While Sullivan spoke to the pilots in the F-14 fighters, Dog looked over the shoulder of Technical Sergeant Thomas Rager, who manned the airborne radar. With the exception of the Tomcats, which had come from the Lincoln a good six hundred miles to the south, the Megafortress had the sky to itself. Neither Pakistan nor India had been able to get any flights airborne following the total collapse of their electrical networks, and the Chinese carrier Khan, now heading southward at a slow pace, had been damaged so severely that she appeared no longer capable of launching or recover-
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ing aircraft.
“Squids wish us well,” said Sullivan, using a universal nickname for sailors. “They’re on long-range reconnaissance for the carrier group. They haven’t heard anything from our guys or seen any flares over the water. They’ll keep looking.”
“Thank them.”
The weight of his fatigue settled on Dog’s shoulders. He’d tried to sleep in the cot in the unused upper Flighthawk bay earlier but couldn’t. He went to the back of the flight deck and pulled down the jumpseat, settling down, watching the crew at work.
He had to find his people. All of them, but Breanna especially.
He’d almost lost her twice before. Each time, the pain seemed to grow worse. Now it felt like an arrow the size of his fist, pushing against his heart.
Though they worked together, Dog couldn’t honestly say they were very close, at least not if closeness was measured by the things fathers and daughters usually did together. Every so often they’d go out to eat, but he couldn’t remember the last time they’d fished or biked or hiked. They didn’t even run together, something they both liked to do.
And yet he loved her deeply.
He felt himself drifting toward sleep. He started to let himself go, falling down toward oblivion. And then a shout startled him back to consciousness.
“We’ve got them!” yelled Sullivan.
Aboard the Abner Read,
northern Arabian Sea
2150
“THIS IS THE BRIDGE? I FIGURED IT’D BE A LOT BIGGER. GOD, it looks like an amusement arcade.”
Storm bristled but said nothing as Major Mack Smith sur-
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veyed the Abner Read’s bridge.
“Cool table. Moving maps, huh?”
“We call them charts, sir,” said the ensign who’d been assigned as the Dreamland contingent’s tour guide.
The rest of the Air Force people were crowding sickbay, but Major Smith claimed his sojourn in the water had left him refreshed. He certainly had a lot of energy, Storm thought.
“How does this work?” asked Mack, raising his hand above the holographic display.
“No, sir! No!” The ensign grabbed Mack’s hand before the major could swipe it through the display.
“Hey, take it easy, kid. I wasn’t going to touch anything.”
“The ensign was trying to point out that in some modes, the holographic table accepts commands much like a touchscreen,” said Storm stiffly. “So we look, don’t touch.”
“I get the picture.” Mack smirked at Storm, then went over to the helm. “Almost like jet controls, huh?”
It must have taken the helmsman a monumental effort not to elbow Mack as he breathed over his neck, looking at the ship’s “dashboard.”
Pity he was so disciplined, thought Storm.
“I didn’t think we’d be so low in the water,” said Mack. “I mean, did you guys take a hit during the battle?”
“We took several,” said Storm. “None of which were serious. The ship is designed to sit very low so it can’t be seen by radar, or the naked eye for that matter, except at very close range.”
“Wow. That’s wild,” said Mack. “It’s weird, though, you know? I mean, it’s a great boat and all. Don’t get me wrong.
Glad to be here. But it’s low. What are we? Eight feet above the waves? Six?”
“I’m afraid that’s classified, sir,” said the ensign.
Storm decided the man would get shore leave and double beer rations for the rest of his life.
“Sharkboat Two is one mile north, Captain,” said the helmsman.
“Very good. Prepare to rendezvous.”
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“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Two more of your Dreamland people are aboard the Sharkboat, Major,” added Storm. “Captain Freah and one of his sergeants.”
“No shit. Man, it’s like a regular reunion.”
“Isn’t it, though? Would you like to meet the captain on the fantail?”
“There or the bar. Whatever you got.”
DANNY FREAH RESTORED SOME OF STORM’S GOOD HUMOR, modestly taking very little credit in the disabling of the Iranian minisub that had helped provoke the war between India and Pakistan. Storm had already heard a full report from his men in the Sharkboat and was well aware that Danny and his sergeant had nearly drowned while disabling the craft. Had it not been for the two Dreamlanders, the sub surely would have gotten away.
In Danny’s account, however, the Sharkboat arrived just at the critical juncture. The Navy people saved the day, securing the craft and fishing him out of the water.
Storm was still soaking up the praises of his men when Eyes interrupted to tell him that several more downed Dreamland crew members had been found.
“They’re from the Levitow,” Eyes told him over the ship’s intercom system. “They have six people in the water. They’re not far from the coast. Eighty miles southwest of us.”
“All right, we’ll pick them up, too,” Storm said. “Are the Chinese near them?”
“Negative. But there’s an Indian ship in the area. A guided missile frigate.”
“I’m not afraid of an Indian frigate,” said Storm. He ordered the crew to plot a course to the downed airmen and set sail at top speed.
“I’d like to participate in the rescue,” said Danny Freah after Storm finished issuing his orders.
“I’ll tell you what, Captain. If my medical officer releases 79
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you to participate, you’re welcome to help.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“No, the pleasure’s mine.”
“The Levitow is Breanna Stockard’s plane,” said Danny.
“She’s the colonel’s daughter.”
“Bastian’s daughter?” Storm hadn’t realized Colonel Bastian had a child, let alone that she was in the Air Force and under his command. “Bastian doesn’t seem old enough to have a pilot for a daughter.”
“You’d have to take that up with the colonel himself, sir.”
Aboard the Bennett,
over the northern Arabian Sea
2151
DOG GRABBED ONE OF THE HANDHOLDS ON THE AUXILIARY
control panel of the surface radar station as the Megafortress plunged closer to the water, pushing into a low orbit around the tiny rafts bobbing about twenty miles from the Indian coast. A fitful splash of white blinked from three of the small boats, emergency beacons showing the Bennett where they were.
Captain Jan Stewart, who’d been the Levitow’s copilot, was on the radio with Sullivan, telling him that all six of the crew members who’d gone out together had been able to hook up. There were no serious injuries, said Stewart, and now that they saw the Megafortress’s flares bursting through the cloud deck, they were in excellent spirits.
But the Levitow had been carrying eight people, not its usual six.
“Breanna and Zen went out after us,” Stewart told the Bennett’s copilot. “They were going to jump through the holes left by the escape hatches. None of us saw their parachutes. We’re sure they got out.”
Her voice sounded almost desperate.
“Indian Godavari-class frigate, four miles due south,” re-
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ported Sergeant Daly over the Bennett’s interphone circuit.
“Godavari is equipped with OSA-ME surface-to-air missiles.
NATO code name Gecko SA-N-4. Radar guided; range ten kilometers. Accurate to 16,400 feet.”