Another missile barrage fell, this time directly onto his position.
Farshad crumpled forward, hands on his head, eyes shut. He opened his mouth so his eardrums wouldn’t rupture with the overpressure. And he waited, rolling the dice as he’d done so many times before. He could feel the alternating blasts, like a violent wind juking between two opposing directions. The back of his neck was covered in dirt. Then stillness. He lifted his head.
Range . . . altitude . . . windage. . . . Those were his first thoughts. He made his estimations and then gave another order to fire, noticing a slight tinge of desperation in his voice, which he swallowed away. This would be their last chance. The landing paratroopers would overwhelm the garrison if Farshad didn’t take out at least a portion of their transport planes.
Out chugged the egg-shaped explosive rounds.
Again, the sky peppered with little detonations.
Off target—all of them.
Then Farshad realized what he’d done—the fatal mistake he’d made. He’d calculated for wind, but not for wind at altitude. The erratic weather had caused wild atmospheric fluctuations. The crosswind he was experiencing at sea level must not be blowing at several hundred feet—or it was at least blowing differently. Even though he now noticed the inconsistency, it was too late. Standing in his command post, Farshad could do nothing but look above as in quick succession thousands of parachutes blossomed open into tidy skyborne rows.
The antiaircraft guns continued to fire, though they proved ineffective against the dispersed paratroopers. Farshad placed his rifle on the lip of his trench. He glanced from position to position, to the upturned faces of his men. A few took potshots at the descending paratroopers, but most didn’t, perhaps for fear of retribution. The seconds passed, as they had all morning, with strange imprecision.
Time bent.
A life’s worth of consequences existed in the moments it took for a plane to pass overhead. Or for a gust of wind to blow over a dusty fighting hole. Or for a parachute to descend to earth, coming down at . . . six hundred feet . . . Farshad watched . . . five hundred feet . . . he fingered his trigger . . . four hundred feet . . . the radio clutched in his hand . . . three hundred feet . . . the crosswind on his face.
The swift crosswind.
Farshad couldn’t believe it at first. Wouldn’t allow himself to believe it.
The crosswind he’d felt all morning caught the first stick of paratroopers as they descended below two hundred feet. Their parachutes, snatched by this slipstream, now raced dramatically across the frontage of the island, yanked out to sea as if by invisible tethers.
They splashed into the water.
Within minutes, thousands of others fell on top of them, all into the water. Although a few paratroopers touched down on the beach, or near enough to swim in, Farshad’s conscripts quickly rounded them up. Soon Farshad was out of his hole, standing on its lip, observing the miraculous expanse of parachutes dispersed across the open water like so many lily pads coating a pond.
Well into that afternoon survivors crawled onto the beach, many retching seawater. The garrison rounded them up one at a time, trotting them off at rifle point with a jaunty confidence that Farshad’s conscripts had hardly earned. Although this battle had cost the Russians an entire Spetsnaz division, Farshad didn’t feel he could count the victory as his own. He and his opposing commander had, after all, made an identical mistake, albeit with different consequences: both of them had incorrectly calculated the wind.
There was an unfairness to it, thought Farshad. But also, an irony. A miscalculation in one circumstance could win a battle, and in another lose it.
By the time the last of the paratroopers splashed into the water, the Russian missiles had stopped falling. Reports from Iranian reconnaissance aircraft scrambled from Bandar Abbas were that the Russian fleet, which was moving from the northern Indian Ocean to reinforce the islands after the paratroopers seized them, had retreated north, back toward the Red Sea and the Syrian port of Tartus.
The Russian prisoners mixed calmly among their Iranian captors, the two sides swapping cigarettes, speaking each other’s languages in broken phrases. Because neither nation existed in a formal state of war with the other, it allowed each side to assume a posture of mea culpa: the Russian paratroopers for their misbegotten and opportunistic invasion, and the Iranian conscripts for inflicting on them the inconvenience of captivity.
