Satan’s Tail

Dreamland 1231

Mack felt the muscles in his shoulders tense into hard rocks as he lowered himself into the pool. He had to relax if he was going to do the exercise, but relaxing on command was just about the most difficult thing in the world to do. He lowered his gaze to the surface of the pool and concentrated on breathing slowly, very slowly, as slowly as he possibly could, taking long, deep breaths, as one of the physical therapists at the hospital had recommended.

‘All right now, Major, you want to start with a nice, easy breaststroke,’ said Penny Hartung, treading water next to him.

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do,’ he said. But he didn’t let go of the rail, afraid that he would sink into the water like a stone.

Which was impossible, since he was wearing a life preserver. But fear wasn’t necessarily rational.

‘You all right?’ asked Frank DeLia, the other therapist. Frank was kneeling above him at the poolside.

‘Oh yeah, I’m good,’ said Mack, finally pushing away. He fought against the impulse to paddle madly, moving his arms out slowly as he’d been told.

‘Legs now. Legs,’ said Penny, hovering beside him.

Yup, legs, Mack thought. Legs, legs, legs.

The large beam that had fallen across his back and legs after the terrorist blew himself up had temporarily shocked his backbone. The medical explanation was somewhat longer and more complicated, but the bottom line was that he had temporarily lost the use of his legs. The thing was, no one could say how long ‘temporarily’ was supposed to be. He’d already seen several specialists; he got the impression they all thought he should be walking by now.

Not that he didn’t agree.

Mack pushed his arms out and willed his legs to kick. He didn’t feel them move. He thought his hips wiggled a little.

‘Legs,’ repeated Penny. ‘Legs.’

He got a mouthful of water as he started to lose momentum. He had his whole upper body working, and thought his legs must be working as well.

‘Push, push,’ said Penny.

‘Doing it.’ Mack checked his position against the far side of the pool. He’d gone maybe five feet. ‘Legs,’ he said himself, deciding he might do better if he gave himself a pep talk. ‘Legs. Let’s do it.’

There was a tremendous splash on the other side of the pool: Zen, who worked out here regularly.

‘Come on, gimp boy. That the best you can do?’

Mack ignored Zen, keeping his head toward the other side of the pool room. He sensed Zen swimming toward him. Determined to ignore him, he concentrated on doing a sidestroke, or at least as much of a sidestroke as he could manage.

‘Your arms are punier than Olive Oyl’s,’ said Zen.

Legs, Mack thought. Legs.

‘Use your damn legs,’ said Zen.

‘I’m trying,’ said Mack between his teeth.

‘Not hard enough.’

‘Yeah. I am.’ The burn in Mack’s arms was too much; he stopped and took a breather.

‘Don’t be such a damn wimp,’ said Zen. He plunged beneath the water, stroking away.

It occurred to Mack that swimming underwater when you couldn’t use your legs to help must be – was – extremely difficult. But then, just about everything you did when you couldn’t use your legs was extremely difficult. And Zen didn’t complain or ask for help – hell, he got mad when people tried to help him.

Which Mack understood. He’d thought after Zen’s crash that Zen got mad only with him, because he held a grudge. Now he realized Zen got mad with everyone. The reason was simple. Most of the people who wanted to help you – not necessarily all, but most – were thinking, You poor little baby, you. Let me help you.

For someone like Zen or Mack, being treated like a baby, being pitied – well the hell with that!

But you needed help sometimes. That was the worst part of it. Sometimes you just couldn’t drag yourself up a full flight of stairs, not and bring your wheelchair with you.

‘Ready to start again, Major?’ asked Penny.

‘Oh yeah. Starting,’ said Mack, pushing.

‘Ten laps, gimp boy!’ yelled Zen from the other side of the pool. ‘You owe me ten laps.’

‘Right,’ muttered Mack.

‘I’m going to do twenty in the time it takes you to do one.’

‘It’s not a race,’ said Penny.

