“Something up?”
“I fly every day,” he said.
“You know what I mean. Flying a robot. It’s not the same thing.”
“Yeah,” he said. He missed a lot more than flying.
“I don’t know if I can do it, Jeff,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” he told her.
“It’s a promotion. It’s important.”
Zen slid back a little in his seat, looking at her face. Breanna was not by any definition, a worrier. Her eyes were fraught with it now.
“Hey.” He paused, not really sure what to say. After an awkward silence, he stumbled on. “There’re plenty of different projects out there. You don’t have to take something you don’t want. But if you do take it, I know you can do it,” he added quickly. Her lips had pursed — a bad sign. “I mean you’re beyond capable of it. I mean, that’s why you got it.”
“The Megafortresses.”
A sore subject, he knew, since she had hoped to inherit Major Nancy Cheshire’s place when she left. But Merce Alou, who outranked her, had been tagged.
“To be honest with you, Bree, the EB-52, not that it’s a dead end or anything, but it’s now, uh, mature.” Zen hated using the bureaucratese, but it did essentially describe the program. The EB-52 was now a production aircraft; the advances were sure to be incremental. “The UMB. Hell, that’s the future. Or something that comes out of it. Ask anybody. But if it’s not what you want to do, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s a big adjustment, that’s all,” she said, poking her salad. She frowned, but this time at him. “You’re not going to eat all of that, are you? It’s pure fat.”
He laughed and reached for his soda — then yawped with pain.
“Problem?” she asked.
“Tooth. Geez.”
“Are you going to get it fixed or what?”
“This afternoon.” The cold soda had shot through the nerve into every cell in his skull, and his head reverberated with pain. He put down the glass and rubbed the back of his jaw on both sides hoping to ease it somehow.
“Not going to cancel this time?”
“I didn’t cancel on purpose,” he mumbled.
Bree’s manner had brightened; in fact, she seemed to be suppressing a giggle.
“I’m glad my misery is entertaining,” he told her.
“Don’t be a sissy.”
“You filled it with extra ice,” he said. “You knew I had the appointment.”
“Just a coincidence,” said his wife.
Freed from his onerous escort duty, Danny Freah took a tour of his perimeter, checking on the security post. His body still felt the lingering effects of his “visit” to Turkey, Iraq, and Iran a few months before; he’d been injured in a mission that recovered data and parts from an Iranian antiaircraft laser facility. His legs were especially bothersome — Danny had stretched and partially torn ligaments in his right knee.
Not that he’d taken any time off to mend. You had to break something for that. Like your neck.
Danny eyed the fence along the road, looking at the video cameras posted at irregular intervals. The entire base was constantly watched. Not just by human eyes, but computer programs, which searched for spatial anomalies, as the programmers stubbornly referred to intruders. Additional sensors were buried in the perimeter area. Mines and remote-controlled ground defenses — basically old M2HB machine guns with massive belts of ammunition in modified fifty-gallon drums — were webbed around the fences. A generation ago, it might have taken the better part of an army regiment to provide as secure a perimeter, Dreamland could, at least in theory, be secured with only six men, though Danny’s security squadron was considerably larger and growing every day.
He turned off the perimeter road, driving up a short hill toward a bunker halfway between the underground hangars and the main gate. A brown slant of cement marked the entrance to the hardened security monitoring station. Lieutenant William McNally and two airmen were inside, reviewing the security feeds and drinking coffee, not necessarily in that order.
“Hey, Boss,” said McNally as Danny came through the doors. “How’s the admiral?”
“Looked like he was searching for a boat.”
“Can we shoot down his plan next time? Razor guys say they had it nailed at twenty miles.”
Danny grunted. He checked through the logs, then told McNally he was going over to the weapons lab to check on his gear. His smart helmet and body armor had been damaged in Iran; its custom-fitted replacement was due for a final fitting.
McNally stopped him, saying a message had come for him while he was with the Admiral.
“Just leave it in my cue,” Danny told him.
“Actually, it was a voice message, uh, your wife,” said McNally. “She decided to talk to me.”
“And?”
“Says she’ll be out here this afternoon, Said something about a hotel.”
“Okay,” Danny told him. Jemma knew exactly what Danny did, and had gone through her own security check before Danny was allowed to take his post. Technically, she could come to Dreamland and stay at his quarters on the base. However, the procedure were elaborate, and it was much easier all around to put her up in a nice hotel for a few days.
Put himself up too.
“Surprise that she’s coming?” McNally asked.
“Not a surprise, no,” Danny said. “You have a handle on things?”
“Boss, you can take off for the next few months as far as I’m concerned. You earned it.”
“Thanks, Billy.” He tapped his radio and then his beeper, wordlessly telling his lieutenant to call if needed, then headed toward the handheld-weapons lab.
Annie Klondike sat hunched over a desk, starting at a small, liver-shaped piece of metal. Her think white hair had been pulled back into a tight ball, enhancing her school-marm look.
“Hey, Annie, whatcha got going?” asked Danny.
“Hmmmpphhhh,” she said without looking up.
Danny bent over and inspected the metal. “New explosive?”
“Hardly.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “You’ll want your helmet, I suppose.”
“If its convenient.”
“Convenient? Captain, you’ve added a new word to your vocabulary.”
“I even used it in a sentence,” said Freah.
“I’d be curious as to your definition,” she said, beginning her shuffle toward one of the back areas. “We took the liberty of adding upgrades,” said Annie, opening the door to a storage closet. “Try the vest first.”
The carbon-boron vest that Danny pulled over his chest was no thicker than a good-quality goose-down ski vest, and weighed nearly the same. The side that nestled against his ribs had a crinkly feel; pressing it against his side felt a little like squishing the Styrofoam of a packing peanut.
“What’s the cushion?”
“Styrated aluminum,” said Klondike. “Actually a carbonized alloy, but mostly aluminum.”
“Aluminum?”
“It bears only a passing resemblance to the material used in soda cans, Captain, not to worry,” said Annie. “I’m told a bullet from a M60E1 at five yards won’t leave a bruise, though I haven’t found a volunteer willing to demonstrate.”
“Does the next upgrade come with a built-in nurse?”
“Your helmet is this way,” said the weapons expert tartly. “Have I ever told you, you have a big head?”
“All the time.”
Danny’s smart helmet and its connected Combat Information Visor included a display shield with Video, low- light, infrared, and radiation-detection modes. When plugged into its com modules — these were generally carried in a small pack on the wearer’s back or belt — it could tie into Dreamland’s secure satellite communications
