Razor's Edge d-3

by Dale Brown

  Razor's Edge

  ( Dreamland - 3 )

  Dale Brown

  Jim Defelice

  The weapon is codenamed "Razor"-the brainchild of the brilliant minds at Dreamland-a mobile chemical laser system with a range of 600 kilometers capable of downing anything that flies. The destruction of an American aircraft over northern Iraq suggests the inexplicable and unthinkable: a vengeful foe now possesses the lethal technology. It is fear that draws a retired warrior back to the battlefield, and sends Dreamland's best pilots to the skies to determine what the enemy has and to help take it away from him. But politics threatens to crush a covert engagement that must be won in the air and on the ground, unleashing a devastating rain of friendly fire that could ultimately annihilate a nation's champions… and perhaps Dreamland itself.

  Dale Brown, Jim DeFelice

  Razor's Edge

  THE MASTERS OF DREAMLAND

  Lieutenant Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian: A former ace fighter pilot, he’s Dreamland’s “top dog,” a brilliant strategist and a bad man to cross.

  Captain Breanna Bastian Stockard: Her father’s daughter in nearly every way — this hard-as-nails test pilot is bravely coping with a personal tragedy that would crush a weaker spirit.

  Major Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard: “Dog’s” son-in-law, crippled for life in a horrific test-range crash, he now mans Dreamland’s Flighthawk program, while wrestling inner demons that could destroy a lesser man.

  Captain Danny Freah: Commander of the covert

  “Whiplash” Special Forces ground action team, no one at Dreamland is more courageous, rebellious and unorthodox — which makes him “Dog” Bastian’s most valuable officer.

  Major Nancy Cheshire: The Megafortress project’s capable and driven senior officer, she is constantly having to prove she can lead in the “Dog-eat-everybody” man’s world of Dreamland.

  Major Mack “Knife” Smith: An iron-nerve Top Gun who would fly through hell to become Dreamland’s chief. Bitter, egotistical, and impossible, he’s nonetheless the man you want on your wing in hostile skies.

  Part I: “Chee-Ya!”

  Chapter 1

  Incirlik Air Base, Turkey

  26 May 1997

  1653 (all times local)

  Torbin Dolk positioned his size thirteen boot atop the engine fairing for the F-4G Phantom Wild Weasel, then carefully levered himself from the boarding ladder to the aircraft, easing his weight onto the ancient metal like a kid testing lake ice after an early thaw. The metal had been designed to withstand pressures far greater than the bulky electronic warfare officer’s weight, but he always climbed up gingerly. He wasn’t so much afraid of breaking the plane as he was of somehow offending it, for if anything mechanical could be said to have a personality or even a soul, it was Glory B.

  The broad-shouldered Phantom was one of the last of her kind still on active duty in the Air Force, and in fact she had escaped orders to report as a target sled two weeks ago only because of some last minute paperwork snafu with the plane designated to take her place patrolling northern Iraq. She waited on the ramp in front of the hangar with her chin up proudly, no doubt recalling the first flight of her kind nearly forty years before. The F4H-1 that took off that bright May day in 1958 was a very different aircraft than Glory B—cocky where she was dignified, fidgety where she was staid. The F4H-1 was also a Navy asset, a fact Glory B with her USAF markings glossed over in her musings. The Phantom, for all its imperfections, surely qualified as one of the service’s most successful airframes, a versatile jet that notched more hours in the sky than the sun.

  Torbin touched the glass of the raised canopy, patting it gently for good luck. Then he put his hands on his hips and looked down at the tarmac, where his pilot was proceeding with his walkaround. Captain Dolk had flown with Major Richard “Richie” Fitzmorris for nearly a month; during that time, Fitzmorris’s preflight rituals had nearly doubled in length and rigor. Pretty soon he’d be counting brush strokes on the nose art.

  “Yo, Richie, we flying today?” yelled Torbin.

  Fitzmorris, who probably couldn’t hear him, waved.

  The crew chief, standing a few feet behind the pilot, smirked, then ducked forward as Fitzmorris pointed at something below the right wing.

