Satan's Tail d-7 Read online

  * * *

  They were forty yards, maybe thirty, from the ship. Danny had slung one of the AK47s over his shoulder, and stuffed some extra magazines in his vest. He pulled himself up over the windscreen, steadying himself so he could jump onto the bow.

  Suddenly he lurched forward, the boat slowing.

  "Damn, we blew the engine," said the sailor at the wheel. "Damn."

  * * *

  No matter what Habib tried, he couldn't get the screen from the external source back on the display. Ali looked up and recognized the shadow as it leapt above the bow: It was one of the tiny aircraft that had buzzed them the other day in the gulf.

  Satan's Tail had survived the attack somehow. He went to the side of the bridge, looking into the darkness.

  If God willed it, he would prefer, greatly prefer, battling the American.

  But only if God willed it.

  "Can you get the screen back?" he asked Habib.

  "I can't seem to."

  "The missiles should have a direct mode," Ali told him. "A fail-safe."

  "It would require the radar, if it works at all." "They must already know we're here. Turn it on."

  * * *

  Zen banked back toward the Shark Boat. There were people at the bow. As he approached, red lights began to flicker.

  Automatic rifle fire, he realized after he passed. "I'd say they're definitely hostile," Zen told the others. "Even for the Navy."

  * * *

  "I can see the target, but the computer won't allow me to lock," said Habib, continuing to work on the problem.

  "This line shows where it will lock," said Ali, guessing by comparing it to what he remembered — not from the Italian missile systems, but from some of the battle simulations. "This shows where the target will detect us. Clever."

  "Five more miles, then, before we can launch."

  "Yes. Fire when you are able," said Ali.

  "The station controls other weapons," added Habib, switching the panel into something entirely different. "There's an air defense module."

  "Use it."

  * * *

  Danny slammed his head against the dashboard of the speedboat. The Shark Boat was already pulling away.

  "Werewolf inbound," said one of the Marines in the boat.

  Danny turned around. The heavy whomp of the twin-bladed aircraft resonated against the wood of the ship.

  "Werewolf, I have a problem here," said Danny.

  "What's up?"

  "I–Is your navigation gear back?" "Negative, but I can see you with the infrared." "I want you to pick me up and drop me on the rear deck of the Shark Boat."

  Jennifer didn't answer. "Jen?"

  "I don't know if I can, Whiplash."

  "Sure you can. Hover overhead and I'll grab the skid. Hurry, we're only a couple hundred yards away." "Danny—"

  "Come a little to your left," he said, moving out toward the stern.

  * * *

  "What are you doing?" Eyes asked Jennifer, looking over her shoulder.

  "We're taking back the Shark Boat," she said, punching the code to override the safety protocol so the Werewolf would get close enough to Danny for him to grab it.

  "I don't remember giving that order. Storm has to approve all action."

  Jennifer looked up at him. "Does everyone who serves under him need orders to do the obvious?" Eyes took a deep breath, then turned away.

  * * *

  Danny hadn't counted on the wash from the Werewolf's propellers. The gust pushed him down and to the side of the boat. He swung his hands madly, finally grabbing one of the skids. He thought it was too late, felt himself sailing to his right and braced himself for an unwelcome bath. But then he realized he'd managed to grab the skid of the helo.

  "I hope this works," he said to himself.

  "I hope so too," said Dancer, hearing him over the communications channel. "We'll be right behind you."

  * * *

  The Shark Boat had a 25mm cannon on its forward deck, a devastating weapon against the two small boats, and Zen zeroed his sights into it as he made his run head-on to the bow. The gun began to fire as Zen came in, filling the air in front of him with titanium. Zen bore down, moving just fast enough to avoid the slugs. His stream of bullets blew out the gun housing just as the system began to catch up to the Flighthawk.

  He took a quick shot at the sloped bridge of the Shark Boat as he passed, then started to bank, aiming to sweep around and rake the deck. But as he did, the Flighthawk yelped — the Shark Boat had launched surface-to-air missiles.

