Or a devil.
The figure descended toward the rocks, then abruptly fell to the earth, crumpling in a pile.
Voda froze. It was the last disappointment, the last dash of his hopes.
ZEN CURSED, ANGRY AT HIMSELF FOR MISJUDGING HIS
altitude and botching the landing. Unlike a radar altimeter, which gave an altitude reading above elevated terrain, the MESSKIT’s altimeter told him only his absolute height above sea level. He’d thought he was a few feet higher than he turned out to be as he skimmed in for a landing.
He pushed himself up, repositioning the exoskeleton and squirming around until he was sitting.
REVOLUTION
423
“Well, where are you?” he said into his radio. “President Voda? Mr. President?”
There was no answer.
“Hey,” said Zen, louder. “Are you there?”
He pulled off his helmet.
“President Voda?” he said in a stage whisper. “President Voda?”
“PAPA,” SAID JULIAN. “PAPA, SOMEONE IS CALLING YOU.”
Slowly, Voda regained his senses. He heard the voice himself and took a tentative step toward it.
“Here,” he answered.
The figure on the ground turned around.
“Hey, come on,” said Zen. “Let’s go.”
Voda let go of Julian and went to help his wife. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he practically carried her to the clearing.
“Why are you sitting?” he asked Zen.
“Because I can’t walk. I’m Zen Stockard. You were talking to me on your phone.”
“You’re hurt?”
“It’s OK, don’t worry. It’s been a long time since I’ve walked. This device on my back will take care of that. Who’s coming with me first?”
“My wife,” said Voda. “Her ankle is hurt.”
“No, take Julian,” she said.
“I’m not leaving you,” said the boy.
“Hey listen, guys, somebody has to be first. What’s your name, kid?”
Julian didn’t answer until Voda tapped him on the back.
“Ju-li-an Voda.”
“You ever dream of flying in a spaceship?”
“N-No.”
Zen laughed. “Well, you’ll be able to tell all your friends that you did. Almost.”
There was a noise above them, someone falling down the hillside, cursing in Romanian.
424
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Two hundred yards away? Zen wondered. No more than that.
“All right. No more fooling around,” he said. “Mr. President, come on. You first.”
“No. My wife and son.”
“We all go,” said Mircea.
“I can’t hold all three,” Zen told them. “Maybe two. Come here. On my lap.”
Julian began to cry as Voda helped him on. Zen wrapped his arm around him.
“Mrs. Voda. Come on.”
Mircea hobbled closer. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“When I press this button, the engines will activate, and we’ll go up. These skeleton pieces along my arm will help hold your weight. I have only one clasp on the harness set here, so we’ll secure you and hold your son between us.”
The dogs were barking.
“They’re coming,” said Mircea. She turned away from Zen, but he grabbed her, pulling a belt around her and locking it onto the strap on his chest.
“This isn’t going to take long. I want you to hold on tight,”
he told them. “Very tight. Mr. President, it’s going to take me ten minutes to get there, and maybe ten back. Will you be OK?”
“Yes.”
“Stay on that line.”
Zen snapped the helmet back into place. He attached some wires to the base, then held both hands out and started the jet pack. The sound was like a loud vacuum cleaner. As Voda watched, Zen began to rise. Mircea seemed stuck for a moment, but then she too rose, clinging to his arms. Julian was tight between them.
And then they were gone.
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Presidential villa,
near Stulpicani, Romania
0142
“THEY’VE JUST HEARD SOME SORT OF NOISE!” SHOUTED
the major. “It’s the far side of the hill. They’re going down.”
About time, thought Locusta. But he only nodded and took out his satellite phone. The Russian had driven a hard bargain.
“This is General Locusta,” he told the air force officer who answered his call. “I need a no-fly zone across my entire army corps area. That includes all planes, military and civilian.”
“The Americans too?”
“Everyone,” he said. “Tell them we are at a delicate stage.
Tell them we want them to return to their bases. I’ve spoken to their general, but he is a pigheaded idiot. Complain to the ambassador. Do whatever you must.”
He killed the transmission without waiting for a response.
The Americans undoubtedly would ignore this latest order, but they would pay heavily for it.
Near Stulpicani, Romania
0143
ZEN FELT THE BOY SLIPPING AS SOON AS HE CLEARED THE
first set of trees. He couldn’t grab him because of the wing assembly, and instead tried to push in his stomach toward him. But that started to pitch him forward.
“Hold on, hold on,” he said, though he knew the kid couldn’t hear. Mircea pushed tighter, gripping the boy, but even so, Zen felt Julian’s weight slipping.
The road was on his left, two or three hundred yards away. Zen turned toward it, then realized he wasn’t going to make it.
426
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Where was the cutout from the gravel pit?
To his right?
The kid clawed at him. There wasn’t any time—Zen pushed right. The clearing appeared just a few yards away.
He leaned forward, gliding to it, then backing off on the power. As he did, Julian slid between his mother and Zen, who cut his power abruptly. All three of them fell together, until at the last second, Zen jerked the engines back to life, preventing another hard landing.
“Let’s try again,” he yelled, adjusting the thrust from the engine so his feet were hovering just above the ground.
“Mrs. Voda, loosen the strap at my arms and string your son through it.”
Mircea didn’t move.
“Come on now. I have to go back and pick up your husband. Go!”
She still didn’t move. Zen started to undo the strap that held her to him, then saw Julian stumbling toward him.
“Come on, Julian,” he said. “We have to move so we can help your dad.”
The strap, custom-designed to fit Zen’s body, didn’t have any play in it. The only other thing he could use was the belt that strapped his lower body to the MESSKIT.
Loosening it meant he wouldn’t have as much control over the device, but there was no way the kid was going to be able to hold on.
Zen slid his hand out from the wing assembly and helped Julian climb up between him and his mother, then undid the lower torso strap and threaded it around the boy’s arms, pulling it so tight that it must have hurt, though Julian didn’t react. Then Zen hooked it around his chest strap in a knot.
“Hang on,” he said, and they started upward once more.
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Dreamland Command
1543 (0143 Romania)
MACK PACED IN FRONT OF THE BIG DISPLAY SCREEN. HIS
stomach was rumbling and he had a headache. Every time he scratched the side of his head, more hairs fell out. And he swore he saw hives on the back on his hand.
This behind-the-scenes crap was hell on the nerves. Much better to be on the front line actually doing something instead of pacing back and forth and disintegrating miles from the action.
“Jennifer Gleason for you, Major Smith,” said the communications officer.
“There we go.” Mack punched in the line. “Got it?”
“I do. It wasn’t as easy as Ray thought. First I had to code—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do we do?”
Near Stulpicani, Romania
0145
AS SOON AS HIS WIFE AND SON ROSE INTO THE SKY, VODA remembered that he hadn’t kissed them good-bye. He’d never been an overly sentimental man, but he cursed himself as he started down the slope. He might very well never see them again.
Voda followed the elbow of the creek, walking along the rocks for about twenty yards. He could hear the dogs now, barking loudly. He turned and started down. But his weakened knee betrayed him—he collapsed, falling through a spread of prickle bushes.