Текст книги "Retribution"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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The Mirages were in two groups, two planes apiece.

Sparks had Micelli target the lead plane in the first group, hoping that with their leader gone, the others would lose heart, or at least hesitate enough for them to get away.

“Trouble locking—IFF says it’s a civilian.”

“Override the bitch.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Override and lock.”

“I’m working on it, Sparks,” said Micelli. He finally got the lock and fired.

The ground radar operator reported a contact moving on a highway twenty-five miles ahead of the Ospreys. Sparks had Cowboy check on it.

The cacophony continued. They’d trained for encounters like this, but the real thing was twenty times as draining and as confusing as the simulations. Even his crew of wiseasses was showing the strain.

“New bogey—unidentified plane thirty miles from Angry Bear,” said Cheech. “Designated Bogey Seven.”

“Where’d that come from?” said Sparks.

“Thirty-five thousand feet—looks like it’s one of the ones that came off from Jamnagar.”

“Tell the Navy flight.”

“They’re too far away to intercept,” said the radar officer.

“They’re on a pair of MiGs.”

“ID the plane.”

“Working on it. Bogey Seven is in range to fire radar missiles.”

“Missile one is terminal,” said Micelli. “Locked on the lead Mirage.”

“No ident from Bogey Seven,” reported Cheech.

“Query the mother again. Micelli—get him on the radio.”

“Roger that,” said Cheech. “Bogey Seven is twenty miles RETRIBUTION

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from Angry Bear. Direct intercept. Turning—looks like they’re moving to get behind them. Shit. Fifteen miles.”

“No reply,” said Micelli after trying to hail Bogey Seven.

“Micelli—lock on Bogey Seven and fire.”

“Do we have an ID?”

“Bogey Seven closing!” said Cheech.

“Flighthawk leader, leave the ground gun and get between the Ospreys and bogey.”

“He’s too far. I won’t make it.”

“Micelli—lock on the mother and fire!” Sparks hit the radio. “Angry Bear, you have a bogey coming at your tail. Get as low as you can go.”

“Can’t lock. The IFF module—”

“Shoot the damn thing in bore sight if you have to,” said Sparks. “Nail that mother now.”

“Override. Locked. Foxfire One.”

The missile shot away from the Megafortress. As it did, the missile fired at the lead Mirage hit home.

“Splash Mirage,” said Micelli, his voice drained.

“Mirages are turning away,” said Cheech.

“Anaconda is terminal.”

“Lightning Flight to Dreamland Cheli. You read us?”

asked a Navy unit.

“Roger, Lightning Flight,” said Sparks.

“We’re coming for you,” said the leader of Lightning Flight, a group of four F-14s dispatched from the Lincoln.

“Rest easy.”

“Screw him,” said Micelli.

“Not today,” muttered Sparks. He clicked the radio transmit button. “Stand by, Lightning Flight.”

“Splash bogey,” said Micelli. “Bogey is down. The way is clear.”

“Angry Bear, your nose is clean,” said Sparks. He told the Marine pilot about the F-14s and had him contact them. “Did we get an ID on that plane?” he asked Micelli when he was done.

“Negative.”

“Cheech?”

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“It was one of the MiGs, I think.”

“All right. We’ll sort it out later. Let’s make sure these guys hook up with the Tomcats so we can home.”

Aboard Marine Osprey Angry Bear One, over northern India

0518

DANNY FREAH LEANED OVER THE BACK OF THE COPILOT’S

seat, trying to get a better view of the source of the smoke as they approached.

“Got to be the gun the Flighthawk smoked,” said the copilot.

There was way too much smoke, thought Danny. He pulled down his visor and put it on maximum magnification, zooming in on the black cloud. The first thing he saw was a large flat piece of metal. Beyond it, red flames and a roiling cloud of smoke furled from a long tube.

A fuselage. He was looking at the wreckage of an aircraft.

“One of the MiGs,” said Danny, but almost immediately he realized he was wrong. The fuselage was too long, out of proportion to the tailfin for a fighter. Then he saw a large aircraft engine sitting off to the side.

He hesitated, then reached for the control on the smart helmet to record the image.