  Zen dished flares and hung on, too low and slow to outrun the SAMs. He pushed the Flighthawk hard right; one of the missiles sailed past the aircraft.

  Another exploded beneath his right wing.

  * * *

  As the deck slowly inched in his direction, the pain in Danny's shoulders became unbearable. He felt his grip slipping.

  "Hang on," he said. "Hang on."

  "I am," said Dancer.

  He hadn't been talking to her — or anyone — but her voice encouraged him, and there was the Shark Boat, right below him.

  "Jen, I need to get down."

  "I can't get too much lower."

  He let go. The first thing he felt was relief in his shoulder. Then he hit the deck hard enough to rattle his teeth.

  * * *

  Ali looked at the screen.

  "Another mile," he told Habib. "God will bring us victory."

  * * *

  The Flighthawk spun in midair, going through two inverts before Zen could regain control.

  Besides the other damage, the explosion had jammed the control surfaces of the wing, making it difficult to control. The weapons system was offline, as the aircraft was limited to its infrared camera.

  "Danny, I'm going to get the other Flighthawk," Zen said. "It's going to take a bit."

  Danny didn't answer. Zen explained the situation to Dog; they'd have to double back toward the coast to get into range to take control of Hawk Two.

  "I think I can put Hawk One into a wide orbit over the camp area and continue feeding infrared down. It's useless otherwise," added Zen.

  "All right. We're changing course."

  "What's going on with the Ark Royal?"

  "I'm not sure they believe us," said Dog. "They have two Harriers and a helicopter in the air."

  "Is that enough to stop the Shark Boat?" Zen asked.

  "It's never worked in the simulations," said Ensign English. "If they figure out how to fire the Harpoons, that carrier's going down. And I'll only give them even odds against the torpedoes."

  * * *

  Danny saw a red oblong in front of him — the doorway to the ship's interior.

  He pushed forward, trying to stand and grab his MP-5 at the same time. He made it nearly to the opening before he lost his balance completely and fell to the left, sliding down and landing on his back. A shadow, two shadows, loomed out of the space. The shadows had pipes in their hands.

  Pirates with guns.

  Danny pressed the trigger on his submachine gun. The first shadow jumped back, pulled off the side of the Shark Boat by some mysterious force. The second whirled on him, and turned from shadow to man: Danny's bullets severed his neck.

  * * *

  Jennifer pulled the Werewolf across the low-slung superstructure. Green lights blinked at her — muzzle flashes. She picked the aircraft's tail up and pressed the trigger to fire.

  Nothing happened. She'd forgotten she was out of bullets. "Son of a bitch," she said. The gunfire continued.

  "Yeah — well, you can all go to hell," she said, pushing the joystick to send the aircraft into the crowd of men firing at her.

  * * *

  The helicopter plowed into the forward section of the ship, exploding in a burst of flames. Ali turned away as shrapnel shattered the windscreen and the bulkhead of the bridge crumpled.

  "Fire the Harpoon now!" he told Habib.

  His lieutenant didn't answer. Ali turned and fo
und him on the deck, eyes gaping to heaven.

  "God wills that I do it myself," said Ali. "It is an honor."

  * * *

  Danny threw himself inside.

  A body lay on the deck, the man he'd killed.

  Someone charged from the compartment ahead of him, firing a rifle. Danny shot back, even as the bullets hit his carbon-boron vest and smacked him back against the bulkhead.

  Gunfire exploded around him. He lowered his rifle, then realized the cue in his helmet's visor indicated he was out of bullets.

  He dropped the MP5 and swung up the AK47 he'd brought from the boat. After the submachine gun, the Russian weapon felt awkward and unbalanced. But its bullets put down the two men who had been firing at him. As they fell, Danny dropped to one knee and reloaded the MP5.

  Something tapped him on the head. Danny looked up to find a terrorist holding a shotgun at his visor, grinning.

  The man reared back to fire — then flew backward.

  "I'm sure your armor's good," said Dancer behind him. "But I thought it better not to find out if it was that good."

  * * *

  Abu wavered on the bicycle. He looked back at his father doubtfully.

