Day of the Cheetah

East Las Vegas, Nevada

Maraklov didn’t return to his condominium in the east Las Vegas subdivision of Frenchman Mountain until late that night. The early start and the intense flying had taken their toll, and the lectures he had received from McLanahan and Elliott during the long debriefing didn’t help.

He locked his car in the carport, took his briefcase, and trudged upstairs to his second-story entranceway. He wasn’t able to get on the Dolphin helicopter back to Nellis and had to bump along in the electric shuttle bus from Dreamland to Nellis. Then twenty hot, steamy minutes on the freeway just to go four exits in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Maybe a cold shower, a cold beer, a casino run.

He punched his code in the lock’s keypad. The door was already unlocked. He pushed it open a crack. No lights on. The lights were programmed to come on in the evening when the door was opened. Someone had overridden the programming. Someone was inside his apartment …

All he had for a weapon was his briefcase. Maybe he should have gotten out of there and called the cops, but the less he had to do with them, the better. He reached through the door and flicked on the lights. He strained against the faint street noises behind him but heard no sounds from inside. He flung the door open, letting it bang on the doorstep. Still no sounds.

He slowly crossed the threshold, looked down the hallway into the living room. Stereo, TV, VCR all in place. Of course, a burglar was the last thing he was worried about — he’d almost welcome that. There were others more dangerous.

He moved to the fireplace, picked up a poker and made a fast search of the apartment. Nothing. No sign of forcible entry, nothing missing. One more place to check.

He stood up on a stool and removed six books from the top shelf of the built-in bookshelves in the living room. On the back wall of the bookshelf he pressed on a board and a section sprang open about a half inch, revealing a panel hiding the steel door to a small wall safe. He had installed the safe himself shortly after moving into the apartment — one of the precautions he had taken years earlier, along with carefully arranging things in his drawers to help detect intruders, when he got his assignment to Las Vegas.

Instead of opening the hidden panel fully, he reached behind the panel with one finger and disconnected a wire leading from the door inside to the combination safe behind the panel. The wire was connected to an incendiary device inside the safe; if the door had been opened more than a finger’s width the device inside the safe would incinerate the contents. The safe obviously had not been—

A faint, lingering odor. Cigarettes, or an old stale cigar. He did not smoke. He turned …

“Sloppy of you, Captain James.” The voice came from behind him. He braced along the wall. A quick leap, a hard push and—

He heard the metallic click, and another voice: “Come down from there, Maraklov, before you hurt yourself, or worse.”

Slowly he replaced the trip wire on the safe’s hidden panel, closed it and stepped off the stool. Turning, he saw two men, one standing directly behind him holding a weapon, the other man seated on his sofa. He noted the weapon — not a pistol but a taser, a gun that shot small electrified darts. The darts, connected to the taser gun by a thin wire, were charged with twenty thousand volts at low amperage with the press of a trigger, causing instant paralysis. The dart only buried itself a fraction of an inch into the skin, but with a strong electric current from the taser short-circuiting the victim’s nervous system, he was powerless to pull or shake it free. A potent weapon — quiet, effective but non-lethal. That last encouraged Maraklov. They wanted him, but they didn’t want him dead.

He turned to the man on the couch. Henry Kramer was fiftyish, short, bulky but not fat, thin dark hair and beady eyes. He was dressed in a dark ill-fitting suit with a thin dark tie, looking too much a caricature of what he was — a conniving Soviet KGB agent, far more serious and dangerous than he looked.

“What are you doing here, Kramer?” Maraklov tried to control his anger as he also looked at the younger man with the taser. “Put that away. Look, you people are crazy to come here—”

Moffitt, the younger agent, lowered the taser but did not put it down. “We were worried about you, Captain James. And you should have locked your door before searching your apartment. We not only were able to get behind you, but found out where your safe is. You seem to be getting complacent …”

Maraklov forced himself to answer. He locked the front door, closed the blinds and began replacing books on the shelf. “Now what are you really doing here?”

“Captain,” Kramer said, “people are displeased. The information stream you have been supplying has become a trickle.”

“I told you why in my last report. Perhaps you’ve not had time to read it. They’re cracking down on security at HAWC like never before. Major Briggs has been given the widest leeway to stop security leaks, and they’ve been promised full cooperation from the federal judges in Las Vegas. That means not only searches of military property at Dreamland and Nellis but legal searches of private non-military residences too. They could even get, probably have gotten, authority for wiretapping, no-knock searches and arrests at any time. I thought it was Briggs in here already.”

“We have connections at the federal courthouse,” Kramer said. “If there has been cooperation between the military and the federal courts I’m sure an anonymous tip to the Las Vegas papers will stir things up. A report about widespread military authority to search private residences? They go crazy over such things here. Especially the press. Our perestroika caught some of it.” Kramer studied Maraklov. “Are you saying tightened security is your reason for not supplying one photograph of the XF-34A fighter plane or its components in over three weeks?”

“They haven’t let me be alone with the plane or its technical data since then. I was able to be alone with a set of the aircraft’s technical layouts a week ago but discovered an unusual change in the schematics that I didn’t understand … a dogtooth modification to the wings—”

“A what?”

“A special wing design that creates two differently performing wing structures on one surface. On a mission-adaptive wing like DreamStar’s, the dogtooth might increase its capabilities twenty percent.”

“A significant development indeed,” Moffitt said. “Why didn’t you report this? If they left you alone with the specifications why did you not photograph them?”

James turned to him. “Because I think it’s a fake. Or it could be. A plant. A trick. They may want me to see the dogtooth wing — and then they want to see if the dogtooth shows up on a satellite photograph of a Russian fighter at Ramenskoye or in a supposedly secure telephone message to Moscow. The dogtooth looks like a notch in the wings and is visible on satellite photography. It’s not just me. I’m sure they showed something different to each of the key players — a tail modification drawing to Powell, a nozzle mod to Butler … Major Briggs probably cooked up dozens of these tests for security leaks. Mine was the dogtooth … “

“You are sure these are fakes?”

Maraklov had to pause, even though he knew the hesitation, no matter how slight, would make Kramer and Moffitt suspicious. Then: “No, I’m not sure. The dogtooth design has been incorporated in numerous advanced fighters — it would be possible for our designers to use a dogtooth wing without stealing the idea from the Americans. But I’m sticking to my hunch: I think the dogtooth wing is a fake. And that’s why I didn’t report it.”

“But if it is not,” Moffitt said, “our own designers will be that much farther behind in our designs. Don’t you think you should have at least reported this finding? It would have alerted our agents that Dreamland has stepped up counter-espionage and security effects. Don’t you think that is worth a report?”

“You people don’t seem to get it. If I report this stuff as soon as it happens it makes it that much easier for Briggs and his men to hunt down the source of the leaks. I won’t jeopardize my cover or anyone else’s over something like this. I must be able to choose my own time, place and method of reporting activity and transferring information.”

“It seems you are becoming a bit squeamish, Captain James,” Moffitt said.

“You work with Harold Briggs and half the military security police breathing down your neck all day …”

“That’s enough. Both of you.”

Moffitt pressed. “I think Captain Kenneth James is becoming comfortable in his surroundings,” Moffitt said. “He makes a lot of money, he has a nice apartment, attractive American women. Could it be he does not want to risk losing his rich life for the Soviet people?” Moffitt suddenly switched to Russian. “Remember, Captain? Your people? The ones you swore to protect? The ones who gave you this mission—”

“Speak English, dammit,” Maraklov ordered. Anger and confusion were in his voice. Moffitt looked at him with some surprise.

“Is it possible,” Moffitt said in Russian, “you don’t understand what I’m saying? Or is this just a part of your little game, Comrade Maraklov—?”

“Don’t use that name. “ Maraklov lowered his voice, but the anger was in his face. “My name is Kenneth James. I’m from Rhode Island. I’m an officer in the United States Air Force—”

“You are Andrei Maraklov,” Moffitt pressed in Russian. “You are a Russian KGB deep-cover agent assigned to the top-secret Dreamland research laboratory in the United States. You—”

“I said speak English … neighbors, they could hear you—”

“Can you hear me? What are you … an American or a Russian—?”

“I don ‘t understand a goddamned word you’re saying.” He turned to Kramer. “You’d better get him out of here, Kramer, before he ruins the whole deal.”

“You can drop the act,” Moffitt said, this time in English. “This is not a test in your Connecticut Academy—”

“That is enough,” Kramer told Moffitt, on his feet now. “Stop trying to bait him — he is trained to deny any knowledge of his past.” He turned to James. “But our North American Command is concerned, Kenneth. You give them less each contact. We were ordered to investigate. An immediate face-to-face meeting was necessary—”

“Well, you’ve had it. I’ll get the information, but tell them I’m the only one who can control how and when I do it. It’s possible the level of security intervention is so high they’ll be forced to terminate the extensive searches soon. Otherwise no one will be able to get any work done. But we’ve got to take it easy. We can score a major espionage coup if we stay patient.” He did not add that it was no act, his not understanding their Russian. He really had lost it … He hadn’t quite realized it himself until now …

“We cannot afford to be patient,” Kramer said. “Our charge is to use every means to acquire this technology and build the DreamStar fighter plane. Our development of the aircraft must be parallel with the Americans’. A great deal has been invested to put you in place. For two years they’ve been patient. Now progress has stopped. Something must be done—”

“If you’re going to pressure me like this, I might as well stop everything before I’m caught. You might as well bring me in—” He shocked himself, saying it. It was the last thing he wanted.

