Revolution

VI Fear of the Dead

Zen stared in disbelief as the helicopter disappeared from the screen.

"Helicopter Baker One is off the scope," said Rager. "It's been hit."

"Confirmed," said Spiff. "Ground radar saw it breaking up."

Zen tightened his grip on the yoke, trying to concentrate on the MiGs. The two that had fired at the helicopter and shot it down were now flying toward the border. If they didn't turn in about thirty seconds, they'd cross over.

He pushed Hawk One toward an interception — then got a warning from the computer that the aircraft was nearing the end of its control range.

"Bennett, I need you to come south," said Zen. Even with recently implemented improvements to the control communications network, the robot had to be within fifty miles of the mother ship.

"Flighthawk leader, we have to stay near the northernmost helicopter group," said Dog.

"Damn it — the MiGs are here," said Zen. "Come south."

Dog answered by turning the aircraft back south, staying near the Flighthawk.

The MiGs started a turn meant to take them back east. But it was more of a gradual arc than a sharp cut, and it was clear to Zen even before he asked the computer to project their course that they would still cross over the border.

The Russians had fired on the helicopter at relatively low altitude, about 5,000 feet. They'd climbed through 8,000 feet and were still rising. The Flighthawk, by contrast, was at 25,000 feet. The altitude difference represented a serious advantage in speed and flight energy — and Zen intended to use every ounce of that advantage.

He tipped his nose down, studying the sitrep for a second as he lined Hawk One up for a double attack. With Hawk One touching Mach 1, the MiGs climbed up over the border. Zen twisted his wings, then pulled sharply on his stick, picking the nose of the plane up before slapping over and plunging straight downward. The loop slowed the Flighthawk's forward progress just enough to put it directly above the MiG's path. The Russian's nose appeared in the right corner of the view screen, a bright green wedge slicing through the night's fabric. The targeting piper flashed yellow, indicating that he didn't have a shot yet, but he fired anyway, trusting that the MiG's momentum would bring it into the hail of bullets. He slammed his controls, trying to hold the Flighthawk in position to continue firing as the MiG passed, but he had too much speed for that, and had to back off as the small plane threatened to flip backward into a tumble.

Losing track of his target, Zen dropped his right wing and came around, pulling his nose toward the path of the second fighter. The Flighthawk took ten g's in the turn — more than enough to knock a pilot unconscious had he been in the plane. But aboard the Megafortress, Zen was pulling quiet turns more than forty miles away; he flicked his wrist and put his nose on the rear quarter of the MiG.

This one was a turkey shoot.

The MiG driver had an edge — ironically, his much slower speed would have sent the Flighthawk past him if he'd turned abruptly. But the MiG jock, perhaps because he didn't know exactly where the Flighthawk was, or maybe because he panicked, didn't turn at all. Instead he tried putting the pedal to the metal and speeding away, lighting his afterburner in a desperate attempt to pick up speed.

That only made it easier for Zen. The red flare of the engine moved into the sweet spot of the targeting queue, and he sent a long stream of bullets directly into the MiG's tailpipe. The thick slugs tore through the titanium innards, unwinding the turbine spool with a flash of fire. There was no time for the pilot to eject; the plane disintegrated into a black mass of hurtling metal.

The other MiG, meanwhile, had tacked to the north, still in Romanian territory, damaged by Zen's first pass. Checking the position on the sitrep, Zen brought the Flighthawk back in its direction. He slammed the throttle slide to full military power, plotting an angle that would cut off the MiG's escape.

The small aircraft's original advantages in speed and flight energy had now been used. If the dogfight devolved into a straight-out foot race, the Flighthawk would be at a disadvantage because of the MiG's more powerful engines. Though the smaller plane could accelerate from a dead stop a bit faster because of its weight, once the MiG's two Klimov engines spooled up, their combined 36,000 pounds of thrust at military power would simply overwhelm the Flighthawk.

The MiG pilot apparently realized this, because he had the lead out. But Zen knew that he couldn't stay on his present course, since it was taking him northwest, the exact opposite of where he wanted to go. So he backed off and waited.

He wanted the enemy plane. The desire boiled inside him, pushing everything else away.

It took precisely forty-five seconds for the MiG pilot to decide he was clear and begin his turn to the east. He was ten miles deep in Romanian territory; Hawk One was about six miles south of the point where the computer calculated it would cross.

Doable, but tight.

Zen leaned on the throttle, pushing Hawk One straight up the border toward the MiG. Then he jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Two, which had been patrolling along the route the helicopters were taking. He slid it farther north, positioning it to catch the MiG if it suddenly doubled back.

Back in Hawk One, Zen saw the approaching Russian plane as a black smudge near the top of the screen. He jabbed his finger against the slide at the back of his stick, trying to will more speed out of the little jet.

He wanted him. Revenge, anger — he felt something desperate rise inside him, something reckless and voracious. He was going to kill this son of a bitch, and nothing was going to stop him.

The targeting piper turned yellow.

Upstairs on the flight deck, Dog watched the MiG and Flighthawks maneuvering on the radar screen. He was stewing, angry at the way Zen had cursed at him, and even angrier that his orders had led to the loss of the Romanian helicopter. Back at Dreamland, he'd wondered what happened to "heroes" at their next battle. Now he knew.

"Colonel, the trucks are nearing the border," said Spiff. "There's a Moldovan patrol about a mile north of them."

"Make sure our guys know that."

"Yes, sir."

"Rager, where are those other two MiGs?" Dog asked the airborne radar specialist.

"Halfway home by now, sir. Probably on their way to get their laundry cleaned."

"How close to the ground troops is that MiG going to be if he gets over the border?"

"A couple of miles. If the ground troops call for support, he'll be close enough to give it."

The MiG kept sliding toward the right of the screen, edging closer to Moldovan territory as it approached Hawk One. Zen leaned with it, willing the plane into the triangular piper at the center of his screen.

The gunsight began blinking red. He pushed the trigger, sending a stream of 20mm bullets over the MiG's left wing. The MiG immediately nosed down and then cut back hard in the direction he'd come from. Surprised and out of position because he'd been worried about the border, Zen had trouble staying with the Russian.

The MiG turned south, breaking clean from the Flight-hawk's pursuit. Zen knew he'd hit it earlier, but it showed no sign of damage.

I'm nailing that son of a bitch, he thought, throwing the Flighthawk into a hard turn.

The MiG's tail came up in his screen, too far to shoot — but Zen's adrenaline and anger took over, and he pressed the trigger anyway. The slugs trailed down harmlessly toward the earth.

The MiG driver once more leaned on his throttle and slowly began pulling away. He was still going south; Zen started to tack in that direction, thinking he might be able to cut him off a second time.

The Flighthawk computer warned him that he was running low on fuel, but Zen didn't care. He was going to get the son of a bitch.

Then the computer gave him another warning: His path south was taking him out of control range.

"Bennett, this is Flighthawk leader. I need you to come south."

"What's your status, Flighthawk?" asked Dog. "I'm on the MiG's tail. I almost have him. Come south." "Negative. We have the trucks approaching the border. We need you to provide cover." "I'm on his tail."

"Come back north, Flighthawk. The MiG is no longer a player."

"What the hell sense is coming north?" asked Zen. "I can't go across the border if the trucks get in trouble." There was a pause. A warning flashed on Zen's screen:

"Come north, Hawk leader," said Dog.

"Colonel—"

"That is a direct order."

It was all Zen could do to keep from slapping the control stick as he complied.

"Target the MiG," Dog told Sullivan. "Targeted. Locked."

Dog looked at the sitrep. He needed Zen to move off before he fired.

The Flighthawk lurched to the right. "Take him down."

"Fire Fox One!" said Sullivan. The radar missile dropped off the rail. It accelerated with a burst of speed.

"MiG is turning back east," said Sullivan. "Missile is tracking."

Dog brought the ground radar plot on his control board. He had the same situation on the ground as he had in the air — if the Moldovans attacked, he'd be unable to do anything until they came over the line.

"Splash MiG!" shouted Sullivan.

"Close the bay doors," said Dog.

"Colonel, looks like the Moldovan ground forces are going to miss our guys," reported Spiff. "The trucks just got on the highway, heading east. Eight, nine troop trucks. Ten, twelve. Whole force looks like they've caught the wrong scent."

Thank God, thought Dog.

General Locusta stared down at the map being used to track the raid's progress. The appearance of the MiGs had dramatically changed the mood in his headquarters conference room.

"I still can't get them on the radio," said the communications specialist.

"Prepare a rescue mission. Ground and air."

"Standing by, General. The helicopters should be refueled within ten minutes."

Damn the Russians. They would claim that they were merely honoring their treaty with Moldova, but Locusta knew this was actually aimed at him — a pointed reminder that he could not count on the Americans in the future.

As for the Americans…

"The Dreamland people. What are they doing?"

"Continuing to engage the aircraft at last report."

"Have them pinpoint the route of the helicopter toward the border."

"Yes, sir."

"Losing one helicopter does not mean the mission was a failure, General," whispered one of his aides as Locusta stalked across the room for coffee.

"Yes," he muttered. His thoughts were split between the operation, the men he'd lost — and the president.

The call should have come an hour ago.

"General, we have an urgent call for you from Third Battalion."

About time, thought Locusta, though as he turned he made his face a blank.

"The unit near the president's house — they're responding to an attack by the guerrillas."

"What?"

"Here, sir."

Coffee spilled from Locusta's cup as he practically threw it back down on the table and strode to the phone. "Locusta."

"There has been an attack," said one of the captains at the headquarters of the unit assigned to help guard the president. "Guerrillas."

"When? What's going on?"

Locusta listened impatiently as the man related what he knew. The alarm had come in only a few minutes before. Guerrillas had struck at the battalion's radio and the local phone lines around the same time, making it difficult to communicate with the base.

"When did this occur?" demanded Locusta.

The man did not know. The attack had apparently begun sometime before.

"Where is the President?"

"Our troops are only just arriving," said the captain. "We have not yet made contact with his security team." "Didn't they send the alert?"

"No."

They hadn't been able to — as part of his plan, Anton Ozera had directed his team to activate a cell phone disrupter just before the attack. Like everything else that would indicate the assault was more than the work of unsophisticated guerillas, it would have been removed by now.

"Keep me informed," said Locusta.

He handed the aide back the phone.

"We have another developing situation," he announced.

Voda watched from the small, glassless window of the cave as two more members of his presidential security team were carried out to the space in front of the barn. They were clearly already dead; their bodies bounced limply when they were dropped.

The men carrying them were soldiers — or at least were dressed in Romanian army uniforms. The fighting seemed to have died down; Voda couldn't hear any more gunfire.

Julian was trembling, either with the cold or fear, or maybe both. Voda pulled him close.

"We're going to be OK," he whispered. "It's going to take us a little while, but we'll be OK."

"What are they doing?" Julian asked.

"I'm not sure."

Lights arced through the window. Voda froze, then realized they had come from the headlamps of trucks driving up past the garage. He rose and looked out the corner of the window. Two trucks had just arrived. Soldiers ran from the back, shouting as they disappeared.

"What's going on?" Mircea asked.

"I can't tell."

"Is the army here?"

"Yes, but there's something odd about it." "What kind of odd?"

Voda couldn't bring himself to use the word "coup." He watched as two soldiers came into view, walking from the direction of the house. He moved his head to the very side of the window as they took up their posts guarding the bodies yet not hardly looking at them, save for a few glances— guilty glances, Voda thought, though they faced the street, their backs to him.

It was possible that the soldiers had arrived toward the very end of the firefight, with all of his defenders dead, and were unable to tell who was who. Still, the way that the bodies had been handled alarmed Voda. His guards all had IDs, and were wearing regular clothes besides. It ought to be easy to differentiate between them and the guerrillas.

Was he just being paranoid? The only people in this pile were security people. Perhaps he was mistaking fear of the dead for disdain.

"If the army is here, shouldn't we go out?" asked his wife.

"There's something about it that's not right, Mircea," he whispered. "I can't explain. But I don't think it's safe yet."

"They'll find the tunnel we came through."

"I know."

Voda sat down next to the door, trying to think. Mircea turned on the flashlight. He grabbed it from her and flipped it off.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm looking around. Maybe there's something here we can use."

"Don't use the flashlight. They'll see outside."

"I can't see in the dark."

"There's enough light, when you get close."

This was true, but just barely. Mircea began crawling on her hands and knees, working her way deeper into the cave. They had been in this cave only once that he could remember, soon after buying the property three years before. There was nothing of use, he thought — no machine guns, no rifles. But at least looking would give his wife something to do rather than stand around and worry that they would be found.

