Nerve Center

Major Smith was anything but patient. He paced, he turned, he muttered. He cursed. He kicked at the cracks. He stared at the mountain and the dry lake beds. He folded his arms and leaned against the side of the shelter, willing the stinking helicopter to appear.

It did not.

Two more passengers approached the platform from the hangar area. Mack glanced at them, saw they were civilians—and more importantly, male—and glanced away, uninterested. One of the two men stood in the shed for a second, lighting a cigarette, then nervously approached him. Mack turned and stared at him for a few seconds before realizing it was Kevin Madrone, in jeans and a baseball cap.

A Yankees cap. Figured.

“Hi, Major,” said Madrone, taking a long pull on his cigarette.

“Hey, Twig.”

Madrone winced at the nickname, which Mack had recently invented. It hadn’t stuck yet, but it would.

Knife had worked with Madrone a lot during his earlier hitch at Dreamland. The Army wanted a secure weapons link with the Joint Strike Fighter, allowing it to provide target data to ground units and receive data from them. Madrone had come to the project as a weapons expert, but had proven adept at dealing with all sorts of complexities; he’d actually engineered part of the link himself when problems arose. But he seemed abnormally quiet, even for a geek.

“Major, you mad I killed the exercise?” Madrone asked Mack.

“Ah, shit, no,” said Knife. “Don’t worry about what Stockard says. He’s so fucking competitive. He doesn’t know when to turn it off, you know?”

Madrone shrugged.

Stockard probably chewed his ear, Mack thought. Just like the SOB. Zen was a good pilot—not great, but good, certainly. But like a lot of guys Mack knew, he had a serious ego problem. He just couldn’t accept that anyone was better than him.

“Think we’ll get off tomorrow? Weather’s supposed to be bad,” said Madrone. “Storms in the mountains. Worst winter in years, they say.”

Talking about the weather. Poor guy was probably desperate to make conversation. Who could blame him, though? It sucked horse meat to stand out here waiting for the damn Dolphin.

“I’m thinking clear skies,” said Mack.

“You’re flying that Fulcrum?”

“Shit, yeah. I’ll cook Stockard’s ass. You watch.”

“Problem is, he can’t control four planes at once.”

“I’d cook his butt one-on-one,” said Mack. “I have plenty of times.”

Madrone took off his baseball cap and looked at it, as if trying to decide whether to wear it or not. Finally he folded it up and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Smart move, thought Mack. He considered saying something about how Jeff had screwed up so badly one time that it had cost him his legs, but he held off. He didn’t like to hit a guy when he was down, even if it was true.

Besides, Stockard had helped save his butt in Africa. So maybe he owed him a little.

“The way they’ve reworked the MiG,” he told Madrone, “it’s a pretty nice piece of hardware now. I can outaccelerate an F-15. Stock F-15 anyway. Tough little customer. Anything less than an F-22, I think you’d have a tough time one-on-one. The simulated F-16 we were using? That’s not even half as capable as the Fulcrum, not with Dreamland’s alterations. Shit. We only used that model because they couldn’t code the Fulcrum in—it was too far off the charts. Damn plane is beyond even the computer boys, it’s so hot. Simulates what the Russkies will be flying in 2030—assuming they’re not part of Iowa by then. Which they will be if they ever try and start something.”

Madrone nodded. Almost down to the filter on his cigarette, he took one more pull, then tossed it to the ground.

“Of course, it all depends on the pilot,” Mack went on. “Right pilot in an F-5E could take out the wrong pilot in a Raptor. All depends on using your plane. Knowing it. That’s why I beat Stockard today. That’s why I always beat Stockard.”

“Yeah,” said Madrone. He glanced in the direction the Dolphin ought to be coming from, as if trying to decide whether or not to have another cigarette.

“See, nothing against Zen personally,” said Mack, “but he’s a bit of an egomaniac. You know, figures he’s the hottest stick on the patch, that kind of thing. Now with Libya—which, nothing against Zen, but hell, think about who we went against. Qaddafi? Come on. Guy wears dresses, for Christ-sake. So Jeff did well, or at least well enough, and that inflated his head. Shrink would probably tell you it’s because he had a fragile ego to begin with. Penis envy or something like that.”

Mack laughed, though he was only half kidding. Madrone seemed to smirk, then reached into the pocket of his shirt for another pack of cigarettes.

“Now his wife, Brea

Madrone lit his cigarette without saying anything. He didn’t seem to be that bad a sort, just a little shy. And Army, but you could overlook that.

The Yankees thing, though. Well, he did come from New York, so maybe you could excuse that too.

“Say, I’m thinking of heading into Vegas tonight,” said Mack. He unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Check out MGM, maybe pick up some women. Been a while since I been to the City of Sin.” He laughed—it had been a while for a lot of things. “Want to tag along?”

“Can’t, sorry,” said Madrone, lighting up.

“Heavy date?”

“Kinda,” said the Army captain. He took a puff, then turned to his left—the Dolphin was just clearing the range. “Shit. I just lit this.”

“Bad for you anyway,” said Mack. “Who’s the lucky girl?” Madrone shrugged. “A friend of a friend.”

“And?”

“It’s Abby something or other. Rap is setting me up.”

Mack suddenly got the picture. “Rap as in Bree Stockard?”

“Yeah. Zen and Brea

The roar of the approaching helicopter helped drown out the sound of Mack grinding his teeth.

Allegro, Nevada

9 January, 1913

BREANNA SMOOTHED THE SHEET OF ALUMINUM AGAINST the top of the pan, her fingers sweeping the edges taut. The clock clicked over and now she had exactly sixty seconds to ignition. Plenty of time—she grabbed her freshly sharpened chef’s knife and whipped through the scallions, stockpiling a supply of perfect two-mm-long ovals at the side of her chopping block. The timer binged and she hit the burner to finish steaming the carrots.

Of course, if Madrone didn’t show up in ten seconds, she was going to have to put everything on hold. The carrots would survive, but the rice was iffy—it had only ten minutes to go.

Kevin was late. Not too late—she’d guessed that he’d be about fifteen minutes late, and had calculated di

Could it be that Jeff had warned him about Abby?

Not that Abby deserved a warning. On the contrary. But sometimes men were such geeks about meeting people of the opposite sex, especially when they were obviously perfect for each other.

If he didn’t show in thirty seconds she was going to use the knife on him. And the ovals she cut wouldn’t be pretty.

The doorbell rang. Brea

Cabernet Sauvignon. Just bottled too. Oh, well.