“The director himself will contact you if there’s any change or new developments while I’m, uh, in transit.”

“Just one more thing,” said Dog. “Where is Brad Elliott right now, and can you get me through to him?”

“Uh, that’s two things,” said Jed.

Incirlik

2100

MACK SMITH HAD BEGUN THE DAY WITH HIGH HOPES OF

finding a slot with one of the squadrons flying south.

He’d begun at the top—the F-15C guys flying combat air patrol—and worked his way down. The message was always the same: no room at the inn.

Which was bullshit. Here was, without doubt, the best stinking fighter pilot in the stinking Gulf, the hottest stick on the patch—bona fide, with scalps on the belt to prove it, for chrissakes—and he couldn’t even get a gig pushing A-10s across the lines.

Actually, there were no Warthogs in Turkey, and Mack RAZOR’S EDGE

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wasn’t sure he could fly them if there were. But he would have jumped at the chance. Hell, he’d have taken the copilot’s seat in a Piper Cub if it meant getting into the action.

But nada. Stinking nada. Without exception, the idiot wing and squadron and section commanders, even the stinking D.O.’s and the intel guys and the maintenance people, for cryin’ out loud—every stinking anybody with any sort of authority had it in for him.

Probably they were scared he’d hog all the glory.

Jerks.

Elliott was sequestered in some hotel somewhere with the CIA jerks. Mack ended up wandering around the base, looking for something, anything, to do. He finally found himself staring at CNN in an Army psyops office that was being shared with USAFSOC. The SOC guys were out, the psyops people were off planning their head-shrinking stuff, and Mack was left alone to view a succession of correspondents in Saudi Arabia talk about a situation they knew absolutely nothing about. Reports of bomb strikes were attributed to reliable sources speaking on condition of anonymity. None of what they said was wrong—they just didn’t know what was going on.

But they were a lot better than the talking heads. One civilian expert talked about how “potent” the high-altitude SA-3 missile was and how it was likely the reason the F-16 had been shot down. In Mack’s opinion, the SA-3 was a fairly decent little weapon in its day, and no piece of explosive that could move through the air at three times the speed of sound could be taken for granted.

But it was a medium-altitude missile, designed more to stopgap the vulnerabilities of the SA-2, and at least arguably more effective at 1,500 feet than at 35,000. And hell—the Israelis had befuddled the damn things in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. You couldn’t ignore the stinkers, 138

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

but there were a lot more gnarly problems over Iraq, that was for damn sure.

Like SA-2s? Talk about a weapon system that had been thoroughly compromised. So how had it nailed three F-16s and two F-15s?

No way. General Elliott had to be correct. It had to be a Razor, or a close proximity.

How would he fly against it? he wondered.

He’d taken a few turns as a sitting duck against Razor during its development; he could go on that. Clouds de-creased the laser’s efficiency, so that was the first thing to look for. It didn’t operate in bad weather.

There was some sort of latency thing; it had to warm up between bursts. So you sent out decoys, got it to target the ghost, then nailed the sucker while it recharged or recalibrated or whatever the hell it was lasers did.

Mack got up off the couch as CNN went to a commercial and walked down the hallway in the direction of the squadron commander’s suite. He got about halfway there before an airman caught up to him from behind.

“Captain Smith—”

“That’s Major Smith, kid,” Mack told the airman, who stood about five-four and was thinner than a cherry tree.

“Sorry, sir,” said the airman, so flustered he proceeded to salute. “Sir, General Elliott, uh, retired General Elliott, he’s looking for you. He’s in Colonel Witslow’s office, back this way.”

Everybody on the damn base has it in for me, Mack thought as he stomped through the hallway. He found Elliott buttoning a parka in Witslow’s office.

“Ah, there you are Mack. Grab some flight gear, we’re going for a ride.”

“No shit, General, great,” said Mack, relieved that he finally had something to do. “Where to?”

“To the mountains. The official name is Al Derhagdad, RAZOR’S EDGE

139

but they’re calling it High Top. You’ll see some old friends.”

“We taking a helicopter?”

“There are none available till morning, and I’d like to get out there right now.”

“Hell, let’s grab our own plane,” said Mack, instantly fired up. If they borrowed an F-15E Strike Eagle, he’d be able to wangle into one of the mission packages for sure.

“My thought exactly,” said Elliott. “There’s an OV-10

Bronco with our name on it out on the tarmac.”

“A Bronco?”

The Bronco was an ancient ground support aircraft once used by the Air Force and Marines. Diving with a tailwind, it might break 300 knots.

Might.

“You’ve flown one, haven’t you?” added Elliott.

“Uh, sure,” said Mack. He wasn’t lying, exactly—the Marines had had a few in the Gulf, and he’d hopped aboard one for a familiarization flight just before the start of the ground war. He’d gloved the stick for perhaps five minutes.

“If you’re rusty, we can find someone else,” offered the general.

“No, sir, I can handle it,” said Mack quickly. He could fly anything. “Marines still using them for covert insertions?”

“Actually, this aircraft belongs to Thailand and was en route to an air show in Cairo, where it was going to be sold. The Thais seem to think they might get a better offer from an unnamed American company that I happen to be slightly affiliated with.” Elliott didn’t even hint at a smile.

“We’re going to take it for a test drive.”

140

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

High Top

2205

DANNY FREAH SQUATTED BEHIND THE ROCK AS BISON GOT

ready to ignite the charge. It had started to rain ten minutes before; the wind whipped the drops against the side of his face like pellets of dirt.

“Ready!” shouted Bison. “Clear the area!”

“Bison, only you and I are out here,” Danny told the demolitions man.

“Yes, sir. Clear the range!”

“Clear.”

Bison pushed the button on his remote detonator. The ground shook slightly, and dust spun up from the cliffside just out of range of the halogen spots. Danny got up and walked toward the ridge obstructing the end of the runway; the charges had loosened more stone, but most of the stubborn mountain had refused to yield.

“This is a bitch fuck,” said Bison, cupping a cigarette in his hands to light it. “We’re gonna have to blow it again.”

“Let’s check it first. We got a few feet off,” said Danny.

“Inches maybe.”

Bison’s estimate was probably nearer the mark, Danny realized. The runway wasn’t going to get much longer without considerable effort, nor were they going to be able to knock down the approach. But at least the loose rocks would give his guys more to do. Guard duty was already starting to wear thin, and they hadn’t been on the ground twelve hours yet. He’d have to find them something real to do once they got bored playing with the bulldozers.

A half-dozen medium-size tents had been set up, along with two large ones that were supposed to serve as mess and an auxiliary headquarters. The Whiplash Mobile Command Headquarters—the trailer—had been brought in on the MC-17 and was now fully operational, except RAZOR’S EDGE

141

for the link to Dreamland. The problem was in the satellite system, which was brand new. The scientists back home had it isolated and hoped to have it fully operational soon.