Target Utopia (35 page)

Daela Reef

B
RAXTON LED
W
EN-LO
out of the command room and back into the bunker's hallway.

“We have only a few minutes,” he said. “Once the UAVs reach the ships, we need to be back to control them.”

Wen-lo said nothing. The two guards who'd been standing in the hall stepped into line behind them, their automatic weapons clutched against their chests.

Braxton felt his heartbeat rising. Adrenaline was surging through his body so badly that his eardrums felt as if they were going to explode.

Was that possible? He certainly felt something. It was almost a high.

He'd felt this way when the deal to purchase his company was about to go through.

And years before that, working late with Jennifer Gleason. He'd tried to tell her that night how he felt about her, but he was too tongue-tied, too shy, and the moment and opportunity passed.

He'd always thought there'd be another chance. But things had changed too rapidly after that.

A lesson.

He walked to the end of the corridor, but instead of going to the main entrance, turned and opened a door at the side. There was another door just inside the tiny corridor.

“Where are you taking us?” demanded Wen-lo, grabbing his shoulder to stop him before he could open the second.

“To the launching area. Your men should be waiting.”

“No, I've changed my mind,” said Wen-lo. “You're coming back to the boat.”

“You're reneging on our deal?” Braxton felt his face flush.

“What deal?” asked Wen-lo, drawing his pistol.

“Just relax,” said Braxton. He raised his hands slowly, then glanced at Wen-lo's goons, who'd raised the barrels of their guns. “You need my help. I'm very valuable.”

“I've seen your interface. It's no more advanced than the general Flighthawk controls. I mastered those long ago.”

Braxton took a step back so that his foot was against the door. He needed to open it, but at the moment that didn't look possible.

“You're going to need help with the Sabres,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “Someone who can take them apart and examine them. Someone who's worked on the systems already.”

“I have my pick of engineers. You'll work for us, or you'll die,” said Wen-lo.

“Quite an offer.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Let me shut down the launch area, then.”
Braxton turned and put his hand on the interior door. Wen-lo grabbed him and pulled him back.

“What is in there that you want?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he told one of his men in Chinese to open the door.

Braxton dove to the ground as the hallway seemed to explode. A bright light flashed—the door and nearby hall were rigged as a giant flash bomb. The first door had been engineered to protect against the blast, but with it open, the concussion shocked the small space; it quickly filled with smoke.

He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, but he knew what he had to do—he leapt to his feet and ran to his left, back into the hall and the foyer, heading for the main door a few yards away. One of the guards scrambled after him, firing as he ran.

“Close door!” Braxton yelled as he reached the threshold. A thick metal panel slammed down behind him. It caught the guard in the arm, severing it as it closed.

Braxton fell against the steps.

“Gas them,” he told the security system. “Suffocate the bastards. Gas them and kill them all.”

South China Sea

T
HOUGH HE KNEW
the planes were poised to attack, Danny was so intent on the hidden compartments
they'd discovered that he stayed below, moving forward with the team as they checked the tugboat's corridor. In short order they found two control rooms, both with gear that looked exactly like the ground stations for Flighthawks.

There was another compartment that looked like an arms locker. It had a full array of weapons, from rifles to grenade launchers. All looked brand new.

“Colonel, there's something behind this panel in the corridor,” said Achmoody.

Danny went out to take a look. Achmoody and Glenn Fulsom were standing along the bulkhead, looking at the wall's surface.

“Are you sure there's a panel there?” asked Danny.

Achmoody held up a handheld sensor unit that detected magnetic fields and used them to find cavities and openings. There was a gap in the wall behind the panel that matched the dimensions of a hatchway.

“It's behind the metal, so the smart helmet radar can't detect it from the hall,” added Achmoody, referring to the low-power detection unit built into his Whiplash helmet. The device was intended for urban warfare situations, and could easily scan through conventional plaster and plasterboard walls. Metal was more problematic, though it took relatively sophisticated techniques to fool the system.

Kallipolis had proven they had those in spades.

“Can you get us in?” Danny asked.

“We have to blow a hole through. It's thick.”

“Let's do it.”

Danny went back topside as the demolitions were set. As soon as he reached the deck, he saw a fresh plume of smoke rising from the cargo ship's bow.

“Captain Thomas, what's going on over there?” he called over the radio.

“Bow of the ship was hit by a missile, an Exocet or something like that. No injuries here, but we're taking on water.”

