Satan's Tail Read online

  Smoke curled from the superstructure of the merchant ship. The fools! They’d gained nothing by calling for help.

  Ali saw the first member of his team clamber over the deck, then the second and third. The other boats drew close; more men followed. There were shouts, gunfire. A swell pitched his small craft toward the merchant vessel. At the last second God intervened, pushing the boats apart.

  A ladder, two ladders, were dropped off the side. His men were now firmly in control of the deck.

  “We monitored a message from some of our brothers in Yemen, Captain,” said Bari, coming up from the radio area.

  “I thought it best to bring it to your attention.”

  “What?”

  “Two large American aircraft landed in southern Saudi Arabia this afternoon,” said the mate, his black face blending into the growing darkness of the evening. “Perhaps they were the Orions you spoke of. The alert is being spread through Yemen and across the gulf to our other friends.” A green flare shot from the deck of the merchant ship. His men had taken it over.

  “Thank you, Bari,” he told his mate. “Keep me informed.

  In the meantime, take command here while I go aboard our new vessel.”

  “As you wish, Captain.”

  Dreamland

  0808

  MACK SLID INTO THE WATER AND BEGAN PADDLING SLOWLY. A lifeguard watched from the other end, but otherwise he was alone, and would be for the rest of the session. The rehab specialists were off-duty today, and more important, Zen was halfway across the world and couldn’t barge in to harass him.

  He knew that should have made him relax, but Mack felt even more stressed and tired as he pushed toward the other side. How the hell did Stockard do this every day, anyway?

  The guy had been in decent shape before his accident, but he was no athlete, not by a mile.

  Mack, on the other hand, had gotten letters in high school football and baseball. He had worked out semiregularly, not so much in the past few months maybe, but still, he could be considered in at least reasonably good shape. Yet here he was, struggling to reach the far side of the pool.

  He tried pushing his legs—this was supposed to be about his legs, not his arms. But they wouldn’t respond. They were never going to respond, he thought, despite what the doctors said.

  He’d known that the moment he opened his eyes in the hotel in Brunei. Breanna was there, looking over him. He’d seen that look in her face, and he knew. If anyone was an expert on whether people would walk or not, it was Breanna.

  He had to give Zen one thing—he’d sure as hell picked the right wife.

  Mack had met a pretty decent woman in Brunei, as a matter of fact: Cat McKenna, a contract pilot who was now the de facto head of the air force there.

  McKenna was more than decent, actually—she was probably the most competent woman pilot and officer he’d ever met. She was also, without doubt, one of the ugliest-looking women he’d ever met. Reasonable enough body, but her nose alone would have stopped a truck. And her chin …

  But he missed her.

  God, thought Mack as he finally reached the edge of the pool, the stinking paralysis is affecting my brain.

  Aboard the Wisconsin,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  6 November 1997

  1908

  ZEN TOOK OVER FROM THE COMPUTER AS THE FLIGHTHAWK U/MF-3 dropped off the aircraft’s wing, ramping up the engine and banking toward the waves below. The aircraft’s vital signs flashed in the lower left-hand quadrant of his screen: airspeed pushing through four hundred knots, altitude going down through twenty thousand feet. He had a full tank of gas and all systems were in the green.

  “Successful launch, Wisconsin,” he told Dog, who was piloting the Flighthawk’s mother plane.

  “Roger that, Flighthawk leader. We’re proceeding on course as planned. The only thing we have on the water in the immediate vicinity is that barge we told you about earlier.”

  “Copy. Should have a visual in thirty seconds.” Zen checked his position on the sitrep screen. This was essentially a God’s eye view of the world, with the Flighthawk marked out as a green arrow at the center of the screen.

  Using data from the Wisconsin‘s powerful radar, the computer could detect ships as well as aircraft. The barge that Dog had mentioned appeared as a black rectangle marked SV1—surface vessel contact 1—in the right-hand corner of the screen. Zen could get information about it by asking the computer. If SV1 were a warship, the computer would have checked it against an identification library and provided details on its armament. An operator on the flightdeck—one handled surface contacts, one air contacts—had a database of commercial shipping in the area that identified most, though not all, of the major traffic through the Gulf of Aden.