They would be found sooner or later. Most likely very soon — it was only a matter of time before someone figured out that they'd gone into the cistern well.

Could the army have revolted? These men were under Lo-custa's control. Would they defy him?

Would he launch the coup?

He was certainly ambitious enough.

If the generals, or a general, revolted, would the men in the ranks follow suit? Would they remember what the country was like under the dictator?

But maybe life for them under the dictator was better. They were privileged then, poor but privileged. Now they were still poor, and without privilege.

Voda stood back up and looked through the window. The men guarding the bodies were young; they would have been little older than Julian when Ceausescu died, too young to know how things truly were then.

"Two more," said someone he couldn't see.

Voda slipped his head closer to the side. Two more bodies, both of his security people, were dumped.

"Have they found the president yet?" asked one of the men who'd been guarding the bodies.

Voda couldn't hear the answer, but it was some sort of joke — the soldiers all laughed.

He had to find a place to hide his family. Then he could find out what was going on.

One of the men started to turn around. Voda twisted back against the door, getting out of the way. As he did, Oana Mitca's cell phone pressed against his thigh. He'd completely forgotten it in his scramble to escape.

He took it from his pocket and opened it. The words on the screen said: no service.

Frustrated, he nearly threw it to the ground. But he realized he couldn't show his despair to his wife or son, and so slipped it back into his pocket instead.

Voda listened carefully, trying to hear the soldiers outside, not daring to look back through the small window. Finally he poked his head up. All of the men had left.

Voda examined the door, using his fingers as well as his eyes. It was made of boards of oak or some other hardwood that ran from top to bottom. It had no doorknob or conventional lock. He had secured it soon after buying the property, screwing a U-hook into the frame and then putting a simple steel clasp on the door. The clasp went over the hook and was held by a padlock. He'd used long screws to make sure it couldn't be simply pulled aside, and while there was enough play in the clasp for him to feel it move slightly as he put his weight against the door, he doubted he could force it from this side.

"I found a chisel," said Mircea, coming toward him in the dark. "Can we use it?"

The chisel was a heavy woodworker's tool, used seventy or eighty years before to shave notches into wood. It was covered with a layer of rust. The edge was thin but not sharp. Voda turned it over in his hands, trying to figure out how he might be able to make use it.

The boards were held together by two perpendicular pieces at the top and bottom. Perhaps he could use the chisel as a crowbar, dismantling it.

He slid the tool up, not really thinking the idea had any real hope of succeeding, yet unable to think of an alternative.

"Can you use it?" asked Mircea.

"Maybe."

As he began working the chisel into the board, he saw that the door was held in place by a long, triangular-shaped hinge that was screwed into the cross piece. There was one on top and on bottom and they were old, rusted even worse than the chisel.

The chisel tip didn't quite fit as a screwdriver; the screws were inset into the holes in the metal, making them hard to reach with its wide head. Frustrated, Voda pushed the chisel against the metal arm and wood, working the tip back and forth as he tried to get between the door and the hinge arm. He managed to get the tip in about a quarter of an inch, then levered it toward him. The hinge moved perhaps a quarter inch from the wood.

It was a start. He knelt down and began working in earnest on the bottom hinge, deciding to leave the top for last. One of the screws popped out as soon as he pulled against it. The other two, however, remained stuck. He pushed the chisel in, tapping with his hand.

Was it making too much noise?

"Mircea," he whispered to his wife. "Look out and make sure no one is there." "What if they see me?"

"Stay at the corner, at the lower corner. In the shadow."

She came over. "No one," she whispered. "Oh my God."

She turned away quickly, covering her mouth. Obviously she had seen the dead bodies lying in the grass.

"Did the soldiers kill them?" she asked.

"No, but they dumped them there."

Voda continued to work. The door creaked and tilted down as the last screws popped from the door hinge. Voda steadied it, then stood up.

If he popped off the upper hinge, the door would be easy to push aside; it might even fall aside. But of course the chance of being found would increase.

No. Sooner or later someone was coming through the cistern. They might even be working on it now.

"I can open the door," he told Mircea. "But we must be ready to run."

"Where will we go?"

Voda realized he had begun to breathe very hard. "Into the woods. Farther up." "They'll search."

"They'll search here in a minute," he said.

"Someone's coming," she hissed, ducking away from the door's window.

Voda froze, listening. Julian put his arms around his father, hugging him and whimpering. He patted the boy's back, wanting to tell him that everything would be OK. But that would be a cruel lie, easily exposed — in minutes they could all three be dead, tossed on the pile of bodies like so much dried wood. He didn't want his last words to his son to be so treacherously false.

"Alin," said Mircea, tugging him nearer to the window. "Listen."

The soldiers outside were saying that the general was on his way and would be angry. One of them asked for a cigarette. A truck started and backed away, its headlights briefly arcing through the hole into the cave.

One soldier remained, guarding the bodies.

He could shoot him, thought Voda, then pry off the hinge, and make a run for it.

"We could go to the pump house," whispered Mircea. "It's a good hiding place."

The pump house was an old wellhead on the property behind theirs. It was at least two hundred yards into the woods, up fairly steep terrain. It had been abandoned long ago; the house it once served had burned down in the 1970s.

It might not be a bad hiding place, at least temporarily, but reaching it would be difficult. And first they would have to get out of the cave.

A small vehicle drove up and stopped near the other troop truck. He could hear the sound of dogs barking. The guard went in that direction, then returned with two dog handlers and their charges. They walked to the soldier guarding the bodies, then all of them, the guard included, went in the direction of the house.

Quickly, Voda pushed the chisel in against the metal.

"When the door gives way," he told his wife and son, "run. I'll fix it so it looks as if it is OK."

"Where will we go?" Mircea asked.

"The pump house. We'll have to move quickly."

"The dogs—"

"If we can walk along a creek for a while, the dogs will lose us," he said. "I've seen it in movies." "So have I," said Julian brightly. His son's remark gave him hope.

The door started to give way at the bottom as he pushed against the hinge. Voda put his leg there, then pried at the top. The screws sprang across the room and the door flopped over, held up only by the locked clasp.

"Come," he hissed, taking out his revolver. He slipped through the opening, looking, unsure what he would do if someone was actually nearby.

Mircea started out behind him. Voda grabbed her and pulled, then took Julian by the back of his shirt and hauled him out.

"Into the woods," he told his wife. "I'll catch up after I fix the door."

Julian clung to his leg, refusing to go. Voda picked up the door and slid it back against the opening. He couldn't quite get it perfect; the hinges were gone and the clasp had been partly twisted by the door's weight. But it would have to do. He grabbed his son under his arm like a loaf of bread and ran.

He didn't realize there were a pair of guards at the far end of the driveway near the road until he reached the bushes. The men were sharing a cigarette and arguing loudly over something less than fifty yards away. One of them must have heard him running because he shone his light back in the direction of the cave and woods.

Crouched behind the brush at the edge of the woods, Voda held his son next to him, trying not to breathe, trying not to do anything that would give them away. The flashlight's beam swung above the trees, then disappeared.

More trucks were coming.

"OK, up, let's go," said Voda, pulling Julian with him up the slope. He walked as quickly as he could; after twenty or thirty yards he began whispering for his wife. "Mircea? Mircea?"

"Here."

She was only a few yards away, but he couldn't see her. "Go up the hill," he hissed. "I hurt my toe."

"Just go," he said. "Come on Julian."

"Alin—"

"Go," he said.

He took Julian with him, carrying the boy about thirty more yards up the slope, picking his way through the dense trees. Below them more troops had arrived. There were shouted orders.

It wouldn't be long before they saw the door at the cave, or followed the cistern and discovered where they had been. Then they'd use the dogs to track them in the woods.

Voda felt an odd vibration in his pocket, then heard a soft buzzing noise. It was the cell phone, ringing.

He pulled it out quickly, hitting the Talk button to take the call. But it wasn't a call — the device had come back to life, alerting him to a missed call that had gone to voice mail.

The phone was working now.

He fumbled with it for a moment, then dialed Sergi's number.

There was no answer.

He hit End Transmit button.

Who else could he call?

The defense minister — but he didn't know his number. Those sorts of details were things he left to Sergi and his other aides.

Voda hit the device's phone book. Most of the people on the list were friends of Oana Mitca, but she also had Sergi's number, and that of his deputy schedule keeper, Petra Ozera. He tried Sergi again, hoping he had misdialed, but there was still no answer, not even a forward to voice mail. Then he tried Petra.

She answered on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Petra, this is Alin."

"Mr. President! You're alive!"

"Yes, I'm alive."

"We've just heard from the army there was a guerrilla attack."

"Yes. There has been. What else did you hear?" "The soldier said they were dealing with a large-scale attack. I rushed to the office. I'm just opening the door." "Who called you?" "The name was not familiar." "From which command?"

"General Locusta's. They had just received word from their battalion."

Voda wondered more than ever which side the army was on.

"I want you to speak to the defense secretary," said Voda. "Call Fane Cazacul and tell him I must speak to him immediately. Tell him I will call him. Get a number where he can be reached."

"Yes, sir."

If the defense secretary was involved, he'd be able to track down the phone number. But the dogs would be able to find him soon anyway. Voda told Petra to call several of his allies in the parliament and tell them he was alive. He tried to make himself think of a strategy, but his mind wasn't clear; the thoughts wouldn't jell.

"The phone is ringing," said Petra.

"Answer it."

Voda waited. He heard rustling in the bush to his right — it was Mircea. Julian looked in her direction but didn't leave his father's side.

"It's the American ambassador," said Petra. "He's just heard a report that one of helicopters was shot down over the border and—"

"Get me his phone number. I want to talk to him as well," said Voda.

Jed Barclay rubbed his knuckle against his forehead, trying to concentrate as the call from the American ambassador to Romanian came through. "This is Jed Barclay."

"Jed, I need to speak to the President immediately. They tell me that Secretary Hartman can't be disturbed."

"The Secretary and the President are on their way back to the White House," said Jed. "We don't have new information but we do have an idea of where the helicopter crashed and—"

"This is something different. I've just spoken with President Voda."

"You have?" Jed turned to the monitor on his right. "Yes. He's under attack. Possibly by his own army."

The Romanians scrambled two helicopters in an attempt to mount a recovery option on the one that had gone down over the border in Moldova, but as soon as the radar aboard the Bennett showed that the Moldovans had trucks at the site, they aborted it. From the Romanian point of view, the loss of the colonel and the soldiers who'd been with him were a regrettable but acceptable trade-off for smashing the rebel strongholds and carrying away important data about the guerrilla operations.

With the mission scratched, fatigue mixed with an unspoken malaise aboard the Megafortress. Dog's crew did their jobs dutifully, but they were clearly disappointed in the outcome of the mission.

And with the decision not to attack over the border to support the Romanians.

"Romanians are shutting down," said Sullivan. "All troops are back over the border. Except for those in the helicopter."

"Thanks," said Dog. "Set a course for Iasi."

Sullivan worked quickly and without his usual wisecracks. They landed a short time later, and after securing the plane, headed to the Dreamland Command trailer for a postflight debriefing.

Though he'd already informed Jed Barclay at the NSC about the MiGs and helicopter, Dog retreated to the com room to give a written brief. He knocked out a few sentences, inserted the location of the helicopter as well as the MiGs, then joined the others to review what had happened.

Ordinarily, the debrief would devolve into a bit of a bull session after fifteen or twenty minutes, with Sullivan making jokes and cracking everyone up. But tonight no one joked at all. Each of the men typed quietly on laptops, recapping the mission from their perspective.

Sullivan was usually the last to leave — he was a notoriously poor speller and could puzzle for hours over his punctuation — but he was done in five minutes, his report the barest of bare prose. As soon as he was finished typing his summary into the laptop computer, he rose and asked to be excused.

"You can go, Sully, if you're done," Dog told him. "You don't have to ask for permission."

The normally cheerful Sullivan nodded, rubbed his eyes, and left Dog and Zen alone in the front of the trailer.

As Zen hunt-and-pecked his report on the laptop's flat keyboard, Dog cracked open the small refrigerator.

"Beer?" he asked.

Zen didn't answer.

"Zen?"

The pilot pretended he was absorbed in his work. Dog popped the top on his beer, closed the refrigerator and sat down in the seat farthest from the one where Zen was working. Though still angry at the way the major had snapped at him during the flight, Dog decided it was a product of fatigue and anger at losing Stoner, and that it wasn't worth making an issue of it, especially given the fact that his stay with Dreamland was coming to an end.