The missile was actually a Chinese YJ-82 (also known as a C-802), but the comparison to the French-made Exocet was apt. Even though its body had been splintered by Turk's slug, the armor-piercing warhead of the missile had enough kinetic energy left to pierce the hull and deck area before exploding, ripping a gaping hole at the front of the ship. The container carrier was taking on water at an alarming rate, and even an experienced crew would have their hands full keeping her afloat.

“Abandon the ship,” Danny told Captain Thomas. “We found the control rooms over here. I'll have the Ospreys pick you up.”

“Roger that.”

The Osprey pilots had moved south, trying to stay clear of the air battle raging above. They were still easy targets, but the pilots didn't hesitate when Danny told them the Marines needed to be taken off the ship. It was Turk who told them to wait.

“Colonel, let me mop this up first,” he said, breaking into the transmission over the Whiplash
common channel. “Then they can come in with no danger . . . and they won't be in the way.”

“We're fighting time.”

“I just need a few minutes. It's simpler if they stay where they are.”

“Understood,” replied Danny. “You clear them in. Don't let those Marines get wet.”

“Not gonna happen.”

A hatch work of contrails crisscrossed the sky. Two columns of black smoke rose in the north and puffs of black and gray were scattered along the horizon. But the scene was too pretty to suggest the ferocity of the raging air battle.

“Colonel, we found something on the stern deck you might be interested in,” said Corporal Mofitt, trotting over to Danny. “Looks like a hidden passage below.”

Danny followed him to a spot beneath a life raft, which the Marines had pulled away. The prisoners were standing nearby; two seemed angry, the others simply resigned.

“Locked shut from the inside, sir,” added Mofitt.

“I think we can blow it,” said the team's sergeant, coming over.

“My explosives guy is below,” said Danny. “I'll get him up here.”

“I can do it,” said Mofitt. He held up a small block of C-4.

“Go ahead,” said Danny. “Don't use too much.”

He stepped back and then called down to Achmoody. They'd gone through the panel and found what the trooper called a rat's nest of small, interconnecting rooms.

“We can hear sounds,” said Achmoody. “We think there are people.”

As he finished speaking, Danny heard the sound of automatic weapon fire in the background.

“Correction,” said Achmoody. “We found some people. And they're armed.”

T
URK BANKED IN
the direction of the last UAV. It was five miles west, trying to follow the lone surviving Chinese fighters. If the J-15 lit its afterburner, it would escape; the UAV could not stay with the larger aircraft. But for some reason the Chinese pilot turned back toward the ships.

And Turk.

The UAV cut down the distance between them, driving toward the J-15's rear quarter as the Chinese fighter pilot flew a nearly straight line toward the plane he thought was his enemy. Turk endeavored to save him, even though he suspected the pilot wouldn't return the favor.

Starting a good 10,000 feet below the other two aircraft, Turk managed to close the gap to about 5,000 as he pushed into a firing slot to hit the UAV. Before he could fire, the drone realized it was being targeted from behind and gave up on the J-15, veering left.

Turk decided he would take advantage of his discovery of the aircraft's laser weakness. He turned to follow the slippery UAV through the turn, letting the Tigershark get thrown out ahead of the slippery drone as it cut a tighter radius. That put the UAV behind him—right where he wanted it.

The RWR shrieked; the drone was trying to lock him up. But the turn had been so tight that the aircraft had lost considerable speed, and the gap between its nose and Turk's tail was too wide for it to fire.

Ordinarily, that would have been a good thing—but Turk
wanted
his enemy to shoot. He corrected slightly in its direction, then waited for the UAV to catch up. It was just about in range to fire when Cowboy radioed a direction to him.

“Break left, break left!” rasped the Marine.

“No, no!” yelled Turk over the radio, but it was too late—a pair of heat seekers flashed from the F-35's wings. Turk made his cut in the sky, diving away from what was now a one-on-one furball between Cowboy and the UAV.

T
INY FLARES POURED
from the back of the drone like little matches thrown by a pyromaniac. As Cowboy's missiles sniffed for the heat source, the plane managed a cut so sharp that it looked like it was flying sideways. Knowing his missiles would miss, Cowboy started a turn to line up another shot. But the F-35 couldn't match the smaller robot's maneuverability, and within seconds he lost sight of the UAV.

