by Dale Brown
He let his gaze drift into hers. Breanna felt her heartbeat double.
“I’m not really attracted to you, Mack,” she heard herself say softly. She knew instantly it was a lie, and he must have too. Breanna stared down at the floor.
“Bree.”
His hand felt warm on her face, reassuring like the bath had been.
She forced herself to shake her head no.
ZEN ACTUALLY ENJOYED THE BEER, EVEN THOUGH HE drank only a quarter of it. Remington and the others seemed genuinely happy about the day’s tests, and at least pretended not to notice that he was in a wheelchair.
He knew they weren’t oblivious, and there were a few awkward silences and glances. Still, the test had gone well, and Remington’s new laptop had some cool video extensions that replayed the flight videos very sharply, and the report was perfect. And what the hell. Between the beer and the day, he actually felt damn good. He even joined in the good-natured kidding of Lou DeFalco, the civilian who’d been acting as lead Flighthawk pilot in Zen’s absence. They called DeFalco “Rock”—not exactly a flattering nickname for a pilot.
“You think I’m bad in the Flighthawks,” said DeFalco with a laugh, “you should see me in Aurora. There I’m Big Rock.”
“I heard you put one of the Flighthawks through the hangar door,” said Zen.
“No way,” said DeFalco. “It was the side of the hangar.”
“True.” Remington laughed. “We just barely missed. He came, I’m not exaggerating, within an inch. Damn computer protocols don’t always lock out on proximity.”
“Hey, if they did, Rock would never get off the ground,” said Paul Kardon, one of the weapons engineers.
“Hey, Zen,” said Nancy Cheshire, walking in. “Your wife’s looking for you.”
“Uh-oh,” groaned the others in unison.
“The ball and chain beckons,” deadpanned Remington.
Zen laughed along with the others.
“You better go run her down, Major,” said Kardon. “And don’t take any guff. Remember—you outrank her.”
“Yeah, but she’s connected.” DeFalco laughed.
Zen tried Bree at the Megafortress bunker, and then over at the Taj, before one of the security sergeants said he’d seen her heading toward Yellow Two, the dorm building where she had her apartment.
Their apartment.
She was trying. Shouldn’t he let her make the attempt? There was a chance that she might be able to get over the fact that he was a cripple.
Was that fair? Let her waste her life on him?
Even though the entrance to the dorm building was ramped, Jeff had trouble negotiating the bumps. He had to jiggle his wheels sideways on one, and that killed his momentum. Finally he reached the exterior hall, only to find it nearly impossible to pull the heavy door while rolling backward.
“Hey, Major, let me grab that sucker for you,” said Captain Danny Freah.
“Thanks,” said Zen, rolling backward as the big Air Force security officer pulled open the door.
“Ought to have an electronic eye on it,” said Freah as Zen rolled into the foyer.
“That’s not necessary,” said Zen, fighting against his embarrassment.
Freah seemed to sense the awkwardness, and opened the inside door quickly.
“Heard you nailed that tanker sim this afternoon,” said Freah. “Good going.”
“I didn’t realize that’d be big news,” said Zen.
“Hey, Major, relax,” said Freah. He pulled his hands back as if he’d touched a hot stove. “I happened to be in the control tower when you got it. They were applauding.”
“Yeah,” said Zen. He hadn’t meant to snarl. He pulled his wheelchair around, starting down the hallway for the room. It was automatic—he didn’t think about the stairs at the far end of the hall.
The flight down was only six steps deep, the suite door barely ten feet beyond that. But there was no way he could get down the steps without help. He’d have to go back through the lobby and around through the back wing, where there was a ramp. As he started to wheel backward, he saw the door to the suite open.
Mack Smith popped his head out, then turned back to say something before leaving.
SMITH SKIPPED UP THE STEPS, DISAPPOINTED WITH Breanna and maybe with himself. He hadn’t gone there to seduce her.
So why had he gone then?
He hadn’t found an answer before he reached the lobby. Coincidence of coincidences, who was just arriving but Bree’s husband Zen.
That was close.
