War of the Sun (21 page)

The trick was, which direction?

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Toomey kept saying over and over again, almost like a mantra. “This guy’s so weird, he probably doesn’t
want
to be found.”

Though Toomey respected Wolf’s military prowess, and appreciated his skills as a military commander, he had always given the costumed Scandinavian a wide berth. People like Toomey just didn’t take to people like Wolf; they were, in fact, exact opposites. In his opinion, the dark, brooding, eccentric Norseman—the man Toomey had once dubbed “Mister Shitty Day”—had an attitude problem. What was the point of living if every day you felt you had to make it one long drag? The Socket Philosophy was that life was what happens between episodes of booze, broads, and laughs. Why not enjoy it? Will it really make any difference in the end?

Then there was the whole thing with Wolf’s costume: all black, the Batman cape and the Zorro-type mask. Many times Toomey had asked Hunter why Wolf wore the weird threads; each time Hunter told him that he honestly didn’t know.

“This guy must’ve read too many comic books growing up,” Toomey muttered to Hodge, as they switched over to the next search grid. “Someone once told me those Scandinavian comic books are
really
bad. Really fucked up.”

“You’re right,” Hodge replied. “I hear they are
very
fucked up. Or is that their movies?”

They were getting near to the end of their fuel range. Another half hour and they would have to turn it around and head back to the Task Force.

They settled on one last grid, sweeping south by southwest for ten minutes, then north by northwest for another ten, and then ten minutes to the northeast. But both pilots knew if they didn’t spot evidence of Wolf in that time, the chances that the strange man would ever be found dropped dramatically.

Hodge saw it first.

It was the outer ring of an enormous glow off the southwestern horizon, so bright it could have mimicked a sunrise.

Toomey put the Seagull into a steep climb to get a better visual angle on the light. From 20,000 feet the glow looked like the brightest of auroras, enough to turn night into day. It was so intense, Toomey imagined he could feel its heat coming right through the cockpit window.

“Somebody is definitely cranking out a lot of juice over there,” he said. “We’ve got to at least get a better look.”

He put the Seagull into a steep bank and then dived, almost straight down until he was barely a hundred feet above the water. Then he leveled off, gradually decreasing altitude until he was barely twenty-five feet above the surface, and headed for the bright, eerie glow.

Then he had a sudden thought.

“Do we have any weapons on board?” he asked Hodge.

The co-pilot stared back at him. It was the first time the subject had crossed their minds.

“Damn, I don’t know,” Hodge finally said.

Toomey took another look at the fast-approaching glow. It was getting brighter and looking more ominous by the second. He thumbed Hodge to the back of the airplane. “You better check.”

It took about a minute for Hodge to go through every supply compartment inside the old plane, a time in which the Seagull had drawn within six miles of the glow. He had just about given up when he looked in the airplane’s first-aid compartment and found an M-16 with four clips of ammo.

He reported the find to Toomey, who told him to bring the gun forward. But he had a funny feeling it wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough.

They were about two miles out when they discovered the source of the intense illumination. The glow was being thrown off by hundreds of giant movie-set arc lights that had been installed all over a chain of small islands, turning a square-mile area into something the equivalent of a night ballgame.

And what they lit was mind-boggling.

Shipyards, at least two or three of them, were on each of the five islands that made up the chain.

Row upon row of dry docks ringed these islands, obviously churning out vessels in an around-the-clock operation. Dozens of ships already built were assembled in the islands’ large mutual harbor. There must have been four or five dozen of them.

But the most frightening thing was the kind of vessel being built here.

“Christ,” Toomey swore, “they’re all
battleships.”

It was true. Not only had they stumbled onto the largest shipbuilding facility imaginable, it was also one that seemed devoted to turning out enormous battlewagons.

And neither man had any doubt that the gigantic ships were being built by the Asian Mercenary Cult.

They flashed by the five islands at top speed and about a mile and a half out. Banking back to the north, Toomey got down even lower and closed to within a quarter mile of the islands. He was hoping that the blinding glare of the enormous lights would actually shield him from unfriendly eyes.

