“What are you doing?” asked the Chinese sailor he’d been talking to.
As Braxton straightened, he raised an AR-15 from the chest. Sweeping the spray, he emptied the thirty-round box into all four men.
One of the sailors, though wounded, didn’t fall. Braxton whirled around and grabbed another gun; when he turned back, the man had disappeared.
Cursing, Braxton ran after him. If the man made it to the beach, there would be trouble; already it seemed likely that the wily captain of the PT boat would send someone to check out the gunfire. Braxton was just about to give up when he saw something moving through the brush to his right; he stepped over and put a three-round burst into the man’s head.
Blood was gurgling from the back of the sailor’s skull when Braxton got there. It was an odd thing to see, unnatural and yet pleasing somehow.
“Back to work,” Braxton told himself, whispering as if someone might overhear. “Clear the air and launch the Sabres, and get in the plane to go. Go! The revolution has begun.”
26
Tecumseh Bastian sat down in the seat at the rear of the Cube’s situation room. It was almost déjà vu — he’d been in rooms like this countless times, most especially as the commander of Dreamland.
But it wasn’t déjà vu. The room was different, smaller, with less people but even better tech. And his daughter was in charge: confident, mature, moving around with a grace and assurance that shocked him.
It shouldn’t. She’d been a well-accomplished pilot even back at Dreamland, and that was years ago now, nearly a decade.
God, he felt so old. He was old.
“Are you all right?” asked Ray Rubeo, putting his hand on Dog’s shoulder. That was another change — the scientist almost seemed human.
He was human, of course, even if he chose not to admit it. He was the last friend Bastian had. Certainly the only one who’d stood by him.
“I’m OK, thanks,” said Bastian.
“It’s going to work,” Rubeo told him. “Ten more minutes and we’ll be in. It’s a rolling key that uses parts of the strand. Thank you. We’d never have gotten it without you.”
Bastian nodded.
“We’ll get our aircraft back,” said Rubeo.
“Good.”
“More planes are launching from the island!” said one of the techies down in front. “The signature is different from the earlier ones — could be the Sabres.”
Rubeo hurried over to see. Bastian watched with some satisfaction as his daughter moved slowly toward the workstation. Only a pilot could be that calm when things were going to hell.
27
The marines recovered the bodies from the water in a matter of minutes. The man who had grabbed and detonated the bomb lost his hands in the explosion; Mofitt was intact, though it was obvious the concussion and internal injuries had killed him instantly.
They carried him to the forward part of the ship, then arranged for the Osprey to pick him up.
“He was a brave man,” said the sergeant. “He got a bad rap.”
“I heard,” said Danny.
“You can’t tell what you’re gonna do under fire,” added the Marine. “Every time’s different. But his impulse here — he saved us. Deserves a medal.”
“Damn straight,” said Danny. “Damn straight.”
Turk tried hailing the Chinese pilot whose neck he and Cowboy had just saved, but he refused to respond. At least he wasn’t continuing the attack: the J-15 was flying in a wide orbit above the ships.
The four J-15s that had been west were about two minutes away. They, too, were refusing to answer Turk’s queries.
A voice with a strong Boston accent came over the radio. “This is USS McCain contacting Whiplash Tigershark,” it said. “Can you update us?”
“McCain, roger that,” said Turk, responding to the destroyer’s query. “Here’s what we got…”
The McCain was the fourth ship in the Zumwalt class, a sleek, tumble-home wave piercer equipped with an array of high-tech gear. Unlike her earlier sisters in the class, the McCain was equipped with SPY-3 and SPY-4 radars, exactly as her designers had intended. The powerful dual band radar was “painting” all of the aircraft in the region — except for the ultrastealthy Tigershark, which was too far from the destroyer to be seen by it.
The ship was a little less than fifty miles away, cruising at top speed. The Chinese aircraft were within range of its SM-2 Standard ship-to-air missiles, so when Turk finished the conversation and saw that the Chinese planes had begun to turn back west, he assumed that was the reason. But a few seconds later the Cube told him what was really going on.
“There’s been a launch from the island where the UAVs came from,” said Greenstreet. “These are larger — it’s a good possibility it’s the Sabres.”
“No shit,” he said, turning the Tigershark in that direction.
With the marines evacuated from the cargo vessel, Danny had Guzman take the tug a safe distance away. Though he was a SEAL, Guzman had never served aboard ship, and now joked that he was doing more “Navy stuff” with Whiplash than he’d ever done as a sailor.
Danny was just about to compliment him on his seamanship when Breanna contacted him on the Whiplash circuit.
“More UAVs have been launched from the island to the west,” she said. “The same place where the others launched from. We think they’re the Sabres.”
“All right. We’ll get over there ASAP.”
“Hold on, Danny. There are two Chinese PT boats on the island’s shore, and the four J-15s are headed that way as well.”
“We can deal with them.”
“We’re working on a way to get the Sabres back,” she said. “I don’t want you to launch until we’re ready. There’s no sense putting you in danger.”
“The Chinese are weak right now,” answered Danny. “I can deal with a couple of PT boats. And Turk can drive off the fighters.”
“He’s low on fuel,” said Breanna. “I want you to hold him back.”
“Understood,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he could.
28
The President pushed the button to allow the call to go through. The Chinese premier’s face popped up onto the video screen. The bright lights of the Beijing conference room turned his face almost purple. Todd had been in that very room four years before; it was clearly modeled after the CIA situation room shown — incorrectly — on many televisions shows.
It was empty then. Now it was packed with aides.
“Mr. Premier, we have a problem in the South China Sea and there is no reason for it,” she said. “Your forces have interfered with our operations against pirates, who as you now know attacked you as well as us and the Malaysians. We have tried to use restraint dealing with your forces, even after they fired on us. I have to tell you frankly, that restraint will certainly cause me political problems here.”
Actually, anything she did would give her political problems, but she didn’t feel the need to detail that. Nor did she give the premier a chance to respond, continuing quickly.
“Pirates have stolen some of our aircraft, and we are in the process of getting them back. This is a deep and far-reaching conspiracy. They have been helping arm rebels in Malaysia. Several of their robot aircraft attacked your aircraft. Our people tried to shoot them down before they attacked you, but your pilots did not follow our instructions to help.”