"Roger that," said Zen.
He checked everyone"s position on his sitrep, then dialed into the Romanian flight"s communications channel. They were using the call signs oim Unu and oim Doi-Falcon One and Falcon Two.
"oim Unu, this is Dreamland Flighthawk leader. You read me?" said Zen. The word oim was p.r.o.nounced "shoim."
"Flighthawk leader, we are on your ear," said the pilot.
"I"m your ear too," said Zen, amused. "You know American English?"
"Ten-four to this."
"You want to take both planes yourselves? Or should we divvy them up?"
"We may first attack. Then, you sloppy seconds."
"Where"d you learn English?"
"Brother goes to American college."
His letters back home must be a real blast, thought Zen.
"All right," he told the Romanians. "I"ll be to the northeast. If they get past you, I"m on them. You won"t see the UM/Fs on your radar. They"re small and pretty stealthy."
"What is this UM/F?"
"Flighthawks. They"re unmanned fighters."
"Oh yes, Flighthawk. We know this one very well."
Had he been flying with American or NATO pilots, Zen would have suggested a game plan that would have the two groups of interceptors work more closely together. But he wasn"t sure how the Romanians were trained to fly their planes, let alone how well they could do it.
The Russian planes were in an offset trail, one nearly behind the other as they sped a few feet above the water toward land. The Romanians pivoted eastward and set up for a bracket intercept, spreading apart so they could attack the Russians from opposite sides.
At first Zen thought that the Russians" radar must not be nearly as powerful as American intelligence made them out to be, for the planes stayed on course as the two Romanians approached. Then he realized that the two bogeys had simply decided they would rush past their opponents. Sure enough, they lit their afterburners as soon as the Romanians turned inward to attack.
oim Unu had antic.i.p.ated this. He bashed his throttle and shot toward the enemy plane.
"Shoot!" yelled Zen.
But the Romanian couldn"t get a lock. The two planes thundered forward, the Romanian slowly closing the distance. And then suddenly he was galloping forward-the Russian had pulled almost straight up, throwing his pursuer in front of him.
Frustrated, oim Unu"s pilot fired a pair of his heat-seeking missiles just before he pa.s.sed the enemy plane; one sucked on the diversionary flares the Russian had fired and plunged after it, igniting harmlessly a few feet above the water. The other missed its quarry and the flares, flying off to the west before self-detonating.
The Russian had proven himself the superior pilot, but he was no match for a plane he couldn"t see. As he turned back onto his course, tracers suddenly flew past his c.o.c.kpit. His first reaction was to push downward, probably figuring he was being pursued by the other Romanian plane and hoping to get some distance between himself and his pursuer. But he was only at 3,000 feet, and quickly found himself running out of alt.i.tude. He pulled back, trying to slide away with a jink to his right.
Zen pushed Hawk One in for the kill. As the Mikoyan turned, it presented a broad target for his 20mm cannon. Two long bursts broke the plane in half; the pilot grabbed the eject handles and sailed clear moments before the forward half of the aircraft spun out and corkscrewed into the Black Sea.
"One down," said Zen. "One to go."
Dreamland Command
1500 (0100 Romania)
"THIS IS RAY RUBEO."
"Hey, Dr. Ray, how"s it hanging?"
"Major Smith. What a pleasure." Rubeo gave Mack one of his famous horse sighs. "To what do I owe the dubious honor?"
"We"re in a little fix down here, and I need your help."
"I am no longer on the payroll, Major. In fact, I am no longer on any payroll."
"We have to locate this guy in Romania who has a cell phone, but we can"t seem to get access to the cell tower network, at least not fast enough to grab him," said Mack, ignoring Rubeo"s complaint. Geniuses were always whining about something. "And I don"t have any Elint Megafortresses. I do have two radar planes, though, and two B-1s. Plus the Flighthawks and an Osprey. I figure there"s got to be some way to track the transmission down. Like we cross some wires or tune in somehow-"
"Which wires do you propose to cross, Major?"
"I don"t know. That"s why I called you."
Rubeo sighed again, though not quite as deeply. "You have Flighthawks in the area?"
"Sure. Four of them."
Another sigh. This one was absolutely shallow.
A good sign, thought Mack.
"Reprogram one of the Flighthawk"s disconnect directional homers to the cell phone frequency," said Rubeo.
"Oh sure. Cool. G.o.d, of course. How long will it take you?"
