by Dale Brown
2344, 12 January 1998
(1244, 13 January, Karachi)
Ray Rubeo rubbed his face with his hands, then looked back at the screen at the front of the Dreamland Command Center.
"We're months away from testing the long-range version of the Scorpion missile, Colonel. I can't even give you a mockup at this point," said Rubeo. "And the airborne version of the Razor is even further off. Funding—"
"I realize you can't perform miracles, Ray. I'm just looking for anything that can give the Megafortresses an edge here. They're not interceptors."
"I'm well aware of their capabilities, Colonel. Now, if you want to bomb the carrier, the weapons people have studied that matter as well," added Rubeo. "The general consensus is that you would require nine well-placed strikes on the carrier to guarantee sinking it. Assume the Chinese weapon operates near its same efficiency, and its close-in weapon works as it has in the past: 17.3 missile launches, a minimum."
"Or eighteen," said Colonel Bastian.
"Yes. Eighteen would be the practical number."
"I'm not looking to sink the carrier."
"I have another suggestion," said Rubeo. "Use the EEMWBs against the planes."
"The weapon needs further tests."
"They'll work. You'll disable the bombs completely, without even shooting down the planes. The only drawback," added Rubeo, "is that the versions we currently have ready will wipe every piece of electronics within five hundred miles."
"How many would it take?"
"One. However, I would launch two in case of the unforeseen. The weapons were due to be relocated at the end of the week in preparation for the tests anyway. We can ship them and technicians to Diego Garcia. The tests can be conducted from there following your mission."
"How soon can you get the weapons over here?"
* * *
For Zen, it was a vibrating fever inside his chest and head, a dread and a desire — an imperative to be with his wife, to help her, save her, simply to be there. It was more important than food, more important than his legs, certainly; everything would be meaningless without her. He had to go. He had to be there. Only then would the dreams stop; only if he was with her would the fever break.
He wanted to walk — he would walk — but first he had to go and be with her.
He'd left a phone message for Vasin. The doctor would understand. And if he didn't — well, that was the way it had to be.
Zen rolled down the ramp of the Megafortress hangar, heading toward the door that led to the bunkers below. The doors whisked open before he reached them.
"Dr. Rubeo, just who I'm looking for."
"Major. Can I help you?"
"I hear you're putting together a flight to Crete."
"I am sending some items to support the Whiplash deployment," said Rubeo discreetly.
"I'm going."
"Going where?"
"To Crete. And then Diego Garcia. I'm joining the deployment."
Rubeo gave him a typical Rubeo look — a kind of mock be-fuddlement that the world was not as intellectual as he was.
"I was given to understand that you were involved in an experiment relating to your walking again," said Rubeo.
"Yeah, well, that's on hold right now," said Zen. "This is more important. I need to be there."
"I'm sure I'm not the one to say this to you, Major, but were I in your position—"
"You're not."
"I'll tell the MC-17 pilots you're on the way. The aircraft is nearly ready to leave, so you'd best hurry."
Aboard the Abner Read
1403
"What do these eggheads know about naval warfare?" thundered Storm. "Eighteen missile launches? Absurd. The Pentagon people tell us we can do it with three. Well, all right, that's ridiculous, too. We figure six hits, which at most calls for eight launches. Eighteen? That's ridiculous."
Storm glanced at Eyes and his weapons officers as he waited for Colonel Bastian to respond via the communications system, which was being piped over the small conference speaker on his desk. His quarters was the most convenient place for the secure conference, but if there had been one more person in the cabin, they wouldn't have been able to move.
"I'm just telling you what their simulations showed," said Dog. His face jerked in the video feed, not quite in sync with the sound. "I thought you'd appreciate knowing."
"Well, let's get on with it," said Storm. "Where are we to position ourselves for this intercept?"
"I need you to sail west."
"West?"
"Two hundred miles west." "Two hundred miles west?"
"We're going to use a weapon that will fry their electronics. It'll affect yours as well. The radius is roughly five hundred miles, but to be safe—"
"No way, Bastian. No way."
"Listen, Storm—"
"I can understand you wanting to grab all the glory for yourself. I really can. You're ambitious, and you have the track record to prove it. But telling us to leave the area when we have a mission here? No way."
"I'm telling you for your own protection." "Our vital systems are shielded against magnetic pulses," said Eyes. "Not like this."
"I'm not moving, Bastian. You can take that to the bank." Storm folded his arms and scowled at the screen. As soon as this call was over, he was calling Balboa personally, before Bastian got his version of the story in.
"I can't guarantee that we can detonate the weapons far enough away from you not to harm you," the colonel told him.
"I'm not looking for guarantees. I'm telling you: I'm not moving."
Northern Arabian Sea
2010
Captain Sattari climbed onto the deck of the Parvaneh submarine, legs wobbly from the long day and night below the water. A breeze struck the side of his face, tingling it; his scalp bristled, and his lungs — his lungs luxuriated as they sucked in real air. The rest of his men crowded up behind him, anxious to breathe and move freely after hours of drowsy confinement. A few dropped to their knees, praying in thanksgiving. Sattari did not remind them that they were very far from being safe.
"Boat Four, dead ahead," said the Parvaneh's mate. He held up the signal lamp.
Captain Sattari pulled up his night glasses to scan the ocean around them. Between the darkness and the fog, he could see only a short distance; the shoreline, barely four miles to the north, was invisible, as were the towering mountains beyond.
The Parvaneh had sailed roughly 140 miles, but they were still in Pakistani waters; Iran lay another 150 miles to the west, and their home port was three hundred miles beyond that. The Parvanehs carried enough fuel to reach Iran ian territory, but only if they traveled mostly on the surface, where they would be easy to detect. Rather than taking that risk, Sattari had arranged a rendezvous with the Mitra, the tanker that had been altered to take them into its womb. It was to meet them twenty miles southwest of here in exactly three hours; they had barely enough time to put a small charge back in the batteries before setting out again.
Sattari continued to hunt for Boat Two and Three. They had started before his; surely they must be lurking nearby.
And yet, neither had been found twenty minutes later. A light rain started to fall, making Sattari's infrared glasses nearly useless. He paced along the narrow deck, weaving around his men. To make their rendezvous with the oil tanker, they would have to leave within a half hour.
Ten more minutes passed. Sattari spent them thinking of the soldiers in the midget submarines. He saw each of their faces; remembered what they had done by his side.
The submarine commander came up from below.
"Twenty minutes more, Captain. Then we must leave."
"Have you heard anything on the radio?"
The commander shook his head. They were far from the world here.
Five minutes passed, then ten.
"Signal Boat Two to start," Sattari told one of his men. "We will follow shortly."
The signal given, Sattari scanned the waters once again. H
e saw nothing.
"Sound the horn," he told one of his men.
"A risk."
"It is." The captain folded his arms in front of his chest, listening as the handheld horn bellowed.
A light flickered to the west. One of his soldiers spotted it and shouted, "There!"
The mate signaled frantically with his light. The light in the distance blinked back and began to grow. It was Boat Four. Signals were passed; the submarine turned and began to descend, heading toward the rendezvous.
Three was still missing; Sergeant Ibn's boat.
Sattari ordered the horn sounded again. Two more times they tried, without response.
"Time to go below," the captain told his men. They got up reluctantly, walking unsteadily to the mock wheelhouse that held the hatchway and airlock. The last man began folding the wire rail downward. Sattari helped him.
"The horn once more."
A forlorn ba-hrnnn broke the stillness. Sattari listened until he heard only the rhythmic lapping of water against the Parvaneh's hull.
"With God's help, they will meet us at the Mitra," he told the submarine captain below. "But we can wait no longer."
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
2222
"Still no sign of the Piranha, Colonel," Cantor told Dog as they reached the end of the first search grid. "Sorry."
"Not your fault, son. All right, crew; get ready to drop the second buoy. Mack, stay with me this time."
"I was with you the whole way, Colonel."
Cantor's attempt to stifle a laugh was unsuccessful.
"Concentrate on your tinfish, kid," snapped Mack.
"Trying."
Cantor had been pressed into service as an operator for the robot undersea probe so the Megafortresses could extend their patrol times. Gloria English and Levitow were en route to Crete to pick up EEMWBs before starting their patrol. The Wisconsin would go to Crete at the end of this patrol as well so that it, too, could pick up the weapons.
Cantor didn't mind "driving" the Piranha, though until now he had done so only in simulations. The hardest part of controlling the robot probe was reminding yourself not to expect too much. It moved very slowly compared to the Flighthawk; top speed was just under forty knots.
The question was whether they would find it. The probe hadn't been heard from since English put it into autonomous mode. The last patrol had taken advantage of a lull in the fighting between the Indians and Chinese to drop buoys south of Karachi, without any luck. The Wisconsin had flown back through that area, up the Indian and then Pakistani coasts and around to the west before dropping its own buoys. Batteries aboard the buoys allowed them to be used for twenty-four hours; after that they were programmed to sink themselves into the ocean. Their limited contact range with the Piranha was their one drawback, a by-product of the almost undetectable underwater communications system the devices used to communicate.
Gravity gave Cantor a tug as the Megafortress began an abrupt climb after dropping the fresh buoy.
"See, I'm just about right on top of him," said Mack.
"Sure," mumbled Cantor.
"I know what you were trying to tell me the other day," Mack added. "And you know what — I appreciate it."
Cantor was so taken by surprise by Mack's comment that he thought he was being set up for some sort of joke.
"I was thinking about these suckers all wrong. I have the hang of it now," said Mack. "I'm on top of the game."
"Good," said Cantor, not sure what to say.
"You were right. I was wrong."
An apology? From Major Mack "the Knife" Smith? Cantor wondered if he should record the date for posterity.
"If we have to tango and you're watching Piranha, don't sweat it," added Mack. "I can take two."
Flighthawk Two was on Wisconsin's wing, ready to be launched in an emergency.
"It's a lot easier one at a time," said Cantor.
"Ah, I can handle it. Piece of cake," said Mack.
Before Cantor could consider what, if anything, to say, he got an alert from his console. He turned his head back to the screen and saw a message: piranha connection established.
