by Dale Brown
“Good riddance?”
Mack shrugged. “He wasn’t exactly a team player. You know what I mean? We’re still off the record, sir?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Samson.
Rubeo was the civilian scientist who had headed the science department. Samson eagerly accepted his resignation after making it clear that eccentric eggheads had no future in his command.
“Tell me, Mack, what do you think of Danny Freah?” said Samson.
“Captain Freah? Head of base security, head of Whiplash. Our top Spec Warfare guy. A-number-one. Close to Bastian, but dependable even so. He’s done a hell of a lot with the Whiplash kids. Still impressionable. With the right mentor, he could go all the way.”
Samson began quizzing Mack about the other personnel at the base. Mack had a strong opinion about each one of them. It didn’t take long for Samson to realize that Mack Smith knew where all the bodies were buried—and where a few more ought to be dumped.
“Mack, have you given any thought to your next assignment?” asked the general, once more interrupting him. “I mean real thought?”
“Excuse me, sir, as I’d said earlier, I did, and not to repeat myself but—”
“No, no, Mack. Real thought.” Samson rose from his chair and walked over to the wall with his photographs. “Some men plan things out very far in advance. Others just let them happen.”
Mack got up from the chair and walked over behind the general.
“Did you ever meet Curtis LeMay?” asked Samson, pointing at the photo of himself and the famous Air Force general who had served during World War II and the Cold War.
“Gee, no, sir.”
“Richard Nixon. Tragic figure,” said Samson, pointing to another photo. “Not so tragic as LBJ. That’s after he left the presidency. I’m a captain in that photo. Freshly promoted.”
“The general hasn’t changed a bit,” said Mack.
Samson smirked. Yes, Mack would do very well as chief of staff. After he was broken in.
“You flew Boners, sir?” asked Mack, staring at another shot.
Samson frowned. Though “boner” was a common nickname for the B-1B bomber—it came from spelling out B-1—he didn’t particularly like it.
“I’ve had plenty of stick time in the B-1,” he said, “among other planes. I was one of the first B-1B squadron leaders. A pretty plane.”
“Yes sir, real pretty.”
“To get where I am, you need a few things, Mack. Some important things.”
“Luck, General?”
“I’m anything but lucky, Major.”
If he was lucky, thought Samson, he’d have been given a full command like Centcom or the Southern Command, posts he coveted, rather than Dreamland.
“You need experience, you need ambition, you need good postings,” continued the general. “And you need friends. Mentors. The Air Force is very political, Mack. Very. Even for someone like you, with a great record, who you know can determine how far you go.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’ve been blessed with a number of very important mentors—men, and a few women as well, whom I’ve met on the way up. Admiral Balboa, for one.”
“Sure. You probably know a lot of people.”
Samson could see that Mack wasn’t quite getting it. The general went back to his desk and had another sip of coffee. “I’m looking for a chief of staff,” he said bluntly. “I’m hoping you’ll be interested.”
“Chief of staff? A desk job?”
“An important hands-on position,” said Samson. “A right-hand man.”
“Gee, General, I hadn’t really thought of taking something like that.”
“Mmmm.” Samson pressed his lips together.
“Can I, uh, think it over?”
“Of course, Mack.” He rose to dismiss him—and hide his displeasure. “Let’s say, twenty-four hours?”
“Um, uh—yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“No, thank you, Mack.” Samson stared at him a moment. When Mack didn’t move, he added, “Dismissed,” and went back to work on his papers.
Northeastern Romania,
near the border with Moldova
1803
MARK STONER PULLED THE HOOD OF HIS SWEATSHIRT OVER his head as he got out of the Fiat, then zipped his winter coat against the cold. He closed the door of the car, slipping his hand into his coat pocket as he walked along the road, his fingers gripping the .45 caliber Colt automatic in his pocket, an old but trusted friend.
