by Dale Brown
Garcia, who had been hovering nearby, tried to interject. Danny waved at him to be quiet.
“The Marines did this all the time in the Gulf War,” he told Mack. “The building isn’t ten feet from the highway, which is long and flat, plenty enough for you to land. You come in, zip around, take off. Easy as pie.”
“Pie, huh? Apple or peach?”
“You’re awful touchy today, Major,” said Danny. “You were looking for action—well, here it is.”
“Action and suicide are different.”
“You don’t think you can do this?”
“I can fuckin’ do it. There is nothing I can’t fly. This—this is a piece of cake.”
“Great. How long before we’re ready to take off?”
Dreamland Command Center
1315
COLONEL BASTIAN WALKED BACK AND FORTH BEHIND THE console, waiting for the connection to go through. He’d decided to give CentCom’s commander a heads-up about the Razor strike.
Like all of the U.S. joint service commands, CentCom was headed by a four-star general, in this case Army General Clayton Clearwater. He was an old-line soldier with a reputation both for daring—he’d been with an airborne unit in Vietnam—and stubbornness. Dog had met him exactly once, during a three-day Pentagon seminar on twenty-first century weaponry. Clearwater had given a short address during one of the sessions, talking about force multipliers and asymmetric warfare. While the speech had been aimed at the Joint Services Special Operations Command, his ideas were in line with the Dreamland/Whiplash concept.
Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t view the Razor mission as interfering with his domain. But his reaction was beside the point. Bastian wasn’t calling him to ask for permission—the Whiplash order clearly gave him the authority to proceed.
Still, touching base was politic.
“Nothing?” Dog asked the lieutenant handling the center communications board.
“Just getting through now, sir.”
The lieutenant spent a minute haggling with his equivalent at CentCom’s communications center before being transferred to the general’s line. A tired-sounding Marine Corps major—CentCom didn’t have the high-tech secure video gear Dreamland used—finally came on the line.
“Bastian?” he said curtly.
“I need to talk to General Clearwater.”
“You’ll have to talk to me,” said the major. He was an aide to the general’s chief of staff—pretty far down the totem pole and undoubtedly lacking code-word clearance to talk about Whiplash, let alone any of Dreamland’s weapons.
“I need to talk to the general himself,” Dog told him.
“I’m sorry, Colonel, I can’t put you through.” Dog folded his arms in front of his chest, trying to martial his patience. “This is a top priority item. It involves a matter of immediate importance,” Dog told him.
“Then explain it to me,” said the major.
“I can’t,” said Bastian.
“Then this conversation is over,” said the major, who snapped off the connection.
“Asshole,” said the lieutenant in a stage whisper.
Dog began pacing again. In fairness to the major, he probably didn’t understand why a “mere” lieutenant colonel would need to speak right away to a four-star general, especially since that colonel was ostensibly calling from Edwards Air Force Base, where the duty roster showed he was assigned to support squadron.
Ordinarily a good cover, but in this case perhaps a bit too good.
Magnus could get through to Clearwater, he thought, and would appreciate the heads-up himself. But Dog hadn’t been able to hunt him down in D.C. He’d had to use the secure e-mail message system to tell him about the damage to Quicksilver and the fact that it had been forced to land at Incirlik, and still didn’t have an acknowledgment.
Dog glanced at his watch. Less than fifteen minutes until takeoff for the mission.
No way he was going to delay it.
“Listen, Lieutenant, I’m going to go catch a breather.
Page me if General Magnus or General Clearwater calls, and if there’s anything from Whiplash or the Megafortresses. Otherwise, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
High Top
2302
“YOU TAKE THAT KNEE OUT OF MY SIDE RIGHT NOW, POWDER, or I’m going to twist it back behind your head.”
“If you had room to twist it behind my head, Bison, it wouldn’t be in your goddamn side.”
“That ain’t his knee,” said Liu.
“Real funny, Nurse,” said Powder.
