Piranha

by Dale Brown

  “This is my mission,” said Stoner flatly. He pushed the cover of the phone up, and dialed his Agency liaison in Manila, the deputy station chief.

  He’d hit the last digit when the captain’s thick black hand folded around the phone.

  “No,” said Danny.

  Stoner took a deep breath and straightened his body, fully relaxed except for his grip on the phone. If he jerked his knee up and pushed his left elbow, the Air Force officer would fall to the ground with a collapsed windpipe.

  “Let me spell it out,” said Danny, still holding the phone. “There are no more than a dozen people there. At the moment, they’ve made no move to come up over the ridge, and they have no way of communicating with the outside world. The other side of their camp is covered by another swamp. I have the only path out under video surveillance, and I have the beach opposite them under watch as well. If we move them, we’ll make a lot of noise and potentially a lot of fuss. It’s definitely an option, but I’d like to hold if off until necessary. I can take them prisoner in a half hour if need be. They’re unarmed, and they’re not getting away.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” said Stoner. He heard the words of his Zen master at the back of his head, telling him to breathe, telling him to maintain the center of the burning candle flame in his chest.

  “Granted,” said Freah. “But this is the best way to proceed if we’re going to keep this base covert.”

  The captain was a young guy, with an impressive war record. He probably also thought he could deck Stoner if it came to that.

  “Captain, please let go of my phone,” he said gently. “We’ll do it your way—but let me just tell you something.” He paused, waiting for the officer to let go of the phone. Released, he brought his arm down and bowed his head—then in a flash put his arm at Danny’s neck, fingertips precisely on the two common carotid arteries. “Do not touch me again. Sometimes reflexes can be deadly.”

  He pulled his hand back quickly.

  The Whiplash trooper who’d been watching the video cams was standing behind him, his MP-5 pointed at Stoner’s head.

  “Good point,” said Danny—whose pistol was out and pointed at Stoner’s stomach.

  Aboard Quicksilver, over the South China Sea

  1732

  The flames licking up from the blackened metal were surprisingly small. The smoke, on the other hand, furled in all directions, a massive squat funnel that stretched all the way toward the debris field where the first ship had gone down. Zen took Hawk Two through the thick hedge of black, and gray; not even the high-tech array of sensors on the Flighthawk could penetrate it.

  “Can’t quite get a visual,” he told Breanna. “I think she’s broken in two, but still attached, if you know what I mean. Like a twig that snapped but it has the top back attached.”

  “Copy that,” she replied. “Be advised they’re repeating their SOS and saying they’re abandoning ship.”

  “Hawk Leader.” He banked as he cleared the heavy smog. A small portion of the rear of the tanker was visible below the smoke; he came back and crossed through the clear space, maybe eight or nine feet over the waves. A Zodiac-type rubber boat had been set into the water and was pulling away.

  “I see the crew,” said Zen. “What’s up with that cruise ship?”

  “They’re still southeast,” said Collins. “Moving at about four knots.”

  Zen pushed the Flighthawk skyward, toying with the idea of buzzing the liner. But that would serve no purpose; you really couldn’t blame the captain for getting the hell out of there.

  “Tell him there’s a Zodiac with the crew of the tanker heading in his direction,” Zen said.

  “The captain says he’ll stand by to pick up survivors, but they have to come to him,” said Collins.

  Zen brought Hawk Two back over the Zodiac. There were six or seven men in the boat.

  Six or seven. How many manned a ship like that? Had to be more.

  Damn. Damn.

  “Hawk Leader, we’re getting pretty far into our fuel reserves,” said Breanna. “We’re talking to Dreamland now—we can land at the Philippines.”

  “Hawk Leader.”

  “How’s your fuel?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I have to refuel,” he said.

  “We’ll get into an orbit. We’ll hold here until the last possible second,” added Breanna.

  “Yeah.”

  Zen pushed Hawk Two into a bank, sliding toward the Zodiac. Someone in the front of the small boat waved. He wagged his wings in recognition.

