Satan's Tail

“I guess.”

“Ten years from now, Bree, everything will be remote control.”

“I hope not.”

“Well, how did it feel flying the Unma

“Too weird. That’s why I gave it up.”

“Temporarily. For the deployment in the Pacific.”

“Permanently.”

Zen glanced up at her. Brea

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hypersonic aircraft designed to be fitted with either a laser or a high-energy discharge weapon. There was no guarantee that the UMB, as it was known at Dreamland, would go into production, but even if it didn’t, the project was likely to be the touchstone for a dozen future systems, from engines to weapons. Taking command of the project would surely put Brea

“You don’t want the project?” Zen asked.

“I like to fly when I fly,” she said.

“Well, some of us can’t.”

“I don’t mean it like that,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“No harm, no foul,” he said. He’d have to save the discussion about her future for another time. “I gotta do a cut here in thirty seconds,” he added. “Then I have to contact Xray Pop and make sure the global positioning system is working properly. Okay?”

“Never interrupt a pilot on a mission, even when he’s sitting in a hangar 472 miles away.”

“Four hundred and eighty-five. These things move pretty quick.”

Aboard the Wisconsin , over the Gulf of Aden

0055

“THE OMAN SHIP IS NOW HEADING NORTHEAST,” SAID DISH.

“Still moving ahead.”

“What about the tanker?” Dog asked.

“He’s still more or less where he was. A little closer to the coast maybe. Definitely moving, just not very fast.”

“What do you think, Tommy?” Dog asked Delaford.

“The Oman patrol boat, the Al Bushra ship, she’s headed in Xray Pop’s direction. Beyond that, though, I’m just not sure. He’s at twenty knots or so. That’s close to his top speed, if not right at it.”

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183

“Still doesn’t answer any hails,” said McNamara.

Dog banked the Megafortress. They were at 35,000 feet, twenty miles off the coast of Somalia. None of the Ethiopian aircraft they’d tussled with the night before had come out.

Several radars in Yemen had switched on and off during the night, but they were too far away to find them.

“Have a contact I think is the Abner Read,” said Dish.

“Just barely there. Very small radar return, now twenty miles to our east. Couple of other very small ships, very small, about ten miles farther east. The radar signature is so small we can’t even ID the ship. Kind of like looking at a stealth bomber. I’d guess it’s next to invisible to a surface radar until you’re maybe inside five miles.”

“You sure about those locations?”

“Locations? Absolutely.”

“Commander Delaford—the Shark Boats that patrol with the Abner Read … Would they be trailing him by ten miles?”

“I’m not sure, Colonel. Why?”

“Just two of them,” said Dog.

“Actually we have four now, Colonel. They’re moving fast—faster than he is. About fifty knots.”

Dog reached to the communications panel, punching into the Dreamland circuit.

“Zen, have you contacted the Abner Read?”

“I’m supposed to radio the ship when I’m five miles away, about forty-five seconds from now,” said Zen, piloting the Werewolf. “We’re about ten miles due north of the last calculated rendezvous point.”

“We have some contacts to your east. Can you see them?”

“Hang on.”

Dog watched the composite radar screen, which compiled the positions of both surface and ship contacts. The Werewolf was closer to the trailing ships than to the Abner Read.

“Can’t see them,” said Zen. “I can change course.”

“Don’t do that,” said Dog. “You say you’re only five miles from the Abner Read?”

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“Affirmative. They have to turn their lights on for me to land. The automated system can’t interface with them, and they’re a moving target.”

“All right. Contact them and arrange to drop those com units. I’m going to talk to Captain Gale and suggest you check out these contacts. How much fuel do you have aboard?”

“Another thirty minutes worth. I was told they had fuel on the ship.”

“They do. Stand by.”

Aboard the Abner Read , Gulf of Aden

0100

STORM COULD HEAR THE AIRCRAFT APPROACHING IN THE

distance.

“Lights,” he said into his microphone.

The landing deck of the destroyer glowed white. Storm looked upward, as much to shield his eyes as to look for the helicopter. The sound grew louder, the roar of a steam loco-motive drowning out the sounds of the Abner Read; the hum of her engines and the high-pitched hiss of her lights.

“There, Captain, there she is.”

The aircraft buzzed across the fantail, ten feet off the deck. It circled to the right, buzzing to the end of the glow and coming back. It looked more like an alien spaceship than a helicopter. It took another pass, and then spun smartly around, dropping into a hover and descending on the AbnerRead’s helicopter landing pad.

Storm had never seen anything like it. The aircraft looked like a combination of an airplane and a helicopter. It was small, its body no bigger than a good-sized desk. And it had just executed a perfect landing on a destroyer moving at close to forty knots, all the while guided by someone hundreds of miles away.

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185

He didn’t like Bastian, but he had to give the devil his due—his techno toys worked pretty damn well.

Two of the Abner Read crewmen approached the helicopter as its rotors spun down. Because the Werewolf was so small, there was little clearance between the deck and the rotors, and they had to wait until the propellers stopped spi

“Go!” yelled Storm. “Go!”

The rotors spun in opposite directions, making an eerie whirling sound. The first revolution seemed lazy, almost against its will; the second was a little faster; with the third, the aircraft sprung upward in a fury and was gone.

“Lights!” yelled Storm.

As the lights were doused, the voice of one of the men in the Tactical Center below yelled over the combat intercom system: “Here they come!”

“Hard right rudder!” said Storm. “Weapons! Prepare to fire!”

Khamis Mushait Air Base

0112

A LONG STREAK OF YELLOW FLASHED IN THE SCREEN, MOR-phing to white and then breaking back into yellow. Zen leaned on the control stick for the Werewolf, whipping the robot helicopter out of the line of fire. The computer opened a targeting window at the right side of his screen, boxing the ca

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gun, firing to the right as the Werewolf flew nearly parallel to its target. The 30mm shells drew a thick line across the front of the small patrol craft, tearing through the gun, surrounding deck, and nearby superstructure. Zen banked sharply and took manual control of the gun to rake the rear of the patrol craft. The computer recorded the hits on a wire-model projection in the targeting screen, painting them as dark red flashes and estimating the damage: No critical systems had been hit, but the vessel’s forward gun was out of action.