Chapter 102
Hours seemed to pass before Mack Smith could make himself get up from the floor. Three of the four terrorists lay in the room dead; the last huddled around a pool of blood at the side.
The woman who had helped him was sprawled on the floor, eyes open, hands unclenched.
“Are you all right?” he said, kneeling over her. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth remained agape and her stare fixed on the ceiling.
Slowly, the others in the room started to move. And then, as if by some secret signal, all the women and children began to wail.
“Stop,” whispered Mack. “Stop.”
The fearful cry continued.
“Stop!” he shouted finally, and one by one the wails turned not to silence but to softer sobs.
“Are there others? Other terrorists?” He had to ask the question three times before he got a response from an older woman at the side.
“These were the all who we’ve seen,” she said in broken English.
“Take me to the men,” he said.
She got up, jaw trembling, and walked toward him. Another woman, much younger, grabbed his arm. “Our savior,” she said. “Our hero.”
“She was the hero;’ said Mack, pointing at the dead woman. “I’m just lucky. Now take me to the others.”
Chapter 103
Sahurah felt his body lifted by a thousand angels. His pain had finally ceased. After his long, torturous journey, he had reached Paradise. The angels carried him through the golden gates, up the winding marble stairs to the vast throne room. The Messenger himself waited on the landing to greet him, surrounded by a veritable sea of angels. Light glowed behind him.
Paradise, he thought. Paradise.
And then the pain returned and Sahurah felt his body fall the hundred miles from heaven, felt it roll and slam and slap against the earth. He felt fire and cursed his existence, cursed his sins and dark desires. Something grabbed him from behind and pulled, dragging him through the black jaws of dragon-snakes that snapped at his body.
“Commander Sahurah! Commander Sahurah!”
It was part of the dream, he thought — the imam stood above him, peering down from above. The Saudi was nearby, his eyes watchful.
“Commander Sahurah!”
No dream this — Sahurah was on the runway, — a hundred feet from where the Badger had crashed. Someone had pulled him out in a misguided attempt to rescue him.
Why was the Lord so cruel to such a devoted servant? Why did he deny him the final glory of paradise?
“Sahurah — the devils are overrunning our defenses,” said the imam. “We have a pilot, and the passenger plane that was parked at the airport. Come. We will leave and return to fight another battle.”
Was this the devil tempting him? Or an angel sent to rescue him from damnation?
The imam bent down and looked at him quizzically. “Sahurah? Come, little brother. There is a time for everything. Now is our time to retreat.”
The Saudi seemed to frown.
“No,” said Sahurah. “I will stay and fight. It is jihad.”
“The Malaysians have turned against us,” warned the imam. “It is time to retreat. American warships are only a few hours away. We will regroup and wait. Our time will come again.”
“I must stay”
The imam frowned. The Saudi said something in Arabic Sahurah could not decipher.
“We must leave now,” said the imam.
“I stay to do the Holy One’s work.”
The imam nodded and then turned. Sahurah knelt, deciding to pray to the Lord that he had made the right decision. But words would not come; he could not even remember the simple prayers he had learned as a child. The throb at the side of his head chased all thoughts from his mind, and it was all he could do to stand and walk in the direction of the city.
Chapter 104
Thanks to Rubeo’s software hacks, Dog now had limited control of the LADS observation system and could switch through the video feeds. One of the airships near the oil platform had been destroyed, but a second one just to the southwest showed Dreamland’s two Zodiac boats. There were four people inside them — all of the Whiplash people, and Jennifer, lovely, beautiful Jennifer.
What if she had been in Indy?
Two patrol boats were heading toward them from the west. The boats had left occupied territory, but it wasn’t clear if they contained terrorists or the vanguard of the sultan’s troops, who were pressing into the northern part of the country, vanquishing their foes.
“Dreamland Malaysia Base to Penn,” said Dog, keying into the communications line. “Breanna, our two Whiplash boats are running toward a pair of patrol craft of undetermined allegiance.”
“We’re on it, Daddy,” she said.
For once, Dog didn’t yell at her for calling him that.
Zen flew over the ship a few seconds after the bomb exploded. It looked from the air as if it were a child’s toy with a thick hole drilled through the top. The superstructure and hull had been badly mangled, and when he took another pass he saw the corvette-sized craft had already started to slide down into the water.
“They’re out of it,” Zen told Breanna. “Going for the Zodiacs.”
“I’m right behind you”
The Whiplash team was about five miles from the coastline and just over eight miles from the platform that had been destroyed. Two patrol craft were five miles from them on what looked like a direct intercept. Both were Russian-made Matka-class gunboats; they had been purchased a few months before by Brunei, but it wasn’t clear whose side they were on.
Zen tucked Hawk One down toward the water, streaking ahead of Penn. The Whiplash people in the raft had not answered any hails, and neither had the ships. Neither patrol vessel flew any flags.
“Think we can get them to turn around?” Breanna asked.
“If I had skywriting gear, maybe,” said Zen. He rode the Flighthawk down and then held her on her wing, taking a showboat turn in front of the Zodiacs.
“Still on course,” said Breanna.
He took another pass.
“I think somebody waved,” said Breanna, who was watching on her feed on the flightdeck.
“Yeah. Listen, let me take a run over the patrolboats. Maybe we can at least find out if they’re hostile or not.”
“Go for it.”
Jennifer watched the Flighthawk spin off to the west. She leaned against the side of the boat, exhausted from the earlier climb and plunge into the water, not to mention everything that had come before. As she stared, the waves formed themselves into anthills in the distances.
Ships.
Ships!
“There’s something up ahead, ships in the water,” she yelled to Liu. “I think the Flighthawk was trying to warn us.”
Liu cut the engine and waved at Garcia and Bison to do the same.
Breanna saw the fresh contact on her radar — A 737 had just taken off from Brunei IAP.
Terrorists leaving a sinking ship?
Or a jerry-rigged bomber planning an attack?
“Zen, we have a 737 climbing up from the airport,” she said. “Roger that. You sure it’s a 737?”
“Affirmative. Should we try and stop it?”