by Dale Brown
“Either’s fine.”
“Why don’t we start with wine?” she suggested. “It will go with the main course.”
“There’s a main course?”
“Dahling, I am the main course.” She fluttered her eyes, laughing as she retreated to the kitchen.
DOG WROTE OUT THE DRAFT OF HIS FORMAL REPORT on a lined yellow pad as he sat at a back table in Cafeteria Four. He made a few false starts, pausing to listen as a pair of engine technicians debated whether the meat loaf or open-faced turkey was better. He considered walking over to say hello, but their embarrassed waves somehow reminded him that he was just avoiding the work at hand. He nodded, then began writing in earnest, his Papermate disposable pencil squeaking over the paper.
“Despite the great weight of politics and certain outrage that I’m sure will meet this report, I cannot in good conscience recommend that the F-119 project as currently constituted proceed,” he wrote. “I have carefully reviewed the data on the project, and have personally flown the aircraft.”
He paused, wondering if that might not sound a little conceited. Before he could decide, Danny Freah’s deep voice bellowed behind him.
“Letter home, sir?”
Bastian looked over his shoulder to find Freah grinning.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“Probably not a classified document,” said the base’s security officer, pulling up a chair.
“Probably is,” said Bastian. “But I figure you’ll bounce anyone who gets close enough to steal it.”
Freah laughed. “I’m raring for a fight.”
“How are things doing?”
“Security checks have come back clean. Hal left things in good shape.”
“I imagine he would,” said Dog.
“He’s up to his ears about now,” added Freah.
“In what sense?”
“I was watching CNN a while ago. The Iranians sound like they’re going to make a play to cut off shipping in the Gulf. Increase the price of oil.”
“Another attempt at wrecking my budget,” said Dog. He jostled his pen back and forth. “You miss the action end, Danny?”
“This is a big job, Colonel. I’m grateful for the assignment.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I didn’t realize it was a question.”
“I guess not,” said Bastian. “In a way, I guess I miss the action too. Not losing kids, though.”
“No, sir,” said Freah, suddenly serious. “That part sucks.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, as long as everything’s secure,” said Freah, standing up.
“Looks like it.”
Dog watched Danny go to the cafeteria line. He emerged with an orange juice carton, then disappeared out the side door.
Losing kids sucked. If his concept of Dreamland were ever implemented—if it truly became a cutting-edge unit assigned to covert and non-covert actions where high-tech could leverage a favorable result—he’d be sending plenty of kids into harm’s way.
Including his daughter.
Bastian put his pencil back to the pad. He reviewed what he’d written, letting the sentence about his flying the plane stand. Then he added, “I have appended some of the relevant reports. Because of the political nature of this project, I have taken the precaution of removing the names of the authors. This recommendation is my responsibility and my responsibility only.”
Would that save them, though? It wouldn’t exactly be difficult to figure out who had done what.
“You look like you’re trying to untie the Gordian knot.”
Surprised, Dog looked up to find Jennifer Gleason, the young computer scientist who worked primarily on the Flighthawk project, smiling down at him.
“The Gordian knot?” he asked. “You know, I’ve always wondered what that was.”
“The Gordian knot was a complicated knot tied by King Gordius of Phrygia,” said Gleason. “Supposedly, anyway. The oracles claimed that whoever could undo it would rule Asia. So along comes Alexander the Great. He hears about it, goes over to it, and without wasting a blink of his eye, slices it with his sword.”
Bastian laughed.
“Probably not a true story,” said Gleason. She flicked her head back so her long reddish-blond hair glistened at her shoulders. “But it has a certain charm.”
“Especially if you’re trying to work out a budget,” said Bastian.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, I need interruption,” he told her, flipping the top page back over his pad so the writing couldn’t be read. “Sit down.”
She slid in across from him and took the top off her yogurt container.
“Dinner?” he asked.
“More like a late lunch.”
“No wonder you’re so skinny.”
“I hope that was meant in a professional way.”
“Touché, Doc.”
“Most people call me Jennifer or Jen, Colonel.” Gleason smiled and then spooned some of the vanilla-flavored yogurt into her mouth. “I always thought doctors were the people who were sticking stethoscopes in your face and thermometers in your chest.”
“I think that goes the other way around.”
She smirked. Dog searched for something else to say, but all he could think of was the Flighthawk project—not a good topic, since he’d already decided to recommend cutting it. And in fact he half-expected she’d sat down to make a pitch for keeping it.
“You run every morning?” she asked.
“I do actually.”
“I saw you this morning. I was going to ask if I could join you, but I chickened out.”
“I don’t bite,” said Bastian.
“I was a little worried about your pace. I only run to keep in shape for climbing. I rock-climb on weekends,” she added.
“You rock-climb nearby?”
“There are some great climbs in the mountains at the end of F Range,” she said.
“I always wanted to try it.”
The words slipped from his mouth before he could stop them, but she didn’t laugh.
“It’s easy. I’ll show you sometime. As long as you don’t mind taking orders from a civilian.”
“I don’t think I’d mind at all.”
“Good.”
“You can run with me anytime you want,” he said.
“I’ll see you in the morning then,” said Jennifer, finishing her yogurt.
