Tomorrow War (17 page)

The huge wall of water engulfed his boat an instant later ….

T
HE Z-16 HAD BEEN
airborne for nearly twenty-four hours.

In that time the recon plane and its five-aircraft escort had covered only about fifteen hundred miles total. Not that the aircraft was going so slow—it was cruising at nearly three hundred knots. The flight computer, obeying the commands inputted by persons unknown, was
making
the airplane take a long, looping, meandering course, with many double-and triple-backs, and a dozen or more orbits that lasted an hour or more.

Luckily, the Z-16 was built for such a crazy flight path. Indeed, one thing the crew did not have to worry about was fuel.

This was because the plane’s double-reaction engines needed very little fuel to operate—that was the beauty of double-reaction engine (DRE) technology. The combining of two highly-volatile chemical agents—usually xerof-2 and zerox-45—provided the catalyst for combustion in a double-reaction engine, thus its name. Because these two agents were so volatile, only minute amounts were needed to produce the combustion necessary to turn the engine blades inside a DRE.

This method of propulsion allowed the aircraft in this world a wide range of operating and design characteristics. First of all, the whole double-reaction propulsion system was small, and the chemical agents extremely lightweight. Thus, aircraft could be built larger as the weight of fuel they needed to carry was minor. Secondly, aircraft could go faster by adjusting the mixture of the two chemicals. By adding more zerox-45 to xerof-2, the aircraft would increase in speed dramatically, a kind of super-afterburner effect.

But third and most important, the relatively little need for refueling allowed aircraft with double-reaction engines to stay aloft longer. That was why some aircraft in this world were built like aerial ocean liners, while others, though smaller, were constructed with sleeping and living quarters for their crews to make long flights more comfortable. To become airborne and stay that way for days or even weeks was not unusual at all here—in fact, it was commonplace. That’s why even a relatively small fighter-bomber like the AirCats drove had accommodations for their crew of three.

The Z-16 was a typical example of this aircraft-design philosophy. It had been built as an ultralong-range recon plane. The designers envisioned recon flights of up to a month or more. It was slightly reminiscent of an aircraft in another universe known as the U-2, but it was much larger, its wings were much longer, and its fuselage much thicker. It could fly extremely high—altitudes of up to 110,000 feet were not uncommon—and it could reach three times the speed of sound—more than 2,000 mph—at least for short periods of time. If necessary, it could carry as many as one hundred passengers.

That was the original idea for taking the Z-16 along as a tow plane on the B-2000 superbomber’s mission to sink Japan. If the huge bomber was forced down—either by hostile action or mechanical problems after the bomb was dropped—then the Z-16 could have been used as a lifeboat of sorts. The entire bombing crew could have fit aboard her and could possibly have escaped.

Obviously, finding the Z-16 hidden in the cavern at Long Bat did not fit into this scenario.

But as it turned out, that was just
one
thing that proved unusual about the Z-16’s role in the search for Hawk Hunter and the other missing members of the superbomber’s crew.

The airplane had climbed to 65,000 feet upon taking off from Long Bat, but in reaching that altitude, it quickly leveled off, turned west, and started descending.

Sitting in its flight compartment, the two Jones boys were at the primary controls. They were fulfilling the wishes of the unseen person who had set the Z-16’s autopilot—they were flying the plane completely hands-off. All they were doing was monitoring the aircraft’s vital systems and keeping an eye on its main flight computer as it ticked off the various inputted commands.

It was a strange way to fly—as if unseen hands were doing the work for them. Watching the controls move this way and that, it had come to both their minds more than once that this is how the plane would have flown had a ghost been at the wheel.

The flight pattern was not only bizarre, but mysterious, as well. The passengers aboard the Z-16 found themselves flying in circles above huge patches of Southeast Asian jungle, mostly over Vietnam, but also Cambodia and Laos. At one point they circled the ancient ruins of Angkor Thom in Cambodia for more than three hours before the flight controls clicked again and they shot off to the south.

