Razor's Edge

Chapter 33

Danny Freah knelt down behind the theodolite, trying to make sure the ridge beyond the runway was low enough for the Megafortresses to land. If he was reading the device’s screen right — and while it was extremely simple, that was not guaranteed — there was about three meters of clearance, well within parameters. They were running close to an hour behind schedule but at least they had the mesh down. They’d run into some troubles with the helicopters that had delivered it, but they’d probably set a world’s record getting the rough strip ready.

To Danny, it looked like a hell of a lot of space. According to the surveying instruments, new and old sections together stretched exactly 1,642.7 feet. Not counting the slight bump — more like a six-inch ramp — between new and old sections, and a stubborn group of pockmarks and bumps about forty yards from the northern end, it was as flat and level as any runway in the States.

There was a ton of work to do yet — widen the turnaround, finish out the parking section, set up a command area and better perimeter posts, augment the lights, maybe even add cable and a swimming pool. But it was time to land the planes.

“Hey, Cap, ready to rock,” said Clark, one of a pair of combat air control or CCT specialists who’d come in with the helicopters. “Landing lights, strobes, cloth panels — we could put a 747 in here if you want. Get kinda squished at the far end, but it would land pretty.”

Danny nodded, following the controller across the parking area toward a set of sandbags where Clark and Sergeant Velis had set up a radio to talk the airplanes in.

Clark grabbed a pair of chemical light sticks and a portable radio, then trotted toward the end of the runway.

He would direct the first plane in to the parking area.

“Hey, Cap! Thanks for letting me work the ’dozer,”

shouted Powder as Danny sat on one of the sandbag piles, the only available seating. “What I’m talkin’ about!”

“I’m surprised you gave it up,” Danny told him.

“Only until the planes land, Cap. Most fun I had with my pants on ever.”

“Yeah, well, keep them on,” said Danny, reaching into his pocket for a candy bar, which was all the dinner he’d have tonight.

Chapter 34

“Quicksilver reads you fine, High Top ground,” Bree told the controller as she orbited the freshly meshed field.

“I have a visual on the field. Looks real pretty.”

“Ground acknowledges,” said the controller, all business. “Dreamland Hawk?”

“Dreamland Hawk One reads you fine, High Top ground,” said Zen. Unlike their usual procedure at Dreamland, here the Flighthawk would remain airborne until the other planes were down, providing additional protection in case of an attack. While that was unlikely — two flights of fighters were patrolling the sky above and to the south — the apparent loss of two more F-16s over Iraq provided a potent reminder that nothing could be taken for granted.

CentCom had reacted to the loss of the two planes by ordering more retaliatory raids. But they were caught in a catch-22—more raids exposed more planes to danger.

Everyone was on edge, and even the Megafortresses had been challenged by fighter patrols as they flew into south Turkey.

The ground controller turned his attention back to Major Alou and Raven, which was up first in the landing queue. They ran through a quick exchange of vitals about the airstrip, wind, and weather conditions, along with the basic instructions on where the controller wanted him to put the plane once they landed. The exchange was somewhat pro forma, as the Megafortress could compute her own data and adjust accordingly, but the routine itself was comforting. The well-trained CCT on the other end of the radio did his job with the high precision a pilot could appreciate; it boded well if things got complicated down the line.

“Raven on final approach,” said Chris as their sister plane pushed in.

Quicksilver was about a mile away and roughly parallel to the runway, opposite Raven as it settled down. Zen had brought Hawk One into a chase pattern behind and above Raven to feed Alou additional video view if he needed it. Breanna had the feed displayed on her console; she watched as Alou came in a bit high to avoid the rocks at the approach end, then flopped down onto the mesh grid, chutes deployed, thrusters in reverse. Dust spewed as the plane shuddered onto the ground. Raven began drifting to the left about ten yards after her wheels hit; Alou held it for the next twenty then seemed to overcor-rect. In the last fifty yards the plane moved sharply back to the left, jerked right, then disappeared beneath a massive cloud of dust and smoke.

“Shit,” said Breanna.

The video veered into the countryside as Zen brought the Flighthawk around quickly. Breanna jerked her attention back to the sky in front of her. The radar plot showed one of the Pave Hawks crossing ahead.

“Hold pattern, all aircraft,” said the controller sharply.

“We’re all right,” said Major Alou. “We’re okay.”

The Flighthawk video showed the dust clearing. The Megafortress had come off the far edge of the runway, clipping its wing against some of the rocks. The ground people were running toward it as Hawk One passed overhead.

“Raven, please hold your pattern,” said the CCT.

“Raven.”

“Going to have to recalculate our fuel,” said Chris Ferris.

Breanna grunted in acknowledgment as she widened their orbit, waiting for the people on the ground to sort things out. Two of Raven’s sixteen tires had blown and the wing had been lightly damaged, but otherwise the plane was fine. No one aboard had been hurt, assuming the pilot’s bruised ego didn’t count.

“My fault,” Alou told Breanna as the Megafortress was rigged to one of the bulldozers so it could be towed off the runway. “The wind kicked up crazy and pulled the drogue chutes. The computer didn’t know how to compensate and I had to fight it. Then the wind kicked out again and I lost the runway. That tooth to the east between the hillsides — it’s like a blowpipe.”

Breanna could imagine. Crosswinds were always a complication for any airplane when landing or taking off.

The Megafortress’s main asset was also its greatest weakness — it was an immense and heavy airframe. Sharp gusts of wind on landing could make a pilot’s life difficult even on the best runway.

“I say we dump the chutes,” said Chris.

“I don’t know if we can stop in time without them,” said Breanna.

“Chop ’em at the tooth.”

They worked the numbers — they’d run off the end of the runway, maybe even the mountain.

“What if we drop the other Flighthawk?”

The lighter load would lessen the plane’s momentum as it landed, making it easier to stop. Still, the computer calculated they’d need another fifty yards without the chutes.

“Burn off more fuel. Dump it even,” said Chris, working the calculations. The most optimistic — which had them running out of fuel during the final approach — left them ten yards too long.

“We can all eject,” joked Breanna.

“Still leaves us ten pounds too heavy,” answered Chris.

“I think we’re better off just losing the computer,” said Breanna. “We’ll figure the chutes will pull us and compensate.”

“I don’t know, Bree. If they couldn’t handle the cross-wind with the computer’s help—”

“The computer routines weren’t set up with the chutes,” said Breanna. She’d made up her mind. “We can cut it lower too, so we don’t put quite as much strain on the tires. I think they lost them on the touchdown. That hurt their steering.”

“I don’t know, Bree.”

“I do. I’ve landed in forty knot winds in an old B-52.

It’ll be easier than that.” She clicked her com setting to talk to Zen. “Jeff, we want to lighten our load. Can you launch Hawk Two?”

“What’s the game plan?”

Breanna explained quickly.

“I don’t know, Bree.”

“What don’t you know?”

“You guys are going to land on that postage stamp without any help from the computer?”

She’d expected Chris to object — though highly skilled, her copilot was by nature extremely cautious. But Zen was ordinarily the opposite, and routinely chafed against the computerized autopilot systems that helped him fly the U/MFs — even though he’d helped develop the damn things. If anyone should be in favor of turning off the training wheels, it should be him.

“I can do it with my eyes closed,” she said.

“Your call, Captain,” said her husband.

“Thank you, Major,” she said. “Tell me when you’re ready to fuel Hawk Two. I’d like to top off One as well.”

“Hawk leader acknowledges.”

Zen checked the Sitrep on his viewer, waiting for Quicksilver to finish its climb to 26,000 feet. Before he started working with the Megafortress fleet, he’d had a typical fighter jock’s attitude toward big planes and their pilots: basically they were airborne trucks, slow and easy to control. But the airborne launches and refuels had taught him to appreciate exactly how difficult a large aircraft could be to control. Its vast weight and wing surfaces, complicated flight systems, and powerful engines made for a complicated minuet. The dancers at the helm had their hands full, even with the sophisticated flight computers that helped control the Megafortress. Landing the big jet on the smooth surface in the shadow of Glass Mountain was one thing, landing on this mountaintop metal-covered sand trap quite another.

And Breanna hadn’t fully recovered from her injuries either.

“Want me to fuel and prep Two for launch?” asked Fentress.

“I got it,” said Zen, louder than he’d intended. He worked quickly through the checklist, jumping momentarily into the cockpit of Hawk One, then handing it back over to the computer in its orbit around the airstrip.

Fueled and powered, Hawk Two purred beneath the EB-52’s wing, eager to launch.

“Can I take it?” Fentress asked.

“Sorry,” said Zen, immediately telling Breanna they were set to launch because he didn’t care to debate with his sidekick.

“Ready?” Breanna asked chris after the ground controller gave them the all-clear.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Engines are yours,” she said. “Like we chalked it up.”

“Gotcha, coach,” said Ferris.

They brought the big plane out of her last leg on the approach pattern, lining up with the runway. They were at an off angle, their nose about fifteen degrees away from a straight-on run. Several simulations on the Megafortress control computer showed this would give them the best handle on the swirling winds.

“Four’s too hot,” Breanna said. She had the power-graph in the configurable HUD, its green bars overshadowing the rocks as they approached.

“Backing off four, five percent. Seven percent.”

“Five thousand feet,” said Breanna, reading the altitude against the runway, not sea level — which would have added nearly seven thousand feet to the total. “On course.”

“Crosswind!” warned Chris. Quicksilver moaned as he said that, the plane lurching slightly to their left as a gust of wind caught them.

“I have it,” she said. “Gear.”

“Gear,” confirmed Chris. The plane shook slightly, her airspeed quickly dropping below 150 knots against the stiff head wind as the landing gear doors opened. Their momentum bled away; within seconds they were no more than three knots over their stall speed, with a goodly distance to go.