“Path is clear to the Lincoln, ” said the pilot. “We’ll drop our injured and get over to the Poughkeepsie with the warhead.”

“Good,” said Danny. “Good.”

Northeastern Pakistan

0521

GENERAL SATTARI WATCHED AS ABTIN FARS TOOK A LONG, deep breath, then bowed his head and said a silent prayer before reaching to connect the wire with the trigger device he had devised. To a layman, at least, the device seemed almost RETRIBUTION

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overly simplistic. There was a small digital clock, two different types of very small watch batteries, and a three-inch board containing a few diodes and two small capacitors.

Sattari took his own deep breath as Abtin reached into the bomb assembly.

The engineer jerked backward. Sattari reflexively shut his eyes, expecting the inevitable.

“OK,” said Abtin after a few moments passed. “OK.”

The general found he had trouble catching his breath. “It will work?” he asked when he did.

“It should. I cannot make any guarantees. Let me solder the connections.”

Sattari bent over the device.

“Please, General,” said Abtin. “If you don’t mind, having someone looking over my shoulder makes me nervous. Inspect the work when I am done.”

“Of course,” said Sattari, backing away. “Of course.”

An atoll off the Indian Coast

Time and date unknown

EVERYTHING HURT. EVERYTHING.

Breanna’s heart thumped against the ground.

“Oh,” she said.

Pushing the word from her mouth took supreme effort.

She tried to say something else but was too exhausted.

“Oh,” she managed finally. “Oh. Oh.”

Aboard Dreamland Quickmover,

over the Indian Ocean

0530

“WE GOT IT, COLONEL. A DEFINITE LOCATION.”

Dog flattened the folds out of the paper map, translating the GPS coordinates to the grid. Zen and Breanna were on an 344

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

unmarked island northeast of the Chebaniani Reefs, about seventy-five miles from the mainland and roughly parallel to Magalore—farther south than even he had thought. According to the map, there was no land there, just sea; the nearest marked island was about three miles away.

But they were definitely there. Disoriented, barely able to talk, and clearly thirsty and hungry, but there.

“Dreamland Quickmover to the Abner Read,” said Dog, contacting Storm with the information. He spoke to Eyes first, then Storm.

“There’s nothing there on the chart, Bastian,” said the ship captain. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

“It’ll take us three hours to get there. We’ll have the Werewolf over as quickly as possible.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Is your daughter all right?”

“She’s there. They’re both there. What kind of shape they’re in, I’m not sure.”

After a moment Storm replied, “I hope she’s OK.”

“Me too.”

An atoll off the Indian Coast

Time and date unknown

THE SOUND WAS SO FOREIGN HE COULDN’T PROCESS IT, almost couldn’t hear it.

A moan, soft, long, plaintive …

Breanna, talking to him from the grave.

Calling for him.

“Jeff. Jeffrey. Zen. Where are you, Jeff?”

It was so far away, so injured, so lonely, he couldn’t stand it. A buzz descended from above, a cloud of hums as if angels were surrounding him. The air vibrated with a cold, parching dryness.

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Is this what death was like? Or was it just loss, empty of all hope?

“Jeff. Jeff. Where are you?”

“I’m here,” he said. And the spell broke, and he turned and pushed himself back to the tent, where for the first time in days—for the first time ever it seemed like—Breanna’s eyes were wide open.

“Hey.”

He twisted his head down and kissed her, pressing his lips to her face, then pausing as the flesh touched, afraid that the pressure would hurt her—or worse, that the kiss would shat-ter an illusion and he would find she wasn’t here, wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t softly moaning for help.

He pulled back, eyes closed as they always were when they kissed. Fear overwhelmed him, choked out his breath.

Zen shook his head and forced his eyes open, forced himself to face the inevitable mirage.

“Jeff. Everything hurts,” she said.

It was real, not a mirage, not a dream, not death or hopelessness, but life—she was alive.

He pushed in and kissed her again, happy beyond belief.

IX

Payments Due

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

0600, 19 January 1998

EVEN THE MOST AVARICIOUS OF MEN HAD LIMITS, MORAL

lines they would not cross for any amount of gold. So General Sattari was not terribly shocked when he found that Abul Amin, the Egyptian whom he had contracted with in Rawalpindi, balked when he saw the shape of the cargo that was to be loaded into the Airbus 310. Sattari countered the man’s frown with one of his own, then suggested they discuss the matter in a corner of the nearby hangar while his men proceeded.

