Aboard Iowa
1353
The resolution of the optics in the UMB’s belly were rated good enough to focus on a one-meter object at an altitude of 22,300 miles, roughly the height necessary for a geosynchronous orbit. A number or variables affected that focus, however, and the designers at Dreamland had found it more expedient and meaningful in presentations to say that, at any altitude above twenty thousand feet, the camera array could see what a person with 20/10 vision could see across a good-sized room. The metaphor was both memorable and accurate, and often illustrated with the added example that a person with that vision could read the letters on a bracelet as she reached to embrace and kiss her lover.
Zen saw it as clearly as that.
The edge of a raft. A foot. A leg.
Then bodies entwined.
Their cheeks were together—had they just kissed?
“I have them,” he said, mouth dry. “Here are the coordinates.”
South China Sea
Date and time unknown
“Don’t,” said Breanna, in a soft, hoarse voice.
“No?”
She could feel his heart beating next to hers. Desire began to well inside her, pushing her toward him. She needed him, needed to feel his arms wrapping around her, feel his skin on her skin. She needed to feel him push against her, wrap her legs around his.
“No,” she said.
“It’s there,” Stoner told her. She couldn’t tell whether he meant the ship he’d seen, or his feelings for her, or his lips. Suddenly she had an urge to throw herself into the water, just dive in. she started to move upward. Perhaps sensing her thoughts, he grabbed her; she slid into his arms and then said “no” again, the pointed.
Now she saw it too, a ship.
“The flare gun,” she said.
“We don’t have it,” said Stoner. The words emptied his eyes.
She’d seen the same blankness in Zen’s face when he told her she’d known for weeks, that he couldn’t feel his legs and would never feel them again.
Jeffrey. Her desire raged and she reached toward him. A wave pushed her to his chest, but then pulled the boat back; she struggled to push up, to throw herself around him, but Stoner was steadying himself in a crouch at the edge of the raft, trying to stand, or at least squat, waving.
“Balance me,” he told her without looking, his voice a whisper. “On the other end.”
She went to do so.
“No, they’re not going to see us. Paddle, we’ll have to paddle,” he said.
“The sharks,” she said, her words barely a whisper in her own ears. Before she could repeat them louder, he had slipped into the water/
“Wave,” he said. “Shout.”
“The sharks.”
“Wave, jump, anything. Get their attention.”
Airborne over the South China Sea
1355
The idea came to Zen only after it was too late:
Block the transmission, kill the feed. No one will know.
It was absurd and murderous, and once it occurred to him he couldn’t forget it: anger, jealousy, and shame surging together. But it was too late, fortunately too late—Dreamland had the feed, the radar had a good lock, the GPS data was now being fed not just to Iowa’s flight deck but to the Whiplash Osprey.
Too late, thank God.
Zen took the UMB from the computer, altering the course and going over each move carefully with Dreamland. There was a minor problem in one of the engines.
The scientists wanted him to give back control, send the plane back to Dreamland.
Not yet. Not until the mission was complete.
He used the rocket, engine five, took the massive robot to 140,000 feet, setting up a ten-mile orbit. The computer cut the flight path into a perfect circle.
The Taiwanese trawler spotted earlier was headed in their general direction. Danny and his Osprey were about a half hour away. If it changed its course a little, the spy ship could reach them in fifteen minutes, maybe a little less.
“Dreamland Command, what do you think of giving the position to the trawler, see if they can pick them up?” said Zen.
“Zen, this is Bastian.
“Colonel.”
“Danny’s en route. The Chinese are tracking the trawler. We’re in contact with the Kitty Hawk on the eastern side of the Chinese fleet; one of the Hawkeyes is tracking the Chinese CAP. They think two planes from the carrier are vectoring toward that area. They’re a bit far away at the moment—”
“Hold on.” Zen went to the UMB’s native radar, bringing up the search-and-scan panel. Look-down mode was limited; the unit had been optimized for flight requirements and, at this altitude and distance, the Chinese planes didn’t show up.