Dale Brown, Jim DeFelice
Armageddon
DREAMLAND DUTY ROSTER
LIEUTENANT COLONEL TECUMSEH “DOG” BASTIAN
Dreamland’s commander has been mellowed by the demands of his new command — but he’s still got the meanest bark in the West, and his bite is even worse.
MAJOR JEFFREY “ZEN” STOCKARD
A top fighter pilot until a near-fatal crash at Dreamland left him a paraplegic, Zen runs the Flighthawk program and has now accumulated more air-to-air kills than any other active pilot in the air force. But he’s got a grudge bigger than the wheelchair life has confined him to.
CAPTAIN BREANNA “RAP” STOCKARD
Zen’s wife has seen him through his injury and rehabilitation. But can she balance her love for her husband with the demands of her career … and ambitions?
MAJOR MACK “THE KNIFE” SMITH
Mack Smith is the best pilot in the world — and he’ll tell you so himself. He left Dreamland to reshape the Brunei air force in his own egotistical image.
CAPTAIN DANNY FREAH
Danny commands “Whiplash” — the ground attack team that works with the cutting-edge Dreamland aircraft and high-tech gear. Freah’s wife and friends want him to run for Congress. The war hero would be a shoo-in — but does he want to give up the excitement of Dreamland?
JENNIFER GLEASON
Computer specialist Jennifer Gleason is one of the creative geniuses at Dreamland, responsible for the multi-mode combat computer that helps control the Flighthawks. She’s also Dog’s lover — but her emotional and intellectual sides don’t always get along.
JED BARCLAY
The young deputy to the national security advisor is Dreamland’s link to the president. Barely old enough to shave, the former science whiz kid now struggles to master the intricacies of world politics. Zen Stockard is his cousin — and Zen still can’t figure out how the skinny kid who used to follow him around on a tricycle grew up and got a real job.
LIEUTENANT KIRK “STARSHIP” ANDREWS
Starship flew through flight school and was on the fast track to a career flying the air force’s frontline interceptors, like the F-15 and F-22. But family commitments made him change his plans. Now he has a post at Dreamland flying the U/MF-3 Flighthawk robot planes, where he’s finding that no amount of training can prepare him for real combat.
AND IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC …
PRINCE PEHIN BIN AWG
The nephew of the sultan of Brunei and the unofficial protector of the air force, bin Awg has an enviable collection of Cold War aircraft — and a well-earned reputation as a partier. Can he mature in time to save his uncle’s realm … and his own neck?
CAT MCKENNA
A one time Royal Canadian pilot, McKenna has found work plying the skies for a shadowy Russian arms dealer. But when her paycheck bounces, she looks for a new job — and ends up locking horns with Mack Smith.
CAPTAIN DAZHOU TI
Years ago, Dazhou’s Chinese grandfather was disinherited by the sultan of Brunei. Now he wants revenge — and has a secret Malaysian warship to insure that he gets it.
SAHURAH NIU
A devout believer, Sahurah is convinced that he has a place in Paradise — and is willing to kill thousands to reach it.
I
PARADISE
Chapter 1
Breanna stockard tossed her backpack to the ground, put her hands on her hips, and took a deep breath. The Pacific Ocean spread out before her, a blanket of azure silk. A few white clouds wandered casually in the distance, drifting across the sky like a pair of vacationers easing across a solitary beach. Civilization might lay in the distance-there were oil derricks somewhere offshore, and merchant ships did a brisk trade at the nearby harbor — but from where she stood Breanna had no hint that she and her husband Jeff “Zen” Stockard weren’t the only people in the world.
This is what God looks at everyday, she thought to herself. Paradise.
Breanna took another deep breath. A month ago, she had found herself stranded in the Pacific during a fierce storm, tossed back and forth in a tiny life raft. It seemed impossible that this was the same ocean now.
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that hadn’t even happened. Ten days here in the wonderful paradise of Brunei — helping train pilots to fly the EB-52 Megafortress “leased” to the kingdom as part of an eventual three-plane arms deal — had purged her of all unhappy memories.
One more week and it might even be impossible to have an unpleasant thought ever again.
Zen had surprised her yesterday by turning up for a weekend visit. They had twenty-four more hours together before he had to return to Dreamland, their base back in the States.
Breanna smoothed out the blanket she’d borrowed from the hotel and spread it down on the white sand next to the path. She dropped her bag and Zen’s small backpack and turned to go back up the path.
“I’ll bring down lunch, then I’m going to take a swim before I eat,” she told her husband, who was negotiating the bumps down from the parking area in his wheelchair.
“Yup,” said Zen.
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” she said.
“Yup.”
“Jet lag getting to you?”
“I’m fine.”
She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then trotted up the hill for the rest of their things.
Before the accident that had cost him the use of his legs, Zen had considered going to the beach a useless waste of time and a dreadful bore. In his list of things to do, it ranked right above lying spread-eagle on Interstate 15 at rush hour.
Now it ranked somewhat lower.
He had tried talking Breanna out of the idea back at the hotel, when Prince bin Awg had called to say he and his family couldn’t join them on the planned picnic. His Royal Highness Pehin bin Awg was nephew of the sultan, a royal prince and government minister; he owned the beach and had insisted they use it. Zen liked bin Awg, the country’s unofficial patron of the Air Force — he had an enviable collection of Cold War aircraft and could talk about them entertainingly for hours and hours. Like many Bruneians, he was also generous to a fault. But his baby daughter was sick and he had been called away on government business. Zen loved Breanna and wanted to spend as much time as he could with her; he just would have preferred somewhere other than a beach.
A Lakers game, maybe.
It wasn’t so much the fact that beaches and wheelchairs didn’t go together. Truth be told, wheelchairs didn’t really fit smoothly anywhere. Much of everyday life in the A-B world — as in “able-bodied,” a term not used by the handicapped without at least a touch of sarcasm — was a succession of physical barriers and dignity-stealing obstructions. Going to the beach was probably no worse than going to the grocery store. And the fact that this beach was a private, secluded refuge meant there were no people to gawk at the geek in the wheelchair — or worse, take pity on him by “helping.”
No, what bothered him was deeper than that. There just seemed to be no point, existential or otherwise, in lying on your belly and watching water lap against the sand.
“My, but you’re a slowpoke,” said Breanna, returning with their coolers. “Need a push?”