Текст книги "Piranha"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“Basement next, Powder.”

“Yes, Cap.”

In the basement, Danny found a mattress and some bedclothes about four feet from the bottom step. There was nothing else; no furnace, no washing machine, not even a store of food—just the stone and dirt walls of the foundation.

Danny relaxed a bit as he walked back up the stairs. Idiot policemen were probably just anxious to go home—

or more likely, complete whatever black-market transaction was waiting for them near the checkpoint. Smuggling was a common sideline for the authorities here.

Once back on the main floor, Danny started toward the door, then remembered he hadn’t looked beyond the torn curtain the girl had emerged from.

As he turned and took a few steps toward the concealed area, Powder said something, then shouted. Totally by instinct, Danny ducked as the woman charged past his sergeant. He reached out and grabbed her leg, sending her tumbling against the shelves. A small revolver fell from her hand.

“Shit,” said Powder.

Now standing, Danny clamped his foot on the woman’s arm. The two Yugoslavian policemen charged inside, raking the ceiling with submachine guns. After shouts from the Americans finally managed to calm them, one of the policemen grabbed the woman and hauled her out. Danny—pistol now out—pulled back the curtain.

A boy, three of four years old, sat on the floor in the middle of a small, squalid kitchen, his thumb in his mouth.

By the time Danny got outside, the young woman was gone, and several policemen had poured out of the station next door. As Danny tried to sort out the situation, one of the policemen had said the woman was a known Muslim. Danny tried to find out what would happen to her, but was ignored. Finally, he and his men had no option but to leave. The meeting between the UN and government officials was never held.

Powder had grabbed the pistol and found three bullets loaded, but the firing pug was broken and it probably couldn’t have fired.

Months later, Danny saw a Reuters news story about bodies being unearthed in a field near the same village. There was murky photo of a recently opened ditch. In the corner of the photo were the bodies of a young woman and a small boy, both nude.

Was it the woman and her son? The photo was too poor for him to tell. They could have been anyone in that war, any of a thousand victims, mother and child, sister and brother, innocents slain because of religion, or revenge, or just for the hell of it. It was the reason the U.S. got involved in the first place; to stop shit like that from happening, but reasons, and intentions, and the future didn’t make much difference to the people in that ditch.

Aboard Iowa, over the South China Sea

1600

As she poked into a solid wall of rain just over the ocean, Dog slid Iowa back down through the clouds, holding her steady through a series of buffeting winds. Piranha was ready to dance, but they couldn’t find her a partner; the Navy ASW planes with their sonar buoys had been delayed. Delaford said the Indian sub captain might try to take advantage of the weather to snorkel and recharge batteries. So, with nothing else to, they were trying to find him on the surface. The laborious process of running tracks over the empty water hadn’t yielded any results, however, and Colonel Bastian was starting to feel tired.

“I felt that yawn over here, Colonel,” said the copilot. “I thought we were heading into a hurricane.”

“Very funny, Rosen. Just keep tabs on those Sukhois.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

“We’re not in the Navy yet,” Dog told him.

“No, but we’re low enough to be a ship,” said the copilot. It was only a slight exaggeration—they were at a thousand feet, using every sensor they had, including their eyes.

“Shark Ears,” the Navy Orion with the sonar buoys, checked in. They were still a good forty minutes away.

“Maybe we should set up a refuel,” suggested Rosen. “Extend our patrol and come back and work with them for a while, assuming they don’t totally scrub because of the weather. It’s pretty rough down there, and it’s going to get worse.”

“Good idea,” said Dog.

The tanker was flying a track well to the north east. With the help of Iowa’s sophisticated flight computer system, Rosen quickly plotted a course to rendezvous about thirty minutes away. Eager to get away from the water and the severe weather below, Dog leaned back on the stick and the airplane bolted upright. The air was fairly clear away from the leading edge of the storm, their view unimpeded.

“We may have a contact on the surface,” said Rosen. “Ten miles, two degrees east of our nose, just about in our face.”

Dog immediately began to level off and nudge toward the contact. Delaford, monitoring the feeds on his equipment downstairs, couldn’t find anything. Dog swung Iowa around, holding the Megafortress on her wing, and cruised over the coordinates at about a thousand feet.

“If there was something there, it’s gone now,” said Delaford finally. “I don’t think we should launch Piranha until we have something more definite.”

“I concur,” said Rosen.

“All right. Let’s give Shark Ears this point as a reference,” said Dog. “In the meantime, let’s go tank.”

