Текст книги "Razor's Edge"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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for the link to Dreamland. The problem was in the satellite system, which was brand new. The scientists back home had it isolated and hoped to have it fully operational soon.

The Megafortresses were parked only a few feet away– Raven with its wingtip half apart. To Danny’s mind, it wasn’t the most secure setup; the planes were out in the open and bunched together, very vulnerable to a mortar attack. On the other hand, it would take an extremely dedicated fanatic to approach the base. His men had established an IR and ground radar picket around the slopes; a chipmunk couldn’t get within three hundred yards without them knowing about it. And even though it twisted every which way, they had the rock-strewn dirt road covered for a good half mile in both directions.

It was more a path than a road. A donkey—or a goat—would scrape its flanks on some of the curves.

Danny itched to get in on the action south, maybe hop down and look for the pilots. If the Marines ever got here, they might be able to do that.

“Can I fire up the ’dozer and clear the rocks away?”

asked Bison.

“Yeah, go ahead—wait a second. Maybe I’ll take a shot at that.”

“Privileges of rank, huh?”

“I want to see what all the fuss is about,” said Danny.

But as he took a step toward the ’dozer he heard the drone of a propeller in the distance.

Over southeastern Turkey

2230

MACK JAMMED THE THROTTLES FOR PROBABLY THE EIGHT

hundredth time since taking off, looking for the Bronco to 142

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give him even two more knots. He told himself it was a damn good thing it was dark; if it had been daytime, he’d be able to see how slow he was going and really get frustrated. The gauge pegged 260 nautical miles per hour, but Mack doubted he was going half that fast. The altimeter showed 18,000 feet, and that he almost could believe—he had cleared a peak a short while ago by what looked like a good three inches.

Though a propeller plane, the Bronco wanted to be taken seriously. You had to wear a speed suit and strap yourself in, just like in a pointy-nose, go-fast jet. And it did respond—you could stick where you wanted it to go, by God; the sucker moved its nose and tail with good, solid jerks.

But it wasn’t an F-22 or an F-15 or even an F-16. And the damn cabin was colder than hell. General Elliott, sitting in the seat behind him, had given up his campaign to cheer him up; more than likely he’d passed out from hypothermia.

Somewhere ahead was the scratch base they were heading to, High Top. Two Megafortresses had managed to land on a strip that probably wasn’t even long enough for this plane. Typical Whiplash/Dreamland stunt, he thought. Probably patting themselves on the back.

He couldn’t get away from them, try as he might. Zen would be there, with his gorgeous wife. Merce Alou.

Danny Freah.

Odds were Jennifer Gleason would be too. Now there was a brain worth digging into. Though to be honest, Bree was more his style.

Mack checked the INS against his paper map. He’d long ago learned to rely on GPS readings that showed his location on three-dimensional maps accurate to half a centimeter. This—hell, this was just about dead reckon-

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ing, same sort of navigating Christopher Columbus used when he thought he’d discovered China.

God, was he going soft?

Bullshit on that. Mack knew right where he was. And he could fly anything—any friggin’ thing—any time, anywhere. This old workhorse was proof of it.

Slower than horseshit, though. God. Taxi would’ve been faster. Donkey cart.

So where the hell were these jokers? He knew he ought to be in their face by now.

Mack hit the UHF radio, trying to get the controller at High Top. Nothing came back.

The wind whipped up. His forward airspeed stepped lower, dropping below 250 knots.

“How we doing, Major?” asked Elliott from the back.

“Pluggin’ along, sir.”

“Handsome aircraft, isn’t it?”

Handsome?

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“A lot of grunts owe their lives to OV-10s,” said the general, renewing his pep-talk bid. “Impressive little airplane in its day.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eight-eight Delta Zeus, this is High Top base,” said a low but clear voice on the Bronco’s UHF channel. “Hey there, Wild Bronco, we have you at ten miles. You’re looking good.”

Wild Bronco?

“Delta Zeus acknowledges.” Mack did a quick check of the INS—stinker was right on the mark.

