Interrupt (11 page)

Hainan Island was a metropolis of ship-building facilities, dry docks, and ports for China’s southern fleet. The island was also riddled with subterranean channels, allowing PLAN submarines to put to sea undetected. U.S. Command wasn’t positive how many subs the Chinese had deployed, in part because PLAN surface craft made as much noise as possible, sometimes to the point of having their crews bang on their ships with wrenches and pipes.

ROMEO believed Hainan’s ship-building activity was a cover for exotic weapons research. Orbital surveillance couldn’t penetrate the busy throngs of troops and machinery, and the island’s burrows were hardened against sonar and magnetic scans.

“Suppose the EMP isn’t on Hainan?” Drew said suddenly. “The Chinese do everything they can to keep us from getting close. Maybe it’s more sleight of hand.”

“The mainland’s too far away,” Bugle said.

“Not if their EMP’s on the coast. You need to isolate the next pulse so we can tell Christensen where to look.”

“I thought we were calling her Julie now,” Bugle said.

Drew ignored him. “We keep putting our attention on Hainan and coming up empty,” he said. “What if it’s so obviously the right place, it’s wrong? On the coast, they could truck an EMP from one disguised location to another. They—”

“I’m picking up that new signal again,” Bugle said.

“Show me where.”

“It’s gone.”

“Let me patch through to—”

“It’s back.”

“Six Oh Two, this is Five Oh Four,” Drew said on his control freq. “We’re getting a lot of noise. I’m breaking north to see if we can pinpoint a source.”

“Affirmative, Five Oh Four. Single group BRA three zero zero for fifty. Twenty-nine thousand feet.”

That meant the Chinese MiGs weren’t backing off, but Drew rocketed away from the U.S. ships instead of avoiding the enemy fighters. It took seconds to reach the fleet’s northernmost edge, where he settled into a new track with Giles and Wade in a combat spread about a mile off his port wing, heading west now instead of straight at Hainan—but at 480 mph, they’d be on top of the Chinese MiGs in a heartbeat if either set of planes altered course.

I should have said something to her,
he thought.

Trying to escape the memory of her hazel eyes made him reckless. “Let’s get closer,” Drew said, banking his jet into a nose-high climbing turn.

“Sure,” Bugle said. “That way the fuckin’ bad guys can make quick work of us if they’ve got a fuckin’ death ray.”

Drew grinned. Was there anyone else he’d prefer to have at his back? “You must have slept through the theater brief,” he said. “The Chinese aren’t the bad guys, remember? They’re co-claimants for oil and fishing rights in international territory.”

“This whole thing is nuts,” Bugle said. “We’re wasting half as much fuel trolling around as anyone will ever pump out of the ocean floor.”

Drew had heard the same complaint aboard ship. It sounded smart, but it wasn’t true. “They think the oil deposits would feed mainland China for twenty years,” he said. “Besides, nobody’s here for oil. This is
about national sovereignty. China filed with the ICAO years ago to run aircraft on Taiwan’s side of the Taiwan Strait. Then they did the same thing with Vietnam. It’s been one provocation after another.”

“Uh,” Bugle said, obviously flabbergasted at Drew’s motormouth.

“Here’s the real irony,” Drew said. “Between our consumers, labor forces, and energy markets, the U.S. and China generate a full third of the world economy. That’s right. You couldn’t separate us if you tried, but politically—”

“I’m reading a signal that’s off the charts!” Bugle yelled.

More of Drew’s electronics went dark. “I lost my radar,” he said, checking the rest of his displays.

Should I report an in-flight emergency? No.

“No, we’re okay,” he thought out loud as Bugle said, “The pulse is gone.”

Drew looked for the enemy fighters. He glanced across the sky for Chinese missile launches. An EMP could initiate an assault, taking down the aircraft that would protect Julie and the
America.
But he saw nothing. To his left, Giles and Wade remained airborne.

He radioed the E-2D Hawkeye first. “Six Oh Two, did you feel that? I think we were hit by a pulse weapon.”

“Negative,” the Hawkeye answered. “Negative. Stand by.”

Drew radioed Giles and Wade with practiced calm. “Five Oh One, say your status?”

Silence.

“Five Oh One, do you copy?” Drew banked toward his wingman as he switched to his ICS and said, “I lost my stores management systems.”

“Backseat is good,” Bugle said, meaning he had operable links to the ALQ-218 and NGJ electronic warfare pods on their wings. “Look.”

They’d flown so close to the other jet, Drew saw Giles working frantically inside his canopy.

Giles pointed at his helmet and gave a thumbs down. Then he patted his console, made a fist, and flicked open his fingers. He was RTB—return to base. Giles’s aircraft peeled away from Drew, lurching once in an alarming, uncontrolled motion toward the water far below.

Drew raced after them. He wanted to pursue the Chinese pulse weapon, but Giles and Wade needed him to be their voice.

“Six Oh Two, this is Five Oh Four,” Drew radioed the Hawkeye. “Five Oh One is RTB NORDO. He’s taking the lead. He has a problem with flight control.”

“Those sons of bitches!” Bugle said.

“Stay cool. We’re fine.”

But if they were hit again, Drew didn’t know if either plane would stay in the air. Could he block a line-of-sight pulse from Hainan or the coast? One jet might save the other, so Drew decelerated as Giles flew toward the fleet. He hoped to cover Giles with his own plane.