"If I were there and with access to the code library, and in a good mood, ten minutes."
"Five if you were in a bad mood, right?"
"The question is moot, Major. When I was fired, my Dreamland security clearance was revoked. We really shouldn"t even be having this conversation."
Rubeo wasn"t really fired. He had resigned by mutual consent. Forced out, maybe, but not really fired. Fired was different.
But he had a point about the clearance. Mack thought he could waive it on his authority.
Maybe.
What the h.e.l.l. He was chief of staff for a reason.
"How long will it take you to get here?" he asked. "Or maybe I can send a helicopter-"
"By plane, it will take me six hours."
"Six hours?"
"I"m in Hawaii, Major. I decided to take the vacation I"ve been putting off for five years."
Rubeo hung up.
Mack wracked his brain, trying to think who he could trust with the job. One of the geeks over at the guidance systems department probably could do it, but which one?
Maybe one of the Flighthawk people.
No, the person he needed was Jennifer Gleason.
Chester, New Jersey
1805 (1505 Dreamland)
JENNIFER GLEASON PUT DOWN THE BOX OF TISSUES AS THE movie credits rolled across the television set. She"d watched Charlie Chaplin"s Modern Times, and for some reason the ending made her cry.
Even though it was the third time she"d seen the movie this week.
The phone started to ring.
Should she answer it? It almost certainly wasn"t for her. Unless it was her mother.
Or Dog.
More likely her mother, whom she didn"t feel like talking to.
On the other hand, it might be her sister, whose house she was staying in while recuperating. Maybe she wanted to suggest plans for dinner or ask if they needed something.
Her sister didn"t have a cell phone; if Jennifer didn"t answer, she"d miss her.
Jennifer pitched herself forward on the couch, leaning on the arm to push upward. By the time she grabbed her crutch, the phone had rung for a second time. Her knee muscles had stiffened from sitting, and even though the distance from the living room to the kitchen was only ten feet at most, it seemed to take forever for her to reach the phone. The phone rang for the fourth time just as she grabbed it.
"h.e.l.lo?"
"Jennifer Gleason, please," said an official sounding male voice.
"Speaking."
"Stand by, Ms. Gleason."
"Who-"
"Hey, Jen. How"s it hanging?"
"Mack Smith?"
"One and the same, beautiful. Hey listen, we have a serious situation here. Do you have your laptop with you?"
"Of course."
"Great. Greeeaaat. Dr. Ray says this is super easy to do, with your eyes closed even..."
Aboard EB-52 Bennett,
over northeastern Romania
0101.
WHILE ZEN AND HAWK ONE WERE TAKING CARE OF THE first Russian MiG, oim Doi had been hot on the tail of the second. The Russian fighter jock might or might not have been as accomplished as his wing mate, but he was far luckier. Jinking hard and tossing decoy flares as the Romanian closed on his tail, he managed to duck two heat-seekers without deviating too much from his course. oim Doi pressed on, closing for another two-fisted missile shot. But bad luck-or more accurately, the notoriously poor Russian workmanship involved in manufacturing the export versions of the Atoll missiles-saved the Russian pilot: the lead missile of the Romanian self-detonated prematurely, knocking out not only itself but its brother less than a half mile from the target.
oim Doi kept at it, however, following the MiG as it came east and crossed into Romanian air s.p.a.ce. Zen, taking over Hawk Two from the computer, pounced on the bandit from above, pushing the Flighthawk"s nose toward the MiG"s tail. With his first burst of bullets, the MiG jettisoned two of its bombs, then tucked hard right, then left, trying to pull away.
"oim Doi, I"m going to close right," Zen said, pushing the throttle to the limit. "Slide a little farther to his left and be ready if he goes toward you."
"Yes," answered the Romanian.
Zen turned the Flighthawk in toward the Russian and lit his cannon. A few bullets nicked the MiG"s tail, but the pilot worked his stick and rudder so deftly that Zen couldn"t nail him. He was just about to turn the plane over to Dog when a heavily accented voice warned him off. oim Unu had rejoined the fight.
The Romanian flight leader had circled around to the west and managed to get in front of the other planes as they jabbed at each other. He turned in, still pushing the pedal to the metal, and made a front quarter attack at high speed, cannon blazing. Most if not all of his bullets missed, but the spooked MiG driver rolled downward and to the south.