by Dale Brown
force anymore. Let the Navy take care of the Strait-let's
prove to the brass and the White House that we can hold the
line."
Elliott stopped in the staircase, looked at his young prot6g6,
sniffed, and worriedly shook his head. "C'mon, Muck, don't
tell me you've bought this 'jointness' crap, all this bullshit
about how the U. military can't do anything unless every
branch of the service does it together?" he asked derisively.
"The service chiefs, especially the Navy, whine about the lack
of 'jointness' whenever any of the other services, especially
the Air Force, shows 'em up. The Navy was aced out in Desert
Storm and they whined because we weren't sharing the target
load. The Navy was embarrassed in the Celebes Sea against
'China, and Balboa whined because we supposedly weren't co-
operating. Now Balboa almost loses the Lincoln in the Arabian
Sea to an Iranian cruise missile, and he whines because a
stealth bomber takes out the Iranian bomber base. Balboa
doesn't want us to support the naval forces, Patrick. He wants
us to step aside and let him and Allen and the Navy take on
China single-handedly. He doesn't want 'joint' anything."
"Brad, you may be right, but I'm not in it, so I can thumb
my nose at the Navy or wave the Air Force banner over the
108 DALE BROWN
burning hulks of Red Chinese warships," McLanahan said. "I
want to prove how good the Sky Masters's Megafortress con-
version is to the Air Force."
11 Good answer, Patrick," Jon Masters interjected. "I knew
you had the proper point of view."
" And I'm interested in showing what the heavy bomber can
do no matter who's in charge," McLanahan went'on. "If we
gei into the game as support forces, good-at least we're still
in the game. But your goal seems to be to rub Balboa's nose
in our bomber's jet exhaust. We don't need to do that."
Hey, Colonel, I'm trying to do the same as you-get our
bombers into the fight where we can do the most good," Elliott
retorted testily. "But you're not paying attention to the poli-
tics. Balboa and Allen and all the brass squids at the five-sided
puzzle palace don't care about jointness and cooperation-
they care about fiunding.
"Look. We're trying to get a six-hundred-million-dollar
contract from Congress and the Pentagon to convert thirty B-
52s to EB-52 Megafortresses. That's one-third the cost of a
new Arleigh Burke--class destroyer. Destroyers are good on
the open seas, frigates are good in the littoral regions-shal-
lower water, within a nation's territorial waters-but we know
in today's tactical environment that a long-range stealth
bomber with precision-guided standoff weapons is the most
effective weapon in the arsenal, in any combat area, with lower
costs and much greater mobility. Balboa knows all that, but
he doesn't care-he just wants that new destroyer, so maybe
they'll stick his name on it someday. Is that 'joint' thinking?
Hell no. He doesn't care about joint anything. Neither should
we. Maybe if we started naming bombers after Joint Chiefs of
Staff chairmen, he'd want more of them."
:'I disagree," McLanahan insisted. "I think we should-'
'Patrick, I've got a lot more experience dealing with the
Gold Chamber and White House types than you, so how about
letting me handle Balboa and Pacific Command, and you han-
dle the hardware and the crews?" Elliott said in a light but
definitive voice. "We'll show the brass who can do the job.
Trust me."
It was good to see the old fire and fighting spirit in his old
boss, McLanahan thought, as they made their way to the wait-
ing limo that would take them to Andrews Air Force Base to
catch the flight back to Sky Masters, Inc.'s, headquarters in
FATAL TER RA I N 109
Blytheville, Arkansas. But the old fighting spirit also meant
the old antagonisms, the old competitiveness, the old victory-
at-any-cost attitude.
They were back in the fight-but could they prove to the
brass that they deserved to stay?
ARKANSAS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT,
BLYTHEVILLE, ARKANSAS
LATER THAT EVENING
The Sky Masters, Inc., team was whisked by limousine from
the White House to the Washington Navy Yard, helicoptered
to Andrews Air Force Base, then flown by military jet trans-
port directly to its headquarters in northeastern Arkansas. Ar-
kansas International Airport was the civilianized Eaker Air
Force Base, where B-52 Stratofortress bombers and KC-135
Stratotankers of the old Strategic Air Command had once
pulled round-the-clock strategic nuclear alert for many years.
Despite its grandiose name, Arkansas International Airport had
had no aviation facilities on the field after the Air Force had
departed until Jon Masters built his new high-tech aerospace
development center here shortly after the base closed. -Now it
was a thriving regional airport, which acted as a reliever fa-
cility for passenger flights and overnight shipping companies
from nearby Memphis. The civilian and commercial operations
were on the east side of the field; Sky Masters, Inc., occupied
brand-new buildings and hangars on the west side of the
11,600-foot-long concrete runway.
