“Airforce, what’s your status?” barked Storm.
“Downed flier, approximately, uh, let’s say ten miles southwest of us, Captain.” Starship was used to Storm’s gruff way of communicating, and his habit of interrupting after Eyes had already given an order. The captain could be a genuine, class one jackass, but he was a good leader when the shit hit the fan.
Not as good as Colonel Bastian, but few men were.
“How far is that Sharkboat from him?”
“Take them almost an hour to get to him, Captain,” Starship told him. “We’re a lot closer, just about ten miles, and—”
“Here’s what we’re going to do, Airforce,” Storm told him. “The Sharkboat is going to take flyboy. You’re going to hover over him and make sure they find him.”
Storm snapped off the circuit. Starship, confused about why a vessel farther away was being tasked to make the pickup, turned around and saw Eyes looking over his shoulder at the Werewolf ’s video feed. Because of the ad hoc nature of the arrangement, the Werewolf ’s video and other sensor data was not available at the executive officer’s own station.
“Looks scared,” said Eyes, bending down.
“Probably in shock,” said Starship. Punching out of an aircraft at a few hundred knots took a lot out of the body. And while the Arabian Sea was relatively warm — the surface temperature was no lower than 68 degrees — it was still cooler than a human body. “Sir, you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Fire away.”
“How come the Sharkboat is taking him?”
“We’re heading north,” said Eyes. “Some of your Dreamland guys bailed and we’re going to pick them up, assuming we can get around the Chinese.”
Time past mixed with time future, the present a tangle unrecognizable, bizarrely shaped and shot through with pain.
Time lost meaning, and there was no meaning, there was no present or past, nothing solid, nothing reliable except confusion.
Major Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard lay on his back in the ocean, floating not on water but rocks, black rocks tinged with orange. Flames lapped at his face and his legs were packed solid in ice. When he breathed, his lungs filled with the perfumed air of lilacs.
The voice came from the sky.
Zen tried to shake his head and regain consciousness. Instead of his head, his chest shook.
A black blanket covered his head. He clawed at it, pulled and poked and prodded, but it would not yield. He gave up.
When he did, the blackness lifted to reveal a golden red sun no more than a foot from his head.
The voice spoke again.
Zen blinked his eyes, trying to shield them from the sun. His brain began to sort things out, reconstituting his memory like a computer rebuilding its hard drive. It moved sequentially, from the very beginning, everything rushing together: He was in high school, he was in the Air Force, he had just qualified as a fighter pilot, in the Gulf War.
Good shot, Captain, that MiG never had a chance.
Selected as test pilot, assigned to Dreamland, in love.
The voice called louder, pleading. Finally, he recognized that it was his voice, that he was calling for his wife, that he wanted her more than he wanted anything, more than he cared for his own life, certainly.
And then time asserted itself, and he was aware of the present. Zen fell into it, consumed by the swirling ocean of gray.
“There’s an opportunity here that we hadn’t anticipated.” National Security Advisor Philip Freeman’s face was beet red as he pleaded his cause. “It’s been thrown in our lap.”
Freeman glanced at Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman, then at President Kevin Martindale. Jed Barclay couldn’t remember his boss arguing this passionately before.
“Of course there’s risk, but it’s not as great as it seems,” continued Freeman. “The T-Rays have been much more effective than we hoped. It will be days before power is restored. The
“We need to know definitively where the warheads are before we give the go ahead for an operation,” insisted Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain, speaking over the closed circuit communications system from the Pentagon War Room. “Without that, Mr. President, I can’t guarantee success. I’m not even sure I can with it.”
“Jed?” said Martindale.
“Space Command is working on the p-p-projections,” said Jed, referring to the Air Force agency responsible for monitoring satellite intelligence. “They say they’ll have something in twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours!” Martindale never shouted, but his voice was as loud as Jed had ever heard it.
“Mr. President,” said Chastain, “it’s going to take time to get the area under full surveillance. The satellites we couldn’t reposition were lost. Remember, we had to rush the operation before all the assets we wanted were in place, and even if they had been—”
“I don’t want excuses,” said Martindale. “Jed, tell Dreamland to find the warheads.”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but besides Space Command, the National Reconnaissance Office is working on it, and so is Navy Intelligence,” said Admiral Balboa, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “I’m sure we can cut the time down considerably. We’ll have something in twelve hours, maybe less. And the Dreamland people have done enough.”
“See what Dreamland can do,” Martindale told Jed. He was calmer now, his voice softer, though it still had an edge to it. “Those scientists can figure it out. They always have some sort of high-tech trick up their sleeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” said Chastain. “The
“We have a Marine Expeditionary Force near Somalia,” said Freeman. “We can put them into action. And the Dreamland people.”
“The Marines are two days away,” said Chastain. “At least.”
“Not if they stage out to the
Admiral George Balboa, also speaking from the Pentagon, cleared his throat. While he and Freeman had often found themselves at odds, Jed noted that the two men had been meeting together a lot recently. If Balboa’s tone was any indication, they had come to some sort of understanding.
“It might be possible,” said the admiral. “The Marine Ospreys can fly to the
