Free End Game by Dale Brown

behind him, using a laser pointer to highlight an X on the eastern coast of Somalia at the north.
    â€œThis is Port Somalia. It’s an oil terminal, the end point for a pipeline the Indians have paid to be built to deliver oil from northern Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. It’s part of an ambitious network that they are constructing that will give them access to oil from the entire Horn of Africa, all the way back to the Sudan. A second port is planned to open farther south later this year.”
    The colonel clicked the remote control he had in his left hand and a new map appeared on the screen behind him. India sat at the right, Somalia on the left. The Arabian Sea, an arm of the Indian Ocean, sat between them. Above Somalia was the Saudi peninsula, with Yemen at the coast. Iran and Pakistan were at the northern shores of the sea, separating India from the Middle East.
    â€œTo give you some idea of the distances involved here,” said Dog, “it’s roughly fifteen hundred miles from Port Somalia to Mumbai, also known as Bombay, on the coast of India, not quite halfway down the Indian subcontinent. Three hours flying time, give or take, for a Megafortress, a little less if Lightning Chu is at the controls.”
    The pilots at the back laughed. Captain Tommy Chu had earned his new nickname during recent power-plant tests by averaging Mach 1.1 around the test course, defying the engineers’ predictions that the EB-52 could not be flown faster than the speed of sound for a sustained period in level flight.
    â€œTimewise, we are eleven hours behind. When it is noon here, it is 2300 hours in Port Somalia, same time as Mogadishu. Problem, Cantor?”
    Lieutenant Evan Cantor, one of the new Flighthawk jocks recently cleared for active combat missions, jerked upright in the second row. “Uh, no sir. Just figuring out days. They’re a half day ahead. Just about.”
    â€œJust about, Lieutenant. But don’t do the math yet. We’ll be based at Drigh Road, the Pakistani naval air base near Karachi. We’ll use Karachi time for reference. That’s thirteen hours ahead. A section of the base has already been cordoned off for us. Problem, Lieutenant Chu?”
    â€œJust trying to figure out how many watches to wear,” said Chu.
    â€œWhy Karachi?” said Breanna.
    â€œMostly because they won’t object, and they’re relatively close,” said Dog. “But we’ll have to be very, very aware that we’re in an Islamic country, and that our presence may be controversial to some.”
    Controversial was putting it mildly. Stirred up by local radicals, civilians near the air base the Dreamland team had used in Saudi Arabia during their last deployment had come close to rioting before the Megafortresses relocated to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
    â€œWe’ll have four Megafortresses: the Wisconsin , our old veteran; and three newcomers, the Levitow , the Fisher , and the Bennett. ”
    The choice of the planes was not haphazard; all were radar surveillance planes, with both air and sea capabilities. Information from the Megafortresses’s radars would be supplied to the Abner Read via a link developed by Dreamland’s computer scientists, giving the small littoral warrior a far-reaching picture of the air and oceans around it. Additionally, an underwater robot probe called Piranha could be controlled from one Flighthawk station on each plane, and special racks and other gear allowed the Megafortresses to drop and use sonar buoys.
    â€œWe’ll rotate through twelve-hour shifts, with overlapping patrols, so there are always at least two aircraft on station at any one time,” continued Colonel Bastian. “Lieutenant Chu has worked up some of the patrol details, and I’ll let him go into the specifics. We’re to be in the air as soon as possible; no later than 1600.”
    The trip would have been long enough if they’d been