Dreamland

Knife shook his head.

“I didn’t see it,” said the sergeant.

“Me neither,” said Jackson. Knife shook his head too.

“Maybe they’re not on our side,” suggested Melfi.

“Somalians don’t have much of an air force,” said Smith. “And the Iranians would be ru

“Maybe another half mile this way,” said Gu

“I think we should go back to our plan then,” said Knife. “We go out to the ocean and broadcast from there. If that was the Somalians, then they’d have an easier time with us near the village.”

Gu

“Hey, Gu

Smith and Knife turned. Jackson crouched down, pointing his gun back in the direction of the village.

“Something big moved.”

“Another pig, I hope,” said Smith.

“Wasn’t a pig before,” said Gu

Knife returned his radio to his pocket, making sure it was off this time. He took out his gun.

Melfi and Jackson froze. So did he.

He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything, either. He blew a long, slow, deep breath from his mouth, waiting.

Gu

Jackson was sprawled on the ground, crawling forward.

Knife took a half step toward the copse, watching as the Marine worked toward a trio of bushes no more than a foot high. He had reached into his pants pocket for something.

Gu

As he did, Jackson whipped something from his hand, a baseball or a rock.

A grenade.

Smith threw himself to the ground as Gu

Smoke. A smoke grenade, meant to confuse the enemy.

Real grenades as well.

There were shouts and more gunfire. Knife ignored the pain in his ribs as he pushed himself back to his feet and began to run, heading for the trees, unsure exactly what he was supposed to do next. He glanced at the Beretta in his hand, then nearly tripped as he reached the first tree. He flew behind the narrow trunk, gun-first, reminding himself that the first figure he saw emerging from the thick fog of smoke would be one of his own men.

He waited, saw nothing. He heard nothing.

The best thing to do, he thought, was to transmit their position. He reached his left hand to take out the radio, felt the pull in his ribs. Somehow he managed to ignore it, taking out the PRC-90 and dialing it to beacon, not wanting to take his attention from the ground in front of him. Smoke curled around the trees and branches, as if a massive cloud bank had descended to earth.

Nothing.

Knife shifted behind the tree, then turned his attention to the radio.

“Poison One to allied command,” he said. “Team is under attack. Repeat, we are taking fire.”

He stopped, listening for a response.

The airplane again, in the distance, coming from the north.

Maybe it could hear him but not the other way around. Or maybe it was directing ground forces against them. At this point, that didn’t matter. They knew where they were.

Allied command. Shit. Like he was in the Gulf or something?

“Smith to whoever,” he said, his heart pounding wildly. It felt as if it were smashing itself against his injured rib bones. “We are two and a half miles from the coast, maybe more. We’re southwest of the Silkworm site.”

There was a scream and more gunfire. Knife dialed the radio back to beacon, then spun around.

Nothing to shoot at.

The airplane roared overhead, barely at treetop level.

He’d have to gamble that it was on his side. Mack began to run toward the open field. With his first step the ground behind him erupted with a massive shell burst. Thrown off his feet, he dropped both the radio and his pistol, but somehow managed to land on his good side. Tumbling head over heels, he crashed into a bush and got up. He could see, or thought he could see, the shadow of a plane passing at the edge of the yellow grass just ahead. He threw himself toward it, ru

Dreamland

21 October, 2130 local

BREE FOUGHT THE BILE BACK AS SHE COMPLETED THE last-second checks before heading off the Dreamland runway. There were any number of reasons for her to be angry, starting with the Spec Ops captain’s in-her-face attitude. The jerkoff thought it was macho to sit on the floor.

Jump seat, whatever. Asshole.

“Good to go, Rap,” said Chris.

“Yeah,” she grunted.

It was Jeff she was mad at, though. This was just a milk run—admittedly a long, long, long one, but still just a milk run. Assuming she made the refuels without any problem.

Piece of cake. Even with a mix of missiles in the belly.

Jackass Spec Ops captain. Just because he was her father’s friend didn’t mean shit. She was in charge of the plane—she had a good mind to march downstairs and tell the fucker to strap himself onto the rotating missile launcher in the bomb bay.

See how macho he thought that was.

She had debated going to Cheshire and demanding that Freah delete someone from his team. She had every right to do that—she probably should have done that.

But she hadn’t. In her mind, and maybe only in her mind, it was the sort of thing a woman couldn’t do. A woman couldn’t afford to be less brave, less macho, than a guy.

How was watching out for her crew—strike that, her passengers—not being brave?

Freah would have to cut a stinking hole with a blowtorch to get his sorry ass out of the plane if there was a problem. Because she sure as shit wasn’t going to slow down so he could crawl over to the hatch.

Maybe he’d move the computer equipment in the weapons area, find a way to squeeze through the bulkhead spars and crawl back to the bomb bay. Ride a cruise missile down to earth like what’s his name in that whatchamacallit movie.

Asshole!

“Rap?”

“Dream Tower, this is Fort Two. Request clearance for takeoff.”

“Tower. Uh, Captain, didn’t we do this already?” Another fucking wise-ass, Bree thought, pushing the throttle bar to get the hell out of there.

COLONEL BASTIAN WATCHED FROM THE TARMAC AS THE immense black plane lifted itself into the night, a dark shadow shuddering into the air.

It would be an exaggeration to say he’d thought more about his daughter in the past hour than in her whole life, but it was probably true that it was the longest sustained stretch in quite a while. He’d tried concentrating on other things, and even taking a nap, but couldn’t; finally he’d decided to go out to the hangar area and wish her luck.