Whatever.

Something heavy roared off the nearby runway.

Ought to be me, he thought, deciding to run through his routine again.

High Top

1300

THE HEAT WAS SO HIGH IN THE TRAILER, DANNY FELT SWEAT

rolling down his neck as he studied the map. On the other side of the table Major Alou finished telling the others about CentCom’s plans. There was no doubt now that RAZOR’S EDGE

187

Iraq had some sort of new weapon or weapons. Six planes had been shot down; four men were still missing. The ratio of sortie to loss was just above twenty to one. Even the most conservative reckoning of the statistics from the Gulf War put the sortie-to-loss ratio well over a hundred to one. Maybe it wasn’t a laser, but something big and bad was going down.

“They’re bringing in a pair of U-2s from the States to increase surveillance,” said Alou, “but they’re worried about how vulnerable they’ll be, and in any event they won’t arrive for another twenty-four hours or so. The game plan in the meantime is to take out every radar and missile site we can find.”

“The bastards keep rolling them out,” said Chris Ferris.

“They’ve been keeping them in the closet, or what?”

“They’ve spent the money they got for food the past five years on rebuilding their defenses,” said Alou.

“Damn country’s starving while Saddam’s buying new radar dishes and vans. The missiles they’ve had. They just haven’t fired them until now.”

“They’re not on long enough to hit anything,” said O’Brien. “Has to be a laser.”

“They might be synthesizing the radar input,” said Ferris. “If you had a sophisticated computer, you could compile all of the inputs from a diverse net, then launch. No one radar would ever stay on long enough to seem like the culprit. They could move the radars around, use some and not others—that would explain why they duck the Weasels and the other jammers.”

“Pretty sophisticated,” said O’Brien.

“Jennifer said it’s doable,” said Ferris. “And then they barrage launch at the contacts. That’s what they’re doing.”

“We’re jamming like hell. Guidance systems ought to be confused.”

188

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Maybe they’ve improved them,” said Ferris.

“If that is what’s going on,” said Zen, “then what we should do is nail the coordinating site.”

“How do we find it?” asked Breanna.

“We follow the communications net,” he suggested.

“Listen in. See where the center is. That’s what Quicksilver’s good at.”

“I still think it’s a laser,” said Mack. “Got to be.”

“Sure,” said Zen. “But we can find that the same way.

Instead of looking for the weapon, we look for the guidance system. That’s how Weasels work, right? They nail the radar van.”

Danny straightened from the map. He felt like the odd man out as they continued to discuss the situation and what to do. He felt like he ought to contribute something, help plan a mission somehow. He and his guys were sitting on the ground playing babysitters—literally, with the Kurd kid Liu had plucked out.

Protecting the planes was an important job. Still, the Marines provided more than enough security, and the Navy Seabee guys they’d brought in with them were going great guns expanding High Top—if they had their way, it would be the size of O’Hare in another forty-eight hours.

So Whiplash was free to do more important things.

Like?

“All right,” said Alou. “Let’s work up some surveillance tracks to coincide with the missions for CentCom.”

“You know it seems to me that if this radar computer gear is that sophisticated, we ought to try to get a look at it,” said Danny. “Get pictures, data, that sort of stuff.”

“Hey, Captain, why don’t we just grab it?” said Mack.

He probably meant it as a put-down—Smith could be a real asshole—but the idea struck Danny as eminently doable.

Or at least more interesting than babysitting.

RAZOR’S EDGE

189

“If I can get a Chinook or a Pave Low in here, we could take it out, no sweat,” said Danny.

The others seemed to ignore him.

“I still think it’s a laser,” said Mack.

“That would be worth taking,” said Danny. “Big-time.”

Finally, everyone realized he was serious. The conversation stopped; they all turned and looked at him.

“We could,” said Danny. “Or at least get intelligence about it.”

“You serious?” asked Zen.

“Shit yeah.”

“Unnecessary risk,” said Alou. “Even if we could find it.”

“Risk is our job,” said Danny. He knew he was pushing further than reasonable, but what the hell—Whiplash was created exactly for missions like this. Besides, except for the target, it was a straightforward armed reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines. Anyone could do it.

Pretty much.

“We’re not even positive where the site is,” said Breanna. “We don’t have a target for you, Danny.”

“So get me one.”

AS THE OTHERS FINISHED WORKING OUT THE DETAILS FOR

the missions, Zen wheeled himself through the narrow door and down the ramp. A gray CH-46E Sea Knight or

“Frog” was just arriving, bringing in more Marines. The two-rotored helicopter looked like a scaled-down version of the more famous Chinook—though in fact the development had been the other way around, with the Frog coming first.

Darkening the sky behind the Marine helo was an Osprey, just tipping its wings and rotors to land. The MV-22

was Whiplash’s chariot of choice, twice as fast as most helicopters, with considerably longer range.

190

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

Zen wheeled toward Quicksilver’s parking area. He’d rejected numerous suggestions that he get a battery-powered chair—definitely a macho thing—but at times like this, skidding through potholes and ducking rocks, even he would have admitted it’d be useful.

He hadn’t apologized to Bree. He knew he’d have to, and the sooner the better—stale apologies were even more difficult to make.

Send flowers or something. Blow her away if he could get them up here.

Jennifer Gleason and Louis Garcia were standing beneath Quicksilver’s tail, pointing at the large black semi-sphere and wire guts of the coverless IR sensor above.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he shouted, rolling toward them.

“Lousy,” Jennifer told him. “I tried to recalibrate the programming and now there’s a bad circuit on the sensor.

It’s going to take at least an hour to get it working.”

“An hour? We’re supposed to take off then. Forty-five minutes, actually.”

“Oh,” said Jennifer.

“I can get this back together quicker than a rolling stone,” said Garcia. “But then I have to help prep the plane.”

“Okay.” Jennifer took a strand of her hair and pulled it back behind her ear. “We’ll toss flares off the Flighthawk.”

“What for?”

“I want to see what the data sequence should be.

There’s an error I’m trying to make sense of.”

“I can launch the flares, no sweat.” Zen glanced toward the U/MF already loaded onto the Megafortress’s wing.

“Good. I’ll grab something to eat and my flight gear.”

“Hold on, cowboy.” Zen whirled his chair across her path as she started to duck away. “Who says you’re coming with us? It’s a war zone.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

191

“And Somalia wasn’t?” Jennifer put her hands on her hips defiantly. “If there is a laser out there, you need me in the air. Don’t worry, Jeff, I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“Hmmmph,” she said, stomping away.

“I’m having a bad day with women,” Zen said softly.

“Honey, give me just one more chance,” sang Garcia.

“Huh?”

“Just a song, Major.”

“Garcia—is everything in life a Dylan song?”

“Pretty much.”