Nerve Center (32 page)

“Can’t be too careful,” said the colonel.

Cheryl walked over to him and—to Mack’s complete horror—patted him on the back, her fingers lingering.

Robling turned to her slowly. Mack felt violently ill.

As he reeled away, he heard a whine in the air above him. Instinctively, he threw himself to the ground.

Aboard Hawkmother
Over Glass Mountain
5 March, 1740

SHE WASN’T PHYSICALLY WITH HIM, YET MADRONE FELT Minerva’s breath on his neck as he took Hawk One into the target. She nudged his shoulder gently, pointed him to the lab where the bastards had poisoned him.

They’d come so far in the past few weeks. With her inspiring him, he’d used his brain in ways he’d never imagined possible. He’d discovered how to mount two bombs beneath each Flighthawk without losing too much speed. He had examined the Boeing’s ident gear and learned to spoof commercial identifying codes. He had even found out how to enter bogus flight information in the civilian networks as they tracked commercial flights, though that required help from Minerva.

Help she was only too glad to give—she loved him as deeply as any woman had ever loved a man. He could feel it in her touch.

Hawk One zeroed in on its target, the two AV-BP-250 550-pound rocket-powered penetrator bombs strapped to its belly ready. They had altered the fuses slightly to enhance their ability to penetrate these particular bunkers and explode on Level Three, where he had been betrayed.

So easy: he knew how to do it before he even looked at the weapons.

The bunker sat fat in the middle of his screen.

So beautiful, revenge. Unspeakable.

As Madrone pushed the trigger, he heard the bells from his daughter’s funeral.

C3 warned that it was losing the connection with Hawk One.

“You bastards,” Madrone screamed over the plane’s interphone circuit to its Brazilian pilots. “Keep me close to the Hawks.”

“We are trying, Commander,” replied the pilot. “You’re flying too fast, much faster than your plan directed.”

“Closer, damn you!” Madrone looked to the right, jumping into the Boeing’s cockpit. He took control and slammed the thrusters himself.

Back in the Flighthawks.

The bunkers had already exploded. He made sure the control connections were strong, then threw himself into the cockpit of Hawk Two, which was zeroing in on the tower.

Something was wrong. The tower wasn’t there.

Nausea ate his stomach; Madrone felt sweat starting to slide down his temples.

Did he have the wrong place?

Sitrep.

He was there. He’d hit the bunkers. There was smoke. They had taken away the tower. There was a truck there, people.

The bastards, laughing at him. They’d tricked him again.
Laughing!

The AV-BI napalm bombs in Hawk Two would put an end to that.

Glass Mountain
5 March, 1744

MACK SAW IT ONLY FOR A SECOND, AND ONLY FROM THE periphery of his vision. He was falling and confused, but he was certain, absolutely positive, about what he saw:

A Flighthawk, darting upward over the bunkers on the hillside.

He hit the ground face-first, too stunned to get his hands out to break his fall. Before Smith could roll onto his back, the small U/MF had disappeared in the twilight sky. In the next moment, there was a dull thud from the direction of the bunkers, then a series of progressively louder, though still muffled, concussions.

He jumped to his feet. Robling and Cheryl huddled against the truck.

“We’re under attack!” Smith yelled.

The colonel grabbed for the Jimmy’s door.

“No—that’s the only target besides the administration building!” yelled Mack. “Down the ravine. Come on!”

He grabbed Cheryl and in the next moment found himself falling, the air on fire behind him.

Aboard Hawkmother
Over Glass Mountain
5 March, 1745

IN HIS EXCITEMENT, MADRONE FIRED BEFORE THE cursor settled. The napalm bombs hit a few yards before the truck. But their beautiful red flames quickly covered the hillside.

The attacks on Minerva’s Brazilian targets had been exhilarating. But this was something else entirely. When fighting the FAB, he felt jittery at times, worried about the planes or even slipping out of Theta. He was a young buck making love for the first time, worried about messing it up.

This—this was revenge, the long moment after orgasm, the deep comfort of success. This was beyond the petty victory of survival, the silly ego play of killing your opponent. This deepened his whole being.

Madrone sat in both Flighthawks and Hawkmother simultaneously, seeing the battlefield from every angle. He smiled as he pushed the planes down from opposite directions, slashing into cannon runs on the administration buildings. Bricks and mortar disintegrated in his path. Be gone, he thought—and they were.

