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  “Yeah, that’s it exactly. Two missiles. Wait for a lock.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Everybody, hang on,” said Breanna, powering the Megafortress into a turn.

  MACK HAD NEVER TRULY APPRECIATED THE DIFFICULTY OF FLYING the Flighthawk in air-to-air combat before. It was like trying to hit a home run when the baseball was tied to an elastic band.

  As for Breanna’s tactics—well, they were aggressive. But if he’d been the jock in the Su-33, he’d be salivating right now: The Megafortress made herself a huge target less than forty miles in front of him.

  Apparently the Indian jock thought the same thing—he fired two radar missiles almost immediately.

  Mack tried to zone out the blare of the crew’s conversation and the bucking of the Megafortress around him as the others responded. The Flanker continued toward the Megafortress. If its radar missiles somehow missed the big plane, he’d use his heat-seekers or cannon to down what he thought was a fat target.

  Mack turned his attention to the two airplanes he’d encountered earlier. They were flying at warp speed toward him, closing to within twenty miles. He began a turn, easing up on his throttle as he made sure he was parallel to the path the Megafortress was going to take. He needed to anticipate Breanna’s next move as well as his targets’; when they saw her moving, they would slide farther west. He wanted to come at them over their wings, lacing them as he flew north and then with luck getting in behind them if they escaped and drove toward the Megafortress.

  “Fire Fox One!” said Stewart, warning that the Megafortress had just fired a radar missile.

  The Megafortress jerked hard to the left, taking evasive maneuvers to avoid the enemy missiles. Disoriented, Mack caught himself as he started to move the Flighthawk stick as if to correct.

  The Sukhois didn’t realize where the Megafortress was going, and instead kept on their earlier course. Ironically, this took them closer to Mack quicker, and the targeting bar began blinking yellow.

  Then the computer flashed a warning:

  DISCONNECT IN THREE SECONDS.

  “Son of a bitch!” yelled Mack. The screen went red and he fired, figuring it was too late to worry about where he was.

  “FIRST AA-12 OFF THE SCREEN—INTO THE WATER. WE’RE clear. Second is tracking,” said Stewart. She punched the button to eject more chaff. Everyone else in the airplane seemed to be yelling at her, telling her what to do. Her stomach leapt toward her mouth, and her heart felt like a thoroughbred racing up and down her chest.

  “Closing, AA-12 is closing,” she warned. She felt like her head was about to explode.

  AN AMERICAN AMRAAM WOULD HAVE BEEN FATAL AT FORTY miles head-on, but Breanna had escaped AMRAAMski shots at ten. Still, the one homing in on her now seemed particularly tenacious, doggedly sniffing her out despite her maneuvers and the countermeasures. Breanna wanted to stay close to the Flighthawk and yet not make herself an easy target for either the missile or the two Flankers closing from the north. That was at least one too many goals, and as the AA-12 continued to close, she had to concentrate on the missile. She jerked hard left, pushing the Megafortress down on its left wing and ejecting chaff as she went. It was roughly two miles away.

  It’s either going to hit us or sail by in two seconds, she thought.

  She was too busy holding the aircraft out of a spin to count.

  MACK SAW HIS FIRST BULLETS HIT THE TARGET DEAD-ON.

  Then the screen blanked. He’d lost the Flighthawk connection again.

  AS THE AIR-TO-AIR MISSILE CLOSED IN, STEWART DID SOMETHING she had never done in all her days as a pilot in a cockpit: She closed her eyes and prayed.

  When she opened them, she saw something red trailing through the sky about two miles away; it looked like a ribbon flying in the wind.

  “Get me a location on the two Flankers out of the north,” Breanna said.

  “Bogey Four—”

  “We shot Bogey Four down,” said Breanna. “His missiles missed. The other planes are our priority now.”

  MACK POUNDED THE SIDE OF HIS CONSOLE IN FRUSTRATION. Then he remembered Hawk Three.