While everyone else slept on the flight back from Washing-
ton, Jon Masters was on the phone; and, still bouncing with
'boyish energy, he was the first one off the plane after it taxied
to a stop in front of the corporate headquarters. Patrick
McLanahan's wife, Wendy, was just pulling off her ear pro-
tectors as Masters lowered the C-21's airstair door. "Wendy!
Nice to see you!" Masters shouted over the gradually dimin-
ishing turbine noise. "I need you to get me the latest-"
Wendy McLanahan held up a hand, then slapped a blue-
covered binder into her boss's hands. "Latest faxes from
Guam-both our DC-10 tanker and DC-10 booster aircraft
110 DALE BROWN
arrived code one. One NIRTSat booster had an overtemp
warning when they did a test. They need a call from you
ASAP. Munitions are being off-loaded."
"Good," Masters said excitedly. "Great. Now, I need to
see- 11
She slapped five more binders in his hands-and she had a
dozen more binders ready. "Airframe reports for your review.
Better take a look at -030 and --040-1 don't think they're
going to make it, but you might be able to work your magic
on them. Everyone else is ready to fly." She piled the rest of
the binders into his arms. "Revised flight plans, engineering
requests, prelaunch reports, invoices you need to initial, and
things I think you need to think about before we get the flying
circus in the air. Look 'em over."
"But I need--
"Jon, you got what you need-here's what I need," Wendy
said, as her husband stepped off the plane. She gave him a
long, deep kiss as Patrick pulled his wife into his arms. Jon
was going to ask her for something else, but the kis
s lasted
longer than his level of patience, so he ran off yelling for
someone to get him a phone. after their
Masters did not see Patrick pat his wife's tummy
kiss parted. "How's our new crewdog?" he asked in a low
voice.
"Fine, Daddy, just fine," Wendy replied, punctuated with
another kiss. "A little stretch now and then-" T,
"Stretch? You mean cramps? Are you in pain
"No, worrywart," she said with a reassuring smile. "Just
enough to let me know that things are happening down there."
"You -feeling all right?"
"A little indigestion in the evening, and a sudden rush of
sleepiness about every other hour," Wendy replied. "I close
the office door and take a nap."
-I think about you all the time, sweetie," Patrick said.
'Working around jet fuel and rocket chemicals and transmit-
ters, pulling long hours, on your feet all day."
-I stay away from manufacturing and the labs, I take lots
of naps, and I find working on the couch with my feet up just
as effective as working at my desk," Wendy said. "Don't
worry, lover. I'll take good care of your child."
"Our child."
I WI-
FATAL TERRA I N
"Our what?" Brad Elliott said, as he met 'up with the cou-
ple.
"Old married couple talk, Brad," Wendy said, giving her
ex-boss a peck on the cheek. With Wendy between both men,
they walked arm in arm into the admin building. "How was
the meeting at the White House?"
"Good," Patrick said.
"Shit, Muck, it went great-we're a got" Elliott said ex-
Citedly. "The President approved our plan. They want us to
get ready to fly out in the next couple days-and they want
us armed. Fully operational, offensive and defensive. We wa-
tered their eyes but good! The only lousy part is we gotta play
nice-nice with the squids."
"Oh, God, no!" Wendy said with mock horror and plenty
of sarcasm. "Now, that's just totally unacceptable. Why
would we ever want to be backed up by five thousand highly
trained sailors and seventy aircraft? Nothing bad ever happens
in our missions.' I
" 'Old married couple' is right-you're sounding more like
your old man every day," Elliott said. "We don't need the
Navy, and we sure as hell don't need 'em telling us what to
do."
"Well, that's the way it's going to be," Patrick said, rub-
bing his eyes wearily. "We've got to rechannelize the planes
to new Navy fleet frequencies-Admira-I William Allen, com-
mander in chief of U. Pacific Command, is taking charge of
the mission, with Terrill Samson as his number two."
"That's good news, isn't it, Brad?" Wendy asked. "Gen-
eral Samson is one of us."
"Hey, the Earthmover might speak bombers, -but he's just
feathering his nest and looking for a soft place to land-he's
got his eyes on a fourth star and a cushy job at the Pentagon,"
Elliott said with a sneer. "He's afraid to go toe-to-toe with the
suits. Because of him, we won't be able to clear off for relief
without calling CINCPAC first."
"Brad, you've been bitching ever since we left the Oval
Office," Patrick said wearily. The exhaustion in his voice was
obvious. "The only thing the Navy's asked us to do is re-
channelize our radios."
I IAnd they want to have a remote 'check fire' datalink to
our attack computers, don't forget that," Elliott intedected.
"They not only want to tell us when, where, and how to fly
112 DALE BROWN
our nussions, but they want to be able to electronically inhibit
any weapon releases, even for defensive weapons."
"Can we do that-should we do that?" Wendy asked.