Farshad’s state of mind was neither apologetic nor hostile—he was numb. A bone-deep exhaustion had set in. After a battle—particularly a battle won—he had usually felt elation, a nearly uncontainable exuberance as he passed among his men, readying them for a counterattack and radioing his situation report to a congratulatory high command. Not this time. Farshad didn’t have the energy to prepare his men for an unlikely counterattack. As for the high command, when General Bagheri’s helicopter arrived from Bandar Abbas right after nightfall, Farshad could barely muster the effort to receive it.
When Bagheri stepped off the ramp, he walked with his arm extended, as if the congratulatory handshake he offered to Farshad had lured his entire body from Tehran. “Fine work,” Bagheri muttered. The radius of his congratulations spread wider as he trooped the line, clasping the shoulder of every soldier who came within reach. Only when a member of Bagheri’s staff handed out challenge coins did the befuddled conscripts realize they’d met the chief of staff of the armed forces.
General Bagheri and Farshad retired to the “command post.” They sat on the lip of Farshad’s hole, staring out into the spongy darkness. “Did they land over there?” asked General Bagheri, pointing in a vague direction, to where the night hid the thousands of parachutes littered over the surface of the water.
Farshad nodded.
General Bagheri gave a belly laugh. “You are the embodiment of Napoléon’s most famous maxim. Do you recall it?” Farshad shook his head. Not because he didn’t know the maxim (which he did), but because he didn’t care. He could feel himself struggling to stay awake. General Bagheri prattled on, “When it comes to a general, Napoléon said, ‘I would rather have one who is lucky than good.’”
Farshad leaned his head all the way back, his face flush with the stars. He felt a slight spasm through his body, as one feels when dozing off in a dull movie. General Bagheri continued to speak. His voice—and its message—only partly registered to Farshad as he listed further and further toward sleep. Bagheri was stumbling through a half-hearted apology, in which he conceded that he hadn’t believed Farshad’s report about the threat to these islands but in which he also congratulated himself for possessing the intuition to send Farshad to command the garrison. Farshad propped his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his palms. General Bagheri didn’t seem to notice, continuing to heap praise not on Farshad himself but on his remarkable luck. The importance of this victory over the Russians couldn’t be overstated, explained General Bagheri. It would unite the nation and the nation would, of course, again recognize Farshad with the Order of the Fath. Schoolchildren would learn his name, which shouldn’t be that of a lowly naval officer. No, this wouldn’t do. General Bagheri then confided to Farshad that his staff had already begun to process the required paperwork to have Farshad reinstated to the Revolutionary Guards and, perhaps, even promoted.
This woke Farshad up. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“And why not?” asked General Bagheri, whose tone wasn’t anger but bewilderment. “Your country needs to honor you. You must let it. Is there some other distinction you would prefer? Say the word and, believe me, it will be yours.”
Farshad could see that General Bagheri was telling the truth. This was Farshad’s moment to ask for what he truly wanted. And why shouldn’t he? He’d given his country so much, everything in fact. From his father’s assassination, to his mother’s grief and death thereafter, to his own adult life spread across so many wars, everything he’d ever had or could have hoped to have had been laid on the same altar.
> “What is it?” General Bagheri repeated. “What is it that you want?”
“I think,” said Farshad sleepily, “that I just want to go home.”
“Home? . . . You can’t go home. There’s work to be done. Your reinstatement must be accepted . . . then there’s a new command to discuss . . . I have certain ideas . . .” As General Bagheri spoke, the sound of his words receded, as if he were speaking at the distant end of a tunnel down which Farshad had begun to travel. Farshad had stopped trying to remain awake. He leaned onto his side in the dirt, tucked his knees to his chest, and with a rock for a pillow drifted into the sweetest sleep he had ever known.
* * *
18:57 July 30, 2034 (GMT+8)
28°22’41”N 124°58’13”E
“Blue Leader, this is Red Leader; acknowledge arrival at release point.”
“Roger, Red Leader. This is Blue Leader. We’ve arrived.”
“Good copy, Blue Leader. . . . Gold Leader, this is Red Leader; acknowledge arrival at release point.”