Dog leaned back in the seat, gazing at the trailer ceiling and the wall of cabinets at the side. It was a silly place to grow nostalgic over, yet he felt the pangs growing. He'd spent a lot of time here — difficult time, mostly, but in the end what he and his people had accomplished had been worth the effort.

"How's it coming?" he asked Zen after a while.

"What do you care?" snapped Zen, without looking up.

"What's wrong with you, Zen?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what the hell is wrong with you? You're not like that."

"Like what?" "A jerk."

Zen put his hands on the wheels of his chair and spun to the side to confront Dog. His face was shaded red.

"Maybe I think you did the wrong thing," Zen said. "Maybe I know you did the wrong thing."

"By not disobeying an order from the President?"

"Sometimes… "

"Sometimes what, Jeff? It was a lawful order."

"It was a stupid order. It killed two dozen men, one of them a friend of ours. A guy that saved your daughter, my wife, a year ago. You don't remember that?"

"We have to do our duty," said Dog softly.

"Our duty is saving people, especially our people. You could have. A month ago, you would have."

"I have never disobeyed a direct order," said Dog.

Zen smirked.

"I have never disobeyed a direct, lawful order," repeated Dog. He felt his own anger starting to rise.

"You were always damn good at finding a way around them, then," said Zen. He spun back to his computer.

Dog didn't want to let him have the last word. He wanted to say something, anything, in response. But his tongue wouldn't work.

Maybe Zen was right. Maybe, with Samson taking over, he'd lost a bit of his initiative.

Or maybe heroes started to fade the moment they were called heroes.

Dog couldn't think what to say. That the country's needs were greater than the individual's? Honor and duty were important, but there were situations where fulfilling your duty and maintaining your honor were not the same — were, in fact, mutually exclusive.

Zen finished his report, closed the program and the laptop, then backed away from the table.

"Good night," Dog told him as he rolled past.

Zen didn't answer.

When he was gone, Dog sighed heavily, then took a sip of his beer.

It tasted bitter in his mouth.

"Hey, Colonel, something's going on with the Romanian command," yelled Sergeant Liu from the communications shack at the back of the Command trailer. "They're issuing all sorts of orders, and units are moving all over the country."

Dog emptied the beer in the sink and went back to see what was going on.

"Some of Locusta's units are moving toward Stulpicani, way up in the mountains," Liu told him. "They're talking about guerrillas."

Liu brought a map up on the screen. Stulpicani was a quiet town in the Suceava area of Romania, about eighty-five miles northwest of Iasi. There had been no guerrilla attacks that far north or west, as far as Dog knew.

"They're talking about a presidential retreat," said Liu. "A villa or something."

"Call the NSC right away. Tell them something big is going on. I'll go wake up General Samson."

Bynow the NSC staff had arranged a live feed from two Romanian news organizations via their satellites. One feed showed a news program in progress, and since it had not yet been translated, wasn't of immediate use. The other was a frequency used by reporters in the field and at stations around the country to upload raw video and reports to their national headquarters in Bucharest. Jed watched as one feed showed at least a dozen troop trucks moving out of the capital.

The NSC's Romanian translator was sitting at a nearby station, scribbling notes from the video. Jed went over and took a peek at them. The reporter was talking about unexplained troop movements near Bacau.

When the transmission ended, Jed tapped the translator on the shoulder. The woman, a Romanian-American in her thirties, pulled her headphones back behind her raven black hair and turned toward him.

"Have they said anything about guerrilla attacks or the president?" Jed asked.

"No."

"They report on the operation in Moldova?" She shook her head.

"Watch some of the live broadcast and see if that comes up," he told her. "As soon as the CIA transcripts come in, give them to me, OK?"

Then he went back to his desk and called the National Reconnaissance Office — the Air Force department that supervised satellite surveillance — to see how long it would be before a satellite was available. He was still on the phone with them when Freeman called in.

"The president of Romania thinks the army is staging a coup," Jed told him. "Our ambassador is in contact with him. The Dreamland people just heard that there was a guerrilla attack near the president's house in the mountains. There are reports that the Romanian army is moving in the capital. Big movements, enough to get the attention of the media."

"Is it the guerrillas or the army that's moving against Voda?"

"We don't know. We haven't monitored any official reports of an attack on the president's house and the Dreamland units were not notified."

"What does the defense minister say?"

"We're still trying to get in touch with him."

"You think it's a coup?" Freeman asked.

"Um, I wouldn't, um," Jed stumbled, his stutter returning. "It's too early to say what I think. But it, uh, has that feel. Like in Libya last year."

Jed ran down some of the other developments. Freeman listened without interrupting, then told him to have Dreamland get a plane aloft to monitor the troop movements on the ground and see if they could find out what was going on.

"CIA director was trying to set up a phone conference for 1330," added Jed. "White House chief of staff already knows some of what's going on."

"Where's the President?"

"A reception at the Smithsonian," said Jed. "Secretary Hartman's there too. Due to end at three. Are you going to call him?"

"We'll wait until after the phone conference. I may break away. Alert the chief of staff that we'll need to talk."

When he had decided to come to Romania,General Samson had somehow forgotten that the troops were sleeping on cots in a large hangar. Clearly this was not going to be a workable arrangement in his case.

For this one night, however, there was no other choice.

Good for esprit de corps, he reasoned, though his back muscles might never be the same. Worse, he had trouble falling asleep, even though he was dead tired. He'd had one of the bomb handlers rope off a little section for him, stringing blankets as a temporary barrier for privacy, but they did nothing to shut out the noise. The hangar's metal walls and ceiling amplified every creak and cough.

Samson lay awake for hours, staring at the bluish black ceiling high above his head, breathing the stale air that smelled vaguely of exhaust, trying to fall asleep.

And now that he had finally drifted off, some jackass was shaking him awake.

Who?

"Who the hell is it?" he grumbled, trying to unstick his eyes. "It's Dog." Bastian! It figured.

"What the hell, Colonel?"

"General, something's up," Dog told him. "Troops are mobilizing. There's a report of a guerrilla attack on the Romanian president's house about a hundred miles east of here."

It took Samson a second to process the words. Then he sprang up.

"An attack on the president? By the guerrillas?"

"It may be."

"Get a plane in the air."

"The Johnson just took off."

Dog told Samson about what had happened on the mission as they walked to the Command trailer. Samson, who didn't know Stoner, did not seem particularly bothered by the loss of the helicopter.

He also wasn't impressed by the downing of the MiGs, which Dog assured him had taken place inside Romanian territory.

"As long as you obeyed orders and didn't go over the border," he muttered, trotting up the trailer steps ahead of Dog.

Sergeant Liu had just gotten off the phone with the Romanian Second Army Corps headquarters. The sergeant con firmed that there was "some action taking place," but told them there was no need for Dreamland units at the present time.

"The hell with that," said Samson. "We should have more than the Johnson up. Get the B-1s ready. And your plane, Bastian."

Dog nodded. "The Bennett should be ready in an hour. I sent someone to wake up the crew."

"Make it thirty minutes."

Dog couldn't help but smile.

"What?" snapped Samson.

"If I said five minutes, you'd say one."

Samson frowned — but then the corners of his mouth twisted up.

"You expect anything less?" the general asked.

"Jed Barclay on the line," said Liu.

Out of habit, Dog took a step toward the communications area, then stopped. Talking to Washington was Samson's job now.

"What the hell do you mean, you can'tfindthe president?" thundered General Locusta over the phone line. "Where is he?" Major Ozera did not answer.

"Voda's house is not that big," continued the general. "Where the hell is he?"

"There was considerable damage from the mortars," said the major. "We think he was in the basement somewhere. Some of the timbers have fallen and there was—"

"Find the body. Find the body," repeated Locusta. "What about the bodyguards?"

"They're all accounted for. We think."

"You think?"

Even though Locusta was alone in his office, using his private satellite phone rather than his regular line, he knew he had to restrain himself. As thick as the walls were, there was always the chance that he might be overheard if he raised his voice. And besides, a temper tantrum would not help him in the least.

If Voda had escaped, things would be very complicated indeed. But Locusta was in too far now. He'd already given orders mobilizing his units, had instructed his network to begin spreading rumors that the president was dead, and had called his ally in the capital, telling him to call his men out as well.

"Make sure your men are in charge," he told Ozera. "You conduct the search personally."

"Yes, of course. The regular troops have only just gotten here."

"Keep them in the dark. Order them to shoot at anything that moves." "Yes, General."

"Keep me updated," Locusta said. He hung up the phone. It rang immediately. "Locusta."

"Bucharest," said a male voice. "Done."

The line clicked dead. Locusta hung up again, feeling much more confident. The defense minister had been assassinated. An irritant had been removed.

This was a time for action, not doubt. Locusta rose from his desk, grabbed his satellite phone and strode from the office.

"I am going to the president's house," he told his staff in the conference room. "I will personally take charge of the situation there. Nothing to the media," he added, turning to his public relations officer. "Nothing, official or unofficial, without my express approval."

The man's face paled. Locusta guessed that he had already started feeding tidbits to favored reporters.

The general savored that look of fear as he walked to his car.

Dog froze the infrared video feed from the Johnson's Flighthawk showing the back of the president's house.

"Serious munitions hit that house," he said, pointing at the screen. "Maybe mortar shells, maybe RPG rounds. At least a half dozen."

"The guerrillas could have either," said Samson.

"True." Dog hit the Play button, letting the image proceed.

"Are you seeing this, Mr. Barclay?" asked Samson.

"We see it," said Jed Barclay, speaking from the White House Situation Room. "Please continue the feed. We want to see the area."

More Romanian troops were arriving at a command post set up on the road below the house. From the looks of things, the Romanians believed some of the guerrillas had escaped and they were trying to seal off the area.

"That's what we have, Jed," said Dog. "Anything else new on your end?"

"We're sorting through everything. The CIA station chief reported rumors that the president was dead. We'll be back on with you in a few minutes."

Dog leaned back from the console and glanced at Samson, who was standing against the partition of the communications area. The general's stubble and his combat fatigues were almost jarring; for the first time since they'd met, Samson didn't look like an actor playing the role.

"You think it's a coup?" Samson asked.

"If I had to bet, that's where I'd put my money," said Dog.

"So would I," said Samson.

Dog pulled off his headphones and rose. "Want some coffee?" he asked Samson. "Yes," said the general.

There was almost always fresh coffee on the sideboard of the trailer's main room, but tonight was an exception. Dog started hunting through the cabinets, looking for the filters and coffee. He was just filling the pot with water when Samson emerged from the communications shack.

"I thought maybe you went into town for it," said the general.

From anyone else, the comment would have seemed a good-natured rib. Samson, however, looked serious.

"Coffee is not my specialty," said Dog.

"Relax, Bastian. That was a joke."

Dog held the pot up, squinting at the numbers to make sure he had the right level of water.

"I hope your eye exam isn't due soon," said Samson.

This time Dog laughed.

Samson, though, had apparently meant the comment in earnest, and gave him a puzzled stare. "Sometimes I don't know how to take you, Bastian," he said.

"Well, General, pretty much what you see is what you get." Dog poured the water into the machine. "If it is a coup, we have to stay out of it."

"I don't know that we have any choice." Samson came over as the coffee dripped through and took a cup down from the cupboard. Then he got one for Dog. "Damn cot wrenched my back."

"I think the beds in Diego Garcia permanently twisted one of my vertebrae," said Dog.

"Good coffee, Bastian," said Samson, taking a cup. "Now let's get those planes in the air."

President Martindale swiveled his chair to the left to get a better view of the video screen. The flat panel screen, some eighty-four inches diagonally, was a technical marvel, thin and yet capable of supplying a picture several times sharper than a cathode ray tube.

Martindale's main technology advisor predicted it would be standard fare in American homes within a decade, but for now, the secure conference room in the White House basement had the only one in existence.

A feed from Romanian television played on the screen, reporting that the defense minister had been gunned down in Bucharest. The body of his assassin — the newscaster called him "a criminal," implying that he was a guerrilla — had been found nearby, apparently shot by the defense minister's bodyguards.

"It's a military coup," said Secretary of State Hartman as the broadcast continued. "There's no other explanation."

He and Martindale had come directly from the reception, and were both still wearing their tuxedos. They were alone in the room with Jed Barclay, who was briefing them on the situation. Defense Secretary Chastain and Admiral Balboa, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were at the Pentagon, linked via a secure video conference line. National Security Advisor Freeman was across the hall in the Situation Room, trying to reach the Kremlin to get an explanation for the interference in Moldova.