  “Full visual on the barge,” said Zen. The computer focused the camera in the Flighthawk’s nose on the craft. “You getting that, Dish?” Zen added, speaking to the operator handling the surface radar.

  “Roger that, Flighthawk leader,” Sergeant Peter “Dish” Mallack replied. “We copy. Looks like an oil equipment barge. Definitely benign.”

  Zen started a turn, taking the Flighthawk around the rear of the craft. The computer kept the camera trained on it, providing a detailed view to the crewman upstairs. Dish used a “de-dappler” program to analyze the image, stripping away and manipulating possible camouflage to make educated guesses about what was aboard the craft. It wasn’t foolproof, and relied on close-up video to work well, but it beat staring at shadows with a magnifying glass for hours.

  “Confirmed. That is definitely an equipment barge,” said Dish. “Can we get an infrared image? I’ll just double-check the number of people.”

  “On this run,” said Zen. He brought the Flighthawk down below three thousand feet and eased off on the slider at the back of his joystick controller. The slider was actually the throttle; the Flighthawk controls had been designed to allow the aircraft to be flown with only one hand. The idea had been that the pilot would control a second Flighthawk with his other hand. In real life, however, switching hands had proven cumbersome and confusing in combat. Typically, the pilot would control one Flighthawk at a time, while letting the computer take the other. Zen routinely flew two but had handled four in exercises.

  “Five people aboard,” said Dish as Zen climbed away from the barge. “Looking good, Major.”

  “Let’s see how we do a little closer to shore,” he said, continuing on their survey.

  Near Boosaaso, Somalia,

  on the Gulf of Aden

  6 November 1997

  2008

  THE CANNON HAD DESTROYED A GOOD PORTION OF THE bridge, but the ship itself was in decent shape. Ali had no trouble from the surviving crew; they were all good Muslims, willing to follow his commands—at least while his men were aboard.

  Ali’s men quickly fell into their routine, bringing over the material for the bombs while removing everything they could find that would be of use.

  The captain had had the good sense to die when the first shells raked the superstructure of his ship. This made it unnecessary for Ali to execute him. But as it was necessary to demonstrate that his orders were to be followed without question, when the ship had been secured and most of what they wanted moved off it, Ali had the merchant vessel’s crew brought before him on the deck. He asked for the radioman, who after some hesitation stepped forward.

  “Why did you make the distress call?” Ali asked.

  “My captain directed me to.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “I believe in God, yes.”

  “Make your peace with him.”

  The man flinched, but bowed his head and began to pray.

  Ali, who was not without compassion, waited until he finished before executing him, firing a single bullet into the center of his skull.

  He had just signaled to his men to throw the man overboard when one of the lookouts ran to him.

  “A ship in the distance,” sai
d the man, out of breath. “It may be Satan’s Tail.”

  Aboard Baker-Baker Two,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  6 November 1997

  2112

  “TEN SECONDS TO TARGET POINT,” SAID SPIDERMAN.

  “Roger that,” said Breanna. “Bay.”

  “Bay,” said the copilot. The large doors at the rear of the fuselage swung open. A green light flashed in the heads-up display in front of Breanna; the sentinel buoy was ready to go.

  She leaned on her stick, nudging the big aircraft onto her mark. Breanna had the option of letting the computer fly the Megafortress to the release point, but what was the point of that?

  “Deploy,” she told the copilot as they hit their mark.

  “Sentinel buoy is away,” said Spiderman as the bomb bay dispenser ejected the large cylinder.

  Breanna snapped the Wisconsin upward and began a hard bank to the southeast, getting into position to launch Phoenix.

  “You’re up, Commander,” she told Delaford.

  “Piranha team is ready,” he said over the interphone.

  “Thirty seconds to Piranha release point,” said Spiderman.

  “Radar contact!” said Jackson Christian, who was operating Baker-Baker‘s AWACS-style radar, monitoring other aircraft. “Bogie at 322, one hundred miles. Identified now as a Chendu F-7M Fishbed, export Chinese fighter aircraft.