He watched her walk away, then went back to work.
JEFF HADN’T EATEN LIKE THIS IN YEARS, NOT EVEN IN A restaurant. Breanna had knocked herself out for him, and he appreciated it.
But it only made him more determined.
The truth was, he’d come to this conclusion months ago. Seeing her with Smith just brought him back to his senses.
So why didn’t he feel calm about it?
Dessert was the only course she hadn’t cooked herself, homemade cannolis from the only Italian bakery within five hundred miles. As Jeff finished his, he leaned back in the chair and watched her sip her wine.
“You’re beautiful, Bree. Really, truly, beautiful,” he told her.
“Nice of you to notice,” she said. The line had once been a joke between them, usually applied to something like doing the dishes or vacuuming without being asked. Now it sounded off-key, almost sorrowful. “You want some more wine?”
He shook his head. “Maybe that beer.”
“Fine.”
A twinge ran through him. He didn’t really want the beer. He was stalling. Damn, he’d become good at that, hadn’t he?
Still, he waited until she came back, the beer in a frosted pilsner glass.
“You thought of everything,” he told her.
Stall, stall, stall.
Just go for it.
Bree seemed to sense what was coming. “Jeff, I want us to work,” she said, her voice beginning to tremble. “I know it’s been hard. I know it’s going to be tough—”
Something
deep inside him took over, a calm forcefulness that pushed him to take care of things as he knew they had to be taken care of. Jeff held his finger up to her lips. “Bree—”
“D-don’t—” she stuttered.
“I saw you the other night with Mack Smith.”
“You saw me where?” She straightened, suddenly stiff. “I saw him come out of your suite at Dreamland. Our suite.”
“No—”
“It’s okay, Bree. It really has nothing to do with anything.”
“But—”
“Look, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I decided a long time ago—six months maybe. You don’t need me, Rap. I’m going to hold you back.”
“That’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit,” she said. Her face was flushed; she practically spat as she spoke.
Wine or blood?
“No, listen to me,” he said calmly. “It’s not your fault. I understand. Totally. This wasn’t part of the deal.”
His hands started to tremble. He reached to put the glass of beer on the table in front of him; it slipped halfway, falling to the floor.
“Oh, Jeff, no,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
“I want a divorce,” he told her. “For your sake. For mine too. It’ll help us move on.”
“No, Jeff, no.” Breanna buried her head in his lap, sobbing. He bent over, fingers running through her hair, his eyes blurry with the leaping flame of the candles on the table.
Ethiopia
22 October, 0350
SERGEANT MELFI SETTLED INTO THE CANVAS SEAT AS the Chinook jerked into the sky. The large engines on the big-hulled Boeing helicopter had a distinctive whomp that seemed to push the twenty Marines down between the tubular supports of their seats. Gunny scanned the row of men toward the front of the chopper. The dim red interior lights added more shadows to the darkened camo faces, making the unit look like a collection of ghosts riding in the night.
If the operation went smoothly, it would seem as if ghosts had carried it out. Within two hours, the Iranians would lose most of their ability to launch a preemptive strike against Gulf shipping.
Assuming everything went off as planned. The intelligence bothered Gunny; they’d been given satellite information that was several hours old. That might be okay for the big stuff—blowing up another Silkworm missile battery wasn’t a big deal. But the Iranians could easily have airdropped some light armor, or added more machine guns near the bluffs overlooking the Silkworm battery.
Too late to worry about it now.
“Zero-five to LZ,” barked the helicopter crew chief.
“Hang tough, girls,” said ,Gunny, cinching his helmet strap. “We do this dance the way we rehearsed it.”
KNIFE NOTED THE WAY MARKER AND DID A QUICK SCAN of his instruments. He had the volume on his radar-warning receiver near max; his air-to-air radar was set at wide scan. The sky was clear ahead, the sea and coastline peaceful.
Not for long, he thought. The helo was cutting a course bare inches from the scrub trees and jagged hilltops twenty miles to the west. Further along the coast, a flight of F-117’s was cutting over the Gulf of Aden, aiming for another secret Iranian base on the Somalian coast. All hell was about to break loose.
“Poison Flight, time to twist,” said Smith to his F-16 wingmen.
“Three.”
“Four.”
The two F-16’s peeled off, their exhaust nozzles swelling red in the dark sky as they accelerated northward. Knife pushed his nose down, beginning a glide toward their target area. His wingman fell in behind him.
The Chinook would broadcast a signal when it was ten seconds from the LZ. Anything before that was trouble. Smith made sure his radio was set, then quickly checked his GPS page, double-checking to make sure his navigational gear was functioning properly. The INS would conjure a diamond in his HUD to show the target area when he rolled in; he wanted to make sure it would be accurate if he had to roll in with the dumb bombs in a hurry.
His heart beat like a snare drum. He was swimming in sweat. He jerked his head back and forth, practically screwing it out of its socket, checking for other fighters, for missiles that had somehow managed to defy or trick his gear.
Wasn’t going to happen. But knowing that didn’t relax him, and certainly didn’t stop the sweat or the drumbeat.
