objects around you. When you were belowdecks, the air was filtered, air-conditioned, flattened. And of course when you were in a Tomcat, you flew through the air but didn’t feel it on your skin.
He inhaled deeply and looked out across the South China Sea. The water surged past below, appearing to move faster than it really was. Whitecaps were beginning to appear on it, he saw. On the horizon, thunderheads rose like white cliffs crowned in rubble. The wind yanked at Bird Dog’s khakis, and he heard the sizzle and crackle of an arc welder at work behind him, but he didn’t react, didn’t turn.
He was miserable.
It was a terrible thing to lose pilots in a battle. Even worse when one of them had been shot down saving your ass. And worst of all when that pilot was… well, one of the best damned sticks in the U.S. Navy.
He thought again about the hydraulic failure in his wing. Beaman, his plane captain, had been checking the Tomcat out ever since Bird Dog thumped it back onto the carrier. “I’m still looking,” he said every time Bird Dog asked him what he’d found. Plane captains were fanatically — and blessedly — devoted to their aircraft, and so to the pilots who were allowed to borrow the machines from time to time.
After climbing out of the aircraft last night, Bird Dog had looked at the rear cockpit and surrounding area and felt suddenly nauseous. It wasn’t the blood, because there wasn’t any. It wasn’t even the sight of the motionless Catwoman, who was already being checked out by corpsmen. It was the realization that his plane had been destroyed. Half the canopy was gone, and the right wing looked like a colander. There was more air than metal left in that wing. Bird Dog had landed a pile of scrap on the carrier, and he had no idea how he had done it, or what had made him think he could.
In retrospect, he wondered how anyone could hope to figure out what had gone wrong with the control- surface hydraulics on the mangled wing. But Beaman, aided by damned near every hydraulics tech onboard the carrier, refused to give up. If the Tomcat had had a mechanical seizure in the air, the plane captain wanted to know why, and where, and how. And as soon as he figured it out…
Last night, Bird Dog had been ready to kill whoever was responsible for the hydraulic failure. There had been a time — it seemed a lifetime ago, somehow — when he would have ripped into anyone who might even be remotely involved. Now, he found himself hoping the cause turned out to be something purely mechanical, a failed part no one could have anticipated or prepared for. Because if it was human error, God help the poor kid responsible.
And it was easy to forget that these
If one of the kids had screwed up, he’d have more than the plane captain to contend with. More than an official inquiry. That kid would have to think about dead aviators for the rest of his life.
Stop that. You don’t know she’s dead.
Bird Dog stared across the sea, and on the eastern horizon, under the flat bottoms of the thunderheads, lightning drubbed the ocean with white, skeletal fingers.
NINE
Major General Yeh Lien, Political Commissar of the Hong Kong SAR, thought that the meeting room seemed much too empty these days. Only two months ago there had been five major generals here at every conference. Then, two nights ago, Ming’s presence had filled the room all by itself. But now…
Now there was just Wei Ao of the army, Chin Tsu of the Coastal Defense Force, and he, Yeh Lien, representing the heart and soul of Chinese Communism.
No, there was someone else as well. Someone invisible. The person responsible for the death of General Ming Wen Hsien.
Or was that guilty man actually here in the flesh? Yeh couldn’t help thinking about the secrets Ming had hoarded about the commanders in the SAR. Perhaps one of those commanders had become aware of this knowledge. Perhaps he had decided to free himself.
Yeh watched the other two men, shifting his gaze back and forth as Wei Ao described the latest reports about Ming’s death. Evidence indicated that the general’s plane had been shot down by a missile or missiles of relatively small size; they could have been either air-to-air or ground-to-air. Yeh stared at the Army commander’s blocky, self-satisfied face. Who would have more access to weapons than the First Among Equals? Wei, collector of decadent antiquities, and now sole and supreme commander of the Hong Kong SAR…
“Now,” Wei said, his voice grave but his eyes glittering. “You’ve all seen our new orders. Until a replacement for Ming is officially assigned from Beijing, I alone dictate military actions within and around the Hong Kong SAR. I answer directly to the State Council, and you answer to me, and that is all.”
“What are we going to do about the Americans?” Chin demanded in his impetuous way, as if he hadn’t heard a word Wei had just said.
Wei fixed the younger man with a heavy-lidded gaze. “What are
“But it had to be Americans who shot down the plane!”
“Consider the area where the shoot-down occurred, Comrade. A hundred miles inland, in rough terrain. The missiles were of the short-range variety, not something the Americans could have launched from over the horizon. Therefore, they were almost certainly fired from the ground. Are you claiming that the Americans placed troops that far inland without our being aware of it?”
“But — you’ll do nothing in retaliation, then?”
To Yeh’s surprise, the old major general smiled. “It’s not necessary to retaliate, Major General Chin. Even if the Americans are guilty. Remember, as Sun Tzu said, ‘The way to be certain to hold what you defend… is to defend a place the enemy does not attack.’ ”
Chin looked baffled. Yeh
Certainly Major General Wei Ao was neither of these things. From the words of his own mouth, the old commander was up to something, some unspecified activity. An activity he did not care to share.
Which meant that Yeh must find out what it was.
“I wish Tomboy were here,” Batman said as he strode down the passageway toward sick bay. “She should hear this.”
“When’s her COD due?” Lab Rat asked, from behind him.
“Zero eight hundred tomorrow.”
“Well, we can’t wait that long,” Lab Rat said. “Memory’s a fickle thing. The sooner we get Dr. George’s story about what happened, the better.” He paused. “Tombstone’s not coming, too?”
Batman answered in clipped tones: “Admiral Magruder and his wife happen to be two professional officers with different duties and assignments. They aren’t joined at the hip, you know.”
“I realize that, sir. I didn’t intend any offense. But Tombstone’s experience in — ”
“Oh, hell, Lab Rat, forget it. The truth is, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I wish Stoney were coming, too. But he’s not on the passenger list.” Batman stepped over a knee-knocker, made sure no one else was in the corridor, then said over his shoulder, “Do you think I should have asked Bird Dog to come along with us to talk to Dr. George?”