“No, you must stop,” said the Egyptian in his heavily accented English. “I cannot allow my plane to make such a transport. If the Americans found out—”

“Why do you think that the Americans don’t know?”

asked Sattari. “Come, let us discuss the matter and make sure our payments are arranged. Then a pot of tea.”

More confused than mollified, the Egyptian began walking with Sattari toward his small office inside the hangar.

The Egyptian employed a single bodyguard, who stepped out from near the door and glanced nervously at his boss. Abul Amin shook his head slightly, and the man stepped back into the shadows.

That was the problem with people like him, who made their living in the shadow of the law. They were too trusting of others they thought were corrupt.

Most of the Egyptian’s money came from transporting em-bargoed spare parts for oil equipment, with the occasional 350

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military item thrown in as an extra bonus. He would be hired to pick them up from a country on decent terms with the West, like Pakistan, and fly them to a place such as Iran, where the international community had prohibited their direct sale. Amin had been doing this for so long that he’d come to believe not so much that it was legal, but that there was only minimal danger involved, that he did not have to be on his guard when with someone like Sattari—for whom he had transported everything from circuit boards for F-4 Phantom jets to Western-style blue jeans over the years.

Sattari’s greatest difficulty was waiting for the right moment to pull his pistol from his pocket. He waited until Amin had sat down at his desk, then took out the pistol and shot him twice in the head.

Amin fell backward, his skull smacking against the Sheet-rock wall and leaving a thick splatter of very red blood as he slumped to the floor.

Sattari aimed his gun at the door, expecting the bodyguard to respond. After waiting a full minute, he went calmly to the door, pushed it open and waited again.

His own bodyguards would be in the hangar by now, but he hadn’t heard more gunfire and didn’t want to take a chance.

A few seconds passed, then a few more; finally there was a shout from outside.

“General?”

“It’s OK, Habib,” he said. “Where is the bodyguard?”

“He ran as soon as the door was closed,” said Habib Kerman, appearing at the door. “We let him go. It seemed wiser.”

“Very good, nephew. We need to be ready to take off very quickly. There is a long night ahead, and I have not yet arranged the refueling.”

“Yes, General.”

Sattari smiled, then reached over to turn off the office light.

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Aboard the Abner Read,

Indian Ocean

0610

THE ATOLL WAS ONLY VISIBLE ON THE HIGHEST DETAIL SATELlite images in the Abner Read’s library, and then it appeared as little more than a squiggle on the ocean. The small rock was completely barren; its vegetation appeared to consist largely of moss.

“I want the Werewolf there. Now,” Storm told Eyes. “I want these Dreamlanders rescued.”

“Aye aye, Captain. We’re moving as expeditiously as possible.”

“Don’t move expeditiously—move quickly!”

Storm grinned to himself. He was better, back in control.

Woods and the others weren’t going to win.

Turning from his holographic chart table, he looked out the “windshield” at the front of the Abner Read’s bridge.

Specially tinted and coated with radar-absorbent material, the view through the glass was one of the few things about the Abner Read that Storm did not like; the material made it difficult to use his binoculars. And unlike the younger members of the crew—though he would never admit that age had anything to do with it—he did not entirely trust the long-range images provided by the video cameras. So after checking with the helmsman to make sure they were on course and making the best speed possible—“Faster would be better,”

he commented—Storm stepped out onto the flying bridge and brought his binoculars to his eyes.

Nothing but sea before him, and a high sky as well. The sun bloomed to the east, announcing a glorious day.

“Storm, looks like there’s an Indian destroyer on the move from the north, running in the general direction of the atoll,”

said Eyes, breaking into the captain’s brief reverie. “Ex-Soviet Kashin-class ship. Looks like it may be the Rana. The Werewolf ’s radar picked it up. You want to go to active radar?”

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“Negative,” said Storm. “The fox doesn’t let the hen know it’s in the barnyard. Plot its position. I’ll be back with you in a moment.”

