Текст книги "Piranha"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Pacific Command had launched searches for the F-14 and a helicopter that had gone down in the storm. They were also looking for Indian and Chinese survivors as a goodwill gesture—a move interpreted by both sides as interference, if not spying, though they had taken no action to prevent it.

Admiral Woods had allocated two frigates and helicopters to the Megafortress search, and was detailing a P-3 as well, but the Navy had its hands full. Besides the three aircraft that had apparently been lost, two civilian ships had floundered in the storm. The only good news was the Navy had, at last, found its unaccounted-for submarine, safe and unharmed.

“How’s Zen?” Dog asked.

“We’ve expanded his search area,” said Meades. “He think they were farther south when they ejected, that the plane arches back northwards before it crashed. It’s possible.”

Dog nodded. The scientist began detailing the UMB’s performance—they were, after all, testing a new system, something that was easy to forget. The aircraft and sensor arrays were working fantastically.

“Fantastically,” repeated Meades. He trimmed the enthusiasm in his voice. “Though, of course, that’s small consolation.”

“It’s okay,” said Dog, going over to the communication desk. “Let me talk to Zen.”

The South China Sea

Date and time unknown

The surprise and agony burned in her brain.

Breanna had felt it before—Jeff in the hospital when he woke up.

Bright light filled her eyes. Her forehead and hair were crusted with salt. How long had she lain in the raft? How long had her arms, back, and legs soaked in the water?

To die like that.

God, why have you saved me and not my crew?

Water.

“Captain Stockard?”

Something blocked out the sun.

Jeffrey.

Stoner, it was Stoner.

“Are you okay? Captain Stockard? Breanna?”

His face was right next to hers as her eyes opened fully.

“I’m all right,” she said. “God.”

“We’re all right.”

She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. She’d held them back too long. She’d never let herself cry in Jeff’s room after his accident. She couldn’t cry now, even though she wanted to. She’d never be able to cry again.

“The sharks moved off. I shot a couple and they started eating each other. We’re okay.”

“Yeah,” she managed. “Peachy.”

Aboard Iowa

August 29, 1997, 1346 local (August 28, 1997, 2146 Dreamland)

Watching the optical feed from the mini-KH package in the UMB’s bay was like looking at a room through a strobe light. Zen’s head and upper body pitched slightly with each image, responding to the pulse like a dance moving to a beat. He stared at the images so long and so hard he found the radar, and even the video from the plane, disorienting. The computer could take care of everything else; he had to scan the images, examine each one, dance with the darkness between them.

“Dreamland Command to B-5. Zen, how are you doing?” asked Colonel Bastian over the Dreamland circuit.

“We’re on course.”

“Good.”

Bastian’s voice betrayed no emotion; he could have been asking if the garbage pickup had been made yet. Zen wanted to curse at him. Didn’t he feel anything for his daughter?

No one did. She was already dead as far as everyone else was concerned. He was just looking for bodies or debris.

But Zen knew she was there. He was going to find her.

“Keep us apprised,” said the colonel. “Dreamland Command out.”

Yeah, out.

Something tapped him on the shoulder. “You okay?” said Jennifer, leaning close and talking to him.

“Not a problem,” said Zen.

“Want something to eat? I smuggled in some cookies.”

Talking threw off his beat, and that made it harder to concentrate.

“No,” he said, willing his eyes back to the task. He pushed forward harder, scanning the emptiness below him.

This is what God sees, someone had told him once. It was an orientation flight in the backseat of an SR-71. They were at eighty thousand feet, looking down at Dreamland on a clear day.

Picture, new picture.

Here was something in the right corner of his screen, the first thing he’d seen in fifteen minutes.

The rail of a ship.

The fantail of a ship.

A trawler, the radar was telling him, or rather the computer was interpreting the radar and telling him, in its synthesized voice.

He locked it out. He had to concentrate.

One of the Taiwanese spy ships.