"Are you sure the phone call the embassy received is legitimate?" said Chastain. "Anyone could have pretended to be Voda."

"It came on the ambassador's personal line," said Hartman. "And I trust his judgment implicitly. One hundred percent."

"I didn't mean he was lying, just mistaken."

The embedded encryption mechanism made Chastain's voice sound slightly tinny.

"But Art's point is well taken," said Martindale. "We have to keep it in mind as we proceed."

The President rose and took a short stroll behind the large table at the center of the conference room, trying to focus his thoughts and work off his excess energy. His shoulder grazed the wall as he walked. At the beginning of his term, a set of photographs showing his predecessor at work had adorned the paneled walls. Martindale had had them removed, not because they were a distraction or even because of professional jealousy, but because the space was so narrow behind the chair that he often bumped into the photographs when taking walks like this.

"We have to help Voda," said Hartman. "We simply have to."

"Anything we do will be seen as interfering in Romania's internal politics," said Chastain. "And as a practical matter, there's probably nothing we can do."

"We can share the information that he's alive," said Hart-man.

"If it's him."

Under other circumstances, the President might have been amused by the role reversal that his two cabinet ministers had undergone: Ordinarily, Chastain was in favor of intervening no matter how complicated the situation, and Hartman was for sitting on the sidelines no matter how clear the case for action. But over the last few days, Romania and the gas line had become so critical to Europe's future that Martindale was hardly in a mood to be anything other than worried.

While he believed that all countries were best governed by democracies, he knew foreign democracies would not always act in America's best interest. It could be argued that a stable Romania was much more important to the United States, and to Europe, than one with a weak and divided government. In the long run a takeover by the military might not be bad; for one thing, it would probably bring a change in spending priorities that would fund better defense to protect the pipeline.

Still, a military coup in Romania would kill any hope for NATO and EU membership, and add greatly to the sense of instability currently sweeping the continent. The new regime might also veto Martindale's tentative arrangements with Voda to utilize bases in the south of the country, where Mar tindale hoped to shift some forces from Germany to bring them closer to the Middle East and Iran.

"If we say Voda is alive and he turns up dead, we'll be crucified," said Chastain.

"But if he is alive and he needs our help," countered Freeman, "we should give it."

"How?" said Chastain.

"Dreamland."

"Even Dreamland can't take on the entire Romanian army."

"Maybe not," said Martindale, rejoining the conversation. "But they could rescue Voda. If he's alive. If they found him."

Philip Freeman came into the room. He shook his head— the Russians had refused to communicate with him so far. Martindale explained what he was thinking.

"Very dangerous, Mr. President," said Freeman.

"Worth the risk," said Hartman immediately. "We take him out of harm's way, then let the Romanians sort it all out. We'll be the heroes."

"Or the people caught in the middle, catching hell from both sides," said the President. "But let's see if we can do it. Jed. Put us through to Dog."

"General Samson is in charge of the detachment now," said Admiral Balboa, speaking for the first time since joining the conference.

"Yes, my mistake," said Martindale. "Jed, get me the general. But make sure Bastian is there too."

"Locusta has finally made his move," Svoransky said into the phone. "Now is the time to strike."

The Russian military attache put his elbow on the desk and reached for the vodka he had poured earlier. The only light in his office was coming from the flickering LEDs on his computer's network interface, and from the machine that scrambled his telephone communications to Moscow.

"We have lost two planes already to the Americans tonight," replied Antov Dosteveski. "Your entire program was too provocative."

"The program came from the president, not me," said Svo-ransky. "I am telling you — if we are ever to strike a lasting blow against the pipeline, the time is now. The country is in confusion. General Locusta has launched his coup and will not be in a position to stop your attack."

"And the Americans?"

"Shoot them down! I cannot fly the planes for you!"

Svoransky slammed the phone down angrily. Dosteveski was a general in the Russian army, detailed by the Kremlin specifically to work with him on the project to disrupt the gas line. Like all too many generals these days, he seemed particularly risk adverse.

Svoransky took a strong swig of his vodka. In the old days, generals gave brave orders: shoot down American planes when they violated Soviet air space, sink a submarine in revenge for sinking one of theirs, crush piddling governments when they stood in the way. Now the men leading the Russian army were afraid of their own shadows.

The Osprey ferrying Danny Freah and Sergeant Boston back to Iasi was about twenty minutes from touchdown when the call came through from General Samson. Danny took a headset from the crew chief and sat in one of the jump seats next to the cabin bulkhead.

"This is Freah," said Danny, suppressing a yawn.

"Captain, we have a particular tactical situation you may be able to assist with," said Samson. "We're going to need your input on it."

"Sure," said Danny. "We're about twenty minutes shy of landing."

"We want your ideas right now," said Dog, coming onto the line. "Can you talk?" "Um, sure. Why not?"

Danny listened as Dog described the situation. The president of Romania had apparently been attacked by troops posing as guerrillas and was believed to be hiding somewhere on his mountain property.

"President Martindale wants us to rescue him, as discreetly as possible," said Dog. "But we don't know exactly where he is. And the place is ringed by Romanian soldiers."

"Can you formulate a plan to extricate him?" asked Samson.

"If I knew exactly where he was, maybe."

"The ambassador is working on that," said Samson. "In the meantime, prepare a plan."

"Tell us what you need," added Dog. "Equipment, other information. We'll have it waiting for you when you land."

The pump house was more overgrown than Voda remembered. Brambles covered about three-quarters of the front and side walls. A tree had grown so close that it appeared to be embedded at the back. Hiding here was out of the question.

"We'll rest behind the tree," he told his wife and son. "We'll rest, and then we'll find another place." "Where, Papa?" asked Julian.

"On the other side of the hill," said Voda. He glanced at his wife. Her expression, difficult to make out in the shadows cast by the trees, seemed to border on despair.

"I'm going to scout ahead. Stay here with your mother," Voda told his son. Then he pointed to a clump of trees. "Mircea. Hide there. I'll be back."

"Don't leave us, Papa," said Julian.

"I'll be right back," he told him. "I won't be far."

Voda was lying — he wanted to use the phone but didn't want either of them to hear how desperate he was. He had to stay positive, or at least as confident as he could, to buoy their spirits.

So far, he hadn't heard the dogs, but that was just a matter of time.

Voda walked in as straight a line as he could manage, stopping when he could no longer make out the large tree that rose from the side of the pump house. He took out the mobile phone and dialed the American ambassador's number. The phone was answered on the first ring.

"I am still alive," he said.

"Mr. President, we will help you as much as we are able to. Where exactly are you?"

Voda hesitated. There were many reasons not to trust the Americans. But there was no other choice.

"There is a pump house behind my property, half hidden in the woods. We cannot stay there very long. There are many soldiers still arriving. I hear many trucks. What is going on?"

"The news is reporting that the defense minister was assassinated by guerrillas," said the ambassador. "They are also reporting rumors of your death."

"Prematurely."

"Our satellites have seen troop movements all across the country. It seems pretty clear that there's a coup, and that the plotters intend to kill you."

"Who is behind it?"

"I don't know, Mr. President. I would hesitate to make a guess without some sort of evidence, and I have none."

It had to be Locusta, Voda thought. It was his area of command, and he was the only one powerful enough to even dare.

"I want you to call General Locusta. Tell him that I know that he is behind this, and that he is to stand down," said Voda. "Tell him… "

Voda considered what to say. His instincts told him to be strong with the general — fierce. But perhaps it would be wiser to work out a deal.

"Tell him he must stand down," Voda repeated finally.

"I don't know if that will do much good coming from me, Mr. President."

Voda sensed that was a diplomatic answer — probably Washington had told him not to interfere.

"Are you going to help me or not?" asked Voda, struggling to keep himself from bleating.

"Yes. We will try to rescue you if we can. If you want."

Hope!

"Of course I want," said Voda, practically shouting.

"I want to connect you directly with the Dreamland people who have been supporting your counterterrorist troops. They will help you."

The loud bay of a dog echoed up the hillside.

"Are you there, Mr. President?" asked the American ambassador.

"Give me the number."

"I can connect you, or have them call you."

"No. Tell me the number now. It's not safe for them to call me; the phone can be heard, even when just buzzing. I will call them when I can, in a few minutes. Right now I have to move my family to safety."

The helicopter General Locusta commandeered to get up to the president's mountain house had been used during the Moldovan operation. There hadn't been enough time to completely clean the interior, and spots of dried blood covered the floor. Locusta stared at the blood, brooding. The operation had been successful, though if the Americans had deigned to provide better support, he would not have lost the helicopter with Brasov aboard.

The colonel had always been a problematic officer — a fine leader, but headstrong, occasionally impulsive, and unfortunately as committed to democracy as he was to getting ahead. He would have had to watch Brasov carefully had he lived— so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise after all.

But now that he was dead, Locusta missed him, and mourned the loss of his spirit. He was the sort of man an army needed.

The kind a country needed. Like himself.

A command post had been set up at the intersection of Highway 34 and the road leading up to President Voda's property. There was a field next to the intersection; a pair of spotlights and some small signal flares marked the area for the helicopter to set down.

Locusta sprang out as soon as the pilot nodded to him. Head down against the swirling wind, he ran toward the men standing near the road.

"General, we're glad you're here," said Major Ozera. "The situation is under control."

"You've found President Voda?"

"We expect to shortly. There was a tunnel from the house to a small cave at the edge of the property. We have dogs following his scent."

"Good."

Locusta looked around. About two dozen troops were holding defensive positions near the road.

"You've given orders that anyone found is to be shot?"

"Of course," said Ozera. "As you ordered. The troops have been told that the president is dead and that we're looking for the guerrillas. The special team is with the dogs," he added. "They won't get away."

"They had best not. They have already failed once."

Ozera didn't answer. The "special team" was the hand-picked group of assassins who had made the initial assault.

"Pull as many of the troops back as possible," Locusta told him. "Bring in more weapons, enough to fight a large force. But keep them a good distance away. Have only your men on the property."

"I've brought up everything we had," said the major. "Everything except the antiaircraft guns."

"Bring them. They're very useful."

The Zsu-23-4 mobile antiaircraft guns looked like tanks with four 23mm cannons mounted at the front of a flattened turret. They could be used against ground or air targets, as necessary.

"Our command post should be up at the house," Locusta added.

"Yes. Let me place these new orders, then get a driver."

While he was waiting for Ozera to return, Locusta called his headquarters.

"The Dreamland people keep calling to ask if we need help," said his chief of staff. "What should we tell them?"

"Tell them the situation is under control," said Locusta. "Tell them to remain on the ground. Tell them the situation is very confused, and we don't want them getting in the way."

"They already have at least one plane in the air, General. And we understand more are being readied."

"Tell them I'm traveling to the president's home personally and will confer with them soon," said Locusta. "But emphasize that we do not need them, and do not want them in the air."

"Yes, sir."

"Where is the plane they have in the air?" "I can check with air defense." "Do it. Call me back immediately." "Yes, sir, General."

"It's too rugged to land near that pump house," said Danny, pointing to the satellite photo of the area. "But if they can come up the slope a bit, over to around here, we can lower a basket, take them out like it's a rescue. Even in the dark it shouldn't be that hard."

"Can we get in there without being seen?" asked Samson.

"The Osprey is black, so it's hard to see," answered Danny. "But it is pretty loud. I would say the people on the ground would know we're there."

"The President wanted this done without the Romanians knowing we're involved," said Samson.

"I'd like to get in and out quietly too, General," said Danny. "The less people who know we're there, the safer we are. But no aircraft is silent."

"I think we just have to do our best," said Dog. "If they see us, they see us. But we can't not grab him because we might be seen."

"I didn't say we weren't going to do it, Bastian," snapped Samson. He turned back to Danny. "What sort of team will you need?"

"If we can sneak in? I'd say a three man team — Boston, Liu, myself. We don't want too many people because we want to move as fast as possible. For air support, one Flighthawk to show us what's going on, another if things get tight to cover our exit. And whatever else you can throw at them if all hell breaks loose."

"We could run the Flighthawks as a diversion," said Zen. "Do a low and slow approach along the road, have the Osprey come in from the north. That might solve the problem of the noise."

"If it's noise we're trying to cover," said Dog, "let's bring one of the EB-52s down close. That makes a hell of a racket."

"Good," said Samson. "We can use one of the B-1s as well — a nice sonic boom should get their attention."

