Knife and Zen, meanwhile, traded snipes across the floor.

“You were lucky today,” said Zen. “Tomorrow we’re in real planes.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to kick your ass all over town, you peahead loser,” promised Knife. “I can do things in the MiG that would tear an F-16 apart, even with Dreamland’s mods.”

“1 can nail a MiG with my eyes closed,” said Zen.

“We’ll see,” said Mack. He popped the CD that had recorded his part of the exercise out of the console near him and left the room, practically whistling.

Zen wheeled toward his helmet, still shaking his head. He picked it up and handed it to Jennifer Gleason, one of the computer scientists on the Flighthawk project. Gleason smiled at him, pushing a strand of her long, brownish-blond hair back behind her ear. The computer screens bathed her face and neck an almost golden yellow; she looked like a nymph emerging from bed. A genius nymph—Dr. Gleason was among the world’s leading authorities on AI circuitry and intelligence chips—but a nymph nonetheless.

Madrone stared at the curve of her two breasts in the slightly oversized black T-shirt she wore. Lowering his eyes to her hips, he watched them sway slightly while their owner went over some of the details of the encounter with Jeff. Madrone turned back to his station, pretending to sort through his papers, pretending not to be driven to sense-crushing distraction by an expert on gallium arsenic chips.

“We’re seeing you tonight, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Madrone said, still distracted.

“You okay, Kevin?” Zen asked.

“I’m fine. Have to, uh, sort all this out, you know.”

“Yeah. Listen, don’t worry about the holes in the simulation program. Jennifer will work them out. Nail’s bleeding,” Zen added, smiling. “Bad habit.”

Madrone nodded sheepishly. Stockard gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled himself back a foot or so. The others had left the control area, but Zen still made a show of looking around, a car thief checking if the coast were clear. “Listen, I have to give you a heads-up on tonight. Bree’s playing matchmaker.” Zen rolled his eyes and shrugged apologetically. “You know how it goes.”

Madrone suddenly had a vision of Jennifer Gleason sitting on the Stockards’ couch in a short, wispy skirt, breasts loose beneath a silk white polo shirt.

“Abby Miller,” added Jeff.

The vision evaporated.

“I’m sorry, Zen. What’d you say?” asked Madrone.

“Abby Miller. She’s a civilian. She works over at Nellis in the public affairs office. I think she used to be a reporter or worked for a magazine or something. I’m not exactly sure how Bree first met her. You know Rap—she knows just about everybody. Uh, nice personality.”

Madrone folded his thumb beneath his other fingers, holding his fist close to his side. “If Breanna likes her, she’s okay,” he said.

“That’s the spirit.” Zen gave him another sardonic grin, then began wheeling away. “Seven P.M. sharp. Bree’ll have dinner timed out to the half second. Bring the wine.”

Madrone suddenly felt real fear. “Wine? What kind?”

But Zen was halfway out the door and didn’t respond.

Aboard Raven

9 January, 1415

NOWHERE IS IT WRITTEN THAT POINTY-NOSE FIGHTER jocks are better than all other pilots. No military regulation declares that just because a man—or woman—regularly subjects himself to eight or nine negative g’s and hurtles his body through the air at several times the speed of sound is he—or she—better than those who proceed in a more considered fashion. Not one sheet in the mountains of official Air Force paperwork covering piloting and flying in general includes the words “Teen-jet jocks are superior to all others.”

But every go-fast zippersuit who ever strapped a brain bucket on his head believes it is true. He—or she—did not get to fly the world’s most advanced warbirds by being merely good. Personal preferences and luck aside, front-line fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force are the best of the best. And most would have no problem telling you that.

Lieutenant Colonel Bastian was, more than anything else, a front-line fighter jock. It did not matter that his last mission in combat had been more than five years ago during the Gulf War. Nor did it matter that that mission was actually in a bomber—the F-15E Strike Eagle, at the time one of the newest swords in the weapons trove. It did not even matter that his present post as a commander—a ground commander—was several hundred times more important than anything he had done during the war.

What mattered was that he was a fighter pilot. Dog thought like a fighter pilot. He talked like a fighter pilot. He walked—some might say swaggered—like a fighter pilot. One who had seen combat. One who had big hours in F-16’s as well as F-15’s. A fighter pilot who had flown F-4’s, F-111’s, and even an A-10A once or twice. A fighter pilot who had taken the stick of an F-117 and a turn in an F-22 demonstrator. In short, a zippersuit who could fly and had flown anything the Air Force had to offer, and had done it very well.

Except for today, when he was sitting at the helm of an antiquated, out-of-date, obsolete, lumbering, slow-as-a-cow-going-backward BUFF. A plane as old as he was, and twenty times as creaky.

Actually, if it had been simply a B-52, Dog might not have felt as bad. The Stratofortress’s vintage controls took a hell of a lot of getting used to. Levers and knobs stuck out at all angles, the dash looked like the display case in a clock shop, and there was no way to get comfortable in the seat until a dozen hard landings form-fitted your butt. But the B-52 he was flying had been rebuilt from the fuel tanks outward as an EB-52. Rebuilt and reskinned, reengined and recontrolled, the Megafortress retained the soul of the old machine—the most capable and durable bomber of the Cold War era. But she flexed twenty-first-century muscles. It was like having the wisdom and experience of a sixty-five-year-old—and the muscles and reflexes of a twenty-one-year-old young buck.

As Breanna somewhat gushingly put it after they landed.

“I can do without the metaphors, thank you, Captain Stockard,” snapped Dog, unhooking himself from the seat restraints.

Or rather, trying to unhook himself. Damn, he couldn’t even undo a stinking belt buckle today.

“All I’m saying, Daddy, is that Raven takes a little getting used to. It’s not your average F-16. I know that with a few more flights, you’ll be right on top of it.”

The restraint finally snapped clean. Dog unfolded himself from the seat, struggling to maintain what little was left of his dignity as he left the plane. The other crew members—he had foolishly agreed to fly with a navigator and a weapons officer—wisely made their way out the ventral hatch well ahead of him.

“Daddy—”

“And another thing, Captain.” Bastian twisted at the back of the flight deck before starting downward. “Do not, under any circumstances, while we are on duty—at work—ever refer to me as Daddy, Dad, Pop, Poppy, Father, Papa, or anything in that vein. Got it?”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

The Megafortress’s stealthy carbon-resin skin was specially treated to withstand high temperatures. The runway apron, however, seemed to melt as Dog stalked from the plane, which was being refueled for a flight by another crew. He headed toward the ramp to the Megafortress’s subterranean hangar, where a state-of-the-art simulator waited to replay his flying mistakes in bold colors.

A black Jimmy SUV with a row of flashing blue lights whipped off the access ramp to his right, speeding toward him. Dog stopped, thankful for the interruption, even if the flashing lights boded a problem. The Jimmy belonged to his head of base security, Captain Danny Freah. Danny was loath to use the blue lights—he claimed they made the truck look like it was leading a fire department parade—so something serious must be up.