“You’re getting the ship?” Jennifer asked over the interphone, back at her station. Even though they were physically next to each other, she couldn’t get the photo or radar feed until it was processed and recorded by C³, which took a little over five seconds. At that point, it was available to Dreamland as well.

“One of the Taiwanese ships,” said Zen. “Maybe they’re on to something.”

He was past them now, still pulsing over the empty sea. Picture, new picture. Picture, new picture.

“PacCom checking in,” said Jennifer a few minutes later.

Picture, new picture.

“Anything you want to ask them? Or give them a lead or something?”

picture, new picture.

“Zen?”

“No.”

Picture, new picture. He glanced down at the lower portion of his screen, reading the instruments—the fuel consumption was nudging a little higher than anticipated, but otherwise everything was in the green. He selected the forward video—nothing there, of course, since he was coming through sixty thousand feet—then went back to the routine.

Picture, new picture. Picture, new picture.

“Jeff, one of the Navy planes thinks it picked up a radio signal. We’re going to change our course and see if we can get over there,” said Major Alou. “It’s going to take us toward your search area. It’s about two hundred miles from our present position. So it’ll be a bit.”

Yes. Finally.

“Give me coordinates,” he said.

“I ill when we have them. we’re going very close to the Chinese fleet,” added Alou.

“Okay.” Zen reached to the console to pull up the mapping screen—he’d need to work out a new pattern with the team back at Dreamland, but he wanted a rough idea of it first. Just as his fingers hit the key sequence, something flickered at the right side of the picture.

“Dreamland is wondering about the performance of the number-two engine,” said Jennifer. “They’re worried about power going asymmetric.”

Asymmetric. Stinking scientists.

The map came up. Zen’s fingers fumbled—he wasn’t used to working these controls, couldn’t find the right sequence.

Picture, new picture.

“What should I tell them?” said Jennifer.

“We have a good location on that signal,” broke in Alou. “I’m going to turn you over—”

“Wait!” said Zen. He pushed up the visor and looked at the keyboard, finding the keys to bring the picture back up. “Everybody just give me a minute.”

South China Sea

Date and time unknown

As he leaned down toward her, something caught his attention. Stoner looked toward the horizon. There was something there—or he thought there was.

“Water,” she said.

He reached for the small metal bottle, gave it to her. She took half a gulp.

She was so beautiful.

“It’s almost empty,” she told him.

He nodded, took his own small sip, put it in his pants leg. “We have another,” he said.

“Where?”

Where? He didn’t see it.

She lifted up, looking.

It was gone. They must have lost it when the sharks attacked.

The radio was gone too. They had an empty water bottle and an empty gun.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “It’s okay—look.”

“What?”

He put his arms around her, then pointed toward the horizon.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look,” he said. Stoner put his head on her shoulder, pointing with his arm. His cheek brushed hers. “There,” he said.

Aboard Iowa

1353

The resolution of the optics in the UMB’s belly were rated good enough to focus on a one-meter object at an altitude of 22,300 miles, roughly the height necessary for a geosynchronous orbit. A number or variables affected that focus, however, and the designers at Dreamland had found it more expedient and meaningful in presentations to say that, at any altitude above twenty thousand feet, the camera array could see what a person with 20/10 vision could see across a good-sized room. The metaphor was both memorable and accurate, and often illustrated with the added example that a person with that vision could read the letters on a bracelet as she reached to embrace and kiss her lover.

Zen saw it as clearly as that.

The edge of a raft. A foot. A leg.

Then bodies entwined.

Their cheeks were together—had they just kissed?

“I have them,” he said, mouth dry. “Here are the coordinates.”

South China Sea

Date and time unknown

“Don’t,” said Breanna, in a soft, hoarse voice.

“No?”

She could feel his heart beating next to hers. Desire began to well inside her, pushing her toward him. She needed him, needed to feel his arms wrapping around her, feel his skin on her skin. She needed to feel him push against her, wrap her legs around his.

“No,” she said.

