An unconventional solution, but the Marines liked to brag that they could adapt to any situation, and they seemed determined to prove it tonight.
“What’s our ETA to the area?” Danny asked the pilot after they’d swooped into the sky.
“Fifty minutes, give or take, depending on the final location,” he told him. “Faster if I could go over Brunei.”
“No,” said Danny. “Hold off on that. If we get an actual sighting, and if there’s a need, then we’ll do it. On my responsibility. But I don’t want to cause a ruckus without a very good reason.”
“You’re the boss.”
The UAV had slowed to eighty knots by the time Turk got it on his radar. It had climbed as well; it was now at 8,000 feet.
Why had it climbed?
Eighty knots was slow, possibly close to the slowest speed the aircraft could go and remain flying. It was continuing to decelerate, all the while staying at the same altitude — surely it would have to stall in a matter of moments.
“Basher Two, I’m one mile behind you,” said Cowboy. “I have the contact on the radar. It’s five miles away.”
“Roger. Copy.”
“How is it flying?” asked Cowboy. “Airspeed is dropping through seventy knots?”
“Copy.”
“What — Damn! Did he just blow up?”
“He just deployed a parachute,” said Turk, interpreting the new radar returns. “Come on — we want visuals.”
“Remember your fuel.”
“Roger.” Turk glanced at the gauge. He had ten minutes of his reserve time left… and that was with a good tailwind.
But there it was, descending less than two miles from him. He clicked on the radio to tell Walsh.
“Roger that. Global Hawk is three minutes away. Is there a ship there?”
“Negative. Nothing.”
“Colonel Freah and a team of Marines are heading there to see if they can recover it. Can you stand by until they arrive? They’re about forty minutes off.”
“Can’t do it,” said Cowboy, breaking in. “We don’t have the fuel.”
“Understood,” answered Walsh.
“Sorry for interrupting,” Cowboy told Turk. “But I don’t want you doing anything rash.”
“I wasn’t gonna.”
“Not a problem, then.”
“Roger that.”
Cowboy leaned his head to the side until his helmet touched the canopy. The night vision in the helmet made it possible to see, though the range was somewhat limited.
“I see the chute,” he told Turk. “It’s going down slow. Nothing there, though.”
“Yeah.”
Earlier, Cowboy had entertained a fantasy of using the F-35B’s vertical landing ability to touch down near the UAV’s landing spot, grab the thing, and take off. But that wouldn’t work here, even as a fantasy.
“Why parachute into the water?” he asked Turk. “Why the hell not just crash and be done with it.”
“Probably just following its programming.”
“Computers.”
The UAV had fallen to 2,000 feet. Cowboy slowed Basher One to just over a hundred knots, watching it go down. The entire experience felt surreal, and for good reason: he was taking a leisurely spin around an aircraft that had tried to shoot him down less than an hour before.
“I wonder if I could snag the chute with my wheel,” he told Turk.
“Hey, that’s a great idea,” answered Turk.
“No, no, I’m kidding.”
“I’m going to take a shot at it,” said Turk.
“What are you going to do if you catch it?”
“I’ll bring it back to the base. Stand by.”
Turk lined up the chute in the dead center of his windscreen. Snagging it was probably a one in a million shot, he thought, but even a slight chance was better than nothing.
The trick was to get close enough to the parachute so he could get it, but not have the engine ingest the cloth. What he needed was a big hook underneath — arresting gear would have been perfect. The tip of a missile might work — except that he didn’t have any more.
That left his landing gear, as Cowboy had suggested.
A ridiculous long shot, and a dangerous one, but getting the UAV was high priority, and what the hell — as long as he didn’t ingest the chute, there was no downside.
Besides, he’d faced longer odds in Iran, among other places.
The Lightning II shuddered as he deployed the landing gear, and Turk swore it was a reaction to the fact that he was lowering his gear with no land in sight.
The parachute was at 1,200 feet. He had time for one pass, maybe two.
Bitchin’ Betty gave him a stall warning as he eased closer to the target. He nudged the throttle slightly, saw the canopy coming on his left side…
Too far!
Turk pushed his rudder pedal, sliding in the air.
Come on, baby!
His left wing knifed toward the floating nylon blanket. Turk held steady, not even daring to breathe.
“Missed,” said Cowboy. “Damn close. It ducked to the side at the last second.”
Turk hadn’t counted on the vortex of wind under the aircraft; it had pushed the chute out at the last second, whipping it below and past the wheel.
“Let me try,” said Cowboy.
“You’re not low enough,” said Turk, banking for a second try. “Get into position to follow me. If I miss, you get it. Be careful not to get it in your engine intakes.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
As Turk came out of the turn, he realized that the parachute had fallen faster than he’d thought it would; his wing had given it an extra push. He started to line up, then saw what looked like a whale with a unicorn’s horn appear on the surface of the water.
“What the hell is that?” he asked Cowboy.
“Stand by.”
Turk’s warning system began to blare — a radar had appeared out of nowhere and was tracking him.
“What’s going on?” he cursed, hitting his throttle for thrust and cleaning the gear. He came back on the stick, climbing to get higher and give himself room to maneuver.
“It’s some sort of submersible,” said Cowboy. “It’s snagging the UAV.”
Turk spun his head but was too far past the sub to see.
“It’s in the water — watch out!”
There was a small burst about halfway up the line to the chute — an explosive device cut the connection between the UAV and its parachute. Meanwhile, the submarine dove below the water, the aircraft in tow.
“Damn,” said Cowboy. “That’s right out of Star Wars.”
“Or Dreamland,” said Turk, banking to try to get a look.
8
Gerry “Bird” Rodriguez was nothing like Zen remembered him from Dreamland. There, he had been a quiet if hardworking junior scientist; now he was not only self-assured and expansive, but clearly well off: he had arrived at the restaurant in a Mercedes S, and the watch on his sleeve looked to be a Patek.
He’d also put on quite a bit of weight since the days they played pickup basketball together back at Dreamland, before Zen’s accident. At six-eight, Rodriguez was tall enough to be a domineering presence under the basket in any pickup game, but had been so thin that you could miss him if he turned sideways. Now there was no missing him at all. Well-proportioned for his size and ruggedly handsome, he dominated the restaurant like he dominated the paint.