the extra money. They’ll go straight to Russia and lure another fifty or sixty scientists for their nuclear program. As well as plutonium.”
“You sound like you’re still working for Ms. O’Day.” McLanahan picked up one of the large steak fries with his fork. “CIA says they’re at least six years away from a bomb.”
“They’re crazy. More like six months. You should talk to Jack O’Connell.”
“I have,” said McLanahan. O’Connell was a CIA ground officer who’d been in Africa and the Middle East as well as Russia, tracking Russian nuclear technology.
“Is ISA hooked up with Madcap Magician?” asked Bastian.
McLanahan didn’t answer. From what Dog had been told at the NSC, Madcap Magician was an interservice Spec Ops ‘program’ consisting of volunteers from different branches trained to operate as a covert intervention of first-strike force in the Middle Easy. Different Spec Ops groups – including a small unit at Dreamland under Danny Freah known as Whiplash -–were attached as callup units; they were supposed to be available on twenty-four-hour notice. Madcap Magician itself was so secret that Bastian didn’t know much about it – but he realized from McLanahan’s silence that he had just nailed the connection.
“Obviously, you can have Smith,” said Dog. He held his half-eaten burger and roll in his hand. It was too good; it tempted him to reconsider his ‘all-ranks’ decision.
He put the burger down and pushed the plate away. McLanahan looked at him with an expression close to shock.
“What else do you need?” Dog asked.
“Food’s fine.”
“I mean the planes. Hell, I’ve got the hottest weapons on the planet here. Cheetah? The Scorpion AMRAAM- Plus? Tell me what you need and it’s yours.”
“Sounds tempting.”
“We’re an important part of the Air Force,” continued Dog. “With the top talent the military and private enterprise can offer. I have a base full of cutting-edge weapons just begging to be used.”
“I used to work here, remember? You sound like you’re making a funding pitch.”
“No. I’m stating a fact. And maybe a pitch. A little pitch,” conceded Dog. “Because if we put some of these high-tech doodads we’re working on here to work, no one will close us down.”
“Those high-tech doodads you’re working on still have bugs in them,” said McLanahan. “Believe me, I know.”
“Nothing’s without risk. If Dreamland’s going to survive – now there’s a white paper you should read,” he added, referring to the report that had led him to this post.
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
Dog stood up. “I have to get back to work, Patrick. Whoever you need, he’s yours. And I’m serious about the planes and weapons. You know more about what Dreamland can offer than I do.”
McLanahan nodded thoughtfully. “Say hi to Rap for me when you see her.”
Dog nodded, then turned and started back for his office.
The first thing Breanna thought as the Megafortress slammed downward was: Damn, this is going to screw up the project bit-time.
The next thing she thought was: Damn, we have a serious problem here.
The plane didn’t respond to her yoke. Rap commanded the computer to restore full pilot control. As she did, the legends on the heads-up displays, or HUD, glowed bright and then flashed out.
“Computer, restore pilot control,” Breanna calmly told the computer, but even the as the words left her mouth she realized the computer had been taken off-line. Fort Two’s nose was aimed toward the earth. The g’s were piling up; they were pulling four, then five, the pressure increasing exponentially.
“Okay, we’re going to backup hydraulic control,” she said calmly, reaching for the heavy lever to the right of her seat that would kill the fly-by-wire system and bring the backup hydraulic on line. “Chris, change places with Dr. Ray.”
Her thoughts and actions blurred in chaotic soup smeared by the effects of adrenaline and gravity. She had both hands on the control wheel as the hydraulic kicked in, pulled back for all she was worth and trying to prevent the plane from going into a spin at the same time. She had no engine indicators. But guessed the power plants much be close to flaming out, if they hadn’t already.
No, she had power; she could tell by the light hum somewhere in the back of her brain.
Chris slid in beside her. Rubeo was hanging on to her seat, shouting something about the electronic systems.
“They’re off-line. There’s been a massive computer failure,” he yelled.
“Well, no shit, Doc,” Breanna said. “Relax and enjoy the ride, please.”
There were any number of possible causes, from a loose wire- highly unlikely – to an anomaly caused by the Army’s weapons tests on the range below. There’d be time to sort it out later.
Assuming, of course, she regained control.
“Still accelerating and dropping,” said Chris tersely. “Passing five thousand on the way to four thousand, three thousand.”
He could easily have said zero. The aircraft began to shudder; they were through the sound barrier and still accelerating. The windshield filled with a brown blur.
Somewhere around here, she thought, the wing aerodynamics are going to help us. Eventually, the shape of the wing and the speed of the air flowing over it are going to give us enough lift to pull up. Then the trouble will be controlling it.
Breanna felt their momentum shifting and checked her trim tabs quickly, making sure the plane’s control surfaces weren’t working against the rest of the airfoil. The nose lifted steadily as the plane’s inherent flying capabilities finally took over.
“Good, okay, good. Christ?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said as they roller-coasted upward. Blue fell into the windshield.
“This is easy,” she lied. The plane pulled sharply to the left, as if it were trying to turn itself into a Frisbee.
“We just lost an engine,” guessed Chris. “No instruments. Sorry, I can’t get power into the panel no way, no how.”
“Restart. Just go for it,” she told him. Without the instruments they could only guess by feel which engine it was – probably number one, the furthest out on the left wing. “It’s got to be number one.”
“Yeah. No restart. Retrying. Nothing.” He was flying through the procedures, hitting the manual backup switches instead of using the recalcitrant computer.
“Kill four,” she told her copilot. “Balance us out before I lost it.”
“Throttling back,” he said, reaching for the control.
It worked. The loss of power was also in their favor, in effect helping to slow the plane and bring it back under control. Breanna was back on top, flying the plane instead of being flown. She felt it starting to stall, and nosed down gently, had it in her hands. Fort Two was a colt that had bolted in fright; all she had to do was pat its sides gently, reassure it, then ease it back to the barn.
If she could get the landing gear down and fly the mammoth airplane with no instruments or gauges except for a backup altimeter and compass.
Actually, the compass seemed to have quit too.
“Radio circuit completely dead, even on backups,” reported Chris. He was hyperventilating.
“You may be able to get power into the circuit by using the remote-start batter array,” said Dr. Rubeo.
Bree turned and saw him leaning over her. his face was white than a piece of marble, but the words were flat and calm.
“Won’t the circuit breakers prevent that?” Breanna asked.
“I’ll get around it,” he said.
Before she could say anything else, Rubeo slipped out of the cabin, passing back into the defensive weapons station where the revamped Fort Two’s flight-control computers were now located.
The plane began sheering sideways again. Breanna punched her rudder pedals, holding the yoke against the sharp turbulence. She brought her spoilers up to compensate.
