Still smiling, Charlie took his arm. “C’mon, Brad, you can buy me a glass of wine at the canteen and then keep me company while I write up my report on tonight’s exercise.” She waggled a stern finger at him. “A report that will include a full and honest evaluation of that crazy-assed stunt you pulled off.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Brad agreed, relieved that she was letting him off the hook.
She glanced back over her shoulder at the two technicians. “And in the meantime, you guys are going to bring that unit up to one hundred percent status ASAP — even if you have to pull the whole leg assembly and replace every power coupling and fluid line. Got it?” Glum-faced, they nodded.
Once they were out of earshot, Brad asked, “Kinda hard-assed, weren’t you?”
“Yep.” Charlie nodded. “But that’s one of the reasons I’m out here in the Romanian boonies instead of kicking back in my nice cushy Sky Masters lab.” She shook her head. “Look, Wayne Macomber’s a rocking, socking soldier and a damned fine tactician, but you and I both know he doesn’t much like CIDs. He’ll fight in them when he has to, but basically they give him the creeps.”
That was true, Brad knew. He’d often heard the big, powerfully built Iron Wolf ground forces commander bitching about feeling like a slave to the “damned unholy gadget” whenever he piloted a CID. “So?”
“So he’s got kind of a blind spot when it comes to their proper care and feeding,” Charlie said quietly. “The Russians may still be licking their wounds from last year, but they’ll be back — and probably sooner rather than later. And when they come, you’re going to need every CID and other piece of high-tech military hardware you can scrounge as a force multiplier. So you’re gonna want everything in tip-top fighting condition, not sidelined for repairs because someone figured ‘good enough’ would cut it. That’s why your dad wants me to tighten things up on the maintenance side.”
Surprised, Brad looked at her.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, I know the general’s still alive and kicking.” She snorted. “I always knew Patrick McLanahan was a steely-eyed hard-ass. I just never figured that he’d find a way to make that literally true.” She shook her head in wonder. “Three years riding a robot full-time. Man, I wouldn’t have bet that was possible. Or sane.”
Brad nodded slowly. Very few people knew that his father, critically wounded during an unauthorized mission against the People’s Republic of China years ago, had actually survived. Fewer still knew that only a CID’s life-support systems kept him alive. Piloting one of the huge machines sustained his crippled body, but it could not heal him. Patrick McLanahan was trapped, forced to interact with the world entirely through the CID’s sensor arrays and computers.
Brad sighed, fighting down the painful blend of regret and relief and anger that hit home whenever he thought much about his father. It was always hard seeing the bold and daring man who’d raised him pushed off into the shadows — robbed of all normal human contact in an eerie world of binary 1’s and 0’s. But now it felt even worse.
During Russia’s recent attack against Poland, Patrick McLanahan had revealed himself to Gennadiy Gryzlov and to Stacy Anne Barbeau, the new American president. Both were horrified to learn that the man they considered an enemy and a threat to world order was still alive. But neither political leader had known his true condition.
Both Gryzlov and Barbeau were sure he was dead for real this time — shot down by American F-35 fighters along with the rest of the Iron Wolf bomber force flying back from an all-or-nothing strike against a Russian ballistic-missile force set to blast Poland off the map. That callous act of treachery had been the price demanded by Gryzlov for agreeing not to drag the United States into a war Stacy Anne Barbeau feared. It was a price she had been gullible enough and cowardly enough to pay, even at the cost of shattering the NATO alliance.
“Sorry, Brad,” he heard Charlie say softly. “I know it sucks.” She rested her hand lightly on his arm.
He forced himself to smile and squared his shoulders. “Now about that drink you wanted—”
“Captain McLanahan!” he heard someone call out.
He looked around, seeing a Scion staffer hurrying down the hall toward them.
“Yes?”
“You’re needed in the communications center, sir,” the man said tersely. “There’s a secure call for you from Mr. Martindale. He’s got President Wilk on the same line. Priority Alpha One. All Scion and Iron Wolf stations are going on full alert.”
Brad felt cold. Short of a surprise air or missile attack on Warsaw or some other allied population center, he couldn’t imagine much else that would trigger that kind of move.
“I’ll tag along, if you don’t mind,” Charlie said. Her mouth twisted in a sly grin. “You know I always hate to miss a party.”
“Tak, panie prezydencie. Yes, Mr. President,” Brad McLanahan said, speaking loud enough into the mic to be heard over the pounding roar of the Sparrowhawk’s huge propellers. “I’ll do my best.”
“Very good, Captain,” Piotr Wilk said gravely. “You should know that this appeal for our help comes from the very highest levels of the Romanian government. President Dumitru himself assures me they have no other hope of averting disaster. Unless someone can get inside Cernavodă and manually activate whatever shutdown and emergency cooling systems survive, his experts believe the reactor containment building will rupture—”
“Spewing radiation across Romania and a hell of a lot of central Europe,” Brad said impatiently. “With respect, sir, the situation’s pretty clear.”
“All normal and fucked up, yes?”
“As per usual,” Brad agreed. The Polish president’s grasp of American military slang kept growing by leaps and bounds.
The Sparrowhawk banked sharply, slowing fast as its propellers swiveled upward, turning into rotors. Through the cockpit windows, he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a large industrial complex, eerily bathed in spotlights. Flashing blue and red lights showed a sea of emergency vehicles — fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars — surrounding the power plant.
“We’re at the reactor site,” he reported. “I’ve got to go, Mr. President. It’s time to suit up.”
“Understood,” Wilk replied. “Good luck.” He paused, and then said carefully, “There is one more person here who wishes to speak to you. She is… most insistent.”
Brad swallowed hard. “Hi, Nadia,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“You will be careful,” Nadia Rozek said crisply.
“You realize that I’m planning on walking into a nuclear reactor that might already be melting down, right?” Brad asked.
“Yes,” she said huskily. “That is why you will be very careful, Brad McLanahan.”
“I’ll try,” he promised.
“Kocham cię. I love you,” Nadia murmured. “So I will be extremely angry if you get yourself killed unnecessarily. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Brad said quickly, feeling a lump in his own throat.
The Sparrowhawk touched down in the middle of a hurriedly cleared field. Groups of nuclear plant technicians, policemen, and soldiers waited nervously at the edge of the landing zone, their faces lowered against the sudden rotor-blown hail of dust and dead grass.
Charlie Turlock tapped him on the shoulder. “Time’s up, smooth talker,” she said, with a grin. “But remind me later to give you some pro tips on soulful romantic chitchat.”