An atoll off the Indian Coast

Time and date unknown

ZEN CUPPED HIS HANDS BELOW BREANNA’S LIPS, THEN

tilted the small canteen so the water would flow. He had to tilt it more than he’d expected—the water was nearly gone.

“Oh,” said Breanna as it touched her lips. “Oh.”

She sucked at it, then started to cough. Zen stopped pouring, waiting patiently for her to regain her breath. She shook her head, and he took the water away.

“How long?” she asked.

“Days.”

“How did we get here?”

“We drifted. I don’t know how I found you. God, I guess.”

“Yeah.” She started to move, as if she wanted to stand up.

“No, no, stay down.”

“No, I gotta move.” She stirred, pushed herself, then stopped with a groan. “Oh, my legs are killing me.”

“Mine too,” said Zen.

“Yours?”

“Phantom pain. We’re going to be OK,” he told her. “I just talked to Dog—they’re circling above us.”

“Oh,” said Breanna.

She struggled to get up again. This time Zen helped and she managed to sit.

“I think this leg is broken,” she said, pushing her right leg.

“It really hurts. And the knee is twisted.”

Something caught her eye.

“What’s that?” she said, looking toward the beach.

Zen turned. It was the Bart Simpson kid. He had a bottle of water in his hands and he was walking slowly up the rocks.

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“Bart Simpson,” said Zen. He waved at the boy. The boy, staring curiously at Breanna, waved back.

“He loves Bart Simpson,” he explained to Breanna. “He must see it on TV. He thinks we know him.”

“Does the kid live here?”

Zen explained that they were on a barren island but that the boy and his friends seemed to live on another island a few miles away. The kid, meanwhile, stopped a few feet from Zen and held out the water bottle.

Zen took it.

“We probably should boil it or something,” said Breanna.

“I’m really thirsty,” he said. But he didn’t open the bottle.

“I think I hear something,” said Breanna.

Zen held his breath, trying to listen.

“A helicopter, I think,” said Breanna.

“I gotta get the radio,” he said, crawling back for it.

Aboard Dreamland Quickmover

0630

“YOU CAN HEAR IT?” DOG ASKED ZEN.

“Yeah,” Zen answered, his voice hoarse.

“Good. I’m telling the Abner Read right now … Zen?”

“Yeah, Colonel?”

“Breanna? Is she all right? Really all right?”

“She’s OK.” Zen’s voice trailed off. “You want to talk to her?”

Tears flooded from Dog’s eyes. He was so overcome he couldn’t answer, and when he did, it was between sobs.

“Please.”

The silence seemed unending.

“Daddy?”

“I thought we agreed … you’d never … call me that … at work.”

Dog held his arm up, burying his face in it as the tears flowed uncontrollably.

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“That’s right, Colonel,” said Breanna. “Sorry. I thought this was R and R.”

“All right. We’ll pick you up soon. Hang in there.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Aboard the Abner Read,

Indian Ocean

0630

STORM STUDIED THE HOLOGRAPHIC PROJECTION OF THE

ocean around them. They were about two and a half to three hours from the atoll. The Indian destroyer was closer; it could reach it in an hour and a half at flank speed.

It seemed too much of a coincidence that the other ship would be steaming in that direction; clearly, it was homing in on the radio transmissions from the survival radio. Perhaps it had picked up the MC-17 first, then gone to investigate.

With hopes of capturing the American fliers, he had no doubt.

He could sink the bastards with the Harpoons if it came to that. But by the time he got into range, the Indian would be at the atoll.

“Dreamland Quickmover looking for you, Captain,” said the communications specialist over the ship’s intercom circuit. “It’s Colonel Bastian.”

“Yes, Dog, what’s going on?”

“We spotted an Indian destroyer that seems interested in the atoll.”

“Yes, we copy,” Storm told him. “I’m not in range to deal with him.”

“Given what the Indians have been doing to our aircraft up north,” said Dog, “we should consider him hostile.”

“Agreed.” Storm felt his irritation growing.

“I can broadcast a warning,” offered Dog.

“You’re in a cargo plane, aren’t you?”

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“I’ll fight the bastard with my bare hands if I have to,” said Dog.

“That won’t be necessary,” replied Storm.

