Turk left Sabre Two to orbit over the reef, keeping watch in case one of the fishing boats got frisky. Then he and Sabre One went to play with the Chinese.
After ordering Sabre One to lock down its weapon, he put the plane in a climb to the north. Then he turned the Tigershark onto a direct intercept for the course the Chinese fighters were taking.
It would be much simpler to shoot them down, but then again, as Whiplash’s chief pilot, he was supposed to be creative. And Danny’s orders were an open invitation to have some fun with them.
“Plot an intercept with Bandits One and Two for Sabre One,” he told the computer.
A dotted line appeared in the sitrep screen on the right. Turk turned the virtual screen into a three-dimensional display by curling his fingers and figuratively pulling the screen out into his hand. The gesture allowed the holographic image to show depth and different angles. Turk turned the map on its base so he could see how close the aircraft would get at the intercept.
The computer, following its normal protocols, kept them at a relatively safe thousand yards — much, much too far away for his purposes.
“Reduce distance at closest intercept to enemy aircraft to ten meters,” Turk told the computer. “Plot intercept for both aircraft.”
The computer complied, its only protest a flashing yellow line on the plot to show it was ill-advised.
Turk agreed.
“Reduce distance to enemy aircraft to five meters,” he told the computer. “Add event — fire flares — at closest intercept point.”
A little more diddling — he altered the course so flares would be launched right in front of the Chinese planes — and all was ready.
Still invisible to the Chinese fighters, the Tigershark was moving at just under Mach 1. The J-15s were flying at 20,000 feet, side by side and relatively close together — less than a hundred yards, very tight for a Chinese flight.
Turk, about 5,000 feet above them and aimed at a point between them, juiced his throttle. He felt a twinge of perverse pleasure as the Sabre began its dive toward the unsuspecting Chinese pilots.
He was close enough to see the flash of the first flare. The J-15 pilot took a moment to react, then threw his plane into a frantic twist to get away. The other pilot followed a few seconds later.
The radio exploded with Chinese expletives and questions about what was going on. Fortunately, both planes had been high enough that they had plenty of air to use to recover from their maneuvers; they could easily have spun themselves into the ocean if they’d been at low altitude.
Recovering from their panic, they began to climb out to the west. By now Turk’s plane was close enough for their radars to pick him up.
They weren’t sure what he was — one of the pilots thought improbably that he was a cruise missile, the other a UAV. They circled and radioed back to their carrier for instructions.
“I bought you some time,” Turk told Danny. “But I can’t guarantee they’ll stay away.”
“Give me two more minutes,” Danny told him. “We’re setting the charges to blow the container now.”
Danny needed more than two minutes, a lot more, but he knew there was only so much Turk could do. As Dalton handed one of the computing units up to Grisif on the reef, Danny yelled at him to set the charges.
“That’s all we’re taking,” he shouted. “We gotta go!”
Dalton held up his hand, flashing five fingers. Did he mean they had five more things to retrieve, or they needed five more minutes?
Danny rolled his hand, signaling that they had better hurry up. Dalton gave him a thumbs-up, then disappeared below the waves.
“I’m seeing those Chinese planes on the radar,” said the Osprey pilot, who was holding the aircraft in a hover nearby.
“We’re working on it, Two Fingers,” said Danny.
“Understood.”
The language section in the Tigershark’s flight computer was not its strong suit, and the translation of the Chinese fighter pilots’ conversation left something to be desired. It wasn’t clear from the text on Turk’s screen whether the carrier told the aircraft they could fire or not.
The activation of their weapons radars a moment later settled the issue: cleared hot to nail the American pirate.
Turk, now ahead of the enemy and not in a position to launch his own attack, hit his ECMs and turned east, protecting the reef. The lead Chinese plane fired a missile, then abruptly started its own turn in the opposite direction. His wing mate followed. The missile was a PL-12 radar-guided weapon. Occasionally compared to the American AMRAAM, the missile used a radar touted in the press as being “antistealth,” presumably meaning that its long-wave characteristics were able to detect and defeat stealthy aircraft other missiles couldn’t. That might have been the case for planes using the stealth techniques employed by China’s air force, but the Tigershark was a far different animal. The Chinese missile lost the Tigershark within seconds, then fell victim to the electronic countermeasures, which tricked it into believing it was near enough to its target to explode.
The turn by the Chinese pilots momentarily convinced Turk they had given up, and he slid around to pursue them. But they flipped back almost instantly, and within seconds he got a fresh launch warning.
The Chinese had fired more missiles — not just PL-12s this time, but PL-9 heat-seekers: seven missiles in all.
Obviously they thought there was strength in numbers.
Danny Freah helped Guzman grab the horse collar from the Osprey, then hung on as a winch began pulling the line back up to the side door of the MV-22. The rotor-tilt aircraft seemed to strain with their combined weight, though in fact the pilot was simply maneuvering against the wind.
The crew chief grabbed Danny and pulled him into the aircraft with a jerk that sent him tumbling to the floor. By the time he recovered, Dalton was holding the radio-controlled detonator for the explosives in his hand.
“I thought they were on timers,” said Danny.
“They are,” said Guzman, his wet suit still dripping. “But they didn’t go off.”
“What?”
Guzman pointed at his watch. “Should have gone thirty seconds ago.”
“Hit it,” Danny told Dalton.
The trooper did. Nothing happened.
“Damn it,” cursed Guzman. He turned toward the door of the Osprey.
“No, no,” said Danny.
“Somebody’s gotta check that charge, Colonel. I set it, I’m the guy.”
“There’s not going to be enough time,” said Danny. “And besides—”
A muffled explosion outside cut him off. They looked out of the cabin in time to see a small geyser rising where the container had been.
“Better late than never,” said Dalton. “Timer must have been mis-set. What was with the radio?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Danny. He glanced toward the crew chief, back by the cockpit. “Get us the hell out of here.”
16
Rubeo folded his arms across his chest.
“Braxton bought controlling shares of that shipping company a year ago,” he told Reid and Breanna. “Right around the time he bought the manufacturer of the submarines. That cargo container ship ought to be our first target.”
“I agree it has to be checked out,” said Breanna.
“The Agency has made a pretty thorough examination of shipping through the area,” said Reid. “And no ties to Braxton or the companies he owns were found.”
“That’s because the agency is not looking in the right places,” said Rubeo. “This is the name of the company: Aries 13.”