'We?'
'You're not OSIT' 'No. 'Briggs smiled. 'Anyway, Jenkins had a search organized in no time. We were more or less in control of the tactical environment, as we say in the game, at the airport.
When you moved to the base, we lost control. Hell, we…
painted a half-dozen different scenarios about what happened to you.
All bad.'
'Whoa, whoa!' McLanahan held up a tired hand. 'Happened to me?I don't get it. What are you guys so afraid of?'
What can happen to me?And why me in the first place?'
Briggs drained his beer and reached for another.
'Pat, you are very, very hot property right now,' he said, watching McLanahan's wide-eyed expression from behind the upturned beer can.
'if we lost you, if something happened to you, if you didn't arrive at the project headquarters by tomorrow noon He finished the beer in a few long, 10 furious gulps, then said, 'The vibrations would be felt all the way… to the top.'
'Hal,' McLanahan said, his mouth suddenly very dry, 'that's not an explanation. 'For the second time, the hairs on the back of his neck were catching a breeze from somewhere.
'The top?Top of what?'
'I'm sorry,' he said. He reached for the refrigerator door, then stopped, reconsidering, and sat back in his chair and looked at McLanahan. 'Listen, there's very little I can tell you. But I do know this. I was authorized to make that fucking little airpatch out there look like Entebbe. I was authorized, Patrick. Authorized to do any damned thing It was at that moment that McLanahan noticed the Uzi strapped to Briggs' waist.
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
It was late in the evening when Harold Briggs escorted McLanahan from his small, musty billeting room to another building a few hundred yards away. McLanahan realized that all his movements-from the time he landed on that long long jet flight from Spokane till now-were intended to keep his location a secret.
Why Briggs and the others were trying to keep his location a secret from him, he couldn't figure-but they had only partially succeeded.
Although he had been taken from the jetport to his room at night through the back door, and although they had apparently tried to erase all traces of his location, he stumbled across the words 'NELLIS AUX 5' engraved on the side of a desk in his room. The Learjet they had picked him up with at Spokane, he knew, had a range of about a thousand miles at the speed their pilot was flying-the pilot had kept the engines at full bore the whole way And if that hadn't been enough, the dry, cold evening and the roar of high-performance jets-not airliners, but military fighters-screaming in the distance gave it away.
Well, so what?He was at Nellis or one of the myriad of airfields, stations, training camps, or ranges in the vicinity. He hoped more answers were on the way when, after an entire day of nothing to do, Briggs knocked on his door and told him they were going to meet the project coordinator McLanahan and Briggs now sat alone in a small briefing room. They had been sitting in the same room for twenty minutes.
McLanahan was about to turn to Briggs and ask how much longer it would be when the door opened and in stepped…
' General Elliott!' McLanahan said. He sprang so quickly to his feet that he felt as though he had left some part of himself back in the chair.
'At ease, Patrick,' General Elliott said, smiling. He took McLanahan's hand and shook it. 'Welcome to my nightmare.'
McLanahan was too stunned to clasp hands. Elliott recognized this and steered him to his chair again.
Elliott wore a flightsuit with three subdued stars on each shoulder and subdued Strategic Air Command insignia on the arms and front. The squadron patch read -3 ACCS,' the Airborne Command and Control Squadron from SAC Headquarters. He also wore a.45 automatic pistol strapped to his waist, and carried a large chart-carrying case and three Thermos bottles.
Elliott flipped his wooden chair around and sat down on it with a tired thud. He studied McLanahan's still- surprised face.
'Relax, Patrick. You'll have your explanation in a moment.'
McLanahan blinked at the words. Was his mouth hanging open or something?He took a deep breath and wiped moisture from his palms.
'Coffee?' Elliott asked, extending separate Thermoses to McLanahan and Briggs. 'Actually, Hal, there's Coke in yours.
I know you'd prefer a beer but… ' Briggs nodded and smiled. 'I understand, sir.'
'All right,' Elliott said, 'here we go. This entire conversation is top secret. It is restricted to just us. No one else at all. I have no assistant, aides, or staffers that need to know what's been discussed. I don't have to ask if the room's secure, because it's my room and my compound and I know it's secure.
That's the way this project is being run.
By the way, Hal, you're in on this because I want you to realize all that's happening from here on in. I think you'll be able to operate better when you've got the complete picture.
Patrick, Hal here has been on my security staff for a year now.
He was assigned to security units for the Pentagon and at SAC until I grabbed him. Now he works for you. He'll make sure that foul-ups like the one we had at Spokane don't happen again.
McLanahan tried to keep his face from reddening but failed.
'This job is very simple, Patrick,' Elliott began. 'We run a highly classified research and development center here at Dreamland. I'm sure that's little surprise to you; during all the Red Flag sorties you've flown I'm sure you've heard speculation about Dreamland, wondered why you'd get your butt kicked so hard for overlying it. Well, that's why.
Most every new design for a fighter, bomber, or missile built in the past ten years probably had its first tryout here at Dreamland.
He paused for a moment, taking a sip of coffee. 'We've got another plane that we'd like to test-fly. We'd like you to run it through its paces. Test out the avionics, make some practice bomb runs, wring out the aircraft as much as you can. Much of the equipment you'll be testing will eventually be installed in selected B-1 aircraft.'
McLanahan looked puzzled. 'That's it?'
'You'll be plenty busy, I assure you, Patrick,' the general said.
'We're on a very tight schedule. We could be…
well, let's just say our data might be needed at any time. The more information we have to pass on, the better.
McLanahan shrugged his shoulders. 'Sounds fine to me,' he asked. 'But you sure went through some very strange gyrations to get me here. I've got a feeling I still don't know the entire story.'
'I hate to sound overly cryptic, Patrick,' Elliott said, smiling, 'but you know all you're supposed to know right now. You may figure out more as the project progresses. But I must remind you-your location, your duties, everything you see and do, is classified top secret. No one outside this room-I don't care how high their clearance or rank-is to know what goes on here. Understood?'
'Yes, sir,' McLanahan asked. 'One question, though.'
Shoot.'
'Why me?'
Elliott smiled, finished his coffee, and stood. 'Simple.
You're the best. I can't pass up a guy who's won as many Bomb Comp, trophies as you.'
McLanahan wasn't satisfied with Elliott's answer but nodded anyway.
'Want to see her?' Elliott asked.
McLanahan looked puzzled. 'See what?'
