Strike Zone (30 page)

Kick was silent. Finally, he said, “Sucks.”

“Yeah, it does. But you move on. You have to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hey, you know, just call me Zen. You take the stick after this run, all right? I'm going to roll back on the deck there and grab myself a soda.”

“I can get it.”

Pity? Or just a young officer trying to please his superior.

Zen opted to believe it was the latter. He'd give the kid the benefit of the doubt until proven wrong. Same with Starship.

“That's okay, Kick. I want you to get as much practice in the air as possible. Okay?”

“Great,” said the other pilot. “I appreciate it.”

Kaohisiung
1650

T
HE ISLAND OF
Taiwan measures only 396 by 144 kilometers. While Kaohisiung was on the opposite end of the country from Taipei where Danny and the rest of the team were, the flight south in a rented Sikorsky took less than an hour.

The first site they had to check was a large office building near the center of the city off Kusshan-1 Road. Danny took out his fancy opera glasses and slowly scanned the interior. Liu, once again acting as the liaison with the Dreamland team, declared the basement nearly empty; the only machinery on the floors above related either to the cooling system or to the elevators. Twenty-something stories filled with office workers and nothing more lethal than a letter opener.

Even so, Stoner and Danny went inside, going up to the fifteenth floor where a Taiwan magazine had its offices. They played tourist, Stoner claiming to work for a San Francisco publication Danny had never heard of but that somehow impressed the Taiwanese. After a few minutes it was clear to Danny that there was nothing of much interest here, and he practiced smiling and nodding. Stoner passed out a whole parcel of business cards; Danny realized from the looks he was getting that not having any was a serious faux pas.

“What's with the cards?” Danny asked as they took the elevator down.

“Considered polite to exchange them,” said the CIA agent. “I have dozens for every occasion.”

He showed a few to Danny. They declared he was a
magazine editor, electronics equipment buyer, engineer, and American trade representative. The backs of the cards had the information in Chinese characters.

“You sure you're not schizophrenic?” said Danny, handing the cards back.

“Sometimes I wonder.” Stoner pocketed the cards. “Computer system is easy to access. They're networked with an Ethernet. We can get in if we want.”

“You think it's worth it?”

“At the moment, no. But now we can come back and get in easily. Once the system is bugged, the NSA whizzes can get into the printing plant.”

“Where's that?”

“Our next stop.”

 

N
EITHER THE PRINTING
plant nor the warehouse they looked at seemed very promising; the printing plant was in fact used for printing, and the warehouse held vegetables. Stoner pushed on, aware that the last site on his list was the most promising—it had a pier on the harbor front and sprawled over nearly a hundred acres.

It was also well guarded by fences, men, and dogs.

“This would be a perfect place,” said Danny, looking at the site through binoculars from a dock diagonally across the bay. “What the hell do they do there?”

“Recycle everything and anything,” said Stoner. “Electronics mostly. That shed at the far left had car batteries. They strip away the outer casings, reuse the lead and the acid as well. Those drums there are filled with sulfuric acid.”

“Lovely.”

“Oh yeah. Real environmental operation.”

Stoner pointed to two buildings at the right side of the facility, fenced off from the others by a double row of razor wire.

“That's where I think the operation might be, if it's here. There's a track up from the pier.”

“Pier looks shaky,” said Danny.

“Appearances can be deceiving. Can you get a scan?”

“We're too far for the viewer. We have to get a lot closer.”

“Not a problem. We can get on that dock at night, go up to the fence. There's no guard on the water side.”

“Not now, maybe,” said Danny. “What about at night?”

“We'll have to find out,” said Stoner. “But if they're not going to watch during the day, they probably won't at night.”

“Man, I can smell the acid from here,” said Danny.

“Yeah. We stay away from the damn battery shed if we can.”

“I got to scan it.”

“Your call.” Stoner put down his glasses. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Let's go get some shrimp.”

 

“I
THOUGHT WE
were getting something to eat,” said Liu when they stopped in front of the large warehouse building in the city's southwestern district.

“We are,” said Stoner, getting out of the rental.

