If he didn’t know any better, Rubeo would swear the UAVs were Dreamland’s own.
But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?
Back to work, he told himself, draining the coffee and turning to go back inside.
5
Danny Freah rubbed his chin as Turk Mako continued speaking. He was more than a little surprised by what he was hearing.
“… I just want to go back to being a regular pilot again,” continued Turk. “I never really intended to stay on this duty with Whiplash.”
Half a dozen entries in Turk’s personnel file made it clear that was a bald-faced lie.
Danny’s office at the Special Projects headquarters was rather large by military standards, a full thirty by thirty feet. Besides his desk there was a sitting area with a couch, chairs, and a large-screen TV. Unlike much of the rest of the bunker, the walls were real, constructed of thick concrete, predating the installation of the energy beams that walled off most of the interior of the three-story, deeply buried bunker.
Under ordinary circumstances, the office felt massive. At the moment, however, the room seemed absurdly small.
“You don’t want to work for Special Projects anymore at all?” asked Danny, paraphrasing what Turk had told him. “You want to go back to the regular Air Force. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it.”
Danny watched Turk fidget. “You want to go back to Dreamland as a test pilot?”
“That’s not possible. There are no other slots.”
“You realize Whiplash is short of pilots,” said Danny. In fact, Turk was presently the only pilot; they were seeking funding to expand the roster but it wasn’t clear they’d get it.
“Yes, sir. I’ll stay until the transition. Whatever you need.”
“You don’t want to fly?”
“No. I do, I do.” Turk fumbled. It seemed obvious to Danny that he hadn’t thought this out very clearly at all. “I do want to fly. Just not… just not here.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Captain,” Danny told the pilot. “Iran—”
“Iran has nothing to do with it.”
Danny couldn’t hide his exasperation. “Nothing?”
“I–I can’t work for Ms. Stockard,” said Turk. “That’s really the bottom line.”
“You can’t work for Bree?”
Turk shook his head.
“Sometimes, when we go through something that’s… difficult…” Danny struggled to find the right words. He knew Turk had been through a lot, and wanted to show him the respect he deserved. But a good part of him wanted to turn the captain around and give him a good kick in the behind — maybe that would get him thinking straight.
“Sometimes after a big battle or some other combat,” said Danny, “we end up with a tough reaction. Difficult. At first. Then, you know, after a little time off—”
“She wanted me killed, Colonel. Damn it.”
“Come on, Turk. That’s not fair. That’s not what happened.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You’re getting a little emotional—”
“If someone sent someone to kill you, what would you think?”
“Stoner was sent to rescue you.”
“To kill me. That was the first option. I talked him out of it. And the Delta boys had that same order. Kill me.”
“No,” insisted Danny. In his opinion, Turk’s anger was just misplaced anxiety, a delayed reaction to everything he’d been through. “If things had gone poorly, then it was understood that you might not come back. I explained that explicitly to you. And you were good with it.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what the real deal was. It was understood that I would be killed.” Turk had started out calmly, but now his face was turning red. “I’d be killed by our own people, under orders. You know it. You know it. Did you give that order, too?”
“I think you need time to think,” Danny said. “I think — you really should have more time off. You’ve earned it.”
“I don’t want time off. I just don’t want to work for Breanna Stockard. That’s pretty straightforward, sir. And, uh, I know the situation here. But… I think I’ve earned the right to request a transfer, under the circumstances.”
“All right,” said Danny finally. “I’ll get the paperwork moving. In the meantime—”
“In the meantime I’m back and ready to work. I can fly today if you want. I passed the physical yesterday.”
Danny got up from his desk. He always thought better on his feet; the blood flowed to his brain.
“Is there a problem, Colonel?” asked Turk.
“It’s a little contradictory, don’t you think?” Danny walked over to the credenza, where photographs from some of his earlier exploits were displayed. There was a photo of him, Breanna, and Turk after one of their earliest missions. “I mean, you don’t want to work for Ms. Stockard, but you want to work.”
“I think that makes perfect sense. I just want a different unit, that’s all.” Turk folded his arms. “That’s never happened before?”
Danny’s eyes scanned the credenza. There was a photo of him and his old mentor, Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian. Then a colonel, later a general. He’d given Danny a lot of good advice, though Danny hadn’t taken all of it; he wished he had.
“I’m ready to go back to work, Colonel,” said Turk. “Use me.”
“I do have a possibility of something, but it doesn’t involve flying,” said Danny. “I need someone who knows a lot about combat UAVs.”
“I’m your guy.”
“It’s not in the States.”
“Even better.”
An hour later Danny sat down with Breanna over at the Pentagon to discuss just that. It was one of the more difficult conversations they’d had. As usual, Breanna did her best to make it easy.
“I understand his feelings,” she told Danny. “He feels betrayed.”
“That’s not fair,” Danny said.
“Feelings rarely are. And it’s beside the point.” She smiled. Even if they hadn’t worked together for so long, he’d have recognized it as forced. “So what’s the solution?”
“I think we give him some space and time to think about it. He’ll come around.”
“Fair enough. We’ll give him as much space as we can. He can have leave—”
“He doesn’t seem to want it. And frankly, I think working’s probably the best therapy going anyway. He was supposed to be on desk duty at the Cube for a while,” added Danny, using the slang term for the special operations bunker. “But that would probably drive him nuts.”
“There’s no test program at Dreamland for him,” said Breanna. “Not for at least two months.”
“I was wondering about having him come with me back to Malaysia. Assuming the mission is approved. The duty will be pretty light, and I’ll be there to watch him.”
“There’s a war going on there. You were almost killed.”
“Gephardt was a fool,” said Danny. “I’ll steer way clear of him.”
“If we have to integrate with the Marines and the Malaysians, what’s his cover?” asked Breanna.
“Ground flight controller. They use pilots all the time. He’s had training. He can actually do the job.”
“It’s too close to combat.”
“I don’t think combat’s the problem, Bree.”