Satan's Tail d-7 Read online

  "I'll settle for three days." Danny turned to Jennifer Glea-son, who was standing at the side of the room, working on one of the computing units. "The Werewolves will be operational in time, right, Jen?"

  "Oh, yeah," she told him, in a voice that clearly indicated she was not happy. "I have some tests to run, and then we'll finish training our pilot."

  "You're not flying them yourself?"

  "Captain, if you want to discuss tasking, I'll be available following our planning session," said Storm.

  "Captain Gale, there's an urgent communication from the Dreamland aircraft Wisconsin for you, sir," a sailor said.

  They turned toward one of the screens at the front of the room, where Dog's helmeted head appeared.

  "Storm, this is Bastian. We have a ship dead in the water that looks as if it's been abandoned. It's the oiler we spotted the night of the battle. We think you should send somebody to check it out."

  Danny watched Storm scowl. The Navy captain went to the holographic display without saying anything.

  "Hey, Colonel," said Danny.

  "Danny."

  "Where exactly is it?" snapped Storm.

  Jennifer glanced at the hologram, then tapped something on her laptop. A black box appeared near the coast about fifty miles west of the pirates' camp; it blinked yellow for a few seconds, then turned red. It was about a hundred miles east of them, in territorial waters.

  "That's it," she said.

  "I'll send one of the Shark Boats," said Storm. "OK, Bas-tian. Good work."

  "Jen, we're ready for that diagnostic series," said Dog without acknowledging Storm's comments.

  "Coming up," she said, pulling a seat over. "But the fact that I was able to add that information to the display means we're going to come through with a hundred percent. The Megafortress sensor data is now available on the Abner Read's network."

  "Let's run the tests anyway."

  "Ready whenever you are."

  "I have an idea," Danny told Storm. "What if Sergeant Rockland and I take some of the Marines and your SITT unit out in the Osprey and run an operation to board the ship? It's not exactly a dress rehearsal, but we'll be able to work together for a little, see if we're going to have any major problems. It would at least let us get our feet wet together before the main event."

  "I like that idea," said Dancer.

  "So do I," said Storm. "Good idea, Captain."

  "What do you think, Colonel?" asked Danny, turning to the screen.

  "Sounds good to me, but it's not my show."

  "That's right," said Storm. "I call the shots."

  Dog cleared his throat. "And Delta One is the aircraft that will be on patrol. You'll have to alert them. I'm turning you over to the copilot, Jen; I've got some things to take care of here."

  Washington, D.C.

  1650

  "I can't believe you did that," said Freeman over the scrambled line.

  "I know it was stupid, sir. It was idiotic and childish and I have no defense. I should not have made the image."

  "You shouldn't have given your laptop to the Secretary of State," said Freeman.

  "He kind of demanded it," said Jed, surprised that Freeman was focusing on that. "I made sure the drive was totally wiped before I left for New York. I always run the shredder program. You know, in case something screws up and it gets, um, like lost. The only stuff on there was the presentation."

  "You should not have handed over your laptop."

  "He was pretty adamant. I guess you could say he was ticked."

  "Jed, when you get that laptop back — if you get it back— anything could be on it. Anything. You'd have no proof of anything."

  "Well, yeah, but—"

  "Look, you're a bright kid. You know technology and you know a lot about how countries can use it, and you deal with the people at Dreamland and the other military pretty well. General Clearwater down at CentCom was asking about you just the other day. But you have to understand, son — this is Washington. You cannot trust anybody. Do you understand?"

  Including you? thought Jed, but he kept his mouth shut.

  "As for the picture," continued Freeman, "as for the picture… "

  "I know, I know."

  Neither of them spoke for a moment.

  "Should I write up my resignation?" Jed asked finally. "Should I, like, make a statement about what happened or something?"

  "That would be the worst thing to do," snapped Freeman. "Especially with the Senate hearings coming up. They'll subpoena you for sure."

