Текст книги "Dreamland"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Bastian shook his head. “Thanks, Ax.”

Gibbs’s face was the very model of innocence. “Sir?”

“Tell your friend to do what he thinks is right, and damn what everyone else wants,” said Bastian, getting up. “I’ll check in with you later.”

“Thank you, sir,” snapped the sergeant as Bastian snuck out the side door.

BREANNA HAD TIMED IT ALL OUT WITH THE PRECISION of a deep-strike mission against a well-fortified enemy city. The five-disc CD player had been armed with Earl Klugh and Keiko Matsui jazz artists admittedly more to her taste than his, but definitely capable of establishing a preemptive romantic mood. Two long tapers of pure beeswax sat in candleholders in the middle of the freshly polished dinette table, ready to cast their flickering soft light over the borrowed china place settings with their elegant flower patterns. A bottle of Clos Du Bois merlot sat nearby, with a six-pack of Anchor Steam Beer on standby in the refrigerator. Two salad plates—with fancy baby lettuce and fresh tomatoes from a helpful neighbor’s garden—were lined up for the initial assault. A light carrot soup would follow, with waves of seafood crepes and lamb chops to administer the coup de grâce. The lamb was running a little behind, but otherwise everything was perfect, including the long, silky dress Breanna hadn’t worn in more than a year. She glanced at herself in the hall mirror, bending and twisting to make sure she’d gotten rid of the flour that had spilled on the side. The dress was very loose now on the top and in the back; she’d lost a bit of weight since Zen’s accident, but figured that was better than the opposite.

So where was he? He had boarded the Dolphin helicopter shuttle from Dreamland for Nellis precisely an hour and a half before; she had promised dibs on the leftovers to the pilot so he’d call with the heads-up. At Nellis, Jeff would have boarded the public bus—it was a “kneeler,” dipping down to ground level to allow wheelchairs to access an onboard elevator—and ought to have arrived at the end of their condo development’s cul-de-sac ten minutes ago.

If he blows me off tonight, I’ll kill him, Breanna thought to herself.

And just on cue, she heard his key in the door.

She jumped into action, lighting the candles with the small Bic lighter, hitting the stereo, killing the lights, relighting the burner under the asparagus. Rap made it out to the foyer just as Jeff closed the door behind him.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I thought you’d like some dinner,” she said, reaching toward him. He held his briefcase out in front of him; she took it from him and then leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Well, kinda.”

“Come on,” Breanna said, backing away. “Dinner is served.”

“I guess I can’t suggest we send out for pizza,” said Jeff.

“Not if you want to live.”

He rolled forward to the table in the seating area between the kitchen and living room. Breanna rushed to unfurl his napkin, placing it gently on his lap. She let her cheek brush against his as she did.

In her fantasy about how this would go, Jeff turned his mouth toward hers and they began a long and passionate kiss, interrupted only by the buzzer announcing that dinner was ready.

In reality, the buzzer rang as soon as their cheeks met. She pecked his cheek, cursed to herself, and went and got the soup.

“Wow,” said Jeff.

“We had this at the first restaurant you took me to. Remember?”

“The first restaurant I took you to was Cafeteria Four at Dreamland.”

“Restaurant,” she said, sitting down. “Cafe Auberge.”

“Oui, oui,” he said.

“Oh, God, wine. You want wine? I have merlot. Or beer—I found a six-pack of Anchor Steam.”

“Either’s fine.”

“Why don’t we start with wine?” she suggested. “It will go with the main course.”

“There’s a main course?”

“Dahling, I am the main course.” She fluttered her eyes, laughing as she retreated to the kitchen.

DOG WROTE OUT THE DRAFT OF HIS FORMAL REPORT on a lined yellow pad as he sat at a back table in Cafeteria Four. He made a few false starts, pausing to listen as a pair of engine technicians debated whether the meat loaf or open-faced turkey was better. He considered walking over to say hello, but their embarrassed waves somehow reminded him that he was just avoiding the work at hand. He nodded, then began writing in earnest, his Papermate disposable pencil squeaking over the paper.

