Текст книги "Armageddon"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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“The sultan and his troops are marching, Commander. We can radio the command to be prepared”

“Do so,” said Sahurah. He undid the wire that tethered him to the interphone system, and worked his way past the two pilots to the nose, which had an old-style window section for an observer.

He could see a long row of vehicles snaking toward the capital a few miles away.

Was this why God had called him, to stop the demon in his tracks?

“We will strike them,” he said after he plugged his headset in.

“Yes, Commander,” said Yayasan, his voice trembling. They had no bombs, but the guns were filled with ammunition. Besides the defensive weapons at the rear and atop and below the fuselage, the pilot could fire a twenty-three-millimeter cannon in the nose.

“Are you afraid, pilot?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“So am I. God will give us courage”

“Yes, Commander.”

“I will be there in a moment,” he told him, starting back.

Aboard “Penn,” off the coast of Brunei

1745

Even without the computer’s automatic identification library, Breanna would have recognized the aircraft synthesized in her radar screen. Only one plane like that flew over Brunei—Prince bin Awg’s famous Cold War era Badger, the same plane that Mack Smith had ridden to accidental fame in an encounter with the Chinese. She tried contacting the plane on the radio but it didn’t respond. The plane was fifty miles away.

“I see it,” said Zen. “But we better concentrate on the platform and those Malaysian ships.”

“I agree,” she said. “Should be in range in five minutes.”

“Keep up with me, Penn”

“Keep up with yourself, Hawk leader,” she told him, touching the throttle to make sure it was at the last stop.

Over Brunei, near the capital

1746

McKenna saw the radar contact maybe sixty seconds before she saw the plane with her own eyes, the large Badger swooping down at tree-top level above the western outskirts of the city. She started to call back to the ground forces to make sure the Americans hadn’t liberated the big-tailed bomber but then realized it wasn’t necessary—bullets shot from the nose of the aircraft as it attempted to strafe the line of government troops surging toward the capital. McKenna watched the plane pull up awkwardly; its strafing had been ineffectual but that was beside the point. She leaned on her stick and put the MiG into a crisp turn that put her on the back of the big aircraft, perfectly positioned to shoot the Badger down.

Except that she had no bullets in her cannon.

“Son of a bitch,” she cursed.

The Badger added insult to injury by lighting the twin NR-23 in its tail, filling the sky with shells. McKenna buzzed over the plane, ducking another stream of bullets from a gun at the top as she dove across its path. The Badger reacted in slow motion, turning back toward the city.

“Come on, you chickenshit,” she raged at it. She goosed her throttle and streaked over the top of the plane just behind the wings, so close that she thought the tailfin would strike her. Bullets flew out from all of the plane’s guns, black streams of lead littering the sky.

“I’m going to take you down,” she said, swinging around. “Just wait.”

ONE BY ONE, THE RED LIGHTS ON THE WEAPONS PANEL CAME on, indicating that the cannons were no longer capable of shooting. Sahurah did not understand how this could be; he had only fired the weapons for a few moments. Surely the guns must carry more than a few hundred rounds of ammunition.

“Why are my guns not working?” he finally asked the pilot. “We had only a hundred rounds for each one,” said Yayasan. “You’ve probably fired them all.”

The plane shuddered and then pitched sharply to the right. Sahurah saw a silver dart thunder past the forward window.

“He’s toying with us,” said Yayasan. “He’ll shoot us down soon”

Sahurah looked up through the observation dome above the gunner’s seat. The sky remained as blue as ever.

“I’ll try to return to the airport,” said the pilot. “I can’t guarantee we’ll make it.”

“All right,” said Sahurah.

Suddenly he knew why God had called him to board the plane.

Malaysian air base

1750

Dog finished entering the string of digits and hit the return key. The screen remained blank.

“Is that dish antenna facing the right direction?” he yelled.

“Yes, sir,” said Boston. “Uh, Colonel, no need to shout, sir. I have the headset.”

