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As Dazhou turned to the helmsman to tell him to steer closer to their stricken sister, his second in command shouted a fresh warning. “The plane is coming for us!”
“Shoot it down,” he said angrily.
* * *
ZEN COULD SEE THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE LAUNCHER turning in the direction of the Flighthawk as he closed on the second ship. He fired point-blank into the side of the launcher’s structure; his second or third shell ignited one of the missiles and started a secondary explosion.
“He’s toothless,” Zen told Brea
UPSTAIRS, BREANNA GAVE A LAST-SECOND UPDATE OF THE target parameters and then nudged the Megafortress into a shallow dive and then a swooping turn, tossing the bomb in the bay at the target. The JDAM left the Megafortress’s belly just inside four miles from its target, a point-blank shot for the weapon. The bomb sailed downward, made a slight correction, then nosed down toward the GPS point the Megafortress and Brea
THE SHIP REVERBERATED WITH EXPLOSIONS AS THE FIRE IN the missile battery behind the superstructure spread. Dazhou could taste the acrid smoke in his mouth. But he would not give up; he would not abandon the ship, nor flee his destiny.
“Use every weapon you have!” he demanded. “Everything! Everything!”
As the crew moved to comply, the bomb struck the port side of the ante
And then the thousand pounds of explosives in the warhead ignited, and neither earthly vengeance nor human failings were of any more concern to Dazhou, or most of the men on the ship.
Southeastern Brunei
Exact location and time unknown
Hours seemed to pass before Mack Smith could make himself get up from the floor. Three of the four terrorists lay in the room dead; the last huddled around a pool of blood at the side.
The woman who had helped him was sprawled on the floor, eyes open, hands unclenched.
“Are you all right?” he said, kneeling over her. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth remained agape and her stare fixed on the ceiling.
Slowly, the others in the room started to move. And then, as if by some secret signal, all the women and children began to wail.
“Stop,” whispered Mack. “Stop.”
The fearful cry continued.
“Stop!” he shouted finally, and one by one the wails turned not to silence but to softer sobs.
“Are there others? Other terrorists?” He had to ask the question three times before he got a response from an older woman at the side.
“These were the all who we’ve seen,” she said in broken English.
“Take me to the men,” he said.
She got up, jaw trembling, and walked toward him. Another woman, much younger, grabbed his arm. “Our savior,” she said. “Our hero.”
“She was the hero;’ said Mack, pointing at the dead woman. “I’m just lucky. Now take me to the others.”
On the runway at Brunei International Airport
Exact time unknown
Sahurah felt his body lifted by a thousand angels. His pain had finally ceased. After his long, torturous journey, he had reached Paradise. The angels carried him through the golden gates, up the winding marble stairs to the vast throne room. The Messenger himself waited on the landing to greet him, surrounded by a veritable sea of angels. Light glowed behind him.
Paradise, he thought. Paradise.
And then the pain returned and Sahurah felt his body fall the hundred miles from heaven, felt it roll and slam and slap against the earth. He felt fire and cursed his existence, cursed his sins and dark desires. Something grabbed him from behind and pulled, dragging him through the black jaws of dragon-snakes that snapped at his body.
“Commander Sahurah! Commander Sahurah!”
It was part of the dream, he thought—the imam stood above him, peering down from above. The Saudi was nearby, his eyes watchful.
“Commander Sahurah!”
No dream this—Sahurah was on the runway,- a hundred feet from where the Badger had crashed. Someone had pulled him out in a misguided attempt to rescue him.
Why was the Lord so cruel to such a devoted servant? Why did he deny him the final glory of paradise?
“Sahurah—the devils are overru
Was this the devil tempting him? Or an angel sent to rescue him from damnation?
The imam bent down and looked at him quizzically. “Sahurah? Come, little brother. There is a time for everything. Now is our time to retreat.”
The Saudi seemed to frown.
“No,” said Sahurah. “I will stay and fight. It is jihad.”
“The Malaysians have turned against us,” warned the imam. “It is time to retreat. American warships are only a few hours away. We will regroup and wait. Our time will come again.”
“I must stay”
The imam frowned. The Saudi said something in Arabic Sahurah could not decipher.
“We must leave now,” said the imam.
“I stay to do the Holy One’s work.”
The imam nodded and then turned. Sahurah knelt, deciding to pray to the Lord that he had made the right decision. But words would not come; he could not even remember the simple prayers he had learned as a child. The throb at the side of his head chased all thoughts from his mind, and it was all he could do to stand and walk in the direction of the city.
Malaysian air base
1810
Thanks to Rubeo’s software hacks, Dog now had limited control of the LADS observation system and could switch through the video feeds. One of the airships near the oil platform had been destroyed, but a second one just to the southwest showed Dreamland’s two Zodiac boats. There were four people inside them—all of the Whiplash people, and Je
What if she had been in Indy?
Two patrol boats were heading toward them from the west. The boats had left occupied territory, but it wasn’t clear if they contained terrorists or the vanguard of the sultan’s troops, who were pressing into the northern part of the country, vanquishing their foes.
“Dreamland Malaysia Base to Pe
“We’re on it, Daddy,” she said.
For once, Dog didn’t yell at her for calling him that.
Off the coast of Brunei
1815
Zen flew over the ship a few seconds after the bomb exploded. It looked from the air as if it were a child’s toy with a thick hole drilled through the top. The superstructure and hull had been badly mangled, and when he took another pass he saw the corvette-sized craft had already started to slide down into the water.
“They’re out of it,” Zen told Brea
“I’m right behind you”
The Whiplash team was about five miles from the coastline and just over eight miles from the platform that had been destroyed. Two patrol craft were five miles from them on what looked like a direct intercept. Both were Russian-made Matka-class gunboats; they had been purchased a few months before by Brunei, but it wasn’t clear whose side they were on.