Nerve Center (17 page)

He slammed the MiG through a series of hard rolls, taking close to ten g’s as he jerked violently down, the MiG just barely controllable. Gravity pirouetted against the sides of his body, punching so hard that even the advanced flight suit he wore couldn’t ward off all of the pressure. A black cowl closed around his head. His eyes stopped working together; he saw the world as two circles of spinning blue and brown in a thick bowl of grayness. Knife lost sight of his instruments, of the cockpit; he flew by dizzy feel, the stick his only consciousness.

Somehow he pulled out as the spin threatened to overwhelm him. Somehow he managed to get the MiG moving in the direction opposite the one he’d started in, gaining speed.

Knife pushed his wings flat. The world expanded around him, the effects of oxygen deprivation receding. One of the Flighthawks shot ahead, well off his left wing, but where the hell was the other?

He started to move his head around the cockpit, and belatedly realized he was flying upside down. Still disoriented, he swooped right, losing three thousand feet in a roll that brought him nearly to the desert floor.

The second U/MF was on his tail, over him about five hundred feet, still trying to close.

Knife knew he should call time-out, push the mike button and yell knock it off. He might already have done that—his brain was so scrambled he couldn’t remember whether he had or not.

But Goddamnit. If Zen and his shadow were going to play for keeps, so was he.

He forced his hand to the throttle, notching his speed back. He could feel the Flighthawk trying to close.

He’d pull his nose up at the last second, send the son of a bitch right into the dead lake bed. Easy as pie, as long as he kept his head clear and his speed up high enough to avoid stalling.

Madrone would smash the $500-million Flighthawk to bits. Let him explain that, the SOB.

Aboard Hawkmother
18 February, 1307

KEVIN’S THOUGHTS AND IDEAS STREAMED THROUGH THE blue sky, comets jittering and disintegrating. He thought of sending the Flighthawks crashing into the MiG.

The idea remained there, a contrail in the jungle sky. He grabbed for it desperately, trying to wipe it away.

“Knock it off! Knock it off!” Zen yelled.

The red disappeared. The sky and rain forest disappeared. And then he felt Hawk Two, felt the wind coursing below his wings. He relaxed, put his nose up, and circled away from the MiG, breaking pursuit.

Kevin’s head pounded; his heart thumped against his chest. He wanted to turn the two robot planes back over to their flight computer, but he dared not. He couldn’t be sure what other ideas sat out there, ghosts ready to jump in and take control.

“What the hell’s going on, Kevin?” asked Stockard.

“Hawks One and Two returning to base,” he answered. “Requesting permission to land.”

Aboard Raven
18 February, 1313

ZEN PUNCHED THE TRANSMISSION SWITCH ANGRILY. THIS time it had clearly been Kevin’s fault; Mack had flown the pattern perfectly until the Flighthawks homed in on his tail. If anything, Mack had waited too long to take evasive maneuvers. It was a miracle there hadn’t been a collision, and at least a minor miracle that he hadn’t lost Sharkishki.

Jeff had screwed up too. He hadn’t told them to knock it off soon enough, hadn’t taken over the Flighthawks the instant his command wasn’t obeyed.

Why? Because he thought he’d been a little too harsh on the first go-around?

“What are we doing, Gameboy?” asked Mack. He sounded winded, his voice hoarse.

“Calling it a day,” said Jeff. “Return to base.”

Dreamland Security Office
18 February, 1315

DANNY SLID INTO HIS DESK CHAIR AND OPENED THE folder of FBI foreign-contact alerts in his lap. Officially known as Monthly Referral of Foreign and Suspicious Contacts (Form 23-756FBI/DIA), the five pages of eight-point single-spaced type strained Danny’s eyes as well as his patience. The report compiled rumors and rumors of rumors about base personnel and their alleged contacts with foreigners; he was required to acknowledge any that pertained to Dreamland personnel and indicate what he intended to do about it. If the report had added anything to base security, he might have at least felt more comfortable about it, but the real goal was clearly COA—cover our ass—on the FBI’s part. Every conference a Dreamland scientist attended was listed, along with a roster of foreigners; any potential contact was noted by Bureau spies or sources. An engineer who found himself in the same cafeteria line with a British journalist would rate a paragraph. If he’d been served by a Mexican national, he’d get two paragraphs. And if he’d had the misfortune to be at the cashier when a Russian scientist entered the room, he’d get an entire page.

