Текст книги "Dreamland"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Danny strained his eyes to make out the small blotch beneath Major Briggs’s finger. It looked like a microscopic Brillo pad.

“We think it’s an SA-6, which comes on a mobile launcher. It’s likely that there are now more, since the defenses at the Silkworm site were beefed up,” said Briggs.

“Where the hell are they getting all this hardware?” Freah asked.

“Where aren’t they?” said Briggs. “The Silkworms come from China, where they may also have bought some fighters. There’s been a large inflow of weapons into Libya from Russia. Some of that has disappeared, which we think means it’s headed here. There have also been some small boats slipping into Mogadishu in the south, with or without help from the Yemenis; it’s unclear.”

Briggs continued laying out the situation. The antiaircraft defenses posed a serious problem. The F-117’s and F– 16’s would be needed to help the other operations. The Ospreys would arrive without escort or backup, traveling quickly at treetop level. Though that was under the detection envelope of the missiles’ ground radars, it would be dicey.

“We’re short on air support,” said Hal apologetically. “The Eisenhower is heading up from the Indian Ocean, but they won’t be close enough to help us for at least two days. We’d like to have Smith and the others out by then. If we don’t., this thing is likely to escalate even further.”

“We have the Megafortress,” suggested Danny, who’d been waiting for an opportunity to offer the plane. “They’re packing cruise missiles and four JSOWs fresh out of the development lab. They can cover us going in.”

“Are you talking about my airplane?” said Captain Stockard, walking toward them from the door. She was still in her flight gear, wearing a deep scowl.

“Captain Stockard,” said Briggs. “How are you, Bree?”

Breanna ignored him, speaking to Danny instead. “That’s my aircraft. With all due respect, Captain, I’ll discuss its capabilities.”

“I was just pointing out that it carried weapons,” said Freah.

“Did you mention the runway’s about five hundred feet too short to take off from?” said Breanna. She turned back to Briggs. “And I don’t want to talk about landing. Why the hell didn’t you give us a heads-up on that, Hal?”

“I wasn’t aware you were flying a Megafortress in to begin with,” said Briggs. “How are you, Rap?”

“I’ve been better. My butt’s sore and I came this close to blowing out my tires.”

“We’re installing mesh,” said Briggs. “We can push that up. I can’t do anything about your butt while you’re in uniform,” he added.

“Very funny. When’s the mesh going on?”

“ASAP. A thousand feet okay?”

“I’ll have to do the math,” Breanna said. “Major Cheshire has to be told. Raven’s heavier than Fort Two because of the older engines. If it’s wet and she’s carrying fuel, she’s going to have a hard time stopping.”

“Raven? Another Megafortress?”

“We made the flight without a crew,” said Breanna. “Cheshire’s following with a weapons officer and a navigator. She should be here within twelve hours, maybe less.”

“Shit. We can use her.”

“Damn straight,” said Danny. “The plane has jamming gear.”

“It’s the next-generation ECMs,” said Rap, throwing a glare at Freah. “I doubt they’ll have time to remove it all. Just as there wasn’t time to remove the air-to-ground missiles we were carrying. Officially, we’re only here as transports.”

Briggs shook his head slowly, but he had the start of a grin on his face.

“Of course, local conditions prevail. Assuming we do get airborne,” Broanna added, “I’m going to need as much target data as possible. The computer’s persnickety and my copilot’s a real whiner. Personally, I’d trade them both for a good weapons officer, or even a halfway decent radar navigator.”

Dreamland

22 October, 1200 local

“COLONEL, I THOUGHT WE HAD A DATE!”

Dog jerked his head up from his desk. Jennifer Gleason was standing in the doorway.

“I had to run by myself,” said the scientist, striding into his office. She plopped herself down in a chair.

“I’m sorry, Doc,” said Dog. “I got tied up.”

“So I heard.” Jennifer glanced back at the office door. Dog looked in time to see Sergeant Gibbs closing it. He’ll get his, Dog thought.

“Want to do lunch?” asked the scientist.