The SUV’s gas tank exploded with a fury, the gasoline erupting in a fireball high above the ground-hugging napalm. There were three people clawing down the ravine just below the hill, three easy targets for him as he pulled Hawk Two around for the kill.

He’d nail them left to right. The optical viewer magnified them, outlined their heads with the cannon’s crosshairs.

As he started to push the trigger on the first target, the second turned toward him.

Mack Smith.

The shock threw him out of Theta.

Dreamland Commander’s Office
5 March, 1800 local

JEFF STRUGGLED TO CONTROL HIS ANGER AS GERALDO laid out her arguments for Colonel Bastian. The program results weren’t consistent, blah-blah-blah. The subjects were all proceeding much more quickly, blah-blah-blah. Wave activity unaccounted for. Perhaps feedback in the computer systems originating from the subject. Unpredictable lapses perhaps due to changes in the protocol. Given the inexplicable disappearance of Captain Kevin Madrone-

Zen finally lost it. “This isn’t about Madrone, it’s about me,” he sputtered. “You think I’m hallucinating. I’m not. I don’t think that I have my legs back. That’s ridiculous.”

“You personally have nothing to do with my recommendation,” said Geraldo calmly.

“Bullshit. Those are my base hormone levels on your chart there.”

“Major, you happen to be the only person who has gone through both the old and new protocols,” said Geraldo. “It’s not directed at you. But there’s a clear difference between your present charts and the ones from the past incarnation of the program. The levels of dopamine, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters are clearly different, as are the brain patterns.” She turned toward Jeff. “I don’t know if we should terminate ANTARES completely. That may eventually be my recommendation. I need time to correlate it.”

“There’s no sense shutting down,” argued Jeff, trying to keep his voice even.

“We’re going to have to put ANTARES on hold,” said Bastian. “Doc, draw up a plan—

“That sucks shit,” said Jeff, jerking his head toward him.

“Major,” snapped Dog. He glared down at him, then turned his gaze back to Geraldo. “Draw up a plan to review the effects. Reinstate the Phase II psychological studies. Take Major Stockard off the drug protocol immediately.”

Jeff grabbed his wheels angrily. Bastian glared at him.

Everyone is against me, thought Jeff. They want to keep me a cripple.

But that couldn’t be true. Bastian had gone out of his way to help him.

“All right,” Jeff said finally. “I think it’s a mistake, but I’ll go along with it. Remove the chip. I’ll stop taking the drugs.”

“You can’t just stop taking them,” said Geraldo. “We have to back you off gently. If you were to stop taking them, your body would try to keep up the level of neurotransmitters on its own. They’d actually increase for about a week, perhaps two. At some point, you would crash. As for the chip—I think it’s safe to leave it in. You’ve had it for so long now, and removing it might cause complications.”

“All right,” said Zen, finally looking away from Bastian’s gaze.

DOG FOLDED HIS ARMS IN FRONT OF HIS CHEST. IN less than three weeks, Zen had gone from a somewhat skeptical critic to the program’s biggest booster.

Short of Secretary Keesh. Who was going to have a cow when Bastian told him the program was on hold.

So? It was the right thing to do, very clearly. Yet Dog had hesitated to say so just now, looking for the right words. The stress of running a high-powered command was turning him into Colonel Milquetoast.

“All right,” he told Geraldo. “Give me a timetable for a report. Thanks,” he added, dismissing them.

Geraldo started to say something, but Ax’s sharp rap at the door interrupted her.

“Colonel, I’m sorry—you need to pick that phone up right now,” said the sergeant. “Line three. It’s an open line.”

Dog punched the button and held the phone to his ear.

“Colonel, this is Mack Smith. I’m at Glass Mountain. It’s just been attacked.”

“Mack?”

“I’m calling from a pay phone, Colonel. A Department of Energy test range, dummy nuke testing—two hours ago, a little more, we came under attack by Flighthawks.”

“What are you saying?”

“Flighthawks. They attacked a base in south Texas, Department of Energy District 2, Test Area 6.”

“Hold on a second.” Bastian stopped Zen and Geraldo, who were heading for the door. “Jeff, Doc, listen to this.” He punched the button for the speakerphone. “Mack, do you have access to a scrambler?”

