End Game Read online

“Bogey at one mile; close intercept—proximity warning,” said C3, the Flighthawk’s computer guidance system.

  “Acknowledged, Computer,” said Cantor. He gave the stick a bit of English as his target came on. The Flighthawk crossed in front of the MiG in a flash, its left wing twenty yards from the aircraft’s nose. As he crossed, Cantor pushed his stick hard to the right, skidding through the air and lining up for a shot on the MiG’s hindquarters.

  He didn’t quite get into position to take the shot, but that didn’t matter. The MiG veered sharply to the west, tossing flares and chaff as decoys in an effort to get away.

  “Hawk Two has completed intercept,” Cantor reported. “Bogey One is running for cover.”

  Off the coast of Somalia

  2010

  STARSHIP ACKNOWLEDGED THE RADIO CALL FROM THE APPROACHING Indian destroyer, identifying himself as an aircraft from the Abner Read. He was ten miles northeast of the ship, the Calcutta, too far off for them to realize that the aircraft was too small to hold a pilot.

  “Werewolf One, our commander wishes you to pass along a message to your commander,” said the radioman aboard the Calcutta.

  “Sure,” said Starship.

  “He salutes Captain Gale on his many victories. He hopes that he will have an opportunity to visit the Abner Read in the future.”

  “I’ll relay the message,” said Starship.

  Starship circled over the Indian warship twice, then began heading back toward the Abner Read, close to 250 miles away. He double-checked the auxiliary screen showing the status of Werewolf Two—the computer was flying the aircraft in a routine patrol pattern around and ahead of the ship—then turned his full attention to the sea in front of him. An oil tanker was about a mile and a half northwest of him, low in the water with its full load.

  Something else was there, too—a plane almost in the waves, moving at 100 knots, about five miles north of him.

  “Werewolf to Tac,” said Starship. “Hey, check this contact out!”

  Indian Ocean

  2012

  CAPTAIN SATTARI GRINNED AS THE TORPEDO FELL OFF ITS RAIL. Freed of the weight, the Beriev rose abruptly. Sattari caught a glimpse of his well-lit target five miles off, just beyond the oil tanker. He banked and tucked back closer to the waves, trying to keep the plane no higher than fifty feet, where it should not be seen by the destroyer’s Russian-made radar system.

  It would take the torpedo less than three minutes to run to its target. The destroyer would undoubtedly detect the fish once it cleared the tanker, and take evasive maneuvers when the torpedo was detected. But he’d gotten close enough to narrow the odds of escape; the torpedo was designed to home in on its target, and if the crew aboard the destroyer was not swift, he would score a great victory.

  Pointless to even think about it now, he told himself, finding his new course.

  “Aircraft!” said his copilot, manning the passive infrared sensors. “Helicopter!”

  “Where?”

  “Three miles to our southeast.”

  “Pursuing us?”

  “Uncertain. His radar is operating. He may see us.”

  Sattari squeezed the throttle for more power.

  Aboard the Wisconsin,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  2014

  “MIG TWO CONTINUING TOWARD US AT A HIGH RATE OF speed,” Jazz told Dog.

  “Open the bay doors.”

  “He’s not targeting us, Colonel.”

  “Bay doors.”

  “Bay.”

  The rumble of the missile bay opening shook the aircraft. Dog double-checked his position, then reached to the communications panel.

  “Yemen MiG-29, this is EB-52 Wisconsin. You can get as close as you like, but if you get in my way you’re going to swim home.”

  “Big words, yankee-man.”

  Dog laughed. “I guess he told me.”

  “Ten miles, sir.”

  “Relax, Jazz. He just wants to prove his manhood so the rest of squadron will buy him beers.”

  “They’re Muslim, Colonel. They don’t drink alcohol.”

  “That was a joke. Ease up.”

  “I’m trying.”

  HAVING BLOWN THE INTERCEPT, MACK TRIED DESPERATELY TO think of some way to save face as he swung back toward the Wisconsin. He was pretty far out of the picture now, five miles behind the MiG, which was still picking up speed as it came at the Megafortress. If this had been more serious, the bogey would have launched its missiles by now.