“It’s there,” Stoner told her. She couldn’t tell whether he meant the ship he’d seen, or his feelings for her, or his lips. Suddenly she had an urge to throw herself into the water, just dive in. she started to move upward. Perhaps sensing her thoughts, he grabbed her; she slid into his arms and then said “no” again, the pointed.

Now she saw it too, a ship.

“The flare gun,” she said.

“We don’t have it,” said Stoner. The words emptied his eyes.

She’d seen the same blankness in Zen’s face when he told her she’d known for weeks, that he couldn’t feel his legs and would never feel them again.

Jeffrey. Her desire raged and she reached toward him. A wave pushed her to his chest, but then pulled the boat back; she struggled to push up, to throw herself around him, but Stoner was steadying himself in a crouch at the edge of the raft, trying to stand, or at least squat, waving.

“Balance me,” he told her without looking, his voice a whisper. “On the other end.”

She went to do so.

“No, they’re not going to see us. Paddle, we’ll have to paddle,” he said.

“The sharks,” she said, her words barely a whisper in her own ears. Before she could repeat them louder, he had slipped into the water/

“Wave,” he said. “Shout.”

“The sharks.”

“Wave, jump, anything. Get their attention.”

Airborne over the South China Sea

1355

The idea came to Zen only after it was too late:

Block the transmission, kill the feed. No one will know.

It was absurd and murderous, and once it occurred to him he couldn’t forget it: anger, jealousy, and shame surging together. But it was too late, fortunately too late—Dreamland had the feed, the radar had a good lock, the GPS data was now being fed not just to Iowa’s flight deck but to the Whiplash Osprey.

Too late, thank God.

Zen took the UMB from the computer, altering the course and going over each move carefully with Dreamland. There was a minor problem in one of the engines.

The scientists wanted him to give back control, send the plane back to Dreamland.

Not yet. Not until the mission was complete.

He used the rocket, engine five, took the massive robot to 140,000 feet, setting up a ten-mile orbit. The computer cut the flight path into a perfect circle.

The Taiwanese trawler spotted earlier was headed in their general direction. Danny and his Osprey were about a half hour away. If it changed its course a little, the spy ship could reach them in fifteen minutes, maybe a little less.

“Dreamland Command, what do you think of giving the position to the trawler, see if they can pick them up?” said Zen.

“Zen, this is Bastian.

“Colonel.”

“Danny’s en route. The Chinese are tracking the trawler. We’re in contact with the Kitty Hawk on the eastern side of the Chinese fleet; one of the Hawkeyes is tracking the Chinese CAP. They think two planes from the carrier are vectoring toward that area. They’re a bit far away at the moment—”

“Hold on.” Zen went to the UMB’s native radar, bringing up the search-and-scan panel. Look-down mode was limited; the unit had been optimized for flight requirements and, at this altitude and distance, the Chinese planes didn’t show up.

“I’m going to have to take your word, because they’re not on my screen,” Zen told him. “Is it the CAP patrol?”

“Negative. They’re going out to that spy ship at a good clip, and very low,” said the colonel. “They may be armed with antiship missiles. Wait a second.”

The line went dead a second.

“Jeff, at their present course and speed they’re going to be on the Osprey as well. They should find her in about sixty seconds. Kitty Hawk is sending some Tomcats out there. They’re a good distance off, though.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks for the heads-up.”

Why had she kissed him? Why?

The South China Sea

Date and time unknown

The ship was bigger. Breanna thought her shouts were bringing it closer, but it was impossible to tell.

Stoner was starting to tire. He punctuated his kicks with rests on the side of the raft the grew longer and longer.

The sharks must be nearby still. They’d hear the splashes, come for him.

She couldn’t see that again.

“Help!” she shouted with her hoarse voice. “Hey! Hey!”

There was an airplane in the distance, a jet—two or three maybe.

A pair of gray hawks broke over the horizon, thundering between them and the ship.

F-14’s? Or Sukhois?

The two planes rode up, then banked toward the south.

