Strike Zone

by Dale Brown

  By the time a CKKC controller came onto their frequency to ask for help searching for “possible communist intruders,” Zen realized he’d blundered. They played through, joining a search off the coast.

  “Want me to take the stick for a while?” asked Kick.

  “Let me hold on to it,” said Zen. Then he reconsidered—the kid needed the time a heck of a lot more than he did, and it wasn’t like they were really going to encounter anyone.

  “Yeah, good idea, Kick,” he told him, and they initiated the swap.

  The radar capabilities of Pennsylvania made it virtually impossible for an airplane to fly anywhere within two hundred miles of it without the EB-52 catching a whiff, but the CKKC pilots didn’t know that. They assumed that the Megafortress was equipped similarly to regular B-52s, which of course had very good radar, but weren’t outfitted as a mini-AWACS. Zen felt a bit embarrassed as the pilots swept southward; he realized now how seemingly innocent misunderstandings during the Cold War had nearly led to hostilities several times.

  “Hawk leader, we have a contact on the surface that’s not supposed to be there,” said Penn’s copilot, Kevin McNamara. “We’re wondering if you can check it out.”

  “Roger that,” said Zen. The information was fed in from the Megafortress, indicating two small boats—or possibly submarines—thirty miles directly to the west. “Kick—hop to it.”

  “On it,” said the pilot.

  WHILE IT WAS pitch black outside, the Flighthawk visor gave Kick a view as detailed as he would have if it were high noon. Synthesized from its radar as well as IR and optical feeds, the screen showed the sky as a light gray and the water a deep blue; if he wanted, Kick could choose any of a dozen preset schemes or even customize it with a 64,000-color palette.

  A bit too much choice as far as he was concerned, but what the hell.

  Kick pushed forward in his seat. It was difficult to square the movements of the Megafortress with the path of the plane he was controlling. Most of Kick’s airtime had been in the cockpit of A-10As. While the Hog—the popular, though unofficial nickname had been shortened from Warthog—wasn’t particularly fast, it was highly maneuverable, and a Hog driver got used to taking g’s real fast. But this was different, bizarre in a way—he pushed his stick left and slightly forward, and his stomach began to climb nearly straight up.

  “I have a shadow on the surface,” he told McNamara, the Megafortress copilot. “Feeding you visual.”

  The shadow lengthened into the thick thumb of a submarine. Upstairs on the flight deck, the copilot had taken the image and presented it to the onboard computers, which searched for identifying marks and then compared these to an onboard databank. In this case, the mast configuration, along with a small fin toward the bow of the craft and a rounded nub at the conning tower, told the computer the submarine was a Chinese diesel boat, a member of the Romeo class originally designed by the Russians in the late 1950s. Though competent, the sixty-man submarines were hardly technological marvels.

  “Good work,” Zen told Kick. “Look for the other further west.”

  “On it.”

  “I have a patrol vessel approaching from the east,” said the copilot. “I’m handing off the information.”

  Kick changed his view to IR, thinking he could pick up the thermal trail of the submarine. But the change in the screen disoriented him.

  “Use preset two,” prompted Zen. “The IR takes the lower left window next to the sitrep and you still have your main view on top. Watch your altitude.”

  “Right,” said Kick. He nudged upward and asked the computer for the proper screen configuration. As it came in he got a distance warning. He backed off the throttle slider so abruptly he nearly flamed the engines. Disoriented, he pulled up out of his search pattern, afraid he was going to stall the U/MF right into the waves.

  “Go back again,” said Zen.

  “Okay,” managed Kick.

  “It’s all right. You did all right. Best thing to do sometimes is just take a deep breath. The system throws a lot of information at you and you have to learn to process it.”

  “I’m all right,” insisted Kick. He immediately regretted the sharp tone in his voice, but there was no way to take it back; instead, he concentrated on getting himself back into position to resume the search.

