“Sure you don’t want to shoot down one of the Tomcats before we go?” joked Rosen.
“Very tempting, Captain,” said Dog, starting to track south.
It happened Chen Lo Fann was staring at a map showing the respective positions of the Chinese and Indian fleets when the message came that Americans had shot down the Indian missiles before they could strike the carrier. He read the note calmly, then nodded to dismiss the messenger. He resisted the impulse to go to the radio; there would be no further details, or at least none of any import. Instead, he locked the door to his cabin, then sat cross-legged on the deck in front of the large map.
It was undoubtedly the first time he had sat on the floor of a cabin since he was young man, and probably the first time he had done so when not playing dice. He could feel the ship here, and through it, the sea, the endless energy of the complicated sea.
Perhaps the information was incorrect or incomplete. He needed more. The Dragon ship was still too far off; he had to rely on his network.
He stared at his map, eyes blurring. The coldness of the ocean seemed to come up through the deck, though he was a good distance from the water.
While his men gathered their information, he could only wait.
Chapter 5
Death in the family
When Jennifer Gleason finally managed to unfold herself from the jump seat on the C-17’s flight deck, her legs felt if they had been stapled together. Her stomach and throat had changed places; and even her eyes were giving her trouble. Jennifer was a veteran flier, had been in the Megafortress during combat, and survived a disabling laser hit, but this was by far the worse flight she had ever endured.
It wasn’t just uncomfortable fold-down seat or the turbulent air. She’d spent the entire flight worried about Colonel Bastian; a vague uneasiness, indefinable. It was new to her; she’d never really had anyone to worry about before, not like this. None of her other boyfriends — the term seemed ridiculous applied to Tecumseh, who was anything but a boy — had aroused such emotions. Until Tecumseh — she hated calling him Dog — Jennifer had been organized and specific about her thoughts and emotions. Now her head fluttered back and forth, and her body hurt like hell.
Outside, the rain had stopped; the wet leaves glistened in the morning light. The base had been taken over by the Navy — there were several large patrol aircraft parked in front of two Megafortresses, along with a pair of F/A-18’s and a blue Navy helicopter. Three or four bulldozers were revving nearby, assisting a construction crew to erect a hangar area.
Colonel Bastian was waiting for Jennifer at the Whiplash command post. So was most of the Dreamland contingent, and a few Navy officers besides, so she had to confine her greeting to a very proper “Sir.”
“Jennifer, we’ve been waiting for you,” said the colonel. “Or rather, your equipment.”
She snickered at the unintended double entendre, but it went right by Dog and the others. He introduced two Navy officers as liaisons with the fleet, informing Jennifer they had clearance for Piranha.
“If you can give us a quick timetable,” he added in his deep voice. She had trouble turning her mind back to the project, and the reason she’d come.
“It’s straightforward. First up, we get the control gear into the planes. By tomorrow night we should have two new probes. Beyond that, there are some tests and fixes I’d like to try. Oh, and I have a fix, no, not a fix, just a tweak, on the wake detectors — I’ll put that in first. Shouldn’t take too long; it’s a software thing.”
“So how sensitive is the passive sonar?” asked one of the Navy people.
“Good enough to follow submarines of the Trafalgar type at twenty miles. I have the diffusion rates, all the technical data here.”
The officer had obviously asked the question to see how much she knew, and Jennifer, not so subtly, called his bluff, reaching into her knapsack for her laptop.
“We’ve had a few problems with the amplitude when the temperatures shifts quickly, such as when you go into a different thermal layer. We think it’s hardware, though I’ve tried two different versions of the chip circuitry and had the same results, so I’m not sure. Here — maybe you have some ideas. Look at the sines, that’s where it’s obvious.”
She started to unfold the laptop. The intel officer had turned purple. Delaford rescued him.
“I think for now we better just stay focused on equipping the other planes,” he said.
Jennifer gave the other man an overly fake smile and packed the laptop away.
“How long to install?” Zen asked.
“Three hours per plane,” she told him. She took a long strand of hair and began twisting it, thinking. “We’re going to route the com units through the Flighthawk backup gear and use the panels for the display. We didn’t have time to actually test it, but I think it’ll work.”
Dog wanted to grab her, just jump her right there — it was as blatant as that, raw, an overwhelming animal urge. His eyes bored into the side of her head; she hadn’t looked at him after coming in, probably because she felt the same way.
“All right. We need a fresh weather report. Storm should almost be out of the tracking area, which will make our job easier, at least until the next one comes through. They were talking about a twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour window, which means one full rotation. Then, the probe goes home.” Dog resisted the urge to pace — there simply wasn’t room in the small trailer. “Our Navy friends have worked on some idea about where some of targets may be located. We’re going to work with a group of P-3’s flying at a very long range on the west side of the Chinese battle group, from here over to the Vietnamese coast.”
Dog’s hand slid across a massive area of ocean as dismissively as if it were a small parking lot.
“If we find something or get a good hint, we launch. Quicksilver is up next. They replace us on station in six hours. Raven comes on six hours later. If there’s no launch, Quicksilver still helps the Navy with patrols, but we’ll take the next shift. Bu sometime tomorrow, or maybe the next day,
Dog’s lineup would mean at least twelve-hour shifts for the crews, with three or four hours prep, six hours on patrol, two or three hours to get back and debrief. No one complained — which didn’t surprise Dog in the least.
He glanced over at Jennifer. She was looking at him, squinting ever so slightly.
Of course she was looking at him. Everyone was.
Dog forced himself to nod, shifted his gaze to Fentress, and nodded again. When he turned toward Breanna, he saw she was frowning.
“Captain?” he asked her in surprise.
“Nothing.”
“Captail Williams will give us the latest on the Chinese and Indian forces,” Dog said, turning to the Navy officer. Williams had come from the G-2 section of Admiral Allen’s staff to facilitate intelligence sharing.
“The storm slowed down the progress of the task forces.” He pulled out a small manila folder and handed some papers around. Dog glanced down at his and saw it was actually a cartoon rendering of the situation — on one side of the South China Sea was Donald Duck, on the other Mickey Mouse, both posturing on top of the aircraft carriers.
“You draw this yourself?” said Zen, an obvious snicker in his voice.
“Just keeping things in perspective,” said Williams. He dished out another version — this one a detailed sketch based on the latest reports. “Probable area of the Indian submarine is that crosshatch just to the east- southeast of the lead Chinese carrier, which is where they launched from. They haven’t found it yet, at least as far as we know. Good submarine captain — and I think we have to assume this fellow’s at the top of the heap — would
