“Flight go okay?” asked the sergeant. His voice sounded innocent, but Dog suspected it was anything but.
“It did not. Keep your eyes on the road.”
“Yes, sir. Papers for you to sign,” added the sergeant, thumbing toward the console between them where three thick folders were wedged tight.
“I’ll read them if you’ll slow down,” said Dog as Gibbs took a turn on two wheels.
“Ah, I keep telling you, you don’t have to read the stuff I give you. Requisitions for toilet paper and that kind of stuff.” Gibbs jerked the Jimmy onto the road to Taj, Dreamland’s command complex. “Anything important I forge.”
“I hope you forged me a will,” said Dog, gripping his handhold tighter.
“‘Xcuse me, Colonel?”
“Just watch the road.” Dog finally managed to buckle his seat belt. “Now why the hell didn’t you radio me when the Secretary’s plane was inbound? And didn’t someone on General Magnus’s staff call to give us a heads-up?”
“Well, thing is, Colonel, number one, the Secretary didn’t come by plane, he came via limo from Nellis. Second thing is, he just showed up there too, and made a beeline out to us without telling the base commander. Everybody is peed. General Magnus’s staff didn’t know anything about it. I think Captain Granson may lose a bar over it,” added Ax. “Sergeant Fulton says it was his turn to keep track of the brass’s brass.”
Dog’s stern frown cut Gibbs off in mid-chortle. Granson was an aide to Lieutenant General Magnus, Colonel Bastian’s immediate superior in the streamlined chain of command established when Dreamland and its Whiplash Action Team became operational some months ago. Until the last election, Magnus had seemed on the short track to head the Air Force and maybe the Joint Chiefs. The fact that Keesh didn’t give him a heads-up before inspecting one of his commands obviously meant he was off the track, at least for now.
“Last but not least,” added Gibbs, “you left explicit orders not to be disturbed.”
“Ax, if the President came, would you have radioed me?”
“Probably. Ought to be down in the Mudroom by now,” added Gibbs, jerking the SUV to a stop so quickly it was a wonder the air bags didn’t deploy. “Senator Densmore looks like he had a bumpy flight, Colonel. Might offer him a cocktail. Also, Congresswoman Timmons is wearing very expensive perfume, so she may have intentions. She’s a widow, you know.”
“Anything else, Ax?”
“Just my papers, sir.”
Dog frowned at the folder. “I have to read them.”
“Seriously, Colonel, they’re just routine. You know, sir, if I can say something out of line—”
“You were born out of line, Sergeant.”
“You’re wasting your time on a lot of diddly-shit with the papers. I’ll bring the stuff you really need to deal with to your attention. As for the rest—”
“Not my way, Ax.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Mudroom — only Gibbs called it that — was a secure command center on basement level three of the Taj. Dog found Danny regaling the visitors with tapes of Dreamland’s successful Whiplash raid into Libya three months before.
Not too subtle.
Dog stood for a moment at the railing on the observer’s deck at the rear of the room, watching the tape run on the composite screen. The entire twelve-by-twenty-one-foot surface was given over to a feed from one of the Flighthawks as it surveyed the bunker complex where American prisoners were being held. Keesh, five lawmakers from Congress, and an aide were standing about five feet from the screen, completely mesmerized by the action. A roof began moving on the left; puffs of smoke and small flames, carefully rendered by the equivalent of more than 250 laptop TFT displays, filled the big screen. The camera veered off, and Whiplash’s assault team arrived in a combat-outfitted Osprey at the left corner of the screen.
“Just getting to the good part, I see,” said Bastian from the railing.
Danny jerked his head around, surprised that Bastian had managed to come in so quietly. “Colonel,” he said, pushing the remote control to freeze the video.
“It’s okay, Danny. Don’t stop now.” Bastian rolled his arms together in front of his chest.
“We know how it ends,” said Keesh, readjusting his thick, brown-framed glasses. They matched his brown suit. “But it is impressive.”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” said Dog, not sure how to address him. “We did get some breaks.”
“I was referring to the equipment,” said Keesh, who obviously didn’t mind the title.
“I think the colonel and his people deserve a compliment,” said Congresswoman Timmons, the ranking member on the Defense Appropriations Committee.
“The colonel has already been complimented,” said Keesh. “He’s in charge of the most prestigious command in the Air Force.”
Uh-oh, thought Dog, his crap detector snapping from search-and-scan to dogfight mode.
Nella McCormack stepped forward. Identifying herself as the Assistant Secretary for Technology “elect,” she introduced the colonel to the rest of the delegation. “Colonel, we’re on a tight schedule this afternoon,” she said after Bastian pumped the hand of the Washington lawmaker. “We’d like to speak to you in confidence. Perhaps we could pick up the tour in your office?”
As he led the delegation back up to his office suite, Dog wondered if they had come to sack him. Prior to his arrival, Dreamland had been run by a three-star general. Bastian was almost certainly the lowest-ranking officer in command of a mainland base in the Air Force. Dreamland wasn’t exactly a remote operating area either. HAWC had two main tasks: developing next-generation weapons for the Air Force and much of the rest of the military, and projecting that technology into trouble spots via Whiplash, its combined action squadron. Whiplash had a ground component headed by Danny Freah, and could draw on any of a number of high-tech planes, including the Megafortress and Flighthawks.
Ordinarily, the person heading such an operation would have a shoulder lit — some would say burdened — by at least two stars. So Bastian half expected that, once the new Administration got settled and figured out where everything was, he would be patted on the head and replaced. But Keesh wouldn’t have brought an audience to can him, would he?
“Nice desk for a colonel,” said Senator Densmore as they passed through Bastian’s personal office to get to the conference room.
“It was actually the last commander’s,” said Bastian, placing his palms on the exquisite cherry of his desktop.
“Tecumseh, let me apologize for barging in on you unannounced,” said Keesh as they all took seats around the two large tables in the conference room.
“We’re here to give you some good news,” said Congresswoman Timmons.
Dog felt a sudden pang. They couldn’t be here to promote him, could they?
“We’re going to greenlight an expansion of the U/MF program,” said Densmore. “Both the Senate and the House will include it in their budgets, and of course the Administration is behind it.”
“Well, that is good news,” said Bastian. He meant it — the robot planes, in his opinion, were potentially the biggest development in aerial combat since AWACS. But he wasn’t exactly sure why that news had to be delivered in person — nor why Magnus had been cut out of the loop. His confusion only grew as Keesh praised the Megafortress and JSF programs as well. Dog waited for the punch line, but none came.
“We have to be in our hotel at six,” said Keesh finally. He rose. “Perhaps we could see the Flighthawks before we go? And the Megafortress?”
“Of course,” said Bastian. He pulled the phone off the table and dialed Ax.
“Major Cheshire is waiting out here to give the nickel show,” said Gibbs as soon as he clicked on the line. “Major Stockard seems to be tied up with another project today. I couldn’t find him.”