“Sorry,” said Dog. He flipped the com channel back to Dreamland. “I have nothing, Ray.”

“Give us a minute,” said the scientist.

“I don’t even have the feed I had earlier.”

“Give us a minute,” repeated the scientist.

An image of the ocean popped onto the screen. It looked peaceful, but slightly out of whack—there was an oil platform at the left-hand side, and Dog thought the image’s perspective was pushed over. Then he realized the image wasn’t askew; the platform was.

There were two ships on the opposite side of the screen. Something flashed from one.

“Colonel, do you have an image?” asked Rubeo.

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“It would appear the blimp that is providing the video image right now is being targeted,” added the scientist in his vaguely condescending voice. “We believe they knocked out the jammer when they struck the platform and now realize it is there. Press the ‘D’ and ‘E’ keys on your keyboard simultaneously.”

“Now?”

“Now, Colonel. After the screen flashes you should be able to select any image you desire. It may take a moment longer if they strike the blimp”

Off the coast of Brunei

1754

Dazhou watched as the second missile shot upward. From working with the Barracuda, Dazhou knew there were many different varieties of electronic countermeasures, but the ability of the American device—surely it had to be American—to so thoroughly confound the radar aboard the corvette seemed incredible. Not only was the shipboard radar convinced that there was an object hovering eight thousand feet overhead, but the guidance system on the missiles had declared it was there, as well. Yet both veered off to the west, obviously confused.

“Try firing the gun,” he ordered.

The twin forty-millimeter weapon began to revolve, firing its shells in a wide pattern. Black dots filled the sky.

Dazhou started to put his binoculars down in disgust. As he did, a gray rectangle appeared in the sky to the right of the stream of bullets. It was as if a panel had been knocked from a ceiling; it folded outward then blew into twisted spirals of black and red.

“A blimp!” said one of the officers nearby. “How did they make it invisible?”

“Clever Americans,” said Dazhou. “Prepare the missile to fire at the platform.”

“It is ready, Captain.”

“Fire.”

THE SHIFTING OF THE PLATFORM HAD TORN A LARGE GASH IN the deck on the second level, making it impossible to reach the ladder.

“We can go over the side,” suggested Bison, pointing to the rail. “Then climb around on that girder there.”

“Good!” yelled Jennifer. “Last one in the boat’s a rotten egg,” she said, sliding through the railing.

Jennifer had two advantages over the burly Whiplashers: She was considerably thinner and shorter than all of them, even Liu. She also wasn’t trying to hump packs of gear and guns. She made it down to the ladder before them, and tested it with the weight of one foot; it remained solid. But after two steps it started to slide away toward the ocean; Jennifer scrambled down two rungs and then leaned over to the girder, grabbing on as the ladder collapsed downward in slow motion.

“Whoa, shit!” yelled Bison above her.

“I’m all right!” Jennifer leaned around the girder, trying to find a way for the others to get down. The path to her pier was now blocked, but each of the others had a narrow work ladder that ended a few feet above the water. If Bison and Liu could climb up and then across the girder near them, they could make it to the easternmost pier and have the boat pick them up.

“Worth a shot,” said Bison as Jennifer explained it to them. “Either that or climb out to the pole at the center there and slide down”

“You’d have to go all the way back up to reach that.”

“That or fly,” he said.

Sergeant Liu began working his way over, picking through a mangled gate of metal and thick wires to reach a solid, open girder that ran about ten feet across open water. “It’s doable,” he said, starting across.

Jennifer watched as Bison followed. Taller than Liu and much bulkier, especially with his bulletproof vest, he had a hard time getting through the narrow passage a third of the way across.

“Get rid of the packs,” she told him, but either the sergeant didn’t hear or, like all Dreamland personnel, was pig-headed when it came to accomplishing a mission. He made it to the girder and began climbing across. About six feet out, the metal, which looked to be a good foot thick, snapped.