  "But if I just said what happened, maybe said it now before the hearings—"

  "It'll call attention to it, people will question the Security Council decision, the vote may be reversed — frankly, at this point, I'm not sure anyone would believe that it was innocent."

  "It was."

  "I don't want you to talk to anyone," said Freeman. "Let's do this — you're on vacation right now, until further notice. OK? Vacation? Which means, talk to no one. No one. Be in my office tomorrow morning at seven. We'll figure out what we have to do."

  "Should I–I mean, I have to tell the President, right?"

  Freeman didn't answer.

  "I should tell the President, right?" said Jed.

  "Talk to no one, until you talk to me. Be in my office. Seven sharp. Get some sleep, Jed," he added, softening his tone. "Get some sleep, all right?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You're not going to do anything rash, right, Jed? This isn't — it's not that bad." "What would I do?"

  "Just be in my office. Relax, don't talk to anyone, and be in my office. We'll work it out. Seven a.m. You understand?" "Yes. I'll be there."

  Gulf of Aden

  10 November 1997

  0400

  Boston steadied himself at the side of the ramp at the rear of the Dreamland-modified Osprey, waiting for the go-ahead.

  "Figure the water's going to be warm?" he asked.

  "As warm as Lake Michigan in July," answered Danny.

  "That's what I was afraid of," said Boston.

  A tone sounded in their headsets. The jumpmaster took a step forward and pushed out the uninflated raft package. Boston and the Marine who was going out with him followed, stepping off into the water.

  The Osprey lifted upward as the rear panel began to close. Danny went back and joined the team waiting to rappel to the deck of the oiler. As he reached the door where the rap-pelling lines had been prepared, Danny saw a Werewolf whip toward the side of the ship. The two gunships were providing cover as the team descended to the open deck a few yards from the bow.

  "Marines — let's make your mothers proud," said Dancer.

  Make your mothers proud? Women certainly brought a different perspective to operations, thought Danny as he waited for his turn to rappel down to the deck.

  It came quickly. They weren't as high over the ship as he thought, and he hit the deck about a half second early, stumbling but then catching his balance. The ship rolled ever so slightly to his right, and Danny trotted after the others who were racing toward the superstructure. The Marines had radios, but couldn't tie into the Dreamland discrete-burst system. Danny and Boston got around this by using Marine headsets to talk with the Marines and relay messages through their Dreamland system back to the Osprey and the Abner Read. The ship could monitor everything that was going on through the video and infrared cameras in the Osprey. Danny could even give Storm a ground-level view by punching the switch at the bottom of his smart helmet.

  Make that a ship-level view.

  Dancer had told Danny that the Marines had practiced ship boarding "once or twice," but it looked to him like they did it every day. They had already swarmed the deck area and were now taking over the superstructure, a rectangular collection of spaces that rose about four stories over the main deck. The men said very little, using grunts more than words. The earpiece Danny had been given was impossible to wear comfortably beneath his smart helmet, and he finally had to take it off, wedging it at the
back in a position that was only marginally better. He couldn't hear much of what was being said.

  A pair of muffled explosions announced that the team tasked to take over the bridge had just done their thing, crashing in with the aid of a small amount of explosives and flash-bangs. Danny turned around to make sure the rest of the team had gotten on safely, then ran along the side of the ship, leaning against the rail, his MP-5 ready, its crosshair a dot in his visor.

  Something blared in his headset. He pulled the Marine unit out, and after fiddling with it a few minutes, realized it had malfunctioned. He pulled the smart helmet back on and stood tensely near the rail as the rest of the team went about its business. Finally, a Marine came nearby and Danny gestured for him to stay close so he could communicate with the rest of the team. He pushed the helmet back on his head, an awkward compromise.

  "Dancer has a communication for you, sir," said the Marine, holding out his headset.

  "Bridge is secure," said Dancer. "No one here. No wonder they didn't answer the radio — it's gone. Blood all over the place," she added before he could acknowledge.