Kramer looked at him. “An interesting suggestion.”

“What? The Command is considering bringing me in? That’s ridiculous—”

“Why?”

“It’s what they call biting off your nose to spite your face. I am in place here, Kramer. Fully in place. It would take another generation to develop another agent placed so high in the top-secret American military research organization …”

Kramer took a deep breath. “The lack of information was the last deciding factor, but the idea had started long ago—”

“What idea? What the hell is going on?”

“Our project to build our own version of the DreamStar aircraft was virtually doomed from the start. We knew about the F-15 fighter known as the Cheetah, of course — the Americans took it to the Paris Air Show. We built our own version shortly afterward, and with improvements it has become almost as formidable as the American version. But when we discovered what the Americans had planned for the next generation of fighter aircraft … no one believed that thought-controlled aircraft would become reality in his lifetime. Now suddenly the Americans had one in the air. Naturally we did everything in our power to learn about the technology, including authorizing the plan to put you in the Dreamland research area—”

“I don’t see the problem, Kramer. Everything’s going as planned.”

“Not exactly.”

Moffitt broke in. “Those big thinkers in Moscow can’t understand the data. They’ve got it piled up to their ears but can’t really decipher it. They have linguists, but the Americans use words that have no Russian equivalents. They say there are electronic parts made of atomic elements … I think that’s it … that even some of our best scientists have never heard of.

“So it takes time. In a couple of years everything they don’t understand will be commonplace. Right now they have superconducting circuitry that weighs two hundred pounds — in two years or less they’ll be putting superconductors in wristwatches—”

“Our people will not wait two years to build a thought-controlled aircraft,” Kramer said. ‘.’In two years the Americans can replace their European-based fighter force with these DreamStar aircraft. With an aircraft like DreamStar opposing our forces, our conventional-force superiority will be offset. We got them to reduce theirs and still leave us with an advantage. A plane like this DreamStar can undo all our advantages.”

“But DreamStar is still in its early research phase. It won’t be ready for production for two years. They might have a first operational unit by the year two thousand but even that’s an optimistic estimate.” He looked at Kramer. “Whoever’s feeding you or the Command this stuff is dangerous, Kramer. They’re trying to push the Kremlin into making a false move, one that could be embarrassing to the government and deadly for us.”

“What would you know about it?” Moffitt broke in. “You don’t even speak Russian any more. You’ve lost touch with your country. What would you know about what goes on in the Kremlin?”

Maraklov sidestepped the accusation to firmer ground. “I know that someone has overestimated the progress on the DreamStar project. You listen, Moffitt — this project is as much mine as it is yours. It’s my life if I get caught. I can be executed or spend the rest of my life in prison. If you get caught you pull out your diplomatic credentials and get yourself kicked out of the country. Big deal—”

“I said enough,” Kramer interjected. “Orders have already been received from Moscow. They are what prompted and justified this meeting with you. The Ramenskoye Research Center in Moscow reported that your data, although revealing, is still not sufficient for them to reconstruct the XF-34 DreamStar aircraft. It is much more than copying the design and the components — it seems they do not have the basic knowledge of the technology involved with the craft. They estimate several years before we will have the technology to duplicate the design with sufficient quality to match the present-day aircraft.” He paused, then: “The KGB has been ordered to obtain the XF-34 DreamStar aircraft from the American High Technology Advanced Weapons Center. Captain James, you are to steal DreamStar and bring it to Moscow.”

“Steal DreamStar? Impossible! Crazy!”

“Nevertheless, we have been ordered—”

“I refuse. You would jeopardize all this work, all this time, in an attempt to get a fighter out of the most heavily defended military reservation in the United States?”

Moffitt finally let out what he had been thinking … “He has been turned, just as I thought—”

No hesitation, James rushed Moffitt, feinted with a right roundhouse to Moffitt’s head, stepped closer and put him on the floor with a practiced kick in the groin.

He could hear Kramer trying quietly as he could to order him to stop. He wasn’t listening. As Moffitt crumpled unconscious on the carpet, Maraklov grabbed the poker and held the point on Moffitt’s throat … “The first thing I’ll do if they ever turn me,” he said, pressing the sharp iron shaft into Moffitt’s Adam’s apple, “is hunt you down and kill you. Don’t give me an excuse to do it before then.”

“Enough,” Kramer said, and grabbed away the poker.

Breathing heavily more from the adrenaline pumping than from any exertion, Maraklov told Kramer, “He knows too much. Any man with as little common sense who can name agents in the western United States is a major security risk—”

Kramer looked at Moffitt, back to Maraklov. “We are not unaware of the problem … diplomatic visas are being delayed. I need him, for now.” He noted Moffitt was beginning to come around. “Now sit down: we need to talk about this.”

James went to the kitchen, brought two cans of beer. As he opened his can he said, “The idea is impossible, Henry. I can’t conceive of a plane leaving Dreamland without authorization and make it away from American pursuit. Never.”

“Dreamland is like a safe, correct?” Kramer said, looking as Moffitt rolled up to his hands and knees, groaning and shaking his head. “The defenses there are to keep people out, not to keep anything in.”

“Wrong. The defenses around HAWC can do both.” James stood and went into his bedroom, coming back moments later with a Las Vegas visual navigation chart. He unfolded it and set it on the coffee table.

“Here. R-4808 North. Groom Lake. Emigrant Valley Road, military only. Where the road meets the south edge of Groom Lake is where the four aircraft hangars, offices, labs and weapons storage areas are. Garrisoned right there with the hangars are a detachment of twenty combat-ready security police with dogs, around the clock. They have armored vehicles, automatic weapons, guided missiles-they could hold off a regiment. Keeping one plane from leaving the security area would be a simple exercise. The buildings are surrounded by a twelve-foot concrete reinforced cyclone fence. You have to get past all that just to get into position for takeoff on Groom Lake … But let’s say I make it and I managed to take off. Now I’ve got to get out of Dreamland.

“Dreamland has this country’s only fixed surface-to-air missile sites. They’re on Bald Mountain, on the Shoshone Mountain range, Skull Mountain, Timber Mountain and Papoose Peak. First-generation Rapier missile batteries, complete coverage from surface to thirty-thousand feet within R-4808N. Single mobile sites are located on Tonopah Test Range to the northwest and China Lake to the southwest.”

Kramer took a sip of beer, grimaced at the taste, then pointed to the chart. “So, you do not go that way.”

“There is no way to go. There are a dozen Navy and Air Force fighter bases within a thousand miles of Dreamland, and I guarantee you, every one of them will launch aircraft in pursuit. If each base launches only two aircraft, that still means there will be twenty-four advance fighter planes looking for me. Where do I run, Kramer?”

The agent studied the chart. “Mexico is only three hundred miles away …”

“True. But the Mexican government would allow American fighters in hot pursuit across their borders. And that’s if DreamStar could get across the border. There are four fighter-interceptor squadrons between here and Mexico, and both the Americans and the Mexicans conduct all-altitude surveillance of the airspace near the border. It’s impossible, Kramer.”

“You’ve had your nose in that plane too long. Relations are strained almost to the breaking point between the United States and Mexico,” Kramer said. “The U.S. pressing Mexico on repayment of debts has turned them cold. And the pro-U.S. government is being accused of selling out the country to Uncle Sam. The Soviet Union is the beneficiary. We have a carefully developed cordial relationship with the rest of Central America too. We can ensure that any American pursuit of DreamStar across the border will not be allowed, that Mexican military forces will interdict American aircraft penetrating their airspace. They’re very proud, you know … Anyway, that should allow you time to evade pursuit. After that we can arrange an emergency refueling somewhere inside Mexico.”

“Even if all you say about their feelings toward the U.S. is true, the Mexican government would never agree to that.”

“There are thousands of square miles of the interior that could serve as a temporary base,” Kramer said. “From what you have described, your DreamStar aircraft could land and take off anywhere — on a dirt road, a grass strip, a plateau—”

“I’m not going to try to land DreamStar on some grass strip … “

Kramer looked closely at him. Maraklov sounded like he was talking about a personal possession. He filed it away and decided not to use it for the moment … “We have Mexican transport companies on private contract — they of course do not know that their contract is with the KGB — that can fly our teams in to service your aircraft without arousing the authorities—”

“And then what? I can cruise a little over a thousand nautical miles on full tanks — no air combat, no external stores, no low-altitude flight. I’d have to cross the Gulf of Mexico undetected to be able to make it into … Cuba. That’s impossible. We both know the U.S. can track every aircraft over the Gulf unless it’s down at low altitude. I’d be jumped after I went a hundred miles. If I tried to make the flight at low altitude. I’d flame out before I made dry land.”

“Then forget Cuba, go somewhere else … Nicaragua, for instance.”

“Nicaragua? Great. And how do I get out of Nicaragua? The U.S. Navy would seal off that whole region tight. I’d fly right into a trap—”

“You are being very uncooperative—”

“I’m being realistic. I’m not going to consider this deal without a detailed plan. You expect me seriously to consider this half-baked idea? I’m supposed to put my life on the line for some bureaucrat’s wet dream—?”