  Poor SOB was probably cursing him out.

  “Navy Orion is now zero-five away,” said Chris. “I gave them the lowdown,” he added. “They claim they can see the smoke from where they are.”

  “Yeah,” was all Zen could say.

  Dreamland Command

  August 23, 1997, 0158 local (August 23, 1997, 1758 Philippines)

  When lieutenant Colonel Bastian put his hands to his neck and stretched them backward, his vertebrae cracked so loudly the lieutenant at the communications desk jerked his head around.

  “Just a little stiff,” said Dog. He glanced toward Major Lou “Gat” Ascenzio, who’d come in to spell him nearly an hour before. Gat—he’d earned his nickname as an A-10A “driver” in Iraq—was a recent arrival at Dreamland, assigned to head the tactical satellites and related projects. “I’m going to grab some Zs,” Dog told him. “Anything comes up, beep me, all right?”

  “Yes, sir. You ought to get some rest.”

  “Thank you, Major,” snapped Dog—Gat’s habit of restating the obvious annoyed the hell out of him. But as Ascenzio started to frown, he added, “It’s all right, Gat, I know I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

  He took the elevator upstairs, then walked out to the Taj’s lobby, where the security staff jumped to attention. One asked if he needed a driver; Dog declined.

  “Walk will do me good,” he said.

  The air had a dry, crisp quality, a sharpness that took away his fatigue. The stiffness that had twisted his upper body and legs evaporated before he’d gone more than a half mile.

  His mind, however, remained in knots. Three men were missing from the tanker the Sukhois had hit; an untold number on the container ship had died, and the survivors still hadn’t all been picked up. Then were was the Chinese Sukhois pilot, apparently still lost at sea.

  Arguably, Quicksilver had saved countless lives by shooting down the other antiship missiles. Somehow, that didn’t assuage his conscience.

  What if Allen was right? What if the plane incident started a war with China—a real war this time, the kind of war Brad Elliot had tried to prevent? The Chinese military was still potent; after all, that was undoubtedly their point now in the South China Sea.

  What if they simple encouraged their Islamic allies in a campaign of terror? Six months, a year from now, something might happen in a quiet corner of the U.S. Would it be his fault?

  They’d done everything they could to save lives, not take them. Yet the Chinese were unlikely to see it that way. Hell, not even Admiral Allen saw it that way, and he wasn’t exactly China’s best friend.

  Dog turned down the access road toward his bungalow, a low-slung contemporary-style ranch that looked over a boneyard: hunks of old aircraft nestled in the starlight. Most were simply planes that had been parked here for storage and then forgotten. The inventory showed several B-29’s and B-50’s, as well as three C-47’s (or DC-3’s, as they were known in civilian guise). There were also the remains of Dreamland failures, aircraft tested here that didn’t quite make the cut or no longer had much value. The shadows were a graphic reminder of the old Latin maxim, carpe diem; your time came and went very quickly.

  Dog walked up the short crushed-stone path to his door, his shoes crunching stones that reportedly had been smuggled in a duffel bag by the past commander of Dreamland, General Brad Elliot. It was undoubtedly an apocryphal story, but Dog liked it; it added a touch of eccentricity to a commander
well known for his efficiency and precision.

  He hit his access code for the lock, then pushed in the door. Cool air hit him in a wave, refreshing him. As he turned and locked up, someone grabbed him from behind, wrapping his arms around his neck.

  Her arms around his neck. He pulled his assailant to his chest.

  “Hi,” said Jennifer Gleason as they kissed. “About time.”

  “How long have you been waiting?”

  “Hours,” she said, and even though he knew it must be a lie, he apologized and kissed her again. He slipped his hands into the back of her jeans, beneath her ultrasensible cotton briefs, feeling the coolness of her skin. She folded into his body, sliding her own fingers to his buttons. Colonel Bastian moved his hands to her sides and lifted her shirt over her head; she writhed out of it like a snake shedding its skin, he undid her bra, her peach-sized breasts gently unfolding from the material. They kissed again, tongues meshing, lips warming each other, and still kissing they began walking toward the bedroom. They made love in a long moment that shattered the boundaries of time, then gave way to a warm bath of sleep.