  Torbin lowered himself on his haunches atop the plane.

  His gaze drifted across the large airfield toward the F-16s they were to accompany, then to a pair of large C-5A transports and a fleet of trucks taking gear away. Torbin’s mind drifted. His brother-in-law had recently offered to go partners in his construction business back home, and he was giving it serious thought. His career in the Air Force seemed to have come to a dead end, though that was largely his own fault. He’d come back to the Weasels two years ago even though he knew they were doomed to extinction. Life at the Pentagon had become boring beyond belief, and he’d wanted to go where the action was.

  Once the Phantom bit the dust, his options would be severely limited.

  “So we going or what?” said Fitzmorris, who’d managed to sneak up on him.

  The major’s voice surprised him so much, Torbin didn’t have a comeback. He dropped into the cockpit sheepishly, and hadn’t even finished snugging his restraints when the pilot and ground crew began negotiating for power. The start cart on the tarmac revved up its turbine; a few moments later the Phantom’s right engine cranked to life, its growl mimicking a tiger protecting his food. Glory B’s left engine kicked in and the plane shuddered against her brakes, Fitzmorris pushing power to about fourteen percent. Fuel flow nudged 500 pounds per minute. The indicators swung up green — good to go, boys, good to go.

  Glory B rocked expectantly as her two passengers worked through their checklists, making sure they were ready. Finally she loped forward, winking at the end-of-runway crew as she paused to have her missiles armed; she was so anxious, she almost refused to hold short when the pilot had to stop and run through another of his interminable checklists. Finally cleared, she roared into the sky after the F-16s, a proud mare chasing down her foals.

  Roughly an hour and a half later Glory B held her wings stiff as she bucked through turbulence deep in enemy territory. The area below belonged to Iraqi Kurds, who were currently engaged in a low-intensity, multidi-mensional war against not only Saddam Hussein’s army, but themselves. Infighting between the various Kurdish factions had helped Saddam consolidate power in the northern mountains above the Euphrates. Though ostensibly forbidden to use force there by the decrees that ended the Gulf War, he was currently backing “his”

  Kurds against the others with light tanks and ground troops. The F-16s were on the lookout for helicopters; the Iraqis occasionally used them to attack villages sympathetic to the guerrillas.

  “You awake back there?” Fitzmorris asked.

  “Can’t you hear me snoring, stick boy?”

  “Just don’t play with the steering wheel,” answered the pilot. It was an old joke — the G model of the Phantom featured a stick and flight controls in the rear cockpit.

  “Glory B, this is Falcon leader,” the F-16 commander broke in. “We have some movement on the highway in box able-able-two. We’re going to take a look.”

  “Roger that,” replied the pilot.

  Fitzmorris adjusted his course to take them farther east, following the fighters. As they swung south, their AWACS gave them an update — nothing hostile in the sky.

  Thirty seconds later an SA-2 icon blossomed in the right corner of the Plan Position Indicator at the center of Torbin’s dash. In the quarter second it took his fingers to respond, his brain plotted the flicker of light against the mission brief. Then he began doing several things simultaneously, cursoring the target and transmitting data to one
of the AGM-88 HARM missiles beneath his wings.

  Two small gun-dish icons flashed on the left side of the threat screen, their legends showing they were about five miles closer than the SA-2 but well beyond their firing range. Smart enough to sort and prioritize the threats, the APR-47 concentrated on the long-range missile. Torbin, who could override the system, agreed.

  “Got a Two,” he told Fitzmorris. They were about thirty miles away.

  His gear flashed — an SA-8 had come up. It was flicking on and off, but his gear got a decent read anyway, marking it just beyond the SA-2 site, out of range for the admittedly nasty missile.

  He’d take it after the SA-2. They were almost in position to fire.

  The SA-2’s radar went off, but it was too late — Torbin had the location tattooed on his HARM’s forehead. But just then one of the Falcon pilots broke in. “I’m spiked!

  An SA-8!”

