Air Battle Force

Two

Well, here they were again, just like two days ago: almost out of food, water, fuel — and getting pretty desperate.

A few things had changed. Wakil Mohammad Zarazi now called himself “General,” and Jalaluddin Turabi now called himself “Colonel.” They had a much larger force traveling with them, well over a full company and a half, and perhaps close to a full battalion. The T-72 tank was still going strong, and they still had plenty of ammunition for its machine gun, although they still hadn’t procured any rounds for the main gun — not that it mattered, since no one in the company knew exactly how to aim and fire the thing anyway. But it looked like a real fighting force now.

His force was battle-tested now as well. Zarazi’s little band had been attacked yesterday morning by a Turkmen patrol about thirty-two kilometers south of Kerki. It was an ill-conceived raid — obviously the young Turkmen lieutenant in charge thought the mere sight of a few tanks and a few platoons of regular-army soldiers would be enough to frighten him off. In less than an hour, Zarazi had procured three T-55 tanks, a number of armored personnel carriers, upgraded and far more reliable infantry weapons, thousands of rounds of ammo, a few more loyal fighters, and, best of all, a victory.

But now the real challenge was about to begin. Zarazi and his regiment were on the Qarshi-Andkhvoy highway that connected Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, a few kilometers outside the city of Kizyl-arvat and sixteen kilometers from their objective, the Turkmen army air base at Kerki. Scouts had reported a buildup of regular Turkmen army forces at the bridge across the Amu Darya River and at the port facility there. It looked as if the Turkmen army was going to make a stand at Kizyl-arvat.

Military helicopters had been flying nearby all day, probing Zarazi’s forces. Zarazi had ordered his men to attack one helicopter that strayed too close, and his troops shot an SA-7 shoulder-fired missile at it but missed. Since then the Turkmen helicopters stayed just outside range. They weren’t attacking, probably only taking pictures, gathering intelligence, but it was making everyone nervous. He had to do something, or else his fragile military unit might start disintegrating.

Zarazi and Turabi formulated a plan. They loaded two ZSU-23/2 [twenty-three millimeter] antiaircraft guns onto the backs of flatbed trucks, covered them with tarps braced with lumber, then covered the tarps with sand and dirt. From the air they looked — the two men hoped — like big piles of dirt or garbage. They drove them along with a couple of pickup trucks full of soldiers westbound down the Kizyl-arvat — Kerki highway on the south side of the Amu Darya River.

It wasn’t long before a lone Mi-8 helicopter of the Turkmenistan army intercepted them, about seven kilometers east of Kerki. At first the helicopter stayed two kilometers away, scanning the convoy visually; Zarazi could see a door gunner with a 12.3-millimeter machine gun, but no rockets or other heavy attack weapons. Zarazi’s men carried rifles, but no other weapons were visible. Still cautious, the Mi-8 touched down a bit less than four kilometers away and dropped off about a dozen infantrymen up ahead, apparently to set up a roadblock. After a few more passes, the helicopter started to move in for a closer look, the port-side-door gunner at the ready.

Zarazi could tell when they were in range, because the Turkmen door gunner cocked his own weapon and steadied up on the lead truck. “Now!” Zarazi shouted. “Attack!”

A rope connected to a pickup truck trailing behind each flatbed truck pulled the tarps off, immediately revealing the antiaircraft guns. Before the helicopter pilot could react, they opened fire. Both ZSUs jammed after just a few seconds, but firing at a rate of one hundred rounds a second per barrel, it was enough. The helicopter’s engine section exploded, and it nosed over and dove straight into the desert. The crew and ten infantrymen died in the explosion and fire that followed seconds later.

Half the Turkmen soldiers on the roadblock up ahead, mostly the conscripts and officers, ran when they saw the smoke and fire rising from the desert at the crash site; the rest, mostly the young professional soldiers, stayed to fight. Zarazi parked his armored personnel carrier about a kilometer down the highway from the roadblock, stood on top of the vehicle so they could see him and also see that he wasn’t afraid of snipers, and spoke into the APC’s loudspeaker: “This is General Wakil Mohammad Zarazi, servant of God and commander of the eastern division of the soldiers of Hezbollah. I am addressing the brave soldiers of the Islamic Republic of Turkmenistan who did as you were ordered to do — stay at your posts and defend your homeland like soldiers and like men. The others of you who turned and ran away are cowardly dogs, and you deserve to die like dogs.

“To those of you who stayed, I tell you this: If you are true believers, if you want to serve God and protect your homes and your families above all else, I will not harm you. You have proven your valor and courage today. I give you a choice: You may withdraw now and return to your unit, and you can suffer whatever fate your cowardly superiors offer you. You may stay and fight and be destroyed. Or you may stay, swear allegiance to me and to Hezbollah, and join my army. You will be made welcome and allowed to fight the oppressors and cowards who dared to call you subordinates.

“My mission is simple: to serve God by carving a home for his dedicated soldiers out of the desert where we may train and prepare for jihad. The Crusaders, the unbelievers, the infidels, and the traitors destroyed our previous camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But God has ordered me to take my army and build for him a new mosque and a new training center, and this is what I will do.

“Many of you are worried about your families. I say this unto you: If you join me, I will protect your families from retribution. And if I cannot save them, I will avenge them. If the cowards touch the families of a true servant of God, the families of the righteous shall be taken into heaven, and the cowards shall be cast into the fire. I promise this will be so, as God is my witness. So choose. I will give you five minutes, and then I will remove your roadblock. May Allah protect you.”

Turabi smiled at him when he sat back down in the cockpit. “You’re getting good at that praise-God stuff, Wakil—”

“Shut up, Colonel,” Zarazi snapped. “Do not disgrace yourself by mocking God.”

Turabi wiped the smile off his face fast. He had noticed the change in his friend over the past several days. Zarazi truly believed that God had saved him from death, and he believed he’d been called upon to build this army and fight this war. He was turning into a zealot — and zealots, Turabi knew well, made fearsome leaders and sometimes powerful fighters, but rarely did they make good soldiers.

Whatever Zarazi really believed, his speech had worked. All but two men who stayed behind at the roadblock surrendered and swore loyalty to Hezbollah. The last two refused to join Zarazi and were shot on the spot. “Damn it, Wakil,” Turabi said after Zarazi had executed both men. “You said you would let them go if they surrendered. Those new recruits just saw you break your word.”

“I said if they withdrew, they could live,” Zarazi said. “Those two were not true believers.”

“They surrendered. You took their weapons. They were kneeling in front of you. They didn’t want to join you, and they didn’t want to fight. All they wanted was to live.”

“Colonel, what they wanted was to prove to their superiors that they weren’t cowards by not running, but they didn’t fight because they were afraid to die,” Zarazi said angrily. “What do such men believe in? Are they soldiers or are they mice?”

“Wakil—” But Turabi stopped short when he saw that warning glare. “I mean, General… all I’m asking is this: Do you want to lead these men by fear or by the goals of your mission and your leadership skills?”

“I don’t care if they love me or hate me, Colonel,” Zarazi responded. “If they follow me, I will lead them into battle. If they oppose me, they will die. It’s as simple as that.”

“That’s fine for those of us who are members of your tribe, General,” Turabi said. “You are our leader by birth and by proclamation of the elders, and that has been good enough for our people for a thousand years. But now you have recruits to your cause, men who are professional soldiers, many now from other countries. They expect certain things from their leaders, things like trust, strength, courage—”

“I have all those things.”

“You don’t show trust or leadership when you execute someone who surrenders to you, no matter what the reason,” Turabi said. “Hold them as prisoners, release them, ransom them, try to convert them — but don’t kill an unarmed man.”

“Colonel, that’s enough,” Zarazi said. “I am leader because God wills it. There is nothing more to be said. We will return to the regiment and plan our attack against Kerki. We strike tonight.”

Turabi could do nothing else but comply. Arguing wasn’t doing any good.

Whatever Zarazi’s style, Jalaluddin Turabi couldn’t argue with his effectiveness. It was easy to blame the lax border security on Turkmenistan’s eastern frontier, or the element of surprise, or Zarazi’s sheer audacity, for his initial successes, but the siege of Kerki was different. The base there had plenty of time to prepare; they had already lost a helicopter and its crew to enemy action. They must have believed that the loss of the helicopter was either an accident or a fluke, because the base at Kerki was completely unprepared for an attack.

Zarazi sent out probes to the air base as soon as it was dark; they returned three hours later. “The Turkmen are obviously preparing for an offensive,” the squad leader reported. “There are at least eight Mi-8 troop transport helicopters on the aircraft parking ramp, clearly being prepared for a mission. They have extra fuel tanks and target-marking rocket pods loaded.”

“That’s at least one hundred and ninety-two infantrymen, General,” Turabi said. He cautiously chose to address Zarazi by his purloined rank whenever anyone else was around — and most times when they were alone, too. “About half the size of our own force.”

“And these are not border guards or light infantry scouts — they are regular infantry, sir,” the squad leader went on. “We saw heliborne fast-patrol vehicles, heavy machine guns, mortars — they are coming in force and getting ready for a major engagement.”

“When do you think they’ll launch?”

“Possibly dawn or shortly thereafter,” the squad leader said. “Weather report talks of a small storm, possibly a sandstorm, tomorrow morning.”

“What about other aircraft?”

“We could not get near the other helicopters,” the squad leader went on. “But they are there, inside hangars and well guarded: four Mi-24 attack helicopters. We saw antitank missiles, bombs, machine guns — they are being very heavily armed.”

The Mi-24 was the old Soviet Union’s deadliest attack helicopter: fast, heavily armored, and extremely accurate. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Mi-24s were called krazhas—“undertakers”—by the Pashtuns, because they could both kill you and then create a hole big enough to bury you in. “If they launch those choppers, General,” Turabi said seriously, “we’re dead. It’s simple as that.”

The men looked at Zarazi with genuine fear in their eyes. Eastern Turkmenistan was flat and wide open — they had no chance against an Mi-24 attack helicopter out in the open. They had survived attacks in the past because, if they could escape into mountainous terrain where the chopper couldn’t chase them, the Mi-24 had to either land and dismount its infantry or go home. Out here, marching on Kerki, it would be suicide. Their twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft weapons were no match for the Mi-24’s longer-range missiles, rockets, and equally powerful machine guns.

“It appears we have only one option left to us — surrender,” Zarazi said. Turabi looked at him in horror, but then he could see that his old friend’s mind was racing ahead with a plan. “Colonel, disperse your men and unload the trucks. We have business to attend to in Kerki. But first there is something you need to do for me….”

Daren Mace was up at dawn and on his way back to the base from the little motel room he’d found near the truck stop. It was still early, but Daren decided to find the squadron building. He opened the little plastic case and found a device that rested behind an ear — a tiny wireless, hands-free earpiece. There were no instructions on how to use it. He wasn’t sure if it was working, so he said experimentally, “Duty Officer?”

“This is the duty officer, Colonel Mace,” a woman’s voice responded immediately. “Welcome to Battle Mountain Air Force Base.”

“Thank you,” he said. This entire reservation, Mace decided, must be buzzing with data flowing wirelessly in all directions — he’d never heard of a base so connected before. “How do I get to the Fifty-first Squadron building?”

“Proceed straight ahead, turn right at Powell Street, left on Ormack Street, and right again on Seaver Circle,” the voice, pleasant if somewhat toneless, responded. “You will find your designated parking spot.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”

Seaver Circle was the main road that paralleled the aircraft-parking ramp. What he’d thought from a distance along the road were aircraft hangars were actually aircraft alert shelters — huge structures big enough for a large aircraft to taxi through, open at both ends. There were eight KC-135R Stratotanker aerial-refueling tankers lined up inside their shelters. He was a little disappointed — the Fifty-first was apparently an air-refueling squadron. Although Daren had worked on several aircraft in his career, he mostly loved the strike aircraft, especially the fast-movers. Tankers were great and a vital part of the Air Force, but it would definitely be a change of pace for him. So where were the B-1 bombers McLanahan was working on?

The only sign of life he saw was a sweeping crew, using a large truck-mounted vacuum to suck up debris — called FOD, or foreign object damage, in the military — from the taxiways and runways. FOD caused more damage to military aircraft than enemy action did, he knew, so it was important they keep up with the FOD patrols, but that was the only activity he could see anywhere. Where in hell were the maintenance crews?

Outside the tall fence surrounding the flight line was a small building, and it was there that he found his parking spot. The door to the squat brick and concrete-block building was unguarded, but the door was securely locked. Mace found a metal box and opened it, expecting a telephone, but instead he found only what appeared to be a camera lens and a small glass panel roughly two inches square. He was about to close the door to the box and try another door — or call for the duty officer again — but then he remembered the device the Security Forces sergeant used and decided to touch the glass square with his thumb. Sure enough, as soon as he touched it, he heard the lock release, and he pulled the door open. He was inside a small room, an entrapment area, big enough for only one person and some gear. As soon as the outer door closed and locked behind him, he heard a faint humming sound that reminded him of an X-ray machine, which it probably was. When the humming stopped, the inner door opened.