“Despite the great weight of politics and certain outrage that I’m sure will meet this report, I cannot in good conscience recommend that the F-119 project as currently constituted proceed,” he wrote. “I have carefully reviewed the data on the project, and have personally flown the aircraft.”

He paused, wondering if that might not sound a little conceited. Before he could decide, Danny Freah’s deep voice bellowed behind him.

“Letter home, sir?”

Bastian looked over his shoulder to find Freah grinning.

“Not exactly,” he said.

“Probably not a classified document,” said the base’s security officer, pulling up a chair.

“Probably is,” said Bastian. “But I figure you’ll bounce anyone who gets close enough to steal it.”

Freah laughed. “I’m raring for a fight.”

“How are things doing?”

“Security checks have come back clean. Hal left things in good shape.”

“I imagine he would,” said Dog.

“He’s up to his ears about now,” added Freah.

“In what sense?”

“I was watching CNN a while ago. The Iranians sound like they’re going to make a play to cut off shipping in the Gulf. Increase the price of oil.”

“Another attempt at wrecking my budget,” said Dog. He jostled his pen back and forth. “You miss the action end, Danny?”

“This is a big job, Colonel. I’m grateful for the assignment.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I didn’t realize it was a question.”

“I guess not,” said Bastian. “In a way, I guess I miss the action too. Not losing kids, though.”

“No, sir,” said Freah, suddenly serious. “That part sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, as long as everything’s secure,” said Freah, standing up.

“Looks like it.”

Dog watched Danny go to the cafeteria line. He emerged with an orange juice carton, then disappeared out the side door.

Losing kids sucked. If his concept of Dreamland were ever implemented—if it truly became a cutting-edge unit assigned to covert and non-covert actions where high-tech could leverage a favorable result—he’d be sending plenty of kids into harm’s way.

Including his daughter.

Bastian put his pencil back to the pad. He reviewed what he’d written, letting the sentence about his flying the plane stand. Then he added, “I have appended some of the relevant reports. Because of the political nature of this project, I have taken the precaution of removing the names of the authors. This recommendation is my responsibility and my responsibility only.”

Would that save them, though? It wouldn’t exactly be difficult to figure out who had done what.

“You look like you’re trying to untie the Gordian knot.”

Surprised, Dog looked up to find Jennifer Gleason, the young computer scientist who worked primarily on the Flighthawk project, smiling down at him.

“The Gordian knot?” he asked. “You know, I’ve always wondered what that was.”

“The Gordian knot was a complicated knot tied by King Gordius of Phrygia,” said Gleason. “Supposedly, anyway. The oracles claimed that whoever could undo it would rule Asia. So along comes Alexander the Great. He hears about it, goes over to it, and without wasting a blink of his eye, slices it with his sword.”

Bastian laughed.

“Probably not a true story,” said Gleason. She flicked her head back so her long reddish-blond hair glistened at her shoulders. “But it has a certain charm.”

“Especially if you’re trying to work out a budget,” said Bastian.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, I need interruption,” he told her, flipping the top page back over his pad so the writing couldn’t be read. “Sit down.”

She slid in across from him and took the top off her yogurt container.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“More like a late lunch.”

“No wonder you’re so skinny.”

“I hope that was meant in a professional way.”

“Touché, Doc.”

“Most people call me Jennifer or Jen, Colonel.” Gleason smiled and then spooned some of the vanilla-flavored yogurt into her mouth. “I always thought doctors were the people who were sticking stethoscopes in your face and thermometers in your chest.”

“I think that goes the other way around.”

She smirked. Dog searched for something else to say, but all he could think of was the Flighthawk project—not a good topic, since he’d already decided to recommend cutting it. And in fact he half-expected she’d sat down to make a pitch for keeping it.

“You run every morning?” she asked.

“I do actually.”

