“You have a truck moving on the road,” she told the Brunei army unit on the ground. “Pickup type truck. Rear is, uh, looks empty.”

The army sergeant on the other end of the line thanked her. Unlike yesterday, the responses were sharp and very focused.

McKenna flew over the road and then banked north, looking for any concentration of militants. The citizens of Sukut had rallied to the small army and police force there, swelling their ranks with volunteers. Reinforcements were due soon from Medit.

“This is Dreamland EB-52 Pennsylvania to unidentified aircraft operating near Sukut. Identify yourself,” crackled the radio.

“Who the hell are you calling unidentified?” snapped McKenna. “Why are you using Brunei Air Force communications frequencies?”

“Identify yourself,” responded the voice.

“Just like an American,” answered the pilot. “Dreamland EB-full-of-yourself-52, this is Brunei-Air-Force-kick-your-butt-and-spit-in-your-eye A-37B Dragonfly Dragon One. You are in sovereign Brunei territory,” she added. “State your purpose and position.”

There was a brief pause. McKenna began climbing and made sure her radar was in long-range scan. The scope was clear, though she knew the Megafortress’s stealthy characteristics meant it could be as close as ten miles away.

“Dragon One, this is Pennsylvania,” said another, older voice over the radio. “We are here to assess the situation.”

“Well, that’s damn American of you,” responded McKenna. “A day late and I’m going to guess a dollar short. What’s your location?”

“We’ve just finished eliminating the ground-to-air defenses at Brunei International Airport and disabled their fueling capacity.”

“What about our EB-52?” she asked.

“We haven’t touched it,” said the American. “It’s near your hangar at the base.”

McKenna felt a stab of pain in her ribs—she had hoped that Mack had been warned off and gone back to the Philippines. “Is the plane under the militants’ control?” added the voice.

”Unknown at this time.”

“The airport is clearly in militant control, as is the rest of the capital,” said the voice. “Do you have information to the contrary?”

Hopes, but not information, she thought to herself.

“Not at this time,” she answered. “Who are you?”

“Lt. Colonel Tecumseh Bastian. Who are you?”

“Brunei Air Commodore McKenna”

McKenna filled the Americans in on the situation as she knew it, without identifying the base she was operating from. She guessed that they were here primarily to make sure that Brunei’s Megafortress didn’t fall into the militants’ hands.

“Are you offering to help the sultan, who is the rightful and lawful ruler of this country?” she asked finally.

“We’re here to assess the situation,” answered the American.

“Well don’t take too long to choose up sides,” she told him. “Or there may be only one left.”

Off the coast of Brunei

0540

“Some sort of ship,” Liu told Danny over the communications circuit. He was standing a few feet away on the dock, using binoculars to examine the shadowy vessel. “Stealthy. Those triangular wings on the side allow it to skim over the water. Marines were talking about something like that to move troops in, but they’re a bit bigger.”

Whatever it was, it was moving, albeit very, very slowly, to the east of the platform. It remained several hundred yards away.

“Who does it belong to, Captain?” asked Boston, who was back by the ladder.

“Good question,” said Danny. “I’ll alert Dreamland Command. For the time being, Boston, Bison, you guys keep it under surveillance from the lower deck. The rest of us will continue searching the platform. Weapons locker would be particularly handy right now.”

“Gotcha, Cap,” said Bison.

Danny climbed back to the housing area, where Pretty Boy had set up the satellite communications gear. Danny’s helmet plugged in via an infrared link, and he found himself talking to Major Catsman in the command center. The vessel—or whatever it was—didn’t appear on any of the force listings or any of the intelligence briefings that she could find.

“It’s not an optical illusion,” said Danny. “I can replay the image I recorded with the helmet. It’s moving in the water. Pretty slowly, but it’s moving.”

“We’d like to see it,” said Catsman. “I’ll ask Colonel Bastian to overfly it. They’re over the southern portion of the country right now.”

Before Danny could reply, Boston broke in over the team circuit.

“Captain, there’s a boat coming out of the back of it. Looks like there’s a boarding party”

“Be right there,” said Danny.

Aboard “Penn,” over Brunei

0550

“I see where she’s heading,” said Lieutenant Hawkins, working one of the radar boards on the Dreamland EB-52. “Small strip, tiny—surprised she can get out of there.”

The lieutenant forwarded a map image with the strip marked out on it to Dog’s station. Dog zoomed out, getting a better idea of the location, and then brought up a satellite image from the library. The base was indeed tiny, but it was also near the coast and protected by rough terrain from neighboring Malaysia.

“Zen, let’s get an overflight of that area:’ Dog said. “Get an idea of what they’ve got there and whether their defenses can withstand an attack.”

“Sure she won’t try shooting me down?” said Zen.

“She may just take you on,” Dog told him. The pilot—McKenna—reminded him a bit of his own daughter. “But if you don’t think you can outfly an A-37B …”

“I can handle a Tweet, thanks,” snapped Zen, using the somewhat derogatory slang term for the aircraft’s trainer version, the T-37.

If the base seemed secure, Dog thought he might be able to air-drop supplies in. That would be exceeding his orders—but it was the right thing to do, as long as he could find a way to do it.

“Dreamland Command to Penn,” crackled the radio. “Colonel, Danny’s reporting an unidentified vessel in the water near his position.”

“On our way,” said Dog, immediately changing his plans.

Off the coast of Brunei

0551

It didn’t take more than a few seconds to see that the boat was definitely headed for the platform. Danny came down to the lower deck, watching as the rubber boat came toward them. There were four men, paddling steadily. The team looked extremely disciplined—so much so that they reminded Danny of the SEAL team he had spent an exhilarating and exhausting week training with a year before.

“Dreamland, are you sure these aren’t our forces?” Danny asked, punching the back of his helmet to connect via the satellite. “These guys remind me of SEALs.”

“Not to our knowledge.”

“Cap, what do you think of going down to the dock? They can’t see the ladder from where they are.”

“Hold off, Boston” The last thing he wanted to do was kill four of his countrymen. “Dreamland—have we checked with the navy?”

“That’s negative, but to our knowledge, they’re not navy” He was authorized to protect himself. If these guys were SEALs, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That wasn’t going to be good enough if he was wrong, though.

“Liu, you got that high-powered telescope trained on these guys?”

“Still working on it, Captain.”

The vessel they had come from was definitely not American; it didn’t appear on any listing of U.S. forces that Danny knew of or that Dreamland could access. Then again, most of Dreamland’s equipment didn’t either. Whiplash itself was to be found nowhere, except as an insignificant security detail attached to a nonexistent unit at Edwards Air Force Base.

The boat was fifty yards away.

“Captain?” asked Boston.

“They have MP5Ns,” said Liu.