Making his way along the crumbling asphalt of the highway shoulder, he reached the start of a dirt path that twisted down through the woods. He paused as if to tie his shoe, dropping to his knee and looking around, making sure he wasn’t being followed or watched. The sun had already set, but the woods were thin and he had a good, clear view of his surroundings. Satisfied he was alone, Stoner rose and started down the trail. He walked slowly so he could listen for any sound that seemed out of place.
After twenty yards the path veered sharply to the right. Stoner stopped again, once more checking around carefully, though this time he didn’t bother with a pretense. The terrain dropped off precipitously to the left, giving a good view of the valley and, not coincidentally, of the gas pipeline that ran nearby.
Stoner had never been here before, but he had examined satellite photos of the area, and everything seemed vaguely familiar. That, he knew, was dangerous—familiarity made you assume things you shouldn’t assume. It was better to be a stranger, as he was to Romania. A stranger trusted no one, took nothing for granted.
Stoner was a professional stranger. His actual job was as a paramilitary officer, assigned to the CIA’s operations directorate. He was literally a stranger to Romania, having been pressed into service here barely a week before, following the death of another officer. The man had been murdered by rebels in a town twenty miles to the south, and was in fact the third CIA employee killed in the troubled northeastern quarter of Romania over the past year. Stoner had been sent to find out what the hell was going on.
Thirty yards after the sharp bend, the trail disintegrated into a pile of a large boulders, the result of a landslide that had occurred several years before. Though he had a good view of the rocks and the drop-off beyond, Stoner took his time approaching them, stopping and starting, aware that it would be an easy place for an ambush. When he finally reached the rocks, the last light of the sun was nearly gone. He dropped to his haunches, then unzipped his coat and took out his night-vision binoculars.
The gas line ran on the opposite side of the valley, roughly a mile and a half from where he was. The pipe was at least thirty years old, originally built to take gas from nearby wells down to the southwest, toward Bucharest, the Romanian capital. Those wells had stopped producing roughly a decade before, and the pipes sat unused until Inogate—the European oil and gas network—realized they were almost perfectly positioned to join a network of pipelines from Turkey to Austria and Central Europe.
Almost perfectly placed. A hundred fifty miles to the southwest would have been much better. But these pipes were here already, which meant not only could their construction costs be avoided, but so could the web of environmental regulations and political maneuvering that went hand in hand with construction in Europe, even in a country like Romania, which had only recently emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. A detour of a few hundred miles was nothing to the gas itself, and it had the side benefit of promising future economic development in an area where it was sorely needed.
But the pipeline was also a tempting target for the Romanian rebels who’d sought refuge in the north after being chased from the more urban south. They were communists, young hard-liners angry over the country’s flowering democracy and nascent capitalism.
It was more complicated than that—it was always more complicated than that—but the nuances weren’t important to Stoner. He leaned back against the rocks. Observing the pipeline was just a sideline tonight. The rebels had yet to make a serious or su
ccessful attack on it. Their targets thus far had been political—police stations, a mayor’s house, several town halls. The effectiveness of their attacks vacillated wildly.
All of which, in his opinion, made them unlikely candidates to have murdered the CIA officers. As did the fact that no communiqués—no e-mails or phone calls to radio stations—had followed the deaths.
Which was one reason he was going to meet one of them tonight.
Stoner checked his watch. He had an hour to get to the village and meet his guide across the border, in Moldova. He turned and started for the car.
Dreamland
0809
DOG CRANED HIS HEAD, WATCHING AS THE B-1B/L ROCKETED off the runway. The big jet—a highly modified version of the B-1—pitched its nose almost straight upward, riding a wave of thrust through the light curtain of clouds. For a brief moment the aircraft’s black hull engulfed the rising sun, blotting it out in an artificial eclipse. Then it was beyond the yellow orb, streaking toward the first mission checkpoint at 20,000 feet.
