Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (21 page)

 
          
Zen
pushed the Flighthawk skyward, toying with the idea of buzzing the liner. But
that would serve no purpose; you really couldn’t blame the captain for getting
the hell out of there.

 
          
“Tell
him there’s a Zodiac with the crew of the tanker heading in his direction,” Zen
said.

 
          
“The
captain says he’ll stand by to pick up survivors, but they have to come to
him,” said Collins.

 
          
Zen
brought Hawk Two back over the Zodiac. There were six or seven men in the boat.

 
          
Six
or seven. How many manned a ship like that? Had to be more.

 
          
Damn.
Damn.

 
          
“Hawk
Leader, we’re getting pretty far into our fuel reserves,” said Breanna. “We’re
talking to Dreamland now—we can land at the Philippines.”

 
          
“Hawk
Leader.”

 
          
“How’s
your fuel?” she asked.

 
          
“Yeah,
I have to refuel,” he said.

 
          
“We’ll
get into an orbit. We’ll hold here until the last possible second,” added
Breanna.

 
          
“Yeah.”

 
          
Zen
pushed Hawk Two into a bank, sliding toward the Zodiac. Someone in the front of
the small boat waved. He wagged his wings in recognition.

 
          
Poor
SOB was probably cursing him out.

 
          
“Navy
Orion is now zero-five away,” said Chris. “I gave them the lowdown,” he added.
“They claim they can see the smoke from where they are.”

 
          
“Yeah,”
was all Zen could say.

 
          
Dreamland Command

 
          
August
23, 1997, 0158 local (August 23, 1997, 1758 Philippines)

 
          
When
lieutenant Colonel Bastian put his hands to his neck and stretched them
backward, his vertebrae cracked so loudly the lieutenant at the communications
desk jerked his head around.

 
          
“Just
a little stiff,” said Dog. He glanced toward Major Lou “Gat”
Ascenzio
, who’d come in to spell him nearly an hour before.
Gat—he’d earned his nickname as an A-10A “driver” in Iraq—was a recent arrival
at Dreamland, assigned to head the tactical satellites and related projects. “I’m
going to grab some Zs,” Dog told him. “Anything comes up, beep me, all right?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir. You ought to get some rest.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Major,” snapped Dog—Gat’s habit of restating the obvious annoyed the hell
out of him. But as
Ascenzio
started to frown, he
added, “It’s all right, Gat, I know I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

 
          
He
took the elevator upstairs, then walked out to the
Taj’s
lobby, where the security staff jumped to attention. One asked if he needed a
driver; Dog declined.

 
          
“Walk
will do me good,” he said.

 
          
The
air had a dry, crisp quality, a sharpness that took away his fatigue. The
stiffness that had twisted his upper body and legs evaporated before he’d gone
more than a half mile.

 
          
His
mind, however, remained in knots. Three men were missing from the tanker the
Sukhois had hit; an untold number on the container ship had died, and the
survivors still hadn’t all been picked up. Then there was the Chinese Sukhois
pilot, apparently still lost at sea.

 
          
Arguably,
Quicksilver had saved countless lives by shooting down the other
antiship
missiles. Somehow, that didn’t assuage his
conscience.

 
          
What
if Allen was right? What if the plane incident started a war with China—a real
war this time, the kind of war Brad Elliot had tried to prevent? The Chinese
military was still potent; after all, that was undoubtedly their point now in
the South China Sea.

 
          
What
if they simple encouraged their Islamic allies in a campaign of terror? Six
months, a year from now, something might happen in a quiet corner of the U.S. Would
it be his fault?

 
          
They’d
done everything they could to save lives, not take them. Yet the Chinese were
unlikely to see it that way. Hell, not even Admiral Allen saw it that way, and
he wasn’t exactly China’s best friend.

 
          
Dog
turned down the access road toward his bungalow, a low-slung contemporary-style
ranch that looked over a
boneyard
: hunks of old
aircraft nestled in the starlight. Most were simply planes that had been parked
here for storage and then forgotten. The inventory showed several B-29’s and
B-50’s, as well as three C-47’s (or DC-3’s, as they were known in civilian
guise). There were also the remains of Dreamland failures, aircraft tested here
that didn’t quite make the cut or no longer had much value. The shadows were a
graphic reminder of the old Latin maxim, carpe diem; your time came and went
very quickly.

 
          
Dog
walked up the short crushed-stone path to his door, his shoes crunching stones
that reportedly had been smuggled in a duffel bag by the past commander of
Dreamland, General Brad Elliot. It was undoubtedly an apocryphal story, but Dog
liked it; it added a touch of eccentricity to a commander well known for his
efficiency and precision.

 
          
He
hit his access code for the lock, then pushed in the door. Cool air hit him in
a wave, refreshing him. As he turned and locked up, someone grabbed him from
behind, wrapping his arms around his neck.

 
          
Her
arms around his neck. He pulled his assailant to his chest.

