by Dale Brown
Another girder extended out over the water a few feet above the platform; a pulley set at the bottom of the metal beam was all that remained from a small lift that had been used to move equipment.
“I think we should jump from there,” she told Bison, pointing. “Jump?”
“Look, it’s only twenty feet from the water. As long as we keep our balance to the very end and go out there, we won’t hit anything. It’s like a diving platform. The others can pick us up.”
“Shit on that. Twenty fuckin’ feet”
“Easier than snaking under this platform, I bet.”
“Twenty fuckin’ feet. Maybe thirty.”
“I bet you did worse than that at Lackland when you went through special operations training.”
“Yeah, but that was Lackland. Everybody was out of their mind there”
“Come on. You go first,” she told him.
“Ladies first.”
“We’ll both go first. Come on.”
“You ain’t walking out there, are you?” he said as she climbed up.
“Should I run?” she said, standing on the girder.
“Jesus,” said Bison. He pulled himself up and started to crawl out behind her.
Jennifer waited until Bison was on behind her, then started resolutely toward the edge. She felt her right foot slip, and pushed forward — she did run now, pushing her momentum so that she was sure she would fall far from the metalwork. As gravity took her, she pushed her legs together and brought her arms in together, covering her upper body.
The water punched at her so hard that she was convinced she had struck the metal. Her lungs rebelled; she pushed upward, flailing desperately. Finally she saw light just ahead, but two strokes failed to bring her to the surface. She felt despair, tasted the salt water in her mouth.
But she’d hit rock bottom a month and a half before, when the air force seemed to turn against her, launching an investigation that targeted her. She’d survived that; she could survive anything.
A shock of cold jerked her body as if she’d touched a power line. Jennifer’s head bobbed upward, breaking the water’s surface. She gasped once, twice, then felt herself lurching backward.
Liu pulled her into one of the Zodiacs. She sat upright just in time to see Bison pulling himself onto the other a few yards away.
The motor at the rear revved. The lightweight boat bucked forward, picking up speed quickly.
“Down!” yelled Liu.
Jennifer wasn’t sure why he was yelling, until she saw the platform explode over his right shoulder.
Chapter 101
Aboard “Penn,” off the coast of Brunei
1755
Zen brought Hawk One into a shallow dive to strafe the nearest ship, the smaller of the two. He saw as he came on that the bridge area at the front of the superstructure had already been struck by something; he slid his cannon fire into the center of the gun in front of it, riding the stream of bullets through the housing as the barrel swung in his direction. He flashed overhead, spinning back for another shot. Since the gun no longer moved he slid toward the missile launchers atop the rear deck; they looked like a pair of long garbage cans angled toward the sky.
It wasn’t clear which of the ships had launched the missile at the platform earlier, but by the time he laid off the trigger it was clear that this launcher wasn’t going to be used again — a secondary explosion erupted from the front of the tube as Zen cleared upward.
There were two more missile launchers on the port side of the ship. As he started toward them, the radar warning receiver erupted with a message — the second ship, about a half-mile to the north — was attempting to lock its anti-aircraft weapons on him.
“You’re up next,” Zen said to himself.
* * *
Penn was just clearing fifteen miles southwest of the corvette, nearly in range for the JDAM GBU-32, the last weapon in her bomb rack. The GBU-32 was essentially a thousand-pound bomb with a set of steerable fins on the back that could be programmed to strike a specific GPS point. The bomb, still being tweaked for regular military use, was extremely accurate, but it had been designed to hit land targets that didn’t move, not ships at sea.
On the other hand, airplanes had been taking on ships since Billy Mitchell’s salad days, and Breanna had worked out a solid attack plan with the help of the Megafortress’s computer. She intended on launching inside five miles, which would decrease the possibility of the ship outmaneuvering the weapon.
“Zen, I’m about a minute and a half from launch,” she told him. “I’m going to open the bomb bay. Can you take out their missiles?”
“Roger that.”
Over Brunei, near Brunei International Airport
1756
McKenna swung around, getting ready for another run at the Badger.
If she only had bullets in her cannon, she could take the slimer down. Hell, she had half a mind to fly next to the big SOB, whack open the canopy, and wing the pilot with her pistol like they did in World War I.
Hell, she’d even throw a brick at him if she had one.
She did, actually. Four of them, each loaded with 250 pounds of explosives.
Bomb another airplane?
Why the hell not?
The bombs might not explode, but if she could match the other plane’s speed, she could get them right through the wings.
Matching his speed was just a BS aerobatic stunt, the sort of gimmick Ivana used to have her do all the time to close a sale.
McKenna pulled off to the right, taking a wide circle south of the Badger as she tried to decide if she was crazy to even think about taking a shot. What the hell, she decided as she came through the wide arcing turn. She leveled off, trying to slow the MiG-19 down to match the Badger’s speed. The two planes were very different, and she couldn’t quite get it; she pulled close again but the MiG tugged at her, trying to slide off to the right. By the time she got the plane steady she was beyond the Badger’s right wing. She tried swinging out to the right and then tucking back in a kind of weave, but she was still going too fast. The Brunei airport loomed ahead; obviously the Badger was going to try and land.
