Nerve Center (30 page)

“Early on I realized that they were part of the Boeing’s computer-assist-pilot unit. It’s obvious—you can see the coding once you know what to look for. What I didn’t realize until a few days ago—well, yesterday actually—while we were doing some upgrades on ANTARES, was that the leak isn’t accidental. It corresponds to specific wave patterns. It’s a command.”

“Something bothering you, Doc?”

“Didn’t get much sleep last night,” she said lamely, quickly launching into an explanation of her theory that minimized the technical aspects. In a nutshell, she thought that Madrone had somehow learned to use ANTARES to fly the 777, or that C3 had done so at his direction.

“It was most likely a combination of both,” said Jennifer. “The system was hardwired to the Boeing for test purposes and ANTARES or Madrone may have exploited it. I don’t think C3 could have decided to do it on its own, since I haven’t been able to get it to do so in the simulations.”

“Dr. Rubeo doesn’t think it’s possible for an ANTARES subject to do that,” said Dog.

“That’s not exactly what he said. He said, I believe,” she added, “I believe he probably told you that it’s technically difficult to maintain, and that we haven’t any proof. This crossover may not be a deliberate crossover at all, just the code spooling crazily.”

“Can you pin it down?”

“I’m trying to come up with some simulations that can duplicate the ANTARES code. Major Stockard may also be able to help once he’s up to speed. Of course, if we had the hard-drive recorder from the computer in Hawkmother, or, uh, well, if Captain Madrone turned up, I mean if, when—”

“I have to say, Doc, the odds are pretty damn good he’s dead.”

Dog looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She longed to take some of it off—massage his back, kiss him. Jennifer felt an impulse, began to follow it, rising slowly from her chair.

But Bastian had already gotten up and was walking to the door. She froze as he turned.

“See if you can expedite the testing you need. If this is a problem with ANTARES, I need to know right away.” She managed to nod before he stepped out.

Pej, Brazil
27 February, 2100 local

MINERVA WATCHED AS THE FUEL-LADEN BOEING lumbered down the newly finished runway, struggling off the field though she had nearly tripled its size in just a few days. The left wing dipped down as the wheels were cranked upward, but it stayed in the air.

In contrast, the two small robot planes jetted off smartly in less than two thousand meters, even with massive bombs beneath their bellies. The JP 233 British runway-denial weapons had been obtained by Brazil through Italy several years before. Minerva had managed to obtain them from another unit for a price approaching ten times the commanding general’s salary. And it was only that cheap because the man considered himself her ally and sometime lover. At least he’d had the grace not to ask questions.

Nearly as big as the U/MFs, the bombs cut down on the smaller planes’ maneuverability and range. But Madrone had practiced with one yesterday; she was confident he would succeed. More importantly, so was he.

Madrone scared her. She was used to manipulating men, but with him it was beyond manipulation. He anticipated her darkest wishes and went beyond them. It was as if the devil himself had materialized before her.

Yet he could be such a gentle lover, so willing, so soft when she asked.

His suggestion that the antitank weapons could be altered and then fit to the U/MFs made sense to her, though her experts had deep reservations. Madrone’s enhancements to the shaped-charge warheads, at least, could be easily implemented, and were even now being tested in a bunker on the other side of the hill.

The dimensions of the planned weapons gave her a better idea, though she didn’t trust Kevin enough yet to broach it. Perhaps it wasn’t merely trust. Perhaps she knew that if she told him, he would dare her to use them. For that, she wasn’t ready.

Colonel Lanzas had recruited two pilots to fly the Boeing. The exhausted state Madrone had arrived in made it obvious that he had to concentrate on guiding the two smaller jets and not worry about the 777. She did not completely understand the process—his description of ANTARES sounded like science fiction, as if he merely closed his eyes and wished the planes to fly. But there was no doubt that it worked.

Minerva folded her arms, gazing at the large plane disappearing into the distance. They had painted it dark green, making it more difficult to spot when it flew at night or over the jungle canopy. She watched it now disappear in the darkness above the trees, to a thought in the unrippled distance.