“We taking off today or what?” said Egg, the fourth member of the Whiplash team crammed into the rear of the Bronco. He wagged his flashlight toward the roof, throwing bizarre shadows across the M-4 carbines, grenade launchers, and MP5s they’d lashed there.
The Marine Corps had outfitted several OV-10s for special operations, turning the rear area into a passenger compartment. While no Marine was ever heard to complain—at least not within earshot of his commanding officer—the accommodations hardly fit the definition of spartan, let alone cramped. And that was in a plane specifically designed, or at least modified, to their specifications. This aircraft made the Marine versions seem like 747s. Sitting on their rucksacks, each man had his helmet and backup oxygen in his lap. There was no light, and no communication with the cockpit.
“Which one of you didn’t take a shower?” Bison asked.
“Hell with that,” said Egg. “Liu had some of that soup.”
“Jesus,” groaned the others together.
“About time,” said Powder as the airplane’s engines started up with a roar. The vibration from the engine worked into his spine and skull.
“Man, this is nuts,” said Bison. “Powder, take your damn elbow out of my ribs.”
“Where do you want me to put it?”
“You want me to tell you?”
“You don’t watch yourself, I will.” The plane jerked forward as the engine noise jumped fifty decibels.
“Man, I gotta go to the can,” said Egg.
“I think we’re taking off!” yelled Bison. He dropped his flashlight as the plane stuttered upward, and the Whiplash assault team was left in temporary darkness.
Just as well, thought Powder. Dinner roiled in his stomach. He’d gone over to the Marine mess and scoffed up a few helpings of roast beef and mashed spuds. He thought now the gravy had been a mistake.
“Whoa—we’re up,” said Bison.
“I been in trucks smoother than this,” said Egg.
“Sixty-seven minutes away,” said Powder.
“Hey,” said Egg. “Anybody smell roast beef?” DANNY BRACED HIMSELF AS THE BRONCO PULLED NEARLY four g’s, turning around a sharp crag in the mountains en route to their target.
“Captain, are you still with us?” asked Dr. Ray Rubeo over the Whiplash circuit, which was being fed by the tactical communications satellite into his smart helmet.
“Yes, sir.”
“As we said before, video of the director unit would be very useful. We want measurement of the focusing apparatus, but you needn’t bother with taking parts from it.
Simply blow it up.”
“Right.”
“The chemical samples, the readings—those are higher priorities. The disk array is what we specifically want. Now, if the weapon is Razor size, you can expect the computer gear to be fairly small. On the other hand, if it’s stationary, I would imagine you’ll be hunting for something about the size of a large cabinet, similar to some of the memory devices we use here with the work stations.”
“Gotcha,” said Danny. They had already gone over the priority list and the likely layout of the weapon and any facility housing it twice.
“We’ll be right here, watching what you do,” added the scientist as Mack warned that he was going to take another sharp turn.
“Great,” groaned Danny as gravity knocked him sideways.
MACK SMITH CHECKED THE ENGINE GAUGES AGAIN. THE turbos we
re maxed out, but with all the extra weight, they were barely doing 190 knots. Fortunately, they didn’t have to climb; he’d laid out a zigzag course through the passes and then a straight run down to the site. The night was dark, with only a small sliver of moon, but he figured that was in their favor—the darkness would make it tough for anyone on the ground to hit them.
Once past the last peaks ahead, he’d have a clear shot.
Landing on the road, though, was going to be a bitch—he figured he’d have to drop a “log” flare on a first approach to see the damn thing, then hustle back in before the light burned out or anyone on the ground nailed him.
At least he wasn’t flying completely naked. He’d managed to talk Alou out of a pair of Sidewinders. Garcia had mounted them on the OV-10’s launcher.
He almost hoped he had a chance to use them. This sucker turned on a dime. He’d lure a MiG onto his butt, turn quick, then slam the two heat seekers right down his tailpipe.
All in all, he had to admit the Bronco was a lot of fun to drive.
