Razor's Edge Page 2

  “Chee-ya!” Powder shouted again, throwing himself down.

  One of the enemy soldiers began firing. Danny pressed the trigger, greasing the two men, then a third who bounced out from the rocks to their right as the first fell. Danny emptied the clip on a fourth, caught stunned behind the others.

  “Bang! Bang! Bang!” said Freah, pushing up his helmet. “You’re all dead.”

  “They cheated!” shouted the Pave Low pilot, from his dead-man squat down by the helicopter. “They’re wearing Whiplash gear, the fucks.”

  “Hey, you cheats!” yelled Powder, running over. “No fair!”

  “Hey, you’re dead,” said one of the “enemy” gunners. “I got you.”

  “Bullshit—check the computer. Read it and weep, my friend.”

  “Egg, Pretty Boy, up. Four dead Delta troopers in those rocks beyond the helo,” said Danny. “Watch out for stragglers.”

  “There’s no stragglers,” said the helo pilot. “They’re fucking cheaters.”

  “Hey, you can’t talk to him,” said one of the men Danny had mock-killed. It was the leader of the Delta team, Major Harmon Peiler, who was indeed wearing Whiplash black camos. “Come on, Freah. You know the rules.”

  Danny laughed at the Delta commander, then climbed up out of the crevice. He walked behind the position, checking to make sure there weren’t any more D boys in the rocks.

  Counterfeit clothes. Not bad.

  “We may be dead, but you lost this one, Danny boy,” said Peiler. “You can’t get out. Advantage Delta. You’re buyin’ tonight.”

  “Saddle up in the chopper,” Danny told his team.

  “You can’t get out,” said Peiler.

  “Why not? My aircraft is still here.”

  “Your pilot’s dead.”

  “That pilot’s dead,” said Danny, pointing.

  “Yeah—you’re going to freakin’ fly it yourself?”

  “Egg, you’re up,” shouted Danny. The sergeant waved, then climbed into the helicopter.

  “What the freakin’ hell are you doin’?” Peiler demanded.

  “Egg’s gonna fly us out,” said Danny as his sergeant settled into the cockpit.

  “Like hell! Shit.”

  Danny shrugged.

  “Bullshit he can fly,” said Peiler.

  “Well, you better hope so, because you’re going to be sitting in the back.”

  “Hey, uh, Captain, I don’t know,” said the pilot.

  “Relax. Egg used to fly Apaches. Ain’t that right, Egg?”

  Egg, listening on his smart helmet com set, corrected him. “Uh, Captain, that was Cobras. Kind of a different thing.”

  “Yeah, just give them the thumbs-up.”

  Egg leaned out the cockpit window and did so. Peiler cursed.

  Staff Sergeant Frederick K. “Egg” Reagan had, in fact, flown on the Army gunship, though as a gunner, not a pilot. Nonetheless, the experience had encouraged him to obtain a helicopter pilot’s license, and he was indeed checked out on the MH-53J. Everyone on the Whiplash action team had a specialty; his was handling heavy equipment. Had there been an M1A1, he would have been equally at home.

  The rotor started skipping around as the engine coughed and died.

  “I don’t know about this,” said Peiler.

  “Well, you can come or you can walk,” said Danny.

  “It’s ten miles to the safe zone.”

  Danny shrugged.

  “Dead men, up and into the helicopter,” said Peiler as the twin turbos caught.

  “Uh, Captain,” said the Pave Low pilot, pulling Danny aside. “If we crash, they’re going to take this out of my pay for the next hundred years.”

  “You should’ve thought about that before you got suckered by these bozos,” Danny told him. “They don’t even have carbon-boron vests, for chrissakes.”

  Over Iraq

  1930

  ARMS CRAMPING, NECK STIFF, LEGS NUMB, ELECTRONIC warfare officer Torbin Dolk pushed back against the ejection seat, a piece of furniture that would never be confused for an easy chair.

  “How you holding out?” his pilot asked.

  “Yeah,” said Torbin.

