by Dale Brown
9
An island in the Sembuni Reefs, off Malaysia
FINALLY, THEY’D COME.
Lloyd Braxton stared at the console, even though the displays were blank. He had been waiting for this moment for many months. In a sense, he’d been preparing for it for years.
It was intoxicating. Kallipolis was becoming a reality, precisely as he had envisioned. The days of nation states were passing before his eyes; the elite was ready to take over.
He clenched his fists, controlling his excitement.
There was a great deal to be done. This was just one small step in the evolution.
The next step was to defeat the Dreamland people—Special Projects, Whiplash, whatever the hell bs code name they were using. Defeat them and take their technology, the last piece of the puzzle.
Defeating Dreamland would be sweet. Rubeo and his web of sellout scientists, technodrones for the governments of the world, would finally be put in their places.
Braxton scolded himself. If this became a quest for revenge it would fail. He had argued this many times with Michaels, Thresh, and Fortine—especially the ship captain Fortine—who while still being true believers, bore personal grudges against their governments and a host of officials who had wronged them. Braxton didn’t blame them, exactly, but he knew that Kallipolis was a movement of history, a phenomenon like the Renaissance or the Reformation, not something to be sullied by personal grudges.
Kallipolis was both a goal and a philosophy. The philosophy was perfect, unfettered freedom: true dependence on the self, and a true unshackling of the governmental binds that kept men and women from reaching their potential, both personally and as a race. Kallipolis would do away with national borders and provide those who were worthy of it complete freedom and the unrestricted ability to achieve.
The people who made up the Kallipolis movement—aside from the very small group of people he employed, there were over a hundred in close communications with Braxton, and a few thousand more beyond—were members of the intelligentsia, scientists and engineers, and those who had done something with their lives, people who were the builders, not the takers; what they had in common was the ability to see things without emotion and act on them. They acted as he must act: entirely on the scientific principles that had gotten him this far.
So . . . it was on to the next move. Provoke the Americans into showing themselves, and get Whiplash to expose the tech he needed.
He needed to talk to the rebel leader on Malaysia immediately. The sooner the Americans were provoked, the better.
10
Suburban Virginia
BREANNA ROLLED OVER in the bed, aware that she had to wake up but unsure why. She was in the middle of a dream, caught in an incomprehensible tangle of odd thoughts and a snatch of memory. The setting was her childhood, a home near the railroad tracks. She was running to catch the train. Her father, dressed in his Class A uniform, was yelling at her to stop. The train was a steam locomotive, a huge nineteenth century bruiser stolen from a Christmas display and multiplied a hundred times . . .
Up, she told herself, and she slipped off the covers, grabbing the vibrating phone on her bed stand.
Zen snored as she grabbed a robe from the end of the bed and walked to the hallway.
“Breanna,” she said into the phone.
“Need to talk,” said Danny Freah.
“Give me two minutes. I’ll call.”
Pulling on the robe, Breanna went down to the kitchen and glanced at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. Indonesia was a day and an hour ahead, making it three-thirty there.
She hesitated for a moment, then hit the button on the coffeemaker. As the water started to heat, she went to the kitchen table and pulled her daughter’s laptop open. The Web browser came up; she checked the news headlines on her home page quickly, making sure nothing important had happened in the roughly two hours since she’d gone to bed.
Coffee in hand, she went to her office in the basement. Two minutes later she was talking to Danny over the Whiplash com network’s secure link.
“No video from your end?” asked Danny when his tired face appeared on the screen.
“I have it off. Commander’s prerogative.”
“I have an update on the UAV we encountered today.”
“OK,” she said, yawning.
“Turk was looking at the flight patterns that were reconstructed by the team Frost heads,” said Danny. “He says it followed a defensive pattern he recognized from the Flighthawks, to the letter.”
“Is he sure?”
“I had him go over it a couple of times. He looked at everything—the approach, the maneuvers, the way it got away. He said he’s flown against that attack a lot.”
“Is it a Flighthawk?”
“No. Turk compared it to a late model Flighthawk with stubbier wings.”
Breanna tapped on her keyboard, tying into the Cube’s computer system. Within a few minutes she had a video of the reconstructed encounter.
“I see what he’s saying,” she told Danny. “But we still don’t have any elint data.”
“Turk had a theory about that. This is a preprogrammed pattern, something you could tell the Flighthawks to do. They wouldn’t need to be in full communication.”
“That’s right. Have you talked to Ray about this?”
“He’d gone home.”
“I’ll talk to him,” said Breanna.
“If it is following the Flighthawk’s program, the source might be—it could be—”
“Us,” said Breanna.
“Yeah. Someone who worked on the Flighthawks.”
While there had been Flighthawk crashes and shoot-downs over the years, the aircraft were equipped with a series of fail-safe devices for completely scrubbing the memory and destroying the chips. There was no indication that the systems had ever failed. There hadn’t been a crash now in several years.
“This thing gets worse and worse,” said Danny before hanging up.
ZEN OPENED HIS eyes as soon as he smelled the coffee. He glanced at the clock—it was a few minutes before three.