“I saw you this morning. I was going to ask if I could join you, but I chickened out.”

“I don’t bite,” said Bastian.

“I was a little worried about your pace. I only run to keep in shape for climbing. I rock-climb on weekends,” she added.

“You rock-climb nearby?”

“There are some great climbs in the mountains at the end of F Range,” she said.

“I always wanted to try it.”

The words slipped from his mouth before he could stop them, but she didn’t laugh.

“It’s easy. I’ll show you sometime. As long as you don’t mind taking orders from a civilian.”

“I don’t think I’d mind at all.”

“Good.”

“You can run with me anytime you want,” he said.

“I’ll see you in the morning then,” said Jennifer, finishing her yogurt.

He watched her walk away, then went back to work.

JEFF HADN’T EATEN LIKE THIS IN YEARS, NOT EVEN IN A restaurant. Breanna had knocked herself out for him, and he appreciated it.

But it only made him more determined.

The truth was, he’d come to this conclusion months ago. Seeing her with Smith just brought him back to his senses.

So why didn’t he feel calm about it?

Dessert was the only course she hadn’t cooked herself, homemade cannolis from the only Italian bakery within five hundred miles. As Jeff finished his, he leaned back in the chair and watched her sip her wine.

“You’re beautiful, Bree. Really, truly, beautiful,” he told her.

“Nice of you to notice,” she said. The line had once been a joke between them, usually applied to something like doing the dishes or vacuuming without being asked. Now it sounded off-key, almost sorrowful. “You want some more wine?”

He shook his head. “Maybe that beer.”

“Fine.”

A twinge ran through him. He didn’t really want the beer. He was stalling. Damn, he’d become good at that, hadn’t he?

Still, he waited until she came back, the beer in a frosted pilsner glass.

“You thought of everything,” he told her.

Stall, stall, stall.

Just go for it.

Bree seemed to sense what was coming. “Jeff, I want us to work,” she said, her voice beginning to tremble. “I know it’s been hard. I know it’s going to be tough—”

Something deep inside him took over, a calm forcefulness that pushed him to take care of things as he knew they had to be taken care of. Jeff held his finger up to her lips. “Bree—”

“D-don’t—” she stuttered.

“I saw you the other night with Mack Smith.”

“You saw me where?” She straightened, suddenly stiff. “I saw him come out of your suite at Dreamland. Our suite.”

“No—”

“It’s okay, Bree. It really has nothing to do with anything.”

“But—”

“Look, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I decided a long time ago—six months maybe. You don’t need me, Rap. I’m going to hold you back.”

“That’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit,” she said. Her face was flushed; she practically spat as she spoke.

Wine or blood?

“No, listen to me,” he said calmly. “It’s not your fault. I understand. Totally. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

His hands started to tremble. He reached to put the glass of beer on the table in front of him; it slipped halfway, falling to the floor.

“Oh, Jeff, no,” she said, throwing her arms around him.

“I want a divorce,” he told her. “For your sake. For mine too. It’ll help us move on.”

“No, Jeff, no.” Breanna buried her head in his lap, sobbing. He bent over, fingers running through her hair, his eyes blurry with the leaping flame of the candles on the table.

Ethiopia

22 October, 0350

SERGEANT MELFI SETTLED INTO THE CANVAS SEAT AS the Chinook jerked into the sky. The large engines on the big-hulled Boeing helicopter had a distinctive whomp that seemed to push the twenty Marines down between the tubular supports of their seats. Gunny scanned the row of men toward the front of the chopper. The dim red interior lights added more shadows to the darkened camo faces, making the unit look like a collection of ghosts riding in the night.

If the operation went smoothly, it would seem as if ghosts had carried it out. Within two hours, the Iranians would lose most of their ability to launch a preemptive strike against Gulf shipping.

Assuming everything went off as planned. The intelligence bothered Gunny; they’d been given satellite information that was several hours old. That might be okay for the big stuff—blowing up another Silkworm missile battery wasn’t a big deal. But the Iranians could easily have airdropped some light armor, or added more machine guns near the bluffs overlooking the Silkworm battery.

