Cantor nudged his throttle, easing toward the Su-33 as he continued to probe its weaknesses. By relying solely on the Megafortress’s radar, he was depriving the Indians of any indication that he was there.

The problem wasn’t shooting one of the Flankers down—he could do that easily. The difficulty was taking two. The Su-33 could easily outaccelerate the Flighthawk because of its larger engines. So the trick would be to get ridiculously close before starting the first attack.

166

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

And to fire without using the radar. Because once he turned the weapons radar on, they would know something was there.

The Flighthawk cannon could fire in a pure bore-sight mode—basically, point the nose and shoot—though in a three-dimensional knife fight it made little sense to give up the advantage of having the computer help aim the shots.

But get this close—under a hundred yards—he couldn’t miss, especially if he took the aircraft from below.

Counterintuitive—it meant he had to climb against an aircraft that could easily outclimb him. But doable maybe, if he got off at least two long bursts before jabbing his radar on and gunning for the other plane, which would be over to his right. By the time the second plane caught on, it would be flying right into his aiming cue.

Cantor glanced at the sitrep and saw that the Megafortress was nearing the end of its patrol orbit. He tilted his wing down and slid away, still undetected by Indian radar or eyeballs.

“Until we meet again,” he told the Flankers as they rumbled on.

Las Vegas University of Medicine,

Las Vegas, Nevada

1200

THE BLOOD SAMPLE WAS THE LAST STRAW.

They’d spent all morning taking scans whose results Zen could tell from the faces of the technicians were disappointing. Vasin appeared briefly, asked for some blood samples, then went off to a meeting.

The nurse tasked to get the sample kept muttering that she couldn’t find the vein, then jabbing him and apologizing as she came up empty.

“It’s right there,” Zen told her.

“I’m trying,” she said, jabbing him again. “I’m sorry.”

END GAME

167

What the hell was he doing here when Breanna needed him on the other side of the world?

The nurse finally managed to get the needle in correctly and filled up three test tubes. Zen made up his mind as he watched the third tube fill up. The nurse pulled out the needle, taped a gauze in place, then apologized for having had so many problems.

“It’s OK.” Zen waited for her to leave, then began changing from the gown to his civilian clothes.

“Jeff, what are doing?” asked Dr. Vasin.

“Getting dressed. I thought you were at a meeting.”

“It was just postponed. Why are you getting dressed?”

“I’m not sure this is working—”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Yeah, but—” Zen stopped himself. He couldn’t tell Vasin why he was worried about his wife; the mission was classified. “I’m just getting bored.”

“At this stage in the process—a very difficult time,” said Vasin. “But you don’t want to stop now.”

“Why?”

“As I explained, once the process begins—”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“Of course not.”

“The tests aren’t going well. I could tell from everyone’s reactions.”

“We must give it time. Once the process begins, stopping in the middle—it is worse than rolling the clock back.

Come—let’s go have a little lunch, you and I. A little change of pace. They’re having chicken pilaf in the cafeteria. A very good dish.”

“All right,” agreed Zen finally. “All right.”

168

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Off the coast of Pakistan,

near Karachi

0135

CAPTAIN SATTARI UNFOLDED HIMSELF FROM HIS SEAT AND

made his way to the rear of the midget submarine, trying to stretch out the cramps in his leg.

His men had been remarkably quiet for the past twenty-four hours. It seemed to him that traveling in the midget submarine was by far the hardest task they had. The rest would be simplicity itself compared to this.

He tapped each man’s shoulder as he walked, nodding.

They were professionals, these men; he couldn’t see their anticipation in the dim light, much less their fears or appre-hensions. The faces they showed to their commander—to the world, if it looked—were of hard stone. Warriors’ faces.

As was his.

“We have to surface to check our position,” said the submarine commander when he returned to his seat at the front of the small sub. “There are no ships nearby. I suggest we do so now.”

“Yes,” said Sattari. He sat in his seat as the midget submarine’s bow began nosing gently upward. Originally designed as a pleasure boat for sightseeing trips, the Parvaneh could make no abrupt moves. But this helped her in her mission. Rapid movement in the sea translated into sound, and the louder a vessel, the more vulnerable it was to detection.

The helmsman leveled the boat off three meters below the surface. The periscope went up slowly. The screen at the control station showed an image so dark that at first the captain thought there was something wrong with the tiny video camera mounted on the telescoping rod.

“Nothing,” said the captain to Sattari. “Just blackness.”

Sattari nodded. Next the submarine captain raised a radio mast. Three triangular antennas were mounted on the wand.

Two were used to pick up GPS, global positioning signals, END GAME

169

from satellites. The third scanned for nearby radio signals, a warning device that would let them know if a ship or aircraft was nearby.

“We are three miles from Karachi,” announced the submarine commander. “We’re ahead of schedule.”

“Very good,” said Sattari.

“There are no ships near us. Would you like to surface?”

A short respite on the surface would be welcome. To breathe fresh air, if only for a moment—Sattari was tempted to say yes, and felt the eyes of the others staring at him, hoping.

But it would increase the risk of being spotted. They were too close now, too close.

“No. We will have fresh air soon enough. Push on,” Sattari said.

Aboard the Levitow ,

over the northern Arabian Sea

0243

BREANNA IGNORED THE CHALLENGE FROM THE CHINESE AIRcraft, staying on course in Pakistani coastal waters. She had to drop a buoy soon or risk losing the inputs from the Piranha, which was trailing the submarine following the Chinese aircraft carrier. But she didn’t want to drop the buoy while the J-13s were nearby; it might tip off the Chinese to the fact that the submarine was being followed.

“Levitow, this is Piranha,” said Ensign English. “Bree, I can’t stay with the submarine much longer. I’m slowing the Piranha down, but the submarine will sail out of range within a half hour.”

“All right, I have an idea,” Breanna told her. “Flighthawk leader, can you run Hawk Three south about eighteen miles and pickle a flare?”

“Repeat?” said Mack.

170

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“I want to get the J-13s off my back. They’ll shoot over to check out the flares, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Throw some chaff, too, so their radars know something’s there. Let’s do it quick—we don’t have much time.”

“I’m going, Captain. Keep your blouse on.”

Breanna shook her head, then glanced at her copilot. Stewart was doing a little better than she had the other day, keeping track of the Chinese patrols as well as a flight of Pakistani F-16s that were roughly twenty minutes flying time to their north. But Stewart still had a ways to go. The copilot in the EB-52 had a great deal to do; in some respects her job was actually harder than the pilot’s. In a B-52 four crewmen worked the navigational and weapons systems. Computers aboard the EB-52 might have taken over a great deal of their work, but someone still had to supervise the computers.