The place looked like any other welcome area of a squadron headquarters building, neat and orderly, except this was even more so. In fact, it looked as if it had hardly been used. There were two trophy cases on either side of the welcome area, both empty. It had the new-paint and new-carpet smell of an office freshly finished or remodeled.

As he stepped inside, the same woman’s voice said in his earpiece, “Welcome, Colonel Mace. Please meet your party in your office. I will notify them that you have arrived.”

Mace looked around. There was no one but himself in the lobby. “Where are you?” Mace asked aloud. “Duty Officer, what’s your name? Why aren’t you out here?”

“I am an electronic duty officer, sir,” the voice replied. “If you need assistance at any time, please just make your request on your commlink prefaced with my name: Duty Officer.”

It was a damned machine? he asked himself incredulously. He was being polite to a machine? “There’s no one on duty here?” There was no response, so he rephrased his question: “Duty Officer, there’s no one on duty here?”

“I am on duty at all times, Colonel Mace. You may reach me anytime, anywhere, by commlink, by using the base tactical VHF or UHF frequencies or by telephoning the squadron number.”

He cruised the hallways of the squadron building, finding little. There were a few administrative offices, all locked; a briefing room that also looked unused; a TV lounge — the first room in this place, he observed, that had windows. The large plasma HDTV was tuned to an all-news channel. There were cafeteria-style tables and chairs, some sofas along the wall.

Mace felt ridiculous talking to no one but addressing it as “Duty Officer.” “Where’s my office?” he asked impatiently. When the system didn’t respond, he shouted, “Duty Officer, where’s my fucking office?”

“To the right, down the hallway, fourth door on the right, Colonel Mace,” the voice replied.

“Bite me,” he said. As he approached the door, he heard it unlock. There was an outer office, which had a desk, a computer, and shelves but appeared unoccupied, and then the door to his office; it, too, unlocked as he approached it. Pretty amazing, he thought. It appeared as if he was being continuously tracked and monitored. The computerized duty officer knew where he was, anticipated his needs, like unlocking his doors, and did it for him. He couldn’t wait to try it elsewhere and see.

And then he saw that his office was not empty. Inside, sitting at his desk, was Rebecca Furness.

He watched her rise to her feet, her lips parting as if she were going to say something, but then she decided against it, so he took that moment to let his eyes roam.

She was older, of course — so was he. She was tall and still athletic-looking, with plenty of curves that no baggy flight suit — rumpled and well worn, like McLanahan’s — could hide. She was cutting her brown hair shorter now — she’d always kept it long, below-shoulder length, when he knew her before — and it was darker than he remembered, with wisps of gray visible, but her almond-shaped eyes still had that sparkle, that energy.

“Hello, Colonel,” she said simply. Even with such a brief sentence, her voice was still clipped, impersonal. Rebecca Furness had always been, and probably would always be, all business. “I hope you don’t mind my using your office. We’re not exactly set up around here.”

“Hello, Rebecca. What a surprise.” He held out his hand to greet her. She took his hand and shook it firmly. Yep, all business, as usual. She’d once been nicknamed “the Iron Maiden”—maybe she still was; he didn’t know — because of her no-nonsense, businesslike attitude toward most everybody and everything. Still, they did know each other, and, yes, they had a history. But he remembered only one or two tender moments in the short time they’d had together.

He surprised himself by pulling her carefully toward him and turning the handshake into a friendly hug. There was a helmet bag or something on the floor between them — he had to reach out awkwardly to her. He thought it was only going to be a casual hug, one that old buddies might give to one another, so it didn’t matter that they couldn’t get close…

… but that thought faded fast when, before he knew it, the hug turned into an embrace, and the embrace morphed into a full-scale liplock of the kind that Daren hadn’t had much of an opportunity to do in a long time.

But just as quickly as it began, it ended. Daren felt her body and her lips tense, and he knew their personal little reunion was over. He backed away and searched her face. It was back to her businesslike facade, but he looked carefully and didn’t see any hint of anger — there was a little confusion, certainly no joy, but no rejection either. She seemed to accept the pure spontaneity of the act, allowed herself to enjoy it just for a moment, then pushed it out of her consciousness.

“Welcome to Battle Mountain, Daren,” she said, as if she couldn’t think of anything else to say — awkward silence number one. She motioned to a sofa set up against the wall in the office; he sat down and took a bottle of water from her that she retrieved from a small cooler as she took a seat in a chair across the coffee table from him. “Making yourself at home?”

“Rebecca, about Donatella’s…”

“It’s okay. You’re an adult — chronologically, at least — and that place isn’t off-limits.”

“I’ve never been in a brothel before.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“It’s okay, Daren.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Okay, okay,” Rebecca said. She couldn’t help smiling at his embarrassment, and they both felt the tension slowly dissolve. “You look great, Daren. Really great. Buff, I’d say.”

“Thank you.”

“Stopped hanging out in biker bars, I assume?”

“I ride into one every now and then,” Daren said. “You know, midlife crisis — a guy’s gotta have a Harley. But I cut out the beer and the pizzas. My cholesterol count and blood pressure were racing each other to see which could kill me first.” She smiled and nodded. “You look terrific, as always. I like the short hair, too.” There was the second of what it seemed would be many awkward silences. “Congratulations on getting your star,” he added quickly. “You deserve it. You always did.”

“Thank you.”

Awkward silence number three. Thank God, he thought, for the water bottles. “And now you’re the wing commander here. Congratulations again.” He looked at her seriously. “I must have you to thank for getting me this assignment.”

“Your record spoke for itself.”

“My record is crap and we both know it, Rebecca,” Mace interjected. “My last assignment as a brand-new full bird colonel was running an office that prepared audiovisual presentations at the Pentagon. I had more responsibility when I was a swing-shift manager at McDonald’s in high school.”

“We all have to pull our share of desk jobs.”

“Which one was yours — the bomb squadron in Reno or senior combat air-strike adviser to CINCPAC?”

“What is this — bitterness? Toward the Air Force? You’re not the type.”

“At least you still thought of your friends on your way up the ladder — nine years later.”

“Now we’re sinking into sarcasm and resentment against me, is that it? I advise you to drop that attitude right now, Colonel.” Daren fell silent and briefly lowered his eyes, his only concession to her rank and authority. “If you need a shrink to help you examine these feelings of resentment and rejection, Daren, we’ll find you one. But we’ve got a wing to run. Do you want some time to contemplate your navel and examine your feelings about your father, or do you want to come look around?”

He stood but did not move toward the door. She stood and watched him for a few moments. “Rebecca, you know that I’m grateful for whatever you did….”

“All I did was give them a name — the Air Force and General McLanahan did the rest,” Rebecca said. “You may have been stuck in some less-than-thrilling jobs, but you must’ve done something right, because you were picked to come here anyway. General McLanahan handpicks everyone who sets foot on this base. And all I know about you is what you say and what you do, Daren. Sometimes I wonder if I ever knew you at all.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mace said. He gave her a sly grin. “But as I remember it, neither one of us was intent on exploring the other’s feelings. I think we both had only one thing on our minds then.”

Rebecca smiled, despite all her efforts not to let him take her back to that point in time. She never liked to think that she needed a man — men were responsible for so many of the headaches, heartaches, roadblocks, and defeats in her career. But back when her career, her sense of self-worth, and the world seemed to be flying apart all at once, she needed a man to want her without demanding anything of her. Daren was there for her, and, as he demonstrated through most of the things he did, he didn’t disappoint. He was caring without being clingy and needy, strong without being macho, and sensitive without being stifling.

He also never asked for anything. Consequently, he never got anything. What would he be like, she wondered, if he started demanding respect instead of earning it — like Rinc Seaver?

Rinc was her ill-advised romantic relationship that had filled the void left in her life when she was promoted up and away beyond Daren Mace. Both men were strong, handsome, and intelligent. Unfortunately, Rinc Seaver knew it, and he never let anyone forget it. He had a chip on his shoulder the size of the Golden Gate Bridge, and it would take a nuclear bomb to knock it off.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what did him in.

“Daren, it’s good to have you here,” Rebecca said seriously. “And it’s good to see you again. But I don’t have the time to worry about your feelings toward the Air Force or me. I’m here to stand up a flying wing, and I picked you to help me. I recommended you because I know you can do the job. You were the de facto wing commander at Plattsburgh when no one else on the entire base knew a thing about generating combat aircraft for nuclear war. You pulled us through that. You did some amazing things at Beale with the Global Hawk wing. Now I need you to pull the Fifty-first through this ramp-up and initial cadre-training phase. I’m counting on you.”

“Rebecca, you know I’ll do it,” Daren said. Again, that was a weird comment. What’s so hard about ramping up a KC-135 unit? The Stratotanker had been around for almost forty years, and it would probably be around another ten or twenty at least. What’s going on here? he wondered. What he said was “Seeing you… well, it just reopened a few old wounds, that’s all. I’m over it.” He nodded, smiled, and added, “The kiss didn’t help — but it didn’t hurt either.”

“Glad to hear both of those things.” She headed for the door. “I’ll show you around. You’re not going to believe this place.”

“The objective of this place,” Rebecca said, after Daren had met up with her in the TV lounge, “was to build the most modern military facility in the world: highly secure, as secret as you can make an airfield, and efficient in any kind of weather and tactical situation. Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base is the first military base with a flying mission to be built from the ground up in over fifty years.”

“From what I’ve seen so far, it’s pretty high-tech,” Daren commented. Why in hell was Rebecca blathering on about this place? There were no more than a dozen buildings on the whole base, and, except for the sensors and information datalinks they obviously had set up here, there was no security that he could see. Most of the base looked like open rangeland. The aircraft hangars didn’t even have doors — and Daren knew how cold and snowy it got here in the winter.

Rebecca slid Daren a sly glance, which he noticed. Why was she giving him a look like the joke was on him? “We are still technically a Nevada Air National Guard base,” she went on, “so we don’t have much in the way of facilities like base housing or recreation — we have to rely on the local economy for that. But we do get a lot of assistance from the active-duty force, so we expect to build more and more facilities as time goes by.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve got a launch in a few minutes, and since we’re the only ones around, we get to do the last-chance inspection. Let’s go.”

“Okay,” he said. A last-chance inspection on a KC-135 tanker? Last-chance inspections were usually reserved for aircraft that might have things falling or shooting off them, like bombs or missiles. But it was something to do. They climbed into a Suburban that was laden with radios and had a runway braking-action accelerometer unit installed, and headed off down the taxiway. They reached the departure end of the runway and stopped at the hold line, their flashing lights on.

“When do you expect them to finish your control tower?” Daren asked.

“We don’t get a control tower,” Rebecca replied. “We control the airfield by using sensors in the ground and cameras and radar for the surface and sky.”

“Aren’t you worried that you’re depending an awful lot on all these sensors and datalinks?” Daren asked. “Wouldn’t you feel more secure if you had more sets of eyes out here?”

“I’ll show you the security and monitoring section next — you won’t believe what we can see,” Rebecca said. She received a green light at the hold line, looked up and down the runway for incoming traffic, then pulled out onto the runway and headed back toward the other end. “But we still use humans for a lot of chores, such as runway inspections. We have sensors that can detect a piece of metal on the runway as small as a pea, but we still do visual inspections. Some habits die hard, I guess.”

“Tell me, Rebecca, where’s General McLanahan’s office?” Daren asked.

“You’ve met the general?”

“Last night, working in a virtual-cockpit trailer out on the other side of the runway.”

“Hmm. He doesn’t really have offices here. He travels a lot, usually to TTR or Dreamland.” TTR, or Tonopah Test Range, was the classified flight and weapon test facility administered by the ninety-ninth wing at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. High-value weapon systems underwent detailed secret test and evaluation programs at TTR before being deployed.

“Is he current and qualified in the planes assigned here?”

“He’s fully qualified to fly all the planes here. In fact, he’s one of the few who are qualified here, including me,” Rebecca replied. “You know, Daren, I don’t really know what the general’s mission here is. I know he’s trying to start up some sort of a high-tech joint-forces command center based here at Battle Mountain—”

“Based here? Where? You don’t even have room for the tanker squadron, let alone a joint-forces command. And what ‘joint forces’ are you talking about? All I see are some tankers. Or is this something we’re going to be standing up in the next few years?”

“You’ll see.”