“Hold our power,” said Breanna.

“Gear set and locked,” said Chris. “Okay okay okay.”

“Systems,” prompted Breanna.

“Green, we’re in the green, we’re in the green. Jesus — too low, Bree, we’re going to clip the rocks.”

Breanna resisted the impulse to break off the approach and instead held back on her stick ever so slightly longer than she had intended. They did cut the lip of the ridge close, but they cleared it.

“Chutes!” said Breanna and Chris together. They’d timed the deployment down to the millisecond, trying to balance the different effects and maximize the drag without ending up too far off course. The jet wobbled slightly but held herself in the air, the extended trailing edges on the wings adjusted by a series of small actuators that responded in micrometer increments to the pilot’s input.

“Reverse thrust! Reverse!” Breanna shouted.

The swirling gusts suddenly changed direction and died. The Megafortress’s tail threatened to whip out from behind her and the plane rolled faster than she’d wanted, its speed jumping nearly fifty knots, if the speedo were to be believed. Breanna’s fingers compressed around the stick, her soft touch suddenly gone, her biceps cramping.

An alarm sounded in the cockpit, and Chris shouted another warning.

Then she did something she’d never done before when landing a Megafortress: She closed her eyes. The plane’s wings seemed to hulk over her shoulders, extensions of her body. Her stomach felt for the runway, her legs dragging the brakes. She fought the muscle knots in her hand and back, pushing the plane as gently as she could, willing it along the path as she’d planned, compensating for the wind, feeling her way dead onto the middle of the runway.

God, she thought. The word filled her head, the only conscious idea. Every other part of her belonged to the plane.

“Holding, holding, oh yeah, oh yeah,” Chris was saying. “Fifty knots. Thirty. Oh mama! Stopping! We’re stopping! This is pretty, Captain!”

Someone behind her started to cheer. Breanna opened her eyes, looking out the windshield of the jet for the ground controller who was supposed to meet them and steer them to their parking slot.

Chapter 35

Danny Freah waited as the hatchway beneath the Megafortress hissed and began to lower. He jumped onto the steps as soon as they touched the ground. Hopping aboard, he popped up into the Flighthawk control deck, where Zen was busy bringing the U/MFs in for their landings. The major’s new sidekick, Captain Fentress, looked around with a surprised expression, but Zen remained oblivious, hunkered over his controls. Danny waved at Fentress, then clambered up the access ramp to the flight deck, where the crew was just stowing their gear.

“Nice landing, Bree,” said Danny. “Welcome to the No-Tell Motel.”

“Glad to be here,” she said.

“Colonel Bastian wants to conference,” he told her. “I was hoping I could sit in Quicksilver with you guys when we take it. We don’t have the headquarters trailer down yet, and our only radio is the SatCom.”

“Not a problem,” she said, stepping back as he climbed into the ship. Breanna caught his arm as he reached the deck. “We appreciate your getting that strip together so fast. Thanks.”

It was the first thank-you he’d heard all day, and it felt incredibly good. “Thanks.”

“Now that I’ve brown-nosed you,” added Breanna, “can I drive one of those bulldozers?”

Chapter 36

Dog paced back and forth across the front of the situation room like an anxious father-to-be waiting word from the delivery ward.

He should have found a way to go himself. Nobody had ordered him not to this time — so why hadn’t he even thought of it?

Because he was superfluous. Because his job was here.

Because Major Alou and Breanna were much better Megafortress pilots than he was.

Bree, at least. Alou was still a little new. But the arguments that had kept Cheshire here went triple for him.

Except that he wanted to be out there, in the mix.

Why had he sent Jennifer? Because she knew the computer systems better than anyone in the world, including her boss, Ray Rubeo, who was sitting at one of the nearby consoles. Not only had she helped develop half of the avionics in the Megafortress and Flighthawks, but she could probably figure out the rest with her eyes closed.

If he was worried about Jennifer, why wasn’t he worried about his own daughter, Breanna? She was taking much more risk, flying the plane into combat.

Because Breanna had never seemed vulnerable?

Vulnerable wasn’t the right word.

Rubeo sighed loudly, leaning back in his chair. He’d brought a book to read as well as a pile of technical fold-ers, and seemed to flit back and forth between them as if reading them all simultaneously.

Losing two more F-16s — it still had not been confirmed that the planes had been shot down, though everyone assumed they were — had sent CentCom as well as Washington into a frenzy. It didn’t help that no one knew what had shot down the planes. The latest CIA theory was that the Iraqis had managed to acquire modified versions of the Russian Straight Flush radar, a low PFR radar that had been modified not only to frequency skip but to resist jamming. The theory held that they were able to use the radars in conjunction with older but also undoubtedly modified Fan Gong F radars, all of which were turned on for extremely short periods of time in a predetermined pattern. Data from these extremely brief bursts were then used to launch several missiles.

The theory did explain some things, such as the many brief radar indications and the barrage missile launchings. But as Rubeo pointed out, it did not account for the uncanny accuracy of the missiles, most especially since some of them didn’t have their own terminal guidance and those that did should have been defeated or at least confused by ECMs.

Perhaps the guidance systems had been altered. Perhaps the barrage firings increased the relatively poor odds of a single missile finding its target. Perhaps the Iraqis were just lucky.

“And perhaps Pooh Bear is God,” Rubeo said.

But a laser also seemed farfetched. If the Iraqis had it, why didn’t they use it on everything in the air?

Whatever it was, the Dreamland team had to find it — and neutralize it.

“Really, Colonel, when are we going to get on with this?” asked Rubeo. “We are wasting time that even at government rates is not inexpensive.” Rubeo frowned and fingered his stubby gold earring. He was brilliant — half the gear in the room had been designed by him or one of the people who worked for him — but Dog thought that sometimes he pushed the eccentric scientist a bit too far.

“What are you reading there, Doc?” asked Dog, trying to change the subject.

“Commentary on Plato. Wrong-headed, but diverting.”

“High Top Base to Dreamland Command.” Major Alou’s voice boomed over the speaker system. “Colonel, do we have a connection?”

Dog turned toward the screen at the front of the room, even though he knew there would be no video; they were using the Megafortresses to communicate. The Whiplash portable command center, with its full suite of com gear, hadn’t even been delivered from the MC-17 yet. “Go ahead, Major.”

“You wanted to speak to us?”

“I have information that may be relevant. We’re going to try to get Jed Barclay on the line to sit in on this.” He nodded at the lieutenant handling the communications, who punched in the commands to connect the NSC secure line. A signal indicated that the line — which had been open just two minutes before — was now unavailable.

“Hi, Daddy,” said Breanna lightly. She sounded like a kid calling from college.

“Captain.”

“Weather’s fine, if you like windchills approaching fifty below,” she told him.

“She’s exaggerating,” said Alou. “Windchill only makes it feel like thirty below.”

“Colonel, High Top came through on Channel B, the uncoded backup,” said the lieutenant at the com board. “I can only invoke eight-byte encryption.”

“Well switch it to the secure channel,” said Rubeo, whose tone suggested he considered the lieutenant about as intelligent as an earthworm.

“I’ve tried, sir. I don’t know whether it’s the satellite or something on their end.”

“Oh, just peachy,” said Rubeo, getting up from his console and walking toward the lieutenant.

It was unlikely that the Iraqis could intercept the communications signal, let alone break it. The Russians, on the other hand, were capable of doing both.

“I’m told we’re not secure,” said Dog.

“That is not correct,” said Rubeo. “And from a tactical point of view—”

“Excuse me, Doc, I’m talking here.” Dog gave the scientist a drop-dead frown. He couldn’t tell them about the laser; doing so would risk tipping the Russians off about Razor. “I have a matter that I want you briefed on. I’ll find a way of getting the information to you. In the meantime, we have to fix our communications glitch.”

“I’m working on it,” said the lieutenant.

“How long to fix this?” Dog asked.

“Sorry, sir. I’m not sure.”

Dog looked at Rubeo. The scientist shrugged. “Hours.

Days.”

“Better not be days.” Another thought occurred to him — was the glitch deliberate?

The idea obviously hit Rubeo at the same time.

“We haven’t been compromised,” said the scientist.

“These are the difficulties inherent in new systems. Believe me, Colonel, it is perfectly safe to proceed.”

Rubeo was undoubtedly correct — and yet Dog couldn’t take that chance. Security at Dreamland had been blown disastrously once before.

Under General Elliott, as it happened.

“What’s up, Colonel?” asked Zen.

“I’m going to send you a visitor, I think,” said Dog, im-provising. “He has a theory I want you to hear about.”

“We’re not going to tell them anything?” said Rubeo.

“We’ve wasted all this time—”

“The line isn’t secure,” said Dog.

“Colonel, please, let me explain a bit about the encryption system we’re using as backup,” said Rubeo. “Once we invoke the key, even though—”

“Dr. Ray is rehearsing his vaudeville act,” said Dog.

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain.”

“At least give them perspective,” added Rubeo. “General Elliott’s assessment of technology has always been overly optimistic.”

“General Elliott?” asked Zen.

“I’m sorry, guys,” said Dog. He walked over to the lieutenant’s console and killed Rubeo’s input line. “I’ll get the information to you.”

“Okay,” said Alou.

“Dream Control out,” said Dog.

“Wait!”

Jennifer’s voice pulled his head back toward the screen.

Still blank, of course.

“How are you, Doc?” he asked.

“I’m kick-ass fine, Colonel. Yourself?”

Dog wrapped his arms around each other in front of his chest. “I’m doing well. Was something up?”

“Just to say hi.”

“Yes.” He tightened his arms, squeezing them as if wringing a towel. “Dream Command out.”

A slight pop sounded over the circuit as the feed died, the sort of noise a staticky AM radio might make when the lights were switched on in a distant part of the house.

