Dale Brown - Armageddon

‘No one is insulting your masters,’ said Dazhou. ‘The fact that you were brought into the general’s presence rather than being shot on the street – as any rebel is apt to be – proves that the general holds them in very high esteem.’

Dazhou glanced over at Udara. The general’s cheeks were a shade of bright red, and beads of perspiration were now arranged in a row on his forehead. Dazhou decided to proceed quickly.

‘Were you told to say anything?’ he asked the messenger.

‘Nothing.’

‘Then your master understands the gravity of the situation, and the generous concessions that the general has made to him.’

Dazhou turned and once more looked at Udara. For a moment, he feared all was lost, and decided he would have his revenge against Udara as well as the terrorist. But then the general spoke very calmly.

‘Tell him to proceed on the third day after your arrival,’ he told Sahurah. ‘The third day. Do you understand?’

The messenger might have been insulted – Dazhou surely would have been had the tone been used toward him – but all he did was bow his head.

‘Very good,’ said Udara, addressing Dazhou. ‘Let us have some lunch.’

Though he had not planned to stay, Dazhou thought it wise to agree.

Mack fought hard to control his temper, knowing from experience that displaying any emotion would only bring smiles to the lips of the others in the room. To a man, the other ministers hated him and would seize on any excuse to stab him in the back somehow.

There were fourteen different ministers and ‘realm advisors’ here, along with members of their staffs, crowded into a conference room that might make a good-sized closet back home. The air-conditioning didn’t work very well, and more than one of the gray faces around the table looked as if it were about to nod off into oblivion. The chief of staff – officially the sultan’s personal counselor for matters of defense – sat at the head of the table, eyes gazing at the ceiling fan. One of the navy ministers was explaining, for the third time, how it was impossible for the ship that sank to have been attacked by a ship.

The minister was speaking in Malaysian. A translator sat behind Mack, whispering the words in English. Everyone in the room could speak English perfectly; Mack suspected that they conducted the meetings in Malaysian simply to emphasize that he was an outsider.

When the navy minister stopped speaking, Mack put up his finger, though he knew from experience that he would not be recognized. Sure enough, the floor went to one of the army people, who began explaining why the Sukhois Mack had encountered did not exist.

That was it. ‘I’ve had enough,’ said Mack, standing up. ‘Enough.’

The translator looked at him, awe-struck. He thought he heard snickers as he walked out the door, but didn’t give them the satisfaction of looking back.

Prince bin Awg was somewhat more sympathetic than the ministers, or at least polite.

‘The Sukhois have to be dealt with,’ Mack told him over lunch at the prince’s palace a few miles from the capital. ‘It’s possible that they attacked the ship.’

‘I think a bomb planted aboard remains the most likely possibility,’ said the prince. ‘It would account for the total destruction. And your aircraft did not detect the attack.’

Mack couldn’t argue with that. It was possible that his crew, only rudimentarily trained, had missed it. But given the course and location of the aircraft when they were detected, it seemed to him unlikely that they were responsible for the attack. But perhaps they were part of a larger attack package, or a reconnaissance flight. In any event, they were still a threat.

‘The question in my mind,’ said Mack, ‘is why did Malaysia bring them onto the island secretly? What are they up to? How are the planes equipped?’

‘Very good questions,’ said the prince. ‘But you are assuming they are Malaysian. If so, where would they have flown from? I have checked with our sources myself – there are no jet fighters at any of the bases on the island.’

‘I think they built a strip near Kalabakan, as part of a highway,’ said Mack, ‘I want to fly over it and find out.’

‘Kalabakan?’

‘That’s my theory,’ said Mack. He’d decided it was best not to share the source of his information unless absolutely necessary – the back door might come in handy in the future.

‘Flying that far over Malaysian territory – it’s very far. It may be seen as provocative,’ said bin Awg.

‘I’ll take the Megafortress,’ said Mack. ‘They won’t see us.’

‘I don’t know, Mack. I will have to talk to the sultan personally.’

‘Okay,’ said Mack. ‘When?’

‘Tonight. Or perhaps in the morning. The timing needs to be right.’

‘Look, we have to deal with this, and we have to deal with it now,’ said Mack. ‘Even if they didn’t sink that ship, why are they sneaking interceptors onto the island?’

‘Perhaps they see the Megafortress as provocative,’ offered bin Awg.

Before Mack could respond, the prince raised his hand and signaled to the servant at the far end of the room. The man came over with two bottles of European mineral water, refilling their glasses.

‘The Sukhois were older models,’ said Mack. ‘They may have been purchased from Ivana Keptrova.’

‘No,’ said bin Awg.

‘No?’ said Mack, surprised by how quickly he had responded.

‘I asked her, and she gave me her word of honor.’

An arms dealer who gave her word of honor – Mack couldn’t decide whether that was quaint or naive. Ivana was a semi-official representative of the Russian government – she claimed to work for the Kremlin but seemed to be under no one’s direct control – and had arranged for several sales of naval equipment to Brunei. She’d also helped bin Awg buy old Cold War hardware and parts. McKenna, who’d worked for her, thought it unlikely she had supplied the Sukhois, but Mack refused to rule it out.

‘Maybe we can use this with Washington to get the F-15s,’ he said. ‘Their main argument was that there was no threat, right? Well, with a couple of Su-27s next door, you can shoot that argument down right away.’

‘The F-15s are going to be denied,’ said bin Awg.

Mack felt as if two of the legs of his chair had just been sawed off.

‘We have heard unofficially,’ added the prince. ‘The sultan is rethinking our arrangements.’

‘Totally denied?’ asked Mack.

‘We may be able to get F/A-18s. But now there are questions about the fiscal outlay.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Mack.

‘They are very expensive.’

‘Are you saying we’re not adding aircraft?’

‘Oh, no, no, no, Mr Minister. I’m not saying that at all. We of course are adding aircraft. Of course. Two more Megafortresses, some interceptors as well, as soon as it can be arranged. But the F/A-18s are not free, and the air force requires a great deal. I’m sure you agree.’

‘We need planes.’

‘Yes,’ said bin Awg. ‘We will get them. Eventually.’

‘Eventually better be pretty soon,’ said Mack.

‘Time moves more slowly in Brunei than in America, Mack. You must learn to relax.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ said Mack, picking at his lunch.

There were more problems to deal with when Mack got back to his office in the capital: the maintenance section had used its last spare part for the A-37B radios; the next one that broke would be out of action until replacement parts arrived in six to eight weeks.

‘You can’t just cannibalize them?’ Mack asked Brown, the officer in charge of the aircraft. ‘We have four that are stuck in the hangars permanently.’