“We think it’s the wreckage of the plane. Satellite will survey this area as well,” said Briggs. “We’re sending a team at first light. Worst case, we can destroy the wreckage. We’ll also have a team overfly the area of the radio transmission. If Smith’s down there and can work the radio, they’ll grab him.”

“That our job?”

“No. We want you to help secure this site here. Your team and a small group of Delta operators, hitting them from two sides, airlifted by Ospreys. It’s a village about ten kilometers further west that the Iranians have been using to train the Somalians. The feeling is that if Smith and the Marines were captured, they’d be held there.” Briggs pulled a pair of reconnaissance photographs and some hand-drawn sketches from the other side of the table and showed them to Danny. “These were taken a few hours ago. They give the general layout. This school here used to belong to a Catholic missionary order. You see the gun emplacements. And this here is a SAM site.”

Danny strained his eyes to make out the small blotch beneath Major Briggs’s finger. It looked like a microscopic Brillo pad.

“We think it’s an SA-6, which comes on a mobile launcher. It’s likely that there are now more, since the defenses at the Silkworm site were beefed up,” said Briggs.

“Where the hell are they getting all this hardware?” Freah asked.

“Where aren’t they?” said Briggs. “The Silkworms come from China, where they may also have bought some fighters. There’s been a large inflow of weapons into Libya from Russia. Some of that has disappeared, which we think means it’s headed here. There have also been some small boats slipping into Mogadishu in the south, with or without help from the Yemenis; it’s unclear.”

Briggs continued laying out the situation. The antiaircraft defenses posed a serious problem. The F-117’s and F- 16’s would be needed to help the other operations. The Ospreys would arrive without escort or backup, traveling quickly at treetop level. Though that was under the detection envelope of the missiles’ ground radars, it would be dicey.

“We’re short on air support,” said Hal apologetically. “The Eisenhower is heading up from the Indian Ocean, but they won’t be close enough to help us for at least two days. We’d like to have Smith and the others out by then. If we don’t., this thing is likely to escalate even further.”

“We have the Megafortress,” suggested Danny, who’d been waiting for an opportunity to offer the plane. “They’re packing cruise missiles and four JSOWs fresh out of the development lab. They can cover us going in.”

“Are you talking about my airplane?” said Captain Stockard, walking toward them from the door. She was still in her flight gear, wearing a deep scowl.

“Captain Stockard,” said Briggs. “How are you, Bree?”

Breanna ignored him, speaking to Danny instead. “That’s my aircraft. With all due respect, Captain, I’ll discuss its capabilities.”

“I was just pointing out that it carried weapons,” said Freah.

“Did you mention the runway’s about five hundred feet too short to take off from?” said Breanna. She turned back to Briggs. “And I don’t want to talk about landing. Why the hell didn’t you give us a heads-up on that, Hal?”

“I wasn’t aware you were flying a Megafortress in to begin with,” said Briggs. “How are you, Rap?”

“I’ve been better. My butt’s sore and I came this close to blowing out my tires.”

“We’re installing mesh,” said Briggs. “We can push that up. I can’t do anything about your butt while you’re in uniform,” he added.

“Very funny. When’s the mesh going on?”

“ASAP. A thousand feet okay?”

“I’ll have to do the math,” Breanna said. “Major Cheshire has to be told. Raven’s heavier than Fort Two because of the older engines. If it’s wet and she’s carrying fuel, she’s going to have a hard time stopping.”

“Raven? Another Megafortress?”

“We made the flight without a crew,” said Breanna. “Cheshire’s following with a weapons officer and a navigator. She should be here within twelve hours, maybe less.”

“Shit. We can use her.”

“Damn straight,” said Danny. “The plane has jamming gear.”

“It’s the next-generation ECMs,” said Rap, throwing a glare at Freah. “I doubt they’ll have time to remove it all. Just as there wasn’t time to remove the air-to-ground missiles we were carrying. Officially, we’re only here as transports.”

Briggs shook his head slowly, but he had the start of a grin on his face.

“Of course, local conditions prevail. Assuming we do get airborne,” Broanna added, “I’m going to need as much target data as possible. The computer’s persnickety and my copilot’s a real whiner. Personally, I’d trade them both for a good weapons officer, or even a halfway decent radar navigator.”

Dreamland

22 October, 1200 local

“COLONEL, I THOUGHT WE HAD A DATE!”

Dog jerked his head up from his desk. Jennifer Gleason was standing in the doorway.

“I had to run by myself,” said the scientist, striding into his office. She plopped herself down in a chair.

“I’m sorry, Doc,” said Dog. “I got tied up.”

“So I heard.” Jennifer glanced back at the office door. Dog looked in time to see Sergeant Gibbs closing it. He’ll get his, Dog thought.

“Want to do lunch?” asked the scientist.

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” said Bastian. “I’ve been handling the fallout, from, uh, some recommendations I had to make.”

“You mean killing JSF, right?” She flicked her hair back impishly.

“That’s supposed to be classified.”

“Come on, Colonel. You can’t fart on this base without everyone catching a whiff. Not that colonels fart.”

For some reason, the word “fart” and her beautiful mouth didn’t seem to go together.

“I actually didn’t come here to ask you to lunch,” said the scientist quickly. She leaned forward, somehow metamorphosing from a beautiful if slightly insolent young woman to a senior scientist. “I came to make a recommendation regarding the Flighthawk program. I feel the mission to Somalia should go forward.”

“It’s not a mission,” said Dog, angered that the flight was being openly discussed.

“I understand, Colonel. I also feel that I should be along in case something goes wrong.”

“Doc—”

“First of all, call me Jennifer. Or Jen.” She favored him with the briefest of brief smiles. “Second of all, there is no one in the world who knows that computer system better than I do. That’s not a brag, that’s a fact. If you’re sending those planes halfway around the world, I should be there with them.”

“I don’t know that there’s enough room for you,” said Dog.

“I checked with Major Cheshire. She says there is.”

“Major Cheshire only reluctantly approved carrying the Flighthawks,” said Bastian, who’d spoken with Cheshire only a short while before.

“She was worried about not having enough support. I’m the support.”

Dog shook his head. It was one thing to send the Mega-fortresses; while they were definitely still in the experimental stage, an early version had already seen some action. Justifying the Flighthawks was much more difficult, especially since they’d lack the veneer of a “transport” mission. And sending a civilian into a war zone was potentially a hanging offense. Her loss would be a serious embarrassment, and not just to him.

“I’m afraid it’s not possible,” he told her.

“If you lose the U/MFs,” she told him, “they’ll hang you out to dry.”

“If I lose you, they’ll grind me up into little pieces.”

“You’re not going to lose me. Between me and Parsons—”

“Parsons? Sergeant Parsons?”

“He’s waiting in the outer office to talk to you. We drew straws to see who would go first,” she added.

“No way.”

“Colonel, if I were a man, you’d let me go. You need support personnel for the UM/Fs. Shit, the only other person who’s qualified to fix that fucking computer and the com system is Rubeo. You want to send him?”