“Hey!” she shouted again, though her voice was so hoarse it was barely louder than a whisper. “Here! Hey! Hey!”

Aboard Dreamland Osprey

1505

“We’re being challenged,” the pilot told Danny. “Pretty bad English.”

“What are they saying?”

“That we’re in protected airspace,” said the pilot.

“We’re being targeted,” said the copilot. “Trying to spike us, the bastards.”

“Shit,” said Danny.

“They’re just trying to scare us,” said the pilot.

“They’re doing a decent job,” said the copilot.

“Tell them we’re going to pick up survivors and split,” Danny said.

“I have twice,” said the pilot. “Here they come. Everybody hold on, it’s going to be close.”

Aboard Iowa

1509

As soon as Zen heard Danny tell Dog what was going on over the Dreamland circuit, he tucked his wing and plunged toward the sea. It was a mistake, a serious mistake—he wasn’t flying a Flighthawk, and the B-5 flipped awkwardly through a roll and then headed straight downward, speed increasing quickly. An alert sounded and Fichera back at Dreamland said something in his ear about letting the computer’s emergency protocol take over. Zen ignored the scientist and the computer; he held the stick gently, letting the plane’s aerodynamics assert themselves. the nose began to lift, and not the trick was to control it, not muscling it down, or shoving it around the way he would push the small Flighthawk, but gracefully, the way you rode an overemotional show horse.

The plane slid into a turn that recorded nine Gs against the fuselage. He took a slow breath, trying to hold his instinct back, trying to baby the hurtling, accelerating mass into a controlled flight path.

Flying the UMB was more thought and perseverance than muscle. Flying was always that for him now, without muscles in his legs, without his legs at all.

Without love either, it seemed.

The idea made him hesitate. He had the Sukhois now on the video; they’d turned south to intercept the Osprey. Zen tightened his hand around the joystick. He was at eighty thousand feet, still descending, coming through seventy-nine, seventy-eight, seventy-seven—the ladder rolled downward at a steady pace now, more controlled.

The video feed from B-5’s nose showed the Osprey at his far right, moving so slowly by comparison it seemed to be standing still on the water.

The Sukhois were on his left, not standing still—530 knots, according to the information synthesized by the computer. They were positioned to flash by, turn, run up the back of the Osprey.

I thought these bastards were going after the ship, for cryin’ out loud.

He wouldn’t reach them in time—he was still a good sixty seconds away.

He had to move faster. Engine five, the rocket motor?

Too much, too hard to control.

He needed the scramjets now.

“Computer, Engines three and four. Accelerate.”

“Engines are locked off until Flight Stage Three,” responded the plane.

“Computer, initiate Flight Stage Three.”

“Parameters are incorrect.”

“Override, damn it.”

“Authorization code required.”

“Authorization Zed-Zed-Zed,” said Zen.

The Sukhois had flown past the Osprey and were now turning.

“Active engines three and four. Accelerate to marked intercept at fastest possible speed.”

It was a bit too much. A half-second after the computer acknowledged, the jet whipped forward. He started to turn and managed to shoot between the Sukhois and their target at Mach 2.3, dipping up and then flying between the two planes. His separation from the first plane was less than fifty feet—hair-raisingly close, though it had no effect on the UMB.

Probably, the Sukhois hit their afterburners. Probably, they tried to pursue. Probably, the pilots would have to spend personal time with the dry cleaner.

By the time they got themselves sorted out, Zen had rocketed up past twenty thousand feet and started back in the other direction.

“Engine three and four at specified parameters,” reported the computer. It sounded as if it were chortling. “Phase Three test complete. Preparing for Phase Four.”

“Computer, cancel Phase Four. Authorization Zed-Zed-Zed.”

“Canceled.”

“Hey,” said Danny Freah over the Dreamland circuit. “We’re clear. Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

“Ten minutes to that raft—we don’t quite see it yet.”

“They’re all yours,” Zen told him.