  “Excuse me?” Fitzmorris asked.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” He adjusted the volume on the radio, which was tuned to the emergency Guard band the downed flier should have been using. Standard procedure called for the pilot to broadcast at certain times, but the searchers monitored the radio constantly, hoping to hear something.

  Fifty-five antennas protruded from various parts of the Phantom. Not one was of any particular use at the moment. The Iraqi radar operators hadn’t juiced up their sets since the shoot-down.

  Bastards were probably all out at a monster party, celebrating, Torbin thought.

  That or looking for the pilot.

  “We’re going to have to go back,” said Fitzmorris.

  “Yeah,” said Torbin. There were now four other planes scouring the peaks, waiting for any signal from the downed airman; they wouldn’t be leaving their comrade alone.

  Still, Torbin didn’t want to go.

  “Glory B, we’re wondering what your fuel situation is,” said the AWACS controller.

  “Yeah, mom, we’re close to bingo,” answered Fitzmorris. The pilot was fudging big-time—bingo left about twenty minutes of reserve in the tanks. They were past it by nineteen minutes.

  “Falcon Two, Falcon Two, you up? Jack, you hear me?” said Torbin, keying into the Guard band.

  Silence.

  “Falcon Two, Falcon Two. Jesus man, where the hell are you?”

  “We’re going home,” said the pilot over the interphone circuit.

  Brussels

  2145

  MACK SMITH HAD JUST ABOUT GOTTEN TO THE DOOR OF his hotel room when the phone rang. Ordinarily he would have blown it off and gone on to dinner, but he’d given his room number to a French aerospace consultant just before leaving NATO headquarters this afternoon. The memory of her smile and lusciously shaped breasts—mostly her breasts—grabbed him and pulled him back into the room.

  “Bonjour,” he said, exhausting his French.

  “Major Smith, this is Jed Barclay.”

  “Jed?”

  “Uh, listen, Major, sorry to bother you but, uh, I need kind of a favor.”

  Smith sat down on the bed. Barclay, though probably too young to shave, was a high-level aide at the National Security Council.

  “Where are you, Jed?”

  Barclay didn’t answer. “Listen, I need you to, uh, get a hold of General Elliott for me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I need you to get General Elliott over to a secure phone and call me, okay? He’ll know the drill.”

  Brad Elliott, a former three-star general, was in Brussels briefing some of the NATO brass on the recent problems with Iran. Technically retired, Elliott had headed the Air Force’s High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center—Dreamland—for several years. He was now somehow involved with the ultrasecret Intelligence Support Agency, which coordinated black operations with the CIA and elements of the military. Mack wasn’t exactly sure what the involvement was—his own clearance didn’t extend that high. Except that he’d seen the general this afternoon—briefly—he wouldn’t even have known he was in Brussels.

  “Why me?” asked Mack.

  “This has to be done discreetly,” said Jed.

  “Well, I’m your guy,” said Smith, “but I’m not really sure where the hell he is.”

  “Uh, this is an open line,” said Jed. “I need you to get him.”

  “Yeah, all right, kid. Relax. I’ll do it.”

  “As soon as possible, Major.”

  “Gee, really?” Smith hung up the phone. He’d come to Europe on very temporary duty a few days before, assigned to deliver a seminar on differentiating between missile and other damage for visiting VIPs and crash experts next week. He’d hoped he might be able to use the assignment to troll for an interesting berth—though nominally still assigned to Dreamland, he was actually looking for a new command.

  Elliott and ISA might be just the ticket. Smith went downstairs and then across the street to a pay phone, where he dialed the European Command liaison office temporarily hosting him.

  “Hell-o?” answered a somewhat high-pitched feminine voice.

  Patti, the English girl. Good teeth, skinny legs. He’d been working on her before meeting the aerospace consultant.

  “Hey, Patti, this is Mack Smith. How were those chocolates?”

  “Oh, Major Smith—very good.”

  He flashed on a picture of her sucking them down. Those legs wouldn’t stay skinny for very long.

  “Listen, I’m really an airhead today—I was supposed to see General Elliott for drinks but I totally forgot where.”

  “Brad Elliott? But I thought he was having a late dinner with General Stumford.”