Maybe I’ll wait until it lands, she thought to herself as she accelerated and turned ahead.
Then she noticed that the gun turret at the top was revolving, following her.
That did it. She didn’t wait for it to fire again. She took the turn, letting her speed bleed off precipitously; the plane seemed to whine at her but she resisted the impulse to nudge the throttle. Wings barely clutching the air, she walked the MiG slowly toward the tailfin of her prey, which was now on a glide toward the concrete runway. As McKenna slipped overhead, losing her view of the Badger, she hit the bomb release. The MiG, now a thousand pounds lighter, shot forward. McKenna went for the throttle, jacking her speed and rocketing upward.
It took more than thirty seconds for her to climb up and come back around to a position where she could get a look at the runway. When she did, she saw that the Badger had landed — without its right wing.
Off the coast of Brunei
1800
Miraculously, the debris from the missile and platform didn’t strike the Zodiac, but the nearby ocean boiled with the rumbling wake. The small boat, designed to withstand anything less than a typhoon, bucked and tumbled with the waves but remained afloat.
The missile had sheared the platform off into the water, leaving only three stalks above the waves.
“Where’s the other boat?” she said to Liu. “Where’s Bison?”
“Ahead of us,” said the sergeant, nodding with his head.
* * *
Dazhou watched from the bridge as the small aircraft started a fresh attack on his other ship, which had stopped defending herself. His crew had been unable to lock on the knifelike aircraft, which danced around the sky like a dervish.
“Use the cannon,” he shouted. “Sight it by eye if you have to.”
As Dazhou turned to the helmsman to
tell him to steer closer to their stricken sister, his second in command shouted a fresh warning. “The plane is coming for us!”
“Shoot it down,” he said angrily.
* * *
Zen could see the anti-aircraft missile launcher turning in the direction of the Flighthawk as he closed on the second ship. He fired point-blank into the side of the launcher’s structure; his second or third shell ignited one of the missiles and started a secondary explosion.
“He’s toothless,” Zen told Breanna. “I’m going back on that first ship.”
* * *
Upstairs, Breanna gave a last-second update of the target parameters and then nudged the Megafortress into a shallow dive and then a swooping turn, tossing the bomb in the bay at the target. The JDAM left the Megafortress’s belly just inside four miles from its target, a point-blank shot for the weapon. The bomb sailed downward, made a slight correction, then nosed down toward the GPS point the Megafortress and Breanna had calculated for it — the bridge of the Kalsamana.
* * *
The ship reverberated with explosions as the fire in the missile battery behind the superstructure spread. Dazhou could taste the acrid smoke in his mouth. But he would not give up; he would not abandon the ship, nor flee his destiny.
“Use every weapon you have!” he demanded. “Everything! Everything!”
As the crew moved to comply, the bomb struck the port side of the antenna mast and crashed through the roof of the bridge area directly below, carrying through the deck without exploding. Dazhou turned in time to see something rushing through the cabin directly behind him — a ghost fleeing the demons of the past. The rush of wind seemed to him the swell of voices, the many voices of those who had tormented him in his life, returning one last time to torture him. Every mistake he had made, every man he had lost, every moment of foolishness pressed in around him.
And then the thousand pounds of explosives in the warhead ignited, and neither earthly vengeance nor human failings were of any more concern to Dazhou, or most of the men on the ship.
Chapter 102
Southeastern Brunei
Exact location and time unknown
Hours seemed to pass before Mack Smith could make himself get up from the floor. Three of the four terrorists lay in the room dead; the last huddled around a pool of blood at the side.
The woman who had helped him was sprawled on the floor, eyes open, hands unclenched.
“Are you all right?” he said, kneeling over her. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth remained agape and her stare fixed on the ceiling.
Slowly, the others in the room started to move. And then, as if by some secret signal, all the women and children began to wail.
“Stop,” whispered Mack. “Stop.”
The fearful cry continued.
“Stop!” he shouted finally, and one by one the wails turned not to silence but to softer sobs.
“Are there others? Other terrorists?” He had to ask the question three times before he got a response from an older woman at the side.
“These were the all who we’ve seen,” she said in broken English.
“Take me to the men,” he said.
She got up, jaw trembling, and walked toward him. Another woman, much younger, grabbed his arm. “Our savior,” she said. “Our hero.”
“She was the hero;’ said Mack, pointing at the dead woman. “I’m just lucky. Now take me to the others.”
Chapter 103
On the runway at Brunei International Airport
Exact time unknown
Sahurah felt his body lifted by a thousand angels. His pain had finally ceased. After his long, torturous journey, he had reached Paradise. The angels carried him through the golden gates, up the winding marble stairs to the vast throne room. The Messenger himself waited on the landing to greet him, surrounded by a veritable sea of angels. Light glowed behind him.