Danny skimmed through the report with as much attention as he could muster, looking for “his” people. Lee Ong had been to a lecture sponsored by the Department of Energy on utilizing computers for some sort of nuclear-test thing; someone from Taiwan had been there. Blah-blah-blah.

Freah yawned his way through the rest of the report until he came to a three-paragraph account detailing a “contact meeting” between Major Mack Smith and a high-ranking member of the Brazilian defense establishment. The details were trivial—the FBI agent fussed over the cigars they had smoked—Cuban Partagas, blatantly illegal, blah-blah-blah.

Brazil was said to be trying to buy MiGs from the Russians, the agent added, almost as an afterthought.

Danny hit a combination of keys on the computer, calling up a file that compiled data from foreign-contact forms—official paperwork that was supposed to be filed by certain key personnel when they were approached by a foreign national.

Smith hadn’t reported the incident.

Not necessarily a big deal. Except that he was assigned to the top-secret Advanced MiG project.

Danny reached to the end of the desk, pulling over his thermos to pour a cup of coffee while the computer fetched Major Smith’s personnel records.

Flighthawk Control Bunker
18 February, 1400

ZEN PUSHED THROUGH THE CONFERENCE ROOM DOUBLE doors so fast he nearly slammed into Chris Ferris, who was reaching for one of the doors.

“Knock if off means
knock it the fuck
off” he said loudly, wheeling toward the large table at the front of the room where the rest of the ANTARES/Flighthawk team had gathered. Everyone in the room froze.

Everyone except the two people the comment was directed at.

“No shit,” said Mack.

“I did knock it off,” said Madrone.

“You didn’t knock it off fast enough,” Jeff told him. He pushed on the right wheel of his chair, maneuvering as if he were a fighter lining up his enemy in his gunsight. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing happened,” said Madrone.

“You got that close on purpose?”

“I wasn’t close.”

Zen whipped his chair around, facing Mack. He’d expected Smith to be wearing his usual smirk, but instead found the pilot frowning.

Maybe the encounter had actually done some good, instilling a sense of humility in the conceited jerk.

Fat chance.

“What’s your excuse?” said Zen to Mack.

“Aw, fuck you, Stockard. He’s the one who screwed up.”

“You didn’t break off right away.”

“I don’t have to put up with this bullshit.” Mack started for the door.

“Hey. Smith. Smith!”

Jeff wheeled after him, then stopped a few feet from the door, impotent as Mack stormed away.

He told himself to calm down—his job was to keep everything professional, not throw kerosene on the fire. Jeff wheeled back toward the front of the room, corralling his temper. The different tapes of the mission were stacked near the players; an airman assigned as one of the mission assistants waited at full attention near the machine, his bottom lip trembling. Jeff slid near him, trying to smile.

“At ease, Jimmy. Relax.” he whispered. “Breathe.”

“Yes, sir,” said the young man, who neither relaxed nor stopped trembling.

“Okay,” said Zen, willing his vocal chords to project their characteristically soothing, in-control tone. “Let’s go through this, from the top, bit by bit.”

BREE WATCHED HER HUSBAND AS HE STRUGGLED TO maintain control. Long before she’d met him, he’d earned his nickname “Zen” because he could be calm under the worst circumstances. That, of course, was before the accident; since then, Jeff had much less patience for minor annoyances, and tended to struggle to project his former calm.

It wasn’t just the accident. Jeff seemed uneasy with being in charge—or rather, with standing back and letting other people take control. He wanted to jump in and do it himself.

Unlike her father. Bastian wouldn’t have roared in cursing. He would have found a way to make Kevin and Mack feel like peas, if that’s what he wanted them to feel like, yet stay in the room and actually learn something.

Bree still thought Jeff was overreacting, at least a little. The review of the C3 control tapes showed that the safety parameters had somehow gotten turned off—a programming glitch that Little Miss Jennifer Gleason was responsible for, though no one seemed to want to say so out loud.