  Stumford. Second in command of JSSOC, the Joint Services Special Operations Command. Army guy. Thick neck, small ears. Here for some sort of consultation. Probably more ISA stuff.

  “Yeah, I’m supposed to meet them—where was it, exactly?”

  The restaurant happened to be only two blocks away, on one of the three streets in the city that Mack had memorized. As he walked over he wracked his brain for a way of getting General Elliott alone. Either the walk was too short or the chilly evening air froze his brain; not a single idea occurred to him before he opened the door.

  Mack ignored the long string of foreign words the maitre d’ spewed at him as he walked into the dining room. Elliott and Stumford were sitting at a table at the far end of the room, watching as a sommelier opened a bottle of wine for them.

  “Hey, General Elliott,” said Mack, walking forward.

  “Mack? I didn’t know you liked French food.”

  “Well, I don’t, actually.” Mack glanced around, then over at Stumford, whose frown would have stopped an M1A1 in its tracks. “I, uh, I have a message for you, General. Phone call you need to make. Uh, personal, but uh, important. You’re supposed to call right away.”

  Mack hesitated. Elliott wasn’t married, so he couldn’t tell him to call his wife.

  “Your mom,” said Smith, lowering his voice to a near whisper. He glanced at Stumford and nodded seriously before turning back to Elliott. “It’s, well, it’s—you probably ought to call right now. If you want, I can let you use my phone over at, uh, the temporary office they gave me. No charge.”

  Elliott gave him a quizzical look. “Okay,” he said finally, pulling his napkin from his lap. “Bill, I’m sorry.”

  Stumford nodded. Mack swung away, feeling reasonably proud of himself for pulling it off until Elliott grabbed his shoulder in the front room.

  “You’re a good pilot, Major, but you’re going to have to work on your lying.”

  “Why?”

  “Bill Stumford was at my mother’s funeral.”

  MACK TOOK ELLIOTT TO HIS OWN OFFICE TO USE THE SECURE phone, managing to get him down the hall without meeting anyone besides the security people. If Elliott had any clue what was up, he didn’t betray it, nor did his face show any emotion when he was finally connected with Barclay. “Go ahead, Jed,” was all he said, and he didn’t so much as grunt in acknowledgment as Barclay filled him in on what was up. He listened without comment for nearly five minutes, then stood up from the chair with the phone still at his ear.

  “I’m on my way,” he said before returning the phone to its cradle. Elliott looked up at him so sharply that Mack almost didn’t ask what was up.

  Almost.

  “So?” he asked, looking for a way to start his pitch for help finding a new command.

  “So what, Major?”

  “Well, I was just wondering if…well, I—” It had been quite some time since Brad Elliott’s eyes had bored through his skull, but the effect now was immediate. “You think you could drop me off back at my hotel, sir?”

  “You’re coming with me, Major.”

  “Really? Great,” said Mack. “Fantastic. This is back channel stuff right? That’s why Jed called me instead of going through official channels.”

  “You’re sharp as ever, Major.”

  “You know, I’d like to broaden my horizons a bit,” added Mack, deciding to make his play. “I could do a lot with ISA and, you know me, I want to be where the action is. The projects at Dreamland are drying up, and the only thing I’ve been able to find in the real world is a D.O. slot in a squadron at Incirlik. Armpit of the world. Jeez, I don’t want to go there.”

  Elliott ignored him, starting out of the office so quickly that Mack had to run down the hallway to catch up. “Girls all wear veils, if you know what I mean.”

  Elliott harrumphed as they left the building, heading for his car.

  “If you can help me come up with something—”

  “I can ask around,” said Elliott finally, unlocking the car.

  “Thanks, General, I truly appreciate it.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “So where we going?” Mack asked as they wheeled out of their parking spot. “D.C.?”

  “Incirlik,” said Elliott. “There’ll be a jet at the airport.”

  Aboard Raven, over Dreamland Range 2

  1600

  MAJOR JEFF “ZEN” STOCKARD SWEPT HIS EYES AROUND the readings projected on the instrument screen, confirming the computer’s declaration that all systems were in the green. The Flighthawks’ Comprehensive Command and Control computer, known as C3, had never been wrong yet, but that didn’t mean Zen was going to give it a bye.