As they started to climb once again, the two Chinese fighters flying over the nearest aircraft carriers changed their course.

“Looks like we’ve finally aroused some curiosity,” said Rosen. “Their new course will put them in visual range in eight minutes.”

There was no pressing need to refuel, so Dog decided not to lead the fighters out to the tanker. He told Rosen to cancel the rendezvous for now, and resumed what was essentially a holding pattern just over the worst of the storm. Big fists of gray clouds ran north west by south east for as long as the eye could see; a light haze sat to the northeast of the front, a dark blanket to the southwest where the storm was coming from.

The Chinese planes weren’t moving particularly fast, an indication they weren’t intending hostile action, though there were no guarantees. Rosen tried hailing them at twenty miles, but to no one’s surprise, the Chinese pilots did not respond. A second two-ship of Sukhois was also heading out, a few minutes behind the first. Their carriers were just a little ahead of the storm, and it occurred to Dog the Sukhois wouldn’t be able to spend all that much time with them if they didn’t want to land in the teeth of the heavy weather.

The enhanced optical feed from the Megafortress’s chin camera caught the lead Sukhoi at ten miles. The computer ID’d the missiles under its wings as R-73s, known to NATO as Archers. They were heat-seekers with excellent off-boresight capability, at least, in theory, better than all but the latest-model Sidewinders at sniffing out heat sources. They could be launched from any angle, including head-on.

Which was pretty much were they were now.

“Six miles and closing,” said Rosen. “Man, it pees me off they won’t answer our hails. I’ve been practicing my Chinese and everything.”

“Just keep tracking,” Dog told him.

The two lead Chinese fighters broke to Iowa’s right about a mile ahead of them, turning in a wide circle. Not coincidentally, the move put them in an excellent position to close and then fire their heat-seekers, though they made no obvious move to do so.

“Computer thinks the second group of Sukhois is packing Exocets,” said Rosen, referring to the second flight of Sukhois. “Optical IDs are not perfect.”

“Could be they’re hoping we have a line on the Indian sub,” said Dog. He kept Iowa steady as the second group of planes abruptly tipped their wings and shot downward toward the water. The nearest civilian ship was about two miles behind them; the Chinese fighters showed no interest in the tanker.

“What do we do if they sink him?” Rosen asked.

“I guess we take notes,” said Dog. “Delaford, how good are Exocets against submarines?”

“I’d say next to useless, unless something keeps the sub on the surface for an extended period. You saw what happened the other day,” said the Navy commander. “The helicopters are what they’d really want out here, but we’re too far from the carrier group for them to operate comfortably. It’s just not in their normal doctrine.”

“Then why did they blow it the other day?” Dog asked.

“Well, they probably had the planes in the air, just like now, and decided to take their best shot. My guess now is they were planning to land soon anyway, they saw us dip down like we found something, so they decided to come out and see what’s up. We’re close to a hundred miles from the carrier, which is beyond the range of conventional submarine torpedoes. So, this far from the carrier, a submarine ordinarily wouldn’t be a threat, unless it was one of ours or maybe a Russian. See, that’s why Kali is so significant; it changes the equation for them.”

“Hey, I have a question,” said Rosen. “Why didn’t the Chinese submarine take out the Indian sub the other day?”

“Assuming it didn’t,” said Delaford, “since we don’t really know what happened under the water, my bet is that it was returning from the Indian Ocean and had fired all of its torpedoes earlier. Three ships sank out there last week.”

“So why didn’t the Indian sub fire at the Chinese?” asked Dog.

“Again, we’re assuming they didn’t,” said Delaford. “We don’t know what happened under the water later. But given that, my guess is the sub wasn’t a big enough target. They’d want the carrier. Or their orders didn’t call for firing on a combat vessel unless they were specifically attacked. They hadn’t fired on one.”

“Still haven’t,” said Dog.

“Right.”

“Our Orion ASW plane is twenty minutes away,” said Rosen. “Tomcats are reporting they have Sukhois on their scopes at long range.”

“Quite a party,” said Delaford.

“Lay it out for them,” Dog said. before Rosen finished, however, the Sukhois had changed course to return to their carrier.

Iowa directed the Navy sub hunter to the spot were they’d had the tentative contact. Twenty minutes later, Shark Ears reported a contact.

There was only one problem—it was a Russian sub.

“They know this guy,” Delaford reported. “It’s a Victor III. May just be keeping tabs on things, or not.”