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” said Bastian. “I’ve been handling the fallout, from, uh, some recommendations I had to make.”

“You mean killing JSF, right?” She flicked her hair back impishly.

“That’s supposed to be classified.”

“Come on, Colonel. You can’t fart on this base without everyone catching a whiff. Not that colonels fart.”

For some reason, the word “fart” and her beautiful mouth didn’t seem to go together.

“I actually didn’t come here to ask you to lunch,” said the scientist quickly. She leaned forward, somehow metamorphosing from a beautiful if slightly insolent young woman to a senior scientist. “I came to make a recommendation regarding the Flighthawk program. I feel the mission to Somalia should go forward.”

“It’s not a mission,” said Dog, angered that the flight was being openly discussed.

“I understand, Colonel. I also feel that I should be along in case something goes wrong.”

“Doc—”

“First of all, call me Jennifer. Or Jen.” She favored him with the briefest of brief smiles. “Second of all, there is no one in the world who knows that computer system better than I do. That’s not a brag, that’s a fact. If you’re sending those planes halfway around the world, I should be there with them.”

“I don’t know that there’s enough room for you,” said Dog.

“I checked with Major Cheshire. She says there is.”

“Major Cheshire only reluctantly approved carrying the Flighthawks,” said Bastian, who’d spoken with Cheshire only a short while before.

“She was worried about not having enough support. I’m the support.”

Dog shook his head. It was one thing to send the Mega-fortresses; while they were definitely still in the experimental stage, an early version had already seen some action. Justifying the Flighthawks was much more difficult, especially since they’d lack the veneer of a “transport” mission. And sending a civilian into a war zone was potentially a hanging offense. Her loss would be a serious embarrassment, and not just to him.

“I’m afraid it’s not possible,” he told her.

“If you lose the U/MFs,” she told him, “they’ll hang you out to dry.”

“If I lose you, they’ll grind me up into little pieces.”

“You’re not going to lose me. Between me and Parsons—”

“Parsons? Sergeant Parsons?”

“He’s waiting in the outer office to talk to you. We drew straws to see who would go first,” she added.

“No way.”

“Colonel, if I were a man, you’d let me go. You need support personnel for the UM/Fs. Shit, the only other person who’s qualified to fix that fucking computer and the com system is Rubeo. You want to send him?”

“You talk like a sailor, you know that?” Dog said. Jennifer shrugged. “My bag is packed.”

If she were a man—hell, that was impossible to even imagine.

They did need a support staff. But a girl?

She wasn’t a girl, damn it.

“I want to talk to Cheshire before I make a decision,” said Bastian finally.

“Good,” said Jennifer, jumping up. “Should I send her in right now, along with Major Stockard, or do you want us to keep going the way we planned?”

Shaking his head, Bastian went to the office door and looked out into the reception area. Cheshire and Parsons were there, along with three other Flighthawk specialists.

“Where’s Stockard?”

“Making sure the Flighthawks are prepped,” said Cheshire.

“Everyone in here,” he told the conspirators.

In the end, Dog had no choice but to agree that if it made sense to send the Flighthawks, it was logical to send a support team as well. Parsons could probably build the damn things from balsa wood and speaker wire. Gleason made the most sense as a technical expert, since she knew both the software and the hardware used by the Flight-hawks’ control system. No way he was sending Rubeo—it would undoubtedly be too tempting for him to be left behind.

Sending a high-tech team halfway around the world with untested weapons was exactly what he had called for

in the white paper he’d written so many years ago. So why did his stomach feel so queasy?

“You’re good with this, Major?” he asked Cheshire. “If the Flighthawks are going, and I think they should, we have to support them.”

He nodded. “This is my responsibility,” he told her. “I’m ordering you to do this.”

Her face flushed, probably because she knew that the Band-Aid he’d just applied to her culpability wouldn’t cover much of anything if things went wrong.

“I have some phone calls to return,” he said. “I’ll try to be there for your takeoff.”

“Fourteen hundred hours sharp,” said Parsons as they exited.

“That soon?”

“We’ll kick some butt for you, sir,” said the sergeant.