  No you’re not, thought Torbin; don’t overreact. The radar had just flicked off. There was a launch, but it was the SA-2—which now seemed to be running without guidance.

  “Torbin!” said Fitzmorris. “Shit, twenty-five-mile scope. Shit.”

  “Right turn,” Torbin said. “Relax. The F-16’s okay.

  The only thing that can get him is the two, and its radar just went off. He’ll beat it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, we have an SA-8 south. There are SA-9s well south,” said Torbin. His threat scope was suddenly very crowded. “Not players.”

  “Shit.”

  “Out of range. We’ll take my two, then the eight.”

  Balls of black, red, gray, and white flak rose in the distance. More indications lit the screen, more radars.

  Torbin had never seen so many contacts before. Radars were switching on and off throughout a wide swath of territory. The Iraqis were trying something new. The APR-47

  hung with them all like a trooper, though the sheer number of contacts was pushing it toward its design limits.

  “Torbin!”

  “Fifteen miles. Start your turn in three,” Torbin told the pilot.

  “The SA-8.” Fitzmorris’s voice was a loud hiss, pointing out another threat that had popped onto the screen.

  “You fly the plane.” An SA-9 battery fired one of its short-range missiles well off to the west. Torbin concentrated on the SA-2, had a good read. “Target dotted!

  Handoff. Ready light!”

  “Shoot him, for chrissakes!”

  “Away, we’re away,” said Torbin, handing off the SA-8 to a second HARM missile and firing almost instantaneously. The two radar seekers thundered away, accelerating past Mach 3 as they rushed toward their targets.

  “Rolling right!” said Fitzmorris, jinking to avoid the enemy radars.

  “Triple A,” warned Torbin, who could see a large patch of black roiling over the canopy glass as they tucked around.

  “Shit.” Fitzmorris’s voice seemed calmer now.

  “We’re clean,” said Torbin. He craned his head around as Fitzmorris spun to a safe distance. A white puff of smoke appeared on the ground off the left wing.

  Bagged somebody. Meanwhile, the other Iraqi radars had flickered out. Their jinking cost him a shot at any of the smaller SA-9 batteries; they were too far north now to fire.

  “Falcon Flight, what’s your status?” Fitzmorris asked the F-16s as they regrouped.

  “Where the hell were you guys?” the Falcon leader snapped. “Two’s down.”

  “Two’s down?” said Torbin.

  “You have a parachute?” asked Fitzmorris.

  “Negative. Fucking negative. He’s down.”

  “What hit him?” Torbin heard the words coming out of his mouth, powerless to stop them.

  “What the hell do you mean?” the F-16 pilot answered.

  “You’re the damn Weasel. You should have nailed those motherfuckers, or at least warned us. Shit, nobody told us jack.”

  “I nailed the SA-2. Shit.”

  “Go to hell,” said the F-16 commander.

  Torbin pushed back in his seat, staring at the now empty threat screen. He listened to the traffic between the AWACS and the F-16s as they pinned down a search area and vectored a combat air patrol toward it. The short-legged F-16s would have to go home very soon; other airplanes were being scrambled from Incirlik to help in the search but it would be some time before they arrived. The Phantom, with its three “bags,” or drop tanks of extra fuel, had the search to itself.

  “They launched at least three missiles,” said Fitzmorris over the interphone.

  “The missiles that launched were well out of range,”

  said Torbin. “They were SA-9s. No way they hit the F-16.

  No way.”

  “Tell that to the pilot.”

  Chapter 2

  The Nevada desert

  0832

  The Whiplash action team made it out of the building with only minor injuries — Kevin Bison was dragging a leg and Lee “Nurse” Liu had been grazed in the arm.

  Two of the three men they’d rescued from the terrorist kidnappers were in good enough condition to run, or at least trot, as they made their way down the hillside. Perse

  “Powder” Talcom had the other on his back.

  Captain Danny Freah, who headed the Special Forces squad, caught a breath as he reached the stone wall where Freddy “Egg” Reagan was holding down their rear flank.

