Sattari felt his anger growing. Rumors? Pevars was the only possible source.
“If the Americans have a weapon like this,” Pevars continued, “the balance of power will shift again. The Chinese—
“I would rather die than join an alliance with the Americans,” said Sattari.
“Who said anything about an alliance? An alliance? No, that is not possible. Peace, though — that is a different story.”
Sattari choked back his anger, trying to consider what Pevars had said. Peace with America — what did that imply? An oil agreement possibly, the sale of petroleum at some guaranteed rate.
Pevars would not be concerned about that.
Did the black robes intend to offer someone up as a chip for a new business agreement?
“I have information from the fisherman,” added Pevars.
“Finally,” said Sattari. The “fisherman” was one of their spies. “But why did he not send word directly to me?”
Pevars grimaced. “The submarine was captured. Two men were taken prisoner. All the others perished.”
“Which others?”
Pevars did not answer.
“The fisherman said all this?”
Pevars nodded.
Was that possible? The fisherman worked for him, not Pevars.
“You’re lying,” said Sattari.
“No. He was afraid to tell you because it involved your son.”
“You’re working with the Americans, aren’t you?”
“General, take hold of yourself. I know the loss of your son is a great blow. But surely he is in paradise now.”
General Sattari had realized this as soon as Pevars mentioned the submarine, but the words severed the last threads of restraint on his emotions. He threw himself at Pevars, launching his body at the other man as if it were a missile.
Pevars was slight, barely over 120 pounds, and much of that weight was concentrated in a potbelly. The general weighed twice what he did, and while no longer young, his daily regimen of exercise, along with the hardships he’d endured with his soldiers over the past decade, had kept his body tough and fit. He began pummeling the oil minister, smashing his head against the thick rug and lashing it again and again with his fists. If Pevars offered any resistance, it had little impact on Sattari. He punched the oil minister over and over, beating him as a hurricane beats the shore.
Blackness filled the room. It was not darkness but the opposite — a light so harsh that it blinded Sattari. He continued to flail at Pevars, emptying decades worth of rage from his body.
When the rage lifted, Sattari found himself sitting in the hallway, his hands and clothes covered with red blood.
“The Americans did this to me.” Sattari’s words echoed through the marble hall. “The Americans.”
He would find them, and take his revenge.
IV. New Sheriff in Town
Even for a major general, getting to Dreamland was not an easy task. General Samson had to first fly to Nellis Air Base, and from there arrange for a helicopter to ferry him several miles to the north. A pair of Dolphin helicopters — Americanized versions of the Aerospatiale Dauphin — were tasked as Dreamland “ferries” and used regularly by personnel trekking to the base. But Samson couldn’t make the trip with the assortment of engineers and other riffraff who used the Dolphins. So a helicopter had to be found for him and the three staff members traveling with him. The chopper, in turn, needed a crew. Much to Samson’s surprise, it turned out that not just any crew could be used to fly to the base; Dreamland’s security arrangements were so tight that only personnel with a code-word clearance were allowed to land at the base’s “dock.”
The official reason for this was that planes had to cross two highly classified testing areas to get to the dock. But since clearance came from the colonel’s office at Dreamland, Samson was convinced that the actual reason had to do with a personal power play on Lieutenant Colonel Bastian’s part. He simmered while a crew with the proper clearance and training were found.
The idea that a lieutenant colonel — a
Samson’s mood deepened when the helicopter ferrying him to the base was ordered to halt about fifty meters over the perimeter. And halt meant halt, not hover — the helo pilot was told to put his chopper down on the desert floor and await further instructions.
“What the
“Orders, sir.”
Samson was about to express his opinion concerning the validity of the order with several expletives when he spotted a jet making what looked like a bombing run in the distance. At first he thought the aircraft was very far away. Then he realized it was actually a miniature aircraft. It carried diminutive bombs—125-pound so-called “mini-munis” being developed to help ground soldiers in urban settings where larger bombs might cause civilian casualties.
The attack aircraft was a sleek, wedge-shaped affair, with air intakes on the top of the body and what looked like fangs at the front. These were apparently some sort of forward wing or control surface, and Samson guessed that they accounted for the airplane’s twisting maneuver after the bombs were dropped — the jet veered almost straight up, dropped suddenly, and ended up backtracking on the path it had taken to the target area.
Remarkably, it seemed to do this without a noticeable loss of speed. Samson knew this was probably mostly an optical illusion — the laws of physics and aerodynamics made it impossible to completely change direction like that without losing speed — but even allowing for that, the airplane was several times more nimble than anything he had ever seen.
“General?”
Samson turned his attention back to the front of the Huey just as a mechanical voice broke into the helicopter’s interphone system.
“Huey 39, you are ordered to follow Whiplash Osprey 5. No deviation from your flight path will be tolerated.”
“What the hell?” said Samson. “I thought we were cleared.”
“We were, but it’s the way they do things,” said the pilot. “Security is tight.”
“Tight security is one thing—” Samson began, but before he could say anything else, a shadow descended over the front of the aircraft and their path was blocked by a black Osprey.
This was Whiplash Osprey 5, which differed from standard-issue Ospreys in several respects. Besides the black paint scheme, most noteworthy were the twin cannons mounted under the rear of the fuselage, pointed ominously at the Huey’s cockpit.
A second Osprey zipped in from the rear, pulling alongside the Huey just long enough for Samson to see that it had heat-seeking missiles on its wing rails.
“Follow him,” snapped Samson, folding his arms angrily.