Bastian returned the wily old crew dog’s grin, then pulled over his mountain of pink phone-message sheets. Every member of the JSF Mafia wanted to take a shot at chewing off his ear today; might as well let them have a go.

“Lieutenant General Magnus, please,” he said, connecting with the first person on his list. “This is Colonel Bastian.”

“Oh,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

Dog was more than familiar with the tone. It meant, “Oh, so this is the idiot my boss has been screaming about all day.”

As he waited for the connection to go through, Dog fingered the official Whiplash implementation order, which had come through earlier in the day.

YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO IMPLEMENT WHIPLASH AND SUPPORT SAME WITH ALL APPROPRIATE VIGOR.

“Appropriate vigor” could mean Megafortresses. It could mean Flighthawks.

Not if people like General Magnus didn’t want it to. Magnus was close to the Air Force Secretary; word was he was being groomed to be Chief of Staff. Dog knew him largely by reputation. An able officer, Magnus was a good man, unless you disagreed with him.

Then he was the devil’s own bastard.

“Bastian, what the hell are you doing out there in Dreamland? You sleeping?”

“No, sir, General,” said Dog.

“I understand you’ve been there for two weeks.”

“It’s about that.”

“You took your goddamned time.”

Well, thought Dog, at least he has a sense of humor. “Well, I do my best, General, as pitiful as it may be.”

“I don’t think it’s pitiful at all, Colonel. I think it’s goddamn time somebody had the balls to say what a piece of shit this JSF crate is.”

Dog looked at the phone, waiting for the punch line. “You still there, Bastian?”

“Yes, sir,” said the colonel.

“Good. We’re going to take a hell of a lot of shit on this, I guarantee. But I’m behind you. You bet your ass. I read the whole damn report. Ms. O’Day made sure I got a copy. And a friend of hers. Brad Elliott. I didn’t think you and Brad were pals.”

“We’re not.”

“Oh? He talks about you like you’re his son. Says you’re right on the mark.”

“Well, uh, I’m flattered. To be candid, General, I thought you were a supporter of the JSF.”

“What? Did you read that in the Washington Post?”

“No, sir.”

“I expect you’re taking a lot of shit,” said Magnus.

“That’s an understatement,” said Dog, not entirely convinced that Magnus was on the level.

“Well, hold tight. And keep your nose clean. Some of these pricks will use anything they can against you. The Congressmen are the worst.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dog. “Thank you, sir.” But his line had already gone dead.

Somalia

23 October, 0100 local

MACK WOKE TO FIND THE IMAM STARING AT HIM. Sergeant Melfi and Jackson were gone; perhaps he’d only dreamed they were here with him alive.

“Major, very good,” said the Iranian. “Come now. We must meet our fate.”

The Imam straightened, then gestured at him to rise. Though still groggy, Smith felt almost powerless to resist. “What’s going on?” Mack asked.

“You are going to stand trial,” said the Imam. “Justice will be swift.”

He turned and walked back to the steps. Someone behind Mack pushed him; he stumbled over his chains, but managed to keep his balance.

Goddamn. Mack Smith. The hottest stick on the patch. Damn Iranians were going to make him the star of “don’t let this happen to you” lectures for the next hundred years.

The man behind him pushed again. Knife’s anger leaped inside him; he spun and grabbed the startled soldier by the throat, pushing him to the floor with surprising ease. He smashed the bastard’s head against the concrete. The chain of his handcuffs clanked against the man’s chest as he grabbed the guard’s ears, pulling them upward to smash him again, then again, feeling the thud of the floor reverberating across the Somalian’s skull.

He knew he was being foolish. The best thing to do was go along, resist, yes, but not so overtly, not so crazily. Doing this was like committing suicide, or worse.

And yet he couldn’t stop himself. Blood spread out behind the man’s face as Mack pounded again and again, screaming, shrieking his anger.

Then a sharp light erupted from behind his ears. Then his head seemed to collapse. He blanked out.

