Chapter 99
Sahurah had only been aboard two airplanes in his life, and never one like this. There was a gunner’s post in the center of the cabin behind the pilot and copilot stations; he sat in the seat, looking up at the blue vastness of heaven.
“There, Commander — armored cars on the ground,” said the pilot, Yayasan. “Look!”
Sahurah stared at the sky for a few more moments, soaking in the moment. He wanted to believe that God had sent for him — he felt it strongly. And yet it couldn’t be true.
“Commander?”
The pain at the side of his head returned. Sahurah lifted the microphone on his headset and responded to the pilot.
“The sultan and his troops are marching, Commander. We can radio the command to be prepared”
“Do so,” said Sahurah. He undid the wire that tethered him to the interphone system, and worked his way past the two pilots to the nose, which had an old-style window section for an observer.
He could see a long row of vehicles snaking toward the capital a few miles away.
Was this why God had called him, to stop the demon in his tracks?
“We will strike them,” he said after he plugged his headset in.
“Yes, Commander,” said Yayasan, his voice trembling. They had no bombs, but the guns were filled with ammunition. Besides the defensive weapons at the rear and atop and below the fuselage, the pilot could fire a twenty-three-millimeter cannon in the nose.
“Are you afraid, pilot?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“So am I. God will give us courage”
“Yes, Commander.”
“I will be there in a moment,” he told him, starting back.
Even without the computer’s automatic identification library, Breanna would have recognized the aircraft synthesized in her radar screen. Only one plane like that flew over Brunei — Prince bin Awg’s famous Cold War era Badger, the same plane that Mack Smith had ridden to accidental fame in an encounter with the Chinese. She tried contacting the plane on the radio but it didn’t respond. The plane was fifty miles away.
“I see it,” said Zen. “But we better concentrate on the platform and those Malaysian ships.”
“I agree,” she said. “Should be in range in five minutes.”
“Keep up with me, Penn”
“Keep up with yourself, Hawk leader,” she told him, touching the throttle to make sure it was at the last stop.
McKenna saw the radar contact maybe sixty seconds before she saw the plane with her own eyes, the large Badger swooping down at tree-top level above the western outskirts of the city. She started to call back to the ground forces to make sure the Americans hadn’t liberated the big-tailed bomber but then realized it wasn’t necessary — bullets shot from the nose of the aircraft as it attempted to strafe the line of government troops surging toward the capital. McKenna watched the plane pull up awkwardly; its strafing had been ineffectual but that was beside the point. She leaned on her stick and put the MiG into a crisp turn that put her on the back of the big aircraft, perfectly positioned to shoot the Badger down.
Except that she had no bullets in her cannon.
“Son of a bitch,” she cursed.
The Badger added insult to injury by lighting the twin NR-23 in its tail, filling the sky with shells. McKenna buzzed over the plane, ducking another stream of bullets from a gun at the top as she dove across its path. The Badger reacted in slow motion, turning back toward the city.
“Come on, you chickenshit,” she raged at it. She goosed her throttle and streaked over the top of the plane just behind the wings, so close that she thought the tailfin would strike her. Bullets flew out from all of the plane’s guns, black streams of lead littering the sky.
“I’m going to take you down,” she said, swinging around. “Just wait.”
One by one, the red lights on the weapons panel came on, indicating that the cannons were no longer capable of shooting. Sahurah did not understand how this could be; he had only fired the weapons for a few moments. Surely the guns must carry more than a few hundred rounds of ammunition.
“Why are my guns not working?” he finally asked the pilot. “We had only a hundred rounds for each one,” said Yayasan. “You’ve probably fired them all.”
The plane shuddered and then pitched sharply to the right. Sahurah saw a silver dart thunder past the forward window.
“He’s toying with us,” said Yayasan. “He’ll shoot us down soon”
Sahurah looked up through the observation dome above the gunner’s seat. The sky remained as blue as ever.
“I’ll try to return to the airport,” said the pilot. “I can’t guarantee we’ll make it.”
“All right,” said Sahurah.
Suddenly he knew why God had called him to board the plane.
Dog finished entering the string of digits and hit the return key. The screen remained blank.
“Is that dish antenna facing the right direction?” he yelled.
“Yes, sir,” said Boston. “Uh, Colonel, no need to shout, sir. I have the headset.”
“Sorry,” said Dog. He flipped the com channel back to Dreamland. “I have nothing, Ray.”
“Give us a minute,” said the scientist.
“I don’t even have the feed I had earlier.”
“Give us a minute,” repeated the scientist.
An image of the ocean popped onto the screen. It looked peaceful, but slightly out of whack — there was an oil platform at the left-hand side, and Dog thought the image’s perspective was pushed over. Then he realized the image wasn’t askew; the platform was.
There were two ships on the opposite side of the screen. Something flashed from one.
“Colonel, do you have an image?” asked Rubeo.
“Yes. What’s going on?”
“It would appear the blimp that is providing the video image right now is being targeted,” added the scientist in his vaguely condescending voice. “We believe they knocked out the jammer when they struck the platform and now realize it is there. Press the ‘D’ and ‘E’ keys on your keyboard simultaneously.”
“Now?”
“Now, Colonel. After the screen flashes you should be able to select any image you desire. It may take a moment longer if they strike the blimp”
Chapter 100
Dazhou watched as the second missile shot upward. From working with the Barracuda, Dazhou knew there were many different varieties of electronic countermeasures, but the ability of the American device — surely it had to be American — to so thoroughly confound the radar aboard the corvette seemed incredible. Not only was the shipboard radar convinced that there was an object hovering eight thousand feet overhead, but the guidance system on the missiles had declared it was there, as well. Yet both veered off to the west, obviously confused.
“Try firing the gun,” he ordered.
The twin forty-millimeter weapon began to revolve, firing its shells in a wide pattern. Black dots filled the sky.
Dazhou started to put his binoculars down in disgust. As he did, a gray rectangle appeared in the sky to the right of the stream of bullets. It was as if a panel had been knocked from a ceiling; it folded outward then blew into twisted spirals of black and red.
“A blimp!” said one of the officers nearby. “How did they make it invisible?”