“It may be mobile,” said Dr. Rubeo, who was in the secure room with Colonel Bastian. “If it’s as advanced as Razor. If—a big question.”
“See—we have to get that question answered,” said Danny.
“There’s no way you’ll have the Osprey repaired in time to join us,” said Alou.
“We’ll find other transportation,” said Danny, who already knew it would be several days before they had a new engine to replace the damaged one. “If this map is right, there are no defenses whatsoever. Nearest armed units would be in a town a mile and a half away. We’re in and out before they know what hit them. Ten minutes of video on the ground, maybe grab some pieces—that would be invaluable.”
“Big risks,” said Bastian. “Even just a bombing mission. Granted that Quicksilver was more vulnerable to radar, but Raven will still have to open its bomb bay to fire. That would make even a B-2 visible, at least in theory.”
“I concur,” said Rubeo.
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“One thing I noticed,” cut in Alou. “And maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe it has to do with the radars, but the altitude of all the planes hit was at least twenty thousand feet.”
“And?” said Dog.
“Maybe it can only hit aircraft at that altitude or higher.
Maybe it’s optimized for that.”
“If this is a laser, it can strike anything from five centimeters to thirty-five meters off the ground,” said Rubeo.
His face filled the screen as he spoke, the video feed automatically concurring with the active voice feed. “I suggest we wait and plan a full raid,” added the scientist. “I agree with Captain Freah about the utility of a close inspection, but the operation should be properly planned.
We’ll have the mini-KH positioned in six hours.”
“They may move it by then,” said Alou.
“Unlikely,” said Rubeo.
“Razor’s mobile.”
“Pul-ease. We are dealing with Iraq,” answered the scientist. “Even if this is mobile, they can’t go scurrying around the countryside with it. They’ll hide it in a building.”
“I agree with Merce,” said Danny. “The sooner the better. They won’t be expecting it.”
“We’re not sure if this is the site, though,” said Dog.
“It’s got to be, right, Doc?” asked Danny, sensing the scientist would back him.
“Possibly. It’s within parameters. Even if they were a full generation behind—and let us say that is more likely—the building needed for the director would not have to be very large,” said Rubeo. “I believe anything above two thousand square feet would do, assuming some of the equipment were contained on a second level or even in an auxiliary station. The director itself is not particularly large, and at least a portion of it has to be ex-
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231
posed so it can fire. Razor, of course, can be mounted on a large tank chassis. That greatly increases the possible number of sites.”
“What the hell is the director?” asked Danny. “The command post?”
Rubeo gave him one of his best “what a bonehead I’m dealing with” expressions.
“The director focuses the laser or high energy beam,”
explained Colonel Bastian. “It’ll look a little like a very large searchlight. It will have some baffling on it to prevent ambient light from changing the focus during daylight.”
“Precisely,” said Rubeo. “We will feed you some con-ceptual drawings that you can use for a target. It’s the easiest part to destroy. Now, if the Iraqis are more than a generation behind—”
“Then it wouldn’t work at all,” said Colonel Bastian.
“Precisely,” said Rubeo. “Thank you, sir.”
“Good,” said Danny.
“The director itself is interesting, but not the highest priority for intelligence,” said Rubeo. “The software that controls it would be extremely interesting. We’d want to ID the gas makeup, of course. An exact signature could help us determine who built it and—”
“I’ll get you everything you want,” said Danny.
“The chemical warfare sniffers you carry can be modified to give us a reading,” said Rubeo. “You’ll have to find Sergeant Garcia and tell him to follow the directions I send.”
“Whoa, not so fast boys,” said Dog. “You haven’t outlined the risks, and we haven’t solved the problem of getting there, or of grabbing intelligence for the strike.”
“We can use the Flighthawks for intelligence,” said Alou. “They’re at High Top.”
“Zen isn’t.”
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“Captain Fentress is there. He’ll fly them,” said Alou.
“The risks are worth it, Colonel,” said Rubeo. “If this is a laser, intelligence on it would be overwhelmingly valuable.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Dog. “What are the risks?”
“Well, the risks—we could fail,” said Danny, leaving it at that.
“And you get there how?” asked Dog.
“I was hoping to chop one of those Marine transports, but we won’t have any inbound until daybreak,” said Danny, who’d checked twice. “But I have something else in mind, something much better, that we could use right away.”
“YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND, FREAH. OUT OF
your fucking mind.” Mack Smith shook his head, then slapped the side of the OV-10. “You want to ride in the back of this?”
“Plenty of room. Garcia tells me four or five guys can fit, with full gear.”
Garcia, who had been hovering nearby, tried to inter-ject. Danny waved at him to be quiet.
“The Marines did this all the time in the Gulf War,” he told Mack. “The building isn’t ten feet from the highway, which is long and flat, plenty enough for you to land. You come in, zip around, take off. Easy as pie.”
“Pie, huh? Apple or peach?”
“You’re awful touchy today, Major,” said Danny. “You were looking for action—well, here it is.”
“Action and suicide are different.”
“You don’t think you can do this?”
“I can fuckin’ do it. There is nothing I can’t fly. This—this is a piece of cake.”
“Great. How long before we’re ready to take off?”
RAZOR’S EDGE
233
Dreamland Command Center
1315
COLONEL BASTIAN WALKED BACK AND FORTH BEHIND THE
console, waiting for the connection to go through. He’d decided to give CentCom’s commander a heads-up about the Razor strike.
Like all of the U.S. joint service commands, CentCom was headed by a four-star general, in this case Army General Clayton Clearwater. He was an old-line soldier with a reputation both for daring—he’d been with an airborne unit in Vietnam—and stubbornness. Dog had met him exactly once, during a three-day Pentagon seminar on twenty-first century weaponry. Clearwater had given a short address during one of the sessions, talking about force multipliers and asymmetric warfare. While the speech had been aimed at the Joint Services Special Operations Command, his ideas were in line with the Dreamland/Whiplash concept.
Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t view the Razor mission as interfering with his domain. But his reaction was beside the point. Bastian wasn’t calling him to ask for permission—the Whiplash order clearly gave him the authority to proceed.
Still, touching base was politic.
“Nothing?” Dog asked the lieutenant handling the center communications board.
“Just getting through now, sir.”
The lieutenant spent a minute haggling with his equiv-alent at CentCom’s communications center before being transferred to the general’s line. A tired-sounding Marine Corps major—CentCom didn’t have the high-tech secure video gear Dreamland used—finally came on the line.
“Bastian?” he said curtly.
“I need to talk to General Clearwater.”
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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“You’ll have to talk to me,” said the major. He was an aide to the general’s chief of staff—pretty far down the totem pole and undoubtedly lacking code-word clearance to talk about Whiplash, let alone any of Dreamland’s weapons.