Aboard Dreamland Quickmover

0704

“MAIN ANTIAIR WEAPONS ARE SHTIL MISSILES,” SAID THE

copilot, consulting the onboard reference to ID the Indian destroyer’s capabilities. “They’re Indian versions of the Russian SA-N-7s. They have about a three kilometer range.

Maybe 15,000 meters—roughly 50,000 feet. We’re OK as long as we keep our distance.”

Dog looked at his paper map, mentally calculating the Abner Read’s position against the Indian destroyer’s. The Indian was north; Storm was south and to the west. The Cheli was more than an hour and a half north, still covering the warhead recovery operations. By the time they got down here it would all be over.

“Dreamland MC-17 Quickmover to Indian destroyer,” said Dog, switching his radio into the international communications frequencies. “We are conducting a recovery mission in the area and request you hold your position.”

When the destroyer did not reply, Dog repeated the message, this time giving the destroyer’s position and heading.

“Dreamland Quickmover, you are over Indian territory and will be shot down if you remain,” replied the destroyer.

“This is Colonel Tecumseh Bastian. I’d like to speak to the captain of the ship.”

“This is the Republic of India naval vessel Rana. You are in Indian territory.”

“I’m in international airspace, conducting a Search and Rescue mission for downed airmen.”

“Give us their location and we will pick them up.”

“Thanks, but we’ve got it covered,” replied Dog. “Please just stand by.”

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The Indian destroyer continued on its course.

Its offer, though, gave Dog an idea.

“Rana, if you desire to assist, I can give you a search grid.

Your assistance would be appreciated.”

Dog gave the destroyer a GPS reading that would take it to the east of the atoll. The destroyer didn’t acknowledge—but it did change course.

“Good one, Colonel,” said the crew chief, who’d been standing next to him, nervously shifting his weight back and forth the whole time.

“It won’t work for too long,” said Dog. “As soon as Zen broadcasts again, they’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe you should tell him to keep quiet.”

“I will, as soon as I think of a way to do that without tipping off the Indians that it’s a ruse.”

An atoll off the Indian coast

0715

THE KID WHO HAD BROUGHT THEM WATER WAS FASCINATED

by the Werewolf, staring at it as it circled around the small island.

“You like helicopters?” Zen asked.

The boy was so engrossed in watching the helo that he didn’t seem to hear.

“That’s a robot,” said Zen. “It’s being flown from a ship.”

“Robot?” said the boy.

“Yeah.” Zen pushed himself a little farther down the rock-strewn beach. There was something on the horizon to the north, a long sliver of white.

A ship.

The Abner Read?

Zen stared. The bits of white separated into distinct pieces.

There was a mast at the center of the figure, a sleek smoke-stack.

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The Abner Read didn’t have a mast. She was a special ship, very low to the water.

And black, not gray. She wouldn’t reflect the sun like this.

“Zen, what’s up?” asked Breanna.

“I see a ship,” he told her. “It’s going in the wrong direction. Give me the radio.”

Aboard the Abner Read,

Indian Ocean

0725

STORM WATCHED THE PLOT OF THE INDIAN DESTROYER, now positively identified as the Rana, veer toward the mainland. He had to hand it to Bastian, the old Dog had a plentiful bag of tricks.

They could be friends if he weren’t such a jerk.

The holographic unit included a navigational module that could calculate and project courses. Storm simply pointed at the atoll and asked, in his clearest voice, “ETA?” The computer flashed a set of numbers above the small rock: 1:42:06.

“I want more power, engineering,” he said. “Helm, find some way to get us to that rock faster. I don’t care if you have to put up a sail. Get us there!”

Aboard Dreamland Quickmover

0730

“ZEN STOCKARD TO RESCUE OPERATION. COME IN,” SAID ZEN.

Dog immediately hit his transmit button.

“Zen, we need radio silence. Complete radio silence. We will get you. We will get you. We don’t need a broadcast.”

Dog leaned over the radio console, hoping that Zen’s brief transmission—and his own—would go unnoticed by the Indian destroyer.

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But it was a vain hope.

“Destroyer is changing course, Colonel,” said the copilot, who’d been monitoring it. “Going back in the original direction.”

“I’ll notify the Abner Read,” said Dog grimly.

