Ostensibly, both forces were sailing into the South China Sea to protect ships bound for their home ports. The reality was more complicated—and less so. On their present courses, it would take only a few days for them to meet.
Everything Chen did aimed at that moment of intersection.
He himself commanded five ships. The naked eye, all were noncombatants, weak and vulnerable sisters that had no business near the caldron of battle. Four were similar to the small freighter on whose bridge he stood. They looked innocent, but their simple superstructures and wide hulls were crammed with spying gear, and their sophisticated communications devices kept them in constant touch though they were spread across several thousand square miles of ocean.
The fifth vessel, still far to the north, was unlike them in many ways. To the naked eye from one hundred yards, it looked only like a decrepit oil tanker. But it held Chen’s greatest tool—robot planes the scientists called Dragons. They would not be available for several days. Even then, it was doubtful what the aircraft could accomplish; they were still experimental.
They would extend his eyesight, which was enough. His more conventional tools were sufficient to his larger purpose.
Know white, be black. Be a model for the empire.
Chen satisfied, put down his glasses and went to have his morning tea.
New Lebanon, Nevada (near Las Vegas)
August 21, 1997, 1530 local
Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard had faced considerable danger and hardship during his Air Force career; he had gunned down MiGs, nailed enemy antiaircraft sites, and lost the use of his legs in a horrific accident while testing robot fighters. He’d dealt with enemies ranging from poorly trained Libyan pilots to highly polished government bureaucrats, vanquishing all. His confinement to a wheelchair had not prevented him from deftly directing one of the most important programs at Dreamland. If any man might truly earn the title “courageous,” it was Zen Stockard. If he was not fearless—no man in full possession of his wits is completely devoid of some silver of fear—he was so much a master of fear as to be without peer in military service.
There was one thing, however, that turned his resolute will into quivering mass of jelly:
The whine of a dentist’s drill.
Zen took a last, sharp breath as the dentist closed in, aiming at a molar deep in his mouth. The way had been prepared with a heavy dose of Novocain, and in truth Zen couldn’t feel much of anything as the drill bit touched the tooth.
But he could hear its nerve-wracking, cell-tingling howl, a shriek of devastation so violent it reverberated in the suddenly hollow ventricles of his heart. Pain, incredible pain, pulsed through every vein, every artery, every capillary, coursing through his body like hot electricity. The world went black.
And then, thankfully, the storm broke. Pain and fear retreated. The viper had stopped his hiss.
Only to gather strength for a curdling scream five octaves higher as it tore through the vulnerable enamel and weakened dentin of the defenseless back tooth.
“Got to get it all,” growled the dentist, as if Zen had somehow hidden part of the cavity to spite him.
The worst thing was, the sadist enjoyed it all. When he finally stopped, he smiled and held the drill triumphantly in one hand, waving it like a victory flag.
“See—that wasn’t bad at all, right?”
“Awgrhfkhllmk,” said Zen. It was the most coherent sound he could manage with his mouth full of dentist tools.
:Geez, you’d think I was an Air Force dentist.” Dr. Gideon—Ken to friends and victims alike—poked fun at the Air Force whenever possible. His discharge papers from the Navy were prominently displayed in the hallway.
Sure they discharge him. He was a dentist.
“Awgrh,” said Zen.
“Maybe I’ll break for coffee,” teased Gideon.
“Awgrh-agrh.” Zen tried to make the mumble sound threatening, but there was only so much you could do with a sucked clawing at your gum. Gideon picked up another tool and shot cold air into the hole he had just created.
The pain nearly knocked Zen unconscious.
“you know, Jeff, I really have to compliment you. You’ve become a much better patient over the past year. Must be your wife’s influence.”
“Awrgr-kerl-wushump.”
“Yeah, Breanna is a perfect patient. Never a word of pain. I don’t think she needs Novocain at all. Wonderful woman. You’re lucky to have her. You guys should think about kids.”
“Awrgr-kerl-wushump.”
Gideon took Zen’s garbled protest as an invitation to expound on the joys of fatherhood. He had three children, all between the ages of five and ten. They all loved to play dentist—more proof that evil hereditary.
“Due for their checkups soon,” added Gideon. “We started ’em young.”
“I thought child abuse was illegal in this state,” said Zen. With the Novocain and dental equipment, the sentence came out sounding like “thickel giggle hissss.”
“Yeah, they’re cute, all right. You ought to think about having some. Seriously.”
Gideon prolonged Zen’s agony by polishing down the filling and then using what looked and tasted like old carbon paper to perfect the bite. By the time he was done, Zen suspected the dentist could see himself in the surface.
“Very good,” said Gideon, standing back as if to take a bow. “Want to grab coffee? I’m free for the rest of the day.”