"I thought you didn't want to be seen," said Danny.

Samson looked at Dog. "I think we can interpret the order to the effect that you're not to be seen," he said. "And take it from there."

"Where do we go when we have him?" Danny asked. "The American embassy," said the general. "Is that where he wants to go?"

"Why wouldn't he want to go to the embassy?" asked Samson.

"If I was the president, I'd want to go to my office, rally my troops."

"We can deal with that after we have him," said Dog.

"Bastian's right. Let's just grab him." Samson leaned across the conference table, looking at the Osprey pilots. "How long before you can get in the air?"

"As soon as the aircraft is fueled, we're good to go."

"Colonel Bastian!" Sergeant Liu stuck his head out from the communications area. "The Johnson is reporting four MiGs coming hot and heavy toward the Romanian border, straight across the Black Sea."

Lieutenant Kirk "Starship" Andrews tried to ignore the pull of the Megafortress as it turned toward the north, focusing all of his attention on the control screens in front of him. His Flighthawks—Hawk Three and Hawk Four—were just passing through 25,000 feet, climbing toward 30,000. The Johnson's radar was tracking four MiGs, flying in tight formation at roughly Mach 1.2, coming across the Black

Sea.

"What's the word on the ROEs?" Starship asked the Johnson's pilot, Lieutenant Mike Englehardt, referring to their rules of engagement — the orders directing when they could and couldn't use force.

"No change. We're not to engage beyond the border."

"These guys are loaded for bear," Starship told him. "They're either coming for us or they're going to hit something in Romania. Either way, I say we take them down now."

"Our orders say no."

"Screw the orders."

"Yeah, we'd all like to, Starship," said the pilot. "But our job is to follow them. We'll get them when they cross." "By then it may be too late. What's Dog say?" "It's not up to him."

Starship nudged his control yoke, bringing Hawk Three on course for a direct intercept of the MiGs. He could take at least one of the planes down when they came across the border; with a little luck and help from the computer, he might get two. The Johnson could shoot down the rest with Scorpion-plus air-to-air missiles.

But by then the MiGs would be in position to launch their own attack, albeit at long range, against either the Johnson or the pipeline.

"Radar profiles indicate bandits are equipped with two AS-14 Kedge and free-falls," said the radar operator. "Possibly GPS guided. Aircraft are still proceeding on course."

Free-falls were bombs dropped almost directly over the target; they could be guided to their destination by the addition of a small guidance system that used GPS readings. More deadly were the AS-14 Molinya missiles, known to

NATO as the Kedge. The air-to-ground missile could be guided by laser, thermal imaging, or television. In some respects similar to the American-made Maverick, its range was about ten kilometers — just enough to hit the gas pipeline without crossing the border.

"They'll be in range before the border, or just after it," Starship told Englehardt. "Look, they shot down the helicopter. Things have changed."

"Look, you're preaching to the converted," Englehardt replied. "I'm already on the line with them."

"If they're carrying bombs, my bet is they're going after the gas line," Dog told General Samson. "They'll do serious damage, a lot more than that guerrilla strike. Given the tactical situation, I'd say we should consider the rules of engagement obsolete. I say we get them right now."

Part of Samson wanted to agree; the other part realized that this was just the sort of thing that could be used to end his career.

"We can always call Washington," suggested Dog.

Samson started to reach for the headset, intending to do just that, then stopped. Bastian was lionized in Washington. Why? Because he didn't stop and ask for permission every time he wanted to do what was right. He just went ahead and did it, consequences be damned.

A good way to end your career if you were a general, however.

But damn it, Bastian was right. If they hesitated now, the pipeline would be blown up. And he would get the blame for that, no matter what else happened.

"Give me that damn headset," he told Dog.

General Samson's gravely voice boomed in Starship's ears.

"This is Samson. What's your status, Flighthawks?" "Ready to engage, General. If I can cross the border." "That's what I want to hear. Shoot the bastards down. Those are my orders." The line snapped clear.

"Wow, he sounded a little like Colonel Bastian," said Englehardt.

"Nothing wrong with that," said Starship, changing course as he laid on the gas.

Like most pilots who had the misfortune to deal with Flighthawks, the MiG drivers didn't realize they were under attack until the first flash of bullets streaked across their windscreens. By then it was too late for the lead pilot. Within seconds of Starship pressing his trigger, the MiG's cockpit exploded.

Hawk Three's momentum took it out of position to attack the second MiG in the formation, as Starship had originally planned. He jammed his controls, trying to drag the small plane's nose around to the north to get a shot as the MiG shot past. But the MiG pilot had gone to afterburners as soon as he saw the flare of the gun in the night sky, and Starship realized following him would be pointless.

"Bandit Two is by me," Starship told Englehardt.

"Roger that, we see him."

Starship felt the bomb bay's doors opening behind him as he turned his attention to Hawk Four, which he'd aimed at the other two MiGs. The computer had flown the plane perfectly, but its human counterpart in the MiG managed to evade the Flighthawk's first attack, pushing over and twisting away in a ribbonlike pattern, despite the heavy burden under its wings.

Starship took over the plane from the computer, trying to press the attack as the targeting pipper blinked red, then turned to yellow. Abruptly, the plane squirted upward, throwing the Flighthawk by him in a flash. The maneuver worked, but Starship realized that the weight of his bombs would negate most if not all of his engines' advantage over the Flighthawk. He pulled the robot plane back in the MiG's direction, matching the climb. As he got closer, the Russian rolled his plane over. Starship got two bursts in, then slid on his wing to follow. As the MiG leveled, it ejected his weapons stores and asked the engines to give him everything he had.

"Missiles!" yelled Starship.

"Weapons are AS-12 Keglers," said the radar operator. "He's out of range. They won't make the border."

"Bandit Three is out of it," Starship reported. "I'm going after Bandit Four."

"Starship, we have two Sukhois coming at us from the north," warned Englehardt.

"Copy," said Starship, filing the information away in his brain. It was too theoretical to act on at the moment.

"Splash Bandit Two!" said the copilot, Lieutenant Terry Kung. "Two hits!" The Megafortress's missiles had just taken down the MiG.

Bandit Four had tucked south, away from Romania, but was now coming back north. Starship took over Hawk Three, slapping the throttle slide against the final detent as he vectored toward an intercept.

Zen had once described flying the robot aircraft as an act of sheer imagination — that to fly the Flighthawks successfully, a pilot had to see himself in the cockpit. Sometimes, Zen claimed, the illusion became so real he could feel the plane shake and shudder in the air.

Starship disagreed. He didn't feel any illusion that he was inside Hawk Three as it thundered toward the MiG. He didn't think of either plane as a plane at all — they were vectors and flashes on his screen, triangles and dots, with a thick box at the top of the screen showing where the MiG's lethal range began.

The MiG altered course, heading toward the southern end of the box. Hawk Three was coming at him from an angle off his right wing. According to the computer, it would arrive at an intercept in exactly fifty-two seconds.

The computer also calculated that Starship would have exactly three seconds on target — enough for a single burst of gunfire.

Probability of a fatal hit: twenty percent.

"Johnson, can you take Bandit Four?" Starship asked.

"We're being targeted by the Sukhois," said Englehardt. "We have only four missiles left."

"I'll get one of the Sukhois," said Starship.

"Negative. Take the MiG. We have the Sukhois."

Engelhardt's choice was technically correct — the Mega-fortress had to be protected at all costs, and the Johnson was in a better position to strike the Sukhois immediately. But in Starship's opinion it was too conservative. Following the book, Englehardt was clearly intending to fire two missiles each at the Sukhois to cover for any malfunctions or screw-ups. One of those missiles could be used against the MiG, with the Flighthawks backing him up.

There was no time to argue. Starship tried to urge some more speed from the Flighthawk, nudging his nose down, but he was already at roughly the same altitude as his quarry and couldn't afford to give up much.

"Intercept in thirty seconds," said the computer.

The targeting pip appeared. It was solid yellow. He wasn't even close to a shot.

The MiG started to turn west, taking it even farther from the Flighthawk. He wasn't going to make it.

He didn't have to shoot the MiG down — not on his first try, anyway. All he had to do was get him to break off his attack.

The Russian had overreacted to the first encounter, going south. Maybe he could be bluffed into doing that again.

Starship pushed the Flighthawk to the right and began firing, even though the piper showed he was still out of range. The change in the angle put his bullets even farther off the mark. But it also made his tracers more obvious — he wanted the MiG pilot to know he was under the gun.

The first burst had no effect, but as he laid on a second, the Russian dipped on its left wing and dove off to the left, heading southwestward.

A warning flashed on Starship's screen as he went after it.

"Johnson, I need you to stay with me," he said.

"We have to deal with the Sukhois," said Englehardt.

Starship gave Hawk Three to the computer, telling it to stay on the MiG; it would fly pursuit even if the connection was lost. Then he took Hawk Four and pulled it south. It was still too far from the MiG to get into a tangle, but he might be able to use it when the MiG came back toward its target.

The Johnson, meanwhile, was climbing northward over the mountains, moving away from the Sukhois. The Su-27s were carrying several air-to-air missiles, but as of yet had not targeted the Megafortress.

Starship flicked the sitrep plot onto his main screen as the Flighthawk separated from his control. The MiG was still running due west. Starship thought, sooner or later, the pilot had to turn north.

Maybe he had a secondary target. Starship reached to his left, tapping the control for the mapping module in the computer. The module could display details on ground features, with identification tags such as highway routes.

"Highlight pipeline," Starship told the computer. "Instruction not understood." "Highlight trans-Romanian gas pipeline," he said. "Instruction not understood."

Frustrated, Starship put his finger on the pipeline that the MiG had been targeting. "Identify."

"IFC International Pipeline Junction 245A," said the computer.

"Highlight IFC International Pipeline and all junctions."

The pipeline lit in yellow on the map, with small rectangles of color along the way.

There was a block ten miles south of Hawk Three—exactly on the vector the MiG was taking.

His secondary target.

"Johnson, move west," said Starship.

"We will if we can."

"He has a target to the west. This is it," said Starship, tapping his computer to transmit the image to the pilot's console.

"Missiles in the air!" said the copilot. "Mini-Moshkits— they're homing in on our radar!"

Zen stopped at the foot of the access ramp as he came out of the trailer.

"Breanna, what the hell are you doing here?" he said, shocked to see his wife.

"Hello to you too, lover." She walked over and kissed him.

"No, really, why are you here?" he insisted. "I'm here as a copilot on Boomer" she said, pointing in the direction of the plane. "What's the matter?"

"There's no way in the world you should be flying."

"What?"

"Jeez, woman."

"What do you mean, 'jeez woman'?" "You were — hurt."

"When?"

"Don't give me that. In India." "So were you."

"You were unconscious for days, for God's sake." "I was sleeping. The doctors say I'm fine." Zen shook his head.

"You were on that island as long as I was," she said. Her face had flushed, her hands were on her hips, and her eyes had narrowed into slits. Zen knew she was mad, but he was furious as well.

"I wasn't knocked out in a coma," he told her.

"I'm better now. If you don't like it, tough." She turned and began stomping toward the hangar. Suddenly she stopped, spun around, and said, "And it's good to see you, too."

The people nearby tried pretending they hadn't noticed. Zen wheeled forward, angry that his wife was here, but not sure what he could do about it.

The door to the Command trailer opened, and he turned back as Colonel Bastian came down the ramp.

"Did you see her?" asked Zen.

"Who?"

"My wife."

"Breanna's here?"

"She's copiloting Boomer."

Dog frowned but said nothing.

"You think that's OK?" he asked.

"Did she check out medically?"

"She claims she did."

"It's not up to me," Dog said finally. "Come on. We have to get in the air."

Alin Voda knelt next to the pump house, holding his son against his body to warm the boy. He was feeling the cold himself. At first adrenaline had kept him warm, then fear; now neither was sufficient as the temperature continued to drop toward freezing.

The dogs were below them, near the creek. He wasn't sure how much longer it would be before they picked up their scent and started up the hill. But even if the dogs couldn't track them, Voda knew that sooner or later the soldiers would begin a large-scale search through the woods. The sounds of trucks moving in the valley below filled the hills with a low rumble. There must be dozens if not hundreds of potential searchers.

The Americans had promised to help. Voda wasn't sure what that promise would yield, but at the moment it was all he had.

"They're coming up the hill," said Mircea. "What do we do?"

This was as far up the property as either of them had gone; Voda had no idea what was beyond. But they clearly couldn't stay here; if they did, they'd be discovered.

