In the hangar bay itself, the results were even worse. Flaming debris rained down on the parked aircraft and the hundreds of men and women working on the planes. Sections of catwalk scaffolding collapsed. There was a wild scramble for cover under fuselages and half-folded wings. Smoke filled the air, permeated by sirens, claxons, and screaming.
Outside, the bow Phalanx immediately swung through ninety degrees in an attempt to acquire the last missile in the air, a Stinger that had been fired from almost directly off the bow. The horizontal blizzard of Phalanx projectiles reached the missile just as it made an abrupt vertical juke to follow a cloud of exploding jet fuel. The slugs nipped the missile’s tail, shearing it off and sending the rest of the missile into an uncontrolled cartwheel. It broke into pieces from the centrifugal force, and in that condition almost accomplished the job for which one of the AT-4s had been intended: Although the seeker head arched a hundred feet into the air and vaulted Jefferson entirely, and the explosive warhead skimmed past the bridge by four feet and spent its explosion in the water, the center section of the missile whirled directly into the island, shearing off antennas and destroying radar masts.
In less than thirty seconds, the USS Thomas Jefferson was transformed from one of the most potent weapons in the world to a smoking, flaming hulk.
Tombstone knew the entire enterprise was hopeless, of course. Even if he and Lobo managed to escape all the way from the prison complex — not guaranteed, to say the least — what then? After all, they were being held somewhere in Communist China; for all he knew, just outside Beijing. It wasn’t as if a Caucasian man and woman could wander around unnoticed.
Still, they had to try. Tombstone Magruder was not going to end up like his father, dying in some POW hellhole. And he knew Lobo was with him on that decision.
He already knew that this was not a prison of the sort familiar to Americans, nor even a POW camp like the one he’d heard described by Vietnam vets. It was more like a dungeon. Still, he was surprised to find that the short corridor outside the cell was not itself guarded. He glanced in both directions, and saw a door at either end. Whenever he and Lobo were dragged in or out of their cell, they were first blindfolded with a black hood, which Tombstone had always assumed was part of the psychological terror. But he’d noticed that trips to the outdoor compound were made to the right, so he now turned left.
When he reached the door, he was surprised again. It was unlocked. He frowned; then, with Lobo right behind him, he eased the door open.
Something on the outside hurled the door open with superhuman strength, flinging Tombstone up and out. In an instant he was drenched by a rain that pounded down on his back like a million ballpeen hammers. He gasped in shock, stumbling in the same blast of wind that had grabbed the door. Only by flinging himself sideways, tightly against the wall of the prison, was he able to halt his helpless flight.
Squinting against the blasting rain and wind, he saw Lobo standing uncertainly in the doorway. He shook his head, then looked around.
Through horizontal sheets of rain he saw various buildings move in and out of sight: long, low structures for the most part, with trees arching overhead. The trees were mostly evergreens, their crowns tossing madly. Tombstone noted that most of their branches grew from the leeward side of the trunk; these trees had been shaped by weather like this. Straight ahead of him, perhaps thirty yards away, was a narrow paved road. Nothing moved along it.
Soaked to the skin, beginning to shiver, he considered the options. Wherever they were being kept, the obvious direction to go was east. Since major storms in this part of the world cycled counterclockwise, the wind would be coming from somewhere between north and east, so at least he knew what direction to head. After that… who knew?
He was about to beckon Lobo out of the doorway when he heard a new sound, weaving in and out of the wind: a distinctive, high-pitched whistle. Tombstone turned his head in time to see something rushing along the strip of road. For an instant the weather parted, giving him a clear view of a manta-shaped aircraft, with upturned winglets, lifting off the road. It bobbed, recovered crisply, and lofted out of sight into the slanting rain. There were red stars painted on the winglets.
The bogey. The one Tomboy had been sent to the South China Sea to investigate.
Tombstone rushed back to the doorway, and gasped with relief when he got out of the wind and rain. “Did you see that?” he said.
Lobo nodded. “It must be the thing that shot down the Air Force jet.”
Tombstone nodded. “So we’re not in a regular prison. They’re keeping us at an air base.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Probably in hopes of preventing an attack on the base. Insurance. That would be why they let us show our faces in the compound; to let Washington know where we are.”
Lobo nodded.
“The good news,” Tombstone said, “is that we must be close to Hong Kong. That would be the air base the Chinese would want to protect. If we can reach the city — ”
“How?”
“Find a vehicle. Or a prisoner. Or both.”
She nodded.
“Let’s head toward where the bogey came from. Start looking there.”
She nodded again.
Together, they plunged into the storm.
Before the chaos began, Bird Dog was in his stateroom trying to relax. He’d picked up his copy of The Art of War. One thing about Sun Tzu: If you were having trouble sleeping, just read The Art of War awhile. Trying to make sense of it numbed the brain.
At the moment, Bird Dog was plodding through the chapter on “The Nine Varieties of Ground,” which was a ridiculous pastime because he was, after all, a naval aviator. No ground around, not unless you counted the ocean floor, and only the submariners cared about that. Still, he forced himself to continue. Even if he found nothing practical for himself in The Art of War, he had to remember that for his enemies, the book was a treasure house of information.
So. Per Sun Tzu, the nine types of real estate were: Dispersive, Frontier, Key, Communicating, Focal, Serious, Difficult, Encircled, and Death. These were rated in order of the trouble they’d cause a general during battle, starting with the army’s own homeland — nice and safe — and progressing out into “death” territory — land in which the army could be trapped with virtually no chance of escape, far less victory.
Right now, if you wanted to stretch the metaphor, Jefferson could be said to be occupying Difficult ground: “any place where the going is hard.” Sun Tzu’s advice for dealing with Difficult ground? “Press on.”
“Guess the navy’s doing everything right, then, eh, Sun?” Bird Dog muttered, and closed the book.
At that moment, a series of jarring vibrations shivered through his rack.
This was not optimum, Tai thought angrily. The formations were ragged, the voices over the combat radio channel too tense. Not tense because of the promise of combat, though. These were brave men, and eager for blood. No, the problem was the weather. The storm. No one had counted on that. No one had expected to be fighting the Americans in near-blindness.