  "You can do it," Ali told him. They were living in Naples, and it was a windless, perfect day. He held the boy gently. "You can. Go."

  The seven-year-old hesitated, but then started to pedal.

  "Go," said Ali.

  Quivering, Abu pedaled, his pushes becoming stronger and stronger.

  Ali removed his hand and watched his son ride the bicycle on his own. Abu glanced back. His confusion turned into a smile.

  The happiest day of my life.

  Ali pushed the memory away, pushed everything away. The cursor was locked on the aircraft. He pressed the button, then pressed the function key to lock the second missile.

  The dashboard exploded. He pressed the button to fire anyway. Someone yelled, and he heard his son calling to him, singing his name, welcoming him with great joy to Paradise.

  "I'm coming, Abu," he said, rising from the console. "I am here. The glory of God is everlasting."

  And then he slumped to the floor, killed by a bullet to the brain.

  * * *

  "Harpoon is away," Dish told Dog. "Zen, can you get it?" said Dog. "I'm not close enough."

  "All right. Hang with me," said Dog, throwing the Megafortress into a hard turn back to the north. The big aircraft groaned as somewhere over eight g's pounded her body. Dog felt the bladders in his pressure suit pressing at him; the world narrowed against the sides of his head, black unconsciousness threatening as gravity tried to extract her pound of flesh.

  The Harpoon flew a bit over 500 miles an hour. The Megafortress could do close to 600, and he had several thousand feet of altitude he could use to his advantage. But the aircraft carrier was only ten miles away.

  "I need an intercept angle on that Harpoon," Dog told Mc-Namara. "And we need it real fast."

  "Working on it, Colonel."

  The course plugged into his screen. Dog compensated— he needed to get ahead of the missile and use the Stinger air mines.

  "Get on the horn to the Brits and tell them not to shoot us down," said Dog. "They might miss the Harpoon, but we're a hell of a lot bigger target."

  * * *

  The bodies lay where they fell — fifteen terrorists and five American sailors. The ship was theirs.

  Danny pulled his helmet off and looked around the bridge. Blood was everywhere. What drove people to be so crazy?

  "Tired, Captain?" asked Dancer. "A little," Danny admitted.

  "That was something you did with that helicopter."

  "Stupid, huh?"

  "Yeah. But we couldn't have gotten on the ship if those men had made it onto the deck. You took them out just in time. We owe you a beer."

  "Yeah, well, I owe you two. That shotgun would have penetrated the visor."

  "I intend on collecting," said Dancer. She smiled at him. "Let's see about getting this thing back. Dad said I was supposed to be home before midnight, and he's got a hell of a temper."

  * * *

  Dog could see the Ark Royal in his windscreen as he pushed the stick of the Megafortress forward.

  "Antiaircraft system is coming up," said McNamara.

  "Tell them we're friendly."

  "I keep telling them that."

  "They're still not locked on the Harpoon," said Dish, disgusted.

  "Stinger," Dog told McNamara. "Stinger ready. Seeking."

  Dog pushed the Megafortress down. To strike the Harpoon he had to get almost right in front of it and pull up abruptly. The missile skimmed along the ocean only a few feet above the waves; Dog basically had to walk his air mines right in front of it.

  The ocean loomed in front of the windscreen. The altimeter in the heads-up display tumbled lower and lower— nine hundred feet, eight hundred, six hundred, five hundred…

  Even in a small aircraft, pulling up from a power dive at precisely the right spot at very low altitude was not as easy as it looked. It pitted two different forces — gravity and aerodynamic lift — against each other. Often gravity won. In fact, gravity never really lost; engineers and pilots just figured out a way to hold it at arm's length.

  Four hundred feet, three hundred…

  The Megafortress screamed a proximity warning.

  "Got it! Locked!" shouted McNamara.

  "Fire," said Dog calmly, pulling back on the stick.

