Retribution

voice?”

“Your transmission was garbled,” responded Dancer coldly. “I suggest you do not repeat it.”

“Hey, roger that,” chuckled Sparks. “All right, I have your ETA at Base Camp One at fifteen minutes. Those Osprey drivers agree?”

“Good. Copy.”

Sparks leaned back against the Megafortress’s ejection seat, arching his shoulders. As soon as the Osprey reached the base camp, the Navy boys from the Abe would take over; most likely they’d be free to go home. It had been a long, dull night, nowhere near as entertaining as their last go-round. But maybe that was what his crew needed. Their energy was off; no one was even laughing at his jokes.

Day on the beach at Diego Garcia might change that. Day on the beach with that hot little Navy ensign he’d spotted on the chow line the other morning would definitely boost his morale, at least.

The Dreamland channel buzzed. Sparks keyed the message in and found himself staring at Colonel Bastian.

“Hey, Colonel, what’s up?”

“Brad, we’ve found the last warhead. I need you to go north to cover the recovery team.”

“Kick ass, Colonel, we’re ready,” said Sparks. “Feed me the data.”

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border

2240

General Sattari put the night glasses down.

“The mujahideen are there now,” he said, speaking not to the men who’d helped him but to himself.

Sattari pushed the binoculars closer to his eyes, watching the men walk through the wreckage. They didn’t seem to realize that the warhead had already been taken. Most likely they didn’t know what they were looking for. Most if not all were ignorant kids, lured from their homes in Egypt and Yemen and Palestine by the promise that they’d be someone important.

“Helicopter,” said one of Sattari’s men.

The general didn’t hear it for a moment. Then he heard the deep rumble reverberating in the distance. It wasn’t a chopper that he was familiar with, yet he had definitely heard the sound before.

An Osprey — an American Osprey.

“Quickly. It is time to go,” he said loudly in Urdu, walking to the truck.

Aboard Dreamland Bennett, over India

2335

Starship took Hawk One ahead of the Marine Osprey, scouting the site where the warhead had been located. Even with the live infrared image from the Global Hawk orbiting above to guide him, he had trouble pinpointing the missile wreckage; to him it looked more like a slight depression in the landscape than anything else.

The pickup trucks, on the other hand, were clearly visible.

Starship slid Hawk One down through 10,000 feet, plotting the most efficient approach to the pickups. Almost immediately the piper in his gun sight screen began to blink red, indicating that he had his target. As the small reticule went solid red, he pressed the trigger.

While almost everything else in the Flighthawk represented cutting-edge, gee-whiz technology, the aircraft’s cannon was ancient; the M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling hadn’t been cutting edge since before the Vietnam War. But sometimes the old iron was the best iron.

The first few shots went wide left and low, but Starship held his stick steady, riding the stream of 20mm lead across and into the rear of the first pickup truck. As the vehicle exploded in flames, his bullets hit the cab of the second truck. He flicked right, perforating the engine compartment before his momentum carried him clear of the targets. He started to turn, moving a little faster than he wanted to, but couldn’t find anything or anyone in front of him, so he pulled up for another run.

He checked Hawk Two—still riding behind the MiGs shadowing the Bennett—then rolled Hawk One into a second attack. As he did, the Flighthawk’s computer warned that he was within ten miles of losing its connection to the mother ship. Starship glanced at the sitrep and realized he couldn’t complete the attack before losing the connection.

“Bennett, I need you to get closer to Hawk One,” he said. “I’m going to lose the connection.”

Englehardt didn’t answer. The Flighthawk and her mother ship were moving away from each other at close to a thousand miles an hour — or sixteen a minute.

“Disconnect in fifteen seconds,” warned the computer, using an audible message as well as the text on the screen.

“Bennett! Need you north!”

Starship felt the Megafortress lurch beneath him.

“We’re on it,” said Englehardt.

Near the Chinese-Pakistani border

2340

Danny Freah squatted to one side of the passageway between the Osprey’s cockpit and cargo area, watching as the aircraft headed toward the landing zone. He could see the Flighthawk’s red-yellow tracers arcing across the sky. Small bursts of green rose up toward the spray — ground fire.

“What do you think, Captain?” asked one of the pilots.

“I think we’re going in, if you can make it.”

“We can make it.”

Danny turned around and yelled to the landing team. “LZ is hot. Show these bastards what the Marine Corps is made of.”

Aboard Dreamland Bennett, over the Chinese-Indian border

2343

“MiGs are talking to their base again,” Sullivan told Englehardt. “I’m betting they don’t like our course change.”

“How close is the Cheli?”

“Their nearest Flighthawk is still ten minutes off.”

Ten more minutes. Englehardt worked his tongue around his mouth, trying to generate a little more moisture for his throat.

“They’re dropping off,” said Sullivan.

For a moment Englehardt felt relieved. The Indians must be low on fuel by now, he thought, and were backing off and going home.

Then he realized that wasn’t the case at all.

“Evasive maneuvers. Give me flares!” he shouted, a second before the missile-launch warning buzzed on the cockpit dash.

* * *

Starship was just zeroing in on a cluster of small arms f lashes at the landing zone when the Megafortress seemed to plunge beneath him. He kept his hand steady, staying with his target and ignoring the urge to jump back into Hawk Two and battle the MiGs.

The key thing to remember when you’re flying two planes, Zen always said, is to finish one thing at a time.

Zen.

Starship lit the Flighthawk’s cannon. The ground in front of the aircraft began to percolate, dirt and rocks erupting from the landscape as the bullets hit. He gently wagged the stick back and forth, stirring the mixture of lead and rock into a veritable tornado.

He let off on the trigger and pulled up. He didn’t see any more tracers from the ground. If there were more guerrillas there, they’d taken cover.

“Hawk One orbit at 15,000 after targets are destroyed,” he told the computer. “Danny, landing zone is as clean as it’s going to get.”

* * *

Englehardt pushed hard on the stick, throwing his whole body against it. The Megafortress twisted herself