Battle Born pm-8

by Dale Brown

  A waiting unmarked blue windowless van was waiting, with Annie Dewey inside. Her eyes got round with worry as she watched Long being carried into the van. “What happened to Long Dong?” she asked.

  “He opened his yap one too many times,” Rinc said.

  A few moments later the group arrived at the other side of Reno-Tahoe International Airport, where an unmarked Gulfstream IV executive jet was waiting inside a hangar with two plainclothes guards standing watch. Out of sight of any curious onlookers, they loaded up, got towed out to the ramp, and took off minutes later. In less than thirty minutes, they were on the ground back at Dreamland, and they pulled into a different set of hangars than the ones they’d seen when they first arrived at this haunting, desolate place.

  “I want to talk with General McLanahan right away,” Rebecca demanded. “Just because he stuck those microchips in our arms doesn’t mean he has the right to yank us out of our homes and drag us here.”

  “Go ahead,” Dave Luger said matter-of-factly.

  “What?”

  “Go ahead and talk to him.”

  “How?”

  “You’re wired for sound now, remember?” David said. “We can hear everything you say. The microchip is a transceiver too — not just GPS or physiological data, but two-way communications.”

  “He can hear everything I ever say?”

  “Try it and see. Announce who you are and who you want to talk with.”

  Rebecca looked at Rinc and Annie, shrugged, and then said aloud, “Colonel Furness to General McLanahan. Come in, please.” There was no response. At a nod from Dave Luger, she tried again: “General Mc-Lanahan?”

  “Patrick here, Rebecca. Welcome back.”

  “A computer analyzes your request, pages the other party, and makes the connection — sometimes it takes a moment,” Dave explained.

  “How can I hear him without headphones or a speaker?”

  “It’s a little complicated, but the microchip reads and translates nerve impulses associated with speech and hearing,” Patrick explained. “When we say your whole body is wired for sound, we mean it. On a very rudimentary but very real level, we can even read your thoughts.”

  Rebecca gulped in astonishment — the idea was too wild to even comprehend right now. “Can my crew members join in the conversation?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Patrick said. “Conference in Major Seaver and Captain Dewey with General McLanahan, please.” Patrick paused for a moment, then asked, “Can all you guys hear me okay?”

  The startled expressions on their faces answered that question. “Hol-ee shit!” Rinc exclaimed. “This is unbelievable!”

  “I take that as a yes,” Patrick said. “Listen up, everyone. We don’t have time to waste. We have some academics to start with today and tonight. You deploy day after tomorrow.”

  “Deploy? Where?”

  “Your Bones are being modified with a few improvements,” Patrick replied. “We’re working round the clock to get them ready.”

  “Where are you, sir?” Dewey asked.

  “I can’t tell you, not just yet,” Patrick said. “Once you’re under way, you’ll be fully briefed.”

  “Listen, General,” Rebecca interjected. “I wanted to talk to you about the tactics you used to bring us here. I don’t like your men barging in on me, and I sure as shit don’t like your commandos shooting my guys up with nerve agents. We want an explanation. You can threaten us all you want, but you can’t force us to fly your planes or perform any missions for you.”

  “Fair enough,” Patrick said. “Conference in Colonel Luger and Colonel Briggs, please… Dave, Hal, can you escort the crew to Foxtrot row? Take them through the Corridor.”

  “Yes, sir,” Luger acknowledged. “Follow me, everyone.” He escorted the three guardsmen to a waiting van — Long was still out cold, but now being monitored by an emergency medical technician as he started to come around — and a few minutes later they arrived at Foxtrot row, the place where the Nevada Air Guard’s B-1 bombers were being hangared. As when they first arrived, they had to pass through another series of security checkpoints, including a handprint and retinal identification analyzer and an X-ray corridor to check for implanted listening devices, weapons, or recording devices.

  “What a goatfuck,” Rebecca said. “All to see our own planes.”

  “They’re our planes now,” she heard Patrick say in her head.

  “Is that you, General McLanahan?” Rebecca asked, shocked to hear that voice come out of thin air. “Are you still listening to me, General?”

  “We’re still connected until you disconnect,” Patrick said. “Your planes are through that corridor ahead of you. We have some techs and engineers waiting to start briefing you on the modifications.”

  “What do you mean, they’re yours?”

  “Governor Gunnison and General Bretoff have leased the planes to us for an indefinite period of time,” Dave Luger replied. “Actually, ever since you flunked your pre-D, we’ve been modifying them. You need to learn how to fly them right away. You start action in the forward area in two days.”

  “You’re still assuming we want to be a part of any of this,” Rebecca said. “Judging by the treatment we got this morning and the support we’ve received from you and your organization, I vote we tell you to go to hell.”

  “It would be a shame to lose you, but at the end of our little tour here, if you don’t want in, I’ll cut the bracelets off and send you home,” Patrick’s ethereal voice in their heads said. “We can’t take the chip out without a surgeon, but it’s completely safe and quite inert without the bracelet, I promise. I’ve had one in for years. Deal?”

  Rebecca still looked skeptical and did not reply, but something on the wall caught her eye, and she went over to examine it. It was a series of photographs, memorabilia, charts, and other items, including a control wheel from a B-52. Rinc and Annie went over to look at the items as well.

  What riveted Rebecca Furness’s attention was the big WAC chart and a remarkable pencil and paper recreation of an old two-page SAC Form 200 flight plan next to it — describing a B-52 bomber flight from Dreamland to Kavaznya in the Soviet Union, with a final stop in Anadyr near the Bering Strait. The chart had the triangle fix position marks on them, along with the old-style cross data blocks with Zulu time, track, groundspeed, and winds or drift angle. The Form 200 was filled out in meticulous detail with precise architect-like printing. It was dated 1988 and even had the headings filled out — it was as if whoever drew this thing up wanted to duplicate a standard Form 200 exactly, from memory.

  Rebecca’s mouth opened in surprise as she read the names of the crew members on the flight plan: Brad Elliott, pilot; John Ormack, copilot; Patrick McLanahan, radar navigator; David Luger, navigator; Wendy Tork, electronic warfare officer; and Angelina Pereira, gunner. Most of those names were legends in the Air Force, pilots or engineers or weapons designers known the world over — and here they were, all on one mysterious hand-drawn flight plan.

  “Kavaznya — that was that antisatellite laser site in Siberia, wasn’t it?” Rebecca asked. “The one that had the accident? I remember the Russians claimed we bombed it, but everyone said its reactor had a meltdown.” She looked at Luger in complete surprise. “You… you bombed it?”

  “With a damned B-52,” Rinc said breathlessly. “Here’s a picture of it… I think it’s a B-52, with the long pointed nose and the stealth fighter tail. This is the control wheel off it. You flew a B-52 bomber all the way inside the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and bombed its most important secret military site?”

  “I see you’ve noticed our little display,” Patrick said. “Be careful what you ask me, you two — you may find yourself sinking deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Dreamland, and once you’re in, you can never return.

  “We can end the tour right here. Colonel Luger won’t show you what’s inside. You’ve seen more than anyone else not part of the program has ever seen before, and y
ou are the first nonactive-duty military types to ever set foot in here. But once you step inside, I can’t take you out again. The bracelet stays on forever. You may get your life in the Air Guard back again, but you will always be tied into the high-level security and scrutiny of this place. From the moment you step through that door, somebody will always be listening.”

  “I… I’m not sure if I want to do it,” Annie Dewey said, twisting the vinyl-covered bracelet absently, then rubbing the spot where the microchip was injected. “I don’t know if I want to be part of all this intrusion into my life.”

  “She’s being honest with herself and with me,” Patrick said. “All of you better do the same. Like General Samson said, the life you’ll live sucks. You may get to return to Reno and fly for the Nevada Guard, but Big Brother will still be watching. You’ll always be under scrutiny, you’ll always be watched. Not only you but your families, your friends, your coworkers — anyone who comes in contact with you.

  “But you’ll be a part of something extraordinary, exciting, almost mystical. We get to fly the hottest jets, test the hottest weapons. We’re not on the cutting edge here — we’re a generation or two beyond it already.”

  Patrick meant to say it with great excitement, as he did to so many other newcomers to the base. But he knew what it was like in that corridor back in Dreamland, with the faces and memories of old friends staring back at him from many years and many adventures — and he couldn’t do it. Working here, living here, making the commitment to be part of this place, it wasn’t at all about excitement. It was about doing a terrible job against even more terrible odds — and winning with the fewest number of losses.

  Patrick, sitting alone back in the conference room at Adak Naval Air Station, thought about the stuff back on the wall at Dreamland with his somber “thousand-yard stare,” as if his friends and partners, both living and dead, were waving to him from somewhere on the horizon — which they were. They were telling Patrick to let go of his feelings, share his fears with these people. The shadows of the dead had accepted these strangers — now Patrick had to do the same.

  He paused, mentally touched the photograph of Brad Elliott, and said in a quiet voice, “Maybe you’ll save some lives; maybe you’ll get to see your friends die horrible, slow, agonizing deaths. Maybe you’ll save the world from going up in flames; maybe you’ll be forced to do some illegal or immoral things, because the consequences of failure are too grave, and you’ll hate the world you live in because you’ve ruined it. Maybe you’ll make a little history; maybe you’ll die alone, fighting a battle your country will deny ever happened. If you’re lucky and your remains are recovered, you’ll be buried in a desert cemetery that no one will ever visit, because officially it doesn’t exist. Most times, you will just cease to exist.”

  As they listened to the disembodied voice in their heads, Furness, Seaver, and Dewey looked at each other with a mixture of surprise and sadness. It was like staring into a dark cave and deciding whether or not to go inside. That simple door at the other end of the corridor seemed like the portal to another world. The three guardsmen looked at each other, silently querying themselves and each other. This time Rebecca was not going to make the decision for them.

  Finally, Rinc Seaver shrugged. “Well, jeez, General,” he said, “when you put it that way, how can we refuse? I’m in.”

  “Oh, hell — I’m in,” Rebecca said. It made her feel good that Rinc Seaver committed first — she was afraid that revealing his weakness to her might have dulled his fighting edge. It was good to see him want to get back into action once again.

  “I’m in too,” John Long said. He had quietly entered the Corridor, escorted by Hal Briggs, as they stood and thought about their futures. He glared at Seaver. “As long as I don’t have to fly with that piece of shit.”

  “Fine by me,” Rinc shot back.

  “Don’t argue in this place!” Patrick snapped, jumping to his feet in the conference room nearly three thousand miles away, eyes blazing and neck muscles taut. “Don’t you dare even raise your fucking voices in that hallway, or I will come back and kick both your asses out into the desert myself! That place is as sacred as a church. The floor you stand on is hallowed ground. You will goddamn learn to respect that! Do you understand? Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Long mumbled.

  “Yes, sir,” Rinc said. “Sorry, sir.”

  “You fly with whoever we tell you to fly with, both of you,” Patrick said. “I think it’s time you got your heads screwed on straight, both of you. Colonel Long, Seaver didn’t cause the accident. He saved himself. He’s a good stick. Let him do his job.

  “Seaver, you’re busy chasing ghosts that don’t deserve chasing. You’ve got to get your mind properly focused on your crew and your mission before we go flying. You think you have something to prove. You don’t. You just need to do your job and back up your teammates. That’s what’s important. Stop worrying about what others think or feel. Your life will be miserable if you don’t — and it won’t just be because of us here at Dreamland. You copy me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Long and Seaver replied quietly.

  “Captain Dewey? Are you in? You can go outside and think about it, give Tom or your folks a call if you’d like.”

  “You know about Tom, do you, sir?” Annie asked the thin air, as if talking to an invisible friend.

  “Hey, he’s a nice dude — for an urban cowboy wannabe,” Hal Briggs chimed in.

  “Hell, Heels, we knew about him too — and we didn’t need any spies or listening devices to find out,” Rebecca said with a smile. “He looks real fine, but he doesn’t have a brain cell in his poor peanut head. Stay with us. We’ll have a good time as long as we stick together.”

  “Then I’m in,” Annie said.