Paradise, he thought. Paradise.
And then the pain returned and Sahurah felt his body fall the hundred miles from heaven, felt it roll and slam and slap against the earth. He felt fire and cursed his existence, cursed his sins and dark desires. Something grabbed him from behind and pulled, dragging him through the black jaws of dragon-snakes that snapped at his body.
“Commander Sahurah! Commander Sahurah!”
It was part of the dream, he thought — the imam stood above him, peering down from above. The Saudi was nearby, his eyes watchful.
“Commander Sahurah!”
No dream this — Sahurah was on the runway, — a hundred feet from where the Badger had crashed. Someone had pulled him out in a misguided attempt to rescue him.
Why was the Lord so cruel to such a devoted servant? Why did he deny him the final glory of paradise?
“Sahurah — the devils are overrunning our defenses,” said the imam. “We have a pilot, and the passenger plane that was parked at the airport. Come. We will leave and return to fight another battle.”
Was this the devil tempting him? Or an angel sent to rescue him from damnation?
The imam bent down and looked at him quizzically. “Sahurah? Come, little brother. There is a time for everything. Now is our time to retreat.”
The Saudi seemed to frown.
“No,” said Sahurah. “I will stay and fight. It is jihad.”
“The Malaysians have turned against us,” warned the imam. “It is time to retreat. American warships are only a few hours away. We will regroup and wait. Our time will come again.”
“I must stay”
The imam frowned. The Saudi said something in Arabic Sahurah could not decipher.
“We must leave now,” said the imam.
“I stay to do the Holy One’s work.”
The imam nodded and then turned. Sahurah knelt, deciding to pray to the Lord that he had made the right decision. But words would not come; he could not even remember the simple prayers he had learned as a child. The throb at the side of his head chased all thoughts from his mind, and it was all he could do to stand and walk in the direction of the city.
Chapter 104
Malaysian air base
1810
Thanks to Rubeo’s software hacks, Dog now had limited control of the LADS observation system and could switch through the video feeds. One of the airships near the oil platform had been destroyed, but a second one just to the southwest showed Dreamland’s two Zodiac boats. There were four people inside them — all of the Whiplash people, and Jennifer, lovely, beautiful Jennifer.
What if she had been in Indy?
Two patrol boats were heading toward them from the west. The boats had left occupied territory, but it wasn’t clear if they contained terrorists or the vanguard of the sultan’s troops, who were pressing into the northern part of the country, vanquishing their foes.
“Dreamland Malaysia Base to Penn,” said Dog, keying into the communications line. “Breanna, our two Whiplash boats are running toward a pair of patrol craft of undetermined allegiance.”
“We’re on it, Daddy,” she said.
For once, Dog didn’t yell at her for calling him that.
Off the coast of Brunei
1815
Zen flew over the ship a few seconds after the bomb exploded. It looked from the air as if it were a child’s toy with a thick hole drilled through the top. The superstructure and hull had been badly mangled, and when he took another pass he saw the corvette-sized craft had already started to slide down into the water.
“They’re out of it,” Zen told Breanna. “Going for the Zodiacs.”
“I’m right behind you”
The Whiplash team was about five miles from the coastline and just over eight miles from the platform that had been destroyed. Two patrol craft were five miles from them on what looked like a direct intercept. Both were Russian-made Matka-class gunboats; they had been purchased a few months before by Brunei, but it wasn’t clear whose side they were on.
Zen tucked Hawk One down toward the water
, streaking ahead of Penn. The Whiplash people in the raft had not answered any hails, and neither had the ships. Neither patrol vessel flew any flags.
“Think we can get them to turn around?” Breanna asked.
“If I had skywriting gear, maybe,” said Zen. He rode the Flighthawk down and then held her on her wing, taking a showboat turn in front of the Zodiacs.
“Still on course,” said Breanna.
He took another pass.
“I think somebody waved,” said Breanna, who was watching on her feed on the flightdeck.
“Yeah. Listen, let me take a run over the patrolboats. Maybe we can at least find out if they’re hostile or not.”
“Go for it.”
* * *
Jennifer watched the Flighthawk spin off to the west. She leaned against the side of the boat, exhausted from the earlier climb and plunge into the water, not to mention everything that had come before. As she stared, the waves formed themselves into anthills in the distances.
Ships.
Ships!
“There’s something up ahead, ships in the water,” she yelled to Liu. “I think the Flighthawk was trying to warn us.”
Liu cut the engine and waved at Garcia and Bison to do the same.
* * *
Breanna saw the fresh contact on her radar — A 737 had just taken off from Brunei IAP.
Terrorists leaving a sinking ship?
Or a jerry-rigged bomber planning an attack?
“Zen, we have a 737 climbing up from the airport,” she said. “Roger that. You sure it’s a 737?”
“Affirmative. Should we try and stop it?”
“Why?”
