Death Orbit (11 page)

During the past 12 hours, reports had been flooding into the VAB bunker concerning conflicts that had suddenly popped up all around the world. Using the few spy satellites it had at its disposal, plus intelligence from various radio monitoring assets and the old reliable “Hum-Int,” the UA command staff had been besieged with communiqués of wars suddenly breaking out in many parts of the world, especially in the Balkans, the Middle East, and South and East Africa. A full-scale conflict had apparently erupted between what was once China and what was once India; enormous bombings and missile attacks were reportedly going on between the Kingdom of Brazil and the so-called Glorious Empire of Argentina. Dispatches telling of battles big and small were coming in from just about every point on the globe. Even a war between Iceland and Greenland had apparently broken out, prompting one UA staff officer to ask: “What the hell are those guys fighting over? Ice?”

It seemed like the world had suddenly gone mad. Anyone anywhere who had a gripe against his neighbor had suddenly decided now was the time to do something about it.

“We live in very scary times,” Jones had told his command staff, as they’d worked feverishly to pull UA combat units from all over the continent and get them to the crisis zone. “Every day, every hour, we still do not know what the next will bring…”

No sooner were those words out of his mouth than a radiophone on Jones’s desk began beeping.

On the other end was John O’Malley, Captain Crunch himself.

He’d just returned from his overflight of Cuba—and he had some rather disturbing news to tell.

New Kingdom of Burma

C
HLOE APPEARED BEFORE THE GATES
of Rangoon City just as the sun was coming up over the titanic mountains to the east.

It was just as she remembered it—yet different, too. The huge air base, the rows of shiny jet fighters, tanks, and other military equipment, were displayed like the toys of the richest child in the world, which was exactly what they were. The streets were lined with old-fashioned American-style billboards. The glittering spiral palace rose above it all.

This was the center of the kingdom of the place once known as Burma. Its ruler was a thirteen-year-old boy referred to by everyone as the Kid King.

Chloe knew this place, and its adolescent monarch, very intimately. During the transglobal dash to keep Viktor II’s space shuttle from landing except where they wanted it to land, Hunter and Chloe had come here to Rangoon, and after a bit of subterfuge and intrigue, had convinced the Kid King to deny his huge base and its ultralong runway to the orbiting superterrorist. This act set up the final battle on the South China Sea island of Lolita and resulted in the United Americans’ capture of the Zon spacecraft.

Though Hunter had moved on to this final confrontation, Chloe had chosen to stay behind in Rangoon. It was from here that she eventually traveled up to the high mountains where the temples were. At the time, she believed that she would stay up there forever, or at least, until Hunter came to get her.

But now she had returned to the city, to the place where it had all started. It had taken her just two days to get here—coming down off the mountain, the trip south on the Irrawaddy River, hitching a ride down to the Imperial City. None of it was any problem. Chloe was so beautiful that getting people to help her had always been easy. But the dream that had woken her up at the temple had stayed with her throughout the journey; even in the daytime it was always there, in the back of her mind, its vision haunting her, especially the horror of the gigantic hand and the sound of someone laughing from very far away.

She knew she had to do something about it, knew she had somehow to warn people—the
right
people—about the writings in
The Book of Thirteen.
That quest had to begin here, oddly enough, at the palace of the Kid King.

To her amazement, the guards at the entrance to the palace recognized her right away. They fell to their knees in tribute, an action which lasted for an embarrassing length of time. They remembered her as the beautiful woman from whom their king had finally found his first manhood, an outstanding national event. In the short time she’d been gone, her image had been ingrained in their minds as some mystical entity, both real and unreal at the same time. Indeed, a myth had risen up around her, fueled by the Kid King himself. Completely without her knowledge, Chloe was in the process of being deified in Rangoon. For her to suddenly show up at the palace gates like this was the equivalent of the guards witnessing a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. No wonder they’d remained prostrate until Chloe gently nudged them back to their feet.