  The Flighthawk’s on-board computer had brought the aircraft back to the mother ship while he was tangling with the Sukhoi. Mack reconnected by voice command; the main screen blinked, and he was back in command. He had to stare at the sitrep for a moment before he could figure out exactly where everyone was. The Megafortress was eighteen miles southwest, flying west. The Indian Flanker he had just attacked had broken from its pursuit and was heading southeast. The other was several miles behind him. Hawk Four was to the north, turning back in the direction of the Megafortress.

  “Levitow, this is Flighthawk leader. I have Hawk Three. Bogey Two is three miles behind me. Come up north and I’ll slice and dice him as he turns.”

  “Yeah, roger that, Mack.”

  The Megafortress icon began pointing to the right. Mack slid his finger against the throttle, slowing to let his opponent catch up. The Indian aircraft couldn’t see him, thanks to the Flighthawk’s diminutive size and radar-evading shape; as long as Mack could correctly predict his course, he’d soon have the plane in the sweet spot of his targeting pipper.

  The other aircraft lost some speed turning to intercept the Megafortress, but within a few seconds it was steaming over Mack’s left wing. Mack slammed his throttle as it came close, then pointed his nose down to get a shot. The red band told him he was dead-on; he squeezed the trigger. His first three or four bullets caught the center fuselage behind the cockpit; the next dozen riddled through the engine.

  The enemy aircraft tucked off to the left, damaged. Mack struggled to stay with it; if he’d been wheeling an F-15 across the sky he’d have overshot by several miles. But the Flighthawk forgave him, shoving its stubby little airframe into a tighter turn than Mack could have hoped. The rear end of the Sukhoi sailed back and forth in front of him; Mack started to fire, then lost the shot.

  “Come west, Mack,” said Breanna.

  “I have to finish this guy off first.”

  “West.”

  The targeting bar went red. Mack nailed the finger on the trigger. The Flanker dove straight down; Mack got a warning that he was almost out of range. This time he leveled off and headed for the mother ship.

  BREANNA BLEW A SLOW BREATH INTO HER FACE MASK, FORCING her lungs to completely empty themselves before taking another breath. They were finally clear.

  “Bogey Four is down—hit by our Scorpion,” said Stewart. “Bogey Three is circling back in its vicinity. Bogey Two, unknown damage.”

  “Was there a parachute?” Breanna asked.

  The airborne radar operator answered that he hadn’t detected one.

  “Helicopters launching from the carrier,” he added.

  They would be search and air rescue aircraft. Even though he’d been trying to shoot her down, Breanna hoped they’d find the pilot.

  She glanced at the communications panel. She had to tell Storm what had happened. He wasn’t going to like it.

  “All right. Everybody take a deep breath,” she told her crew. “Flighthawk leader, we can refuel if you want.”

  “Roger that. Three’s getting thirsty. What was my score there? I get one or two?”

  “I hate to be the one to break this to you, Major, but all of your aircraft are still in the air.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Check the long-range plot on the sitrep.”

  “They didn’t ditch on the way back to the carrier?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Mack cursed.

  “I’m sure you did decent damage to them,” Breanna said. “The important thing is, you kept them from getting us.”

  “Yeah,” said Mack, clearly deflated. “Roger that. Lining up for a tank.”

  Aboard the Shiva,

  in the northern Arabian Sea

  0500

  MEMON FELT TEARS BRIMMING IN HIS EYES AS THE EXECUTIVE officer and the flight operations commander re
ported to the admiral. One of their Sukhois had been shot down; its pilot was missing. The three other Flankers had been severely damaged. None would be available for the rest of the cruise.

  The decision to challenge the American aircraft had been a foolish one. But what was the alternative?

  The Americans had just proven where they stood. It was very possible that they were behind the strike on the Calcutta, despite all of their claims and supposedly peaceful gestures.

  So be it. They would pay for this.

  “I will make the report to the Chief of Naval Operations,” said Memon. “Coming from me—”

  The admiral shook his head. “No. It’s my job. The decision was mine. The consequences are mine. I will talk to the admiral myself.”

  “The crew of the tanker will be taken aboard shortly. Their ship has been abandoned,” said Captain Bhaskar, the executive officer. “The boarding party saw no sign of torpedo launching stations or targeting equipment. It has not been an auspicious day.”

