Breanna remembered the first day she’d seen Jeff, standing in the cockpit of a cranked-arrow F-16, a grin like nothing she’d ever seen before, and eyes—sparkling eyes that held the soft place inside her, that could ferret out her secrets. The afternoon they’d made love for the first time, she knew he would be her husband, knew she wanted to go nowhere else.
Her head snapped forward and then back twice, gravity pounding her face like a middleweight working a bag.
And then the storm was over. The engines’ powerful thrust propelled them upward with a jerk. The computer had taken over and managed to wrestle the plane level.
Breanna twisted toward the front. Minerva sat in the copilot’s seat, tensely guiding the plane.
Breanna let herself hang forward over the radar control console. All of the Megafortresses designed to work with the Flighthawks had locator beacons with an omnidirectional, “always-on” signal that could be read by standard IFF units about fifty miles away. The beacon could only be activated through the flight computer and required authentication to initiate, since it potentially could help an enemy find the otherwise stealthy plane. Staring at the inactive radar screens, Breanna made up her mind to find a way to issue the command. A headset lay at the base of the left tube; if it was active, her voice might just carry loud enough for the computer to respond.
She couldn’t reach it, though. And there was no way to speak loud enough without the others hearing.
An auxiliary keyboard sat in the cubby below the tubes. She tried scrunching her body down—maybe she could get it with her teeth, somehow hit the right combination of keys.
Her arms suddenly sprang apart, freed. She fell forward, smacking her face on the tube. She pushed upward, determined to ignore the pain, make the most of this stroke of luck.
“No,” said Minerva behind her. She put her hand on Breanna’s shoulder and forced her back into the seat. Rap began to push back, but a knife slid along the back of her ear. The skin felt cold, and then as if it were pulling itself apart.
“I want you to fly the plane,” Minerva told her.
“Me? You trust me to fly the plane?” Breanna began to laugh. “Are we giving up?”
“Hardly. Captain Madrone intends on bombing San Francisco.”
“You’re insane. I’ll never help you.”
“It’s possible that I may be able to talk Captain Madrone out of it. In any event, you have a choice. Either you help me, and we possibly save San Francisco as well your husband and yourself. Or I kill you and let Captain Madrone do as he pleases.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I am many things, but not crazy. I would prefer you to fly the plane,” she added, pushing the point of the blade into Breanna’s neck.
“What happened to your pilot?” said Breanna. But as she turned to face her captor she saw the answer—Mayo lay on the floor.
“He had only one bullet in his gun,” said Lanzas. “It was unfortunate that it struck him in his head. Now—move him and fly the plane.”
“Okay,” said Breanna.
Dreamland
8 March, 0245 local (0645 Brazil)
THE BREEZE KICKED UP AS IOWA ROCKETED INTO THE sky, but it was an oddly warm breeze, as if the big plane’s engines were warming the night. Colonel Bastian stared at the Megafortress as it rose, the tremble of its long wings reverberating in his chest. He belonged in the sky, not on the ground pushing paper. On any given day, the best use of his talents was in the air—and today was more than any given day.
More than likely, his flying days were over. Keesh would see to that. Not his flying days exactly just his Air Force ones. The loss of the Boeing and Flighthawks was bad enough when it looked like an accident. But someone stealing a plane—that was a different story. And then losing a Mega-fortress and two more Flighthawks—Brad Elliott had been cashiered for less.
Not exactly. In Elliott’s case, the thief was a Soviet spy, with the backing of a world superpower. Here he was simply a madman.
If Dog was going to be bagged anyway, why the hell not get his butt up in the air and do something?
Do what? Kill his own daughter?
What the hell kind of father would he be if it came to that?
The kind who had sworn an oath to protect his country.
What sort of oath had he taken when Breanna was born?
If he was there, he might be able to help her somehow. But then, hadn’t that been the story of his life—he’d never been there when she was growing up.
The Megafortress began banking, heading south. Dog turned and climbed aboard the black Jimmy waiting to take him back to the Taj. The driver threw the SUV in gear.
They were almost at the building when Bastian put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“Take me back around to the Megafortress hangar,” he said. “Shed Two. Then knock off for the night.”
“Sir?”
“You have forty-eight hours leave. I’d suggest you don’t waste a minute of it.”
Aboard Galatica
Over Colombia
8 March, 0545 local (0645 Brazil)
MINERVA HAD FIGURED OUT HOW TO PROGRAM THE course in on the flight computer, and was watching Breanna carefully. Rap flew the plane precisely as her captor directed, skimming across the ragged landscape just at the edge of a thunderstorm at 8,500 feet. Sooner or later an opportunity would present itself, even if it meant pushing the plane into a mountain.
“F-15’s, twenty miles ahead at compass point three-two-zero,” said Madrone over the interphone. He had one of the Flighthawks flying eight miles ahead as a scout, using its passive sensors to check for threats. “Two planes, one at twenty-five thousand feet. The second is at twenty-eight.”
“Attack them,” said Minerva.
“We can get by them,” suggested Breanna. “It will be safer.”
“Do it.”
“Hold on. I’m going to take us out of this turbulence. Computer—”
“Don’t change the course,” Minerva hissed, leaning toward her.
“Do you want to get by them or not?”
“Don’t change the course, or the altitude.”
“I just have to get out of this storm.”
Minerva grabbed her hand.
The Flighthawk screen showed the Eagles in a standard search sweep, running well off to the west. A standard B-52 would be clearly visible to them, but Gal had the profile of a barn swallow, and unless the plane made a sudden movement, the interceptors were likely to miss it.
“They’re off my radar,” said Kevin.
“If we switched our radar on, we’d see threats two to three hundred miles away,” Breanna told Lanzas.
“Three hundred miles?”
“How do you think we were able to track you to Brazil? Gal is testing a—”
“The radar would also allow our enemies to see us coming,” said Lanzas, her voice tired. “Please, Captain, do not test me further.”
JEFF CURSED AS THE F-15S PASSED OUT TO SEA, another chance lost.
“I know you’re watching me, Jeff,” said Madrone. His voice came from a small speaker in the console ordinarily used only by the Megafortress’s systems. “Put the headset on.
Slowly, Jeff pushed upright and reached for the headset. His sore upper body moved like the works in an old rusted clock, creaking and cracking.
“Kevin, how did you manage to use that speaker?” he asked. “It’s not part of ANTARES or C3.”
“There are no boundaries I can’t cross, Jeff.”
“You flew Hawkmother too. How? Through the gateway?”
“I’m beyond ANTARES, Jeff. I don’t need the computer.”
“Show me. Take off the control helmet.”
“Don’t try and trick me. I’m not stupid.”
“Withdrawal from the Theta drugs makes you paranoid,” Jeff said. He turned and looked across the bay at the man who had been his friend. “It did it to me. It still affects me.”
“It’s not paranoia when people are really out to get you.”