by Dale Brown
How was watching out for her crew—strike that, her passengers—not being brave?
Freah would have to cut a stinking hole with a blowtorch to get his sorry ass out of the plane if there was a problem. Because she sure as shit wasn’t going to slow down so he could crawl over to the hatch.
Maybe he’d move the computer equipment in the weapons area, find a way to squeeze through the bulkhead spars and crawl back to the bomb bay. Ride a cruise missile down to earth like what’s his name in that whatchamacallit movie.
Asshole!
“Rap?”
“Dream Tower, this is Fort Two. Request clearance for takeoff.”
“Tower. Uh, Captain, didn’t we do this already?” Another fucking wise-ass, Bree thought, pushing the throttle bar to get the hell out of there.
COLONEL BASTIAN WATCHED FROM THE TARMAC AS THE immense black plane lifted itself into the night, a dark shadow shuddering into the air.
It would be an exaggeration to say he’d thought more about his daughter in the past hour than in her whole life, but it was probably true that it was the longest sustained stretch in quite a while. He’d tried concentrating on other things, and even taking a nap, but couldn’t; finally he’d decided to go out to the hangar area and wish her luck.
But he’d stopped short. He told himself that he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her crew, but he knew that was a lie. He’d stopped because he didn’t know what to say.
Or rather, he didn’t think he could say what he wanted to say. Which was a lifetime of apologies, maybe.
He hadn’t been there when she was born. He hadn’t been there when she was growing up. It was partly her mother’s fault, partly a question of circumstances, partly his career. Her mother had asked for a divorce even before she was pregnant, and then taken off, just disappeared. Ravena’s wild streak had attracted him in the first place, the edge of danger in their relationship. Her unpredictability fired him up; he liked the edge, or had, or thought he had, when he was a young fighter jock on top of the world.
The jock eventually grew up. Ravena hadn’t.
Breanna had, though.
It was his fault he hadn’t been there. No one else’s but his.
Dog folded his arms around his chest, eyes straining to see the disappearing shadow in the distance. She was a damn good pilot; he should be proud.
He was. He was also worried about her, an anxious father who’d just sent his daughter off on her first date.
If only it were that, he thought, finally losing track of the plane in the vast, overwhelming sky.
Dreamland
22 October, 0600
“WHAT DO YOU CALL A CRIPPLE TRYING TO CROSS A road?”
The two airmen looked at each other as if they’d just caught their parents in a foursome in Times Square.
“Roadkill,” Zen said. “What do you call a one-legged bank robber?”
The airman on the left shrugged. The other laughed nervously. “What, Captain?” he asked.
“Misunderstood.”
The roar of the helicopter approaching the Nellis landing pad made it possible for the two airmen to escape. The Dolphin shuttle—a French-made Aerospatiale SA.366 Dauphin adapted by the Air Force as a transport and occasional SAR craft—whipped in as if dropping into a hot LZ. The men bolted for it as it touched down a few yards away. A ground crewman pushed forward the access ramp that had been specially built for Zen. Stockard wheeled slowly, methodically building momentum as he sidled and bumped through the wide side door. Because of its SAR function, this Dolphin had a large open bay in the rear; it was easier to get in and out of than the other, which was a dedicated ferry generally reserved for—and preferred by—officers.
“Morning, Captain,” said the copilot, trotting back as Zen wheeled himself into the bird. “You in for this week’s football pool?” He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.
“I ought to get cripple’s odds,” Zen said, taking the sheet.
“Man, you’re in a strange mood this morning, sir,” said one of the airmen he’d been tormenting with his jokes.
“I’m just a strange guy, I guess,” said Zen, reaching around to strap his chair to the helicopter’s restraints. Greasy Hands had had someone install the quick-release hookup, making it easy for him to secure himself. Maybe next week they’d put in a special window.
“All aboard what’s coming aboard,” yelled the copilot out the rear door before pulling it shut. There was, of course, no one else waiting in the off-limits and well-guarded shuttle area. The pilot whipped the engine into a fury and the helicopter shot upward.
He was in a strange mood, Zen conceded to himself. Maybe it was because he thought he’d made a mistake with Bree last night.
He still knew he was right, that they had to end their marriage. But his stomach hurt, and it wasn’t just because of the heavy meal.
They’d sat there for an hour or more after he told her. Neither one of them spoke. Then she got up to go to the bathroom. He flipped on the TV.
Someone from Dreamland called her in. Bree left without explaining what was up. He assumed there was some sort of problem with the Megafortress; she had that kind of look on her face. He could tell.
At least he thought he could.
He glanced at the list of football games on the pool sheet, but the light was dim and he didn’t really feel like going through it now. He folded it into his pocket.
Jeff had spent quite a lot of time last night thinking about using the Megafortress as the Flighthawk mother ship. He thought it might just be possible to save the project by tying the UM/Fs to the KC configuration, which itself was hitching a ride on the JSF. The Flighthawks would be perfect escorts over hostile territory.
The JSF was a joke, so what the hell. Might as well get something useful out of the program.
Stockard mulled how to best present the idea to his father-in-law during the short flight to Dreamland. He was still thinking about it as he made his way over to Cafeteria Four for breakfast.
