Strike Zone (2 page)

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Storming Heaven
(1994)

The U.S. is under siege. With chilling ruthlessness terrorist Henri Cazaux has demonstrated the vulnerability of the country's air defenses by using large commercial aircraft to drop bombs on major airports. When he hits San Francisco Airport the destruction of life and property is enormous, and a national panic ensues.

Only one man can end the chaos: Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle. Charged by the president with re-establishing security in the skies, Hardcastle must take drastic action to control the emergency — and quickly. But then Cazaux sets his sights on the biggest target of all: the nation's capital.

“Aviation ace Dale Brown has firmly established his high-tech credentials in seven bestselling aviation thrillers — his new, edge-of-the-cockpit novel should rocket him out to the Van Allen belt.” —
New York Daily News

“Cazaux is a fascinating monster;
Storming Heaven
will be an explosive success.” —
Booklist

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Chains of Command
(1993)

Radar navigator Daren Mace has been to the gates of hell and back. In Operation Desert Storm he rightfully aborted a secret mission, only to be ostracized by the flying community as a result. Now Mace has a new role — in the Air Force Reserves at a New York airbase, where he meets Rebecca Furness, the first U.S. woman combat pilot. Known as the “Iron Maiden,” Furness is unlike any other aviator Mace has ever known: she's of course tough and an ace flier— but she's also beautiful.

When, halfway around the world, a border skirmish involving Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova leads to the deployment of low-yield nuclear devices, the new U.S. president faces his biggest challenge yet. He puts the country on full wartime readiness footing for the first time since 1991 and sends an air combat force to Ukraine, just as the Russian president is making his own power plays.

Suddenly Mace, Furness, and the rest of their unit are hurtled into a dispute that goes beyond Ukrainian borders — a crisis that couldlead to the horrors of all-out nuclear conflict.

“The action is, as you expect from Brown, great.” —
Kirkus Reviews

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Hammerheads
(1990)

For the U.S. government it's a losing battle. Drug smugglers no longer shy from confrontation— they relish it: blowing Coast Guard jets out of the sky and sinking Coast Guard cutters with powerful bazookas.

While the drug lords have become a coordinated force of devastating ruthlessness, the U.S. anti-drug agents are a squabbling shambles. A radical solution is needed. And Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle has just that to offer. He will lead an elite and fearless unit (known affectionately in the business as Hammerheads) armed with the latest equipment and deadliest weaponry. Their sole aim is to hit the smugglers. And hit them hard.

“Clancy's got serious company.” —
New York Daily News

“A reader's delight from first page to last...” —
Publishers Weekly

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Silver Tower
(1988)

The Silver Tower is America's first permanent space station. Its primary function is to conduct experiments on space-based lasers for America's defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. But on earth, far below the Silver Tower, tensions between the Soviet Union and United States are reaching a breaking point.

From Turkey, the U.S. Rapid Deployment Forces mobilizes to stop a Russian invasion of Iran with bombing raids from F/A 16D fighter-bombers. But the Soviets go on the offensive and launch intermediate-
range nuclear missiles. What follows is a dramatic, all-too-plausible chain of events leading towards the first nuclear war in space. . . 

“Brown knows whereof he writes. . . a superb storyteller.”—
The Washington Post

“Intriguing. . . tense high-tech dogfights.”—
Publishers Weekly

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Dale Brown's Dreamland
(2001)

Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice

Hidden in the Nevada desert is America's most advanced aerospace-weapons testing facility. Dreamland is the place where the nation's top minds come to develop artillery and aircraft that push beyond the cutting edge. And where the Air Force's top guns come to test them — on the front lines of a new era in warfare. . .

The fiasco of a spy's infiltration has the Pentagon looking for an excuse to close down Dreamland. To clean up the mess — and save Dreamland from the congressional chopping block — Lt. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian is sent in. He's just the guy to shake things up . . . and he does so when a situation erupts in Somalia.

Into a hotter-than-hot war zone, he sends his own daughter, Captain Breanna Bastian Stockard. She pilots a Megafortress bomber — equipped with a high-tech, unmanned flight system that could make or break the future of Dreamland. . .

“He writes about weapons beyond a mere mortal's imagination.”—
Tulsa World

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Dale Brown's Dreamland: Nerve Center
(2002)

Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice

Dreamland's latest project is Flighthawk — an unmanned aerial-attacking craft. A radical, high-risk method has been invented to help pilots master the complex remote-flying skills required to control Flighthawk: the implantation, in the pilot's skull, of a microchip linked to the deadly machine.

Initially all goes well for the first volunteer, Army Captain Kevin Madrone. But the psychological stress proves too much — and suddenly Madrone disappears, armed with and a part of one of the most powerful weapons in the world. . .

“Nobody . . . does it better than Brown.”—
Kirkus Reviews

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Dale Brown's Dreamland: Razor's Edge
(2002)

Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice

The weapon is codenamed “Razor” — the brainchild of the brilliant minds at Dreamland. It is a mobile chemical laser system with a range of 600 kilometers. It is capable of downing anything that flies.

The destruction of an American aircraft over northern Iraq suggests the inexplicable and unthinkable: a vengeful foe now possesses this lethal technology. It is fear that draws a retired warrior back to the battlefield, and sends Dreamland's best pilots to the skies to determine what the enemy has and to help take it away from him.

But politics threatens to crush a covert engagement that must be won in the air and on the ground, unleashing a devastating rain offriendly fire that could ultimately annihilate a nation's champions . . . and perhaps Dreamland itself.

“The talk makes Brown's novels authentic. What makes them riveting is the rapid pace and headline urgency of his plots.”—
San Francisco Chronicle

“DEATH OF THE DOGFIGHT”:
AN INTERVIEW WITH DALE BROWN

Interviewer
: You began your first novel,
Flight of the Old Dog
, while you were still serving in the U.S. Air Force. What did your colleagues think of this?

Dale Brown
: I never really told anybody what I was doing. Most of them thought I was just playing computer games. The others thought I was wasting my time. I enjoyed proving them wrong!

Interviewer
: To what degree do you plan your novels before starting to write?

Dale Brown
: Probably not as much as I should. When I get an idea, I research it, and if I get some exciting info or background, I'll write a short outline for my editor, tweak it a little, then get busy.

Interviewer
: Is there such a thing as a typical writing day for you? If so, what form does it take?

Dale Brown
: Most days start at nine a.m. and go to four p.m., then restart at nine p.m. and go to eleven p.m. I usually rewrite in the morning and write new scenes in the afternoon and evenings. But every day is different. Some days the scenes flow like water —the next day it's as dry as a desert. But the important thing is tobe in the seat with the computer on, ready to go.

Interviewer
:
Dreamland
is the first novel in a new series you're co-writing with Jim DeFelice. Can you give us an idea of how the writing process works?

Dale Brown
: It should be bylined “Jim DeFelice with Dale Brown,” by the way. I invented the basic backdrop of the“Dreamland” series — the time, place, circumstances. I help devel- op the plot and the characters, and I review the manuscript. Jim does everything else. He's an incredibly talented writer and we work well together.

Interviewer
: As well as describing the development of the weapons and their use in combat,
Dreamland
also details the crucial political background to the military action. Which part do you prefer writing?

Dale Brown
: I prefer describing weapons and technology by far. But the fighting is actually just a tiny fraction of the conflict. The political/diplomatic stuff is not as exciting sometimes, but it's every bit as important to the story.

Interviewer
:
Dreamland
'
s
characters — “Dog” Bastian; his daughter, Bree Stockard; her husband, “Zen”; Mack “Knife” Smith — all face different challenges and all have different goals in mind at the beginning of the novel. To what extent are they based on real people?

