“Sure,” said Zen. “Hell, anything’s possible, at least until we see what we’re dealing with.”

“Well, hopefully that happens today. You coming with us?” Dog asked Stoner.

“I have some people to talk to here,” said Stoner. “Zen said he didn’t need me.”

“I got it covered.”

Zen and Stoner still weren’t getting along, although to their credit they hadn’t let whatever personal animosity was between them get in the way of the mission.

Yet.

Colonel Bastian checked his watch. It wasn’t quite seven-thirtyA.M.here, which would make it about 1530 or three-thirty in the afternoon the day before back home. He needed to check in with a whole roster of people back at Dreamland—Major Catsman, Ax, Danny Freah, and Rubeo—before the flight briefings. He was also supposed to update Jed Barclay, though that could wait until he was aboard Raven.

He also wanted to give Jennifer another try. She hadn’t answered any of his calls.

“Are we set?” Zen asked.

Dog took another look at the map. It bothered him that he had an inexperienced man running the Flighthawk that would cross over Chinese territory, but tracking the clone definitely called for someone of Zen’s skill. And the EB-52s had different specialties, so they couldn’t be easily swapped.

The thing to do, Colonel Bastian realized, was to switch places with Alou. This way, if things got too hairy with the Chinese in the early going, he’d be there to take care of it.

Made sense. He ought to be the guy with his neck on the line.

“I’m going to take Penn,” he told Alou. “We’ll swap seats. I want my neck on the line up there if we’re flying that close to China.”

Page 77

“Your call, Colonel,” said Alou. “One way or the other’s fine with me.”

Dog nodded. Alou was typical of a certain type of officer common in the Air Force. Easygoing and generally quiet, they were pros who tended to do their jobs without much flash or complaint. They didn’t have the balls-out aggressive manner of a Mack Smith or a Zen before his accident—or even a Colonel Bastian, for that matter. But their steady approach and calm demeanor would generally carry the day when the mud hit the fan. Most of them, certainly Alou, didn’t lack for personal courage; they just didn’t strut about it.

“All right,” Dog said. “I have to go talk to the folks at home. I’ll see you in a half hour or so.”

Aboard the Dragon Prince, South China Sea

0806

CHENLOFANNgripped the side of the seat as the small helicopter pivoted toward the fantail of the trawler. The Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm 108 settled into a hover about a foot and a half above the deck of the ship. Chen Lo Fann nodded to the pilot, then undid his seat belt and opened the door, holding himself precariously as the wash from the overhead blades beat the salty air against him. It was just a bit too high to step down comfortably; with as much patience as he could muster, Chen Lo Fann took hold of the side of the plane and lowered himself carefully to the deck. He ducked away; the pilot in the aircraft waited until one of the crew members waved, then he revved the rotor, lifting and speeding off, flying back in the direction he had come.

The captain of the ship met Chen Lo Fann with a salute, though Fann had told him many times that was unnecessary. After a brief report that basically repeated everything he had already been told, Fann followed the captain downstairs to the command post for the robot plane.

Professor Ai met him at the door.

“Commander,” said the professor. Despite his age, his manner was humble, a sign of respect not for Chen Lo Fann himself, but for his grandfather. Chen Lo Fann knew this and accepted it as proper.

“There is news?”

“Much,” said Ai. He explained what he had observed from the encounter between the communists and the Megafortress the day before.

“They are due in a few hours,” said Ai. “The Australians were checking a position with another ship. The communist dogs will react again. One of their patrols will come south. If their instruments are confused, an accident is inevitable,” Ai said. “If we use the repeater devices aboard the UAV to blind and confuse the mongrels, it may be possible—”

“An accident will not give us the provocation we need,” said Chen Lo Fann. “The Americans must attack the Chinese, or vice versa. Both must be convinced that the other started the conflict. It must be done quickly.”

“That will not be easy.”

“Whether it is easy or not, it will be done.”

Page 78

“Yes,” said Professor Ai.

Brunei IAP

1000

MACKSMITH THOUGHTBin Awg was a bit of a blowhard—albeit a rich one who didn’t mind spending his money—but his opinion changed the moment he stood under the nose of the Tu-16 Badger C.

At that moment, he became convinced that the prince was one of the most generous and wonderful human beings on the planet, with a connoisseur’s eye for vintage aircraft.

A one-time member of the Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskovo Flota—the Soviet naval aviation branch—the aircraft had had a rather checkered history after being decommissioned sometime in the 1980s. It had flown briefly with the Polish air force, put in a few months in East Germany (where it had allegedly worked as a weather plane, according to the somewhat unbelievable records supplies to bin Awg; more likely it was some sort of spy plane), and finally been “loaned” to Indonesia as part of a program by the Soviets to convince that country to purchase updates for its twenty-two-member fleet of Badger Bs.

When the loan period ended, a series of complicated financial dealings resulted in the plane being deeded to the Indonesian air force, which then put it up for sale as surplus material.

It was at that point that bin Awg had obtained it, and after considerable time and expense restored it to 1961 condition. Though technically part of the Brunei Air Force—it had military insignia—it was in fact one of the prince’s private airplanes, and not included in the regular chain of command or inventory.

The design of the Tu-16 dated to the early 1950s, and in fact some elements owed their origin to the Tu-4, a Russian knockoff of the American B-29 Superfortress, the famous aircraft that had helped win World War II. Though only a little more than half the size of a Megafortress, the plane was large—its wings spanned a nudge over 108 feet, and a tape measure pegged from nose to cannon tip at the tail would notch over 114 feet. (Before being refurbished as a Megafortress, a B-52 spanned 185 feet and measured 160; Megafortresses typically added ten to the length but shaved off an even two with the composite wings. The real difference was in potential weight at takeoff; a Badger might tip the scales—and just make it off the ground—at 167,110 pounds; a B-52 could get up with over 500,000

and an EB-52 with even more, though it rarely was configured with that much weight. The Tu-16 might be more favorably compared to a B-47, another Cold War veteran that served as a medium bomber in the American order of battle.)

Mack didn’t particularly like the Megafortress and had turned down an offer to become a pilot in the program. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t appreciate old birds, and standing beneath the Russian Cold War bomber, he felt something like love.

Lust, really, since Miss Kelly was coming along for the flight. She had a nice hourglass thing going on with khaki pants and a button-down shirt that might have been just a size too small.

“Look at those engines,” said Mack, belatedly turning away to pat the air intake cowling of the Mikulin RD-3M turbo. “This sucker is a serious hot rod.”

“It does look big,” said Miss Kelly doubtfully.

“Come on, let’s go up inside her,” said Mack.

Page 79