  Hours later, Colonel Bastian found himself walking down a long stairway, the entrance to a subway, maybe the Metro in Washington, D.C. The stairs were much longer than at any stop he’d ever been on. He knew he was dreaming, but felt fear.

  He’d lost something and had to turn back. At first, he didn’t know what it was. As he reached the second landing, he saw the luminescent white rectangle thrown on the concrete floor by a light panel below the banister rail.

  He was looking for his daughter. It wasn’t Breanna as he knew now—it was Breanna as a four-year-old. In real life, he’d rarely, if ever, been with her at this age. He’d been divorced right after she was born, and sent overseas besides; he didn’t see much of her until she was twelve or thirteen, when he was back in California, and then D.C. In the dream, she had been with him when he started down the steps, and now he felt panic that she wasn’t there.

  He kept on going up the steps, turning and twisting with each flight, expecting, hoping to find her. His knees and calf muscles started to hurt, the tendons pulling taut.

  Why had he let go of her hand? How could he have come so far without her?

  He told himself it was a dream, and yet that made the panic more real. He walked and he walked, the staircase unending.

  Jeff Stockard joined him, not as a boy but as a man. In the dream, Jeff could walk, wasn’t Bree’s husband or even in the Air Force, but just a friend of his, a man trying to help. He asked where he’d last seen her, and assured Dog she’d be just up the next flight.

  He pushed on, starting to run. “Where is she?” he said out loud.

  Finally, he woke up. It took forever for his eyes to focus. When they did, he saw Jennifer had gone.

  It wasn’t a surprise really—she was a workaholic, used to keeping odd hours; he knew he’d probably find her over in one of the computer labs working on the latest project. In a way, her habit of sneaking out late at night was a blessing; it lessened the chances of others getting embarrassed if they happened to trop over her in the morning.

  But he wished she were here now. He wished he could fold himself around her warmth, sink into her, fall back to sleep.

  He pulled the covers over him for a moment, but when his mind drifted back to the dream, he pulled himself out of bed, got dressed, and headed back to Dreamland Command.

  Philippines

  August 23, 1997, 2008 local (August 23, 1997, 0508 Dreamland)

  From the outside, the Whiplash mobile command center looked like an RV trailer pained dark green, with twelve squat wheels and an array of satellite dishes and antennas. Inside, it looked like a cross between a powerplant control room and a frat-house living area. About two thirds of the interior was wide open, dominated by a pair of tables just big enough for a serious game of poker. They could be joined together and extended by panels that folded up and out from their sides. At the far end from the door was a counter with several video monitors; a large, flat television screen sat against the wall. The monitors were worked from a dedicated control station that looked like a slight oversized personal computer desk; the gear tied into Dreamland Command via a dedicated secure satellite link.

  On the other side of the partition was a bathroom, a storage area crammed with spare parts for the computers, a com section, and a tiny “suite” that was intended as a bedroom for the Whiplash commander. Since the trailer always had to be manned, Danny Freah had found it more expedient to sleep in a tent on their last deployment and intended to do so this time as well—assuming, that is, he ever went to bed. He’d been up since they landed.

  Quicksilver’s crew sat at the pushed-together tables, going over their patrol for Stoner—and just as importantly, themselves. though exhausted, they’d described the encounters minutely, several times pausing to work out the exact details. Stoner listened impassively; his only comments were aimed at the Kali weapon. Unfortunately, the Megafortress had gathered relatively little data on the missile.

  “So why are these guys shooting at each other?” Zen asked him finally.

  “They don’t like each other,” said the spook blandly. “Advances their agenda.”

  “Yeah.”

  Stoner shrugged,

  “All right, it’s getting late,” said Bree. “We can all use some sleep.”

  “I have to finish uploading the data,” said Collins.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Torbin. “The radar hits we got on the way back kind of distracted me.”