A few minutes later one of the KC-135R Stratotankers taxied over to the end of the runway but stopped well short of the hammerhead inspection area. “C’mon, boys, taxi up here, we won’t bite,” Mace murmured. He noticed Rebecca stifling another smile. “Why doesn’t he taxi up to the hammerhead?”

“He’s okay for now,” Rebecca said. Into her commlink, she spoke, “Bobcat Four-one, Alpha, clear me in for last chance.”

“Roger, Alpha, radars down, brakes set, cleared in.”

“Alpha’s coming in.” They started their slow drive around the Stratotanker, looking for open access panel, preflight streamers pulled, landing-gear downlock keys removed, serviceable tires, and to be sure the flaps were down, takeoff trim set, the refueling boom stowed, and the tail-support bar removed. The KC-135R was the reengined version of the venerable KC-135, a Boeing 707 airliner fitted with a boom operator’s pod, rear observation window, director lights, and a refueling probe and pumps; it also did double duty as a medium-capacity, medium-range freight hauler. These KC-135s, Daren noticed, also had wingtip-mounted hose-and-drogue refueling pods, so they could refuel U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, NATO, and other nations’ aircraft that used the same system. The fin flash letters were “BA,” for Battle Mountain.

“Everything looks good to me,” Daren said.

“Me, too,” Rebecca acknowledged. On her commlink she said, “Bobcat Four-one, this is Alpha, safety check complete, you appear to be in takeoff configuration. Have a good one.” To Daren she added, “ ‘Bobcat’ is our unit call sign; the tankers start with ‘four.’ “

“Four-one copies, thanks,” the pilot replied.

“You always use the commlink, even talking to aircraft?” Daren asked.

“The commlink is not just a cell phone — it can tie in to many different radio frequencies, satellite communications, computer networks, about a dozen different systems,” Rebecca said. “It’s secure and pretty good quality, so we use it all the time. They’re working on an even smaller version.”

Rebecca started to drive around the KC-135, turning to the left side so they’d be in full view of the pilot. “So do the tankers here get the usual taskings from all the services,” Daren asked, “or do we just get taskings from—?” He stopped short, his mouth gaping open in utter surprise.

Because directly in front of the KC-135R, in the hammerhead aircraft-inspection ramp, were two B-1B Lancer supersonic bombers. They had appeared completely out of nowhere! “What… in… hell…?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’? Where did those bombers come from?”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t notice them when we drove up here?” Rebecca asked, totally serious.

“Don’t bullshit me, Rebecca!”

“All right, all right,” Rebecca relented. “Let’s do this last-chance, and then I’ll explain everything.”

Daren was absolutely speechless — but his astonishment was nowhere near complete. The first thing he noticed was that the swing-wings of the B-1s were not fully extended. “They don’t look like they’re in takeoff configuration,” he said.

“With these planes they are,” Rebecca said. “Our bombers usually keep the wings back for all phases of flight.”

“But how can they do that?”

“Mission-adaptive technology,” she replied. “The whole fuselage is a lift-producing surface and flight control. C’mon, let’s finish this, and I’ll fill you in.” They did a last-chance inspection of both bombers. As soon as they were done, the bombers were airborne, followed by the tanker. In less than five minutes, the airfield was completely quiet again. Rebecca drove around to the hammerhead parking area. “Let’s step outside.”

“Rebecca, how did those bombers get there?” Daren asked excitedly as he followed her out of the Suburban. “And how… when… shit, Rebecca, what’s going on here?”

“You’re about to find out.” At that moment Daren felt a slight rumble under his feet.

And the entire section of aircraft-parking ramp under their feet started to descend!

“You actually built an underground air base?” Mace asked incredulously. Two huge sections of the hammerhead parking area were actually aircraft elevators, like the ones on an aircraft carrier but a few times larger. He stared wide-eyed as several feet of concrete, rock, armor, dirt, and steel passed overhead, followed by banks of overhead lights. Six stories below they could see men and equipment scurrying around. “This is amazing!”

“It’s an amazing engineering project,” Rebecca said. “There are eight of these elevators — two on each end of the runway and four in the mass parking area. We have a solar-charged backup system that can operate the elevators and air-circulation system in case the commercial power goes out. We can seal the interior against chemical or biological attack, and it can withstand anything but a direct hit with a nuclear weapon. We have accommodations for over a thousand men and women down here, plus twenty aircraft. We have twelve assigned here now.”

Once the large elevator — which Daren thought looked like a moving city block — reached the bottom, they drove off into a parking area and stepped out so he could see the complex on foot. It was truly impressive. Except for the echo, it looked and felt like any military flight line at night, illuminated only by artificial light. The complex was enormous, stretching out seemingly to infinity. “I… I can’t believe this,” Daren gasped. “It doesn’t feel like we’re underground at all, but when I remind myself that we are, it doesn’t seem real. How in the world can the air stay fresh enough to breathe?”

“It’s a completely passive air-circulation system,” Rebecca said. “Air from the surface vents up from the surrounding mountains through natural crevices and tunnels in the rock. We didn’t have to drill one hole to get the ventilation system running. The hot air from here is cooled and dispersed enough through the mountains that the exhaust can’t be detected from a satellite, so the bad guys can’t guess how many planes we’re launching. The complex is naturally conditioned to a temperature of fifty-five degrees and fifty percent humidity, which is almost ideal for living and working and uses about as much power as a standard four-story office building.”

“Nice — if you enjoy living like a mole,” Daren said dryly.

“Get used to it. Your squadron is based down here,” Rebecca said.

“Down here? I’m confused. You keep more tankers down here?”

“Yes, we can if we need to.” They had stopped at one of the B-1 bombers, which looked as if it had just returned from a mission. “But you don’t belong to the tanker squadron. You’re the new squadron commander of the One-eleventh Attack Wing.”

Daren Mace broke into a wide grin. “A B-1 squadron!” he exclaimed. “Very cool.”

“Not just a B-1 wing,” Rebecca said. They piled into an electric golf cart and drove down the aircraft taxiway. Even though brilliantly lit from above, the planes emerged from the vastness of the underground chamber like beasts appearing through a thick fog.

“This is incredible, simply incredible,” Daren said, still shaking his head in amazement. “You know, you’ve just made me an extremely happy man, Rebecca.”

“You weren’t happy being a tanker commander?”

“No offense to the tanker toads, but I’ve always been a fast-mover, and I’m happy to be one now,” Daren admitted. “I’ve always loved the Bones.”

“Then you’ll be really happy with the Vampires,” Rebecca said.

“Vampires? You named these ‘Vampire,’ too, like the RF-111Gs?”

“These are what the RF-111s aspired to be,” Rebecca said. “You won’t believe what they can do.”

“Then let’s go have a look. I assume I’ll be cleared to go in the plane?”

“You’re checked in, and your security clearance has been entered. If there’s a problem, the sky cops will stop you,” Rebecca said.

Mace was like a kid in a toy store as he stepped toward the sleek aircraft. The Security Forces officer asked to see Daren’s line badge, and Daren took a few moments to talk with the young airman.

Rebecca nodded to Daren as they reached the plane. “The security units are also part of your squadron,” she pointed out. “I’m happy you stopped to talk to the young troops. Crew dogs are usually too busy to talk with the junior enlisted guys.”

“I have to admit, I’m guilty of that, too,” Daren said. “But I’m just sightseeing here — he’s the one on duty.” Daren looked over the bomber. “I see a few changes right away: a much smaller vertical stabilizer, no horizontal stabilizer, and no gust-load alleviator vanes.”

“Very good, Colonel,” Rebecca said. “The EB-1C uses adaptive skin technology—‘smart skin’—on the forward and aft sections of the fuselage and on the wings. The composite structure is reshaped by computer-controlled microhydraulic actuators that can create lift or drag as needed without the use of rigid control surfaces. Same on the wings: These planes don’t use spoilers for roll control or flaps for angle-of-attack control. We pretty much use full seventy-two-degree wing sweep for all phases of flight, because the smart skin is more effective in controlling angle of attack than anything else. If the adaptive-wing-technology computers fail, we need to go back to using wing sweep and the lift-and-drag devices, but the system is pretty reliable.”

As soon as Daren stepped up inside the plane, he noticed the difference. The two systems officers’ positions in the crew compartment behind the cockpit were gone, replaced by racks of solid-state black boxes. “My God, this is incredible!” he said for what seemed like the twentieth time. “It seems spacious in here now compared to before!”

“Hell, we had to put three thousand pounds of fuel tanks up here to compensate for all the crew stuff we took out,” Rebecca said. “The mission-adaptive technology takes care of the rest. We’ve increased range and performance another twenty-five percent by taking out all the human stuff back here.”

They crawled through the tunnel connecting the systems operators’ compartment to the cockpit. Rebecca saw that Daren was speechless with surprise as he looked at the completely empty space on the instrument panels. Almost all of the tape instruments, gauges, knobs, and switches had been replaced by multifunction displays — only a few backup gauges remained, relegated to lower corners of the instrument panel.

“Welcome to the electronic bomber, Daren. The B-1 was always a highly automated, systems-driven aircraft, but now the humans have been taken completely out of the equation. You don’t fly this thing anymore — you manage it.” Still looking at Daren, Rebecca spoke, “Bobcat Two-zero-three, battery on, interior lights on.” Immediately the lights in the cockpit snapped on.

“Don’t tell me you talk to the planes, like you talk to the duty officer?”

“That’s exactly what you do,” Rebecca said. “In fact, with most missions, you don’t even have to talk — the aircraft does its preflight according to the mission timetable.” She shrugged and added, “The computers are smarter, faster, and more reliable than human crews. Why not let them do the fighting and dying? The plane doesn’t care. In fact, it probably enjoys not having to lug around human beings with their need for warmth and their heavy life-support systems. We’re a slow, inefficient, wasteful redundant subsystem, totally unnecessary to the completion of the mission.”

“Jesus, Rebecca, you sound like some kind of Isaac Asimov robot character.”

“No, I’m doing an imitation of General McLanahan, General Luger, Colonel Cheshire, Colonel Law, and most of the brain trust here at Battle Mountain,” she responded. “Daren, just between you, me, and the fence post, the guys who run this place are the biggest technonerds you’ve ever met. They’ve all come from Dreamland, designing and building these things for the past fifteen-odd years, and their minds are in the friggin’ ozone. Everything is high-tech and computerized, from the phone system to the latrines. You’d think the whole bunch of them just beamed down to earth from the Starship Enterprise.”

“So you and me — we’re the old heads, right?”

“The HAWC guys, they’ve done some shit,” Rebecca said. “I’m not saying they’re total neophytes. They’ve been in some scrapes even since I’ve known them, so I’m sure there are dozens of other adventures they’ve been involved in that I just as soon don’t want to know about. There are some things you’ll learn about this place, the missions that we prepare for, that’ll curl your toes. But technology is the answer to everything for them. Everything has to be done by a satellite link or computer. The days of sitting down at a table, unfolding a map and a frag order, and building a strike mission from scratch are definitely over.”

“Fine with me. I’m perfectly happy to let a computer draw up flight plans and steer the plane,” Daren said. “So what do they need us for?”

“Because as brilliant and high-tech as McLanahan and his buddies from HAWC are, they don’t know very much about running a flying unit,” Rebecca said. “McLanahan has recruited kids — and I literally mean kids—to come here.

“I think it’s our job to build the squadron and let McLanahan and his egghead cronies build the machines. The kids these days know computers. As soon as they can sit in a chair by themselves, they know how to use a computer. What they don’t know is organization, discipline, esprit de corps, teamwork, and mutual support. It’s up to us to teach them.”

“God, Rebecca, you’re making me feel pretty damned old right now,” Daren said wryly. But he shrugged and patted the top of the instrument panel’s glare shield. “I’ll make them a deal: If they teach me how to talk to B-1 bombers, I’ll teach them how to think like a team.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” she said. “Listen, there’s going to be a lot of brass hanging around in the next few days. Rumor is the president and secretary of defense are going to stop by sometime in the next couple days for the nickel tour.”

“Cool. Well, this place will certainly water their eyes.”

“The general has this big project he wants to get funded.”

“He briefed me on his project,” Daren said. “It’s awesome, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. You want me to stay out of sight, Rebecca?”

Furness looked at the deck for a moment, then back at Daren and said, “Let’s just say that we’ve used some creative accounting practices to fund a few of the general’s pet projects.”

“So you need me to play along — make like I know and approve of all the ‘creative accounting practices.’ “

“Something like that.”

Daren shrugged. “I’m a team player. You got nothing to worry about from me.” He smiled at her, then nodded knowingly. “It’s nice to be sharing a cockpit with you again, Rebecca,” he said. “Really nice. I miss it.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me, too, partner,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”

A few minutes before six-thirty in the morning, an Air Force full colonel strode quickly and purposefully over to Daren Mace in the squadron lounge — Daren’s de facto office most of the time — and practically snapped to attention in front of him. “Colonel Mace?” He extended a rigid hand; Daren stood and shook it, stifling an amused smile at the guy’s officiousness. “Welcome to Battle Mountain, sir. I’m Colonel John Long.”

