No one would know he’d done it on purpose. All he had to do was stay on the trigger a hair second too long as the Flighthawk swooped in, or give just a hiccup’s worth of rudder the wrong way.
Or miss altogether. Let the Tomcats take the blame for killing him.
Jeff didn’t want to kill him. Just cripple him.
True revenge.
He couldn’t. Too many things prevented him. Duty. His conscience. Bree, in an odd way.
“We’re ready,” repeated the Osprey pilot, and Zen nailed the Flighthawk down, zooming toward the Piaggio, nudging the right engine into the boresight.
An inch the wrong way.
He squeezed. A thin line of smoke appeared behind the propeller on the right engine. Before the line turned into a wedge he had leaned ever so slightly left, put three rounds into the second engine, depriving the Piaggio of power.
DANNY BENT HIS LEG AGAINST THE OSPREY’S momentum as the rotorcraft shot forward. The seaplane seemed to stop in midair, tilting forward, its nose falling right beneath him.
He saw the bastard Iranian, right through the glass. The man had a gun, but Danny didn’t see that, saw only the wide base of his neck above the canopy edge.
He squeezed the trigger.
THERE WAS A POP, THE SOUND A CHAMPAGNE CORK makes.
So this is what fate sounds like, Mack thought. This is what it feels like to die.
Then he realized he wasn’t dead at all.
Mack pulled on the controls, trying to hold the seaplane in an unpowered guide into the water.
In the next instant he slammed forward, waves lapping and someone screaming in his ears. He heard himself say he was alive and he heard someone, maybe the Imam, maybe Jeff Stockard, maybe even his own conscience, tell him it was more than he deserved.
Dreamland
24 October, 0700 local
BY THE TIME COLONEL BASTIAN WAS ABLE TO GET TIME on the secure satellite line to Greece, he’d seen the CNN report on the raids twice. In the sonorous words of the overpaid commentator, the “Greater Islamic League is defunct and peace is once more assured.”
Dog wasn’t so sure. True, the Iranian mullahs had officially withdrawn their threat to attack shipping in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. And since they no longer had Silkworm missiles or MiGs, perhaps their pledge to “work with the UN and OPEC” on “important matters of commerce” could be taken at face value.
And true, the Libyans had been so decimated by the attacks on their facilities that their exalted leader would have to dip into his dress allowance for at least a decade to restock supplies.
Only two U.S. servicemen had died in the entire operation: a Marine killed in combat, and another killed by his captors while a prisoner in Somalia. All other U.S. personnel were safe, including Mack Smith. The downed stealth fighter had been destroyed, preventing—at least for now—further spread of the technology.
Still, the conflict had proven exactly how volatile the post–Cold War world really was. This small-scale conflict had taken several aircraft carrier battle groups, a Marine MEU, and units from Delta Force to resolve. Not to mention Dreamland.
Of course, some might argue that without Dreamland it might not have been resolved at all.
Some. Not him. Not directly anyway. He didn’t have to—not with Magnus steering things above him.
“Colonel, that you?” snapped Danny Freah over the phone line.
Dog slid back in the chair at Dreamland’s secure conference center, ordinarily used for reviewing projects and teleconferencing. With a few changes, it might work as a decent command bunker; it had a large projection screen at the front of the room that could be fed from the secure video, phone, and satellite lines.
At the moment, the screen was blank. It sometimes took a while for the video code to make its way down.
“Well done, Captain,” said Bastian. “I hear congratulations are in order all around.”
“We kicked butt,” agreed Freah.
“Daddy?”
The video finally snapped on. Breanna stood front and center, her soft features and tired eyes staring upward at the camera. Danny was holding a phone receiver behind her. Jeff Stockard was near the back of the room, talking with an enlisted man. Jennifer Gleason and one of the Megafortress crew members were also looking on, sitting on steel folding chairs. Gleason had a sixty-four-ounce bottle of Pepsi in her hand.
But Dog saw only his daughter.
“Hi, baby,” he said.
“Mission accomplished,” she said.
“Good job, Captain,” he said. He stood up, realizing that they were seeing him too. “Major Stockard, everyone, very good job. How’s Major Cheshire?”
“She’s okay,” said Breanna. “She lost a lot of blood, but the doctors say she’s in no danger. Mack is okay too.” She began to laugh. “Last we saw him he was arguing with the doctor about whether he was dehydrated or not.”
“What’s Raven’s status?”
“It’s going to take a few days to button up the cockpit properly,” said his daughter. “Sergeant Parsons is on his way up from Ethiopia to assess the damage. We could get it home right away, but it seemed foolish to take the chance.”
“No, I don’t want you to take any unnecessary risks, not at this point,” said Bastian.
He didn’t really want her to take necessary ones either, he thought.
“I’ve had some good news about Dreamland—and Whiplash—in the last half hour,” Bastian said quickly, hoping she wouldn’t see the concern in his face. “We’ve got funding. We’re definitely in the budget. And Whiplash is going to be up-rated to active squadron status.”
“What exactly does that mean?” asked Freah.
“Whiplash is going to make use of Dreamland technology, working with some of the advanced systems,” said Bastian. “In much the same way you did in Somalia and Libya. Only, we’re going to plan for it from now on. There are a few details to work out,” he added. “Well, a hell of a lot of details. But we have a green light, and serious support at the command level. And beyond.”
“Congratulations,” said Freah.
“You guys get all the credit,” said Dog. “So listen, since you’re all in Greece, and since it’ll be a few days before your plane is ready to leave anyway, I suppose a few days’ R&R would be in order. I hear there are some nice ruins to inspect.”
“I’ve had my fill of ruins,” said Freah. “I’m up for the beaches.”
“Me too,” said Bree.
“Personally, I like ruins,” said Jeff, rolling forward. “But the only sight I feel like seeing for a while is a nice thick mattress.”
Breanna put her hand down to his shoulders. It was nice seeing people so committed to each other, Bastian thought. Good that they could survive all the adversity they’d seen.
And wouldn’t Gleason look good in a bathing suit?
“My satellite time is almost over,” said Dog. “If you need anything, you know where to get me.”
“The hell with that,” said Freah. “We’ll just get hold of Sergeant Gibbs.”
“Dreamland Command, signing off,” said Dog.
DALE BROWN
Dale Brown, a former U.S. Air Force captain, is the author of twelve previous bestsellers. Brown lives in Nevada, where he often can be found in the skies, piloting his own plane.
Jim DeFelice’s recent techno-thrillers include Brothers Keeper (2000) and Havana Strike (1997), both currently available in paperback from Leisure Books. Jim has also written more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction for young people. He lives with his wife and son in upstate New York, and can be contacted by E-mail at JDchester@aol.com.