“Ham ‘n’ Swiss bagel,” he told Maggie, the counter-person, as he took his customary bottle of water.
“A bagel today? My, oh, my. Living on the edge, aren’t we, Captain?” said Maggie.
“Cripples have to,” Zen told her.
“Don’t you ever use that word in front of me,” she said, nearly throwing herself over the steam tray that separated them. “My son is in a wheelchair. He ain’t no cripple.”
“I didn’t mean anything. I, uh …” Zen held out his hands apologetically. “I mean, shit, look at me.”
“Well, you ain’t no cripple.” Her face was red and her voice was shaking. “That damn chair doesn’t give you the right to make fun of nobody.”
“I’m not making fun of anyone. I didn’t know about your son. I’m sorry.”
She flipped the bagel together and plopped it on a plate with a harsh slap.
“I’m sorry,” Zen said. “Really.”
“Yeah,” she said. Maggie pushed her lips together; finally, she nodded slowly.
He wanted to say something else, but all he could manage was another “sorry.” Maggie turned quickly to greet a newcomer. Zen took the tray and wheeled himself out into the nearly empty room.
Nancy Cheshire was sitting at a table a short distance from the doorway. She waved at him to come over; he moved toward her slowly, the coffee lapping at the top of the cup on his precariously balanced tray.
“Hey, Jeff. Sorry if I woke you up last night,” she said as he slid his tray in.
“No, I was up,” he told her. He sipped his coffee, thinking how he could make it up to Maggie. She’d always been one of the few people who’d treated him like a regular person.
“Ought to be nearly there by now,” said Cheshire.
“There where?”
“You haven’t heard what’s going on?”
“No. Where’s Bree? You called her last night?” he added, finally catching up to what she’d been saying.
&nbs
p; “Two planes got shot down in Somalia,” Cheshire told him. “They’re putting together an operation to rescue the pilots. Madcap Magician has an operation under way. They’ve called in Whiplash, one of our Spec Op security units. Danny Freah packed up the team in Fort Two and took off for Africa a few hours ago.”
“In a Megafortress?”
Cheshire nodded. “We’re sending Raven out as soon as the control systems are tested. We’re carrying Fort Two’s crew members, and some more weapons. I should be sleeping,” she added, shrugging.
“Weapons?”
“If they’re needed.”
“I’m coming with you,” Zen told her. “With the Flighthawks.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Raven’s already set up for us. We can load the computer gear back in on the pallets and be ready to rock in an hour,” he told her. “It won’t take a half hour.”
“Jeff, the Flighthawks aren’t ready for combat.”
“And Raven is?”
Cheshire shook her head. “The Megafortress has already seen action.”
“Raven hasn’t. And the Flighthawks have been flying for as long as Fort Two has.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“We can provide escort and act as scouts,” said Jeff.
“We’ve only done two airdrops.”
“That’s in the past week and a half. We did maybe a million before my accident.”
She frowned, not even bothering to refute his exaggeration. Jeff kept talking, convinced he was right—convinced that not only would the Flighthawks do a great job, but that they would prove their worth to everyone and the project would live on.
He would live on. Or fly on.
“Raven and Fort Two are too valuable to risk anyplace where somebody else got shot down. The Flighthawks can take chances you can’t.”
“Maybe five years from now. Three years if we’re lucky,” said Cheshire. “After a hell of a lot more work and practice.”
“You think the pilots who got shot down are going to be alive in three years?”
“I didn’t think you cared that much for Mack Smith after, uh, the accident,” she said.
“Smith was one of the pilots?”
Cheshire nodded.
“Yeah, well, I’m still going.”
SHAVING, COLONEL BASTIAN CONSIDERED WHETHER HE might just escape for a few hours—pull the phone out of the wall, or better yet, steal away to a Vegas hotel and sleep for twenty-four hours.
Wouldn’t that go over big with the F-119 junta?
But hiding wasn’t exactly his style. And besides, he needed to stay available in case O’Day wanted his input on Somalia. So he fortified himself with a quick, very hot shower, and headed back to the Taj.
By now Bastian had learned it was much faster to avoid the elevator’s security systems and go down the stairways, which “merely” required a second retina scan, magnetic strip card, and a nod to the security detail at each floor. He had just burst out into the hallway down from his office when Major Stockard yelled to him from the elevator area.
“Colonel, just the man I was looking for,” said Jeff, wheeling his chair at breakneck speed. “Can we talk for a second?”
“Sure, Zen,” said Bastian, pushing open the door to his outer office. The room was jammed with a dozen other people waiting to see him. Dog gave the room a quick glance, though he could tell from the chaos that Ax was temporarily AWOL. “Sergeant Gibbs will be with you all shortly,” he said, waving off any interruptions as he plunged into his personal office. He held the door open as Stockard wheeled through, then closed it quickly.
“Colonel—”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Bastian quickly.
“I’m not worried about Bree, Colonel,” said Jeff. “I know she’s fine. I want to get the Flighthawks on Raven.”
“What?”
“The Flighthawks. If you’re sending a second Mega-fortress to Africa, you should send the Flighthawks along too. They can act as escorts and scouts,” he added. “We’ll have real-time surveillance and CAP.”