South China Sea

1515

The ship had stopped coming toward them. Even the Sukhois were gone. They were alone, as good as dead.

Bree sank to the bottom of the raft. Stoner had his arms draped over it, his head resting on the side.

Zen, she thought, I love you, baby. I love you. Why aren’t you here?

The sun flickered in her face.

If she’d lived, they would have had a kid. They should have. It wouldn’t be easy, would not have been easy, but they should have.

She felt bad for that. Jeffrey would have been good with a kid.

“Shit,” said Stoner softly.

The sharks, she though. Oh God.

She jumped up to help him, cringing.

But it wasn’t the sharks. There was another plane in the distance, to the south.

It moved too slowly to be a Sukhoi. It had propellers. It was loud.

It was an Osprey.

It was an Osprey!

Aboard Dreamland Osprey

1520

Danny and Bison had stripped to their wet suits and waited by the door.

“You ready?” Danny asked the crew chief.

“Born ready, Cap.” The sergeant put his hand to his earphone. They had to be careful about getting too close to the small raft. The downdraft from the big rotos could be fierce. Danny and Bison would jump out with life jackets and a Dreamland-designed inflatable collar to add to the raft’s stability before the MV-22 moved in for a pickup.

“Here we go!” said the sergeant.

As they cruised parallel to the raft at low speed, Danny stepped off the aircraft, walking out as if walking off a board at the swimming pool. He felt his knees knock together as his feet impacted the water; his joints twinged a second, but then fell away. The water was cold—very, very cold. He pumped hard toward the raft, waiting for the surge of blood and adrenaline to warm him.

Bison got there a stroke ahead of him. The Whiplash trooper pushed Stoner into the raft, threw one of the preservers over his head.

“Here!” Danny yelled to Breanna as he reached the side. “Hey! Take the life preserver! Take it!”

Her face looked as if it had been pounded with a baseball bat. Her fingers were swollen and puffy. Danny pushed himself into the small boat, wrapped the preserver around her.

“We’re going home. We’re taking you back.”

Aboard Iowa

1535

Zen watched the Osprey come in as he climbed back—picture, next picture. It approached, it started to hover, someone was leaning from the door, a line was down, she was okay, she was okay.

He floated out over her, happy she was okay. He reached toward her but she was gone, the Osprey veering off.

“Jeff, we have that radio—it’s a PRC beacon,” said Major Alou.

“Roger that. I need the coordinates.”

“Dreamland has them. They’re plugged in. Thank God Bree’s alive.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Roger that,” he said.

South China Sea

1540

Danny stumbled as he got into the Osprey, falling against Pretty Boy, who was helping one of the Marines wrap a blanket around Stoner. The other two Marines were stooped over Hernandez, who was kneeling over Breanna on the floor. The two rescuees had to be treated for shock and dehydration as well as wounds. Every member of Whiplash was trained in emergency medical care, and his two men were moving promptly and competently to treat the pair. Danny couldn’t help thinking of Liu, who nickname “Nurse” had earned several times over.

“Captain, we think we got another one,” said the crew chief.

“Where?” Danny asked.

“Pilots wants to talk to you.” The chief pointed him toward the bulkhead separating the flight deck and the cabin area. Danny leaned between the two pilots, who were just completing a circle to make sure there were no other survivors in the area.

“Here’s the deal,” said the copilot. “Beacon off a survival radio about a hundred miles east of here. Top speed, we can make it in roughly twelve minutes. Means we’ll have to tank on the way home, but we got a KC-10 en route with all the stops pulled out, so we think we can do it.”

“Well, let’s go,” said Danny.

The copilot looked across at the pilot.

“It’s right near the Chinese task group,” said the pilot. “And I mean right near.”

“Well, let’s get the fuck over there,” said Danny.

“That’s what we say,” said the copilot. “Navy has its own package en route with Tomcats and Hornets as escorts, but even with all the stops out, their helos are a good half hour off, if not more. Escorts’ll have to stay with them, pretty much.”

“Screw ’em.”