It didn't take a sixth sense or advanced radar to know it would now angle behind him. Cowboy started weaving desperately in the sky, drawing a convoluted ribbon that made it difficult for the UAV to get a bead on him. He saw Greenstreet passing in Basher One below him, and then the
Tigershark—very disappointing, since it meant they weren't in position to blow his pursuer out of the air.

“Let him target you and start to fire,” said Turk over the radio. “Then hit your chaff.”

“What?”

“Do it,” said Turk.

“Where are you?”

“Trust me.”

“Let this bastard lock on my tailpipe?”

“The chaff will blow him up. Make sure you hit it when I say.”

I don't see how, thought Cowboy to himself.

T
URK TIGHTENED HIS
turn and then accelerated, trying to get on the UAV's tail. But he was just too far away to get a lock.

The drone was tight on Cowboy's six. What Turk was telling him to do surely went against every instinct the Marine aviator had, not to mention years of training. But it was the only way to get out of the situation if Turk couldn't get a bead on the UAV.

The enemy robot tightened its noose around the F-35's tailpipe. Even if Cowboy didn't make a mistake, he was going to get creamed in a few seconds.

The laser fired.

“Do it!” yelled Turk. “Chaff! Chaff! Chaff! Keep your course straight!”

The rear of the plane seemed to explode. Turk felt a hole open in his stomach—he'd gotten his friend shot down.

In the next moment there was another explosion, this one with fire. Cowboy's plane hadn't blown up at all—Turk had seen the canisters of chaff exploding. The reflected laser beams had destroyed the UAV.

“You're clear, Basher Two,” Turk told Cowboy.

“What the hell just happened?”

“You overloaded his flashlight,” said Turk, easing off the throttle and running his eyes quickly over the indicators.

T
HE HATCHWAY ON
the stern lifeboat deck blew with a discreet
car-ufff
and a small puff of smoke. Mofitt ran over and kicked it with his foot, shoving it out of the way. He fell to his knees, peered down, then disappeared into the hole before anyone could stop him.

Two Marines hustled forward to join him.

“Careful!” yelled Danny. He stepped back to ask Achmoody what was going on.

“Two guys down here, both with assault rifles,” reported the trooper. “We're gonna hit them with gas.”

“Hold off. We found a passage down,” said Danny.

There was a shout from the hatchway and then a run of gunfire.

“Our guys are behind them!” Danny told Achmoody. “Our guys are there.”

There were more shouts, then silence.

Damn, thought Danny. Why did I let them go down?

Mofitt had surely acted on impulse, undoubtedly wanting to redeem himself. But there was a difference between acting bravely and being a fool—he should have been more careful.

I should have been more careful, thought Danny. I should have stopped him.

A head popped up from the manhole. “We got 'em,” said the Marine who emerged. The second grunt came up behind him, then Mofitt.

The corporal was drenched in sweat, but he was smiling.

“They were loaded for bear,” he said. “The Whiplash guys are getting them.”

Right on cue, Achmoody came over the radio and told Danny they had gotten the two men who'd fired at them. Both were dead. Achmoody said they looked like technical people—Europeans and Asian, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, with flip-flops.

“Their footwear clashed with their AR-15s,” added Achmoody, delivering the gallows humor with a straight, even tone. “These guys had a box of magazines between them. Would have taken us all day to get them out if you hadn't sent the Marines down.”

“They went on their own,” said Danny. He was proud of Mofitt, even as he realized the Marine had been a little reckless. But sometimes you had to go overboard to show others who you really were.

“There's a hatchway out the side of the ship,” said Achmoody. “Might be one of those submarine ports we found on the beached boat. Looks just like it.”

Danny glanced over at the prisoners. Two of the men were barefooted and wearing shorts; the others were in jeans with sneakers or work boots. He hadn't even noticed.

“Sergeant, get those two guys in shorts and bring them over here,” he said.

The sergeant whistled to one of the guards, then started shouting instructions. Mofitt started over with one of the other Marines.

Danny turned and put his hand over his ear, listening as Turk reported in on the situation in the air. Someone shouted behind him. He whirled around in time to see Mofitt race across the deck and throw himself into one of the men wearing shorts, who'd grabbed something from near the life raft.

As they tumbled over the side of the ship, there was an explosion.

The man had grabbed a bomb disguised as a fire extinguisher in the raft and tried to detonate it. Mofitt had saved at least a half-dozen lives, including Danny's, at the cost of his own.