“The North American Command has issued its orders—”

“And I’m countermanding them. I’m the commander of the Dreamland mission. That gave me the authority to decide how my operation proceeds. Unless I receive specific orders, I am not going to consider any such operation.” He stood, facing Kramer and now Moffitt, who had struggled to a seat. “I’ll keep you updated on any developments — about DreamStar, security and the rest. Meantime, don’t contact me in my apartment again.”

“You’d better reconsider,” Kramer said. “An order from Moscow cannot be ignored. You know that.”

“I’ll consider it, but only when the situation justifies the tremendous loss of a trained agent in place. As of now, it doesn’t. All that’s indicated is that the operation proceed with extreme caution, which is what I intend to do.” He motioned toward the door. “Now get out. And you’d better not return directly to your consulate in Los Angeles. There’s a good chance that you’ll be followed.” He paused, then said: “Go visit your buddies in Mexico.”

Moffitt left first to check the parking area and driveway for tails. Kramer paused inside the front door.

“I will report what you have said. I warn you, do not separate yourself from the Command any further.”

Maraklov said nothing as Kramer looked out the door, got an all-clear flash from Moffitt’s cigarette lighter, went out.

After the agents had departed, James locked and bolted the door — and suddenly felt as if he was suffocating …

His mind’s eye could see unmarked cars roaring up the driveway toward his stairway, plainclothes FBI, CIA and DIA agents, led by Major Hal Briggs, coming up the stairs, kicking in his door, hauling him away in handcuffs, thrown into the back of a van with Kramer and Moffitt, who must have been arrested already … The federal authorities would interrogate them, separately, of course. He could trust Kramer to keep silent, insisting that he and Moffitt be returned to their consulate, but he was positive Moffitt would spill his guts just for an opportunity to get back at him. He would be identified as a Soviet agent and taken into custody, charged with espionage. His career was ruined. He’d never fly DreamStar again, never experience the indescribable experience of becoming one with that amazing machine …

Should he just sit here waiting, or escape right now? Activate his safe’s incendiary device himself so as to not risk Briggs or one of his men discovering the trip-wire and disarming the device? He’d take the money he’d hidden, go to Mexico, maybe further south, maybe to the wild interior of Brazil, out of reach of both American and Soviet intelligence units. He’d contact Moscow in hiding until he could be sure he was safe — from his own people as well as the Americans … He removed two of the books on the top shelf in front of the hidden wall safe. In case someone tried to break in he could reach in between the books, pop open the hidden panel and activate the incendiary device. He then shut off the lights, poured himself a glass of Scotch whiskey and sat down in the darkened living room.

Half a glass of Scotch later, sleep finally overtook him, but he was not getting any rest. For the first time since those first few months of his new life in America, Andrei Maraklov as Ken James remembered what real fear, real terror was.

Now that she was a senior civilian contractor on a small military installation, Wendy Tork’s hours were much more regular than in the early years when she had spent days in her laboratory, working on some irritating software bug. She remembered slaving over a computer terminal, staring at a screen full of lines of computer code. In the early eighties debugging software and artificial intelligence-based computerized programmers were practically non-existent — human programmers, sometimes armies of them, had to disassemble a compiled routine, then read thousands of lines of code to try to find an error. One never knew if the error was on the screen or a hundred lines away or in a completely different sub-routine. Once the error was supposedly found, the code was reassembled into its compact faster form and run. It was a wonder anything as sophisticated as the B-52 I Old Dog’s electronic countermeasures equipment, Wendy’s first major military project, ever worked in the laboratory — not to mention in combat. Now she had computers that designed other computers’ programs, and computers that checked and debugged those computers’ work, and a master computer that supervised all of them. Her job was mostly telling her computers what their jobs were and receiving reports from them on their progress. What had taken dozens of scientists and engineers years to accomplish now took one person a few days. Because of all that she could keep regular hours, enjoy a four-day work-weekmost of the industrialized nations of the world had switched to a four-day work-week by 1994—and spend more time at home.

But if most of the world had gone to the four-day work-week, the military, especially military aviators, had not. It seemed to go double for Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan. Since Wendy joined HAWC and moved in with him, her nights had often been long and lonely. Patrick had become an important administrator and commander at Dreamland research center, and it was not long before Patrick would call if he was going to be home more or less on time.

Tonight was one of those. He’d be home around seven, an early quitting time. Wendy doubted it and was right. She was wide awake when he finally did arrive home. He walked quietly as he could to the bedroom, tried to fumble his way, undressed without the lights.

“Hi.”

He threw his flight suit into the laundry hamper. “Sorry if I woke you. “

“Tough day?”

“You could say so.” He went into the bathroom briefly, then got into bed beside her. At first as he moved she pulled back with a shiver. His whole body was like ice — he’d taken one of his two-minute Navy shower sponge baths.

“You are freezing.”

“Sorry.” She allowed him to curl up beside her his warm breath on the back of her neck, punctuated by a kiss, then another. A moment or two later he asked, “How was your day today?”

“The morning was busy — I finally finished the software upgrades for the Megafortress. Pretty quiet this afternoon, I came home early.”

“Sorry about standing you up for lunch.”

“That’s okay. It looked like you were pretty busy. Anything serious with the plane?”

“No. Some over-G warnings showed up on the computer readouts, but we couldn’t find any damage. We worked right through lunch. I could have used some of the Nellis O-Club’s roast beef after that flight this morning.”

Wendy hesitated. “I didn’t have lunch at the Officer’s Club.”

“You ate at the cafeteria at HAWC?”

“No … I had lunch at Indian Springs.”

She could feel his body tense. “Indian Springs? What’s at Indian Springs?”

“The Thunderbirds Club.”

“You went to Indian Springs Auxiliary Field? How did you get there?”

“The Dolphin dropped us off.”

“Us?”

“Ken James and me.”

“Ken James took you to Indian Springs Field for lunch? Why?”

“Why not? I’ve never been there before. Ken made it sound like he goes there all the time.”

“I didn’t know the Dolphin ever stopped out there … Honey, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go to Indian Springs again.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s a restricted-use field. It’s supposed to be for official business—”

“Sure. Whatever you say, Patrick, but Ken seems to go there a lot.”

“Indian Springs is the fighter pilot’s hangout. But Ken also has a habit of stretching the rules. I don’t think there’s any problem, but let me check it out … “

“Okay.” She hoped it ended there. She was already sorry she’d brought it up at all.

“Damn it, if James can even find a rule, he’ll stretch it every last inch he can.”

“He says you grounded him and J. C. Powell today.”

“He said that? Damn it, that stuff is supposed to be classified. He and J.C. came close to killing each other this morning. I should bust them both but I can’t. J.C. is maybe the best pilot in the unit and one of the few that can keep up with DreamStar in our flights. And James is the only one that can fly Dream-Star with any effectiveness. I can’t even officially reprimand them until the project is declassified. I don’t know if it’s possible to train another pilot for DreamStar, and I can’t afford to put this project any more behind schedule. So, I gave them a slap on the wrist … they’re only grounded until the next scheduled sortie. Next week … So to celebrate, James takes you to lunch at a restricted base and I have Elliott giving me the hairy eyeball all afternoon … “

“I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“And I’m sorry to sound like a pompous, jealous … except when you’re concerned …”

And then she was in his arms, and there was no more time — or need — for talk.

Dreamland

“You realize, Patrick,” Dr. Alan. Carmichael said, “that nothing at all may happen.”

McLanahan and Carmichael were in a special steel-lined chamber early the next morning. More a huge underground vault, the chamber contained the original laboratory version of the AN-TARES thought-controlled flight-and-avionics system. Concerned more with performance in the early years of the project than size, the chamber housing the ANTARES system was massive — the size of a basketball court. The complex was controlled by its own super-fast CRAY computer that, even though encompassing state-of-the-art very high-speed integrated circuits, artificial-intelligence electronics capable of performing billions of computations a second, was larger than a refrigerator and had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen at two hundred seventy-five degrees below zero.

In the center of the three-story chamber, dwarfed by massive banks of electronics gear and environmental system ducts, was an F-15 single-seat fighter simulator. It had none of the advanced multi-function displays and laser-projection devices of Cheetah — it still used ordinary electric artificial horizons and pneumatically driven altimeters and turn-and-slip indicators, and most of those were barely functioning. The ejection seat was an old Mark Five “Iron Maiden”-type seat from the early 1980s, stiff, straight-backed, and uncomfortable, its special anti-G padding and shoulder harnesses having been cannibalized for spare parts long ago.

Patrick was not secured in that ejection seat, but neither was he free to move. He was wearing an early non-cushion version of Ken James’ metallic-thread flight suit. It was far more bulky than the actual operational model, with thick fiber-optic bundles interwoven all around the suit, circuit boxes attached to every conceivable inconvenient point on Patrick’s body, and, unlike James’ suit, this experimental model had no integrated cooling systems built into it. Icy blasts of cold air were directed on Patrick to help keep him cool, and when the skin’s resistance was completely unbalanced by sweat and vascular dilation on account of the extreme temperatures inside the suit, the session would be ended.

“I’ve been trying out this system for a few months now,” Patrick said. “My brainwaves or whatever they are …”

“Theta signal threshold complex.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway, they should start working, shouldn’t they?”

Carmichael shook his head. “If it was that easy, we’d have a squadron of ANTARES pilots now. We don’t fully understand how ANTARES works, how the neural interface is achieved. We can get it to work but we’re not sure, for example, why it works with James and nominally for you and J.C. and not for anyone else. We’re getting closer to the answer, but it’ll still take some time.”

