Nerve Center

Chapter 112

Colonel Bastian slid the thin yellow paper over the center of his desk. His fingers brushed so gently along the tissuelike surface, he might have been touching a baby’s cheek, afraid that if he pushed too hard he would somehow damage it.

He had no memory of Breanna as a baby. He had pictures of her mother pregnant, but no memory of her in a crib or in his arms.

The report said she’d be fine — minor scrapes, a few bruises, some smoke inhalation, nothing that would keep her off active duty. She’d been lucky.

Lanzas had been killed. And Madrone, his unrestrained body tossed and broken by the crash.

More than luck had saved his daughter. There was the structural integrity of the plane, its ability to absorb massive shock and trauma, the computer that had helped her manage a semistable landing, the magnificent airfoil that had somehow kept the Megafortress from becoming simply a rock.

The guts to try an outrageous solution. The skill to pull it off.

Not luck at all.

His own decision not to shoot them down.

The right decision, because everything had worked out. But if the nukes had been launched, and part of Dreamland had been obliterated, if the nuclear fallout was now drifting over Las Vegas?

“Colonel?”

Dog looked over at the door. Sergeant Gibbs grinned wider than a jack-o’-lantern. “You’re going to want to take this call right now, sir.”

Bastian picked up the phone.

“Stand by for the President,” said a woman’s voice, so cold and quick it might have been an automated operator.

Before Dog could react, President Martindale came on the line.

“Colonel Bastian, damn good to be talking with you,” said the President. The warmth in his loud voice stunned Bastian momentarily. “Damn good job out there. Damn good.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bastian.

“Tecumseh, I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk right now, but one of my aides will set up a visit.”

“A visit here?”

The President laughed. “Unless you’re thinking of going somewhere?”

“No, sir.”

The President laughed again and hung up the phone. Bastian wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to wait for someone else to come on. After two minutes with the dead phone next to his ear, he finally hung up.

The phone rang almost immediately. But instead of the White House, it was his boss — General Magnus.

“You disobeyed a direct order,” said Magnus without any preliminaries.

“I did not,” said Bastian.

“You were in the cockpit of that EB-52. Don’t bullshit me, Dog. You had express orders not to be in a Megafortress.”

“I was the most qualified pilot at the—”

“Just because you have your nose up the President’s ass doesn’t make you immune, Bastian,” snapped Magnus. “And just because Keesh was man enough to say you opposed ANTARES when he resigned won’t get you off the hook. That was still your man who almost fried San Francisco.”

“I said from the get-go the project was ill-advised,” said Dog, his anger stoking to match the general’s. “I was under direct orders to proceed.”

“That’s the only reason you’re still in the Air Force at all,” said Magnus. “The only fucking reason.”

Bastian had never heard Magnus curse or use an obscenity. It drained his anger away.

“Your status is under review,” said the general.

“I’m being relieved?” Bastian said softly.

“Under review,” repeated the general. “We’ll see what the new Defense Secretary thinks,” Magnus added. “Arthur Chastain is the likely replacement.”

“I don’t see how you can discipline a pilot for flying an airplane,” said Bastian.

“That’s not what we’re talking about.”

“You’re taking away my wings? I can’t fly?”

“Of course not. But you’re not a pilot, Dog. That’s not your job. You’re the commander of the most important weapons-testing facility in the country, as well as Whiplash. When the shit hits the fan, your job is on the ground where you can control things, not in the air getting shot at.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You bet your ass there’s going to be a full-scale investigation.”

“I welcome it,” Dog said.

“You don’t have to lie.” Magnus snorted. He too seemed to have spent most of his fury. “Get your p’s and q’s in line. The fallout on this one is going to be heavy.”

The line snapped dead before Dog could say anything else.

Did the President’s phone call mean he would survive this no matter what? Or did it simply mean the brass would stack the odds monumentally against him?

Dog got up from the desk. He felt depressed and tired. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d work off the cloud by hopping into a cockpit and getting some flying time. Throw himself into the sky, clear his head.

He glanced down at Ax’s neat piles of paperwork and the reports waiting for his inspection.

He wavered. He was no good when feeling like this, out of sorts — how could he command anyone?

How could he expect others to follow orders if he disobeyed his?

Magnus hadn’t said he couldn’t fly. He’d said when the shit hit the fan, he belonged on the ground.

The general meant he belonged where he could control things. Truth was, with a fleet of Megafortresses, that might very well be in the air, not on the ground.

There was work to be done. Bastian sighed and pulled out his chair.

Then he pushed it back and went to find a plane in need of a check-flight.