said Mack. “I’ll pick up the rest of their passengers for them.”
On the ground in Iraq
2104
THE STACCATO POUNDING IN HIS SKULL GAVE WAY TO THE
steadier drone of jackhammers as Danny edged back toward the road. He saw Powder in the distance, just beyond the edge of smoke, waving and yelling something.
What the hell was he saying?
“Duck, Cap! Duck!”
Danny whirled in time to see the Bronco hop once on the highway then beeline for him. He started to back up, then fell on his rump. Grit flew over his face; the next thing he knew, Powder was helping him up. Mack Smith leaned from the open canopy about twenty yards down the roadway.
RAZOR’S EDGE
397
Smith yelled something but it was drowned out by the whine of the motors. Danny ran through a cloud of dust to the plane, then realized he’d lost Powder somewhere along the way. As he turned to find him, he remembered Gunny, poor dead Gunny. He put his hands to his face, funneling away the noise and grit, getting his bearings.
They had to get the Marine out, give him a decent burial at least. He started back, then heard someone yelling behind him—Mack Smith maybe, telling him to get the hell into the aircraft.
“I can’t leave a man, even if he’s dead.”
“Ain’t no one dead, Cap,” shouted Powder. Danny spun around and saw the Whiplash team member with a large green sack over his shoulder. “We got to get!”
Gunny—in Powder’s arms.
Danny’s hands fumbled with the latch to the rear compartment. Finally inside, he pulled Gunny’s limp body up toward the primitive bench seat. There was no time to put on restraints as the aircraft began to move; he wrapped one arm around a strap and the other around the Marine, huddled on the floor as the aircraft suddenly became weightless.
“You saved my sorry ass again,” said Gunny in the darkness. “You got the son of a bitch.”
“Who?”
“The Iraqi that tried to flank us. Now I owe you again, huh? I thought I evened it out.”
“It’s all even,” said Danny.
“SERGEANT, YOU TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE BACK THERE AND
I’m hitting the eject button. You got that?”
“You can eject me from up there?”
“Damn straight,” lied Mack. “You touch anything, no shit, boom, you’re outta here.”
“This plane’s got an eject button too? I thought only 398
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
the Ruskies put them in. There was one in the helicopter I flew.”
“The Ruskies got it from us,” said Mack. “Keep your hands off the stick and enjoy the ride. And if you decide to puke, don’t lean forward.”
Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 2115
CHRIS FERRIS REMINDED BREANNA THAT THEY HAD USED
their last AMRAAMs on the helicopters.
“Acknowledged,” she told him. They had the two ban-dits on their nose now at eighteen miles, closing quickly.
“Eagles still can’t find them.”
“We’re going to take them out, Chris,” she said.
“How?”
“We’ll suck them off and nail them with the Stinger air mines,” she said.
“Uh, Bree, we’re in Quicksilver, remember? We don’t have Stingers.”
“We’ll think of something. Hold on.”
Aboard Raven , over Iraq 2124
THE TEMPTATION TO GRAB THE CONTROLS FROM FENTRESS
was overwhelming, but Zen knew the delay as C3 cycled through the authentication made it pointless. It was all up to Curly boy.
Curly, God. Like Girly. What a horrible name for the poor kid. Shit.
“Quicksilver will take the lead MiG,” Zen told him, staring at the main video screen. “Keep on your course.
RAZOR’S EDGE
399
You nail the second SOB when you close. Hang with it.”
“What if the Eagles get a lock?”
“Don’t worry about anybody but yourself,” Zen told him. “Breathe slower.”
Fentress nodded. Zen could smell the sweat pouring from his body. The kid was nervous as hell—but he’d done all right against the helicopters, and he was going to do all right here.
“Three seconds,” Zen said, anticipating the computer.
“I’ll tell you—”
“Yo, I got it, damn it.”
Zen felt his anger rile up—who the hell was Fentress talking to?
Then he realized it was the voice he’d been waiting to hear since the kid joined the program.
“Kick butt,” he told his pupil.
Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 2128
THE MAMMOTH PLANE TUMBLED OVER ITS WING, SCREAMing toward the ground like a peregrine diving on a kill. At somewhere over 300,000 pounds with her fuel and passengers, she was more than ten times as heavy as the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum she dove toward. But her sleek, carbon resin wings and long fuselage were as limber as the fighter jet’s, and her pilot’s skill more than made up for any difference in the sheer performance of the two planes.
“Changing course and coming for us,” said Chris.
“Now what?”
“Torbin, are you tracking that MiG’s radar?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Bring up the weapon board and lock the Tacit Plus on him,” said Bree.
400
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
“Um, can I do that?”
“You tell me.”
“Bree, that’ll never work,” said Chris.
“Do it, Torbin,” said Breanna.
“It’s asking me to override,” said the radar weapons officer. “I’m going for it. Yeah, we got it.”
“Open bay doors.”
“Bay,” said Ferris. “He’s firing.”
“Launch,” Breanna told Torbin. “And hang on!”
Aboard Raven , over Iraq 2130
THE MIG ALTERED COURSE JUST AS HE CAME WITHIN CANnon range, cutting toward him. Fentress pulled the trigger and tried to follow at the same time, pulling softly at first then cutting harder as the enemy plane rolled downward in what looked like the start of a swoop to get into a turn behind him. But it was a sucker move—the MiG flipped flat and twisted back the other way. Fentress was caught flat-footed and pointed away from his target. Struggling to stay in the game, he threw his throttle to the firewall and began turning back toward the MiG.
“Stay within yourself and remember your objective,”
said Zen. “Keep him off the Bronco. You don’t have to shoot him down. You’re doing fine.”
“Right.”
“Think about what he’s doing. He’s flying away from them—where’s he going?”
Fentress felt the sweat rushing from his pores. But Zen was right—he checked his sitrep, found the helicopter ten miles north, hugging the hills.
The Bronco. Where was the Bronco?
“Eleven o’clock,” said Zen. “Get there.”
RAZOR’S EDGE
401
He had to be reading his mind. Fentress altered his course slightly, not even looking at the sitrep now, just going there.
The MiG was slightly below, a dot ahead, three miles, fading, four.
“Make it fast,” said Zen. “Bronco—flares! Jink, Mack, jink, you asshole!”
Aboard Wild Bronco , over Iraq 2132
MACK CURSED HIS DUMB LUCK AND TIPPED HIS RIGHT WING
down, sliding across the rough air currents like a kid on a saucer scooting across an icy road. He’d reached reflex-ively for the flares maybe ten times in the past three minutes, only to remember he had none.