“Okay,” said Bastian. “Let’s find out.”

“Even though Fort Two and the others have been cleared for operations, we’re not one hundred percent sure the voltage spikes were due to the Army tests,” said Jennifer Gleason, one of the computer scientists. Her main assignment was the Flighthawks, but she had also had a hand in designing the advanced flight-computer components Fort Two was testing. “There are at least three other possibilities. We really ought to work through the test regimes to make sure.”

“I’m confident that was the problem,” said Cheshire. “And with the shielding and the backups, I think we’re fine. Fort Two is due for a check ride this afternoon.”

Bastian glanced at his watch. It was a little past ten o’clock. “I need to know by 1800. Doable?”

“Absolutely, sir,” said Cheshire. “Rap should be getting suited up as we speak.” She turned to Gleason. “We can run through some of your tests—all of them—at the same time.”

Gleason nodded—clearly reluctant, but nonetheless in agreement.

“So this our first choice,” said Bastian. “Choice number two, I take it, would be to study the C-17.”

“Not our project,” hissed Rubeo. The implication was clear—a C-17 tanker wouldn’t help keep Dreamland alive.

“Yes, well, there’s nothing we can do about that,” said Dog. “Anyone has any other ideas, let me know ASAP. In the meantime, let’s get this done.”

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, KNIFE SAT IN THE HANGAR where the conference had been, staring down from the F-119 cockpit. He was waiting for the security officer to green-light the plane from the hangar. A Russian optical satellite was just completing its overhead tour. The satellite was an old Kronos model incapable of resolutions greater than a meter in diameter, but Dreamland’s operating protocols strictly prohibited the F-119 from being on the runway while it was overhead.

Ordinarily, Smith would be more than a little impatient to get going. But this afternoon he was feeling almost a little nostalgic. He’d gotten word just before suiting up that he was to expedite reporting to Wing A; an Air Force transport due to take off from Nellis at ten that evening was holding a seat. So this would be his last flight at Dreamland, as well as in the F-119.

The Congressional committee’s decision on the F-119 didn’t particularly surprise him; the project’s various contractors had plants in over 150 Congressional districts, which added up to a hell of a lot of muscle, if not brains. That was the way appropriations went these days.

Smith had decided he was in a no-lose position on the JSF. If the program continued and the F-119 was finally cleared as a production model, his resume would note that he had helped develop it. If it was killed as an ill-conceived project—which, in his opinion, it was—he could point to the fact that he had seen this and gotten out. His final reports on the project would be worded so vaguely that they could be used to support either scenario. In the meantime, he’d be doing some real flying, and probably—though admittedly not definitely—adding good notes to his career folder.

He was learning this political game well.

The lieutenant at the front of the hangar said something into his walkie-talkie, then gave the up-and-at-’em wave to the crew. The tractor sitting in front of the F-119 cranked her engine; Knife let off the brakes and he began to roll out onto the tarmac. The fighter’s engines had to be started from an external power cart or “puffer.” Three crewmen had the cart in place almost as soon as the plane and its tow truck stopped in front of the hangar. They moved quickly; the crew chief pumped his arm in the air and, bam, Knife had his engines up and running.

Mack ran through his instrument checks, working swiftly with the no-nonsense rhythm he’d perfected during his days flying combat air patrol in the Gulf. With the systems at Dash-One spec, he asked for and received clearance from the tower. He tapped the top of his helmet for good luck—a necessary part of his preflight ritual—then began trundling toward Lakebed Runway 34. A black Hummer and a Jimmy, both with blue security lights and yellow “Follow Me” signs, led the way. Off to the east a temporary aboveground control tower and observation deck had been erected to monitor the flight.

Knife narrowed his attention to the small bubble around him as the vehicles peeled off. He pushed the F-119 to its mark, setting his brakes for one last systems check before takeoff. The right panel of his trio of multi-use displays was entirely given over to flight details. His eyes scanned the graphical readouts deliberately. Satisfied, he turned his eyes toward the left MUD, where he had the GPS system selected. The enhanced God’s-eye-view screen rendered his plane as a blue dot on the color-coded terrain—in this case a brownish topo map overlaid by a gray rectangle signifying the limits of the test range. Groom Mountain’s seven-thousand-foot-high peak lurked at the far end, drawn in sharp black lines. Smith shifted his thumb on the Hostas stick, adding radar input to the display; the shading changed to indicate that it was working, though it couldn’t properly paint anything until he was over four hundred feet above ground, and couldn’t really be trusted until about eight or nine hundred.

Something for the engineers to work on.

Ready, Knife thought. His left hand moved the throttle to maximum military power. The plane trembled as the turbines spooled, the brakes straining.

Temp, RPM, pressures perfect. Good to go. He backed to idle, took another breath, gave himself another good-luck pat.

Not that he needed it, of course.

“Tower, Playboy One, I’m ready for one last fling,” he said.

“Playboy One,” acknowledged the controller stiffly.

Knife released the brakes and spooled takeoff power, his mount rumbling forward.

BREANNA BANKED NORTHWARD, HEADING TOWARD Range F where the rendezvous was supposed to take place. The check flight and tests had gone well, but she could feel her stomach pinching her as they got ready for the rendezvous.

Maybe it was just the ham sandwich she’d managed while they orbited out of the Russian satellite’s view, waiting for Smith and the F-119 to take off. Mustard always gave her indigestion. Everyone else was raving about her father’s decision to spread the expertise of the executive chef among all of the base’s cafeterias, but in her opinion the food at Dreamland still rated among the worst in the world.

“Optimum, optimum, optimum,” sang her copilot as he ran through his check of the flight systems. Two of Dreamland’s top techies were performing similar checks in the former radar and navigation suite below. The weapons bay was unoccupied, except by the computers.

Sitting behind Breanna and Chris on the flight deck was Major Cheshire, who was overseeing the refueling exercise. The Megafortress’s synthetic bird’s-eye view, created from radar inputs, was projected on one of her monitors. Another carried the input from a video cam installed at the rear of the plane, roughly where a refueling boom would be. With her corn unit set to Playboy’s frequency, Cheshire would pretend to be a boomer, talking the attack plane in for a tank. It was ad hoc, of course—there was no boom, and Major Smith had no lights to guide him under Fort Two’s belly. But they just needed a rough approximation to make sure the concept was sound.

Breanna reached Range F at twenty thousand feet, precisely as planned for the first track. It bothered the hell out of her that the world’s most versatile bomber might only survive as a milk cow. But as Cheshire had said when she explained the mission, better a live cow than a dead dream.

“We’re ready any time you are, Major,” she told her boss.

KNIFE STOMPED THE RUDDER PEDAL IN A LAST, desperate effort to close in to the target cone below Fort Two. His right wing pulled up, propelled by a nasty eddy of air from the Megafortress’s fuselage. He steadied it for a second, then felt the plane starting to lose speed and got a stall warning.