“Colonel, I’m on a fuckin’ highway in God’s country. I had the Ranger troop car stop so I could make this call.”

“Can you get to a secure phone?”

“It’ll be hours.”

“All right. Jeff Stockard and Dr. Geraldo are here with me. Tell us everything you know.”

Dreamland
5 March, 1814

DANNY FREAH LOOKED DOWN AT HIS BELT AS HIS alphanumeric beeper began to vibrate. He was already en route to see Colonel Bastian, but the STAT notice took him by surprise.

So did the location—the secure video conference center in the Taj basement.

Danny quickened his pace toward Taj, the low-slung concrete building, its entrance glowing ever so faintly with the low-emission yellow lights. He strode past the security desk to the elevator.

“Subbasement Three,” he told the automated system as he stepped in.

The elevator itself wasn’t particularly fast, and the security scans that were required before it would move took forever. Danny waited impatiently, and not just because of Dog’s message. He was supposed to call his wife in exactly twenty-five minutes.

Finally, the elevator lurched and began grinding its way downward. The doors hissed open, and Danny double-timed the short distance to the conference room, whose entrance was flanked by two of his Whiplash team members, Kevin Bison and “Egg” Reagan. Bison nodded, looking desperate for a smoke.

Inside, Jed Barclay’s pimpled face filled the large screen at the front of the room.

“Mr. Freeman is still tied up in meetings on Brazil,” Barclay said as Danny came in, referring to the National Security Advisor. “But the NSC has already scheduled a meeting on this for, uh, like, nine, uh twenty-three hundred hours our time, which is, uh, eight o’clock your time, I mean—”

“You don’t have to convert it for us, Jed,” said Colonel Bastian dryly.

“Thank you. Hi, Captain,” Jed said to Danny, seeing him come in on his monitor.

“Jed.” Danny nodded toward the glass slot below the screen, where a moving video camera focused on his face. Then he nodded to the colonel and Major Stockard, who was sitting grim-faced in his wheelchair. Dr. Geraldo and Lee Ong, the scientist responsible for the Flighthawk’s physical systems, were sitting at consoles behind him.

“Just to review quickly for Captain Freah,” said Bastian, “there’s been an attack at a small Department of Energy base in southeastern Texas, formerly used to test short-range nuclear-delivery systems. We believe Flighthawks were involved.”

“Well, that’s not exactly, uh, with all due respect, Colonel,” stuttered Barclay. “There has been an incident there, but officially we’re not sure what the nature is. The state authorities believe it was terrorism.”

“Mack Smith was there. He saw Flighthawks,” said Dog.

“Mack?” Danny realized he’d practically shouted. It was too late to bite his tongue, so he sidled into a seat without saying anything else.

“Bunker-penetration weapons and napalm,” said Bastian. “And they strafed one of the buildings.”

“The U/MFs are capable of carrying AGMs,” said Ong. “However, that limits their performance. Additionally, they would require modification. Even if Hawks One and Two—”

“Which we lost,” said Zen.

“Well, even in theory, if they were capable,” said Ong, “their flight characteristics would be very degraded.”

“But an attack could have been carried out by them,” said Bastian. “Danny, can you lay out your Mexican theory?”

“There really is no theory,” said Danny, hesitating. Ong and Geraldo had the highest clearances possible, and obviously Bastian had already made the decision that they could hear everything he knew about the possibility that Madrone had somehow escaped. But the fact that Smith had reported the attack had just set off an alarm bell in his brain.

“A large plane landed and stole fuel at a regional jetport on the Mexican coast the day Hawkmother disappeared,” he told the others. “It was not necessarily our 777. In fact, some witnesses said it was a 707. We’ve had the entire area checked with U-2’s without turning up anything.”

“Satellites as well,” noted Jed.

“The Flighthawks could never have gotten to southern Mexico,” said Ong.

“They could have refueled off Hawkmother, right, Jeff?”

“It’s possible,” said Jeff, a little too defensively for Danny’s taste.

“If that was him,” said Ong, “where did he go next?”

“No idea,” said Freah. “Like I said, there really is no theory.”

“So he controlled the Boeing as well as the Flighthawks?” asked Ong. “Hard to believe.”