  “Which hits were those?” Stoner asked.

  “Couple of anomalies we read as we tracked back here. Looked like radars coming on real quick and then turning off, but they were real weak. Collins got some radio signals as well. We think they’re spy stations.”

  Stoner glared over the map spread across the table.

  “No ships out there?” he asked.

  “Not that we saw,” said Breanna. “You have a theory?”

  “There could be spy posts on these atolls here.” He pointed his finger at some brown dots on the map. “That might be one way the Indians or Chinese are keeping track of what’s coming down the pipe. Or the Russians. Or us.”

  “Us?” asked Zen.

  “You never know.”

  Danny looked over at the islands, which were part of the Spratly chain extending southward. The Spratly Islands—more like a vast series of atolls—were claimed by several different countries, including China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. For the most part uninhabitable mounds of rock, they were valuable because vast gas and petroleum deposits were supposedly located beneath them.

  Not that most of the claimants needed such a good reason to disagree.

  “We can dogleg off a mission and check it out,” said Zen.

  “What if it’s defended?” asked Breanna.

  “That’s why we use a Flighthawk.”

  “We could get on those islands with the Osprey,” said Danny. “Give them a real look. MV-22’s due here in about an hour.”

  “Yeah,” said Stoner. Danny thought it might be the first time he’d said anything nonbelligerent since he’d landed.

  “I think we ought to recon it first,” said Zen. “You guys got enough to do here. Besides, we don’t even have a real location for you, do we, Torbin?”

  The radar intercept expert looked like a blond bear, shrugging and shaking head. “I can get it down to a few miles. We can pass it on to Major Alou, have them take a look if they get a chance.”

  “All right.”

  “Sooner’s better than later,” said Stoner.

  The others looked at him. Danny saw Breanna rolling her eyes.

  Good, he thought to himself. It’s not just me. The spook is a jerk.

  Aboard the trawler Gui in the South China Sea

  August 24, 1997, 0823

  Chen Lo Fann saw the two aircraft appear over the water, his powerful binoculars straining to follow them as they rocketed upward
from the carrier.

  The limitations of the Russian-made planes had been clear before the accident with the Americans, but Beijing had reacted with shock and dismay, sending a long, rashly worded message filled with outrage.

  To his credit, the admiral in charge of the task force had not tried to hide what had happened; he could easily have blamed the Americans for the accident or even claimed they had shot down his plane. Instead, the transmissions back and forth to the mainland made it clear that he was a man of integrity. While his actions cold be questioned—he clearly should not have authorized his attack planes to fire at the Indian submarine from long distance—his honor could not.

  Undoubtedly he would be rewarded for his honesty with disgrace.

  Reinforcements were on the way.

  Opportunity, Fann thought, yet the Americans had complicated the picture.

  What if they prevented the inevitable confrontation? What if they forced the navies back?

  Until the arrival of the Megafortresses, the American posture seemed clear. The Pacific Fleet, concentrating on protecting vessels bound for Korea and Japan, was too far north to intervene in a clash, nor did its commanders seem of much mind to do so. Diplomatically, there was a lean toward India, and relations with Mainland China were as low as, if not lower than, at any time since Nixon’s trip to Beijing a generation ago.

  But the Megafortresses represented unwelcome change.

  Chen had promised conflict. His position with the government rested entirely on that promise.

  This was not a time for panic. Surely, fortune continued to smile. Within a day, if not hours, there would be two aircraft carriers sailing southward. The Indians must react to their presence.

  Chen was sure the submarine would act tomorrow; he was staking is career on it. At that point, fortune would take over.

  The Taoist master Lao Tzu said the river was king because it knew how to take the low path. The river did not shrink from its strength, but it bided its time.

  The sea was merely the river at large.

  The Megafortresses and their small escorts presented a difficult problem, but as Chen considered it, he realized they represented opportunity as well. Perhaps there was more potential than the mere conflict he had seen. Perhaps there was an opportunity others might only dream of.