Armageddon (18 page)

Pain poked into the side of his head, a hot spear breaking through the bone into the soft flesh.

“Commander Sahurah, sit, sit,” said Besar. He gestured and the women rose. Sahurah closed his eyes and they were gone.

“Besar,” he said, still standing where he had been.

“You don’t look well. And yet your operations have had exceptional results. Sit. Sit. Rest yourself.”

Sahurah managed to slide over to a nearby chair. He had the exact opposite opinion of his missions. The attack on the restaurant had killed only a few people, since the boy had not managed to ignite the bomb before being killed. He had helped plan other operations, including two attacks today on police stations that had demolished both buildings, but to take credit for their success when he himself had not expended any effort would be a great sin.

“Relax, my young friend. Relax. Have a drink.” Besar pushed a glass into his hands. Sahurah, suddenly thirsty, brought it to his lips, then smelled the bitterness of the liquid. He threw the glass to the ground.

Besar laughed. “Never to be tempted”

Sahurah’s head pounded or he would have yelled at Besar, who was always playing such tricks. Besar snapped his fingers, and someone walked toward them. Sahurah, his eyes still closed because of the pain, heard liquid being poured.

“Tea only, my friend, iced tea from China. A soothing drink,” said Besar.

Sahurah was not sure whether to trust him or not. He opened his eyes and saw the glass being held out to him. The young man with the glass trembled slightly.

“Is it tea?” Sahurah asked.

“Yes, Commander.”

“I will kill you if it’s not” Sahurah took the glass. It contained only tea.

“You really have to relax,” said Besar. “And remember the teaching—our sins are being cleansed by our actions.”

“Forgiveness is not a license to sin.”

“Life without sin is not possible,” said the other guerilla leader. “We are men, not angels. Even an ayatollah sins. The imam himself is not without fault; he has said so himself. You are not holier than a holy man, are you?”

Sahurah did not answer. Soon this would all be over, he told himself. He would soon receive the order from the imam to join his brothers in heaven. Sahurah prayed for that day; he prayed for release from the throb at the top of his head.

“Five hundred brothers from the Malaysian territory will join us by daybreak,” said Besar. “We will storm the sultan’s palace at eight, after the council arrives.”

“Five hundred?” said Sahurah. The number seemed incredible.

“Too little, you think?” For the first time, Besar’s voice was contrite, even concerned.

“I could do it with twenty,” said Sahurah, who had planned such a mission several months before.

Besar laughed lightly, then reached over and patted his knee. “You are thinking too conservatively now, Sahurah. We have the entire country to take over. Capturing the sultan is a priority.”

“How will we feed five hundred men?”

“From the sultan’s own kitchen,” said Besar, sliding back in his chair.

San Francisco
0430

Dog’s weight against her side felt reassuring, and as she stared into the dimly lit hotel room Jennifer realized she felt safe for the first time in weeks.

What was safety? Being comfortable? Being immune to attack? She’d been on combat deployments and in test aircraft and not felt vulnerable. It was when she’d been accused of being a traitor to her country—that was when she had felt vulnerable.

Why’? Because people didn’t believe in her? Or because she didn’t believe in herself?

Was she afraid that she might be a traitor? That she might not truly believe in all the things she professed to believe?

That her father, dead before she was born, might think of her as an unworthy daughter?

Dog rolled away onto his side. Jennifer slid over, pushing her hand up across his arm and then over his chest, clutching him from behind.

Tecumseh believed in her. He loved her. She could feel it like a physical thing, a coat she could wear. He was inattentive at times, maddeningly so. But he had many concerns, and the same could easily be said of her. His love, however, couldn’t be questioned.

She pressed her breasts against the muscles of his back, starting to drift back to sleep.

And then the phone rang.

“Rrrrr,” said Dog, the sound more like a snore than a word.

“Phone?” she muttered.

“Yeah.” He reached toward it, dragging the receiver to his ear. “Bastian,” he said.

Jennifer already knew that it would be Dreamland—and that it inevitably meant it was time to get up. She sighed, then swung out of bed to take a quick shower before dressing.

