He pushed in and kissed her again, happy beyond belief.
IX
Payments Due
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
0600, 19 January 1998
EVEN THE MOST AVARICIOUS OF MEN HAD LIMITS, MORAL
lines they would not cross for any amount of gold. So General Sattari was not terribly shocked when he found that Abul Amin, the Egyptian whom he had contracted with in Rawalpindi, balked when he saw the shape of the cargo that was to be loaded into the Airbus 310. Sattari countered the man’s frown with one of his own, then suggested they discuss the matter in a corner of the nearby hangar while his men proceeded.
“No, you must stop,” said the Egyptian in his heavily accented English. “I cannot allow my plane to make such a transport. If the Americans found out—”
“Why do you think that the Americans don’t know?”
asked Sattari. “Come, let us discuss the matter and make sure our payments are arranged. Then a pot of tea.”
More confused than mollified, the Egyptian began walking with Sattari toward his small office inside the hangar.
The Egyptian employed a single bodyguard, who stepped out from near the door and glanced nervously at his boss. Abul Amin shook his head slightly, and the man stepped back into the shadows.
That was the problem with people like him, who made their living in the shadow of the law. They were too trusting of others they thought were corrupt.
Most of the Egyptian’s money came from transporting em-bargoed spare parts for oil equipment, with the occasional 350
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
military item thrown in as an extra bonus. He would be hired to pick them up from a country on decent terms with the West, like Pakistan, and fly them to a place such as Iran, where the international community had prohibited their direct sale. Amin had been doing this for so long that he’d come to believe not so much that it was legal, but that there was only minimal danger involved, that he did not have to be on his guard when with someone like Sattari—for whom he had transported everything from circuit boards for F-4 Phantom jets to Western-style blue jeans over the years.
Sattari’s greatest difficulty was waiting for the right moment to pull his pistol from his pocket. He waited until Amin had sat down at his desk, then took out the pistol and shot him twice in the head.
Amin fell backward, his skull smacking against the Sheet-rock wall and leaving a thick splatter of very red blood as he slumped to the floor.
Sattari aimed his gun at the door, expecting the bodyguard to respond. After waiting a full minute, he went calmly to the door, pushed it open and waited again.
His own bodyguards would be in the hangar by now, but he hadn’t heard more gunfire and didn’t want to take a chance.
A few seconds passed, then a few more; finally there was a shout from outside.
“General?”
“It’s OK, Habib,” he said. “Where is the bodyguard?”
“He ran as soon as the door was closed,” said Habib Kerman, appearing at the door. “We let him go. It seemed wiser.”
“Very good, nephew. We need to be ready to take off very quickly. There is a long night ahead, and I have not yet arranged the refueling.”
“Yes, General.”
Sattari smiled, then reached over to turn off the office light.
RETRIBUTION
351
Aboard the Abner Read,
Indian Ocean
0610
THE ATOLL WAS ONLY VISIBLE ON THE HIGHEST DETAIL SATELlite images in the Abner Read’s library, and then it appeared as little more than a squiggle on the ocean. The small rock was completely barren; its vegetation appeared to consist largely of moss.
“I want the Werewolf there. Now,” Storm told Eyes. “I want these Dreamlanders rescued.”
“Aye aye, Captain. We’re moving as expeditiously as possible.”
“Don’t move expeditiously—move quickly!”
Storm grinned to himself. He was better, back in control.
Woods and the others weren’t going to win.
Turning from his holographic chart table, he looked out the “windshield” at the front of the Abner Read’s bridge.
Specially tinted and coated with radar-absorbent material, the view through the glass was one of the few things about the Abner Read that Storm did not like; the material made it difficult to use his binoculars. And unlike the younger members of the crew—though he would never admit that age had anything to do with it—he did not entirely trust the long-range images provided by the video cameras. So after checking with the helmsman to make sure they were on course and making the best speed possible—“Faster would be better,”
he commented—Storm stepped out onto the flying bridge and brought his binoculars to his eyes.
Nothing but sea before him, and a high sky as well. The sun bloomed to the east, announcing a glorious day.
“Storm, looks like there’s an Indian destroyer on the move from the north, running in the general direction of the atoll,”
said Eyes, breaking into the captain’s brief reverie. “Ex-Soviet Kashin-class ship. Looks like it may be the Rana. The Werewolf ’s radar picked it up. You want to go to active radar?”
352
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Negative,” said Storm. “The fox doesn’t let the hen know it’s in the barnyard. Plot its position. I’ll be back with you in a moment.”
An atoll off the Indian Coast
Time and date unknown
ZEN CUPPED HIS HANDS BELOW BREANNA’S LIPS, THEN
tilted the small canteen so the water would flow. He had to tilt it more than he’d expected—the water was nearly gone.
“Oh,” said Breanna as it touched her lips. “Oh.”
She sucked at it, then started to cough. Zen stopped pouring, waiting patiently for her to regain her breath. She shook her head, and he took the water away.
“How long?” she asked.
“Days.”
“How did we get here?”
“We drifted. I don’t know how I found you. God, I guess.”
“Yeah.” She started to move, as if she wanted to stand up.
“No, no, stay down.”
“No, I gotta move.” She stirred, pushed herself, then stopped with a groan. “Oh, my legs are killing me.”
“Mine too,” said Zen.
“Yours?”
“Phantom pain. We’re going to be OK,” he told her. “I just talked to Dog—they’re circling above us.”
“Oh,” said Breanna.
She struggled to get up again. This time Zen helped and she managed to sit.
“I think this leg is broken,” she said, pushing her right leg.
“It really hurts. And the knee is twisted.”
Something caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she said, looking toward the beach.
Zen turned. It was the Bart Simpson kid. He had a bottle of water in his hands and he was walking slowly up the rocks.
RETRIBUTION
353
“Bart Simpson,” said Zen. He waved at the boy. The boy, staring curiously at Breanna, waved back.
“He loves Bart Simpson,” he explained to Breanna. “He must see it on TV. He thinks we know him.”
“Does the kid live here?”
Zen explained that they were on a barren island but that the boy and his friends seemed to live on another island a few miles away. The kid, meanwhile, stopped a few feet from Zen and held out the water bottle.
Zen took it.
“We probably should boil it or something,” said Breanna.
“I’m really thirsty,” he said. But he didn’t open the bottle.
“I think I hear something,” said Breanna.
Zen held his breath, trying to listen.
“A helicopter, I think,” said Breanna.
“I gotta get the radio,” he said, crawling back for it.
Aboard Dreamland Quickmover
0630
“YOU CAN HEAR IT?” DOG ASKED ZEN.
“Yeah,” Zen answered, his voice hoarse.
“Good. I’m telling the Abner Read right now … Zen?”
“Yeah, Colonel?”
“Breanna? Is she all right? Really all right?”
“She’s OK.” Zen’s voice trailed off. “You want to talk to her?”