Strike Zone (22 page)

“Turn off the ECMs. I have to follow him.”

“Zen, we're at bingo. We're beyond it—we have to refuel. We have to go back,” said Alou.

His voice was so stern Zen didn't argue. He pulled around, looking in the direction of the H-5.

It was still on the water, taxiing he thought. Then the large tail seemed to fold backward, the massive air
plane crumpled like a piece of origami caught in a tornado. Flames burst from the engines; in a matter of seconds, the entire aircraft had disappeared under the water.

“Oh shit,” said Zen.

III

Chips

Brunei
11 September 1997
1829

D
OG HAD JUST
stripped and turned on the water to take a shower before dinner when his secure satellite phone buzzed. Thinking—hoping—it might be Jennifer, he grabbed it off the sink and looked at the LED window on the top, which was like a caller ID device indicating which node of the Dreamland secure system had originated the communications. He was surprised to find that the alphanumeric was Z-99—Zen.

“Bastian,” he said, wrapping a towel around himself.

“Colonel, we have a problem. We found the ghost clone, but before we could get to it, it shot down the Chinese aircraft. It took off before we could apprehend it.”

Dog reached back into the tub to turn off the shower as Zen continued, explaining what had happened.

“There's a merchant ship about twenty minutes away,” Zen added. “He's en route. We can see debris on the water, but no survivors.”

“No survivors?”

“We're still looking,” said Zen.

He added that the Chinese had additional assets en
route. The final transmission from the H-5 was garbled, and it wasn't clear to them what happened.

“The Chinese know the plane is down?” asked Dog.

“Yes, sir. A J-8 was coming down to hook up with it and escort it home. The J-8 radioed us shortly after the shootdown when it didn't show on radar. We told them we were refueling but would come up and look for them. It wasn't a lie, exactly. We just left out some of the details.”

There was a knock on his door. Dog ignored it. “What are you doing now?” he asked Zen.

“I'd like to stay around until the ship gets there at least.”

“Any possibility of finding the clone?”

“We can try, but the trail's pretty cold. Alou won't complain, but his crew's been at it a pretty long time.”

Whoever was at the door knocked again. Dog thought it must be Mack, who'd promised to give him a ride over to the palace.

“All right,” Dog told him. “Stay aloft until the Chinese have the area covered. Offer whatever assistance you can. After that, head back. I'll meet you in the trailer.”

“The Chinese are going to think we shot them down,” said Zen.

“I know.”

Dog hit the End button and pulled the towel tighter around his waist. But instead of Mack he found Miss Kelly.

“Colonel, you're not dressed yet,” she said.

“I'm afraid there have been new developments,” said Dog. He decided to give her a brief overview of what had happened.

“I have to check with Washington to see precisely how they want to handle this.”

“It's not good,” she said.

“No, it's not,” said Dog. “I'm going to have to miss dinner with the sultan.”

“You can't.”

“This is much more important.”

“Not showing up will be interpreted as an insult.”

“I'm afraid it can't be helped.”

“Colonel, you can't snub the sultan.”

“I'm not snubbing him. I just don't have time for diplomatic bullshit,” he told her. “You're the State Department. You fix it.”

“But—”

He slammed the door before she could finish her sentence.

Aboard the
Dragon Prince
, South China Sea
1925

T
HE STORMCLOUD APPROACHED
from the east, rushing in like a tempest sent from the gods. Low to the water, riding in the thick band of the setting sun, it seemed to kick up fire and ash rather than steam as it came toward the
Dragon Prince
. Suddenly a black cloud furled from behind and it settled onto the waves, skimming the surface.

The
Dragon
had returned. The small robot plane taxied on its skis toward the ship, its speed steadily dropping. Professor Ai watched from the rail as the computer on the plane jettisoned the parachute it had used to slow and then spun the plane around the ship
with its last bit of momentum, ready to be picked up. The skis that it rode on held it above the water, but just barely, and the recovery had to be completed quickly once the aircraft stopped moving.

Professor Ai had found that his presence on the deck helped the process, as the crew inevitably moved even faster. There was little danger that the craft would sink, but the longer it sat in the unfriendly salty water, the more maintenance it required. Already the coating of its composite hull and skin had to be reapplied every second or third flight.

Dragon Prince
had lowered a boat earlier to help in the recovery. It approached the small robot plane now, helping as the hoist was secured to its fuselage. Within minutes, the crank on the edge of the ship began to groan.

Professor Ai had wanted to name the robot plane
Xi Wang Mu
after the goddess in Chinese mythology who was said to be the Queen Mother of the West. She was the patron of immortality, a beneficent figure.

To most. Professor Ai, however, knew that the earliest texts mentioning Xi Wang Mu referred to her as a monster—part human, part tiger. She ruled over demons and the plague answered her command. The kinder image had evolved over the centuries.

Ai Hira Bai's own history had drawn him to the story of Xi Wang Mu. It was not a coincidence that his middle name was Japanese—Ai had been born during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria during World War II. His father had died shortly after his birth—or at least that was what his mother had been told. A native of Shanghai, she had returned to the city after the war. But her neighbors and relatives considered her a
collaborator and would have nothing to do with her; in her anguish she had fled the country after the war. She had worked hard to raise her son, though she had died before he reached twenty.

Ai wanted war not to liberate the stolen provinces, but as a measure of vengeance. Soon, he thought, he would have it.

As long as the communists reacted as they should, interpreting the destruction of the innocent SAR flight as a wanton act by the Americans. Professor Ai did not particularly care for the Americans either, though he did not hate them as he hated the Mainlanders.

“A successful mission,” said Chen Lo Fann nearby.

The professor nodded to the young man. “Now it is up to the mongrels to play their role.”

“Yes,” said Chen Lo Fann.