“Getting close, General,” Mack told his passenger.

“Very good, Mack. You made good time. We may turn you into a bird dog yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

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The ground controller ran down the runway’s vital statistics, emphasizing not only its relatively short run but the obstruction at the approach. The lights flicked on, and Mack was somewhat surprised—he’d expected a simple box and one, a very basic pattern often employed at scratch bases. But the CCTs had enough lights out to make a 747 pilot comfortable; they’d even managed a warning strobe on the ridge near the start of the runway.

“Looks like LAX down there,” said Mack.

“Uh, sir, we can do without the insults.”

“I was kidding,” said Mack.

“So was I. Wind has been a bitch. I’ll give you readings all along. There’s a notch in the hills that seems to am-plify it about fifty yards from the leading edge of the runway; we’ve measured it at sixty there.”

Sixty. Holy shit.

“We’re looking at only thirty knots at the moment,”

added the controller, “but God only knows if that’ll hold.

At least it stopped raining, huh, Major?”

“Delta Zeus.”

“That’s—hold on—thirty-two knots, gusting, uh, gusting to forty-five. Thirty knots.”

“Thirty knots, Delta Zeus,” acknowledged Mack. The high-winged Bronco would be buffeted by any wind, but 30 knots—let alone 45 or 60—would make things somewhat hairy on the narrow and short runway. He’d have to push his right wing down, stick and rudder himself into what amounted to an angled skid across the tarmac.

Check that, metal grid.

He came at the runway well off to the east, no flaps, expecting the winds to push him in line as they tried to tear his wing over. Mack wasn’t disappointed. As he fought the stick and left rudder, the plane touched down almost perfectly on the center line of the runway. That was about the only thing that was perfect—he went reverse pedals, RAZOR’S EDGE

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reverse engines, reverse prayers, then jammed the brakes so bad they burned, and still nearly fell off the edge of the runway. Fortunately, the wind finally died and he turned around to follow a crewman waving him toward a parking area at the extreme northeastern end of the field. He bumped over a dirt and rubble ramp, the plane jittering a bit as he found a spot next to one of the Megafortresses.

The big black plane loomed in the darkness beyond a hand-portable spotlight, a puma ready to strike.

General Elliott had his canopy open and was clambering out the side of the plane before the props stopped spinning. Mack waited for the crewman who’d flagged him in to help chock the wheels and secure the aircraft, then made his way toward some nearby tents.

“Here’s Mack,” boomed General Elliott as Mack entered the large tin can that served as Whiplash’s temporary headquarters.

“The whole gang’s here, huh?” said Mack, glancing around and nodding to Merce Alou, Breanna Stockard, Jeff, and Chris Ferris. Jennifer Gleason’s beautiful body was tucked into a loose sweater—Mack turned a 150-watt smile on her before waving to everyone else.

“Okay, so here’s my theory,” said Elliott, already well into his business here. He told them about how the planes could only have been shot down by a long-range laser, possibly guided by the SA-2 and other radars. “Mack looked at one of the planes,” added the general.

“So?” There was an edge in Jeff Stockard’s voice as he nudged his wheelchair forward from the corner where he’d been sitting. Same old Zen—he probably still blamed him for the accident that cost him his legs.

“Like the general said, only thing that could have nailed that plane was the laser,” Mack told him. “Exploded the wing, sliced it right off.”

“So why isn’t CentCom telling us this?” said Alou.

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“CentCom doesn’t completely buy the theory,” said Elliott. “They don’t think Saddam has a laser. And neither the satellites nor any of the sensor aircraft have picked it up.”

“If it’s as potent as Razor,” said Zen, “it’ll have at least a three hundred mile radius. It could be well south of the shoot-downs.”

“Absolutely,” said Elliott.

Zen pulled the map of Iraq off the table into his lap and began plotting the shoot-downs. He drew a rough semicircle about three hundred miles south of them. The swath included Baghdad as well as more northern cities like Kirkuk and Al Mawsil.

