“Gee, where’s the brass band?” asked Chris.

CAPTAIN FREAH WAITED IMPATIENTLY AS THE BOMBER trundled toward its parking area. He’d been able to sleep only a few hours, but felt a burst of energy and excitement as the big plane finally stopped. Undoing his restraints, he bolted up from the uncomfortable jump seat and grabbed his gear. Squeezing into the hatch area, he pulled down the handle to open and lower the access ladder. It sounded like a bus tire puncturing as it burst open; Danny took it two steps at a time, ducking his head and scooting out from beneath the plane. A pair of rain-soaked Marines waved him toward a nearby pickup. After the cramped quarters of the Megafortress navigational bay, even the warm but heavy rain felt good. Danny stood out on the tarmac getting soaked while the rest of his team disembarked. Leaving Hernandez behind to wrestle with their gear in the storage bay, they hopped into the rear of the pickup. The rain surged as the truck started, but it seemed to be a final burst, for by the time they reached the low-slung building at the far end of the base it had slowed to a drizzle.

Freah jumped over the side of the truck, walking double-time inside. Hal Briggs greeted him in the hallway.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” said Briggs, slamming Danny with a shoulder chuck. “Damn. I thought the ETA you gave was a typo.”

“You didn’t think I’d let you have fun without me, did you?” asked Freah. His men filed in behind him; Danny introduced them.

“Grub’s that way,” said Briggs, pointing down the hall. “You’ll find a cafeteria, whole nine yards. You have a half hour,” added Briggs, glancing at his watch.

“Just a half hour?”

“Ospreys should be here by then.”

“Ospreys?”

“Since you busted your hump to get here, we’ll give you something real to do,” said Briggs. “Come on. Let me fill you in over at the terminal building. It’s our command bunker.”

“What is this place?” Danny asked.

“Russkies built it as a commercial strip place back in the seventies, then abandoned it when they realized the area was too rugged to support any sort of industry. Thank God for Commies with money, or at least bulldozers and cement, huh?”

Freah followed the major back outside. They walked around the side of the building to a Humvee. Briggs got in and Danny followed; they drove back toward the area where the Megafortress had parked.

“Shit. You came in a Megafortress?” said Briggs as they passed the plane.

“How do you think we got here so fast?”

“They had room to land?”

“I guess.”

Briggs turned right between the last and next-to-last buildings, then made a sharp right onto a long access road. They followed it as it circled around a row of small hangars; they looked more like sheds.

Three F-117 Nighthawks and three F-16 Vipers were parked beyond the sheds, guarded by a dozen air commandos. Briggs slowed just enough to let the guards know it was him, then sped on toward a large terminal building. Even in the dark it was obvious the building had been abandoned for some time. Lights shone eerily inside, and shadows seemed to leak from the broken windows. Two more Air Force Special Ops guards with M-16’s met them as Briggs pulled to a stop. Danny recognized one of the men, but barely had a chance to nod as Hal walked briskly inside.

A group of men clustered inside the empty reception hall, examining a series of maps spread over a trio of tables. The maps spilled over the sides; there were clutches of satellite pictures and a few rough sketches arranged around them.

“This is Danny Freah,” said Briggs, introducing him around. Quickly, Briggs filled him in on the situation. A Marine assault team supported by four F-16’s had attempted to take out several batteries of SAM missiles and a Silkworm base on the Somalian coast, while a flight of four F-117’s went after a pair of Silkworm bases a few miles to the northwest. Both of these bases were more extensive and better defended than had been thought, and the team came under heavy fire. An F-16 and one of the F-117 stealth fighters were downed. The F-117 was apparently lost to an SA-2; the long-wave radar was able to detect the vortices caused by the plane, and it was especially vulnerable while launching its missiles.

“We don’t jam the radars—or I should say we didn’t—since that costs us the element of surprise. Our targets were destroyed,” Briggs added. “Frankly, the SAM had only about a one-in-a-hundred chance of getting the plane. It was an acceptable risk.” He jabbed his finger at the map, pinpointing a spot on the hilly plains just south of the coast. “We have a strong suspicion that the pilot was alive because we have radio intercepts from an Iranian MiG about a parachute in this area. His name’s Stephen Howland. Captain. Twenty-six. From Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.”

Danny nodded.

“Our intelligence is limited,” admitted Briggs, “but we think that the Somalians have already recovered at least the plane. CIA has a source saying he saw an airplane on a flatbed truck out on this road. It’s not really a highway; more like a dirt road with pretensions that runs through these mountains and hills. Anyway, it would make sense, because this road goes right to Bosaso, on the northern coast, which is within five miles of where we think the plane went down. From Bosaso they might go down to Mogadishu. Or maybe they’ll try for Libya, heading west on this highway here. It’s been improved recently; we think the Iranians have helped widen and repave it. It hooks up with Burao. From there they would have a highway, a real highway, through Ethiopia, the Sudan, Libya, wherever they want to go.”

“Why Libya?”

“Libya has signed up for the Greater Islamic League,” said Hal. “So bringing the prisoners there might be one way of guaranteeing that their partner is involved. The Iranians may also figure that with a Presidential election coming up, pounding Tehran will be an enormously popular thing to do.”

“Would it?” asked Danny.

“I don’t know about the politics,” said Hal. He quickly went on. “They also know we’re sending ships up from the Indian Ocean. They also suspect that we could base forces in Kenya. So to the Iranians it might seem safer to go by ground. They might not think we’re watching.”

Briggs slid one of the satellite pictures around and pointed at it. It covered an area near the northeastern coast of Somalia. “One of our satellites is being repaired by the shuttle, and the remaining birds aren’t positioned very well for coverage. We’re also having a hell of a lot of trouble because of the weather and the clouds,” said Briggs. “This image is several hours old. We’re trying to arrange an overflight in the morning. We have a Delta Force team ready to go in as soon as we have a target. But we’re talking several hundred square miles to cover. And it’s nearly four hundred miles from here. We’d like to get the stealth fighter back, or at least blow up the wreckage. As soon as it’s located, we go. Same thing on the pilot.”

“What about the F-16?” asked Danny.

“You may know him—Mack Smith. He was at Dreamland. Tall guy. Typical pilot ego.”

“Sure.”

“He went out over here, a few miles away. Mack seems to have stayed around to help the Marines. The Marines credit him with saving their necks, because their helicopter was under fire. Two members of the assault team apparently saw it get hit and left their helicopter to help Smith.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah. Like I said, their helo was getting hit and in the confusion the pilot decided his best course of action was to get out,” Briggs said. “He didn’t know he was missing two men. In any event, he did manage to save the rest of the team and the helicopter.”

Briggs slid the satellite image away, jabbing his finger at a yellow blotch on the map. “We’re getting an intermittent signal beacon from this spot here, about two, two-and-a-half miles south of the Silkworm base, back in these hills here. We haven’t been able to raise the pilot. We sent a rented Cessna and managed to get this,” he added, moving around the papers to find some sketchy photocopies of snapshots.