“YOU SCREWED UP THEIR PLANS, MAJOR,” GUNNY WAS saying. “You really threw them for a loop. I don’t know what you did, but it messed them up. Kept us here for hours. And they didn’t want that, I can tell you.”

Mack waited for the hunched shadow to come into focus. They were moving, in a train—no, a bus, an old school bus with half of its seats removed. Gunny, the Marine Corps sergeant, was kneeling next to him in the back aisle. There were stretchers on the wall of the bus next to him, empty.

“What do you think, Sarge?” said another Marine. Jackson. He was leaning over a seat a few feet away. “I don’t know. I’d say he took a slam to the noggin.

You with us, Major?”

“Yeah,” groaned Knife.

“You have blood on your flight suit,” said Gunny. “Don’t look like yours.”

“No?”

Mack struggled to sit up. He was still chained at the hands and the feet. “I hit somebody,” he told them.

“No shit?” said Gunny. “Way to go, Major. Dumb, but way to go.”

“Yeah, it was dumb,” agreed Mack.

“You messed them up,” added the sergeant. “Put them on notice that we’re no pushovers.”

The bus lurched off the side of the road, coming to a stop.

“City,” said Jackson, looking out the window. “By their standards anyway.”

“Where are we?” Mack asked.

“Damned if I know,” said Gunny. He went to the window and looked outside. “Pretty damn dark.”

“Think it’s Mogadishu, Sarge?” asked Jackson. A few years before, several U.S. soldiers had died there in an ill-fated relief operation.

“Nah. Wrong direction. We’re still way north. We’ve been heading west.” Gunny returned, hovering over Mack. “Damned if I know where the hell we’re going. Can you get up, Major?”

“Maybe,” he said. He let Melfi pull him up; he sat on the floor, waiting for the blood to stop rushing to his head. “Did he die?” Mack asked.

“Did who die?” Gunny asked.

“The guy I hit.”

“Don’t know,” said the sergeant. “The raghead guy’s still alive, if that’s who you’re talking about.”

“I didn’t hit him,” said Mack. “I hit one of the guards. A Somalian.”

The door to the bus opened up front. Two Somalian soldiers came up the steps, followed by an American in a flight suit—Captain Stephen Howland, one of the F-117 pilots. The Imam was behind him. The soldiers stepped aside and let the pilot pass. He walked toward them slowly, eyes fixed on the floor. He didn’t seem to be injured, beyond some bruises to his eyes.

“I see Major Smith has recovered,” said the Imam mildly. “There will be no more episodes, Major. They make our task that much more difficult. Our hosts get bothered.”

“You could just let us go,” said Gunny. “Then we’ll go easy on you.”

The Iranian had already started off the bus. The others followed, leaving them to the two Somalian guards and driver at the front.

“They’re taking us to Libya,” said the pilot as the driver started the bus.

“Libya?” asked Johnson.

“Yeah. The Iranians have declared a Muslim coalition against the West,” said Howland. “Libya, Sudan, Iran, now Somalia. Iraq is cheering them on.”

“The usual shitheads,” said Gunny. “They won’t get anywhere.”

“I don’t know,” said Howland. He sat in the seat opposite Johnson. “They’re gloating about Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They think they’re coming in with them. Something about air bases. Probably they didn’t give our planes permission to land.” The pilot shook his head. “There’s a whole lot of shit going down and we’re right in the middle of it.”

“Aw, come on,” said Gunny, trying to cheer him up. “If you’re standing in shit, at least it can’t rain on your head.”

“Unless you slip and fall in it,” said Howland.

“Jeez, Gunny, look at that.” Jackson pointed out the back window. A flatbed truck had pulled up behind them. A huge scrap of black metal was lashed to the rear; Somalians clustered all over the wreckage as well as the roof of the vehicle’s cab.

“My plane,” said Howland. He looked down at Mack. “They must have been waiting for me to open the bay and pickle. I got the warning and started doing evasive maneuvers, but like an idiot I flamed out.”

“You were just unlucky,” said Mack.

“What happened to you?”

“I fucked up,” said Knife.