  ZEN FOLDED HIS arms in front of him, watching the Flighthawk screens with one eye and Kick with the other. The kid had just passed through a crisis, and how he handled himself now was key. If he got himself back on the horse—put the Flighthawk back into the search pattern, went after the other sub, didn’t fuck up worse—there’d be hope for him.

  This was exactly the sort of experience that could be the making of him. You had to fail, Zen thought; you had to taste the bitterness of screwing up in your mouth, and then get beyond it. And it was infinitely better to fail in little ways, as Kick just had, than to wait for one big blowout failure to end all failures as Zen had.

  There was no way to teach that, no way to simulate it in exercises. Kick—and Starship, for that matter—had to learn it for themselves. His job was to somehow get them to the point where they could.

  “Team is recovered and heading back to the hotel,” reported Major Alou. “We can head back whenever you want.”

  “Soon as Kick gets over that other contact, we can head back for the barn,” said Zen.

  “Got it at two miles. It’s diving,” said the Flighthawk pilot.

  The submarine was similar to the other one they had seen. Data recorded, Alou set a course for home.

  “Keep your eye out for an unidentified aircraft firing flares over the city,” added the pilot.

  “If we see it, you’ll be the first to know,” said Zen.

  Dreamland Control

  0700

  RUBEO STOOD BACK from the computer screen, rubbing his temple fiercely. They had taken all the inputs from Danny’s viewer and compiled them into a model, supplementing them with information from the Flight-hawk flyover and earlier satellite data.

  “Problem, Doc?” asked Natalie Catsman.

  “It’s not an airplane.”

  Major Catsman looked at the three-dimensional mockup of Shed Building Two, which included legends showing items in the facility. The area next to the wall looked like a machine shop, with several stations set up that looked to contain presses and drills. Further back were large banks of some sort of computer equipment, though the Dreamland system could not render it with much precision.

  “Recycling?” asked Catsman.

  “You wouldn’t need computer-controlled machinery for recycling,” said Rubeo. “This material here. It’s a portable wall. It’s shielding.”

  “Shielding what?”

  “Yes,” said Rubeo. “This piece here came from a centrifuge. Or could have. They’re making bombs here. I believe they’re nuclear weapons.”

  Catsman, still new to Dreamland and the high-tech gear at its disposal, frowned as if she were overwhelmed.

  “We need more data,” said Rubeo. “But look at this.”

  He pulled up another screen filled with a row of numbers.

  “The lottery?” Catsman laughed.

  “Readings from Captain Freah’s Geiger counter. They are above normal background levels. Material was taken through here, and there was an accidental spill. Small, but it contained minute traces of plutonium.”

  “We have to tell Colonel Bastian about this right away,” said Catsman.

  “Absolutely,” said the scientist.

  Brunei

  2220

  MONITORING THE OPERATION from the Dream Command trailer, Dog watched the fuss over the flares at the site and the subsequent patrols. Taiwan and Mainland China might be on the verge of historic discussions, but tensions were still very high—the wrong match at the wrong time, and they could just as well be exchanging gunfire as greetings. And war wouldn’t be confined to the two Chinas. Units all across Asia had hiked their alert status.

  Gradually, thing
s ratcheted back down. As Dog waited for Penn to return to base, the screen flashed with an urgent, coded communication from Dream Command marked eyes only. He punched in his password, and leaned to the eyepiece so the computer could confirm his identity by checking his irises. Natalie Catsman’s face flashed on the screen.

  “Colonel, the site that Captain Freah inspected today, we don’t believe there is a UAV there, or any aircraft. It’s only remotely possible that it’s ever been there,” said Catsman. “But—”

  She stopped, turning around to someone in the situation room.

  “But what?” said Dog.

  “Shed Two appears to be a fabrication factory for bombs. Possibly nuclear,” said Catsman.

  “Nuclear?”

  “Dr. Rubeo has someone with him who can explain.”