“If they set things up right, they could theoretically feed coordinates from any of the radars they have to direct the laser into the vicinity of the aircraft,” said Elliott.

“Then they could turn on a fire-director radar quickly, and fire as soon as they locked, which could be within seconds.”

“They wouldn’t need radar to get the general location,”

said Mack. “A standard air traffic job in Kirkuk would give them enough of a lead. They could even use an IR

sensor to lock on the target.”

“They could use the laser itself to find the target,” said Jennifer. “We used a similar technique when we were studying optical solutions for the C3 communications systems. They might also be able to overcome targeting limitations by shooting through a calculated grid after they get a contact. Say they have a target down to a cer-tainty of three hundred meters, following a certain vector.

You fill the box with as many pulses as you can cycle.

You could increase the number of shots by trading off some—”

“However they’re doing it, the laser has to be located and destroyed,” said Zen.

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“I don’t know,” said Alou. “If CentCom doesn’t think it’s possible—”

“The Iraqis nearly built a nuclear bomb. This would be child’s play compared to that,” said Bree.

“Not exactly,” said Elliott. “But still doable.”

“Hey, the hell with CentCom. They’re relying on the CIA,” said Mack. “They have an arrogant attitude that’s blinding them to reality.”

Zen laughed.

“What?” said Mack.

“Jennifer, how do we detect the laser?” asked Zen.

“Can we detect the deuterium?” asked Mack.

The computer scientist shrugged. “Not my area. Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron in its nucleus. I doubt it would be easy to detect. We’d have better luck looking for the energy discharge. It would be in the IR spectrum, intense but extremely brief. A sensor looking for a missile launch might be able to detect it theoretically, but the computer code would probably kick it out because it was so brief.”

“There are no launch detection satellites configured for Iraq,” said Elliott. “What do we have that we can use?”

“Our gear on Quicksilver? Hmmm.” The scientist twirled her hair around her finger as she worked out the problem. “Quicksilver’s IR launch detector is fairly sensitive, though I’m not sure about the range or the spectrum.

C3 takes selective data from it, so obviously the software can be screened—I have to think about it. I might be able to work it. I have to talk to Ray Rubeo.”

“Secure connection with Dreamland is still pending,”

said Alou. “Lieutenant Post told me it’ll be at least an hour more.”

“Where’s Garcia?” asked Breanna. “He might know something about the sensors.”

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“He went with Hall to look after Mack’s airplane,” said Alou.

“Not just any airplane. An OV-10D Bronco,” said a loud voice from outside. “Talk about your house down the road.”

Mack turned as a short, somewhat squat technical type breezed into the trailer, shoulders bouncing as if he were listening to a Walkman. Garcia snapped to attention as he caught sight of Brad Elliott.

“General!”

“How are you, son?”

“Fine, sir. Thank you for remembering me, sir.”

“Oh, I remember you quite well,” said Elliott. “You spent twenty minutes in my office one afternoon explaining why Blood on the Tracks is mankind’s greatest artistic achievement.”

“It is, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The others cracked up. Mack wondered how they could all be so damn cheerful. Even with the heaters going full blast, it had to be under thirty degrees in there.

“That Bronco out there is in great shape,” said Garcia.

“Pretty plane. I cut my teeth on those suckers.”

“What do you know about the launch sensor in Quicksilver?” Alou asked.

Garcia shrugged. “Spanish leather. Why? Need to be calibrated?”

“You think you could alter it to pick up a laser flash?”

“Light’s a flashin’?” The techie turned back toward Elliott. “That’s actually the Who, sir. It just came to me.”

“I thought so. What about the sensor?”

“Have to study it a bit. You know, I can get at least twenty percent more power out of those Garret engines on the Broncos. See, they put better—”

“Let’s concentrate on the launch sensor for now,” said Alou. “Dr. Gleason will help you. Everybody else, try RAZOR’S EDGE

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and get some sleep. We’re supposed to be off the pavement at 0530, and word is the Whiplash boys brought a very limited supply of coffee.”