"Let's keep climbing," he said.

"Papa, I'm too tired," said Julian.

"You've got to get up!" shrieked Mircea, almost out of control and far too loud. "You've got to!"

"Sssshhh," said Voda. He leaned down and hoisted the boy up onto his back. It had been years since he'd carried him this way, long years.

"Are we going to die, Papa?"

"No, no," said Voda, starting to walk. A tune came into his head and he began to hum, gently, softly. He'd gone at least a dozen yards before he realized it was the old folk song that had started him on this path.

Colonel Bastian's fatigue lifted as he watched the ground crew top off the Bennett's fuel tanks. Dog gave them a thumbs-up, then ducked under the belly and watched as the ordies — the bomb ordinance specialists — removed the safety pins and made sure the last Scorpion AMRAAM-plus was ready to be fired. There were four Scorpions and four Sidewinders on the revolving dispenser.

"How's it lookin', boys?" he asked.

"Ready for action, Colonel," said one of the crew dogs. "You want missiles on the wingtips?"

"No time. We have to get into the air."

"Yes, sir."

Not one of the three ground-crew members was legally old enough to drink, but each had a huge responsibility on his shoulders. Dog and the rest of the members of EB-52 Johnson were putting their lives in their hands.

"Ready for your walk-around, Colonel?" asked Technical Sergeant Chance Duluth.

"Where's Greasy Hands?" Dog asked. Parsons was the crew chief; Chance was his assistant.

"Chief Parsons is over straightening something out with Boomer, Colonel. He sends his regrets."

"Along with how many four letter words?" Dog asked, walking toward the front of the plane.

"Quite a few."

Chance — his name inevitably led to many poor puns — had worked under Parsons for many years. He had inherited the chief master sergeant's fastidious attention to detail, if not his gently cantankerous manner. Where Greasy Hands would frown, Chance would turn his head sideways, smile, and say, "Hmmm."

Dog was anxious to get airborne; the Osprey had already taken off, and the B-1s would shortly. He moved quickly through the preflight inspection, examining the exterior of the plane from its nose gear to the lights atop its V-shaped tail. In truth, he trusted the crew implicitly, and probably could have skipped the walk-around without feeling any less safe. But the inspection was as much ritual as examination, and it would have somehow felt disrespectful to the ground crew not to look over their work.

"Damn good job," said Dog loudly when he was done. "Damn good."

"Thank you, Colonel," said Chance. He'd probably heard that particular compliment a few hundred times, but his face still flushed with pride.

Dog was just about to go up the ramp into the belly of the plane when Zen rolled up.

"Beauty before age," Dog told the Flighthawk pilot.

"Oh yeah," said Zen, backing into the special lift hooks fitted to the ladder. "I'm feeling real beautiful tonight."

As Zen disappeared into the belly, Dog heard Breanna calling behind him. He turned around. She had her helmet and flight gear under her arm.

"Aren't you supposed to be getting ready to take off?" Dog asked her.

"They had a glitch and had to repack the computer memory. I have five minutes to… " Her voice trailed off. "Something wrong?" he asked. "I just wanted — to talk to Zen."

"You have something to say to Zen, you better hurry. I'm taking off as soon as I buckle my seat belt."

"Thanks, Daddy." She kissed him and scampered up the ramp.

Dog shook his head. He hated when she called him Daddy while he was working.

Zen looked up, startled to hear his wife's voice behind him.

"What are you doing here?" he said. "Come to see how the other half live?"

"I don't want you mad at me," said Breanna. "I don't want to go on a mission with things between us — with things the way we left them."

"I'm not mad," he said.

"Yes you are. You think I should have stayed home. In bed." "I do think that," he said.

"And you're mad. I can hear it in your voice. It's angry." "I'm not mad." But even while saying this, Zen heard his tone. She was right; he did sound angry. "I'm mad a little." "Just a little?"

He started to laugh. That was the problem with being in love with Breanna — you just couldn't be mad at her, no matter how hard you tried, or how justified you were.

"I guess I'm mad at you, but I'm not really mad at you," he told her. "I do love you. A lot."

She came close and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his head.

"What's with the parachute gear?" she asked, noticing that his emergency equipment was different.

"It's the new gizmo Annie Klondike worked up. I told you about it. MESSKIT."

"Is it ready?"

"More than ready," he told her. "Come on, now, get lost. We gotta get goin'."

"I'm out of here. Kick some butt."

Breanna smiled at him, then disappeared down the ladder to the tarmac.

The MiG pilot, confident that he'd shaken the Flight-hawks and knowing that the Romanian air defenses could not touch him, backed off on his speed in order to conserve fuel for the long trip home. He was at 15,000 feet, descending gradually, no doubt intending to glide right at his target, Starship thought, pop up as he pickled his bombs, then gun north over the border and head home.

As long as he stayed on his present course, Hawk Four would meet him exactly eight miles from his target — roughly a mile and a half before the MiG was in range to fire the air-to-ground missiles. And as an added bonus, Hawk Three would come back into Starship's control a few seconds later. The enemy plane would be caught between the two Flight-hawks, its escape routes cut off.

A perfect plan, except for the fact that the Bennett was jinking hard to duck a pair of radar-seeking missiles.

The Russian weapons were Kh-131A radar-seeking mini-Moshkits. Based on the air-to-ground Kh-31P, the large anti-radiation missile used two stages: a standard solid-rocket engine for the first stage, with a jet engine taking over for the final stage. The jet engine was no ordinary power plant; it gave the missile an enormous burst of speed on its final approach, propelling the warhead to Mach 4.5. The acceleration was designed to make the missile more difficult for antimissile systems such as the Patriot to intercept.

There were several ways to deal with mini-Moshkits. Arguably the most effective was the simplest: turning off the Megafortress's powerful radar, to deprive the missile of its target. But doing that would essentially blind Starship, since the Flighthawks relied on the mother ship's radar for everything except firing their guns or scanning very close targets.

Starship left it to the Megafortress to deal with the missile as he concentrated on the MiG heading toward the gas pipeline. The computer's tactical section diagrammed the best angle of attack in his screen, suggesting that the Flighthawk pivot and swoop in directly on the fighter's tail. It was a no-brainer, and yet another example of the advantage the robots had over traditional planes. In a manned plane, the maneuver would knock the pilot unconscious.

Just as Starship reached the point where he had to start the cut, the Megafortress turned hard to duck the missiles. At the same time, the plane dropped about a hundred feet in a fraction of a second. He slammed against his restraints and, despite his pressure suit, felt his head start to float as the mother ship dropped sharply in the air.

Stay on him, stay on him, Starship told himself, trying to hold the Flighthawk to the proper path. The small plane made its turn, jerking its nose hard back toward its right wing, literally skidding sideways in the air. For a brief moment the plane's aerodynamic qualities were overcome by the laws of gravity and motion; it dropped more than two hundred feet, more like a brick than a plane. As the Flighthawk began to accelerate, the MiG popped into Starship's screen.

The pipper went red. The pilot pressed the trigger. Bullets flew past the MiG's right wing. Starship nudged his stick, working the stream toward the body of the target.

"Disconnect in five seconds," wailed the computer.

"Bitch," yelled Starship.

"Unrecognized command."

"Johnson!"

"Stand by to lose external radar," replied Englehardt. That was about the last thing Starship wanted to hear.

Up on the flight deck,Lieutenant Englehardt and his copilot had managed to duck one of the radar homing missiles by their sharp maneuvers. But the other one kept coming, and was now just over twenty miles away.

"Radars are off," Terry Kung, the copilot, told Englehardt.

"Chaff. Turn."

As the copilot fired canisters of metal shards into the air to confuse the missile, Englehardt threw the Megafortress into a sharp turn south, then rolled his wing down, plunging like a knife away from the cloud of decoy metal. The maneuver was second nature in a teen-series fighter; the Megafortress, even with all its improvements over the standard B-52, groaned and shuddered.

The mini-Moshkit following them had a backup semi-active radar, which Englehardt expected would take over once it realized it had lost the signal it was following. If that happened, he hoped the radar would "see" the cloud of tinsel in the air, think it was the plane, and dive on it.

"Still not terminal," said Kung. The flare as the missile fired its hypersonic jet engine would be picked up on the Megafortress's infrared launch warning.

Englehardt pushed the Megafortress lower, then swung back to the east, trying to "beam" the missile's search radar and make it harder for the enemy to see him. But they were too close — he could feel the missile coming in.

General Locusta resisted the urge to kick the dead bodies that been placed near the back of the garage at the president's mountain house. It wasn't out of respect for the dead that he didn't. On the contrary, he had no respect for any of the bodyguards, Voda's men all. But the soldiers looking on might not understand.

"These are the only people you found in the house?" he asked them.

"General, it wasn't us who found them," replied the sergeant who was standing with the two other men, both privates. "The special forces men who reached the house first placed them here."

According to Major Ozera, the special unit that had staged the attack had lost a dozen of their own, hastily evacuating them before the regular army arrived. In a way, thought Locusta, it was good that so many commandos had died: It sharpened the survivors' lust for vengeance, for they had changed into their uniforms and now made up the party of searchers hunting the president.

Locusta walked toward the cave where Voda had supposedly hidden after the initial attack. He examined it, and despite the broken door had a difficult time believing Voda had been here. The cistern system Ozera claimed he had used to escape was closed with heavy metal panels; a weakling such as Voda would never be able to lift them.

The entire back of the house had been flattened by the mortars. More likely the president was buried under there. If the dogs were tracking anything, it was one of the bodyguards who'd been sleeping or had run away out of fear.

His satellite phone rang.

"What is it?" he snapped, answering before the first ring died.

"General, all of the Dreamland planes have taken off from Iasi, including the Osprey," said his chief of staff. "The helicopter plane?"

"Yes, sir. Air defense reports that the Russians have attacked them near the border, and that at least one Russian airplane has been shot down."

What the hell was going on?

No sooner had the question formed than Locusta realized the answer: The Russians were gunning for the pipeline. "Are any of our airplanes in the air?" "Well no, General."

"Get the air force chief of staff. Tell him I want to talk to him personally. And tell him that we need his precious MiG-29s. The Russians are attacking us."

"Yes, General."

"And then find the number or whatever it is that I must call to speak to the Americans directly. To Colonel Bastian, the so-called Dog."

Starship's main screen blinked and an icon appeared in the upper right corner, indicating that long-range radar was no longer being provided to the Flighthawks. But the enemy MiG and the triangular cross hairs targeting it remained at the center of the screen, provided by the Flighthawk's own radar.

Compared to the Megafortress's radar, which was as powerful as the radar in an AWACS, the system aboard the robot was very limited. But it was fine for the task at hand— Starship steadied his thumb on the trigger, pushing the spray of bullets into the MiG's wing.

The MiG's right wing suddenly seemed to expand. A thin gray funnel appeared at the middle of it — and then red flashed everywhere. One of Starship's bullets struck through the disintegrating wing, hitting square on the detonator of a five-hundred-pound bomb. The explosion that followed was so severe, the shock waves sent the Flighthawk into a spin to the left.

And then Starship's screen went blank. He'd lost his connection to the robot.

On the flight deck above Starship, Englehardt leaned closer to the instrument panel, willing the big plane away from the missile. Panic vibrated through his arms and legs; his throat felt as if it had tightened around a rock. He struggled to control the plane, and himself, jerking back to the north as the copilot released another set of chaff.

"He's terminal! Big flare!" yelled Kung.

Englehardt tensed, bracing for the impact. He cursed him-self — he should have knocked off the radar sooner.

There was a flash to the right side of the cockpit.

The missile?

If so, it had exploded before striking the Megafortress— far enough away, in fact, that the big aircraft shrugged off the shock of the ninety kilogram warhead without a shudder.

What? incoming message flashed on the dedicated Dreamland communications screen. Englehardt tapped the screen with his thumb.

"You're welcome, Johnson," barked General Samson from Boomer. "Now get that radar back on so we can see what the hell these Russian bastards are up to."

Breanna Stockard exhaled sharply as she leaned back from Boomer's targeting console. Her head was still spinning — she'd barely strapped herself in for takeoff when General Samson saw that the Johnson was in trouble and ordered her to target the missile. Samson had pulled Boomer almost straight up, riding her powerful engines to the right altitude for the hit with no more than a half second to spare.

"All right, Stockard, good work." The general's voice was a deep growl. "Now let's get ourselves up north and ready for anything else these bastard Russkies throw at us."

"You got it, Gen."

Samson turned his head toward her. "If you're going to use a nickname, it's Earthmover." "OK, Earthmover."

