Retribution Read Online Free PDF Page B

there.
    The aircraft growled as he pushed her wing down, moving farther sideways than forward and losing altitude more quickly than he’d intended. Dog wrestled it back under control in time to pass by the bow of the patrol boat at two hundred feet—not particularly low, though close enough to see the 40mm double-barreled gun on the foredeck as it swung in his direction.
    Dog babied the stick, putting the Megafortress into another turn, this one as gentle as he could manage. He slid down to one hundred feet and came over the patrol boat. The 40mm gun turned again in his direction, but if it fired, Dog never saw the shots. He pulled off as he passed, and by the time he glanced down, saw that the vessel had turned back in the direction of land.
    Northern Arabian Sea
0810
    M ACK WATCHED THE M EGAFORTRESS DISAPPEAR TO THE northwest, once again chased away by the Chinese destroyer. At least it had taken the ship with it this time.
    They’d lashed the two inflatable rafts together and put Cantor in one. Mack told them that they’d take turns in the other once they got tired. For now, they were all going to kick in the direction of the Abner Read .
    Forty or fifty miles on the open ocean was a very, very long distance. But Mack figured that moving was better than floating, and every hundred yards was a hundred yards away from the Chinese.
    “Aw, shit,” yelped Jazz. “Ah, man.”
    “What’s up?”
    “My leg. Feels like I got an iron chain in it.”
    “It’s just a cramp,” said Mack. “Work through it.”
    Jazz continued to curse.
    “Take a break, Jazz,” Mack told him finally.
    “I’m OK, Major.”
    “Your lips are turning blue. Get in the damn raft. That’s an order.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    It was only after Jazz pulled himself into the raft, leg twitching, that Mack realized everyone’s lips were blue.
    “Kick,” he told the others. “Let’s go. Kick!”
    Aboard the Abner Read,
northern Arabian Sea
0810
    T HERE WAS ONLY SO MUCH THAT COULD BE DONE TO MAKE a helicopter stealthy, but the Werewolf was small and its ability to fly extremely low would make it hard for the Chinese ships to spot it until it was very close. Starship figured that if he moved fast enough, he could get by any of the ships before they could react and try to shoot him down.
    A Chinese guided-missile cruiser presented a particular problem, since it sat almost directly in his path. But the cruiser had been heavily damaged in the battle, and smoke poured from three different places on the ship. The radar warning receiver aboard the Werewolf indicated that the vessel was not using its weapons or even early warning radar; most likely the radar systems had been destroyed. Still, Starship kept an eye on the infrared warning panel as he shot past no more than a mile away, worried that the ship might try firing a heat-seeking missile without locking him up on radar.
    With the cruiser in the rearview mirror, Starship put the pedal to the metal and sped over the waves. About three miles from the GPS point he’d been given as the fliers’ location, he began rising to get a better view for his radar and other sensors.
    The first thing he saw on the synthesized radar screen wasa Chinese destroyer, six miles to the east. Dreamland Wisconsin was eight or nine miles north of the destroyer.
    So he had the neighborhood, at least.
    Starship slowed his speed to eighty knots and did a quick scan of the area around him; he couldn’t see anything in the water. He instructed the computer to set up a search pattern; when the grid came up on the screen, he chose the segment closest to the Chinese destroyer as a starting point and told the computer to go.
    The Werewolf hadn’t actually reached the point when he spotted a pair of rafts and several swimmers three miles to the west. He took back control and turned toward them.
    “Werewolf to Tac,” he said. “I have our subjects in view. Counting—four—no, five men—two in the raft, others in the water.