“The odds, Colonel, of the transmission being intercepted and decoded would surely be measured in range of ten to the negative one hundredth power,” said Rubeo.

“I can’t take any chance on that if we’re discussing Razor,” said Dog.

“We weren’t going to talk about Razor,” said Rubeo.

“Please, Colonel, give me some credit.”

“If I didn’t, I’d have you in front of a firing squad.”

“If you want to question my adherence to security protocols, Colonel, I welcome a formal inquiry.”

“Relax, Doc. Fix this coding thing.”

“I doubt it’s more than a switch in the wrong position,” said Rubeo.

“Communication pending, sir,” said the lieutenant.

“NSC.”

“Secure?” asked Dog.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s only the important communications that get screwed up,” said Rubeo.

“Connect,” said Dog.

The screen at the front flashed with color. Dog turned toward it as Jed Barclay appeared in the NSC secure room. His eyes were red and drooping, his hair disheveled even worse than normal. Uncharacteristically, he was wearing a suit that seemed to have been recently pressed, or at least dry cleaned.

“I’m ready,” said Jed. “Sorry for the delay.”

“That’s all right, Jed,” Dog told him. “We ran into some technical problems and we’re going to have to take another approach anyway. What’s the latest?”

“Someone might suggest Major Smith sign up for some camera lessons. His photos were kind of blurry and the analysts all say inconclusive. The two F-15

shoot-downs clinch it for me, but the CIA’s still holding out.”

“Naturally,” said Rubeo.

“Meantime, we’re reassessing targets,” continued Barclay. “CentCom wants ground action to help the Kurds.

Your orders still stand.”

All of this could have been prevented, Dog thought, if we’d simply nailed Saddam when we had the chance.

Calling off a war simply because a hundred hours had passed — what a wheelbarrow of bullshit.

“Uh, Colonel, I have someplace to get to,” added Jed.

“The director himself will contact you if there’s any change or new developments while I’m, uh, in transit.”

“Just one more thing,” said Dog. “Where is Brad Elliott right now, and can you get me through to him?”

“Uh, that’s two things,” said Jed.

Chapter 37

Mack Smith had begun the day with high hopes of finding a slot with one of the squadrons flying south.

He’d begun at the top — the F-15C guys flying combat air patrol — and worked his way down. The message was always the same: no room at the inn.

Which was bullshit. Here was, without doubt, the best stinking fighter pilot in the stinking Gulf, the hottest stick on the patch — bona fide, with scalps on the belt to prove it, for chrissakes — and he couldn’t even get a gig pushing A-10s across the lines.

Actually, there were no Warthogs in Turkey, and Mack wasn’t sure he could fly them if there were. But he would have jumped at the chance. Hell, he’d have taken the copilot’s seat in a Piper Cub if it meant getting into the action.

But nada. Stinking nada. Without exception, the idiot wing and squadron and section commanders, even the stinking D.O.’s and the intel guys and the maintenance people, for cryin’ out loud — every stinking anybody with any sort of authority had it in for him.

Probably they were scared he’d hog all the glory.

Jerks.

Elliott was sequestered in some hotel somewhere with the CIA jerks. Mack ended up wandering around the base, looking for something, anything, to do. He finally found himself staring at CNN in an Army psyops office that was being shared with USAFSOC. The SOC guys were out, the psyops people were off planning their head-shrinking stuff, and Mack was left alone to view a succession of correspondents in Saudi Arabia talk about a situation they knew absolutely nothing about. Reports of bomb strikes were attributed to reliable sources speaking on condition of anonymity. None of what they said was wrong — they just didn’t know what was going on.

But they were a lot better than the talking heads. One civilian expert talked about how “potent” the high-altitude SA-3 missile was and how it was likely the reason the F-16 had been shot down. In Mack’s opinion, the SA-3 was a fairly decent little weapon in its day, and no piece of explosive that could move through the air at three times the speed of sound could be taken for granted.

But it was a medium-altitude missile, designed more to stopgap the vulnerabilities of the SA-2, and at least arguably more effective at 1,500 feet than at 35,000. And hell — the Israelis had befuddled the damn things in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. You couldn’t ignore the stinkers, but there were a lot more gnarly problems over Iraq, that was for damn sure.

Like SA-2s? Talk about a weapon system that had been thoroughly compromised. So how had it nailed three F-16s and two F-15s?

No way. General Elliott had to be correct. It had to be a Razor, or a close proximity.

How would he fly against it? he wondered.

He’d taken a few turns as a sitting duck against Razor during its development; he could go on that. Clouds de-creased the laser’s efficiency, so that was the first thing to look for. It didn’t operate in bad weather.

There was some sort of latency thing; it had to warm up between bursts. So you sent out decoys, got it to target the ghost, then nailed the sucker while it recharged or recalibrated or whatever the hell it was lasers did.

Mack got up off the couch as CNN went to a commercial and walked down the hallway in the direction of the squadron commander’s suite. He got about halfway there before an airman caught up to him from behind.

“Captain Smith—”

“That’s Major Smith, kid,” Mack told the airman, who stood about five-four and was thinner than a cherry tree.

“Sorry, sir,” said the airman, so flustered he proceeded to salute. “Sir, General Elliott, uh, retired General Elliott, he’s looking for you. He’s in Colonel Witslow’s office, back this way.”

Everybody on the damn base has it in for me, Mack thought as he stomped through the hallway. He found Elliott buttoning a parka in Witslow’s office.

“Ah, there you are Mack. Grab some flight gear, we’re going for a ride.”

“No shit, General, great,” said Mack, relieved that he finally had something to do. “Where to?”

“To the mountains. The official name is Al Derhagdad, but they’re calling it High Top. You’ll see some old friends.”

“We taking a helicopter?”

“There are none available till morning, and I’d like to get out there right now.”

“Hell, let’s grab our own plane,” said Mack, instantly fired up. If they borrowed an F-15E Strike Eagle, he’d be able to wangle into one of the mission packages for sure.

“My thought exactly,” said Elliott. “There’s an OV-10 Bronco with our name on it out on the tarmac.”

“A Bronco?”

The Bronco was an ancient ground support aircraft once used by the Air Force and Marines. Diving with a tailwind, it might break 300 knots.

Might.

“You’ve flown one, haven’t you?” added Elliott.

“Uh, sure,” said Mack. He wasn’t lying, exactly — the Marines had had a few in the Gulf, and he’d hopped aboard one for a familiarization flight just before the start of the ground war. He’d gloved the stick for perhaps five minutes.

“If you’re rusty, we can find someone else,” offered the general.

“No, sir, I can handle it,” said Mack quickly. He could fly anything. “Marines still using them for covert insertions?”

“Actually, this aircraft belongs to Thailand and was en route to an air show in Cairo, where it was going to be sold. The Thais seem to think they might get a better offer from an unnamed American company that I happen to be slightly affiliated with.” Elliott didn’t even hint at a smile.

“We’re going to take it for a test drive.”

Chapter 38

Danny Freah squatted behind the rock as Bison got ready to ignite the charge. It had started to rain ten minutes before; the wind whipped the drops against the side of his face like pellets of dirt.

“Ready!” shouted Bison. “Clear the area!”

“Bison, only you and I are out here,” Danny told the demolitions man.

“Yes, sir. Clear the range!”

“Clear.”

Bison pushed the button on his remote detonator. The ground shook slightly, and dust spun up from the cliffside just out of range of the halogen spots. Danny got up and walked toward the ridge obstructing the end of the runway; the charges had loosened more stone, but most of the stubborn mountain had refused to yield.

“This is a bitch fuck,” said Bison, cupping a cigarette in his hands to light it. “We’re gonna have to blow it again.”

“Let’s check it first. We got a few feet off,” said Danny.

“Inches maybe.”

Bison’s estimate was probably nearer the mark, Danny realized. The runway wasn’t going to get much longer without considerable effort, nor were they going to be able to knock down the approach. But at least the loose rocks would give his guys more to do. Guard duty was already starting to wear thin, and they hadn’t been on the ground twelve hours yet. He’d have to find them something real to do once they got bored playing with the bulldozers.

A half-dozen medium-size tents had been set up, along with two large ones that were supposed to serve as mess and an auxiliary headquarters. The Whiplash Mobile Command Headquarters — the trailer — had been brought in on the MC-17 and was now fully operational, except for the link to Dreamland. The problem was in the satellite system, which was brand new. The scientists back home had it isolated and hoped to have it fully operational soon.

The Megafortresses were parked only a few feet away— Raven with its wingtip half apart. To Danny’s mind, it wasn’t the most secure setup; the planes were out in the open and bunched together, very vulnerable to a mortar attack. On the other hand, it would take an extremely dedicated fanatic to approach the base. His men had established an IR and ground radar picket around the slopes; a chipmunk couldn’t get within three hundred yards without them knowing about it. And even though it twisted every which way, they had the rock-strewn dirt road covered for a good half mile in both directions.

It was more a path than a road. A donkey — or a goat — would scrape its flanks on some of the curves.

Danny itched to get in on the action south, maybe hop down and look for the pilots. If the Marines ever got here, they might be able to do that.

“Can I fire up the ’dozer and clear the rocks away?” asked Bison.

“Yeah, go ahead — wait a second. Maybe I’ll take a shot at that.”

“Privileges of rank, huh?”

“I want to see what all the fuss is about,” said Danny.

But as he took a step toward the ’dozer he heard the drone of a propeller in the distance.

Chapter 39

Mack jammed the throttles for probably the eight hundredth time since taking off, looking for the Bronco to give him even two more knots. He told himself it was a damn good thing it was dark; if it had been daytime, he’d be able to see how slow he was going and really get frustrated. The gauge pegged 260 nautical miles per hour, but Mack doubted he was going half that fast. The altimeter showed 18,000 feet, and that he almost could believe — he had cleared a peak a short while ago by what looked like a good three inches.

