Immediately, she wanted to apologize. Sniping wasn’t her style and she admired Rubeo. And he was brilliant.

Even if he was full of himself.

Rubeo ignored her, rising and walking toward the large screen at the front of the room. Adapting one of the test programs used at Dreamland, the analysts had directed the com-

63

RETRIBUTION

puter to show the likely path of the missiles that had been disabled by the T-Rays. Bright red ellipses showed the areas they were most likely to have fallen in; the color got duller the lower the probability.

A review of the launch data showed that the Indians had fired twenty nuclear missiles, the Pakistanis eight. All were liquid-fueled. Besides the guidance and trigger circuitry in the warheads, a number of engine parts were particularly vulnerable to T-Rays, including the solenoid valves and electronic level sensors necessary for the engines to function properly. Failure of these items in most cases would choke off the engines, causing them to fall back to earth.

The question was: Where? According to the computer, all but two had fallen in the Great Thar Desert, a vast wasteland between the two countries on the Indian side of the border.

Rubeo walked toward the large screen at the front of the room. Folding his arms, he stood staring up at the map, as if being that close to the pixels somehow allowed his brain to absorb additional information.

“Problem, Ray?” asked Major Catsman, who’d been absorbed in something on the other side of the room.

“Two warheads are not showing up,” he told her.

“How can that be?”

“Hmmmph.”

“Are you sure the launch count is correct?” asked Jennifer.

Rubeo continued to stare. The analyst manning the computer that controlled the display began reassessing the data.

“We can give them what we have and tell them there may be a problem in the data,” said Catsman. “Better something than nothing.”

“The difficulty, Major,” said Rubeo, “is that the program doesn’t seem to realize the missiles aren’t there.”

His sarcasm was barely masked, but Catsman either missed it because she was tired or ignored it because she was used to Rubeo.

“Well, we better figure something out.”

“Hmmmph.”

64

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“I’ll tell Colonel Bastian about it,” Catsman added. “He’s in the Bennett. ”

“He’s in the Bennett?” said Jennifer. “I thought he went back to Diego Garcia.”

“The search operations for the rest of our downed crewmen have been slow. He wanted to kick-start them.”

Jennifer sat at one of the back consoles as Catsman made the connection. She looked away from the big screen when she heard his voice, afraid of what she might see in his face.

She wanted him home, safe; not tired, not battered, not pushed to his limit, as he always was on a mission.

She knew he would have scoffed at her, told her he wasn’t doing anything any other member of the team hadn’t done—anything that she hadn’t done herself a hundred times.

“How could the computer lose the missiles?” she heard him ask Rubeo.

“If I knew the answer, Colonel, I wouldn’t have mentioned the question,” Rubeo replied. He explained that the most likely answer had to do with a glitch in the hastily amended software they used to project the landings. But it was also possible that the satellites analyzing the launch data had erred, or that the flight paths of different missiles had merged.

“There are a number of other possibilities as well,” added Rubeo. “It will take some time to work things out.”

“We’re not the only ones doing this,” said Catsman.

“NORAD, the Navy, Satellite Command—they’ll all have information. We can coordinate it and refine the projections.

Once the U-2 is able to complete its survey of the area, things should be much clearer.”

“The question for you, Colonel,” said Rubeo, “is whether we should tell the White House what we have. They have tended to ignore our caveats in the past. Not always with the best results.”

“Tell them,” said Dog. “And keep working on it.”

“As you wish,” said Rubeo.

“What other information can you give us on the possible location of the Fisher’s crew?” Dog asked.

65

RETRIBUTION

“We’ve already passed along everything we have,” Catsman told him. “We’re pretty confident of where they were when they bailed out, and where they would be in the water.”

“Then why haven’t they been found?”

When Catsman didn’t answer, Rubeo did—uncharacteristically offering an excuse for the Navy.

“The Abner Read was distracted and too far from the area to be of much use at first,” he said. “They’re now coming south and the Werewolf should be able to help. The Lincoln is still quite far from the ejection area. Their long-range patrols can’t stay on station long enough to do a thorough job. The odds should improve the closer they get. We computed the effects of the currents and wind on the crew and gave them to the Navy, as well as the U-2 surveying the region. That should help narrow the search.”

“We’ll find them, Colonel,” added Catsman.

“I’m sure we will,” said Dog. He paused for a moment, then asked for her. “Jennifer?”

She looked up. The large screen magnified his face to the point where she could see every wrinkle, every crease and blemish. He was pale, and his eyes drooped.

“Hi, Colonel.”

The faintest hint of a smile came to his face.

“You were working on an updated search routine for the Flighthawks,” Dog said, all business.

“It still has some bugs.”

“Upload it to us anyway.”

“Yes, sir.”

For a moment it looked like he was about to say something else.

I love you, maybe. She wanted desperately to hear it. But he didn’t say it.

“I’m here if you need me. Bastian out.”

Jennifer felt a stabbing pain in her side as the screen blanked.

66

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Oval Office, Washington, D.C.

0910

JED BARCLAY KNOCKED ON THE PRESIDENT’S DOOR BEFORE

entering. President Kevin Martindale sat behind his desk, facing the window that looked out on the back lawn of the White House.

“I put together the latest data on the missiles, Mr. President,” said Jed. “There’s some disagreement between the CIA projections and Dreamland’s. The Dreamland scientists say they have two missiles unaccounted for and that may indicate—”

“Can you imagine wanting to turn the earth into a nuclear wasteland, Jed?” asked the President, staring out the window.

The question took Jed by surprise. Finally he managed a soft “No.”

“Neither can I. Some of the people in both India and Pakistan want to do just that.” The President rose, but continued to stare out the window. “The reports are filled with misin-formation this morning. I suppose we can’t blame them. I didn’t tell them exactly how we stopped the weapons, and there are a great many people who distrust us.”

Jed hadn’t seen any of the actual news reports, but had read the daily classified CIA summary before coming up to see the President. Martindale had said only that the U.S.

used “new technology” to bring down the nuclear weapons launched by Pakistan and India; the news media, without much to go on, speculated that he was referring to antibal-listic missiles launched from Alaska and satellite weapons that didn’t actually exist.

What they couldn’t quite understand was why power had gone off across the subcontinent. Some analysts had concluded that this meant at least a few of the nuclear weapons had exploded and created an electromagnetic pulse. Others simply ignored it. Given the President’s desire to seize the warheads, ambiguity was definitely in their favor, and the 67

RETRIBUTION

White House had issued orders forbidding anyone—including the official spokesmen, who actually knew very little—from addressing the matter.