The Iranians weren’t likely to be friendly. The Iraqis definitely were enemies. The Kurds might or might not be, depending on their mood. The Turks, ostensibly allies, were arguably the most deadly of all.

He had six men to hold the base with. The Marines wouldn’t be available for at least forty-eight hours.

“Read ’em and weep,” said Sergeant Kevin Bison at the poker table just beyond the cot where Danny was reading. “Ladies over jacks. Full house.”

“Nice, but not as good as four eights,” said Sergeant Lee Liu.

Bison threw down his cards. “You musta had that up your sleeve, Nurse.”

Liu laughed. He’d gotten the nickname “Nurse” because of his paramedic training, though in fact all of the Whiplash team members could pull duty as medics.

“Down your pants, more likely, Bison,” said Powder.

“Screw you,” snapped Bison.

96

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“All right, boys, think about getting some sleep,” said Freah, snapping his laptop closed. “We have a long day ahead of us. We’re jumping in six hours.”

“Hey, Cap, can I ride the ’dozer down?” said Powder.

The others laughed, but he wasn’t necessarily kidding.

“Tell you what, Powder,” answered Freah. “I hear anything out of you or anybody else that doesn’t sound like a snore, I’ll strap you to the blade and push you out myself.”

Dreamland

1810

COLONEL BASTIAN GLANCED AT HIS WATCH AND JUMPED

from his desk—he was supposed to meet Jennifer at the Dolphin dock ten minutes ago.

Then he remembered she’d deployed as part of the technical team supporting the Megafortresses. She was in Alou’s plane to monitor the launch of their tactical satellites—one to ensure wide-band instant communications between the team and Dream Control, the other a small optical satellite officially known as a KH-12/Z sub-orbital surveillance platform, and more generally as the KH-12-mini. Propelled by solid-fuel boosters, the sats would be launched from Raven over the Atlantic. Their low orbits and small size meant they’d only “live” for a few weeks before burning up in the atmosphere, but that was perfectly suited for the mission.

Dog sat back down in his seat slowly. He was done with Chief Gibbs’s paperwork for the day, but he had a pile of reports to look at on the right side of his desk. At the very top was one dealing with ANTARES, or Artificial Neural Transfer and Response System, the once-promising experiment to use human brain impulses to control aircraft.

RAZOR’S EDGE

97

To say that the experiment had failed was incorrect, or at least imprecise. What it had done was make its subject into a paranoid schizophrenic who’d actively participated in a plot to destroy an American city with a nuclear device. Intercepted before he could reach his target, he’d tried to strike Dreamland itself.

If it were up to Dog, the ANTARES equipment and all of the records would be ground into little pieces. But it wasn’t up to him. His job was only to make a recommendation to the NSC. He picked up the report, written by Martha Geraldo, who had headed the program, and began reading.

The potential of the human mind is awesome and incredible. We have seen its darkest side as a result of the ANTARES experiments and the so-called Nerve Center affair. In the future, artificial neuron connections may allow for the control of an entire squadron or wing of aircraft. At present, however, we clearly do not understand enough about the human brain to continue in the vein we have undertaken.

Dog realized that even though it sounded negative, Geraldo was gearing up to make an argument to continue the program, albeit in a drastically changed fashion.

Maybe she was right—maybe a great deal of good could come from it. But he just wasn’t in the mood to read an argument in favor of a project that had cost one of his best people and nearly killed his daughter. He tossed the report down on his to-be-read-later pile on the floor. It was already nearly a foot high.

He knew that Tony Priestman, aka Hammer, would have told him to deal with it right away. That was his main philosophy as a flight leader—attack.

Maybe that’s what got him shot down over Iraq, Dog thought.

98

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

He had been a freshly minted hotshot jock when he met Hammer. Then a captain, Hammer wasn’t all that much older than he was, and nowhere near as good a pilot. However, he did have five years more experience—five years that included a short but eventful stint over Vietnam at the very end of the war. Dog served as his wingman in an F-15 squadron, one of the first to fly what was then a hot new aircraft.

Hammer hadn’t been particularly kind at first. In fact, he’d never been particularly kind. It took Dog two days to get over the first dressing down—the new F-15 pilot had failed to keep his separation during their flight and had landed a bit fast. It was petty criticism. For weeks after-ward, anger mixed with the fear of really screwing up every time he prepped a flight, though they melted once he was in the air—he was, after all, a good pilot, and he knew it.

Gradually, Dog came to realize that Hammer’s harassment was a reaction of his own fears. Hammer was much harder on himself, something Dog learned when he sat in on a briefing for the wing commander following a training exercise. Later that same night they found themselves left at a bar together after the rest of their group drifted away. Dog told Hammer he thought he’d done pretty well, certainly better than Hammer seemed to think when he’d told the boss.

Instead of answering, Hammer flicked a cigarette out of the pack in front of him on the bar. He stared at it a moment, then took a silver Zippo lighter from his pocket.

“This lighter belonged to one of my commanders,” he said after a drag on the cigarette. “Left it to me when he went home.”

Dog expected a story would follow about the lighter or the commander, but instead Hammer slid the Zippo into RAZOR’S EDGE

99

his pocket and took another puff of the cigarette. Then he sipped his seltzer—he didn’t drink, at least not that Dog ever saw. After a few minutes, he went on.

“I got a MiG one afternoon. It was pretty funny, in a way. I should have been nailed myself. They had this tactic—this is end days in the war, remember; I’m just about the last guy out.” Hammer sounded almost rueful about the war ending. “Anyway, we go in, drop our sticks la-di-da, and just as we’re turning home—well, no, we had recovered and we were still in the process of getting bearings. I’m a little bit back of my lead and we’re about to saddle up when this MiG appears. MiG-21. Anyway, they have this tactic where basically what they would do was run one guy out as a decoy, suck you in. They get you to follow, or at least pay attention for a moment—they can turn like all hell, I mean, it’s like trying to follow a motorcycle with a tractor trailer. I’m in a Phantom, of course.”

“Right,” said Dog.

“So anyway, like an idiot—and I mean a true idiot—I bite. My Sidewinder growled on the guy—I’m that close.

It happens bing-bang-boom. My lead’s here, the MiG

comes up out of the bushes there, I’m here.”

Hammer gestured in the smoky air of the bar, trying to conjure the remarkable fluidity of a three-dimensional dogfight with his hands. Dog could see it, or imagined he could—the glittering knife of the enemy plane cutting up out of the ground clutter, the tight cockpit of the Phantom, the Sidewinder screaming at him to fire.

“So he starts to turn—I slipped outside the firing envelope.” Hammer’s hands started to mimic not the flight of the planes but his action on the stick. “So I start to bite because I want the shot and then I realize—and maybe it was actually my backseater or even somebody else in the 100