End Game

A big if, thought Zen, though he didn’t say it.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, OUT ON THE APRON NEAR THE RUNway, Da

It wasn’t as if Da

The lift truck lowered him again.

“Hey, guys, I’m supposed to be part of the plane, right?”

said Da

No one answered for a second, then Da

“Good morning, Captain,” said Greasy Hands—aka Chief Master Sergeant Al Parsons—a moment later. “We seem to be having a little difficulty here.”

END GAME

293

“You’re telling me.”

“Well, you just hold on for a second, Captain, while I straighten these boys out.”

A moment later Da

“There you go,” snarled Greasy Hands. “We’ll have Boston on in a minute. Less time if someone here would get me my coffee! ”

“Pretty Boy, get the chief a pot of coffee, on the double,”

said Da

Northern Arabian Sea

15 January 1998

0115

“GOD IS GREAT,” THE MITRA’S CAPTAIN TOLD SATTARI. “THE

destroyer has changed course and is heading west.”

“You’re sure?”

“Look for yourself. His stacks are billowing—he must be off to meet one of the Chinese ships. I’ve sent to the radio room to see if they have intercepted any messages.”

Sattari took the night glasses. He saw the cloud of warm exhaust rising in the distance, but not the Pakistani ship.

“We will leave immediately,” Sattari said. “With the protection of God, we will do our duty. Protect yourself,” he added, handing the glasses back.

“We will do our best,” said the captain. “May God be with you.”

294

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Aboard the Wisconsin , over the northern Arabian Sea

0330

CANTOR STARED AT THE PIRANHA’S SCREEN, TRYING TO BLINK

away some of the burn he felt in the corner of his eyes. The milky representation of the ocean was supposedly a huge advance over the displays used by conventional passive sonar systems, but the only thing he had to compare it to was the Flighthawk’s synthesized radar images, and that was like comparing shadows reflected from a campfire to an iMax movie.

Piranha had followed the Chinese submarine into Pakistani waters south of Karachi, close to the border with India. This happened to suit them well, taking them within six minutes’ flying time to the spot where they would cross the border if they had to fire their EEMWBs. For the past two hours, the Kilo-class sub had sat a hundred feet below the surface of the water, silently waiting. But now that the Chinese submarine began to move westward, Colonel Bastian would have to decide whether they would drop another control buoy and follow or pull the Piranha back.

Besides the submarine, there were two surface ships in the vicinity. One—too far away to be identified by the Piranha, but ID’d by the surface radar as a Pakistani patrol craft—was sailing south. The other was a civilian ship.

Cantor could see both vessels on the large surface radar plot in his lower left-hand screen.

The computer gave an audible warning that the Piranha was approaching the limit of the buoy’s communication system. Cantor throttled the robot back, then asked Colonel Bastian what he wanted to do.

“Tell you what, Cantor— Levitow is about two hours’ flying time away. Let’s put down one more control buoy and move south. They can pick it up when they come on station.”

“Copy that, Colonel. We could swing south about six miles and drop it there.”

END GAME

295

“I have to watch out for traffic,” said Dog. “Stand by.”

While he was waiting, Cantor swung the Piranha around, doing the robot submarine’s version of “checking six” to see what was behind it. The merchant ship showed up on the screen—a long blurry shadow, with a set of numbers giving data on the direction the contact was moving and categorizing the sound it made. Cantor moved his cursor to select the contact, directing the computer to check the sound against its library of contacts. The computer classified the vessel as an “unknown oil tanker type,” as had the system tied into the Megafortress’s surface radar.

As the Piranha continued to swing through the circle, its passive sonar picked up another contact, this one underwater. The contact was so faint the robot’s gear couldn’t tell how far away it was.

Was it really there? The irregular coastal floor nearby played tricks with sound currents, and it was possible that Piranha was “seeing” a reflection of the submarine or one of the surface ships. The only way to tell was to get closer.

Cantor halted the Piranha’s turn, sliding the stick forward and moving gingerly in the direction of the contact. The scale showed the contact was at least twenty miles away, just about in territorial waters.

“Colonel, I think I have something, another sub maybe,”

Cantor told Bastian. “It’s a good twenty miles east of us. I wonder if we should check it out.”

“You’re sure it’s a sub?”

“I’m not sure at all,” Cantor admitted. “But if I follow the Chinese Kilo, I’ll definitely lose it. Very faint signal—extremely quiet.”

“Give me the coordinates,” said Dog.

296

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Aboard the Shiva ,

in the northern Arabian Sea

0340

MEMON WATCHED AS THE LAST SU-35 EXPLODED OFF THE

deck of the carrier, its rapid ascent into the night sky belying the heavy load beneath its wings. Six new jets had arrived last evening, bringing the carrier’s flyable complement to eighteen. All but two were now in the air; if the order was given to attack, it would take no more than ten minutes for the first missile to strike its target.

He hoped it would not come to that.

Did this mean he was a coward? Or was Skandar right—was it just a matter of experience, of getting past the first shock?

“A beautiful sight, isn’t it?”

The voice sounded so much like Admiral Kala’s that Memon turned around with a jerk. But it wasn’t the dead admiral or his ghost, just one of the NCOs, an older man who supervised the radar specialists.