"That's more like it, Stockard," said Samson, pushing the plane onto the new course.

Dog's comment about taking off as soon as his restraints were buckled was an exaggeration, but only just. The Megafortress left the runway just on the heels of the B-1s, getting airborne in time to use its radar to help orient Boomer to the Russian missile tracking the Johnson. Data was shared over the Dreamland Command network with all aircraft in the battle package, and in fact could be shared with any Dreamland asset anywhere in the world.

"Sukhois are turning south over the Black Sea," said Rager. "Looks like there are two more MiG-29s approaching, though, high rate of speed, very low to the water. You see them, Colonel?"

"I got them, Rager. Thanks." Dog flicked the Transmit button. "EB-52 Bennett to Johnson. Mikey, how are you doing up there?"

"We're holding together, Colonel," said Englehardt, the Johnson's pilot. "But we're out of Scorpions."

"Roger that. I want you to go west and cover the area near the president's summer house for the Osprey. We'll take your station here."

Englehardt's acknowledgment was overrun by a broadcast from General Samson, whose scowling face appeared in the communications screen. Samson's visor was up, his oxygen mask dangling to the side, his frown as visible as ever. But to Dog's surprise, Samson didn't bawl him out for usurping his authority.

"Mike, Dog is right. You get yourself down there and stay out of trouble. You understand?" "Yes, sir."

"Sorry, General," said Dog. "That was your call." "No problem, Colonel. I couldn't have put it better myself. Now, let's get ourselves ready for these MiG drivers. You want to take them, or should we give the laser system another field test?"

Danny Freah put on his smart helmet and tapped into the Dreamland database, asking the computer with verbal commands to display the most recent satellite photo of the area where the president's house was located.

The picture was several days old, taken right after the attack on the pipeline, but it was adequate for planning purposes.

From the description that had been relayed to him, Alin Voda was hiding about a quarter mile northeast of his house, near an old structure. But the structure wasn't visible on the map. Danny zoomed in and out without being able to see it among the trees. Finally he backed out, looking for an easier spot to pick him up.

The hill was wooded all the way to its peak. There was a rift on the back slope about fifty feet down, where a drop created a bald spot. The Osprey couldn't land there, but they could fast-rope down, put the president into a rescue basket, and haul him back up.

They'd need some close-in reconnaissance before attempting the pickup, to figure out where the Romanians were. And they'd need a diversion to get into the area.

"What do you think, Cap?" asked Boston, who was standing beside him. "Doable?"

"Oh yeah, we can do it," Danny said, pulling off the helmet. "Just need a little coordination."

He checked his watch. The Osprey was roughly twenty minutes from the mountain house. Hopefully, Voda could hold out that long.

The two Russian aircraft approaching the Romanian coast of the Black Sea were brand new MiG-29Ms, upgraded versions of the original MiG-29. Equipped with better avionics and more hardpoints, the fighters were potent attack aircraft, capable of carrying a wide range of weapons. Because they were flying so low, the Bennett's radar was unable to identify what missiles or bombs they had beneath their wings, but their track made it clear they were heading for the Romanian gas fields.

"How are we handling this, Colonel?" Zen asked Dog over the interphone. He'd already swung his Flighthawks toward the border to prepare for an intercept.

"You take first shot," Dog told him. "We'll take anything that gets past you. Boomer will knock down any missiles."

"Roger that."

The MiGs were moving at just over 500 knots — fast, certainly, but with plenty of reserve left in their engines to accelerate. They were just under eighty miles from the border, and another fifty beyond the Flighthawks; assuming they didn't punch in some giddy-up, Zen knew he had nine and a half minutes to set up the intercept.

Almost too much time, he mused.

"We have a pair of Romanian contacts, Colonel. Two MiG-29s coming north from Mikhail Kogalniceanu."

The MiG-29s were the Romanians' sole advanced aircraft. Older than the Russian planes, they were equipped with short-range heat-seeking missiles and cannons. It would take considerable skill for their pilots to shoot down their adversaries.

Unless the Americans helped balance the odds.

"Let's talk to them," said Dog. "Sully, can you get us on their communications channel?"

"Working on it now, Colonel."

Mack Smith hunched over the console in Dreamland Command, watching the combined radar plot from the Bennett and the Johnson that showed where all the Dreamland people were.

The one thing it didn't show was where President Voda might be.

Which, as he read the situation, was the one thing above all else it ought to show.

"What the hell's going on with that NSA chick?" Mack asked the techie to his right. "She get those cell towers figured out yet or what?"

"They're working on it. It's not like they monitor every transmission in the world, Major."

Mack straightened. There ought to be an easier way to track Voda.

If the Megafortress types flying over Romania were the Elint birds — specially designed to pick up electronic transmissions — it'd be a no-brainer. They'd just tune to the cell phone's frequencies and wham bam, thank you ma'am, they'd have him.

But with all the high-tech crap in the planes that were there, surely there was some way to find the S.O.B.

The problem probably wasn't the technology — the problem was they didn't have enough geeks working it.

Mack turned around and yelled to the communications specialist, who was sitting two rows back. "Hey, you know Ray Rubeo's cell phone number?"

"Dr. Rubeo? He's no longer—"

"Yeah, just dial the number, would you? Get him on the horn."

Mack shook his head. He had to explain everything to these people.

"General, there's an urgent transmission coming through from Romanian air defense command," said Breanna.

"About time they woke up," said Samson, tapping the communications panel at the lower left of the dashboard. "This is Samson."

"General Samson, stand by for General Locusta."

"Locusta. He's the army general, right?" Samson asked Breanna. "The one who's probably running the coup?"

She didn't get a chance to answer as Locusta came on the line.

"General Samson, I am sorry to say we have not had a chance to meet."

Samson had a little trouble deciphering Locusta's English.

"Yes, I'm glad to be working with you, too," he told him, trying not to arouse his suspicions.

"We understand the Russians are attacking. We have our own interceptors on the way."

"Yes, I've seen the radar, and my colonel is attempting to contact them. We'll shoot the bastards down, don't worry."

"We are obliged. We appreciate the assistance," said Lo-custa. "Now, we are conducting operations in the north, in the mountain areas east of Stulpicani. You'll please keep your aircraft clear of that area."

Samson decided to employ a trick he'd learned when he was young and ambitious — when in doubt, play dumb.

"This is in relation to the attack on the president's estate?" Samson asked.

"That's right."

"I have an aircraft in that region. We've been trying to get in contact with you," said Samson. "We can provide a great deal of help. We'll catch those bastards, too."

"Your assistance is appreciated but not needed," answered Locusta. "This is a delicate political matter, General. I'm sure you understand."

Sure, I understand, thought Samson — you want to take over the country and don't want any interference from us.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Samson. "We can help."

"Whether you understand or not, stay away from the area. I would hate to have one of your planes shot down accidentally."

The arrogant son of a bitch!

"Listen, General—" started Samson, before he realized Locusta had killed the connection.

With guidance from the Bennett, the two Romanian MiGs were able to change course and set up their own intercept over Moldovan territory.

"Let them take the first shot," Dog told Zen. "But don't let the Russians get by."

"Roger that," said Zen.

He checked everyone's position on his sitrep, then dialed into the Romanian flight's communications channel. They were using the call signs §oim Unu and §oim Doi — Falcon One and Falcon Two.

"§oim Unu, this is Dreamland Flighthawk leader. You read me?" said Zen. The word §oim was pronounced "shoim."

"Flighthawk leader, we are on your ear," said the pilot. "I'm your ear too," said Zen, amused. "You know American English?" "Ten-four to this."

"You want to take both planes yourselves? Or should we divvy them up?"

"We may first attack. Then, you sloppy seconds."

"Where'd you learn English?"

"Brother goes to American college."

His letters back home must be a real blast, thought Zen.

"All right," he told the Romanians. "I'll be to the northeast. If they get past you, I'm on them. You won't see the UM/Fs on your radar. They're small and pretty stealthy."

"What is this UM/F?"

"Flighthawks. They're unmanned fighters."

"Oh yes, Flighthawk. We know this one very well."

Had he been flying with American or NATO pilots, Zen would have suggested a game plan that would have the two groups of interceptors work more closely together. But he wasn't sure how the Romanians were trained to fly their planes, let alone how well they could do it.

The Russian planes were in an offset trail, one nearly behind the other as they sped a few feet above the water toward land. The Romanians pivoted eastward and set up for a bracket intercept, spreading apart so they could attack the Russians from opposite sides.

At first Zen thought that the Russians' radar must not be nearly as powerful as American intelligence made them out to be, for the planes stayed on course as the two Romanians approached. Then he realized that the two bogeys had simply decided they would rush past their opponents. Sure enough, they lit their afterburners as soon as the Romanians turned inward to attack.

§oim Unu had anticipated this. He bashed his throttle and shot toward the enemy plane.

"Shoot!" yelled Zen.

But the Romanian couldn't get a lock. The two planes thundered forward, the Romanian slowly closing the distance. And then suddenly he was galloping forward — the Russian had pulled almost straight up, throwing his pursuer in front of him.

Frustrated, Sloim Unu's pilot fired a pair of his heat-seeking missiles just before he passed the enemy plane; one sucked on the diversionary flares the Russian had fired and plunged after it, igniting harmlessly a few feet above the water. The other missed its quarry and the flares, flying off to the west before self-detonating.

The Russian had proven himself the superior pilot, but he was no match for a plane he couldn't see. As he turned back onto his course, tracers suddenly flew past his cockpit. His first reaction was to push downward, probably figuring he was being pursued by the other Romanian plane and hoping to get some distance between himself and his pursuer. But he was only at 3,000 feet, and quickly found himself running out of altitude. He pulled back, trying to slide away with a jink to his right.

Zen pushed Hawk One in for the kill. As the Mikoyan turned, it presented a broad target for his 20mm cannon. Two long bursts broke the plane in half; the pilot grabbed the eject handles and sailed clear moments before the forward half of the aircraft spun out and corkscrewed into the Black Sea.

"One down," said Zen. "One to go."

"This is Ray Rubeo."

"Hey, Dr. Ray, how's it hanging?"

"Major Smith. What a pleasure." Rubeo gave Mack one of his famous horse sighs. "To what do I owe the dubious honor?"

"We're in a little fix down here, and I need your help."

"I am no longer on the payroll, Major. In fact, I am no longer on any payroll."

"We have to locate this guy in Romania who has a cell phone, but we can't seem to get access to the cell tower net work, at least not fast enough to grab him," said Mack, ignoring Rubeo's complaint. Geniuses were always whining about something. "And I don't have any Elint Megafortresses. I do have two radar planes, though, and two B-1s. Plus the Flighthawks and an Osprey. I figure there's got to be some way to track the transmission down. Like we cross some wires or tune in somehow—"

"Which wires do you propose to cross, Major?"

"I don't know. That's why I called you."

Rubeo sighed again, though not quite as deeply. "You have Flighthawks in the area?"

"Sure. Four of them."

Another sigh. This one was absolutely shallow. A good sign, thought Mack.

"Reprogram one of the Flighthawk's disconnect directional homers to the cell phone frequency," said Rubeo.

"Oh sure. Cool. God, of course. How long will it take you?"

"If I were there and with access to the code library, and in a good mood, ten minutes."

"Five if you were in a bad mood, right?"

"The question is moot, Major. When I was fired, my Dreamland security clearance was revoked. We really shouldn't even be having this conversation."

Rubeo wasn't really fired. He had resigned by mutual consent. Forced out, maybe, but not really fired. Fired was different.

But he had a point about the clearance. Mack thought he could waive it on his authority. Maybe.

What the hell. He was chief of staff for a reason. "How long will it take you to get here?" he asked. "Or maybe I can send a helicopter—" "By plane, it will take me six hours." "Six hours?"

"I'm in Hawaii, Major. I decided to take the vacation I've been putting off for five years." Rubeo hung up.

Mack wracked his brain, trying to think who he could trust with the job. One of the geeks over at the guidance systems department probably could do it, but which one?

Maybe one of the Flighthawk people.

No, the person he needed was Jennifer Gleason.

Jennifer Gleason put down the box of tissues as the movie credits rolled across the television set. She'd watched Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, and for some reason the ending made her cry.

Even though it was the third time she'd seen the movie this week.

The phone started to ring.

Should she answer it? It almost certainly wasn't for her. Unless it was her mother.

Or Dog.

More likely her mother, whom she didn't feel like talking to.

