Unlike Zen, Starship preferred controlling the Flighthawks from the standard control panels rather than using one of the flight helmets. He could see more at a glance, and had no trouble zoning out the rest of the noise around him.
He punched a preset to flip his main screen back to
Starship leaned
“Colonel, I have something.”
“Roger that, Flighthawk leader. Give us the GPS points.”
Starship tapped the object on the screen, locking the data into the computer before transferring it. He put
“Looking good, Starship,” said Dog a few minutes later. “Dreamland Command confirms that’s warhead I-17. One down, five to go.”
“We’re just about wrapped up here, Colonel,” said Danny, using his portable mike pack instead of bothering with the smart helmet. “We should be leaving for I-8 in about thirty minutes.”
“We’ve found I-17,” Dog told him. “It’s a little farther north than the projections show. There are some settlements nearby.”
Danny checked the paper map as well as his global positioning device. The device had been found about twenty miles outside of the projected landing points, the first time the projections had been wrong.
It looked to him as if the villages could be easily avoided. However, there was a highway just a mile northwest of the site; they’d be in full view when they landed.
Danny debated whether they could afford to wait until nightfall, when villagers would be less likely to interfere. Weighed against that was the possibility that the warhead might be discovered before they got there.
Since it was close to the village, it seemed likely that someone had already seen it. The area was in the zone affected by the T-Rays, and isolated to begin with. Maybe the villagers had no one to tell.
“I think we’re best off sticking with the present plan, and go after I-17 at dusk,” Danny finally told the colonel. “Would it be possible to keep it under surveillance in the meantime?”
“Doable.”
“One other thing, Colonel — I’m wondering if we could bring up a few more men from the Whiplash detail, along with more of our gear. The Marines are great, but they’re stretched kind of thin. Admiral Woods wants everything found and out ASAP.”
“We only have three men to run security at Diego Garcia as it is,” said Dog.
“The only thing they’re doing there is watching the lizards.”
Dog knew that it wasn’t quite the no-brainer Danny made it out to be. While Diego Garcia was among the most secure bases in the world, some of the gear the EB-52s carried was so classified the Navy security people would not be authorized to enter the hangars. While the chances of a problem were remote, any resulting security violation would have severe consequences for the commander.
“All right,” said Dog finally. “Get them up there.”
“Thanks, Colonel.”
The boat was surprisingly small, more like a log in the water than a canoe. Zen flattened himself on the rocks, watching as it made its way across the shallow lagoon toward the area where he’d spotted the first turtle. Whoever was in the boat didn’t seem to notice him.
He considered slipping into the water but decided that he’d make too much noise. There was no way to escape — unless he was extremely lucky, eventually he would be spotted.
He’d never done very well depending on sheer luck to get by. And maybe he wanted to be found. He needed to get help for Breanna. No one was answering his radio hails; the person in the boat was the only alternative.
The Megafortress had been attacked by Indian planes and missiles, but maybe they thought they were going after a Chinese or Pakistani aircraft. The military wasn’t necessarily antagonistic toward Americans; on the contrary, the Indians had often helped U.S. forces, at least before this conflict.
Maybe the person in the boat would be friendly. Maybe the Indians didn’t hate Americans and this Indian could be persuaded to contact someone without telling the authorities.
But he knew it didn’t matter, because Breanna was going to die if he didn’t get help.
She might even already be dead.
Zen shook his head, chasing the idea away. Then he stood.
“Hey!” he yelled, waving his hand. “Hey! Over here!”
The figure in the boat turned his head in Zen’s direction, but the boat kept moving, crossing in front of him.
“Hey,” repeated Zen. “Help,” the word “Help” coming from his mouth as a bare whisper.
He was too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit defeat.
Breanna would die because of his ego.
“Hey!” Zen yelled.
The boat slowed, then began to turn in his direction. The oarsman was short, small — young, Zen realized, a teenager or even younger.
Zen pushed himself around and sat, arranging his useless but bruised and bloodied legs under him. They seemed to ache ever so faintly. He hadn’t experienced the phenomenon in quite a while. He’d been told it had to do with reflex memory stored deep in his brain and nerve cells.
The boat was so shallow it got within a foot or two of the shoreline before beaching. A boy of perhaps nine or ten knelt in the bottom. His oar looked more like a battered stick than a paddle. He stared silently at Zen, perhaps five yards away.
“Hello,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”
The boy looked at him quizzically.
“Do you speak English?” asked Zen. He’d assumed that everyone in India did, though this was not actually true. “English?”
The boy nudged his stick against the rocks but did not reply.
“I’m American,” said Zen. “USA.”
Zen didn’t understand.
“I’m a pilot. My plane had trouble and crashed,” he said. “I — there’s another pilot. We need to contact our base.”
“
“You mean the TV show?” asked Zen. “
“You know Simpsons?”
“Bart Simpson?”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “You know Bart Simpson?”
“Watch him all the time.”
“Bart?”
“We’re good friends,” said Zen. “Can you help me?”
The young man looked at Zen suspiciously, then jabbed his stick against the rocks and quickly pushed away.