“What is it with James?” Patrick asked. “I can’t mentally control an itch on the back of my neck. He can control a two million dollar fighter at Mach one.”

Carmichael ran a hand up his forehead and across the top of his bald head — even though it was the style of the mid-1990s for some men to have a shaved head, Carmichael came by his naturally, involuntarily. “The sheer strength of his mind is enormous. The ANTARES interface is another addition to his mental gymnasium, so to speak. He’s strengthened by it every time he uses it. We’re learning a lot from him.”

“But he’s not any smarter than anyone else at HAWC.”

“I’m not talking about intelligence … stop squirming.” Carmichael motioned to one of his assistants, who ran a cool towel over Patrick’s sweaty face. “He’s quite intelligent — an I.Q. of well over one-fifty. But what counts more is that his mind is fluid, adaptable, agile. Are you at all familiar with taekwondo, Patrick?”

“Taekwondo? You mean martial arts?”

Carmichael nodded as he scanned an instrument panel beside the simulator. “A special form of the martial arts that combines karate, kung fu and judo — James happens to be a black belt in taekwondo, by the way … did you know that? Almost made our Olympic taekwondo team. It’s not an offensive, attack-style of fighting. In taekwondo the attacker is allowed to engage — as a matter of fact, there are few moves in taekwondo that can be performed unless in response to an attack.”

“Get to the point, Alan.”

“The point is, James’ mind works much the same way as the taekwondo style of combat. He allows the flood of information created by ANTARES to invade him. He opens up his mind to it — exactly the opposite of the normal reaction to such an invasion. Most of us build barriers against such an onslaught — James allows it to move in, even expand. But he doesn’t surrender to the information that bombards him. Once ANTARES unlocks the inner recesses of the mind, the ones we have no conscious access to, he’s somehow able to reassert his conscious will. At first it’s little more than gentle mental nudges, but then he’s able to control ANTARES, steer the mass of information his way. It’s the mental equivalent of a single tree changing the course of a raging river.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

“For a good reason.” Carmichael’s features turned stony. “I’ve already said there’s a lot we don’t understand about ANTARES. We’re tinkering with this technology before it’s fully understood, but neither of us has the authority to stop it. I just hope I can learn enough before some disaster happens.”

He studied McLanahan. “That was meant as a disclaimer, Patrick. You’ve been strapping this stuff on a few times a month now, probably with faith in me and all this high-tech government equipment. We use it because it works. Period. We don’t know why it works, and so we won’t know what happened if something goes wrong.” He picked up a very large, bulky helmet with all sorts of cables and wire bundles leading to the banks of computers below. It was a much larger version of the ANTARES flight helmet, obviously not designed for flight — its wearer would be completely immobilized by its sheer size and bulk. “Still want to subject yourself to this, Colonel?”

Patrick shrugged. “Here’s where I’m supposed to say ‘I regret I had only one brain to give to my country …’ “

“You’re the project director, it’s not your job …”

“ It’s not my job.’ That’s the most over-used and annoying phrase in the Air Force.” Patrick stopped, looking at the menacing ANTARES helmet as if it was some medieval torture device, then nodded. “I need to know how it works. I need to understand what it does to the pilots that I’ll order to wear this thing. Let’s do it.”

Carmichael and an assistant proceeded to lower the heavy helmet onto Patrick’s shoulders and fasten it in place. The helmet was very tight and heavy. Once attached to the clavicle ring on his flight suit, the device pressed down on his breastbone and shoulders like a heavy yoke. The superconducting antennae pressed unmercifully on several spots on his head and neck, corresponding to the seven areas of the brain that were constantly being scanned and measured by the ANTARES. There was a smoked glass visor in the helmet, but Patrick could barely see anything outside. The thick rubber oxygen mask that enclosed his mouth and chin was hot and almost suffocating.

After a few seconds, Patrick could hear the faint click as the tiny headphone in his helmet was activated. “Patrick? All set in there?”

“Check the oxygen flow. I’m not getting any air.”

“You’ve got a good blinker and all switches are set,” Carmichael replied. Just then Patrick’s oxygen mask received a steady flow of cold, dry air. “I gave you a shot of oxygen. I can’t give you too much or you could hyperventilate. Try to relax. Start anytime you’re ready.”

Patrick sat back in the hard ejection seat and began the relaxation routine taught to him by Carmichael over a year earlier when he’d first begun experimenting with an ANTARES trainer. He began the familiar process, letting the spurts of pure oxygen in his mask slow his breathing and force the tension from his body. In his case it was his toes and calves that seemed to be perpetually clenched, like a swimmer on the starting block, as if he was always trying to grip onto something. It was refreshing to feel how good his feet felt after forcing them to relax.

Slowly, he worked his way up his body, ordering each muscle group to relax. One by one he managed to relax his body parts, letting the stiffness of the metallic flight suit support him in the ejection seat. He knew he’d have to reexamine his leg muscles now and then, but after dozens of these sessions his relaxation technique was getting much better.

“Very good,” he heard Carmichael say, “much better. Minimal beta activity. Very steady alpha complex.”

“It seemed to go easier this time,” Patrick said. “How long did it take?”

“You did pretty well, only one hundred and thirty minutes this time.”

“Over two hours …? “

“Easy, easy; maintain your alpha level …”

Patrick fought to regain his body-relaxation state, despite his sudden confusion and disorientation. “I thought I was getting better, it seemed like just a few minutes.”

“A good sign. You enter a state of altered consciousness, much like hypnosis but more so. Losing track of time is a good sign — if you had said it took two hours it would mean your mind is still focused on external events like time—”

And then he felt it, a tiny jolt of electricity shooting through his body. It was like diving into an ice-cold pool of water — the jolt didn’t start or stop anywhere in particular but it shocked his entire body all at once. It was not totally uncomfortable, just unexpected — more attention-getting than painful, like a mild static electricity shock. His body jerked at the first jolt, and he fought to relax his body again. Surprisingly, he found it much easier to relax this time.

“Just relax, Patrick.” Carmichael sounded as if he was calling from the bottom of a deep well. “You’re coming along fine. Relax, Patrick … “

Another jolt of electricity, harder and deeper this time, creating a shower of sparks before his eyes. There was real pain this time, completely different from the first. Patrick remembered the three deadman’s switches rigged to the seat — one on each hand and one on the back of his helmet, where all he had to do was release his grip on the handles or move his head in any direction and the power to the simulator box would immediately cut off. The electricity was still there, still intense … all he had to do was hold on long enough to command his hands to move …

“Remember taekwondo, Patrick,” he heard a voice from nowhere say. “Allow the fight to come to you. Accept it. Be prepared to channel it.”

Another surge of energy, powerful enough to make Patrick gasp aloud in his mask. There was a brief shot of oxygen, but now it felt blasting hot, like opening an oven door …

“Don’t fight the energy. Relax …”

“The pain … I can’t stand it …”

“Relax … regain theta-alpha.”

Another intense wave of electricity, and he involuntarily grunted against the pain. The shimmering wall of stars washed over him — but they were different this time. The lights remained, and amidst ever-growing jabs of pain throughout his body the stars began to coalesce into images. Faint, blurred, unreadable — but they were not just random stars. Something was forming …

Here was finally something to latch onto, to grasp and hold firm, for no other reason than to preserve his sanity and keep from screaming out in terror and pain. When the pain increased in severity, Patrick let it hit him head-on, enduring it long enough just so he could reexamine the sparks of pain floating in his mind’s eye and form another concrete mental image.

He was experiencing what James already knew and had gone through … His whole body was on fire. The pain was continuous, but so were the sheets of light — and they were definitely taking shape. Flashes of numbers, some logical, others unintelligible, zipped back and forth in his subconscious mind. The images were beginning to organize themselves — there was now a sort of horizontal split-screen effect, with darkness above the new horizon and floating, speeding numbers and polyhedrons below. He could hear short snaps of sound, like a stereo receiver or short-wave radio gone haywire.

The sounds were the key. Patrick now began to concentrate against the pain, channeling it along with the confusion, trying to slow the jumble of numbers and letters and shapes into one positive, concrete form. With each push in the desired direction, ANTARES would give him a burst of pain for his trouble. But the pain didn’t matter any more. There was an objective now, a goal to reach, if a childishly simple one … three letters — A, B, C — and one device — the simulator’s intercom.

The letters were becoming as large as the lower half of the split screen, but they were finally becoming solid, aligning themselves beneath the blackness. Soon they remained steady, and even began to slide away from the center toward the—

“Patrick?”

The voice was like a distant, relaxing whisper, like a church bell off in the distance, like the friendly toot of a boat horn on the Sacramento River back home. “Powell?”

“Welcome back, boss. Have a nice trip?”

“Not sure. I’ve got a lot of pain. Dr. Carmichael?”

“Right here.”

“How long did it take this time?”

“You tell me.”

Patrick tried to remember back through the interfacing period, through the waves of rolling pain, through the fleeing mental images. “I felt out of control, it must’ve taken another hour.”

“Try nine seconds,” J. C. Powell said.

“Nine seconds?”

“Nine seconds on the dot from the moment you went into theta-alpha,” Carmichael said happily. “Even faster than Ken’s ever done it, although he doesn’t take two hours to get to theta-alpha.”

Patrick tried to turn his head, but found it impossible — it was as if two red-hot hands held his head cemented into place. “How can anyone function with all this pain? I feel like I’m being microwaved, I can’t move a muscle.”