Though a propeller plane, the Bronco wanted to be taken seriously. You had to wear a speed suit and strap yourself in, just like in a pointy-nose, go-fast jet. And it did respond — you could stick where you wanted it to go, by God; the sucker moved its nose and tail with good, solid jerks.

But it wasn’t an F-22 or an F-15 or even an F-16. And the damn cabin was colder than hell. General Elliott, sitting in the seat behind him, had given up his campaign to cheer him up; more than likely he’d passed out from hypothermia.

Somewhere ahead was the scratch base they were heading to, High Top. Two Megafortresses had managed to land on a strip that probably wasn’t even long enough for this plane. Typical Whiplash/Dreamland stunt, he thought. Probably patting themselves on the back.

He couldn’t get away from them, try as he might. Zen would be there, with his gorgeous wife. Merce Alou.

Danny Freah.

Odds were Jennifer Gleason would be too. Now there was a brain worth digging into. Though to be honest, Bree was more his style.

Mack checked the INS against his paper map. He’d long ago learned to rely on GPS readings that showed his location on three-dimensional maps accurate to half a centimeter. This — hell, this was just about dead reckoning, same sort of navigating Christopher Columbus used when he thought he’d discovered China.

God, was he going soft?

Bullshit on that. Mack knew right where he was. And he could fly anything — any friggin’ thing — any time, anywhere. This old workhorse was proof of it.

Slower than horseshit, though. God. Taxi would’ve been faster. Donkey cart.

So where the hell were these jokers? He knew he ought to be in their face by now.

Mack hit the UHF radio, trying to get the controller at High Top. Nothing came back.

The wind whipped up. His forward airspeed stepped lower, dropping below 250 knots.

“How we doing, Major?” asked Elliott from the back.

“Pluggin’ along, sir.”

“Handsome aircraft, isn’t it?”

Handsome?

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“A lot of grunts owe their lives to OV-10s,” said the general, renewing his pep-talk bid. “Impressive little airplane in its day.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eight-eight Delta Zeus, this is High Top base,” said a low but clear voice on the Bronco’s UHF channel. “Hey there, Wild Bronco, we have you at ten miles. You’re looking good.”

Wild Bronco?

“Delta Zeus acknowledges.” Mack did a quick check of the INS — stinker was right on the mark.

“Getting close, General,” Mack told his passenger.

“Very good, Mack. You made good time. We may turn you into a bird dog yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

The ground controller ran down the runway’s vital statistics, emphasizing not only its relatively short run but the obstruction at the approach. The lights flicked on, and Mack was somewhat surprised — he’d expected a simple box and one, a very basic pattern often employed at scratch bases. But the CCTs had enough lights out to make a 747 pilot comfortable; they’d even managed a warning strobe on the ridge near the start of the runway.

“Looks like LAX down there,” said Mack.

“Uh, sir, we can do without the insults.”

“I was kidding,” said Mack.

“So was I. Wind has been a bitch. I’ll give you readings all along. There’s a notch in the hills that seems to am-plify it about fifty yards from the leading edge of the runway; we’ve measured it at sixty there.”

Sixty. Holy shit.

“We’re looking at only thirty knots at the moment,”

added the controller, “but God only knows if that’ll hold.

At least it stopped raining, huh, Major?”

“Delta Zeus.”

“That’s — hold on — thirty-two knots, gusting, uh, gusting to forty-five. Thirty knots.”

“Thirty knots, Delta Zeus,” acknowledged Mack. The high-winged Bronco would be buffeted by any wind, but 30 knots — let alone 45 or 60—would make things somewhat hairy on the narrow and short runway. He’d have to push his right wing down, stick and rudder himself into what amounted to an angled skid across the tarmac.

Check that, metal grid.

He came at the runway well off to the east, no flaps, expecting the winds to push him in line as they tried to tear his wing over. Mack wasn’t disappointed. As he fought the stick and left rudder, the plane touched down almost perfectly on the center line of the runway. That was about the only thing that was perfect — he went reverse pedals, reverse engines, reverse prayers, then jammed the brakes so bad they burned, and still nearly fell off the edge of the runway. Fortunately, the wind finally died and he turned around to follow a crewman waving him toward a parking area at the extreme northeastern end of the field. He bumped over a dirt and rubble ramp, the plane jittering a bit as he found a spot next to one of the Megafortresses.

The big black plane loomed in the darkness beyond a hand-portable spotlight, a puma ready to strike.

General Elliott had his canopy open and was clambering out the side of the plane before the props stopped spinning. Mack waited for the crewman who’d flagged him in to help chock the wheels and secure the aircraft, then made his way toward some nearby tents.

“Here’s Mack,” boomed General Elliott as Mack entered the large tin can that served as Whiplash’s temporary headquarters.

“The whole gang’s here, huh?” said Mack, glancing around and nodding to Merce Alou, Breanna Stockard, Jeff, and Chris Ferris. Jennifer Gleason’s beautiful body was tucked into a loose sweater — Mack turned a 150-watt smile on her before waving to everyone else.

“Okay, so here’s my theory,” said Elliott, already well into his business here. He told them about how the planes could only have been shot down by a long-range laser, possibly guided by the SA-2 and other radars. “Mack looked at one of the planes,” added the general.

“So?” There was an edge in Jeff Stockard’s voice as he nudged his wheelchair forward from the corner where he’d been sitting. Same old Zen — he probably still blamed him for the accident that cost him his legs.

“Like the general said, only thing that could have nailed that plane was the laser,” Mack told him. “Exploded the wing, sliced it right off.”

“So why isn’t CentCom telling us this?” said Alou.

“CentCom doesn’t completely buy the theory,” said Elliott. “They don’t think Saddam has a laser. And neither the satellites nor any of the sensor aircraft have picked it up.”

“If it’s as potent as Razor,” said Zen, “it’ll have at least a three hundred mile radius. It could be well south of the shoot-downs.”

“Absolutely,” said Elliott.

Zen pulled the map of Iraq off the table into his lap and began plotting the shoot-downs. He drew a rough semicircle about three hundred miles south of them. The swath included Baghdad as well as more northern cities like Kirkuk and Al Mawsil.

“If they set things up right, they could theoretically feed coordinates from any of the radars they have to direct the laser into the vicinity of the aircraft,” said Elliott.

“Then they could turn on a fire-director radar quickly, and fire as soon as they locked, which could be within seconds.”

“They wouldn’t need radar to get the general location,” said Mack. “A standard air traffic job in Kirkuk would give them enough of a lead. They could even use an IR sensor to lock on the target.”

“They could use the laser itself to find the target,” said Jennifer. “We used a similar technique when we were studying optical solutions for the C3 communications systems. They might also be able to overcome targeting limitations by shooting through a calculated grid after they get a contact. Say they have a target down to a cer-tainty of three hundred meters, following a certain vector. You fill the box with as many pulses as you can cycle. You could increase the number of shots by trading off some—”

“However they’re doing it, the laser has to be located and destroyed,” said Zen.

“I don’t know,” said Alou. “If CentCom doesn’t think it’s possible—”

“The Iraqis nearly built a nuclear bomb. This would be child’s play compared to that,” said Bree.

“Not exactly,” said Elliott. “But still doable.”

“Hey, the hell with CentCom. They’re relying on the CIA,” said Mack. “They have an arrogant attitude that’s blinding them to reality.”

Zen laughed.

“What?” said Mack.

“Jennifer, how do we detect the laser?” asked Zen.

“Can we detect the deuterium?” asked Mack.

The computer scientist shrugged. “Not my area. Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron in its nucleus. I doubt it would be easy to detect. We’d have better luck looking for the energy discharge. It would be in the IR spectrum, intense but extremely brief. A sensor looking for a missile launch might be able to detect it theoretically, but the computer code would probably kick it out because it was so brief.”

“There are no launch detection satellites configured for Iraq,” said Elliott. “What do we have that we can use?”

“Our gear on Quicksilver? Hmmm.” The scientist twirled her hair around her finger as she worked out the problem. “Quicksilver’s IR launch detector is fairly sensitive, though I’m not sure about the range or the spectrum.

C3 takes selective data from it, so obviously the software can be screened — I have to think about it. I might be able to work it. I have to talk to Ray Rubeo.”

“Secure connection with Dreamland is still pending,”

said Alou. “Lieutenant Post told me it’ll be at least an hour more.”

“Where’s Garcia?” asked Breanna. “He might know something about the sensors.”

“He went with Hall to look after Mack’s airplane,” said Alou.

“Not just any airplane. An OV-10D Bronco,” said a loud voice from outside. “Talk about your house down the road.”

Mack turned as a short, somewhat squat technical type breezed into the trailer, shoulders bouncing as if he were listening to a Walkman. Garcia snapped to attention as he caught sight of Brad Elliott.

“General!”

“How are you, son?”

“Fine, sir. Thank you for remembering me, sir.”

“Oh, I remember you quite well,” said Elliott. “You spent twenty minutes in my office one afternoon explaining why Blood on the Tracks is mankind’s greatest artistic achievement.”

“It is, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The others cracked up. Mack wondered how they could all be so damn cheerful. Even with the heaters going full blast, it had to be under thirty degrees in there.

“That Bronco out there is in great shape,” said Garcia.

“Pretty plane. I cut my teeth on those suckers.”

“What do you know about the launch sensor in Quicksilver?” Alou asked.

Garcia shrugged. “Spanish leather. Why? Need to be calibrated?”

“You think you could alter it to pick up a laser flash?”

“Light’s a flashin’?” The techie turned back toward Elliott. “That’s actually the Who, sir. It just came to me.”

“I thought so. What about the sensor?”