Jennifer watched in shock as Bison fell six feet, then stopped abruptly in midair. Her mind couldn’t comprehend what had happened—it looked as if God had reached down and grabbed him, holding him over the sea. Incredulous, she climbed back up to the point where the deck had snapped, then reached over to the nearby girder—it was only twelve inches, but the fall looked like forever. She reached it, pulled herself up, and began making her way toward Bison, going hand over hand on a three-inch pipe for twenty feet until she reached the metalwork directly over him.

A piece of jagged metal had snagged his vest and one of the backpacks; he was literally hanging by threads, his body twisting. “You with me, Bison?” she shouted down.

“I think.” He sounded dazed.

“You are one lucky motherfucker,” she said.

All of a sudden, Bison seemed to become fully aware of where he was. He started to reach for the metal that held him. He couldn’t quite get it.

“No,” said Jennifer. “I think you can climb up and grab the girder overhead, then come over to this pier and come down. It’s a better bet than jumping.”

“I don’t think it’ll hold.”

“The girder?”

“This metal. I think I’ll just unhook and jump.”

“It’s too far. And if you miss, you’ll smack into the metal below.”

“I ain’t going to fall.”

Bison pulled on the pipe, trying to swing.

“It’s not going to work, Bison,” said Jennifer. She could see from where she was that the gap between the Whiplash trooper and the metal was nearly ten feet—much too much to jump. “Go up.”

“Maybe that is the best way,” he said. He started to pull himself up, then lost his balance. As he swung down, the pipe shifted an inch downward, taking him further away.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“It’ll be easier if you let go of the packs and the two machine-guns,” she said.

“No,” said Bison. “I can make it with them.”

“Let go of the fucking packs!” she yelled at him, furious.

Bison looked around and, finally, dropped the guns and pack that hadn’t snagged. They crashed against the metal, then rebounded into the water. He pulled himself up, groping over and across the girder to a large flange at the side of the pier where she was. The metal, about the size of a manhole cover, formed a kind of seat and he rested there for a few moments. Jennifer scrambled up to see how he was.

“You got a dirty mouth for a girl,” he said when she reached him.

“And you’re as stubborn as a mule.”

“As a buffalo. That’s how I got the nickname,” he said proudly.

They climbed down about thirty feet to a platform that completely surrounded the pier. The only way to get down would be to hang off and try and get a foothold on the girder before stretching down. It was impossible to see the work ladder from above. Jennifer thought she was nimble enough to do it, but might not be tall enough to reach back easily; Bison, on the other hand, looked tall enough but exhausted. One of them was bound to slip.

Another girder extended out over the water a few feet above the platform; a pulley set at the bottom of the metal beam was all that remained from a small lift that had been used to move equipment.

“I think we should jump from there,” she told Bison, pointing. “Jump?”

“Look, it’s only twenty feet from the water. As long as we keep our balance to the very end and go out there, we won’t hit anything. It’s like a diving platform. The others can pick us up.”

“Shit on that. Twenty fuckin’ feet”

“Easier than snaking under this platform, I bet.”

“Twenty fuckin’ feet. Maybe thirty.”

“I bet you did worse than that at Lackland when you went through special operations training.”

“Yeah, but that was Lackland. Everybody was out of their mind there”

“Come on. You go first,” she told him.

“Ladies first.”

“We’ll both go first. Come on.”

“You ain’t walking out there, are you?” he said as she climbed up.

“Should I run?” she said, standing on the girder.

“Jesus,” said Bison. He pulled himself up and started to crawl out behind her.

Jennifer waited until Bison was on behind her, then started resolutely toward the edge. She felt her right foot slip, and pushed forward—she did run now, pushing her momentum so that she was sure she would fall far from the metalwork. As gravity took her, she pushed her legs together and brought her arms in together, covering her upper body.