“All I can say is that Ken James is different. He’s also been using the ANTARES system for a long time. Don’t focus on the pain, and don’t worry about being able to move around. Relax and try to enjoy the ride.”

A moment later, Carmichael clicked the intercom back on. “We’ve repositioned the simulator at thirty-five thousand feet and five hundred knots. Take the aircraft when you’re ready, Colonel.”

Patrick concentrated as hard as he could on the image of the instrument panel. He had managed to slide the image of the intercom channel off to the left, but the rest of the panel was blank. Like a television screen with nothing but snow across it.

Okay. Aircraft attitude was important. Maintain control. Keep the airplane flying.

Instantly an oval drew itself on the upper half of the cockpit image. It was sitting horizontal across the windscreen, a deep white line bisecting it, forming a horizon. In the exact center of the oval was a wide T, representing the aircraft.

“Release me,” McLanahan said.

The T jumped up and to the right just as Carmichael said, “You’re moving.”

Patrick concentrated on keeping the T in the center of the oval. Slowly the T moved back in the center.

“Good start at least, now where the hell am I going?”

The oval disappeared, replaced by the image of a long ribbonlike street on the upper portion of the screen. The street was straight for a distance, but Patrick could see a few gentle twists and turns in the distance. At the bottom of the screen was a tiny picture of a jet fighter plane — it appeared to be resting right on the road.

“Hey, I’ve got the flight-plan depiction.”

“Good,” Carmichael said. “That’s a major flight image. Follow it as long as you can. How’s the headache?”

“It went to splitting migraine long ago, Doc, but as long as I keep my mind off the pain it’ll be okay.”

Keeping the simulator flying upright was more difficult without the artificial horizon, but no amount of mental effort would bring it back, so Patrick used the visual cues on the road itself — the recommended altitude was to surface on the road itself, which also represented the proper pitch and bank to follow; as long as he kept the little fighter model on the road he would be following the computer’s recommended flight path. The road’s curbs represented the allowable lateral flight corridor to follow, and tiny signposts represented planned turn-points and recommended altitude-changeover points.

As long as the “road” was straight and flat, the ride went well. But after a few moments the road began to make small left and right turns, and the going got much tougher. The tiny fighter icon penetrated through the road several times, porpoising up and down through the recommended altitude block, and Patrick had to apply harder and faster corrections to keep the plane steady.

“Stabilize, Patrick,” he heard from J. C. Powell.

“I’m trying.” The fighter icon slid through the right wall of the road, skidded sideways, then entered an uncontrolled spin.

“Let the computer recover the plane,” Powell said. “Don’t try to fight it.”

Patrick forced himself to go along. He concentrated on the surface of the computer-generated road without thinking about the aircraft control. Suddenly he knew that ANTARES had placed both mission-adaptive wings in high-lift modes and deployed both dorsal and ventral sets of rudders to maximize directional control. The fighter icon dove through the right side of the flight path depiction, but by rapid lift, power and drag changes under precise computerized control, the fighter was soon out of its uncontrolled spin and stabilized in a steep dive. A few moments later the fighter slowly leveled out and returned to its desired flight path once again.

“Good recovery,” Carmichael said. “ANTARES will always try to save the aircraft whenever possible, but you still have to tell her where you want to go, even in an uncontrolled situation.”

After a few minutes of straight-and-level flight to get his confidence back, Patrick accomplished a few turns, with bank angles and altitude changes mixed in. “I think I’ve got the hang of it again,” Patrick said.

“Still have those headaches?”

“Now that you mention it, yes, but they seem to become less noticeable when I’m concentrating on something else.”

“Good. How about some formation flying? We can put up another fighter and let you fly off his wing for a while.”

“No, bring up a hostile.”

“Getting cocky now, aren’t we, sir?” Powell cut in. “Five minutes ago you couldn’t make a ten-degree turn without going out of control. Now you want to do some dogfighting.”

“That’s what the damned simulators are for, J.C. Bring up a high-performance model, too.”

“You got it.”

There was no change in the simulation after several long moments. He was going to ask if they had put up a hostile when he remembered — none of his fighter’s offensive or defensive systems had been activated—

But that realization was enough. Immediately a computer synthesized voice announced, “Attack radar activated … electronic countermeasures activated … tail warning systems activated.”

And there it was, a laser-projected image of a fighter in the upper right corner of the screen. Patrick immediately commanded the simulator’s laser-tracking system to lock onto the hostile aircraft, and deactivated the attack-radar as soon as the laser had illuminated the target. But it wasn’t fast enough. Flight data on the hostile aircraft showed that it had altered course and was on a head-on intercept course. The hostile had detected Patrick’s brief radar emission and had turned to start the fight.

As the two aircraft merged into a nose-to-nose flight path, Patrick was suddenly flooded with information. His laser-projection screen was filled with electronic depictions of dozens of options, only a few of which included a full head-on pass. There were so many options that he lost count. His headache had come back full-force now. Beads of sweat obscured his vision, blood pounded in his ears. He was conscious, his mind still sharp, but the pain, intermingled with hundreds of bits of data predicting the outcome of dozens of maneuvers by both aircraft soon overwhelmed him.

The ANTARES simulator suddenly went inverted and pulled a heart-stopping eight-G descent. The simulator had activated the all-aspect radar as it descended, and Patrick could easily “see” his pursuer descend with him. But that was what ANTARES had been expecting. The simulator continued its inverted loop, using its high-lift canards to pull the nose up through the horizon. The throttle went to max afterburner as he went through the vertical — and Patrick had no doubt that he would have been squashed like a grape if he had been in a real jet aircraft.

As the nose dove through the horizon once again he found that the pursuer had become the pursued. Whatever kind of aircraft they had put up against him, it couldn’t keep up with ANTARES. Patrick found himself directly behind his adversary. and ANTARES had already armed four laser-guided missiles and was waiting for orders to fire. Patrick issued those orders a split second later. Meanwhile, ANTARES had switched to the internal twenty-millimeter multibarrel cannon and was waiting for orders to fire as the simulator closed in on the hostile, but there was no need to open fire — all laser-guided hypervelocity missiles had hit their target.

“Ground position freeze,” Dr. Carmichael ordered. Patrick heard footsteps on the catwalk around the simulator’s cockpit as the cockpit indicators and the deluge of information in his head abruptly ceased. “Patrick, this is Alan Carmichael. Can you hear me?”

He found himself frozen in his seat, unable to move a muscle and barely able to move his lips … “Yes.”

“We’re going to disconnect ANTARES. Hold on.”

Even though the simulator had stopped, the pain inside Patrick’s head was steadily increasing. He could feel the fighter doing some lazy rolls and spins but didn’t have the strength to issue the orders to maintain straight and level flight.

“I … I’m losing it …”

“Let it go, Patrick,” Carmichael said. “You’re off the simulation. Relax. Don’t worry about the controls.”

It was like telling a man hanging from a cliff to cut his lifeline. Slowly, using every last ounce of strength he had, Patrick fought the urge to counteract the spinning aircraft. But the more he let go, the more he was drawn to what was happening. As the aircraft’s altitude began to decrease, he received the aircraft altitude, “heard” ANTARES’ reports on terrain, engine performance, structural loads. The closer the fighter got to earth, the faster the reports came. When the fighter shot through five thousand feet above the ground, ANTARES recommended it take over. Patrick did not respond. At three thousand feet above ground, ANTARES issued the order to eject. Again, Patrick ignored it.

He just sat, transfixed, as he listened to ANTARES’ neural “screams.” The computer was literally begging its human occupant to do something, anything, to save it. The more the computer blasted McLanahan with pleas to issue an order to recover the aircraft, the more the pain increased and the more Patrick was unable to do anything. Carmichael was reaching to disconnect the superconducting helmet from Patrick’s clavicle ring when the simulator slammed into the ground at nearly two thousand miles per hour.

When the helmet was finally lifted from McLanahan’s shoulders and Carmichael saw his face, even he was shocked. McLanahan’s face was a mask of pain, as in a man tortured to the very brink of tolerable agony.

“Patrick, snap out of it: it’s over!” Carmichael was yelling at him. Technicians had jumped up on the catwalk beside Carmichael, and others were unfastening the shoulder harness and loosening the heavy connectors and relays on the metallic flight suit. Carmichael looped an oxygen mask over Patrick’s face. “It’s over. Wake up, dammit.”

No response. Technicians were still trying to remove the heavy metallic gloves from Patrick’s hands and undo the suit’s fasteners, so Carmichael bent lower over Patrick and put his ear to his mouth.

“He’s stopped breathing, cut the suit off—” An assistant hesitated, looking first at Patrick, then Carmichael. “I said cut it off. Now.” Carmichael put his face up to Patrick’s. “Patrick, wake up, dammit!” He grabbed a pair of steel cutters from one of the technicians as the medical team removed the oxygen mask and inserted a breathing tube down Patrick’s throat, then grabbed a wire-laced seam of the suit and made a twelve-inch cut across Patrick’s chest with the ultrasonic cutting tool, exposing the thin cotton undergarments soaked with sweat. “Get a heart monitor over here!” He ripped open the underwear to expose McLanahan’s chest. He studied Patrick’s face as the airway was opened and the respirator started. The eyes were fluttering and his facial muscles were contorting as if he was locked in some nightmare.