  “Major?”

  “Keep your shirt on, Curly.”

  Captain Kevin Fentress fidgeted at the nickname but said nothing. A reference to the short, well-furled locks on Fentress’s head, it was Zen’s latest attempt at giving the newbie Flighthawk pilot a decent handle.

  “Handoff in thirty seconds,” said Zen. “Begin the procedure.”

  “Right.” Fentress blew a hard breath, trying to relax. He was sitting only a few feet from Zen at the left-hand console in the Flighthawk control bay of Bear One, an EB-52 Megafortress outfitted to support test flights of the small, unmanned fighters, officially designated U/MF-3s. Taking over the robot wasn’t as simple as reaching over and grabbing the stick. Fentress’s fingers stumbled through the long panel sequence twice before he could give the voice command to transfer control to his console. The procedure included two different code words—a third, if Zen didn’t consent within five seconds—as well as retina scan by the gear in Fentress’s control helmet. By the time it was completed, the Flighthawk had traveled several miles beyond their planned turnaround and was nearing the end of the test range.

  “Let’s go, Fentress. You’re behind the plane.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tighter,” Zen told his pupil as he began the turn. “You’re not flying a Predator. Use the plane.”

  Fentress gave more throttle, still obviously out of sorts; he had to back off to get the robot’s nose onto the right heading. Zen knew how hard it could be to get a precise feel for the robot. It was as much a struggle of the imagination as anything physical. But Fentress had been practicing this for several days—he ought to know it cold.

  Zen took another quick glance at the U/MF-3’s instrument readings, then looked at the sitrep map in the lower left video screen. The map presented a synthesized “bird’s-eye view” of the area around Bear One, showing not only the unmanned robot, but its planned flight path and the location of the target drone, which in this case was an ancient Phantom F-4 flown completely by computer. Today’s exercise was simple: As the Phantom flew a racetrack oval around Dreamland’s Test Range 2, Fentress would approach it from the rear and launch a simulated cannon attack. It ought to be easy.

  Except that Fentress overhandled the robot, his inputs shifting it left and right and up and down so much that the computer twice gave him warnings that the plane was dangerously close to pitching toward the dirt. Zen shook his head but let the computer do the scolding—the safety parameters were set so that C3 would take over if Curly did anything truly horrible.

  Which he nearly did as he angled to catch the Phantom drone, swinging wide then overaccelerating and sailing over the plane without managing to get a firing cue from the computer.

  “Try again,” said Zen as patiently as he could manage.

  “Sorry.”

  “Try again.”

  Fentress did even worse the second time, violating the test parameters by flying into the next range, which fortunately was unoccupied. Zen grabbed control of the plane ten seconds after he crossed the line, overriding the usual command sequence with a push-button safety switch on his control board.

  “Jesus, what’s going on?” said Fentress, at first unaware that he didn’t have control.

  “You went into Range 3B,” said Zen. “I have it.”

  Zen slid his speed back and ducked the Flighthawk’s wing, gliding toward the designated airspace like an eagle checking the crags for a new aerie. He’d grown so used to flying the Flighthawk with his control helmet that handling it with the screens felt a little like backseat driving. He pushed the Flighthawk into a rough trail on the drone, setting his speed precisely to the drone’s at 280 knots. All Fentress had to do now was nudge the slider on his throttle bar, located on the underside of the all-control stick, and wait for the “hit me” sign from the computer.

  “All yours, Curly,” he said, punching his hot switch again to give control back.

  His student hunkered down in his seat, pushing forward against the restraints as he concentrated. Zen watched the targeting screen count down as Fentress closed on the drone in a rear-quarter attack. The pilot pressed the trigger the second C3 cued him to fire.

  And he’d been doing so well.

  “I told you, the computer is almost always optimistic from the rear,” Zen told Fentress as the bullets trailed downward toward the empty desert. Oblivious, the Phantom began its turn, taking it outside the target cone. “Count three before you fire.”