Jim DeFelice - Cyclops One

Howe would sweep over the northernmost target and arc south with Timmy on his tail. He had a search pattern laid out, and they’d already worked out a rendezvous with one of the tankers, which would take up a station to the west.

A flight of F-15s were heading north from Japan to join in the search. They hadn’t contacted Howe yet; at last report they would be near the target area about fifteen minutes after he got there, and would probably be too low on fuel to hang around for very long.

The radar kicked up a contact at extreme range, flying at roughly thirty thousand feet; after a few seconds the contact disappeared, their courses taking them in diverging directions.

“Think that was our boy?” asked Timmy.

It was possible, but if so, the plane was heading over Russia. Howe told him to ignore it, and a few minutes later they fell onto the course he’d plotted to overfly the first island. The AWACS plane accompanying the task force was a good distance behind them, and even the nearest Navy aircraft was well outside radar range. They would have little warning if the Russians managed to spot them and decided to jump them.

It took Blitz a few seconds to understand exactly what was going on as the transmissions from the augmented-ABM test barraged into the small secure videoconferencing booth. He turned to McIntyre, who seemed to be in a daze.

“Mac, Fisher was right.”

“Yes,” said the NSC aide, his voice still far away — probably on the ground in Kashmir, where it had been since his return. Blitz was going to insist on a long rest — and possibly psychological counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder — as soon as this was over.

“Get on the line to the FBI director and tell him to proceed with the shutdown of NADT. We want everything,” he added, though the command was superfluous.

“Fisher was right,” said McIntyre.

“As incredible as it seems,” said Blitz, turning back to the communications board and punching up Colonel Gorman’s circuit. “You have full authority to proceed,” he told her. “You’re answering to the President on this.”

Just as the island started to grow in her windscreen, Megan’s radar warning receiver flashed to life, picking up transmissions from two planes approaching at high speed. The direction surprised her: They were coming out of Russia.

Her weapons officer ID’d them as Su-35s, afterburners blazing. But at just under a hundred nautical miles away, they weren’t going to catch her, not today.

“Prepare for landing,” she told Rogers. As she cut her speed and settled into the landing pattern, the wings of the big jet swung outward. The extension increased the radar profile exponentially, but it was immaterial now: They had the lead needed. In less than fifteen minutes the plane and the weapon would be smoldering, and she and the others would be in the water.

“I have something else.” The radar operator’s voice was practically a yelp.

Megan, lined up and descending toward the runway, glanced at her own radar display and saw the helicopters that were just coming over the edge of the island from the water. But it was too late: She was nearly out of fuel and committed to landing.

“Shit,” she said. “Rogers, what is this?”

“Damned if I know,” said the copilot. “Russians?”

“Just hang tight,” Megan told him, pushing the wheels onto the hardened-lava runway.

Howe finally got a plane on the radar, landing at the third site, sixty-three miles south of him. The AI circuits in the tactical radar targeting system focused their beams and scratched their silicone heads, tentatively I Ding the contact as a Blackjack bomber.

“I have it,” said Howe.

“I copy,” said Timmy. “More contacts: Su-35s.”

The planes appeared on his tactical screen, their approximate speed and altitude computed for him. The Russian planes had not yet found the American jets, but if they stayed on their present course, they would beat them to the island.

A combat escort? Or something else?

Another pair of contacts rose near the atoll: helicopters.

Howe tried but couldn’t reach Gorman’s command plane, or any of the other aircraft in her task force. He gave it another try; when he came up blank he told Timmy they’d shoot over the atoll where the Blackjack had landed and have a look.

“What do you want to do about the Russians?” asked his wingman.

“Tell them to stand off, that we’re conducting a test mission.”

“Yeah, and when they laugh at us, then what?”

“Splash them if they get in our way.”

“What I’m talking about.”

Megan trundled through the dust at the far end of the camouflaged strip, heading back over the area she’d just landed on. The explosives were rigged in a grid at the edge of the narrow ramp that led to the hangar elevator; they could not be detonated unless the plane was sitting on one of the large metal plates at the mouth of the elevator. As she approached, a whirlwind kicked across her path. Rocks flew into her nose and smacked hard against the thick glass of her windscreen.

Not rocks: bullets.

The whirlwind turned back. It was a helicopter gunship, a cannon at its chin. The dark green and brown fuselage of an Mi-28 Havoc materialized out of the maelstrom, continuing to fire at her as she rolled. Megan ducked involuntarily as bullets crashed into the right side of the fuselage and wing. She had trouble finding the turnoff but stayed on the hardened ground, pushing the nose around at the last minute but still managing to get in the middle of the plate.

“Out!” she shouted. “Out! Out!”

She fumbled with the lock on her restraints, finally snapping it off as the topside hatchway hissed open. Megan curled over the side, throwing her legs over and then down, releasing herself to the ground. She rolled as she landed, getting up to her feet as one of the helicopters streaked overhead.

Howe saw the helicopters fluttering over the plane as it stopped. They were Russian choppers, Mi-28s or something similar, gunships that might support assault troops. He was moving too fast to target anybody; he began a turn south, hoping to use the time to sort out what was going on down there.

“Bird One, this is Cyclops Control,” said Gorman. “Be advised: Several Russian interceptors are approaching you.”

No shit, he thought.

“The laser plane is down,” Howe told her. Words rattled from his mouth like bullets from the Gatling in the F/A-22V’s starboard wing root as he gave her the GPS coordinates, ID’d the plane as a Blackjack with a V-shaped tail and other mods, and then told her about the helos.

“Assault team has an ETA of minus thirty minutes,” she said. “We’d like to recover the aircraft if possible. If not, destroy it.”

Before Howe could acknowledge, Timmy shouted a warning.

“Missiles in the air! Missiles in the air! Those crazy Russian fucks are gunning for us.”

“Can you assess the situation on the ground?” Gorman asked, unable to monitor the communications between the two Velociraptors.

“We’re under fire,” said Howe, dishing chaff and taking evasive action.

“From the Russians?”

Howe was too busy jinking to make any of the dozen or so retorts that occurred to him.

The dust felt like heavy sackcloth, covering her face. Megan choked as she tried to get up, rubbing her eyes to clear enough grit away so she could get her bearings. She saw her three crewmen collapse behind her, falling as the helicopter made another pass.