 
          
“Hi,”
said Jennifer Gleason as they kissed. “About time.”

 
          
“How
long have you been waiting?”

 
          
“Hours,”
she said, and even though he knew it must be a lie, he apologized and kissed
her again. He slipped his hands into the back of her jeans, beneath her
ultrasensible
cotton briefs, feeling the coolness of her
skin. She folded into his body, sliding her own fingers to his buttons. Colonel
Bastian moved his hands to her sides and lifted her shirt over her head; she
writhed out of it like a snake shedding its skin, he undid her bra, her
peach-sized breasts gently unfolding from the material. They kissed again,
tongues meshing, lips warming each other, and still kissing they began walking
toward the bedroom. They made love in a long moment that shattered the
boundaries of time, then gave way to a warm bath of sleep.

 
          
Hours
later, Colonel Bastian found himself walking down a long stairway, the entrance
to a subway, maybe the Metro in Washington, D.C. The stairs were much longer
than at any stop he’d ever been on. He knew he was dreaming, but felt fear.

 
          
He’d
lost something and had to turn back. At first, he didn’t know what it was. As
he reached the second landing, he saw the luminescent white rectangle thrown on
the concrete floor by a light panel below the banister rail.

 
          
He
was looking for his daughter. It wasn’t Breanna as he knew now—it was Breanna
as a four-year-old. In real life, he’d rarely, if ever, been with her at this
age. He’d been divorced right after she was born, and sent overseas besides; he
didn’t see much of her until she was twelve or thirteen, when he was back in California,
and then D.C. In the dream, she had been with him when he started down the
steps, and now he felt panic that she wasn’t there.

 
          
He
kept on going up the steps, turning and twisting with each flight, expecting,
hoping to find her. His knees and calf muscles started to hurt, the tendons
pulling taut.

 
          
Why
had he let go of her hand? How could he have come so far without her?

 
          
He
told himself it was a dream, and yet that made the panic more real. He walked
and he walked, the staircase unending.

 
          
Jeff
Stockard joined him, not as a boy but as a man. In the dream, Jeff could walk,
wasn’t
Bree’s
husband or even in the Air Force, but
just a friend of his, a man trying to help. He asked where he’d last seen her,
and assured Dog she’d be just up the next flight.

 
          
He
pushed on, starting to run. “Where is she?” he said out loud.

 
          
Finally,
he woke up. It took forever for his eyes to focus. When they did, he saw
Jennifer had gone.

 
          
It
wasn’t a surprise really—she was a workaholic, used to keeping odd hours; he
knew he’d probably find her over in one of the computer labs working on the
latest project. In a way, her habit of sneaking out late at night was a
blessing; it lessened the chances of others getting embarrassed if they
happened to trip over her in the morning.

 
          
But
he wished she were here now. He wished he could fold himself around her warmth,
sink into her, fall back to sleep.

 
          
He
pulled the covers over him for a moment, but when his mind drifted back to the
dream, he pulled himself out of bed, got dressed, and headed back to Dreamland
Command.

 
          
Philippines

 
          
August
23, 1997, 2008 local (August 23, 1997, 0508 Dreamland)

 
          
From
the outside, the Whiplash mobile command center looked like an RV trailer
pained dark green, with twelve squat wheels and an array of satellite dishes
and antennas. Inside, it looked like a cross between a
powerplant
control room and a frat-house living area. About two thirds of the interior was
wide open, dominated by a pair of tables just big enough for a serious game of
poker. They could be joined together and extended by panels that folded up and
out from their sides. At the far end from the door was a counter with several
video monitors; a large, flat television screen sat against the wall. The
monitors were worked from a dedicated control station that looked like a slight
oversized personal computer desk; the gear tied into Dreamland Command via a
dedicated secure satellite link.

 
          
On
the other side of the partition was a bathroom, a storage area crammed with
spare parts for the computers, a com section, and a tiny “suite” that was
intended as a bedroom for the Whiplash commander. Since the trailer always had
to be manned, Danny Freah had found it more expedient to sleep in a tent on
their last deployment and intended to do so this time as well—assuming, that
is, he ever went to bed. He’d been up since they landed.

 
          
Quicksilver’s
crew sat at the pushed-together tables, going over their patrol for Stoner—and
just as importantly, themselves. Though exhausted, they’d described the
encounters minutely, several times pausing to work out the exact details.
Stoner listened impassively; his only comments were aimed at the Kali weapon.
Unfortunately, the Megafortress had gathered relatively little data on the
missile.

 
          
“So
why are these guys shooting at each other?” Zen asked him finally.

 
          
“They
don’t like each other,” said the spook blandly. “Advances their agenda.”

 
          
“Yeah.”

 
          
Stoner
shrugged,

 
          
“All
right, it’s getting late,” said Bree. “We can all use some sleep.”

 
          
“I
have to finish uploading the data,” said Collins.

 
          
“Yeah,
me too,” said Torbin. “The radar hits we got on the way back kind of distracted
me.”