Piranha d-4 Page 6

  A sore subject, he knew, since she had hoped to inherit Major Nancy Cheshire’s place when she left. But Merce Alou, who outranked her, had been tagged.

  “To be honest with you, Bree, the EB-52, not that it’s a dead end or anything, but it’s now, uh, mature.” Zen hated using the bureaucratese, but it did essentially describe the program. The EB-52 was now a production aircraft; the advances were sure to be incremental. “The UMB. Hell, that’s the future. Or something that comes out of it. Ask anybody. But if it’s not what you want to do, don’t worry about it.”

  “It’s a big adjustment, that’s all,” she said, poking her salad. She frowned, but this time at him. “You’re not going to eat all of that, are you? It’s pure fat.”

  He laughed and reached for his soda — then yawped with pain.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  “Tooth. Geez.”

  “Are you going to get it fixed or what?”

  “This afternoon.” The cold soda had shot through the nerve into every cell in his skull, and his head reverberated with pain. He put down the glass and rubbed the back of his jaw on both sides hoping to ease it somehow.

  “Not going to cancel this time?”

  “I didn’t cancel on purpose,” he mumbled.

  Bree’s manner had brightened; in fact, she seemed to be suppressing a giggle.

  “I’m glad my misery is entertaining,” he told her.

  “Don’t be a sissy.”

  “You filled it with extra ice,” he said. “You knew I had the appointment.”

  “Just a coincidence,” said his wife.

  Freed from his onerous escort duty, Danny Freah took a tour of his perimeter, checking on the security post. His body still felt the lingering effects of his “visit” to Turkey, Iraq, and Iran a few months before; he’d been injured in a mission that recovered data and parts from an Iranian antiaircraft laser facility. His legs were especially bothersome — Danny had stretched and partially torn ligaments in his right knee.

  Not that he’d taken any time off to mend. You had to break something for that. Like your neck.

  Danny eyed the fence along the road, looking at the video cameras posted at irregular intervals. The entire base was constantly watched. Not just by human eyes, but computer programs, which searched for spatial anomalies, as the programmers stubbornly referred to intruders. Additional sensors were buried in the perimeter area. Mines and remote-controlled ground defenses — basically old M2HB machine guns with massive belts of ammunition in modified fifty-gallon drums — were webbed around the fences. A generation ago, it might have taken the better part of an army regiment to provide as secure a perimeter, Dreamland could, at least in theory, be secured with only six men, though Danny’s security squadron was considerably larger and growing every day.

  He turned off the perimeter road, driving up a short hill toward a bunker halfway between the underground hangars and the main gate. A brown slant of cement marked the entrance to the hardened security monitoring station. Lieutenant William McNally and two airmen were inside, reviewing the security feeds and drinking coffee, not necessarily in that order.

  “Hey, Boss,” said McNally as Danny came through the doors. “How’s the admiral?”

  “Looked like he was searching for a boat.”

  “Can we shoot down his plan next time? Razor guys say they had it nailed at twenty miles.”

  Danny grunted. He checked through the logs, then told McNally he was going over to the weapons lab to check on his gear. His smart helmet and body armor had been damaged in Iran; its custom-fitted replacement was due for a final fitting.

  McNally stopped him, saying a message had come for him while he was with the Admiral.

  “Just leave it in my cue,” Danny told him.

  “Actually, it was a voice message, uh, your wife,” said McNally. “She decided to talk to me.”

  “And?”

  “Says she’ll be out here this afternoon, Said something about a hotel.”

  “Okay,” Danny told him. Jemma knew exactly what Danny did, and had gone through her own security check before Danny was allowed to take his post. Technically, she could come to Dreamland and stay at his quarters on the base. However, the procedure were elaborate, and it was much easier all around to put her up in a nice hotel for a few days.

  Put himself up too.

  “Surprise that she’s coming?” McNally asked.

  “Not a surprise, no,” Danny said. “You have a handle on things?”

  “Boss, you can take off for the next few months as far as I’m concerned. You earned it.”