The others liked Zen, so they wouldn’t tell him to shut up, Mack thought. And he wasn’t going to tell him to shut up either, because that would be like saying Zen had won. No way. Let him be the world’s biggest jerk. Great. Fine. Just because you couldn’t walk didn’t make you a stinking hero or a great human being. Zen was a jerk before his accident, and he was a jerk now.

A bigger jerk.

‘Legs,’ said Penny.

‘Yeah, legs,’ grunted Mack.

Humboldt County, northwestern California 1235

Kick’s family lived on a cul-de-sac not far from the town center in McKinleyville, California, the sort of location a real estate agent would call ‘convenient to everything.’ Starship parked at the far end of the circle. As he walked up the cement driveway, he started to regret his decision to come. He paused at the bottom of the steps, but it was too late; someone came up the drive behind him, and as he glanced back, the front door opened.

‘You’re his friend. How do you do?’ said Kick’s father at the door. ‘Have a drink, please. Make yourself at home.’

‘Maybe just a beer, I think,’ said Starship, stepping inside.

‘Bud’s in the fridge. Help yourself.’

Starship moved inside. As he reached the kitchen he saw Kick’s sister bending into the refrigerator – and noticed that she had a large engagement ring on her finger.

‘Oh, Lieutenant Andrews,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you changed your mind.’

‘I can only stay for a few minutes.’

‘Want something to drink?’

‘A beer maybe.’

‘Just like my brother.’ She reached in and got him a Bud Lite, then introduced him to some of the other people in the small kitchen. Two were friends of Kick’s and about his age; Starship thought the men shrank back a bit as he shook their hands, maybe put off by his uniform. There was an aunt, the sister’s fiancé, a cousin, and the minister, who proved to be much younger up close than from the back of the church. Starship took his beer and moved toward the side of the kitchen. The others were talking about something that had happened at the local school.

‘It was an unfortunate situation,’ said the minister as Starship slid to the side.

‘Yeah, really bad,’ said Starship.

‘He died a hero.’

‘Do you think that matters?’

The minister blanched. Starship hadn’t meant it as a challenge – hadn’t meant anything, really. The question simply bubbled out of his private thoughts.

‘Don’t you?’ said one of Kick’s friends.

Starship felt a moment of hesitation, a catch in his throat as if his breath had been knocked from him.

‘I don’t think he’s not – wasn’t brave, I mean. I think it sucks that he died,’ he said. ‘I think it’s really terrible. And he was – he volunteered. We all did, and it’s important what we do.’ He knew he was babbling but he couldn’t stop. ‘He was a brave guy, I mean, as brave as most people, I think, but it wasn’t like – it’s not like a movie thing, you know, where the guy charges out and people are shooting at him. We do have guys like that. They just march right through anything. And to be a pilot, I mean, you do face death, you know. But, you don’t think about it like – it’s not a movie thing. It didn’t happen like you’d think it would happen in a movie. We were there and then he was dead.’

Finally he stopped talking. He felt thankful, as if someone else had been making his mouth work and he had no control.

‘The Lord does have a plan for us all,’ said the minister.

Starship wanted to ask him how he knew, and more important, how someone could find out what the plan was. But he was afraid of opening his mouth again. He didn’t want the others to misunderstand him, and he didn’t want to insult the minister. Starship knew he wasn’t the most religious person in the world; he believed in God, certainly, but if he found himself in church more than twice a year, it was a lot.

No one else in the kitchen spoke. Starship thought everyone was staring at him.

‘That was a nice passage from the Bible,’ the cousin told the minister.

‘There’s a lot of solace in the Old Testament,’ said the minister.

Starship realized that the reverend was struggling to find the right words to say. Which surprised him. Weren’t ministers supposed to have this stuff down cold?

‘Did you know Kick well, Lieutenant?’ asked the cousin.

‘Uh, we were in the same unit. We were together –’ Starship stopped short of telling them how Kick had died. Partly it was for official reasons: Details of the mission remained classified. But mostly he didn’t want to talk about it – didn’t want to describe how he’d pulled his friend from the wreck, only to discover he was dead.

