Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (25 page)

 
          
“Hawk
Leader.”

 
          
Stoner
pushed his head toward the main video screen as the robot surveyed the next
collection of rocks and coral. He felt the big plane tilt backward, the acceleration
pushing him against the seat. If Zen felt it, he gave no indication as the
Flighthawk looped twice around the atoll, its cameras covering every inch of
ground.

 
          
“Nothing,”
said Zen finally.

 
          
“I
concur,” said Stoner.

 
          
“On
to the next stop,” said Ferris, the copilot. “Should I tell our guests what
they’ll win if the prize is behind door number-three?”

 
          
“Go
for it,” said the pilot.

 
          
“A
goat.”

 
          
“No
sex jokes, please.”

 
          
Her
voice was so serious it took Stoner a second to realize Captain Breanna Stockard
was joking. She was gorgeous, cool, and obviously well-trained. Stoner had
never like the idea of women in the military, and as a SEAL had never actually
had to deal with any, but Breanna Stockard might make him rethink his attitude.

 
          
Too
bad she was married.

 
          
The
third target was much larger than the others, more an island than an atoll. It
had a U-shaped lagoon and what seemed to be skid marks from a boat on the
beach. There was a tarp covering something about twenty yards from the water,
half-hidden by the trees.

 
          
“No
radar operating,” said Torbin.

 
          
“That
tarp is big enough for one,” said Zen.

 
          
“Yeah,
interesting,” said Stoner. “Can you get a close-up?”

 
          
“Copy
that,” said Zen.

 
          
A
severe wind whipped the trees. Zen’s grunts and groans increased. Stoner
guessed it was hard to hold the small place on course at low speed, but the
video remained steady and in focus. They couldn’t find anything besides the
tarp.

 
          
The
nearby fourth target proved to be a pile of coral perhaps ten by fifteen
meters. There was nothing on the jagged surface.

 
          
By
the time they reached the fifth atoll, rain had begun to fall. The computer
compensated, but the view on the large screen was still grainy. Oddly, the
smaller screen seemed easier to read. Stoner watched the Flighthawk come over
the island at just under 180 knots and two thousand feet.

 
          
“There’s
a buoy in the water, a line up the beach,” said Zen.

 
          
Stoner
put his face practically on the screen and still couldn’t see it.

 
          
“Here,”
said Zen. He did something with his controls and muttered something to the
computer that Stoner didn’t quite catch; the large screen flashed with a
close-up of a small round circle in the water, boxed in by hash marks drawn by
the computer.

 
          
“Could
be part of a long-wave device,” Stoner told him.

 
          
“Panel—there’s
a radar set. Look at it. Yeah, small. Infrared.”

 
          
The
screen blurred.

 
          
“Too
much rain,” said Zen. “Torbin, you have anything?”

 
          
“Negative.
No transmissions of any type.”

 
          
“Same
here,” said Collins.

 
          
They
took two more runs over the island, switching back and forth between optical,
infrared, and synthetic radar scans. None of them produced a very clear picture
as the storm began to kick up fiercely, but there was definitely some sort of
installation here.

 
          
“Maybe
a long-wave com setup,” suggested Stoner. “Surface radar, sends information out
to ships.”

 
          
“That
radio mast in the tree?” asked Zen.

 
          
Stoner
had trouble seeing the tree, let alone the antenna. “Don’t know,” he said
finally.

 
          
“Who’s
it working for?”

 
          
“Good
question. I’d guess Chinese. Have to see the equipment, thought. Could be the
Indians. Early warning, something comes south. Radar might scan a hundred
miles, give or take. Like to look at it up close, on foot.”

 
          
“Yeah,”
said Zen.

 
          
Zen
took Hawk One up off the deck, rising through the clouds to get out of the
storm. Even with the computer’s help, it was a hitch flying low and slow in the
shifting air currents, their violent downdrafts and rain pounding on his head.

 
          
There
were two more atolls nearby, both now covered by heavy fog, clouds, and rain.
He took a breath, checked his gear—instruments were all in the green,
everything running at spec—then plunged back downward. He ran over both a
little faster and higher than he wanted, but saw nothing.

 
          
“We
still have some time,” Bree told him as he came off his last pass. “We can
check out those islands to the east as we head for the patrol area. Beyond
that, though, we’ll have to call it a day.”

 
          
“Hawk
Leader.” Zen punched his mission map into the lower left-hand screen, got
himself oriented, then checked his fuel panel. It’d be tight, but he could wait
to refuel after the flyovers, then launch Hawk Two. He touched base with Ferris
to make sure that would be okay, and got an update on some ships they’d seen.
Most were civilians, sailing well clear of yesterday’s trouble spot.