“Hey,” said Knife, grabbing Zen’s chair as he was rolling down the back hallway. “Hey, Zen, what are you up to?”
“What are you up to?” snapped Stockard furiously.
Smith let go of the wheelchair. Captain Freah and a Spec Ops security guard were standing near the front door a few yards away.
“I’m sorry,” said Smith.
Paralyzed and all, Stockard looked like he was going to bolt out of the chair and strangle him. Mack knew better than to say anything about Rap, even though nothing had happened, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to say.
“I was just making the rounds, saying good-bye,” said Mack, taking a step back. He hadn’t had a chance to say anything about Zen’s legs, but this sure as hell wasn’t the time.
And anyway, what the hell could he say? Tough break? He’d already said something like that in the hospital.
“I’m saying good-bye,” Mack repeated.
“Good-bye for what?”
“Hell, Zen, what’s up your ass?” Smith took a step backward and stuck his hands on his hips. For a second he thought Stockard was going to put his head down and ram forward with his chair.
“Uh, Majors,” said Freah, coming toward them with the air of a kindergarten teacher. “Can I be of some assistance?”
“I’m fine,” said Zen.
“Me too,” said Knife, starting for the door. “Good-bye, Zen. Tell your wife I said hello.”
“Tell her yourself,” said Stockard.
Smith spun around and headed through the lobby door, letting it slam shut behind him.
III
A matter of conscience
Two weeks later
Ethiopia
21 October, 0400
“ALL RIGHT MARINES, LISTEN THE FUCK UP.” GUNNERY Sergeant James Ricardo Melfi gave the small handpicked platoon one of his best sneers, even though it was difficult for them to see in the dim light from the nearby flare. “That means you too, Goosehead,” he told one of his sergeants. “Jack, you close your fuckin’ mouth or I’m puttin’ a boot in it. You want to yawn, you go to the dentist. All right, girls, here’s the deal. We come off the Chinook, we split into two squads, we hit the buildings the way we laid it out. We take out missile one and missile two, we call in the fuckin’ Air Force. We give the weenies two minutes to get here because they’re not Marine aviators.” He paused to allow his men the appropriate contemptuous snort, then continued. “At that point, we take the administration building, which should be defenseless, assuming the Air Force has done its job. If they have not, then Fire Team B, following my lead, will do it for them, wiping out the tank with their bare hands if they have to.”
Actually, they would be using a Russian-made SPG-9 piece of shit. The light antitank gun fired a 73mm missile that had a fairly good chance of destroying the ancient M47—but only if it hit it. The weapon wasn’t particularly known for its accuracy.
“Team A, meanwhile, will be taking care of the machine guns on the east side of the building. Prisoners and wounded to be evacuated to the Chinook rendezvous point, blah-blah-blah. You girls got that?”
“Oh, we got it, Sergeant Honey,” said the Team B point man, Jerry Jackson.
“Listen, Swishboy, you just make sure you don’t trip going out of the helicopter,” Melfi told him. “I’ll boot your black ass right into the sandbag post.”
“Oh, I wish you would, Gunny.”
The others laughed, and so did the se
rgeant, even as he shook his head. He thumbed toward the two green, unmarked Chinooks standing on the dirt pad behind him. The flare he’d lit behind him made the aircraft look almost purple in the early morning twilight. Looming beyond them were jagged hills, their sharp shadows and shapes making the place look like the far side of the moon, rather than the ragged hinterland of northeastern Ethiopia.
“Okay, let’s run this like we’re under fire, all right?” said Gunny. “Check your gear and move out.”
The Marines quickly gave their rifles and gear the once-over as they silently lined up to board the helicopters. They’d been issued plain-Jane M-16A1 rifles that had been bought on the black market. Besides the Russian antitank gun, they were carrying two French machine guns—AA52’s, which were actually quite good, though they used odd-sized bullets. The Chinooks that were to carry the Marines ostensibly belonged to Zaire. Their uniforms, which had an Army puke-green tint to them, bore no insignias or markings.