  The nose of the Megafortress scraped the waves and the rear of the aircraft rumbled — though whether from the sound of the tail smacking against the water or the air mines exploding in the face of the Harpoon missile, who could say? The B-52's toughness was legendary, and the Wisconsin added to the legend that day, pulling herself through the air like a pogo stick as the 215 pounds of explosives in the Harpoon detonated. Dog was so busy trying to hold the plane in the air that he didn't realize at first that the Ark Royal had begun firing her Goalkeeper antiaircraft weapon at them. "ECMs," he said, banking away.

  Though adopted from the American Phalanx system, the British implementation fortunately was not yet as deadly as its cousin. The Megafortress managed to escape without serious harm.

  "They're apologizing profusely," said McNamara as the Megafortress cleared the cloud of bullets. "They claim they didn't see us."

  "Tell them we'll send them the repair bill," said Zen from the Flighthawk deck. "And if they care to say thank-you for saving their butts, I know a base that would greatly appreciate a lifetime supply of British ale."

  X

  Conspiracy Theories

  White House

  11 November 1997

  1000

  It wasn't hard for Jed to see the President — he and the entire cabinet wanted a briefing on the gulf situation. The trick was to talk to him alone.

  Jed could feel Balboa and Hartman staring at him during the whole briefing. He expected them to mention that he had pulled the plug on them, but they didn't. The Secretary of State seemed subdued, and while Balboa blustered as usual, it was more about the combined group concept and how the Navy had shown the way once again. Jed knew that wasn't exactly true — but he did think the idea of the littoral warfare craft working together with cutting-edge technology, whether from Dreamland or somewhere else, was a good one, and had been validated by the mission.

  The pirate operation that had supported terrorists in the Gulf of Aden had been smashed completely. The funds to overthrow the government in Eritrea and wreak more havoc in Somalia were gone, at least temporarily. Ethiopia had been chastised. Yemen declared that the air force had mutinied and "appropriate steps" would be taken. The response was about the only comic relief the situation provided.

  Unfortunately, as Hartman pointed out, a large number of people in the Horn of Africa were starving and weren't likely to get aid anytime soon. The UN didn't want to get involved; without them, organizations such as the Red Cross and UNICEF were also reluctant. No one in the room could
blame them, not after what had happened in Mogadishu a few years before.

  "The choices are never good choices in places like these," said Freeman, but even he couldn't make a case for mounting a major relief effort in the Horn of Africa, especially not with the situation in China and Korea still incredibly tense.

  "We'll have to deal with it, sooner or later," said Martin-dale finally. "I want a plan, at least."

  "We'll draw up something," said Hartman.

  Jed didn't say much as the discussion turned to India and Pakistan, the next exploding hot spot. He felt tired, ready for a vacation — a long one. Very long.

  And he was about to get one.

  "I wonder if I could talk to you, Mr. President," he said as the others started to leave the cabinet room.

  "As a matter of fact, I'd like to talk to you, young Jed," said Martindale. "In my study."

  Freeman gave Jed a warning glance, but Jed ignored it. He'd made up his mind, and for better or worse, he was going to do the right thing.

  That was all you could do in the end — the right thing as you saw it. Then face the consequences.

  "So is it true that you told Balboa to get bent?" said the President as he sank into his leather chair.

  "Um…"

  Martindale laughed. "I didn't think you had it in you, Jed. You surprise me every day." "I wrote a letter, sir."

  Jed reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his resignation. Martindale smiled at the envelope but didn't open it. Instead he reached into his desk and took out a copy of the Sunday Daily News.

  "Tell me about this photo," said the President. "It looks like a real work of art."

  "It is," said Jed, and he explained what had happened.

  "You don't know the entire story, I imagine," said Martindale when Jed finished. "You know how the photo came to be on the disk — it was in your folder with the others — but I'll bet you're wondering why just the Daily News printed it." "I am."

  "Ambassador Ford would like very much to be the Secretary of State." "I don't get it."

  "You gave the disk to one of Ford's assistants. He printed it out, and noticed the photo that hadn't been part of the presentation. He took it to the ambassador, who decided to give his friends at the News an exclusive. A favor that he can call in later."