“This a restaurant?”

“In a way.”

Danny, Liu, and the driver followed Stoner up a set of cement steps to the side of the large metal building, passing inside to a small corridor lit by several rows of
fluorescent lights. Tekno-pop boomed from beyond the plasterboard wall, the bass so loud the cement floor shook.

A woman sat on a stool in front of a large opening at the end of the hallway; at first Danny thought they'd been taken into a carnival. Stoner said a few words, first in Mandarin Chinese and then in English, before handing over some of the local money; in return, the woman passed out several fishing poles, empty baskets, and kids' pails filled with what looked like small brown slugs.

“Bait,” said Stoner, handing a pail to each man. “Liver. I think. She had trouble with my Mandarin and I couldn't quite get her Taiwanese.”

“What is this?” asked Liu.

“We have to fish for our dinner,” said Stoner.

The driver was smirking. Danny followed him inside, where a large pool of foul-smelling water was surrounded by pink lawn chairs, about a third of them filled by Taiwanese “fishermen.” The water was filled with six-inch-long shrimp; the crustaceans were easy to hook, though pulling them out required a bit of wrist action. There were several ways to do this, which the nearby fishermen were eager to explain; Danny found his small basket quickly filling up with shrimp.

“On to the barbie,” said Stoner when each of the party had caught about a dozen or so. The warehouse was studded with charcoal barbecues; Stoner showed them how to skewer the creatures, snap off their claws with a knife, and then roast them alive, or at least nearly alive.

They washed dinner down with cans of beer, bought from one of the vendors.

“Lovely,” said Danny, eyeing his roasted dinner.

“It's really tasty,” said Liu.

“So's burnt toast.”

Stoner laughed, and got a few more ready for the grill.

Aboard
Penn
, over the South China Sea
1834

K
ICK HAD
H
AWK
One running five miles ahead of
Penn
and was just checking back with Major Alou about a contact when
Pennsylvania
was hailed by a flight of AIDC Ching-Kuos of the Chung-Kuo Kung Chuan—Republic of China Air Force, aka the Taiwan air force—patrolling the waters south of the island.

The AIDC Ching-Kuo came in two “flavors”—a single-seat tactical fighter, and a two-seat combat trainer. Developed with the help of Northrop and other U.S. manufacturers, the Ching-Kuo was a two-engine aircraft that might be favorably compared to a Northrop F-20 or advanced F-5E, able to top Mach 1.7 and with a combat radius of one thousand kilometers.

Major Alou altered the flight to the Megafortress, and Zen told Kick to let them know where he was as well. No sense surprising the allies, whose flight path would take them into visual range as they approached.

Both Taiwanese pilots spoke English very well, though Kick struggled somewhat to make out the words through the accent and vagaries of radio transmission. The two CKKC aircraft were flying southward toward the Megafortress at roughly thirty thousand feet, about five thousand below
Penn
's altitude.

Kick plotted out an intercept in his head, mocking
up how he would handle the two planes if they were Mainland Chinese. His altitude and tiny size gave him a decent advantage; he saw himself tucking his wing, slashing into a front-quarter attack on the lead plane before he even knew Kick was there, then lashing back around to take out the trailer. A “normal” aircraft would find the maneuver difficult at best, but the small Flighthawk would have no trouble spinning back around for the second attack.

“Quite a plane!” exclaimed the CKKC leader, a Captain Hu, as they drew within visual distance.

“Thank you,” answered Kick.

The CKKC pilot began peppering him with questions about the aircraft's performance. It soon became clear that he didn't realize it was a robot.

“What should I tell him?” he asked Zen.

“Tell him you're a UFO, recently enlisted in the U.S. Air Force,” joked Zen.

“Um—”

“I'm just pulling your leg,” said Zen. He clicked into the circuit and spoke to the CKKC pilot, giving some generic data that they were cleared to share. The existence of the U/MFs was no longer a secret, since they had seen action over the past year and even been written up in the aviation and general media.

“Wants to race you,” laughed Zen.

“Race?”

