“Starship, what’s your situation?” Englehardt asked.
“
So could the Megafortress, Englehardt realized.
“
“Our Flighthawks are just reaching the recovery area,” said the
“All right. I have to tank. We’re heading out.”
“Roger that. Word to the wise — the Indians have been powering up their radars all night. We ducked one on the way to the Marine site. I wouldn’t be surprised if their missiles are back on line.”
The night drifted on, melting away everything but Zen’s stoic shell. His thirst, his anger, all feeling and emotion vanished as the hours twisted. He woke, and yet still seemed to be sleeping. As if in a dream, he pushed himself up on his arms and crawled from the tent, cold, an animal seeking only to survive.
He’d strapped his gun to his belt before going to sleep. It dragged and clung against the rocks as he moved, part of him now. He reached the remains of the driftwood where he’d made the fire the other night and pushed up, sitting and staring at the darkness.
There was a plane in the distance.
Zen took a slow, measured breath.
The aircraft was very far away.
He took another breath, yogalike, then leaned back and took the radio from the tent.
“Major Stockard to any aircraft. Dreamland
He stopped, pushed the earphone into his ear mechanically. All he heard was static.
Why even bother?
Zen set the radio down. He pulled himself farther down the beach, staring at the edge of the ocean and the way the reflected moonlight on the tip of the waves seemed to grab at the air, as if trying to climb upward.
It was a vain attempt, a waste, but they kept trying.
If only I had that strength, he thought, continuing to stare.
Starship was just about to turn
“MiG-21s. Four of them. Coming from Hindan,” said Sergeant Rager.
The MiG-21s were somewhat outdated, and certainly less capable than the planes they’d just dealt with. But they couldn’t be ignored either.
“What do you want to do,
“Continue the refuel,” said Englehardt. “I think we can tank one of the U/MFs before we need to deal with them.”
“Roger that,” said Starship, surprised that the pilot sounded confident, or at least more assured than he had earlier.
Starship set up the refuel, then turned the aircraft over to the computer. He swung
“Radar warning,” said Sullivan. “We have a SAM site up — SA-2s, dead ahead.”
Now things are going to get interesting, thought Starship, checking on
Englehardt felt the black cowl slip back over the edges of his vision. The
Three minutes to decide what to do.
Plenty of time not to panic, though his heart was pounding again and his stomach punching him from inside.
The MiGs behind him complicated his options. He didn’t want to go in their direction anyway — he wanted to get to the coast. But turning south to avoid the SAMs might make it easier for them to catch up.
So? Use the Anacondas on them.
Hell, he could use the Anacondas against the SAMs.
His orders were to attempt to avoid conflict. But he’d already been fired on. Did that give him carte blanche? Or was the fact that he was no longer protecting the ground units rule, meaning he should do what he could to get away.
The first. Definitely.
God, he was thinking too much. What was he going to do?
“All right, let’s skirt the SAM site,” Englehardt said. “Turn to bearing one-eight—”
“If we go south, not only will we go closer to the MiGs but we’ll have more batteries to deal with,” said Sullivan, cutting him off. “There are a dozen south of that SA-2 site.”
“I know that,” said Englehardt sharply. “Just do what I say.”
In the silent moments that followed, he wished he’d been a little calmer when he responded. But it was out there, and apologizing wasn’t going to help anything. They set a new course; he moved to it, staying just on the edge of the SA-2s’ effective range.
What if they fire anyway? he wondered. What do I do then?
And as the thought formed in his brain, he got a launch warning on his control panel — the SAMs had been fired.
The first thing Jennifer thought was that the warhead section had broken into pieces when it landed, and that the bomb had somehow managed to bounce away from the conical nose and the metal superstructure that held it above the propellant section. But as she stared at the wreckage, she realized that couldn’t be the case — there were cut screws on the ground, and the pieces of metal had been torched and hacked away.
She looked back for Danny Freah and waved to him.
“Somebody took the warhead,” she told him when he ran up. “It’s gone.”
“You’re sure?”
“They hacked it out. Look. See?”
“All right, look — the
“I want to take some of the electronic controls from the engines,” said Jennifer. “There’s some circuitry that they left behind. And pictures of the missile and damage. It’ll only take a minute.”
“You have only until the Marines start pulling back. Keep your head down.”
“Will do.”
“Countermeasures,” Englehardt told his copilot as the SA-2s climbed toward the
“Already on it.”
“OK, OK.” Englehardt pushed his stick left, instinctively widening the distance between his aircraft and the missiles coming for him.
“MiGs are going to afterburners,” said Rager, monitoring the airplanes that were chasing them at the airborne radar station.