“Good to meet you,” Daren said. He looked around the room. “Is that two-star here again?”

“General McLanahan? No, sir.”

It was meant to be a half-joking, half-sarcastic remark, but this guy Long was all business here. “Then let’s dispense with the ‘sir’ stuff, okay, John?” Long was — contrary to his name — short, wiry, and tough-looking, with dark brown hair, beady little eyes, and a pointed nose. He looked like a bantamweight prizefighter — mean and jittery, his eyes, hands, feet, and mouth all in constant, rapid-fire motion. “We’re both full birds.”

“But you are senior to me,” Long explained with a strange expression on his face. Then he gave Daren a conspiratorial wink and added, “But we’ll dispense with the formalities when the bosses aren’t around, how about that?” Then he relaxed and did away with the academy routine.

Daren finally realized with faint surprise what the bastard was doing — he was reminding Daren that, although he was senior and outranked him by time in grade, Long was the boss. Daren kept his amused smile, but inwardly he was saying, Why, you little prick. We’ve known each other for just sixty seconds, and you’ve already proven what a jerk you can be.

“As you know,” Long went on, dropping all pretext of friendliness, “there is no lead-in program for the EB-1C Vampire, so I built the training program for both pilots and mission commanders — we don’t call you ‘navigators’ anymore. It’s a pretty tough program. Normally it takes a well-qualified officer about four months to complete the course. I hope you’ve been reading the tech order, Colonel.” They took a seat. “We’ve got you on a pretty steep learning curve.”

“I’m a fast study,” Daren said.

“I hope so. McLanahan cracks the whip pretty hard around here.”

“He seems like a nice guy.”

“That’s only for the folks who don’t know him,” Long said. “Once you get to know him like I do, you’ll find he’s really the ultimate prima donna. His only saving grace is that he wears navigator’s wings. If he was a pilot, he’d be the king of the assholes.”

Daren thought about the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” but decided not to verbalize it.

“So. Tell me a little about yourself,” Long said. It was an idle question. He immediately began fiddling with some paperwork moments after asking it, not really listening.

“Not much to tell, John,” Daren replied. “I’m just happy as hell to be here.”

“What was your last assignment?”

“Office of the secretary of defense,” Daren replied.

Long nodded, impressed. “Very good,” he said. “Which division? Plans? Operations?”

“Protocol. I was in charge of flipping slides, making coffee, and emptying wastebaskets.”

Long gave him an amused smirk and said, “Well, I guess someone’s got to do that stuff. Where before that?”

“Beale Air Force Base, standing up the RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance squadron; I did Wright-Pat with the Air Force Research Labs, on UAV projects. Before that, deputy commander of the Thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik. Before that, Air War College.”

“Not much operational experience,” Long observed haughtily.

Daren had no doubt that if he hadn’t gone to any schools, Long would’ve criticized him for that, and it made him wonder what Long’s background was.

“Global Hawk, huh? All this talk about unmanned aircraft and weapons scares me,” Long commented. “If you listened to all the brass around here, you’d think the entire force is going to be unmanned in a few years.”

Sooner than you think, Daren thought.

“The Thirty-ninth was the support unit for units deploying to Turkey and the Middle East?”

“Yep.”

“Any operational command experience at all?”

“Not since I was the DCM at the Three-ninety-fourth Wing at Plattsburgh — until they closed the base.”

“Maintenance group commander at a Reserve unit?” Long exclaimed. “Did you do any flying?”

“I flew both the RF-111s and the KC-135s based there—”

“Because you had to. Your unit deployed to Turkey and got itself creamed,” Long said. “I learned that unit’s history from General Furness. What a goat-fuck that turned out to be. We’re all lucky a nuclear war didn’t break out.”

All that wasn’t exactly true, but Daren didn’t correct him.

“What was your last flying assignment?”

“Seven-fifteenth Bomb Squadron.”

“The B-2 stealth bomber squadron at Whiteman?”

“No. The FB-111A. Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire.”

“The Aardvarks? They retired the FB-111s in… in 1992?” Long said, wide-eyed. “That’s the last operational assignment you’ve had? Over eleven years ago?”

Daren shrugged.

“When was the last time you flew?”

“I’ve kept current.”

“In what — Piper Cubs?”

“Anything I could get my hands on at Andrews and Maxwell — everything from C-37s to T-37s and T-38s, even a couple rides in F-15Bs.”

“So you haven’t flown operationally in over eleven years, and you have no operational command experience. Not exactly what I’d call the ideal candidate for command of a bomber squadron. And you’re probably the oldest guy on the entire fucking base.”

Prick. “Makes me wonder why they didn’t give the command to you, John.”

Long narrowed his gaze at Mace but let the comment slide off him. “I was the ops-group commander of the One-eleventh Bomb Wing,” Long said. “I’ve already put my time in with the Bones. My skills are better utilized on the wing-command level.”

“The One-eleventh? Sorry to hear about your last predeployment. You’ve obviously bounced back from being the only Air National Guard wing ever to go non-mission-effective in peacetime.”

Long’s nostrils flared angrily. “Where’d you hear that nonsense?”

“You’re denying it, John? You’re saying it didn’t happen?” Long wisely decided not to say anything. “I worked at the secretary of defense’s office, remember, John? I prepared weekly briefings for SECDEF on each unit’s mission effectiveness. I know everything that happened out in Reno.”

“What happened to my wing in that pre-D had nothing to do with my fliers and everything to do with General McLanahan,” Long retorted. “The fix was in — we were programmed to fail from day one so he could act like he was going to save us, be the big hero, and then snatch us up and drag us off to Tonopah for his big, crazy ideas. We were doing fine before he showed up.”

“Of course. I should know better than to listen to all the things I heard at SECDEF’s office about you guys,” Daren said with an evil smile. “What with all the hotdogging, the accidents, the procedure violations — you guys were in fine shape the whole time. What a relief to know that.”

Long blanched. He didn’t like the idea of his name’s coming up in conversations at the secretary of defense’s office.

“Good thing they had you, John.”

Long’s jaw tightened at that remark, but he didn’t respond. “This wing will be fully mission-ready, Colonel — I’ll see to that,” he said. “I have my doubts about exactly what your contribution is going to be toward that effort, but I wasn’t consulted on the choice of squadron COs.”

“I’m sure you had other wing-command-level decisions to make.”

Long quickly decided to stop the verbal sparring. He wasn’t scoring any points at all. “All right. Well, let’s get you started.

“The mission of the Fifty-first Bomb Squadron is to equip and deploy the EB-1C Vampire bomber for intercontinental strike, anti-ballistic-missile defense, antisatellite operations, and long-range-reconnaissance missions,” Long began. “Your squadron has twelve EB-1C Vampire bombers in the Pit.” Most everyone called the underground hangar complex the “Lair,” which Daren thought sounded much cooler than the “Pit”—it was no surprise to Daren that Long called it something less flattering. “Normally we’re able to keep nine to ten operational and one in training status, but frankly, our maintenance guys need a swift kick in the ass sometimes to keep them up to speed.”

“I used to be a maintenance-group commander,” Daren reminded him. “And I know that no one responds well to ‘a swift kick in the ass,’ especially maintenance techs.”

“You motivate your troops the way you see fit, Colonel,” Long said. “You do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

“Yes, sir,” Daren said. “I see no reason we can’t keep the training birds mission-ready at the same time. We’ll figure out a way.”

“One reason might be the rotary launchers,” Long said. “Since rotary launchers are maintenance-intensive, we generally don’t upload them in the training birds.”

“I’ll have RLs in every bird on the line, training or not, loaded or not,” Daren said. “RLs need to be used. The bearings in those things are designed to rotate twenty thousand pounds of weapons at ten rpms at minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit at up to nine Gs. They like to be exercised frequently, or they get cranky.”

“It puts the squadrons at a great disadvantage if we end up with a broken rotary launcher,” Long said with growing irritation. “We run the risk of going non-mission-ready if a sortie goes down because we can’t use an RL. We will not use them unless absolutely necessary.”

“That’s why they break down, John,” Daren repeated. He noticed that Long bristled when he used his first name, but, hey, screw him — there was an unwritten code about officers of the same rank not calling each other “sir,” even if one was your boss. “If you want RLs that work, you put them in the planes, hook them up to power, hydraulics, and air, fly them, and use them. Every mission. Without fail. From now on.”

“Hey, Colonel, how about we do it my way until you’re up to speed?” Long asked pointedly.

“Whatever you say, John,” Daren responded.

Long gave Mace a warning glare, then, in an effort to defuse the tension between them, said, “In my opinion it’s hard to motivate guys who work eighty feet underground. Why McLanahan chose to build the aircraft shelters underground, I’ll never figure out. For what he spent on that complex, we could’ve fielded five more planes.”

“I did some research on this complex, John,” Daren said. “McLanahan didn’t build it.”

“What? Of course he did. It’s been under construction for the past three years—”

“The big runway and all the high-tech gadgets, yes,” Daren said. “But the underground complex was actually built about fifty years ago. It was first created as an underground ‘doomsday’ shelter, designed to house almost two thousand civilians plus an F-101 fighter-bomber squadron. It’s been used in various ways since then: as a classified-weapon research center, as a nuclear-weapon storage facility, even as an emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage facility. Before McLanahan got the funding to turn it into an air base, Battle Mountain was the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national civil command center for the western U.S.—”

“Whatever,” Long interrupted. “It’s a stupid place for an airfield. That’s my bottom line. Let’s move on. We’ve had a lot of success with the EB-1C, and we’d like to maintain our string of successes. Unfortunately, General McLanahan’s recent mishap hasn’t helped our mission-effectiveness record.”

“The crash in Diego Garcia?” Daren asked. “I remember something about it in the news.”

“The mission was a disaster, we were embarrassed, we lost two unmanned drones and nearly lost a B-1 bomber, and we still don’t know exactly what happened,” Long said angrily. “But instead of getting his ass chewed out, characteristically, General McLanahan is treated like the conquering hero. He nearly closed down America’s most important Asian air base and disregarded orders that came from the Pentagon.”

“He saved his plane and his crew,” Daren observed. “Crew prerogative — do whatever it takes to save your people and your aircraft. Who cares if it caused a mess on some ramp in Diego Garcia?”

“General Furness saved the aircraft. It was probably McLanahan who pushed to keep on going with the mission.”

“An operational test is still an operational mission — it just means the unit isn’t mission-ready,” Daren pointed out. “I’m sure the crew was responsible for bringing their plane back in more or less one piece.”

“Apparently the Pentagon saw it the same way,” Long grumbled. He handed Daren a sheet of paper.

“What’s this?” Daren asked.

“What’s it look like, Colonel? Bold-print malfunction-procedures test. Required before every flight. Closed-book and solo effort. It needs to be one hundred percent correct, word for word, or you don’t fly. Turn it in before you step.”

“I didn’t know there was going to be a test first,” Daren commented softly. He looked at the test — it was twice as long as any bold-print test he ever remembered having to take. “I haven’t had much time to study this stuff yet, John.”

Long eyed the new squadron commander with a look of disgust. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be flying right away, Mace,” he said. “Maybe you need to get into the books a little more.”

Daren did not respond. He knew he needed to get back into the tech orders, especially on this new aircraft, but he badly wanted to get back into the air. He didn’t want to spend three months in academics, just watching the rest of his squadron flying without him.

Long shook his head, then shrugged his shoulders. “But the boss wants you flying as soon as possible, so I guess we’re going flying anyway,” he said. “Get together with your instructor pilot and complete the test before you step.”

“You got it.”

“I’ve built a qualification course for you and the other newbies in your squadron. You’ll start the flying phase of that course today.”

“I appreciate that, John, but I think getting me stick time in these planes is a waste of everyone’s time,” Daren said. “It seems to me that I was hired for some other reason than to be a flying squadron commander. I need to know how they work, not how to fly them. General McLanahan has hinted about doing some special engineering mods to the fleet. I think I’d better be—”

“Colonel, again, how about we do it my way until you’re up to speed out here?” Long asked irritably. “We’ve got you scheduled for several meetings with the folks from Sky Masters Inc. and the engineers at the Tonopah Test Range. You’ll get a briefing on the current project status and the completion timelines. Your job will be to ensure that they all meet the milestones — or give me a damned good reason why they missed it.”

“I got a copy of the project timelines from the general. I think we can beat those deadlines,” Daren said. “We should think about bringing the engineering staff from TTR up here.”

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s no place on this base for a one-hundred-person engineering staff,” Long said. “It’s easier for us to bring the planes to TTR than it is to bring everyone up here.”