High Top

2350

POWDER TOOK ANOTHER SIP OF WATER AND RUBBED HIS

eyes. Five small television screens were arrayed in front of him, showing the infrared scans from the devices Whiplash had arrayed on the slopes. The Dreamland-designed units could pick up a dead mouse at three-quarters of a mile; Powder suspected that with a little tweaking they could see mosquitoes. By contrast, a

“stock” AN/PAS-7 thermal viewer would have trouble seeing a cold Jeep at that distance. A small computer the size of a briefcase monitored the images for any sudden change, a kind of computerized watchdog.

The gear made it too easy, Powder thought. He stared at it and stared at it, and he felt himself nodding off.

“Hey,” said Liu, sneaking up behind him.

“My M-4’s loaded, Nurse,” he growled.

“Falling asleep, huh?”

“I hate guard duty.”

“Yeah.”

“General Elliott just landed with Major Smith.”

“No shit. The old dog himself?”

“Yup.”

“We oughta go say hello. Think he’ll remember us?”

“Might be better he didn’t,” suggested Liu.

“Nah. I wasn’t driving that truck.”

“You were in the truck.”

“True.” Powder paused to reflect. “Wasn’t that much damage to his car.”

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“Insurance companies declare year-old cars total losses all the time,” said Nurse. “Even if they’ve just been scratched.”

“It’s a tax thing,” said Powder.

A low beep sounded from the audio alert. The two men turned to the IR screens. A shadow had stumbled into the far corner of the second screen, near the far bend on the dirt trail southwest of base.

“Uh-oh.” Powder picked up his M-4/W, a short-barreled version of Colt’s M-16 with a 204 grenade launcher and a special laser sight that could transmit target data directly to his smart helmet, displaying it on the visor. “Get the guys.”

While Liu trotted over to alert the others, Powder watched the figures scoping the hill. There were two native types, bundled in bulky clothes that concealed their weapons.

“Scouts,” Powder told Liu when he returned out of breath. He’d put on his smart helmet and Velcroed his bulletproof vest. “Probably saw the lights and came to check it out. Nobody on the screens and the radar’s clear.”

“Okay.” Liu pointed to one of the ground-radar screens, which covered part but not all of the western approach. “Send somebody to cover me,” he said, starting down the slope.

Powder slipped on his combat helmet and adjusted his throat mike, listening to Liu’s deep breaths while staring at the IR screen.

“What’s up?” asked Bison, coming on a dead run.

“Sshhh!” Powder motioned him to the gear. “Number two. Cover us.”

“Powder! Yo—”

Bison obviously didn’t want to be left out of the party, but that was tough nuggies as far as Powder was concerned. He trotted to the north side of the hill, opposite RAZOR’S EDGE

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from the angle Liu was taking. He had a little trouble with the rocks, climbing across a sheer cliff for about fifteen feet and losing his sense of direction momentarily. But the starlight mode of the smart helmet projected a compass heading at the bottom right-hand corner, along with GPS readings; he got himself straightened out and then began picking his way down toward the trail. He had the path in sight and his M-4 ready when Liu hissed that their subjects had stopped.

“You’re about fifty yards above them,” said Bison, watching from the sentry post. “It’s just two. They may be setting up weapons.”

“If it’s a fucking mortar, we better hit ’em quick,” said Powder. He loaded a grenade into his launcher but moved his finger back to the rifle trigger. “Go for it, Nurse!” He jumped forward, balancing himself with his gun and yelling a war hoop. He nearly tripped as his feet hit the rutted but clear path. Liu shouted something and Powder saw a blur of images in his visor screen, everything blurring. He pointed the nose of his gun upward, crosshairs bouncing as he ran.

He saw three figures, Liu to the right—marked by a fluorescent “good guy” triangle transmitted by the smart helmet—and two to the left, one lurching toward him.

“Get down! Get down!” yelled Powder, sliding to his knee to steady his aim, cursing himself that he’d left his buddy vulnerable, cursing himself for getting Nurse killed.

