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in a few hours. Not only do we have only one Harpoon aboard, we have no Flighthawks.”

A criticism of his ship?

Even Storm had to admit it would have been justified.

“Do it. Keep me posted,” said Storm. “I’ll expect a full report when you come to the ship tomorrow.”

“Out.”

The screen went dead.

Aboard the Wisconsin

0312

“WELL, HE WAS ALMOST HUMAN THAT TIME,” DOG TOLD DEL-aford.

“I think you’re just being too hard on him, Colonel. He’s lost a bunch of men, and one of his ships is pretty battered.”

“We’ll see. I’ll run ahead and make a buoy drop, then come back and harass the gunboat.”

“Ready whenever you are.”

THE CONTROL SETUP FOR THE PIRANHA ALLOWED STARSHIP

to see the synthesized sensor view on his number two auxiliary screen. The submarine appeared as a reddish flicker at about nine o’clock on the rectangular screen; a row of yellow, orange, and blue flames made waves behind it, descending toward the bottom of the screen. Piranha swam about three hundred yards behind the Libyan submarine, a little less than a quarter mile. The sub didn’t know it was there.

“We’re going to say hello to the surface craft,” said Dog.

“We don’t think the patrol boat has any antiair missiles, but there’s only one way to find out. Hang on.”

Starship slapped against his seat restraints as the EB-52

powered toward the waves. The aircraft tilted left, then right, taking a wide turn before climbing back out.

“Didn’t shoot at us,” reported Dog.

“Sub is still moving forward,” said Delaford.

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Patrol craft has stopped,” said Dish, watching on the radar above. “Maybe that’s the signal.”

The submarine continued toward the patrol boat for another half mile or so, then began to submerge.

“We got their attention,” Delaford told Dog. “He’s going down.”

“How did he know?” asked Starship.

“Either they were listening as the engines cut out or they’re using a light or something to communicate. At snorkel depth the submarine can use its periscope to watch the surface.”

“Are they blind when they go down?”

“No. They can use either passive or even active sonar to follow the patrol boat. He’s probably going to dive for a bit, hang out there. When nothing happens, he’ll come back up and proceed again. My guess is, the submarine captain is pretty cautious.”

“Why?”

“He could have made better time on the surface earlier.

Rather than using his snorkel, he could have surfaced. It was night, and more than likely he wouldn’t have been seen.”

“We would have seen him on radar.”

“True enough.”

“You try and psych him out so you know how he’ll be when you fight him,” said Starship.

“You don’t do that with the Flighthawks in air combat?”

“The situations are usually so fluid, you don’t have time.

It sounds good, but in real life it’s just bang-bang-bang. For me, anyway.”

“Zen says he does it.”

“Zen’s different. That’s why he’s Zen.”

Delaford laughed. Starship shrugged. It was true; Zen wasn’t like most other pilots—he was Zen.

“He’s stopped,” said Delaford, looking back at his screen.

“Hundred and fifty-five feet. I give him only a few minutes.”

Sure enough, the submarine began moving again ten minutes later, gliding upward. Within a half hour it had begun snorkeling again. They let it proceed for twenty minutes, SATAN’S TAIL

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then Dog brought the Megafortress in for another run—this one at five hundred feet and directly over the submarine’s wake. The patrol boat veered hard toward the coastline.

“He’s going down. Fast,” said Delaford. “He’s nervous.”

“Good for him,” said Dog.

“Fifty feet … seventy-five,” said Delaford. Excitement snuck into his voice. “He’s got his nose down. Angle is fifteen degrees. He’s moving—he’s in trouble here. Twenty degrees. Still growing. He may hit the bottom!”

The water the submarine was moving through was about 1,200 feet deep. But once the submarine built up downward momentum, it could be hard to stop. The pitch was important as well as its speed: The boat was designed to descend horizontally; if the nose of the sub pitched greater than thirty degrees, the vessel became virtually uncontrollable.

Starship watched the screen, which had become a fren-zied mass of purple and red fu

“Four hundred feet … four fifty,” said Delaford.

Starship watched the colors dancing on the screen. Was it this easy to kill your enemy? There were about seventy-five men aboard the average sub of this class—could you kill them by scaring them to death? Was war really that easy?

“Four seventy-five. He’s slowing. Angle is less than fifteen. He’s under control.” Delaford sounded disappointed. “I may have misinterpreted his movement a bit.”

Starship wasn’t entirely sure why, but he felt relieved.

White House

7 November

1910

“THIS IS BEYOND PIRACY,” THE PRESIDENT TOLD THE OTHERS

gathered in his study next to the Oval Office. “What does Oman say?”

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“They claim the ship was stolen,” said Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman.

“They’re probably telling the truth,” said Robert Plank, the CIA director.

Jed’s boss, Philip Freeman, looked at Jed, who nodded.

“I agree,” said Freeman. “It may have been attempting to hijack a civilian ship, an old tanker type, when we came across it.”

“You’re sure it’s been sunk?” the President said, directing the question to Jed, who’d gotten data on the battle from Dreamland and supplied it to the others.

“Yes, sir. Another ship picked up some of its crew.

They’re holding them for Oman. They, uh, had to be subdued. So I think the story the Oman government is telling is probably true.”

“What happened to the tanker?”

“The owners haven’t reported any trouble but we’re still trying to get a definitive word.”

The President turned to Admiral Balboa. “What was the latest on the submarine?”

Balboa looked at Jed. “Mr. Barclay seems to have the best information here.”

Jed felt his face flush. It was hard to tell whether Balboa was trying to put him on the spot or actually trying to be nice.

“Just that it’s still under surveillance,” Jed said. “It’s definitely the Libyan boat. Some improvements. Last time I checked, just before coming here, it had moved closer to the coast, but was within a few miles of where it was originally spotted. It can’t go very fast on battery power, and the thinking was that it might wait a few hours and then try to move again.”

“Xray Pop can sink it within an hour of getting the order,”

said Balboa. “Let’s go in there and sink the submarine before this gets worse.”

“Wait until we get the vote in the UN,” said Secretary SATAN’S TAIL

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Hartman. “We’ll have it easily now. The session is Tuesday.

It’s only a few days.”

“What if they vote it down?” asked Chastain.

“They won’t.”

“I think this new attack, with the Oman ship and the submarine, will cinch things,” said Freeman.

“Then let’s push for an earlier vote,” said the President.

“That will emphasize how serious we think things are. We make the Oman ship the center of the presentation. The pirates are so bold they’re stealing warships. No one’s safe.

It’s a pretty strong argument. We can leave the submarine unmentioned for now. Frankly, if we can’t convince them using the Oman ship, then we can’t convince them at all.”

“The French will pull their usual bullshit,” said Chastain.