the car slowly made its way upward.
The secretaries stared at him as he got off. Chen Lo Fann lowered his gaze toward the carpet, walking the familiar steps to his grandfather’s office suite. The two security guards stepped aside as he approached, as if they didn’t want to be polluted with his failure.
It wasn’t his failure, it was the communists’. And most especially the treacherous president’s, their supposed leader. A coward, a quisling, a traitor.
Chen Lee’s secretary nodded. He could proceed.
Chen Lo Fann went to the door to his grandfather’s office, his hand hesitating on the knob. He opened it with a burst of resolve; he would face his grandfather like a man.
Chen Lee sat at his desk, his back to the door, staring out the window. Chen Lo Fann stepped forward, waiting for the old man to turn around. He waited for nearly five minutes, until the clock struck the quarter hour.
“My plan has failed, Grandfather,” he said, no longer able to bear the weight on his chest. “The mongrels will not make war and the president will go ahead with his meeting.”
The old man said nothing.
Chen thought of what to suggest. Assassination had been debated; as desperate as it was, perhaps it was the best option now. The only option.
But there would be other traitors. The people to strike were the communists, the usurpers. Chen had suggested bombing the capital with the UAV, but they did not possess a strong enough weapon to guarantee the death of all the thieves.
“Grandfather?” he said, when the old man failed to respond. “Grandfather?”
As unbearable as the weight had been before, now it increased ten times. Chen flew across the room, turning the chair roughly.
His grandfather’s slender body slid from the chair into his arms. His pale skin was cold; the old man’s heart had stopped more than an hour before.
Chen Lo Fann trembled as he put the old man back in his chair. There was a note on the desk, the figures drawn in Chen Lee’s shaky hand.
“The weapons are in place,” said the note.
Chen stared at the ideograms. He was not sure what weapons his grandfather was talking about, or even where they might be. Silently, he folded the paper and placed it back in his pocket. And then he went to find out.
All his life, Starship had been on top of the wave. He’d ridden it to the State Class A Football Championship in junior year as all-league quarterback; the next year he’d taken the state trophy in wrestling. The Academy — more success in football, of course, where his exploits against Notre Dame were still the talk of the place. Pilot training, F-15 squadron. The assignment to Dreamland was supposed to be another notch in the belt.
It was. But it wasn’t going precisely as he had planned.
For one thing, he hadn’t planned on joining the Flighthawk program — he’d been shooting for one of the manned fighter programs but discovered the only open pilot slot was in the Megafortress, and with all due respect to the monster craft, no amount of Dreamland gadgets could turn it into an exciting ride. He’d managed to finesse a slot with the Flighthawks and figured he’d be in a good position to transition eventually — though eventually might be far down the road.
But what Starship hadn’t counted on was the pressure. Because even though he was good — better than good — he’d felt unbelievable stress ever since the start of the deployment. He wasn’t sure why — was it because he was so far from the plane he was flying? Was it the fact that Kick was looking over his shoulder? Was he intimidated by Zen, a pilot so tough he could lose the use of his legs and still come back for more?
Or was it fear?
He slid another ten-dollar bill on the bar of the club.
Eating at the palace last night with Mack Smith had been a revelation. He’d thought the job proposal was complete BS, but the sultan turned out to be serious. He wanted to take Brunei into the twenty-first century — even beyond. He wanted frontline fighters and Megafortresses. Mack Smith could build an empire here.
And it looked like he was going to take the job.
If he did, Starship would be in line to help. Major Smith had said so. More than likely, much of the work at first would be staff BS and PR, but he would have the pull to fly whenever he wanted.
Those little trainer jobs they flew at first, but eventually, real planes.
A week ago, he’d have laughed out loud about the whole idea. But now he wasn’t sure.
Starship took his drink and slid around in his seat to watch the girl dancing on the stage. The girl started to slide her skirt down.
Someone shook Starship from behind.
“What’s the story?” he said angrily, turning.
“So this is where you’re hiding,” said Kick. “I can see why.”
“Hey, roomie. Pull up a stool. How’d you find me?”
“Mack Smith suggested I look here.”
“Yeah, good ol’ Major Smith. Have a drink.”
“Thanks but no thanks. Zen wants us ASAP.”
“What for? It’s our day off. Besides, we’re still grounded, right? Because of the Chinese baloney?”
“Not anymore. Colonel Bastian arranged for
“Damn,” said Starship.
Kick stepped back. “I’ll tell him I couldn’t find you.”
“Screw that,” said Starship, sliding off the barstool.
“I’m serious, man. You can’t fly.”
“Better than you.”
Kick looked at him. “Not at this moment.”
“I can fly better than you in my sleep, Kick boy.”
The first factory Stoner took them to lay about a mile and a half from Sungshan airport, in a crowded district of warehouses and industrial buildings. The roads were so thick with traffic that it took hours to get to the facility itself; when they finally did they found their way blocked by uniformed employees. The men were polite — the driver pretended to be asking for directions and they answered helpfully — but there was no way past them.
Danny eyed the fence, which was topped with barbed wire; there were also video cameras. Besides the two men at the gate he saw another patrolling down the way.
He took out the IR device and slowly began scanning the building. A small wire connected to the side; it was an earphone that buzzed as soon as the reading was complete and logged. The data were ferried via a small antenna to the transmitter unit in the trunk, though at the moment they weren’t broadcasting to Dreamland because of the small possibility that it might be detected.
Every time the machine buzzed in his ear, he pushed the small trigger button on the top between the two barrels; the IR sensors adjusted themselves and took another “bite” at the building. As it moved further inside, the buzzes started to be punctuated by clicks; it was having trouble seeing. Danny tried holding it at different angles and jostling it; finally he decided they had gotten everything they could.
“So?” asked Stoner as they drove away.
“We’ll see what the techies say. They can construct a three-D model when they look it over,” said Danny.
“That thing like a radar?” asked Stoner.
“No, it uses heat signatures so it can’t be detected. We call in IR or infrared, but the techies say it has a somewhat wider band. The sensors are here.” Danny pointed to the top rim of the glasses. “They have to be kept fairly cool to work right. But they have better range than the viewers on our Smart Helmets, and since there’s no
