“How’s the weather?”
“Still sucks,” said Chris. “At least it’s not raining here.”
As he said that, lightening flashed in the distance.
“Somebody heard me,” said Chris.
“That or they’re reacting to your song titles.”
“Hey, I could do puns.
They came off the runway swift and smooth, the big plane’s wings catching a ride on the stiff breeze blowing the storm front in. Breanna felt the wheels push up, the engines rumbling easily as they headed over the storm front. They got clear of the clouds and turbulent air, rising swiftly and then tracking toward the atoll.
“Angie in fifteen,” said Chris as they hit their waymarker.
“Quicksilver, this is Hawk Leader. Ready to fuel and prepare for launch,” said Zen.
“Copy that,” she said. “How’s our passenger?”
“Breathing.”
Zen’s voice told her Stoner had rubbed him the wrong way. The feeling seemed to be unanimous among the Whiplash people who’d dealt with him. Breanna was trying to withhold judgement. So far the only trait she’d formed an opinion on was his eyes — they were nice.
“Begin fuel sequence on Flighthawks,” she said. “Prepare for launch.”
The gear blew Stoner away. The video being fed from the robot plane onto the large tube in front of him looked remarkably clear and focused, even though the aircraft feeding it was moving at nearly five hundred knots.
Barclay had been right; the Dreamland people did know what they were doing. Touchy bastards, full of themselves, but at least they were competent. He could live with that.
Zen had said the large display was infinitely configurable, but it wasn’t clear exactly what that meant. Though it was intended as a second Flighthawk station, its flight-control section had been locked out, and there was no joystick or any switch gear to control the robot. He had figured out how to stop, slow, and replay the main video feed on a second, dedicated screen on his left. A slider and a small panel very similar to standard VCR controls worked the tube; he could also select a bird’s-eye or sitrep view and a map overlay. Undoubtedly the damn thing made coffee too, if you hit the right combination of switches.
An atoll began to grow in the left-hand corner of the main screen. Stoner heard the pilot grunting and groaning as he flew. He ducked his body with the aircraft, as if he were in the cockpit, not sitting here miles away.
Stoner wanted to ask him about his nickname, Zen. Practitioners of the way were rare in the military, and it was possible, maybe even likely, it was just a nickname. It seemed an improbably one, unless it had come before the pilot had lost the use of his legs. Jed Barclay was his cousin, but hadn’t said very much about Zen on the way out.
“Slowing for our run,” reported Zen. “No radar spotted, nothing active.”
“I have nothing,” said Torbin, whose gear scanned for radar emissions.
“Negative as well,” said Collins, who was essentially an eavesdropper on radio transmissions.
“Rain’s moving in pretty fast,” added the copilot. “Wet down there, Zen.”
“I brought my umbrella.”
The storm front a few miles to the north covered the rest of the atolls with heavy rain and fog. Even their high-tech gear would have trouble seeing through it.
“Looks like a lean-to on that northern end,” said Zen. “Stoner?”
He turned to the smaller screen, rewinding and then magnifying. Three trees had been laid across a large rock near the water.
“Might shelter a canoe, swimming gear,” Stoner told him. He worked the slider, getting a wide-angle view. “Don’t see anything else.”
“Stand by for a second run-through.”
“Hawk Leader, we have an unidentified flight one hundred-twenty miles southwest of our target atoll, very low to the water,” said Ferris. “Course unclear at the moment. Not getting an identifier.”
“Hawk Leader.”
“Hold that — positive ID. U.S. Navy flight. An F/A-18,” said the copilot, who had used special gear designed to “tickle” an unknown plane and find out if it was friend or foe.
“Hawk Leader. We’re done on Angie. What’s next — Bella?”
“That would be Atoll Two,” snapped the pilot. “Jeff, I’m going to take it up another five thousand feet over this storm. It’s pretty fierce.”
“Hawk Leader.”
Stoner pushed his head toward the main video screen as the robot surveyed the next collection of rocks and coral. He felt the big plane tilt backward, the acceleration pushing him against the seat. If Zen felt it, he gave no indication as the Flighthawk looped twice around the atoll, its cameras covering every inch of ground.
“Nothing,” said Zen finally.
“I concur,” said Stoner.
“On to the next stop,” said Ferris, the copilot. “Should I tell our guests what they’ll win if the prize is behind door number-three?”
“Go for it,” said the pilot.
“A goat.”
“No sex jokes, please.”
Her voice was so serious it took Stoner a second to realize Captain Breanna Stockard was joking. She was gorgeous, cool, and obviously well-trained. Stoner had never like the idea of women in the military, and as a SEAL had never actually had to deal with any, but Breanna Stockard might make him rethink his attitude.
Too bad she was married.
The third target was much larger than the others, more an island than an atoll. It had a U-shaped lagoon and what seemed to be skid marks from a boat on the beach. There was a tarp covering something about twenty yards from the water, half-hidden by the trees.
“No radar operating,” said Torbin.
“That tarp is big enough for one,” said Zen.
“Yeah, interesting,” said Stoner. “Can you get a close-up?”
“Copy that,” said Zen.
A severe wind whipped the trees. Zen’s grunts and groans increased. Stoner guessed it was hard to hold the small place on course at low speed, but the video remained steady and in focus. They couldn’t find anything besides the tarp.
The nearby fourth target proved to be a pile of coral perhaps ten by fifteen meters. There was nothing on the jagged surface.
By the time they reached the fifth atoll, rain had begun to fall. The computer compensated, but the view on the large screen was still grainy. Oddly, the smaller screen seemed easier to read. Stoner watched the Flighthawk come over the island at just under 180 knots and two thousand feet.
“There’s a buoy in the water, a line up the beach,” said Zen.
Stoner put his face practically on the screen and still couldn’t see it.
“Here,” said Zen. He did something with his controls and muttered something to the computer that Stoner didn’t quite catch; the large screen flashed with a close-up of a small round circle in the water, boxed in by hash marks drawn by the computer.
“Could be part of a long-wave device,” Stoner told him.
“Panel — there’s a radar set. Look at it. Yeah, small. Infrared.”
The screen blurred.
“Too much rain,” said Zen. “Torbin, you have anything?”
“Negative. No transmissions of any type.”
“Same here,” said Collins.