“Have to study it a bit. You know, I can get at least twenty percent more power out of those Garret engines on the Broncos. See, they put better—”

“Let’s concentrate on the launch sensor for now,” said Alou. “Dr. Gleason will help you. Everybody else, try and get some sleep. We’re supposed to be off the pavement at 0530, and word is the Whiplash boys brought a very limited supply of coffee.”

Chapter 40

Powder took another sip of water and rubbed his eyes. Five small television screens were arrayed in front of him, showing the infrared scans from the devices Whiplash had arrayed on the slopes. The Dreamland-designed units could pick up a dead mouse at three-quarters of a mile; Powder suspected that with a little tweaking they could see mosquitoes. By contrast, a “stock” AN/PAS-7 thermal viewer would have trouble seeing a cold Jeep at that distance. A small computer the size of a briefcase monitored the images for any sudden change, a kind of computerized watchdog.

The gear made it too easy, Powder thought. He stared at it and stared at it, and he felt himself nodding off.

“Hey,” said Liu, sneaking up behind him.

“My M-4’s loaded, Nurse,” he growled.

“Falling asleep, huh?”

“I hate guard duty.”

“Yeah.”

“General Elliott just landed with Major Smith.”

“No shit. The old dog himself?”

“Yup.”

“We oughta go say hello. Think he’ll remember us?”

“Might be better he didn’t,” suggested Liu.

“Nah. I wasn’t driving that truck.”

“You were in the truck.”

“True.” Powder paused to reflect. “Wasn’t that much damage to his car.”

“Insurance companies declare year-old cars total losses all the time,” said Nurse. “Even if they’ve just been scratched.”

“It’s a tax thing,” said Powder.

A low beep sounded from the audio alert. The two men turned to the IR screens. A shadow had stumbled into the far corner of the second screen, near the far bend on the dirt trail southwest of base.

“Uh-oh.” Powder picked up his M-4/W, a short-barreled version of Colt’s M-16 with a 204 grenade launcher and a special laser sight that could transmit target data directly to his smart helmet, displaying it on the visor. “Get the guys.”

While Liu trotted over to alert the others, Powder watched the figures scoping the hill. There were two native types, bundled in bulky clothes that concealed their weapons.

“Scouts,” Powder told Liu when he returned out of breath. He’d put on his smart helmet and Velcroed his bulletproof vest. “Probably saw the lights and came to check it out. Nobody on the screens and the radar’s clear.”

“Okay.” Liu pointed to one of the ground-radar screens, which covered part but not all of the western approach. “Send somebody to cover me,” he said, starting down the slope.

Powder slipped on his combat helmet and adjusted his throat mike, listening to Liu’s deep breaths while staring at the IR screen.

“What’s up?” asked Bison, coming on a dead run.

“Sshhh!” Powder motioned him to the gear. “Number two. Cover us.”

“Powder! Yo—”

Bison obviously didn’t want to be left out of the party, but that was tough nuggies as far as Powder was concerned. He trotted to the north side of the hill, opposite from the angle Liu was taking. He had a little trouble with the rocks, climbing across a sheer cliff for about fifteen feet and losing his sense of direction momentarily. But the starlight mode of the smart helmet projected a compass heading at the bottom right-hand corner, along with GPS readings; he got himself straightened out and then began picking his way down toward the trail. He had the path in sight and his M-4 ready when Liu hissed that their subjects had stopped.

“You’re about fifty yards above them,” said Bison, watching from the sentry post. “It’s just two. They may be setting up weapons.”

“If it’s a fucking mortar, we better hit ’em quick,” said Powder. He loaded a grenade into his launcher but moved his finger back to the rifle trigger. “Go for it, Nurse!” He jumped forward, balancing himself with his gun and yelling a war hoop. He nearly tripped as his feet hit the rutted but clear path. Liu shouted something and Powder saw a blur of images in his visor screen, everything blurring. He pointed the nose of his gun upward, crosshairs bouncing as he ran.

He saw three figures, Liu to the right — marked by a fluorescent “good guy” triangle transmitted by the smart helmet — and two to the left, one lurching toward him.

“Get down! Get down!” yelled Powder, sliding to his knee to steady his aim, cursing himself that he’d left his buddy vulnerable, cursing himself for getting Nurse killed.

“Wait! Wait!” yelled Liu. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

The figure closest to Liu slid backward then collapsed to the ground. Liu dropped down beside him.

Her. It was a woman.

A pregnant woman.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Bison.

“Yo — Nurse, Powder. We got you covered!” shouted Hernandez. His voice was so loud Powder thought his eardrums would break.

“She’s pregnant, real pregnant,” said Liu. “Somebody get me a medical kit! Fast. Real, real fast.”

Powder put his weapon on safety as he walked forward. A thin, worried-looking man stood to the side of Liu and the woman, gesticulating wildly. He held his hands out at Powder and started talking a mile a minute.

“Yeah, listen, I don’t speak what you speak, but I’m on the same wavelength,” Powder told him. “My man Liu’s gonna help. He’s the best.” He pushed his visor up. Even in the darkness the poor husband looked scared shitless.

“Hey, this is a natural thing, right?” he said to the man.

“Happens every day.”

The woman on the ground moaned loudly.

“Where the hell is that medical kit!” yelled Powder.

“Hernandez! Bison! Come on! Get on the ball here!”

Hernandez came down the path in a dead run. “What’s the story?”

“Pregnant lady. See if Liu needs help while I check the road.”

“No way. You help Liu, I’ll check the road.” Bison raced down the hill before Powder could stop him.

“Wimp,” he said.

“Wimp yourself,” said Liu over the com set.

“How we doing, Nurse?” asked Powder, walking over to his partner.

The answer came from the woman on the ground, who screamed louder than an air raid siren. Liu reached down and cleared her feet apart, exposing everything to the air.

Nurse had his armored vest, helmet, and other gear off, his sleeves rolled. His hands moved gently across the woman’s stomach. As Nurse put his ear down toward her belly, the woman screamed again.

“Jesus,” said Powder. “Can we move her?”

“Too late for that,” said Nurse. “Come here and hold her legs.”

“What?”

“Now!”

Powder took a tentative step forward, but as he started to crouch down, the woman screamed again — and this time even louder.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Powder, jumping back.

“Shut the hell up, Powder,” said Captain Freah, walking down the hill. “Nurse, you got a handle on this?”

“Baby’s turned around, Captain. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“What are you saying?”

“Breech birth. Kid’s backward. Supposed to come head first.”

“You sure?”

Nurse didn’t answer. “I need that medical kit, ASAP. And towels.”

“Should we boil water or something?” asked Powder.

“You did take medical training, right?” asked Liu.

“You are a certified paramedic, right?”

“Man, I do not remember anything on birth. No birth. Nope. Not once.”

“How close is she?” asked Captain Freah.

“If the kid wasn’t turned around, I’d say she’d be ready any second,” said Liu. “The contractions are two minutes apart. Here’s the thing—”

The woman screamed again. Her husband dug his nails into Powder’s arm. The sergeant tried to reassure him, though it was hard to tell if this had any effect.

“Go ahead,” Danny told Liu.

“Captain, this is what they invented C-sections for.”

“What do you mean? You have to cut her open?”

“No way, not here, not me. That’ll kill her for sure.”

“Call for evac?”

“No time. This kid is coming out now, butt first, or they’re both dying. It’s a squirmy little SOB; gotta be a boy. It’s tiny, so maybe he’ll slide out if she’s strong enough to push. I need to keep the kid warm, very warm, so it doesn’t breathe inside the mother until it’s out.

Shit — I’ve only heard about this, I’ve never seen it done.”

“If we don’t do anything, she’ll die anyway,” said Freah. His voice was calm, almost cold. He took off his vest and then pulled off his shirt and gave it to Liu. “Get some of the chemical hand warmers down here, blankets, everything we got to generate heat,” he said into his com set.

Within ten minutes the Whiplash team had a small tent erected around the woman. A portable kerosene heater had been hauled down from one of the tents above; sweat flowed freely. As the woman’s screams grew more desperate, Freah suggested they give the woman morphine, but Liu said that would affect the baby. Besides, he needed her conscious to help push.

All of a sudden, Powder realized the woman had stopped screaming. He looked down at her; she had closed her eyes.

“Liu! Did she die?”

“Transition,” said Liu, who was stripped to the waist.

He had his hands over a soft shirt and blanket between the woman’s legs. “Her body’s taking a rest before the real work. What I’m thinking is, when she’s ready to push, we stand her up.”

“Stand her up?” asked Freah.

“Yeah. Gravity’ll help.”

The woman moaned.

“Already?” Liu said, looking at her. He doubted if she understood a word of English, but she nodded anyway.

“Okay. Powder, Captain, an arm apiece. Hernandez, you hold her behind.”

“God,” said Freah.

“We got to try,” said Liu. “I know it’s a long shot.”

“Screw that horseshit,” said Powder, hoisting the poor woman up over his shoulder. “We are going to do this! Yo, husband, you get back here with Hernandez. Let’s do it.”

“You heard him,” said Danny.

“Push!” yelled Liu.

The woman groaned.

“Push!” yelled Liu again, moving his hands below her waist, trying to coax the baby’s rear end through the tiny birth hole.

“Argh!” said the woman, leaning forward and down so hard she nearly toppled Powder and Danny.

“Push!” yelled Powder and Danny and Liu.

“Push!” yelled the entire Whiplash team, even General Elliott.

“Argggh!” screamed the woman, falling back.

“Oh, God,” said Powder.

“Next one, everybody,” said Liu.

The woman bolted upright and screamed again.

“Push!”

“Argh!”

“Push!”

“Wahhhhhh!” cried a new voice, never before heard in the world.

“Kick ass!” shouted Danny.