Alexandria, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.
0640

J
ED
B
ARCLAY HEARD
the phone ring and realized something big was up—it was his encrypted line, installed at the NSC director's request in his home office.

Since Jed lived in a one-room studio apartment, his home office was also his bedroom, family room, and dining area, so he didn't have to lean far from his foldout couch to grab it.

“Barclay,” he said, not quite awake yet.

“Jed, the Chinese are claiming that we've shot down one of their planes,” said his boss. “Get over to the White House right away.”

“Shot down one of their planes?”

“Find out if it's true while you're at it. Call me back. I'm still confined to bed.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

A
N HOUR LATER,
Jed walked through the West Wing basement flanked by a pair of Secret Service agents. With the help of Colonel Bastian and briefings from the NSA and CIA, he had managed to pull together a pretty fair understanding of what had happened. Unfortunately, understanding the situation and being able to do something about it were two different things.

“Barclay,” said Admiral Balboa, spotting him in the hallway outside the situation room. “What the hell is that cowboy Bastian up to now?”

“He's not up to anything,” Jed told the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Whoever is operating the ghost clone shot down a Chinese flying boat while it was trying to make a rescue. They're trying to provoke a war.”

“Gentlemen, let's discuss this in the situation room,” said the defense secretary, coming in behind them. “Come on.”

Balboa grimaced but said nothing. The secretary of state and the President were already inside, along with the other service chiefs and the head of the CIA. Balboa's broadside had a positive effect on Jed—he got through his quick overview of the situation with only a single stutter.

“The Chinese are on alert now. They're threatening to retaliate,” he said, turning to Jeffrey Hartman, the secretary of state. “You might, uh, want to cover that.”

“Actually, I have some fresh data on the Chinese
units that are standing by,” said General Victor Hayes, the Air Force chief of staff. “As well as ours.”

Jed stole a glance at the President. Some months before, Kevin Martindale had threatened the Chinese with war over Taiwan. He'd backed the threat up with covert action, and only the Chinese really knew how close the world had come to a nuclear exchange. But that conflict seemed justifiable and even reasonable, the result of a series of aggressions and countermoves by America.

This was almost an accident—a crazy, chaotic accident.

Or not. Whoever was operating the ghost clone wanted war. World War III.

“How much do the Chinese know?” asked Martindale.

It took Jed a second before realizing the President was speaking to him.

“We don't think they know about the ghost clone at all. Circumstantially—we were there at the time. I, uh, uh, if it were me . . . ” Jed's voice trailed off. His tongue was threatening to revolt again.

“Go on, Jed,” said the President calmly.

“I would reach the same conclusion the Chinese did,” said Jed. “B-b-because based on the evidence they have, we did it.”

“Maybe we should add to their evidence,” suggested Martindale.

“Tell them about the UAV?” asked Chastain.

“Why not?” said the President. “Jed, what do we have?”

“We have video of the c-c-collision itself, and of the shootdown. Radar stuff, sensor data. Uh, but, but—”

Jed felt them all staring at him.

“Very sensitive,” he continued, managing to blurt out the words. “Giving them all the information we have would show the Flighthawks' capabilities. And, uh, the, uh, uh,
Raven
's, the Elint c-c-capable Megafortress.”

“I doubt they'll believe us at this point anyway,” said the secretary of state. “Or rather, that they'll admit that they believe it.”

“My feeling is we should just ignore their threats,” said Balboa. “They're just flexing their muscles. They won't move against us.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said the President. “At the moment, I don't feel like taking a chance. Jed, prepare the data, minimize the exposure to our technology. They know we have good sensors; we won't give away the store by letting them see a blurry shot or two. Let Defense review it before it comes over to me. Once I have it, I'll decide whether to use it or not. Jeffrey, get the Chinese ambassador and have him meet me in my office. I'll clear all my other appointments.”

The President rose and started to leave the room. But when he got to the door, he stopped and turned back.

“And Jed—tell Colonel Bastian he's past due on finding out who's operating this so-called ghost clone.”

Dreamland Command Trailer, Brunei
2320

D
OG STARED AT
the video screen, where a very tired Ray Rubeo updated the latest information from the team studying the
Raven
's intercepts back at Dreamland.
The members of the team had been able to sketch a tentative model based on the captured telemetry and video. The aircraft was roughly the length of a Flighthawk, but with a radically different airfoil; in fact, it looked closer to a Boeing design dating before the Flighthawks and originally intended as a one-off to test low-cost stealth concepts. The flight data suggested that the aircraft's top speed was slower than the Flighthawk's, but the analysis had concluded there were two cannons aboard, and the fuselage was wide enough to carriage a good-sized air-to-ground missile.

“The difference in the physical design should eliminate any suspicion of spying by the physical team,” added Rubeo at the end of his brief. He seemed to be alone in the Dreamland Command Center, except for a skeleton crew. “Perhaps that will act as an enticement for our inquisitor to leave at least those people alone.”

“Come now, Ray, Colonel Cortend can't be that bad,” said Dog.

“The colonel has completely changed my opinion of the Spanish Inquisition,” said Rubeo. “I now recognize it was a charitable organization.”

“What's controlling it?” asked Zen, who was sitting next to Stoner behind Dog in the trailer's communications center. “Where's its control aircraft? We never saw it on the radar.”

“That remains a mystery,” said the scientist. “We are working on it, Major.”

According to the information from
Raven
, the only aircraft that had been in the area were Chinese—and it didn't make sense that they had shot down their own plane.

“Ray, what's the possibility that the clone is being controlled from a ship?” asked Dog.

“At this point, I wouldn't rule anything out.”

“The closest ship was that civilian vessel that searched the area of the crash,” said Zen. “We overflew him. There's no way he launched the clone, let alone recovered it.”