“He'd probably win. The AIDC Ching-Kuo is a good aircraft, very capable. No match for a Flighthawk, of course, but we won't tell him that.” Zen's tone changed. “All right, we're about ten minutes from the coast. Best check with Major Alou about the landing
details. I'm going to see if I can get ahold of Captain Freah and see how he's doing.”

“Yes, sir,” said Kick, wincing as the word ‘sir' left his mouth.

 

Z
EN DOUBLE-CHECKED
the plotted course as they headed toward the airfield. In general, he was pleased with Kick's flying. The lieutenant was still a few notches behind Starship, but he did have potential, and undoubtedly his skill would grow as he became more comfortable with the aircraft.

“Zen, got a second?” asked Alou over the interphone.

“Always for you, Merce,” he laughed.

“Danny's got a little job lined up for tonight, couple of hours from once it's dark. Wondering if we can provide a little overhead reconnaissance.”

“That's why we're here,” said Zen.

“Okay. We'll go ahead and land and get refueled, find some grub. Think they do takeout here?”

Kaohisiung
2101

D
ANNY COULD SWIM
pretty well, but the mile from their small motorboat to the pier was nonetheless a trial. The water stunk of oil and sewage. It felt like acid, boring its way past his wetsuit, through his skin, trying to disintegrate his bones. The wind whipped at the water and Danny lost his sense of direction; he knew he was moving forward, but it seemed as if his target kept moving away. By the time he finally drew
within fifty yards of the pier, his shoulders were burning with the effort.

Odd sounds rushed into his ears, the whine of machinery and boats and other mechanical sounds jumbling with the lap of water against the docks. When he got near the end of the dock, he heard a sharp whistle and turned to find Stoner treading water a few feet away.

“How are you doing?” Stoner asked.

“I'm okay.”

“There's a spot to get up on the shore over there, on the other side of the pier. A little dock they use for boats.”

“I thought we were going up here,” said Danny. “That was the plan.”

“There's a light at the end of that wharf there. I saw it coming in. I'm afraid we'd cast shadows.”

Danny grunted, and followed as Stoner slid under the pier. He brushed his leg unexpectedly against the side of one of the pilings, and even though he knew it was just part of the dock, he instantly thought of sharks.

Stoner had already climbed out of the water by the time Danny reached the incline, which was lined with rotting pieces of wood. He hoisted himself up and crawled on the planks, pushing up from the harbor.

“Don't get a splinter.”

“No shit.” Danny caught his breath a moment, then pulled up the waterproof sack he'd towed with him. He exchanged his flippers for a pair of sneakers, then took the viewer from its cooled bag. Stoner, meanwhile, was scouting on shore, viewing the facility from a pile of old ropes and tires.

Danny settled in next to him and trained the viewer on the general area, getting a lay-of-the-land picture for the specialists. Stoner pulled out a sat phone to talk to Dreamland, confirming that the device was working.

“Target buildings are that way,” he said when Danny finished. “We go along that fence line right to the building. See the railroad track? We can walk right up it.”

“Don't think the midnight express is running tonight?”

“Hope not,” said Stoner.

Danny pulled out his sat phone and hooked in the headset so he could talk to Zen.

“Whip One to Hawk Eyes,” said Danny. “Zen, how are we looking?”

“Twenty-twenty,” replied the pilot. “Just making another pass now. We have you and the spook down near the wharf. Six guards, up near the road. Uh, looks like there's a couple in target building one, still just the one in building two.”

“Thanks for the assist. We're going to get closer and use the viewer.”

“Have fun. Hey, Liu told me you went shrimp fishing,” added Zen.

“An experience, believe me.”

“Beats McDonald's.”

“Don't count on it.”

Danny and Stoner climbed over an eight-foot fence to get to the railroad tracks, then walked along them to the razor wire fence separating the two buildings they wanted to inspect from the rest of the yard. Rather than climbing the fence as they had planned, Stoner led the way to a large yard on the other side of the tracks dominated by piles of discarded computers and
electronics gear. The piles gave them a good vantage on the first building and a decent though slightly obstructed look at the second.