Drive, not fly, he thought. You couldn’t really call moving under 200 knots flying.
“We’re running behind,” said Danny, who was sitting in the copilot-observer’s seat behind him.
“Really?” he replied over the Bronco’s interphone circuit. “Well hold on while I hit the rocket power.”
Aboard Raven,
over Iraq
2320
FENTRESS FELT HIS CHEST IMPLODE AS MAJOR ALOU counted down the seconds to launch, taking Raven through the alpha maneuver to exert maximum separation force on the Flighthawks.
People’s lives depended on him doing his job without fucking up. That had never been true before.
Alou thought he could do it. To Alou, there wasn’t even a question.
And Zen?
Fentress hadn’t asked. As far as he knew, no one had.
Alou was in charge of the mission. He thought he could do it. He would do it.
“Alpha,” said Alou.
Fentress’s pinkie jerked with some kind of involuntary reaction on the joystick controller, even though he’d turned the launch over to the computer.
“Flighthawk launched,” confirmed the computer.
Though it was night, the view from the robot was as clear and defined as if it were day. In fact, he could tell the computer to present it as a cloudless sky at high noon and it would do so. It was best to keep it in the greenish starlight-enhanced mode, however; it helped keep him oriented.
Zen’s advice.
“You’re looking good, Hawk leader,” said Major Alou.
“Wild Bronco is twelve minutes from target.” He hesitated before acknowledging—it felt odd to be called Hawk leader; that was Zen’s title.
“Twelve minutes,” he said. He was going to overfly the building, check for last second developments. The Megafortress was five miles from the building, the Flighthawk now a little closer.
“Low and slow like we planned,” said Alou.
“Low and slow,” he repeated.
“Gun radars two miles ahead of you, just came on,” warned the radar operator a second before the warning flashed in the Flighthawk screen. “North of that town.”
“Got it.”
Incirlik
2320
TORBIN DOLK HAD JUST CLIMBED INTO BED WHEN THE knock came at his hotel room door. He thought about pretending he was already sleeping but figured that wouldn’t save him; though nominally a private hotel, the building was reserved for military use, and the only person knocking this late would be here on official business.
“Yup,” yelled Torbin, still hesitating to get out of bed.
“Captain Dolk?”
“The same.”
“Lieutenant Peterson, sir. General Paston sent me over.”
Paston was a two-star Army general, the ranking CentCom officer at Incirlik. Dolk realized he was about to be fried big-time.
Very big-time.
Shit. Harding had told him he was in the clear.
Worse thing was, they didn’t even have the decency to hang him in daylight.
“Give me a minute.” He slid out of bed and got dressed, fumbling as he pushed both feet through the same pant leg. His eyes were a little fuzzy and he had to tie each shoe twice.
“You awake, Captain?” asked the lieutenant when he finally opened the door.
“Yeah. Uh, maybe we can grab some joe in the lobby.” Two Army MPs stood behind the lieutenant in the hall.
Two other soldiers with M-16s were standing a short distance away. They all followed as Torbin and the lieutenant walked to the elevator, where two Air Force sentries were stationed. No one spoke, either in the elevator or in the lobby, where Torbin sniffed out the boiled grinds in the overheated carafe next to the front desk. Then, cup in hand, he followed the lieutenant to a staff car outside.
The soldiers followed in a Humvee as they raced through the security perimeter and then back to the base.
Torbin thought several times of telling the driver to slow down; five minutes one way or another wasn’t going to make much difference. But at least he managed not to spill his coffee.
Security at Incirlik was ordinarily very strong; even when Iraq was quiet, it probably ranked among the most heavily guarded facilities outside of the U.S. During the past few weeks, the troops guarding it had been doubled, with a number of high-tech snooping and identity-checking devices added to prevent saboteurs and spies from getting in. And now the security had been heightened further.
Two companies of heavily armed soldiers stood outside the fence; another platoon of men and a pair of tanks stood along the access road. A short line of vehicles waited at the gate to be searched. The fact that a two-star had summoned him didn’t allow them to cut in the line either.
