Zen shook his head as Starship and Kick engaged in some good-natured banter over how close the Chinese Communist missile had come to splashing the Osprey before Starship managed to get his Flighthawk in the way. The joking started a bit off-color and then went quite a bit further; about the only word that could be repeated in polite company was “road.”
“All right guys, let’s not forget we’re working,” Zen told them finally.
He felt more than a little proud, as if he were a high school basketball coach whose team had just won the championship. It wasn’t that bad a metaphor, actually—they were clucking away like high school kids, their jokes on a sophomore’s level.
Page 205
At best.
“Check your fuel,” he added. “I don’t want you walking home.”
Starship’s retort was cut off by Dog on the interphone.
“Zen, I want you in on this. Go to the main Dreamland channel.”
He clicked off without saying anything else to the two Flighthawk pilots, listening as Ray Rubeo detailed an argument for another UAV.
“We’re trying to get a line on that plane,” added Rubeo. “The surveillance equipment that Captain Freah placed shows the other still in the hangar.”
“What plane?” asked Zen.
“Chen Lee’s companies have two 767s. One is in Taipei on the ground but we’re looking for another that they seem to have leased a few months back,” explained Dog. “The UAV has handles that could be used for an air launch. We have someone en route to the airport to take a look at it.”
“Let’s get north,” said Zen.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Dog.
Aboard Island Flight A101
0130
FANN CHECKED THEcourse marker. The UAV had a range just over fifteen hundred miles, but that was without the extra weight of a bomb, and flying at medium to high altitude. Professor Ai had calculated that its fuel would take it roughly a thousand as presently configured. They were just approaching the thousand-mile mark now.
The longer they waited, the less possibility there was of the small plane running out of fuel. But it also increased the chance that they would be found.
He checked the map and his watch again. In less than two hours, Beijing would be destroyed.
No—the communists would be destroyed. The capital, his capital, would be intact.
He would return to Taipei, a hero.
And a criminal, in the eyes of the communists and their collaborators in the present government.
Undoubtedly he would be killed. But death merely meant a change; it was no more permanent than life.
Waiting increased the chances of success, but it would also allow him to see the explosion. He would witness the moment of his grandfather’s triumph with his own eyes.
“We are in range,” said Ai.
“We will wait as long as possible. I calculate an optimum launch in twenty minutes,” he told the scientists.
Page 206
“The communists are reacting to action by the Americans. They are scrambling fighters, alerting their troops. I’ve seen the radar and radio intercepts and—”
“We will wait as long as possible.”
Aboard Raven
0140
ACCORDING TO THEmanual, a “stock” B-52H could make 516 knots at altitude. B-52s had long ago ceased to be “stock,” and in practice the typical Stratofortress’s hull was so cluttered with add-ons and extra gear that even 500 knots in level flight could be more fantasy than reality.
Dreamland’s EB-52s—which in most cases had started their lives as B-52Hs—contained no external blisters to slow them down. Thirty-something years of work on jet engine technology allowed their four power plants to do the work of the original eight more efficiently, and the use of more alloy and composites in the wing and tail structures did the same for the airfoil. In short, if an entry for the Megafortress’s top speed were to be made in a reference book, it would be listed at close to 600 knots, along with an asterisk indicating that, depending on the configuration of the power plants and the load the massive plane carried, it might do considerably better.
Dog, with full military power selected, passed the 600-knot mark as he pushed northward through the Taiwan Strait, the two U/MF-3s leading the way.
Mainland China and Taiwan existed side by side in an intricate and highly charged relationship. On the one hand, their governments considered each other bitter enemies. On the other, there was a myriad of commercial relationships between the pair. Among those relationships were regular flights from Taipei to a number of Mainland cities, most especially Shanghai.
Such flights might give cover to a 767 loaded with a UAV and nuclear device, Dog thought.
“ Raven to Dream Command. Major Catsman, have we located that other 767 yet?”
“We’re going over the airport right now,” said Catsman. “We have CIA assets on the ground.”
“Copy that.”
Dog looked over at his fuel panel. They had about three more hours of flying time before nudging into the reserve cushion, depending on what twists and turns Dog took.
He brought up another set of instrument readings on the configurable screen, focusing on his aircraft’s performance. Raven could have been used to set the benchmarks for a maintenance manual.
Come to think of it, it had.
“Danny, what’s your situation?” he asked Captain Freah, bouncing back onto the Dreamland line.
“We’re secure here. Still going over everything, but it looks about as clean as a diner an hour before the health department inspectors arrive. Authorities are at the gate,” Danny added. “We’re holding them off—got about another ten to fifteen minutes of searching to get through.”
“Roger that.”
Page 207
On the Ground in Kaohisiung
0151
STONER SAW THEpanel behind the vat of sulfuric acid a second or two after the Marines did, and had to shout at them to keep back.
“Very good chance the sucker’s booby-trapped,” he told the two men, who unlike him were wearing special chem suits with breathers to protect them from the acidic fumes.
It wasn’t that Stoner liked to take unnecessary risks; he knew people worked in this plant with the acid all the time, and figured his brief exposure was nothing like what they exposed themselves to.
Not that it was pleasant. He went to the floor panel and knelt down, instantly soaking his knees in the residue of a thousand car batteries. He could feel the material get sodden and start to tickle at his skin.
“Back,” he told the Marines, pulling out a long knife.
One of the men began to object; if the panel was booby-trapped, they had a special squad trained to defuse it. But Stoner had already found two wires with his knife; he pulled them up gently, scraped some of the insulation off, then checked the current with a small meter the size of pen top. A yellow light flashed on; he clipped another set of alligator clips to the wires and got a green.
“You’re fucking lucky,” said one of the Marines as he jimmied open the lock.
“How’s that?”
“Could have just as easily blown when it was shorted.”
“Well, only if my sensor here screwed up. It’s all right—my guess is it’s just an alarm and it was taken out by the E-bomb,” said Stoner, shining around the flashlight. “There aren’t any charges here.”
He’d suspected that; the acid would have made keeping explosives here fairly dangerous, especially with people working all around the area. What he hadn’t expected was that the panel led to a ladder, which disappeared downward.
“Come on,” he told the Marines as he positioned his NOD monocle and pulled out his Beretta. “Cover me.”
Aboard Penn
0200
KICK LEANED BACKas the computer took the Flighthawk further out into the harbor, still searching for any other Mainland boats or submarines. The Taiwanese port authorities, local police, and navy assets were all rushing to the area, and a search-and-rescue operation was under way. Penn had vectored in some of the SAR assets, but communication with the local units was torturous because of the different radio frequencies and, more importantly, accents. Still, several of the Mainlanders had already been recovered.