And what would happen when he opened that door? He thought of the physics of it: The water would rush in, and its mounting weight would roll the plane in the direction of the flow, at least at first. The entire doorway opening might dip beneath the surface before George could swim out against the current. On the other hand, the plane’s wings — assuming they were still attached — would resist the roll, perhaps buying him enough time to escape before the door was submerged. On the other hand — how many hands was that? — what if the incoming water was moving so fast he couldn’t push against it anyway?
Water swirled around his crotch, leaching out his body heat. He started to shiver. No time to argue with himself; the plane was almost half sunk as it was. At any moment it might choose a direction to rock and start diving for the bottom of the South China Sea — and all his options would be gone.
He grabbed the door handle, braced himself, and put pressure on it. Screamed as his back let out an electric bolt of pain.
He’d forgotten one hand: The airframe was warped; the door jammed. It wouldn’t budge.
The water was up to his waist, tendrils creeping up his shirt to his armpits.
He looked around for something to pry with, to gain leverage. Nothing, and no time to search. Setting his feet, locking his hands around the handle, he closed his eyes, said a silent prayer, and hauled as hard as he could.
His back felt like a missile had hit it. Still, he kept twisting. There was a grinding sound, a thump, and the top of the door eased out, then down. There was no ferocious flood of water, although the level immediately rose faster. Physics again: The air trapped in the fuselage was resisting the incoming flow.
But soon the plane would sink.
Clutching his life vest under one arm, George plunged like a walrus through the diminishing gap between the water and the top of the doorway.
“Well, now, what are the odds?” Two Tone said, sounding pleased. “You, me, Lobo and Handyman… here we go again.”
“Yeah.” Following the lead of Lobo, a thousand feet below and as far ahead, Hot Rock banked the Tomcat onto the new heading sent to them by Homeplate. Much farther down, the South China Sea shone silver and blue. At ten o’clock, the mountainous coast of China shimmered in the haze like a fever dream. A few jagged-sided islands of various sizes thrust up from the water. Everything was so gorgeous from up here.
Hot Rock eased the throttles forward and felt the delicious shiver as the Tomcat opened the door to the sound barrier and stepped through. He loved that. Back when he’d started flight school, he’d thought the training jet, a T-45A Goshawk, had been powerful and intimidating; the F-14 had seemed an impossibility to handle. So large, so expensive and particular. When the time had come to strap one on he’d expected it to be the horses all over again, and him washing out with his tail between his legs….
Instead — God. The Tomcat and the sky, and hurtling along faster than sound. If it could only be like this all the time. If only he could just fly and fly up here between the sky and the water…. “What the hell are the Chinese thinking?” he said. “Sinking our boats, shooting down our planes… do they really want to go to war with us?”
“Why not?” his RIO said. “Bound to happen sooner or later.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. China’s the last major Communist power in the world, unless you want to count Berkeley. Hard-core communists believe in world domination. It’s part of the deal.”
“Didn’t work for Russia.”
“Won’t work for China, either, but they don’t know that. And they won’t figure it out until they get their butts kicked a few times.”
Hot Rock realized his palms were sweating, and his chest felt tight. “And you think this is the start?”
“Got your steel-toed boots on?”
Dr. George raised his head when he heard the rippling roar of jet engines. He’d been floating along quietly, almost enjoying himself. Hadn’t been this close to the water for quite a while, that was for sure. The South China Sea was a nice temperature, not too warm, kind of soothing on his twisted back. The only troublesome thing was the stream of blood that kept running down his face from a cut somewhere on his scalp. The blood dripped into the water, of course; he couldn’t stop it. Which meant he couldn’t stop thinking about sharks.
Overfishing, he kept telling himself. For decades the Asians had been decimating the shark population, netting the fish left and right, lopping off their dorsal fins for soup and tossing the maimed animal back into the water for its brethren to devour. Then catching the brethren. More recently, half-baked theories about the ability of shark cartilage to prevent cancer in humans had led American fishing boats to join in the massacre.
Still, sharks… it only took one. And these waters were the hunting grounds of one of the most notorious man-eating species in the world: the tiger shark.
That was why the sound of approaching jet engines brought feelings of relief to him, as well as dread. He wanted to be found and rescued. On the other hand, it had been a jet that shot down the Gulfstream.
To his relief, when he finally spotted the two aircraft that were making the racket, they didn’t look like the one that had fired the missile. These had angular bodies, double vertical stabilizers, and wings that pointed in the right direction.
Then he spotted the red stars on their undersurfaces, and his fear doubled. Chinese fighters, not American.
But the jets were searching in the wrong place, a mile or two to the south. Without the Gulfstream itself to focus on, they seemed to be streaking around almost arbitrarily, close to the water, possibly trying to make sense of the debris that had fanned across the surface of the South China Sea.
George debated what to do. There were flares in one pocket of the life vest; he could draw attention in his way in an instant with those. But… one of these maniacs’ friends had shot down the Gulfstream; what would they do to him if they picked him up?
The jets began to spread out, circling. Then he saw more jets moving in from the southeast, pair by pair, at a much higher altitude. At least eight planes up there. But this group didn’t circle; it continued straight east, heading further out to sea.
Fighter planes, nothing but fighter planes. Where were the rescue helicopters, the slow search aircraft, the boats?
Maybe, George thought, he should just keep floating along here until a fishing vessel came along.
Down in the water, a brown shadow cruised past his dangling feet. It had a blunt, squared-off snout, and dark stripes on its flanks.
Dr. George groped wildly in the pocket of his life vest.
“Well, here they come.” Handyman’s voice was dry over the ICS. Lobo thought he sounded like a bored suburbanite announcing the arrival of neighbors for the annual block party. “Six new bogeys, altitude thirty thousand feet, bearing zero one zero. Flankers, by their radar. And they aren’t searching for anything but favorable position.”
Hot Rock’s voice came over tacticaclass="underline" “Lobo? Did you happen to notice we’re getting a tad outnumbered here?” His words were flyboy-cool, but under them his voice was as tight as a spool of cable. Lobo reminded herself that her wingman hadn’t tasted combat yet. Never knew how anyone would react to the real thing until it happened. She wondered if the tension in his voice was the product of eagerness, or of fear… and which would be better. “Backup’s on the way,” she said. “And remember, we’re just here to hang around, not to fight. So stay cool.”