“Nah, it’s OK,” said Mack.
“Dish looks cold.”
“I’m OK,” said Dish.
Jazz slipped into the water next to him. Mack watched his shock as the water hit him. Then Dish pulled himself into the raft, Mack could see he was both reluctant and grateful.
Mack leaned over toward Jazz. “You hanging in there, kid?”
“I’m with ya, Major.”
“Kick slow if you have to, to stay warm.”
“Staying warm.”
Mack kicked slowly himself, pushing the raft almost imperceptibly. He told himself he was in a survival tank bank at Nellis Air Base, just having a grand ol’ time with the instructors, one of whom had been
Luscious, that.
In the raft, Dish shifted around to get closer to him.
“Hey, Major,” he said in a barely audible voice. “That Chinese ship. I can see it on the horizon, getting bigger.”
Damn, thought Mack, doing his best not to turn around.
The radar detector aboard the Werewolf bleeped to let Starship know that the Chinese frigate was looking for it. The ship had changed course and was now making a beeline for the life raft.
“Tac, I need you to take a look at this,” Starship said. In an instant, Eyes appeared at his side.
“The frigate is heading in their direction. You think it knows they’re there?”
Eyes squatted and looked at the Werewolf control screen, which displayed a situational representation of the area. The sitrep provided a bird’s-eye view, augmented with information about the contacts, their speed and bearings. The control computer could gather and synthesize the information from a variety of sources, but in this case it was working primarily with the Werewolf ’s regular and infrared radar. The destroyer was about four miles from the men.
“They’re too far to know exactly where they are,” decided Eyes. “But I’d say they definitely know they’re in the vicinity.”
“How long before they actually see the raft?”
“Hard to tell. It’s too small and low on the water to be detected by any radar the Chinese have.” Eyes straightened. “That leaves human lookouts. Good glasses, good lookouts…”
Eyes didn’t finish the sentence. Starship knew that his own Mark 1 eyeballs were capable of picking out a silver speck in a bright sky at four or five miles, no sweat. Here, the lookouts would have a nice orange target on a field of deep blue.
“We have to figure out a way to get them out of there,” said Starship.
“That, or get the frigate out of there.”
The sun poured through the hatchway above the copilot’s seat as Dog turned toward the Chinese ship. Wind surged through the cockpit, grabbing at the folds of his flight suit. He could barely hear his breath in the face mask, which was just as well — he’d started to hyperventilate, too revved on adrenaline.
“Werewolf. Affirmative, Colonel.”
“Do it.” Dog guessed that the Chinese were monitoring the emergency frequency and didn’t want them listening in.
“I’m on, Colonel.”
“The Chinese frigate is heading toward Mack and the others. How close is the
“Roughly an hour and a half,” said Starship.
“Are you armed?”
“Only with. 50 caliber bullets.”
The bullets were fired from machine guns in the Werewolf ’s skids. The weapon wouldn’t do much against the frigate, and to use it Starship would have to fly well within range of the Chinese ship’s missiles.
“
“Yeah, roger that,” said Dog. He took a hard turn, hoping to “beam” the radar, flying in the direction of the waves, where it was more difficult to be detected.
“Still targeting you.”
“Just tell me if he fires.”
“Werewolf,” said Starship, acknowledging.
Dog began a bank, aiming to circle in front of the destroyer and make himself a more inviting target.
It was hopeless, wasn’t it? Sooner or later the captain of the frigate was going to figure out what he was up to, if he hadn’t already. And by now he’d have realized that the Megafortress was unarmed and impotent.
Well, he was weaponless, but was he impotent?
An hour and a half before, he’d been willing to give his life to keep the Chinese from launching a nuclear weapon and involving the world in a nuclear war.
He could do that now, he thought. If he hit the frigate right, he’d sink it.
He’d have to stay at the stick to do it.
Dog hesitated, then pushed the stick back toward the frigate. He reached for the throttle glide, ready to put the engines to the wall.
“Missile launch!” screamed Starship. And as he did, Dog saw two thick bursts of white foam erupt from the forward section of the Chinese ship.
Mack saw the missiles streak from the Chinese destroyer but couldn’t tell what they were firing at. The
The Werewolf was skittering around two miles to the east.
Cantor groaned.
“Maybe the chopper can take him back to the ship,” said Dish.
“Maybe,” said Mack, though he knew that the small helicopter wasn’t normally equipped with rescue equipment. “Hey, kid, you still up there? Werewolf?”
“Werewolf.”
“We got an injured airman here. It’s Jazz — you think we can rig a stretcher up or something?”
“Uh, negative, Major. I have a line running down from the bird and there’s a collar attached, but I don’t know about hooking up a stretcher. It’s a long way back, and he’d have to hold on. I don’t think he could make it.”
“That’s it, kid. You just gave me a great idea. Get overhead right now,” he added, as two more missiles flew from the destroyer.
One hand on the power controls and the other on the stick, Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian goaded the
Dog pushed the Megafortress toward the waves, trying to get as low as possible without turning his plane into a submarine. The radar in the Chinese destroyer, originally intended for tracking targets tens of thousands of feet higher, lost the aircraft at about a hundred feet, leaving both missiles to use their onboard infrared detectors to
