“What sort of support does he want?”
“Help him locate the missiles. He’ll tell you what he wants.”
“I’m going to need to gear up for this,” said Dog. “We’re down to one working Megafortress.”
“Well, get what you need,” said Balboa. “Has General Samson spoken to you yet?”
“Terrill Samson? No.”
“Well, he will. We’re reorganizing your command structure, Colonel. You’ll be reporting to Major General Samson from now on. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
The screen blanked. Dog didn’t know Samson at all. He’d had a Pentagon general to report to when he started at Dreamland, a good one: Lieutenant General Harold Magnus. Magnus had retired some months before after being edged out of the running for chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dreamland’s official “position” on the Pentagon flowchart had been in flux ever since. Dog had known this couldn’t last, and in some respects welcomed the appointment of a new superior: As a lieutenant colonel with no direct line to the Pentagon, he was constantly having trouble with even the most routine budget requests.
“Colonel, are you still there?”
“Yes, Jed, go ahead.”
“You want to speak to Admiral Woods? I can plug you into a circuit with him and the Marine Corps general in charge of the Seventh MEU.”
“Fire away.”
“Bastian, you old bully — now what are you up to?” asked Tex Woods, popping onto the screen. Dog could only see his head; the camera didn’t pan low enough to show if he was wearing his trademark cowboy boots.
“Looking for my people. They bailed out.”
“Yes, and we’re helping with that,” said Woods. He was more enthusiastic than he had been the last time they’d spoken. “The admiral told you what we’re up to?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Jack, you on the line yet?”
Marine Corps General Jack Harrison cleared his throat. Harrison was a dour-faced man; he seemed to personify the nickname leatherneck.
“General,” said Dog.
“Colonel, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m glad we’re working together.”
“We’ll do our best.”
“That’s the spirit, Bastian,” said Woods. “Your people are to coordinate the intelligence, the Marines will be the muscle. Aircraft from the
Dog reached for his coffee as Woods continued. The specific operation plans would have to be developed by the Marine Corps officers.
“Your people would be very valuable, Colonel,” said Harrison. “Your Whiplash crew?”
“My officer in charge of Whiplash is aboard the
“We’ll airlift him to the
“No problems,” said Dog. Harrison remained silent.
“Good,” said Woods. “Gentlemen, you have my authorization to do whatever it takes to make this work. This is the chance of a millennium. History will remember us.”
I hope in a good way, thought Dog as the screen blacked out.
The new search program Jennifer had developed called for the Megafortress to fly in a path calculated from the weather conditions and known characteristics of the ejection seats and the crew members’ parachutes. The flight path aligned the plane with the peculiarities of the survival radio’s transmission capabilities; while it didn’t actually boost its range, the effect was the same.
The program gave Englehardt the option of turning the aircraft over to the computer to fly or of following a path marked for him on the heads-up display projected in front of the windscreen.
“Which do you think I should do, Colonel?” the pilot asked. “I’m comfortable with however you want to fly it,” Dog said. “If it were me, I’d want the stick in my hand. But completely your call.”
“Thank you, sir. I think I’ll fly it myself.”
“Very good.”
Lieutenant Englehardt was one of the new wave of pilots who’d come to Dreamland in the wake of the Megafortress’s success. Young enough to be Dog’s son, he was part of a generation that had known things like video games and computers their whole lives. They weren’t
Still, the fact that Englehardt would rather rely on himself than the computer impressed Dog. It was an old- fashioned conceit, but some prejudices were worth keeping.
Dog went over to the techie working the sea surveillance radar, Staff Sergeant Brian Daly. Aside from small boats anchored near the coast for the night, Daly had only a single contact on his screen: an Indian patrol vessel of the Jija Bai class. Roughly the equivalent of a small U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the ship carried two 7.62mm guns that could be used against aircraft, but posed no threat to the high-flying Megafortress.
“Two Tomcats from the
“Say hello.”
While Sullivan spoke to the pilots in the F-14 fighters, Dog looked over the shoulder of Technical Sergeant Thomas Rager, who manned the airborne radar. With the exception of the Tomcats, which had come from the
“Squids wish us well,” said Sullivan, using a universal nickname for sailors. “They’re on long-range reconnaissance for the carrier group. They haven’t heard anything from our guys or seen any flares over the water. They’ll keep looking.”
“Thank them.”
The weight of his fatigue settled on Dog’s shoulders. He’d tried to sleep in the cot in the unused upper Flighthawk bay earlier but couldn’t. He went to the back of the flight deck and pulled down the jumpseat, settling down, watching the crew at work.
He had to find his people. All of them, but Breanna especially.
He’d almost lost her twice before. Each time, the pain seemed to grow worse. Now it felt like an arrow the size of his fist, pushing against his heart.
Though they worked together, Dog couldn’t honestly say they were very close, at least not if closeness was measured by the things fathers and daughters usually did together. Every so often they’d go out to eat, but he couldn’t remember the last time they’d fished or biked or hiked. They didn’t even run together, something they both liked to do.
And yet he loved her deeply.
He felt himself drifting toward sleep. He started to let himself go, falling down toward oblivion. And then a shout startled him back to consciousness.
“We’ve got them!” yelled Sullivan.
“This is the bridge? I figured it’d be a lot bigger. God, it looks like an amusement arcade.”
Storm bristled but said nothing as Major Mack Smith surveyed the
“Cool table. Moving maps, huh?”