Breanna watched Gleason flick back her hair as she tried to account for the problem. She looked more like a ‘60’s hippie than a scientist on a military base.

Most of the men panted after her.

Not Jeff. And if Gleason tried anything in that direction, she’d scratch the little banshee’s eyes out.

Dreamland Administrative Offices (“Taj”), Level 1
18 February, 1545

DANNY CAUGHT COLONEL BASTIAN ON HIS WAY OUT OF his office for a lunch so late it could be considered dinner.

“Talk to me,” said the colonel, waving off Sergeant Gibbs as he headed for the door.

Freah followed silently as Bastian made his getaway. Bastian grumbled about something, passing the elevator in favor of the stairs. He swiped his card in the reader and pushed through the door, practically leaping from the landing to the steps as he did his customary double time up to ground level, where the general cafeteria was.

“So?” he asked.

“I have to talk to you in private,” said Freah. “Personnel matter.”

Bastian stopped abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hard to get a word in these days.”

Dog smiled. He folded his arms around each other in front of his chest and leaned against the metal pipe of the railing, as deliberate in his nonchalance as he had been in his rush. “This private enough?”

The entire building was swept for bugs daily; everyone entering the building passed through a sensor array that beeped if a paper clip or earring was out of place. In theory, it was as secure as anywhere on the base except the command bunker.

Still, it was a stairwell.

“Go ahead, Danny,” prompted Bastian. “What’s bothering you?”

Danny told him about Smith and the Brazilian official. No one knew what the two men had been talking about, but the Brazilians had been inquiring about MiG sales with the Russians. At the same time, there were rumblings in the Brazilian government about military takeovers and coups.

“None of what you’ve said implicates Mack in any way,” said Bastian when he was finished.

“I know that,” said Danny. “Except that he didn’t report the contact.”

“You sure somebody didn’t start this as a rumor to nail him? Smith is not the most liked person in the world.”

Freah shrugged. His team had pulled Mack out of the Mediterranean during the Somalian matter, rescuing him after disabling the plane his kidnappers were fleeing in. Otherwise, Freah had had very little contact with the man.

“I’m not accusing him of anything except not noting the contact,” said Freah. “In and of itself, that doesn’t call for the death penalty. However—”

“However it’s not good,” agreed Bastian. “What do you suggest?”

“Full security check for starters. Tail him when he’s off base. Do the phones, the whole shebang.”

“Pretty big invasion of privacy for forgetting to fill out a form.”

Danny didn’t say anything. Bastian finally sighed.

“All right. Go for it,” he said. “I have a temporary assignment for him as a liaison with the Department of Energy; it’s due to start in a week or two.”

“I don’t know, Colonel. It’s classified?”

“Yes, but it’s one of those BS things—it involves reviewing sites that are about to be closed for possible test sites. It was mandated by the last Congress, but the Administration has pretty much already dictated what the report should be. It’s a holding pattern for him until a prime spot comes up.”

“Doing what?”

“F-22. Mack would go in as the operations director on the test squadron. Important job—assuming he takes it. He’s turned down everything anyone’s offered so far.”

“I don’t know if I’d sign off security-wise.”

“Well, the liaison thing will give you time to form a definite opinion, no?”

Danny nodded.

“You really think he’s a traitor?” said Dog, his voice more incredulous than before.

Freah shrugged. “I learned when I was a kid you can never read somebody else’s mind.”

“Well, my mind says I’m hungry. How about some lunch?”

“Colonel, it’s almost dinnertime.”

Bastian smiled as if he were apologizing for having so much to do he couldn’t get out for lunch.

“I have to get this going,” said Danny. He took a step down. “I’m going to need you to sign the finding,” he added, referring to the paperwork that allowed the procedures to proceed.

“After lunch I’m going over to the Megafortress simulator,” said the colonel, glancing at his watch. “Half hour there, maybe forty-five minutes, then back to the office. Catch me and I’ll sign.”

“Can’t get enough of the Megafortress, huh’?” asked Danny. “Hey, the computer tells me I’m getting good,” said Bastian, resuming his upward jog.

Dreamland Bunker B, Subbasement
18 February, 1545