“Nah. I made visiting generals and heads of state stay in tents and trailers at Incirlik all the time — the engineers from TTR and Sky Masters can do the same. We’re the customer — they can do it our way. I should be studying the mission profiles and weapon characteristics and—”

“If you’re not completely checked out as a primary crew member, Mace, you can’t even look at my aircraft,” Long said sharply. “It’s as simple as that. I’m not going to let any unqualified personnel near my planes. And since we’re the only unit that flies the EB-1C and there’s no lead-in school, I designed the training program that has been approved by the Air Force. You will follow it to the letter or you will get out of my wing. This wing will not go mission-ineffective because someone hasn’t done the basics.”

“I’ll take responsibility for the mission-effectiveness of myself, my crews, and my planes,” Daren said firmly. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

He then handed Long a sheet of paper: the completed bold-print emergency-procedures test. He’d done it so quickly that Long didn’t even notice he was filling it out as they were talking. Long checked it carefully, but he needed only a moment to realize it was perfect — every word, even every punctuation mark, exactly in place.

“I may not have any command experience, Colonel,” Daren added, looking directly into Long’s eyes, “but I guarantee you one thing: I know systems. I eat, sleep, and dream systems. I read tech orders in the fucking bathroom.”

Long met his gaze — but only for an instant. He looked away and remarked, “Now, there’s an image I’d rather not have.” He crumpled up the test and threw it in the direction of a nearby wastebasket. “I’ve got your instructor pilot coming by soon.” He looked at his watch. “Grey better not be late,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Sorry I’m late, sirs,” Daren heard a voice say. He turned — and saw what looked like the youngest crew member in a flight suit he’d ever seen. The guy — kid, Daren thought at first, then corrected himself — set his documents bag on the dais, then quickly extracted some paperwork.

“Make us wait again, Grey, and you’ll be ramp monkey for another week,” Long warned. Apparently, Daren thought, around here being ten minutes early for a briefing was considered late. Long motioned to the young officer. “Colonel, this is First Lieutenant Dean Grey. Grey, Colonel Mace, your new squadron CO.”

Grey, a tall, lanky guy with a high forehead, very close-cropped spiky blond hair, and — of all things — a pinhole in his left earlobe for an earring, stepped over and enthusiastically shook Daren’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Grey said.

“Dean Grey? ‘Zane’ Grey — the guy that led the Air Force Academy to an NCAA championship in men’s volleyball? Cover of Sports Illustrated? Rumors of you and Anna Kournikova, Gabrielle Reece…?”

“The same, sir,” Grey said. When he smiled, it made him look five years younger.

“No offense, Zane, but… exactly when did you get your wings?” Daren asked. “Didn’t all the Sports Illustrated and Playboy interviews happen just last year?”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said with his boyish grin. “Got my wings last month.”

“Last month?”

“General McLanahan likes ’em young, as you’ll readily find out,” Long moaned, shaking his head wearily. “Average age of the entire squadron is just a wet dream or two past puberty. Same with all the squadrons we’re standing up around here. Now, if we could postpone the trip down memory lane for another time?”

“Sure, John.”

“Get to it, Grey,” Long ordered.

“Yes, sir.” To Daren he began, “Welcome to Battle Mountain and the Fifty-first, sir. I’m your acting executive officer. Anything you need or want, just let me know, and I’ll take care of it.” He gave Daren a card with binder holes punched in it. “I took the liberty of writing out a list of all the squadron personnel with their ratings, schools, experience—”

“Already did it,” Daren said, flipping to the pages in his personal “plastic brains” booklet. “I got the dope from General Furness. I went through the entire roster — we’ve got some stellar personnel here on the patch, all right. I also got a status report on all our present and future airframes and their mod status.”

“Excellent, sir,” Grey said. “Our mission today is a standard-flight-characteristics orientation flight for mission commanders. As you know, sir, the Vampire uses pilot-trained navigators in the right seat, so MCs need to be well familiar with all phases of flight. The standard profile for this mission is to observe, but we like to accelerate the program, so we’ll give you as much as you can handle. We’ll show you once, then have you try it.”

“We’re not going low today?” Daren asked.

“Where have you been the past five years, Colonel?” Long asked with a smile.

“We… we don’t go low anymore, sir,” Grey said.

“You don’t go low-level in the B-1?” Daren asked incredulously. “Why in the world not?”

“Well, a few reasons,” Grey replied. “The main reason is, the standoff weapons we use have a longer range when launched from high altitude — Longhorn’s range is thirty percent greater, and Lancelot’s range is almost fifty percent greater. Second, we’re stealthier and faster now — we don’t need to go low, even against pretty substantial fighter coverage or advanced SAM systems. Third, we make great use of smaller attack-and-reconnaissance drones that map out the enemy defenses pretty well, long before we go in. What threats we can’t destroy, we circumnavigate. And, of course, flying away from the cumulogranite is safer—”

“Whoa. Pardon me, boys. I was with you on the first reason, but not the last three reasons,” Daren said. “You’re already relying on a lot of technology to do the job for you. There’s no reason to hang it out even further by staying up high in a heavily defended area. We should practice going low at every opportunity. We can build a certification program. Certain equipment status and training proficiency earns a crew the distinction of going low, into the heavier-defended areas; other not-so-qualified guys can stay up high and lob in cruise missiles. And ‘safety’ seems a funny thing to be considering when we’re talking about going to war or employing weapons like this. We should—”

“Let’s concentrate on the basic flight-training program you’re going to undergo, Colonel,” Long said. “Flight characteristics for the first couple flights, then emergency procedures, then air refueling.”

“We’re not doing air refueling today either?”

“Is English not your primary language, Colonel?” Long asked perturbedly. “You’ve got to master the basics before you do the more advanced procedures. I built this training program to get new crew members with no recent B-1 experience up to maximum proficiency in minimum time. After air refueling, we’ll move on to instrument-pattern work, visual-pattern work, and then we go into the strike stuff.” He got to his feet. “You haven’t been operational in many years, Colonel, and even when you were, you were… less than reliable.” He hesitated, looked at Grey, then made a wordless show about not revealing what he was thinking. “Do it my way, Colonel. Is that clear?”

“Sure, John,” Daren replied. Long looked as if he really, really wanted to chew on Mace for calling him by his first name in front of the younger officer, but decided to save it for later.

After the protracted, uncomfortable pause ended, Grey glanced over at the crumpled-up paper by the wastebasket. “I see you passed your bold-print test,” he said. “Outstanding.” It made Daren wonder what Long did with the tests that weren’t perfect — probably kept a file to use against the crewdogs. “We have about an hour until we step, so let’s talk about local procedures before we get into discussing stalls, falls, crashes, and dashes for a few moments.” Grey handed out flight plans, kneeboard cards, target-prediction cards, and weather sheets, all organized and stapled together. “I went ahead and filed our flight plan, got the weather—”

“Hold it a second. We do all that as a crew, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir, but I thought since the weather’s clear in a million, we’re not going terrain-following, and we’ve got the MOA and ranges to ourselves, we’d spend a bit more time talking about the plane, you know, getting acquainted….”

“You don’t freelance training missions, Lieutenant,” Long interjected hotly. “You’re going to fly a two-hundred-million-dollar supersonic bomber, not go on a fucking date with a Russian tennis babe.” He flipped through the briefing cards — they were complete, perfectly legible, and perfectly organized. Grey was right: The weather for everything west of the Rockies, and every alternate military field within a thousand miles, was clear as a bell with no restrictions. “But now that you’ve completely screwed up the sequence, you might as well proceed. Let’s go. You don’t have all day.”

“Yes, sir.” Grey handed Daren more checklist pages. “Here is a list of local frequencies, step procedures, taxi and departure procedures, phone numbers in case the duty officer is on the fritz—”

“Got ’em,” Daren said. “I got all that stuff from General Furness, too. I studied them last night, but be sure to watch my back in case I screw something up.”

Grey nodded, impressed. Daren noticed that even Long was nodding approvingly. That made Daren feel good — until Long added, “I hear you and Rebecca used to be a hot and heavy item, Colonel.”

The motherfucker, Daren thought, bringing something like that up in front of a junior officer. “Let me tell you about Rebecca, John,” he said with a conspiratorial smile. He motioned Long to lean toward him. When he did, Daren stuck his face in Long’s and said loud enough for Grey to hear, “None of your fucking business, Colonel.”

Long’s head snapped back as if Mace had head-butted him. He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth as if he were going to yell at Mace, then shut it, embarrassed, opened it again as if he’d reconsidered, then blinked in confusion. Daren didn’t wait for him to sort it out any further. “Let’s get on with the briefing, Zane,” he prompted, still glaring at Long.

“Yes, sir,” Grey said, hiding a very amused and pleased smile. About time someone told off the DO, he thought. “Open your ‘plastic brains’ to the air-work checklist, and let’s get started.”

As Grey began his briefing, Long made a big show of checking his watch, then slipped out of his seat and exited the lounge.

“Sorry about that, Zane,” Daren said after Long had left. “He had it coming.”

“I didn’t see a thing, sir,” Grey said with a smile.

“Who peed in his cornflakes this morning?”

“I hate to say it, sir,” Grey said, “but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Exactly.”

“So tell me, what was it like to play in the NCAA championships, Zane?” Daren asked excitedly. “Man, it was very cool to watch. You running halfway up the bleachers to save that last volley and then spiking the ball from the bleachers was awesome. First volleyball game I ever saw on TV.”

“It was like living a dream, sir,” Grey said. “I look at the trophies and pictures on the wall, and I still can’t believe we did it.”

“So the question the whole male world wants to know: Anna or Gabrielle? Or both together?”

“That has the highest classification level, sir,” Grey said. But his mischievous smile told Daren everything he wanted to know.

“And tell me, what’s it like working here?”

Grey’s smile grew even wider. “It’s another dream come true,” he said sincerely. “In a lot of ways it’s pretty austere — nothing as cushy as how we had it in pilot training. But the stuff we’re doing is two or three generations beyond anything else I’ve ever seen. You really feel like you’re riding the wave into the future.”

“Sounds good to me. And how about the brass?”

“They’re okay. Even Colonel Long is a good guy — and I’m not just saying that to cover my butt either,” Grey said with a sly smile. “You can’t help but work in the Lair or in the command center and not be aware of the awesome things we’re doing. I think that feeling extends to everyone, from General McLanahan on down. This place is special, and everyone knows it, but it’s so… you know, out there, unworldly—that no one cops an attitude around here. I think we all realize that this is so high-tech and futuristic that we can all be shelved in a heartbeat, so we’re all trying hard not to screw up.”

“I think I understand,” Daren said. “Makes me wonder why I’m here — but I guess I’m thankful to be anywhere.”

They bullshitted for a few more minutes. Grey asked the questions this time; Daren knew he was collecting “intel” to share with his squadron mates on the new boss.

Finally Grey said, “It’s just about step time, sir. We’d better get going.”

“Hold on, Zane,” Daren said. “You mean to tell me I’m really going to go through this flight-orientation program?”

“That’s my understanding, sir.”

“Call me ‘Daren’ when the bosses aren’t around, or ‘skipper,’ or ‘lead’—anything but ‘sir,’ okay, Zane?” Daren asked. “You’re making me feel pretty damned old.”

“Colonel Long mapped out your orientation program, skipper. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Daren said. “My dad was a cutter skipper in the Coast Guard, one of the big Bear-class boats, and what he said was the most important thing for the boss to do: use all your toys.”

“Sir?”

“If you got guns, shoot ’em; if you have a helicopter, fly in it; if the captain has a barge, take it out and cruise around in it. I’ve got a bunch of B-1 bombers here — I want to fly ’em. I’ve got weapons, I assume — I want to pop a few off. I don’t just want to bore holes in the sky — I want to drop some iron and make things blow up in a loud, messy fashion. Let’s go flying.”

“What about the colonel’s orientation program, sir?”

“Screw it. General McLanahan told me that my job is to stand up this unit, and that’s what I’ll do — but in my own way. You game?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Outstanding.” He touched the earpiece in his right ear and said, “Duty Officer, schedule a low-level route, an air-refueling anchor, and live air- and ground-attack-weapon range time. Stand by for training ordnance load.”

“Yes, Colonel Mace,” the computer responded. “Standing by.”

“Uh… sir, don’t you remember? We don’t go low-level anymore?”

“Well, shit, I think I’m dating myself every time I open my damn mouth around here,” Daren said. “But we’ll see how it goes. Who knows, maybe I have a couple tricks you youngsters might need to learn.”

“Roger that, sir,” Grey said eagerly.

“Colonel Mace, this is the duty officer,” Mace heard in his earpiece.

