“Cascade?”

“My personal representative. Unofficially, of course. His assignment is to observe the routine training procedures, familiarizing himself with them.”

“But the President was angry. And he certainly didn’t authorize—”

“Keep that in mind,” she said sternly. “And forget about the election, okay?”

She glanced at her watch. “Your flight leaves from Andrews in a half hour. If you hustle, you may be able to hitch a ride on Marine One with the President’s wife.”

“The President’s wife?”

“Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t make the flight,” added O’Day, “even though she’s the only one on the passenger list. Probably just as well. She would definitely want you to change that tie. Good God, Jed. We have to go shopping when you get back.”

Dreamland

21 October, 0700 local

ORDINARILY, COLONEL BASTIAN DIDN’T HAVE MUCH USE for donuts, especially the crème-covered, choke-your-arteries kind. But Ax had insisted that they were mandatory morale boosters for early morning staff meetings, especially when the people gathering were going to hear things they didn’t like hearing. And so he’d let the sergeant go ahead and bring the damn things to the conference room, along with the coffee tankers and an oversupply of semi-hard bagels. It was a good thing too—they’d been going at this now for nearly an hour without letup.

Long enough for Dog to concede, if only to himself, that the donuts weren’t that bad an idea.

“Colonel, I’ve gone over the numbers at least ten times with the contractors,” pleaded Major Cheshire. “There’s just no way we can sustain the EB-52 project with this little money. The flight-computer system for the three new planes alone will cost ten million dollars.”

“There’s got to be a way,” said Bastian. “The budget committee is reluctant even to grant that much.”

“What’s another ten million to them?” groused Rubeo. “They probably spend more than that on lunch.”

“Each computer has to be designed specifically for the individual plane,” explained Cheshire. “The gallium-arsenic chips that control flight functions are made by the NSA plant, which sets the price. That’s where the expense comes in. It’s absurd, I know, but they’re padding their own budget.”

“Then do it another way,” said Bastian. “Can’t you use off-the-shelf parts?”

Cheshire shook her head.

“Can we make the chips ourselves?” he asked.

“Not without a fab,” said Rubeo, “which will cost billions. Colonel, you can’t nickel and dime Dreamland. It won’t work.”

“I wouldn’t call ten million dollars nickels and dimes,” said Bastian. “That’s a hell of a lot of money.”

“Colonel, wouldn’t it make more sense to tell the Congressmen these are the weapons systems that we need?” asked Cheshire.

Bastian sighed. She was right. On the other hand, that wasn’t the way this was going to work. The Air Force and DOD had already done that.

And under their scenario, Dreamland hadn’t made the cut.

O’Day wanted program figures and a new base budget so she could reinstate HAWC on a black line, with help from her Congressional allies. If Bastian had had more leverage—if he’d been a three-star general instead of a lowly lieutenant colonel—he’d be able to fight on a few other fronts and maybe get Dreamland back in the big game. But he simply didn’t have enough weight to counteract the generals who wanted Dreamland closed down because of the Ken James affair; O’Day’s strategy was the only play.

“Look, I’m recommending we proceed with the Mega-fortress program, which calls for developmental trials of several models,” Bastian told them. “But realistically, the only portion of the program that we can count on will be the tanker, because of JSF.”

“That’s the project that should be discontinued,” said Rubeo.

“Well, Professor,” Dog said, “if you want to call your local Congressman and tell him that, be my guest.”

“One Megafortress could do the job of four JSFs,” said Cheshire.

“Can it land on an aircraft carrier?” Bastian said.

“It wouldn’t have to. Its unrefueled range—”

“Look, I’m not going to argue about the JSF design. I agree with everything that’s been said. But I have to deal with reality.” Dog pushed himself back in his chair. “Now let’s get back to our agenda.”

ZEN TURNED THE CORNER INTO THE FLIGHTHAWK ground-level hangar so sharply he practically ran down Jennifer Gleason, who was making some adjustments to the on-board computer in the Hawk Two. She was bending over the front of the aircraft, her back to him; he found himself gazing at the soft, perfect curve of her hips.

“Hey, Zen,” she said, still bent over the U/MF-3. His chariot made it impossible to arrive anywhere incognito.

“Hey, yourself,” he said.

“Back from the colonel’s meeting so soon?”

“I sent Mike,” he told her.

“Poor Mike.”

“Yeah.” Mike Janlock, the resident BMI resins and airfoil-design specialist, was the senior scientist on the Flighthawk project and had been in charge of it before Bastian’s reorganization. Even if Zen hadn’t begged out of the colonel’s budget session because of the morning’s test flight, he probably would have asked Janlock to go along in his place. Jeff didn’t want to spend the time ducking the pitying glances everyone else would be throwing toward him. Besides, word was Bastian had already made his final decision on the Flighthawks—they weren’t making the cut. No amount of meetings or reports or well-reasoned arguments or even pity would change his mind about “robot” planes.

“Well, we’re not closed down yet,” said Gleason. “No, not yet.” Jeff grabbed the wheels of his chair. “You’re blowing off the preflight briefing?”

“No, sir,” said the young computer scientist. She glanced back at him. “We had the discrete-burst module reengineered last night, and I’m getting it in place. I’m almost finished.”

“You did it again?”

“The last one failed the shock test after you, uh, went home.”

“You should have called me.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, we did.”

“I was over in the visiting officers’ hall. I didn’t feel like going all the way out to Ewen,” he added lamely.

“Anyway, I’m just about done. Everybody else is inside.” Jennifer smiled at him, then went back to whatever it was she was doing. She’d tucked her long hair up under a white smock cap; a single strand draped down across her neck, hanging down over her shoulder. Her breasts pushed against her lab coat as she leaned into the machine; he could see the outline of her nipple against the fabric.

Stop, he warned himself, rolling forward to the small room they used to brief their missions.

Everyone was there—including Breanna, who was sitting at the far end of the table talking to Lee Ong. Ong was responsible for the Flighthawks’ physical systems and acted as the “mission boss,” coordinating the many details involved in the airborne tests.

So why was Bree here?

“Good morning,” said Zen, wheeling himself toward the front of the room. “Jennifer should be in shortly.”

He glanced around the room, carefully avoiding Breanna’s gaze. “Where’s Bobby?” he asked, referring to the usual pilot of the E-3 mother ship.

“Captain Fernandez has the flu,” said Breanna. “So does Kathy. I volunteered to fly Boeing in their place.” Zen snapped his head toward her.

“You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” she said defensively. “Pete Brinks is coming over to copilot.”

“No, of course not, Captain,” he said. He turned to the others. “Captain Stockard flew Rivet intercept flights in RC-135’s when she was a teenager,” he told them. “Maybe she’ll entertain us with stories about eavesdropping on Russian air defenses if things get boring.”

“Maybe I’ll just roll Boeing through an invert if things get boring,” she said.

Zen felt his face starting to flush as the others laughed. He turned the floor over to Ong, then rolled along the far side of the room toward the coffeepot at the back. Coffee was one of the things he’d all but given up since the accident, but he didn’t want to sit out at the front where Breanna could stare at him.