“Ah, bullshit on that,” said Gunny, his voice almost vicious as he turned from the back window. “Fuckin’ major saved our asses is what he did. That wasn’t no fuck-up. And it wasn’t bad luck.”

“Wasn’t good luck,” said Mack.

“No, sir. No fuckin’ sir,” said the sergeant as the bus lurched forward. “But it sure as shit wasn’t a fuck-up.”

Mack fought off the swelling pain in his head to acknowledge the thank-you with a nod.

Northeastern Ethiopia

23 October, 0300

BREANNA PULLED BACK ON THE CONTROL STICK DESPITE the warning from the computer that they hadn’t yet reached optimum takeoff speed. She pushed down on the throttle bar with her other hand, as if the extra force might somehow squeeze more oomph out of the four power plants, which were already at max.

She was also mumbling a Hail Mary. Couldn’t hurt.

Despite the computer’s disapproval, Fort Two caught a stiff wind in her chin and lifted off the mesh runway extension, clearing the trees at the far end of the runway with a good two inches to spare. Breanna gave herself a second to exhale, then began banking to swing onto the course north. They would fly at five hundred feet above ground level all the way to the border. At that point, she would take the plane even lower and goose the engines; they would be on their target in precisely five minutes. Chris would unleash the two cruise missiles on the known SAMs.

What happened next depended on the Somalians and the Iranians who were helping them. According to the satellite photos, a ZSU-23 antiaircraft gun sat at the northwestern corner of the complex. It would be nice to eliminate the gun before the MHV-22 Ospreys arrived with their assault teams. On the other hand, the Zeus had a limited line of sight toward that end of the base, so attacking it wasn’t a priority if other defenses had been installed along the southern edge of the old school grounds.

Unfortunately, there was only one sure way to discover if there were additional defenses there—the Megafortress would have to show itself and see if anyone took a potshot at it. It could then use its JSOWs on them.

The EB-52’s ECMs could automatically ID all known Soviet-era detection and targeting radars, buzzing bands from Jaybird to DesiLu, as Chris liked to joke. At the same time, it could automatically note the source of the radars, supplying the data for the targeting lobe of its multifaceted brain. On the other hand, Fort Two could not preemptively wipe out radars and signal radios like Raven, for example, nor was it equipped to deal with the next-generation gear found in more sophisticated Western systems. They’d have to punt if they came up against any.

“Vector One and Vector Two are airborne,” said Chris. Pushed to top speed, the tilt-wing rotorcraft transports could approach four hundred knots, more than twice as fast as “normal” helicopters. They were coming in right behind the Megafortress.

Breanna checked her instruments, scanning the glass panels of the cockpit as slowly as she could manage. Time was starting to blur by as quickly as her heart was pounding.

Jeff had told her about the first time he’d been in combat, flying over Iraq. He’d tried to keep calm by counting slowly to himself as he looked at each instrument in his F-15C, counting it off.

That was Mack Smith who’d told her that. Jeff hadn’t flown Eagles in the Gulf.

“Interceptor radar ahead,” said Chris.

Breanna looked at the left MUD, which painted the sky ahead with different colors, indicating the presence of enemy radars. A green blob hung halfway down the screen, dripping and fading. The computer was processing signals received by the enemy and plotting them in real time on the screen, color-coding the seriousness of the threat. Green meant that the enemy could not detect them, generally because it was out of range due to the Megafortress’s stealthy configuration or, as in this case, low altitude. Yellow meant that they could potentially be detected but hadn’t been. Red meant that they were being actively targeted.

“We have a MiG-29, two MiG-29’s,” said Chris, working with the computer to ID the threats. At this point they used only passive sensors—active radar would be like using a flashlight in a darkened room. “They’re well out of range. Seem to be tracking north. Thirty miles. Thirty-two. Other side of the border.”

“Keep an eye on them for the Ospreys,” Bree told him. “Gotcha, Captain.”

Breanna hit her way-point just south of the Somalian border, adjusting her course to track northeastward.

“Lost the MiGs,” said Chris. “Think they were from A-1?”