The water punched at her so hard that she was convinced she had struck the metal. Her lungs rebelled; she pushed upward, flailing desperately. Finally she saw light just ahead, but two strokes failed to bring her to the surface. She felt despair, tasted the salt water in her mouth.

But she’d hit rock bottom a month and a half before, when the air force seemed to turn against her, launching an investigation that targeted her. She’d survived that; she could survive anything.

A shock of cold jerked her body as if she’d touched a power line. Jennifer’s head bobbed upward, breaking the water’s surface. She gasped once, twice, then felt herself lurching backward.

Liu pulled her into one of the Zodiacs. She sat upright just in time to see Bison pulling himself onto the other a few yards away.

The motor at the rear revved. The lightweight boat bucked forward, picking up speed quickly.

“Down!” yelled Liu.

Jennifer wasn’t sure why he was yelling, until she saw the platform explode over his right shoulder.

Aboard “Penn,” off the coast of Brunei

1755

Zen brought Hawk One into a shallow dive to strafe the nearest ship, the smaller of the two. He saw as he came on that the bridge area at the front of the superstructure had already been struck by something; he slid his cannon fire into the center of the gun in front of it, riding the stream of bullets through the housing as the barrel swung in his direction. He flashed overhead, spinning back for another shot. Since the gun no longer moved he slid toward the missile launchers atop the rear deck; they looked like a pair of long garbage cans angled toward the sky.

It wasn’t clear which of the ships had launched the missile at the platform earlier, but by the time he laid off the trigger it was clear that this launcher wasn’t going to be used again—a secondary explosion erupted from the front of the tube as Zen cleared upward.

There were two more missile launchers on the port side of the ship. As he started toward them, the radar warning receiver erupted with a message—the second ship, about a half-mile to the north—was attempting to lock its anti-aircraft weapons on him.

“You’re up next,” Zen said to himself.

PENN WAS JUST CLEARING FIFTEEN MILES SOUTHWEST OF the corvette, nearly in range for the JDAM GBU-32, the last weapon in her bomb rack. The GBU-32 was essentially a thousand-pound bomb with a set of steerable fins on the back that could be programmed to strike a specific GPS point. The bomb, still being tweaked for regular military use, was extremely accurate, but it had been designed to hit land targets that didn’t move, not ships at sea.

On the other hand, airplanes had been taking on ships since Billy Mitchell’s salad days, and Breanna had worked out a solid attack plan with the help of the Megafortress’s computer. She intended on launching inside five miles, which would decrease the possibility of the ship outmaneuvering the weapon.

“Zen, I’m about a minute and a half from launch,” she told him. “I’m going to open the bomb bay. Can you take out their missiles?”

“Roger that.”

Over Brunei, near Brunei International Airport

1756

McKenna swung around, getting ready for another run at the Badger.

If she only had bullets in her cannon, she could take the slimer down. Hell, she had half a mind to fly next to the big SOB, whack open the canopy, and wing the pilot with her pistol like they did in World War I.

Hell, she’d even throw a brick at him if she had one.

She did, actually. Four of them, each loaded with 250 pounds of explosives.

Bomb another airplane?

Why the hell not?

The bombs might not explode, but if she could match the other plane’s speed, she could get them right through the wings.

Matching his speed was just a BS aerobatic stunt, the sort of gimmick Ivana used to have her do all the time to close a sale.

McKenna pulled off to the right, taking a wide circle south of the Badger as she tried to decide if she was crazy to even think about taking a shot. What the hell, she decided as she came through the wide arcing turn. She leveled off, trying to slow the MiG-19 down to match the Badger’s speed. The two planes were very different, and she couldn’t quite get it; she pulled close again but the MiG tugged at her, trying to slide off to the right. By the time she got the plane steady she was beyond the Badger’s right wing. She tried swinging out to the right and then tucking back in a kind of weave, but she was still going too fast. The Brunei airport loomed ahead; obviously the Badger was going to try and land.

