Zen saw nothing. The radar found nothing. Still he flew, back and forth across the angry ocean, repeating the tracks.

In sickness and in health, she’d said. and she’d meant it.

“Jeff, we’re about three ounces from bingo.” Major Alou’s voice sounded as if he were speaking from the other end of a wide pipe.

“Where’s our tanker?”

“There are no tankers,” said Alou. “The storm’s too much and we’re too far. There’s no choice—we have to get down. I’ve already stretched it out.”

Zen didn’t answer.

“There’s a Navy P-3 out of Japan due in twenty minutes,” he told him. “They’re going to continue the search. As soon as the carrier can launch more planes, they’ll have another search package out. The F-14’s will stay over the area in the meantime. They’ll hear a transmission.”

Who the hell would manage to use a radio in this?

“Jeff, we’ll find her. They will, or we will. But we have to go. We’ll be out of the storm at least, so we can refuel and take off right away. It may be far east. Okay?”

“Yeah, Roger that.”

Dreamland

0936 local

The flight from LAX to Dreamland was quick—Ax had sent an F-15E, and the pilot, Major Mack Smith, had probably broken the speed barrier twenty feet off the tarmac. Ax met Dog in a Jimmy SUV as the airplane taxied toward the hangar; the truck whipped over to Taj so fast Dog never got his seat belt buckled. Even the notoriously slow elevator seemed to understand this was a real emergency; it started downward three seconds after Dog touched the button for the subbasement level where the command center was located.

Major Ascenzio, Ray Rubeo, and about a half-dozen mission specialist were waiting for hi,

Rubeo stepped up and started to talk, telling the colonel they shared his concern for his daughter and the rest of the crew. The scientist was not only sincere, but actually seemed on the brink of becoming emotional—a development so out of character Dog felt worse than before.

“Thanks, Dog. Thanks, everybody. Let’s get to work. Who’s searching, what have we heard?”

“Iowa’s just knocking off for fuel,” said Gat. Major Ascenzio reached down to his desk and hit a key; a diagram of the search area appeared on the main screen at the front of the room. They had used data from Quicksilver’s transmission to plot its probably flight path after it was hit. Because of the clouds and Quicksilver’s altitude and position, there was no usable information from the Crystal asset—a KH-12 satellite—covering the area, but there was some possibility a satellite used to monitor missiles launches might have picked up explosions aboard the plane; they had a query in to the Natioanal Reconaissance Office to see. That information might help them tweak their search area, though Gat felt they had a decent handle on it.

One thing the major didn’t mention: Like much of the rest of the Air Force, Dreamland’s standard survival equipment included the PRC-90 survival radio. While the radio was a time-tested veteran, it had a limited range and was hardly state-of-the-art equipment. Newer versions utilizing satellite communications were hard to come by—a ridiculous budget constraint that might have proved fatal for Captain Scott O’Grady in Bosnia two years before. O’Grady’s heroism and resourcefulness notwithstanding, a more powerful radio with a locator would have shortened his ordeal considerably.

“We’ll find them,” said Gat. “A P-3 from the Pacific Fleet in en route.”

“That’s it?” said Dog.

“The weather is fierce,” said Gat. “Hurricane winds, hail, the works. Half the Pacific is covered by it. The carriers can’t launch aircraft.”

Dog folded his arms. The storm had even more serious implications for the people who had parachuted—if they parachuted—from the plane. Even if they somehow got into the water without injury, climbing into a life raft in mountainous seas could be an almost impossible task. And once you were in it—hell, you might as well go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

“PacCom has lost at least one plane as well,” said Gat. “The storm is that bad. They feel they’ll be in a better position by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow afternoon? Fuck that. Fuck that!”

The words flew from his mouth like meteors, spitting down on everyone in the room.

“We need to organize the search,” said Dog, not apologizing. “We have three planes—two planes.” He caught himself. His breath was racing but he couldn’t corral it. “We’ll run eight-hour missions out of the Philippines.”

“Raven’s not ours,” Gat said. “And besides, the storm there is incredible. Kitty Hawk had to curtail operations, I had Major Alou divert all the way over to Japan.”

“Why didn’t he just refuel in the air and continue the search?”

“We didn’t have a tanker available.”

“Punch me through to Woods.”

“Yes, sir.” Gat grimaced. “It’ll be voice-only.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dog wasn’t mad at Gat—he wasn’t even mad at Woods, but he nonetheless barked at the Navy lieutenant who came on the line.

“Where’s our search team?”

“Excuse me, sir, this is lieutenant Santiago. The admiral is tied up.”

“I understand that,” said Dog. He pushed his arms tighter to his chest, as if by holding himself he could calm down. “I need help searching for my people.”