“Wasn’t this crazy before,” said Torbin when they were ordered out of the vehicle for the security check.
“What’s up?”
The lieutenant didn’t say anything, nor did the MPs looking them over. Finally cleared, the lieutenant didn’t wait for their escorts. He took the wheel himself and drove toward a hangar area at the far tip of the base. As they approached, Torbin realized why the security had been tightened—a huge Megafortress sat in the middle of the access ramp. Passing through yet another security cordon, they approached the plane slowly, having been warned that the guards in front of the aircraft had orders to shoot any suspicious vehicle.
Torbin had never seen a Megafortress in person before.
The aircraft seemed very different from a B-52, even though it had supposedly been built from one. Its long nose—silver, not black like the rest of the plane—extended toward the car as they approached; the aircraft seemed to be watching them. Perhaps the shadows made the plane seem bigger than it actually was, but the Megafortress definitely stood several feet higher than a stock B-52. Its wings seemed longer, sleeker. Her engines were single rather than double pods; with fins along the underside, they looked more like rockets than turbofans. The plane’s V-shaped rear stabilizer or tail rose above the nearby hangar, a pair of shark’s fins waiting to strike.
A soldier dressed in camo and wearing a green beret walked to the center of the roadway as the car approached, holding out his hand. The lieutenant immediately stopped and got out. Torbin followed, trailing along as several other Special Forces soldiers appeared. The lieutenant presented credentials; the soldier nodded grimly and stepped back, allowing them to pass toward the tail area of the plane. A figure in a flight suit approached; Torbin was surprised to find it was a woman.
And a very beautiful one at that. Five-six maybe, 120 or so—could be a little less.
Eyes like heat-seekers.
“You’re Dolk?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Captain Stockard. Breanna.” She held out her hand. She gripped his more firmly than any hand that smooth had a right to grip. “I understand you’re an electronic warfare officer, a pitter. You fly in Weasels?”
&
nbsp; “Yes, ma’am.”
“We need some help,” she told him. “You had an engineering degree too.”
“Well, uh, yes ma’am.”
“I realize you don’t have clearances. We’ll backtrack later. If there’s any reason you can’t help, you tell me now. If you don’t—well, if you don’t want to get involved right now for any reason, any reason at all, turn around and go back to bed. No questions asked. If you come with us and something comes up—you’ll be fried. No one will bail you out. You understand?”
Her eyes held him. What was she talking about?
God, she was beautiful.
“Captain Dolk?” she said. “Staying or going?”
“I, uh—I want to help.”
“Good.” She smiled. “We’re trying to get things put back together, and we need someone to help our technical person. She’ll tell you what to do.” Breanna started walking away, then spun back toward him.
“Yo—get your butt in gear, Dolk,” she barked. “Onto my plane. We have work to do.”
Dolk hadn’t been spoken to like that since basic training, perhaps not even then. He snapped to quickly, breaking into a full run but failing to catch her as she disappeared up the ladder of the black Megafortress.
CentCom HQ,
Florida
1330
“BARCLAY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUT IN THE goddamn lobby when I need you in here?”
“General Clearwater, I was—”
“Get your butt in here, Barclay, without back lip.” Jed Barclay had been told to wait in the outer office by Clearwater’s chief of staff, who had conveniently melted away before the four-star general appeared. But he’d been dealing with the head of Central Command a great deal over the past few months—he’d been told about not using back lip at least ten times already—and so he took the ad-monition in stride, following along as the general walked briskly down the hallway of his Florida headquarters.
“You see that report from Elliott?” asked Clearwater.
The general was in his early sixties and looked at least ten years older. But he walked fast and was rumored to work around the clock.
“Yes, sir,” said Jed.
“Well?”
“Uh, I agree. The damage to the first plane was almost certainly a laser. And since the Iraqis don’t have the technology—”