“Hi,” he said. “I’m Captain Freah. I have an appointment with one of the engineers, Dr. Klondike. I may be a little late,” he added apologetically.
“You’re two hours late, Captain,” said the old lady, shuffling back to let him in. She wore an ancient gray lab coat that looked a great deal like a housedress on her. “Fortunately, we were told that was your MO unless you were under fire. Come in.”
Danny gave her an embarrassed smile and stepped into the long, narrow hallway as the steel door slid quietly shut on its gliders behind him. He had a tough time forcing himself to go slow enough to keep from running down the old lady.
Over the past few days, Danny had learned that Brad Elliot had run Dreamland with an iron fist, not only recruiting the best of the best but allowing almost no chaff—no political appointments, few “favors” to the contractors. But this old lady was obviously an exception; she had to be somebody’s relative, given a job either to keep her off food stamps or fill out a pension requirement. Captain Freah liked that—it was good to know that even a tough three-star like Elliot had a little compassion.
“This way now, Captain,” said the old lady, showing him into an immense, cement-walled room. There was a long firing range with a target track at the far end. She walked toward a large metal box that looked like an oversized mechanic’s tool chest, with double-keyed pullout drawers.
“Thanks,” said Danny. “When’s Dr. Klondike getting here? Maybe I’ll get some target practice in while I’m waiting for him.”
“I’m Klondike,” said the old lady.
Danny watched in disbelief as she retrieved a set of keys from her pocket, examining each one slowly before finding the right combination to open a thick drawer near the bottom. She pulled out a Marine-issue M40A rifle, sans scope, from the drawer.
“And incidentally, I am not a doctor. My name is Anna.”
“Is this for real?” he asked as she presented the gun to him.
“Whatever you may think of the Marine Corps, Captain, let me assure you that they have no peers when it comes to selecting rifles,” she said, apparently thinking that he had been referring to the weapon, not her. “You will find the Remington Model 700 one of the finest chassis for a precision firearm available. You may indeed quibble with the use of fiberglass instead of wood for the furniture, but remember that the Marines operate in an environment typically humid, if not downright wet.”
Still not sure whether he might be the victim of an elaborate gag cooked up by one of his men—or maybe Hal Briggs—Danny took the rifle in his hands. He had no questions about the gun. At roughly fourteen and a half pounds, with a twenty-four-inch stainless-steel barrel, it was absolutely a Remington, albeit one that had been hand-selected and finished.
“So where’s the scope?” he said.
“You’re impatient for one who keeps his own schedule,” said Klondike, closing the drawer. She toddled over to a second set of cabinets, eventually removing a small, torpedo-shaped sight. At a third cabinet, she produced a visor set with a cord.
“How does this work? Laser?” asked Danny, examining the sight.
“Hardly,” said the old lady, taking it from his hand and mounting it on the gun. She fiddled with a pair of set screws on the side, held the visor out, squinted, frowned, fiddled some more, then smacked the top. “Here,” she said finally. “I’ll get you some cartridges. The range is over there. I assume you can find it on your own.”
Fitted with a Redfield telescopic sight, the sixties-era M40 was at least arguably among the best sniping rifles of all time. Simple yet highly reliable in adverse conditions, it could not turn a mediocre shooter into a marksman. But it could turn a highly trained marksman into a deadly and efficient killer. The sight was perfectly mated to the weapon, allowing the usual adjustments for wind and range and providing a remarkable amount of light to the viewer.
The visor doodad, on the other hand, was dim.
“It can be adjusted to your tastes,” said Klondike, returning as Freah frowned and played with the LED visor screen. “Try it before you dismiss it, Captain. You said you wanted an advanced sniping weapon.”
Still doubtful, Danny steadied the weapon against his shoulder, firing from a standing position. The visor projected an image similar to the view in a scope, though it was spread in an oval rather than a circle. A legend below the firing circle declared the target precisely one hundred meters away. He braced himself and fired.
He nailed the bull’s-eye dead-on.
“Wow,” he said.
“Oh, please.” Klondike went to the panel controlling the target location on the wall. The target piece jerked back another hundred yards. “Go,” she said.
He nailed it again.
She pushed the button and the target sped backward, this time nearly disappearing deep within the tunnel. “Touch the lower edge of the visor,” Klondike told him.
“Here?”
“Captain, please.” She reached up and touched the very edge of the plastic panel near his cheekbone. Instantly, a range-to-target legend appeared next to the crosshatch.
Five hundred yards.
He missed.
By a centimeter.
Klondike frowned. “Perhaps the weapon takes getting used to. Ordinarily, you should get to seven hundred yards before beginning to lose some accuracy. It is, of course, a matter of skill, and choosing the right ammunition. No offense, Captain.”
“How the hell does this work?” Danny asked. “Is it a laser?”
She shook her head. “A focused magnetic pulse, two signals with a Doppler effect. If it were a laser you would have optical problems shooting through glass or water.”
“You can aim through glass?”
“Without manual correction. There are limitations, of course. The device cannot read two-dimensional shapes, and has difficulty with thin surfaces. You could not read a sign with it beyond sixty-two meters. The distance has to do with the harmonics of the different radar waves,” she added. “The sight would also be theoretically vulnerable to a system such as the HARM, which can home in on it. Still, until we perfect smart bullets—if we perfect smart bullets—it’s the most accurate handheld ballistic device available. I’ve done a little work on the barrel,” she added. “And, of course, the bullets are mine.”
“I have six guys on the Whiplash response team,” Danny told her. “I’d like to qualify each one of them on the gun.”
“It is a sniper’s weapon, Captain. At some point in the future, perhaps, we will be able to mass-produce it. For now there is exactly one available for use.”
“All the same, I want them checked out on it, if possible.” Freah’s Whiplash response team was an elite subgroup of his air commandos, cross-trained for a variety of jobs. Organized only in the last six months, they hadn’t been called into action yet, with the exception of one training detail. But it was accepted that each member would be trained and expected to take on any other member’s job at a moment’s notice.
“As you wish. I suppose you’ll be wanting body armor as well,” said Klondike.
“We have flak vests.”
“Captain, please.” She shook her head. “Your vests are made from KM2, correct?”
“Well—”
“They weigh more than twenty-five pounds, and I doubt that half your men wear them half the time, no matter what the standing orders or situation may be. Our armor, on the other hand, is made of boron carbide plates and a thinner, stronger Kevlar derivative. Unfortunately, there’s some loss of flexibility in our version, and we’ve only fashioned vests so far. Nonetheless, you’ll find they weigh less than ten pounds, and can stop a 30mm shell fired from point-blank range.”
“I’m in your hands, Annie,” said Danny.
“Yes, well, don’t get fresh,” said Klondike, leading him out of the room.
Dreamland
11 October
COLONEL BASTIAN WALKED AROUND THE CHUNKY airframe that sat in the middle of Development Shed B/3, trying to hide some of his displeasure from Rubeo and the others he had gathered on the tarmac for this impromptu brainstorming session. To him, the F-119 looked like a flying tugboat.