  Of course, if it had been more serious, the Megafortress would have launched its own antiaircraft missiles.

  Game or not, he knew he’d had his fanny waxed, and he needed to get revenge. He watched as the MiG changed course, turning to the west away from the EB-52. The computer, drawing its probable course in the sitrep screen, momentarily showed it breaking off, but it quickly caught on—like its companion, the plane was angling for a high-speed run from behind, a good position to launch heat-seekers.

  Mack was too far behind the MiG to follow and too far ahead of the Megafortress to follow Cantor’s strategy and cut the MiG off behind the plane. So instead he began his own turn to the west—he’d make his intercept after the MiG passed the EB-52.

  And, just to make the experience special, he’d toss a few flares in the MiG’s face as he went by.

  The Yemen aircraft came at the Megafortress at 550 knots, clearly not interested in riding alongside the American plane. This suited Mack perfectly, and he began climbing out ahead of the EB-52, ready to trade the height for speed when he wanted.

  “Hawk Two, what the hell are you doing?” demanded Colonel Bastian.

  “Just getting ready to say hello.”

  “Stay out of my flight path. I have a job to do here.”

  Grouch, thought Mack.

  Aboard the Abner Read,

  off the coast of Somalia

  2015

  “THIS LOOKS A LOT LIKE THOSE CONTACTS WE HAD THE OTHER night,” Starship told Eyes as he scrambled to follow the aircraft he’d just spotted. The slow-moving plane, about five miles north of Starship’s Werewolf, was so low the sensors showed it on the surface of the water.

  “Good, copy, we concur here. Track him.”

  “Yeah, I’m on that.” Starship swung the Werewolf westward as the bandit continued to pick up speed. The image in the forward-looking infrared showed that the airplane had two engines set high behind the wing; it was small, almost surely a civilian aircraft. The threat file in the Werewolf’s combat computer couldn’t identify it.

  Starship followed at about two miles, ratcheting his speed up as the strange aircraft continued to accelerate. Starship tucked his Werewolf downward, trying to get a better look at the underside of the craft. But the other plane was so low to the waves that he had a hard time; he kept jerking his hand involuntarily as the shadows changed on the screen. Finally he backed off his speed, dipping so close to the water that he nearly ditched.

  “Definitely no weapons,” he told Tac. “Looks like a civilian craft. Are you going to contact them?”

  “Stand by,” said Eyes, his voice tense.

  The distance between the two aircraft had widened to four miles. Starship began to climb and accelerate. As he did, the bandit veered to the east.

  “He’s climbing,” Starship told Tac.

  “Werewolf, Indian destroyer Calcutta is reporting it’s under fire. They’ve been torpedoed. Stand by to render assistance.”

  “What do you want me to do with this aircraft?”

  “He has no weapons?”

  “Negative. Look, maybe he launched the torpedo.”

  “Way too small for that. We’ll hand him off to Dreamland Wisconsin. Get back over to the Calcutta. They need assistance.”

  “Roger that,” said Starship, changing course.

  Aboard the Wisconsin,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  2015

  DOG STAYED ON HIS COURSE AS THE MIG-29 CLOSED IN BEHIND him. If the plane showed an
y hostility—if it simply turned on the radar used to guide its missiles—he would shoot it down with the Stinger antiair mines in the Wisconsin’s tail. He’d do the same if the aircraft flew as if it would crash into him. But the pilot gave him a half-mile buffer, flying below and off his right wing, close enough to win some sort of bragging rights back home but not quite enough to justify an aggressive reaction.

  Dog saw Mack adjusting course to make a pass at the MiG just as it cleared from the Megafortress. Mack cut things considerably closer than the MiG driver did, not only twisting the Flighthawk to within a hundred feet of the Yemen plane, but shooting flares as he did. His timing was a little off, but the other pilot, either confused or panicked, jerked hard to the north and dove a few seconds after the encounter.

  Part of Dog thought the Yemen idiot had gotten what he deserved: most likely, a pair of speed pants that needed some serious laundering.

  Another part of him was angry as hell at Mack for acting like a two-year-old.

  “Hawk Two, get your nose back into formation.”