He’d felt this way in the Gulf, though not on his first mission. His first mission—the first three or four, really—had been tremendous blurs. He was so consumed with the minutiae, the tankings, the radio calls, simply checking six, that he hadn’t had a chance to get nervous.
Mack had also lost about ten pounds in three days, so obviously he’d been sweating a little.
His first kill came on the first patrol he flew, a fluke.
Not a fluke. A product of a zillion hours of training. It was a push-button, beyond-visual-range kill with a Sparrow radar missile. He’d ID’d, locked, and launched in the space of maybe three seconds.
Skill. That was definitely how he nailed splash two—though the F-15’s tape had screwed up, depriving him of credit.
He wasn’t getting a shoot-down tonight. The Somalians didn’t have an air force and the nearest Iranians were well over two hundred miles away. And besides, he was driving an F-16 configured for ground-pounding.
“Bad Boys to Poison Leader, we are one-zero, repeat, one-zero. All calm.”
Before Smith could acknowledge, his RWR began bleating and an icon appeared in the middle of his receiver scope. An instant later, his wing mate yelled a warning over the short-range radio circuit.
“SA-2 battery up! And two more. Shit. There’s four batteries there, not two. Sixes! SA-6’s! Shit-fuck! Where did those bastards come from?”
GUNNY HAD RUN TWENTY FEET FROM THE REAR DOOR of the Chinook when the flare ignited overhead. He began cursing, immediately understanding what had happened.
“Team One, Team One!” he shouted, pushing his old legs hard as he ran forward. “Listen up! The defenses are on the south end of the field. They moved everything beyond the ditches. Come on, come on—everybody move it! Let’s go!”
As he ran forward, Melfi caught sight of the first muzzle flash from the enemy lines: a streak of red that flared oblong in the black smear. The ground shook, but the explosion was at least a half mile away from the LZ. The Somalians had zeroed their weapons in on the highway, obviously expecting the attack would be there. They had fired the flare as well.
“They don’t know where we are!” shouted Gunny to his men. “Come on, come on, they can’t see us. Let’s go. We got about ten seconds to get across their ditch. Mine team! Mines! Come the fuck on! Blow the field so we can advance. Come on!”
The different elements of his assault team began fanning out, remembering the instructions for this contingency. They were sluggish, weighed down by their equipment and hampered by the dark.
Or maybe it just seemed to Gunny like they were moving in slow motion. The two buildings where they’d expected resistance lay twenty feet ahead, across a large ditch lined with antitank obstacles. The buildings were quiet.
Which didn’t mean they were empty, of course.
The missile launchers had apparently been moved closer to the water, nearly four hundred yards further south of the spot briefed. Small-arms fire was coming from that direction. The finicky light from the Somalian flare showed pointed shadows around the slight rise there, but they were too far away to see anything, let alone attack it.
There was a thud, then a series of thuds.
Nothing.
No mines.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” shouted Gunny. “They moved everything to Purple site.”
“Incoming!” yelled someone ahead. “Tank!”
Gunny threw himself to the ground. A large-caliber shell, possibly from an M47, splashed through the trees at the right. The sergeant pushed himself back to his knees, and for the first time realized all hell was breaking loose at the north end of the site, where Captain Gordon and his team had gone.
“Get the SPG on that tank,” yelled Gunny. “Corn! Corn!” he added, calling for the radio specialist. “Where the hell are the F-16’s?”
As if to answer, a tongue of fire lit from behind the Somalian lines and two huge fists leaped from the earth.
“TWO LAUNCHES, ELEVEN O’CLOCK!” SHOUTED SMITH AS he saw the missiles flare off their launchers. His RWR skipped out warning bleats as he jinked hard and kicked out tinsel, metal chaff designed to fool the radar of the acquiring missile.
In some respects, the Somalians had done them a favor by turning on their radars and firing the missiles. Powering up his HARM missiles, the pilot of Poison Two calmly dotted the offending radar van on his threat scope and released the antiradar missiles. With the targeting information downloaded into their miniature onboard computers, the radiation-seeking missiles were in can’t-miss mode—even if the radars were to turn themselves off, the missiles would fly directly to the target points and obliterate the gear.
But that didn’t account for the surface-to-air missiles that had been fired, or pure bad luck. The SA-2’s were equipped with terminal guidance devices that allowed them to home in on an enemy even if their ground units were wiped out. Worse, as far as Knife was concerned, were the SA-6’s—nasty medium-range missiles that weren’t supposed to be here, but were now sending his warning gear into a high-pitched shriek.
And the SA-3. Not to mention triple-A, which erupted with a red cloud to the northeast.
Knife’s head swirled in a tempest of colors and sweat. The warning receiver was still bleating. He pulled the Fighting Falcon over, yanking the F-16 nearly backward in the air, altitude dropping abruptly as he fired off more chaff.
Pulling back on the sidestick at fifteen thousand feet, he found the target area in his windshield. Someone had even fired a flare to show him where everything was.
Thoughtful.
Knife forgot about the SAMs and the antiair and the RWR as he saw the muzzle flash of an ancient M47 tank foam red about three o’clock in his screen. The tank was his primary target if the ground team ran into trouble.