  Rubeo came on the screen, along with a physicist from one of Dreamland’s weapons labs. Together, they gave the colonel a ten-minute executive summary of the types of machinery needed to construct a high-yield nuclear device, typically known as a neutron bomb.

  “We’re not sure of this, absolutely not sure yet,” emphasized the physicist, Dylan Lyon. “Until we have direct access to the devices, there’s no way of knowing for sure. However, combined with the plutonium reading—”

  “Plutonium reading?” asked Dog.

  Rubeo cut in, explaining what Danny’s detector had picked up.

  “Guys, bottom-line this for me,” said Dog, cutting the scientist off as he began talking about sieverts and rad counts.

  “Bottom line, you have an apparently private company with the technology and the wherewithal to make a nuclear device,” said Catsman. “And the company owner doesn’t particularly like the Communist Chinese, or the current president of his own country.”

  Washington, D.C.

  1100

  JED BARCLAY HAD just started to sift through the latest CIA briefing paper on South Asia when the secure phone in his small NSC cubicle buzzed.

  “Jed, this is Colonel Bastian. We have to update the President.”

  Jed tried to work out where the nuclear material had come from as the colonel ran down the evidence the Dreamland team had passed along. Iran, North Korea, and Russia were the probable candidates, though none was a perfect fit.

  Korea, probably. They were desperate for money and would sell to anyone.

  Assuming there was a weapon. He cradled the phone as he spoke, quickly booting his personal computer into the restricted access intelligence network known as SpyNet and searching the Asian pages for anything new. The update was dominated by the arrival of the vice president in Beijing ahead of the summit.

  “There hasn’t been a threat,” said Jed. “There’d be blackmail of some sort. If someone had a weapon and didn’t want rapprochement, say, they’d threaten to use it.”

  “I think you’re way too optimistic, Jed. I think these people might just go and blow people up. Forget about blackmail. They’d worry about the weapon being taken.”

  “Good point. I’m going to have to go to the boss right away on this. The whole NSC,” said Jed. “I need everything you have.”

  “They’re expecting your call at Dreamland. Major Catsman has a team assembled to brief you. Jed—I think if they do have a weapon, the summit will be an inviting target.”

  “I was just thinking that. It starts tomorrow.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  Dreamland, Computer Lab One

  0900

  RUBEO SLAMMED HIS hand down on the counter area, barely missing the computer keyboard but upsetting the nearby cup, which shattered on the floor, sending a spray of hot coffee onto his pants.

  “Figures,” muttered the scientist.

  “Problems, Ray?”

  Rubeo turned and found Major Catsman with her arms folded in the doorway.

  “Major.”

  “You all right, Ray?”

  “Peachy.”

  Catsman smirked, then walked over to the pot of coffee on the nearby counter and helped herself. She made a face with her first sip.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Yes,” muttered Rubeo, who had made the coffee himself. He might have the equivalent of several Ph.D.’s, but none was in home economics.

  “Your people just finished briefing Mr. Barclay. Dylan was very good. Thank you.”

  “Yes,” muttered Rubeo.

  “They may want you to talk to the President himself.”

  “Fine.”

  “Problems?”

  Rubeo liked Catsman; she was intelligent, quick on her feet, and unlike some of the career military people, pretty easygoing about working with civilian scientists. He had worked with her several years before on the Megafortresses prior to Major Cheshire’s arrival. Still, Rubeo wasn’t in the habit of sharing personnel concerns with bluesuits, with the exception of Colonel Bastian.

  “There are always problems,” he muttered.

  “New theories on the ghost clone? Or the weapon?”

  “I have plenty of theories,” he said. “Putting them into action is the problem. I could use about twenty more people.”

  “Maybe Jennifer Gleason could help.”

  “Hmph,” he said.

  “Hmph?” said Catsman.

  “Ms. Gleason is thinking about leaving us,” said Rubeo, almost in spite of himself.

