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But he knew there was no way Saddam could manage the sophistication needed to develop such a complicated weapon, let alone field it. He couldn’t even build a secure phone system.

“Is ISA involved?” asked Dog.

“No. We’re up to our ears with China and the rest of the Middle East right now. This is CentCom’s show. Things are ramping up quickly here, Colonel,” said Elliott. “I wanted you to know what you might be up against. The Megafortresses would be prime targets.”

Dog leaned back in the chair. The seat, the desk, everything in the office had once belonged to Brad Elliott. He’d built this place, fashioned it into a high-tech center comparable to the fabled Lockheed Skunk Works, maybe even Los Alamos, if you adjusted for the difference in budgets and the times.

Then he’d been kicked out, sacrificed because of politics. No, not entirely, Dog amended. Elliott did bear some responsibility for the so-called Day of the Cheetah spy scandal, if only because he was sitting at this desk when it happened.

He’d landed on his feet with ISA, and yet …

“I appreciate the information, General,” Dog told him.

“I’m going to take it under advisement.”

“I don’t want our people, your people, getting surprised,” said Elliott.

“That’s not going to happen,” said Dog, sharper than he intended.

Elliott said nothing. It occurred to Dog that the retired general had probably had a hand in getting the Whiplash order issued—in fact, it may have been the reason he’d been sent to investigate in the first place.

“Thank you, General,” Dog told him. “I appreciate the heads-up.”

“You’re welcome.”

106

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

The line went dead. Dog keyed his phone. “Ax, get Rubeo over here. I need to talk to him.”

“Dr. Ray is on his way,” said Ax. “How ’bout lunch?”

“How’d you know I wanted to talk to him?”

“Musta been a coincidence,” said the chief master sergeant. “Ham or roast beef?”

“Neither,” said Dog.

“Yeah, I know you want a BLT. I was just testing you.”

Dog was tempted to call Ax’s bluff by saying he’d have something completely different, but before he could, there was a knock on the door and an airman entered with a tray.

“Ax,” said Dog, still on the phone, “if—”

“Light on the mayo, easy on the burn,” said the chief, sounding a little like a short-order cook. “Anything else, Colonel?”

Incirlik

28 May 1997

0700

TORBIN DRESSED QUICKLY AND THEN HEADED OVER TO THE

squadron ready room, skipping breakfast. Though he’d managed nearly six hours of sleep, his body felt as if he’d spent the time driving a jackhammer into several yards of reinforced concrete. He walked with his head slightly bent, nodding as others passed without actually looking at them. He’d gotten a few steps into the building when a lieutenant called his name and told him that General Harding wanted to talk to him.

Harding was in charge of the wing Glory B was assigned to. Torbin didn’t know where his office was and had to ask for directions.

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“General, I’m Captain Dolk,” said Torbin when he finally arrived. He stood in the doorway of the office, one hand on the doorjamb.

“Come in, Captain. Close the door, please.”

The general began talking before Torbin sat. The first few words blurred together—rough out there, all hell breaking loose, a difficult job. “The Phantom is an old airframe,” continued the general. “I used to fly them myself, back in the Stone Age.”

“Yes, sir,” said Torbin.

“Things have changed tremendously. Hell, we’re using AWACS, standoff weapons, GPS—we’re even going to have a pair of Megafortresses helping out. The Wild Weasel mission belongs to an earlier era.”

He thinks I fucked up, Torbin realized.

“These days, we can jam radars with ease. Locate ’em, knock ’em out before they turn on. That’s the way to go.

Much safer than waiting for them to turn on. I have a pair of Spark Varks and a Compass Call en route.”

“General, we can still do the job.”

Harding drew himself up in the chair and held his round face slightly to the side. His cheeks, ruddy to begin with, grew redder. “There’s no mission for you today, son. You’re to stand by until further notice.”

Torbin waited for the general to continue—to ball him out, to say he screwed up, to call him an idiot. But he didn’t.

“I didn’t screw up, sir,” said Torbin finally. “I didn’t.

My pilot didn’t and I didn’t.”

Harding stared at him. He didn’t frown, but he sure didn’t smile. He just stared.

“I’ll do anything I can,” said Torbin finally. “Anything.

The radars that came on, the missiles—they were too late and too far to hit those F-15s.”

“I appreciate your sentiments,” said Harding.

108

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Torbin felt the urge to smash something, kick the door or punch the wall. He wanted to rage: No way I screwedup! No stinking way!

But he took control of himself, nodded to the general, then walked slowly from the office.

Aboard Quicksilver , over southeastern Turkey 1300

ZEN FELT A SUDDEN SHOCK OF DISPLACEMENT AS THE

Flighthawk slipped away from the Megafortress, launching herself as the mothership rose on the stiff wind’s eddy. No matter how many times he did this, it still took a moment to adjust to the difference between what his body felt and what his eyes and brain told him it should feel.

And then he was in the Flighthawk, seeing and feeling the plane through his control helmet and joystick. He fingered the speed slider and nudged toward the rift in the peaks where the scratch strip sat.

“Systems in the green,” said Fentress, monitoring the flight from his station next to Zen.

“Thanks.” Zen pushed the Flighthawk downward against the violent and shifting winds. A thick layer of clouds sat between the Flighthawk and the airstrip, but the synthesized view in his screen showed every indentation in the rocks and even gave a fairly accurate rendering of the brownish-gray concrete that formed the landing area.

It looked to be in much better shape than they’d expected.

Still, even if Danny’s plan worked, the strip was going to be on the narrow side. Zen slid the Flighthawk into a bank, gliding five thousand feet above the shallow ridge that formed the main obstacle to lengthening the runway.

“I’m going to get under the clouds so we can get the RAZOR’S EDGE

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precise measurements,” he told Breanna over the interphone.

“Go for it.”

“Looks narrow down there, Bree,” he added.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Zen slipped under the clouds and manually selected the video feed for his main display. Mountaintops spread out on the horizon, giants sleeping beneath green and brown mottled blankets.

“Bree could slide pickles into an olive jar,” said Chris Ferris, the copilot.

“Watch your language,” joked Breanna.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t handle it,” Zen said. “I said it would be tight.”

“I thought you slept on the way over,” said Breanna.

“I did. Why?”

“You sound a little testy.”

“Airspeed dropping,” said Fentress.

“No shit,” snapped Zen, turning his full attention back to his plane. Indicated airspeed had nudged below 300

knots. He backed his power off even more, letting it slide through 250. The small-winged U/MF became in-creasingly unstable as its speed dropped, but Zen needed the slow speed so they could get a good read on the target area. “Computer, begin dimension survey as programmed.”

“Computer,” acknowledged the Flighthawk’s C3 flight system. “Dimension survey initiated.”