“You ever break the sound barrier, Sergeant?” Knife asked as the engines swirled.

“Sir—no!” yelled his passenger.

“Well, now you have,” said Smith. He backed off the engines as they passed the boundary into Test Range K, which he’d been cleared to use as long as he stayed above five thousand feet. The airspace below was reserved because of static tests of an Army electronic-pulse system, due to begin within the half hour.

“See the tank down on the ground, Sergeant?” Knife asked.

“Affirmative, sir. That’s the EMF target. Think it’ll get nuked?”

“Couldn’t tell you. We’re talking Army here.”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant with a laugh. “We’re shielded against those pulses, aren’t we?”

“Well, allegedly their weapon defeats standard shielding,” answered Knife, who knew that the test had been conducted about twenty times over the past month—obviously because the device didn’t work. “But, like I say, we’re talking Army.”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, snickering again.

“We’ll give it plenty of room,” said Smith, starting to bank.

They’d been using Range K the day Stockard got nailed.

Poor bastard.

Stockard was a good pilot, but he hadn’t been quite good enough. A blink too slow, and it cost him.

Knife curled his hand around his stick and took another turn, a truly hard one this time, briefly touching eight g’s.

“What’d you think of that one?” Knife asked, easing back on the stick. “Sergeant?”

There was no answer.

“Sergeant?”

There was a low moan. Apparently the force of the turn had knocked his passenger unconscious.

Laughing out loud, Knife gunned the plane back toward the runway.

* * *

“CAN’T DISAGREE, MS. O’DAY. CAN’T.” COLONEL Bastian picked up his pen and began tracing a series of triangles on his white notepad. He leaned his left elbow against the chair’s armrest, the phone pressed against his ear. The National Security Advisor had just reminded him how important it was to keep Dreamland going.

“Well, then,” said O’Day, “what can we give them to cut?”

Bastian sighed. “I’ve been here a little more than twelve hours.”

“The Joint Chiefs’ recommendation is full closure and shutdown,” said O’Day. “I’m meeting with them in less than an hour. What bones do I throw them?”

“Well, I’d say preliminarily Megafortress, the Achilles laser array, definitely the Nightfighter A-10 upgrade. The Flighthawk U/MFVs, all the crap we’re doing for the Army—”

“Crap?”

“Excuse me. All of the joint-service projects can go.”

“No,” said O’Day firmly. “Those contracts are going to help keep you alive. I’m fairly certain we can keep the Army Secretary on board. They’re gaga over the EM pulse weapon and their smart bullets. And that carbon-boron vest thing, the body-armor project.”

Bastian rolled his eyes. “If we let politics guide weapons development—”

“Oh, cut the crap, Colonel,” snapped O’Day. “Since when hasn’t it? Look, the first battle we wage is for survival. We keep Dreamland running, then we move it into the twenty-first century. I’ll take care of the politics,” she added, her tone softening. “Just give me a bottom-line number. We’ll work the details out later.”

“If we could take the money from the F-119 project—”

“Why don’t you just suggest you’d like to sleep with the Speaker’s wife?” snarled O’Day. “That would go over better.”

Dog laughed despite himself. One thing he’d say for O’Day—she could be as irreverent as anyone he knew in the military. She was just very choosy about it.

“It wasn’t meant as a joke,” added O’Day.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Bastian contritely.

“All right, listen, Dog, I have a subcommittee meeting on Somalia and Iran in thirty seconds, so I’m going to have to sign off. Solid numbers by Tuesday.”

The scrambled line snapped clear.

Bastian gave himself a moment to recover, then called to Ax to let his next appointment in.

The sergeant appeared in the doorway. “Bit of a complication, Colonel.”

“What happened, he got tired of waiting?”

“No, sir,” said Ax. “Problem is, he might not get through the door. It’s, uh, Major Stockard, Colonel,” added the sergeant. “He’s in a wheelchair.”

“Stockard’s next?”

“Yes, sir. Projects in alpha order. He’s the senior officer on the Flighthawks.”

Dog stood up. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to this. Even before Stockard’s accident their relationship was at best chilly, at worst nonexistent.

“I suggested Room 103B,” added Ax. “That would be the conference room two doors down the hallway. It has double doors. He’s waiting. You’re backed up three appointments already,” added the sergeant as Bastian got up. Ax pointed to a side door, which opened into a vacant office. “Shortcut, sir.”

As he reached the door, Bastian realized the frame was actually fairly wide, more than enough for a wheelchair. His sergeant had arranged the meeting place to give both men more privacy. Typical Ax. “Thanks, Sergeant.”

“Lunch’ll be waiting.”

* * *

ZEN ROLLED BACK AND FORTH, TRYING TO WORK OFF some of his energy, some of his nervousness. He felt like a nugget pilot, moving an F-15 up to the flight line for his first takeoff, jiggling the rudder pedals up and down. You could always tell who was new or at least nervous—the twin rudders whacked back and forth like loose shingles in the wind.

He willed himself to stop. You didn’t want to tip off the enemy to your vulnerabilities.

Everyone was the enemy, including his father-in-law. The fact that Zen greatly respected Bastian—whom he’d met during the Gulf War while liaisoning as an intel officer for his squadron—was an argument only for greater vigilance.

The creak of the side door took him by surprise. Zen sat up stiffly in his chair as Colonel Bastian brushed into the room.

“Major, good morning.” Bastian’s tone gave nothing away; he could have been greeting a Chinese military attaché. He closed the door with a slap and then folded his arms in front of his chest. “It’s been a while.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re still assigned on the Flighthawk project.” Bastian’s tone was somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Yes, sir.” Stockard resisted the impulse to add something—anything—to the statement. He and his lawyer had gone over and over this point. Don’t argue, don’t justify, don’t explain. Just state your assignment and presence as a fact. Anything else will inevitably weaken our position.

Zen’s position. As supportive as his lawyer was, Jeff was in this alone.

“I think we have an unusual situation,” said the colonel.

“The Flighthawks are an unusual project,” said Zen.

“Major, I’m going to spare you the rah-rah bullshit,” said Bastian. He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Dreamland’s on the chopping block. Even if HAWC survives, at least a dozen projects are going to be killed. Everything’s in play. The Flighthawks especially. Playing with robots is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”

“Flying with a pair of Flighthawks is like having two wing mates at your beck and call,” said Zen. He was surprised to be talking about the project instead of himself. “We’re just scratching the surface.”

“Nonetheless—”

“Look at what UAVs did on the first day of the Air War in the Gulf,” said Zen. “They were the ones responsible for helping knock out the Iraqi air defenses.”

“You don’t have to tell me what happened on the first day of the Air War,” snapped Bastian.

“Excuse me, Colonel. I know you helped plan the attacks. But I can tell you, as someone who was there too—if we had Flighthawks, the F/A-18 that was splashed in air-to-air on Day One would not have gone down.”

Bastian said nothing. The Navy plane had been knocked down by an Iraqi air-to-air missile, the only air-to-air casualty of the war. Had the Iraqi Air Force been more capable, there would undoubtedly have been many more.