Satan's Tail Read online

  Prelude:

  Lost Comrades

  Dreamland

  2 November 1997

  0610 (all times local)

  THE SHOCK OF LIGHT FROM THE RISING SUN STOPPED JEN-nifer Gleason as she rounded the mountain. She raised her arm to ward off the glare, standing at the edge of the trail as her companion, Lt. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian, continued to the pile of rocks. Dreamland—the United States Air Force High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center—stretched out before them on the floor of an ancient lake, its desert surface glowing as the pink fingers of the sun brushed back the shadows of the night. It was an awe-inspiring moment, the sort of thing that made you appreciate the enormity of creation and man’s small place in God’s scheme.

  Jennifer shuddered, humbled by the view.

  The past few months had been a struggle for her, personally and professionally; they had shaken everyone at Dreamland. But standing here as the new day dawned, the scientist felt her hope and faith in the future renewed. She had come through a difficult storm, and if she was not the same person she had been before her troubles began, she was wiser and stronger in many ways.

  She glanced upward, watching Dog scramble the last twenty feet to the monument they’d come to visit. It was a simple, polished stone, etched with the names of those who had died while serving at Dreamland. All were friends of hers.

  Dog reached into his pocket for a small stone he’d taken from in front of his hut before they started their hike—a token, he said, of remembrance, not a fancy or formal thing, just a sign to the dead that he remembered their sacrifice.

  Important to him, which was what mattered.

  Not a fancy or formal thing: That was Dog.

  Jennifer watched as he placed the small stone in the pile at the base of the monument. His eyes had welled up, and she saw something she thought no one else in the world was privileged to see: a single tear slipping down his cheek.

  Jennifer turned back to look at the base in case he glanced around and caught her staring. After a while he came over and put his arm around her waist.

  “Beautiful view,” he said softly.

  Jennifer went to the monument and paid her own respects, tracing each name with her finger. As they started down, they talked about breakfast and how hungry they were, but soon fell silent again. The long spells of quiet walking, both of them scrambling in the same direction, apart and yet together, were her favorite part of the trips they took.

  When they rounded a curve about two-thirds of the way down, a pair of robot helicopter gunships undergoing tests at one of the test ranges a mile away roared into view. The small aircraft had stubby wings and counterrotating rotors; at rest, they looked like miniaturized Russian-made Kamov Ka-50 Hokums, with wing-mounted small jet engines and a stabilizer a good distance forward of the rear tail. In flight, however, they looked like spiders with bird-shaped beaks, flitting over the desert. Because of their similarity to the Russian gunship, the aircraft had been dubbed Werewolves, the English translation of Hokum.

  Dog pulled up behind her, scanning the horizon before realizing what she was watching. The aircraft began unleashing a coordinated attack on an enemy “tank”—a plywood box in a dugout ravine. Rockets spit from the pods under their forward wings—”arms,” as the designers called them.

  The tank disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  “Good shots,” muttered Dog.

  “Decent,” said Jennifer, whose team had helped develop the attack programs. “I could have done better.”

  “You’re telling me you can beat the computer?”

  “As if that were an accomplishment,” she said. “I wrote most of the program.”

  “Ray Rubeo says no human can beat it.”

  “That’s just Ray. I kind of like flying the Werewolf, to be honest,” she said. “Maybe I should quit being a scientist and become a pilot full-time.”

  He folded his arms and smirked. “Take real flying lessons first. Then we’ll talk about it.”

  “I may. Then that smirk will be on the other side of your face.”

  His smile grew wider. He leaned forward and kissed her, then started walking again.

  “Good aircraft,” he said. “Would’ve been useful in Brunei.”

  Jennifer turned and followed him down the trail. She could tell he was brooding on the men he had lost, in Brunei and elsewhere.

  “You want to strangle the people who killed them, don’t you?” said Jennifer when they paused for a rest.

  “Wouldn’t we all?”

  “Seriously, don’t you want to?”