  “Oh, roger that, Colonel,” said Mack, just about chortling. “Did you see him?”

  Luckily for Mack, the commo panel buzzed with an incoming transmission from the Abner Read on the encrypted Dreamland communications channel. As soon as Dog keyed in the communication, the face of Lt. Commander Jack “Eyes” Eisenberg appeared on the screen.

  “Bastian, we have a possible submarine approximately two hundred miles south of us. It just launched an attack on an Indian destroyer. We’d like you to help locate it with your Piranha unit.”

  “We’re not carrying Piranha,” Dog told him. The undersea robot had not been ready when they took off, and it hadn’t made sense to delay the patrol—facts that Dog had already explained. “Piranha will be aboard the next plane out. We have sonar buoys—we can drop those.”

  “Affirmative, good. Also, Werewolf has been following an aircraft just north of there. Airplane appears to be civilian but hasn’t answered any hails. May be a smuggler. We’d like to find out what it’s up to. Send one of your Flighthawks to pursue the aircraft.”

  “Bit of a problem there, Abner Read,” responded Dog, doing his best to ignore the sailor’s haughty tone. “The Flighthawk has to stay within twenty miles of us. We can’t be in both places at the same time.”

  “I don’t understand. How come the Werewolf can be so far from us?”

  “The control and communications systems are different,” said Dog. “Basically, the Flighthawks are considerably more difficult to fly and require a greater bandwidth than the Werewolf.”

  They also represented an older generation of technology—much had changed in the three years since they began flying.

  “All right. Stand by.” The line snapped clear.

  “Dish, how close do we have to get to detect a periscope?” Dog asked the radar operator.

  “Going to depend on too many factors to give you a guarantee,” Captain Peter Mallack answered. “Specs say we should be able to nail him at fifteen miles, though. Of course, if he’s on the surface—”

  “What if he isn’t using his periscope?”

  “We won’t find him without sonar buoys, or until Piranha’s operating.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bastian, what’s your problem?” snarled Storm, appearing in the communications panel.

  “Physics. I can’t be in two places at one time,” said Dog. “I can look for the sub or inspect your unknown aircraft, but not both.”

  “That’s ridiculous—send one of your aircraft after this flight, and then get your butt down south and find this submarine. Drop your buoys. Jee-zus, Bastian. Since when do I have to tell you your job?”

  Same old Storm, thought Dog, looking at the captain’s red face.

  “The Flighthawks were designed to stay close to the Megafortress,” said Dog, keeping his voice neutral. “I don’t like those limits myself, but we’re stuck with them at the moment. Do you want me to follow the plane or to look for the submarine?”

  Storm, apparently interrupted, glanced at someone else on the bridge.

  “We can continue to track him with our radar,” added Dog. “Out to about three hundred miles or so, maybe more depending on his altitude.”

  Storm turned back to the screen and raised his hand. “Hold on Bastian, hold on.”

  “Hey, Colonel, I have the aircraft on the viewscreen,” said T-Bone over Wisconsin’s interphone. “Computer can’t ID it, but it’s about the size of a Cessna. Two engines.”

  “You think there’s a possibility that plane launched a torpedo?”

  “Doesn’t look big enough. Hard to tell from here, but guessing from the size of the engines and given his speed, I doubt he could have taken off with it. You might have a better idea.”

  “Doesn’t look likely,” said Jazz, who’d brought up some of the data on his screen. “If it’s a smuggler, he might have been working with that tanker. Might be a seaplane.”

  “I’m not positive it’s a seaplane,” said T-Bone.

  “Thanks. Stand by.”

  He glanced at the video screen at the lower left of his control panel. Storm was still busy, so Dog used the circuit to talk to Starship. “Wisconsin to Werewolf One. Starship, this is Colonel Bastian. How are you?”

  “Busy, Colonel; just coming up to the Indian destroyer now. But OK, sir.”

  “Can you give us anything else on that aircraft? Was he aboard that tanker? Next to him? Had he been in the air and en route south?”

  “Don’t know on any of that, Colonel. I’m sorry.”

  Starship broke to answer a communication from the destroyer; Dog heard him being directed to the starboard side of the ship, where the destroyer had several men in the water.