“Nothing else?” Dog asked.

“Nothing yet.”

Aboard Shiva in the South China Sea

1630

Kali was the goddess of destruction, Shiva’s wife, the embodiment of the idea that true life begins only with death.

It was an apt name for a weapon, and a perfect name for the missiles in Shiva’s forward tubes.

Admiral Balin looked again at the chart where their position had been plotted. Balin studied the map carefully; his target should lay just within the range of his weapons, though he still needed fresh coordinates to fire.

The Vikrant and her escorts would be twenty-four hours away. It was time.

Varja remained with the radio man, translating the coordinates received by the ELF. ELF—extremely-low-frequency—transmissions were, by technical necessity, brief, but this one did not need to contain much information—simply a set of coordinates and a time. With those few numbers, the device could be launched. Once fired, the weapon was on its own, relying first on its stored data to take it to the target area, then using its low-probability-of-intercept radar to take it the rest of the way. As their earlier tests had shown, as long as the target ship was within five miles when the radar activated, it would be hit.

“Precisely as the earlier coordinates predicted,” said Varja finally. “It is a good day, Admiral.”

Balin watched the crewman mark the map, then nodded.

“Launch in three minutes,” said Captain Varja, passing the word to the weapons controllers and the men in the torpedo room.

Aboard Iowa

1645

“Sharks Ears reporting possible contact,” said Rosen.

He gave Dog a set of coordinates almost due north, taking them rougly parallel to the Chinese carrier task force about forty miles away. And Australian container ship was plying the seas about ten miles ahead of them, going roughly in the direction of the carriers, though undoubtedly it would steer well clear as it approached.

As Iowa changed direction and waited for an update, another set of Sukhois came over to check them out. Unlike the earlier pilots, there jocks were cowboys, clicking on their gun radars at long range. The Tomcats riding shotgun for the Navy patrol plane further south didn’t particularly appreciate the gesture, though they maintained good discipline, staying in their escort pattern. They could afford to, knowing they could splash the Su-33’s in maybe ten seconds flat if that was what they decided to do; the Chinese planes were well within reach of their long-legged Phoenix missiles.

“Contact—I have—a launch—two launches,” said Rosen suddenly. “Shit—tracking—we have a cruise missile—two cruise missiles, breaking the surface. Fifty miles, bearing on nine-zero, exactly nine-zero.”

There was no time to consider whether the missiles were aimed at the Chinese carrier or the Australian ships; both were in range.

“Target Scorpions,” said Dog.

“Need you to cut, uh, need you at two-seventy,” said Rosen, giving Dog the turn they needed to launch their missiles. “Tracking One. Tracking Two. Okay, okay. No locks. Come on, baby.”

Dog pushed his stick to the left, riding the big plane hard. He nosed the plane down at the same time his hand reached for the throttle bar, picking up speed for the launch. The AMRAAM-pluses sat in their launchers near the wingtips, their brains seething for the targeting data.

“Okay—locked on Two!” said Rosen.

“Fire.”

“Launching. Launching. Two missiles away. Good read. Still looking for One. Still looking—can you cut twenty north—north, I need you north.”

Dog pushed the jet hard, following his copilot’s directions. Rosen gave another correction—they were almost out of time, the missile hunkering low against the waves, accelerating. Dog slid the stick back, his body practically jumping in the ejection seat to slap the Megafortress onto the proper bearing.

“Locked on One! Locked!”

“Fire,” said Dog softly.

The first Scorpion came off the wing with a thud so loud, Dog first thought there had been a malfunction, but it burst ahead a second later when the main rocket ignited, its nose rising briefly before settling down.

The Sukhois had rolled downward and were now five miles behind the Megafortress, closing fast.

The RWR blared.

“Flares,” Dog told Rosen calmly. “Hang on everyone.”

He threw the big plane onto its wing as the Chinese interceptors launched a volley of missiles. After seeing the Megafortress launch, they had incorrectly concluded it had fired on their ship.

“Two more Sukhois,” said Rosen as Dog whipped them into a seven-G turn. “Bearrrrrrrrring—”

Gravity slurred Rosen’s words as Dog whipped the plane back and then pushed the wing down, not merely changing direction, but dropping altitude dramatically. The Megafortress temporarily became more brick than aircraft, whipping toward the waves just barely under control. The two Russian-made heat-seekers sailed well over them; by the time they realized they’d missed their target and lit their proximity fuses, Dog had already wrestled Iowa level in the opposite direction. He was nose-on to one of the Sukhois and had he harbored any hostile intent—or a cannon in his nose—he could have waxed the Chinese pilot in a heartbeat. Instead, he merely pushed the throttle glide for more giddyyap. The Sukhoi shot below as Dog upward toward a stray bank of clouds, looking for temporary respite.

