Calliope had no guidance system of her own. She didn’t need one. Instead, she used the GPS aboard the KC-135 to plot her location. At this moment, she and the Stratotanker were 688 nautical miles northwest of the Federated States of Micronesia, equidistant between Guam and the coral atoll known as Wake Island, 35,016 feet above sea level. Capable of speeds up to nine-tenths the speed of sound, or roughly six hundred miles per hour, the massive tanker had slowed to a more manageable three hundred and twenty-five knots indicated air speed, or KIAS.
Onboard computers indicated that the refueling boom had been extended. The radios were active as the pilots of the tanker and the approaching aircraft communicated with each other but, unable to translate speech to text, Calliope paid no attention to that noise. She waited for the approaching aircraft to “handshake,” the integrated airborne computer-to-computer communication that Dexter & Reed had developed.
But this aircraft was an F-18 Super Hornet from a nearby aircraft carrier. Calliope was waiting for something else, an aircraft capable of launching from a
When one did, Calliope would jump.
As if the concussion and broken wrist weren’t enough, Chavez and Adara ran afoul of Japanese giant hornets near the top of the mountain.
Completely absorbed with listening for anyone behind them, Adara grabbed the limb of a beech tree to haul herself upward, shaking it in the process. The gray paper nest was the size of a basketball and surely filled with hundreds of venomous insects. It didn’t move much, but it was enough to bring a half-dozen guard hornets out to investigate. They were huge, an inch in length, with angry yellow eyes — which Chavez had no time to see, but clearly imagined — and daggerlike stingers that injected a massive amount of a potent venom that attacked the nervous system of the victim.
Adara sidestepped away from the nest and sank to the ground in a ball, covering her head. Chavez, who hadn’t seen what was happening, thought they were under fire and wheeled to defend their six o’clock, earning himself a mind-numbing sting in the back of the neck. It felt as if someone had driven a red-hot nail into the base of his skull.
“Don’t move,” Adara hissed, stifling a scream as she, too, found herself on the receiving end of the quarter-inch stinger of the hornet that had names like “great sparrow bee,” “yak killer,” or “bee of the terrible stinging death.”
Chavez followed her example and made himself as small as possible, covering the spot on his neck where he’d been stung with the flat of his hand. He knew from experience with bees and more normal-sized wasps that they secreted a pheromone with each sting that signaled other wasps or bees to concentrate their attack on that same spot. Fewer than a dozen stings from these giant hornets could hospitalize a healthy man — and Chavez was far from healthy.
Adara was stung twice more before the hornets lost interest and returned to their nest. Chavez had personally seen her take a full-force kick to the groin without crying, but tears streamed down her cheeks when they were able to slink away. She had to work hard to keep from hyperventilating by the time they’d gone a hundred yards.
“If childbirth feels at all close to this,” she said, “then Mr. Caruso is shit outta luck…” Squinting, she used the back of her forearm to wipe the tears from her face. Chavez had been stung only once, but that was enough to understand how she felt. The venom had to be some kind of acid. If anything, the torturous pain was growing worse.
Chavez pointed upward with a none-too-steady hand. “We got an hour and a half to get to the rally point.”
“We’re going to need all of that,” Adara said, gasping. The hornets had tagged her twice under her right eye, and once in the V above her collarbone. More divots of missing flesh than sting welts, the angry red wounds looked remarkably like bullet holes. She’d taken a Benadryl from her pack, but her face and neck were swelling noticeably.
The jungle thinned some as they neared the top. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, dappling the ground. Chavez leaned against a sapling, checking it first for hornets’ nests. Sweat poured into his eyes. Bits of leaf and jungle litter flecked his face.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m counting on a hell of a lot of downhill on the other side.”
“Amen to that,” Adara said. She peered at him, swallowing hard, as if it was difficult to speak. “You think this is one of those times we’ll tell our kids about someday?”
