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-radar 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 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 Flighthawk. Damn straight.
Who could 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.”
“No sweat. I’ll round them up,” said Zen, spinning around.
Picking up the phone to ask Ax to come back in, Bastian couldn’t help wonder if he would said something different if Bree weren’t piloting Fort Two.
Waiting for the elevator to arrive, Zen wondered if he ought to get word to his cousin Jed Barclay that he had inadvertently squealed on him. But it might be easier for Jed if he didn’t know – Jed had a natural deer-in-the- headlights look about him, except when he tried to lie.
Then the boy genius who’d gone to Columbia at sixteen and moved on to take two doctorates at Harvard looked like a third-rate car thief.
Slotting himself inside the elevator car, Zen felt a twinge of doubt – not about the Flighthawks, not even about himself, but Bree. If the Colonel was willing to send the Flighthawks, what did it say about what was going on over there?
Better to focus on his own problems, he thought, worrying about how long it would take to get the Flighthawk on the Megafortress.
Somalia
22 October 1996, 1900 local
Somewhere along the way, Mack had lost track not only of where he was and what time it was, but how many people were swirling above him. In the past few hours, Smith had been carried beneath a pole suspended between two soldiers like a piece of game, packed into the back of a pickup, shoved into the back of a sedan, placed gently in another pickup, and marched several miles – more or less in that order. Manacled and blindfolded the whole time, he had been offered water but no food, and three times allowed to pee. He hadn’t been beaten, not even at first. In fact, he’d probably give him captors three stars in the Mobile Guide to African Kidnappers.
Actually, there weren’t kidnappers. Third World or not, they were members of a serious army. They had a command structure and obvious discipline. Smith was the intruder and criminal; it was very possible that they had legal ground to execute him.
Not that they needed legal grounds. They had more than enough weapons, one of which poked itself now into the side of his neck.
“You, Captain, you will come this way,” said a voice with what sounded to him like a British accent. Smith followed the prods, quickening his pace as a hand gripped his sleeve. He tripped over a low riser and heard his feet echoing over a porch of some sort. A door opened ahead of him. Two men shouldered him down a hall to a set of carpeted stairs. They started him upward slowly, but then another hand pushed from behind. With his legs chained, he flailed for balance; the guards on either side picked him up by the elbows and carried him to a landing.
Down another hall, into a room, into a seat – hands grabbed at his face and his eyes flooded with light.
“You will tell me your name,” said the blur in front of him.
“Why?” said Smith, trying to focus.
“Because at the moment your status is quite in doubt. Spies are shot without trial.
The man was short, a bit on the round side. He wore a long, coatlike gray garment. He had a beard; his face was white. A small turban, gray, topped his head.
“I’m a prisoner of war,” said Knife.
“Then you will tell me your name and rank, and we will go on from there,” said the man, his English softened by a vaguely Middle Eastern accent. He did not smile, but he spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were dealing with a
