“No, sir. Not at all. I swear to God. I did not know they were loaded.”
The last bit — but only the last bit — seemed sincere.
“You know what would have happened if you hit one of those planes?” Dog asked.
Mack held out his hands.
“This is a serious screw-up,” said Dog.
“Prince bin Awg doesn’t think so,” said Mack. “He thinks I’m a hero. And Miss Kelly says it’ll probably help the alliance.”
“This is the sort of thing I’d expect out of a lieutenant,” Dog told him. “A lieutenant who was maybe about to be bounced down to airman. Not a major. Not someone who has serious responsibilities and wants to command a squadron someday.”
Mack’s face blanched.
“Colonel, honest to God, I didn’t know the cannons were loaded. I thought I’d just spin the gun around. I was, it was, I just thought—”
“What
“It’s hard to say what I was thinking now,” said Mack. “It’s hard even to say I was thinking at all.”
“You got that right.”
There was a knock on the door.
“No more interviews,” Dog told him. “Don’t say anything. Nothing. Not one word until I speak to Washington.”
He turned and went to the door himself. He pulled it open, thinking he would find one of the local press people, but instead found bin Awg.
The sultan stood a few feet behind him.
“Your Highness,” said Dog, bowing his head in respect.
“Colonel Bastian.”
“Your Excellency, let me apologize,” said Dog. “I deeply regret the trouble we’ve caused.”
“Apologize?” said bin Awg.
The sultan put up his hand. “The Chinese have been taught a lesson,” said the ruler. “There is no need for apology. I hope you and Major Smith will be our guests this evening for a private dinner.”
As Dog started to say he couldn’t, he saw Miss Kelly in the background. She was nodding her head emphatically.
“I um, I’ll try, Your Excellency.”
The sultan smiled. “Try very hard,” he said before turning to leave.
Lieutenant Deci Gordon studied the displays on his console, looking at a graphical representation of the many different electrical signals in the air around
Trained as both an electronic warfare and Elint specialist — traditionally separate though linked roles
Deci flipped his scan back to an overall capture pattern, showing the active radio transmissions within a two-hundred-mile radius of
Gordon couldn’t wait for the refuel. A large submarine sandwich was waiting for him in
He flipped back to the ghost clone monitoring screen, determined to take one last look. As he did, the computer sounded the “gotcha” tone in his ear.
It took a half second for him to spot the triangle, flickering at the very top edge of the screen. When he did, his finger shot toward it, tapping the touch-sensitive screen.
“Capture,” he said, “capture.”
“Crew, we’re zero five from the rendezvous with Texaco,” said Major Alou.
“Major, hold off! Hold off!” said Gordon, barely able to control his excitement. “I have something. I have it.”
Zen jerked in his seat. He pulled the Flighthawk back north, waiting as the information on the intercepted data flashed onto the sitrep screen, sent there from the data link upstairs.
“Yeah, yeah, looks good.
“Hawk leader, our fuel state is getting toward critical,” said Alou.
“How critical?” asked Zen. He was roughly six minutes away from the ghost clone.
“We can give you ten minutes, no more,” said Alou. “Then we come back or we ask the Chinese for a link home.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Roger that. Texaco’s coming north with us, but even so, we’re cutting it close.”
Zen pushed the throttle slide up, increasing his speed. He shot a glance at his own fuel panel, just to double-check that he had enough petrol himself. The computer told him that at this speed he could go nearly fifteen more minutes before hitting his reserves.
Plenty of time, he told himself, nudging for more power.
Professor Ai Hira Bai saw the Communist Chinese aircraft at the bottom of the viewscreen as he approached. It looked like a burning cockroach sprawled across the water, its white hull glowing in the reflected sun. He brought up his weapons screen, though he was still a good distance from his target.
Professor Ai did not like to think of himself as a vengeful man, but as he began to close on his target and his heart pounded harder, he did start to feel a certain satisfaction rising in his chest. He tried to push it away, realizing it was a distraction — all emotion was a distraction — and yet he could not.
He wanted to kill. There was no question about that. He wanted to kill the men in the aircraft as surely as he wanted to breathe. He wanted to kill all the mongrels on the Mainland.
He would settle for these communist dogs.
The pipper crawled toward its target. The H-5 was taxiing, moving in the water.
Suddenly, the radar aboard the robot sounded a warning — another plane was approaching.
Professor Ai ignored it, leaning forward in his control screen.
Zen saw the Chinese rescue plane before he saw the ghost clone. The H-5 was just starting to move at the