“Wait! Wait!” yelled Liu. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

The figure closest to Liu slid backward then collapsed to the ground. Liu dropped down beside him.

Her. It was a woman.

A pregnant woman.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Bison.

“Yo—Nurse, Powder. We got you covered!” shouted 152

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Hernandez. His voice was so loud Powder thought his eardrums would break.

“She’s pregnant, real pregnant,” said Liu. “Somebody get me a medical kit! Fast. Real, real fast.”

Powder put his weapon on safety as he walked forward. A thin, worried-looking man stood to the side of Liu and the woman, gesticulating wildly. He held his hands out at Powder and started talking a mile a minute.

“Yeah, listen, I don’t speak what you speak, but I’m on the same wavelength,” Powder told him. “My man Liu’s gonna help. He’s the best.” He pushed his visor up. Even in the darkness the poor husband looked scared shitless.

“Hey, this is a natural thing, right?” he said to the man.

“Happens every day.”

The woman on the ground moaned loudly.

“Where the hell is that medical kit!” yelled Powder.

“Hernandez! Bison! Come on! Get on the ball here!”

Hernandez came down the path in a dead run. “What’s the story?”

“Pregnant lady. See if Liu needs help while I check the road.”

“No way. You help Liu, I’ll check the road.” Bison raced down the hill before Powder could stop him.

“Wimp,” he said.

“Wimp yourself,” said Liu over the com set.

“How we doing, Nurse?” asked Powder, walking over to his partner.

The answer came from the woman on the ground, who screamed louder than an air raid siren. Liu reached down and cleared her feet apart, exposing everything to the air.

Nurse had his armored vest, helmet, and other gear off, his sleeves rolled. His hands moved gently across the woman’s stomach. As Nurse put his ear down toward her belly, the woman screamed again.

“Jesus,” said Powder. “Can we move her?”

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“Too late for that,” said Nurse. “Come here and hold her legs.”

“What?”

“Now!”

Powder took a tentative step forward, but as he started to crouch down, the woman screamed again—and this time even louder.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Powder, jumping back.

“Shut the hell up, Powder,” said Captain Freah, walking down the hill. “Nurse, you got a handle on this?”

“Baby’s turned around, Captain. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“What are you saying?”

“Breech birth. Kid’s backward. Supposed to come head first.”

“You sure?”

Nurse didn’t answer. “I need that medical kit, ASAP.

And towels.”

“Should we boil water or something?” asked Powder.

“You did take medical training, right?” asked Liu.

“You are a certified paramedic, right?”

“Man, I do not remember anything on birth. No birth.

Nope. Not once.”

“How close is she?” asked Captain Freah.

“If the kid wasn’t turned around, I’d say she’d be ready any second,” said Liu. “The contractions are two minutes apart. Here’s the thing—”

The woman screamed again. Her husband dug his nails into Powder’s arm. The sergeant tried to reassure him, though it was hard to tell if this had any effect.

“Go ahead,” Danny told Liu.

“Captain, this is what they invented C-sections for.”

“What do you mean? You have to cut her open?”

“No way, not here, not me. That’ll kill her for sure.”

“Call for evac?”

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“No time. This kid is coming out now, butt first, or they’re both dying. It’s a squirmy little SOB; gotta be a boy. It’s tiny, so maybe he’ll slide out if she’s strong enough to push. I need to keep the kid warm, very warm, so it doesn’t breathe inside the mother until it’s out.

Shit—I’ve only heard about this, I’ve never seen it done.”

“If we don’t do anything, she’ll die anyway,” said Freah. His voice was calm, almost cold. He took off his vest and then pulled off his shirt and gave it to Liu. “Get some of the chemical hand warmers down here, blankets, everything we got to generate heat,” he said into his com set.

Within ten minutes the Whiplash team had a small tent erected around the woman. A portable kerosene heater had been hauled down from one of the tents above; sweat flowed freely. As the woman’s screams grew more desperate, Freah suggested they give the woman morphine, but Liu said that would affect the baby. Besides, he needed her conscious to help push.

