiot. Bin Awg was a good pilot, but the J-11's bulky mass presented a case study in wake turbulence. Nor was the other commie giving him much room to work with.

The RWR bleeped on and off. The Chinese jocks were really pulling their chain, activating their radars as if intending to target them.

“They're lucky we don't have air-to-air missiles,” grumbled the prince.

That gave Mack an idea. He threw off his restraints and climbed back to the gunner's station. It took a moment to get the hang of the gear, but though ancient it was straightforward enough that even a zippersuit could figure it out. Mack felt the gears chattering behind him as it turned. He put his face down into the old-fashioned viewer, surprised to find that it was actually a radar screen, not an optical feed. As he did so, the pilot had to push down to avoid the Sukhoi's tailpipe. Losing his balance, Mack grabbed for a handhold. His finger found the gun switch, and to his shock and surprise, a stream of bullets flew not just from the top guns but from all three of the antiair stations.

For one of the few times in his military career, Mack Smith was utterly speechless. He hadn't thought the weapons were loaded—bin Awg hadn't given any indication that they were. Nor would he have guessed that they could be fired so easily, or that all three weapons could be commanded from one station.

Of course, had he been trained as a weapons operator,
a glance at the panel would have told him all this. But then if he'd been a real weapons operator, he wouldn't have been fooling around in the first place.

Actually, the same might be said for a pilot, or any officer of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, or Army, whose duty might reasonably be said to include restrictions against being a bonehead in a potential war zone.

Without saying anything, without breathing, Mack slid back into his copilot's seat, sure that his career in the U.S. Air Force had just ended.

At least he hadn't shot down the planes. The J-11s pulled off to the north, making tracks.