“Sexist pig.”
They tossed their luggage in the back of the GTO and climbed in. Tombstone fired up the Goat’s engine and hit the street with a bit more velocity than necessary. He said, “Sorry. But I’m going to be spending the next fourteen hours letting somebody else fly us to Singapore, and then I have to switch to a civilian airliner. A Third World civilian airliner.”
Tomboy reached across the console and squeezed his thigh. “The way things are over there right now, it’s either that or swim.”
Only an hour ago, as a consequence of the air battle that had taken place following the downing of an Air Force plane, the Pentagon had curtailed all military flights into Hong Kong. Most American airlines had immediately canceled service to Hong Kong as well. Other nations were picking up the slack; Tombstone had been booked on a Thai Airlines flight out of Singapore.
“God, I wish I were going to Jefferson with you,” Tombstone said. “Not that Batman can’t handle the heat, but… hell, that’s where I feel like I should be.”
“Your talking to Martin Lee could make a big difference,” Tomboy said, her gaze on the road. “If you can help figure out how the Chinese got their UAV program up and running so well, it could make all the difference in the world — to Jefferson and to the United States.”
“According to you and Uncle Thomas, it’s not really an issue. According to you, UAVs are the Volkswagens of the aerospace world. Anybody can make one.”
“No, anybody can afford one. That’s not the same thing.” She paused. “Especially when you’re talking about combat UAVs.”
“Like the one that attacked me.”
“Yes. The Air Force supposedly has a CUAV program under way, but like Uncle Thomas said…” She shrugged. “The financial and political support is minimal. Of course, that might change now.”
“Because the Chinese are ahead of us. I can’t believe the politicians have gotten us into the position of playing catchup.”
“It’s strange when you think about it,” she said. “I mean, from the Chinese perspective. UAVs have two big advantages over conventional aircraft: low unit cost, and zero pilot mortality. But let’s face it: The PRC has always been known for throwing human bodies at the enemy; after all, they’ve got more of them than anyone else in the world. So why this sudden interest from them in cost-effective, user-friendly UAVs?”
“Maybe they’re not really interested. Maybe it’s like during the Cold War, when the Soviets used to park fake bombers on runways for our spy satellites to photograph. We spent billions developing countermeasures to a threat that never existed.”
“That’s possible…” Tomboy said. “I know there are people in the Pentagon who would consider it a blessing if more effort went into CUAV programs. Some people say CUAVs are the wave of the future — a natural extension of the success of cruise missiles and smart bombs.”
Tombstone shook his head. “People have been predicting for years that future wars would be fought by machine. At the beginning of the Vietnam war, American fighter jets didn’t even have guns because it was believed that missiles made dogfighting unnecessary. All it took was a bad kill ratio to bring things around. This is just another instance of that. There will always be the need for human beings on the front lines — including inside aircraft.”
“The Chinese seem to agree with you,” Tomboy said. “At least, judging by the fact they’ve got this other new aircraft out there, the flying wing.”
“That’s the one that scares me,” Tombstone said.
The officer in charge of the radar station on the mountain just outside of Hong Kong picked up the phone and dialed the number given to him the previous night by Major General Wei Ao, First Among Equals. I want to know the moment General Ming’s flight appears on your screen, Wei had said.
So now, after identifying himself, the officer in charge said, “General Ming’s transport is two hundred kilometers out, sir. He’s vectoring in to Kai Tak Airport rather than the Air Force base.”
“The quicker to arrive at garrison headquarters,” Wei grunted, as if to himself. “Very well.”
After hanging up, the officer in charge went back and stared at the radar screen, watching the incoming blip. General Ming had left Hong Kong for Beijing only a couple of days ago, and now he was back. This did not bode well for certain military people in Hong Kong. The officer was determined to keep his installation running in top form, lest he be caught unawares in some sort of snap inspection.
He was about to turn to other duties when he noticed something strange on the screen — a tiny, brief return registering perhaps twenty kilometers to the rear of General Ming’s plane. It brought his full attention immediately back. Only after he stared at the screen for several sweeps without seeing anything else did he start to relax. Suddenly a strong, clear return appeared out of nowhere behind Ming’s plane. A moment after that, two more blips appeared, close together, racing toward Ming’s plane.
Even as the station officer reached for the radio, he wondered how quickly he could disappear, as so many others had, into the teeming hive of Hong Kong.
Under the pretext of inspecting the repair work being done on the aft elevator, Bird Dog walked out onto the platform and took in the afternoon air. Odd, when you thought about it: Here they were in the open ocean, yet for those who worked and lived in the carrier, fresh air was an uncommon gift. When you were on deck you were stepping lively, concentrating on things, trying not to get killed by any of the myriad heavy, sharp, fast-moving objects around you. When you were belowdecks, the air was filtered, air-conditioned, flattened. And of course when you were in a Tomcat, you flew through the air but didn’t feel it on your skin.
He inhaled deeply and looked out across the South China Sea. The water surged past below, appearing to move faster than it really was. Whitecaps were beginning to appear on it, he saw. On the horizon, thunderheads rose like white cliffs crowned in rubble. The wind yanked at Bird Dog’s khakis, and he heard the sizzle and crackle of an arc welder at work behind him, but he didn’t react, didn’t turn.
He was miserable.
It was a terrible thing to lose pilots in a battle. Even worse when one of them had been shot down saving your ass. And worst of all when that pilot was… well, one of the best damned sticks in the U.S. Navy.
He thought again about the hydraulic failure in his wing. Beaman, his plane captain, had been checking the Tomcat out ever since Bird Dog thumped it back onto the carrier. “I’m still looking,” he said every time Bird Dog asked him what he’d found. Plane captains were fanatically — and blessedly — devoted to their aircraft, and so to the pilots who were allowed to borrow the machines from time to time.
After climbing out of the aircraft last night, Bird Dog had looked at the rear cockpit and surrounding area and felt suddenly nauseous. It wasn’t the blood, because there wasn’t any. It wasn’t even the sight of the motionless Catwoman, who was already being checked out by corpsmen. It was the realization that his plane had been destroyed. Half the canopy was gone, and the right wing looked like a colander. There was more air than metal left in that wing. Bird Dog had landed a pile of scrap on the carrier, and he had no idea how he had done it, or what had made him think he could.
In retrospect, he wondered how anyone could hope to figure out what had gone wrong with the control-surface hydraulics on the mangled wing. But Beaman, aided by damned near every hydraulics tech onboard the carrier, refused to give up. If the Tomcat had had a mechanical seizure in the air, the plane captain wanted to know why, and where, and how. And as soon as he figured it out…
Last night, Bird Dog had been ready to kill whoever was responsible for the hydraulic failure. There had been a time — it seemed a lifetime ago, somehow — when he would have ripped into anyone who might even be remotely involved. Now, he found himself hoping the cause turned out to be something purely mechanical, a failed part no one could have anticipated or prepared for. Because if it was human error, God help the poor kid responsible.
And it was easy to forget that these were kids, most of the technicians and mechanics. Eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds responsible for millions of dollars of equipment, and dozens — or thousands, indirectly — of lives.
If one of the kids had screwed up, he’d have more than the plane captain to contend with. More than an official inquiry. That kid would have to think about dead aviators for the rest of his life.
Dead pilots.
Stop that. You don’t know she’s dead.
Bird Dog stared across the sea, and on the eastern horizon, under the flat bottoms of the thunderheads, lightning drubbed the ocean with white, skeletal fingers.