Retribution

“Problem is, so we see those two trucks together, so what?”

said the analyst. “We can’t search every inch of Pakistan.”

“What you should do,” said Rubeo dryly, “is search the places where it’s possible to leave Pakistan.”

The techie looked up at him. “Excuse me, Doc, but, uh, I wasn’t talking to you.”

The expert was an Air Force captain, one of many Rubeo had never particularly cared for. The feeling was undoubtedly mutual.

“Whether you are talking to me or not, you have photos of every airport and dock in the country. You can judge how long all of these vehicles would have taken to get to those positions, and see if they are there.”

“Lot of work. And, you know, a pickup’s a pickup.”

“What else do you have to do?” snapped Rubeo. “And each pickup is different. Look at the bumper and the right side fender—you can use those to identify it.”

“Smudges.”

“Hardly.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it.” The captain pushed the rest of the Yankee Doodle into his mouth and went back to work.

Diego Garcia

0600, 21 January 1998

THE SUN BLOSSOMED ON THE HORIZON, THROWING A RED-dish yellow stream of light on the long concrete runway and its nearby aprons. Major General Terrill “Earthmover” Samson, 394

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

standing at the edge of one of the aprons in front of the Dreamland Command trailer, took a deep breath, as if he might suck in the sunshine and all of its energy.

He might need it. He’d spent half the night talking to the Pentagon, and nearly every friend he had in the upper echelons of the service. He told them about the incident, of course—the metal from the missile made stonewalling moot, even if he’d been inclined to try it. He’d put his best spin on the situation from a personal point of view, saying that he’d come to personally take charge and to get things in order.

The results had been mixed. The head of the Air Force was openly hostile, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Balboa, was almost sympathetic. Most of the rest were somewhere in the middle.

The administration, meanwhile, was obsessed with finding the last remaining warhead. That, at least, was out of his hands: Though ordered to continue providing “all due assistance,” the search had been turned over to the CIA.

Samson vowed that if he got through this— when he got through this—he would remake Dreamland in his image. No more EB-52s, and in fact, no more ma

bomber idea further along; Bastian seemed to have sidetracked it, probably because he had no feel for the aircraft.

As for some of the truly weird stuff going on at Dreamland—the Minerva mind thing, the plasma ray, the airborne laser project—they were on his short list to be axed.

As were the egghead scientists who went with them. Ray Rubeo would lead the parade out.

“Dreamland will be run like a military unit, not the personal toy box of its commanding officer,” said Samson to himself, the line suddenly occurring to him.

It would be the perfect opening sentence for the orienta-

RETRIBUTION

395

tion speech he pla

Aboard Dreamland Be

over the Pacific Ocean

2000, 20 January 1998

(0900, 21 January)

DOG FINALLY MANAGED TO DRIFT OFF TO SLEEP DURING THE

f light. The ejection seat at the Flighthawk station was about as comfortable as most ejection seats, which meant not at all.

His head drooped to his chest and his shoulders tightened; when he woke he felt as if someone had him in a headlock.

Stretching helped a little, but not much.

“Couple of beef Stroganoffs in the galley,” said Starship, who was watching a video on his auxiliary screen. “Not too bad if you put Tabasco sauce in it.”

“Tabasco?”

“Just a little punch, you know?”

“Is that Batman you’re watching?” asked Dog.

“I’ve only seen it ten times,” confessed Starship. “Practically new.”

Dog laughed, then went upstairs. While his food was cooking in the microwave, he walked over to the pilots and asked them how they were doing.

“Just routine, Colonel,” said Englehardt. “Haven’t even hit turbulence.”

“Great,” said Dog. “How are you, Sully?”

“OK, Colonel,” said Sullivan.

The copilot’s tone seemed a little cold. Maybe that was the reaction he was going to get around the base from now on, Dog thought; no one would want to associate themselves with him. Senior officers would view him as a political pa-riah, and junior officers would figure he was washed up.

No one wanted to be associated with a commander who’d 396

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

been relieved.

Technically, he hadn’t been relieved for cause—not yet, at any rate. But Samson would undoubtedly go in that direction. While explainable and to some extent excusable on their own, taken together the baby incident and the airliner could easily be whipped into a case against him.

He’d have to get a lawyer if something like that happened.

The microwave began beeping, but Dog left his di

The sergeant was considerably more relaxed now that they weren’t in combat; he had a dozen contacts on his scope, all civilian flights.

“Now that you’ve seen the system in combat, you have any ideas for improvement?” Dog asked.

“A couple, Colonel.” The sergeant ran Dog through some of the identification routines and the automated processes, which were supposed to reduce the operator’s workload by letting the computer take over. In theory, the system let one man do the work of six or eight in the “old” style AWACS. In practice, said Rager, the workload became overwhelming after a half hour in combat.

“Thing is, you just get tired after a couple of hours,” said the sergeant, who’d had extensive experience in AWACS and other systems before coming over to Dreamland. “It works fine in the simulations, but when we were getting shot at for over an hour, at the tail end of a long mission—I have to be honest with you, Colonel, I’m sure I made some mistakes.

I haven’t had a chance to review the whole mission tapes, but I’m sure I could have done better. Adding two guys on the board during a combat mission makes sense, but it’s not just that. There are some software improvements you could make.”

Rager listed them. Surprisingly, at least as far as Dog was concerned, the improvements included several that would provide the operator with less information up front; details, he explained, could clutter the board and your head when RETRIBUTION

397

things got heavy.

“Give it more thought, then write it down for me,” said Dog. “I mean—write it down for General Samson. And the techies.”

There was a flash of pity in the sergeant’s eyes before he spoke. “Yes, sir, I will.”

Dog got up and went to get his food. Best thing for everyone, he thought, would be to move on as quickly as possible.

Over the Pacific Ocean

2015, Dreamland

KERMAN MARKED THE DISTANCE IN HOURS. HE WAS NOW

two hours away.

He put the aircraft on autopilot and got up from the plane to use the restroom.

The small closet smelled like a chemical waste dump.

Kerman did his best to hold his nose. He washed his hands fastidiously, then returned to the flight deck, ready. Before taking his seat, he decided he should pray. He fell to his knees, but before he could say the simple prayer he had learned as a child, he was seized by an overwhelming sense of dread. It was not about his mission. He had always known that it was his destiny to strike a blow against Satan, and had known since before he learned to read that America was evil, an enemy not just to Iran but to Islam. It was an abomination, and any blow struck against it would be rewarded in the everlasting days that followed life on earth.