They were followed by a much larger one. This one wasn’t simply red exhaust — the edges of the circle pulsed with a violent zigzag of orange and yellow. Not only had the Sukhoi sucked a full load of shrapnel into its engine, but one of the exploding air mines had started a fire.
“He’s toast!” yelled Sullivan. A second later the canopy of the Chinese jet flew off and the pilot bailed, narrowly avoiding the tumult of flames as his aircraft turned into a Molotov cocktail.
Starship struggled to keep his Flighthawk on a steady path as the Megafortress jerked and jived through the air. This was the most difficult part of flying the robot planes: making your hand do what your mind told it to do, and not what its body wanted. The disconnect between what was happening on the screen — an aircraft in straight, level flight — and what was happening to his stomach was difficult to reconcile.
Starship put both hands on the control and lowered his head, leaving the Megafortress behind as he willed himself inside the little plane. He took
By the time he came out of his turn, the lead aircraft had made a turn of its own to the east. Its companion was following suit.
“Colonel, my contacts are heading away,” said Starship. “Should I pursue?”
“Stand by, Flighthawk leader.”
The
“What’s the situation, Starship?”
“Looks like they’ve broken off and are heading home,” said Starship. “I’m not sure if they saw the Flighthawks or not—
“Save your bullets,” said Dog. “We’re out of Anacondas and we may need them for the ride home.”
VI. Borrowed Time
“So I hear Rocky Balboa finally got his mitts on Dreamland,” Margaret McGraw said when she called Jed to brief him on the latest round of NSA intercepts related to the warhead recovery mission.
“How’s that?”
“Oh, don’t give me the I’m-above-all-the-infighting line, Jed. I know you know what’s going on. Admiral Balboa pulled a coup.”
“Dreamland is being folded back, um, um, into the c-c-command structure.”
“There’s a positive spin for you. What are they going to do with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not kicking you out too, are they?”
“N-N-Not that I know.”
“Kissing up to Balboa, huh?”
“No.”
McGraw laughed. She was a section leader in the NSA analysis section. Jed had met her only once or twice in person, but had spoken to her several times a week for more than a year.
“To work,” she said. “There’s a definite connection between the Kashmir guerrillas and China. They’re going
“Gadget” was McGraw’s way of saying warhead. She summarized a set of NSA intercepts and decrypted messages, then told Jed that the CIA had somewhat similar information from “humanint”—human sources, or spies.
“Word is, though, DIA and Navy intelligence are poopooing it,” added McGraw. “They think China is neutral.”
“Why?”
“Because the words ‘Navy’ and ‘intelligence’ don’t go together?” McGraw laughed. “Did I ever tell you what DIA stands for?”
“Like twenty times,” said Jed.
“Aw, ain’t that cute — you’re turning red.” McGraw chuckled.
“How do you know that?” said Jed, who was.
She laughed even harder.
“The Ch-Ch-Chinese have been firing on Dreamland aircraft,” said Jed.
“Absolutely. But, see, it hasn’t happened to a Navy ship, so they still think China’s neutral,” said McGraw. “I’m forwarding you a report on what we have. We have traffic back and forth, but the encryptions are good. We haven’t broken them.”
“When will you?”
“Don’t know. Not my department. It’s immaterial,” McGraw added. “What do you think they’re talking about? The price of tea?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good. Well, let’s wrap this up, hon. I don’t want to keep you from any hot dates.”
Zen woke thirsty, his entire body aching for water. For a second he thought he was home, and he reached his hand toward the small table at the side of the bed, where by habit he usually kept a bottle of springwater. But of course he wasn’t at home, and instead of finding water, his hand swung against the side of his makeshift tent, collapsing it.
The struggle to fix the shelter took his mind off his thirst for a few minutes, but the craving soon returned. His lips felt as if they had shriveled into briquettes of charcoal. His throat had turned to rock, his tongue to sand.
There was about a half liter left in the bottle from his survival pack. How long could he make that last?
Grudgingly, Zen pulled himself to a sitting position and picked up the bottle. Two sips, he told himself. Small ones.
The first was small, but on the second his parched lips took over and he caught himself gulping.
If he was thirsty, Breanna must be even more so.
“Hey, are you awake? Bree? Bree?”
He touched her gently, brushing away her hair. Then he moved his hand to her shoulder and pushed more firmly, as if she’d overslept the morning of a mission.
“Bree, come on now. Come on. Got some water. Let’s go.”
She didn’t move. She was breathing, but still far away.
Was she even breathing?
Zen uncapped the bottle and dripped some of the water onto his fingers, then rubbed it onto her lips, his forefinger grabbing at the chapped flesh. It didn’t seem like enough — he cupped his hand in front of her mouth and dribbled it from the bottle, pushing it toward her mouth. But she didn’t drink, and the water slipped away to the ground.
“Come on, Bree. We can’t waste this!”
For a moment he was angry at her, mad as he hadn’t been in months, years — since his accident, when he was mad at everything and everyone, at the world.