Dale Brown
: We all know characters like these — the hot dogs, the dedicated ones, the smart ones, the obsessed ones. So all of mycharacters are based on folks I know. But it's also true that the characters take on a life of their own. Jim DeFelice and I talk about the characters as if they're real persons: “Bree wouldn't do that”; “Mack would say this.”

Interviewer
: The novel depicts certain rivalries among those on the ground and those who take to the air. It's the latter groupwho get the glory, yes?

Dale Brown
: No one likes to admit it, because it doesn't fit in with the “whole force” politically-correct concept, but the pilot is and will always be king of the U.S. Air Force. Only seventeen percent of USAF personnel are pilots, but they make up most of the unit commanders. Even if in ten to fifteen years most USAF combat aircraft will be unmanned, the pilot will still be king.

Interviewer
: Life in a secret establishment such as Dreamland — or even on a “normal” military base — must be hard enough without the staff having relationships. In your experience, do these relationships lead to difficult situations?

Dale Brown
: All the time — that's why we authors put them in our stories! We are always looking for conflict. It's another complication in wartime.

Interviewer
: Since the end of the Cold War, threats to “our way of life” are not so neatly geographically placed. Nor, aside from Saddam Hussein and various terrorist groups, is it clear where we should place our military priorities.

Dale Brown
: There are plenty of bad guys out there — but it sometimes takes more background to explain why they are the bad guys. Fifteen years ago, everyone understood why we were fighting the Soviets. But if you set a war story in Ukraine or Lithuania or the Philippines, you need to take some time and explain why we're fighting there.

Interviewer
: What effect has the advent of improved technology had on the art of being a fighter pilot?

Dale Brown
: It has changed it completely. The “dogfight” — two pilots, two planes — is all but dead. Life and death takes placein split-second battles that happen across dozens of miles, usually without either adversary ever seeing the other. Pilots are more systems operators than fliers nowadays. Sooner than most folks think, our fighters won't even have pilots in them!

This interview was first published, in a slightly different form, at www.fireandwater.com, the website of HarperCollins UK.

I

Ghost Clone

Bright Memorial Hospital, Honolulu
3 September 1997
0302 (all times local)

I
T LOOKED LIKE
an arrow as she turned to get away from it. Breanna pushed hard on her control stick, but the plane barely responded. Caught with little forward momentum, the Megafortress waddled in the air, finally managing to jerk its nose back to the right just in time to avoid the missile.

A second and third homed in. Breanna Stockard put her hand on the throttle slide, desperate to get more speed from the power plants.

It was too late. She could see one of the missiles coming at her right wing, riding the air like a hawk. Bree had ECMs, flares, tinsel—every defensive measure the experienced Megafortress pilot could muster was in play, and still the hawk came on, talons out.

And then, just as it was about to strike the fuselage in front of the starboard wing root, it changed. The slim body of the Russian-designed Alamo missile thickened. Wings grew from the middle, and the steering fins at the rear changed shape. Breanna was being
tracked by an American Flighthawk, not a missile. For a moment, she felt relief.

Then the robot plane slammed into the wing.

B
REANNA SHOOK HERSELF
awake. the pale green light of the hospital room threw ghost shadows across her face; she could hear the machine monitoring her heartbeat stuttering.

“Damn drugs,” she said.

They'd given her a sedative to help her sleep, fearful that her injuries would keep her from resting for yet another night. Breanna had bruised ribs, a concussion, a sprained knee, and a twisted neck; she was also suffering from dehydration and the effects of more than twelve hours exposure to a bitter Pacific storm. But the physical injuries paled beside what really ached inside her—the loss of four members of her crew, including her longtime copilot Chris Ferris and Dreamland's number two Flighthawk pilot, Kevin Fentress.

Breanna rolled onto her back and shoved her elbows under her to sit up in the bed. She was angry with herself for not flying better, for not avoiding the Chinese missile that had taken her down. The fact that she had sacrificed her plane to rescue others was besides the point. The fact that the Piranha mission had been a stunning success, averting war between China and India, mattered nothing to her, at least not now, not in the room lit only by hospital monitors.