"Red Flag," Elliott said with a smile. "Probably a couple of FB-111s on a night terrain-following sortie out there on range 74.Going max afterburners and supersonic at two hundred feet."
"But that was so close," Curtis asked. "What about-" "Relax, relax," Elliott asked. "They were at least fifteen miles away. Besides, those bomber pukes know better than to come any closer to Dreamland. The airspace from ground level to eighty thousand feet is absolutely prohibited from overflight-civilian, military, anybody. It's an instant aircrew violation and a security debriefing they'd not soon forget-I'd guarantee that.
Finally, after a few minutes of searching, Elliott spotted the low, dimly lit guardhouse and steered Curtis and himself toward it. "I come out here once a week," Elliott said, "and I still have trouble finding the damn guard shack."
"I don't think your sky-cops would let us wander around out here for too long," Curtis observed.
"True," Elliott asked. "They'd send a German shepherd to fetch us back."
A few moments later, they all ived at a small concrete block building.
The shack had one large bullet-proof double-paned glass window in front, one door, and numerous gunports around it on the other walls. A twelve-foot-tall fence stretched on either side of the building, and the fence was topped with large, silvery coils of sharp barbed wire.
Three fully rigged Air Force security guards emerged from the building and quickly and quietly surrounded Elliott and Curtis. All three were armed with M-16 rifles, one with a mean-looking M-203 grenade launcher attached to the underside of his rifle barrel. A German shepherd dog was led out and began sniffing around the two visitors. The dog took one sniff of Wilbur Curtis and sat down directly in front of him, no more than six inches from the tips of his shoes.
" Don't move, sir, " the dog handler asked. "Is your identification in your breast pocket?" Curtis nodded, once, very slowly.
The guard removed Curtis' wallet while another guard quickly pat-searched him.
"Should I raise my hands?" Curtis asked.
"He means 'don't move, sir," Elliott said, as his ID was examined.
"Bambi there weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds and could probably drag you up a vertical ladder."
"Bambi?" Curtis felt his body stiffen as he looked at the dog.
" I didn't know you were carrying a weapon," Elliott said to Curtis as the guard pulled a nine-millimeter automatic from a shoulder holster.
Curtis grunted, afraid to move his lips any further. The dog was led reluctantly to Elliott for a quick search, and then taken away.
As the two generals drank steaming cups of coffee just outside the guard shack waiting for their ID verification, Curtis surveyed what little visible landscape there was inside the compound. Inside the tall fence, the area was completely dark leading to a row of three hangars. No lights at all were visible anywhere. The large hangars were flanked by several smaller ones. A wide ramp emerged from the opposite side of each hangar, and stretched out over the horizon.
"Why no lights inside the compound, Brad?" Curtis asked after their IDs were rechecked and they were cleared inside the fence.
"Oh, they have lights on, sir," Elliott asked. "All infrared.
To the guards with their sensors and sniperscopes, it's just as clear as day. The darkness also helps the Dobermans."
Curtis gulped. "Dobermans?"
" Yes, unattended guard dogs. They're more effective if they're allowed to prowl, and they're very shy of lights. They all have laryngectomies, too, poor devils. If they spot you, they won't even give you the courtesy of a warning bark before they go for your throat.
" Curtis looked around nervously.
"They're not around now," Elliott asked. "At least, I hope they've recalled them. We'd never know what hit us if they haven't.
They reached the back entrance to the hangar after another hundred-yard walk. "One at a time," Elliott said. They heard a buzzing sound, and Elliott grabbed the doorhandle, pulled the large metallic door open, and stepped inside. A few moments later, Curtis heard the same buzzer and did the same.
Curtis was standing in a long corridor. The walls of the corridor were clear, thick plastic on all sides, even the floor, and Elliott was just stepping out of the second half of the unusual walkway. More security guards studied Curtis carefully as he walked down the corridor and stopped at a plastic door.
He was aware of a large cannon-like device tracking him as he walked along, humming like a dentist's X-ray machine. The remote-controlled lock buzzed, and he stepped into the second half of the plastic hallway Another door later, he joined up with General Elliott.
"Well, that's new even to me. "Elliott asked. "An X-ray chamber.
Must've put it in just in the past few days. It checks for implants.
That X-ray device, I'm told, can find microdot transmitters embedded in your teeth, fingernails-even your intestines.
"Hmm. I'm not sure how much good it will do," General Curtis asked. "I bet the Russians have Dreamland scoped out from six different angles.
A jackrabbit probably can't screw in this desert without some Soviet spy satellite watching him.
"Well," Elliott replied, "they might know about all the activity going on around here, and all the security, and maybe even have snapshots of you and me taking a stroll. But, at least for now, they don't know anything about… this!"
They emerged from the security chief's office into the main hangar area. Curtis let out a gasp.and even Elliott, who had seen this plane in nearly every step of its metamorphosis, felt a thrill of pride and anticipation as he studied the immense form before them.
"General Curtis," Elliott said, "meet the Old Dog."
The huge B-52 was completely black, a strange, eerie jetblack that seemed to absorb light, totally negating the effect of the hundred maintenance floodlights surrounding it. The surface was absolutely clean and as smooth as a bowling ball.
It was as if the B-52, the veteran of over thirty years of service, was in some sort of futuristic, comical costume.
"What the hell Curtis said.
"Don't recognize it, huh?" Elliott laughed. "Officially, the B-52 I-model, although it's only a B-52 H-model with a bunch of modifications. It is without a doubt one of a kind. We use it as a test bed for Stealth-type technology, air-to-air weaponry, weapons mating tests, computer hardware, everything. But she's in top flyin' condition-she can fly right now if you want. The workers have renamed her from Stratofortress to Megafortress, and you'll see why. Let me show you around."
Curtis followed Elliott around to the most prominent exterior change on the bomber-a long, needle-sharp nose and sharply angled cockpit windows.
" An SST-style nose, Brad?" Curtis asked. "Isn't this going a little too far?"
"We checked out every aspect of this plane's performance," Elliott asked. "You'd be surprised how much a long, pointed nose, pointed tip fuel tanks, more streamlined cockpit windows, smoothed and polished skin, and no external TV or infrared cameras help to increase this plane's top speed. The limiting Mach on this plane before modification was point eight-four Mach; now, the limiting Mach speed of this baby is point nine-six without the externals. And it's just as comfortable at low altitude as it is in the stratosphere."
Curtis ran his hand over the skin. "What kind of metal is this?" he asked. "Fiberglass?It's not aluminum. What is it?"
"Radar-absorbing fibersteel," Elliott asked. "A composition of fiberglass and carbon steel, stronger than aluminum but as radar-transparent as plastic.
"We can't make it invisible, of course," Elliott asked. "It's all a matter of time. If we can get thirty or forty miles closer to the target without being detected, all the expense and trouble is worth it.
If an enemy fighter has to come in another ten or twenty miles before he can get a solid missile lock-on, it just improves our chances of getting him first and surviving. At night, the special black antisearchlight paint is worth its weight in gold. This plane will be virtually invisible to the naked eye at night. A fighter can be flying side-by-side with the Megafortress and he'll never see it. "Elliott smiled as they walked around the smooth, pointed nose. "Besides, the black paint and the nose make it look mean as hell."