“Duty Officer, go ahead,” Mace responded. He was really getting the hang of this computerized duty-officer system — the creepiness of talking to a machine as if it were a human being was quickly wearing off the more he discovered how well the thing worked and how useful it could be.

“Colonel Mace, I have been advised that live-weapon air-to-ground range times are available this afternoon in the Tonopah complex. A Bobcat tanker crew is available this afternoon as well. Please advise.”

“Duty Officer, put the Bobcat tanker on my schedule,” Daren said. To Grey he said, “We got the Tonopah range for this afternoon.”

“Ask the duty officer if they can get us a surface-to-surface rocket launch, too,” Grey chimed in.

“Duty Officer, ask the Tonopah range director if they can get us a surface-to-surface target rocket launch for our range time,” Daren asked.

“Please stand by, Colonel Mace…. Colonel Mace, I have been advised that no surface-to-surface launch targets are available at the Tonopah complex. They can give you ground targets only.”

“No rockets — ground targets only,” Daren said to Grey.

“No problem. We can bring our own air targets — if Colonel Long doesn’t have a fit that we changed his training schedule,” Grey said excitedly. He was starting to adopt a Southern California “surfer dude” accent. He would lose his shirt, Daren knew, in any poker game. “We can upload a couple Wolverine missiles to use as fast-moving long-range targets, and maybe a FlightHawk to use as a slow-moving air-to-air target.”

“Good,” Daren said. “So we’ll have two Wolverines in the forward bay.”

“Make it four,” Grey said.

“Okay, four,” Daren said. “One FlightHawk in the aft bay and a rotary launcher with two Scorpions, two Anacondas, and… what’s the third target for?”

“Lancelot,” Grey said. “Two Lancelots. You are cleared to use Lancelots, aren’t you, sir?”

“Let’s find out,” Daren said. He touched his earpiece again. “Duty Officer, am I cleared to launch Lancelot missiles?”

“Stand by, Colonel Mace…. That is affirmative, sir. You are cleared to employ all expendables authorized for the squadron.”

“Cool,” Daren remarked. “Can’t wait to pop one of those babies off. What do you have for precision-guided standoff missiles nowadays, Zane?”

“We fly the AGM-165B Longhorn for short-range, operator-aimed, precision-guided missions,” Grey replied.

“Outstanding. Duty Officer, I want one FlightHawk unarmed target UCAV with telemetry, four unarmed Wolverine target cruise missiles with telemetry, two Scorpion missiles with telemetry payloads, two Anaconda missiles with telemetry, two Longhorn missiles with target-marking warheads, and two Lancelot missiles with telemetry payloads loaded in my sortie right away,” he said into his earpiece. “Request two ground targets on the Tonopah range—”

“One fixed, one moving,” Grey said. He was getting into it now.

“One fixed target, one moving target.”

“Yes, Colonel Mace. Please stand by, I will request authorization.” The reply did not take long. “Colonel Mace, Colonel Long has denied your request for training weapons for your sortie.”

“Duty Officer, pass the request to General Furness,” Daren responded.

“Yes, Colonel Mace. Please stand by.”

“Oh, crap,” Grey muttered. “The shit’s going to hit the fan now, sir.”

He was right. It did not take long for John Long to burst back into the lounge, his eyes burning with anger. “You son of a bitch!” Long shouted. “What is all this shit about uploading weapons and getting range time? Your task for today is basic flight orientation—”

“I can’t be wasting time on that stuff, John.”

“You will do it because I said so!” Long shouted. “I built your training syllabus, and you will follow it to the letter! Is that clear?”

“John, I’m a bombardier,” Daren said. “I need some range time, I need to fly the jet, and I need to blow some shit up.”

“You can practice all that stuff in the simulators,” Long said. “Now, forget this request for flight time and—”

“I passed my request on to General Furness.”

“You… what?” Long gasped, dumbstruck. “You went over my head? How dare you, you son of a bitch? You’re out of line, Colonel!”

“John, I told you, I’ll get your Vampires up and running, and a hell of a lot faster than you’ve got programmed into your timetables,” Mace said, getting to his feet to make a stand in front of the operations-group commander. “But I’m not going to be stuck doing stalls and approaches. I’m a navigator, a bombardier, a systems officer—”

“You will do it my way, Colonel, or you won’t do it at all!” Long barked.

“I need to get up to speed as quickly as I can on employing this squadron for combat,” Daren said. “I’ll venture a guess and say that all the other squadron commanders here have extensive experience in their weapon systems.”

“The rest of my squadron commanders seemed to have been more successful in progressing in their careers, that’s why.”

Daren let that jab roll off his chin. “I’ll also venture a guess and say that, next to Generals McLanahan and Furness, you are the most experienced person on this base in the EB-1A.”

Not exactly true, Long thought, but he did not deny that guess either.

“So I need to do everything I can to learn about the Vampire, and that doesn’t mean waste time with pilot shit. Let me do my thing, John. I promise, this unit will be fully qualified in all aspects. But I need to do it my way.”

“Colonel Mace, this is the duty officer,” the computerized female voice said. “General Furness has approved your request for aerial refueling, low-level training, and live weapons on your sortie. I will coordinate your request with your squadron munitions officer…. Colonel Mace, I am advised by your squadron munitions officer that your request will be handled immediately.”

“Duty Officer, get an estimated time to completion from Captain Weathers on uploading the weapons and relay my sortie timing to me and Lieutenant Grey.” Captain Weathers was the chief of the squadron munitions department.

“Yes, Colonel Mace.” Seconds later: “Colonel Mace, I have a preliminary estimated time of completion from munitions and have planned your sortie timing. Your new step time is eighteen hundred hours Zulu.”

Pretty good, Mace thought, uploading a stack of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and unmanned combat aircraft in a B-1 bomber in less than six hours without any notice was shit-hot in any unit, and especially good for a brand-new squadron. “Duty Officer, have Captain Weathers meet us at the aircraft during preflight to brief me on the weapons.”

“Yes, Colonel Mace. Your updated flight-planning materials are available on any terminal using your password. Be advised, your new sortie timing may exceed authorized peacetime-crew duty-day regulations.”

“Duty Officer, request a waiver of crew duty-day regulations.”

“Yes, Colonel Mace.” Moments later John Long got the request in his earpiece.

“You going to approve it, John?” Daren asked. “Or should I go to the general again?”

“You think you can just do whatever you feel like here?” Long growled, his voice shaking with anger. “I guess we know why you’ve been stuck in purgatory all these years since you screwed the pooch in the Sandbox, huh?” He turned and stormed out of the lounge.

Moments later the duty officer reported, “Colonel Mace, Colonel Long has authorized extension of crew duty day to sixteen hours.”

Daren responded with a polite “Thank you,” even though it was only a machine on the other end of the line.

Dean Grey looked at Mace for several moments, hoping he would fill in some details; when he didn’t, the curiosity got the better of him. “You were in Desert Storm, sir?” he asked.

“Yep.” Mace realized with a faint shock that Grey was barely in his teens when that war started.

“Flying what?”

“The Aardvark. SAC version.”

“The FB-111? I didn’t think we used any Strategic Air Command 111s in Desert Storm.”

“We did — and I strongly advise you to not ask any more questions about it,” Daren said seriously. He noticed Grey’s concerned expression. “It’s still classified, and it’ll give you nightmares. We’d better get going with planning this sortie.”

“Yes, sir!” Grey said happily. “I’ll show you how to use the duty officer and planning computers. You won’t believe how fast we can spin a sortie like this.” He paused, looking at Daren carefully, then asked, “Do you have a call sign we can use, sir?”

“I’m old school, Zane — I was around when we had a Strategic Air Command, and we in SAC didn’t get call signs back then. I guess the squadron’s going to have to name me.”

“We can do that, skipper,” Grey said with an evil smile. “And we’ll try not to stick with ‘Pappy’ or ‘Granddad.’ “

“I’d appreciate that. Let’s go.”

Six hours was barely enough time to do all the planning they needed for this flight, even with the computerized duty officer’s help, but as the morning wore on and more and more crew members filtered into the squadron, Daren got more and more help. His squadron was small, only seventy-two members altogether, and it was indeed young, mostly first lieutenants, with only one or two captains. The enlisted corps was young, too. But they were all eager to impress their new boss and to show what they could accomplish. In less than three hours Daren was sitting down with Long, Grey, and another Vampire crew they’d be flying with for the first few hours, briefing a marathon six-hour sortie. They then took an elevator in the squadron hangar down to the Lair to begin the aircraft preflight.

They completed a briefing with the crew chief, another impossibly young Air National Guard sergeant, then proceeded to do a walkaround inspection and preflight the weapons. They were met by Captain Willy “Wonka” Weathers, the squadron munitions officer. “Glad to meet you, Wonka,” Daren said, shaking his hand. “Thanks to you and your guys for hustling for me.”

“It’s our pleasure, sir,” Weathers replied, smiling broadly. “Frankly, it’s the first hurry-up job we’ve had here in the Lair. We’ve been involved with so much engineering support and mate testing that we forget we’re supposed to be a combat unit, getting ready to go to war. I’m grateful for the chance to put my BB-stackers into action. Any no-notice taskings you want to give us is okay with us.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Daren said. “I enjoy lots of no-notice exercises.”

“Outstanding, sir,” Weathers said. He motioned to the forward bomb bay. “Allow me to give you a little brief on our babies here, sir. First time you’ve seen any of these weapons?”

“I’ve read about them and did some planning with all except Lancelot,” Daren replied. “I heard about Lancelot from the Korea conflict, but nothing in detail.”

“Well, this will be quick and dirty. We’ve got lots of briefings lined up for you, but the best way to get acquainted with these babies is to touch them and use them,” Weathers said. “Fortunately, General McLanahan and General Furness believe in making holes in targets rather than just boring holes in the sky.”

Weathers started with the forward bomb bay. “AGM-177 Wolverine attack cruise missiles, configured today with recovery and telemetry stuff,” he said. “About three thousand pounds apiece, turbojet engine, cruise speed of about four hundred knots, loiter time thirty minutes after a one-hundred-mile, low-level cruise. Mission-adaptive-skin flight controls, highly maneuverable. Imaging infrared and millimeter-wave radar sensors, satellite datalink. Payload of about two hundred and fifty pounds in three weapons bays, plus defensive expendables, plus an enclosed payload bay for a terminal warhead or any mix of weapons, sensors, cameras, radio relay, and so forth. You can program it to act like a low-level attacker, like a maneuvering fighter up high, or like a ballistic missile. Please, make sure your attack computer is programmed for a training miss — these babies are one point six million bucks each, without payloads.”

“Roger that.”

“We loaded your Wolverines in the forward bomb bay on this sortie. We usually put them on rotary launchers, but we’re normally not allowed to use RLs in training.”

“Rotary launchers are designed to carry twenty thousand pounds of munitions and rotate them at ten rpms at temperatures down to minus fifty degrees while maneuvering at up to nine Gs,” Daren said. Weathers began to smile and nod appreciatively at his new boss’s obviously extensive knowledge of the weapons equipment. “You can’t let them sit around. You use them or lose them. From now on they fly on every sortie, with training shapes loaded, but empty if absolutely necessary. If we can’t get range time, we’ll rig up a range right here on the base.”

“Excellent. They need to be hooked up to hydraulic power and air-conditioning systems regularly to keep the bearings and seals tight. Anyway, we can put four in clip-in racks or six on an RL.”

They moved to the center bomb bay. “Rotary launcher with Longhorns, Anaconda, Scorpion, and Lancelot — the ultimate aerial-combat payload,” Weathers said proudly. “AIM-120 Scorpion medium-range air-to-air missile, triple-mode active radar, passive radar, and infrared guidance, fifty-pound directed-frag warhead, max range thirty-five miles. AGM-165 Longhorn air-to-ground guided-attack missile, enhanced longer-range version of the Maverick, two-hundred-pound thermium-nitrate warhead, sixty-mile range, millimeter-wave radar autoguidance or imaging infrared guidance — our Longhorns are enhanced with a target-handoff capability from the laser-radar attack system where we can input target coordinates and launch the missile, then refine aiming as it closes in.

“AIM-152 Anaconda long-range hypersonic air-to-air missile. Ramjet engine, max speed Mach five, max range one hundred and fifty miles. Only a fifty-pound warhead, too, despite its size, but if this thing hits you going Mach five, the impact will knock the biggest plane into next year.

“Finally, the ABM-3 Lancelot anti-ballistic-missile missile,” Weathers said, pride gushing in his voice. “Basically an air-launched Patriot missile, triple-mode guidance, max range about three hundred miles at optimum launch parameters. The big bad boy in Lancelot is the plasma-yield warhead. In earth’s atmosphere the warhead has the punch of a twenty-thousand-pound high explosive, but above sixty miles altitude the plasma field will vaporize anything within five to ten miles — no radiation, no heat, not even any noise, just complete obliteration. You should schedule to see a plasma-yield detonation as soon as you can — you won’t forget it. Today, of course, we just have telemetry payloads.”