  “But she was cleared by Danny, and Colonel Cortend.”

  “Yes, well, she’s rethinking her future.”

  “Don’t we need her here?”

  Catsman might be a good officer to work for and with, but there was still a block there; she couldn’t quite understand that dealing with geniuses wasn’t like flipping on a computer. And Jennifer Gleason was a real genius.

  Ironically, until this security blowup, she’d been among the least temperamental geniuses he knew.

  Excluding himself, of course.

  “Of course we need her,” said Rubeo.

  “Have you asked her to come back to duty?”

  Rubeo realized that he hadn’t asked her to come back. He’d just assumed that she would when she was ready.

  “Want me to talk to her?” asked Catsman.

  “No thank you, Major,” snapped Rubeo, jumping up from the console.

  He was actually surprised when Jennifer answered his loud rap on the door.

  “It’s me, Jennifer. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Door isn’t locked.”

  Rubeo put his hand to the knob hesitantly and turned it. Jennifer, dressed in a gray T-shirt and jeans, sat on the couch across from the entrance to her small apartment.

  She looked different.

  “What have you done to your hair?” asked Rubeo.

  She touched the ragged edge above her right ear, smiling faintly. The jagged edges made it clear she had cut it herself.

  “Latest look,” she said.

  “You look like Joan of Arc,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll have visions soon.”

  “Hmph.” Rubeo felt his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides. He shoved them into his pockets. “I’ve been working on an idea for tracking the clone and possibly taking it over. But there’s so many systems involved, I’m having trouble pulling it together.”

  “Good,” she said, making no move to get off the couch.

  “I was wondering about your help.”

  A quizzical look crossed her face, as if she didn’t understand the words.

  “I’ll help,” she said, still making no move to get off the couch.

  “Are you still going to leave?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind,” she said.

  Coming from anyone else, Rubeo would have interpreted the statement as hinting at blackmail. But Jennifer wasn’t like that.

  “Teaching—I don’t think you should waste your time,” he said.

  Jennifer smiled. “Someone taught me.”

  “Well, yes. But in your case… ”

  “Let’s go get some breakfast. Blue room?” she said, referring t
o one of the all-ranks messes.

  “Fine,” said Rubeo, following her out.

  JENNIFER PICKED UP the long strip of bacon and eased it into her mouth, savoring the salty tang. She hadn’t eaten for days. She hadn’t eaten bacon in months if not years; her breakfast ordinarily consisted of yogurt and an occasional oatmeal.

  “Good?” said Rubeo, sitting across from her at the table.

  “Delicious. Go on.”

  Rubeo wanted to use the electronic signal gathering capabilities of Raven to intercept the control frequencies used by the unmanned plane and take it over. Raven carried gear ordinarily used to jam radars, and they could link the Flighthawk control units into it to supply the proper code.

  Couldn’t they?

  “Probably. Of course, if we interfere and don’t get the encryption right, the UAV will probably go into native mode,” observed Jennifer. The Flighthawks were programmed to act that way if interfered with. “The first thing you have to do is straighten out the hooks between C3 and the Raven systems—that’s a real tangle. I mean, you may not even be able to do it physically.”

  “I have Morris working on it.”

  “Morris?”

  “Well, you weren’t available,” said Rubeo. “The team from the Signal Group is helping him.”

  Jennifer picked up another piece of bacon and stabbed it into one of her eggs. She scooped up the yolk with the bacon like a spoon and pushed it into her mouth.

  “Have you tried checking the data against the NOSS system?” Jennifer asked. She was referring to a network of quasi-stationary Sigint satellites used to gather radio signals around the globe. The abbreviation stood for Naval Ocean Surveillance System.

  “Why?”

  “You could use that to track down whatever they’re using as a base station. Then you’d know where they were operating from and you could physically take them out of the picture. All that data has to be available. You can backtrack from that. You really haven’t done that yet?”