  "Remember the booby-traps," Danny reminded the others. "Go slow, go slow."

  The first rushes of adrenaline fading, the boarding party moved through the ship methodically.

  "Looks pretty boring up there," said Boston on the Dreamland circuit.

  "Not as boring as down there," Danny replied, pulling the helmet down.

  "I figure I want it boring. Say, they ought to see if they can get a more powerful motor," added Boston. "This little putt-putt barely goes two knots."

  "You thinking of doing some waterskiing?"

  "I had a mind to it, Cap. Maybe I'll lasso one of the Werewolves and let it pull me around."

  Danny moved around to the stern, looking at the darkened coast in the distance. They'd be there tomorrow.

  He worked to focus on the job at hand, walking with his new communications aide toward the stern of the ship. Two young Marines had taken posts there. They were both very young — nineteen, if that — kids trying to act nonchalant on what was probably the closest they'd come to real action in their brief military careers.

  He nodded to them, saw their tight smiles. He began seeking out the rest of the team, intending to make personal contact with as many as possible. It wasn't important tonight, but it would seem like a luxury tomorrow. He wanted the people working with him to know who he was, to remember they could count on him — and to do what he needed them to do when people were shooting at them.

  Danny worked his way all the way around the ship and up to the bow before Dancer called in from below.

  "We found some of the crew," she told him. "Down in the engineering space. They're all dead, Skipper. Blood everywhere. Been dead a while. Smells like hell down here."

  "All right. Take some pictures, see if you can find the log, take pictures of its entries, then let's saddle up. Nothing more for us to do here."

  Alexandria,

  near Washington, D.C.

  2315

  So why did the photo only appear in the Daily News?

  And why was it no longer on their Web page?

  Jed got up from his desk, rubbing his eyes as he walked to the kitchen. He'd been surfing the net for the last four or five hours. The picture had all but disappeared — if you didn't count the million or so print versions that featured it on the front page.

  He reached into the refrigerator and took out a large bottle of Nestle's strawberry milk. He took a slug and went back to the computer, deciding to write his letter of resignation. He sat down, called up the word processor, then stared at the blank screen for a few minutes. When nothing inspired him, he moused down to the browser and got a weather site from his favorites' tab.

  RAIN, TOMORROW. HEAVY AT TIMES.

  It figured.

  His sat phone rang, and he picked it up without thinking.

  "Jed, this is Colonel Bastian. I wonder if you can get me some data on a ship… I also need better maps of the coastal area. One weird thing we're looking for is something from 1940 or 1941 that might help. See, the Italians started to build a base in British Somaliland around the end of 1940—"

  "Um, I'm kind of on, uh, like on a leave thing," Jed said. "I shouldn't even have answered the phone." "Vacation?"

  "It's hard to explain. I'm kind of on…leave." "What do you mean 'leave'?"

  Oh, hell, thought Jed. "I screwed something up. So, I'm kind of on ice." "Like what?"

  "I'm not supposed to talk about it, and I really can't. You or the people at Dreamland Command can call over to the White House and get the military liaison's office. They'll help out."

  "Are you in real trouble?"

  "Yeah."

  Dog didn't say anything. "You want some advice?"

  "I do, but — I know I can trust you, Colonel, but things are so screwed up right now."

  "I don't know what kind of trouble you're in, and I don't want you to tell me, not if it'll make things worse. But in Washington it can be really hard to know who's on your side and who isn't. If you're really in trouble — and I mean real trouble — you find a lawyer. All right?"

  "Yeah. That's probably good advice."

  "Look, can you help me? I don't have time to spend trying to run this stuff down."

  Jed sighed. "What exactly is it that you need?"

  Diego Garcia

  0800

  Starship told himself he was just going into the chapel because he was bored. Inside, the minister was wrapping up a sermon about David in the lion's den. Starship took a seat and listened. The minister wasn't a particularly good speaker, and the sermon itself wasn't much better.