As they shot past again, they both noticed that something didn’t appear right within the harbor. It took them a few moments to figure out just what that was.

“They’re all moving,” Toomey finally said. “They’re moving like crazy.”

It was true. Many of the battleships in the harbor were actually under way and moving. But what was weird was that they weren’t moving in any precise pattern, as one would expect capital ships to do. Instead, they seemed to be moving very haphazardly, almost as if …

“As if they’re being attacked,” Toomey said.

“Attacked? Those monsters?” Hodge exclaimed. “Who would be attacking
them?”

Unlike his good friend Hunter, Toomey did not believe in ESP, clairvoyance, synchronicity, or any other kind of cosmic junk. Yet now, something deep inside his gut was telling him to investigate closely the strange activity of the battleships, even though doing so would mean risking both their lives, either to hostile fire or dwindling fuel.

“Get that gun ready,” he told Hodge, who was strapping in even tighter to his seat. “We might need it.”

Toomey knew the only way they could do this and get out alive was quick and low—and with maximum surprise. He put the Seagull down to barely ten feet off the surface of the bay and gunned the gangling bird’s engine. As it was still an hour before dawn, he had no sun in front of which to hide.

He chose the next best thing.

Exploding out of the glare of a long bank of lights, the Seagull was suddenly sweeping through the weaving battleships, getting so close to some that the pilots could see the astonished faces of the crew members as they flashed by.

Most of the battleships were moving in the center of the islands’ mutual bay, and that’s where Toomey was headed. They began seeing muzzle flashes coming from the islands themselves, and instantly Toomey had the Seagull twisting and turning around dozens of tracer trails and small cannon explosions. At the same time, he was trying to take in as much visual information about the place as possible.

Suddenly Hodge was grabbing him on the arm. “Look! Over there …
Jesuzz…”

Toomey saw it seconds later. In the middle of the frantically moving battleships, there was a tiny but speedy motorboat weaving crazily around the harbor. Incredibly, some of the battleships were maneuvering in order to get out of its way, while others were trying to get a proper angle and distance from which they could fire on it.

But this was not the most astounding aspect of this bizarre confrontation.

“God damn, is that him?” Toomey yelled as they roared right over the top of the motorboat.
“Is that Wolf? …”

It
was
Wolf. He was standing behind the motorboat’s controls, cape whipping behind him, frantically steering with one hand and madly firing a machine-gun of some kind with the other. It was classic ants versus elephants. The ships were too big to get a bead on the motorboat, yet Wolf was firing on them with a puny MG.

“He’s gone fucking nuts,” Toomey yelled, “He’s totally flipped out.”

They both knew this was a knifefight the ant would eventually lose. Because once just one gun on one ship got a fix on the motorboat, it would blow it and Wolf to pieces.

That’s why they had to go back and try to save him.

Toomey put the Seagull into a gut-wrenching, rivet-popping turn. Soon they were screaming back into the water-tossed fray. Toomey knew he had about enough time to overfly the motorboat once, then set the Seagull down as close to it as possible. If Wolf didn’t make a move to climb on damn quick, he would simply gun the engine and get the hell out of there, leaving the insane Viking to his fate.

“Get that gun up, Hodgie!” Toomey yelled as they went into the final turn for landing. “Fire at anything!”

Hodge already had the M-16 up and out the open side vent. He began firing wildly, filling the Seagull cockpit with smoke and cordite. Toomey killed the engine and slammed the old seaplane onto the water’s surface. Wolf’s motorboat was coming at a slight angle and at full throttle, leaping into the air as it crossed behind one battleship’s substantial wake.

But there was another battleship coming right down the middle of the bay, intersecting the distance that separated the Seagull from Wolf. Many of this ship’s deck guns were suddenly coming to life. Instantly Toomey knew he would not have a chance to slow down and stop completely for Wolf.

“Hodgie, get back by the big door,” Toomey screamed to the co-pilot. “Drag this clown in if you have to.”