Then J. C. Powell stepped up on the catwalk opposite Carmichael. As the electrocardiogram leads were taped to McLanahan’s chest, Powell took Patrick’s head in his hands and bent down to his left ear:

“Wake up, boss,” he said in a firm, quiet voice. “Show’s over, Colonel. Wake up.”

Carmichael studied the EKG readouts. “No pulse. Straight line. Charge the defibrillator units. Powell, get out of the way.”

J.C. ignored him. “Patrick, this is J.C. I know you can hear me—”

“He can’t hear a damn thing,” Carmichael said. “Now stand clear—”

“He can hear me; he knows what’s happening. He can feel everything. He just needs a direction—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

J.C. did not answer. Instead, he placed both of Patrick’s hands on his shoulders, moved as close as he could and said, “Patrick, you can hear me. Listen to me. ANTARES isn’t in charge now. You are in control. Wake up.”

“He’s been unconscious too long, Powell,” Carmichael said. A medical technician handed him two electrode paddles from the heart defibrillator. “He’ll die if we don’t revive him.”

“And you’ll kill him if you shock him with that.” Powell grabbed Patrick by his flight suit and hauled him up as far out of the ejection seat as he could. “Patrick!” he yelled. “Dammit, I said wake up!”

Suddenly McLanahan’s eyes popped open. He grabbed J.C.’s shoulder in a crushing grip that made Powell wince. He gagged on the resuscitator tube in his throat and pulled it out, his chest heaving. Powell eased him back into his seat.

“Sinus rhythm,” one of the paramedics reported. “Blood pressure high but strong. Heart rate, respiration okay.”

“Are you all right?”

“I … I think so.”

Carmichael started to put the oxygen mask on his face again but Patrick pulled it away, choosing instead to take occasional deep breaths from it.

“It was so weird,” McLanahan said, trying hard to control his breathing. He seemed to be reviewing, reliving, the scene in his mind. “I was watching the intercept and the kill like a spectator. ANTARES was doing it all. It was like I wasn’t there. But I felt the pain building and building, and ANTARES getting stronger and stronger, along with the pain. But then I couldn’t do anything. I knew I still had to fly the aircraft on ground-position freeze, but I couldn’t give any commands. I felt like … like a million hornets were buzzing all around me. I knew those hornets carried information, important data I need to know, and I knew something was wrong. But with the pain, I couldn’t do a thing … Suddenly everything was dark and empty. I didn’t have a body, just a brain. I was searching for a way out of a room but didn’t know how I was going to make it even if I found an exit. That’s when I heard J.C.’s voice. The more I heard, the more … alive I felt. I followed his voice … I …” His voice began to fade, and he appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

“Get him out of here,” Carmichael ordered.

He woke up later to find Wendy Tork asleep in a chair beside his bed, a magazine across her lap. “Wendy?”

She came upright. “Patrick? You’re awake! How do you feel?”

“Tired. Thirsty.” She poured him a glass of water from a plastic pitcher, then rang for the nurse. “I feel like I’ve just paddled a kayak across the Pacific.” He found he had the strength to sit up and take the cup in his hands. “What time is it?”

“Nine P.M.”

“I’ve been asleep for twelve hours?”

“Patrick, it’s nine P.M. on Saturday. You’ve been asleep for forty-eight hours.”

The water glass began to tremble in his hands, and he quickly set it on the bedside table. “Was I in a coma?”

“No — well, technically, yes,” Wendy said, moving close to him and taking his hands in hers. “They called it extreme exhaustion and depletion. You lost seven pounds while you were in that simulator. You could have hurt yourself even without the strain that … that thing put on you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He sat up and took a few sips of water. Nothing was said until he asked, “How long have you been here?”

“I never left. I … I wanted to talk some more about the other night. I know how it is for you—”

“Works both ways, kid.” He let out a tired sigh and his head dropped back to the pillow. He managed a short laugh. “I think I know why Doctor Jekyll drank his own potions. You want something to be so successful that you’ll try anything, even making yourself into your own guinea pig. I never should have strapped myself into that simulator. I wasn’t ready for it.”

“It must have been terrible.”

“It was … different,” he said uneasily. “I have to give guys like James and Powell all the credit in the world for flying the real thing, never mind the simulator. It’s an awesome contraption if you can keep yourself from going crazy.”

“Talk about going crazy,” a voice said behind them. They turned to see General Elliott and Hal Briggs enter the hospital room. Hal went over to Patrick and clasped hands with him. “You had the whole place going crazy, brother.”

McLanahan thought that Elliott looked drawn, tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His blue blouse was sweat-stained and rumpled, and he seemed to favor his artificial leg more than usual. “How do you feel, Patrick?”

“Fine, sir.” A damn lie.

“Takin’ a nap for a day and a half, you should be fine,” Hal put in.

“We can do that SPO conference tomorrow after I get out of here,” Patrick said to Elliott.

“I think we’ve all had enough for the weekend, Colonel,” Elliott said. “I’ve scheduled a meeting with the senior project officers and the engineering staff for Monday morning. You’re on sick leave until then. Clear?”

But something else hung in the air — Elliott was showing more than just concern for him. Elliott turned to Wendy. “Can I have him for a few minutes?”

“Visiting hours are over.” She went to Patrick and kissed him. “I’ll come by at nine to bail you out.” Wendy nodded to Elliott and left. Briggs took a big glass of Patrick’s ice water and moved unobtrusively in front of the door, casually but effectively blocking it.

“You gave us a scare, Patrick,” Elliott said. Patrick sat up and watched as Elliott began to pace the small room. This, Patrick thought, was not an ordinary get-well visit. “I hope you’ll forgive me for suggesting that you train in the ANTARES simulator for this project—”

“On the contrary, General, I wanted to do it. It was a part of the project. I think we should continue—”

“You’re not expendable. I can’t go on using my senior officers for experiments—”

“I’m a flyer first,” McLanahan said quickly. “You needed someone with operational experience to see how well a non-ANTARES-trained person could adapt to the system. I was a logical choice.”

“We’ve got flyers lined up around the block for a chance to do that. I can’t risk you again. From here on out, no more ANTARES simulator for you.”

Patrick was just too tired to argue. “Who then?” he said. He turned to Briggs. “Hal, you’ve got the latest clearance-list of applicants. Bring the list by my office and I’ll—”

“I had a talk with Dr. Carmichael early this morning,” the director of HAWC said. His tone was low, somber, like he was delivering a eulogy. “At this stage of the game we could put a hundred men through that system and we wouldn’t be any closer to understanding how it really affects the human mind. There are just too many unknowns. And we just don’t have the resources to study each and every one of them—”

“All it takes is time and training. I’ve been working with ANTARES for just a few months—”

“And it nearly killed you,” Briggs cut in.

“I flew it in combat after only four months of work,” McLanahan said. “I’m not a pilot but I flew the hottest jet in the world with only four months’ training.”

“It’s not the same and you know it, Patrick … “

“I’ve made progress. I’ve taken the worst that machine can dish out. I can control it now. Besides, I’m an old fart. I’m forty years old. A guy half my age could master that machine a lot easier. Don’t judge the whole program because of what happened to me—”

“Unfortunately we must,” Elliott said. “We aren’t getting the information we need from only one successful pilot in the program. We were hoping the progress you and Powell had made could clear the way for a more extensive ANTARES training program, but now it appears that we can’t adequately quantify the experiences of any participant. What happens to you, or rather why it happens, is an unknown. We can’t have training based on hit-or-miss procedures — we’ll end up killing half the trainees.”

McLanahan shook his head. “So you’re really considering canceling the DreamStar project because of my incident the other day?”

“There are other considerations, which you’re aware of. We do spend half a billion dollars a year for a plane that many congressmen may not ever see fly in their lifetimes. They hesitate continuing the funding, especially if there’s some pork-barrel projects in their home districts that could get them a political leg up in this lifetime … And of course there’s the security question.” Elliott glanced at Briggs, who remained stone-faced. “Our security problems have tended to overshadow our advances. The way of least resistance for these Pentagon officials is simple — terminate the project, continue lower funding levels for research into the ANTARES interface but discontinue all flight operations and plans for development and deployment.”

“But DreamStar’s up and flying — that’s a fact. We’ve only tried the ANTARES interface with a handful of pilots. We can’t give up now.”

Elliott nodded. “That’s the argument I used, Patrick. We’ll have our answer on Monday. Meanwhile, get some rest.”

Hal Briggs stayed behind. “J.C. was by to see you, said he’d catch you tomorrow some time. Haven’t seen much of James since the test flight.”

Patrick shrugged. “He likes to get away from Vegas on the weekends.”

A somewhat strained silence, then Briggs smiled and said, “You look like two miles of bad road, Colonel, but it’s good to see you up and around.”

“I’ve seen you look better too, buddy,” McLanahan said. “The general getting on your case?”

“It’s beyond Elliott,” Hal said uneasily. “It’s even beyond major command level now. Air Force and, I guess, the Joint Chiefs want to keep Dreamland open but close down flight operations for DreamStar — they’re more concerned with the setbacks in the operations area. The White House thinks Dreamland is a classified information siphon that flows directly to the Soviets, and they want to close down the whole outfit.”

“Which wouldn’t look so hot for Dreamland’s chief of security.”

Briggs tightened. “Look, I hate lettin’ the old man down — he took a chance on me ten years ago, and he really stuck his neck out when he made a brand-new major the chief of security at the Air Force’s most top-secret research center. I’d hate to repay the guy with a forced retirement because I screwed up.”