“A-l’s supposed to be too small for anything bigger than a Piper Cherokee,” said Breanna. The airstrip was located about twenty miles northwest of their target area, right on the coast.

“Maybe from Sudan then. Or Yemen. They have to be working at the very edge of their range.” Chris checked through the paperwork, double-checking their intelligence reports and satellite maps, making sure the MiGs couldn’t have landed anywhere nearby.

“Mark Two in zero-one minutes. Border in zero-one minutes,” the computer told Breanna. It also gave her a cue on the HUD that they were nearing the danger zone, spitting back the flight data they had programmed before.

“Stand by to contact Vector flight,” she told Chris. “We’re looking good.”

“Hell of a moon,” he said.

Breanna had no time to admire the scenery. She edged the Megafortress lower toward the ragged steppes and jagged rocks of the African Horn, glancing quickly at the MUD to make sure no enemy radars had suddenly snapped to life. The Megafortress was now skimming over the rocky savanna at a blistering 558 nautical miles an hour. She had to be careful and alert—the EB-52 lacked terrain-following radar. Even with the improved power plants the Megafortress lacked the oomph of, say, an F-111, which could pull up instantly if an obstacle loomed. The computer and sensors helped her stay low along a carefully mapped route.

“Border,” said Breanna. They passed into Somalia, apparently undetected. Their target lay approximately 150 miles dead ahead.

“Preparing to launch cruise missiles,” said Chris, selecting the weapons-control module on his computer display. “Bay.”

The Megafortress was equipped with a rotary launcher in the bomb bay similar to the devices installed in B-52Hs. In a stock B-52, up to eight cruise missiles could be mounted, rotated into position, and then launched. Fort Two’s launcher allowed for a variety of weapons besides the cruise missiles; in this case, two Scorpion AMRAAMplus air-to-air missiles and four JSOW weapons, which had imaging infrared target seekers. The AGM-86c cruise missiles had to be preprogrammed, a relatively laborious task for someone like Chris who wasn’t used to doing it. But once they were launched they did all the work.

“Bomb bay is open,” the computer reported to Breanna. The open bay made them visible to radar, though their low altitude made it extremely unlikely they would be spotted.

“Launch at will,” Breanna told Chris.

The computer made the process almost idiot-proof, but Chris worked through the procedure carefully, making sure they were at the preprogrammed launch points and altitudes before pushing each of the large missiles off. The twenty-foot-long flying bombs lit their engines as they slipped below the Megafortress, popping up briefly before descending even lower, guided by radar altimeters and sophisticated on-board maps.

“No turning back now,” said Chris as he closed the bomb bay door.

“We can always turn back,” said Bree. “Let’s hope we don’t have to.”

DANNY FELT THE REST OF HIS ASSAULT TEAM STARTING to tense as the Osprey passed over the border into Somalia. Talk had gotten sparser and sparser since takeoff; no one had spoken now for at least five minutes.

No matter how much you trained for combat, or thought about it, or dreamed about it, you were never ready for it when it arrived. You punched the buttons like you were trained to, reacted the way you’d taught your body to react. But that didn’t mean you were really, truly ready. There was no way to erase the millisecond of fear, the quick surge of adrenaline that leaped at you the instant you came under fire.

These guys knew it. They’d been there before.

“Vector One has peeled off. We’re ten minutes from our target,” said the pilot.

Some of the others tried peering out the windows, craning their heads toward the front. The cruise missiles would be finding their targets any second now; in theory they’d see the flashes.

Danny steadied his eyes on his MP-5, double-checking it to make sure it was ready. He had two clips ready in each vest pocket, along with a grenade, the pin taped so it couldn’t accidentally get snagged.

Good to go.

* * *

CHRIS HAD HIS FACE PRACTICALLY PASTED TO THE screen, which was projecting an infrared image of the Somalian base, now just over twelve miles away.

“Nothing,” he said. “I see the SA-6’s, that’s all. But we’re still a good way off.”

“No Zeus?”

“No antiair guns at all. No other defenses.”