“About fuckin’ time,” said Powder, who made sure no one was looking as he wiped the tear from his cheek.

AS WORD SPREAD ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE

slope, most of the others went down to try and help out.

Zen and one of the CCTs ended up manning the surveillance post. Zen sat in his chair, bundled against the cold in a blanket as well as a parka. Cold and fatigue curled around his head, stinging his eyes, twisting the noises of the night. His mind felt as if it had found steps inside his skull and climbed to the top of a rickety stairway, wedging itself into an attic cubbyhole and peering down a long hallway at his eyes. At times he felt the hollowness he associated with leaving Theta during the ANTARES mind experiments; he wanted to avoid that sensation, that memory, at all costs, and when he felt it slipping over him, he grabbed the wheels of his chair, welcoming the shock of cold on his bare fingers.

ANTARES had teased him with the idea that he might walk again, that he might become “normal” once more. It was a false hope, a lie induced by the drugs that made ANTARES work. But it was impossible to completely banish the hope.

The figures on the screen began to jump up and down and cheer — obviously the baby had been born. The CCT turned from the screens and gave Zen a thumbs up. Zen nodded back, trying to smile as well, but he could tell from the airman’s reaction that he hadn’t quite pulled it off.

“A boy!” said Jennifer Gleason when she returned from the slope a few minutes later. She was the vanguard of the slow-moving caravan bringing mother and child to a heated tent where they would be sheltered for what remained of the night. “A boy!”

Zen tried to sound enthusiastic. “It looked wild.”

“It was. She just pushed him right out. Peshew.”

The scientist made a sound something like a hockey puck whipping into a net.

“Pretty cool,” said Zen.

He wheeled himself around to the cement area to watch the group surrounding the mother’s stretcher. Breanna, flanked by Danny Freah and one of the Whiplash soldiers, carried the baby. She smiled at Zen as she passed but kept walking, part of an unstoppable flow.

“Quite a show, Jeff, quite a show,” said Brad Elliott, stopping. The general looked about as proud as a grand-father. “A hell of a thing — this is why we’re here, you know. To save lives,” added the general. “This is it — this is what I wish we could communicate to people. This is what it’s all about. People don’t understand. You know, American SF forces stopped a massacre of Kurds in northern Iraq after the Gulf War, not far from here.”

At Dreamland, Brad Elliott had given several pep talks on some of the projects they were working on; never had Zen seen him quite so enthusiastic.

“Things like this happened all the time,” continued the general. “Our planes dropped tons of food, our medics saved hundred of lives a week. We saved people from Saddam — why doesn’t the media report that? We should have had a film crew here. This is the sort of story people should see.”

“I agree,” said Zen, not sure what else to say.

Elliott put his hands on his hips. “We’ll get a helicopter in here in the morning, help this kid. Maybe we can get him a college fund going. Sergeant Habib says these people are Turkish Kurds. Hard life. This is what we’re about. We have to get the story out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make the place safe for that kid. That’s what we have to do.”

Zen watched Elliott practically bound away.

“A boy!” said Breanna, slipping her arms around him from behind. She snuggled next to his neck and kissed him. “God, you’re cold,” she said.

“Hey,” he said.

They kissed again.

“You should have seen it, Jeff. Sergeant Liu — God, he is awesome.”

“I couldn’t get down.”

She described the birth, the woman pushing, everyone shouting, the tip of the baby’s behind appearing, once, twice, and then a rush of baby and fluid.

“You ought to sleep,” said Zen when she finally finished.

“I’ll sleep,” she said.

“You haven’t, and you have a mission in just a few hours now.”

“I slept on the way over,” she told him. “Chris and I traded off. Don’t worry about me, Jeff.” She bent down and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then started back toward the tent where they had installed mother and child. “Warm up the bed. I’ll be along.”

“Yeah,” was all he could think to say.

Chapter 41

“Let me just blue-sky this for a moment, because the implications truly are outrageous.”

Dog watched as Jack Firenzi danced at the front of the small conference room off the hall from Dreamland Propulsion Research Suite B, one of the subbasement research facilities in what was informally called the Red Building. The frenetic scientist had come to Dreamland as an expert on propulsion but now headed research into the hydrogen-activated wing platform, or “Hydro” as he referred to it. His audience consisted of two NASA officials, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and an undersec-retary of Defense, all of whom had started out somewhat bewildered by the sartorially challenged scientist, yet now were focusing not on his Yankee hat, sneakers, or three-piece suit, but his rapid-fire praise of inflatable wings.

“Imagine an aircraft that can travel at Mach 6, yet with the turning radius of an F/A-18,” continued Firenzi. Dog had heard the presentation before, so he knew that Firenzi would now talk about the XB-5 Unmanned Bomber Project, where the Hydro technology could increase the aerodynamics of the large airframe. Today the scientist’s optimism knew no bounds — he took off his hat and began using it to describe additional applications, including microsensor craft scheduled to begin testing in the next phase of the project and an improved U/MF on the drawing board. Under other circumstances, Dog might have watched the VIPs to make sure their reactions remained bemused awe at the eccentric scientist who backed up his enthusiasm with a blackboard’s worth of equations. But Dog was preoccupied with the Whiplash mission. The news from Iraq was relatively good — twelve hours of air strike sorties that hit about eighty-five percent of their targets, with no new American losses.

Brad Elliott’s Razor theory seemed to be gaining adherents — and yet, the very fact that no planes had been shot down in the past few hours weighed against it. The Iraqis were clearly using new tactics, and also seemed to have many more missiles, or at least launchers, than anyone thought. One of the F-15s had been photographed by a U-2, and the damage appeared consistent with missile fire. But that didn’t rule out a laser acting on the others.

Everyone was scrambling for intelligence.

“You had mentioned commercial applications?” asked one of the congressmen, Garrett Tyler.

“Oh, yes,” said Firenzi. “One possibility is to replace or augment variable geometry. The trapezoid wings used on the Dreamland MC-17 demonstrator — see, that’s actually a perfect example of the benefits here. Because (a), that technology — basically a folding slat, let’s face it — is very expensive and prone to wear and tear, and (b), it’s always there, on the wing, in some manner, and

while they’ve done a lot with the airfoil to reduce drag, it does add to drag. The C-17 is always a C-17. It’s never going to break the sound barrier. But imagine a cargo aircraft with a wingspan the size of an F-104—you remember those, the Starfighter? Tiny wings. Fast as hell. So imagine a plane with a fuselage the size of a 767 but wings like that. Takes off — all right, we’re still coming up with an acceptable propulsion system, but that can be solved, believe me; that’s my area of expertise. You have these narrow, small wings and can go incredibly fast, then, when you want to land, you slow down, pop!”

Firenzi yelled and threw his arms out at his sides. All of his audience, even Dog, jumped up in their seats as the scientist mimicked a plane coming in for a landing.

“Zip,” said Firenzi triumphantly. “Enough wing surface inside twenty-five seconds to land on a road. A road!

Really. It’s the future. Imagine the civilian commercial applications — airports could handle two, three times the traffic. We’d reconfigure runways, change approaches — there would be parking and no traffic jams!”

“You know, I think we’re probably all in the mood for dinner about now,” said Dog, sensing that any further performance from Firenzi would convince the congressman he was crazy. “Unless there are other questions.”

There were a few, but Firenzi handled them as they walked to the elevators. There wasn’t enough room for the entire party to fit comfortably; Dog stayed behind with Knapp to wait for the second gondola.

“Anything new from Iraq?” Knapp asked as they waited.

“No details of the raids,” Dog told him. He couldn’t assume that Knapp’s clearance entitled him to know that Dreamland had sent the Whiplash team and two Megafortresses to Turkey.

“Should’ve dealt with the SOB when we had the chance,” said Knapp.

“Can’t argue with you, sir,” said Dog.

“Like to get a look at what’s shooting down our planes.”

“So would I.” Dog folded his arms.

“The President’s counting on you,” said Knapp.

“We do our best.”

“Joint Chiefs wanted to put you under CentCom for this, but he wouldn’t let them.”

Dog, unsure exactly how to respond, simply shrugged.

The elevator arrived. Knapp grabbed his arm as the door opened.

“Colonel, you understand of course that that was said in confidence.”

Dog smiled. “Absolutely.”

“I happen to agree that Dreamland and Whiplash should be independent. But best be careful. Dreamland’s future may well ride on your standing with the Secretary as well as the President.”

“I don’t get involved with politics if I can help it. Not my job.”

“Maybe you should help it,” said Knapp.

Dog had to put his hand out to stop the door from closing, since they hadn’t entered the car yet.

“General Magnus may not be your boss forever,”

added Knapp as they stepped inside.

Dog could only shrug again as the elevator started upward.

Chapter 42

“Power to ten percent. Engine one, temp, pressures green. Two, green. Three, green. Four, green. Recheck brakes. Holding. I’d recommend new drums at twenty thousand miles,” quipped Chris Ferris, deviating from the checklist. “You might get by with turning them down, but then you risk shimmy stopping at highway speeds.”

“Thank you, Mr. Midas,” answered Bree.

“We’re your under-car-care specialists,” said the copilot without losing a beat. “Power to fifty. System checks.

We’re in the green. Augmented list for assisted takeoff.

Green, green, green. My, we are good. Flighthawks are plugged in and ready to cook.”

“Jeff, how we looking down there?”

“Flighthawks are yours,” replied Zen.

“You sound a little tired this morning, Flighthawk leader.”

“Not at all, Quicksilver. I got two hours of sleep.”

Breanna knew Zen was in a bad mood and wouldn’t be kidded out of it. He’d told Fentress he wasn’t needed today, which had obviously disappointed the apprentice pilot. Fentress looked like he wanted to say something, but Zen had simply rolled himself away.

