Black wind

then vanished out the door.
    As the Roguryo’s twin four-bladed propellers began churning the water beneath the ship’s hull, Tongju hustled his way back to the
    portable stairwell that ran down the vessel’s port flank. At the base of the stairwell bobbed the white tender, a mooring line tied across to the railing. He noted bubbles of smoke rising from the boat’s stern, alerting him that the engine was running at idle. Quickly untying the line, he coiled it in his hand and waited until the next passing wave pushed the tender up against the side of the ship. With barely a step, he hopped aboard the bow of the boat and shuffled toward the cabin, tossing the coiled line into an empty bucket on deck. Inside the cabin, he found Kim and two of his commandos standing beside the wheel. “Everything aboard?” Tongju asked.
    Kim nodded. “During the excitement of the launch, we moved our arms and provisions on board, and even hoisted extra fuel aboard, without any interference.” Kim tilted his head toward the rear open deck where four fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline were tied off against the gunwale.
    “Let us drift off the stern for a moment, then we shall make our run to Ensenada. When will the charges detonate?” Kim glanced at his watch. “In twenty-five minutes.” “Plenty of time for the missile crew to destroy the airship.” The Koguryo quickly churned away from the small boat as the tender continued to idle in the low swells. When the former cable ship had cleared a quarter mile of open water, Kim moved the throttles to slow and crept forward with the bow pointed southeast. In no time, he figured, they would look like another ordinary fishing charter heading home to San Diego.
    Long after the Zenit had climbed into the sky and detonated, a thick cloud of white smoke still hung over the Odyssey like a fog bank Ever so gently, the light sea breeze began poking holes through the exhaust, revealing sporadic patches of the launch platform through the haze.
    “Looks like a bowl of clam chowder down there,” Giordino said as he banked the Icarus over the platform. While Giordino and Dahlgren visually surveyed the platform for any signs of Pitt, Dirk activated the LASH system and scanned for optical anomalies that might signify a human being.
    “Don’t quote me but I think that baby is sinking,” Dahlgren said as they glided around the aft end of the platform and could make out an exposed section down to the water. The men in the gondola could clearly see that the aft support columns appeared shorter than the bow columns.
    a “She’s definitely taking on water in the stern,” Dirk replied… “Wonder if that’s the handiwork of your old man? He may have just cost somebody a new rocket,” Giordino said. “And maybe a new launchpad,” Dahlgren added.
    “But where is he?” Dirk asked aloud. They could all detect that there was no apparent sign of life on the platform.
    “The smoke is starting to clear. Once the helipad opens up, I’ll take us in for a closer look,” Giordino replied.
    As they drifted back toward the bow of the platform, Dahlgren looked down and grimaced.
    “Damn. The Badger’s gone, too. Must have sank during the launch.”
    The threesome fell quiet, reflecting that the disappearance of the submersible was the least of their losses.
    Three miles to the south, a gunnery crewman on the Koguryo was transferring the radar-derived coordinates of the blimp into a Chinese CSA-4 surface-to-air missile guidance system. The slow-moving airship was as easy an objective as the gunnery crew could ever hope to target. With such a large object at close range, the odds of failing to strike the blimp were nearly zero.
    In an enclosed room adjacent to the dual missile canister, a weapons
    control expert stood at a console transferring the firing guidance through a missile command link. A row of green lights flashed at him as the engagement radar embedded in the missile acknowledged a tar-get lock. The man immediately picked up a telephone receiver that ran directly to the bridge.
    “Target acquired and missile armed,” he said in monotone to Captain Lee. “Awaiting orders to fire.”
    Lee looked out a bridge side window toward the blimp hovering over the platform in the distance. The high-powered missile exploding into the airship would make for a spectacular display, he thought childishly. Perhaps they should also destroy the distant turquoise vessel that lingered on the edge of their