Everyone stared.

‘He was a heck of a pilot,’ said Starship finally. He could talk about this – this was easy, nothing but facts and no interpretation; easy, straightforward facts. ‘I’ll tell you, I saw him fly an A-10A once. We, uh, we had one at the base.’ He checked himself again, knowing he couldn’t mention Dreamland, much less what aircraft were there. ‘Had that A-10A turning on a dime. Ugly plane.’

One of the friends mumbled something in agreement, then ventured that Kick had always liked to fix cars when he was in high school. Starship downed the rest of the beer, then slipped out as quickly as he could.

Aboard the Abner Read, off the Horn of Africa 3 November 1997 2042

Storm adjusted the loop at his belt, easing the brake on the safety rope system so he could move more freely on the deck of the ship. Angled and faceted to lessen its radar profile, the ship’s topside was not particularly easy to walk on, even in relatively calm seas, and with no railing along the sides of the ship, the safety rope was an absolute necessity. He walked forward along the starboard side, steadying himself on the gun housing.

The Abner Read had sent its two rigid-hulled inflatable boats from the stern to search through the floating debris to the northwest. The two men on deck had seen something near the ship and, with bad weather approaching and the boats a good distance away, had worked together to pick it up before it was lost. One of the men had actually gone over the side, using his safety gear to climb down the knifelike bow area, perching on the side and fishing for the debris with a long pole.

Another commander would have probably considered this a foolhardy move, and very possibly had their captain discipline the men – if he didn’t do so himself. But Storm wasn’t another commander. While the man who had gotten down on the side of the ship had been dashed against the hull rather severely by the waves, in Storm’s opinion he had shown precisely the sort of can-do attitude the Navy ought to encourage.

‘A jacket, sir,’ said one of the sailors, handing him the dark blue cloth that had been retrieved.

More precisely, it was half a jacket. There was something in one of the pockets – a folded rial.

Yemeni currency. Hard proof that the Yemenis were involved, just in case anyone doubted him.

‘Damn good work,’ said Storm. He put the jacket under his arm. ‘Damn good work.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ shouted the men.

‘Carry on,’ said Storm. He paused. ‘And don’t drown.’

The sailors laughed. ‘Yes, sir.’

Storm turned to go back. This was the Navy at its best – filled with sailors who weren’t afraid to show initiative, and whose voices carried the proper tone of respect even in casual conversation. He’d selected the best men and women for Xray Pop, knowing the plank owners of the littoral warfare ships would be the seed of the new Navy. They were what the entire Navy ought to be, and it damn well would be when he ran the fleet.

‘Captain, you have an eyes-only message waiting, sir,’ said the seaman who met him at the hatchway. Storm followed the man to the communications department, where the crew snapped to as he came in.

‘Gentlemen. Where’s my message?’

‘Right here, sir,’ said the ensign in charge. He stepped back to let Storm sit at the computer terminal. The message had been transmitted through a secure text system. The ensign made a point of going to the radioman at the other station as Storm typed in his password and brought the message onto the screen.

REQUEST FOR RULES CHANGE DENIED. YOU ARE TO PROCEED AS DIRECTED.

I EXPECT A FULL BRIEFING SOONEST.

ADMIRAL WOODS

Hardly worth the effort of encoding, thought Storm. But then, his opinion of Admiral Woods was hardly a high one. Admiral Woods – CINCPACFLT, or Commander of the Pacific Fleet – had made such a mash of the so-called Piranha episode that the Air Force – the U.S. Air Force! – had to step in and save the day.

Not that a war between India and China was worth heading off. Like ninety percent of the Navy, Storm would have preferred to watch the two powers slug it out in the Pacific and Indian Oceans until all they had left between them were a pair of rubber dinghies. Still, if it had to be broken up, it would have been much better if the Navy had done the job.

