“Okay, so eventually these guys split up. It’s not going to matter who you go with, but once you do, you have to stay with him. Just make sure the other sub doesn’t come back around and try and sniff you out,” said Delaford.
“I thought they couldn’t see me.”
“Hear you. Probably, they won’t.”
“Probably?”
“If we could sneak past an American destroyer, I wouldn’t worry about a Chinese sub,” said Delaford. “On the other hand, that’s kind of why we’re here, to figure out what they can do.”
“All right, I’m ready.”
“I would go with the sub that heads west,” said Delaford. “That’s the one that will be likely to be closest to the Indian ships, so if they’re going to do anything fancy, that’s the one that’ll do it. We want to see if they lay mines, fire torpedoes, that sort of thing. Be an intelligence bonanza, as long as you don’t get in the way.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“When they surface, just hang back. They come up every so often to use their radio. You know the auto-destruct sequence, right?”
“Yes, we do,” shot in Jennifer.
“Our preference is to pick up the probe when we’re done. You can hit the home sequence. You remember?”
“Yeah,” said Zen. “You know, I’m really ready to go. Let’s do it.”
“All right, do a ten-degree dive for a hundred meters, then return to three hundred meters depth,” said Delaford.
Zen pushed the joystick forward, remembering he needed to move very slowly. A bright red number appeared on the grid line as soon as he pushed on the stick to its right, what looked like a compass with an artificial horizon appeared, showing the attitude of Piranha’s nose. The depth climber — or rather, dropped — through 310 quickly, but the attitude of the probe barely budged. It was like flying in thick honey. Or swimming in thick honey — Zen had trouble conceptualizing what he was doing.
“Good enough,” said Delaford as he hit the mark, then brought the probe back. “Every movement is very gentle. Very Zen-like, Zen.”
“Ha-ha,” said Zen.
“So when do I get to fly the Flighthawks?”
They ran through a few more maneuvers and the detection modes. Delaford then transferred complete control and watched over Zen’s shoulder for a while.
“We’ve got great data so far,” the Navy commander told them. “What we get from here out is just icing on the cake. Anything you find out — how deep they go, weapons — it’s all icing on the cake.”
“Chocolate or vanilla?” asked Jennifer.
Delaford laughed, then signed off.
Dog’s brief to Breanna was simple and quick, filling her in on the position of the Chinese, where they’d dropped Piranha’s com buoys, and their encounter with the fighters. There were some civilian commercial vessels at the far eastern end of the patrol sector, heading south but obviously trying to avoid the Chinese fleet. They also counted three Taiwanese spy ships in the search range. Breanna already had the tanker tracks and contact info, and there wasn’t much to say about the weather forecast, which was still predicting clear skies for thirty-six hours or so.
He told Breanna that at least one SSN had been detailed south to try to intercept and trail the Chinese subs; Delaford though Woods would end the Piranha mission once he was sure the attack sub was on the trail. In the meantime, other ASW assets were moving in on the eastern side of the Chinese fleet. It was possible they too would make contact, at which point their job would likewise, be ended. The idea was to switch to the least sensitive method of data-gathering as soon as possible.
That, and to make sure Dreamland couldn’t grab all the credit.
“One thing you want to watch out for, Captain,” he added when he had exhausted his official brief, “is Admiral Woods. He seems to have a stick up his ass. He takes it out and beats me with it at every opportunity. He blamed us for the contact with the Chinese interceptors.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have buzzed Beijing,” said Breanna.
“Stay clear of the carrier air screen if at all possible,” Dog told her, not particularly appreciating the joke.
“That’s kind of up to them, isn’t it? If the subs keep going the way they’re going, it’ll only take another two hours or so before we’re in their patrol area,” said Bree. “Sooner or later they’re going to see us.”
“Understood,” said Dog.
“Anything else, Daddy?”
“Captain, I’d appreciate it—”
“Bag the Daddy stuff. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
He longed to ask to speak to Jennifer — she was on board Quicksilver, helping Zen — but it was too much of an indulgence.
“All right, Quicksilver. See you later.”
“Roger that.”
Dog broke the Megafortress out of her figure-eight track and found his bearings for the Philippine base. They were just climbing through twenty-five thousand feet when the computer buzzed with an interruption on the Whiplash command link. The words INCOMING TRANSMISSION. PRIORITY: DOG EARS appeared on the HUD screen.
Danny Freah’s voice, but no image, came through after Dog authorized the feed.
“Colonel Bastian?”
“Daniel. How we doing?”
“Not good, sir. We’ve lost one of our men. Sergeant Talcom. Powder.”
Dog listened as Captain Freah described the operation in cold, sober tones.
“I understand,” he said when the captain was finished. “I’ll notify Admiral Woods. Where are you now?”
“We’re still at the site, waiting for the Osprey to return from transporting Sergeant Liu.”
Dog listened as Danny told him what they’d found — not much actually. They still had the mission tapes to analyze. The dead enemy soldiers who hadn’t been charred beyond seemed to be Chinese; they figured the atoll had been a spy site.
“We think there’s a whole chain of them, running north,” said Danny. “Stoner thinks that, but they’re not using known Chinese codes; or Indian codes for that matter. CIA’s pretty interested.”
“I’m assuming you don’t require my assistance,” said Dog.
“Affirmative. We’re ready to bug out.”
“I’ll see you back at the FOA.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hang in there, Danny.” The words were trite, way too automatice — he had to say something but couldn’t come up with anything profound. “Iowa out.”
He killed the connection, then went through the plane’s status with Rosen. He checked on the other members of the crew, talked to Delaford about the way Zen had handled Piranha, asked Ensign English what it was like a hundred meters below the ocean during a storm — all delaying actions before telling the rest of the Dreamland team their friend was dead.
He punched through the circuit that connected back to Dreamland, bringing the command center on-line in what amounted to a conference call with the other Megafortresses and the mobile base back at the Philippines.
“I have some very sad news. Today, Technical Sergeant Perse ‘Powder’ Talcom lost his life to an enemy mine in a reconnaissance mission in the South China Sea. Powder was an exceptional man, an important member of the Whiplash action team, a cutup at times, and a ferocious fighter.”
Dog stopped abruptly. He couldn’t sum up a man in a sentence, and there was no need to. The people listening knew him pretty well, most of them probably better than Dog did.
“Colonel Bastian out.”
“God, Sergeant Powder,” said Jennifer. Tears started to slip from her eyes. “He was so sweet — he was one of the people who helped deliver that baby in Turkey. God.”
She started sobbing, then brought her hand up to clear her eyes so she could see the display. The communication algorithms didn’t require any tweaking — the Piranha system as a whole was probably the least bug-ridden project she’d ever worked on — but she ran a test on the signal strength anyway.