All of a sudden, Powder realized the woman had stopped screaming. He looked down at her; she had closed her eyes.

“Liu! Did she die?”

“Transition,” said Liu, who was stripped to the waist.

He had his hands over a soft shirt and blanket between the woman’s legs. “Her body’s taking a rest before the real work. What I’m thinking is, when she’s ready to push, we stand her up.”

“Stand her up?” asked Freah.

“Yeah. Gravity’ll help.”

The woman moaned.

“Already?” Liu said, looking at her. He doubted if she understood a word of English, but she nodded anyway.

“Okay. Powder, Captain, an arm apiece. Hernandez, you hold her behind.”

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“God,” said Freah.

“We got to try,” said Liu. “I know it’s a long shot.”

“Screw that horseshit,” said Powder, hoisting the poor woman up over his shoulder. “We are going to do this! Yo, husband, you get back here with Hernandez. Let’s do it.”

“You heard him,” said Danny.

“Push!” yelled Liu.

The woman groaned.

“Push!” yelled Liu again, moving his hands below her waist, trying to coax the baby’s rear end through the tiny birth hole.

“Argh!” said the woman, leaning forward and down so hard she nearly toppled Powder and Danny.

“Push!” yelled Powder and Danny and Liu.

“Push!” yelled the entire Whiplash team, even General Elliott.

“Argggh!” screamed the woman, falling back.

“Oh, God,” said Powder.

“Next one, everybody,” said Liu.

The woman bolted upright and screamed again.

“Push!”

“Argh!”

“Push!”

“Wahhhhhh!” cried a new voice, never before heard in the world.

“Kick ass!” shouted Danny.

“About fuckin’ time,” said Powder, who made sure no one was looking as he wiped the tear from his cheek.

AS WORD SPREAD ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE

slope, most of the others went down to try and help out.

Zen and one of the CCTs ended up manning the surveillance post. Zen sat in his chair, bundled against the cold in a blanket as well as a parka. Cold and fatigue curled around his head, stinging his eyes, twisting the noises of 156

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the night. His mind felt as if it had found steps inside his skull and climbed to the top of a rickety stairway, wedging itself into an attic cubbyhole and peering down a long hallway at his eyes. At times he felt the hollowness he associated with leaving Theta during the ANTARES mind experiments; he wanted to avoid that sensation, that memory, at all costs, and when he felt it slipping over him, he grabbed the wheels of his chair, welcoming the shock of cold on his bare fingers.

ANTARES had teased him with the idea that he might walk again, that he might become “normal” once more. It was a false hope, a lie induced by the drugs that made ANTARES work. But it was impossible to completely banish the hope.

The figures on the screen began to jump up and down and cheer—obviously the baby had been born. The CCT

turned from the screens and gave Zen a thumbs up. Zen nodded back, trying to smile as well, but he could tell from the airman’s reaction that he hadn’t quite pulled it off.

“A boy!” said Jennifer Gleason when she returned from the slope a few minutes later. She was the vanguard of the slow-moving caravan bringing mother and child to a heated tent where they would be sheltered for what remained of the night. “A boy!”

Zen tried to sound enthusiastic. “It looked wild.”

“It was. She just pushed him right out. Peshew.”

The scientist made a sound something like a hockey puck whipping into a net.

“Pretty cool,” said Zen.

He wheeled himself around to the cement area to watch the group surrounding the mother’s stretcher. Breanna, flanked by Danny Freah and one of the Whiplash soldiers, carried the baby. She smiled at Zen as she passed but kept walking, part of an unstoppable flow.

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“Quite a show, Jeff, quite a show,” said Brad Elliott, stopping. The general looked about as proud as a grand-father. “A hell of a thing—this is why we’re here, you know. To save lives,” added the general. “This is it—this is what I wish we could communicate to people. This is what it’s all about. People don’t understand. You know, American SF forces stopped a massacre of Kurds in northern Iraq after the Gulf War, not far from here.”