An atoll off the Indian coast

0731

“WHAT’S WRONG, ZEN?”

Zen put down the radio without answering. He shaded his eyes and stared at the ship on the horizon.

“Jeff?”

“I think the Indians are looking for us too,” he told Breanna. “And I gather that we don’t want them to find us.”

Breanna struggled to get up, pushing as much of her weight as she could onto her left leg. But her head swam and the pain in her side seemed to explode. She collapsed to the ground.

Zen was over her when she opened her eyes.

“Hey, are you OK?” he asked.

“Yeah. I was just getting up.”

“Who asked you?”

“Well, I’m not going to stay on the ground the rest of my life. And I’m not going to stay on this island either.”

He smiled.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re beautiful.”

“If I look half as bad as you, I look like a zombie.”

“Oh, you look worse than that.”

Zen looked up at the Werewolf, which was doing a slow turn about a half mile off shore.

“You really think you could move?” he asked her.

“I can move, Jeff. It hurts, but I can move. I don’t know if I can stand, though.”

“You’re a gimp like me, huh?”

“You’re not a gimp.”

“I have an idea. Maybe we can meet the Abner Read.”

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“I don’t think I can swim.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

Aboard the Abner Read,

Indian Ocean

0735

“THE RANA FIGURED IT OUT,” SAID EYES. “THEY’RE BACK ON

their original course.”

“How long before they’re in range of the Harpoon?”

“Ten minutes, tops.”

“All right. Stand by.”

“Storm—there is the possibility that they’ll shell the atoll if we open fire,” said Eyes. “There’s not much shelter there.”

“Noted.”

Eyes was right, of course, but what other options did he have? He certainly wasn’t going to let the Indian pick up his people right under his nose.

A full volley of Harpoons would sink the bastard before he had a chance to react.

No, they’d have a launch warning. It would take the Harpoons roughly three minutes to get there; by then the atoll would be obliterated.

“Storm, listen in to the emergency channel,” said Eyes over the intercom radio. “Major Stockard is up to something.”

Storm looked down at his belt to get the proper combination of buttons that would allow his com unit to listen in. The broadcast came in, weak and breaking up.

“Hey, Werewolf. We’re looking for some navigational guidance,” said a tired voice. “Wag your tail if you understand what I’m talking about.”

“Eyes, have the Werewolf pilot zoom his video on the beach,” said Storm.

“I think he’s getting into a canoe,” said Eyes.

“I’m going to automated beacon,” said Zen. “So you can home in on me.”

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Clever, thought Storm.

“Have the Werewolf lead them south,” he told Eyes. “Get the Harpoons ready—he’s leaving the radio on so the destroyer thinks he’s still on the island. Move, let’s go people!”

shouted Storm. “Let’s show these Air Force people what we’re made of.”

An atoll off the Indian coast

0745

“NOW THEY’RE GETTING IT,” SAID ZEN AS THE WEREWOLF

ducked to the left. “Come on, Bart Simpson. Help me paddle.”

Zen pushed the boy’s small canoe through the shallow water, avoiding the rocks. Breanna was inside the boat, leaning over the side and paddling with her hands.

“Yeah, come on, guys,” said Zen as the current pushed up against the boat. “We have to go south. Stroke! Come on, Bart Simpson, follow that helicopter.”

BREANNA COULDN’T SEE MUCH FROM WHERE SHE WAS, BUT

she could hear the helicopter. She had no more strength to paddle, and let her arm drag in the water.

Everything hurt so badly. She closed her eyes and remembered the night she’d seen Zen after the accident, the longest night of her life. She’d become a different person that night, though of course at the moment she hadn’t understood.

Who had she become? Someone wiser, more patient.

Not wiser, but definitely more patient.

She’d laughed a lot less since then. Much, much less.

That was a mistake. That was something she had to correct. She should be happy. They had so much.

“OK, baby, time to go.”

Disoriented, Breanna expected to see Zen in his wheelchair hovering over her when she opened her eyes. But she wasn’t at home, she wasn’t in bed—two men in wet suits were picking her up, helping her into a rigid inflatable. The RETRIBUTION

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Werewolf was hovering somewhere behind her, and the black shadow of the Abner Read loomed about a half mile off.