Maybe I’ll wait until it lands, she thought to herself as she accelerated and turned ahead.

Then she noticed that the gun turret at the top was revolving, following her.

That did it. She didn’t wait for it to fire again. She took the turn, letting her speed bleed off precipitously; the plane seemed to whine at her but she resisted the impulse to nudge the throttle. Wings barely clutching the air, she walked the MiG slowly toward the tailfin of her prey, which was now on a glide toward the concrete runway. As McKenna slipped overhead, losing her view of the Badger, she hit the bomb release. The MiG, now a thousand pounds lighter, shot forward. McKenna went for the throttle, jacking her speed and rocketing upward.

It took more than thirty seconds for her to climb up and come back around to a position where she could get a look at the runway. When she did, she saw that the Badger had landed—without its right wing.

Off the coast of Brunei

1800

Miraculously, the debris from the missile and platform didn’t strike the Zodiac, but the nearby ocean boiled with the rumbling wake. The small boat, designed to withstand anything less than a typhoon, bucked and tumbled with the waves but remained afloat.

The missile had sheared the platform off into the water, leaving only three stalks above the waves.

“Where’s the other boat?” she said to Liu. “Where’s Bison?”

“Ahead of us,” said the sergeant, nodding with his head.

DAZHOU WATCHED FROM THE BRIDGE AS THE SMALL AIRCRAFT started a fresh attack on his other ship, which had stopped defending herself. His crew had been unable to lock on the knifelike aircraft, which danced around the sky like a dervish.

“Use the cannon,” he shouted. “Sight it by eye if you have to.”

As Dazhou turned to the helmsman to tell him to steer closer to their stricken sister, his second in command shouted a fresh warning. “The plane is coming for us!”

“Shoot it down,” he said angrily.

*   *   *

ZEN COULD SEE THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE LAUNCHER turning in the direction of the Flighthawk as he closed on the second ship. He fired point-blank into the side of the launcher’s structure; his second or third shell ignited one of the missiles and started a secondary explosion.

“He’s toothless,” Zen told Breanna. “I’m going back on that first ship.”

UPSTAIRS, BREANNA GAVE A LAST-SECOND UPDATE OF THE target parameters and then nudged the Megafortress into a shallow dive and then a swooping turn, tossing the bomb in the bay at the target. The JDAM left the Megafortress’s belly just inside four miles from its target, a point-blank shot for the weapon. The bomb sailed downward, made a slight correction, then nosed down toward the GPS point the Megafortress and Breanna had calculated for it—the bridge of the Kalsamana.

 

THE SHIP REVERBERATED WITH EXPLOSIONS AS THE FIRE IN the missile battery behind the superstructure spread. Dazhou could taste the acrid smoke in his mouth. But he would not give up; he would not abandon the ship, nor flee his destiny.

“Use every weapon you have!” he demanded. “Everything! Everything!”

As the crew moved to comply, the bomb struck the port side of the antenna mast and crashed through the roof of the bridge area directly below, carrying through the deck without exploding. Dazhou turned in time to see something rushing through the cabin directly behind him—a ghost fleeing the demons of the past. The rush of wind seemed to him the swell of voices, the many voices of those who had tormented him in his life, returning one last time to torture him. Every mistake he had made, every man he had lost, every moment of foolishness pressed in around him.

And then the thousand pounds of explosives in the warhead ignited, and neither earthly vengeance nor human failings were of any more concern to Dazhou, or most of the men on the ship.

Southeastern Brunei

Exact location and time unknown

Hours seemed to pass before Mack Smith could make himself get up from the floor. Three of the four terrorists lay in the room dead; the last huddled around a pool of blood at the side.

The woman who had helped him was sprawled on the floor, eyes open, hands unclenched.

“Are you all right?” he said, kneeling over her. “Are you all right?”

Her mouth remained agape and her stare fixed on the ceiling.