  Might be Sudanese.”

  “Pretty far from home if it is,” said Breanna.

  “Can’t match it up otherwise,” said the sergeant. “Radar is definitely that type, which rules out one of the Ethiopian MiGs.”

  “If it is from Sudan, he’s at the edge of his combat radius, if not beyond it,” said Breanna. “Keep tabs on him. Alert Colonel Bastian. Tell him we’re proceeding with launch.

  Commander Delaford?”

  “Ready.”

  “Spiderman?”

  “Counting down. We are at eleven seconds, ten …” The Megafortress hit a turbulent layer of air as it came down closer to the water. The big aircraft shuddered, then responded sluggishly to the control inputs, her right wing fighting against Breanna’s stick. She leaned in the seat, as if her body might somehow transfer a bit of spin to the controls and the probe as they ejected it. This may actually have worked, for despite the buffeting, the computer recorded a bull’s-eye as Piranha hit the water. The probe shot beneath the waves, preprogrammed to dive to fifty feet. Breanna leveled off and Spiderman initiated their third countdown—the launch of a guidance buoy to control the Piranha.

  DOWNSTAIRS ON THE FLIGHTHAWK CONTROL DECK, STARSHIP watched Commander Delaford completing the diagnostic series on the sentry buoy. The first buoy they had dropped was basically an automated listening post, transmitting the same data sets as the Piranha probe. It sank itself twelve feet below the surface, using a thin filament antenna to send its data. Shaped more like a tangled ball of yarn, the antenna sent its signals through the Dreamland dedicated satellite system at regular intervals; it could also be tapped directly by the Megafortresses. The signal could be detected, which was one of its few disadvantages, but none of the countries in the region were believed to have equipment sophisticated enough to do so.

  “We’re two miles south of Barim Island,” said Delaford.

  “Looking good.”

  “Guidance buoy is in the water,” reported Spiderman over the Megafortress’s interphone, or intercom system. The buoy was used to control Piranha from the Megafortress; it had to be roughly fifty miles from the probe and no more than fifty from the aircraft.

  “Roger that, thank you,” said Delaford.

  Starship shifted around in his seat, trying to get comfortable. For the time being, his job was to back Delaford up, continuing to learn how to operate Piranha. They’d run the simulations on the flight over, and except for the fact that the Megafortress was moving, he couldn’t have told the difference.

  “Initiating equipment calibration,” said Delaford. “Bree, we’re going to need you to stay close to the buoy until we’re ready.”

  “Roger that,” said the Megafortress pilot. “Be advised we now have two aircraft ID’d as Sudanese F-7Ms that are on an intercept. They’ll be in our face in about two minutes.”

  “I need five,” said Delaford.

  “Acknowledged,” said Breanna. “You’ll have them.”

  Aboard the Abner Read,

  Gulf of Aden

  6 November 1997

  2115

  “LOOKS DEAD IN THE WATER, CAP,” SAID COMMANDER Marcum, handing back the starlight binoculars. “No sign of the pirates around anywhere.”

  Storm took the glasses but didn’t answer. The Abner Read had a pair of small decks that could be folded out of the superstructure on either side of the bridge—almost literally flying bridges, which were generally kept inside to prevent disturbing the radar profile. They were small and narrow, and weren’t high enough to afford much of a view—one of the drawbacks of the ship’s stealthy design.

  “There’s only one way to find out what’s going on over there. We have to board her,” said Marcum.

  Storm scanned the vessel one more time from bow to stern. The ship had clearly been fired on; there were cannon holes in the superstructure and the bridge appeared to have been gutted.

  “I volunteer to lead the boarding party,” said Marcum.

  “Only way we’re going to find out, Storm. The only way.”

  “There’s no question we have to board the ship. But you can’t go.”

  “I’d like to. You would if you were me.”

  “No I wouldn’t,” said Storm. He shrugged, because it was an obvious lie. “Send Gordie to lead the team.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Marcum.

