I could crawl over there and strangle you if I wanted.”
Zen saw Mack’s glare tighten. He pushed his chair backward just in time as Mack threw a roundhouse—and missed, falling from the wheelchair face first on the ground.
“Lie there like the coward wimp you are,” said Zen.
Mack bolted upright with a scream, launching himself on Zen so ferociously that Zen just barely kept the wheelchair upright, darting backward under the weight of Mack’s blows. Strengthened by more than two years of regular, strenuous workouts, Zen’s upper body was more than a match for Mack’s, but even so, he had a hard time fending off Mack’s blows, and the chair backed all the way to the wall, slamming against it with a teeth-jarring smash. Mack flailed and punched as Zen grabbed for a handhold. Only as Mack’s fury began to exhaust itself did Zen manage to hold him upright and off him.
“You’re standing, asshole. You’re standing,” Zen told him.
Mack looked down at his legs. He was standing, though in fact Zen was holding most of his weight. Slowly, Zen pushed him further upright. He let go with his right hand, then, looking at Mack, he let go with his left.
Tears streamed down Mack’s face. He took a step—unsteady, trembling, but it was a real step.
“You’re still a fucking asshole, Mack,” said Zen, turning and rolling from the room, leaving Mack Smith standing on his own two feet for the first time in more than a month.
VIII
Bloodthirst
Alexandria,
near Washington, D.C.
10 November 1997
0600
JED WAS JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR THE OFFICE WHEN THE
phone rang. He grabbed it, thinking it might be Freeman.
“Barclay.”
“Well, Jed, how are you?”
“Ms. O’Day?”
“How’s Washington treating you?”
“It’s treating me fine,” Jed told her. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a year. “How are you?”
“I was talking with a friend of ours, and decided to give you a call. I’ve been meaning to say hello for a long time.”
Deborah O’Day had been Jed’s first boss. He had started with her as little more than an intern; she’d encouraged him and given him more responsibility. While they hadn’t worked together for long, he had learned a great deal. By the time she left office with the last administration, he had become the de facto link with Dreamland and Whiplash, one of the main reasons Freeman and President Martindale had kept him on.
Jed guessed that Colonel Bastian had asked her to call. A week before, even just a few days ago, he might have told her everything that had happened. But now he was wary: He was belatedly starting to understand that he couldn’t trust anyone in Washington, not even friends.
“I’d like to talk,” he told her. “But I’m kind of on my way to a meeting.”
306
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Neither statement was a lie; they just left a lot out.
“Are you in trouble, Jed?”
“Not really. No.”
Now that was a lie.
“I want you to know that if trouble does come up,” she told him, “we can find friends who will help you. Legal friends. Don’t let yourself be pressured.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t take the fall for anyone.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Jed remembered watching her in her office some days, sitting and frowning at the desktop, considering what she wanted to say. He imagined she was doing that now.
“All right, Jed. Let me give you my number, just in case.
You can call it whenever you need help.”
“I appreciate that.”
“YOU TALKED TO DREAMLAND, AND TO XRAY POP,” SAID
Freeman as soon as Jed entered his office a few minutes before seven. “Why?”
Primed to be fired, the question actually caught him off guard.
“Colonel Bastian asked for some stuff, and I—I just figured it made more sense to straighten it out for them on my own. Otherwise the whole thing, I mean, I didn’t want to make it more complicated than it was.”
“Sit down, Jed.” Freeman sighed. “Let me ask you one question before we continue.”
Here it comes, thought Jed. “OK.”
“Do you believe in President Martindale?”
“Well, sure.”
Believe in him? He agreed with his positions, or most of them at least, but believe in him? What did that mean, exactly?
“Look, Mr. Freeman, I didn’t do it on purpose, but I un-
SATAN’S TAIL
307
derstand it’s huge,” said Jed. “I’m ready to resign. It’s OK.
You don’t have to let me down easy.”
“Resigning now would not be a good idea, Jed. It’ll only make things much more complicated. It won’t help the President, and it certainly won’t help you. Senator Finegold will crucify you if she has the chance.”
Surprised—definitely relieved, but mostly surprised—Jed nodded.
“The photo hasn’t appeared anywhere else, has it?” asked Freeman.
“No, sir. I was kind of wondering about that.”
“The press will move on, and this will be forgotten.”
“What if it’s not?” asked Jed.
“Then we’ll deal with that then. The Secretary of State still has your laptop?”
“Yes.”
Freeman frowned. “Jeff Hartman is very ambitious, Jed.
Don’t forget that. He’s a member of this administration—but he’s also very ambitious.”
“What does that have to do with my laptop?”
“Hopefully, nothing.”
“What should I tell the President?”
“You should tell him nothing.”
Jed frowned, and Freeman repeated, “Nothing.”
“Wouldn’t it be better—”
“Nothing.”
“But he’s the President.”
“Do you trust me, Jed?”
No, thought Jed. I don’t trust anyone. Not even myself. But he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Tell you what. Let’s get some coffee and head over to the Pentagon. I’d like to hear what Captain Gale is planning before it happens. You can tell me what Colonel Bastian told you on the way.”
308
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Aboard the Abner Read
2300
DANNY FREAH’S STOMACH FLUTTERED AS THE DREAMLAND
Osprey dipped a few yards from the deck of the Abner Read.
Weighed down by the troops in her belly, the nose of the craft dipped forward and her tail pitched sharply left, an unexpected burst of wind trying to wrestle control of the craft from the pilot. The waves snapped at the wheels of the aircraft, and the fantail of the littoral warship loomed in the window.
Danny saw Dancer’s face across the cabin as the aircraft leaned hard to its right. The red hue of the interior lights softened her frown; he saw how beautiful she was under the Marine BDUs.
If I die, this is the last thing I’m going to see, he thought.
Beauty.
The Osprey lurched backward, buffeted by another burst of wind. The tail pushed downward and the aircraft shot right.
Danny grabbed for the strap near his head, pitching against one of the Marines. The aircraft sank again, but it was a more subtle, controlled maneuver, a steadying; the Osprey seemed to hiccup in the air and then hopped forward, finally stable.
“Whoa,” said one of the Marines next to him.
Whoa is right, thought Danny.
STORM SAW THE OSPREY DIP DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO THE
waves then jerk back upright, as if the aircraft had paused to take a sip of water.
Months and years of work hung in the air for a moment, stuttering there on the fragile metal wings of the aircraft. He folded his fingers into a fist and punched the air.
“Go!” he yelled from the flying bridge at the side of the superstructure atop the Abner Read. “Go!”