George turned to the same direction and squinted into the sunlight. After a moment he spotted another aircraft out there, moving along on a roughly parallel course at a distance of a half mile or so. That was a bit close, but Hong Kong was a major hub of Asian air traffic; the sky was always full of planes coming and…
Wait. George looked closer. He had spent a lot of time in and around aircraft, but he had never seen anything like this. First of all, the plane had no distinct fuselage, but rather a sort of thickened area in the center. Nor was there a tail. The overall shape reminded him of a manta ray with its wingtips upturned, or perhaps a pregnant boomerang. But one thing was unmistakable: The nearest winglet was emblazoned with the red star of the People’s Republic of China.
The Gulfstream’s co-pilot began speaking in the kind of low, cadenced voice that George had come to associate with a radio transmission. At about the same time, the strange plane fell back. As it did so, George glimpsed a narrow door or hatch sliding open on its belly. Then the plane banked behind the Gulfstream, out of sight. George swiveled around and peered out the window, waiting for the plane to reappear on that side. It didn’t.
On the eastern horizon pearly-white castles of a child’s imagination loomed into the sky. Cumulonimbus clouds; thunderheads. Ranks and ranks of them hovering over the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, thirstily sucking moisture out of the lower atmosphere and vaulting it to cooler heights. Exchanging hot for cold and cold for hot, firing up the engine of a typhoon.
Only a matter of time. Two days at most; typhoons were capable of leaping up almost overnight. Why couldn’t anyone but he seem to understand —
There was a shout from the cockpit, this one as loud as a trumpet blast:
He shook his head, then glanced at the window. The dark of the sea swung across it, as if the whole world had tilted. A moment later the sky reappeared. Then the water. Then the sky, now divided by a garland of black smoke. Shouts and curses echoed back from the cockpit, accompanied by an electronic shrieking.
The ocean reappeared. It was closer now; he could see the mottled ranks of waves rolling shoreward. The plane bucked, shivered. Dr. George realized he could see sunlight coming through the wall near the tail. As he watched, the crack widened.
“What’s going on?” he shouted blearily. He tried to stand, but his seat belt yanked him back.
Now he could finally understand the co-pilot’s words, a high-pitched chant: “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday…”
Through the window, water swung into view again. Now it was close enough to show white birds racing across the waves.
“Oh, my,” Dr. Alonzo George said. “Oh my, oh my.” Pivoting his seat toward the front of the plane, he bowed forward as far as his belly would let him, and placed his hands over his head.
Wei Ao lowered the telephone receiver from his ear and looked over at the man sitting across the desk from him. Until the interruption of the emergency call, Wei and Yeh Lien, the Political Commissar, had been having a very dry discussion about restructuring political training sessions for off-duty PLA soldiers. At least, that was what the discussion
Now, however, Wei was very glad to have the commissar present. Replacing the receiver in its cradle, he said, “Comrade, I have just been informed that an American military jet departing Kai Tak Airport has been shot down.”
“Shot down?” Yeh Lien straightened in his seat. “An American military jet? What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. It was a NOAA aircraft — which is to say, an American Air Force jet supposedly used to study weather. Its pilot reported being paced by an unknown aircraft with a red star on the wing. He then reported missiles being fired, and began to go down. He has since vanished off radar and is presumed to have crashed.”
Yeh closed his eyes. “This American plane — it was not armed?”
“No. Many times these kinds of planes are used for spying, so they are not armed. It would ruin the illusion.”
“I assume you can identify who fired at it?”
“No. It was not one of ours.”
Yeh’s eyes opened. “But you said — ”
“Anyone can paint a red star on a wing. Comrade, the American pilot reported that his attacker resembled a ‘stealth fighter.’ To the best of my knowledge, the PLA Air Force possesses no such aircraft. Also, our own radar detected only the smallest return, other than that of the business jet, in that area. They would have taken it to be a bird or temperature anomaly if it weren’t for what happened later. And finally, all PLA aircraft have reported in and been accounted for. None is, or was, in the vicinity of the attack.”
“What exactly are you telling me, Comrade Major General?”
“I’m telling you we need to find out what really happened.” Wei leaned forward. “There’s only one way to do that. I want to route a squadron of fighters to the area to search for this mystery plane and the American jet. Immediately.”
Yeh looked uncomfortable. “You say the American went down outside the twelve-mile limit?”
“That’s the radar indication. We won’t know for sure until we get someone out there.”
“Perhaps…perhaps we should consult with General Ming before — ”
“Ming is on his way back to Beijing. By the time we contact him, the enemy will be gone. We must act
But Yeh just stared out the window.
“Comrade,” Wei said. “Radar indicates there are currently no conventional American aircraft in the vicinity of the crash — but that won’t last. If we wish to get there before the Americans cordon off the site like they did last time, we must act
At last Yeh looked back at him. “Not an entire squadron; it would look… aggressive. Some smaller number, perhaps.”
Wei carefully kept the sneer off his face. Evidently living in Hong Kong had taught the Political Commissar the finer points of a very Capitalistic practice: haggling.
“Very well,” he said, and reached for the phone.
“No doubt about it,” Lab Rat said. “A small USAF jet, departing north out of Hong Kong, was taken out with an air-to-air missile fired at close range. This was a unarmed transport plane, sir. Whatever fired the shot dropped to the deck and disappeared.”
“What do you mean, ‘whatever fired the shot’?”
“Well, Admiral, the contact was… odd.”
“Don’t dance around the question. Tell me.”
“It was an extremely weak return; nothing like your average fighter plane — especially one carrying missiles. Also, it never switched on its
“But it
“Well… that’s the other thing.” The intelligence officer pointed at the icons shifting over the blue screen. “The