Once the commander of the guard was called and he recovered from his shock, Chloe was whisked to the palace. Word had already spread by this time, and the Kid King, anxious and yearning, was waiting for her as soon as she arrived inside the Imperial Hall. He yelped when he first saw her, literally running down the steps from his throne and embracing her lustily. She had facilitated his journey from virginity to adulthood, so far the biggest event in the Kid King’s life. To see her now again, so soon, was like a dream come true for him. He immediately began leading her to the royal bedroom.

But Chloe had to gently stop him and request they speak privately, while remaining vertical. The King reluctantly agreed and they retired to the royal drawing room instead. Fresh melons and a pitcher of ice-water awaited them there. A luxurious foldaway bed dominated one corner.

“I need your help,” Chloe told him, watching his pudgy, dark features rise and fall on her every word. “And I need it badly.”

“I am your servant,” the King replied, even as his eyes feasted on her delicate features, her blond hair, her pert breasts poking through her nearly transparent white silk gown. “If your desire is to own the world, then I shall get it for you…”

Chloe smiled for the first time in many days. She was not that much older than the Kid King, yet eons separated them in maturity. Still, there was a warm place in her heart for him.

“My desire is to save the world, not own it,” she told him.

He stared back at her and began to laugh. “Save the world?” he asked. “That’s a tall order for someone like you, is it not?”

Chloe nodded and smiled again. She realized how strange it had sounded as soon as the words left her lips. But they were true. She believed nothing less than the fate of the planet rested with her, and the words she knew from the swami and
The Book of Thirteen.

“I must go on a long journey,” she began again, knowing it would be best to keep it simple at this point. “I must get to the other side of the world very quickly. I believe there are people there who can help me… help us all. I have information that they must know. And only I can tell it to them.”

The Kid King’s face screwed up into an expression of confusion and disappointment. “You mean you are not here to stay?” he asked, his voice cracking a little.

Chloe shook her head no.

“I have to get to America,” she told him again. “As soon as possible. That’s why I have come. I know you of all people, would help. And that you have the means to help.”

“You need an airplane,” the Kid King said, after allowing it all to sink in. “A fast one, yet one that can make the journey with few stops, or without any stops at all.”

“Yes, yes,” Chloe said, her hand inadvertently landing on his knee.

The Kid King’s face lit up like he’d just been plugged into an electrical outlet.

“And you will need someone to fly this plane for you,” he continued, his voice cracking for other reasons now. “Someone who is trustworthy and brave.”

“Yes,” Chloe said, intentionally moving her hand upward from his knee now. “Do you have such a plane? One that will go fast and get me to America quickly? And a pilot to bring me?”

The Kid King gasped at her hand movement.

“Yes, I do,” he said quickly.

Her hand moved higher.

“Can I leave right away? Is this pilot available?”

The Kid King felt like he was about to explode. These things happened very quickly and without much stimulation.

“Yes, the plane… can be… made ready,” he groaned. “And the pilot. He is my second cousin. He will be able to… my God, I’m going to make a mess!”

The Kid King exploded a moment later. His eyes closed at the intensity of it. He shuddered once, twice, a third time. Then it was over. Chloe’s hand never made it halfway up his thigh. It didn’t have to.

“I must leave now,” she whispered to him as he floated back down to earth. “Every minute counts…”

He finally caught his breath and opened his eyes again.

“Yes, of course,” he replied, his voice deeper than just a moment before. “I will make the necessary preparations. You can leave within the hour.”

Exactly fifty-five minutes later, Chloe and the Kid King arrived at the huge imperial airport, riding in one of the teenager’s sleek Rolls Royces, accompanied by an armed escort and palace entourage that numbered in the hundreds.

It was still early morning and the last of the fog had yet to lift from the air base or the five-mile-long runway it boasted as its centerpiece. In this part of Asia, as well as around the world, length was everything. The Rangoonese were extremely proud of their runway, claiming that it was the longest in the world, and not being too far off. Whenever the long runway was to be used, it served as a kind of instant national holiday. This is why many of the civilian population was on hand, too.

