Her use of his name paralyzed him; he felt a strange mix of love and fear.
“Ray,” she continued, “on the Piranha translation module, the 128 processor—”
“Yes. The assembler will—”
“But we won’t need the weapon section.”
“That’s where we’re routing the KH radar unit.”
“I can do it, I can do it. We can use the channels reserved for the helmets. I can do it!”
“Don’t play schoolgirl.”
“All right, listen,” said Dog. “Major Alou — you land your plane, gas up, take off ASAP. Dr. Gleason and Dog—” he pointed at Rubeo. “See what you can work out. I want a go, no-go recommendation in two hours. Less if possible.”
“It’s go,” said Zen.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” said Dog.
“What do I do if I’m given a mission before then?” asked Major Alou.
“Take it,” said Zen.
“We need to be on the ground for at least two hours,” said Jennifer. “Maybe a little more.”
“It’ll take a while to refuel,” said Alou. “And the weather may delay us too.”
“Two hours, go or no-go,” said Dog. “Lets get to work.”
Zen checked the instruments on Flighthawk One, preparing to land on Okinawa. Jennifer was bouncing up and down next to him, already working out the problems on one of her laptop computers. He could feel her adrenaline rush, the excitement that came with facing the impossible, the sureness it could be overcome.
He’d heard it in their voices back at Dreamland too. They all had it. Even Rubeo, despite grousing that the computers would do a better job than Zen could.
The one thing they hadn’t talked about was that Bree and the others were very likely dead already, blown to bits in the plane.
Which was why they didn’t talk about it.
She was the rain, soaking them. She was the wind sheering through their skulls. She was the tumult of the ocean, heaving her chest to plunge them into the black, salty hell, then lifting them up into the pure gray clouds. Again and again she twirled them back and forth, lashing them in every direction until she became them all, and they became her.
When Breanna Stockard pulled the handle on the ejection seat, time and space had merged. She now occupied all possible times and all possible places — the moment of the ejection seat exploding beneath her, the storm reaching down to take her from the plane, the universe roaring at her pointlessness.
She could see the canopy of the parachute. She could see the ocean collapsing around her. She could feel her helmet slamming against the slipstream; she could smell the rose water of a long-ago bath.
Somehow, the raft had inflated.
Stoner had saved her with his strong arms, pulling against the chute that wouldn’t release, but that finally, under his tugging, did release. Breanna had pulled at Ferris, who bobbed helmetless before her, but it had been Stoner who grabbed her. It was Stoner who disappeared.
She was the roll of the ocean and the explosion that sent them from the airplane. She was the storm soaking them all.
Stoner felt his fingers slipping again. They wouldn’t close. The best he could manage was to punch his hands on the raft, shifting his weight slightly as the wave swelled up. It threw him sideways and, whether because of good luck, or God, or just coincidence, the momentum of the raft and the swell threw him back into the small float, on top of the two pilots. Water surged up his nostrils; he shook his head violently, but the salt burned into his chest and lungs. Fortunately, he didn’t have anything left to puke.
The sea pushed him sideways and his body slipped downward. An arm grabbed his just as he went into the water. In the tumult, it wasn’t clear whether he pulled his rescuer into the sea or whether he’d been hooked and saved; lightening flashed and he realized he was on his back, lying across the other two, the man and the woman.
“Lash ourselves together,” he told them, the rain exploding into his face. “Keep ourselves together until the storm ends.”
The others moved, but not in reaction to what he said. they were gripping on to the boat, holding again as the waves pitched them upward.
“We can make it,” he said. “We’ll lash ourselves together.”
He reached for his knife at his leg, thinking he would use it to cut his pants leg into a rope. As he did, he touched bare skin on his leg.
They’d already tied themselves together. Somehow, in the nightmare, he’d forgotten.
The message was not entirely unexpected, but it nonetheless pained Chen Lo Fann greatly. In language bereft of polite formulas and its usual ambiguity, the government demanded an explanation for the activities of the past few days that “led to this dangerous instability.”
Dangerous instability. An interesting phrase.
Obviously, the Americans were making the presence felt. Peace was in the American interest, not theirs; true Chinese prayed for the day of return, the instatement of the proper government throughout all of the provinces of China. Inevitably, this war would lead to the destruction of the Communists.
The angry gods of the sea had thrown a typhoon against the two fleets, halting their battle after a few opening salvos. In the interim, the Americans, the British, and the UN had all stepped up their efforts to negotiate peace.
Surely that would fail. The Communists had lost an aircraft carrier and countless men. The storm would multiply the damage done to their ships. They would want revenge.
The Indians too would fight. They understood this battle was about their survival. If the Chinese and their Islamic allies were not stopped, the Hindus would be crushed.
Chen Lo Fann stood on the bridge as the storm lashed against the lass and rocked the long boat mercilessly. He had always understood that, as necessary as they were, the Americans were not, at heart, their brothers. When their interests did not coincide, they would betray his country — as Nixon had shown a generation earlier, bringing the criminals into the UN.
Lao Tze had spoken of this.
The god of heaven and earth show no pity. Straw dogs are forever trampled.
Now, his government was making him the straw dog. He needed leverage.
The American Megafortress had been shot down; undoubtedly its crew was dead. Americans were charmingly emotional about remains; a body or two, handled with the proper military honors. Even an arm or leg. Such could be found and prepared if the authentic article were not available.
Two of his ships were in the area. As soon as the storm abated, they would begin the search. After a short interval, they would find what they were looking for, one way or another.
Meanwhile, he would sail for Taiwan, as ordered.
Or perhaps not.
“Not there, Jen,” Zen told her.
“I’m working on it.”
Jennifer jammed the function keys on her IBM laptop, trying to get the requested program data to reload, Zen tapped anxiously on the small ledge below his flight controls. He was usually very good at corralling his frustration — to survive as a test pilot you had to — but today he was starting to fray.
Of course he was. If it was Tecumseh instead of Breanna down there, she’d be twenty times worse.
This ought to work — the program simply needed to know what frequency to try, that was all it needed, and she had it right on the screen.