Typhoon Season

“No, I don’t think so. Not so soon after what happened yesterday.”

“But maybe that’s why he should be with us. To keep him from dwelling on things he couldn’t help.”

He heard the wryness in Lab Rat’s response: “If there’s one thing nobody’s ever accused Bird Dog of before, it’s thinking too much. But that seems to be changing, and I think you should let him work it out for himself. I believe you made the right move.”

Batman nodded, relieved. “Got your recorder ready?” They had arrived at the main entrance to Sick Bay. Batman shoved open the double doors and headed aft toward the Critical Care Unit.

In the bed nearest to the CCU entrance, lay a man somewhat beyond middle age, with white hair, badly sunburned pale skin, and a belly that produced a swell in the sheet like the bow of a nuclear submarine about to breach. He was sucking juice from a plastic cup, using a bent straw. A hospital corpsman stood on the far side of the bed, saying, “Plenty of fluids, doctor, that’s the ticket. Keep them going.”

As Batman entered the room, he glanced at the closed curtain that divided off the beds inside the CCU. He’d already visited Catwoman, stared at her and willed her to get well. She had a fractured neck and skull, and had lost a lot of blood. Once she was stable, she would be medevaced to the base hospital in Singapore.

But now he had to concentrate on this civilian with the bright blue eyes and the straw in his mouth. He and Lab Rat waited patiently until, with a wild slurping sound, Dr. George finished his drink and handed the cup to the doctor. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s better than the juice I remember from my days flying with the navy.”

“You were in the navy, sir?” Batman asked from the side of the bed.

Dr. George looked at him, taking in the uniform and its two stars without any evident reaction. “Oh, no, not me. I work for NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, actually. But we used to fly in Navy hurricane hunters back before 1975 — when you people pulled out of the program.” He managed to make it sound like a personal affront, and Batman fought off a smile.

Batman held out his hand. “I’m Rear Admiral Wayne. This is my intelligence officer, Commander Busby. How are you feeling, sir?”

“Like I never want to go swimming again,” George said with feeling, and this time Batman couldn’t stop the smile. Hell, why try? He felt some of the tension slide off his back.

“I can imagine,” he said. “Mind if we sit down and ask you a few questions about yesterday?”

“Yesterday? Oh, yesterday.” A shadow flitted over the man’s face. He sighed. “Was it only yesterday? Those poor pilots. They never had a chance.”

The corpsman brought in three metal chairs, which the three officers situated in the scant space around George’s bed.

“We’d like to ask about the aircraft that shot you down, sir,” Batman said. “We need as precise a description of it as you can give us, your impressions of its flying characteristics — everything.”

George nodded, and for a half hour he talked about his harrowing, truncated voyage of the day before. Lab Rat and Bird Dog took notes, plus each of them had a microcassette tape recorder running. When George got to the part about the flying wing, they both asked questions that would help paint a technical picture of the bogey. George answered the questions with the immediacy of a good memory, and the accuracy of someone with at least a passing knowledge of aircraft. That was good, in that it made his information somewhat reliable. It was bad for the same reason.

From the sound of things, the Chinese possessed a working airframe not dissimilar to America’s F-117 Stealth Fighter, but possibly even more advanced. This mystery carried its missiles in internal bays to prevent them from providing radar signatures.

All of this raised a number of important questions, but from an immediate standpoint, the one that interested Batman was: Why use such an exotic asset to shoot down a helpless business jet in a very public manner, only to keep it out of combat during the subsequent air battle? There had to be a reason.

“Dr. George,” Batman said. “The plane you were in — did it carry NOAA markings, or U.S. Air Force?”

“Air Force.” George’s eyes teared up. “It was the last dedicated storm-chasing plane in the Pacific basin. It was going to leave for the Caribbean tomorrow. Would never have even been in Hong Kong if I hadn’t — ”

Batman spoke quickly, decisively, cutting off that line of thought. “Now, are you sure it was only carrying meteorological equipment? It couldn’t possibly have been used for anything else?” He was thinking about the navy’s spy ships, which, disguised as trawlers, crept up and down the Asian coast day and night. Back when Batman was still just a Tomcat pilot, the North Koreans had attacked and captured one of those spy vessels in an attempt to trigger a war with America.

Dr. George looked confused by the question. “Of course I’m sure. It was loaded with weather gear. When you fly into a hurricane, you want to gather all the data you can, on the spot.”

Batman nodded, but exchanged glances with Lab Rat. Just because the little Air Force jet truly was a scientific platform, that didn’t mean the Chinese believed it. The question of motive for the shoot-down was still open.

“Excuse me,” Dr. George said. “But where exactly is this ship positioned right now?”

“We’re about two hundred miles east-southeast of Hong Kong,” Batman said. “Once we get you thoroughly debriefed and the doctor okays it, we can have you back to the city in a couple of — ”

George shook his head. “That’s not why I’m asking. How seaworthy is this ship in a typhoon?”

“We’ve weathered our share,” Batman said. “If you position yourself properly on the edge of one, the relative wind across the deck makes it very easy to launch aircraft. They take off almost by themselves.”

“And if you’re not positioned properly?”

“It can get a little rough. But Jefferson can take almost anything…. Why?”

“Because you’re about to get caught in the biggest typhoon to hit the South China Sea in the last ten years.”

Batman looked at his fellow officers. Bird Dog seemed oblivious, but Lab Rat’s eyebrows were elevated. He said, “We haven’t received any severe weather warnings from Metoc, have we?”

“That’s because they don’t know yet. Nobody knows but me. Because only I have Valkyrie.”

“Valkyrie?” Lab Rat said.

“It’s a program I developed that gives weighted values to more than a hundred factors affecting tropical weather. It lets me predict the time and place where a typhoon is likely to begin, its probable direction, and its probable strength. My accuracy is very impressive. Valkyrie is what I was trying to peddle in Hong Kong before…” His voice trailed off. “Those poor young pilots. I’ll bet they have wives and children. I’ll bet their wives and children are crying….”

Again, Batman interrupted quickly. “And this program of yours, Valkyrie, it tells you a typhoon is going to strike here?”

“ ‘Told,’ not ‘tells’; my laptop went down with the plane. And not just a typhoon, a super typhoon. That means sustained wind speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour. For this storm, I’m predicting a minimum velocity of 200 miles per hour in the eyewall. Perhaps as high as 250, not that I’ll be able to measure it anymore.” His blue eyes sharpened. “So, how would you like to launch your aircraft straight up, Admiral? Without even starting their engines?”

“It’s a bit early in the season for typhoons, isn’t it?” Lab Rat asked in a painfully polite voice.

Now the sharp eyes fixed on him. “Yes, it is, Commander. But typhoons don’t give a damn about statistics. All they care about is warm water, minimal wind shear, and plenty of moisture in the atmosphere. And a few other odds and ends I’ve managed to figure out over the years.”

Batman decided to give the man some credit. Turning to Lab Rat, he said, “What’s the satellite data been like recently?”

“Well… we can certainly expect increased thunderstorm activity, but — ”

“No, no, no,” George said irritably. “Satellites only provide part of the picture, that’s the whole point. They don’t factor in certain events, like seismic activity. Tremors in the sea floor can shift deep currents and bring scalding water up from thermal vents. That contributes to the heating, and can really accelerate a storm along. That’s a theory of mine that I factored into Valkyrie. I’m telling you, the surface layer in the Pacific just east of here is a good four degrees warmer and a hundred feet thicker than usual for this time of year. It’s pumping incredible amounts of energy into a weather engine that’s about to switch on and grind right over this place.”