Brunei
1930

“We have to get missiles for the Megafortress,” Mack told McKenna as he drove back to the airport. “I’ll try calling around and see if I can break through the paperwork crap. Maybe I can beg some out of Dreamland.”

“What do we need?”

“Sidewinders, AMRAAM-pluses. We could use older AMRAAMs if we had to.”

“How about Sparrows?”

“AIM-7s? I don’t know. I think the Megafortress can fire them off the rotating dispenser in the bomb bay, but I’m not sure,” said Mack. “I don’t know what sort of avionics link they need or if it was hardwired into the computer or what”

“Well, find out.”

“Well, no shit.” Mack saw her scowl and laughed. “But assuming I find out, what difference is it going to make?”

“I know where we can buy some.”

“Sparrow missiles? How?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” said McKenna. “But we can have them in a few hours, assuming we go to pick them up ourselves.”

“Where?”

“Philippines.”

“Shit,” said Mack. “Is this legal?”

“Legal for who?”

Mack snorted. “Okay. What about air-to-ground weapons? Smart bombs?”

“How about early model Mavericks?”

“I don’t know,” said Mack. “I can check though.”

“Well, check.”

The Maverick—officially known as the AGM-65—was an American air-to-ground missile developed at the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s. It came in a variety of flavors, guided by infrared and video. Though old, it was an effective weapon, especially against tanks and other hardened targets.

“We need more small bombs for the A-37s,” Mack told her. “Can you get some?”

“We may be able to get all of this from the Philippines,” said McKenna. “There are some people there that Ivana knew. They’re a lot further down the food chain, though, and they’re going to be expensive.”

“Sultan’s just going to have to pay through the nose if that’s what it takes,” said Mack, slowing down as he approached the gate at the airport. A pair of army soldiers stood near the main gate; Mack got ready to stop but they didn’t challenge him, or the car behind them carrying his soldiers and the new recruits who had joined him from the defense ministry.

“They still aren’t taking this seriously,” complained Mack as they rolled through.

“They’ve been fat too long,” said McKenna.

“Ain’t that the truth” Mack sped toward the tower, where the army and police guard had been augmented by his own air force people. “I want to rotate the Dragonfly crews so we have airplanes in the air at all times. Yayasan can take the first flight with you in the morning—”

“I fired him.”

“What are you talking about? He’s one of our best pilots.”

“He was flying wing with me this morning. He lost his guts when I went after the helicopter.”

“You just fired him?”

“Soon as we landed. What good is a pilot who loses his nerve? He’s chicken.”

Mack might have said the same thing himself a few weeks before. But now he saw that there were many more jobs in the air force than flying planes. He could have found something for Yayasan to do.

“Okay,” said Mack. “You gotta do what you gotta do. But from now on, I do the hiring and firing, all right? We might have been able to use him on the ground”

She pursed her lips for a second as if she were going to pout, but then said, “Sit, yes, sir.”

“Fuck you, McKenna.”

“Any time, Mr. Minister. Anytime.”

Off the coast of Brunei
2200

Dazhou Ti leaned forward over the weapons officer’s shoulder, looking at the screen. When they had drawn up the mission, they had not dared to hope for such luck—both of the Brunei navy’s new patrol vessels were sailing together in the direction of the oil platforms west of the Bay. The two ships were separated by less than a hundred yards.

The only question was whether to use his last Exocets on them, or to close in with his torpedoes and cannon.

Dazhou wanted to reserve the precious French-made missiles; he had only four, and there was no telling when or even if he might obtain replacements. But the two Russian-made Nanuchka-class ships were capable enemies. They had powerful surface-search radars, and as stealthy as the
Barracuda
was, it could not count on escaping detection once it began firing its cannon.

“Range is twenty kilometers on target one,” said the weapons officer.

“Prepare to fire.”

