Shells exploded above him—heavier weapons, Zsu-57s maybe. Unguided but nasty, their shells could reach over twelve thousand feet, about twice as high as the Zsu-23s.

Fentress realized he was boxed in by the antiaircraft fire. He started to dive on his first target anyway.

“I’m going to run right past them, real low,” said Mack.

“Keep their attention and—”

260

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the warning tone of the RWR. A new threat screen opened up—the passive receiver had found a helicopter radar ahead.

“Bogey,” Alou told Mack. “Low. Closing on you. It just came out of nowhere.”

“I’ll get it,” said Fentress, flicking his stick left as C3

marked out the contact as a Russian-made Hind helicopter. He began to accelerate, but as he went to arm his cannon, his screens went blank.

Aboard Wild Bronco , over Iraq 0042

THE MUSHROOMING ARCS OF GREEN-TINTED ANTIAIRCRAFT

fire suddenly flared red. There was a flash of light so bright that Danny Freah thought a star had exploded.

“Jesus, what was that?” he said.

“Something just nailed the Flighthawk,” said Mack Smith.

“Shit.”

“We got other problems. Hang tight. This is going to be a bitch.”

“We’re flying through the flak?”

“Close your eyes.”

IT WAS A WORTHLESS GESTURE, BUT MACK POUNDED THE

throttles for more speed, hoping to somehow convince the lumbering aircraft to get a move on. The air percolated with the explosions of the antiaircraft guns; the wings tipped up and down, and the tail seemed to want to pull to the right for some reason. Cursing, Mack did his best to hold steady, riding right through a wall of flak.

The helicopter was dead ahead, four miles, and coming RAZOR’S EDGE

261

at him, fat and red in the Bronco’s infrared screen.

Served him right for leaving the damn Sidewinders on the ground, he thought. Son of a bitch.

“Bronco, stand out of the way so we can nail that Hind,” said Alou.

“Thanks, Major, but where exactly do you want me to go?”

“Circle.”

“Fuck off. I can’t afford the gas, and sooner or later these bastards are going to nail me.”

The Bronco bucked upward, riding the currents into a clear space beyond the flak. Another ball of tracers puffed about a mile ahead.

“Take out the guns,” said Mack.

“Helo’s first,” said Alou. “They’re stopping the flak—they don’t want to hit him.”

“How sweet,” said Mack, tucking his wing to the left as sharply as he dared, then back the other way as the helicopter closed. He could feel the plane’s weight change dramatically and tried to compensate with his rudder, but the plane slid away from him. They flopped back and forth, the OV-10 alternately threatening to spin, stall completely, or roll over and stop dead in the air. The helo began firing, barely a mile from his face.

Aboard Raven , over Iraq 0050

SOMEWHERE FAR ABOVE HIM THE FLIGHT CREW TRADED

snippets of information on the location of the helicopter and the triple A. There was a warning—an AMRAAM

flashed from the belly of the Megafortress.

Fentress had only a vague sense of the world beyond 262

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

the small area around him. His eyes were focused on the gray screen in front of him, his consciousness defined by the two words in the middle:

CONTACT LOST.

He was dead, nailed by the flak dealer.

Aboard Wild Bronco , over Iraq 0050

MACK SMITH SAW THE GAUGE FOR THE OIL PRESSURE IN

the right engine peg right and then spin back left. It could have been tracking the weight distribution of his plane—he could feel the assault team rolling back and forth in the rear with his maneuvers.

“Tell your guys to stop screwing around back there,”

Mack told Danny.

The captain made a garbled sound in reply, either cursing or puking into his mask.

Mack wrestled the stick to try to get back level. The Hind passed off to his right, its gunfire trailing but missing.

The stinker was probably going to fire heat-seekers next.

So where the hell was Alou and his magic missiles?

They weren’t that stinking close, for cryin’ out loud.

Mack pushed the stick forward to throw the Bronco into a dive. He tossed diversionary flares. A second later something whipped past his wings, trailing to the right after a flare. Something else exploded well off to his left.

A fresh volley of tracers kept him from gloating. The helicopter was still on his butt.

Mack slapped the stick and jammed the pedals, pushing the plane almost sideways. The Hind shot past, arcing to the right so close that Mack could have taken out his RAZOR’S EDGE

263

handgun and shot the bastard through the canopy. Instead he lurched left, figuring the helicopter was spinning for another attack. He tucked his wing and picked up a bit of speed and altitude north before tracers flared on his right once again. He thought he heard something ting the aircraft, but it could have been one of the Whiplash crew kicking against the side.

“Hey, Alou—any fuckin’ time you want to nail the raghead is okay with me,” he said, slapping the plane back left.

As he did so, a sharp downdraft pitched his nose toward the rocks. An AMRAAM from the Megafortress had found the Hind.

“Hey, there’s two more helicopters on the ground down there,” said Freah.

“We’ll save them for next time,” said Mack, pulling the plane level.

Incirlik

0100

JENNIFER TURNED FROM THE EQUIPMENT CONSOLE AND

put her head down to the laptop screen, rechecking the sequence she had to enter. She typed it without looking, cursed as she made a mistake, backspaced, then reentered. The others on the flightdeck—Breanna, General Elliott, the handsome but somewhat stuck-up colonel from CentCom, and the RIO they’d borrowed to help work the gear—all stared at her.

“Just a second,” she told them.

“We’re waiting for you, young lady,” said the CentCom colonel.

General Elliott looked like he’d strangle him. She’d always liked him.

264

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Jennifer studied the map again, then entered the last set of coordinates. She hit Enter; the laptop spit back the numbers without hesitation.

“So?” asked Breanna.

“It was definitely a laser flash. The gear got a pretty good read. But it wasn’t in that building Whiplash targeted,” Jennifer told them.

“Where was it?” asked General Elliott.

“According to the data, fifty miles inside of Iran.”

V

Allah’s Sword

High Top

30 May 1997

0154

DANNY FREAH PRIED HIMSELF OUT OF THE BRONCO’S

cockpit and walked to the back of the plane, where several Marines were already helping with the prisoner. The Iraqi had to be held upright; while he offered no resistance, the flight had turned his legs to jelly, and even with help he moved across the old asphalt like a toddler taking his first steps. The man kept looking to the sky, obviously unsure of where he was.

Then again, the same might be said of the Whiplash team, shuffling gear back and forth tipsily as they got out of the plane.

“You’re green, Powder,” Danny said.

“I ain’t never flying in an airplane ever again, Cap.

Never. No way. Not unless I’m pilot.”

“That’ll be the day,” said Nurse.

“Inventory and tag the gear; we’re routing it to the NSA,” said Danny, who’d already received the order to do so from Colonel Bastian. “Isolate the prisoner in an empty tent, then find out if the Marines have an Arab speaker. I’d like to see what the hell he does before we hand him over to CentCom.”