Satan's Tail

“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.

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“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. Brea

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11

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.

Brea

“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 AbnerRead 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 12

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

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 ma

“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-

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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 co

“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 14

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND