Warrior Class

by Dale Brown

  Smoliy took the Turkish general's hand in his, then gave him a big bear hug and kissed him on both cheeks. "Z velikim zadovolennyam! This gives me much hope and pleasure, sir! And if we are both wiped off the face of the earth, it is good to know we will bum together!" He turned to Nancy Cheshire. "I will notify the base commander that my forces will be departing soon. But I have a few requests of General Samson before we leave."

  "May I make a suggestion, sir?" Cheshire asked. "Let me give General McLanahan a call first."

  "Oh? A little dissension in the ranks, I see?" Smoliy chuckled. "Or is General McLanahan the real person in charge?"

  "No, General Samson is definitely the man in charge," Nancy said. "But for

  what you two are cooking up right now, I think Patrick will be the one to help you-as long as he survives his ordeal in Washington first."

  The Pentagon, Washington, D.C. The next morning

  He felt stupid at first, with everyone watching. The place was packed, and most of the people looked as if they had nothing better to do than to watch him. Or was it just because he was here to face the music, and he thought everyone here knew it?

  The nearly six-hundred-acre Pentagon Reservation was like a little city unto itself, so it was generally easy to hide among the over twenty-six thousand military and civilian Department of Defense employees and three thousand staff persons there. You automatically felt anonymous when you walked into the place. The Pentagon building itself was an impressive, imposing structure encompassing thirty-four acres and almost four million square feet of office space, making it one of the largest office buildings in the world. Built in just sixteen months at the beginning of World War 11 over a former garbage dump and swamp, it was said that the building was designed so efficiently that anyone could walk from one end of it to the other in less than ten minutes (although it could take as long as thirty minutes just to walk in from the parking lot). If you were one of the thousands of persons walking into the North Parking entrance, you could easily feel insignificant indeed, like a tiny ant climbing into a huge anthill.

  Even at Six A.M., the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club at the end of Corridor Eight was nearly full. Patrick McLanahan would have liked to use a treadmill or a recumbent bicyclesince there were so many of them, lined up three deep practi-

  cally the entire width of the complex, he would have felt a lot less conspicuous. But every one of the dozens of machines was already taken, so he had to go with his trusty weight machines. Besides, some of the soldiers on the treadmills, even the older ones, were jogging or running on them at a pace that made Patrick cringe. The POAC did not have the newer weight machines, the ones that electronically set and varied the resistance, so Patrick did it the old-fashioned way-set a weight, tried it, adjusted it, then did three sets of ten reps with heavy weights. Once he got into the rhythm, he forgot about being the only guy in the entire facility lifting weights.

  His body quickly shifted to automatic workout mode, freeing his mind to work on other problems-like what was going to happen to his career and his life now.

  He was gone from the High-Technology Weapons Center, dismissed for security reasons pending court-martial, after twelve occasionally turbulent, oftentimes dangerous, most times thrilling off-and-on years. When he'd arrived there in

  1988, HAWC-known then simply as Groom Lake Test Range-had been little more than a collection of old weatherbeaten Atomic Energy Commission wooden shacks and bird'snest-infested hangars surrounding an old World War U runway built on, then hidden on, the dry lake bed, with a few high-tech security updates added by Lieutenant-General Brad Elliott, its first full-time commander, in order to attract the attention of military scientists and Pentagon program managers. Over the years, under Brad Elliott, Dreamland had grown, expanded, modernized, and then finally taken the lead in futuristic weapons and aircraft research and development. Patrick had been there to see most of it.

  With Brad gone, Patrick had hoped that he might someday take over the reins at Dreamland and take it to the next level of innovation and leadership. A command assignment at Dreamland was considered a sure ticket to a four-star billet. That was almost certainly true-if you could adapt to the strict security and compartmentalization and ignore the fact that for the entire time you were there and for some time after you departed, you became virtually invisible, even dead to the rest of the world.

  You quickly had to learn to live with the fact that being part of the future of the U.S. military would forever alter your life.

  Patrick had accepted that fact, and even learned to enjoy it. Having a wife who used to work there helped considerably. But it took a special mind-set to work at Dreamland, just as it surely took a special mind-set to work at the Five-Sided Potomac Puzzle Palace. Patrick preferred the hot, dry, wide-open skies of Groom Lake to the stifling, confining, prisonlike feel of this place.

  In between sets, he was able to peek at the televisions throughout the POAC. They were filled with news stories about the recently declared war between Albania and Macedonia, the unraveling of the Dayton Peace Accords and the cease-fire in Kosovo, and the expansion of German and Russian peacekeeping forces in the Balkans to try to maintain order, on the heels of a rapid American withdrawal from the region. But mostly, the stories were about the dismantling of the American military and the American loss of prestige as the protector of world democracy.

  Maybe it was good that I'm getting out now, Patrick thought grimly, as he started working on lat pull-downs. The U.S. military looked as if it was in the midst of a complete cultural and ideological meltdown-thanks to the new hippie president and his eighteenth-century ideas. They just had no place in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, the United States was about to find this out the hard way.

  More folks were looking at him again, and Patrick realized he was pumping away at the weight machines like a maniac. The more he watched the rapid, shocking dismantling and denigration of the military in which he had spent most of his adult life, the angrier he became. The workout was supposed to relax him before he went on to his Pentagon appointments, but they were unfortunately having the opposite effect. It was time to go and face his future.

  Screw 'em, Patrick told himself. If they want to take my stars or court-martial me, let them try. I'll fight them every last step of the way. The military is worth a fight ... at least, the old military, the one Patrick thought he knew, was worth it.

  He showered, then dressed in his Class A uniform. For the

  first time in many years, he studied himself in a full-length mirror. It wasn't 'often he wore Class A's, and the blue cottonpolyester outfit was shiny and oddly creased from disuse and improper storage. The single silver

  stars, given to him by the former president of the United States Kevin Martindale, and the shiny command navigator wings given to him by Brad Elliott, looked awfully good, but everything else seemed extraordinarily plain. Only two rows of ribbons, the same as he'd had as a junior captain-Brad Elliott didn't believe in awards and decorations and prohibited the release of any information whatsoever from Drearnland that might reveal something about its activities.

  A rather plain uniform, he thought. Like his uniform, maybe his career in the Air Force really didn't amount to anything after all. Even though he had done a lot of very cool, very exciting things, in the end maybe it didn't matter, any more than he did among all the superstar military men and women in the Pentagon.

  As he put the uniform on and prepared for his meetings, Patrick realized with surprise that it would possibly be the last time he would ever wear this uniform--except perhaps at his court-martial.

  After dressing, Patrick went right to the H. H. "Hap" Arnold Executive Corridor and the Secretary of the Air Force's and Air Staff offices. Although HAWC was "overtly" run by Headquarters Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio (the actual chain of command was classified, but if anyone did any checking that's what they would find), the wo
rk at HAWC was so classified that the Secretary of the Air Force himself, Steven C. Bryant, oversaw most matters dealing with HAWC.

  Patrick's appointments stemmed from his court-martial-as Terrill Samson promised, formal charges against him and David Luger had been preferred at the close of business the day of their meeting-so his first stop was the offices of the Air Staff. At first the chief Area Defense Counsel from Air Force Materiel Command headquarters, a full colonel, had been assigned to his case, and he had been given all the preliminary

  briefings and paperwork. That was all window dressing, of course, because none of this would ever go through the normal legal channels. The matter stayed at Wright-Pat for less than twenty-four hours before being referred directly to the twostar Air Force Judge Advocate General (TJAG) at the Pentagon.

  His 0730 appointment with TJAG lasted five minutes. The two-star's recommendation: request early retirement at current rank and time in service and end this thing with an honorable discharge and an unblemished record. All the paperwork was ready, the chief Air Force Area Defense Counsel, a one-star general, standing by to answer any questions. The Area Defense Counsels were the Air Force's "defense attorneys," answerable to no one but the chief of staff of the Air Force, General Victor Hayes. He, too, recommended he request early retirement; he had reviewed the memoranda from the Secretary of Defense and found the offer of a clear record, full time in grade and service, and an honorable discharge complete and acceptable, even generous considering the seriousness of the charges.

  Patrick's simple answer: "No, sir."

  Patrick's next stop was the office of the three-star Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. Again behind closed doors, he was notified that his security clearance had been taken away, he no longer had a nuclear weapons security or surety authorization, was no longer authorized to fly as a crew member in military aircraft, and could not handle or employ any kinds of weapons, from an airborne laser all the way down to a handgun. Patrick was also notified that his Air Force Specialty Code had been changed from an XO, Commander and Director, to OX, or "Other"-"other" in this case meaning a defendant in a court-martial case, an officer with no specialty, no responsibilities, no unit, no team. The change in AFSC would be entered into his official personnel records for everyone to see, virtually guaranteeing that he would never be selected for another assignment, never selected for promotion, and never be given any awards or decorations. That record could also be made public, so any future employers would see it, too, guaranteeing that he would never be chosen to sit on a board of di-

  rectors or be hired for any position, either home or abroad, that required a security clearance.

  Each time Patrick was told of some new surprise, he was required to sign a form notifying him that he understood everything that had been said and

  all of the possible consequences of what was happening. At the same time, each time he was warned of some dire consequence or advised about some new potentially embarrassing or stressful step in the court-martial process, he was offered another chance to voluntarily retire with full rank, time in service, his records expunged, and a completely honorable discharge-definitely "carrot and stick7' tactics. Each time, his answer was the same: "No, sir."

  By the time he'd finished, Patrick felt like a gang of thugs had beaten him. His briefcase was stuffed with dozens of copies of all of the forms, letters, memos, and directives outlining the beginning of the end of his seventeen-year Air Force career.

  When Patrick emerged from the meeting with the DCS/ Personnel office, a lieutenant colonel with gold piping on his shoulder was waiting just outside the door: "Sir, General Hayes would like to have a word with you," he said simply, and led theway out. Well, Patrick thought, he couldn't get it any worse from the Chief of Staff than from all the other Air Staff officers he had already encountered. Might as well get it over with.

  General Victor "Jester" Hayes's office was large, with a twelve-person triangular videoconference table setup and a comfortable casual conversation pit in front of his desk, but it was simply decorated, with pictures and items celebrating the history and advancements of the U.S. Air Force rather than celebrating his own career. Although Jester's undergraduate degree had been in engineering from the Air Force Academy, his first love was twentieth-century American history, especially as it related to aviation. His office was like a small aviation museum: a copy of the Wright brothers' patent for the first powered airplane; a machine gun from a Curtis-Jenny biplane flown during World War 1; a Norden bomb sight; a control stick from his beloved F- 15 Eagle; and photographs galore of aviation pioneers, aces, and Air Force Medal of Honor recipients.

  The history buff was right now seated at the base of the triangular conference table, facing the triangle's apex and a bank of large video monitors along the wall. Seated beside him, Patrick recognized, was the deputy chief of staff, General Tom "Turbo" Muskoka, and the deputy chief of staff for operations, Lieutenant-General Wayne "Wombat" Falke. They were all three seated before computer terminals, making notes and reading e-mail messages and computer reports. Muskoka and Falke looked angrily at McLanahan as he was led over to them; Hayes did not look at him, but was studying the monitors and talking on the telephone.

  As were most televisions in every military installation Patrick had ever visited in the last ten years, one of the large monitors on the wall was tuned to CNN. The "Breaking News" logo was all over the screen. It looked like a videotape archive of wreckage from a plane crash; then he gulped as he saw the caption "Near Moscow, Russian Federation." Patrick McLanahan had to struggle not to look at the big screen as he stood at attention before the conference table and the three Air Staff generals.

  Hayes barked something into the phone, practically threw the receiver on its cradle, took a gulp of coffee, and then glanced at Patrick. "We found your Vampire, General," he growled. He hit the ENTER button on his computer terminal with an angry stab to issue his directives, then motioned toward the screen. "Stand at ease. Take a look. Recognize anything?" "Yes, sir. That's Vampire One."

  "How do you know for sure?"

  Patrick went over to the large-screen monitor and hit the digital replay button-most televisions now had the capability of digitally recording the last two hours of a broadcast-until he came to the shot he'd seen when he'd first come in. "I saw the shot of the tail section. Our planes don't have a very tall vertical stabilizer, and Vampire One didn't have a horizontal stabilizer-it used adaptive wing technology for pitch control."

  "What's that?" General Falke asked.

  "We found that we don't need to use conventional flight control surfaces on planes anymore, sir-all we need to do is

  change the nature of the air flowing over any surface of an aircraft," Patrick explained. "We use tiny hydraulic devices to bend the aircraft skin, all controlled by air data computers. A change too small to be seen by the naked

  eye can make any surface -create lift or drag. We're experimenting with the possibility of building a B- I bomber with twice the speed and efficiency with wings half the normal size-we can turn the entire fuselage into a wing. We can make a brick fly like a paper airplane with this technology." The three generals looked apprehensively at McLanahan.

  'The Russians could've sawed off sections of the tail to make it look like one of yours," General Muskoka mumbled. "How would they know what it looked like, sir-and why

  would they botherT'Patrick asked. He scrolled through the images. "Here's definite proof, sir: a LADAR array. The Vampire used six of these laser radars for targeting, terrain following, aircraft warning, missile tracking, intercepts, station keeping, surveillance, everything. It could see fifty miles in any direction, even into space. The design of that arTay was one of our most closely guarded secrets."

  "And now the Russians have it-and they're trotting out their prize for everyone to see," Muskoka said acidly. "If your Captain Dewey had followed orders, McLanahan, this never would've happened."

  "If given the opportunity to do so, sir, I'd
authorize her to do it again," Patrick said.

  "That attitude, mister, is why you're here today!" Muskoka snapped. "That's how come you almost got shot down, why your friend Terrill Samson entered charges against you, and that's why your career is going to come to an abrupt, unfortunate end. You don't seem to grasp what's going on here."

  "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

  "I advise you to keep your mouth shut, General," Muskoka said.

  "Same here," General Hayes said. "But speak your mind if you want."

  "Major Deverill and Captain Dewey did an outstanding job rescuing Madcap Magician and Siren," Patrick said. "Siren had valuable information on Russian activities that

  are right now threatening to disrupt all of Europe. We got definite proof that the experimental Russian fighter-bomber from the Metyor Aerospace plant at Zhukovsky bombed that Albanian village-"

  "The ends do not justify the means, Patrick," Hayes said. "I would've thought after seventeen years in the Air Force and twelve years watching Brad Elliott get slapped down by Washington, you'd understand that. Unfortunately, you're going to find out the hard way."

  "My God, look at that," Falke breathed. Patrick looked. CNN was now showing actual civilian satellite photos of Elliott Air Force Base. The resolution showed a lot of detail-he could easily count the aboveground hangars and buildings, and he could see the mobile control tower that was out only for a launch, which meant the photo had been taken just before or just after a rare daytime flight test. The captions identified the image as the top-secret Air Force research base north of Las Vegas that was the home base of the B- I bomber that the Russians had shot down. Other amateur photos taken by "UFOhunters" that sneaked out to Dreamland-some several years old-showed ground-level details of some of the larger buildings; superimposed graphics showed where the runway in Groom Lake was located. They were pretty dam accurate, Patrick thought, except the real runway was much longer and wider.