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13 October 1997, 0428
Zen waited as the computer that helped him fly the U/MF-3 Flighthawk counted down the time to launch from its mothership, the EB-52 Pe
The Megafortress tilted its nose downward, begi
“Hawk One is away,” he told Dog, who was piloting the mothership.
“Pe
“Platform at ten miles. Approaching as pla
Zen put his finger against the throttle slide, notching down his power as he approached the platform. The structure had a pair of exposed decks about twenty feet from the waves. The decks ran around three sides. At the rear of the platform sat what amounted to a prefab ranch house at the top. The platform was smaller than those Zen had seen in the Gulf of Mexico, and a bit less elaborate—there was only one satellite dish, for instance, and no helipad. The flat roof of the trailer was just big enough for the Quick Bird helicopters the Whiplash team was riding in.
There were no ships or boats nearby. Zen took the Flighthawk through an orbit about seven thousand feet over the platform, descending gradually to allow the infrared camera in the Flighthawk to get a good look.
“Clean so far,” Zen told Dog.
“We copy,” said Dog, who was looking at the feed on his own display.
Two more passes and he saw nothing.
“I’m going to clear Da
“Roger that,” said Zen, starting to climb away from the ocean.
Brunei, near the Malaysian border
0430
The helicopter brought enough fuel for only one Dragonfly. McKe
The sultan gave her a tired but nonetheless enthusiastic smile as she headed for her plane. “I owe you a great deal, Miss McKe
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.
“She’s a rough one, but a tough one,” the sultan commented in Malaysian to one of his aides, apparently forgetting she spoke it. “We need more of that.”
McKe
One thing about operating on a shoestring out of a jungle camp—there wasn’t a lot of hassle with the control tower. McKe
McKe
“Good to go:’ she told the helicopter pilot. “Let’s do it quick.”
“Brunei One,” acknowledged a familiar voice. The sultan, an experienced pilot, had taken the controls himself.
Brunei International Airport
0430
Mack felt the cold hand grab his throat. He jerked nearly straight up and practically fell off the cot.
“I apologize if I startled you,” said the man who had interrogated him last night, Commander Sahurah Niu. “I trust you have rested.”
“Oh, yeah. Hell of a sleep. Thanks for the cot.”
“Put on your shoes and come with me,” said Sahurah.
“Come where?”
“I wish you to show me the aircraft.”
Mack frowned as if he were reluctant to do so, hesitating just long enough for Sahurah to tell him that, while prisoners had to be treated with respect, that commandment applied only to those who were obedient.
“All right,” said Mack, pulling his shoes on. He ran his hand over his jaw, scratching the nearly two-days-worth of growth there. “Can I get some coffee at least?”
Sahurah said something to one of the men at the door.
“The coffee will be brought to the plane. I wish to complete my tour before dawn.”
“I’ll take you wherever you want,” said Mack, hopeful now that he’d be free inside a few hours.
Aboard EB-52 “Pe
0502
Dog kept his eyes on the image displayed by the Flighthawk as he flew the Megafortress in a double-eight pattern about ten miles from the runway. He could see the Megafortress sitting in front of the hangar as he rode the Flighthawk in toward the large hangar in the military half of the complex. He couldn’t help but think about his daughter Brea
Assuming he’d been captured. No one had heard from him, and it was possible that, like Deci Gordon, he had managed to escape and was simply hiding out.
Though that didn’t quite seem like Mack’s style.
“Any radars?” Dog asked his copilot, Kevin McNamara. “Negative”
“Hawkins, how are the radar sweeps looking?”
“Clean,” replied Lieutenant Jesse Hawkins, one of the two radar operators who had stations just behind him on the extended flight deck. “Quick Bird helicopters are approaching the platform. They’re ru
“Good.”
“They have two guards on the road, no one close to the aircraft,” Zen told Dog. He nudged the Flighthawk down through four thousand feet, taking a slow turn above the hangar and parking area. Several Dragonflies were lined up near the hangar; Zen had been told during his visit that all of the aircraft were inoperable because of serious maintenance issues. Another Dragonfly sat wrecked near the end of the runway. The two helicopters used by the air force were missing, as were the three other operational Dragonflies; they knew from earlier reports that at least one of them had crashed after being hit by small arms fire yesterday.