If the attack went well, the commanders of Number 18 Group and Number 16 Group would join her immediately. She would -then approach Herule. Already in the capital, the general would be well positioned to apply pressure on the government.

That meant she would have to let him believe he was in charge.

Acceptable, for now.

Aboard Hawkmother
Over Northern Brazil
27 February, 2200

HITTING BOA VISTA TOOK NO MORE EFFORT THAN closing his eyes and saying, “Be gone.”

Madrone saw the runway as Hawk One approached. The threat screen remained clear even after he had dropped the parcel of Thompson-Brandt BAP.1000 antirunway weapons and their massive dispenser toward the center of the strip and swung to strafe the row of AT-27’s. He demolished all but one of the half-dozen armed trainers, and set their hangars on fire before the ancient antiaircraft guns began spitting in the direction of the Ffighthawk. The gunfire was optically aimed and easily ignored as he finished off the last trainer.

Manaus was a different story.

Two Roland antiaircraft missiles had been located at the base. Their radars were scanning the air as he approached. Additionally, four F-5Es were overhead, undoubtedly alerted by the attack on Boa Vista.

The American-built Tiger IIs were agile, capable interceptors carrying Mectron MAA-1 heat-seeking missiles as well as cannons. Patrolling in pairs at roughly twenty thousand feet, they were running two elongated ovals seven miles north and south of the base. Since the Boeing had to stay within ten miles of the two Flighthawks, it would be an easy target for the fighters when he attacked.

So he would nail them first, using Hawk One. Hawk Two, still carrying its ponderous bomb, would be held in reserve.

The Tigers’ radars quickly picked up the Boeing, vectoring toward it and issuing challenges before Hawk One closed to five miles. Madrone’s heart raced and the edges of his scalp tingled ever so slightly, as if a light rain had begun to fall on his head.

Her voice guided him:

Remain in Hawk One. Forget everything but the plane.

The U/MF’s threat screen flashed red. The F-5’s had picked him up somehow. But it was too late for them, very much too late—he edged right, wishing the targeting screen into place, the pipper stoking red as he cut a V in the sky, Hawk One diving and then bolting back behind the Brazilian interceptor. He lost ground, the pipper turning cold black, then starting to blink, changing to yellow, then red. Madrone squeezed, and it was like the first time with Minerva, all of his fears rushing out of him. His enemy burst into flames.

He edged left, his body the Flighthawk. His maneuvers drew him parallel to the second Tiger, the pilot so intent on attacking the Boeing that he didn’t see the Flighthawk in the darkness beside him. Nor could his radar find it as it slid backward, slowing a moment to let its target get slightly ahead and below him.

Madrone climbed. He focused the Flighthawk’s IR scan in the center of his head, tipping downward to accelerate into the attack. He saw the man fiddling with his gear.

The idiot was arming his Sidewinders.

The attack caught the F-5E midships. The cannon shells smashed the turbines cleanly in half. The front part of the plane plunged down immediately, tumbling over violently. The rear, containing the engines, tail, and wings, flew on by itself for nearly a mile, a headless horseman still seeking revenge in the night.

By then, Madrone had turned his attention to the Roland defense missiles. The two Marder chassis launchers were located at the western end of the base, on slightly elevated ground. He had to dive quickly to avoid their radar, which swept out to just under ten miles. One of the launchers fired as he dove, though it wasn’t clear why exactly—the Boeing and the Flighthawks were still well outside the missiles’ range, and the threat screens were both clear.

“Captain, we are under attack,” reported Mayo, the copilot. The voice came at him from above, a terrible intrusion from the clouds.

“Stay with me,” said Madrone, concentrating on Hawk One’s threat screen.

“But—”

“You
will
stay with me!” he thundered.

There was no response. He checked Hawkmother’s position on the God’s-eye view—if the pilots pulled off, he would eject them.

He might just do that now.

The threat screen on Hawk One painted the coverage area of the Roland’s radar as he closed in. The French-German unit was especially proficient at finding low-flying targets, but even it couldn’t find something as small as a Flighthawk flying at only twenty feet off the ground. A second missile took off from the launcher at the right; Madrone guessed that in their excitement the crew had misidentified and fired at the wreckage of the F-5 as it fell to earth.