“Roger, Red Leader. This is Gold Leader. Arrival acknowledged.”
“Good copy, Gold Leader. . . . Red Leader confirms all flights in orbit at release point.” Wedge checked his watch. They were right on time. According to plan, they’d hold at the release point for five additional minutes. This would be his last communications window with the Enterprise. After that they’d go dark.
Wedge then glanced below, to the vast expanse of ocean beneath his wing.
The day was bright and clear, with perfect visibility.
The conditions were ideal for him to see the column of smoke corkscrewing toward him from the water’s surface.
* * *
07:04 July 30, 2034 (GMT-4)
Washington, D.C.
“God help you if you’re wrong.”
That’s all Wisecarver could say as Hendrickson was joined by Chowdhury in the Situation Room. The three of them sat at one end of the table while a single staffer dialed INDOPACOM and the Enterprise for an emergency video teleconference. The president waited in the Oval Office, while the White House operator scoured the switchboard for a direct line to the Indian prime minister.
* * *
07:17 July 30, 2034 (GMT+8)
Beijing
When Lin Bao arrived at the ministry, the lights in the conference room were out. Surprised, he switched them on one at a time and began to poke his head into the adjacent offices, trying to find his support staff, that platoon of junior officers who set up his video teleconferences, his live drone feeds, his numerous secure calls.
They were nowhere to be found.
Stillness pervaded the large, empty rooms. Not sure what to do, Lin Bao installed himself at the head of the table. With perfect timing, the phone next to him rang. He startled. He would have been embarrassed if someone had been there to see him. Then the thought occurred that perhaps he was being watched. Putting this thought from his mind, he picked up the phone.
It was Zhao Leji: “No doubt you’ve heard the news.”
The attack on the Zheng He was part of the American response to Galveston and San Diego, replied Lin Bao. Sinking the Zheng He demanded a reprisal. However, Lin Bao cautioned, it should be proportional. Perhaps they could use their surface-based missiles to strike at American interests in Japan or the Philippines. Such a response would be immediate. Also, there was always the opportunity to launch another cyberattack, perhaps this time against more critical US infrastructure, like their electrical grid, or water system. “There are many options,” Lin Bao explained. “The key is that our response to the Americans be carefully considered.”
The line went silent.
“Hello?” said Lin Bao.
A sigh. Then, “The Americans didn’t do this.”
Now it was Lin Bao’s end of the line that went silent.
Zhao Leji added, “It was the Indians who sunk the Zheng He.”
“The Indians?” Lin Bao’s mind went blank. “But . . . why would the Indians . . .” He struggled to find the right words. “They’ve allied themselves with the Americans?” Lin Bao had already begun placing one alliance against another as though canceling out the numerators and denominators in a complex equation whose solution would solve for how the American-Indian alliance might shift the global balance of power. “This doesn’t change anything with the Russians . . . nor the Iranians. . . . With the Indians in play we will, of course, need to keep the Pakistanis in check. . . .”
“Lin Bao—” Zhao Leji cut him off. “India’s involvement in the conflict is because of a strategic miscalculation. The sinking of the Zheng He is a disastrous consequence of that miscalculation. The Politburo Standing Committee is meeting later today in a secure location. There’s a man outside who will take you to us. We need you to help with our response. Do you understand?”
Lin Bao said that he did.
Zhao Leji hung up.
Silence returned to the room. Then a knock. A man opened the door; he wore a dark suit, and had a powerful build and a blank, anonymous affect. Lin Bao thought he recognized him from Mission Hills.
* * *
19:16 July 30, 2034 (GMT+8)
South China Sea
Thirty-seven minutes since launch. Sarah Hunt hadn’t moved in that time. Fixed in the middle of the combat information center, she stood with her arms folded across her chest, staring at a digital display that plotted an approximation of Wedge’s progress from the Enterprise toward his mission’s three targets. Behind her sat Quint, along with Hooper, the pair of them tuning their radios through a desert of static, searching for a return signal.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right frequency?” Hunt asked Quint, trying to restrain her growing impatience.