The pilots answered by mashing the throttle to max.

Dreamland Command

August 28, 1997, 0050 local (August 29, 1997, 1550 Philippines)

Thirty seconds after the Dreamland Osprey told Dog they were headed to the new location, Admiral Woods’s voice came over the line. The screen remained blank.

“Bastian, we understand you have another beacon.”

“Yes, we do,” Dog told him. “My Osprey is en route.”

“It is? I thought they were on another rescue.”

“They’ve completed that.”

“I see. I’m told we have a package on its way already.”

“It’s likely we’ll get there first,” said Dog.

“We’ll coordinate. Very clever using another aircraft,” added the admiral.

It was impossible to know how he meant that—was he mad that Dog had sent another airplane into “his” territory? It could be interpreted as going against orders.

“The platform was scheduled to be tested,” said Dog.

“Yes,” said Woods. “Good recovery. Lets’ work together on this next pickup.”

“We have been.”

“Good.”

The line snapped clear.

Aboard Shiva in the South China Sea

1612

The temptation was overwhelming. The Chinese destroyer was no just within his range; he could get his torpedoes off before they had time to spot him, but they had heard other contacts in the distance. Admiral Balin was determined to see what other targets the gods were presenting.

“Sonar Contact One is changing course,” relayed the sonar room, referring to the destroyer. They gave a distance and a bearing. It was heading roughly across their path, bit not quite on a direct course.

Attack now and destroy it? Or let it pass and hope for a juicer target?

“Other contacts?” asked Balin.

“Negative,” came the reply. They were using only their passive sonar.

“Periscope.”

If the destroyer attacked, they would lose their easy shot, and perhaps not get another one.

If a better target was nearby, though, he would not forgive himself.

Greed?

“Active sonar,” decided Balin. “Prepare torpedoes to fire.”

Twenty seconds alter, the sonar room reported a large contact two miles beyond the destroyer.

“What is it?” asked Captain Varja.

“Unknown,” was the answer. “Large, very large.”

“Direct our course for it,” Balin told Varja.

“The destroyer is changing course. They’re heading for us.”

“Target the largest contact,” said Balin.

“It is a good day,” said Varja.

“Yes,” said Balin.

Aboard Dreamland Osprey

1616

“We have a destroyer bearing down on the marker,” Iowa copilot told Danny over the Dreamland circuit.

“Yeah, we got him on long-distance radar,” Danny replied. “We’re still a good five minutes away.”

“I have the raft,” said Zen. “Somebody’s in it. One person.”

“Understood,” replied Danny. “How close is the destroyer?”

“Two hundred yards. Shit,” yelled Zen. “They’re firing at them!”

Aboard Shiva in the South China Sea

1620

The first depth charge exploded well off the port side. The second and third were even farther. As the sub shook ever so slightly form the fourth, the sonar room reported the large contact was slowing, probably to turn. It was now less than two and a half miles away.

“Is it the carrier,” answered Varja.

“Prepare to fire.”

The submarine rocked with a fresh explosion. The lights blinked off; it took a second for the systems and the crew to recover.

“We have severe damage—we’ve lost control of the diving planes,” said Varja as the reports came in. “Ballast tanks blown—we’re surfacing.”

“Keep us down.”

“We’re trying, Admiral.”

Varja said nothing else, but it was obvious what he meant to tell the admiral—they were no longer in position to fire. The ASW weapons had jammed the hydroplanes upward and mangled the controls on the ballast tanks, robbing them of their ability to maneuver below the water. “Surface,” said Balin, accepting the inevitable. “Then we will fire.”

Aboard the Dreamland Osprey

1622

“Hey, Captain! Navy’s found something south of us,” reported the Osprey crew chief as Danny and Bison hunkered by the door. “The helo that was coming north for this raft, backing us up—they just spotted some wreckage. They think they may have a body.”

“A body or a person?” asked Danny.

“They said body, sir. They’re checking it out. They want to know if we need them, or if they can concentrate on that.”

