Satan's Tail

His house phone rang and he jumped, but made no effort to get it.

Man, what are my parents going to say? And Colonel Bastian? And Zen? What is my cousin Zen going to say?

He’s going to say I’m a jackass.

Whoever called hung up without leaving a message.

Zen would sit there in his wheelchair, shake his head.

Then he’d mutter something like, “Little Jed, Little Jed, Little Jed.”

Then he took me out to shoot some hoops …

It really had happened that way, when Jed got in trouble as a senior in high school, caught smoking a marijuana cigarette in the school bathroom—only his second time ever smoking dope, and of course he got caught. He’d thought that was the end of the world.

It was, then. Zen’s appearance in his uniform, fresh from the Gulf War—God, he was a sight, standing in the door.

Standing …

What would Zen say now?

He’d say get off your ass and deal with it. If I can deal withbeing in the f-in’ wheelchair, you can deal with this, asshole.

Jed picked up the sat phone and started checking his messages.

Aboard the Wisconsin , Gulf of Aden

2400

“THERE’S A MOORING AREA FOR ABANDONED SHIPS AT THE

western end of the little inlet there,” said Dog, talking to the 282

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crew of Megafortress Delta One as he prepared to hand off the patrol to the other crew. “The submarine is across the arm of the bay, in this area here. It looks like a manmade cave, with just enough clearance for a small vessel to get in.

According to what we’ve been able to dig up at Dreamland, the Italians found it in 1940 or 1941 and began modifying it for use as a submarine pen. Eventually it was abandoned.

The submarine is there along with two patrol boats. Piranha is right here, about a hundred feet from the mouth of the cave. At least one patrol boat is sitting with these civilian boats in this area, and one of the moored ships isn’t a wreck.

We’ll have fresh satellite intelligence in a few hours, but from old snaps, we think the headquarters area is over here, below the cliffs.”

Dog added that there was a legitimate port nearer to Karin, a few miles away; at least one patrol craft was hiding there as well.

“More than likely there are ships and patrol craft hidden in different spots all along the coast,” he added. “But I don’t want to send a Flighthawk over, on the chance it’ll tip them off. We’ll wait until we’re ready to deal with whatever is going on. Your job tonight is to stay far enough away that they can’t see you, but close enough so you can react if something happens. No overflights, no combat if at all possible.”

Dog continued, passing along the frequencies that were being used by the Abner Read and the other ships, emergency landing fields, and the other necessary minutiae of a successful mission.

ZEN SWEPT THE FLIGHTHAWK TOWARD THE COAST AS DOG

finished up his brief with the crew of the Delta One. The Flighthawk pilot aboard Delta One, Captain Eric “Guitarman” Mulvus, had seen action as an Army helicopter pilot in Panama and the Gulf War, left the regular Army, somehow managed to get into the Air Force Reserve, hopscotched into an ROTC program, and emerged as an F-16 pilot. Clearly a SATAN’S TAIL

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finagler, Guitarman’s real claim to fame was lead guitarist in a pickup band known as the Dream Makers. He was a decent Flighthawk pilot, though this was his first mission in a combat zone.

Zen slid down to fifteen hundred feet, gliding along the coastline. While they were giving the submarine base a wide swath and avoiding any chance of tipping the pirates off, Dog had decided there was nothing wrong with surveying the coastline well to the east as they went off duty. Starting about fifty miles from the cave where the sub was hidden, the Flighthawk would survey the coastline to the Indian Ocean with its infrared video camera. Even if they didn’t spot anything, the survey would form a baseline for future operations; the computer would review the recorded images and flag what had changed.

Zen settled onto a path about a quarter of a mile north of the coast. During the sixteenth century, Somalia was a flash-point for Christian and Islamic cultures. Islam dominated the cities and areas on the coast where Zen flew, and Christians dominated the interior. The severe terrain kept relations between the two religions manageable, isolating the communities and weakening the appetite for conquest. Still, there had been many fights over the centuries; domination by one group or the other had not halted the flow of blood, nor, to be fair, did the sharing of a common religion prevent murder or depredation.

Somalia had been divided in two during the nineteenth century, with the British dominating the northern coast and Italy the eastern, including the tip of the Horn of Africa. In the early days of World War II, Italy had seized British Somaliland; in 1941 the British took it and the rest back. The country’s history after the war was partly cruel and partly confused, with the UN Security Council placing Italy in charge of the southern portion and Britain retaining the north, against the wishes of both the people and the UN. Unification, revolution, alliance with the Russian communists, chaos, hunger, and disaster had been the lot of the people ever since. The UN’s effort 284

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to fight starvation in the early 1990s had ended in disaster for the U.S. when an Army unit tried to arrest followers of a warlord; the bungled politics surrounding the affair was one of many issues that had helped President Martindale win election. But the incident also convinced the UN to pull out, making ordinary Somalians victims once more.

That’s always the way it is, thought Zen. The little guy takes it in the ear.

His father used to say that all the time. That’s why youdon’t want to be a little guy.

Zen hoped that wasn’t the real lesson to be drawn, though sometimes it was hard to argue against.

The Flighthawk chugged along, not caring a whit for history or injustice. A large vessel sat in the water off the left wing. The infrared image seemed a little off as Zen passed.

It took him a moment to realize that the ship’s image had been fairly uniform; there were no hot spots, which you’d expect if the engines were ru

“Wisconsin, this is Flighthawk leader,” said Zen. “Looks like I found that converted oiler we saw the other night. It’s dead in the water. I’m going to take a close-up look at it.”

“Roger that, Flighthawk leader. Something up?”

“Not sure.”

The ship seemed dead cold, the only heat the lingering warmth of the sun. And it was high in the water.

“Maybe we didn’t save it after all,” said Zen after a second pass. “Maybe they had already taken it, got the fuel off, then brought it here. I think we ought to have somebody check it out.”

“Agreed,” said Dog. “I’ll dial it into Storm. Stand by.”

Aboard the Abner Read

2400

DANNY STARED AT THE HOLOGRAM, WHICH SHOWED THE LIKELY

location of the pirate camp near a village on the coast and SATAN’S TAIL

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just below a sharp cliff. A sequence of satellite photos had been used to form the basic layout, focusing on three old buildings across from a mooring where there had been occasional activity over the past several weeks. The old ships in the harbor gave the pirates good hiding places and made it difficult to flush them out if they managed to take positions there. While none were visible from the photos, the AbnerRead would begin the engagement by pummeling the old hulks and neutralizing the possibility. The ship would wait for the submarine to come out of the cave; the shallow water as well as a breakwater and two old wrecks near the entrance prevented an easy torpedo shot.