“Danny, that fishing boat is taking a real interest,” Turk told Freah. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just monitor it. Let me know if something changes.”
The first two team members to land had carried down what looked like lightweight machine guns with extra high stilts. These were actually fully automated gunbots, called “mechs” by the team, that could be guided by remote control and used for extra firepower. While some were capable of fully autonomous operation — they could be preprogrammed to guard a base perimeter and fire at anything coming toward them — in this case they were controlled by the troopers who carried them, or Danny himself through an override. He checked on both, making sure they could repel any boarders from the fishing boats, then ran up to Boston and the captured Filipinos.
“What do they know?” Danny asked.
“Nothing,” said Boston with disgust. “The guys on duty were drunk and all passed out.”
“Drunk?”
“They cook up some moonshine and that’s how they spend their days.”
“Great.”
“Probably can’t blame them. Nothing to do on this tub but wait for the rust to make it collapse.”
“What about the others?”
“Working on it. They claim to know nothing.”
“We have to get them talking. Our friends out there are taking an interest.”
Danny picked one of the captive Filipinos nearby and squatted down in front of him, asking in Spanish how many people were aboard.
“I can speak English,” said the man. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because we’re looking for people who have stolen computer material and other technology from the U.S.,” said Danny, phrasing the situation as diplomatically as possible. “They’re also helping rebels in Malaysia, which is against a UN resolution. That resolution authorizes me to use force to stop them.”
“And what does that have to do with us?”
“They have a base here,” said Danny.
“Who? Where?”
“They’re technical experts,” said Danny.
“What? We have been here a full month and we are the only ones here.”
“No one else?”
The man gave him a confused look. Before Danny could rephrase the question, Melissa Grisif broke in on the team radio.
“Colonel, I found a hatchway off the forward cargo compartment. You’re going to want to look at this, sir.”
“On my way.” Danny looked over at Achmoody and pointed to the Filipino marine. “Talk to this guy.”
Clambering down the steps to the hold, Danny kept slipping on the wet rails. There were two inches of water where the ladder met the deck planks; by the time he walked back to where Grisif was waiting, the water came nearly to his knees.
“It looks like the kind of hatchway you’d see on a submarine,” she told him, pointing to the round wheel in front of her.
“You try opening it?” Danny asked.
“Yes, but it’s locked in place,” she said. “At first I thought it was welded or rusted, but there’s a little movement when you turn the wheel, and I think it’s hitting a bar or something on the other side.”
Danny bent down to take a look.
“Get some plastic explosive down here,” he told her. “Let’s blow it open.”
7
Cowboy locked on both targets, then pressed the mike button.
“Basher One, request permission to fire.”
“Do it!” said Greenstreet.
Four seconds later a pair of AMRAAMs dropped from the F-35’s internal bay. The air-to-air semiactive radar missiles launched toward the pair of enemy UAVs, accelerating to a speed of Mach 4.
When they set out, the AMRAAMs used the radar in the F-35 to locate and fly toward their targets. But as they got closer, they switched to their own onboard radars. A few seconds after that happened, the UAVs made sharp turns into the path of the missiles, then disappeared from Cowboy’s screen.
His first thought was that the AMRAAMs had hit them. But in fact they were still several miles from their targets. They’d missed, and failing to find the drones as they maneuvered, blew themselves up a few moments later.
“Basher One — Cap, I lost the contacts,” radioed Cowboy. “Missiles just self-destructed.”
“They must be jamming the radars,” said Colonel Greenstreet.
“No indication.”
Cowboy turned his aircraft north, heading in the direction the UAVs had been going when they disappeared from his radar.
“Basher Two to Whiplash Tigershark.”
“This is Shark. Go ahead, Two.”
“I need some quarterbacking. Just locked up and shot two missiles at the UAVs. The aircraft disappeared from the screens before the missiles got close enough to detonate.”
“Are they jamming you?”
“If they are, we can’t pick it up. I can’t find the UAVs,” Cowboy added. “Can you see them on your screens?”
“Stand by.”
A few moments later Turk came back on line.
“Our tech guys think they’re using a selective jammer to mimic your waves,” said Turk. “I still have the aircraft on the Sabre long-range scan — they’re flying almost perpendicular to your course, forty miles south.”
Turk gave him a heading and then GPS readings that could get Cowboy into the area for an intercept.
“How do I deal with them?”
“Close on them. They can only hit certain wavelengths and they need to be picking up your signal steadily. It might help to keep changing the scan. The technique pumps out something like an echo of your signal. Eventually, they won’t be able to keep up.”
Cowboy wondered when eventually was. He got his answer a few seconds later, as the UAVs popped back onto his screen. They were coming head-on toward him, less than a minute away.
8
Turk studied the feed from Sabre Three, trying to work out a strategy for Cowboy and Greenstreet.
“See if you can take them north toward the Sabres,” Turk told Cowboy. “Get them closer to the Sabres so if they try that radar trick again I’ll be able to see what’s going on and help. The Sabres need another ten minutes or so to get into the fight.”
“Roger that,” said Cowboy.
“Think of them as MiGs with only cannons left,” added Turk. “They can outturn you, and probably outaccelerate for a small distance. So don’t let them get behind you.”
“We’re trying to climb over them,” said Cowboy.
“Might work. Once they get closer I may be able to see what tactics they’re following. They’re pretty straightforward now.”
“Roger that.”
Turk glanced back at his main screen, looking below at the fishing boat that was moving. A light flashed at its bow.
Another light blinked, this one on the third fishing boat. Then a light on the fifth began to blink.
That’s weird, thought Turk.
Then he realized what was happening — the little boats were communicating via signal lamps.
And they weren’t just talking among themselves. The minesweeper had begun throwing off her slumber. Smoke poured from the stack and the ship began moving toward the island.
“Colonel Freah, the minesweeper’s moving,” radioed Turk. “The fishing boats are signaling each other with lights.”
“Tell me when he’s within nine miles,” snapped Danny. “That’s the range of his biggest gun.”
“Not going to take too long, Colonel.”
“Noted.”
Danny Freah tapped the back of his helmet to end the radio call.