During most of the flight, Y slept in a bunk with Emma, and Zoltan and Crabb played cards with the four other hookers on board. Each one as beautiful and young and delectable as Emma. Their names were easy to remember. Brandee, Brandi, Brandy and Brayn-Di. All were blonde, all were abundantly friendly, and like Emma, all were striking in their very tight cutoff jungle camos.

They were also great cardplayers. After the first eighteen-hour-marathon poker session, the four girls had relieved Zoltan and Crabb of most of their monetary reserves. Once Crabb leaned over and whispered to Zoltan: “If I’ve got to give them money, I wish I was getting more in return than just a couple shitty straights and an occasional two pair.”

The flight went on into its second day high above the ancient religious site of Angkor Wat and U-Suk-Bum.

That’s when Seth Jones, who had been poring over the navigational computer trying to detect a pattern in the autopilot’s maddening course, finally discovered something.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

This exclamation brought his brother, Dave, over to the huge circular computer screen. Both were now focusing on a line pattern Seth had coaxed out of the hard drive. In a small way their strange, circular, looping, repetitive flight became a bit clear.

“We are flying over old railroad beds,” was Seth’s conclusion.

It was true. By superimposing old maps over their current grid of Southeast Asia, it appeared that the Z-16 had actually been following the meandering route of railway lines throughout old Indochina, many of which were now in disuse, disrepair, or mostly hidden by the thick jungle canopy.

Whenever the Z-16 went into an orbit, it was usually because they were circling over an old railway exchange yard. Even near the site of Angkor Thom, there had been a large railway station at one time, complete with circular track turnarounds and serving facilities.

“That has to be it,” Dave Jones said after studying what his brother had discovered. “This airplane has been set to fly over just any length of track ever laid down in this part of the world. The question is:
Why?”

“Because the person who programmed the automatic pilot knew they would be searching for a certain railroad line,” they heard Zoltan’s unmistakable deep voice say.

The psychic and Crabb had joined the Jones boys at the navigational screen. Even the four “Brandys” were showing interest.

“They intended us to make the same search as they did,” Zoltan continued. “At least, that’s my best guess.”

Seth turned toward the psychic. “Isn’t everything you do simply just your ‘best guess’?”

Zoltan’s brow fell a few inches. He was ultrasensitive to those who questioned his psychic abilities—but at this moment he wasn’t sure if Jones was needling him or not.

“I have a perfectly acceptable success rating in these things,” he told Jones. “You can peruse my service record at the push of a button.”

He indicated another large computer that was located at the far end of the Z-16 flight deck. This was the Main/AC, the omnipresent computer terminal which could be found in every American military aircraft, vessel, land-fighting vehicle, and facility, from the room of the Joint Chiefs down to the lowliest supply office.

The Main/AC in the Z-16 had not been activated yet—they still considered their mission to be extremely sensitive, and turning on one’s Main/AC was like lighting a beacon and letting everyone with Main/AC access know where you were and what you were doing at any given moment.

So Zoltan’s challenge to Jones was a bluff of sorts. And everyone knew it.

A silence descended on the flight compartment—two worlds were close to colliding here. The military-think and hands-dirty experiences of the Jones boy against the eclectic, paranormal doings of the former Psychic Corps officer.

Oddly, it was Dave Jones who broke the spell.

“It makes sense to me,” he said. “I think …”

They all turned their attention back to the navigational screen. The Z-16’s flight path did look like it was searching for something having to do with railroad tracks. But what?

“Maybe the person who set these controls knew they would be flying over every railway in this part of the world,” Dave Jones surmised. “At the moment they were inputting the autopilot commands, they didn’t know what they were looking for, either. So they simply sent us on the same pattern.”

“Meaning what they were looking for would be obvious to us if we overflew the same railway lines as they did?” Crabb asked.

“That’s it precisely,” Zoltan declared, feeling somewhat vindicated. “When we get to what they wanted us to see, we’ll know it immediately—or there will be a sign left for us, to recognize the next step.”

There was a group shrug.