“Yeah, release ’em,” shouted Danny. “What about the Hornets?”

“Inbound.”

“Chinese answer the hails?”

“No, don’t worry. The F/A-18’s’ll nail the bastards.”

Danny didn’t answer. They were still a good two minutes off; he couldn’t see the Chinese ships from where he was standing.

Bastards—he’d strangle each one of them personally.

Bison looked at him across the doorway. If the Chinese were shooting at unarmed men in a raft, they’d sure as hell fire at the Osprey. But there was no way he was stopping now.

Bastards!

Aboard Iowa

1624

If the Hornets didn’t take out the destroyers, Zen decided, he’d crash the stinking UMB into it. Let them court-martial him—shit, he’d willingly spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth or wherever the hell they sent him.

Might just as well now. Breanna didn’t love him.

God, Bree.

Picture, new picture.

The gun on the side of the destroyer fired again. As it did, the sea exploded beyond it.

Bastards couldn’t hit the side of a barn, thank God.

The fact that they were terrible shots wasn’t going to get them off. Bastards. What the hell kind of people were they?

Picture, new picture.

A ridge erupted in the sea at the far end of his screen, behind the destroyer.

Picture, new picture.

Zen hit the resolution, backing off for a wider shot. There was another ship, a cruiser beyond the destroyer.

Picture, new picture.

It took the computer three more shots to get the focus right. By then, the ridge that had appeared was on the surface of the water.

A submarine.

The Chinese weren’t attacking the raft at all—they were going after a sub.

Aboard Shiva in the South China Sea

1625

As he reached the bridge, Admiral Balin saw his crew had been mistaken—the large contact was a cruiser, not the carrier.

It mattered little. The submarine sat cockeyed in the water, heeling over to the left. They were an easy target.

A shell splashed into the water a hundred yards away.

“They destroyer will hit us eventually,” said Varja behind him.

Balin gripped the small rail before him and took a long deep breath. The sun shone down strong upon him, the sea barely swelled, the air had a fine salty mist.

Would he remember this in his next life?

The cruiser was at 3,300 meters—not optimum, but acceptable, given the circumstances. His shot was dead-on.

“Fire torpedoes,” he said, as the next shell from the destroyer’s deck gun landed twenty yards away.

It took perhaps five seconds for the order to be carried out. In those seconds Balin felt every failure and mistake of his life rise in his chest, pounding like a thousand iron fists on his frail frame. But as the first torpedo left the boat, the regrets dissolved. He took a deep breath, felt the sea in his lungs. It was as sweet and heavy as the first breath he’d ever taken at sea. He turned his head upward, and in the last half-second of his life saw the approaching shell descending toward his vessel’s hull.

Aboard Dreamland Osprey

1626

They didn’t have time to finesse this approach. The Osprey banked low and slow. Danny jumped, so anxious he didn’t tuck his legs right before hitting the water. He shook off the shock and, without bothering to check for Bison, began stroking toward the raft, which bobbed about thirty yards away.

There were explosions nearby. The Chinese were firing, but not in his direction. They weren’t interested in the raft, or the Osprey.

When he was five yards from the raft, it ducked downward as if pulled toward the depths. Danny took a breath and prepared to dive after it, then saw it bob back up with Bison at its side. With one hard overhand stroke he reached it, grabbing the side with both hand and pulling his body over it.

“Dead,” Bison told him.

“Shit,” said Danny.

“Dolk,” added Bison, turning the prostrate body over. “I don’t see any wounds. Might’ve been internal injuries. Hey—” A plastic container slipped to the bottom of the raft; it was attached via a chain to Torbin’s wrist.

“Those are discs from the mission,” said Danny. “Security protocol is to take ’em out if you go. He did his job to the end.”

He saw Dolk’s radio near the dead man’s foot.

The Osprey was approaching, its hoist line draping into the water.

“Sucks,” said Bison, fitting a life preserver around the dead man’s torso.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “Big-time.”