Not that Fentress shouldn’t have spoken up. He needed a little more of Mack Smith in him — not too much. Still, Mack had spent the morning pestering everyone with possible missions he could undertake, and while he was more than a bit of a pain, you had to admire his gung-ho attitude.

From afar.

“Takeoff assist module on line,” said Chris. “On your verbal command.”

“Computer, takeoff assist countdown,” said Bree.

The slightly mechanical feminine voice of the computer began talking. “Takeoff in five, four …”

“Okay, crew. Let’s go kick butt for little Muhammad Liu, Dreamland’s newest addition,” she told them.

Someone on the circuit laughed, but the roar of the power plants drowned it out as the Megafortress accelerated. Controlled by the flight computer, the Flighthawk engines acted like rocket packs, augmenting the massive thrust of the EB-52’s own P&Ws as the plane shot forward on the mesh. Breanna held the stick loosely, little more than a passenger as the plane rolled past the halfway point of the runway. A slight sensation of weightlessness followed as the plane’s wheels skipped off the pavement.

“Gear,” she prompted, at the same time nudging the stick. The computer stepped away, content to remain only a backseat driver until called on again. Chris, meanwhile, made sure the landing gear was stowed, did another quick check of the instruments, and then worked with Zen to refuel the Flighthawks through the Megafortress’s wing plumbing. The mission specialists began the lengthy process of firing up and calibrating their gear.

The Cold War had given rise to a variety of reconnaissance aircraft, most famously the U-2 and SR-71, which were essentially high-altitude observation platforms able to focus cameras over — or in some cases alongside of — enemy territory. Less well-known were a series of collectors that gathered electronic data ranging from radar capabilities to live radio transmissions. B-29s and B-50s, essentially Superfortresses on steroids, were first pressed into this role; RB-47s replaced them. But it wasn’t until vast improvements in electronics in the late sixties and early seventies that the type really came into its own.

While a number of airframes were used, the workhorse was based on one of the most successful commercial aircraft of all time — the Boeing 707. Known as the C-135 (and later, E-3) and prepared in dozens if not hundreds of variations, the plane provided an unassuming platform for some of the most sensitive missions of the Cold War.

Bristling with antennas and radars, a Rivet Joint or Cobra Ball aircraft might spend hours flying a track in international waters near the Soviet Union, monitoring transmissions during a missile test or a military exercise. It might note how the local air defense commanders reacted when American fighter aircraft approached. It might check the radars used, their capabilities and characteristics. It showed the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, helping to compile a considerable library of information.

As valuable as they were, the planes remained 707s — highly vulnerable to attack. Even JSTARS, a real-time flying command post that revolutionized combat intelligence during the Gulf War, had to stand off at some distance from hostile territory.

That was where the EB-52 came in. Bigger than the 707 or even the 757 airframes proposed to replace it, the Megafortress was designed to operate in the heart of the volcano. One aircraft such as Quicksilver could perform the functions of several, detecting and jamming radars, snooping and disrupting radio transmissions, all in places and at times previously unthinkable. Along with an AWACS version and their Flighthawks, the Megafortresses promised to revolutionize warfare once again.

Today’s mission, simple in outline, tested some of those basic concepts. Quicksilver would fly eastward thirty thousand feet, vectoring south at a point exactly equidistant between Kirkuk and the Iranian border. Thirty miles south of Kirkuk it would loop back north. At roughly the time it swung parallel to Kirkuk about four minutes later, two packages of attack planes would strike their targets, 88 Bravo and 44 Alpha. Quicksilver would listen to the Iraqi response, compiling intelligence that might locate the laser or whatever it was that was attacking the allied planes.

“Looking good, Zen,” Breanna told her husband as the second U/MF rolled off their wing and sped off to the east. The robot planes had to stay within a ten-mile radius of the Megafortress because of their wide-band communications link.

“Hawk leader,” acknowledged her husband stiffly.

“Still cranky, huh?” Chris said as they began their run south.

“He’s not much of a morning person,” said Breanna.

“Have some J bands, gun dish — looks like a ring of Zsu-23s using their radars,” said O’Brien, who was monitoring the radar intercepts. The computer system guiding him would have been the envy of any Cobra Ball operator, able to glide between a dozen different sensors, prioritizing intercepts and pointing out suspicious activity without prompting. Then again, they might not have been envious — it did the work of eight crewmen, making all of them eligible for early retirement.

“Dog Ear detected — they’re looking for low fliers at Eight-eight Bravo,” added O’Brien.

“Let’s pass that on,” said Breanna. “They’re still a good distance away.”

“Coyote Bravo leader, this is Dreamland Quicksilver,” said Chris.

“Coyote Bravo. Go ahead Quicksilver.”

“We have an active Dog Ear looking for you at Eight-eight Bravo. Indication is they have a Gopher missile battery along with their Zeus guns.”

“Coyote Bravo acknowledges. Thanks for the heads-up, Quicksilver.”

The Gophers — also called SA-13s by NATO — were short- to medium-range SAMs that used infrared radar to lock on their target, similar to the more common SA-9s though somewhat larger and more capable. The Dog Ear radar was used to detect aircraft at a distance. After detec-

tion, a range-finding unit would allow the commander to launch the missiles; their all-aspect, filtered IR sensors would then take them to their target. The systems were relatively sophisticated but defeatable if you knew they were there.

“Have an E band radar that’s not on my menu,” said O’Brien. “Low power, really low power — lost it. Plotting.

Wow — never seen anything like this.”

Chapter 43

Zen worked the Flighthawks ahead of Quicksilver, alternating between One and Two. He was at twenty thousand feet, considerably lower than the EB-52 but well outside the range of the low-altitude AAA and shoulder-launched weapons that were ubiquitous below. His helmet visor was divided into two sections; the upper two-thirds fed an optical view from one of the Flighthawks, simulating what he would see if he were sitting in the cockpit. A HUD ghosted over altitude, speed, and other essentials.

The lower screen was divided into three smaller sections — an instrument summary for both planes at the far left, a long-distance radar plot supplied by Quicksilver in the middle, and an optical cockpit view from the other plane.

The visor display could be infinitely customized, though Zen tended to stick to this preset, using it about ninety percent of the time when he was flying two robots. The voice commands “One” and “Two” instantly changed the main view, a phenomenon he thought of as jumping into the cockpit of the plane. He controlled the small planes with the help of two joysticks, one in his right and one in his left hand. Control for the planes jumped with the view, so that his right hand always worked the plane in the main screen.

“O’Brien, you find that E band radar?” asked Zen.

“Negative. Threat library thinks it’s a Side Net but it’s not clear what it would be connected to. Definitely early warning. I can’t even find the source.”

“How about approximately?” Zen asked.

They plotted it below 88 Bravo and a bit to the east, which put it fifty miles away and dead on in Hawk One’s path near the Iranian border. A Side Net radar was a long-range target acquisition unit, capable of detecting a plane the size of an F-16 at roughly ninety-five miles; with its uncoated nose, the Megafortress was possibly though not definitely visible around the same range. The Flighthawk would be invisible at least to ten miles, and might not even be seen at all.

Of course, with the radar off, it could see nothing at all.

Zen’s threat radar was clean.

“What do you think it’s working with?” Zen asked O’Brien.

“Ordinarily I’d say an SA-2 and SA-3 battalion,” answered O’Brien. “But at this point it’s anybody’s guess.

There are no known sites in the area.”

“Maybe this is the sucker we’re looking for.”

“Could be. They’re not on the air. Tracking some other stuff,” added O’Brien. “Man, there are a lot of radars up here — didn’t we put these suckers out of business five years ago?”

“I’m going to get a little lower and see if I spot anything,” said Jeff. “We’ll store the video for the analysts.”

“Sounds good, Captain. I’ll alert you if I get another read.”

“Strike aircraft are zero-three from their IPs,” said Chris, indicating that the attackers were just about to start their bombing runs.

Zen concentrated on the image in his screen as he tucked toward the earth, looking for the semicircle of launchers and trailers the Iraqis liked to set their missiles up in. SA-2s were large suckers always accompanied by a variety of support vehicles; they could be obscured by netting and other camouflage but not totally hidden.

SA-3s were about half the size, but they too should stick out if they were positioned to fire.

O’Brien’s rough plot was centered around a farming area on a relatively flat plain about two miles square.

With no indications of any military activity — or any activity at all — Zen nudged the Flighthawk faster and slightly farther east, widening his search pattern.

“Losing connection, ” warned the computer as he strayed a bit too far.

Zen immediately throttled back, letting Quicksilver catch up. As his speed dropped, a row of black boxes appeared in the lower left screen.

“Magnify ground image,” he told the computer. A scanner tracking his retinas interpreted exactly which images he meant.

“O’Brien, I have four stationary vehicles, look like they might be radar or telemetry vans. Not set up.”

“You see a dish?”

“Negative,” said Jeff. “No missiles.”

He slid the robot plane closer to the ground. Razor was mobile, roughly the size of a tank.

“Losing connection, ” warned the computer again.

“Bree, I need you to stay with Hawk One.”

“We’re at our turn,” Breanna told him. Her priority was the attack package, at least until they saddled up and headed home.

The first vehicle was a car, oldish, a nondescript Japa-nese sedan.

Two pickup trucks.

A flatbed.

Not Razor, not anything.

“Radar — something,” said O’Brien.

“Connection loss in five seconds, ” pleaded the computer. “Four, three—”

Zen flicked his wrist back, bringing the Flighthawk west to stay with the Megafortress.

“Vehicles were clean,” he told Breanna.

“Acknowledged,” she said.

“Got something else,” said O’Brien. “Jayhawk — airplanes on A-1.”

“Sitrep map,” Zen told the computer. “Identify A-1.”