“I don’t know, Jeff.” Dog pulled out his desk chair and sat down. “For one thing, I don’t have approval to send the first Megafortress, let alone the second. I’m only authorizing it on the grounds that the first one doesn’t have a full crew aboard. In theory, the two planes are supposed to come back.”
“Come on, Dog. You’re stuffing the Raven with air-to-ground weapons. I agree with you. We should be in this.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. The weapons are for defensive purposes only.”
“JSOWs?”
“If there are ground installations targeting them,” said Bastian. It was, at best, a thin veneer—but that was all he needed.
“So they’ll need up-to-date intelligence. I’ve flown the Flighthawks off Raven before. I know it will work.”
The phone on his desk buzzed. Bastian looked at it angrily.
“You know I’m right about this, Colonel,” said Zen. “If you’re sending another Megafortress, the Flighthawks should go too. They’re proven. They’re expendable escorts.”
“You haven’t proven anything yet,” Bastian told him. He snapped up the phone. “Bastian.”
“Couple a dozen people waiting to talk to you, Colonel,” said Ax. “And Washington—”
“Start a list. Tell Washington I’ll get back to them,” he snapped, hanging up the phone. He turned back to Stockard. “You think aircraft that cost a half a billion dollars to build are expendable?”
“That’s the whole program cost,” said Jeff. “But even if it were the cost of one plane, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than someone’s life.”
As mad as he was, Bastian couldn’t quite disagree with that.
Especially since one of the lives they were talking about was Rap’s.
“Have you used the Megafortress as a mother ship?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” said Jeff. “Once they’re off the wings, flying them from the Megafortress is like flying them from anywhere. Come on, Dog. You know it makes sense. Send them.”
“You’re asking me to send an untested flight system into a war zone.”
“You already did that. Shit.” Zen nudged his wheelchair forward. “You want to prove Dreamland will work, don’t you? I know the whole concept—cutting-edge technology in the hands of an elite force. I have a copy of your paper. You’re right. That’s why this makes so much goddamn sense.”
“Where did you get a copy of that?”
“My cousin works for the NSC,” said Zen, realizing he’d gone too far.
“Which cousin is that?”
“Off the record?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t want to get my cousin fired.” Jeff pushed on, obviously hoping to skirt the question. “The bottom line here is, I want to put into practice what you’ve been preaching. Cutting-edge weapons on the firing line, where they belong.”
He was right—or at least he was making a damn strong argument. How could he not? It was exactly what Bastian himself believed.
But was Bastian right? He’d written that paper in an air-conditioned Washington, D.C., office over a few quiet afternoons. It was summer, and his evenings had been spent on a golf course, learning to play.
The report, and the man who wrote it, had been far removed from the realities of command, let alone combat. He hadn’t had to worry about the consequences of failure.
“Zen, I’m going to forget that claim to have seen an eyes-only code-word report that I doubt you’re cleared to read,” he told him. “What do we do if one of the Flighthawks crashes?”
“I hit self-destruct.” Jeff shrugged. “God, Colonel, they’re killing us anyway, right? What do we have to lose? I’m not asking you to send the JSF. You know this will work.”
Ax’s short double rap on the door interrupted them. The sergeant appeared with two cups of coffee and a stack of folders beneath his arm.
“Intel repor
t you want to look at, Colonel,” said the sergeant, setting the folders down. “Courtesy of Centcom Planning.”
“Centcom?” Dog took the folder in his hand. It contained a short, undated memo accessing antiair defenses possessed by Iran. The emphasis was on mobile systems purchased from the former Soviet Union. According to the report, the Iranians were suspected of possessing a “sizable” number—”more than twenty”—of SA-3’s, SA-6’s, and man-portable SA-16’s.
Serious weapons, all. There were also improved SA-2’s, old but reliable SAMs. Though their systems were well known, their old-style radar could take advantage of some deficiencies in stealth technology—in other words, they could “see” F- 117’s in some circumstances.
They could also see the Megafortress.
Not the Flighthawks, though. Or at least not quite as soon.
A pair of the robots could extend the scouting range, take the risks. Keep his people safe. That was his mission, no?
No. This wasn’t his mission at all. He’d taken a hell of a risk using Fort Two as a transport. He knew—he strongly suspected, at least—that once the Megafortress was available, it would be used. And that would certainly hold true for Raven, with its ECMs.
And the Flighthawks. Damn straight.
Who would resist the temptation to use them?
Didn’t he want that, though? Didn’t he want to demonstrate how right he was?
No, it wasn’t a matter of him being right. It was a matter of getting the job done. And saving lives. Bree’ s.
“Ax—who sent this report?” he asked his sergeant.
“Came eyes-only, without any ID,” replied the sergeant. “I thought Ms. O’Day had forwarded it.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, Colonel,” said the sergeant, slipping out the door.
“You put him up to this?” Bastian asked Zen.
“I haven’t a clue what that paper says,” said Zen.
“All right. See if it’s doable. I haven’t approved anything yet,” he added harshly as Stockard started to smile. “I want to talk to Cheshire and Rubeo about this first.”