"I've got Piranha!" he shouted. He flipped from the master control screen to the sensor view, which synthesized the sensor data and presented it to the screen as an image, much the way the sensors on the Flighthawk were used to give the pilot an image. The Piranha carried two different sensors in its nose. One was an extremely sensitive passive sonar; the other made use of temperature differences to paint a picture of what was around it. An operator could choose one or the other; passive was generally easier to steer by, and that was where Cantor started, flipping the switch at the side of the console. A sharp black object appeared dead ahead, marked on the range scale at five hundred yards.
"Piranha has got a target, dead in the water. I'm transferring the coordinates to you now."
* * *
Dog double-checked his position, then hailed the Ab-ner Read on the Dreamland Command circuit. Storm came on the line almost immediately.
"We've reestablished a connection with Piranha," Dog told him. "We think we found that special operations submarine. It's fifteen miles off the Pakistani coast, about a hundred miles from Karachi. It's about eighty miles north of you."
"Excellent. I'll send the Sharkboat to trail it." "How long will that take?" "About three hours."
"Good. Listen, Storm, about your position—" "I've spoken to Admiral Balboa. He agrees that there's no reason for me to move that far west. In fact, he wants me to keep the carrier within range of my Harpoon missiles, just in case it becomes necessary for us to sink it. Backing you up," added Storm.
"Do not attack the carrier."
"I didn't say I was going to, did I?"
Dog bit his cheek to keep from responding.
* * *
Cantor eased Piranha closer to its target, moving as slowly as he could. The probe literally swam through the water, using a series of expandable joints to wag its body back and forth as a fish would. The sound and wave patterns that the movement created would seem to all but the most discerning observer to belong a medium-size shark— assuming they were detected at all. But Cantor was loath to take chances. At a dead stop, a submarine could generally hear quite well, and it was preferable that it did not know it was being observed.
When he had eased to two hundred meters, Cantor eased Piranha into a hover and changed his sensor selection. A blur of colors appeared before him; the computer then adjusted the colors, shaping them into an image of a small, odd-looking vessel. The computer analyzed the object, giving its approximate dimensions: twenty meters long, and only 2.65 wide, or at beam, according to the nautical term. Its height was 2.2 meters. It looked more like a sunken pleasure cruiser than a sub.
The smallest non-American military submarine listed in the computer reference for Piranha was the Russian Project 865, a special operations craft. The 865 had a crew of nine and carried only two torpedoes. It was 28.2 meters long, 4.2 at beam, and looked very much like a down-sized conventional sub.
Cantor wasn't sure how well the image corresponded to the actual vessel. He started to move again, circling the sub to get a fuller view. When Piranha had gone about two-thirds of the way around the submarine, the computer made a light clicking noise — the sub was starting to move.
Upward.
"Piranha to Wisconsin," said Cantor. "Looks like he's headed toward the surface."
"Roger that. Thank you, Piranha. Mack, stand by."
Souda Bay U.S. Navy Support Base,
Crete
1922 (2222, Karachi)
Aided by a strong jet stream and powerful Dreamland-modified supercruise engines, the MC-17D "Fastmover" carrying Zen took just under eight hours to get from Dreamland to Crete, but every minute seemed an hour to him. He was so happy to finally get there that he didn't mind being carried ignobly down the ramp to the runway. Two sailors— the base was a Navy supply fa
cility — carried him between their arms. After the humiliation of the past week involving the tests, it was a minor annoyance. They even set him down gently in his wheelchair. "Jeff?"
"Hey, babe, how's it going?" he said as Breanna came toward him.
"I can't believe you're here." "Believe it."
"You're supposed to be at the medical center."
"This is more important." She got a funny look on her face, so he added, "It wasn't working. They need more research. And you guys need me right now."
"But… "
Zen rolled his wheelchair forward. "Can we get some chow? I'm starving. And if there's any coffee on this base, I want to start an IV."
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over the northern Arabian Sea
2242
Dreamland was a developmental laboratory, not an intelligence center. Still, they had access to some of the most brilliant minds in the country, as well as experts in just about every weapon or potential weapon imaginable — and it still took more than an hour for them to tell Dog what they had found.
"Civilian submarine. Nautilus Adventure 2000. Heavily modified," said Ray Rubeo. "But hardly cutting edge."
"I've never heard of civilian submarines," said Dog.
"Yes." Rubeo's tone implied that everyone else in the world had. "It's a small market. Primarily for tour boats, though for the well-heeled it's a status symbol. I suppose you can park it next to the yacht. This would seem to be from a German firm. We'll have to rely on the CIA for additional data, but we have a spec sheet of the base model for you. It's powered by batteries and diesel."
"Have you tried to trace it?"
"Colonel—"
"I realize you have a lot to do, Ray. Pass the information along to the NSC. I'll tell Jed to expect it." "Very good."
"Sub is moving again, Colonel," said Cantor. "On the surface."
"Thanks, Cantor."
"Jazz, get hold of that Sharkboat and find out how long it's going to be before they get up here. And tell them the sub's moving."
"Just did, Colonel. He's five miles due south. Roughly ten minutes away."
"Making sounds like it might be starting to submerge," said Cantor. "Taking on water."
