The earth shuddered and Mack found himself lying flat on his back, eyes cupped with grit. He flailed his elbows, RAZOR’S EDGE

55

struggling to get upright like a frog tossed on his back.

When he finally got to his feet, he realized he’d pulled Smoky up with him.

“I’m all right, I’m all right,” said the PJ.

“We got to get ourselves out of here,” said Mack.

“Where’s the helicopter?”

“He cleared back to let the fighters in,” said Smoky, who’d lost his headset somewhere. “He won’t leave us, I guarantee.”

“Where the fuck is he?”

“He’ll be back.” The sergeant put some weight on his right leg, grimaced, then fell against the rock.

“All right, come on,” said Mack, though he wasn’t exactly sure where they were going.

“You don’t have to carry me,” said the sergeant.

“I ain’t fuckin’ carrying you,” snapped Mack. “Just lean on me. We’ll go back to the flat where they dropped us. Shit—what are you doing?”

As Smoky swung his 203 up from his side, Mack ducked back, sure that the sergeant had lost his mind and was about to waste him.

Two quick bursts later something fell from the hillside above the airplane behind them.

A dead Iraqi soldier.

“Come on!” yelled Mack.

“Smoke!”

“What?”

As the sergeant reached below his vest, Mack took hold of his other arm and looped it around his neck. He pulled Smoky down around the rocks as the ground erupted behind them—bullets from two more soldiers coming across the hill.

“Smoke!” The sergeant’s voice had gone hoarse. He had a small canister in his hand.

56

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

A smoke grenade. Good idea.

Mack leaned against the sergeant to prop him up as he flicked his arm, tossing rather than throwing the grenade.

Soot began spewing from the canister, which landed only a few yards away.

“Down the hill,” hissed Smoky.

“No shit,” said Mack, helping him through the rocks.

A freight train roared overhead, its wheels pounding the loose ties of a trestle bridge with a steady, quick beat.

Mack slid but kept both of them upright as the Pave Low threw a stream of lead on the Iraqi soldiers who had tried to ambush them. The gunfire—besides the .50 caliber and the minigun, one of the crewmen was unloading a 203—seemed to sheer off the hilltop. Mack stumbled through a thick haze of pulverized rock, his mouth thick with dirt.

He spun around and landed in a heap on the ramp, the sergeant rolling on top of him.

An angel or a pararescuer—same difference—grabbed him in the next instant. They were aboard the helicopter and airborne before his lungs began working again.

Over Iraq

0832

“SNAKES ARE CLEAR. ALL VEHICLES SMOKED. BOYS ARE

aboard and headed home.”

“Glory B copies,” said Fitzmorris.

“En route to the Grand Hotel,” said the pilot in FlagTwo. “Kick ass.”

“You kicked butt down there,” said Snake One.

“Y’all didn’t do too poor yourself.”

All right guys, quit with the attaboys and get on home, Torbin thought.

“Fuel’s getting a little tight,” said Fitzmorris.

RAZOR’S EDGE

57

“I can get out and push if you want,” Torbin told him.

“I was thinking maybe you’d just pop your canopy and flap your arms a bit,” said the pilot.

Torbin laughed. Good to hear Fitzmorris making jokes again, even if they were lame. He scanned his gear; no threats, no nothing. Two of the F-15s flying escort radioed for an update. The planes had blown south in the direction of the nearest large Iraqi air base when things got tight, just in case Saddam decided to reinforce his troops farther north.

Fitzmorris filled them in.

“Blue skies ahead,” said one of the F-15 pilots. He had a bit of a Missouri twang in his voice, and Torbin decided to ask where he was from.

“Kansas City,” answered the pilot. “How ’bout yourself?”

“Jefferson City,” said Torbin. “Well, almost. My dad had a farm ’bout ten miles south of Moreau River.”

“Maybe you know my cousin, sells tractors out near St.

Thomas, or in St. Thomas, one of those little burbs down there.”

“What is this, old home week?” asked Fitzmorris.

“Where you from, cowboy?”

“Pittsburgh, P.A.,” answered the pilot.

“Hey, my wing mate’s from Philadelphia, aren’t you, Gunner?”

Torbin didn’t hear the reply—six or seven Iraqi radars had just flashed on simultaneously to the south. Two missiles were launched almost at the same instant.

“Shit!” was the only warning he could give before the pilot from Kansas City overran the transmission with a curse.

After that there was nothing but static.

II

Gone

Dreamland

27 May 1997

0453

LIEUTENANT COLONEL TECUMSEH “DOG” BASTIAN LENGTHened his stride as he jogged onto the long stretch of macadam that paralleled the razor-wire fence on the southeastern perimeter of the Dreamland “residential”

area. This was inevitably his favorite part of the morning run, not least because the three-quarter-mile straightaway led to the last turn and the trot home. A boneyard of old aircraft lay to the right; the shadows seemed not so much ghosts as spirits urging him onward. In truth, he saw only shadows of shadows, since the skeletons were too far away in the dark to be made out. But even thinking of the old-timers disintegrating into the desert somehow comforted him. The bare skeletons reminded him that the ad-monition of “dust to dust” meant not only that conceit was ill-advised, but that everyone had a purpose and a role, and the reward of rest was guaranteed no matter how trivial your job in life, or how short you fell from your goal.

Not that Dog Bastian was a man who fell short of his goals. Indeed, his record since arriving at Dreamland the year before was one of astounding achievement.

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

And one conspicuous incident of direct insubordination—which had averted the destruction of San Francisco and Las Vegas.

A lot had changed since Dog had arrived at Dreamland. The base, then on the verge of being excised, was now charged not merely with developing weapons, but of using them in extreme situations. A new President had taken office, and with him there had been a new cabinet and a fairly thorough reshuffling of the civilian and military defense hierarchies. Dog’s patron—the NSC director herself—had lost her post. But he had remained and even thrived.

Temporarily, at least. Two months before, Dog had been placed “under review” by the three-star general who was his immediate and at the moment only military superior. Precisely what “under review” meant remained un-clear. Lieutenant General Harold Magnus had made no move to discipline him for disobeying orders against flying, and it was obvious he wouldn’t—given the circumstances, it would have been ridiculous. In the interim, a new defense secretary had taken over, along with a chief of staff from the Navy. “Under review” might apply to Dreamland’s status in the defense structure, which admittedly was hazy. While part of the Air Force, the base was not included under any of the normal commands. Its personnel were predominately Air Force, but they included many civilians, and a smattering of men and women from the Army and Navy as well. In developing weapons, Dreamland was in all practical effect a contractor—not just for the Air Force, but for the Army, Navy, CIA, NSA, and in one case, NASA. Its covert “action team”—aka Whiplash—consisted of a ground force commanded by Danny Freah and any other assets assigned to a mission by Dog himself. Once a Whiplash order was initiated by RAZOR’S EDGE

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the President, Dog was answerable only to him or his designated deputy.