In Gunny’s opinion, these and a dozen other elaborate precautions designed to camouflage the group’s identity weren’t going to fool anyone if the Marines were actually called on to do the job they were practicing to do. In Gunny’s opinion, they’d be better off admitting they were Americans and, hot damn, taking a real Marine Expeditionary Force—Cobras, Harriers, CH-53’s, SAWs, M240’s, the whole shebang—against the damn Somalian SAM site and blowing the living shit out of it, foreign politics be damned.
But of course, Gunnery Sergeant James Melfi had been in the Marines long enough to not have an opinion in these matters. If Madcap Magician wanted to pretend they were merely pissed-off mercenaries hired by a pissed-off and jealous African dictator who wanted to get back in power in Somalia, so be it.
“All right, girls, let’s move it out,” said Melfi, prodding his men to board the double-bladed Chinook transport. Captain Peter Gordon, who’d been conferring with the pilots, frowned at him—he’d already bawled Melfi out twice today for using “inappropriate language.”
“Sergeant?” snapped the captain.
“Pussies are all hot and wet for you, Captain,” said Gunny with as straight a face as he could manage.
“HELOS BEARING THREE-NINER.”
“Confirmed.” Mack Smith glanced at the way marker on his INS and put his plane into a bank away from the path the two helicopters were taking. “Poison Flight, prepare to break. Let’s do this the way we drew it up.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
The four F-16’s now split into two different flights, Mack and his wingman staying southeast of the helicopters while the others flew north. Mack scanned the glow of instruments in the Viper cockpit, then snapped his APG-68 radar into ground-attack mode. He was ahead of schedule, but had had trouble picking out the target during last night’s exercise and wanted to take no chances this time.
“Helicopters should be putting down now,” he told his wingman, Captain Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan acknowledged. Packing a pair of HARM missiles, Sullivan was to watch for any radar indication that would indicate SAM activity. The HARMs, or High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, were designed to home in on the powerful radar systems used by SAMs. In this particular scenario, they were looking for an SA-3 battery, a medium-altitude, medium-range missile system protecting an installation on the northern coast of Somalia.
The simulated coast of Somalia. They were actually flying over Ethiopia.
“Ground team inbound,” snapped the Chinook pilot on cue. The secure, coded KY-58 com system rendered the voice almost metallic. “Taking fire. LZ is hot.”
“Poison One riding in,” said Mack. He snapped the sidestick hard, rolling into a dive from 18,500 feet. Mack gave a quick glance toward his radar-warning receiver, making sure he was not being tracked. He mimed hitting his master arm switch, working through his routine as if he were actually carrying the four GBU-24 laser-guided bombs and six five-hundred-pound “dumb” or unguided bombs they planned to use on the mission.
“SA-3 site is up,” said Sullivan. “Dotted. HARM away. You’re clean.”
In theory, the most serious antiair site Mack would face had just been taken care of before it could launch missiles.
Knife, meanwhile, had put his Viper into a steep dive toward the target. His targeting system in the HUD projected a diamond smack on the long wall at the base below; the wall was simulating a tank.
“Bombs away,” he said, pretending to pickle the iron off his wings. He jostled the wings up and down, as if simulating the g forces as three thousand pounds fell off, beginning to recover and position himself to fire the laser-designated GBUs on the ground team’s cue.
* * *
GUNNY FELT HIS KNEE TWINGE AS HE TROTTED TOWARD his two-man SPG team. He tried to ignore it, grumbling as the F-16 banked above.
“All right, tank is wiped out,” he told the men. “Get the machine gun. Come on, let’s go, let’s go. This ain’t a pleasure cruise. Move it!”
“Bam,” said the loader after the gunner mimed the weapon firing.
“Good, okay, okay,” shouted Gunny. The men were leaping over the wall, firing live rounds at the empty warehouse.
A fresh flare rose in the distance. Captain Gordon trotted up, a nightscope in his hand. There were only three night-vision binoculars assigned to the entire thirty-member assault team.
“Looking good, Sergeant,” said Gordon.