Too late to worry about it now.

“Zero-five to LZ,” barked the helicopter crew chief.

“Hang tough, girls,” said ,Gunny, cinching his helmet strap. “We do this dance the way we rehearsed it.”

KNIFE NOTED THE WAY MARKER AND DID A QUICK SCAN of his instruments. He had the volume on his radar-warning receiver near max; his air-to-air radar was set at wide scan. The sky was clear ahead, the sea and coastline peaceful.

Not for long, he thought. The helo was cutting a course bare inches from the scrub trees and jagged hilltops twenty miles to the west. Further along the coast, a flight of F-117’s was cutting over the Gulf of Aden, aiming for another secret Iranian base on the Somalian coast. All hell was about to break loose.

“Poison Flight, time to twist,” said Smith to his F-16 wingmen.

“Three.”

“Four.”

The two F-16’s peeled off, their exhaust nozzles swelling red in the dark sky as they accelerated northward. Knife pushed his nose down, beginning a glide toward their target area. His wingman fell in behind him.

The Chinook would broadcast a signal when it was ten seconds from the LZ. Anything before that was trouble. Smith made sure his radio was set, then quickly checked his GPS page, double-checking to make sure his navigational gear was functioning properly. The INS would conjure a diamond in his HUD to show the target area when he rolled in; he wanted to make sure it would be accurate if he had to roll in with the dumb bombs in a hurry.

His heart beat like a snare drum. He was swimming in sweat. He jerked his head back and forth, practically screwing it out of its socket, checking for other fighters, for missiles that had somehow managed to defy or trick his gear.

Wasn’t going to happen. But knowing that didn’t relax him, and certainly didn’t stop the sweat or the drumbeat.

He’d felt this way in the Gulf, though not on his first mission. His first mission—the first three or four, really—had been tremendous blurs. He was so consumed with the minutiae, the tankings, the radio calls, simply checking six, that he hadn’t had a chance to get nervous.

Mack had also lost about ten pounds in three days, so obviously he’d been sweating a little.

His first kill came on the first patrol he flew, a fluke.

Not a fluke. A product of a zillion hours of training. It was a push-button, beyond-visual-range kill with a Sparrow radar missile. He’d ID’d, locked, and launched in the space of maybe three seconds.

Skill. That was definitely how he nailed splash two—though the F-15’s tape had screwed up, depriving him of credit.

He wasn’t getting a shoot-down tonight. The Somalians didn’t have an air force and the nearest Iranians were well over two hundred miles away. And besides, he was driving an F-16 configured for ground-pounding.

“Bad Boys to Poison Leader, we are one-zero, repeat, one-zero. All calm.”

Before Smith could acknowledge, his RWR began bleating and an icon appeared in the middle of his receiver scope. An instant later, his wing mate yelled a warning over the short-range radio circuit.

“SA-2 battery up! And two more. Shit. There’s four batteries there, not two. Sixes! SA-6’s! Shit-fuck! Where did those bastards come from?”

GUNNY HAD RUN TWENTY FEET FROM THE REAR DOOR of the Chinook when the flare ignited overhead. He began cursing, immediately understanding what had happened.

“Team One, Team One!” he shouted, pushing his old legs hard as he ran forward. “Listen up! The defenses are on the south end of the field. They moved everything beyond the ditches. Come on, come on—everybody move it! Let’s go!”

As he ran forward, Melfi caught sight of the first muzzle flash from the enemy lines: a streak of red that flared oblong in the black smear. The ground shook, but the explosion was at least a half mile away from the LZ. The Somalians had zeroed their weapons in on the highway, obviously expecting the attack would be there. They had fired the flare as well.

“They don’t know where we are!” shouted Gunny to his men. “Come on, come on, they can’t see us. Let’s go. We got about ten seconds to get across their ditch. Mine team! Mines! Come the fuck on! Blow the field so we can advance. Come on!”