At Dreamland, Brad Elliott had given several pep talks on some of the projects they were working on; never had Zen seen him quite so enthusiastic.

“Things like this happened all the time,” continued the general. “Our planes dropped tons of food, our medics saved hundred of lives a week. We saved people from Saddam—why doesn’t the media report that? We should have had a film crew here. This is the sort of story people should see.”

“I agree,” said Zen, not sure what else to say.

Elliott put his hands on his hips. “We’ll get a helicopter in here in the morning, help this kid. Maybe we can get him a college fund going. Sergeant Habib says these people are Turkish Kurds. Hard life. This is what we’re about. We have to get the story out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make the place safe for that kid. That’s what we have to do.”

Zen watched Elliott practically bound away.

“A boy!” said Breanna, slipping her arms around him from behind. She snuggled next to his neck and kissed him. “God, you’re cold,” she said.

“Hey,” he said.

They kissed again.

“You should have seen it, Jeff. Sergeant Liu—God, he is awesome.”

“I couldn’t get down.”

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She described the birth, the woman pushing, everyone shouting, the tip of the baby’s behind appearing, once, twice, and then a rush of baby and fluid.

“You ought to sleep,” said Zen when she finally finished.

“I’ll sleep,” she said.

“You haven’t, and you have a mission in just a few hours now.”

“I slept on the way over,” she told him. “Chris and I traded off. Don’t worry about me, Jeff.” She bent down and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, then started back toward the tent where they had installed mother and child. “Warm up the bed. I’ll be along.”

“Yeah,” was all he could think to say.

Dreamland

1700

“LET ME JUST BLUE-SKY THIS FOR A MOMENT, BECAUSE THE

implications truly are outrageous.”

Dog watched as Jack Firenzi danced at the front of the small conference room off the hall from Dreamland Propulsion Research Suite B, one of the subbasement research facilities in what was informally called the Red Building. The frenetic scientist had come to Dreamland as an expert on propulsion but now headed research into the hydrogen-activated wing platform, or “Hydro” as he referred to it. His audience consisted of two NASA officials, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and an undersec-retary of Defense, all of whom had started out somewhat bewildered by the sartorially challenged scientist, yet now were focusing not on his Yankee hat, sneakers, or three-piece suit, but his rapid-fire praise of inflatable wings.

“Imagine an aircraft that can travel at Mach 6, yet with RAZOR’S EDGE

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the turning radius of an F/A-18,” continued Firenzi. Dog had heard the presentation before, so he knew that Firenzi would now talk about the XB-5 Unmanned Bomber Project, where the Hydro technology could increase the aerodynamics of the large airframe. Today the scientist’s optimism knew no bounds—he took off his hat and began using it to describe additional applications, including microsensor craft scheduled to begin testing in the next phase of the project and an improved U/MF on the drawing board. Under other circumstances, Dog might have watched the VIPs to make sure their reactions remained bemused awe at the eccentric scientist who backed up his enthusiasm with a blackboard’s worth of equations. But Dog was preoccupied with the Whiplash mission. The news from Iraq was relatively good—twelve hours of air strike sorties that hit about eighty-five percent of their targets, with no new American losses.

Brad Elliott’s Razor theory seemed to be gaining adherents—and yet, the very fact that no planes had been shot down in the past few hours weighed against it. The Iraqis were clearly using new tactics, and also seemed to have many more missiles, or at least launchers, than anyone thought. One of the F-15s had been photographed by a U-2, and the damage appeared consistent with missile fire. But that didn’t rule out a laser acting on the others.

Everyone was scrambling for intelligence.

“You had mentioned commercial applications?” asked one of the congressmen, Garrett Tyler.

“Oh, yes,” said Firenzi. “One possibility is to replace or augment variable geometry. The trapezoid wings used on the Dreamland MC-17 demonstrator—see, that’s actually a perfect example of the benefits here. Because (a), that technology—basically a folding slat, let’s face it—is very expensive and prone to wear and tear, and (b), it’s always there, on the wing, in some manner, and 160