Or perhaps they could see him somehow. Perhaps the bastards who had tried to destroy Madrone had altered the radar on the Flighthawk, made it visible to the enemy.

It was as if an iron bar hit him in the forehead. Madrone slumped backward in the chair, losing everything.

We
will destroy them,
Minerva whispered.
We will destroy them for what they have done to you. And we will live together, safe in our home.

Madrone felt his way back into the cockpit of Hawk One, saw the large radar dish of the Roland barely two miles away. He waited until he was within a half mile to begin firing. At his speed and range, he got no more than five slugs into the hull of the SAM launcher. But they were more than enough to destroy her.

Flames shot everywhere. A fireball from the first launcher’s missile struck the second, unarmed launcher, but Madrone decided to erase it as well.

From there it was a turkey shoot. He vectored Hawk Two in to drop the bomb while he searched for the remaining F-5Es with One. After he shot them down, he found and destroyed a flight of Mirage IIIs on the ground, and even wasted an old Starfighter that managed to scramble toward the runway to stop him.

By the time Madrone was done, the best combat squadrons of Força Aérea Brasileiria had been eliminated. More importantly, the only units in the western part of the country that answered directly to the Defense Minister—and thus would resist Minerva—no longer had planes to fly.

Dreamland
4 March, 1300

BREANNA PUSHED AWAY THE PLATE WITH HER half-eaten turkey sandwich and got up from the table in Lounge B. One of the fancier clubs on the base, Lounge B had been thrown open under Dog’s all-ranks edicts, and now served a very passable lunch, as well as offering some convenient nooks and crannies for involved couples.

Which, in theory, Zen and Bree were. Though during the past few days they had been acting increasingly “married.”

A terrible word in her book, which she equated with a range of disparaging adjectives, none of which included intimate. For the past week, Zen had consistently ignored her, claiming he was working. He’d spent all of his spare time either in the ANTARES bunker—or in that computer bitch’s lair.

Jennifer Gleason. Bree would scratch her eyes out if they were doing anything.

She knew Zen, knew he wasn’t like that. But he was human.

And he’d blown her off for lunch. She was due at a briefing with Colonel Bastian in ten minutes, or she’d hunt him down.

Or maybe not. She was being silly. Most likely he was working—he was incredibly busy, after all. Besides heading the Flighthawk Program, he was currently the only person who’d been able to achieve Theta-alpha in the ANTARES program.

Not that she’d heard that from him.

Was she being silly? Jeff had been acting strange lately, distant, quiet, not talking to her. True, Zen did get moody at times—he’d always been that way, even before the accident.

But something was definitely different now. ANTARES made him edgy, darker.

Could be lack of sleep.

“Hey, Bree, how’s it going?” asked Danny Freah, sauntering in. A very attractive woman appeared behind him.

“Hello, Danny,” said Bree, her eyes following to the blonde. As tall as Freah, she looked like an aerobic instructor even though she wore a conservative pantsuit.

Freah was married, the SOB.

“This is Debbie,” said the captain, gesturing to the woman.

Debbie smiled and offered her hand. Bree didn’t take it. “I’m running a little late,” Bree told Freah. “You see Jeff anywhere?”

“No. He supposed to be here?”

“He’s supposed to be married,” snapped Bree, storming from the room.

Dreamland ANTARES Lab
4 March, 1300

ZEN FELT THE RUSH OF ADRENALINE AS THE PLANE soared to fifty thousand feet. He pushed the rudder pedals—pushed the pedals, he could feel them, feel his feet! He hunted in the sky for his adversary, a MiG-29 somewhere below.

His feet! He could feel his feet!

He had to test this. Had to!

He stood.

Gravity slammed his head back. He fell into a void, every part of him on fire. He blanked out.

When he came to, Geraldo and her assistants were standing over him. He was still in the ANTARES lab room, but they had removed his connections, all except the small wires that monitored his heart and the chemical composition of his blood.

“What happened?” he asked.

“We were going to ask you the same thing,” said Geraldo. “I guess, I guess the MiG nailed me when I wasn’t looking,” he said.