“I have to go home,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” She flicked her hair back behind her ear. “I’m okay here.”
“I know that,” said Dog.
Something near the plane caught her eye and she turned back. “Excuse me, Colonel.” She started to trot toward the plane. “Hey! Hey!”
Dog watched the sway of her hips in the fatigue pants, then abruptly started for the Navy plane. If he didn’t get aboard now …
Guiding the Piranha probe was considerably easier than flying the Flighthawk. Fentress ran through some simple maneuvers and flipped back and forth between the views as Delaford watched from aboard the other Megafortress. They had made a few adjustments in the simulated 3-D screen since he had sat in on the development sessions, but it wasn’t difficult at all to get comfortable. He even remembered, without prompting, how to split the screen so he could see a forward and a sitrep view at the same time.
The probe was within thirteen miles of the Chinese submarine, which was moving at three knots south. Another fifteen miles away was the lead Chinese aircraft carrier. The Piranha communications buoy had been dropped thirty-five miles further west, allowing the EB-52 to stay outside of carrier CAP.
Delaford had launched this probe a few hours before to replace the first, whose fuel had lasted slightly longer than they’d originally calculated. It was now moving southwest in low-power mode, and would be picked up by the Dreamland Osprey in a few hours, if the weather held. A new storm system was approaching rather quickly.
“You look like you’re on top of it,” said Delaford. “See you down the line.”
“I’ll be here.” The line snapped clear; he was on his own.
Upstairs on the flight deck, Breanna reviewed her fuel situation and went through a quick instrument check. With everything in the green, she turned the plane over to Chris and eased out of the driver’s seat, intending to take a short break. Among Quicksilver’s custom touches was a small refrigerator located at the back end of the flight deck. Breanna had often joked that, with missions sometimes stretching over twelve hours, a full gallery ought to be provided, and one of the engineers had suggested adding a microwave.
She’d have a full gallery when she flew the UMB. Even better, a full bathroom.
Hell, one of the geeks said she could fly if from her bedroom via laptop — now wouldn’t that be a trip?
Breanna checked on Freddy and Torbin, both hard at work parsing their data from the Chinese and Indian forces. Freddy fed most of his communications intercepts directly back to Dreamland, where a team of language experts were monitoring the transmission. Given that both sides realized they were being listened to, there was a surprising amount of traffic.
Breanna squatted in front of the refrigerator and took out a diet cola. She opened it and took a sip, then leaned against the bulkhead and looked at her crew.
Did she want to leave this behind?
Maybe. This was fairly routine. Almost boring.
Not that the business the other day had been.
It made sense from a career angle, certainly. It’d be easier on her back, which was crinked from the cot she’d slept on last night. She’d see Zen more. Not that she didn’t see him all the time now.
The thoughts came to her in a sarcastic tone, almost as if someone else had said it. She was mad at her husband, though she wasn’t exactly sure why.
Because he was working with Jenn-i-fer?
Whom she hated. But Zen was always working with Jenn-i-fer; it wasn’t that big a deal.
Was it?
“Hey,” said a voice behind her. It startled her so badly she nearly lost her balance.
Stoner, the CIA officer aboard to act as general intelligence consultant and Fentress’s gofer.
“Mr. Stoner. We would prefer it if you kept your seat,” she told him.
“You’re up.”
“What can I do for you?” she said frostily.
“I was wondering if I could listen in on some of the com intercepts from the trawler, if they’re in the clear.”
“You speak Chinese?”
“A bit.”
“I doubt they’re in the clear,” she told him. “But we may be able to pipe them through. G back to your station and I’ll see.”
“Can I view them?”
civilians just didn’t get it sometimes.
“We’re too far from the actual position of the ships on the surface to seem them. We have radar indications, that’s all.”
“If you get close to them, I’d like to take a look. I might be able to tell you what kind of equipment they have. I’d be very interested.”
He had a handsome face, deep blue eyes that seemed out of place with his dark hair.
We’ll try. Use the interphone from now on,” she told him. “Downstairs.”
He stared at her a while longer, then nodded.
“Kind of a jerk,” she said as she sat back in her seat.
“Who?” said Chris.
“Stoner.”
“Yeah? Seemed okay to me. First CIA guy I ever met.”
“Give him a sitrep screen, all right? Show him where everything is.”
Breanna checked with Collins about the intercepts. They’d only isolated one or two from the spy ships, and they were all heavily encoded. “Give Mr. Stoner a lowdown, would you?”
“Not a problem.”
Restraints snugged, Breanna checked their position as well as that of the other players. The Chinese and Indian fleets were moving slowly toward each other. Two Sukhois had begun shadowing the Megafortress in a long oval track three miles to the east. Same old, same old.
“Trawler’s heading off south,” Chris pointed out, referring to the Taiwanese spy ship. “Wimping out?”
“Just getting out of the way for the showdown” said Breanna.
Stoner folded his arms in front of his chest, staring at the video screen. Both the Chinese and the Indians had their chessmen in place; they could start duking it out in an hour.
So what were the Taiwanese up to anyway? Egging the Indians on? Usually, they took a more laid-back approach, but they had spy ships all over the place, including one so close it was going to catch shrapnel when the fighting started.
Stoner stared at the fifteen-inch display screen where the sitrep view was displayed. It was a simple thing, a plot of positions against longitude and latitude, yet cobbling it together was not exactly child’s play. To get all these different inputs, process them, out them on the screen so that even an untrained operator like himself could see what was going on — Dreamland indeed.
“Say, uh, Captain Ferris. Chris. This is Stoner. What’s the green triangle on my screen?”
“On the sitrep? That’s the marker for the Piranha buoy. It’s tied into the tactical system so it comes on the display. Sorry if it’s confusing.”
“That Taiwanese trawler is going to run right over our buoy if they stay on that course. Is he tracking it?”
“No way,” said Ferris.
“Well, he’s going to run over it anyway.”
Breanna pushed the plane down through the leading edge of the fast-moving cloud front, trying to get low enough for a visual on the players — and the trawler that was on a collision course for their buoy. “Stoner’s right — they’re aimed almost perfectly for it,” said Chris as they broke through the clouds into the gray stillness above the water. The spy ship looked like a child’s boat in a bathtub. “Should I try hailing them?”
“What are you going to tell them?” asked Bree. “That they’re about to run over a top-secret communications