  “Thanks, Billy.” He tapped his radio and then his beeper, wordlessly telling his lieutenant to call if needed, then headed toward the handheld-weapons lab.

  Annie Klondike sat hunched over a desk, starting at a small, liver-shaped piece of metal. Her think white hair had been pulled back into a tight ball, enhancing her school-marm look.

  “Hey, Annie, whatcha got going?” asked Danny.

  “Hmmmpphhhh,” she said without looking up.

  Danny bent over and inspected the metal. “New explosive?”

  “Hardly.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “You’ll want your helmet, I suppose.”

  “If its convenient.”

  “Convenient? Captain, you’ve added a new word to your vocabulary.”

  “I even used it in a sentence,” said Freah.

  “I’d be curious as to your definition,” she said, beginning her shuffle toward one of the back areas. “We took the liberty of adding upgrades,” said Annie, opening the door to a storage closet. “Try the vest first.”

  The carbon-boron vest that Danny pulled over his chest was no thicker than a good-quality goose-down ski vest, and weighed nearly the same. The side that nestled against his ribs had a crinkly feel; pressing it against his side felt a little like squishing the Styrofoam of a packing peanut.

  “What’s the cushion?”

  “Styrated aluminum,” said Klondike. “Actually a carbonized alloy, but mostly aluminum.”

  “Aluminum?”

  “It bears only a passing resemblance to the material used in soda cans, Captain, not to worry,” said Annie. “I’m told a bullet from a M60E1 at five yards won’t leave a bruise, though I haven’t found a volunteer willing to demonstrate.”

  “Does the next upgrade come with a built-in nurse?”

  “Your helmet is this way,” said the weapons expert tartly. “Have I ever told you, you have a big head?”

  “All the time.”

  Danny’s smart helmet and its connected Combat Information Visor included a display shield with Video, low-light, infrared, and radiation-detection modes. When plugged into its com modules — these were generally carried in a small pack on the wearer’s back or belt — it could tie into Dreamland’s secure satellite communications system. But that system required coordination back at Dreamland, as well as being in line of sight of the satellite — fine in some situations, not in others. Team members on the ground communicated through a discrete-mode unit that was also line-of-sight — again, fine in some situations but not in others.

  “We have bowed to popular demand and added a standard radio link,” announced Annie. “I would caution you: The encryption is merely based on a 128-byte key on a random skip; it can be broken easily.”

  “By anyone outside of the NSA and Dreamland?”

  Annie smiled — slightly. “A simple beacon detector could be used to locate the transmissions, which, as requested, have a range of five miles. We are looking at a complementary-wave transmitter that would interfere with the transmissions beyond an operator-specified range, but alas, it remains to be perfected.”

  “This’ll do,” said Danny. “It beats having to stand up under fire.”

  “I imagine it would.”

  Danny took the new helmet and fit it onto his head. it felt just like the old one — way too tight and far too heavy.

  “Yes, I know,” said Klondike, sighin
g though Danny hadn’t said anything. “We balance function and utility. We are scientists of the possible, Captain. If we could shave off another pound while not giving up protection or functionality, we gladly would.”

  “You’ll get it right, Annie,” he said.

  “Hmmmph. The shape-recognition program is finally operational and so we have added it. It defaults to ‘on.’ I find it annoying myself, though the weapons detector is useful.”

  “If we can trust it,” said Danny.

  “Yes. Well, Captain, you’ve seen the tests yourself.” The device used pattern recognition to check shapes in the screen against a library of weapons and “suspicious polygons.” It was excellent against the obvious — like tanks and artillery pieces — but tended to be overly suspicious about things like bulges in pants and pockets. On IR mode, however, it could tell the difference between a toy gun and the real thing, which was potentially valuable in certain situations.

  “Let’s go test the targeting screen,” said Annie. There was almost a suppressed cackle in her voice as she said that, and Danny knew he’d find a surprise in the weapons locked at the firing range. Sure enough, the weapons scientist presented him with a new gun.