  “Tomorrow will be a better one,” said Memon defiantly.

  IV

  Monkeys in the Middle

  Washington, D.C.

  1920, 10 January 1998

  (0520, 11 January, Karachi)

  JED BARCLAY TOOK THE STEPS TWO AT A TIME, RUNNING UP to his boss’s office in the West Wing of the White House. He made the landing and charged through the hall, barely managing to put on the brakes as he came to Philip Freeman’s door.

  The National Security Advisor’s secretary looked up from her desk in the outer office. “Jed, this isn’t high school.”

  “I have to talk to Mr. Freeman.”

  “Catch your breath first.”

  Jed nodded, but walked immediately to the door to Freeman’s inner office. He knocked, then went inside.

  “An Indian airplane was shot down,” he told Freeman, huffing. “By one of our Megafortresses. Others were damaged.”

  “You ran all the way up here from the situation room downstairs?” said the National Security Advisor.

  “You said to bring you the details immediately and in person,” said Jed, still catching his breath.

  Freeman motioned with his hand. “I didn’t mean you had to run. Sit down, Jed. Fill me in.”

  Jed began recounting what Colonel Bastian had told him about the encounter, then added the information he had gleaned from the Pentagon report and the intercepts the NSA had provided at his request.

  “It happened less than twenty minutes ago,” said Jed. “There’s some information on the DoD network.”

  “Yes, I was just looking at the Defense Department report,” said Freeman. He reached to the phone behind his desk.

  Five minutes later Jed and his boss were shown into the Oval Office. President Kevin Martindale stood in front of his desk, phone in hand. He motioned for Freeman and Jed to take seats at the side, then continued his conversation, walking back and forth as he spoke. He quickly wrapped up the conversation, telling his caller—clearly a congressman—that he would talk to him before the State of the Union address later that month.

  “Good evening, Philip, young Jed.” Martindale replaced the phone on its cradle and sat on the edge of the desk. “So what’s going on in the Arabian Sea?”

  “The Indians’ new aircraft carrier just destroyed an unarmed Pakistani oil tanker,” the National Security Advisor said. “One of our Dreamland aircraft was in the area and warned them not to fire. Four Indian aircraft attacked our plane. We shot one down. The others may have been damaged.”

  “We’re sure the oil tanker was unarmed?”

  Freeman turned to Jed. “It’s the same tanker the Abner Read stopped the other day,” he said. “They searched it pretty thoroughly.”

  There was a knock at the door. Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman was ushered into the room by one of the President’s aides. As he took his seat, he gave Jed the sort of glare one gave a new puppy who’d messed on a rug. Jed and the Secretary had had a serious run-in a few weeks back over information given to the UN; if it had been up to Hartman, Jed would be down in the Antarctic conducting penguin surveys. Fortunately, Jed’s boss couldn’t stand Hartman, and the incident had actually helped Jed rather than hurt him.

  “Dreamland, again,” said Hartman after the President summarized what had happened. “And this clown Gale. Where’s Chastain?”

  He was referring to Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain.

  “He left the Pentagon a short while ago and should be here shortly,” said the President. “The question I have for you, Mr. Secretary, is what will Pakistan do about the tanker?”

  “Immediate mobilization,” predicted Hartman. “And India will step up its mobilization as well. The Chinese will use that to justify their own saber rattling. Where’s their new aircraft carrier?”

  “The Deng Xiaoping and its escorts are already in the Gulf of Aden,” said Jed.

  Hartman scowled in his general direction, then turned to the President. “Did the Indians at least have a reason for the attack?”

  “I think they, um, they thought the tanker was connected to the attack on the Calcutta. They wanted to inspect it.”

  “With what? Deep sea divers?” said the President, snorting in derision. Martindale didn’t make many jokes, but when he did they tended to be acerbic.

  “Who was involved in the Calcutta attack?” said the Secretary of State.

  “Possibly a submarine,” said Freeman. “The Abner Read has been chasing one.”