“What?” Breanna muttered. “Where are we?”

“We’re with the USS Abner Read, ma’am,” said one of the sailors. “You just relax now and enjoy the ride. We all are goin’ to take you home.”

Aboard the USS Poughkeepsie,

Arabian Ocean

0800

WITH THE LAST OF THE NUCLEAR WARHEADS STOWED

aboard the ship, Danny Freah asked the Poughkeepsie’s captain if he could find him a relatively quiet place for a private communication. Quiet turned out to be a precious commodity aboard the ship, harder to find than water in the desert. The communications shack sounded like a tollbooth at rush hour, and Danny couldn’t find a spot below that wasn’t overflowing with sailors and Marines, or sounded as if it were. He finally went onto the deck, and standing near the railing just below the bridge, put his visor down and contacted Dog.

“Bastian.”

“Colonel, it’s Danny Freah.”

“Yes, Danny. Go ahead.”

A small legend in the view screen indicated that no video was available. Danny knew that Dog was aboard Quickmover and guessed that the colonel had chosen to communicate with voice only—probably because he knew he looked tired.

Somehow that made it harder. Danny wasn’t sure why.

“Jennifer’s aboard the Lincoln,” Danny said. “They’re thinking they’re going to have to operate on her knee. It’s pretty bad.”

“But she’s OK,” said Dog.

“Yeah. She might have a concussion. Bullet splinter hit her helmet, knocked her out. That and the shock scrambled her head a bit. But she’s OK.”

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“What about the mission?”

That was Dog, thought Danny—stone-faced and proper, insisting the focus be on duty and the job that had to be done, not personal emotion.

Even if he had to be breaking inside. First Bree, now Jennifer. But at least Jen was alive.

“We’ve brought the warheads back to the Poughkeepsie,”

Danny told him. “Base Camp One has been evacuated. We have no further information on the last warhead; it just wasn’t there.”

“I understand.”

“The prisoner we took insists they didn’t recover the warhead before we got there. Maybe the Pakistanis were there yesterday or the day before.”

“It’s possible. Dreamland Command is already working on some theories with the CIA,” said Dog. “It’s all right. You did a hell of a job. A hell of a job. Where’s Sergeant Liu and the others?”

“They’re getting some rest.”

“We have to arrange for them to go back to Dreamland,”

Dog told him. “General Samson wants to talk to them personally, before anyone else.”

“Samson?”

Dog explained that Samson had taken over as the new commander of Dreamland.

“Admiral Woods directed that they be taken over to the Lincoln.”

“Samson wants them himself.”

“It was an accident, Colonel.”

“I know that. Samson does too.”

“OK.”

Neither man spoke for a moment.

“We’ve found Zen and Breanna,” said Dog finally.

“You found them!” Danny practically yelled.

Colonel Bastian’s voice remained drained as he told Danny what had happened—once more the calm, understated commander.

RETRIBUTION

363

“Jesus, that’s great, Colonel. That is damn great. Damn great.”

“It is,” said Dog.

For a moment Danny thought his commander’s voice was going to break. But it didn’t.

“All right,” said Dog, preparing to sign off.

“Colonel, there’s something else,” said Danny.

He told the colonel about seeing the airplane wreckage as the Osprey headed out to sea. The plane, he said, had almost certainly been a civilian aircraft.

“The Osprey pilot had the Lincoln call in a location with the Indian authorities. It was a pretty severe crash; I doubt there were any survivors.”

“I see.”

“The Navy people are investigating. It’s possible one of the Tomcats fired at it, but they think the Indians accidentally shot it down.”

He gave Dog the approximate location.

“Things were pretty heavy up there,” Danny added. “All sorts of stuff was in the air.”

“Thanks for the information,” said Dog. “We’ll make arrangements to get you to Diego Garcia as soon as possible.

Bastian out.”

Diego Garcia

1502

DOG ROCKED HIS SHOULDERS BACK AND FORTH AS HE

walked down the ladder from the MC-17, fatigue riding heavy on each one. He’d managed to talk to one of the doctors on the Lincoln and found out that Jennifer was all right; the doctors believed she’d keep her lower leg, though her knee would have to be reconstructed.