With that, Toomey gunned the Seagull’s engine, banked so hard to the left that the wing touched the top of the water, and flung the seaplane right around the bow of the approaching battleship. Then he slammed the controls back down, bouncing the seaplane off the choppy surface. Wolf’s boat was now just a hundred yards in front of them and coming straight on. Yanking the throttle back to half power, Toomey looked behind him and saw Hodge bracing himself at the open door.

“Ready, Hodge?”

Hodge didn’t have time to answer. They were suddenly right on Wolf’s boat. With much derring-do, the young co-pilot reached out and violently collared the wild masked man, grabbing hold of his cape and yanking it. Wolf was pulled right up out of his seat and halfway into the bay door.

That was enough for Toomey. He gunned the seaplane’s engine and yanked the controls back to his ribcage. The air around them was filled with all kinds of tracer fire now as the seaplane desperately struggled for altitude and speed. All the while Wolf was still hanging out the door, madly firing his weapon down at the battleships, even as Hodge was trying with all his strength to haul him in.

“This guy is nuts!” Toomey screamed over the immense racket.
“Fucking nuts!”

Finally getting some speed and height behind him, he twisted the Seagull around in the tightest turn it could handle without ripping apart. And then, when he saw that Wolf was finally inside and safe, he ran the old seaplane out of there as fast as its wings could take them.

Aboard the USS
Fitzgerald

T
HE DOOR TO THE
infirmary opened slowly and Ben Wa quietly stepped in.

It was dark inside, the only light coming from the gaggle of equipment set up around the room’s only occupied bed. The bed was covered with an oxygen tent, and was lousy with tubes and wires running inside the plastic sheet. Many more strings of sensors and connecting wires were strung out above.

Underneath it all lay Yaz.

Ben had visited his friend several times already that day, but now it was obvious that things were getting worse. The comatose officer was wheezing with each breath, and his face had turned even paler. There seemed to be a larger tube sticking into his mouth now, and he had IV lines in both arms and even one in his leg.

Never realizing it would be this bad, Ben quickly turned away from the bed; just seeing Yaz in such a condition felt like a punch in the gut.

He retreated from the room to find the ship’s two doctors just on their way in.

“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?”

The doctors looked at each other and then nodded grimly.

“His condition is deteriorating,” one finally said.

Ben just shook his head. “And you still have no idea what’s wrong?”

“If I had to put a label on it, I’d say it resembled the worst case of shell shock on record,” one doctor said. “Whether it’s the result of an accumulation of combat-related stress or whether something triggered it, there’s just no way to determine.”

Ben bit his lip. He knew both doctors, and both were excellent. He trusted them, knowing they would not pull any punches.

“Is there anything any of us can do?” he asked them.

Again they shook their heads.

“Nothing,” one replied.

Over the Pacific

JT Toomey checked his fuel gauge again and grimaced.

They were already halfway through their reserve fuel, and still had more than a hundred miles to go to reach the Task Force.

Even though he’d be able to set the Seagull down on the ocean, the last thing he wanted was to wind up in the extremely vulnerable position of floating out in the middle of the Pacific with no fuel, little firepower, and no way of getting where they had to be.

Unless we paddle,
he thought glumly.

Hodge was in the rear compartment, throwing out anything nonessential to lighten the load and thus help stretch the airplane’s fuel. Already their auxiliary radio and power pack were gone, as were the spare toolboxes, several jumpseats, and the extra strut assembly. The effort was helping, but not by much.

“I can think of about another 180 pounds we can get rid of,” Toomey grumbled under his breath.

He was referring to Wolf. At the moment, Toomey would have liked nothing better than to bounce the caped comic book character right out of the aircraft—the weight displacement would probably be just enough for him and Hodge to make it back to the Task Force.

The mysterious ship captain had said not a word—not even a thank-you—since they hauled him aboard and pulled his ass out of one very big fire. Instead, he had crawled up to the very end of the compartment and was now sitting there, head in hands.

Hodge climbed forward again, carrying Wolf’s weapon with him.