Then the Jones boys went back to the main controls, and the cardplayers returned to the makeshift poker table. Outside, the escorting AirCats and the HellJet kept pace; their crews passed time in other ways.

Up in the Z-16’s main service bunk, Y slept fitfully. His psyche was finding sweet dreams hard to come by.

Even at twenty thousand feet.

The long, winding flight continued on into a third day. They had passed up and down the length of Indochina more than two dozen times, the last twelve hours of which were spent mainly overflying Thailand and Cambodia.

It was strange—now that the Z-16 crew had a notion that the meandering flight pattern had a logic to it, they became caught up in closely examining the terrain below. The auto flight had been set with the idea that they should be
looking
for something. And so they were.

Designed as a recon plane, the Z-16 had an array of gizmos that could penetrate the thick jungle layer below them. One was called the LANTRAN. It was a combination radar-bouncing/infrared scanner that could quite effectively show a real-time map of the terrain below the jungle canopy. Once the crew was hip that railroad lines were a key to what they were seeking, the Jones boys were able to program the LANTRAN to seek out patterns that would naturally correspond to a rail line and to emit a warning buzzer whenever a new image was located.

Fairly soon into this, the LANTRAN buzzer was going off with such regularity the Jones boys finally shut the damn thing off. The lower part of Cambodia and most of the northern tier of Thailand was crisscrossed with rail lines, most of them old and little used. This part of Asia was sparsely populated—years of wars separate from the recently concluded global conflicts had made the place not very habitable.

In all their seventy-two hours of overflight, the crew of the Z-16 had been painted by antiaircraft weapons just twice, both to no consequence. Signs of civilian life below were even more rare.

But that all changed, as did the first phase of the search, when they arrived over the Thai region called Ma-What.

Through this region ran a long meandering river called the Kwai.

This area of Indochina was different from the terrain the Z-16 and its escorting airplanes had been flying over for the past three days.

Gone were the thick jungle forests, some so dense they blocked out all light from the sun. Here were rolling hills and shallow valleys, part of the River Kwai basin.

The grass here was so green, in the right angle of sunlight, it was dazzling and emeraldlike. This region actually looked out of place. It almost seemed like a slice of the African savanna.

And it was here that the Z-16 crew discovered unmistakable evidence that Hawk Hunter had gone this way not long before.

It came at midafternoon on the third day. The Jones boys were still at the controls, the nonstop poker game was continuing.

Little had been heard from Y in the past seventy-two hours. But suddenly there was a commotion in his service bunk. Emma toppled out first, followed closely by the OSS agent.

Y looked slightly mad, slightly frightened. He quickly fell into his service fatigues and made his way up past the poker game to the flight deck.

“Where the hell are we?” he asked the Jones brothers anxiously.

Seth Jones calmly pointed to the navigational screen, which had a map grid of Thailand superimposed on it.

“Down there, the River Kwai,” he told Y. “We’ve been following the railway ever since yesterday afternoon. This is where it led us …”

Y just stared back at him. “Why … why are you following a railway?”

Seth looked over at brother Dave. Dave was actually two minutes older and thus as the elder sibling, it was up to him to bring the wayward OSS agent up to speed on what they’d been doing for the past several days.

Dave did just that. He briefed Y on the discovery that the Z-16’s controls were actually set to follow parts of just about every rail line in Indochina. But since entering this part of Thailand, the Z-16 seemed to have been following just this one line.

Y looked like he wanted to jump out of the airplane. “God … I just … dreamed we were actually riding on a train,” he said, mumbling most of his words. “That we were still flying this airplane but we were doing it on rails. And every asshole with a gun, spear, or bow and arrow was shooting at us ….”

He stopped for a moment, suddenly aware of the monumental ass he was making of himself.

That’s when Zoltan left the card table and climbed up onto the flight deck with them.

“Tell us more,” he said simply.

Y rubbed his tired eyes. He was really not feeling him self—the last three days had been nothing but hours upon hours of nightmarish slumber—deep sleeps he had trouble waking up from. His seeming narcolepsy was cut only by occasional feeling sessions with Emma and several trips to the head.