“Now!” he yelled. “ECMs off!”
The computer complied, as did Cowboy.
The Sabre didn’t react. Turk was hopeful that meant it was now under his control, but a half second later he saw something puff on Cowboy’s wing. The Sabre was firing.
“Break right, break right,” Turk told him.
Cowboy managed to do so, temporarily breaking the lock. Turk fired several shots, even though he wasn’t lined up properly.
The Sabre ignored it.
“Left, left,” he told Cowboy.
This time the F-35’s maneuver brought the Sabre close enough to Turk’s line of sight for him to put a few slugs in its path. They didn’t hit, but the aircraft did break off.
Turk took that as a cue and veered right — barely ducking Sabre Two as it came up behind him.
Keep it up, keep it up, he told himself.
Rubeo’s voice came over the radio. “Turk, I need you to broadcast a command to the Sabres. It’s a code. It’s going to sound… ridiculous. But do it.”
“Go!”
“Give it as the command sequence.”
“All right. What?”
“‘Jennifer is your mother.’”
There was no time to argue. Turk keyed the mike, switching to the Sabre’s command channel.
“All Sabres, Command sequence: Jennifer is your mother.”
A legend flashed onto his screen.
SABRES REQUEST: RECONNECT AND SAFETY?
“Computer reconnect!” he said, his voice even louder than before. “Reconnect. Safety! Safety! Sabres knock it off. Sabres knock it off. Free flight pattern two! On my back.”
The UAVs abruptly began to climb. They were back under his control.
“They’re ours,” Turk told Cowboy. “They are ours! Let’s go home before they change their minds.”
34
From the moment the two Sabres turned west rather than following the course he had programmed, Braxton knew he had lost them.
It was bitter. Years of work, and now failure.
Nonetheless, he had to think of the long term. He had to complete his getaway.
The Dreamland people were certainly watching the island by now. But that was just fine with him. Talbot was still with the Chinese, but he was of little value — muscle mostly, he couldn’t tell them anything important, certainly not about the long-term plans.
Braxton had lost today. Tomorrow he and the movement would be victorious. They had the force of history on their side.
He pushed the button to set the timer, then left for the west side of the island.
35
When Danny saw the black column of smoke in the distance as the Osprey approached the island, he leaned forward into the cockpit and asked if the pilots could get the Chinese PT boat commander back on the radio. A few seconds later he was greeted by the captain’s strained but polite English.
“What was the explosion?” Danny asked.
“We have lost several men,” said the commander. “The enemy appears to have blown himself and his installation up.”
That sounds pretty convenient, thought Danny.
“I have received orders to cooperate with you,” said the captain.
“As have I,” said Danny. “We have a common enemy.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll search the place as soon as we get there,” Danny told the captain. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“A little closer to ten, Colonel,” said the pilot.
“They’ll wait, I’m sure.”
Turk had never refueled the Tigershark off an Osprey’s “buddy pack” system, but the basic procedure was the same as refueling from a regular tanker, assuming you adjusted for the speed, the lack of director lights, the turbulence, the strange looking gear, and most of all, the corny Marine jokes.
“Come on, Air Force, you can do it,” laughed Greenstreet. Depending on your point of view, he was either directing the refuel or harassing Turk from a short distance away.
“If a Marine can do it, I can do it,” answered Turk.
“Hell, if Cowboy can do it, anybody can do it,” answered Greenstreet.
“He just puts it on automatic and lets the computer do the flying,” said Cowboy.
“I wish.”
In fact, Turk could do that, and would have on a standard refuel. But he didn’t feel like taking any chances with computers at the moment, not even the Tigershark’s.
Sabre One and Two had just enough fuel to make it back to the airport; he would fly them there, and then land himself, if Danny’s search of the island didn’t turn up anything.
He thought about Cowboy as he unhooked from the Osprey. The mission had turned the tables on Turk — while he hadn’t ordered anyone to actually kill Cowboy, he’d certainly put him into very grave danger to accomplish the mission. It was different, he told himself, very different.
And yet in a sense it wasn’t. Because he knew that if getting the Sabres back meant killing Cowboy, he would have at least considered it.
Rejected it, probably. Definitely. But thought of it.
Breanna had sent him to near-certain death in Iran because he was the only person in the world who could have accomplished the mission. And it was her job to send him.
Actually, no: he’d volunteered. Just as Cowboy had. They had told him about the risks. He just hadn’t completely believed them.
When things went bad, Breanna did the only thing she could do: send someone after him.
Maybe saving him had been more of an option than Stoner had said. Maybe that was the real reason she’d sent Stoner: without a doubt, Stoner was the only person who could have pulled off that mission and gotten him back alive.
Or maybe not, Turk thought. The bottom line was the mission. It was Breanna’s job to think about it, to put it above her own wishes — and above his own life.
He still felt… not quite the same as he had felt about Breanna before. But he understood. In his heart, he understood.
“Hey, leave some for the rest of us,” said Greenstreet. “I’m into my reserves myself.”
“Roger that,” said Turk.
He dropped down from the Osprey.
“See you guys in town tonight,” he told the Marines. “We’ll settle up on who owes what beers.”
“Fine with me,” said Greenstreet. “As long as I have the first round.”
36
The President checked her watch, then got up from her desk.
“I’m going to go take a nap,” she told her scheduling secretary. “We have a bit of a lull.”
Her secretary looked shocked, as did the handful of aides standing nearby. Mary Christine Todd never took a nap in the middle of the day.
“It’s a new thing I’m trying,” she told them cheerfully. “I’ve been reading this book by Dr. Wayne Muransky on power naps. We’ll see if it works. Hold my calls.”
A succession of Yes, ma’ams followed her as she made her way to the residence. Her husband was waiting, as were her guests.
“There you all are,” she told the doctors and their two nurses. “I’m sorry I’m late. We had a bit of a… situation.”
“Of course,” said Dr. Chambers. “Are you ready to talk about the procedure?”
“Let’s have a little coffee first,” said Todd’s husband. She noticed that he looked worried. It was the first time in years — probably since the night she told him she was going to go ahead and run.