“Uh-huh,” said Melfi. His knee was really screaming now, but there was no time to baby it. With the first and second ring of ground defenses now wiped out, the six men on his right were supposed to move in and take out the surface-to-ship batteries installed along the railhead. The Silkworm missile launchers were being simulated by a pair of old Land Rovers at the far end of the warehouse complex. Gunny half-trotted, half-walked behind the fire team as they scrambled forward. As they bolted over the wall that had played the role of the tank, they suddenly stopped.
“What’s going on?” he yelled at them over the wall.
“Supposed to be an armored car,” hissed one of the men, reminding him of the scenario. “We’re hitting it with the LANTIRN for the F-16.”
“Shit. Right. Sony,” said Gunny, taking advantage of the break to walk around to the edge of the wall rather than struggling over it. Meanwhile, the fire team leader illuminated the pretend target so the F-16 above could hit it with GBU-24’s.
“Destroyed!” yelped the team’s corn specialist, who was communicating with the plane.
Gunny followed along as the team proceeded to the parking area where the Silkworms were supposed to be. The Marines moved quickly—a little too quickly, of course, since there was no one actually in front of them. The two demolition specialists set their charges on the Land Rovers.
“Move out, move out!” called the team leader.
Gunny retreated with the others. He barely made it back to the wall before the cars blew up.
“Okay, into the helicopter!” Captain Gordon screamed.
Gunny permitted himself a moment’s worth of satisfaction, staring at the flaming trucks. They’d made sure the gas tanks were full—might as well have one big boom. Then he walked back toward the LZ, where the helicopter was winding its props.
“HELO OUTBOUND,” SMITH TOLD HIS FLIGHT.
The other pilots checked in as the four F-16’s proceeded to their postattack rendezvous point. In theory, two HARM missiles, six five-hundred-pound iron bombs, and a total of eight GBU-24’s had been fired at the ground installation on the coast of Somalia, all scoring hits. Destroyed were two SA-2 and four SA-3 ground-to-air launchers, along with their radar vans and specialized crews. More importantly, two batteries of Silkworm antiship missiles had also been wiped out. Not to mention one tank, one armored car, and an unspecified number of Somies.
Fantastic. Now if the Iranians and Somalians would cooperate, the operation could proceed.
Smith squirmed in the F-16 seat. Canted back at thirty degrees to make it more comfortable in high-g maneuvers, it felt awkward
to him, almost as if he were sitting in a dentist’s chair. He knew that eventually he’d get used to it, but that didn’t soothe the kinks in his shoulders.
Mack checked the time. Four-forty. They had plenty of time to go again, as planned. But before he could signal the helicopter, their ground controller broke in.
“Poison Flight, this is Madcap Magician. Return to base. Repeat, return to base.”
“One copies,” he said, recognizing the voice of ISA commander Major Hal Briggs.
Briggs ordinarily wasn’t up this early, let alone working the radio. And Mack knew the major was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia today, overseeing another operation only tangentially related to the crisis in Somalia.
Smith’s heart started double-pumping. “Okay, guys,” he told the others. “Let’s get back to base pronto.”
The White House
21 October, 0700 local
IN HIS SEVEN MONTHS AS SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE National Security Council, Jed Barclay had seen—seen, not met, not talked to—the President of the United States of America exactly twice before. And now today—now, this instant—he was giving him a personal briefing in the upstairs residence of the White House on the most important and dangerous international development since the Gulf War.
Hell, this was twenty times more dangerous, as he was endeavoring to point out between his nervous coughs and tremors.
The President’s Chief of Staff frowned as the word “hell” escaped from Jed’s mouth. Neither the President nor Ms. O’Day reacted. Jed pushed on.
“The Iranian mullahs have decided that the time is right for their Greater Islamic League. That is, of course, Islam as they interpret it, not as most of the rest of the world or even Iranians interpret it. But you’re all aware of that. The takeover of the Somalian government was the first step. Locating the Silkworm antiship missiles there was the second. They have a credible threat to shipping, and their ultimatum must be taken seriously. In a few months, they’ll have the aircraft carrier they’re building with the Chinese. Either the West—us basically—adds a one-hundred-percent tax to the price of oil and divides it among members of their alliance, or they will attack shipping. They’ve menaced two ships already.”