The different elements of his assault team began fanning out, remembering the instructions for this contingency. They were sluggish, weighed down by their equipment and hampered by the dark.

Or maybe it just seemed to Gunny like they were moving in slow motion. The two buildings where they’d expected resistance lay twenty feet ahead, across a large ditch lined with antitank obstacles. The buildings were quiet.

Which didn’t mean they were empty, of course.

The missile launchers had apparently been moved closer to the water, nearly four hundred yards further south of the spot briefed. Small-arms fire was coming from that direction. The finicky light from the Somalian flare showed pointed shadows around the slight rise there, but they were too far away to see anything, let alone attack it.

There was a thud, then a series of thuds.

Nothing.

No mines.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” shouted Gunny. “They moved everything to Purple site.”

“Incoming!” yelled someone ahead. “Tank!”

Gunny threw himself to the ground. A large-caliber shell, possibly from an M47, splashed through the trees at the right. The sergeant pushed himself back to his knees, and for the first time realized all hell was breaking loose at the north end of the site, where Captain Gordon and his team had gone.

“Get the SPG on that tank,” yelled Gunny. “Corn! Corn!” he added, calling for the radio specialist. “Where the hell are the F-16’s?”

As if to answer, a tongue of fire lit from behind the Somalian lines and two huge fists leaped from the earth.

“TWO LAUNCHES, ELEVEN O’CLOCK!” SHOUTED SMITH AS he saw the missiles flare off their launchers. His RWR skipped out warning bleats as he jinked hard and kicked out tinsel, metal chaff designed to fool the radar of the acquiring missile.

In some respects, the Somalians had done them a favor by turning on their radars and firing the missiles. Powering up his HARM missiles, the pilot of Poison Two calmly dotted the offending radar van on his threat scope and released the antiradar missiles. With the targeting information downloaded into their miniature onboard computers, the radiation-seeking missiles were in can’t-miss mode—even if the radars were to turn themselves off, the missiles would fly directly to the target points and obliterate the gear.

But that didn’t account for the surface-to-air missiles that had been fired, or pure bad luck. The SA-2’s were equipped with terminal guidance devices that allowed them to home in on an enemy even if their ground units were wiped out. Worse, as far as Knife was concerned, were the SA-6’s—nasty medium-range missiles that weren’t supposed to be here, but were now sending his warning gear into a high-pitched shriek.

And the SA-3. Not to mention triple-A, which erupted with a red cloud to the northeast.

Knife’s head swirled in a tempest of colors and sweat. The warning receiver was still bleating. He pulled the Fighting Falcon over, yanking the F-16 nearly backward in the air, altitude dropping abruptly as he fired off more chaff.

Pulling back on the sidestick at fifteen thousand feet, he found the target area in his windshield. Someone had even fired a flare to show him where everything was.

Thoughtful.

Knife forgot about the SAMs and the antiair and the RWR as he saw the muzzle flash of an ancient M47 tank foam red about three o’clock in his screen. The tank was his primary target if the ground team ran into trouble.

Which obviously it had.

“Poison One, targeting tank,” he said. His pipper slid over the dark shadow of the turret before he realized he hadn’t had any communication from the ground team at all since the helo had called with their time-to-landing.

It was too late to worry about that now. Red fingers jabbed out toward his eyes; he ignored the flak and pushed the trigger on his stick, pickling two five-hundred-pound bombs into the tank. As he started to pull out he saw another ground missile launch; he nudged his stick to the right and called the launch, at the same time riding forward to dump iron on the launcher. If Poison Two acknowledged, its broadcast was lost in the blur of gravity and the roar of his F-16A’s GE F-110 turbofan as he pickled, then jerked hard to get away from the new missiles.

THEY HAD JUST TARGETED THE TANK WHEN A LOUD whistle sounded above them. Before Gunny could shield his eyes, the night flashed white. The tank erupted in a two-fisted swirl of fire, dirt, and metal sailing in every direction.