He hadn’t quite reached cover when the RWR announced there were radar missiles in the air. Rosen cranked the ECMs. They fired off chaff, and once more began jucking and jiving in the sky. The easily confused radar missiles sailed away harmlessly.

“Two is cooked! Splash cruise missile two,” said Rosen, somehow managed to keep track of his missile shots despite working the countermeasures.

“Where are the Sukhois?” asked Dog.

“Two are heading back to the carrier. Ditto the one that just launched the homers,” said Rosen, meaning the radar missiles. “Tomcats are sixty seconds away.”

Dog hit the radio. “Dreamland Iowa to Tomcat Top Flight—do not take hostile action. Stand off.”

“Missile three is terminal—missed, shit.” said Rosen.

Dog ran out of clouds and tucked toward the ocean, his altitude dropping through five thousand feet. A geyser shot up in the distance.

“Four is-is,” stuttered Rosen, eyes fixed on his targeting radar screen. “Four—yes! Grand slam! Grand slam! Got both those suckers!”

“Relax, Captain.” Dog swung his eyes around his instruments, getting his bearings quickly. The sitrep map showed the Tomcats are within twenty-five miles. There were two Sukhois directly over the Chinese carrier Shang-Ti. A flight of four, undoubtedly from the T’ien to the north, was coming down with afterburners lit.

“They’re looking for us,” said Rosen.

“ECMs.”

“I’m singing every tune I can think of,” said Rosen. The computer was jamming the Sukhois’ “Slotback” Phazotron N001 Zhuck radars, making it impossible for them to lock on the Megafortress, or anything else nearby, including the much more obvious Orion to the south.

As Dog banked, he turned his head toward the side windscreen, looking at the sea where the missiles had originated. “Tell our Chinese friend we just saved their butts.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Delaford, you have a line on the Indian submarine?”

“Not a specific location, but they’re definitely in range for Piranha. We’ll have tons of data on Kali now,” he added. “Very interesting.”

“No response from the Chinese,” said Rosen. “Helos launching—looks like one of the destroyers changing course.”

“I don’t see much sense launching Piranha now,” Dog told Delaford. “The Chinese will be throwing depth chares left and right.”

“By the time they get near the sub, it’ll be long gone,” said Delaford. “But I concur, Colonel. At this point I’d suggest we stand off and watch.”

Dog gave the lead Tomcat pilot a quick brief after being asked for a rundown.

“I’d prefer we didn’t have to shoot them down,” he added.

The Navy pilots didn’t respond.

“You got that, commander?” Dog added.

“Lightning Flight acknowledges transmission,” said the pilot. “With due respect, Colonel, it’s my call.”

“Listen, Captain, at this point, we do not need to escalate. Hold your fire unless the Chinese get aggressive.”

“Just because you have a fancy ol’ plane, doesn’t mean you’re king of the hill,” said the Tomcat jock.

“Set the ECMs to break their missiles if they fire,” Dog told Rosen over the interphone.

“The Chinese?”

“The Tomcats.”

“Yes, sir. Four helos now, coming out from the task force. Hold on here. Got some transmission.” Rosen listened a moment more, then laughed. “The Chinese are demanding we tell them were the Indian sub is.”

“Tell ’em damned if we know. Just like that.”

“Just like that?”

“Verbatim.” Dog switched his radio to the shared frequency again. This time talking to the Orion pilot. They decided to hold off dropping more buoys—no sense helping the Chinese any more than they already had.

In the background, Dog heard a transmission from one of the Tomcats pilots to another group of Navy fighters coming from the south: “Watch out for the cranky AF transport driver.”

Dog didn’t mind being called cranky. The slur on the Megafortress was hard to take, though.

“They’re damned lucky we’re out of Scorpions,” said Rosen, who’d flipped into the circuit just in time to hear the crack. “Show ’em cranky.”

Dog looked to the west at the slowly approaching storm. All things considered, it was probably better they hadn’t launched Piranha; tracking it through the storm would have been difficult.

“Can you get me a weather update?” he asked the copilot.

“Worse and worser,” replied Rosen before proceeding to retrieve the more official version—which used a few more words to say the same thing.

