“That would be the worst thing to do,” snapped Freeman.

“Especially with the Senate hearings coming up. They’ll subpoena you for sure.”

“But if I just said what happened, maybe said it now before the hearings—”

“It’ll call attention to it, people will question the Security Council decision, the vote may be reversed—frankly, at this point, I’m not sure anyone would believe that it was innocent.”

“It was.”

“I don’t want you to talk to anyone,” said Freeman. “Let’s do this—you’re on vacation right now, until further notice.

OK? Vacation? Which means, talk to no one. No one. Be in my office tomorrow morning at seven. We’ll figure out what we have to do.”

290

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Should I—I mean, I have to tell the President, right?”

Freeman didn’t answer.

“I should tell the President, right?” said Jed.

“Talk to no one, until you talk to me. Be in my office.

Seven sharp. Get some sleep, Jed,” he added, softening his tone. “Get some sleep, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re not going to do anything rash, right, Jed? This isn’t—it’s not that bad.”

“What would I do?”

“Just be in my office. Relax, don’t talk to anyone, and be in my office. We’ll work it out. Seven a.m. You understand?”

“Yes. I’ll be there.”

Gulf of Aden

10 November 1997

0400

BOSTON STEADIED HIMSELF AT THE SIDE OF THE RAMP AT THE

rear of the Dreamland-modified Osprey, waiting for the go-ahead.

“Figure the water’s going to be warm?” he asked.

“As warm as Lake Michigan in July,” answered Danny.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Boston.

A tone sounded in their headsets. The jumpmaster took a step forward and pushed out the uninflated raft package.

Boston and the Marine who was going out with him followed, stepping off into the water.

The Osprey lifted upward as the rear panel began to close.

Danny went back and joined the team waiting to rappel to the deck of the oiler. As he reached the door where the rap-pelling lines had been prepared, Danny saw a Werewolf whip toward the side of the ship. The two gunships were providing cover as the team descended to the open deck a few yards from the bow.

“Marines—let’s make your mothers proud,” said Dancer.

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291

Make your mothers proud? Women certainly brought a different perspective to operations, thought Danny as he waited for his turn to rappel down to the deck.

It came quickly. They weren’t as high over the ship as he thought, and he hit the deck about a half second early, stumbling but then catching his balance. The ship rolled ever so slightly to his right, and Danny trotted after the others who were racing toward the superstructure. The Marines had radios, but couldn’t tie into the Dreamland discrete-burst system. Danny and Boston got around this by using Marine headsets to talk with the Marines and relay messages through their Dreamland system back to the Osprey and the Abner Read. The ship could monitor everything that was going on through the video and infrared cameras in the Osprey.

Danny could even give Storm a ground-level view by punching the switch at the bottom of his smart helmet.

Make that a ship-level view.

Dancer had told Danny that the Marines had practiced ship boarding “once or twice,” but it looked to him like they did it every day. They had already swarmed the deck area and were now taking over the superstructure, a rectangular collection of spaces that rose about four stories over the main deck. The men said very little, using grunts more than words. The earpiece Danny had been given was impossible to wear comfortably beneath his smart helmet, and he finally had to take it off, wedging it at the back in a position that was only marginally better. He couldn’t hear much of what was being said.

A pair of muffled explosions announced that the team tasked to take over the bridge had just done their thing, crashing in with the aid of a small amount of explosives and flash-bangs. Danny turned around to make sure the rest of the team had gotten on safely, then ran along the side of the ship, leaning against the rail, his MP-5 ready, its crosshair a dot in his visor.

Something blared in his headset. He pulled the Marine unit out, and after fiddling with it a few minutes, realized it 292

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

had malfunctioned. He pulled the smart helmet back on and stood tensely near the rail as the rest of the team went about its business. Finally, a Marine came nearby and Danny gestured for him to stay close so he could communicate with the rest of the team. He pushed the helmet back on his head, an awkward compromise.

“Dancer has a communication for you, sir,” said the Marine, holding out his headset.

“Bridge is secure,” said Dancer. “No one here. No wonder they didn’t answer the radio—it’s gone. Blood all over the place,” she added before he could acknowledge.

“Remember the booby-traps,” Danny reminded the others. “Go slow, go slow.”

The first rushes of adrenaline fading, the boarding party moved through the ship methodically.

“Looks pretty boring up there,” said Boston on the Dreamland circuit.

“Not as boring as down there,” Danny replied, pulling the helmet down.

“I figure I want it boring. Say, they ought to see if they can get a more powerful motor,” added Boston. “This little putt-putt barely goes two knots.”

“You thinking of doing some waterskiing?”

“I had a mind to it, Cap. Maybe I’ll lasso one of the Werewolves and let it pull me around.”

Danny moved around to the stern, looking at the darkened coast in the distance. They’d be there tomorrow.

He worked to focus on the job at hand, walking with his new communications aide toward the stern of the ship. Two young Marines had taken posts there. They were both very young—nineteen, if that—kids trying to act nonchalant on what was probably the closest they’d come to real action in their brief military careers.

He nodded to them, saw their tight smiles. He began seeking out the rest of the team, intending to make personal contact with as many as possible. It wasn’t important tonight, but it would seem like a luxury tomorrow. He wanted the SATAN’S TAIL

293

people working with him to know who he was, to remember they could count on him—and to do what he needed them to do when people were shooting at them.

Danny worked his way all the way around the ship and up to the bow before Dancer called in from below.

“We found some of the crew,” she told him. “Down in the engineering space. They’re all dead, Skipper. Blood everywhere. Been dead a while. Smells like hell down here.”

“All right. Take some pictures, see if you can find the log, take pictures of its entries, then let’s saddle up. Nothing more for us to do here.”

Alexandria,

near Washington, D.C.

2315

SO WHY DID THE PHOTO ONLY APPEAR IN THE DAILY NEWS?

And why was it no longer on their Web page?

Jed got up from his desk, rubbing his eyes as he walked to the kitchen. He’d been surfing the net for the last four or five hours. The picture had all but disappeared—if you didn’t count the million or so print versions that featured it on the front page.

He reached into the refrigerator and took out a large bottle of Nestlé’s strawberry milk. He took a slug and went back to the computer, deciding to write his letter of resignation. He sat down, called up the word processor, then stared at the blank screen for a few minutes. When nothing inspired him, he moused down to the browser and got a weather site from his favorites’ tab.

RAIN, TOMORROW. HEAVY AT TIMES.