  “Silenced MP-5,” he said admiringly, taking it from her hands.

  “Hardly,” said Annie. “Try it.”

  Danny studied the stubby wire at the end. On the other systems that worked with the visor targeting system, a thin wire ran from the gun to his helmet.

  “No, there’s no connection. Just point it at the target and shoot,” insisted Annie.

  As Danny pointed the business end of the German submachine gun down the alley, crosshairs appeared in the middle of his visor.

  “Please, I have work to do,” said Annie.

  As Danny pressed the trigger, he unconsciously raised his shoulder to brace against the recoil. For a submachine gun, the MP-5 was famously easy to handle; unlike many predecessors that justly earned the moniker “spray guns,” this was a precision weapon in the hands of a trained and experienced professional. It was, however, still a submachine gun, and all the brilliant engineering in the world could not completely remove the barrel’s tendency under automatic fire to kick a bit.

  Or could it? For the gun in Danny’s hands was not only exceedingly quiet — quieter by far than even the silenced versions of the MP-5 he’s used — but it spit through its fifteen-bullet magazine with less recoil than a water pistol.

  And continued to do so. Though it appeared no larger than the standard box, somehow the magazine contained twenty bullets.

  “Heh,” said Annie. She took another clip from her lab coat and gave it to him. Danny realized it was slightly longer and just a hair fatter than the standard box. The addition of five bullets didn’t sound like much — until you had to use them.

  “You might try aiming this time,” added Annie.

  “I hit the target square on, bull’s-eye.”

  “You should have put all the bullets through the same hole.”

  “You want to try?”

  He’d been set up. She took the gun with a smile and pressed the button on the wall to send the paper target back another fifty feet. Without bothering to take his visor, she blew a rather narrow and perfectly round hole through the “100” at the center of the head area.

  “It’s the bullets. Primarily,” she said. “Though I must say our German friends were quite ingenious with the improvements they suggested to the gun. We’re still working on them, of course. But we should have enough to outfit your entire team in a month.”

  “That long?”

  “My best advice, Captain, is not to let them try the weapon until then. That boy Powder especially; he’ll never give it up. Want to take another crack at the target? Best two out of three. You can use your visor if you want.”

  Aboard the trawler Gui, South China Sea

  August 22, 1997, 0600 local (August 21, 1997, 100 Dreamland)

  KNOW WHITE, BE BLACK

  Chen Lo Fann held the ideograms in his head as he scanned the horizon. The thick brush strokes and their stark ideas contrasted with the haze of the horizon, the fickle world flowing in its chaos. The words from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Tao Te Ching draped themselves across his consciousness, the old master’s voice as real in his thoughts as the shadows of the ships in the distance.

  Know white, be black. Be the empire’s model.

  There was no more perfect statement of his mission, nor his desire in life.

  Chen focused his binoculars on the closest shadow, a mere speck even at highest magnification. It was a destroyer, an escort for the largest ship in the squadron just over the horizon, the aircraft carrier Shangi-Ti. Named for an ancient creator god, the carrier was considerably smaller than the Mao, the pride of the Chinese Mainland Navy. But though half Mao’s size, Shangi-Ti and her sister ship, T’ien, were nonetheless potent crafts, similar in many ways to the British Invincible class. Displacing about twenty thousand tons, Shangi-Ti and T’ien held four Dauphin multirole helicopters and a dozen Chinese versions of the Sukhoi Su-33.

  The Su-33’s were launched with the help of a special catapult system on a ramped deck, then recovered with the help or arrestor gear. It was an awkward system in some respects, still in need of refinement; even with the ramp, the heavy Sukhois dipped low over the bow on takeoff, and botched landings were particularly unforgiving. The maritime versions of the planes were fairly short-ranged, and the Dauphins’ ASW gear somewhat old. But the crews were well trained and dedicated.

  And unlike the Mao, which had originally been built by Russia, the two pocket carriers were an all-Chinese design — not counting, of course, certain useful items of technology that had originated abroad and found their way surrepitiously to Asia.