Slowly, the others in the room started to move. And then, as if by some secret signal, all the women and children began to wail.

“Stop,” whispered Mack. “Stop.”

The fearful cry continued.

“Stop!” he shouted finally, and one by one the wails turned not to silence but to softer sobs.

“Are there others? Other terrorists?” He had to ask the question three times before he got a response from an older woman at the side.

“These were the all who we’ve seen,” she said in broken English.

“Take me to the men,” he said.

She got up, jaw trembling, and walked toward him. Another woman, much younger, grabbed his arm. “Our savior,” she said. “Our hero.”

“She was the hero;’ said Mack, pointing at the dead woman. “I’m just lucky. Now take me to the others.”

On the runway at Brunei International Airport

Exact time unknown

Sahurah felt his body lifted by a thousand angels. His pain had finally ceased. After his long, torturous journey, he had reached Paradise. The angels carried him through the golden gates, up the winding marble stairs to the vast throne room. The Messenger himself waited on the landing to greet him, surrounded by a veritable sea of angels. Light glowed behind him.

Paradise, he thought. Paradise.

And then the pain returned and Sahurah felt his body fall the hundred miles from heaven, felt it roll and slam and slap against the earth. He felt fire and cursed his existence, cursed his sins and dark desires. Something grabbed him from behind and pulled, dragging him through the black jaws of dragon-snakes that snapped at his body.

“Commander Sahurah! Commander Sahurah!”

It was part of the dream, he thought—the imam stood above him, peering down from above. The Saudi was nearby, his eyes watchful.

“Commander Sahurah!”

No dream this—Sahurah was on the runway,– a hundred feet from where the Badger had crashed. Someone had pulled him out in a misguided attempt to rescue him.

Why was the Lord so cruel to such a devoted servant? Why did he deny him the final glory of paradise?

“Sahurah—the devils are overrunning our defenses,” said the imam. “We have a pilot, and the passenger plane that was parked at the airport. Come. We will leave and return to fight another battle.”

Was this the devil tempting him? Or an angel sent to rescue him from damnation?

The imam bent down and looked at him quizzically. “Sahurah? Come, little brother. There is a time for everything. Now is our time to retreat.”

The Saudi seemed to frown.

“No,” said Sahurah. “I will stay and fight. It is jihad.”

“The Malaysians have turned against us,” warned the imam. “It is time to retreat. American warships are only a few hours away. We will regroup and wait. Our time will come again.”

“I must stay”

The imam frowned. The Saudi said something in Arabic Sahurah could not decipher.

“We must leave now,” said the imam.

“I stay to do the Holy One’s work.”

The imam nodded and then turned. Sahurah knelt, deciding to pray to the Lord that he had made the right decision. But words would not come; he could not even remember the simple prayers he had learned as a child. The throb at the side of his head chased all thoughts from his mind, and it was all he could do to stand and walk in the direction of the city.

Malaysian air base

1810

Thanks to Rubeo’s software hacks, Dog now had limited control of the LADS observation system and could switch through the video feeds. One of the airships near the oil platform had been destroyed, but a second one just to the southwest showed Dreamland’s two Zodiac boats. There were four people inside them—all of the Whiplash people, and Jennifer, lovely, beautiful Jennifer.

What if she had been in Indy?

Two patrol boats were heading toward them from the west. The boats had left occupied territory, but it wasn’t clear if they contained terrorists or the vanguard of the sultan’s troops, who were pressing into the northern part of the country, vanquishing their foes.

“Dreamland Malaysia Base to Penn,” said Dog, keying into the communications line. “Breanna, our two Whiplash boats are running toward a pair of patrol craft of undetermined allegiance.”

“We’re on it, Daddy,” she said.

For once, Dog didn’t yell at her for calling him that.

Off the coast of Brunei

1815

Zen flew over the ship a few seconds after the bomb exploded. It looked from the air as if it were a child’s toy with a thick hole drilled through the top. The superstructure and hull had been badly mangled, and when he took another pass he saw the corvette-sized craft had already started to slide down into the water.