“Plot a course back for the Philippines,” Dog told him. “We’ll let the Navy guys take if from here.”

“Sure you don’t want to shoot down one of the Tomcats before we go?” joked Rosen.

“Very tempting, Captain,” said Dog, starting to track south.

Aboard the trawler Gui in the South China Sea

1715

It happened Chen Lo Fann was staring at a map showing the respective positions of the Chinese and Indian fleets when the message came that Americans had shot down the Indian missiles before they could strike the carrier. He read the note calmly, then nodded to dismiss the messenger. He resisted the impulse to go to the radio; there would be no further details, or at least none of any import. Instead, he locked the door to his cabin, then sat cross-legged on the deck in front of the large map.

It was undoubtedly the first time he had sat on the floor of a cabin since he was young man, and probably the first time he had done so when not playing dice. He could feel the ship here, and through it, the sea, the endless energy of the complicated sea.

Perhaps the information was incorrect or incomplete. He needed more. The Dragon ship was still too far off; he had to rely on his network.

He stared at his map, eyes blurring. The coldness of the ocean seemed to come up through the deck, though he was a good distance from the water.

While his men gathered their information, he could only wait.

Chapter 5

Death in the family

Philippines

August 26, 1997, 0718 local

When Jennifer Gleason finally managed to unfold herself from the jump seat on the C-17’s flight deck, her legs felt if they had been stapled together. Her stomach and throat had changed places; and even her eyes were giving her trouble. Jennifer was a veteran flier, had been in the Megafortress during combat, and survived a disabling laser hit, but this was by far the worse flight she had ever endured.

It wasn’t just uncomfortable fold-down seat or the turbulent air. She’d spent the entire flight worried about Colonel Bastian; a vague uneasiness, indefinable. It was new to her; she’d never really had anyone to worry about before, not like this. None of her other boyfriends—the term seemed ridiculous applied to Tecumseh, who was anything but a boy—had aroused such emotions. Until Tecumseh—she hated calling him Dog—Jennifer had been organized and specific about her thoughts and emotions. Now her head fluttered back and forth, and her body hurt like hell.

Outside, the rain had stopped; the wet leaves glistened in the morning light. The base had been taken over by the Navy—there were several large patrol aircraft parked in front of two Megafortresses, along with a pair of F/A-18’s and a blue Navy helicopter. Three or four bulldozers were revving nearby, assisting a construction crew to erect a hangar area.

Colonel Bastian was waiting for Jennifer at the Whiplash command post. So was most of the Dreamland contingent, and a few Navy officers besides, so she had to confine her greeting to a very proper “Sir.”

“Jennifer, we’ve been waiting for you,” said the colonel. “Or rather, your equipment.”

She snickered at the unintended double entendre, but it went right by Dog and the others. He introduced two Navy officers as liaisons with the fleet, informing Jennifer they had clearance for Piranha.

“If you can give us a quick timetable,” he added in his deep voice. She had trouble turning her mind back to the project, and the reason she’d come.

“It’s straightforward. First up, we get the control gear into the planes. By tomorrow night we should have two new probes. Beyond that, there are some tests and fixes I’d like to try. Oh, and I have a fix, no, not a fix, just a tweak, on the wake detectors—I’ll put that in first. Shouldn’t take too long; it’s a software thing.”

“So how sensitive is the passive sonar?” asked one of the Navy people.

“Good enough to follow submarines of the Trafalgar type at twenty miles. I have the diffusion rates, all the technical data here.”

The officer had obviously asked the question to see how much she knew, and Jennifer, not so subtly, called his bluff, reaching into her knapsack for her laptop.

“We’ve had a few problems with the amplitude when the temperatures shifts quickly, such as when you go into a different thermal layer. We think it’s hardware, though I’ve tried two different versions of the chip circuitry and had the same results, so I’m not sure. Here—maybe you have some ideas. Look at the sines, that’s where it’s obvious.”

She started to unfold the laptop. The intel officer had turned purple. Delaford rescued him.

“I think for now we better just stay focused on equipping the other planes,” he said.

Jennifer gave the other man an overly fake smile and packed the laptop away.

“How long to install?” Zen asked.

“Three hours per plane,” she told him. She took a long strand of hair and began twisting it, thinking. “We’re going to route the com units through the Flighthawk backup gear and use the panels for the display. We didn’t have time to actually test it, but I think it’ll work.”