He lay in bed, listening to the house. He couldn’t hear Breanna; that meant she was downstairs in her soundproof office. She wouldn’t have left the house without kissing him good-bye, which inevitably woke him up—though he would never tell her that, for fear she might stop doing it.
Their daughter Teri was sleeping down the hall. He could hear her light breath. The child could sleep through a train crash without waking, something that never ceased to amaze Zen.
The coffee smelled good.
Zen made a halfhearted attempt at drifting off; a grand total of thirty seconds passed before he threw the covers off and pushed himself to the edge of the bed for his wheelchair.
Breanna had grabbed his robe when she’d gotten up, so once he was in the chair he wheeled to the bureau and pulled out a sweatshirt. Then he rolled down to the kitchen. He was pouring milk into his coffee when Breanna came up from her office.
“You took my robe,” he told her. “Yours was on the chair.”
“Sorry, I just grabbed what was there.” She leaned into him for a long kiss. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Worth getting up for,” said Zen. He took his coffee and went over to the table. “Problems?”
“Eh. Just the usual.”
He knew from the tone in her voice that whatever had gotten her up was particularly sticky, but he also knew that he couldn’t push her for details.
“Kinda strong,” said Zen, sipping his coffee.
“No more than usual.”
Breanna sat down at the table across from him. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“A lot going on.”
“Thinking about what Todd said?”
“Oh . . . no. I don’t think I’d want to be President.”
“Why not? You could do a hell of a lot.”
“Maybe . . .” He took another sip. Bree was right—the coffee wasn�
�t any stronger than normal.
“What are you doing today?”
“Committee stuff. And fund-raising.”
“Your favorite.”
“Worse than that. I’m meeting with Jake Harris.”
Harris was an entrepreneur who’d made three fortunes and lost two before he was thirty years old. He’d held on to the latest, and over the last few years had become one of the most important political fund-raisers in the country.
“Count your fingers and toes before you go in.”
“It’s after that I’m worried about. I’d have to do this all the time if I ever ran for President,” he added.
“The price you pay.”
“Yeah.”
Lifting his coffee mug to his lips, he realized he’d nearly drained it. He took a last gulp, then wheeled over to the machine for a refill.
BREANNA WATCHED HER husband wheel across the floor toward the coffee. For just a moment she saw him as he was before the accident at Dreamland that had taken the use of his legs—a brash young pilot, skilled and already wise beyond his years.
He was extremely bitter after the accident. Even so, it didn’t change what was vital about him—the need to strive, the urge to compete and be the best at what he did. The tragedy hadn’t made him a better person, but his will to keep going, his struggle to keep contributing to Dreamland and the Air Force and above all his country—those things had made him into a man to be admired, a real leader.
He would make an excellent President.
But should she urge him to run? He’d have to give up a lot, from the trivial—his skybox at the Nationals—to things that had no price, like time with their daughter.
Breanna curled her feet under her, then tucked the robe around her. It was thick and warm, and reminded her of him.
She hadn’t taken it by mistake.
She felt an urge to tell him about the plane—he’d know right off if the maneuvers were the same as those programmed into the Flighthawks. He also might have a theory on why that was. Just a coincidence? Or much more?
But she couldn’t.
If he ever did run for President, how many things would they never be able to share?
“Need a refill?” Zen asked.
“No, it’s full.”
Zen balanced the cup between his legs and wheeled himself back to the table. All these years, and he still insisted on an unpowered chair. There was more than a little macho masochism in him.
“Whatever you do, whenever you do it,” said Breanna, “Teri and I are with you.”
Zen smiled. That was one thing that hadn’t changed, ever, and the way his eyes shone, it was clear it never would.
“Thanks, babe,” he told her. “You think we can go back to bed?”
“You think we can sleep after all this coffee?”
“Who said anything about sleep?”
“Hold that thought,” said Breanna, rising. “I have to make a phone call.”
DESPITE THE HOUR, Ray Rubeo answered on the first ring.
“Ray, it’s Breanna. I—I’m sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I’m working.”
“Oh. OK. Listen I just talked to Danny. He said that Turk Mako has a theory—”
“Let me guess. He sees parallels between the UAVs and some of our aircraft.”
“Well, yes,” said Breanna, surprised. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. But I’ve noticed the parallels myself. I understand the implications,” he added. “I’m taking it very seriously.”
“I’m sure you are,” said Breanna. Rubeo took everything seriously.
“Is there anything else? I am in the middle of constructing a model.”
“No, that’s it. I’ll talk to you in the morning at the Cube.”
“Very well,” he said, hanging up.
11
Malaysia
TURK ROLLED OVER on the thin mattress in the trailer room. Though exhausted, he found it impossible to sleep. After he’d returned from the mission—the Malaysians were bivouacked in tents near the trailers—he’d gone over the mission several times, first for Danny, then the Marines, then Danny again. By the time they were done, his brain was practically buzzing with the encounter; he saw it from all angles, even the enemy UAVs, though of course this was impossible. His mind wouldn’t let go.
