experimental aircraft, flying all the way to Nicaragua.
“The wings are still being refitted. It will be at least a week before it’s ready. Raven’s the one to go. The ECMs will blast out anything the Iranians have.”
“They’ll overheat first,” said Rubeo.
Proposed as the next-generation electronic-warfare set, the xAQ-299 admittedly had some heating issues. But having decided to send the Megafortresses, Bastian was in no mood to let Rubeo’s dour puss derail him.
“All right, let’s do this,” he said. “Use Fort Two to take Whiplash to Africa. We’ll expedite the work on Raven, pack the two other crew members and more weapons in it, and ship it out as soon as it’s done. How soon can you take off?”
“Actually, Colonel. I think it would be better if I take the Raven,” Cheshire told him. “I’ve been flying it and its voice-command system has been trained for my voice. Besides, given the ECMs, it’s more likely to be the one that would see action.”
“Who flies Fort Two?”
“I took the liberty of alerting Captain Stockard,” Cheshire said. “She should be on base within a half hour.”
Dog nodded, then glanced at his phone.
“Danny, this sound good to go?”
Freah nodded.
“Let’s do it,” said Bastian.
“Colonel, I must note that you’re sending a test aircraft into a war zone,” said Rubeo.
“I don’t believe it’s an official war zone yet,” said Bastian dryly. “I’m sending it as a transport. Both planes are going as transports.”
“Semantics –”
“Doc, I appreciate your coming, truly I do,” said Bastian. “I don’t know why you thought it important to show up, but I appreciate it.”
Dog held up his hand, cutting off himself as well as the scientist.
“Out, everyone,” he said as he picked up his phone. “This is a classified call. Go!”
Breanna urged the small Honda faster, plunging through the desert night toward the base. She was glad to escape, glad to run from the disaster that had become her life. One some level she knew Jeff’s attitude was just a phase, a plateau on his way to coping with his disability, adjusting to his new life. But on another level, she was starting not to care. There was only so much she could take.
The counselors had tried to prepare her for this; they’d been hopeful, predicting that it would soon pass. They all felt Zen would come back stronger than ever, his true nature winning out.
But how did they know? They had all perfect spines, working legs. None of them had been top-dog test pilots with blue-sky careers ahead of them.
He suspected her of seeing Knife? Jesus. Where the hell did that come from?
Major Cheshire hadn’t said what was up, but she did promise a helicopter would be waiting to whisk Bree from Nellis to Dreamland. Obviously something big was brewing.
Thank God. She needed a diversion.
Me. O’Day herself was on the line when Dog picked up the phone.
“Colonel, I think you’ve lost your mind.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Madame Advisor,” he replied.
“Don’t Madame Advisor me. I read your e-mail. Do you know what’s you’re up against on the JSF?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He heard a loud sigh from the other end of the line. He imagined the petite woman shaking her head in her office, rolling her eyes before scrunching herself over the desk. She’d pulled up the sleeves of her white blouse – O’Day always wore white blouses to work.
“Dog, are you damn sure about this?”
“The F-119 is not a workable design as presently configured,” said Bastian, repeating the bullet line of his memo. “It can be, but the changes it needs will mean missing the interservice target.”
“They’re going to come after you on this, Tecumseh,” O’Day said. Rarely if ever she did – or anyone, for that matter – use his given name. “Wait until morning.”
“I know.”
“I’ll back you up, if this is your considered opinion.”
“It is.”
“It may mean Dreamland closes.”
“I weighed the consequences.”
“All right. You’ve heard about Somalia?”
“Yes. We have a team getting ready for transport.” Dog debated whether to tell her exactly how he intended on supplying that transport, but decided it was best not to. If she didn’t know. She couldn’t order him not to.
Not that she could order him to do anything, at least not directly.
If he was so afraid of telling her, why do it in the first place?
“I may call on you to look over some estimates. It will have to be back-channel,” she said.
“Understood.”
“This is going to dominate things around here for a few days,” she added. “It will take some of the heat off you and the JSF. I suggest you use it to line up the ducks.”
“The ducks?”
“And next time my office calls, Colonel, don’t keep me on hold,” she said, hanging up.
Danny Freah caught a ride out to the Megafortress hangar with Lieutenant Greenbaum, whom he was leaving in charge of base security in his absence. He spat out directions machine-gun style, warning Greenbaum about a dozen details that could snap up and bite him in the butt if he didn’t watch them. But all the time he talked, Danny was shaping his mission plan in his head. he had his go-bag in the back, along with a silenced MP-5 equipped with a laser sight. Four other members of his team would be similarly equipped; the other two carried M-16A2/M203 grenade-launcher combos.
The M40A sniper outfit had a special metal box all to itself. Along with a set of custom-tailored carbon-boron protective vests, it was waiting with the team in the hangar. There was also a line-of-sight discrete-burst com set developed by another Dreamland’s experimental labs. While the gear technically wasn’t cleared for operational use, Klondike had cleared it for ‘field testing.”
She’d also warned there’d be hell to pay if they lost it. but Danny didn’t plan on letting that happen.
According to the orders he received, Whiplash’s prime duty would be to crew a Pave Low tasked to transport and support a Delta assault team. But the Whiplash operators were trained to crew everything Air Force Special Operations flew; they could eat snakes, jump from planes, and leap tall building with a single rappelling line. They might be called on to do any or all of those once the fun started.
Greenbaum pulled up in front of the hangar. A ground crew was already working furiously on the big black bomber inside.
“Okay, now as far the duty rosters go,” Danny told his lieutenant, “you do have some flexibility.”
“Captain, no offense, but you’ve gone over the rosters maybe five times already? Seriously, sir. I do think I can handle it. The only tough part is going to be controlling my jealousy.”
Freah laughed. “I hope you’ll still feel that way in a week.”
“I’m sure we will, sir.”
Freah looked at the young man’s face. Greenbaum looked like a jayvee kid who’d been told he wasn’t making the trip to the big bowl game. He also looked to be all of fifteen, not twenty-three.
Of course, Freah wasn’t much older. He just felt like he was.
“Okay, Greenie. Kick some ass.”
Freah’s men were waiting in the hangar. Lee ‘Nurse’ Liu and Kevin Bison were at the entrance, copping smokes, while the others huddled near the big black plane’s tail, watching as the ground crew prepped the aircraft.
Freah had selected the Whiplash response team himself. All of the men were qualified as parajumpers with extensive SAR experience, cross-trained to handle each others’ responsibilities. Freah had organized them roughly