  Know white, be black.

  Fann’s thought and gaze turned southward, in roughly the direction of the Spratly Islands. Another task force was making its way northward there, this one also centered around an aircraft carrier — the Indian Vikrant. Just out of dry dock where she had received new avionics and a ramped deck, the ship was roughly the same size as the Shangi-Ti, though its basic layout harked back to World War II. Originally built by the English and refurbished several times, she boasted eighteen Harrier II jump jets, along with four or five helicopters and one rather limited radar plane.

  Ostensibly, both forces were sailing into the South China Sea to protect ships bound for their home ports. The reality was more complicated — and less so. On their present courses, it would take only a few days for them to meet.

  Everything Chen did aimed at that moment of intersection.

  He himself commanded five ships. The naked eye, all were noncombatants, weak and vulnerable sisters that had no business near the caldron of battle. Four were similar to the small freighter on whose bridge he stood. They looked innocent, but their simple superstructures and wide hulls were crammed with spying gear, and their sophisticated communications devices kept them in constant touch though they were spread across several thousand square miles of ocean.

  The fifth vessel, still far to the north, was unlike them in many ways. To the naked eye from one hundred yards, it looked only like a decrepit oil tanker. But it held Chen’s greatest tool — robot planes the scientists called Dragons. They would not be available for several days. Even then, it was doubtful what the aircraft could accomplish; they were still experimental.

  They would extend his eyesight, which was enough. His more conventional tools were sufficient to his larger purpose.

  Know white, be black. Be a model for the empire.

  Chen satisfied, put down his glasses and went to have his morning tea.

  New Lebanon, Nevada (near Las Vegas)

  August 21, 1997, 1530 local

  Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard had faced considerable danger and hardship during his Air Force career; he had gunned down MiGs, nailed enemy antiaircraft sites, and lost the use of his legs in a horrific accident while testing robot fighters. He’d dealt
with enemies ranging from poorly trained Libyan pilots to highly polished government bureaucrats, vanquishing all. His confinement to a wheelchair had not prevented him from deftly directing one of the most important programs at Dreamland. If any man might truly earn the title “courageous,” it was Zen Stockard. If he was not fearless — no man in full possession of his wits is completely devoid of some silver of fear — he was so much a master of fear as to be without peer in military service.

  There was one thing, however, that turned his resolute will into quivering mass of jelly:

  The whine of a dentist’s drill.

  Zen took a last, sharp breath as the dentist closed in, aiming at a molar deep in his mouth. The way had been prepared with a heavy dose of Novocain, and in truth Zen couldn’t feel much of anything as the drill bit touched the tooth.

  But he could hear its nerve-wracking, cell-tingling howl, a shriek of devastation so violent it reverberated in the suddenly hollow ventricles of his heart. Pain, incredible pain, pulsed through every vein, every artery, every capillary, coursing through his body like hot electricity. The world went black.

  And then, thankfully, the storm broke. Pain and fear retreated. The viper had stopped his hiss.

  Only to gather strength for a curdling scream five octaves higher as it tore through the vulnerable enamel and weakened dentin of the defenseless back tooth.

  “Got to get it all,” growled the dentist, as if Zen had somehow hidden part of the cavity to spite him.

  The worst thing was, the sadist enjoyed it all. When he finally stopped, he smiled and held the drill triumphantly in one hand, waving it like a victory flag.

  “See — that wasn’t bad at all, right?”

  “Awgrhfkhllmk,” said Zen. It was the most coherent sound he could manage with his mouth full of dentist tools.

  :Geez, you’d think I was an Air Force dentist.” Dr. Gideon — Ken to friends and victims alike — poked fun at the Air Force whenever possible. His discharge papers from the Navy were prominently displayed in the hallway.

  Sure they discharge him. He was a dentist.

  “Awgrh,” said Zen.

  “Maybe I’ll break for coffee,” teased Gideon.