“Hear, hear,” snarled Rubeo.

“She takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’,” said Chris, obviously annoyed by the scientist’s disdain. “I have a picture somewhere of a B-52H model landing without her stabilizer. Try that in a Bone.”

“Bone”—from B-One—was the nickname for the B-1B, also known as the Excalibur and Lancer. Ferris had served with a B-1 squadron before coming to Dreamland.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Chris added. “I love the B-1B. There’s no better low-level penetrator in the world. Mach 9 at five hundred feet wakes you up, let me tell you.”

“Humph,” said Rubeo.

“Much of the technology we’re testing,” continued Breanna sharply, “represents the next wave of development beyond the B-1B and the B-2. Our resin wings, for example, are lighter than those of the B-2. The avionics and control suite that we are currently working on, when perfected, may be used in upgrades to the B-2 or perhaps whatever its successor will be.”

“We know all that,” hissed Rubeo.

Annoyed by the scientist, Breanna punched the plane into a roll.

“And as you can see, the physical improvements to the control surfaces, as well as the reinforcements to the skeleton, make Fort Two as maneuverable as a late-teen fighter.”

“Whoa!” yelled McCormick as Breanna put the plane back on its keel. “Better than a roller coaster.”

“Now I’m not saying a B-52 couldn’t have done that,” Breanna told the passengers as they settled down. “But there’s really no comparison between the two airplanes’ fight profiles. I could demonstrate spin recovery, for example,” she added pointedly, glancing over at her erstwhile copilot.

Rubeo had his hands wrapped around his neck, obviously trying to choke the bile back down.

“But maybe I’ll wait for another time,” Breanna said.

The words were barely out of her mouth when the plane fell out from under her in an uncontrolled, full-power dive.

DOG OPENED THE SIDE DOOR INTO HIS OFFICE AND stepped back fifteen years. Instead of lunch, Patrick McLanahan was sitting on the edge of his desk, wearing civilian clothes and a smile nearly as wide as his shoulders.

“Dog, how the hell are you?” said McLanahan with a laugh. “You’re damn lucky you’re not sitting in a pilot’s seat right now, or your fanny would be waxed solid.”

“I’d just hand the controls over to you and expect to have my butt saved,” replied Dog with a laugh, grabbing his long-ago radar operator in a bear hug. “How the hell are you, Patrick?”

“Still kicking,” said McLanahan. “Despite rumors to the contrary.”

“I’ll bet,” said Dog. McLanahan had been the senior Air Force officer on the DreamStar project, and one of the heads that had rolled after the debacle.

Supposedly. He was looking awful cheerful for someone who’d recently been forced into retirement. And downright natty, with a leather jacket, sharp chinos, and expensive-looking cowboy boots.

Not to mention the fact that his shirt was tucked in.

Obviously something was up. McLanahan may have been the best bombardier in the Air Force, but he had also arguably been the worst dressed, a walking catalog of Reg. 35-10 dress and appearance violations.

“Civilian life agrees with you, I guess,” said Bastian. “In a way.”

“You want some lunch?” Dog asked.

“Sounds good,” said McLanahan.

“You here on business?”

“In a way.”

Dog stuck his head out the door. “I’m going over to find some lunch,” he told Ax.

“They’re waiting for you in the base commander’s lounge at the end of Level B. I’ve rearranged your afternoon. You’re free until 1400.”

“Thanks.”

“I expect it will show up in the next fitness review,” said the sergeant.

“I thought you told me there was a new directive requiring self-evaluation only,” retorted the colonel. “How do we get to Level B?”

“I know the way,” McLanahan told him.

Bastian matched his pace as they headed down a long corridor to a set of steel doors. Inside they descended two levels and emerged in a hallway lined with framed photographs of old Air Force fighters. A thick carpet lay on the floor. A wooden door at the end of the hall gave way to a small, well-appointed room with hunter-green walls and heavy drapes. A sergeant and an airman stood at the side of a row of four tables, each outfitted with fresh linens. The place looked like an exclusive D.C. restaurant.

“I’m going to fix this,” Dog said as they sat down.

“How’s that?” asked McLanahan.

Before Bastian could say anything else, the airman swept in and filled their water glasses. The sergeant slipped a stiff piece of cardboard in front of Dog and stepped back.

It was a wine list.

“I hear the Duck Walk by the glass is a good buy,” quipped McLanahan.

“We won’t be having wine, thank you,” said Bastian, handing the card back. “Damn. I can’t believe Brad Elliott stood for this.”

“Well, first of all, General Elliott was a three-star general,” noted McLanahan. He seemed rather amused. “This sort of thing comes with the territory. And second of all, the lounge was used only for VIPs. Congressmen, the Secretary of Defense, important contractors the general had to impress. Otherwise, Brad ate mostly at his desk.”

“Humph.”

“Being a general means being a politician,” said McLanahan.

“Thank God I’m not a general,” said Dog.

“Listen, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t close the place until after lunch. I didn’t get a chance to have breakfast.”

Dog settled back in the chair. He’d known when he accepted the assignment that he was entering a different world than he’d inhabited before—a world of privilege and power. What McLanahan said about the lounge’s use was undoubtedly true. Hell, from what he’d seen back East, this was austere. It was also likely that the facility—and its wine list—had been donated by defense contractors.

But that didn’t mean it was going to survive. Bastian was a lieutenant colonel and would live like one. And so would everyone else. As of tomorrow morning, he decided as he surveyed the room, all “cafeterias”—strike that, all facilities, all mess halls, all lounges, hell, all dormitories and soda machines—would be “all-ranks.” Everyone was equal, military and civilian, officer and enlisted man.

“Dog?”

“What exactly is it that you want, Patrick?”

McLanahan glanced up as the sergeant returned with menus. Dog took the card silently, scanning it quickly.

Roast leg of lamb in a raspberry mustard sauce. Pureed lentils in a sake-cream soup. Pheasant saltimbocca with squid-ink linguine.

Dog looked up at the sergeant. The man’s arms were straight down at his sides, his thumbs circling rapidly around his fingers. His cheeks were purple, but his forehead was white.

“Look,” Dog told him, trying to smile, “can you get me a medium-rare burger with fries?”

“Gladly, sir,” said the sergeant.

“Me too,” said McLanahan, handing the menu back to the sergeant. “Although I have to say that pheasant was tempting.”

“You didn’t set this up with Ax, did you?” Dog asked McLanahan.

McLanahan laughed and shook his head. “I wish I did. Just to see your face.”

“Are you here to lobby for Megafortress or Cheetah?”

“Neither actually,” said McLanahan, his tone instantly serious. “And not DreamStar or ANTARES either. If you want, I’ll tell you anything you want to know about any of the projects I was involved in. But they’re not why I’m here.”

“Megafortress isn’t going to make the cut, Patrick,” said Dog. “As much as I liked what the Old Dog did, and whatever I think of the flying-battleship idea, there’s no support.”

“I’m not here about that,” said McLanahan. “This is all your headache, not mine. I have new ones to deal with.”

“Such as?”

“ISA,” said McLanahan. ISA stood for Intelligence Support Agency, a high-level covert project funded by the CIA and DOD to support “special” actions. Dog knew it well—he had helped develop the briefing papers and the draft intelligence finding that established the organizational framework. ISA operated outside of the normal military command structure, to put it mildly.