Piranha

Then he realized the fleet would sink before that happened.

“Piranha and your robot planes obviously did well,” said Woods, the edge back in his voice. “You must be feeling pretty good.”

“Actually, the only thing I feel at the moment is tired,” said Dog, killing the transmission.

He looked up. The copilot was just emerging from the cockpit. “Colonel, you have another call pending. Dr. Rubeo.”

All of his favorite people were tormenting him today, thought Dog. All he needed next was a call from his ex-wife.

“Doc, talk to me,” said Dog, clicking into the circuit.

“The disc that was recovered from the downed Megafortress contains an unidentified contact at long range that appears to be a U/MF,” said the scientist.

“What?” said Dog. “Is it the search team?”

“Hardly,” said Rubeo. “This occurred just prior to the shoot-down. We had no assets in the vicinity. The contact was a small, extremely robust aircraft, nothing on the order of the first- or second-generation UAVs available to the Chinese, or Russians for that matter. Nor was it large enough to be a MiG-29, which is another theory you’ll hear. I’m quite sure, Colonel. I have one of the radar specialists and a member of the U/MF development team here to talk you through the data, I wanted to make sure you knew about this as soon as possible.”

“Go ahead and plug them into the circuit,” said Dog grimly.

[b]Je

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” she said, hugging him tightly. She’d been waiting here for nearly six hours. Zen and Je

“I was worried about you,” Dog told Je

“Me?” She took a step down to the Tarmac. “Why?”

“Because I was worried,” said Dog.

“Oh, please. Why would you worry?”

Seeing he was going to explain, Je

“People are watching,” he said when they parted.

“You think we can do better?”

Without waiting for an answer, Je

“Third time’s a charm,” she said, kissing him again. It did do the trick; she felt him finally relax.

“What’s the word on Brea

“She’s getting better,” said Je

“I’m going to go over there right now,” said Dog.

“I thought you would. I have a car waiting for you in front of the hangar.”

“You coming?”

“I’m supposed to have a phone conference with the people on the Piranha team in about fifteen minutes,” said Je

Dog nodded.

“It’s possible that the radar image is an echo of the Megafortress’s own Flighthawks,” she told him. “If the gear was malfunctioning because of the fire, it’s possible. We’ll have to carefully analyze the tape.”

“Dr. Rubeo doesn’t think that’s likely,” said Dog.

Je

“Where’s Zen?” Dog asked.

“I think he’s at the hospital. I haven’t seen him since we landed in Honolulu.”

Dog gave her one of his uh-grunts, the sort he used when he was processing several things at once. “We’ll hook up later,” he said.

“At the hotel,” she said. “We’ll have room service di

“Sounds good.” He turned and kissed her again. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Hold that though,” she said, barely managing to twist herself away.

An hour later, Colonel Bastian waited at the visitor’s desk of Bright Memorial Hospital Honolulu as a volunteer fumbled through a stack of old-fashioned visitor cards, looking for Brea

Dog glanced down the hallway. His uniform would probably get him up to her room without a problem—except he wasn’t sure where exactly it was. Not only was the private hospital immense, it had been cobbled together under several different administrations. Each wing seemed to be a maze unto itself. He didn’t need a pass; he needed directions.

That or a GPS device.