“The jerk on my side has a camera,” said Stewart as the Chinese planes pulled up alongside the Levitow.
“Well, make sure you wave,” Zen told her.
STEWART TURNED HER HEAD BACK TO THE GLASS “DASHboard” in front of her, scanning the sitrep map to make sure nothing new had appeared. There were two dozen aircraft in the Megafortress’s scanning range, including a flight of Pakistani F-16s and an Indian long-range radar plane about a hundred miles inland. She worked through it quickly, top to bottom, then turned her attention to the systems screens, checking the engines to make sure everything was at spec.
The computer made this easy for her by color coding the readings—numbers in green meant things were fine, yellows were cautions, red was trouble. The computer was also set to provide verbal alerts.
As she scanned the settings, Stewart realized that she had a tendency not to take the computer’s word for things—to read each instrument’s data and query for exact details, which would be provided on many of the sensors by tapping the screen. That was the right way to do it, certainly—but in a combat situation it added greatly to the information overload that had been messing her up. Glance and move on—rely on the technology.
If the J-13s tried anything, what would she do?
The Flighthawks would take them out.
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If they didn’t?
The Chinese planes would drop back, angling to get behind the Megafortress and use their weapons. Go to weapons screen, activate Stinger air mines.
They’d turn off or roll out, looking to get a little distance to make a missile attack. Evasive action, ECMs, flares, chaff, then AMRAAM-pluses.
SAM missile alert?
ID threat first. Then countermeasures.
Staying calm was the important thing.
“How you doing over there, Jan?” asked Breanna.
“All indicators in the green. Tweedledee and Tweedle -
dum are right at our sides.”
Stewart felt a wave of anxiety rush over her. What had she missed? Was Breanna grilling her about something she’d screwed up?
No. She really wasn’t like that. She was human.
“Nothing else in the air for fifty miles,” Stewart added, looking at the sitrep. “CAPs are still over their carriers.”
“Good. Feeling tense?”
Another trick question? The Iron Bitch probing weaknesses?
Or just an honest one?
“A little. And tired,” she admitted.
“I know the feeling. Boy, do I know the feeling,” said Breanna.
Somehow, the reply felt like a compliment.
Diego Garcia
1640 (1540, Karachi)
DANNY FREAH CAREFULLY ALIGNED HIS FINGERS ON THE
stitches of the football, gently rolling the pigskin against his wide palm.
“Down, ready, set,” he yelled, his voice sharp and loud.
He glanced to the right at his teammate—Boston, whose END GAME
273
right hand was still bandaged, lined up at split end—then at their opponents—Liu, who was playing defensive back, and Pretty Boy, who was rushing.
There had to be some way to get up to the target area quickly.
Deploy the Osprey from the Abner Read?
They’d done that before. That would lower the response time considerably; it’d be an hour at most.
“Hut, hut, hut.” Danny took the ball and dropped back.
Boston shot down the field. Danny waited for him to stop and fake right. He pumped, then lofted a bomb over the middle just as Pretty Boy finished his Mississippis and leapt into his face. Ducking away, he saw Boston get a hand on the ball but miss it, batting it into the air—where it was promptly snatched by Liu.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled, dodging Pretty Boy and heading toward Liu. Knowing from experience that the short and skinny Liu was a master of feints, Danny ran at three-quarter speed, waiting for the dance to begin. Sure enough, Liu did a stutter step as he approached, faking left then right then left. Then just as Danny grabbed for him, Liu tossed the ball backward—to Pretty Boy, who’d circled back and now had an open field to the goal. Danny turned on the jets in pursuit, but Pretty Boy lumbered across the goal before he could get two hands on him. Both men collapsed in the end zone, next to the nearby sidewalk that marked the end of their playing field.
“I had it,” griped Boston, coming over. “Damn bandages got in the way. I don’t even need the stinking things.”
Liu grinned as Boston pulled the gauze wrappings off.
He’d applied the fresh dressing just before the game, no doubt figuring out some way to make them extra slippery.
The problem with the Osprey was that the submarine might see it coming. Ditto with the Sharkboat that accompanied the Abner Read. If they had any sort of warning at all, they might blow the submarine up.
He had to strike quickly, make it seem as if it were a mal-
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function, immobilize them before they could react.
“Spot pass on the kickoff,” whispered Boston. “You receive, call pass while I run down the sideline. Just throw.
We’ll catch them off guard.”
“Spot pass?”
“Boston city rules,” said the sergeant. “Allowed on a kickoff if you call it. Grab the ball, don’t move, yell spot pass when they’re close and bomb it. Let’s do it and let them argue about it later.”
“Yeah,” said Freah. “A long bomb.”
He started trotting toward the Command trailer.
“Cap?”
“You guys play without me for a while. I gotta go talk to the colonel.”
Aboard the Wisconsin , over the northern Arabian Sea
1555
DOG SIPPED A COFFEE AT THE PILOT’S STATION AS JED BAR-clay continued to update him on the situation. He’d turned the plane over to Jazz and was enjoying the closest thing to a break he was going to have for the next eight hours or so. The Levitow had just left for Diego Garcia, where she’d get a fresh crew and a full load of fuel before returning to duty.
“Pakistan’s missile batteries are on their highest alert.
Same with India’s,” said Jed Barclay. “Nobody’s backed off or stood down.”
“I thought the UN was sending a mission.”
“They have. The President’s been talking to the different governments as well. The Indians say they’re willing to ne-gotiate, but both Pakistan and the Chinese blame them for the last round of attacks, both at Karachi and on the carrier.
The Russians are egging the Indians on.”
END GAME
275
“What about the Iranians?”
“Um, not following you there, Colonel.”
“I think they’re the ones behind this. The aircraft—”
“We need proof. Like, something tangible. The airplanes weren’t even flying toward Iran, and the CIA hasn’t found any connection with the government yet.”
“The submarine?”
“No information’s been developed that I’ve seen. Um, problem is, Colonel, a lot of people won’t believe Iran’s involved without real hard evidence and, um, the Secretary of State would never go out on a limb to charge them without something tangible, real tangible.”
“Yeah, all right. Thanks, Jed.”
Dog was just getting up to stow his coffee cup when the Dreamland channel buzzed with another incoming message, this one from Danny back on Diego Garcia. Dog sat back down and cleared it through.
“I have a plan to take the second submarine,” Danny said as soon as he came on the screen. “We stage the Osprey off the Abner Read. In the meantime, two of us are orbiting in manpods aboard the Megafortress watching for the Tai-shan aircraft. When the submarine is sighted, we do a drop into the water, pump my laughing gas in, and do an emergency pop to the surface.”
“Manpods? Those one-man coffins that barely fit on the EB-52’s wings?”