  “Good,” Patrick said. “Colonel Luger, escort the new Megafortress crews into hangar one, please.” He visualized the photos, charts, and other memorabilia on the wall, gave the photo of Brad Elliott a light, warm touch with his fingertips, then gave his new air combat team a thumbs-up from three thousand miles away. “Go look at your new ride, Aces.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MINISTRY OF DEFENSE HEADQUARTERS,

  SEOUL, UNITED REPUBLIC OF KOREA

  DAYS LATER

  Reports coming in from Chagang Do province, sir,” General An Ki-sok, chief of staff of the United Republic of Korea armed forces, reported as he hung up the telephone. He was in the office of the minister of defense, retired general Kim Kun-mo. “Our infantry and artillery battalion at Pyorbai is under attack. At least two, possibly three battalions of light infantry and armor coming across the border. Kanggye is already surrounded and Chinese troops are in the city. We lost contact fifteen minutes ago — the Pyorbai barracks could already be overrun.”

  “A Chinese invasion?” General Kim exclaimed. “So fast?”

  “Yes, sir,” General An said. “Here is an update from reconnaissance planes, sir: at least two armored battalions and one infantry battalion against Kanggye itself; three, perhaps four more armored battalions and two infantry battalions moving south from J’an and Waichagoumen. Mostly light armor and infantry, moving very quickly, but they have substantial air defense, attack helicopters, and heavy armor backing them up.”

  “Do you suppose the Chinese are assisting rebel Communists inside Korea?” Kim asked. “Perhaps this attack was timed to correspond with those two rebel missile launches that aborted themselves over Hwanghae province last night.”

  “Very possible, sir,” An replied. “Kim Jong-il’s rhetoric coming from Beijing is more bombastic than ever. He congratulates whoever launched those missiles, and he has promised help from the Chinese to anyone who takes up arms against us. If he was going to mount a counteroffensive with China’s help, Chagang Do province would be the best place to start.”

  “They’re going after the weapons labs,” Kim said as he picked up the telephone that connected directly with the Blue House, the presidential palace
in Seoul. “If they capture the facilities intact, they’ll capture a large number of special weapons warheads and prevent us from developing any more of our own.”

  “We cannot let that happen, sir!” An retorted. “We fought too hard to lose it so quickly and so suddenly like this! We must act!”

  “President Kwon here,” the president of United Korea answered a few moments later.

  Kim raised a hand to silence his chief of staff. “Mr. President, General Kim here. I’m at the Ministry of Defense. Chinese troops were reported invading Chagang Do province. It appears they’ve taken Kanggye.”

  “What? Chinese troops? How many? Where?”

  “Apparently, two brigades entered Kanggye and took over the Army barracks at Pyorbai,” Kim replied. “We’ve had no contact from the province within the last half hour.” Kim read a report handed to him, swallowed hard, then said into the telephone, “Sir, photo and electronic reconnaissance planes report massive Chinese ground movement across the border. In addition to the estimated two brigades that took Kanggye, there are reports of two more full brigades crossing the frontier at Linjiang and Dandong, including aviation units. No reports from Seventh Battalion stationed at Pyorbai — obviously our units were overwhelmed by Chinese forces.” The Seventh was called a battalion, but in fact it was a hodgepodge of several partial infantry and light-armored North Korean companies, augmented with former South Korean men and equipment. Up until very recently, the men in this unit were mostly concerned with foraging for food — they were no match for any regular combat force even half their size, let alone two battalions of seasoned Chinese border troops.

  “Where are they concentrated?” President Kwon asked. “What could their objective be?” He paused for a moment, then added softly, “The nuclear research facilities? The weapons laboratories?”

  “That would be my guess, sir,” Kim responded. “Sir, we need a way to stop those troops from taking Kanggye and the weapons labs. If Korean Communist rebels seize any special weapons and are able to use them against us, the loss of life could be staggering. But we cannot sacrifice those weapons labs. If we try an aerial or artillery bombardment, we could damage or destroy them — or the Chinese will do it for us.” There was silence on the line for several long moments; then in a low, stern voice Kim said, “This is the time that we must use a weapon that can kill the enemy but not harm the buildings or equipment.”