  “Of course,” said Dog. He swung his upper body left, then right, loosening up his back and shoulder muscles. “But I can’t. I don’t have the luxury of revenge.”

  “It’s a luxury?”

  “Maybe that’s not the right word,” he said.

  “Would you if you could? Take revenge?”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I could,” he said. He stared in the distance, gazing at the Werewolves; but probably not seeing them, she thought. “I’ve taken revenge at times,” he added. “I’ve pulled the trigger on people. As a pilot. You go after someone who shot at your friend, your wingmate.

  That’s revenge.”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s not enough, that’s the problem,” said Dog. “I could strangle each of the terrorists who fired the mortar that killed Kick, and it wouldn’t be enough. You can’t get enough. That’s the problem, Jen. You can strangle them and pummel them and blast them to bits. It’s not enough. That’s the thing that gets you in the end. It’s just not even—it’s still lopsided.”

  He started walking again. Jennifer watched him, wanting to know more but sensing she couldn’t, or at least that she wasn’t going to learn anything more by asking questions.

  When they came to the ledge above the road where they’d parked, she waited as he climbed down ahead of her, watching as he found the foot- and handholds. He stared at the rocks intently, but his hands seemed to move independently, the fingers nudging into the proper spots by touch.

  “I love you,” she whispered, before descending on her own.

  I

  Gimp Boy

  Dreamland

  3 November 1997

  0801

  “HEY, GIMP BOY!”

  Major Mack Smith stared straight ahead at Dreamland’s administrative building, known as the “Taj Mahal,” ignoring the razzing. He’d expected this sort of greeting, and after considerable thought decided there was only one thing to do: ignore it. Still, it wasn’t easy.

  Worse, though, was the indignity of being wheeled into the Taj by an airman who’d been detailed euphemistically as his bodyguard.

  “Can’t even push yourself up the ramp, huh? A wimp as well as a gimp.”

  The concrete ramp to the entrance of the low-slung Taj had been poured in several sections, and there was about a three-quarter-inch rise between the first and second. It wasn’t the sort of thing someone walking would notice, but for someone in a wheelchair—especially if, like Mack, they weren’t used to it—three-quarters of an inch rattled the teeth. He grimaced as the wheels cleared the curb.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the airman, so flustered he stopped dead on the ramp.

  Mack curled his fingers around the armrests of the chair, pressing out his anger. “Not a problem.”

  “Sorry,” said the poor kid, pushing again.

  Mack’s tormentor, sitting by the door to the building, laughed. “Bumpy ride, gimp boy?” he said as Mack neared.

  “Good morning, Zen,” said Mack.

  “How’s it feel?”

  “It feels good to be back at Dreamland,” said Mack.

  “How’s the wheelchair feel?” said Zen.


  The automatic doors flew open, but Mack’s airman, thinking that Mack wanted to talk to Major Jeff “Zen” Stockard, remained stationary. Mack glanced back at the airman. Pim-ples and all, the kid was looking at him with pity.

  He felt sorry for him.

  Sorry for Major Mack “the Knife” Smith, holder of not one, but two stinking Air Force crosses. Mack Smith, who had shot down more stinking MiGs than any man since the Vietnam War. Mack Smith, who had run a small country’s air force and saved Las Vegas from nuclear catastrophe.

  Mack stinking Smith, now in a wheelchair because of some maniac crazy terrorist in Brunei.

  A wheelchair that the doctors agreed he’d be getting out of any day now …

  The kid felt sorry for him.

  Sorry!

  Well the hell with that.

  “I can take it from here, airman. Thank you for your time,” said Mack. He put his hands on the wheels of his chair and pushed himself forward.

  Just as he did, the doors started to close. For a moment Mack thought he was going to crash into them, which would perhaps have been the ultimate embarrassment. Fortunately, they slid back and he made it inside without a crash.

  “Don’t tire yourself out,” called Zen after him. “I want to race you later.”

