Two additional warhead sites had been tentatively identified about a hundred miles apart in the area north of Jamu, technically in India though the border was in dispute. The
Power had been restored in about a third of southern India in the past few hours; even if the third missile wasn’t found, Dog feared this would be the last mission they would undertake.
“Feared” because when the mission was over, the search for Breanna and Zen would end as well.
While the search for the two pilots was continuing, an unspoken adjustment had already been made. While no one said so, the mission had become more a recovery than a rescue. This long after a bailout, the odds of finding either alive was very slim. The searchers, of course, knew that, and would make subtle adjustments, no longer pushing themselves to the limit.
Dog wasn’t quite ready to make the adjustment himself. But neither could he pretend that it was likely he would see his daughter or son-in-law alive again. All he could do was stare at the
Danny Freah pushed up the visor on his smart helmet as he clambered down to the missile, deciding there was enough light from the moon to see without using the night-vision shield. The weapon seemed to have skidded to a landing as if it were a disabled aircraft, perhaps after a glancing blow against a nearby cliff as it descended. Aside from a large gash at the side of the housing below the warhead assembly, much of the missile was still intact.
A light flashed as Jennifer Gleason snapped a photo of the overall location before descending to examine the warhead.
“You want to take a look at this, Captain!” yelled one of the Marines near the warhead.
“Hey, Jen, something’s up,” yelled Danny, starting to trot down the embankment. About a third of the way, he tripped over something and began to slide on his back, sledding down the hill until his foot caught on a large boulder.
Cursing, he got up and stalked to the missile. He expected some good-natured ribbing from the Marines gathered around the warhead, but they were silent, staring at the banged-up metal.
One of the access panels on the warhead had separated from the rest of the skin just enough to let light shine through from the inside.
Light. The internal works had not been completely fried.
Jennifer knelt down in front of the panel without saying a word. Danny watched as she took a star-head screwdriver from her small pack of tools and gingerly unscrewed the panel. A bank of LEDs on the circuit board were lit.
“Huh,” she said.
Danny reach to the back of his helmet for the communications button.
“You see this, Dreamland?”
“Yes,” said Anna Klondike. “Stand by. And please tell Ms. Gleason not to touch anything.”
During the whole flight, pilot Michael Englehardt felt out of sync, as if he’d stepped into a movie moving about a half frame faster than he was.
It was ironic. He’d been
“Indian radar site just powered up,” said his copilot, Kevin Sullivan. “Shouldn’t be able to see us from this distance, but it may catch the Osprey on the way out. We’ll have to alert them.”
“Yeah, roger that.”
“You want me to do that?”
“Yeah, jeez, come on, Kevin. Do it.”
“Two aircraft from the southeast,” announced Sergeant Rager, the airborne radar controller. “At 250 miles. MiG-29Bs. Must be out of Adampur.”
Englehardt’s heart began to pound, and suddenly his throat felt dry. He checked his position on the map, then double checked, basically stalling for time.
What was he supposed to do?
He’d been in situations like this dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times — in simulations. He’d always handled it then.
Now?
Now he was still moving a step behind. What was going on?
“Flighthawk leader to
“Roger that,” he said. “Check them out. Copilot — Kevin, they challenge us?”
“Negative.”
“Radar, continue to track. If they continue on course, we’ll ask their intentions. If they show hostile signs, we’ll shoot them down.”
His voice cracked as he finished the sentence. Englehardt winced, hoping no one else would notice. Then he reached for the water bottle he kept tucked in his pants leg, his throat bone dry.
Jennifer got down on her belly so she could see the interior of the weapon better, then pushed the electronic probes toward the two points at the far end of the circuit board. The narrow, needlelike probes felt as if they were frozen solid. Anna Klondike had assured Danny that taking the measurements would not cause the weapon to explode. But Jennifer had had too much experience with integrated circuits gone bad to feel completely at ease.
“OK,” she told Danny as the needles made contact. “Take the reading, please.”
“Zero.”
Jennifer pulled the probes back, then straightened.
“Well? What did they say?”
Danny put up his hand. He was wearing his smart helmet, visor up, listening to the experts at Dreamland.
“They say there’s about a twenty percent chance that it’s armed,” he told her. “If that’s the case, it can go off at any time.”
“No way.”
“You want to talk to them?”
“Yes.”
Danny pulled off his helmet and put it on Jennifer’s head. It felt heavy, and she had to steady it with both hands.
“This is Jennifer Gleason.”
“And this is Ray Rubeo,” said the scientist. “Why am I talking to you?”
“This bomb is armed?”
“There is a possibility.”
“If it was armed, it would have exploded by now.”
Rubeo snorted.
“Don’t you think?” Jennifer added, slightly less sure of herself.
“The fail-safe circuitry is dead,” said Rubeo. “Now is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“You have the experts there. What do they think?”
“They are divided. We have steps for you to take.”