"We already told them we can't tie into the computers, and
wouldn't even if we could," Patrick said. "We're going to
put the datalink in, but it's simply a communications link, not
a remote control. That was the end of the discussion. Brad
wants us to tell the Chief of Naval Operations where to stick
his datalink. "
"I just wish we had someone a little stronger than Samson
out there sitting with Allen in that command post, someone
not interested in playing politics," Elliott scoffed.
"Terrill Samson is precisely the guy we should have in the
command center," Patrick said. "Now, can we please termi-
nate this discussion? The Navy's on board and running the
show, period. You're going to get the avionics shop going on
the rechannelization and the datalink, right, Brad?"
"Yeah, yeah," Elliott said resignedly. "But I tell ya, Muck,
you've gotta get tougher with those Navy bastards. They're
not interested in seeing us succeed. They're only-'
"Okay, Brad, okay, I hear you loud and clear, so just drop
it. Enough. "
Wendy grasped both men's arms and steered them toward
the stairs leading up to the second-floor executive offices.
"Both you guys are suffering from hypoglycemia-I'll bet
you haven't had anything except coffee since this morning.
I've got hot soup and sandwiches set up in the little conference
room. Let's go."
Both men let Wendy lead them upstairs, but outside the
conference room, Elliott said, "I think I'll pass on the mid-
night snack, Wendy. Wrap up a couple sandwiches for me and
leave 'em in the fridge, and I'll have them in the morning. I
want to brief the day shift on the prelaunch checklist."
"Okay, Brad," Wendy said. "I figured you were going to
be up early, so I made up the sleeper sofa in your office. Flight
suit's cleaned and pressed, too."
Elliott gave Wendy a kiss on the forehead and gave Patrick
a friendly punch in the shoulder. "You are one lucky son of
a bitch, Muck. Thanks, lady. See you in the morning. You
going to go running with me at five A., Colonel, or do I go
by myself again?" Elliott laughed-he already knew the an-
swer to that one.
FATAL TER RAI N 113
"Good night, General," Patrick said with mock irritation.
He found a seat in the conference room, while Wendy poured
him a cup of chicken noodle soup and fixed a turkey and
tomato sandwich. Patrick remained stiff and uneasy until he
heard the door to Elliott's office close down the quiet hallway.
"Christ, it's like trying to handle a hyperactive three year-old
sometimes."
"Don't tell me-Brad Elliott on the warpath in the halls of
the White House'.-
Patrick downed the soup in hungry bites and began to attack
the sandwich. "I think he's out to prove that the government
made a huge mistake by forcing him to retire and closing his
research facility," he said. "Everybody is a target-Samson,
the Navy, the President, even me. He's got a chip the size of
the Spruce Goose on his shoulder. The more people resent his
arrogant attitude, the more it delights him, because it proves
how right he is. And you know what the biggest problem is?"
"Sure," Wendy Tork McLanahan replied, sitting beside her
man and g
iving him a kiss. "He's your friend, your mentor-
and you need him."
Brad Elliott simply left his suit, shirt, shoes, and underwear
on a chair in the outer office-here in the corporate world
someone took care of cleaning and pressing and stuff like that
He usually took the time to hang up his suit neatly, bag his
underwear, and spit-shine his shoes before hitting the rack, but
why waste the time?-someone would do all that for him in
the morning no matter how neatly it was all put away. He said
11 someone." He assumed it would be his "assistant"-they
didn't use the term "secretary" anymore, and the more mili-
tary titles "clerk" and "aide" were usually met with round
eyes full of shock. It didn't matter anyway, because he spent
little time in the office, preferring to be in the labs or on the
flightline, and he didn't even know his "assistant's" name. He
didn't even know that the sofa in his office was a sleeper,
because he never sat in the damn thing.
The sofa bed had stiff fresh sheets and an old thick green
wool blanket, and Wendy had left an apple and a glass of milk
on the table next to the sofa. What a sweetheart she was, Elliott
thought. Years ago, back when she was a civilian contractor
working on new high-tech defensive electronic countermea-
114 DALE BROWN
sures systems for heavy bomber aircraft, she had been such a
serious, technoid cold fish. But then she'd met Patrick Mc-
Lanahan at the Strategic Air Command Bomb Competition
Symposium at Barksdale Air Force Base, and she'd come back
an entirely new woman. Now, as a wife-and a mother, Elliott
guessed, although neither McLanahan had announced anything
yet, and Wendy tried her best to hide it-she had been trans-
formed into a caring, loving woman as well as a brilliant elec-
tronics engineer.
Unfortunately, Elliott thought, now her husband Patrick was
the technoid cold fish. He showed no life, no spark, no drive.
Sure, he'd been brilliant as ever on the secret B-2 stealth
bomber project. Sure, he'd worked hard to get Sky Masters's
new B-52 modification program signed and funded. But he
seemed to have lost a lot of his killer instinct since his vol-