Dog wanted to grab her, just jump her right there—it was as blatant as that, raw, an overwhelming animal urge. His eyes bored into the side of her head; she hadn’t looked at him after coming in, probably because she felt the same way.

“All right. We need a fresh weather report. Storm should almost be out of the tracking area, which will make our job easier, at least until the next one comes through. They were talking about a twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour window, which means one full rotation. Then, the probe goes home.” Dog resisted the urge to pace—there simply wasn’t room in the small trailer. “Our Navy friends have worked on some idea about where some of targets may be located. We’re going to work with a group of P-3’s flying at a very long range on the west side of the Chinese battle group, from here over to the Vietnamese coast.”

Dog’s hand slid across a massive area of ocean as dismissively as if it were a small parking lot.

“If we find something or get a good hint, we launch. Quicksilver is up next. They replace us on station in six hours. Raven comes on six hours later. If there’s no launch, Quicksilver still helps the Navy with patrols, but we’ll take the next shift. Bu sometime tomorrow, or maybe the next day, Kitty Hawk should be in the patrol area and that will change things. I’m not sure exactly what the admiral had in mind at that point.”

Dog’s lineup would mean at least twelve-hour shifts for the crews, with three or four hours prep, six hours on patrol, two or three hours to get back and debrief. No one complained—which didn’t surprise Dog in the least.

He glanced over at Jennifer. She was looking at him, squinting ever so slightly.

Of course she was looking at him. Everyone was.

Dog forced himself to nod, shifted his gaze to Fentress, and nodded again. When he turned toward Breanna, he saw she was frowning.

“Captain?” he asked her in surprise.

“Nothing.”

“Captail Williams will give us the latest on the Chinese and Indian forces,” Dog said, turning to the Navy officer. Williams had come from the G-2 section of Admiral Allen’s staff to facilitate intelligence sharing.

“The storm slowed down the progress of the task forces.” He pulled out a small manila folder and handed some papers around. Dog glanced down at his and saw it was actually a cartoon rendering of the situation—on one side of the South China Sea was Donald Duck, on the other Mickey Mouse, both posturing on top of the aircraft carriers.

“You draw this yourself?” said Zen, an obvious snicker in his voice.

“Just keeping things in perspective,” said Williams. He dished out another version—this one a detailed sketch based on the latest reports. “Probable area of the Indian submarine is that crosshatch just to the east-southeast of the lead Chinese carrier, which is where they launched from. They haven’t found it yet, at least as far as we know. Good submarine captain—and I think we have to assume this fellow’s at the top of the heap—would use this storm to skitter around, get a new location. The Chinese don’t have an all-weather ASW capability, not from the surface anyway, their submarines may be different story, but as you can see from the diagram, they’re still at best a day away from joining the aircraft carriers. Even then, frankly, their probability of intercepting the Indian boat is not going to break double digits.”

The Indian aircraft carrier had managed to link up with the cruisers and destroyers. If everyone steamed toward each other at flank speed, they could be firing at each other within twenty-four hours.

“More likely, they’ll just shadowbox,” said Williams. “Plenty of opportunity for you to get information about the submarines. Yesterday’s show of force by Iowa seems to have dampened some of the war fever; the diplomacy’s at high pitch.” Hoping to fire a diplomatic flare of his own toward the Dreamland contingent, Captain Williams added, “By the way, that’s a good name for a Megafortress. Her Navy namesake would be proud.”

The sailor handing the chow line in the mess tent saw Danny Freah approach. “More eggs, Captain? Be your third helping.”

“Problem with that?” said Danny lightly.

“No, sir,” said the Navy seaman, lifting the metal cover on the serving tray. “No, sir. Good to seem someone with a healthy appetite.”

“It’s good cooking, sailor,” said Danny, though truth was the eggs were rubbery at best. Most likely they were powdered or flash-frozen or whatever the hell they did to eggs these days. Still, he took another full helping, then went back to his table.

He was putting off talking to Colonel Bastian. He’d already put it off since last night, when he could have caught the colonel before he turned in. This morning he could have grabbed him before his briefing session. Danny could have—should have—interrupted him.

Powder was right about the girl. That was no reason, none at all, not to do his job. She wasn’t the same woman, and he wasn’t in the same situation.

But she didn’t present a threat, nor did her village. He knew that in his bones.

They couldn’t keep her in the med tent; he had to deal with her before Peterson went over his head, which he might already have done.

Or Stoner. The spook thought he was God, just about. Spy with attitude. He would get involved soon too.