  “THAT WAS A BIT OVER THE TOP.”

  Zen whirled his head around, surprised by his wife’s voice. Breanna had come out from the building while he was watching Mack make his maiden progression in a wheelchair.

  Zen shifted his wheelchair around to face her. “Somebody’s got to put him in his place.”

  “You’re being way too cruel, Zen.”

  “Turnaround is fair play.”

  “He never tormented you like that.”

  “No, he just made me a cripple.”

  Zen, controlling two robot aircraft as well as his own, had been engaged in a mock dogfight with Mack nearly two years before, when one of the robots clipped his wing at very low altitude. The ensuing crash had cost Zen the use of his legs. Technically, Mack had not caused the crash—but in every other way, he had, egging him on, doing much the same thing that Zen had just done to him, and cheating on the accepted rules for the engagement.

  “I never thought there would be a day when Mack Smith outclassed Zen Stockard,” said Bree.

  “You going for breakfast?” Zen asked, changing the subject.

  Breanna frowned at him, but then said, “I have an hour to kill before prepping for my test flight. I thought I’d get some breakfast over at the Red Room. I haven’t had a good omelet since Brunei.”

  “I’ll walk with you. No, wait.” He put his hands on the wheels and pulled back for a launch. “I’ll race you.”

  Aboard DD(L) 01 Abner Read,

  off the Horn of Africa

  3 November 1997

  1902

  CAPTAIN HAROLD “STORM” GALE PUT THE BINOCULARS DOWN and folded his arms across his chest. The sea ahead of Abner Read was mottled and gray; the sun had just set, and an un-usually thick storm front sent a light mist across his bow, obscuring not just his sailor’s vision, but the long-range infrared sensors that were looking for telltale signs of ships in the distance.

  Perfect conditions for pirates. And perfect conditions for hunting them.

  “Two boats,” said the Abner Read‘s captain, Commander Robert Marcum. He was looking over the shoulder of the petty officer manning the integrated imaging system on the bridge to Storm’s left. The screen synthesized data from several different sensors, presenting them in an easy-to-read format. “Just closing to five thousand meters.”

  “Adjust our course,” said Storm. He walked from the window at the front of the bridge to the holographic display, where data from the Tactical Warfare Center—his ship’s version of a combat information center—was projected, showing the Abner Read‘s position and that of the oil tanker they had been shadowing. The holographic display presented a real-time view of the ocean created from ship’s sensors, complete with a computerized version of the surrounding geographic features and a rundown of threats within sensor range. The display could show everything from standard chart data to the range and likelihood of one of the Abner Read‘s Harpoon missiles hitting a target; it was one of three aboard the ship, allowing the group commander to choose whether to be in the Tactical Warfare Center or on the bridge during the engagement. (It also allowed the Navy to designate a ship’s captain as overall group commander, a plan contemplated for the future.) Storm spent most of his time in Tac, which would have been the “traditional” place for a group warfare commander to station himself; tonight, the lure of the hunt had drawn him here so he might actually see his prey.

  Storm studied the three-dimensional image, gauging his location and that of the other ships. The contacts were identified by the sensors as fast patrol boats—small, light ships equipped with a deck gun, grenade launchers, and possibly torpedoes. They were the modern-day equivalent of the PT boats that America had used to help turn the tide in Guadal-canal and other fierce, shallow-water conflicts in the Pacific during World War II.

  The question was: Whose boats were they? One of Oman’s or Egypt’s accompanying local merchants, in which case they were friendly? One of four known to be operated by Somalian fanatics turned pirates, in which case they were hostile? Or one of the half dozen belonging to Yemen, in which case they were somewhere in the middle?

  The three other vessels in Littoral Surface Action Group XP One were several nautical miles to the south, too far away to help if these turned out to be the pirates he was hunting. This was the Abner Read‘s fight to win or lose.

  Storm reached to his belt and keyed his mike to talk to Lt.