On the other hand, it might be her sister, whose house she was staying in while recuperating. Maybe she wanted to suggest plans for dinner or ask if they needed something.

Her sister didn't have a cell phone; if Jennifer didn't answer, she'd miss her.

Jennifer pitched herself forward on the couch, leaning on the arm to push upward. By the time she grabbed her crutch, the phone had rung for a second time. Her knee muscles had stiffened from sitting, and even though the distance from the living room to the kitchen was only ten feet at most, it seemed to take forever for her to reach the phone. The phone rang for the fourth time just as she grabbed it.

"Hello?"

"Jennifer Gleason, please," said an official sounding male voice.

"Speaking."

"Stand by, Ms. Gleason."

"Who—"

"Hey, Jen. How's it hanging?" "Mack Smith?"

"One and the same, beautiful. Hey listen, we have a serious situation here. Do you have your laptop with you?" "Of course."

"Great. Greeeaaat. Dr. Ray says this is super easy to do, with your eyes closed even… "

While Zen and Hawk One were taking care of the first Russian MiG, SSoim Doi had been hot on the tail of the second. The Russian fighter jock might or might not have been as accomplished as his wing mate, but he was far luckier. Jinking hard and tossing decoy flares as the Romanian closed on his tail, he managed to duck two heat-seekers without deviating too much from his course. SSoim Doi pressed on, closing for another two-fisted missile shot. But bad luck — or more accurately, the notoriously poor Russian workmanship involved in manufacturing the export versions of the Atoll missiles — saved the Russian pilot: the lead missile of the Romanian self-detonated prematurely, knocking out not only itself but its brother less than a half mile from the target.

§oim Doi kept at it, however, following the MiG as it came east and crossed into Romanian air space. Zen, taking over Hawk Two from the computer, pounced on the bandit from above, pushing the Flighthawk's nose toward the MiG's tail. With his first burst of bullets, the MiG jettisoned two of its bombs, then tucked hard right, then left, trying to pull away.

"SSoim Doi, I'm going to close right," Zen said, pushing the throttle to the limit. "Slide a little farther to his left and be ready if he goes toward you."

"Yes," answered the Romanian.

Zen turned the Flighthawk in toward the Russian and lit his cannon. A few bullets nicked the MiG's tail, but the pilot worked his stick and rudder so deftly that Zen couldn't nail him. He was just about to turn the plane over to Dog when a heavily accented voice warned him off. SSoim Unu had rejoined the fight.

The Romanian flight leader had circled around to the west and managed to get in front of the other planes as they jabbed at each other. He turned in, still pushing the pedal to the metal, and made a front quarter attack at high speed, cannon blazing. Most if not all of his bullets missed, but the spooked MiG driver rolled downward and to the south.

The move took him into the path of the other Romanian. §oim Doi pumped a dozen or more 30mm slugs into the enemy MiG before he overtook the plane and had to break off.

Though battered, the Russian managed to come back north, pointing his nose in the direction of the pipeline. But there was no escape now — both Romanians were on his tail. The Russian fired his air-to-ground missiles — much too far from the pipeline to strike it — then turned hard to the right, trying to pull one of the Romanians by him so he could open fire. The maneuver worked, to an extent—§oim Unu started to turn, then realized the trap and broke contact. Before the Russian could take advantage, however, §oim Doi closed in for the kill. The canopy exploded and the Russian shot upward; by the time his parachute blossomed, his aircraft had crashed to the ground.

General Locusta folded the map over the hood of the car. He was losing time; he wanted to be in Bucharest by first light. This needed to be wrapped up. Now.

"What's this building?" he asked, pointing to a small square on the map.

Major Ozera shook his head. "Abandoned. It's small. One of our teams is near there now. The president is not there."

"He has to be on the mountain somewhere."

Locusta looked back at the map. He could send swarms of men onto the hill to find Voda, but he doubted they would kill the president.

He would have Voda brought to him, take him into the ruins, then have him killed.

Along with his family, who must be with him.

And the soldiers who found them? He'd have to kill them too.

Was it worth risking complications? Not yet.

Ozera and his men would have to do a better job.

The general's attention was distracted by the sound of a helicopter flying nearby.

"I told you I didn't want the helicopters involved," Locusta told the major. "Their pilots can't be trusted."

"It's not ours. The sound is different. Louder. Listen."

Locusta listened more carefully, then pulled out his satellite phone.

"Get me the Dreamland people. General Samson. Immediately."

"We're about five minutes away from the top of the hill," the Osprey pilot told Danny Freah. "Where's your man?"

Danny shook his head. He'd checked with Dreamland Command, but Voda had not called the number the ambassador had given him. And the ambassador said that Voda was worried that if they called him, the phone would be heard.

"We can search with the infrared cameras," the pilot told Danny. "We should be able to find them. The night's pretty cold."

"You sure, with all those trees?" asked Danny.

"There's no guarantee. But if they move around — if they want us to see them, we should be able to. I'd say the odds are probably sixty-forty we find them, maybe even higher."

Danny had been on search teams in the Sierra Nevadas at the very start of his Air Force career and he wasn't quite as optimistic. Besides, if Voda was hiding, the people they saw might actually be his pursuers.

"We'll give him another five minutes," he told the pilot. "Let's see what happens."

To Voda, it sounded as if the dogs and troops were less than ten feet away.

A wind had whipped up, and it blew through the trees like a torrent of water streaking over a high falls. The cold had turned his wife's nose beet red; Julian's hands felt like stones in his. Their fear had stopped providing them with energy. They were at the edge of despair, ready to give up.

Mircea started to rise. Voda practically leaped over Julian to grab her. She opened her mouth; Voda clamped his hand over it.

"Sssshhhh," he whispered in her ear.

She gave him a look that he had never seen directed at him before, a stare that in his experience she'd used only twice during their relationship. Both times, it was directed toward members of the old regime, men who were her sworn enemy.

"We'll get through it," whispered Voda. She didn't answer.

The men were louder, closer. Or maybe just the wind was stronger, pushing their voices toward them.

The dogs began to bark wildly. Voda reached for Julian with his other hand, pulling him close. He thought of the pistol — should he take their lives to spare them whatever torture Locusta had in mind?

Killing himself would mean dying a coward's death. But it would be an act of mercy to spare his son and wife humiliation and suffering.

Julian shivered against his side.

There was no way he could kill his son; simply no way. Not even for the best reasons.

The barking intensified. The dogs were getting closer.

But they were going in the wrong direction! Confused by the shifting wind, they were doubling back over the trail.

Voda barely trusted the senses that told him this. He waited, holding his breath. Finally, his wife shook her head free of his hand.

"You have to call the Americans," she said. "You have to, so they can find us."

"Yes," said Voda. "Come on, we'll cross over to the other side of the hill while they're going in the other direction. We have to be quiet."

He picked up Julian. The boy seemed even heavier than he had earlier.

"Are you going to call?" Mircea asked.

"I will."

"I hear a helicopter."

Voda froze. "Hide!" he said. "Get as low to the ground as you can."

General Samson hit his Talk button. "Samson."

"This is General Locusta. You have helicopters in my area." "I don't have helicopters." "Don't lie. I can hear them."

"We have an Osprey standing by in the area where we are operating," said Samson, hedging, of course. "It is a search and rescue craft, ready in case one of our planes — or yours— is shot down by the Russians."

"We believe the criminals have taken prisoners, perhaps the president's son and wife," said Locusta. "They may kill them if they get desperate. Tell your helicopter to back off."

"I can release my aircraft to assist you," said Samson.

"We do not require your assistance."

"In that case, I want it on station for an emergency."

"If your aircraft persists, I'll shoot it down myself," said Locusta.

The clouds had cleared, allowing the moon to shine brightly. Voda saw more of the woods around them, but this wasn't a good thing — it meant the men searching for them would have an easier time as well.

He and his wife and son cleared the crest of the hill and started down. There was a bald spot a few yards from the top. As Voda reached it, his footing slipped. Julian fell from his grasp and both father and son tumbled down against the rocks, rolling about five yards before coming to a stop.

Voda's knee felt as if it had been broken. The pain seized his entire leg, constricted his throat. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, as if his head had been buried in the dirt.

Julian began to whimper. Voda forced himself over to the boy, pulled his arms around him.

"Alin?" hissed his wife.

"Sssssh. We're here. I'll call now."

Voda pulled out the phone. His hands were trembling. What if it had broken in the fall? He should have called earlier, no matter the risk.

He pressed the Power button, waiting for it come to life.

If it didn't work, they'd go down the hill, they'd find a way past the soldiers, they'd walk, they'd crawl all the way back to Bucharest if they had to. They would do whatever they had to do, just to survive.

The phone lit.

Voda tapped the number the ambassador had given him. It was an international number — but it didn't seem to work.

Voda realized he had not remembered it correctly.

"We can't stay here. It's too easy to see us," said Mircea, reaching them.

"We're not going to stay," he told her. "Come on."

He grabbed her side and pulled himself up, thumbing for the number of the ambassador while they started down the hill.

"Romanian aircraft are returning south,Colonel," said Spiff. "No more Russians. I think we've seen the last of them."

"Don't place any bets," said Dog.

The Dreamland channel buzzed. Samson was on the line.

"Bastian."

"Locusta claims he'll the shoot the Osprey down if it flies over the hill," said Samson. "He implied that the guerrillas have the president's son and wife as hostages, and that they'll kill them if we get too close. I think it's a bunch of bull."

"All right."

"What the hell do we do now, Bastian?" Samson asked. "If we can't use the Osprey, how do we get him out? How do we get our people in there?"

"Let's ask them," said Dog.

"What do you mean?"

"Conference everyone in and see what they think." Samson didn't say anything. He was used to working from the top down — he came up with ideas, and people genuflected. Dreamland had never worked that way. Neither had Dog. "All right," said Samson finally. "How the hell do we do that?"

The problem wasn't just getting the president out— they had to find him first. The Bennett's radar couldn't spot him because of the trees, which would also block the infrared sensors aboard the Flighthawks unless the aircraft descended low enough to be heard.

Zen took Starship onto another channel to give him some pointers for tweaking the filters the computer used to interpret the infrared, even though he knew it was a long shot. The sensors' long-range capabilities were designed primarily to find objects in the sky; they simply couldn't do what they wanted.

By the time they went back on the conference line, Danny was suggesting that he and his men parachute into the hill.

"Even with the moon out, it's still dark enough to jump without being seen," he said. "If we take the Osprey to 25,000 feet, it won't be heard."

"How do you get out of there?" Dog asked.

"There's a spot at the base of the back hill that's not covered by the patrols the troops have set up," said Danny. "We can come down the hill, work our way across and then out. We get across the road, then we have the Osprey pick us up on the other side of this second hill here."

"That'll take hours," said Dog.

"I don't think he's getting out on his own," said Danny.

"General Samson, incoming message from the ambassador," said Breanna.

"Good. Stockard, can you plug me into him?"

It took Zen a moment to realize Samson was talking to his wife. No one spoke, waiting for the general.

"I want this on line. Can you get it on line?"

Zen could hear Breanna explaining in the background that they could conference it, though the quality would be poor.

"Well, do it," said Samson gruffly. "Is everyone listening?" "We're here," said Dog.

"Stockard, can you get us on line?" Samson asked again. "It's on."

Zen heard someone breathing in the background.

"President Voda, are you there?" said Samson.

"Yes. The men with the dogs are on the other side of the hill," answered a soft, distant foreign voice. "But there are many soldiers around."

"Where exactly are you?" asked Danny.

"We're on the other side of the hill from my house."

"Below the bald rocks?"

"The rocks? Yes, yes. About twenty feet below them, in the center."

"Good."

"They're coming!" Voda shouted, his hushed voice rising. There were muffled sounds.

Oh God, thought Zen, we're going to hear him get killed. But they didn't.

"I have to leave," whispered Voda a few seconds later. "We have to move."

The phone dropped off the circuit.

"Stockard, get Dreamland Command to call him back," said Samson. "Osprey — get moving. We'll have him vector you in."

"If we call him and they're nearby, they'll hear and kill him," said Dog.

"Holding made sense earlier," said Samson. "Now we're ready to grab him."

"General, there are Zsu-zsu's lined up all along the roads around the property," warned Spiff, the ground radar operator aboard the Bennett, referring to the antiaircraft guns the Romanians had moved into the area. "They'll shoot the Osprey to pieces on the way in, or the way out."

"We're just going to have to risk it," said Samson. "Osprey— we'll help you plot a path."

"I have a better idea," said Zen. "I'll get them."