“Thanks, Doc. I’m, uh, sorry.”

“Sorry?” she called back.

“The way I, uh, bumped you before.”

If she answered, her words were muffled by the wind as it suddenly picked up.

Dreamland

Aggressor Project Hangar

10 January, 0905

TO MACK SMITH, THE PLANE LOOKED LIKE A BLACK shark with slightly misplaced fins.

The MiG-29M/DE Dream Fulcrum, better known by its nickname “Sharkishki,” had a boxer’s stance. Her twin engines hung beneath a cobra cowl that melded seamlessly into her wings. Stock, the MiG-29 was a serious air-superiority fighter, not quite better than the F-16 or F/A-18, but close enough to cause a few beads of perspiration on an opponent’s brow. But Sharkishki was anything but stock. Dreamland power-plant specialists had worked over her RD-33K turbofans to the point that she had a third more thrust at full military power than even the uprated engines she had come with. They now put out 35,000 pounds in afterburner mode, a good sight better than the Pratt & Whitneys on an F-15C. As the plane remained several thousand pounds lighter than the average Eagle, she could easily outaccelerate one. With the help of new leading- and trailing-edge control surfaces, her already impressive roll rate had been considerably improved, and variable-geometry nozzles helped cut down her turning radius. The notoriously bumpy MiG skin had been smoothed out by the Dreamland techies so that hardly a blemish remained.

But it was in the cockpit that the Sharkishki’s improvements really shone. Her antiquated Russian avionics had been replaced with Dreamland’s finest microchips. Her HUD was slaved to a trial version of the F-22 radar and target-tracking units; her own reasonably competent infrared search and tracking (IRST) system had been replaced with a longer-range passive-detection system capable of detecting warm toast at twenty nautical miles in the rain. While not without bugs, the all-weather infrared system allowed Sharkishki to detect and engage enemy fighters before they knew they were being detected; its small size and radar-defeating paint meant the plane could generally not be scanned by fighter-borne radars until they were about fifteen nautical miles away. Granted, detection by AWACS was a different story, and a pilot who knew he was going up against the Sharkishki could employ tactics to neutralize the improvements—but he had to know what he was up against.

Which was the point of the project. When she was finished, the MiG-29M/DE—DE stood for “Dreamland Enhanced”—would be turned over to an “aggressor” fighter squadron tasked with training exercises at nearby Nellis Air Base. Sharkishki would take the role of Russia’s next-generation fighter, helping groom Air Force Top Guns for the future.

Kicking their butts was more the way Mack thought of it.

“Typical Russian piece of tin shit,” groused Chief Master Sergeant “Greasy Hands” Parsons behind him on the runway, joining Mack and the crew chief on the preflight walk-around. Parsons had a large ceramic bowl of coffee in his twisted fingers, and a thick stub of a cigar in his mouth. “We ready to go, Alan?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” said the chief, with considerably more snap and starch than he directed toward Mack. Parsons grunted. Then he spat some of his cigar juice out and took a swag of coffee. Shaking his head, he stepped close to the plane, frowning as he looked into the modified air intakes. The original Russian grates, intended to keep out rocks and debris on poor runways, had been replaced with an interior baffle system that acted like a turbo-booster at high speed.

“Something wrong, Sergeant?” Mack asked.

“Piece of Commie tin-shit garbage. You sure you want to fly this crate, Major?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Parsons didn’t answer, moving instead to the leading edge of the wing, where he pointed his cigar at the gap and demanded that the chief have it checked. A crewman ran up with a micrometer; the gap was shown to be within tolerances. That hardly suited Greasy Hands, who growled and continued around the aircraft. He soon had five men making last-second adjustments and checks, none of which were warranted, in Mack’s opinion.

“This plane is more than ready,” said Knife finally. “Ground crew did a hell of a job.”

Parsons ducked out from under the fuselage, where he’d been inspecting the landing gear.

“You got a problem with me, Major?”

“Hell, no,” said Mack. “Just lighten up. The ground crew kicked butt here.”

“Excuse me?” asked Parsons.

“I said the ground crew kicked butt,” Mack shouted.

“Well, thank you, Major,” said the chief master sergeant, breaking into a wide grin. “Nice to hear an officer say that.” He stepped so close to Mack that his breath nearly knocked the pilot over. “Now don’t fuckin’ break my plane.”

Mack’s mood didn’t lift until he slid the throttle to takeoff power and kicked Sharkishki into the air nearly a half hour later. He cleaned the underside of the MiG, pulling in the landing gear, and yanked the stick back, taking the MiG in a steep climb that made him forget all about sergeants and their typical bullshit.

Knife hit his marks and leveled off, vectoring toward the range where the day’s test was scheduled. He keyed into the shared frequency that would be used by all of the players in the exercise. Ringmaster—actually Army Captain Kevin Ma-drone, who was flying in an E-3 AWACS above, monitoring the test—acknowledged, then quickly reminded everyone of the ground rules: no hitting, no spitting, and no talking back.

The helicopters and the secure weapons links and com systems were the most important part of the exercise, but other systems were being tested as well: the MiG, an Army ground-point air-defense radar, and the Flighthawks. Zen was still learning to control four planes simultaneously, apparently a lot harder than it looked.

“Two minutes,” said Ringmaster.

Mack hit his way-point at the edge of the range and prepared to attack.

Dreamland Security Office

10 January, 1015

DANNY FREAH FELT HIS EYELIDS TOUCH BOTTOM, AND only barely managed to keep from dropping the phone onto his desk as the conference call droned on. He’d gotten up at four this morning to talk to his wife on the phone. A college professor, she’d returned to New York a week ago for the new semester and he missed her badly. They’d burned three hours on the phone line, and even then he’d felt frustrated as soon as he’d hung up.

Not to mention dead tired, since he hadn’t managed to get to sleep until a little after midnight. The day’s schedule precluded any catnaps, and he’d already gone through the thermos of coffee he’d brought into the office to take the secure—and uninterruptible—conference call on security matters.

Fortunately, these briefings were held on the telephone; none of the three-dozen other participants in the conference call could see him prop his head up with his elbow.

Getting regular heads-up briefings from the special FBI unit on terrorism and espionage was a good idea. But like many good ideas, it had morphed into something bad. Originally intended to alert certain top security officials to possible activities directed against them, it now included a briefing from the State Department, and even reports on foreign diplomats traveling in “areas of interest,” the definition of which seemed to have been gradually expanded to include all of North America.

“We have some diplomatic activity in San Francisco, where the Secretary of Defense is to address the Aerospace Convention today,” said Pete Francois, the FBI’s deputy director for EspTer, as they were calling the group. “I think we have a couple of sightings in Las Vegas as well. Debra, you want to handle that briefing?”