“They’re out of it,” Zen told Breanna. “Going for the Zodiacs.”

“I’m right behind you”

The Whiplash team was about five miles from the coastline and just over eight miles from the platform that had been destroyed. Two patrol craft were five miles from them on what looked like a direct intercept. Both were Russian-made Matka-class gunboats; they had been purchased a few months before by Brunei, but it wasn’t clear whose side they were on.

Zen tucked Hawk One down toward the water, streaking ahead of Penn. The Whiplash people in the raft had not answered any hails, and neither had the ships. Neither patrol vessel flew any flags.

“Think we can get them to turn around?” Breanna asked.

“If I had skywriting gear, maybe,” said Zen. He rode the Flighthawk down and then held her on her wing, taking a showboat turn in front of the Zodiacs.

“Still on course,” said Breanna.

He took another pass.

“I think somebody waved,” said Breanna, who was watching on her feed on the flightdeck.

“Yeah. Listen, let me take a run over the patrolboats. Maybe we can at least find out if they’re hostile or not.”

“Go for it.”

JENNIFER WATCHED THE FLIGHTHAWK SPIN OFF TO THE WEST. She leaned against the side of the boat, exhausted from the earlier climb and plunge into the water, not to mention everything that had come before. As she stared, the waves formed themselves into anthills in the distances.

Ships.

Ships!

“There’s something up ahead, ships in the water,” she yelled to Liu. “I think the Flighthawk was trying to warn us.”

Liu cut the engine and waved at Garcia and Bison to do the same.

BREANNA SAW THE FRESH CONTACT ON HER RADAR—A 737 had just taken off from Brunei IAP.

Terrorists leaving a sinking ship?

Or a jerry-rigged bomber planning an attack?

“Zen, we have a 737 climbing up from the airport,” she said. “Roger that. You sure it’s a 737?”

“Affirmative. Should we try and stop it?”

“Why ?”

“The terrorists were in control of the airport. It has to be them,” said Breanna. “They may have it set up as a bomber.”

“I can’t just shoot it down”

“We can’t just let them fly away.”

“I can put Hawk Two on it, and see if they’ll at least identify themselves,” he told her. “But then you won’t have an escort.”

“Do it.”

ZEN GAVE CONTROL OF HAWK ONE TO THE COMPUTER, telling it to overfly the gunships nearing the Zodiac, then switched his control set and pulled Hawk Two out from its post ahead of Penn. As he began to accelerate he saw that the 737 had turned northeast, heading out over the water. Its course took it away from the Zodiacs; they had to choose to go after one or the other.

To Zen, the choice was a no-brainer—his people were more important than a plane that might or might not contain terrorists.

But Breanna seemed to disagree.

“Zen, he’s not answering my radio calls and he’s picking up speed,” she told him.

“Yeah, listen, by the time we catch him we’re going to be out of range of Hawk One. I won’t be able to cover our people down there.”

“Maybe we can bluff him,” she said. “I can transmit a warning.”

Zen didn’t think that was worth her breath, but she tried twice anyway, trying to get the pilot to acknowledge. At the same time, she shifted her course to stay close to the Flighthawk pursuing the plane. Within a few seconds C³ warned that he was about to lose contact with the Flighthawk over the Zodiacs.

“Turn back, Bree,” said Zen.

“We have to stay with the terrorists’ plane.”

“They clearly have no hostile intent. Let them run away if that’s what they’re doing,” he told her. “We have to protect our own people. Tell the Filipinos to take care of it. We need to get west”

After what seemed an eternity, the plane lurched back toward the Zodiacs.

THE TWO SHIPS WERE MOVING AT A DECENT SPEED; THEY were now about two miles away. Both had weapons on the bow. “Think they’re friendly?” Jennifer asked Liu.