Though he no longer commanded Dreamland, Dog was still one of the few pilots checked out to fly nearly every plane on the base. Hoping to keep himself busy until fresh orders arrived, he’d volunteered to take a spot in the test rotation whenever needed, and was due to take the stick in Dreamland’s other B-1B in a few hours.
“Purty little beast, eh, Colonel?” asked Al “Greasy Hands” Parsons, sidling up to Dog with a satisfied look on his face.
“You sound almost sentimental, Chief. Like it’s one of your babies.”
“It is. I love airplanes, Colonel. More like lust, really.”
Dog lost sight of the aircraft as it twisted toward Range 6B. A few seconds later the air shook with a sonic boom.
“Of course, some of ’em are purtier than others,” continued Parsons. “The B-1—I always liked that plane. Pain in the you-know-what to keep running, when we first got her, anyway. Par for the course. But she’s a sleek little beast.”
“I wouldn’t call her little.”
“Compared to a B-52, she is,” said Parsons. He whistled. “I remember, I thought the B-36 was big.” He whistled again. “Then the first day I saw the Superfortress, man, that shrunk everything.”
Dog shaded his eyes, straining to catch a glimpse of the B-1B/L and its laser test shots.
“It’ll be over here,” said Greasy Hands, pointing in the direction of the range.
Sure enough, a white funnel appeared on the horizon. Two more followed. A laser mounted in the belly of the aircraft had fired and struck a series of ground targets on the range, striking them while flying faster than the speed of sound.
“Looked good from here,” said Parsons. “But then again, it always does. Buy you breakfast, Colonel?”
A week ago Dog would have felt guilty lingering here to watch the test, even from the distance. But now, Samson’s appointment as Dreamland’s new commander meant there was no mountain of papers waiting for him back at the office, no personnel matters to settle, no experiments to oversee.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” he told Parsons. “So tell me a little bit about the B-36, Chief. It was before my time.”
“You’re not implying I’m old, are you, Colonel?”
Dog chuckled. The two men turned in the direction of the Taj.
GREASY HANDS HAD JUST BEGUN TO WAX ELOQUENT ABOUT the sound six 3,800-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines and four GE turbojets made on takeoff when Major Natalie Catsman ran into the combined mess hall, the large cafeteria that served Dreamland personnel regardless of rank.
“Colonel, Zen just told me the news,” she said breathlessly. “Congratulations.”
“What news?” said Dog.
“We all knew it—now the world will know it, too.”
“What news?” Dog asked again.
“Listen up everyone.” Catsman turned around. “Colonel Bastian is getting the Congressional Medal of Honor!”
“What?” said Dog, dumbfounded.
“It’s true,” said Zen, rolling into the room with a wide grin on his face.
Dog looked around the room, not exactly sure what was going on.
“You’re getting the Medal of Honor,” Zen told him as he came close. “Jed just told me. Bree’s on the phone. She wants to congratulate you.”
“The Medal of Honor?”
“Hot damn, congratulations, Colonel!” said Greasy Hands Parsons, slapping Colonel Bastian on the back.
As if by some hidden signal, everyone in the cafeteria rose and began to applaud. Dog, not sure what to say—not even sure that this was in fact happening—opened his mouth, but then closed it.
The Medal of Honor?
The Medal of Honor.
II
An Honor and Privilege
Northeastern Romania,
near the border with Moldova
1933
THE GUN WAS AN OLD REVOLVER, A RUGER BLACKHAWK, a good gun but an odd one to find in northeastern Romania.
And not one particularly welcome when it was pointed at his head.
“Put the pistol down,” said Stoner. His hand was in his pocket, his own .45 aimed at the Romanian’s chest.
“You are Stoner?” the man with the gun asked.
“You think anybody else is going to be standing out in the middle of this fucking road at this hour?”