“About fucking time,” growled Melfi, picking himself up. “Forward, forward! Tank’s history. Go, girls!”

One of his men began screaming on his right. Gunny ran up and found Lance Corporal Gaston curled over a large splash of tangled uniform, half his side blown open by bomb fragments. The medic reached him in the next second; Gunny saw him wince and realized Gaston wasn’t going to make it. He straightened, saw that half the kid’s arm was lying on the ground.

“Get those fucking ship missiles,” Melfi yelled, pulling his M-16 to his side. He ignored the complaint from his knee and began to run toward the heaviest gunfire.

SMITH WHIPPED BACK TOWARD THE TARGET AREA, finally satisfied that he had ducked the SAMs. A wall of tracers illuminated the coastline, thrown up by four or five Russian-built ZSU-23 antiaircraft guns. It occurred to him that he was only seeing a fourth or a fifth of the actual bullets being fired, since only the tracers showed in the dark. A shitload of lead was being propelled into the sky.

Fired blindly, but dangerous nonetheless. Knife clicked his radio, asking Poison Two for his position.

No answer.

“Two, this is Poison Leader, posit?”

Nothing.

“Two? Give me your position. Two? Posit?”

“Poison Two blind,” his wingman finally replied. “Two-one-one for one-three off egress.”

Smith blew a long sigh into his mask before plotting his wingman’s position with the bearings he’d broadcast. He thought he’d gone down.

“All right, you’re five, six miles south of me, due south,” Knife told him.

“Poison One, copy. I have you on radar. I’m Angels twenty-five. Out of arrows, Knife. I took some flak but I’m okay. Engine’s fine. Controls responding.”

“You’re hit?”

“Roger. Fuel’s fine. Nothing bad, but I can see burn marks on the wing and I felt it.”

Knife glanced at his own fuel gauge, calculating that he had enough for perhaps five more minutes’ worth of action before hitting bingo, the theoretical turnaround point. He was still carrying four GBUs under his wings.

They were intended for the Silkworms. But the ground team still hadn’t checked in, which meant that they weren’t in position to illuminate the targets with their laser designators.

He’d have to do it himself. No big deal, as long as he could find the targets beyond the wall of flak.

Assuming his wingman was okay.

“Two, if you can hold an orbit, I’m going to mop up.”

“Copy. Go for it, Knife. I’m fine.”

Smith tried hailing the ground team as he plotted a course toward the Silkworms. He climbed to just over twenty thousand feet, well out of reach of the flak. But the air seemed to percolate with it, his Viper shuddering as he came up on the dirt landing strip that marked the western end of the target zone.

The radio static cleared as he eyeballed the master arm panel.

“Poison One, we are sparking the target. Repeat, sparking your target.”

About fucking time, he thought, acknowledging and leaning slightly on his right wing. He was ten miles from the site. Eyes pasted on the video screen, he hunted for his target. There were vague blurs, but no cues, no nothing. The LANTIRN targeting gear was having a hell of a time sorting through the battlefield smoke. In the meantime, the cloud of flak had moved in his direction.

“Poison One, have you acquired?”

“Negative,” he groused. “Just make sure you got it on.”

“We’re taking fire.”

Yeah, no shit. Join the party.

He was less than five miles from the target and running over a minefield of antiaircraft fire before the target finally crystallized in his monitor. The sparkle had a big, fat Chinese-made SS-N-2 missile dead on; he goosed off one GBU, then released another, just to be sure.

“Find me another target,” he barked.

The magic flashlight moved to a new target. As he was about to launch he realized he was about to overfly his target. He pickled anyway, got messed up, confused, lost himself for a second pulling around to retarget. His RWR screamed a fresh warning and for a half second Mack Smith fell completely apart, lost his concentration and the plane, fell behind himself in a whirl of gravity-fed vertigo, the F-16 responding to his sharp jerk on its fly-by-wire stick.

Jesus, he thought. Oh, God, I’m screwed.

