Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (19 page)

 
          
“What
the
hell
. . .” Elliott shouted.

 
          
A
technician from the cockpit upstairs dashed over to the hatch connecting the
upper and lower decks and shined a flashlight on the enraged three-star
general.

 
          
“What
happened down there?” he asked timidly.

 
          
“How
the hell should I know!” Elliott said. “Get down here and—”

           
“The BNS a/c exciter power circuit
breakers are popped down here,” McLanahan said calmly from the darkness. Briggs
could be heard breathing in the background. “You’ll find the BNS right TR
control circuit breaker popped on the right load central panel upstairs, along
with the RDPS power supply breakers number one, two, the plus six hundred volt,
and the negative three hundred/negative one-fifty volt breakers down here. That
smell is the left BNS control system relay. No replacement is usually carried
in the spares box.

 
          
“Everything
tied into the BNS radar is dead, General,” McLanahan said. “I can swap around
components and bring the radar back, but it won’t bring back all the associated
equipment including the inertial navigation set and these monitors and keyboard.
The satellite system is still operational and it may know where it is, sir, but
it can’t tell you because there’s no screen. I’ve also erased the navigation
waypoints stored in the computer memory, and I’ll bet the cartridge reader is
dead, also. No automatic navigation.”

 
          
“God
damn
it!” Elliott said.

 
          
“General,
may I make a suggestion, sir . . . ?” Briggs said.

 
          
“Do
it and you’ll be guarding a commissary warehouse in
Iceland
, Briggs!” the general snapped. “Masuroki,
get the damn power back on.”

 
          
“But
I don’t . . .”

 
          
“Reset
the power cart first before it drops off the line completely,” McLanahan
offered. “Then reset the circuit breakers. The ECM and fire-control stuff will
need to be turned off and rewarmed up before you do that. That takes thirty minutes—and
with all the stuff you’ve added, probably closer to an hour. I’ll need a new
relay down here.” He made a little pause, then added, “And a right ejection
seat. And a sextant. And a nav—”

 
          
“That’s
unrealistic, Patrick,” Elliott said as Masuroki scrambled to restore power.
“You’re not going to hit all those controls all at once like that.”

 
          
“That
simulates about a half-dozen ways to overload the BNS left control relay,
general,” McLanahan said. “A little moisture, a bad wire, some sort of voltage
spike or surge—poof!”

 
          
General
Elliott thought of the skimpy intelligence data Curtis had shown him—the last
words of the crew of the downed RC-135. The awesome power of the strange radar
they had encountered ... the thought made him wince in the cramped darkness of
the
Megafortress
.

 
          
“All
right, all right, hotshot,” Elliott said, exasperated. “I guess I got a bit
carried away with my toys down here. Let’s get out of here. You’ll be spending
enough time in this beast, anyway.”

 
          
As
they climbed down the ladder, Briggs turned to the general and said, “I think
you found the right dude for the job, General.”

 
          
“Yes,”
Elliott agreed. He was silent for a moment, then said, “But I’m worried about
exactly what the
job
will turn out to
be.”

 
          
It
was the largest group of people McLanahan had been with since arriving at
Spokane
Airport
—how many days ago? It had only been three
days, and only one since first seeing the
Megafortress,
but it seemed like he had been cooped up in that desert for an eternity. Most
of the time since seeing the bomber had been spent in intense study of the
handtyped notes and tech orders on the avionics and performance capabilities of
the bomber and the
Striker
glide-bomb. It was incredibly simple to operate—highly sophisticated, but
simple.

 
          
They
were in another windowless, stifling, nearly empty office. McLanahan and Hal
Briggs had joined a room crowded with eight people already there waiting for
General Elliott. The most surprising additions were four women. Two were
obviously security guards, but the third was a middle-aged woman in jeans and a
safari jacket who stood beside an older gentleman, and the fourth was a much
younger woman, perhaps in her late twenties, who stared at the newcomers in
surprise. The others took quick glances at the two newcomers and promptly
ignored them.

 
          
A
few moments later, General Elliott entered the room, now wearing civilian
slacks and a short-sleeve shirt but still sporting the huge .45- caliber
automatic under his left armpit.

 
          
“I
think it’s about time we were introduced to one another,” General Elliott said
immediately, “although you’ve all been working with each other for the past few
weeks and may in fact have run into each other quite often while working on the
Old Dog. Colonel Anderson.”

 
          
A
tall, dark-haired man in a green SAC flightsuit turned and faced the group. He
had taken the front and center chair and had leaped to attention when Elliott
entered the room.

 
          
“Colonel
James Anderson,” he said in a deep, resonant voice. “Deputy commander of the
4135th Test and Evaluation Center, Strategic Development and Testing, Edwards
Air Force Base.”

 
          
“Colonel
Anderson brings a wealth of experience from several different weapon systems to
Dreamland,” Elliott said. “He has been the single most important source of
ideas and our premier trouble-shooter. The Old Dog wouldn’t be where it is
right now without him.”

