Leviathan

"Jack, they're not the only people they took." He looked from Collins to Ryan, who was still talking with combat operations at Nellis. "I swear, I thought she was at home recovering," he finally said.

Jack didn't ask who. He just waited.

"They took Sarah."

Collins looked from Carl to the ground, and then slowly stood and stared out to the east, in the direction the strange aircraft had taken.

Ryan lowered the radio and Will Mendenhall looked from the sky to the colonel. Everett rose and watched as Jack Collins started walking determinedly toward the now-empty hangar. All three noticed he walked without the slightest bit of fatigue showing in his step.

The assault on the Event Group home had awakened a man who was not in the frame of mind to allow this attack to go unanswered.

As the F-22 Raptors took up station behind the four stubby winged aircraft, they saw their airspeed had vaulted just past the speed of sound, impossible for a tilt-jet airframe. Still, there it was, their instruments confirming that they were indeed creeping toward mach 1.4.

Every threat detector on all ten fighters suddenly illuminated and started screaming their warnings into the headphones of every pilot in the flight.

Overhead, the missiles that had been launched off the coast of New Jersey two hours before had been on glide mode until a signal was received by the strange lead craft the fighters were pursuing. Then the six cruise missiles dipped their rounded noses and streaked for the fighters far below. Suddenly the outer casings of reinforced composite material ripped free, sending three separate parts flying into the air, and releasing ten separate radar-guided missiles. Now instead of six missiles to contend with, the Raptors were faced with sixty. The odds failed to register with the air force pilots as they broke formation and started to scatter, trying to avoid the sixty projectiles heading right for them. Threat detectors warbled, and chaff and flares started to fly from each of the Raptors in the hopes of confusing the incoming threats. Each of the ten Americans couldn't believe their stealthy craft were being picked up so easily.

By twos the fighters screamed high overhead. Vacationers visiting Las Vegas turned their heads skyward as each jet slammed their throttles to their stops, going to afterburner in their attempted escape of the planned ambush. The guests of Las Vegas's fabulous hotels oohed and ahhed as even more bright flares of exhaust converged on the Raptors, which each had seven missiles targeted upon it.

The crowds gathered on the strip were suddenly startled when the smaller flares of fire merged with the larger exhausts of the F-22s, and bright flashes of explosions lit up the already bright Las Vegas night. They watched as two of the American fighters dove and then jinked, out-maneuvering their attackers. The Raptors flew so low that one of the composite wings smashed through the great light above the pyramid of the Luxor Casino, sending glass and debris raining down upon the running crowd.

Another Raptor was struck as it tried the same maneuver as the first two, but it wasn't as lucky. The radar-seeking missile exploded just as it pulled up from its dive. Shrapnel pierced the canopy, killing the pitot immediately, and then the plane careened off the roof of the old Flamingo Hotel and crashed into a parking garage across the street.

All told, the ambush that was ordered and launched two full hours before the attack on the Event Group complex to cover the escape of the terrorists had claimed five lives at the base and eight lives in the air.

The four large aircraft continued on their way without any further hostile actions by the United States. Their course: the Gulf of Mexico.

7

THE WHITE HOUSE,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

At the late hour, the president insisted the national security briefing take place in the less dramatic Oval Office instead of the war room below the White House. He was tired and he was angry. He listened to the briefing by the navy secretary without comment.

"Sir, we have the escort plan for the four supertankers we're attaching to the Nimitz battle group. The Nimitzis currently steaming to their appointed rendezvous and will join with the Royal Navy, who is escorting the four tankers. They plan to make the Atlantic run from Devonport, England, and convoyed by the frigates HMS Monmouth, HMS Somerset, and the Royal Navy submarine HMS Trafalgar. At the same time, we are coordinating a simultaneous convoy with the Chinese--they have a group leaving Venezuelan waters tomorrow with a Chinese battle group surrounding the two tankers. Our mysterious enemy cannot be in two places at once."

At that moment the president's secretary entered the office and gave him a message. He read it and then passed it around the room.

"Nellis?" he asked the secretary of defense.