Woods was currently aboard the John C. Stennis, which was steaming with her battle group in the eastern Indian Ocean, where the U.S. had recently prevented a war between India and China. The situation remained tense, and the only thing keeping the two countries from launching nukes at each other were two U.S. carrier groups: the Stennis and its Carrier Group Seven, and the Carl Vinson and Carrier Group Three, off the Chinese coast. A number of other Pacific Fleet assets were near Taiwan, encouraging new peace talks that would result in a permanent free China – just so long as the words ‘free’ and ‘permanent’ weren’t used anywhere in the treaty.

Storm had asked Woods to change his rules of engagement to allow him to attack the pirates in their home waters and on land. Woods was his second strike – he’d already received a no from the head of the Fifth Fleet, Admiral P. T. ‘Barnum’ Keelor. Technically, Keelor was his boss – but only technically. Based at Manama in Bahrain, the admiral had the unenviable position of trying to run a fleet with no ships, or at least no permanently assigned warships. Aside from a mine countermeasure vessel and some support craft, all of his assets were rotated in and out from the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Most of his main force – two Arleigh Burke destroyers from the Seventh Fleet – had been sent to the waters off Yugoslavia to assist the Sixth Fleet as it tried to stop a war there. The other had its hands full in the Persian Gulf.

Though Xray Pop operated in his territory, Storm’s orders had come directly from the Pentagon via Woods. He hadn’t even met Keelor, and wouldn’t before the end of his mission. Keelor was too busy trying to keep the Persian Gulf clear of Iranian mines to deal with him, which was just fine with Storm.

Woods ought to be twice as busy, Storm thought, but he seemed to relish harassing him.

‘Arrange a secure video conference with the admiral for tomorrow some time, at his convenience,’ Storm told his communications specialist. He checked some routine matters, then made his way back to Tac. In the meantime, the rigid-hull inflatable boat they had sent to look for survivors from the missile gunboat had returned empty-handed. The gunboat had sunk without a trace. The Shark Boats had reported no further contacts.

‘We’ll let the Abner Read recover her boats and spend the night here, ride out the storm,’ he told Eyes. ‘Then we’ll go south as planned. Let’s see if these bastards have the balls to take another shot at us.’

‘I’d like to see them try,’ blurted one of the men nearby.

‘Did you have a comment, mister?’ said Storm, looking over.

‘No, sir,’ said the man, eyes now pasted on the display screen in front of him.

Storm smiled and winked at Eyes. He had the best damn ships and the best damn crews in the whole Navy.

Dreamland 3 November 1997 1331

The session in the pool had done enough of a number on his ego that Mack Smith decided he would eat lunch by himself, resorting to one of Dreamland’s vending machines. This was a challenge in itself – it was impossible to reach the coin slot without dramatic contortions. Fortunately, one of the civilian workers happened by as Mack was just about to give up; she took his change and even punched the buttons for him, and her perfume softened a bit of the sting.

Mack had been offered the option of using a motorized wheelchair but had declined, largely because Zen didn’t use one. The advantages were obvious now as he struggled to build momentum up the ramp to the office he’d been assigned. Working a wheelchair efficiently required a certain rhythm as well as upper-body strength, and he hadn’t acquired either yet.

He hoped he never did. He wanted more than anything to get the hell out of this damn thing.

Ray Rubeo was waiting for him inside the office. The scientist stood staring at an empty computer screen on the worktable at the side of the room, a deep frown on his face. Mack couldn’t recall a time when the scientist hadn’t worn the frown; Dreamland’s senior scientist seemed to think scowling was part of his job description.

‘You were looking to talk to me, Major?’

‘Pull up a chair, Doc. I’m already sitting.’

‘I’m fine.’

One thing in Rubeo’s favor, thought Mack as he pushed around to the large table that was supposed to serve as his work area: He didn’t give him a look of sympathy.

The table was about two inches too high to be comfortable to work at. Mack leaned forward and unwrapped his sandwich, which was some sort of processed ham and mayo on whole wheat.