  Commander Jack “Eyes” Eisenberg, who was in the Tactical Warfare Center one deck below the bridge. His wireless headset and its controller were linked to a shipboard fiber-optics network that could instantly connect him not only with all the sailors on the Abner Read, but the commanders of the vessels in the rest of his task group. With the touch of a button, he could click into one of several preset conferenced channels, allowing all of his war fighters to speak to each other and with him in battle.

  “Eyes, what do we have?”

  “Two boats. Roughly the size of Super Dvoras. They should be our pirates.”

  “If they are, there’ll be at least two more.”

  “We’re looking. Should we go to active radar?”

  “No, let’s hold off. No sense telling them we’re here.” Past experience told them that the small boats could detect radar; more than likely they would run away, as they had several times before.

  The contacts had been found by a towed array equipped with a passive sonar system to listen to the sea around it. Designed for use in the comparatively shallow waters, the system compiled data on surface as well as submarine vessels.

  Like devices such as the AN/SQR-18A (V) Sonar Tactical Towed Array System—used on the Knox-class frigates from the late 1970s on—the Littoral Towed Array System, or LITAS, was built around a series of hydrophones that listened for different sounds in the water. These were then interpreted and translated into ship contacts.

  In theory, LITAS could hear anything within a twelve-mile radius of the ship, even in littoral waters where sounds were plentiful and easily altered by the shallow floor of the ocean. But like much else aboard the Abner Read and its companion vessels, the new technology still needed some adjustments; five miles had proven the average effective range thus far on the voyage, and the presence of a very loud vessel such as the oil tanker tended to mask noises very close to it. The approaching storm would also limit the range.

  The four-ship war group Storm headed was as much about testing new technology as she was about catching the pirates. And the Abner Read was the centerpiece of both the task group and the tests. Named for a World War II destroyer that fought bravely in the Pacific until being sunk by kamikazes, the new ship had all the spirit of her predecessor but looked nothing like her. In fact, though sh
e was called a destroyer, she bore little resemblance to other destroyers in the U.S. Navy—or any other navy.

  It had often been said that the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers represented the culmination of nearly one hundred years of warship design. Truly, the Arleigh Burkes were the head of the class, in many ways as powerful as World War II battleships and as self-sufficient. The Abner Read showed what the next one hundred years would bring. Indeed, there were many who hadn’t wanted to call her a destroyer at all; proposals had ranged from “littoral warfare ship” to “coastal cruiser.” The Navy might be ready for a radical new weapon, but a new name seemed too much of a break with tradition, and so she was designated a “destroyer, littoral”—or DD(L)—the first and so far only member of her class.

  At 110 meters, she was a good deal shorter than the Arleigh Burke class, closer in size to a frigate or even a corvette. Where the Arleigh Burkes had a bulky silhouette dominated by a massive radar bulkhead, a large mast, and thick stacks, the Abner Read looked like a pyramid on a jackknife. A pair of angled pillboxes sat on the forward section of the deck, which was so low to the water, the gun housings were generally wet. Her stern looked like a flat deck; the section over what would have held the rudder on another ship was open to the ocean, as if the sea wanted to keep a finger on her back. The ship didn’t have one rudder—it had several, located in strategic spots along the tumble-form hull. The rudder and hull design made the Abner Read extremely maneuverable at low and high speed. And while the exotically shaped underside and wet deck took a bit of getting used to, the Abner Read had remarkably good sea-keeping abilities for a small ship. It didn’t so much float across the waves as blow right through them. Stormy ocean crossings were almost comfortable, certainly more so than in a conventional ship of the same size, even though the vessel had been designed primarily for shallow coastal waters.

  The screws that propelled the ship were located almost amidships, recessed in a faceted structure that helped reduce their sound. They were powered by gas turbines whose exhausts were cooled before being released through the baffled and radar-protected funnel. The engines could propel the Abner Read to about forty knots in calm water. More important, she could sustain that speed for forty-eight hours without noticeable strain.