The man glanced to his right, looking at his companion. It was a half second of inattention, a momentary, reflexive glance, but it was all Stoner needed. He leaped forward, grabbing and pushing the man’s arm up with his left hand while pulling out his own gun with his right. The Romanian lost his balance; Stoner went down to the ground with him, pistol pointed at the man’s forehead. The Romanian’s gun flew to the side.
“Identify yourself, asshole.” Stoner pushed the muzzle of the weapon against the man’s forehead.
The Romanian couldn’t speak. His companion took a step closer.
“You come any closer, he’s fucking dead!” Stoner yelled.
“He doesn’t speak English,” said the man on the ground.
“Tell him, you jackass. Tell him before I blow your brains out. Then I’ll shoot him, too.”
In a nervous voice, the Romanian urged his friend to remain calm.
“Now tell me who the hell you are,” said Stoner.
Though they were dressed in civilian clothes, Stoner knew the man and his companion had to be the two soldiers sent to help him sneak across the border, but there was a point to be made here. Pulling a gun on him was completely unacceptable.
“I am Deniz. He is Kyiv. He does not speak no English,” added the man on the ground. “We were to help you.”
“Yeah, I know who the hell you are.” Stoner jumped up, taking a step back. “You’re going to check me out, you do it from a distance. You don’t walk right up to me and draw your gun. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
Deniz gave a nervous laugh, then reached for his pistol. Stoner kicked it away, then scooped it up.
“This is your only weapon?” he asked.
Deniz shrugged.
“What’s he carrying?”
“No gun. The captain said—”
“No gun?”
“We are to pretend we’re civilians,” said Deniz. “No uniform, no rifle. Not even boots.”
Idiot, thought Stoner. “You know where we’re going?” he asked.
Deniz nodded.
Stoner looked at them. Deniz was twenty, maybe, taller than he was but at least fifty pounds lighter. Kyiv was a pudge of a man, his age anywhere from fifteen to thirty-five. He looked like a baker who liked his work a little too much, not a fighter.
Neither would be much help if things got rough. On the other hand, Stoner not only didn’t know the area, but knew only a few phrases in Romanian.
“Kyiv knows the border very well,” said Deniz, trying to reassure him. “Part of his family lives there. Yes?”
He repeated what he had said in Romanian for Kyiv, who nodded a
nd said something in Romanian.
“The girls are better on the other side,” added Deniz. “We go there often. No guns. Not needed.”
Stoner frowned, then led them to his car, parked off the road behind some brush.
“You know how to use these, I assume,” he said, opening the trunk and handing them each an AK-47.
“It is not dangerous where we are going,” said Deniz.
“It’s always dangerous,” said Stoner, pressing the rifle on him. “Don’t kid yourself.”
He took his own gun—another AK-47, this one a paratrooper’s model with a folding metal stock—and doled out banana magazines to the others.
“This is the spot,” he said, unfolding the satellite photo he’d brought. “The GPS coordinates are for this barn.”
Deniz took the paper, turning it around several times as he looked at it. Then he handed it to his companion. The two men began talking in Romanian.
“He knows the barn,” said Deniz finally. “Five kilometers from the border. The woman who owned it died two years ago. A neighbor mows the field.”
“Who owns it now?”
Kyiv didn’t know.
“The rebels have been quiet this week,” said Deniz as Stoner adjusted his knapsack. “We have become a very silent area.”
“That’s good to know.”
“We could take your car,” added the Romanian.
“No. We walk.”
Taking the car would mean they’d have to pass through a Moldovan as well as a Romanian military checkpoint, and their procedures required them to keep track of every car or truck passing through by recording the license plate. Even if it wasn’t likely there would be trouble, Stoner didn’t want the trip recorded. Besides, going on foot would make it easier to survey the area and avoid an ambush or double-cross. Five kilometers wasn’t much to walk.
“We drive over many times,” said Deniz.
“Walking’s good for you. You should be able to do five kilometers inside an hour without a pack.”
The soldier frowned. Neither man seemed in particularly good shape. Stoner assumed their training regime was far from the best.