 
          
“Two
Indian destroyers off to the southwest, in the thick of the storm,” the copilot
added over the interphone. “If they stay on their present course, they’ll reach
the patrol area about five hours from now, maybe a little sooner. Depends on
the weather, though. They may not get anywhere.”

 
          
“Maybe
they’re heading for that atoll we saw with the radar,” suggested Stoner.

 
          
Zen
grunted. He resented someone else cutting into his conversation. He avoided the
temptation to cut him off the circuit, which he could do with the Flighthawk
control board.

 
          
“More
likely they’re scouting for the carrier group to the south,” injected Ferris.
“About a day’s sail behind according to the
intel
brief.”

 
          
“I
wouldn’t rule anything out.”

 
          
Zen
took Hawk One back toward the ocean, riding down through the angry carpet of
whirling wind and water toward the target, a doublet of coral and rock. The
thick drops of precipitation rendered the IR gear useless, and the optic feed
was nearly as bad. The synthesized radar did the best, but the Flighthawk’s
speed made it nearly impossible to get any details out of the view. The
computer assured him there were no “correlations to man-made objects” on the
first group of rocks. Approaching the second, he saw a shadow that might be a
small boat, or perhaps a large log, or even a series of rocks. He came in
higher than he wanted, catching an odd wave of wind. Two more flyovers into the
teeth of the storm failed to reveal anything else.

 
          
“I
think it was rocks,” said Stoner.

 
          
“We’ll
analyze it later,” Zen told him.

 
          
“Hawk
Leader, we’re starting to get close to pumpkin time,” Breanna told him.

 
          
“Roger
that. I need to refuel,” said Zen, pointing his nose upward.

 
          
Aboard the submarine Shiva, in the South
China Sea

 
          
“Up
scope.”

 
          
Admiral
Ari
Balin
waited as Shiva’s periscope rose. His arms
were at his chest, his eyes already starting to narrow. He placed his finger
deliberately on the handles as the scope stopped climbing, then began his scan
with deliberate, easy motion.

 
          
The
gods were beneficent; they had lost the noisy Chinese submarine, and were now
in the middle of a storm that would further confuse anyone trying to track
them. It was the perfect preparation for the next phase of their mission, a
sign that theirs was indeed the proper path.

 
          
Satisfied
there were no other ships nearby, Admiral
Balin
stepped back. Captain
Varja
, the submarine’s
commander, took his turn at the periscope. Where
Balin
was slow and graceful, the younger man was sharp and quick; it was a good
match.

 
          
They
had down well so far. The weapon had worked perfectly, and the information that
had come to them provided two perfect hits. The real test, however, lay ahead.

 
          
“Clear,”
said
Varja
, turning away from the scope.

 
          
“You
may surface,”
Balin
told him. He felt almost fatherly
as the diesel-powered submarine responded to the crew’s well-practiced routine;
they began to glide toward the surface.

 
          
As
built, the Russian Kilo class of submarine possessed an austere efficiency.
Their full complement was no more than sixty men; they could manage twenty-four
knots submerged and dive to 650 meters. While their reliance on diesel and
battery power had drawbacks, they could be made exceedingly quiet and could operate
for considerable periods of time before needing to surface.

 
          
Shiva—named
after the Hindu god of destruction—had been improved from the base model in
several respects. Her battery array was probably the most significant; they
nearly doubled her speed or submerged range, depending on how they were used.
The passive sonar in her nose and the other sensors in the improved tower were
surely important, with almost half again as effective a detection range as
those the Russian supplied—and the Chinese copied. For
Balin
,
the advanced automation and controls the Indian shipyard had added were most
important; they allowed him to operate with half the standard crew size.

 
          
They
too were the fruits of Hindu labor and inspiration, true testaments to the
ability of his people and their future.

 
          
“We
are on the surface, Admiral,” reported Captain
Varja
.

 
          
“Very
good.”

 
          
Balin’s
bones complained slightly as he climbed the ladder
to the conning tower, and his cheeks immediately felt the cold, wet wind. He
struggled to the side fumbling for his glasses.

 
          
As
he looked out over the ocean, he felt warm again; peaceful. Dull and gray,
stretching forever, the universe lay before his eyes, waiting for him to make
the future coalesce.

 
          
The
Chinese aircraft carrier should now be less than one hundred miles away.

 
          
He
put the glasses down, reminding himself to guard against overconfidence. His
role was to fulfill destiny, not to seek glory.

 
          
“We
will stay on the surface at present course for forty-five minutes,” the admiral
told the captain. “The batteries will be back at eight percent by then.”

 
          
“I
would prefer one hundred percent,” said
Varja
.