  “Um, Colonel Bastian has a theory that the Indian destroyer that was hit by a torpedo the other night was attacked by a small aircraft,” said Jed. “We’ve been trying to track it down. We think it may have come from Iran.”

  “Iran? Why would they attack India?” said Hartman.

  “Oil m-m-money, maybe,” said Jed, his tongue tripping over itself. He struggled to get past the stutter, forcing himself to complete his thought. “Th-The Indians have been setting up new deals with African nations to have enough supply. That’s what Port Somalia was all about.”

  “Bastian has proof of this?” asked Hartman.

  “Just a theory,” said Jed.

  “It would be just like the Ayatollah and his black robes to stir the pot,” said President Martindale. “They’d love to see the Indians and Chinese go at it. They don’t particularly like the Pakistanis either, since they didn’t support their Greater Islam Alliance. But does the colonel have proof?”

  Jed shook his head.

  “Talk to the Indians. Find out why they fired on the tanker—and on us,” Martindale told the Secretary of State.

  “What should I say about their plane?” asked Hartman.

  “I’m tempted to say we’re launching a full investigation into why we only shot down one out of four,” said the President.

  Aboard the Abner Read,

  near Somalia

  11 January 1998

  0600

  “YOU HAVE A HELLUVA LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO THIS TIME, Captain Stockard. A helluvalot.”

  Storm looked at the pilot’s image in the video screen. She had her helmet and crash shield on—typical Dreamland arrogance.

  “I did what I thought was best under the circumstances,” Breanna told him. “Or would you have preferred that my aircraft be shot down?”

  “I would have preferred that you kept your nose clean. You went back toward that tanker deliberately, even though you were ordered away. That’s insubordination, mister. At the very least.”

  The pilot didn’t answer. Belatedly, Storm remembered he was talking to a ma’am, not a mister. But he wasn’t about to apologize or change the subject.

  “Resume your normal patrol,” he told her.

  “I have.”

  “Good.” He killed the transmission. His headset buzzed, indicating that Lieutenant Commander “Eyes” Eisenberg wanted to talk with him.

  “Aircraft from the Chinese carrier Deng Xiaoping are approaching, Storm,” the tactical commander told him when he switched int
o the circuit. “The carrier is fifty miles north of us, just exiting the Gulf of Aden.”

  Storm had hoped to get a look at the new Chinese carrier, if only to find out what all the fuss was about. But he’d never get that far north fast enough.

  The Werewolf could, though. If the Chinese could fly over him, he could fly over them.

  Hell, he could do better than that.

  “Very well,” said Storm. “Where’s the Werewolf?”

  “Routine patrol overhead, Captain,” said Eyes.

  “Get Airforce on the line. I want him to go tell our Chinese friends we think of the world of them.”

  THE FIRST SHIP STARSHIP SAW AS HE FLEW WEREWOLF TWO toward the Chinese flotilla was a destroyer of the Jingwei class, whose forward deck was dominated by a twin 100mm gun. More important to Starship was the battery of HQ-7 surface-to-air missiles. The HQ-7 was a Chinese version of the French Crotale Modulaire, an excellent short-range antiair system with a range of roughly six miles. Starship had flown the Werewolf against Crotales in field exercises and done very poorly; in fact, it was the only system he’d consistently failed to get past. Though ostensibly in the same class as the Russian SA-8B Gecko, Starship had found the Crotale’s guidance system harder to fool and the missile more maneuverable and persistent.

  “Ship in sight,” he told Eyes. “Hull number 525—frigate.”

  “Good. Copy. Be advised, aircraft are approaching you.”

  Starship could see two black streaks in the dim sky to his right. The threat identifier gave them captions: J-13s.

  “Aircraft approaching—flying over,” said Starship. The J-13 was a Chinese-made two-seat fighter based on the Russian Sukhoi Su-27, but at least two generations more advanced. Capable of carrying a wide array of missiles and equipped with the latest Russian avionics and radar, the plane was considered on a par with the F-18 Super Hornet—and might even be superior in some respects. These seagoing versions were still being studied by the West; they had not yet seen combat.