Dazhou turned toward the helmsman, who was holding to a steady course. Dazhou could see the speed sliding below two hundred knots on the screen, pushing down toward one hundred. While the engineers claimed that a launch speed of one hundred was optimum, Dazhou had concluded from their earlier missions that anything faster than eighty knots increased the margin of error unacceptably; the missile they had launched this morning had actually struck a storage tank beyond the one they were aiming at. The trick was to hold the craft steady at that speed, as it began to settle around eighty-five, losing the benefits of its stubby wings.

“Target is locked,” said the weapons officer. “Speed?”

“One-ten”

“Steady.”

“Ninety-five knots. Eighty-five.”

“Fire missile one.”

“Firing”

“Fire missile two”

“Firing.”

“Target two is changing course!” said the radar operator.

Dazhou looked across the deck at his screen. The second patrol vessel was turning eastward toward them.

“Prepare missiles three and four.”

“Ready to fire, sir.”

“Missile in the air!” warned the radar operator.

For a split second, Dazhou felt his breath catch deep in his chest. The Brunei navy vessel had fired one of its SS-N-9 Siren anti-ship missiles. The missile’s warhead carried roughly 6,600 pounds of explosives—more than four times the weight of the Exocet.

“Prepare for evasive maneuvers,” he said. Then he turned to the weapons officer. “Are we locked on the target?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fire. Both missiles.”

The ship rumbled with the launch as the slender French missiles jumped from their tubes behind the bridge area. The
Barracuda
then abruptly settled into the water. Dazhou’s decision to fire had cost him the wing in surface effect, making it almost impossible to race away.

But he had no intention of doing so.

“Evasive maneuvers. Chaff and ECMs,” said Dazhou.

The
Barracuda
lurched sideways as the helmsman tried to duck the incoming missile. A quartet of small mortars pumped shards of aluminum, copper, and tin into the air, creating a fog for them to disappear behind.

“Still tracking us,” reported the defensive weapons officer. “Continue evasive maneuvers,” said Dazhou calmly.

He stood over the radar operator’s station, watching the display.

“Still tracking,” reported the defensive weapons officer.

“ECMs are on?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Target one hit. Hit on target one,” said the offensive weapons operator.

Dazhou struggled to keep his head clear. The missile was still tracking them. He’d thought it would be easier to duck in stealth mode.

Should he have run?

“More chaff,” he said. “And flares as it closes.”

“Ninety seconds,” reported the radar operator.

“Strike on two! Strike on two!”

Yes, thought, Dazhou, we have sunk both. But that will be of small consolation if they hit us as well.

The
Barracuda
slapped left and right, then left again. The enemy missile continued to home in on them.

Dazhou went to the weapons station. They could use the small cannon as a last-ditch weapon and try and shoot the missile down from the sky. The twenty-millimeter gun was an excellent weapon and the SS-N-9 relatively slow moving, but still, they would have only a few seconds to hit it. The gun was in the nose of the ship and the craft would have to be turned to fire. They would also have to kill their engines to increase the odds of success.

“Come around so we can bring the small cannon to bear;” Dazhou told the helmsman.

“Aye, sir,” he said, already starting the turn.

“Still coming!” warned the radar operator.

It’s looking at our radar, Dazhou realized. The Russians had sold Brunei a radar homing device, and they had been smart enough to use it.

“Turn off the radar,” said Dazhou quickly. “Fire more chaff. Helm, resume evasive pattern.”

The mortars with the chaff roared at the back. The
Barracuda
hunkered down as her helmsman, worried that turning too sharply would tip them over disastrously, shunted left vaguely, then back right.

“Harder, helm,” said Dazhou. He reached to the control wheel, placing his hand on his crewman’s. He was not showing the man that he didn’t lack confidence in him—he was taking responsibility for the brash maneuver.

The
Barracuda
roared and shot left, nearly pirouetting around on its wing and flipping over as it tried to follow the harsh jerks on its controls. Dazhou barely stayed upright as they jinked across the ocean left, left then right and right again, left, right, left.

“Chaff!” he called again. “And flares.”

The diversionary weapons exploded from the rear.

Dazhou pulled his arm up. For a second, two seconds, he did not breathe.