“Put the sensor right on the interior of the tube,” said Rubeo in his headset.

350

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Hey, Doc, I thought you’d gone for coffee.”

“Hardly. This is probably an exhaust manifold, Captain.

Not optimum. Move to the last pipe in the second row.”

“We’re tight on time.”

“I understand that.”

Danny walked to the edge of the platform. His knife made it through the inside layer of plastic, but there was another plastic pipe inside that the point could reach but not quite cut.

“Shit,” he said.

“Very good,” said Rubeo. “Open the pipe.”

“How?”

Rubeo didn’t answer. Danny took his pistol and fired through.

“That was expedient,” said the scientist. “Please take your sample now.”

Danny pushed the modified sniffer probe into the hole.

As he stood there he could see the Marine corporal running toward the hole in the wall with an armload of gear.

“Enough,” said Rubeo. “Now we would like a measure on the reaction chambers, the large tube structures directly behind you. Do not fire at those,” added the scientist. “While puncturing the inner piping is unlikely, if you did succeed, the concentration of chemicals could be quite sufficient to kill you and the rest of your team.”

Danny took the ruler from his pocket—a laser unit not unlike those used on some construction sites. He made his way to the end of the tube and shot the beam down to the other end, then struggled to get a good read as the numbers kept jumping on the screen.

“Close enough,” said Rubeo. The handheld ruler didn’t have a transmit mode, but Danny realized that Rubeo had read it through his helmet inputs. “Now, one of those junction boxes would be very useful. Do you see it beneath the third band?”

RAZOR’S EDGE

351

“Why don’t I just take the whole damn chamber?”

“That would be infinitely preferable,” said Rubeo. “An admirable solution.”

Danny had to pick his way over two piles of debris to get to the box; as he climbed off the second he realized there was a boot sticking out. He bent down and saw that the pant leg above the boot was tan.

The boot moved slightly. He heard, or thought he heard, a groan from the pile.

Not one of my guys, he thought. Still, he found himself fighting an urge to stop and help the man.

“Do not damage the circuitry if possible,” said Rubeo as Danny pried the cover of the box off with his knife. The last two screws shot away and the metal cover fell away.

“Looks like a bunch of wires.”

“Yes,” said the scientist.

“You sure you want them?”

“Do you want me to explain how the probable current can be determined from the size and composition of the wires, and what other suppositions could be made—or should I skip to the math involved in determining the propagation of electromagnetic waves?”

“Fuck you, Doc,” said Danny, hacking at the thick set of wires.

Dreamland Command Center

0742

“MUCH MORE PRIMITIVE THAN RAZOR,” SAID RUBEO, TURNing away from the console.

“In the matter of size, yes,” said Matterhorn, one of the laser experts.

“In everything.”

352

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“I disagree,” answered Matterhorn. “The size of the mirror array and the lack of mobility in the aiming structure indicates to me that they’ve found a way to target it by focusing individual frames at the reflective site.

They’ve obviously gone operational too soon, but that undoubtedly was a political decision.”

“Piffle,” said Rubeo. “Razor is several times more powerful.”

Dog took a step away from them, turning his attention back to the image from Dreamland’s miniature KH satellite. The high-resolution optics on the satellite could not be sent as video, but in rapid burst mode it updated every twenty seconds. The effect was something like watching dancers move across a strobe-lit stage.

Except, of course, the dancers were his people under fire.

“The mission has been invaluable,” Matterhorn said, probably sensing Dog’s annoyance.

The colonel ignored the scientist. More vehicles were starting from the barracks area. “Danny. Let’s get the hell out of there, okay?” he said, pushing the talk button on his remote.

“I’m with you, Colonel.”

Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 1843

TORBIN FELT HIMSELF STARTING TO RELAX AS THE LAST OF

the attack jets checked in, hooking onto the course for home. His fingers hurt and his neck was stiff.

“Crew sound off,” said Captain Breanna Stockard.

“Torbin, how are we looking?”

“Good,” he said. “Thanks for picking me up back there. I appreciate it.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

353

“Not a problem. Chris?”

Torbin tried to stretch away some of his cramps as the others joked. Had he screwed up? Normally the copilot handled the missile shots, but he should have taken the radars down himself.

Nobody else thought he’d messed up, though.

Ironic—on the other missions, he’d been the one convinced he hadn’t failed, and everyone else pointed the finger. Now it was the other way around.

So was he a screw-up?

The computer snapped a warning tone at him.

“Radars, airborne,” he relayed to the captain. “Three, four—helicopters coming north.”

“They’re not ours?” asked Breanna.

“Negative, negative. ID’d as Mi-8 Hips,” he said, reading the legend on the panel. “Assault ships. I have a bearing.”

“Hang tight everyone,” said Breanna. “Torbin, give the heading to Eagle Flight. Chris will punch you through.”

“They’re on a direct line for High Top,” said Chris Ferris.

“The fighters will take care of them,” replied Breanna.

In Iran

1855

THE HIND BUCKED AS THEY THREW THE CAPTURED GEAR

inside. The rotors revolved at low RPM, their wash making it difficult to move in a straight line. The part of the mirror assembly they’d cut away proved so heavy that the two Marines had to help Egg and Pretty Boy get it out of the building; even then they dragged it most of the way.

“Something moving beyond the fence,” warned Liu.

“Can’t see through the smoke.”

354

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Okay,” said Danny. “Liu, Hernandez, fall back. We’re buggin’ out.”

“Two more of those disk things inside,” yelled the Marine corporal.

“All right,” said Danny. “I’ll get the last array and then we’re gone.”

He tossed his plundered CPU unit inside the Hind, then ran back to the building, heading toward the arrays. Light filtered through the smoke; a fire flared in fits near the tunnel entrance at the other side of the building. Danny moved through the red and gray shadows like a goblin slithering through a haunted house. As he jumped up onto the raised metal platform of the control area his knee gave way; as he sprawled off the side he managed to snag his arm on a metal railing, but then lost it. He fell face first to the ground without getting his hands out to break his fall.

He cringed, expecting to hit hard and on his face; instead his chest and face landed on a large, soft pillow.

Not a pillow, but the stomach of a dead Iranian soldier.

Danny turned his head to the side, his helmet’s visor magnifying the dead man’s green eyes. Wide open in the dim light, they stared at him as if to ask why he had come.

Danny pushed himself upward, ignoring his throbbing knee. The disk array sat on the floor a few yards ahead.

He moved toward it, meanwhile scanning the interior.

Two large suitcaselike arrays sat next to a small screen; he slung his gun over his shoulder and hoisted them from the floor. They were lighter than he thought but hard to hold in his hands as he began picking his way back outside.