his face, just confusion, a little sorrow.
“Yeah. He was a few yards away,” Danny told his team’s pointman gently. “If Powder didn’t get it, I would have. Sucks.”
“Dedicated,” said Danny.
“Crazy fucks.”
“Yeah.”
The helo settled down. Unlike the last village, this one had a good view of the shoreline, which lay a quarter mile below the settlement area. Danny guessed the Filipinos might not appreciate that. They wanted a place where they could hide, and the clear view worked both ways, but it was too late to worry about it. He jumped out as the helo touched down, then helped the Navy people unpack the villagers’ gear.
“Got a Lieutenant Simmons wants to see you,” said one of the sailors on the ground. “He’s a liaison guy. He helped set this up. Some paperwork, and I think he needs some advice on classification or some such thing.”
“Yeah, okay. I gotta get back, thought,” said Danny. He put down the box of cooking gear he’d taken from the helicopter. As he rose, the girl he’d taken prisoner passed in front of him.
It was as if he wasn’t there, just another ghost in the jungle. Danny felt anger well up — he’d busted his ass for these people, for her, and they just went on like he wasn’t there.
“Hey,” said Danny. He grabbed her arm. She jerked it back. “You gonna thank me?” he said.
she reared back her head. if it hadn’t been for the wind from the blades of the helo, he spittle probably would have struck him in the face.
The consensus was clear — definitely a Sikorsky, definitely something very similar to Searchwater, though
not quite an exact match. It looked like it might be a bit harder to jam, according to Torbin, who immediately volunteered to try.
“Let ’em be,” said Breanna. “Chris, get on the line to Dreamland Command and tell them about this. They’re going to be very interested.”
The helicopter climbed into an orbit over the aircraft carrier. As interesting as it was, the Sukhois that had charged after the Viking were a higher priority; and so Breanna sidled in their direction, making sure to stay within ten miles of the Viking, the Sukhois stared to sandwich the Navy plane in a high-low hello-there routine; one Chinese pilot came in over the S-3 while the other came in below. Even at five hundred knots, it was doubtful the separation between the three planes added up to ten feet.
“They’re crazy,” said Chris. “They’ll hit ’em for sure. They can’t fly that well in the damn daylight, let alone in the dark.”
The radar shoed the Chinese fighters merging with the Viking and, looking at the display, it seemed as if they had crashed. Instead, they had simultaneously sandwiched the S-3 swooping across in opposite direction. It would have been an impressive move at an air show.
“All right, let’s see if we can get their attention so our Navy friend can drop his buoys,” Bree said, reaching for the throttle bar. The engine control on the Megafortress was fully electronic, and unlike the old lollipop-like sticks in the original B-52, consisted of a master glide bar that could be separated into four smaller segments. Unless the individual controls were activated, the flight computer assumed that it had discretion to fine-tune any discrepancies in the engine performance to maintain uniform acceleration.
Not that any aircraft maintained by a member of a ground crew under the direct supervision of Chief Master Sergeant “Greasy Hands” Parsons would dare show any discrepancies.
Breanna couldn’t get close to the Chinese without getting close to the S-3 as well. Even so, she got close enough to send a serious vortex of air currents across their wings.
Not that it had any effect.
“They’re really a pain in the ass, ain’t they?” said the pilot in Redtail One. “They’re not going to keep me from doing my job,” he added.
Possibly hearing the comment, the Sukhois below the S-3 accelerated and popped up in front of the Viking’s nose. Redtail One fluttered; as the plane started to bank the Chinese planes seemed to swarm tighter. Two Sukhois flying over the
Jennifer Gleason, meanwhile, had filled the S-3 pilot in on the submarines they were tracking and their present course. As the pilot tacked toward it, the other fighters arrived. Though he chopped his speed, he couldn’t shake the weaving Sukhois.
Zen, eavesdropping on the radio communications, had an almost overwhelming urge to hit the gas and chase off the Chinese planes, and had to keep reminding himself he was controlling a robot probe under the water. Maybe because of the distraction, it took him a few extra seconds to realize the two subs he was following were splitting up.
“Bree — our targets are splitting. I’m with the one heading west. We’re going to need another buoy soon.”
“Roger that, Hawk Leader. Ms. Gleason, give all the data to our Navy friends.”
“Already have, Captain.”
“Can we help you somehow?” Bree asked the Redtail pilot as the Sukhois swarmed around the Viking.
“Short of firing at them? Negative.”
“Yeah, my orders suck too,” said the Navy pilot, referring to his rules of engagement, which, because of the complicated political situation, strictly forbade him from doing anything but running away. “Current ROEs are bullshit on top of bullshit.”
“I didn’t know you had antiair weapons,” said Breanna.
“At this range, I could hit them with my Beretta,” said the pilot.
One of the Chinese Sukhois nearly clipped the S-3’s wing as he rose up suddenly. The Redtail pilot cursed over the fighters. Undaunted, the two other Chinese planes stayed right on this tail. As the S-3 leveled off, one slipped beneath him.
“What do you think they’ll do if we activate our gun radar?” Bree asked Chris.
“Activate theirs?”
As Bree considered it, one of the Chinese planes came at the S-3 head-on.
“Man, they’re out of their minds,” said Chris.
Breanna checked her position, then switched back into the radio circuit. “We’re going to have to cut out of this dance in a few minutes,” she told Redtail One, starting another pass in an attempt to pull the Sukhois away.
“Acknowledged,” said the pilot tersely.
The interceptors took no notice of the bigger plane, ducking and weaving with the S-3.
“We’re going to have to leave you, Navy,” said Breanna.
“Been fun, Air Force.”
Breanna tucked her wings and pushed the Megafortress west toward the coordinates Jennifer Gleason had plotted for the next buoy drop. She was just about to give the order to open the bomb bay doors when Torbin’s deep voice rattled in her headset.
“Sukhois have activated gun radars!” he barked.
“ECMs,” said Bree. It was undoubtedly another ratchet in their harassment campaign, but she wasn’t going to just stand there. “Hawk Leader, I mean Piranha, we’re going to have put that buoy drop off for a second.”
“Copy that,” said Zen.
Bree pitched the Megafortress around, taking nearly eight Gs to get back on an intercept. “Chris — tell Redtail we’re coming back. Then target these motherfuckers. Excuse my French.”
The copilot’s answer was garbled by the force of gravity as the big plane’s momentum shifted. The Megafortress’s electronic countermeasures filled the air with a thick radio fog, but at close range from behind the plane the Sukhois pilots could have used straws and spitballs and still brought the Viking down. That didn’t seem to be their intent — at least not yet. The lead Sukhois accelerated on a diagonal, crossing so close over the S-3 they seemed to collide.
“Shit,” said Redtail One over the radio. The plane tucked toward the waves, but then righted itself.