Quint, lost in his task, didn’t reply.
Beside the digital map was a video teleconference split between two screens. The first screen was INDOPACOM, a conclave of admirals with furrowed brows calling in from Hawaii, none of whom had much to say. The second screen was the White House Situation Room, a smaller group that comprised Hendrickson, another staffer who Hunt didn’t know but who introduced himself as Chowdhury, and in the background Trent Wisecarver, who she recognized from television and who kept getting up to refill his cup of coffee. “Are you sure he’s arrived at the release point?” Hendrickson asked gently.
“Am I sure?” Hunt countered. “No, I’m not sure. That’s only where he’s supposed to be.” Wedge was also supposed to have come up for a last comm check with the Enterprise, but they couldn’t raise him. They were thirty-seven minutes into the mission. At the twenty-eight-minute mark Hunt had received the call from Hendrickson in which he had, with little explanation, ordered her to abort the strike. When Hunt had asked on whose authority, as she was obliged to do, Trent Wisecarver entered the video teleconference’s frame and answered flatly, “On the president’s authority.”
For the past nine minutes they had been trying to contact Wedge.
They’d been met by nothing but static.
“Quint,” snapped Hunt, “are you sure you’re on the right frequency?”
Quint glanced up at her very slowly, his unlit cigarette calmly dangling from his lip. “Yes, ma’am,” he said in a whisper, as if he were consoling her. “I’m sure. He ain’t there.”
“He wouldn’t miss a comm window. It makes no sense,” she said.
Quint replied, “What if it’s exactly what it seems. Maybe he just ain’t there. Maybe those Chinese or those Indians, or whoever, maybe they took him and the whole mission out before they ever got to the release point. Ma’am, it might be they’re all gone.”
On the video teleconference, there was a sharp exhalation, almost like a laugh. It was Wisecarver. He was reclined in a chair, so only half of his body appeared on the screen. He leaned forward. “Well,” he said, “since we’re trying to call off their mission that would simplify things, wouldn’t it?”
The only sound in response was radio static.
* * *
18:58 July 30, 2034 (GMT+8)
28°22’41”N 124°58’13”E
Wedge broke hard right, taking on altitude. The corkscrew of smoke climbed from the surface, chasing him skyward. “This is Red Leader, missile launch, my two o’clock!” He was banking hard—as hard as he could—five G, six G, then seven. . . . He flexed his legs and abdomen, making little grunts as the G-forces sucked the blood downward in his body. . . . He held there; any more G and he’d black out. Little pinpricks of light burst in his vision like paparazzi cameras as his aircraft pirouetted almost as violently as the missile that he’d lost sight of. He popped chaff and flare from ports on his fuselage, the shards of burning magnesium tumbling in a celebratory arc to confuse the missile’s sensors.
Then a flash behind him, in the direction where the three Hornets that comprised Gold Flight had been assembled. He called out over the radio, trying to confirm what he already knew, which was that he’d lost one aircraft. There was no response. “Gold Leader, this is Red Leader,” he repeated . . . and then he tried, “Any station, any station, this is Red Leader, over.” For a handful of seconds he spoke into this emptiness until one of the other Hornets formed on his wing. The two held even like a pair of drivers idling at a traffic light. At a glance, Wedge couldn’t tell which of his pilots this was. All he could see was the silhouette gesturing toward its ear, making the universal sign for I can’t hear you.
And another flash.
Smoke enveloped his cockpit. Debris collided with glass. As quickly as the smoke engulfed him, it released him. His aircraft was fine, again flying straight and level. Off his wing, the other Hornet had vanished—incinerated in that flash. He craned his neck forward and could see little flaming pieces of its fuselage drizzling over the ocean, on whose surface Wedge now observed a half dozen other smoking corkscrews, their white tails ribboning skyward. Then behind him in his mirror, Wedge glimpsed a section of four aircraft forming near his six o’clock.
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