“I don’t think you’re screwing up, Hal. We’ve obviously dealing with very deep, very professional agents at the highest and most top-secret levels of the program. It might be a command-wide infiltration, or even a headquarters compromise, in which case we might never find the ones responsible—”

“It has to be here in Dreamland or Nellis,” Hal said angrily, punching a palm with his fist. “The quality of the stolen material, and the speed with which our stuff shows up over there, tells me it comes directly from here, not through headquarters of systems command. I have got to plug this leak before the whole dam bursts wide open.”

“Well, keep trying … but I do have to say I don’t think your idea to plant phony changes in DreamStar’s design will help.”

Hal looked uneasy. “You figured that out?”

“It wasn’t too difficult to notice those changes were out of place, Hal. If they’re smart enough to recognize the changes they’ll be smart enough to see that they don’t make too much sense. With all the other security crackdowns you’ve implemented, it does smell like a setup.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it in,” Hal said evenly. “Maybe our spy isn’t as all-fired smart as you think he is.”

“Maybe.”

There was a rather strained pause, then Hal asked, “How’s Wendy?”

“Fine.”

Hal nodded. “She looked great, really great.” Again a pause. “Something on your mind, Hal?”

He took a deep breath. “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but … how are you two getting along?”

“Jesus Christ, Hal …”

“Dammit, Patrick, you know why I’m asking, and you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

“So we’re peeking into bedrooms to find a spy now, is that it?”

“Easy, pal. You knew all about Elliott’s orders to expand the search for these security leaks. I briefed the senior staff and outlined exactly what guidelines I’d follow and what steps my staff would take. Wendy and Ken—”

“What the hell do you mean, Wendy and Ken …?”

“Do you know she was seen at Indian Springs Auxiliary Field the other day?”

“Yes, I know.”

“With Ken James?”

“So what? This is getting far out—”

“You’re getting defensive,” Briggs shot back. “What’s the story?”

“The story is they went to lunch.”

“At Indian Springs?”

“It’s James’ little hideaway. It was the day of the last air combat dry-fire test. I was held up by the flight data lab, so James took her to lunch. Apparently he regularly cons the Dolphin pilot into taking him. Any more questions?”

Briggs nodded — that was the same story he’d gotten from the Dolphin pilot. “Patrick, please don’t make this any tougher for me—”

“Tougher for you?” McLanahan propped himself up in bed, was about to get up but paled and decided against it. “What the hell are you saying? Is Wendy or Ken under suspicion?”

“Everyone at HAWC is under suspicion, even the Ops personnel — especially the Ops personnel. But when DreamStar’s only pilot starts hanging around with a chief scientist from a completely different section of HAWC — who also happens to be the very close friend of the DreamStar project director — a bell has to go off—”

“She lives with me, Hal. Come on … “

“Do I really have to spell this out? What if you guys were having a major league argument? What if she left or you told her to? What if … dammit, Patrick, you know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“I do, and it stinks.”

“The leaks started when she got to Dreamland—”

“Which is also when the DreamStar project went operational,” McLanahan interrupted.

“It’s also the time Ken James arrived.”

“Along with a dozen other people,” Patrick shot back. “You’re spinning your wheels, Hal. Wendy’s undergone government security background checks since she was a senior in college. Ken James is an Academy grad. He’s undergone far more thorough background investigations than just about anyone at HAWC, including me.”

“He’s also had a pretty rough family life …”

“Which doesn’t make him a spy. I know all about his past, his father, his mother’s suspicious death in Monaco while he was in the Zoo. But the guy’s been polygraphed, examined, questioned, investigated and scrutinized on a regular basis by a dozen different agencies since entering the Academy. If he’s got a questionable past it would have surfaced by now.”

“Well, I’ve still got to check every scrap of info that’s not there, Patrick. You’ll end up hurting security, not helping,” Hal said, not wanting to press it further at the moment. “Gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday.”

When the door to his hospital room closed, Patrick felt more alone, more isolated than ever before. Mercifully, his body’s total exhaustion forced him to drop into a deep sleep.

Ken James was in DreamStar’s cockpit. He had no flight suit, no helmet. The canopy was close and all power was of He was trying to decide how to activate’ his fighter without ANTARES operating when a brilliant beam of light hit the cockpit from somewhere on the ramp … Hal Briggs was holding a huge spotlight on him. Patrick McLanahan was carrying a bullhorn. Wendy Tork stood beside McLanahan crying. She was motioning to him to come out of DreamStar … He lifted the canopy. It weighed only eighty pound but it would hardly budge. He had to stand on the ejection seat to get better leverage. But as he struggled to lift the heavy Plexiglas windscreen, McLanahan rushed forward, carrying a huge fifty-caliber machine gun. Then Briggs hit him in the face with the brilliant beam from the spotlight and McLanahan raised the machine gun. “Hold it right there …”

James’ eyes snapped open. He was confused, disoriented. Then he heard the sounds of footsteps, coming closer, only a few feet away …

He scrambled for the tiny transmitter on the nightstand beside his bed — he had rigged the wall safe with a remote-control trigger to incinerate its contents from anywhere in the apartment. With his other hand he felt for the Beretta automatic pistol hidden under his pillow …

“… Don’t go away, because you’re listening to the solid gold voice of the solid gold strip, FM one-oh-two …”

Ken pulled his finger away from the button just in time. It was his clock radio, set for the station with the two early-morning DJs with their taped sound effects. The bedroom lights, also preprogrammed to come on when the alarm clock went off, were glaring in his face. Swallowing hard, his ears ringing from tension, he carefully held the hammer of the Beretta with one hand while pulling the trigger, letting the hammer slowly uncock.

It had been another nightmare night, another confused awakening. For the past two nights he had lain in bed, dressed in shorts, shirt, and sneakers, with one finger on the remote-control detonator and one hand on the Beretta pistol beside him. Sleep had been almost impossible. Every noise, every creak, every voice outside shook him awake in an instant, and he would lie there, listening for the sounds of police feet pounding up his stairs or the sight of flashing red-and-blue lights outside his window. Each time he had decided to escape, to get out of town and head off to Mexico before they came and arrested him for espionage, but he would always talk himself out of it, out of deserting DreamStar. He would manage to drift off to sleep, only to be awakened an hour later by another sound. He had managed only a few restless hours of sleep all weekend.

Now he half-walked, half-stumbled to the bathroom. The tension was taking its toll, all right. He had dark circles under his eyes, his face was pale, his lips cracked and dry despite the beads of sweat rolling down his face. He turned the shower on full cold and stepped into it, forcing himself to stand in the icy water a full minute before feeding in warm water. He stood there, hoping that it would wash his nightmares away. It did not.

Still, once into his morning routine, his mind began to analyze the situation more rationally. He had holed himself up in his apartment all weekend, afraid to leave but afraid he would be arrested by military intelligence. The fact that no one had come to him or called was reassuring. Perhaps no one had noticed Kramer and Moffitt, the two Russian agents based out of Los Angeles, at his apartment after all. Maybe Briggs wasn’t conducting round-the-clock surveillance of his apartment …

His mood was bolstered later that morning as he drove through Nellis toward the waiting area for the shuttle bus to the HAWC research area. None of Briggs’ men made a move for him. There seemed no added security other than the forces that had been added weeks earlier when the initial crackdown had been started — if anything, the added security forces seemed more dispersed and less obvious. He felt relief as he stepped aboard the bus that would take him to Dreamland. Surely Briggs wouldn’t let him go to Dreamland again if he had discovered his meeting with Kramer and Moffitt.

Despite the outer calm of the place, however, there were a lot of worried faces and hushed conversation in the hallways and offices of the HAWC research center when James arrived. He poured himself a mug of coffee and began to go through his mailbox in the test squadron’s mission-planning room. Among the half-week’s worth of mail were several notices telling about a Center-wide briefing for all personnel at eight A.M. The topic was not specified.

It was almost eight-thirty, so he put the meeting out of his mind. He took a sip of coffee and was discarding most of the small pile of mail in his box when J. C. Powell appeared in the doorway.

“Ken, where you been?”

“I just got in. What’s up?”

“You missed the meeting.”

“I just heard about it. What was it?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all weekend. Your phone’s been off the hook or something.”

“They’re installing videophone in my apartment complex,” he lied. “The phones have been screwed up ever since.”

“Patrick’s in his office. We better go see him.”

“Now? What’s the big deal?” He took another sip of coffee. It was pretty unusual to see Powell so wound up. “The Rooskies declare war or something?”

“Worse,” J.C. said. “They’ve canceled the DreamStar Project.”

James promptly poured a mouthful of coffee down into his lungs and nearly fell out of his chair. “What …?”

“You heard me. Let’s go.”

They hurried down the hallway to McLanahan’s office and burst in on the project director as he was signing a stack of letters.

“Glad you could be with us today, Ken,” Patrick said, finishing his paperwork and dismissing the squadron clerk. He studied James for a moment. “You look like hell, Captain. Hanging out in the casinos all night again?”

Powell dropped into a chair to watch the spectacle. James blurted out, “What’s this about the DreamStar project being canceled?”

“If you’d check your mailbox or put your phone on the hook you’d hear about these minor news flashes—”

“What the hell are you joking around about?” James’ hands were on the colonel’s desk. “Who canceled the project? Why?”

