by Dale Brown
“I’m sorry, Mr. President.”
“Don’t be—you saw right through him, or at the very least your gut was trying to tell you something, and you listened,” the President said. “I have to tell you, Jason, that I didn’t believe you. I was so blinded by my faith and loyalty to Robert Chamberlain that I didn’t believe you…right up until he led us into Zakharov’s trap, and even then I thought he might still be in charge of the take-down. I heard what you said about him authorizing Kristen Skyy to meet with you in Egypt, and I listened to all your other disconnects revolving around him, and I still didn’t listen. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
He clasped Jason’s shoulder, then straightened up and said, “You two, Major Richter and Dr. Vega, won’t be getting a promotion or a new office in Washington. You are heading right back to Cannon Air Force Base. I want you to build CID units and whatever else you can come up with and put together the world’s premier tactical strike force. You’ll report directly to the President’s Special Adviser on National Security Affairs, Sergeant Major Jefferson. Your mission will be to discover, locate, track, attack, and destroy the bad guys—clean, quick, simple, and deadly. You’ll have all the resources of the United States of America at your disposal. But I’m not talking about a traditional army unit—I’m talking about the next generation, whatever it is. I think I saw a glimpse of it out there at the White House: I want to see more of it, soonest. Your first task will, of course, be to track down Yegor Zakharov and kill that murderous sonofabitch before he strikes again. Interested?”
“Yes, sir,” Jason said happily, without hesitation.
“Dr. Vega? Interested in joining him as deputy commander?”
Ariadna looked at Jason, and Jason could see a slight shadow of doubt or fear in her face as she thought about returning to New Mexico to where she and Doug Moore became friends. But she smiled at Jason and nodded. “Count me in, Mr. President,” she said. “Count me in.”
“Good. You start immediately. Good luck, all of you. Sergeant…er, Sergeant Major Jefferson, Special Agent DeLaine, you two are with me.” He nodded, turned, and headed back to his armored SUV limousine.
Kelsey DeLaine stopped, made like she was going to shake hands with Jason, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sure I’ll be talking to you again very soon, Jason,” she said. “Try to stay out of trouble, will you?”
“Sure…Miss Director,” Jason said, giving her a sly smile. “You know me.”
“That’s why I mentioned it, Major.” She smiled and headed off to the President’s SUV.
Ray Jefferson stopped before him, smiled, then nodded. “I’ll be talking to you first thing in the morning, sir,” he said.
“It’s not ‘sir’ anymore, Sergeant Major—you’re the boss now,” Jason reminded him.
Jefferson made a show of nodding in complete agreement. “Why, I believe you’re right…Richter,” he said, feigning his most deadly growl. “Call me at oh-eight hundred hours tomorrow morning with a full report on regenerating your unit and with a plan to expand your operations capabilities. That’ll be all.” He smiled. “And one more thing, sir: thank you. Thank you for sticking with what you believe in. You’re a good man. It’ll be a pleasure working with you again.”
The last to shake hands with Jason was Harold Chester Kingman. When he clasped Jason’s hand, he said in a low voice, “We need to talk, Jason. Your technology and your talents will go to waste in the army. Come work for me.”
“I’ve got a job, Mr. Kingman.”
“I’ll put you in charge of a laboratory with a budget that’ll make the Army Research Lab look like a preschool playground,” Kingman said. “And you’ll still be protecting America—just doing it without being tied down by government red tape and regulations. You’ll be the power to be reckoned with in the world. You’ll be in charge of an invincible force that will put all of the armies of the world to shame.”
Still clutching his hand so he couldn’t squirm away, Jason pulled Kingman toward him and whispered directly in his face, “Mr. Kingman, I’m not interested in a job with you. And if I see any of your ‘ultimate army’ gadgets on any of my battlefields, I’ll take them apart and then come and stuff them down your throat piece by piece. Do I make myself clear?” Kingman blanched and retreated to the safety of the President’s armored car as quickly as he could.
After the President and his party departed, Frank Falcone and Jennifer McCracken came up to Jason and Ari. “Well, looks like we’re still in business,” Falcon said. “What’s the word, boss?”
“The word is…I’m not going back to our damned base until they get some hot water, decent chow, and regular beds,” Jason said. “We can write up an ops plan just as well on a beach in Florida. Daytona Beach is nice this time of year, isn’t it? Jennifer, get us some nice Visiting Officers Quarters at Cape Canaveral or Patrick Air Force Base for a month or so, and get them working on fixing up Pecos East.”
“Yes, sir!” McCracken said happily.
Ariadna followed Jason to the cargo hold on the C-37A to supervise the loading of their folded CID units, then went inside to wait until Jennifer filed their flight plan and made preparations for departure. The interior of the C-37A was downright luxurious compared to the C-17 Hercules they had been flying around in. Jason found himself on a large L-shaped settee in a private compartment of the plane near the middle, with freshly made coffee, cold drinks, computer terminals, and large-screen plasma TVs waiting for them.
He stretched out on the settee, put his feet up, and patted the settee beside him. “We got a few minutes to kill, Ari,” he said expansively. “Why don’t you and me relax a bit?”
Ariadna smiled warmly and seductively sauntered over to him. She stopped right in front of him, leaned forward, and let her dark hair cascade over his chest, letting him catch just a glimpse of her chest inside her partially unzipped warm-up suit top. “Jason…” she breathed. Her lips moved closer to his…and then she dropped a glass of ice water into his lap. “Like I said, maybe if we were stuck on a deserted island for like a year. Until then, keep dreaming.” She got up, tossed him a towel, and watched him wipe himself off with an amused gleam in her eye as she fired up a computer terminal and got ready to start writing up their report.
Well, she thought, maybe not a year…a week, maybe…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A personal Thank You to my friends Don Aldridge, Mike Alger, Kirk Caraway, Frankie Sue Del Papa, Darla Deville, Robert Gottlieb, Bruce James, Steve Martini, Jean and Sheamus McFadden, Jodi Rafkin, Don and Mary Savage, and of course my wonderful wife, Diane, for their support. It has been a rough year, but with your help and best wishes from you and many others, I think I’ll be fine.
Thank you again to Dave and Cheryl Duffield for their extraordinary generosity and community service.
About the Author
DALE BROWN, a former U.S. Air Force captain, was born in Buffalo, New York, and now lives in Nevada. Act of War is his seventeenth novel. He graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Western European history and received a U.S. Air Force commission in 1978. He was still serving in the Air Force when he wrote his highly acclaimed first novel, Flight of the Old Dog. Since then he has written a string of New York Times bestsellers, including, most recently, Battle Born, Warrior Class, Air Battle Force, and Plan of Attack.
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ALSO BY DALE BROWN
Flight of the Old Dog
Silver Tower
Day of the Cheetah
Hammerheads
Sky Masters
Night of the Hawk
Chains of Command
Storming Heaven
Shadows of Steel
Fatal Terrain
The Tin Man
Battle Born
Warrior Class
Wings of Fire
Air Battle Force
Plan of Attack
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Credits
Jacket design by Richard Aquan
Jacket photograph collage: Washington, D.C., by Miles Ertman/
Masterfile; fire by Roy Ooms/Masterfile
Copyright
“Act of War” is a trademark of Atari Interactive, Inc. Used with permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ACT OF WAR. Copyright © 2005 by Air Battle Force, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition May 2005 ISBN 9780061738470
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Dale, 1956–
Act of war / Dale Brown. —1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-06-075299-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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