  Aboard Baker-Baker Two,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  2116

  “SUDANESE F-7MS ON A DIRECT INTERCEPT, AT OUR altitude,” said Spiderman. “Twenty miles and closing. What do you think, Captain?”

  “I think they’re going to run out of fuel halfway home,” said Bree. “Obviously someone told them we were here. The other Megafortress is well south.”

  The EB-52 design was not as stealthy as the F-117 or B-2, but it nonetheless presented a small radar profile to conventional radars such as those used by the F-7M.

  Opening the bomb bay doors increased it exponentially, but still, the F-7Ms had help from somewhere.

  “About sixty seconds to intercept,” Spiderman said.

  “Should I hail them?”

  “No. They want to play chicken. Be ready with the ECMs and Stinger just in case.”

  She altered her course slightly and rearranged her orbit so the Megafortress’s tail was in their face as they approached.

  This wasn’t meant just as an insult: She wanted the Stinger defensive weapon ready in case the other pilots did something stupid.

  “Going over our wings,” said Spiderman. His voice had gone up two octaves. “Ten seconds.”

  “Boys will be boys,” said Breanna. She flicked on the interphone, talking to the rest of the crew. “Preparing evasive maneuvers. Check your restraints, and please keep your hands in the car at all times.”

  “Twenty feet over us, both of them.”

  “Assholes,” said Bree, pushing her stick to increase the separation.

  Aboard the Wisconsin,

  over the Gulf of Aden

  2119

  “WE’RE OVER YOU, BAKER-BAKER,” SAID DOG. “HAWK ONE has the MiGs in sight. No weapons radar at this point.”

  “Affirmative. I think they just want to play tag.”

  “Any hostile acts?” he asked.

  “Negative, unless you want to call aggressive stupidity hostile.”

  “Depends on the circumstances,” said Dog.

  “Question in my mind is who told them we’re out here,” said Breanna. “They had to be vectored toward us from a good distance away. They’re breaking off.” They were—and headed toward the Wisconsin.

  “I’m o
n them, Colonel,” said Zen, flying the Flighthawk.

  “Looks like they want to check us out. No missiles.” The Sudanese aircraft were roughly ten miles away from the Wisconsin, which was now a few miles north of Baker-Baker. Zen flew the Flighthawk between a mile and two miles behind them; it was probable that they couldn’t even see him.

  “Coming at you,” said Zen.

  “Let them come,” said Dog. “Just keep an eye on them.” The air surveillance radar on Dog’s plane showed the Sudanese aircraft nearly merging as they approached. Close encounters at high speed were always reckless, but in this case the Sudanese pilots were being particularly foolish. Not only was it dark, but they had no way of knowing what the Megafortress was or would do. It was a large aircraft, one they’d surely never encountered before. That demanded caution, not hotdogging—and these bozos looked like they were going to knock each other out of the sky the way they were going.

  He spun the Megafortress through its orbit as the planes passed. They rounded south and headed back toward land.

  “All right, looks like they’re heading home,” said Breanna. “I have a mind to go and spank them.”

  “Are you sure they’re from Sudan?” asked Dog.

  “We’ll keep tabs on them and see. As I was saying, I still wonder who told them we were out here. I wonder if somebody at Khamis Mushait tipped them off.”

  “Very possibly.” Dog checked his position. “Baker-Baker, I’d like to resume our patrol south closer to Somalia, get some idea of the area.”

  “Go for it. We can take it from here.”

  “Roger that.”

  He tacked south and then eastward, riding over the gulf toward the coast. When they were about thirty miles from land, he banked gently and began running parallel to Somalia, gradually fine-tuning his position until he was about fifteen miles from the craggy shore. The African continent lay roughly thirty thousand feet below, part of the dull blackness out the copilot’s side window. Zen’s Flighthawk slipped along below them at 2,500 feet, providing a close-up view of the shoreline and nearby ship traffic. The night seemed quiet, with a few empty tankers heading toward the Persian Gulf and a cluster of fishing boats tied up near a settlement on the shore.