The sun rose through the haze on the horizon. Daylight changed the ocean’s hue as Drew followed Giles through a line above the USS
Hoyer,
a cruiser on the
America
’s northeast perimeter.

Then the sky shattered with a white snap. The light dazzled Drew despite his visor, burning an imprint of the
Hoyer
’s lean shape into his eyes.

“What the hell was—!”

Bee bee bee bee bee bee.
His radar altimeter was screaming. He was almost in the water. An instant ago, he’d been at 2500 feet, running above the
Hoyer.
Now he was at 1500 with the broad waves of the ocean directly below his aircraft.

Behind him, Bugle yelled, “Pull up! Pull up!”

Drew shook off his confusion and hauled on the stick, bringing his jet into a climb. “Where are Giles and Wade!?” he shouted as his radio filled with chatter and blaring static.

Three or four voices emerged from the noise:

“Rampage Four One Eight is in the water! Rampage Four One Eight is in the water!”

“Do you copy—”

“—systems down—”

Drew didn’t see Giles’s plane as he struggled for safe altitude, slamming through a rough current of wind to 2500 feet. Nor could he find the
Hoyer.
It was gone.

Other U.S. ships lay in front of him.

He identified the
Samuel Grant,
an Aegis destroyer that should have been on the west side of their battle space. He hadn’t merely lost altitude; he’d leapt forward more than three miles; and he couldn’t explain the jump except to think—

“Break left break left!” Bugle yelled.

From his peripheral vision, Drew saw a flitting black shape above to his right. He threw his plane into a sheer turn. The intruder ripped past. Jet wash slammed into Drew’s aircraft and pulled at his wings. He lost control, his pulse thudding in his head.

That was a Chinese MiG,
he thought.
We’re under attack.

LOS ANGELES

S
orry I’m late!”

Emily looked up to see Chase slipping through the noisy sandwich shop. At 1:33 p.m., the lunch rush was over, but Sandoval’s was always popular. Emily had fended off two groups who wanted her table, pointing at a second iced tea she’d bought for Chase. She’d also put in his sandwich order. It was the least she could do after he’d delivered a rental car to the Plaza for her, then brought her Altima to the dealer before driving back again in his Lexus.

She set aside the plastic chit #74 she’d been given at the counter and rose to meet her fiancé. Chase was worth the wait. Thick-chested, dark-haired, he carried himself well and wasn’t shy about public displays of affection. Emily met him with a full-body embrace.

Their kiss grew hotter than she’d planned. She was aware of three women laughing at the next table as she nuzzled Chase.
Let them look,
she thought. She was glad to be young and in love.

At last, she broke it up.

“Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” Chase asked, using one of her best movie lines against her.

Emily flushed. She was more pleased that he was playing her game than embarrassed by showing off, but now she felt conscious of the crowd. She sat down after tucking a stray yellow bang behind one ear.

Chase took the chair across from her. “How was your media thing?” he asked.

“Mostly good.”

“Bad?”

“No, it was good,” Emily said before he could start battering at her in his relentless, intelligent way. “I didn’t say anything about a prenatal vaccine.”

Chase looked at her in silence. Was he disappointed?

She was saved by the man at the counter. “Seventy-three and seventy-four!” the man shouted.

“Ham, no cheese or mayo,” Emily said, showing Chase their order number. He was an L.A. boy through and through, barely able to bring himself to eat carbohydrates, although they met here regularly because it was near the hospital.

She wasn’t alone in watching Chase walk to the counter. He turned heads at the next table, too. All three women were well-dressed professionals in their mid-thirties. Emily touched her lipstick to hide a frown.

She’d met Chase at a convention on hereditary diseases where he’d swept her off her feet with a speed that was unlike her. They’d made out on the first date, slept together nine days after that, and almost two years later Emily remained uneasy and excited to be riding this express train.

Chase got too much silly-headed attention from the female staff and patients at work. That was a temptation. Would he give in to it in another five years? He was losing his hair, which had receded at both
temples. Emily thought it made him look grown-up, but Chase was insecure about it, always glancing into mirrors to fluff and primp. Would he become more likely to have an affair if the thinning didn’t stop?

I can be everything you want,
Emily thought, staring at him as he returned with their tray. “Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile that was as much for the women at the next table as for him.

Chase didn’t miss the byplay. He glanced sideways, then sat down. “So tell me about it,” he said, digging into his sandwich. “Sorry. I’ve got thirty minutes.”

Emily toyed with her food as she told him about her morning and the meetings afterward at DNAllied. “That reporter would have eaten me alive if I told him what I really think,” she said.

“You mean your up-curve?”

“Yes.”

“You made the right call. They had more than enough to take in without you rubbing their noses in it. Besides, why write one paper when you can write two?”

Emily nodded.

“I’m serious,” Chase said. “You need to announce the rest of your data before anyone else starts talking about race-related mutations.”

“Ethnocentric variations,” Emily corrected him. That was her best effort at saying the same thing inoffensively. Race played a major role in individual risk factors. No group was exempt. African-Americans had elevated rates of sickle-cell disease; northern Europeans, cystic fibrosis; and Caucasians of all stripes were more likely to have children diagnosed with ASD than blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or multi-racial parents.

But what if Laura never talks to me again?
she thought.

According to her statistical models, an unmistakable dual trend existed in most demographics. Cancer rates were increasing even as cognitive disorders became more common, and the asshole reporter had been fundamentally correct in one thing.

“You have new evidence that reduced apoptosis is a major factor in brain size,” Chase said, prompting her.