Dale Brown - Dreamland

Nothing.

Knife shifted behind the tree, then turned his attention to the radio.

“Poison One to allied command,” he said. “Team is under attack. Repeat, we are taking fire.”

He stopped, listening for a response.

The airplane again, in the distance, coming from the north.

Maybe it could hear him but not the other way around.

Or maybe it was directing ground forces against them.

At this point, that didn’t matter. They knew where they were.

Allied command. Shit. Like he was in the Gulf or something?

“Smith to whoever,” he said, his heart pounding wildly. It felt as if it were smashing itself against his injured rib bones. “We are two and a half miles from the coast, maybe more. We’re southwest of the Silkworm site.”

There was a scream and more gunfire. Knife dialed the radio back to beacon, then spun around.

Nothing to shoot at.

The airplane roared overhead, barely at treetop level.

He’d have to gamble that it was on his side. Mack began to run toward the open field. With his first step the ground behind him erupted with a massive shell burst. Thrown off his feet, he dropped both the radio and his pistol, but somehow managed to land on his good side. Tumbling head over heels, he crashed into a bush and got up. He could see, or thought he could see, the shadow of a plane passing at the edge of the yellow grass just ahead. He threw himself toward it, running and breathing and feeling his ribs like a sharp ax ripping through his skin. He began waving his arms, then felt some force pulling him around, lassoing him like a steer. He swung sideways and found himself on the ground, tackled. A Somalia soldier pushed an AK-47 into his face and said something he couldn’t hear, though his meaning was pretty damn plain.

Dreamland

21 October, 2130 local

Bree fought the bile back as she completed the last-second checked before heading off the Dreamland runway. There were any number of reasons for her to be angry, starting with the Spec Ops captain’s in-her-face attitude. The jerkoff thought it was macho to sit on the floor.

Jump seat, whatever. Asshole.

“Good to go, Rap,” said Chris.

“Yeah,” she grunted.

It was Jeff she was mad at, though. This was just a milk run – admittedly a long, long, long one, but still just a milk run. Assuming she made the refuels without any problem.

Piece of cake. Even with a mix of missiles in the belly. Jackass Spec Ops captain. Just because he was her father’s friend didn’t mean shit. she was in charge of the plane – she had a good mind to march downstairs and tell the fucker to strap himself onto the rotating missile launcher in the bomb bay.

See how macho he thought that was.

She had debated going to Cheshire and demanding that Freah delete someone from his team. She had every right to do that – she probably should have done that.

But she hadn’t. In her mind, and maybe only in her mind, it was the sort of thing a woman couldn’t do. A woman couldn’t afford to be less brave, less macho, than a guy.

How was watching out for her crew – strike that, her passengers – not being brave?

Freah would have to cut a stinking hole with a blowtorch to get his sorry ass out of the plane if there was a problem. Because she sure as shit wasn’t going to slow down so he could crawl over to the hatch.

Maybe he’d move the computer equipment in the weapons area, find a way to squeeze through the bulkhead spars and crawl back to the bomb bay. Ride a cruise missile down to earth like what’s his name in that whatchamacallit movie.

Asshole!

“Rap?”

“Dream Tower, this is Fort Two. Request clearance for takeoff.”

“Tower. Uh, Captain, didn’t we do this already?”

Another fucking wise-ass, Bree thought, pushing the throttle bar to get the hell out of there.

Colonel Bastian watched from the tarmac as the immense black plane lifted itself into the night, a dark shadow shuddering into the air.

It would be an exaggeration to say he’d thought more about his daughter in the past hour than in her whole life, but it was probably true that it was the longest sustained stretch in quite a while. He’d tried concentrating on other things, and even taking a nap, but couldn’t; finally he’d decided to go out to the hangar area and wish her luck.

But he’d stopped short. He told himself that he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her crew, but he knew that was a lie. He’d stopped because he didn’t know what to say.

Or rather, he didn’t think he could say what he wanted to say. Which was a lifetime of apologies, maybe.

He hadn’t been there when she was born. He hadn’t been there when she was growing up. It was partly her mother’s fault, partly a question of circumstances, partly his career. Her mother had asked for a divorce even before she was pregnant, and then taken off, just disappeared. Ravena’s wild streak had attracted him in the first place, the edge of danger in their relationship. Her unpredictability fired him up; he liked the edge, or had, or thought he had, when he was a young fighter jock on top of the world.

The jock eventually grew up. Ravena hadn’t.

Breanna had, though.

It was his fault he hadn’t been there. No one else’s but his.

Dog folded his arms around his chest, eyes straining to see the disappearing shadow in the distance. She was a damn good pilot; he should be proud.

He was. He was also worried about her, an anxious father who’d just sent his daughter off on her first date.

If only it were that, he thought, finally losing track of the plane in the vast, overwhelming sky.

Dreamland

22 October, 0600

“What do you call a cripple trying to cross a road?”

The two airmen looked at each other as if they’d just caught their parents in a foursome in Times Square.

“Roadkill,” Zen said. “What do you call a one-legged bank robber?”

The airman on the left shrugged. The other laughed nervously. “What, Captain?” he asked.

“Misunderstood.”

The roar of the helicopter approaching the Nellis landing pad made it possible for the two airmen to escape. The Dolphin shuttle – a French-made Aerospatiale SA.366 Dauphin adapted by the Air Force as a transport and occasional SAR craft – whipped in as if dropping into a hot LZ. The men bolted for it as it touched down a few yards away. A ground crewman pushed forward the access ramp that had been specially built for Zen. Stockard wheeled slowly, methodically building momentum as he sidled and bumped through the wide side door. Because of its SAR function, this Dolphin had a large open bay in the rear; it was easier to get in and out of than the other, which was a dedicated ferry generally reserved for – and preferred by – officers.

“Morning, Captain,” said the copilot, trotting back as Zen wheeled himself into the bird. “You in for this week’s football pool?” He pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket.

“I ought to get cripple’s odds,” Zen said, taking the sheet.

“Man, you’re in a strange mood this morning, sir,” said one of the airmen he’d been tormenting with his jokes.

“I’m just a strange guy, I guess,” said Zen, reaching around to strap his chair to the helicopter’s restraints. Greasy Hands had had someone install the quick-release hookup, making it easy for him to secure himself. Maybe next week they’d put in a special window.

“All aboard what’s coming aboard,” yelled the copilot out the rear door before pulling it shut. There was, of course, no one else waiting in the off-limits and well-guarded shuttle area. The pilot whipped the engine into a fury and the helicopter shot upward.

He was in a strange mood, Zen conceded to himself. Maybe it was because he thought he’d made a mistake with Bree last night.