  Starship rose with the rest of the congregation, joining in a hymn, eyes wandering. When he was a teenager and used to go to church with the family on Sundays, he'd spent a lot of services this way, checking out the women nearby. There were only two in the sparse crowd, and neither would have earned higher than a four on his old scale of one to ten.

  As he stood there, he realized everyone else had a hymnal. Belatedly, he reached for one and began thumbing through it. But before he could find the song it was over.

  Everyone started walking out. Starship put the book down and waited for the others to pass, then shambled out behind them, bemused — church, it seemed to him, hadn't changed all that much in the few years since he'd stopped going regularly, or semiregularly.

  "Welcome to our congregation," said the minister in a vaguely Australian accent. He had stationed himself near the door.

  "Uh, thanks. Nice sermon," said Starship. "You only heard the tail end." "Yeah, that's true."

  "It wasn't really that good, was it?" said the minister.

  His honesty surprised Starship, who wasn't sure how to respond. He shrugged, then started to walk away, but something in the minister's face made him want to say something — anything — to let the poor guy know he didn't think he was a failure. "I got a question. Is it true that Muslims and Jews use the Bible too?"

  "What Christians call the Old Testament. Absolutely," said the minister. "Is that your question?"

  "Yeah."

  "Come back and pray with us again." "Thanks," said Starship, making his escape.

  Aboard the Abner Read

  1324

  "We will open Operation Bloodthirst at 2350 with the Flighthawk overflight of the base area," said Storm. He gestured to the hologram, where a simulation of the operation had begun to play. "We analyze the video feeds, then get a go/no go on the operation. Assuming a green light, Shark Boat One moves forward at 2410 and puts the first shore party into the insertion raft. The party splits up, one watching the small bridge to the village and the other moving farther east along the coast as a backstop to prevent anyone from escaping. Bombardment begins from the Abner Read. The Werewolves appear at 2415. The Osprey approaches from the south. Werewolves attack. Second shore team comes off the Shark Boat. Shark Boat One moves offshore and monitors the situation. Osprey disgorges the comb
ined teams of Marines and Whiplash troopers."

  Danny watched as the captain continued the briefing. Storm relished the spotlight; there was no doubt about that. He was the kind of guy who should be a congressman.

  I'm not going to run for Congress, Danny realized. It doesn't fit with who I am. And that means it's not my duty, no matter what other people say.

  He glanced across the room at Dancer, noticing her intent gaze as Storm moved to the exfiltration.

  I'm not sure exactly who I am, but I'm not a congressman.

  "Shark Boat Two stays in this area to the east, watching for additional boats and mopping up anything that manages to get by the Abner Read and Boat One" continued Storm. "Are we all on board?"

  One by one the different commanders checked in. Dog, who was participating by video back in the Dreamland Command trailer, grunted. The colonel seemed more tired than Danny remembered seeing him, worn down by the long missions.

  That'll be me in what, ten years?

  Unlikely. Oh, he might make lieutenant colonel — given his record, he ought to do so easily. But then what? The general idea would be to stick around and make full bird colonel, then go for general. But that wasn't as easy as it seemed. There was a real numbers squeeze on, and there were going to be less and less slots available at the higher ranks, especially after the Martindale administration, which was generally considered pro-military. Even now, getting the star on your shoulder could be tricky for someone who wasn't a pilot. It wasn't a written thing, and there were plenty of exceptions—plenty—but if you wanted to go to the top in the Air Force, it helped a lot to be part of the mafia.

  Dog would argue that. Danny knew plenty of guys who would argue that. And hell, his record could make him a general right now, assuming he kept his nose clean and more or less played by the rules.

  But did he want to be a general? Talk about being a politician.

  So what would he do?

  "Captain?" said Storm, looking at him.

  "I think it's going to work," said Danny.

  Diego Garcia

  1630

  "Is Ms. O'Day there?"

  "Excuse me, what?"