  “Action over the hill, Captain,” Egg told him, gesturing with his Squad Automatic Weapon. The SAW was a 5.56mm light machine gun that could lay down a devas-tating blanket of lead. It happened to be one of the few weapons the team carried that hadn’t been tinkered with by the scientists and weapons experts at Dreamland, where Whiplash was based. Some things just couldn’t be improved on — yet.

  Danny flipped the visor on his helmet down and clicked into the target mode, which put a red-dot aiming cursor on the screen. The bulky visor looked like a welder’s shield and shifted the helmet’s center of gravity forward. The initial awkwardness was worth getting used to, since it offered four different viewing modes — unenhanced, infrared, starlight, and radioactive detection. The bulletproof carbon-boron helmet it was attached to provided not only GPS and secure discrete-burst, short-distance communications with the rest of the team, but linked into a combat system in Danny’s bulletproof vest that allowed him to communicate with the Dreamland Command Center — aka Dream Command — via purpose-launched tactical satellites. Once connected, Freah had virtually unlimited resources available at a whisper.

  He didn’t need them here. What he needed was to reach the waiting MH-53J beyond the hill.

  “Listen up,” he told the squad. “Powder and I go over the hill, make sure it’s clear. Egg, you got our butts.”

  “Yo,” answered Egg.

  “Sound off,” said Danny, more to give his guys a last breather than to make sure they were with him. As the team checked in alphabetically, the captain examined his MP-5, which was connected to the helmet’s targeting gear via a thin wire that plugged in at the rear. It had a fresh clip; he slipped a second into the Velcro straps at his wrist, not wanting to waste precious microseconds retrieving it under fire.

  “Let’s go, Powder,” Danny said, hopping the wall and moving up the slope. A few feet from the peak he threw himself down shoulder first, raising his gun as he rolled just to the crown of the hill. He peered over with his visor at ten times magnification, quickly scanning to check the terrain.

  The Air Force Special Forces helicopter sat on the level flat twenty yards from the foot of the sharp cliff, exactly where they had left it.

  The six-man crew was there as well.

  Except they were all dead.

  “Shit,” whispered Powder, popping up behind him.

  “All right, relax,” said Danny. The enemy was nowhere in sight but undoubtedly hadn’t gone far. He pointed to a small rock outcropping on the right. “They’ll be hiding there, waiting for us to hit the helicopter,” he told Powder.r />
  “There’s probably two or three guys circling around to ambush us once they pin us down.”

  Powder glanced toward the rear. Danny wasn’t worried — Egg could hold his own. “What are we doin’, Cap?”

  “We play along. You make like you’re going to the Pave Low, I’ll jog that way and nail them. Try not to get killed before I waste them.”

  “Shit,” cursed Powder. He continued grumbling as Danny dropped down to flank the spot.

  “Whiplash, hold your positions,” whispered Danny as he ran. “Helo crew has been neutralized. Egg — we think there’re probably two or three guys trying to flank us.”

  Egg acknowledged for the others.

  As Danny ducked down near the end of the ravine, he lost contact with the rest of the team; unless hooked to the satellites, the com system was line-of-sight.

  Even if he hadn’t used all of his grenades earlier, he wouldn’t have now, because he didn’t want to risk damaging the helicopter. But that meant getting close and personal to flush them out.

  He knew they’d have a guard at the crevice, watching the flank. Drop him, and the rest would be easy pickings.

  Danny took out his short, four-inch survival knife, in his opinion better suited for this kind of work than the longer models. He turned it over in his hand as he scouted the situation.

  He could crawl to within ten yards of the spot from behind the rocks. But then he’d have to run over open terrain. He positioned his gun against his left hip, then began working his way forward. As he jumped to his feet he realized that even if he got to the crevice without being seen, he’d never be able to pirouette his arm up quickly enough to take the guard without firing. He ran anyway, all his momentum committed to the plan.

  There was no guard.

  He flopped back against the rocks, winded, temporarily confused. Had he miscalculated? Or was his enemy overconfident?