They moved to the aft bomb bay of the EB-1C Vampire. “Last but not least, the U/MF-3 FlightHawk,” Weathers said. “Long-range, long-endurance stealthy unmanned combat aircraft, used for an entire laundry list of jobs: attack, recon, decoy, deception, jamming, SEAD, you name it. We have a longer-range, stealthier version called StealthHawk that’s just now being deployed. We can put four on a rotary launcher.” Weathers turned to Mace. “That’s it, sir. You’ve got quite a mission coming up. I’ll be with you in the virtual cockpit monitoring your progress if you need any help, but if you follow the prompts from the attack computer and take your time, you won’t have any trouble. Anything else for me, sir?”

“Just one thing,” Daren said. “If any of your troops would like to strap on the jet with us, we’d love to take them along.”

“You’re kidding?” Weathers gasped. “Two of my guys get to ride with you on this mission?” Daren thought Weathers might volunteer himself, but, like a good officer and leader, he turned and whistled at a couple of his techs, who trotted over. “Colonel Mace, I’m happy to introduce you to Staff Sergeant Marty Banyan and Senior Airman Todd Meadows, by far the best weapon-jammers in the entire Air National Guard. They were the first ones on the line this morning before oh-six-hundred; they were responsible for getting this package uploaded in record time. Sergeant Banyan, Airman Meadows, Colonel Mace, our new squadron CO.”

Daren shook hands with the eager, awestruck airmen. “Captain Weathers picked you to take a ride with us this afternoon, guys, if you’re up for it.”

Both Banyan’s and Meadows’s eyes became as big as soccer balls.

“You bet I am, sir!” Meadows shouted enthusiastically.

“I’ve worked on B-1s for almost five years,” Banyan enthused, “but I’ve never been up in one. I’ve been waiting for this chance for years!”

“Outstanding. We start engines in about an hour. Captain, if you’d give Life Support a heads-up, we’ll get these boys some flight gear ASAP. Report back as fast as you can.”

“Yes, sir!” both techs shouted, and they hurried off to stow their tools.

“That was a great thing you did, sir,” Weathers said after he had the duty officer alert the Life Support shop to get ready to brief and equip the two weapons loaders for their flight. “We’re always looking for all the ways we can find to motivate our troops. As I said, I’ll be in the virtual cockpit monitoring your weapon releases and performance. Good luck and happy shooting.” He shook his squadron commander’s hand, gave him a salute — a rather strange thing to do, Mace thought, being eighty feet underground; were they indoors or outdoors or what? — and then drove off to look in on the other bombers getting ready for launch.

“Good going, sir,” Grey said proudly. “I’d say you scored some points today.”

“And I haven’t done a damn thing,” Daren said with a wry smile. “Shit, if I ever thought being a squadron commander was as easy as just treating the troops like professionals, I’d have done it a long time ago.”

Grey led Daren on the power-off preflight in the cockpit, then back down the tall entry ladder to do a walk-around inspection. This was the most bizarre experience — getting ready to fly an aircraft while underground. Afterward, when the two weapons loaders had met up with them, Grey briefed the flight and ground crews on their departure procedures, and then they climbed up inside the bomber.

While Grey made sure Banyan and Meadows were properly strapped in and were given a safety and procedures briefing on the ejection and escape equipment — most of which the two B-1 veterans seemed very aware of already — Daren moved forward and began to “build his nest”—put all his checklists, charts, and gear in exactly the places he wanted them. Grey ran through a quick console orientation — quick because there was very little to review. The system was so automated that there were very few human-activated switches left. “We monitor and check everything,” Zane said, “and let the computers do their thing. Two minutes to power-up. The computer does power-on checks itself on the mission schedule. Make sure you’re ready — things happen fast from here on. Sing out if you see any anomalies. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride.”

As power-up time approached, Daren silently prayed the old airman’s prayer: God, please don’t let me screw up. “O-kay,” Daren said nervously.

“Crew, this is Bobcat Two-three,” the computer spoke a few moments later. “Check in when ready for power-up.”

“Bobcat Two-three, AC is ready for power-up.”

“A ‘please’ would be nice,” Daren quipped. He keyed his mike button and spoke, “Bobcat Two-three, MC is ready for power-up.”

“Power-up commencing,” the computer responded, and immediately the monitors on the back wall came to life and lines and lines of computer reports started to scroll across the screens as the computer ran through its built-in checks. Daren watched, absolutely fascinated, as the aircraft proceeded with its power-on system checks. The before-engine-start checklist ran the same way as the power-on checklist. Less than five minutes later, the computer reported ready for engine start.

“So far so good, guys,” Grey said after the computer completed its checks. “Ready for a tow to the surface.” Engines were not started, and aircraft did not taxi on their own power, inside the Lair unless absolutely necessary. After Grey called the flight leader and reported ready, ground crews hooked a tow bar up to the bomber’s nose gear and pulled the bomber out of its parking spot with a large aircraft tug.

Moving inside the Lair, Daren thought, was like driving a big SUV inside an underground parking garage with very low ceilings — it seemed as if every girder and piece of concrete above them was sure to hit the vertical stabilizer, and even with the wings fully swept, the wingtips seemed to pass just a few inches away from the other parked jets. He instinctively ducked his head when approaching a structural crosspiece in the ceiling.

Daren saw B-52 bombers as they were towed past, including a couple with huge rounded-nose turrets. “Those must be the Dragons,” he said. “Airborne lasers on B-52 bombers. Incredible.”

“Yep,” Grey said. “Fucking amazing jets. They’re still Strato-Pigs, but — my God — when that laser lets go, it still sends a chill down my spine.”

“Who’s the squadron commander?”

“Colonel Nancy Cheshire,” Zane replied. “She’s one of General McLanahan’s test pilots from Dreamland. The Fifty-second Squadron is technically not activated yet, but they’re organized and run just like the other flying units. Just two aircraft, and neither will be mission-ready for at least another year, but they’ve already flown a bunch of sorties, and we know they work. I’d like to have one on every sortie I fly over Indian country,” Zane added.

The Vampire was pulled alongside the lead EB-1C bomber, and the tow bars were disconnected. “Okay, we’ll motor up to level two and start engines there,” Zane said. Level two had special exhaust chambers that channeled the exhaust away more efficiently than did the passive system used in the main complex. “After that, the computer will do the before-takeoff checks, then motor up to the surface, get a last-chance inspection, and then we go.” It was weird to be staring straight ahead at solid rock directly in front of the EB-1C’s windscreen, and Daren was thankful when the engines were started, the last of the pre-takeoff checklists were done, and they were raised all the way to the surface.

It was mostly sunny but windy on the surface, with an occasional cloud of dust blowing past the windscreen. “Lovely day in Battle Mountain, guys,” Grey said. They noticed that Rebecca Furness and John Long themselves were doing the last-chance inspection — Daren could still see Long scowling at him from inside the car.

“Bobcat flight.”

“Two’s ready,” Grey replied. On intercom: “Ready, guys?”

“MC is ready,” Daren announced.

“Banyan ready.”

“Meadows ready. Let’s light this candle!”

“MC, you have the aircraft,” Zane announced.

“Me? Are you kidding?”

“Best way to learn, sir,” Grey said. “No matter how much you want to freelance the training program, sir, you’re going to have to do a check ride, and part of the check for the MC is a takeoff, landing, stabilized precontact position behind the tanker, instrument approach, and visual approach. Might as well get as much stick time as you can.”

“Too bad takeoffs aren’t automated, too, like everything else,” Daren commented.

“They are,” Grey said. “The system actually does a very good formation takeoff. But we don’t do autotakeoffs or much formation stuff anymore. Besides, I like hand-flying the jet every mission, and takeoff seems like a good time to do it. Doing takeoffs is a good way to get a feel for the jet. Besides, if the system decides to burp on takeoff, there’s less chance of an accident.”

“In that case how about I just watch the first one?”

“I’ll watch your gauges,” Grey urged him. “Take thirty-second spacing behind the leader, fan right twenty degrees, turn when he makes his turn, and go into trail on him. I’ll be right here if you need me, sir. We’ll fly with the mission-adaptive stuff on — you won’t believe how smooth and easy it is.”

“I haven’t done a takeoff in many, many moons,” Mace muttered.

“It’s as simple as becoming aware of when she’s ready to fly,” Grey said encouragingly. “We know what the book says the takeoff run should be, and it’s pretty accurate, but the Vampire is like a thoroughbred racehorse — you’ve got to be sensitive to when it’s hesitant, when it’s ready to run, and when to give it full rein. Rotate around one-fifty, climb to one or two hundred feet in ground effect, raise the gear, and then lower the nose until we reach three hundred knots. Once you hit three hundred, raise the nose and maintain three-fifty. As long as you maintain at least two thousand feet per minute, which should be no problem at our gross weight, we’ll clear the mountains easily. I’ll back you up on heading and keep an eye out for the leader. Ready?”

“Ready — I guess,” Daren said.

“You got the aircraft,” Zane said, giving the control stick a shake.

Oh, shit, Daren thought. Here we go. “I have the aircraft,” he acknowledged, shaking his control stick in reply.

The pilot of the lead EB-1C Vampire bomber got clearance for takeoff, taxied off the elevator to the end of the runway, lined up on centerline, locked brakes, lit afterburners, released brakes, and shot down the runway.

A few seconds after the leader lifted off, Daren locked the brakes and smoothly moved the throttles forward. He paused at the first detent, then smoothly moved the throttles into the afterburner zone. “Good nozzle swing… zone five, now… brakes off.”

The Vampire bomber leaped forward as if it were shot from a catapult. Daren was pressed hard in his seat. The pressure on his chest was surprising, much more than it had been in the supersonic FB-111. It was hard to believe that a plane this big could accelerate so fast. It seemed only seconds later that Zane announced, “Coming up on rotate speed… rotating, now.” Suddenly the Vampire broke ground and soared into the air like an arrow fired into the sky. “Positive rate… positive altimeter… gear moving.” Daren checked that all the gear lights were out — and by the time he did, the bomber had reached almost three hundred knots.

“Watch your airspeed — there’s your barber-pole max V,” Grey said. “Don’t be afraid to pull it up. The faster we get to altitude, the better.”

“Guess I’m a little rusty,” Daren commented. He pulled back more on the stick and retrimmed but found he had to pull and retrim every ten seconds or so to keep the bomber at three-fifty. They were now climbing at well over eight thousand feet per minute. “Christ, she’s like a bat out of hell,” Daren muttered.

“You got that right, sir,” Grey agreed. “Mission-adaptive technology. The whole airframe becomes a lift-producing device until we hit three hundred knots, and then the computer takes it away little by little, till just a small part of the wing and fuselage produces lift. That way there’s no induced drag caused by a lot of lift-producing surfaces. Sounds weird, but it’s true. The faster we go, the faster we can go. Above four hundred knots almost none of the wing and a tiny fraction of the fuselage is producing lift — the rest is just knifing through the air at zero angle of attack.”

A few moments later Zane put his right hand on the control stick. “Good job, sir,” he said. He shook the stick. “I have the aircraft. I’ll do the rejoin, check over the leader, then let you try some formation. It’ll get you warmed up for the air refueling.”

“You got the aircraft,” Daren said. His palms felt clammy inside his gloves. Damn, things happened fast in this machine!

It did not take long to catch up to the leader, and soon Zane maneuvered his bomber into route formation, five hundred meters to the right, a hundred meters behind, and a hundred meters above the leader. He got on the interplane radio frequency to the other aircraft. “Lead, this is Two, clear me in to fingertip,” he radioed.

“You’re cleared in to fingertip,” the leader radioed.

Grey performed an initial join-up, closing in to about a half mile away from the leader’s right wingtip. “That’s a pretty good combat spread position,” he said. He then made an imperceptible stick movement, and slowly they slid toward the leader until the two planes were less than a hundred feet apart. They looked the leader’s aircraft over; then Grey ducked underneath and repositioned himself on the other side. “Want to give it a try, sir?”

“Think I’m ready, Zane?”

“We’ll shortly find out, sir.”

“What’s the trick to fingertip in the Vampire, Zane?”

“The mission-adaptive computers dampen out most of the bow wave but accentuate the wingtip vortices, so we set up a little farther out than normal. We can’t really tuck it in as tight as a T-38 Talon or T-1 Jayhawk. Nice and easy is the key. I know you have formation experience in the F-111s and various trainer aircraft. With mission-adaptive technology, controlling the Vampire in close is easier than on any other aircraft. All it takes is a light touch on the controls.”

