The occupant, who had to weigh close to three hundred pounds, filled the entire stretcher. Fortunately, he was conscious and seemingly not badly hurt, with a small patch of red on his cheek and a large stretch on both arms. Coughing violently, he got up slowly and made his way to the rear of the cabin.
The Osprey lifted straight up with a jerk, then began moving forward.
“Boston? Where the hell is Boston?” yelled Danny, scrambling toward the door.
The pier was now surrounded by red flames. Boston stood near the end, waving his arms.
END GAME
211
“Get us back down there!” Danny told the pilot.
“Can’t do it, Captain.”
“You got to.”
“The wind and flames are too intense. And we’re getting torched.”
Exasperated, Danny went to the equipment locker and pulled out two LAR-V rebreather setups—underwater scuba gear intended for clandestine insertions. He pulled on the vest and fasted the small tank under his belt, still wearing his smart helmet.
“Drop me as close to the pier as you can. Meet us out beyond the fire.”
“Captain!”
Danny hooked his arm through the second bundle of gear. They were about thirty yards from the pier, up at least thirty feet. Flames covered the surface of the water.
“Take care of number two—he’s got third degree burns,”
Danny yelled to Pretty Boy as he threw off his helmet and jumped into the water.
Aboard the Levitow ,
over Pakistan
0348
BREANNA STUDIED THE MAP ENSIGN ENGLISH HAD JUST SENT
to her station, showing where she proposed that Piranha control buoys be dropped. Worried about losing touch with the probe, she’d ordered it back east when the port was attacked. Now they were trying to locate the earlier contact, but hadn’t had any luck. English wanted to look farther south in the direction of the Indian fleet, but that wasn’t going to happen while the two sides were throwing stones at each other.
“Good map, Ensign,” she told her, “but it’s going to be a while. Put Piranha in autonomous mode if you have to.”
212
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“I have to.”
“Two more PAF F-16s querying us,” interrupted Stewart, her voice shrill. “They’re challenging us.”
“Tell them who we are,” said Breanna. She turned inland toward Karachi at about twenty thousand feet. Even from that altitude she could see the fire at the terminal.
The Dreamland communications channel buzzed with an incoming message from the Wisconsin. Breanna snapped it on and her father’s helmeted face appeared on her screen.
“Breanna, what are you doing that far east?”
“We’re trying to get back control of the Piranha and look for that submarine,” she said. “And I want to stay close to Danny and the Osprey.”
“As soon as the Osprey is out of there, return to base,” he told her. “Refuel, and then get back on station. Be prepared to relocate to Diego Garcia.”
“We’re bugging out?”
“The Pentagon thinks Karachi is being targeted. They want us out of there. I checked with Jed; the President agrees we should relocate. Jed’s helping work out the details.”
“Just like that?” said Breanna. Using either Crete or Diego Garcia as a base would add several hours to the patrol time.
“The Pakistani defenses around Karachi won’t do much against a concentrated attack,” said the colonel. “We’re sitting ducks there.”
“Dreamland Levitow acknowledges.”
“Our two other crews are in the process of bugging out as well,” Dog told her. “I’ll keep you advised.”
“Roger that.”
END GAME
213
Aboard the Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0355
STARSHIP HAD NEVER SEEN A SHIP SINK BEFORE. NOW HE SAW
it twice, on both halves of his screen, almost in stereo—the Chinese frigate, and one of the Indian corvettes, both hit by multiple missiles, gave themselves up to the water.
The frigate went first. A good hunk of her bow had been blown away. She bent to the waves, settling like an old woman easing into a bath. The radar above the antenna mast continued to turn as the ship sank, adamantly remaining at its post. A boat pushed off from the deck near the funnel. Then the ship’s downward progression stopped, as if it changed its mind about sinking; the forward section rose slightly.
Starship glanced at the Indian vessel, which was listing heavily toward its wounded starboard side. When he glanced back at the Chinese frigate, its bow had gone back down and its stern had risen from the water. The helicopter flight deck looked like a fly swatter. Men jumped from the sides, swimming toward rafts and small boats as the ship’s rear continued to rise. When the angle reached about sixty degrees, the stricken vessel plunged downward, a knife stabbing the vast ocean. Steam curdled up, and then there was nothing.
Two helicopters approached from the distance. Starship fired off flares to show them where the shipwrecked survivors were, then wheeled the Werewolf around and instructed the computer to take it back to the Abner Read.
The Indian corvette had an angular forward deck and a blocky midship, so that as her list increased she looked more and more like a large cardboard box that had fallen into the water. A sister ship stood nearby, pulling men from the water with the help of small boats. At least twenty men clung to the stricken vessel, waiting to be saved.
214
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Thinking he could help the rescue operations, Starship moved Werewolf Two out of its orbit about a mile to the east. He lit his searchlights as he came near the stricken ship, dropping into a hover and illuminating the water. Almost immediately his RWR buzzed with a warning that he was being targeted by the radar for an SA-N-4 antiaircraft system. Starship doused his lights and throttled away as two missiles launched.
The SA-N-4s had about a ten kilometer range, and Werewolf Two had a two kilometer head start. Starship zigged right and left, bobbing up and then jamming back toward the waves, trying to confuse the missile’s guidance system.
He thought he’d made it when the Werewolf suddenly flew upward, uncontrolled; before he could regain control the screen blanked.
Near Karachi oil terminal
0355
DANNY PUSHED HIS LEGS TOGETHER AND COVERED HIS FACE
as he fell from the Osprey, plunging toward a black hole in the red flickering ocean. The flames swelled up around him, then disappeared as he sank into the water. Once below the surface, he leaned forward and began stroking.
He’d gone out in the direction of the pier, and figured that so long as he pushed himself forward he would eventually come to it.
The water was so dark that he couldn’t see anything in front of him. After what he thought must be five minutes, he raised his hand to clear some of the oil from the surface above and went up to get his bearings. But all he could see was heavy smoke and thin red curls of flame.
Danny pushed back under the water, determined to find the pier and get Boston out of there. He still had his boots on; their weight and that of the gear he was carrying for Boston tired him as he swam. When he surfaced, flames END GAME
215
shot over him and he quickly ducked back, swimming blindly ahead. His arms began to ache.
Finally, his hand struck something hard. Thinking it was the pier, Danny surfaced and began hauling himself upward. When he got up he realized he’d climbed on a submerged concrete pillar, part of an older pier that had been removed some years before. The pier Boston was on sat ten yards behind him, barely visible in the smoke.
Flames ran out of a long pipe about thirty yards to the north; the pipe led back to the tank farm, a roaring inferno that showed no sign of subsiding.