A bird’s-eye view with Quicksilver and the Flighthawks highlighted as green blips materialized in the main screen. A red highlight and circle identified A-1 as a small airfield northeast of Baghdad, about 120 miles away.

“MiG-21 radars,” added O’Brien. “They must be getting ready to take off.”

“Quicksilver, be advised we have a pair of bogies coming off A-1 south of Eight-eight Bravo,” said the controller aboard Coyote, the AWACS plane. “Stick Flight is being vectored in. Please hold to your flight plan.”

“Quicksilver,” acknowledged Breanna. “We have radar indications from those planes. Looks like two MiG-21s. Working on radio intercepts,” she added.

O’Brien and Habib started talking together behind her.

“One at a time,” scolded Ferris.

“Indications are MiG-21 or F-7 Spin Scan-style I band radars. Old soldiers, these boys,” said O’Brien.

“Tower has cleared four planes,” said Habib. “I have his transmission loud and clear.”

“Lost radars.”

“You’re sure about four planes?” Breanna asked.

“Yes, Captain. No acknowledgments, though. I have some ground transmissions. Computer says it’s an HQ code. I can put more resources on the descramble.”

“Concentrate on the planes,” Breanna told him.

“O’Brien — any sign of that laser?”

“Negative.”

“Coyote, be advised that we believe there are four planes, not two,” said Breanna.

“Tower remains silent,” said Habib. “No ground control radio that I can pick up. We’re doing a full spin,” he added, meaning that the snooping gear was now scanning or “spinning” through frequencies looking for hits at low power or wide distances.

“No radars,” said O’Brien.

“Thanks for the information, Quicksilver,” answered the AWACS. “We continue to have only two contacts, MiG-21s, in the bushes. Eagles are being scrambled. Hold to your flight plan.”

Chapter 44

“I’ve ridden motorcycles that go faster.”

“Major, I’m telling you — two hours with these engines and you have twenty percent more power. Probably thirty.

Thieves, hungry for power.”

“That’s not another stinkin’ Dylan song, is it, Garcia?”

“Knockin’ on heaven’s door, Major,” said the techie, beaming as if he’d just hit Powerball.

A Pave Low heading in toward High Top began shaking the air, kicking off a sympathetic rattle in the Bronco’s props — and Mack’s teeth.

“If we were at Dreamland — five-bladed prop, variable pitch — reinforce the wings, maybe a rocket pack for that quick boost, sellin’ postcards at the hangin’,” continued Garcia. “This is a great platform, Major. A fantastic aircraft. See this?” Garcia ducked under the wing and slapped the rear fuselage. “Four guys in here — five if they don’t have B.O. This ain’t workin’ on Maggie’s Farm, I’ll tell you that.”

“So if it’s such a great plane, how come the Marines gave it up?” Mack asked.

“They didn’t want to,” said Garcia. “You ask — they went kicking and screaming. These are boots of Spanish leather.”

“You know, Garcia, you ought to lose that speech im-pediment.”

Dust whipped toward them as the helicopter pushed in.

Mack turned his back and covered the side of his face. As the rotors died down, he turned back to Garcia. “Let’s refuel and get back in the air.”

“Uh, Major, didn’t you hear what I said?”

“That’s another Dylan song?”

“What I’ve been trying to tell you is that I have to re-tune the engines to work with the Dreamland fuel,” said Garcia.

“What?”

“Well, it all started during the first oil scare. See, what the problem is — ten-shutt!”

Garcia snapped to attention so sharply a drill sergeant would have swooned. General Elliott, lugging his overnight and a serious frown, tossed off a salute.

“Mack — when the hell are we taking off?” asked Elliott.

“I don’t know, General. There’s some sort of fuel thing.”

“Few minor adjustments to the engines, General,” said Garcia, who had served under Elliott at Dreamland. “As you recall, sir, it was under your command that JP-12B-2 was developed as a special blend for the Flighthawks, with the Megafortress engines tuned to accept it. The mix is just a little different from your JP-8 or JP-4, and over time or in extreme—”

“That’s quite all right, Garcia,” said Elliott. “Just make it work.”

“I just have to make a few adjustments. Not a big deal.

Now, if we were back home—”

“It’s okay,” said Elliott. He put out his hand as if he were a traffic cop. “Mack, I’m going back on the Pave Low. Get the plane back to Incirlik in one piece, all right?”

Chapter 45

Zen pushed forward, his body leaning to the right as he whipped both Flighthawks in that direction, the U/MFs about five miles apart, parallel at a separation of three thousand feet. The radar detector screen in the middle of the lower visual band showed two large yellow clumps peeking upward at him; the transmissions were ID’d as I band and the yellow indicated that, while they were active, they did not yet pose a threat to the small, stealthy Flighthawks.

“Gun Dish,” said O’Brien, adding coordinates to his warning that a Zeus radar was looking for him.

The two MiG-21s were old and primitive aircraft, easy fodder for the Americans. Zen suspected that the Iraqis were using them as decoys for the other two planes Habib had heard — which he guessed would be MiG-29s using passive sensors. The planes were approaching from the southeast, roughly eleven o’clock off Hawk One’s center line — they didn’t have a precise location, but they would have to be very low not to be detected by the AWACS.

If they’d been in Galatica, the gear would have them dotted by now.

“Connection loss in five seconds,” warned the computer.

“Bree!”

“Zen, you have to stay with me. The attack package isn’t clear. Let the Eagles get the MiGs.”

“I can nail them myself. There’s an RAF flight just south of them; if the MiGs divert, they’ll run right into them.”

“The AWACS is aware of that. It’s not our show. Let the Eagles do their job.”

“Connection loss in three, two—”

Zen yanked back on his sticks, pulling the robot planes back closer to the Megafortress. As he did, the radar in Hawk Two caught another plane flying from the south low enough to scrape a grasshopper’s belly.

“Contact, bearing 180—shit, I lost it,” he told Breanna.

“Nothing,” said O’Brien quickly.

“Blue Bandits!” shouted one of the Eagle pilots, his voice loud and excited at seeing the enemy MiG-21s.

“Nine o’clock.”

“Tally,” replied the other pilot, as calm as his wingman was excited. The two interceptors had run up from the south behind the two small planes at tremendous speed, closing to visual range to avoid the possibility — slim, but real — of locking onto friendlies in the tangled fray. With their limited radars and no ground controller to warn them, the two Iraqi jets probably didn’t even know they were in the crosshairs.

“I have the MiG on the left.”

“Two,” acknowledged the wingman.

Zen could visualize it perfectly. The pilots would have their heaters — AIM-9 Sidewinders — selected as the enemy planes grew in their HUDs. The missiles would growl, indicating they could sniff the enemy tailpipes.

But the Eagle jocks would wait a few seconds more, closing the gap. At the last second the MiG pilots would sense something, catch a reflection, a shadow, a hint — they’d start to maneuver, but it would be too late.

“Fox Two!” said both pilots, nearly in unison, as they launched their heat seekers.

“Connection loss in five seconds,” warned the computer.

Zen tucked Hawk One back to the east and gave Two a little more gas, catching up to Quicksilver. He got another contact in the bushes; it seemed to be turning.

MiG-29. Bingo.

“Quicksilver, I have a bogie. I need you to break ninety,” Zen told Breanna, asking her to cut hard to the east.

“Negative, Flighthawk commander. Give the contact to Eagle Flight.”

Screw that, thought Zen. The MiG turned toward him, and now there was a second contact. The planes were flying so low they could be pickup trucks.

Twenty-five miles away. If the Flighthawks had radar missiles, they’d be dead meat. But the U/MFs were fitted with cannons only.

“Mission on Eight-eight Bravo is complete,” said Ferris. “We’re cleared.”

The MiG-29s continued their turns, heading south now, running away. They’d probably caught his radar.

He’d have to juice it to nail them.

Hit them now before they got within range of the RAF flight.

“Bree! I need you to stay with me. Check the Flighthawk screen.”

“Hawk commander, we’re following our game plan.

The bogies are out of reach.”

“Shit! I have them positively ID’d as MiG-29s. There’s an RAF attack package just southeast of them.”

“Location has been given to Eagle flight and Coyote, ” said Ferris.

“Shit!” Zen fought the urge to rip his helmet off and throw it against the side of the cabin.

“Jeff, they’re out of range,” said Bree.

“Yeah, now.”

“Missiles in the air!” warned O’Brien. “Launch — no wait — no launch, no launch. Slot Back radar, may be looking at an SA-2. Jeez — everything’s crazy. What the hell? I’m blank.”

“ECMS,” Breanna told Chris.

“On it already. We’re clean.”

She nosed Quicksilver ten degrees to the west, following their briefed course.

“Bree — we could have nailed those MiGs,” said Zen.

His voice frothed with anger.

Her thumb twitched, but she stayed on her course.

“Flighthawk leader, our priority was the attack mission.”

“We could have nailed them,” Zen told her.

She didn’t answer.

“Our fuel’s okay,” Chris told her.

She nodded instead of saying anything, checked her instruments quickly, then asked O’Brien about the SA-2

contacts he’d reported.

“I’m not sure — I got some sort of indication, a flash from the east. I’m not sure if it was a screw-up or what.”

“No missiles?”

“Not that I could find. Maybe they tried a launch and had an explosion, or it could have been something on the ground totally unrelated. Two or three radars flicked on at the same time, including at least one standard airport job. Iran had a long-distance air traffic on as well. I haven’t had a chance to go back and sort it out.”

“Laser?”

“Well, not that I can tell. No IR reading. I can go back and run Jennifer’s filter over the data.”

“Wait till we get down. We’re fifteen minutes from High Top, maybe a little closer.”

“Hey, Bree, you might want to listen in to this,” said Chris. “AWACS is reporting they lost contact with an RAF Tornado. The plane disappeared completely from their screens.”