And, like submariners, the SEALs were very good at what they did.
It meant some crowding, but he was glad to have them on board.
Kazuko Mitsui couldn't wait for the flight to be over. She'd been on some bad flights, but this one was the worst ever. The drunken lawyer in G-3 reached out and groped her ass. "Hey, baby! Come sit with us!"
Somehow, she maintained her plastic smile as she spun out of the lout's grasp. Be nice to them, she thought. You must be nice to them. Bastards! …
JAL ran several special flights down to Bangkok, designated informally as sex-weekend specials. They were especially popular with Japanese businessmen— men usually quite devoted as husbands and fathers back home, but who enjoyed taking a weekend "business trip" every once in a while to the fleshpots of Bangkok, where for a price you could party in nightclubs much wilder than any on the sex strips of Tokyo or Kyoto, have your choice of girls-for-an-hour or for-a-night or for-the-weekend, or even take to bed a couple of twelve-year-olds of either sex.
Flight 1125 had originated in Tokyo, flown to Singapore to pick up some more businessmen in that repressed but cosmopolitan hub of commerce, then gone north to Bangkok, carrying a raucous cargo of vacationing men all eager to sample the fleshpots over a very long weekend, one extending all the way through to Tuesday. Now, the flight was headed back to Tokyo, again after a stopover in Singapore. Some of the men were still sampling, and it promised to be a long and difficult flight home.
Kazuko walked to the front of the main cabin and began helping the other flight attendants with the liquor wagon — the big cart filled with drinks of various descriptions, snacks, plastic cups, and ice. She heard a yelp and turned. Miko, another stew, had just been pawed by the same man who'd grabbed her. She met Miko's gaze but the other just rolled her eyes and shrugged. Another day on the job. Together, Kazuko and Miko began passing out drinks, moving slowly down the aisle.
She was thinking of Tom. She'd been thinking about him a lot these past few days.
Kazuko was beginning to realize that she still loved the tall American submariner, that she'd loved him ever since she met him during the time he'd been stationed at Atsugi. She'd been pretty hard on him during their last phone conversation. Damn it, she still couldn't see a long-term future for the two of them when he was at sea for such long stretches of time.
Stretches that never seemed to match up with the long periods when she was working overseas flights.
Another explosion of bawdy laughter from the back of the aircraft made her shake her head. The behavior of some of the passengers embarrassed her, and reflected badly on Japan Air Lines. Some of the passengers — that sweet family in Row K, for instance — had nothing in common with these international booze-and-sex-party junkies. The flight must be a nightmare for them.
She was beginning to wonder if the answer might not be for her to quit her job, move to America, and marry Tom.
Of course, at this point she didn't even know if he would have her. She'd been pretty rough on him, after all. But he had promised to try to visit when he was in Tokyo. Maybe, on the way home from this deployment…
Ul Haq leaned against the combing along the edge of the small weather bridge atop the sail, reveling in the cool and blessed feel of the wind against his face. After hours breathing the stink of a submerged diesel boat, it was good to taste the clear, clean salt air once more.
He was glad of the chance to give the batteries a good, long recharge, but even happier at the chance to feel clean wind on his face again. The day was bright and hot, the sea glassy and smooth. No other ships were visible, no aircraft, nothing but the unvaryingly crisp line between sea and sky in every direction.
But, because he was captain of a submarine, and because submarine captains worry about such things, he still was anxious. Shuhadaa had been running on the surface for a dangerously long time, now, and the chance that the submarine would be spotted on the surface was considerable.
They had come now over a thousand kilometers from their starting point at Small Dragon Island, and they were no longer within the Spratly Islands. Just thirty kilometers to the southwest lay the southern tip of Malaysia, and the city of Singapore.
After today, Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen would begin making her way back to the northeast. She needed to refuel and to replenish onboard consumables. But she had come this far to the west in search of a particular target. According to the Maktum, and information radioed that morning from Zaki, that target was approaching Shuhadaa's position at that very moment, and approaching fast, at a speed of nearly seven hundred kilometers per hour. But the target had yet to appear on radar.
Had Zaki been wrong about the timing? How long should he wait, risking detection on the surface in broad daylight, before submerging once more? Zaki had also reported the imminent arrival of an American aircraft carrier battlegroup, and that meant American submarines and American antisubmarine aircraft.
How long before they were within range?
"Captain!" sounded over the speaker on the weather bridge. "This is the radar room!"
"Go ahead."
"Sir, we have a target, airborne, bearing two-zero-one, range twelve kilometers! Altitude two thousand meters."
This was it. "Very well. Sound battle stations! Weapons! Stand by surface-to-air!" This was it….
"What's that?" someone screamed from the port side of the aircraft. An instant later, a savage bang rocked the cabin, and Kazuko and Miko both were thrown to the deck. The aircraft dropped into a sharp roll to the left, sending the drink cart toppling into seats and passengers caught in its path.
Things happened too quickly for Kazuko to sort them out. Something was terribly, terribly wrong with the aircraft — she knew that — but exactly what the problem was she couldn't tell. It felt as though the port engine had fallen off, leading to a sharp wing-drop to port. Was that possible?…
She tried to see out the port-side windows, now below her and behind screaming passengers and cascading drinks and ice. It looked like a fire; she could see the flicker and glare of yellow light.
Then the aircraft began tumbling wildly, and Kazuko fell into the ceiling. The drink cart followed, crashing down on top of her, along with Miko and a number of passengers who'd not been belted in.
She was fortunate to lose consciousness then. She was not aware of the burning airliner's long, long fall into the sea….
Ul Haq watched the pillar of smoke rising from the western horizon. The target, JAL Flight 1125, had been hit by a single surface-to-air missile fired from the single-rail vertical-tube launcher in the aft part of the submarine's sail and brought down into the sea. The Pakistan navy had paid a great deal extra for that little technological trick; most Russian Kilo-class submarines built for export didn't have a built-in SAM.