‘Threat to the oil tanker?’
‘Doesn’t appear so.’
‘Have the Werewolf pursue the airplanes. We’ll set a course for the smuggler in the meantime.’
‘Aye aye, Captain.’
The computer estimated the aircraft were moving at 280 knots. The computer calculated the lead aircraft’s likely course based on the past observations – a straight line toward the eastern tip of Somalia.
‘Werewolf, please close on the bandits and identify,’ said Eyes.
Gee, no kidding, thought Starship.
‘Tac, be advised these aircraft are now out of my sensor range. It’d be helpful if you turned on your radar and gave me a hand.’
‘Negative. We’re staying dark.’
‘Do we have an Orion above?’ asked Starship. As the words came out of his mouth, he realized the answer was going to be negative – the radar planes had been pulled off the gulf duty two days before, sent to Europe to help in the Kosovo mess.
‘We’re on our own.’
‘Yeah, roger that. OK, I’m maneuvering to follow.’
Starship arced behind the planes and revved his engines to max power.
More smugglers, probably, though the fact that there were four of them was curious. He could guess that they weren’t combatants; the planes were too small and slow.
Five minutes later, with the aircraft still out of sight, Starship asked the computer to recompute his targets’ course and probable location. The computer declared that they should be five miles dead ahead. They weren’t, and when five more minutes passed and he didn’t fly through them, Starship told Tac the obvious.
‘Looks like we lost them. They probably put the pedal to the metal as soon as they picked me up on radar.’
‘Repeat?’
‘I believe they accelerated away. My screen is clear.’
‘You’re sure they’re gone?’
‘Either that or I just flew through them.’
‘Stand by, Werewolf,’ said Eyes, his voice dripping with venom.
‘It wasn’t my fault I lost them, Commander. They had a head start. If you’d allowed me to chase them when I wanted to –’
‘Stand by,’ snapped the other man.
Starship continued southward; he was about sixty miles from Tohen, a tiny village on the northeastern tip of Somalia. Port Somalia – an oil terminal port built by the Indians and not yet fully operational – was another ten miles to the southeast.
‘Airforce – what’s your story?’ barked Storm, coming onto the communications line.
‘Lost them, Captain.’
‘Where are you?’
The captain knew precisely where he was. It wasn’t a question but an accusation: Why didn’t you do what I wanted you to do? Starship read off the GPS coordinates, then translated them into a rough position off Somalia.
‘According to the computer, the aircraft are about a half hour from Somalia. Among the possible targets –’
‘Somalia’s not my problem,’ answered Storm. ‘Go back north and find that smuggler.’
‘Your call.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Aye aye, Captain. Werewolf turning north.’
Las Vegas University of Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada 5 January 1998 0825
‘You’re early!’
Zen shrugged as he wheeled his way across the thick rug of Dr Michael Vasin’s office. ‘Yeah, figured I’d get it over with.’
‘Tea?’
‘Coffee if you have it, sure.’
Vasin picked up the phone on his desk and asked his assistant to bring them some. Then he got up and walked to the nearby couch, shifting around as Zen maneuvered his wheelchair catty-corner to him. Indian by birth, the doctor spoke with a pronounced accent, even though he had been in America since college.
‘And everything square with work?’
‘Squared away,’ Zen told him. The doctor did not know the specifics of what Zen did, officially anyway. But he was friends with one of Dreamland’s most important scientific researchers, Dr Martha Geraldo, who had referred Zen to him for the experimental program. So he probably knew a little, though neither man tested the specifics of that knowledge.
Vasin’s assistant came in with a tray of herbal tea, coffee, and two small cups. She was a petite, older woman, efficient at handling minutiae and thoughtful enough to ask after Zen’s wife, whom she had never met. When she left, Zen found Vasin staring out the large windows behind his desk. The Vegas Strip lay in the distance.
‘The desert is not a good place for gamblers,’ said the doctor absently.
Unsure how to respond, Zen said nothing.
‘Jeff, I want you to understand, there are no guarantees with this. It may have absolutely no effect on you. Absolutely no effect. Even if regenerating nerve cells in the spine is possible, it might not work in your case for a million different reasons.’
‘I understand.’
Vasin had already told him this many times.
‘And, as we’ve discussed, there is always the possibility there will be side effects that we don’t know about,’ continued the doctor.
‘I read everything you gave me.’
‘I’m repeating myself.’ Vasin turned around, smiling self-deprecatingly. ‘I want you to understand it emotionally. There’s always a possibility – unforeseen – that things could be worse.’
Zen had already sat through two long lectures from Vasin and another by one of the researchers on his team outlining the potential pitfalls and dangers of the technique. He had also signed a stack of release forms.
‘I’m about as aware of the dangers as I can be.’
‘Yes.’ Vasin rose. ‘Ready to get the ball rolling?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Air Force High Technology Advanced Weapons Center (Dreamland) 1100
Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh ‘Dog’ Bastian checked his altitude and location, then radioed to the event controller, who was sitting inside a highly modified Boeing RC-135, circling above at forty thousand feet.
‘Dreamland Raptor to Event Command – Jerry, are we firing this missile today?’
‘Event Command to Dreamland Raptor, we’re still hanging on Dreamland Levitow,’ answered the controller, referring to the EB-52 that was to fire the target missile. ‘Colonel, you sound like you’re anxious to get back to your paperwork.’
Not at all, thought Dog, who greatly preferred his present office – the cockpit of Dreamland’s experimental long-range attack version of the F-22 Raptor – to the one with his cherrywood desk twenty thousand feet below. Flying cutting-edge aircraft was undoubtedly the best part of Dreamland.
The F-22 bore only a passing resemblance to the ‘stock’ model. Its wings had been made into long deltas; in the place of a tailfin