  “All right, Werewolf One,” said Dog. “Contact us when you get a chance.”

  “Werewolf,” said Starship quickly.

  “Bastian?”

  “Yes, Storm. Go ahead.”

  “Concentrate on the submarine. Where’s the Piranha?”

  “The aircraft carrying it will be taking off in about an hour.”

  “Hurry it up. Get it over there ASAP.”

  “Roger that.” Dog switched over to the interphone. “T-Bone, continue to track that aircraft Werewolf was after. Update me every few minutes.”

  Aboard the Abner Read,

  off the coast of Somalia

  2018

  STARSHIP COULD SEE THE INDIAN DESTROYER LISTING HEAVILY to its starboard side as he approached. The torpedo had exploded close to the hull, but either by deft maneuvering or good luck, the Indian warship had sustained only a glancing blow. That was still enough to do heavy damage, however, and the crew was working feverishly to block off sections of the ship that were being flooded.

  The Werewolf’s searchlights made small circles on the foaming waves near the crippled ship. A small boat had disembarked from the destroyer and was approaching the area. Starship dropped the robot aircraft into a hover, concentrating on illuminating the area near the boat.

  The Indian ship radioed to ask that he move toward the bow of the destroyer. It took a few seconds for Starship to understand what the radioman was saying through his accent.

  “Roger that. Moving toward bow.”

  Large bits of debris floated near the ship. The Werewolf’s search lamps caught a twisted pipe sticking out from the side of the ship, an obscene gesture directed back at whoever had attacked it.

  Something bobbed at the far right of his screen, just outside the area he was illuminating. He nudged the stick, moving the robot helo toward it and zooming his optical video feed to full magnification.

  A head bobbed in his screen.

  “Calcutta, I have something,” he told the destroyer. “Have the boat follow my beam.”

  He waited anxiously, lights trained on the seaman. The boat reacted in slow motion. Starship lost sight of the man for a second and started shouting. “Get over there, damn it! Get over there! Get him before he dro
wns! Come on! Come on!”

  As the prow of the rescue boat came into view, the head bobbed back up. Starship saw someone in the boat reaching with a pole, but the man in the water didn’t take it. The boat got closer; one of the sailors leaned out toward the stricken man. Starship kept the Werewolf steady, trying to stay close enough to give them plenty of light but not wipe them out with the wash of the rotors.

  The man in the boat grabbed the stricken sailor by the back of the shoulders. He hauled him into the boat.

  Starship’s eyes were glued to the screen. He saw the head coming out of the water, and then the arms and the top of the man’s back—and nothing else.

  The man had been severed in two by the explosion.

  Bile ran up Starship’s throat. He threw his hand over his mouth but it was too late; some of the acid spurted out over his shirt. Eyes tearing, he tried choking it back down, struggling with his other hand to control the Werewolf.

  STORM PACED THE BRIDGE, ANXIOUS TO GET HIS SHIP SOUTH. The Abner Read was built for stealth, not speed; still, she could touch forty knots, a good speed for a small craft.

  Right now she was doing 38 knots. Even if they held that speed, it would take roughly five hours to reach the destroyer.

  “I’m going out for some air,” he told the others. Then he walked out onto the flying bridge at the side.

  No more than a platform that could be folded into the superstructure, the design of the flying bridge had been carefully calculated to have minimal impact on the Abner Read’s radar signature. Not only was it the highest point on the low-slung ship, but it was one of the few dry and flat surfaces outside. The main deck sloped down and was often lapped with waves.

  The salty breeze bit Storm’s cheeks. The wind was coming up and he felt a chill. But it was a good chill, the sort of wind that reminded him why he’d wanted to join the Navy in the first place.

  The aircraft the Werewolf had seen near the oil tanker bothered him. It seemed similar to the ones they’d spotted the night Port Somalia was struck. If it had been a little bigger, he supposed, it might have launched the torpedo itself.

  Maybe it was working with the submarine that made the actual attack. Or maybe the tanker.

  There’d been a tanker nearby when he lost the other submarine as well. This was a different ship, but the parallels had to be more than a coincidence.