‘So?’ asked Rubeo.

‘So what, Doc?’

‘You wanted to talk to me. In person. I am here.’

‘Yeah, I do. I’m taking over Piranha.’

‘Taking over Piranha? How? That’s a Navy project.’

‘I don’t mean taking it over, exactly. I’m, you know, liaisoning. So I’m getting up to speed.’

Rubeo’s frown deepened. Mack ignored it.

‘I was looking at the reports and it seems to me there’s one constant. You need more people.’

‘I would say that is a constant, yes.’

‘So the first thing we have to do is get you more people.’

‘And?’

This was not exactly the response Mack had anticipated. While he knew that the scientist didn’t have it in him to jump up and down in thanks, he had hoped that by acknowledging that the staff was overworked he might show from the start that he was on the team’s side. This, of course, would pay dividends down the line, when he had to pressure them for more results.

‘And I’m going to try to get you more people.’

‘Thank you, Major,’ said Rubeo, in a tone that suggested thanks was the last thing he had on his mind. The scientist started to walk from the room.

‘Hey, Doc, where are you going?’

‘Was there something else?’

‘I thought maybe you could run down where we were with some of the related programs. It seems to me that the real potential here –’

‘You haven’t been given the reports?’

‘What’re these tactical UAV things, the Littoral Combat Intrinsic Air Multiplier Systems? Now those are pretty interesting.’

‘Piffle,’ said Rubeo.

‘Piffle?’

‘A worthless Navy project. We’re not involved. They want to run the tests here – assuming they ever get the project out of their CAD programs.’ Rubeo wrinkled his nose, as if he’d caught a whiff of sulfur. ‘You might try informing them that there’s very little water in the middle of the Nevada desert.’

‘I thought they were just adaptations of the unmanned helicopter system,’ said Mack. ‘I thought the project only got bagged because of the budget.’

‘UHS was a Dreamland project, that is correct,’ said the scientist, referring to the program by its initials. ‘This is different. If the Navy would deign to use a design that was originally done for the Army – as UHS was – then there would be no problem.’

‘They won’t use it?’

Rubeo rolled his eyes.

‘These Navy things look like the Werewolves,’ said Mack.

‘Hardly. The Werewolf works.’

Rubeo started away. Mack wheeled forward and grabbed his shirtsleeve.

‘What about the Integrated Warfare Computing System?’ asked Mack. ‘It’s already installed in their littoral combat ships. We have some interfaces for it.’

The scientist snorted.

‘Problems?’ asked Mack.

‘The Navy’s computer code reminds me of the programs that were part of the TRS-80,’ said Rubeo. ‘Without the benefit of being compact.’

‘I assume that’s some sort of put-down, right?’

‘The TRS-80 was a Radio Shack computer dating from the 1970s. Yes, Major, it was a put-down. We have interfaces, though to be honest, why anyone would want to use them is beyond me. Their systems crash every eighteen to twenty-four hours.’

‘So why don’t they just bag the crappy computer and use one of ours? Or even something off-the-shelf?’

‘You haven’t dealt with the Navy much, have you?’

‘I’ll just straighten them out, then.’

A faint glimmer of a smile came to Rubeo’s lips. ‘I hope you do, Major. Can I go now?’

‘Sure,’ said Mack. ‘We should have lunch sometime. I really want to get to know you better.’

‘Yes,’ said Rubeo, leaving.

McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas 1630

Captain Danny Freah walked past the row of video slot machines and turned left into the large baggage claim area. The flight from New York had landed a few minutes ago, and passengers were just starting to filter in. As Danny walked toward the carousel, a short man in a gray suit approached him from the side.

‘You’re Captain Freah, I’ll bet,’ said the man.

‘Danny Freah, yes,’ said Freah. ‘Lee?’

‘That’s me,’ said the man, Lee Rosenstein, pumping Danny’s hand. ‘I thought you’d be in uniform.’

‘I’m off-duty,’ Danny told him.