If he were in their place, he wouldn’t want to be saved.

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“Major Alou is asking you to check that merchant ship out, just about head on at two miles,” relayed Starship.

“Yeah, roger that, thanks.”

“Easy man, you’re jerking your stick like you’re muscling a Hog,” added Starship. “This is fly by wire.

Fly by remote wire.”

“You know, Starship, I really don’t need your help.”

“Fuck yourself then.”

“And fuck yourself back.”

Starship laughed. Kick started to laugh too.

STARSHIP WATCHED THEsmall trawler grow large in the display. There were two or three people on deck, but the ship had no lights on at all.

He suspected the craft had launched the commandos they’d intercepted in the harbor. But they’d already run a check on the registry and found that it was owned by a company in the Philippines.

That would undoubtedly prove to be bogus, but at the moment there was nothing they could do about it.

Kick brought the Flighthawk across the bow in a gentle arc, still a bit unsure of himself as he flew. That was reassuring in a way. Kick would never be as good a pilot, even a remote pilot, as Starship; he could compare himself to Kick any time and know he was ahead.

It didn’t take away the jitter he felt in his chest, though. And he was thirsty, very thirsty. And for something more than the bottled water in the galley fridge at the back of the compartment.

“See any antiair?” Kick asked.

“Negative.”

“This has to be the ship. Think we ought to splash it?”

Starship looked at the shadow of the ship. They could say they saw someone with a shoulder-launched missile on deck—thought they saw someone.

Shoot out the rudder, stop the damn boat cold.

Be heroes.

That wasn’t their job, though.

“I think we better tell Major Alou it’s clean but suspicious,” said Starship. “Get the Taiwan or Navy people on it.”

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“Yeah. Better. I’d love to nail the mother.”

“You and me both.”

On the Ground in Kaohisiung

0200

STONER COULD HEARthe sound of water dripping in the distance as he walked down the hall the ladder had led down to. Six feet wide and seven feet high, the passage ran straight for about ten feet, then took a sharp turn to the right.

Stoner stopped at the corner, his hand on the smooth concrete. There could be anything around the bend.

One of the Marines stepped forward with his M-16. Stoner grabbed the man’s shoulder, stopping him.

He wasn’t going to let anyone else do his job.

“Just cover me,” he said, and before the two Marines could stop him, Stoner had thrown himself onto the floor, sliding into the middle of the open space with his pistol ready.

The hallway was empty. It went on for about fifteen feet, then took another bend to the right. Stoner jumped up and scrambled down it.

The Marines were at most a half step behind him, their gear clacking as they whipped the noses of their rifles up and down across the space. One of the young men started forward. Stoner grabbed him.

“No—a motion detector. This bunker must’ve been shielded somehow against the E-bomb.”

As he finished the sentence, the space behind them exploded.

Aboard Raven

0200

ZEN REQUESTED Arefuel for Hawk Three as Raven neared the north end of the Taiwan Strait. Dog acknowledged and started backing down his speed—anything over 400 knots made for a very difficult tank, even when handled by the computer.

The Taiwan air force, officially known as Chung-kuo Kung Chuan or the Republic of China Air Force, had launched several patrols, including a full set of submarine hunters to chase the commando craft in the south. A Grumman E-2T radar plane, escorted by a group of F-5Es, was just taking up a station in the strait to the north, its radar sweeping the area for Mainland attackers.

The E-2Ts were essentially the same aircraft as the U.S. Navy’s E-2C Hawkeye, extremely capable, fleet, airborne radar craft. The longish nose of the planes carried a forward-looking Litton AN-ALR-73

Passive Detection System antenna; three other antennas were stuffed into other locations in the plane. But the truly unique feature of the Hawkeye was its radardome, a twenty-four-foot flying saucer mounted over the wings and fuselage. The E-2T could find an airplane at roughly 260 nautical miles; the computers aboard allowed it to track at least six hundred air targets (later-model American planes could handle over two thousand). In practice, “only” forty or so intercepts could be controlled at one time; even so, that would allow one E-2T to nail more than half of the attack sorties in the Battle of Midway in one shot.

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Zen listened to the Raven copilot exchange pleasantries with the Taiwanese as he came in for the refuel.

The computer painted cues on the screen, making it unnecessary for the Megafortress to carry the director lights common on dedicated tankers like the KC-10. As the small robot closed, Zen turned the procedure over to C3, which fought through the rough eddies of air rushing off the Megafortress’s bulky body. As the robot plane slapped into the straw, the automated system aboard the Megafortress exchanged some code with the Flighthawk—the digital equivalent of “Fill ‘er up”—and the jet fuel began to flow.

REFUELCOMPLETE, DOGchecked their position against the GPS screen and turned the helm over to his copilot so he could stretch his legs. But before he could unsnap his restraints, Major Catsman’s overstressed voice came over the Dreamland channel.

“Colonel, we have an update on that leased 767 that Chen’s company owned,” said Major Catsman.

“We’re still trying to pull together information, but it was moved to Hualin two weeks ago. It underwent work there to one of the wings.”

“Where is it now?”

“Unknown. We also think there may be another UAV but we haven’t anything definitive. The thinking here is that the alterations to the wing would have been to air-launch the aircraft, or possibly to carry a bomb.”

Major Catsman had already done some checking and narrowed down the possible suspects to three 767s.

“We should get the airports shut down,” said Dog. “Let’s get the Taiwan air force involved. I need a direct line to the general in charge. Can you set that up there?”

“Will do. Jed Barclay wants to talk to you in the meantime.”

“And I want to talk to him,” said Dog.

On the Ground in Kaohisiung

0205

STONER CLOSED HISeyes and pushed down his head, knowing he was going to die but not wanting to give in. It seemed like a waste to go out here, when he hadn’t even figured out what had happened to the bombs the bastards had made.

Dirt pushed into his pores. He couldn’t hear and he couldn’t see.

Poor fucking Marines. Poor Marines. Shit. He couldn’t let those guys die.

He pushed up against the massive blocks that had smothered his head. They began to give way.

I’m like Samson, he thought. Where is this strength coming from?

A light flashed in his eyes. He blinked.

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Was this what death felt like? Did God really send an angel out to get you?

There was a groan behind the light.

One of the Marines.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even buried. One of the Marines had fallen on him, probably trying to protect him.

Idiot Marines, always trying to do their job.

The kid was breathing. Good. But the chamber was blocked off with rubble—he could see the pile reflected in the flashlight’s shadow as the dust finally settled.

“Stoner,” said the Marine with the light.

“Yeah, I’m here,” said the CIA officer, dragging himself up. The NOD lay on the ground; he didn’t even bother picking it up to see if it was working, turning on his wristlight instead.