“The project was officially canceled by the Air Force this morning,” McLanahan said wearily. He picked up a red-colored folder containing a single message-letter. “There are too many gaps in the scientists’ knowledge of ANTARES to justify funding … at least in the opinion of the top brass. The flying phase of the project is being canceled until the gaps get filled in … “

James stared at McLanahan. “What do you mean, gaps? I can make it work. I don’t get it …”

“The bottom line is that there’s still only one person who can fly DreamStar — and that’s you. J.C. can’t fly it, at least not past anything more complicated than takeoff and landing. I’ve been trying to learn how to use hand I flunked. Carmichael and his lab can’t really say why it works with you and so far not with anyone else. After my last flight in the ANTARES simulator, I—”

“You were flying in the simulator?” He sounded as if the colonel had committed a major trespass on his territory, his baby. “You tried to fly ANTARES? Why? I’m DreamStar’s pilot, you’re the project director, you—”

“I’ve been training in ANTARES for several months. I thought I had it down, but—”

“That wasn’t a very smart idea, Colonel,” James said. His voice was not sympathetic. “ANTARES can be very unpredictable … “

“Yeah, it damn near killed him,” Powell put in.

“So you submitted a report saying that ANTARES was dangerous, and headquarters canceled the project?”

“That’s not the way it went down, Ken. The project was slated to lose its flight-phase funding at the end of this fiscal year. The cancellation was going to happen anyway. My … accident only moved up the timetable a few months.”

James turned away, tried to control himself, but his mind was working overtime in its reaction to this information. He had just told Kramer and Moffitt that everything was going as planned, that he was even going to countermand the KGB’s order to steal DreamStar … Now the project was going to be canceled. The KGB would never believe that he didn’t know about the cancellation. His creditability would be totally destroyed — they would think he was double-crossing them for sure.

“Sorry, Ken,” McLanahan was saying, “but it seems like they only needed an excuse to shut it down …”

“What will happen to us?”

“We’re reforming the Cheetah ATF program. J.C. will be the senior pilot. I imagine they’ll ask you to stay on in the ANTARES project. They’ll want to continue their research in the laboratory … “

“I won’t fly any more?”

“Only enough for flight-time currency. You’ll get your required twenty hours a calendar quarter in the T-45A trainer, plus a lot of time in the ANTARES simulator. You’ll …”

“You mean I’ll be reduced to a guinea pig?”

“I don’t think you have any choice, Ken,” Powell said. “Being the only guy who can fly DreamStar can be a curse as well as a blessing. Carmichael and his people need you to continue their research. They can’t figure out how to teach others to learn the ANTARES interface unless they figure out how you accomplished it.”

Things were going to hell very, very quickly, James thought. “How soon before we stop flight operations? Will there at least be time for one more flight?” And added quickly, “I hate to see it go out this way …”

McLanahan rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I had to fight like crazy to get Air Force to agree to let us complete the weapons-mating test. They wouldn’t buy off on any more flight tests, though. Absolutely no way.”

“But they are going to finish the mating test?”

“They’ve been working all weekend on it,” Powell said. “They should have it finished by tonight or tomorrow morning and then start offloading the Scorpion missiles right after that. I wanted to get some pictures of DreamStar with Scorpion missiles on it — it may be the only time we’ll see that for years.”

The weapons-mating test — James had his answer … “What a waste, Colonel,” he said, trying hard to act more subdued while formulating his plan … “An incredible waste. All this time, all this effort …”

McLanahan started shuffling papers, a wordless signal to both pilots that the meeting was over, he had nothing more to say.

“One thing’s for sure,” Powell said to James as they headed for the door. “You’ll go down in the books as the first pilot of a thought-controlled aircraft.”

James only murmured something and nodded. His mind was a long way away — on plans for the last flight of DreamStar.

Unlike most times, it was still light outside when McLanahan returned home that evening. Still more unusual was finding that he had actually beat Wendy home — but then he heard a faint sound from the bedroom. He opened the door and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed, her arms pulling her knees to her chest. She had the shades drawn and the room was in darkness — she must have overridden the automatic lights.

“Wendy? What’s wrong? How long have you been here?”

“Not long … how do you feel?”

“I feel fine … anything wrong?”

“No.”

No tears in her voice, no sadness, but it was hardly like her to coop herself up like this. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

“Thinking.”

“About what?”

She remained curled up, staring toward the windows.

He put the light switch back on AUTO and the lights snapped on. He sat down beside her. “All right, Wendy. What’s going on?” Still no answer. “Something at work? Something with the Old Dog project?”

“… I had my flight physical this morning.”

The smile disappeared from his face. “All right, enough damn mystery. Out with it.” And then he saw the pamphlet in the wicker wastebasket beside the bed. Even upside down and crumpled he could read the title: “Facts About Your … “

“Pregnancy? You’re pregnant?”

She looked apologetic. “Patrick, this is all wrong … I’m sorry—”

“Sorry? What are you sorry about?”

“This … that … oh, damn …”

“Wendy, you’re babbling. Tell me what in the world you’re so sorry about.”

“I don’t want you to think that I … I did this on purpose, trapping you or something—”

“Of course I don’t think that.” He slid over and put his arms around her. “Don’t be silly, I’m trying to absorb it, but I’m delighted—”

She seemed to stiffen. She backed away and looked at him, hard and long. “Do you mean it? Because if you’re just saying it—

“Of course I do. Hey, I love you …”

She collapsed in his arms. “I was so worried … afraid you’d think I was trying the last dodge—”

He shut her up by kissing her. “Like I said, I happen to love you, I want you and I want our son … daughter …” And he began to kiss her again.

She pulled herself free. “I want you to make sure, Patrick. This is so important—”

“Then it’s settled. Let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Downtown.”

“Downtown? Why do you want to—?” And then she understood.

“We’re living in Las Vegas, a lot of people get married here every year, some even at nine o’clock on a Monday evening—”

“What about …?”

“Family? My mother’s gone, and my brothers and sisters will be thrilled — relieved I finally got my act together and married you after all these years. What about your parents? You need to decide, Wendy. It’s up to you …”

Her answer was to reach out to him and draw him to her … all the answer he needed.

At eleven o’clock, Maraklov left the Silver Dollar casino on Las Vegas’ Fremont Street and made his way to the taxi stand down the block near a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel. He searched up and down the long line of taxis, then carefully checked around him. Satisfied, he ambled down the line of taxis until he was beside one that had its roof light off, signifying that it was already hired.

Maraklov got into the front seat of the cab.

“Well, well, General Big-Shot,” Moffitt greeted him. “Dobriy vyechyer … looks like you have some sort of a problem—”

“Stuff it, Moffitt.” He turned toward Kramer, sitting in the back seat of the cab with a copy of the Wall Street Journal. “They’re deactivating the DreamStar project. In two days.” Kramer appeared not to have heard him. “Did you hear what I said?”

“I do not think he believes you, tovarisch,” Moffitt said.

“Speak English, asshole. Better yet, keep your trap shut. Kramer, listen to me. We’ve got to get DreamStar out of Nevada.”

He did not look up from his paper.

Maraklov grabbed the newspaper away from Kramer and crumpled it up. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Kramer?”

“With me? Nothing is wrong, Captain — except I have just conveyed your previous message to Moscow, how you have countermanded their order. Now, you tell me that you were wrong and that the KGB’s original plan must be implemented. Am I now supposed to happily embrace your idea?”

“Hey, I just found out about this today. The damned project director was screwing around in the simulator and got himself hurt. He filed his report—”

“And the Joint Chiefs canceled the project,” Kramer interrupted, “overriding the Air Force’s recommendation for lower levels of activity.”

“You know about this?”

“We heard about the Pentagon’s recommendation over the weekend,” Kramer said. “Our superiors contacted us immediately, wanting us to explain the disparity between your contentions and the announcement. I could offer none.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“We needed time to evaluate the situation,” Kramer said. “Besides, your phone was not working. “ He had had it off the hook all weekend, afraid of contact with anyone that might have seen Kramer and Moffitt at his apartment. “But it did not matter. We knew you would contact us tonight.”

“Well, this new development changes things, makes your original plan not only necessary but, if I can pull it off, one that will give us a significant advantage. They stop, we go on … I think it can be done. I’ll need refueling support, somewhere in Mexico. I won’t know exactly where or when, so you’ll have to be flexible. Arrange for a transport plane carrying fuel and supplies. You said you had some private company in Mexico, nothing connected with the KGB or anything governmental …”

“It can be done.”

“If I get a refueling I can fly either to Cuba or Nicaragua. I think Nicaragua would be safer, further from the U.S., less organized. After landing in Nicaragua we can make preparations to fly it to Russia with an escort.”

“So now you believe you can get this aircraft out of Nevada successfully,” Kramer said. “You were sure that you could not do this before.”

“They’re talking about mothballing my fighter. I’m not going to let them do that. No way. I’ll crash the thing before they take it away from me.” He immediately wished he could take back those last words.

Kramer was silent for a few moments, then: “The Command is concerned about you, about your motivation. They believe that you do not seem to care who has control of the fighter as long as you have it. This worries them—”

“They don’t have to worry about a damn thing. Just make sure they have a tanker in Mexico when I get there, and make sure they have a secure, protected place to keep it in Cuba or Nicaragua or any other damn place I make it to. I’ll get the fighter to Russia in one piece. You can bet on that …”