 
          
“Thank
you, sir,”
Anderson
said. He returned to his seat and with
narrow, piercing eyes scanned the others around him. He looked right past
McLanahan, disregarding him.

 
          
McLanahan
pegged him immediately: the huge silver ring, dwarfing his wedding band; the
jump wings beneath his command pilot wings; his thin waist and chin—zoomie.
Air
Force
Academy
grad. A
Colorado
Cuckoo. Not exactly a navigator lover, either.

 
          
The
man next to
Anderson
stood. He was a bit shorter, less chiseled
and much younger version of
Anderson
, but he had nodded politely to Briggs and McLanahan earlier and he
seemed friendly. “Lieutenant Colonel John Ormack, from the engineering and development
section at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

 
          
“The
man responsible for a lot of the Old Dog’s new tricks in the cockpit,” Elliott
added. “He’s made his job as copilot a million times easier—obviously selfishly
motivated. He’s released the copilot to help out with bomber defense and crew
coordination. He’s also racked up a few thousand hours in several aircraft as
well. The deputy project officer.”
Anderson
gave Ormack a proud nod and a quick
thumbs-up as he sat down.

 
          
The
younger civilian woman then stood up. Everyone else in the room looked around
and past her—everyone but McLanahan and Harold Briggs. She was of average
height, with dark hair tied in a scholarly bun atop her head. Her eyes and face
were dominated by huge, thick glasses, but, McLanahan thought, she was pretty
in a—well,
teacherly
sort of way. She
could not have been much older than McLanahan himself. She looked . . .
familiar.

 
          
“Doctor
Wendy Tork,” she said briefly, brandishing the word
doctor
like a sword in front of the SAC officers. “Strategic
electronic defense engineer,
Palmdale
,
California.
^,,

 
          
McLanahan
nearly bolted out of his seat. No, it couldn’t be, he thought. He turned and
met the friendly smile of the woman he had met in the hospitality bar back
during the Bomb Comp Symposium. He could barely keep his jaw from swinging
open.

 
          
“One
of the country’s foremost experts on electronic countermeasures,
counter-countermeasures, Stealth technology, and radar,” Elliott said. “The
electronic warfare operator.”

 
          
“Holy
shit,” McLanahan said under his breath. He continued to stare at her, studying
her, trying to imagine her in a flight suit. Then out of a flight suit. Both
seemed weirdly difficult in their present circumstances . . .

 
          
He
looked around and noticed
Anderson
’s disgusted, exasperated expression as the colonel studied Tork. Well,
McLanahan thought, he likes women even less than navigators, I guess. Heads
swiveled around in his direction, so McLanahan decided he was next and
sheepishly stood.

 
          
“Captain
Patrick McLanahan, B-52 radar navigator from Ford Air Force Base,” McLanahan
said. “This is Lieutenant Harold Briggs.”

 
          
“Mornin’,”
Briggs said with a big smile. The icy glare he got from
Anderson
made him wish he hadn’t said that, and he
zipped his smile away.

 
          
Everyone
in the small, stuffy room gave them a cursory nod but little else.

 
          
“Thanks
for the intro, former buddy,” Briggs whispered to McLanahan.

 
          
“If
I gotta sweat in front of
Anderson
, so do you,” McLanahan whispered back.

 
          
“The
best in the business,” Elliott said proudly. “Without a doubt the most gifted,
knowledgeable, and professional bombardier in the
United States
military. Probably in
anyone's
military. The Old Dog’s radar navigator.”

 
          
“Where’s
Mentzer, general?”
Anderson
said sharply.

 
          
“I
had a problem with Joe’s background investigation, James,” Elliott replied.
Anderson
gave Elliott an exasperated, impatient
look.

 
          
“General,
forget that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll vouch for the man, dammit. He
modified and tested both the
Striker
TV-guided bomb and the new sub-atomic munitions. He’s the perfect
man
for the job.”
Anderson
glared at Tork when he said
man.

 
          
“Sorry,
James,” Elliott said. “Captain McLanahan, however, has recently convinced me of
the need for an additional crewmember downstairs. If Mentzer’s clearance comes
through—well, we’ll discuss it.”

           
“Another crewmember?”
Anderson
said. “A navigator? The Old Dog doesn’t
need another navigator.”

           
“Patrick has demonstrated otherwise,
Colonel.”

           
“What we need, General,”
Anderson
said, “is the man who built the
Striker
and the decoy drones, the man
who helped—”

           
“Colonel Anderson.” Elliott had lost
all trace of good-naturedness in his voice, although his expression was still
light and easy. “Joseph Mentzer is not available at this time. When he is, I’ll
inform you. Until now, Captain McLanahan is the radar navigator. All right,
Colonel?”
The emphasis on
Anderson
’s rank suppressed the last spark of
resistance, and
Anderson
fell silent.