2034: A Novel of the Next World War(11)

“It was during the darkest days of the Civil War,” Chowdhury began, ostensibly speaking to Hendrickson, but really speaking to himself. “The Union had sustained a series of defeats against the Confederates. A visitor from Kentucky was leaving the White House and asked Lincoln what cheering news he could take home. By way of reply, Lincoln told him a story about a chess expert who had never met his match until he tried his luck against a machine called the ‘automaton chess player’ and was beaten three times running. Astonished, the defeated expert stood from his chair and walked slowly around and around this amazing new piece of technology, examining it minutely as he went, trying to understand how it worked. At last he stopped and leveled an accusing finger in its direction. ‘There’s a man in there!’ he cried. Then Lincoln told his visitor to take heart. No matter how bad things looked there was always a man in the machine.”

The phone rang again.

It was Lin Bao.



* * *





15:17 March 12, 2034 (GMT+4:30)

Strait of Hormuz

Wedge was furious. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed as he sat on the taxiway at Bandar Abbas. Of course, he hadn’t chosen this taxiway, or where to land, or even to open his canopy and shut off his engine. His plane had betrayed him so completely that the overriding emotion he felt was shame. On his descent he had managed to destroy the black box behind his head by using his pistol as a hammer. He had also destroyed the encrypted communications on board, as well as the most sensitive avionics, which controlled his suite of weapons. Like a crazed, captive animal, he’d been banging away at the inside of his cockpit ever since losing control.

He continued his work once he landed.

As soon as his cockpit was open, he’d stood up in it and fired his pistol into the controls. The gesture filled him with a surprising upsurge of emotion, as though he were a cavalryman putting a bullet through the brain of a once-faithful mount. The few dozen Revolutionary Guards dispersed around the airfield struggled to understand the commotion. For the first several minutes, they chose to keep their distance, not out of fear of him, but out of fear that he might force a misstep into what, up to this point, had been their well-orchestrated plan. However, the more Wedge destroyed—tearing at loose wiring, stamping with the heel of his boot, and brandishing his pistol in the direction of the guardsmen when he felt them approaching too closely—the more he forced their hand. If he completely destroyed the sensitive items in his F-35, the aircraft would be of no use as a bargaining chip.

The on-scene commander, a brigadier general, understood what Wedge was doing, having spent his entire adult life facing off, either directly or indirectly, with the Americans. The brigadier slowly tightened the cordon around Wedge’s aircraft. Wedge, who could feel the Iranians closing in, continued to flash his pistol at them. But he could tell that each time he pulled it out, the guardsmen on the cordon became increasingly unconvinced that he’d actually use it. And he wouldn’t have used it, even if it’d had any ammunition left, which it didn’t. Wedge had already plugged the last round into the avionics.

The brigadier, who was missing the pinky and ring finger of his right hand, was now waving at Wedge, standing in the seat of his jeep, as the other jeeps and armored vehicles on the cordon grew closer. The brigadier’s English was as mangled as his three-fingered hand, but Wedge could make out what he was saying, which was something to the effect of, “Surrender and no harm will come to you.”

Wedge didn’t plan on surrendering, not without a fight. Though he couldn’t say what that fight would be. All Wedge had was the empty pistol.

The brigadier was now close enough to issue his demands for surrender without needing to shout them at Wedge, who replied by standing in the cockpit and chucking his pistol at the brigadier.

It was an admirable toss, the pistol tumbling end-over-end like a hatchet.

The brigadier, who to his credit didn’t flinch when the pistol sailed right above his head, gave the order. His men stormed the F-35, dismounting their vehicles in a swarm to clamber up its wings, and then over its fuselage, where they found Wedge, crammed in his cockpit, his feet on the rudder pedals, one hand on the throttle, the other on the stick. Absently, he was scanning the far horizon, as if for enemy fighters. A Marlboro dangled from his lips. When the half dozen members of the Revolutionary Guard leveled the muzzles of their rifles around his head, he pitched his cigarette out of the cockpit.



* * *





16:36 March 12, 2034 (GMT+8)

South China Sea

The flotilla’s communications had been down for the past twenty minutes, an eternity.

Between the John Paul Jones, the Carl Levin, and the Chung-Hoon, Hunt had only been able to communicate through signal flags, her sailors flapping away in the upper reaches of the ship as frantically as if they were trying to take flight for land. Surprisingly, this primitive means of signaling proved effective, allowing the three ships to coordinate their movements in plain sight of the Zheng He Carrier Battle Group that encircled them. The only message that came over any of the ship’s radios was the demand to surrender the Wén Rui. It continued to play on a maddening loop while Hunt and one of her chief petty officers troubleshot the communications suite on the John Paul Jones, hoping to receive any sliver of a message from Seventh Fleet, something that might bring clarity to their situation, which had so quickly deteriorated.