While he could get sleeping pills from the corpsman assigned to the Marines, Turk didn’t like to use them, or even the more conventional aids available in the form of bourbon, scotch, and beer. He stared at the ceiling, but his thoughts just wouldn’t stop, and finally he got up, pulled on his boots—he slept in his clothes—and went out to see if a walk might help.
He heard someone throwing up in the bathroom. The door was open and he saw Lieutenant Rogers kneeling in front of the bowl.
“You OK in there?” he asked.
“Damn food killed me,” said Rogers between heaves. “I feel like my stomach is being turned inside out.”
“I’ll get the corpsman,” said Turk.
Rogers groaned, then went back to throwing up.
Turk headed toward the administrative trailer to look for the duty officer and find out who and where the medic was.
He was about halfway there when he heard a whistle above him. It was a strange, unearthly sound, a high-pitched sizzle that seemed to snap against the strong night wind.
The explosion that followed was something else again.
Turk fell as the ground seemed to dissolve beneath him. He landed on his side, and for a moment all the adrenaline that had kept him awake disappeared; he was dazed and confused, not sure where he was or even, in that moment, who he was.
“Incoming!” yelled a Marine nearby. “Mortars!”
Turk bolted upright, energy and consciousness instantly restored. He turned and ran back into the trailer he’d just come out of, screaming at everyone inside.
“Get to the bunker, get to the bunker!” he yelled, directing them to one of the two shelters the Marines had installed immediately after taking the base.
Men plunged from their rooms, charging into the barely lit corridor in various states of dress.
“Mortars,” said one of the NCOs. His voice was loud, but there was no excitement in it, let alone fear. “Move out!”
“The planes,” said Cowboy, coming out of his room at the far end. “We gotta get them off the field. Get the rest of the pilots! Pilots, come on!”
Turk ran to Rogers in the bathroom. He was still hunched over the toilet, his legs curled around him on the floor.
“You gotta get out of here,” Turk said and grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
“Man . . .”
“Come on, Marine. Stand up.”
Rogers struggled to comply. Turk helped him out into the hall, then down toward the doorway.
Two rounds hit nearby as Turk pushed Rogers out. He lost his balance, falling against the wall and letting go of Rogers. The Marine went down to his knees and threw up.
The stench turned Turk’s stomach, but he managed to grab the shorter pilot and drag him over his shoulder. The compound lit with the flash of another explosion, this one up near the airstrip. The light helped Turk orient himself, and he turned in the direction of the nearest bunker.
“Yo, Rogers,” he said. “It would sure help if you could push your feet every so often.”
DANNY FREAH HAD just finished taking his boots off to go to sleep when the first mortar hit the base. It had been a few years since he was on the receiving end of a mortar attack, but it was an experience few people wanted to relive, and Danny certainly wasn’t one of them. He pulled his boots back on, grabbed his secure laptops and the satellite phone, and ran from his trailer toward the command bunker, built around the foundation of an old building at the center of the base.
Captain Thomas met him a few yards outside the sandbagged entrance.
“Great way to wake up,” snapped the Marine captain. Two men ran across the field, M-16s in hand, hustling to
a perimeter post. “We should have eyes on in a minute.”
“You gotta get all the planes off,” said Danny. “Where’s Greenstreet?”
“He ran up on the strip. I’m sure he’s got it under control. Let’s get inside the bunker.”
Calling the structure a bunker was a bit of an overstatement. The interior had been dug out about three feet, and the sides built up with sandbags. The roof consisted of a series of corrugated steel panels covered with sandbags and dirt. Power came from a gas generator a dozen yards away.
The Marines had launched an RQ7Z Shadow, and its controller was flying the aircraft west, attempting to locate the attack. Based on the original RQ7B, the drone could carry a slightly heavier payload and was designed to be launched by one man rather than two; otherwise the performance specs were similar. Looking like a stick glider with a triangle at its tail and a ball turret below its wings, the UAV jetted into the sky from a small metal trailer. Once airborne, its infrared camera provided a 360-degree view of the battlefield; its laser designator could be tied into the F-35B attack systems.
Right now it was getting an eyeful.
“We got over fifty savages in the weeds,” said the Marine at the controls. “They’re massing for an attack on the west side of the base.”
Danny spun around and nearly struck Captain Thomas.
“I heard him,” said Thomas. “We’ll be ready.”
A MARINE RAN out to help Turk as he pulled Rogers into the shelter near the airstrip. Just as the weight was lifted off his shoulder, the ground rocked with another nearby explosion. Turk lost his balance and fell straight back, smacking his head on the ground. He rolled to his belly and got to his knees, momentarily disoriented. Then he pushed to his feet.
The Malaysian ground troops were about four hundred yards away, near the outer perimeter. Turk decided that he should head over there in case they needed to liaison with the Marines. But before he could take a single step, one of the crew chiefs for the planes ran up to him, shouting about Rogers.
“We’re looking for him—they need him in the air!” yelled the Marine.