At the far end of the base, past the rows of MIGs, Alpha Jets, Mirages, and Jaguars that the Kid King had collected as his own, there was a huge flight hangar surrounded by a veritable forest of SAM positions. This place was the equivalent of the Kid King’s top-secret toybox. Inside were his most prized aerial possessions, aircraft that even the closest members of his family and imperial staff rarely got to see. The hangar was quite nearly a sacred place in the city; ordinary citizens were warned not to even look in its direction without permission. No surprise, then, that it was probably the most-guarded place in the country.

But now, on this day, the doors to the hangar were open, and a great beam of light was flowing out from the inside. To mark the honor of the occasion of Chloe’s return to the city, the Kid King was about to reveal his latest prize possession, an aircraft that was at once very rare, very expensive, yet capable of flying very fast, very far, without the need for refueling. It was, in effect, the answer to Chloe’s prayers.

It was a B-58G Hustler, an enormous supersonic jet bomber that had first flown back in the mid-1950s. The Hustler was the fastest bomber ever built. With its delta-wing design, its four huge underwing engines, its needle nose, and its extremely high tail, it looked like a stretched-out, pumped-up fighter plane, which, in reality, it was. When it was first designed, the Cold War creators of the Hustler needed an airframe that could go fast with a heavy load of bombs. Instead of starting from scratch, they took portions of designs from existing jet fighters, expanded them to twice or three times their normal size, added more power and more fuel capacity, and came up with the B-58. On its worst day, the Hustler could do 1600 mph, nearly two-and-a-half times the speed of sound.

On a good day, it could book at Mach 3.3.

This was the Kid King’s favorite toy, and if anyone other than Chloe had asked for its use, they would probably have been beheaded. But she was the spiritual mistress of Rangoon these crazy days, garnering equal to, or even surpassing, the respect given the Kid King’s overbearing mother. Chloe could have asked for the Kid King’s entire collection of fighter jets
and
the Hustler and gotten them all. That was the power of giving someone his first taste of sex.

The huge bomber was towed out to the end of the long runway; no less than six APCs were needed to do the job. Riding in the entourage behind the Kid King’s Rolls was a small car bearing his second cousin, a man nicknamed Budda-Budda. He was considered the best pilot in the kingdom and the man who flight-tested and supervised all of the aircraft acquisitions for his cousin the King. He was also a eunuch, a sacrifice he’d made years before as a sign of loyalty to his royal cousin.

Now Budda-Budda emerged from his car and walked to the ladder set up beside the cockpit of the B-58. The Kid King and Chloe alighted from the Rolls and met the pilot at the bottom of the steps. The crowd cheered at this, and a seven-gun salute was heard in the background. The mistress Chloe was leaving on a mission to the other side of the globe, the purpose of which was no less than saving the entire human race. And the Kid King’s own cousin, the much-beloved Budda-Budda would be taking her on this most important journey in the King’s most precious airplane. What a glorious day for Rangoon! The fate of all civilization now lay in their hands.

But for royal second cousin Budda-Budda, other things were taking precedent. His eyes, having first fallen on Chloe, now would not let go. He’d never seen such a beautiful creature. Even in her bulky flight suit, the curves of her body, the porcelain quality to her skin, her luminescent hair—it was all quite apparent, quite real. Budda-Budda barely listened as his cousin the King introduced her to him and explained what Budda-Budda must now do.

“Take her where ever she wants to go,” the Kid King was explaining to him. “Protect her. Keep her safe. Lay down your life for her, if need be.”

Budda-Budda still could not pull his eyes away. She smiled at him and he glowed. Quite impossibly, he felt a stiffening between his legs.

“I will do all that and more, my King,” he was finally able to gasp.

The Kid King reached out and put his hand on Budda-Budda’s shoulder. The crowd, now swelled to several thousand, let out an enormous cheer.

As if in response, the Kid King leaned in and whispered something else in his cousin’s ear: “Take good care of my airplane, too…”

Ten minutes later, the huge B-58 was at the opposite end of the extra-long runway, its four enormous 16,000-pound-thrust engines screaming with power and creating a hurricane of smoke and exhaust in their wake. The crowd never stopped cheering as the big plane began its take-off roll, the smoke behind it so thick now, it all but obscured the picturesque view of the grand mountain ranges beyond.