Daren flexed his neck muscles, shifted slightly in his seat, and looked as if he was taking a deep, nervous breath — but they hadn’t moved an inch yet. “Anytime you’re ready, sir,” Grey prompted him. He was just about to give Mace a few more basic pointers on how to close in to fingertip position when, before Grey or anyone else realized what happened, they were flying within just a few feet of each other, wingtips overlapping. “I’ve got the aircraft! I’ve got the aircraft!” Grey shouted.

“No,” Daren said calmly. “Hands off.”

“Two, you guys are a little close,” the lead mission commander radioed.

“We’re fine,” Daren responded. Grey quickly realized that Mace hadn’t overcorrected or made a mistake — he was purposely tucked in close, the leader’s left wing casting a shadow on the second Vampire. But Mace was in there so close and so tight that it felt as if they were one aircraft.

“I see what you mean about the wingtip vortices. The trick would be to keep the vortices away from the flight-control surfaces. Look — I’ll move out a few feet. Put your hand on the stick.” When Grey put his hand lightly on the control stick, Daren moved the bomber an imperceptible amount away from the leader. “See that?”

“No.”

“Turn off the mission-adaptive computer for a sec.”

“What?”

“I said, turn off the MA computer, Zane.”

“You want to move away first?”

“No.” To Grey’s horror, Daren keyed his voice-control button: “MAT to standby.” There was a slight burble that caused a thrill of panic to shoot up and down Grey’s spine, but their position did not change one bit. “See it now? The mission-adaptive system masks it out quite a bit. Look — it’ll go away.” He slid in four feet closer, so close that Grey could see the whites in the lead AC’s eyes. “See? It’s gone. You really got to get it in there tight, but the vortices just spill out over the top of our fuselage and overboard along our slipstream.” Daren keyed the interplane channel mike button: “Lead, give me a standard rate turn,” he radioed. “Either direction.”

There was a long pause, but finally: “Roger. Coming left.”

The lead Vampire made an ultracautious, much less than standard-rate turn, and the second Vampire turned with him. “See this, Zane?” Daren said. “Once you’re in tight enough to let the vortices spill over the fuselage instead of the wings, the vortices actually help keep you in place.” He moved his hand until he had just one finger and one thumb on the controls. “She’s practically flying herself. I wouldn’t unzip and take a pee, but this gives you enough of a breather to refocus your eyes, check a caution message, or get a kink out.” They turned right to get back on course, and Mace’s Vampire stuck with the leader as if it were welded to him. “Let’s see what it’s like on the other side.” On interplane he radioed, “Lead, Two’s crossing under to the other wing.”

“Is that you flying, Zane?”

“Negative. It’s the new guy.”

“Say again?”

“It’s the new MC flying,” Zane said proudly. “He’s got liquid nitrogen for blood.”

Still in the turn, Daren crossed under the lead EB-1, close enough so that they could see seams in the composite fibersteel skin. “Wow. Feel this, Zane — I’m dead in between both wingtip vortices, and it’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom here.” All Zane could think about was smacking into the underside of the lead plane — they were closer than precontact position from an aerial-refueling tanker. But he took the controls and found it incredibly steady. No sign of turbulence or cross-controlling at all. Daren tried it with the mission-adaptive system on, and it was even smoother.

He backed away to a more reasonable position. “Nice job in the groove, Nitro,” the pilot of the lead bomber remarked.

“I think you’ve just been named, sir,” Grey said.

“ ‘Nitro,’ huh? It’s a helluva lot better than ‘Pappy,’ “ Daren said. He moved away to route-formation position and gave control back to the flight-control computer.

“Shit-hot job, sir,” Grey said. “I got the impression you didn’t like flying.”

“Nah,” Daren said. “Just because I don’t think mission commanders need to be experts in flying the jet, or because I think I shouldn’t be wasting time learning flight characteristics, doesn’t mean I can’t fly. But I prefer dropping bombs, my friend. I’ll get our range clearance, and then we’ll go in and have some real fun!”

Daren had to struggle to keep up with the squadron as they headed down the aircraft-parking ramp for the finish line. His newest squadron joint activity: letting everyone off at 4:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon and doing a five-kilometer run around the runway, followed by a tailgate beer and soda party hosted by one of the squadron’s duty flights, rotated each week. He was heartened to see everyone who was not on critical duty, and even a few others who had a quick-response responsibility, out for the run. He was also pleasantly surprised when Patrick McLanahan, David Luger, and a bunch of other Air Battle Force types joined in the run with Rebecca Furness, John Long, and a few other wing personnel he hadn’t even met yet.

The afternoon air was cold and dry, much different from the humid air in the District of Columbia and Alabama, but his body was finally getting accustomed to the dryness and altitude, and Daren felt he acquitted himself well despite obviously being the old man in the group. He felt that more than just a few folks had to slow up so they wouldn’t completely wax their squadron commander, and there was a big clump of squadron personnel who finished beside Daren and Rebecca. John Long, a three-per-day cigar smoker, dropped out after three kilometers, the minimum distance for the twice-annual Air Force aerobics test; almost no one else dropped out, although a few had to stop and take some deep breaths and rest aching legs.

Daren first chose a large bottle of icy-cold water after the run, but then he took one look at the disappointed faces of his squadron, put it back, and pulled out a bottle of beer instead, then handed one to Rebecca. This gave the go-ahead for everyone else, and the partying started in earnest. “Good move, Colonel,” Rebecca said as they walked along the dirt beside the Security Forces building. “You saw that everyone wanted a beer, but no one was going to partake unless you did first. Very heads-up of you to switch.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ve seen a lot of that lately. You seem very in tune with your troops. I see you playing basketball and having chow with the enlisted people, playing cards with the NCOs, turning wrenches with the maintenance guys, and shooting rifles and pistols on the range with the Security Forces. I know it means a lot to them to see you around.” She paused, then said, “But I don’t see much of you these days. The general’s big project?”

“He’s got me plugged in night and day.” There were lots of generals on base, Daren thought, but everyone knew that “the” general was Patrick McLanahan. “Lots of meetings and trips to TTR.” The Tonopah Test Range was the flight test and research base in southwestern Nevada that served as the medium-security conduit between the unclassified flight testing done at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California and the supersecret research work done at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, near Las Vegas.

“Everything going all right?”

“I think we’ll have it dialed in soon,” Daren said. “The general is a hard-charger.”

“Good candidate for a nervous breakdown.”

“His head is screwed on right, I think,” Daren said. “He’s spending more time with his kid. He even showed up for the squadron run.”

“I couldn’t believe it myself.”

“I wasn’t surprised. He works hard, but he’s starting to gain a bit more perspective, I think.”

“That’ll be a switch.”

They fell silent again, nursing their beers. Finally Daren said, “How about dinner tonight? I think the Owl Club is doing cowboy poetry in the dining room. Should be a rip-roarin’ time in the old town!” That was pure sarcasm. There was not much to do in Battle Mountain after hours; cowboy poetry was a special treat.

“I… I don’t think so, Daren,” Rebecca said uneasily.

“You’re allowed to spend time with your squadron commanders while off duty.”

“I know that. It’s just—”

“This is the first time I’ve even spoken to you outside meetings and briefings, Becky, and we’ve still got several hundred airmen around us,” Daren said. “Something a little more relaxed and private would be nice.”

“I’m not ready to start seeing you, Daren.”

“Not even for dinner and some wine?”

“When did we ever get together for ‘just’ dinner?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Well, I certainly didn’t mind when things turned in that direction.”

“And that’s why I’m saying no, Daren. I’m afraid our whole relationship outside of work revolves around sex. I’m not ready for that yet.”

“It doesn’t have to end up with us in the sack, Becky.”

“I just don’t want to take the chance,” she said. She motioned to the rest of the large crowd of runners a few dozen yards away. “I think I’m comfortable enough around you right now.”

“You’re not giving me very much credit here.”

“I’ll apologize — if you tell me you didn’t think about it when you asked me out.” Daren smiled again. “I thought so.”

“Hey, it doesn’t mean I was planning to carry you up to a hotel room and throw you on the bed after dinner,” Daren said. “If it happened, then… I’d be very happy. If it didn’t—”

“You’d try again,” Rebecca finished for him. “Problem is, I’m not sure if I’m ready for the pursuit right now… and I’m not sure what I’d be feeling if I said yes.” He looked away. “And if you cared about me at all, you’d respect that.”

“I do,” Daren said earnestly. “But it won’t stop me from thinking about it — or trying again.” She had no response to that. Daren couldn’t tell if it meant “Don’t bother” or “I’d like that.” He looked over the aircraft-parking ramp, wishing he could throw the beer bottle across with all his strength. “Are you ever going to tell me about you and Rinc Seaver?” he asked sharply.

“No. And I advise you not to bring up that topic again,” she said, and she walked quickly away.

As he watched her move off, his mind flashed briefly on Amber back at Donatella’s — and then he shook his head, finished his beer, and went to get another.

While over at the tailgate, Patrick McLanahan met up with him. “Good idea doing a run,” he said. Daren noticed with amusement that McLanahan’s sweatshirt was heavily sweat-stained. “The tailgate party makes it even better.”

“Thanks for turning out, sir,” Daren said. “Been a while since you’ve done any running?”

“I’ve been allowed to skate.”

“I see.”

“I saw the rundown on your familiarization ride today with Lieutenant Grey. Very good shooting,” Patrick said.

“Thank you, sir. With precision-guided weapons and the systems you have on board your B-1s here, a person’s got to have a pretty good excuse to miss.”

“Youth. New systems. Not intuitive enough. I’ve heard lots of excuses,” Patrick said. “It takes a skilled operator to simply walk into a Vampire, manage the aircraft, manage the systems, and release good weapons. You’re a good stick, too. You watered your wingman’s eyes with your formation flying.”

“Thanks.”

McLanahan pulled Mace away from the others circling the beer. “You’re doing an outstanding job getting the virtual-cockpit stuff ready on the Vampires, too,” Patrick went on when they were by themselves. “It’s coming together great.”

“I think we’ll be done well before your deadline, sir.”

“Unfortunately, we’re going to be taking a break for a few days. We have a special mission — and I want you to fly it.”

“You got it, sir. Where are we going?”

McLanahan looked around to see if anyone was in earshot, then: “Turkmenistan.”

Daren didn’t look surprised. “I had a feeling things were heating up out there,” he said. “When do we brief?”

“We’ll brief the mission itself in the plane after we’re airborne,” Patrick said. “Crew rest for you starts as soon as you finish that beer. Show time in the Lair is oh-two-hundred, wheels-up at oh-three-hundred.”

Daren drained his beer. “Cool,” he said simply. “I’ll be there. Who’s my aircraft commander?”

“You worked well with Lieutenant Grey this morning,” Patrick said, “but we need someone with a little more experience.”

“Don’t tell me — I know.”

Patrick glanced at Rebecca heading for her Yukon in the parking lot, then back at Daren. “You two going to be okay?”

“Yes, sir. If not, we’ll have lots of time en route to discuss things.”

“That’s for sure. See you in the Lair.”

“May I make a suggestion, sir?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s turn this mission into an operational test flight,” Daren said. “Let’s use everything we’ve put together. It can work, I know it.”

Patrick thought about it for a moment — but only for a moment. “Good idea,” he said. “We’ll still have a live crew on board, but we’ll run it as if they’re not on board. We’ll have to let everyone in the One-eleventh in on it….”

“It’ll work, sir,” Daren said. “It’ll be great.”

Patrick fell silent again, then said, “Fine. But I’ll fly as mission commander.”

“Sir…”

“No argument. This mission and this system are completely off the books. No one flies experimental aircraft until I fly it first. I might even bar Rebecca from flying it, but she’d argue so loud and long that I know there’d be no point.”

“Sir, the original idea behind this whole plan was to make it so you wouldn’t have to fly missions like this.”

“That’s not why I set up this program!”

“I didn’t mean it like a selfish act, sir — I know you wouldn’t start something like this just for yourself,” Daren said. “But the original motivating factor behind all of this was creating a weapon system that didn’t rely on human factors to complete the mission. You have too much invested in this program — emotionally as well as careerwise — to be completely effective.”

“That’s enough, Colonel,” Patrick snapped. “I’m the MC on this mission, and that’s it. You will be the virtual mission commander; we’ll put Colonel Long and Lieutenant Grey in as the virtual aircraft commanders. I’m sure Dr. Jon Masters will want to be present as well; Captain Weathers will be on call as the weapons officer.”

“Not going to let me be the hero, eh, sir?”

“You so sure we’ll end up with a hero once this is over, Colonel?” Patrick asked.

“Damn straight, sir.”

Patrick clasped Daren on the shoulder. “Your confidence is infectious, Mace. All right, let’s do it.”