THE ANTISHIP MISSILE SITE ERUPTED WITH A CASCADE of secondary explosions, each bigger than the last, as if a series of larger and larger gas cans had been ignited with a pack of firecrackers.

“That’s it, let’s go, let’s go!” Gunny shouted. The explosions were so intense he could feel their heat on his face, and he was nearly a half mile away.

“The pilot wants more targets!” shouted the corn specialist.

“Tell him he’s blown everything to hell,” shouted Gunny, grabbing the man with the target designator and yanking him backward. “We’re going while the going is good! Come on, girls! Come the fuck on!”

His men finally snapped to behind him as he trotted back toward the LZ. The explosions at the missile-launching pad had shocked the defenders silent, but Gunny knew that wasn’t going to last. He fanned his arms through the air, urging his men back toward the waiting Chinook.

He found himself standing at the spot where Gaston had been hit.

He glanced down, looking for the remains of the poor kid’s lost arm, thinking to give it a decent burial.

Wasn’t there.

A fresh explosion snapped him back to life. He whirled around, saw his point man trotting toward him, a grin on his face. Jerry Jackson was first in and last out.

“Hey, Sarge.”

“Jackson, knock that fucking watermelon grin off your face and get moving,” Gunny yelled.

“Gee, sweetheart, I didn’t know you cared,” mocked the corporal as he caught up.

“We got everybody?”

“Didn’t see no one,” said Jackson. “Better check around for Gaston, though. You know how he likes to jerk off in the bushes.”

“Yeah,” was all Gunny could manage.

KNIFE’S STOMACH PITCHED TOWARD HIS MOUTH. HE clamped his teeth shut, holding steady on the control stick as the dark, oxygen-deprived cowl slipped back from over his face. The F-16 could withstand more than nine g’s, at least one more than its pilot under the best of circumstances, and this was hardly the best. The plane was pointing nearly straight down, shrapnel streaking all around, an SA-3 somewhere in the air, hunting for his belly. He could escape it—he’d been in more difficult spots—but only if he could keep his head clear. And right now that seemed damn impossible.

Gravity clamped its thick fingers around his temples. Squeezing with all its might, it began to mash his skull into powder. The wind ran from his chest, and a long, jagged sword began ripping up his stomach.

An image shot into his head—Zen Stockard, his body being propelled from the F-15 cockpit, hurled sideways in a tumble.

Poor bastard.

Just not good enough. Not as good as me.

I am not getting fried here.

Smith regained control of himself as well as the plane, rolling through an invert and now tracking to the north, the RWR still bleating. Even so, he began hunting for a target. Everything was on fire below, everything; he couldn’t find anything to hit.

Knife jinked and saw a large shape passing through the air maybe four hundred yards away. It was the missile the Somalians had fired, but to Knife it seemed like the demon that had tormented him all through the attack, the panic that had tried to sneak up on him, panic and rust and doubt.

“No fucking way,” he screamed. He pulled himself up in the slant-back seat, straining against the restraints. The enemy missile shot clear, unguided, lost, no longer a threat.

The ground team’s Chinook was two miles away and taking fire; there were armored cars approaching from behind the buildings. He took a quick breath, switching the mode on the LANTIRN bomb-guidance system to allow him to designate the target himself. The targeting cue instantly zeroed in on the lead vehicle.

“Good night, motherfucker,” he said, loosing the GBU from his wing.

GUNNY AND JACKSON WERE TWO HUNDRED YARDS from the helicopter when the ground began percolating with heavy machine-gun fire. The two Marines dove into a ditch, where they found themselves pinned down with half a dozen other Marines. They could hear but not see the helicopter beyond a row of low trees or bushes. An armored car or personnel carrier, maybe two, rounded out from behind the near building and began firing.

“We have to move!” yelled Gunny. “Move!”

“Move!” echoed Jackson, trying to urge the others to stop returning fire and retreat to the Chinook. “We’ll cover you.”