THE MEGAFORTRESS WAS FLYING WITH HER NOSE PRACTIcally thirty degrees downward, but she was still pushing the Airbus forward. They were past Nellis, into the Dreamland test ranges.
How far did he need to go? Twenty miles, fifty?
He might be able to hold it for another sixty seconds.
“All right—everybody get the hell out!” he said. “Get down to the Flighthawk deck and bail.”
“We’re staying with you, Mike,” said Sullivan.
“Yeah, we’re with you, Englehardt. Right down to the line,” said Daly.
“I ain’t leaving,” said Rager.
“No way,” said Starship.
The long expanse of Dreamland’s main runway passed the left side of the airplane. The Airbus bucked upward, escaped—Englehardt pushed the ganged throttle, his hand on Sullivan’s, ramming into the cargo plane.
No way it was getting away.
Tears streamed from Englehardt’s eyes.
“We’re doing this!” he screamed.
RETRIBUTION
417
Over Nevada
2147
KERMAN STRUGGLED TO FIND A WAY TO RELEASE THE AIR-bus, but everything he tried seemed to fail. He was being pushed sideways and forward at the same time. The bigger, more powerful aircraft below him had him in its claws, pushing him away from the city, toward the open desert.
He wasn’t going to make it. By the time the bomb exploded he’d be much too far from Las Vegas to do any damage.
He pulled his seat belt off. He’d have to find a way to detonate the bomb immediately.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett
2148
“THIS IS FAR ENOUGH, MIKE!” DOG YELLED AT THE PILOT.
“Let it go!”
The Megafortress lurched to the left. Suddenly free of the weight she had been carrying, she shot upward, out of control.
Dog flew backward as the plane lurched. He tumbled against the airborne radar operator’s station, then pulled himself up.
The pilots were wrestling with the controls, trying to keep the plane in the air. Dog fumbled for his headset, resettling it on his head.
“Station Five, operational, authorization Bastian Nine-nine-one,” he told the computer, double tapping the power button to bring the station on line.
“On line.”
“Anaconda weapons section on line. Authorization Bastian Nine-nine-one.”
“Bastian authorized.”
The targeting screen came up.
418
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Target aircraft identified as PC-1.”
A message flashed on the screen—the aircraft was identified as a civilian by its identifier.
“Override.”
A targeting reticule appeared. The plane had begun to turn back to the south, toward Las Vegas.
Dog was about to tell the computer to fire when the sym-bol went from red—locked—to yellow. The radar had lost the lock.
“Lock, damn it,” said Dog.
If the computer heard him, it didn’t let on. Dog switched to the manual control, using a small joystick that would let him designate the target the old-fashioned way. He hit the reset, moved to the cursor, and this time got a lock.
“Fire,” he said. “Fire Fox One!”
The missile ripped from the belly of the aircraft.
Over Nevada
2150
KERMAN FINGERED THE WIRES ON THE BOMB’S TIMER AS
the aircraft jerked up and down. He hadn’t been with his uncle when the timer was explained, and Sattari hadn’t bothered to show him how it worked. Still, it seemed like a simple device; there had to be a way to set it off immediately.
A set of wires had been soldered to contacts at the top of the switch. Kerman decided he had only to cross the contacts for the weapon to be triggered.
He had nothing to cross them with.
He could do it with a pen.
The plane jerked as he reached to his pocket. He fell backward to the deck.
There was no time. Just strip the wires and touch themtogether, he told himself. Be done with it. Be done with it.
He clawed his way upright, then hunched over the timer.
RETRIBUTION
419
As his fingers touched the wires, the plane lurched again.
Kerman pushed down on the device with one hand and managed to pull the wires off the contact with his other.
The plane suddenly jerked upward and stopped shaking.
He was free! The American had given up!
He started to rise to run back to the cockpit. Then he stopped, realizing there was no sense doing that now. He reached back to the wires to push them together.
As he did, the front of the aircraft turned silver. It looked like a flash of light, but it was pure silver, a brilliant shade that he had never seen before.
Paradise, he thought.
Then silver turned to red, then black, then nothing.
Aboard Dreamland Bennett
2151
STARSHIP SAW THE ANACONDA MISSILE CLOSE IN ON THE
Airbus’s cabin just as he was pressing the trigger on the Flighthawk’s gun. He rolled away, escaping most of the explosion. The Anaconda struck at the front cabin, decapitating the aircraft. The cockpit disintegrated, but the rest of the fuselage continued on, flying toward the highest of the Glass Mountains about sixty miles northwest of Dreamland.
By the time he got the Flighthawk turned back around, the headless Airbus was down to 2,000 feet. Its left wingtip hit the ground first, skittering along for a hundred feet or so before collapsing. The rest of the plane spun in toward the missing wing, tumbling into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.
“It’s down! It’s down!” said Starship.
Then he braced himself.
ENGLEHARDT CLOSED HIS EYES, WAITING FOR THE INEVITAble f lash of light. He pushed himself against the back of his 420
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
seat, expecting the air burst that would follow a nuclear explosion.
It didn’t come. After a minute he swung the aircraft back toward the site. Nothing.
They were a little more than twenty miles away, climbing back through 25,000 feet. He moved into a figure eight, intending to climb as high as possible.
“Sully, you with me?”
“With you, Mike.”
“No explosion.”
“Yeah, nothing.”
“Maybe coming. We high enough?”
“Yeah, just about.”
“You got the engines.”
“Yeah, I’m on it, bro,” answered Sullivan.
DOG STARED AT THE IMAGE ON THE SCREEN, WAITING FOR
the massive white cloud—the famous mushroom cloud—to rise above the desert mountainside.
But it didn’t. Their missile had prevented it.
“Dreamland is sending a response team,” reported Sullivan.
“I have a helicopter en route,” reported Rager at the airborne radar, “and two Ospreys.”
Dog waited, listening. He knew every man aboard those aircraft, had brought most of them to Dreamland, or had at least approved their assignments.
Somehow, the fact that he was no longer their commander didn’t enter into his thoughts.
Minutes passed that seemed like days. He began to feel numb.
“Neutralized,” said Sullivan finally. “The bomb’s trigger section is off. It’s inert.”
“Take us to Dreamland,” Dog told Englehardt. “Take us home.”
About the Authors
DALE BROWN
is a former U.S. Air Force captain and the author of numerous previous bestsellers, including Strike Force and Edge of Battle; Brown lives in Nevada, where he can often be found in the skies, piloting his own plane.
Jim DeFelice’s recent thrillers include Leopard’s Kill (2007) and Threat Level Black (2005). Jim has also written more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction for young people. He lives with his wife and son in upstate New York and can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
DALE BROWN
“The novels of Dale Brown brim with violent action, detailed descriptions of sophisticated weaponry, and politi cal intrigue … His ability to bring technical weaponry to life is amazing.”