“I’ve seen your interface. It’s no more advanced than the general Flighthawk controls. I mastered those long ago.”
Braxton took a step back so that his foot was against the door. He needed to open it, but at the moment that didn’t look possible.
“You’re going to need help with the Sabres,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “Someone who can take them apart and examine them. Someone who’s worked on the systems already.”
“I have my pick of engineers. You’ll work for us, or you’ll die,” said Wen-lo.
“Quite an offer.”
“Take it or leave it.”
“Let me shut down the launch area, then.” Braxton turned and put his hand on the interior door. Wen-lo grabbed him and pulled him back.
“What is in there that you want?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he told one of his men in Chinese to open the door.
Braxton dove to the ground as the hallway seemed to explode. A bright light flashed — the door and nearby hall were rigged as a giant flash bomb. The first door had been engineered to protect against the blast, but with it open, the concussion shocked the small space; it quickly filled with smoke.
He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, but he knew what he had to do — he leapt to his feet and ran to his left, back into the hall and the foyer, heading for the main door a few yards away. One of the guards scrambled after him, firing as he ran.
“Close door!” Braxton yelled as he reached the threshold. A thick metal panel slammed down behind him. It caught the guard in the arm, severing it as it closed.
Braxton fell against the steps.
“Gas them,” he told the security system. “Suffocate the bastards. Gas them and kill them all.”
24
Though he knew the planes were poised to attack, Danny was so intent on the hidden compartments they’d discovered that he stayed below, moving forward with the team as they checked the tugboat’s corridor. In short order they found two control rooms, both with gear that looked exactly like the ground stations for Flighthawks.
There was another compartment that looked like an arms locker. It had a full array of weapons, from rifles to grenade launchers. All looked brand new.
“Colonel, there’s something behind this panel in the corridor,” said Achmoody.
Danny went out to take a look. Achmoody and Glenn Fulsom were standing along the bulkhead, looking at the wall’s surface.
“Are you sure there’s a panel there?” asked Danny.
Achmoody held up a handheld sensor unit that detected magnetic fields and used them to find cavities and openings. There was a gap in the wall behind the panel that matched the dimensions of a hatchway.
“It’s behind the metal, so the smart helmet radar can’t detect it from the hall,” added Achmoody, referring to the low-power detection unit built into his Whiplash helmet. The device was intended for urban warfare situations, and could easily scan through conventional plaster and plasterboard walls. Metal was more problematic, though it took relatively sophisticated techniques to fool the system.
Kallipolis had proven they had those in spades.
“Can you get us in?” Danny asked.
“We have to blow a hole through. It’s thick.”
“Let’s do it.”
Danny went back topside as the demolitions were set. As soon as he reached the deck, he saw a fresh plume of smoke rising from the cargo ship’s bow.
“Captain Thomas, what’s going on over there?” he called over the radio.
“Bow of the ship was hit by a missile, an Exocet or something like that. No injuries here, but we’re taking on water.”
The missile was actually a Chinese YJ-82 (also known as a C-802), but the comparison to the French-made Exocet was apt. Even though its body had been splintered by Turk’s slug, the armor-piercing warhead of the missile had enough kinetic energy left to pierce the hull and deck area before exploding, ripping a gaping hole at the front of the ship. The container carrier was taking on water at an alarming rate, and even an experienced crew would have their hands full keeping her afloat.
“Abandon the ship,” Danny told Captain Thomas. “We found the control rooms over here. I’ll have the Ospreys pick you up.”
“Roger that.”
The Osprey pilots had moved south, trying to stay clear of the air battle raging above. They were still easy targets, but the pilots didn’t hesitate when Danny told them the Marines needed to be taken off the ship. It was Turk who told them to wait.
“Colonel, let me mop this up first,” he said, breaking into the transmission over the Whiplash common channel. “Then they can come in with no danger… and they won’t be in the way.”
“We’re fighting time.”
“I just need a few minutes. It’s simpler if they stay where they are.”
“Understood,” replied Danny. “You clear them in. Don’t let those Marines get wet.”
“Not gonna happen.”
A hatch work of contrails crisscrossed the sky. Two columns of black smoke rose in the north and puffs of black and gray were scattered along the horizon. But the scene was too pretty to suggest the ferocity of the raging air battle.
“Colonel, we found something on the stern deck you might be interested in,” said Corporal Mofitt, trotting over to Danny. “Looks like a hidden passage below.”
Danny followed him to a spot beneath a life raft, which the Marines had pulled away. The prisoners were standing nearby; two seemed angry, the others simply resigned.
“Locked shut from the inside, sir,” added Mofitt.
“I think we can blow it,” said the team’s sergeant, coming over.
“My explosives guy is below,” said Danny. “I’ll get him up here.”
“I can do it,” said Mofitt. He held up a small block of C-4.
“Go ahead,” said Danny. “Don’t use too much.”
He stepped back and then called down to Achmoody. They’d gone through the panel and found what the trooper called a rat’s nest of small, interconnecting rooms.
“We can hear sounds,” said Achmoody. “We think there are people.”
As he finished speaking, Danny heard the sound of automatic weapon fire in the background.
“Correction,” said Achmoody. “We found some people. And they’re armed.”
Turk banked in the direction of the last UAV. It was five miles west, trying to follow the lone surviving Chinese fighters. If the J-15 lit its afterburner, it would escape; the UAV could not stay with the larger aircraft. But for some reason the Chinese pilot turned back toward the ships.
And Turk.
The UAV cut down the distance between them, driving toward the J-15’s rear quarter as the Chinese fighter pilot flew a nearly straight line toward the plane he thought was his enemy. Turk endeavored to save him, even though he suspected the pilot wouldn’t return the favor.
Starting a good 10,000 feet below the other two aircraft, Turk managed to close the gap to about 5,000 as he pushed into a firing slot to hit the UAV. Before he could fire, the drone realized it was being targeted from behind and gave up on the J-15, veering left.
Turk decided he would take advantage of his discovery of the aircraft’s laser weakness. He turned to follow the slippery UAV through the turn, letting the Tigershark get thrown out ahead of the slippery drone as it cut a tighter radius. That put the UAV behind him — right where he wanted it.
The RWR shrieked; the drone was trying to lock him up. But the turn had been so tight that the aircraft had lost considerable speed, and the gap between its nose and Turk’s tail was too wide for it to fire.
Ordinarily, that would have been a good thing — but Turk wanted his enemy to shoot. He corrected slightly in its direction, then waited for the UAV to catch up. It was just about in range to fire when Cowboy radioed a direction to him.