An argument could be made to close the base. The spy scandal aside, in many ways HAWC belonged to an earlier era. Bastian realized that the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War meant that big-ticket development projects with almost unlimited budgets were a thing of the past. Without the constant threat of a high-tech arms race, Congress would be loath to approve the immense “black” budget lines that had funded Dreamland.

But on the other hand, the end of the Cold War didn’t remove the threats to national security; it just changed what they were. In Bastian’s opinion—and in the opinion of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the President, as far as he could tell—cuttingedge technology would be even more important in fighting the sort of brushfire wars and terrorist actions America would face in the twenty-first century. With the future so unpredictably fluid and budget constraints the order of the day, high-tech weapons were going to be a critical force-multiplier. Delta Force was the model of the twenty-first-century Army—a highly trained, extremely mobile group ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The Air Force needed an equivalent. And it needed to multiply its limited resources with the country’s top asset—brainpower. That would be Dreamland’s role, providing cutting-edge technology to deal with a myriad of next-generation crises.

Bastian had written a briefing paper to that effect while working for the NSC under President Bush after the Gulf War. While it had gone largely unnoticed in the Administration at the time, it had attracted the attention of Deborah O’Day, a policy wonk and university professor doing consulting work for the NSC back then. O’Day had struck up a friendship with Bastian, even having him in to talk to her classes at George Washington University. Her appointment as National Security Advisor by President Lloyd Taylor had surprised a lot of people outside the government, but not Bastian, who realized she was as sharp as anyone in D.C.

Technically, Bastian was a long way down the chain of command from O’Day. But he’d worked for her in D.C. and she had personally pulled the strings to get him here.

“Assuming your phone call with Ms. O’Day is only its normal marathon length,” said Ax, “we can do this today like you wanted. You start seeing your section commanders, one by one, at 0800. Fifteen minutes a pop, that gets you to 1145, with a thirty-minute time-out for Ms. O’Day. Lunch at your desk. Senior scientists, two minutes apiece, you’ll be done by one.”

Dog looked up from his papers. “Two minutes?”

“Just checking to see if you were awake,” said the sergeant. “Fifteen minutes for the eggheads, like everybody else. Brings you to 1545, or maybe 1630. I can’t quite figure out their damn organization chart.”

“That will be fixed by tomorrow,” said Dog. “Each project gets a specific commander, with staff attached. Line officers in charge. This is a working squadron.”

Bastian hadn’t worked out all of the details yet, but his idea was relatively simple and followed the plan he had outlined years before. You got the technology onto the front lines by using it right away. The best way to do that was to slim down your organization. The people who had to use the weapons would be the people running the show.

“I’ll have the paperwork in two batches for you this morning,” said Ax. “Usual routine. And seriously, there are two guys I’d like to bring in to fill out the staff.”

“There’s a personnel freeze,” Dog reminded him.

“Oh, that’s no problem.” Ax grinned. He glanced down at the desk. “You want a piece of unsolicited advice, Colonel?”

“No.”

“I’d eighty-six this fancy desk and the bookshelves and the paintings, the whole bit. I mean, if you were a three-star like the last commander, it would be austere. Hell, simple even. But some Congressman comes wandering in here, he’s going to wonder why your office is fancier than his.”

“No Congressman’s wandering around Dreamland,” said Dog. “But thanks for the advice.”

“Anytime, Colonel. It’s free.”

“And worth every cent.”

SMITH PUNCHED THE TWO-PLACE F-15E NEARLY straight up, letting the big warbird feel her oats. The Pratt & Whitneys unleashed nearly sixty thousand pounds of thrust, easily overpowering gravity.

“Eeeeyow ! ! ! !” shouted the major’s backseat rider, a young staff sergeant selected from the engine maintenance shop. His yell of enthusiasm was so loud Smith had to knock the volume down on the plane’s interphone circuit.

At five thousand feet, Knife sliced the plane’s right wing in a sharp semicircle, leveling off in an invert that had the sergeant squealing with delight.

“Hot shit! Hot shit!” said the man as Smith brought the Strike Eagle right-side-up. His next comments were lost as Knife pulled a six-g bank and roll, literally spinning the plane on her back before heading off in the other direction.

“I love it! I love it!” said the sergeant when he got his breath back.

Knife grinned in spite of himself. He loved it too. The F-15E was designated as a strike aircraft, a bomber. But she had been developed from the basic F-15 Eagle design, and was still an Eagle at heart—a balls-out hard rocker that could load g’s on her wings like feathers and accelerate as easily as a bird hummed a tune.

Rolling through a fresh invert at near-supersonic speed, Knife realized he’d been on the damn F-119 project so long he’d almost forgotten that flying was supposed to be fun. This was why he’d joined the Air Force.

Two weeks before, Major Smith had been offered a slot in a provisional unit known only as Wing A. The details about its mission were sketchy—according to a friend who was helping put it together, it was going to be a blood-and-guts quick-response unit, a kind of Air Force equivalent of Delta Force. Smith would be Director of Operations for a four-plane F-16 sub-squadron connected with a black operation called Madcap Magician. It had been a while since he’d flown F-16’s, but all in all it sounded promising. When he checked it out through the back channels, however, he got mixed responses. One general whom he trusted a great deal thought it would be an A-1 career ticket to the upper ranks. Another said it was Hot Dog Heaven, a sure way to be shunted off the fast track into a career culvert.

But damn—it was a real live flying gig, and if it was like Delta Force, he’d at least be where the action was. Besides, it seemed obvious that Dreamland was about to be flushed. The previous commander was a three-star general; no way they were going to put a lieutenant colonel in charge if they were intending on keeping HAWC up and running.

And what a colonel. If last night’s self-important rant was any indication, Colonel Bastian—aka “God,” as everyone in the Gulf had called the one-time hotshot pilot turned Centcom strategic planner—had succumbed to serious delusions of grandeur. Knife was willing to concede that Bastian was an okay pilot and a reasonably good thinker; he knew that Dog had helped set up some good mission schemes while working with Black Hole, the central planning unit that ran the Gulf Air War out of a bunker in Riyadh. Bastian had also briefly served as a wing commander in action after the war, again supposedly doing a good job. But Dog’s ego had obviously gotten the better of him since.

Knife had been ninety percent sure he would take the new gig when he slipped into the Eagle this morning. Now he was committed. Good riddance, Dreamland. Good riddance, F-119, chariot of slugs.

Knife yanked the Eagle into another hard turn, leveled off, then reached for the throttle to see if the afterburners would work this early in the morning.

They did. His backseater let out a yelp as the plane threw off her shackles and started to move. The plane bucked for a moment, then seemed to tuck her wings back, sailing through the sky as if she were a schooner gliding across a glass-smooth lake.