“AGMs to target, ten seconds,” said Bree. “Nine, eight, seven—”

“Wow, I see it!” shouted Chris, and in the next second the horizon lit with a yellow-red explosion. “Got him!”

The second cruise missile splashed five seconds later. Both completely obliterated their targets.

Breanna tensed, waiting for the RWR to warn her that the Somalians had belatedly turned on their antiaircraft radars.

Nada.

She activated the nightscope viewer panel. The view was limited to twelve degrees and Breanna never felt particularly comfortable with it, preferring the radar and IR scans. But the synthetic view didn’t mind the humid conditions caused by the recent rain, couldn’t be jammed, and was easy to sort when things got hot—pun intended.

“We’re going to be overhead in about sixty seconds,” she told Chris. “What do you think?”

“I don’t have a target,” he said. “Looks like the place is deserted. Shit, there are no secondaries. I think those SAMs were decoys.”

“Or we missed.”

“No.” Chris played with the resolutions on the screen. “I saw them. They’re gone. No related vehicles. I’m thinking decoys, Bree. Or they left. Place is deserted.”

“Vector Leader, this is Fort Two,” said Breanna, alerting the assault team. “SAMs have been splashed. No live defenses. Copy?”

“Roger, copy,” returned the ground mission commander from the Osprey. “We’ll proceed as planned.”

“Fort Two,” said Bree. She turned to her copilot. “Chris, pull out the satellite maps. Give me the heading of that east-west road.”

“I can see it on the screen,” he told her. “What are you thinking?”

“Let’s see where it goes,” said Bree. She selected the FLIR imaging for her MUD, then banked the Megafortress to follow along the roadway. It rose through the hills toward northern Ethiopia, with a new leg skirting Hargyesa, a relative megalopolis. The road seemed deserted—or at least there were no warm engines or bodies on it, according to the FLIR.

“They could be anywhere, Bree,” said Chris. “We don’t want to get out too far from Vector, in case they run into problems.”

“I’m not intending on getting too far away, Chris,” she told him. “Relax.”

“I’m relaxed,” he said defensively. He checked his screen. “They’re thirty seconds away.”

Breanna swung out of the south leg of her orbit, heading back toward the center of the target area. She selected the starscope input for her screen, and saw two dark shadows leap into the green, wings tilting upward as they swept into a landing.

“Dead as a doornail,” said Chris, who was using the infrared to monitor the scene. “Nothing moving. Nothing hot.”

“You’re ready with the JSOWs just in case?”

“Now who’s getting tense?” asked Chris.

“Let’s open the bay doors just to be sure.”

“Roger that,” he snapped. She couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic.

* * *

THEY’D PLANNED TO RAPPEL, SO HITTING THE GROUND behind the swirling motors was a bit of a letdown, but Danny could live with it. He and the rest of the Whiplash team spread out quickly, moving to cover the first team’s assault of the main building.

It wasn’t much of an assault. The Delta troopers had lowered themselves from their Osprey to the roof of the main building, working down to the main floor in about a fifth of the time a training exercise would have taken—less actually, since any training exercise would have used another Spec Ops team as enemies.

“We’re clear, Captain,” said the Delta commander over the corn set. The lightweight Dreamland gear made him sound as if he were standing at Danny’s side. “We have blood on the floor in the basement, and some flight gear.”

“Shit. We’re too late.”

“All right. We’ll search and secure,” said the commander.

Danny cursed, then relayed the information to his men.

AS SOON AS THE GROUND TEAM CONFIRMED THAT THE school was deserted, Breanna pointed Fort Two toward A-1, the airstrip close to the Gulf of Aden.

“I don’t know, Bree,” said Chris. “They could be anywhere. I’m thinking Mogadishu.”

“Mogadishu’s five hundred miles southeast of here.”

“My point exactly.”

Breanna didn’t think that they would be lucky enough to find them on the ground. But she did want to see if her theory was at least possible. A-1 was a little more than seventy-five miles away, a straight line back toward the northwest. While they didn’t have particularly fat fuel reserves, she figured they could get close enough to get a look at the airstrip before turning back to shepherd the Ospreys home.