The disadvantage of a small crew became clear as Dazhou struggled to deal with the damage to the vessel. Automated pumps began bailing the compartments in the damaged section, and there seemed no question of sinking, but some of the control lines had been severed and even with its redundancies the Barracuda could no longer be steered. Two men crawled out through the access tunnel and began replacing burned out circuits and breakers. Dazhou and another of his men went topside to survey the physical damage, walking gingerly along the recessed decking at the top. The winglets were intact but one of the engines had been destroyed; the top of the exhaust outlet seemed charred, as if it had been on fire. The ship sat with its stem in the waves, and some of the large panels were buckled from the explosion. Fortunately, the Barracuda had been moving away from the missile when its proximity fuse exploded the warhead; the blow had been more of an angled, glancing shot than a piercing direct hit.
That was small consolation at the moment. Dazhou had no option now except to call for help.
At least the Megafortress was gone.
Fools, thought Dazhou. They would meet again — and this time, he would be much better prepared.
“This is Mack Smith aboard Brunei EB-52 One, Jersey. We are declaring a fuel emergency,” Mack repeated for the fifth or sixth time as he approached the airfield. “Repeat. I have a fuel emergency. I’m landing.”
“Still no answer from the tower,” said Jalan. “Maybe our radio was damaged in one of the attacks, because I’m not getting anything — no response at all.”
“All right,” said Mack. He had enough fuel to take one pass if he saw someone in the way, but that was it. The radar showed the air was clear, at least. He steadied into the approach, the airfield coming into view.
“Looks clear,” said Jalan.
“Yeah, okay.”
Mack kept expecting something to appear at the last second, even as the wheels hit the concrete. He didn’t relax until they were just about at the end of the long runway.
As they approached their hangar, he realized he didn’t see any of his security teams nearby, or even the maintenance people. In fact, the area looked deserted — none of the Dragonflies was on the ground.
As soon as they stopped, Mack left Jalan and the others to secure the aircraft. He hopped down the ladder, pausing on the Flighthawk deck, where his security team had spent a rather restless flight.
“All right, guys, let’s get the stuff unloaded and see what the situation is,” Mack shouted. One of the men looked a little green around the gills — and had a paper bag in his hand.
Poor guy, Mack thought to himself, lowering the ladder to the runway. He felt a surge of adrenaline, anxious to tell McKenna about his mission.
Too bad she wasn’t much of a looker, he thought as his feet touched the concrete. Hell, she was perfect in every other respect: maybe he should just close his eyes.
“That’s far enough,” said a voice behind him.
Mack, startled, started to turn.
The barrel of an AK47 caught him in the side of the face. A moment later, something hit him hard in the back of the legs. He cursed and reached for his gun.
Then something smacked him on the top of the head. His arms and legs fell limp. He tried to breathe, and found he couldn’t; in the next moment he felt himself falling, the black sky descending over him.
V
RESISTANCE
Chapter 45
Jed Barclay put the phone down and stared at the desk. He felt a little like a diver who’d come up from a great depth a touch too quickly; the events unfolding in Brunei had left him slightly disoriented. Islamic rebels were in control of the capital and at least two other cities; the sultan was missing, the military was in disarray. The Brunei navy’s two new patrol ships, purchased from Russia within the last six months, had been sunk overnight. There was no word on the whereabouts of the Brunei’s Megafortress. Officially, Malaysia claimed that it had not helped the guerilla forces, but that seemed highly unlikely.
The CIA was preparing a brief on the Islamic terrorists, citing evidence of a new organization involved behind the scenes known as al Qaeda. Funded by a Saudi millionaire, the group was closely connected with the government of Afghanistan, where it had established training camps for terrorists. The head of the group was a man named Osama bin Laden, a fanatic millionaire dedicated to wiping out the Great Satan — America, of course.
Jed had heard of al Qaeda before, of course, and even knew that it had connections with Islamic extremists in Indonesia and Malaysia, but the collapse of Brunei had been nothing short of remarkable. It seemed impossible that a relatively small band of outsiders, no more than ten thousand according to the CIA estimate, had taken over the country. And yet they appeared to have done just that, perhaps succeeding largely because the idea was so outlandish that it didn’t appear possible.
“Jed? Are you ready?”
Jed looked up and saw his boss, Philip Freeman, standing in the doorway.
“Yeah,” said Jed, standing. “I have the latest from Brunei. It’s pretty ugly.”
“How ugly?”
“Capital has definitely fallen. Sultan is missing,” said Jed.
“Sultan is dead?”
“Unsure. Just missing, at this point.”
“Where’s the Megafortress?”
“Not clear. We’ll have a satellite over the country in about thirty-five minutes. The NSA is working on some intercepts as well.”
Freeman nodded grimly. “Come along.”
Jed followed the national security advisor as they walked over to the White House situation room, where the president had asked his military and national security advisors to meet. President Martindale had not yet arrived, and Jed started talking to some of the Pentagon staffers who were standing along the back wall. He quickly realized that he had much more up-to-date information than they did, and one or two had only a vague notion of where the tiny nation was located. Brunei had been far down on nearly everyone’s priority list until today.
“Gentlemen, ladies, thank you for coming at such an ungodly hour,” said the president as he strode abruptly into the room. “I realize I’ve destroyed the weekend for most of you and I apologize. Let’s get started.”
Brenda Kelly, a State Department aide who had just flown back from Brunei, gave a brief overview of the situation there. Several times she emphasized the kingdom’s importance as an oil producer. Jed took over with details about the government’s collapse, finishing with the fact that an ASEAN emergency meeting scheduled for the next morning Brunei time had been postponed an hour ago because of the rapidly changing situation.
“The question is, do we care about Brunei?” said Arthur Chastain, the secretary of defense. Chastain could be blunt, but the comment was brutal even for him. “Brunei is a minor country in a small corner of the world, certainly not worth the expenditure of our blood.”
“You’re wrong,” blurted Jed. “Aside from its importance as an oil producer, it’s important b-both strategically and as a sy-symbol,” said Jed. His stutter had a habit of appearing at the worst possible times; he sped on, knowing the best strategy for dealing with it was to ignore it. “Brunei helps balance Malaysia and Indonesia in the region. It provided a base during the operations against China. It’s been a more stable ally than the Ph-Ph-Philippines, all things considered. And also, these terrorists have to be taken seriously. This is just the start for them. We have to beat them here.”