Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland) (31 page)

2

Over India

M
ARK
S
TONER L
ISTENED TO THE SILEN
CE OF THE MACHINE
. It was not like a human silence, nor was it an absolute absence of sound. It was more a very soft hum, filtered through wires and circuit boards.

He heard the same silence in his head sometimes.

“Download is complete,” said the machine. “Awaiting instructions.”

“Proceed with separation sequence as preprogrammed,” said Stoner. “Prepare to launch.”

“Affirmative. Proceeding.”

Six and a half minutes passed. Stoner watched them drain off the counter in his visor. He could tap into any number of different sensors, displaying them on his screen in dozens of preconfigured combinations. But he preferred not to. He preferred the gray blankness of the screen. And so the only thing he saw were numbers, draining slowly in the left-hand corner of his vision.

The computer announced that they were reaching the final launch checkpoint. Stoner had not received an order to abort, and so he told the computer to proceed. He was past the point of no return for this orbit. If he didn’t go, he’d have to wait roughly two hours before being in position again. And there was no sense in that.

One hundred twenty seconds later the computer announced that it was starting the separation countdown, beginning with sixty seconds. Stoner took a long, slow breath when the numbers on the computer reached ten.

Lying facedown in a pod attached to the belly of a hypersonic X-37B, Stoner at that moment was above the Bay of Bengal, moving at several times the speed of sound. His launch capsule was considered highly experimental, and doctors had not cleared it officially for human use due to the high g stresses and temperature variations it subjected its passengers to. Stoner was not immune to these—one could not flaunt the laws of gravity entirely—but his body could deal with stresses well beyond those of the average human. In a sense, he was an athlete’s athlete, though no athlete would have accepted the trade-offs it had taken for his body to reach such a state.

Tucked into the belly of the X-37B, Stoner’s capsule was as lean as its passenger. From the outside, the vehicle looked like a flattened shark, with faceted, stubby wings and no tail surface. From the inside, it looked like a foam blanket, squeezed tight against Stoner’s body and equipment packs.

He was some 2,200 miles from his tentative landing target. It was time to launch.

Three, two, one . . .
Stoner felt a thump, but otherwise had no sensation of falling or even slowing down. Encapsulated in his pod, he was still a satellite moving close to eight times the speed of sound.

The exterior geometry and the coating made the pod difficult to track from the earth, especially in the shadow of its mother ship above. Within seconds the pod had steered itself toward a keyhole in the Iranian radar coverage, taking a course that would avoid the country’s few radars capable of finding high-flying aircraft and missiles. It aimed toward a point the mission planners called Alpha, where the pod ceased being a satellite and turned into a flying rock, plummeting toward the earth.

Stoner didn’t know the specifics about the radars he was avoiding or the maneuvers that the craft would take. To him, Alpha was just a very sharp turn down, one that would press his flesh against his bones. He readied himself for the maneuver, slowing his breathing further, until even a yogi would have been envious. The pure oxygen he breathed tasted sweet, as if his lungs were being bathed in light honey. He saw a white triangle in his mind, a cue that told his body to relax. He had worked hard over the past several months to memorize that cue—relaxing was the hardest thing to learn.

“Ten seconds to Alpha,” said the computer.

Physically, Stoner couldn’t move. In his mind he leaned forward, welcoming the plunge.

The craft tipped and spun sharply. Now he was a bullet, plunging to earth. The gauge monitoring the hull temperature appeared on the information screen as the friction spiked. The temperature was yellow, above the safe area.

“Faster,” he whispered, and pushed his thoughts ahead.

“Leveling,” declared the computer a few seconds later.

The pod became an airplane, extending its stubby wings as far as they would go. It was now over central Iran.

Stoner got ready for the next phase of his flight—leaving the pod.

“Countdown to separation beginning in ten seconds,” said the computer.

Stoner started to exhale. As he pushed the last bit of air from his lungs and contracted his diaphragm, the floor below him swung back. He fell immediately, the capsule maneuvering to increase the force pulling him away.

He pulled his arms tight against his body, falling into a sitting position as he descended into the night. He was still relatively high—sixty thousand feet—and had he not been breathing pure oxygen would have passed out. He saw nothing, just blackness.

“Helmet,” he said in as strong a voice as he could manage.

The visor image snapped to a synthetic blue, then flashed and gave way to a panoramic view of the ground he was falling toward. The optical image was captured by one of the stereoscopic cameras embedded in the shell. A small GPS guidance indicator and an altitude ladder appeared at the right. The numbers said he was falling at a rate of 512 knots, not quite supersonic.

Slower than he had in practice.

The sun was brilliant. The cloud cover looked like a tufted blanket below him.

Stoner tucked his head toward his chest like a diver and rolled forward until he was head first, his legs behind and slightly above him. As he pushed them upward and sharpened the angles of his descent, he slowly spread his arms. The thick webbing that had been folded between them and his chest fanned out. Then he extended his legs, stretching the carbon and titanium webbing between them.

Mark Stoner was now a human parachute. Or, as one of his instructors had once quipped, a breathing brick with stubby wings.

He pushed his body around, aiming to get in the general direction of his target. To avoid the long-range radars, he had dropped south and west of his preferred landing zone. Now he needed to move back north. The course change took some time to accomplish.

His landing zone bordered an area well protected by the radar. His smart helmet had radar receiving circuitry—a “fuzz buster” that could detect and alert him to radar waves. Slightly more sophisticated than the latest circuitry in fighter jets, the miniaturized radar detector indicated the closest radar signal was well off to his right.

Stoner shifted his body. The suit he was using had been pioneered by Danny Freah in the 1990s. Working with Freah on the newer version, he’d received quite a number of tips on how to get the most from the lightweight titanium rods and their small motors. Without them, even Stoner’s overmuscled body would have found the fall exhausting.

The visor display highlighted Istgah-E Kuh Pang, the closest named village to his landing target. It was built along a railroad; the only roads were hard-packed dirt and trails through scrub and rolling desert bordering it.

“Locate target subject,” he told the computer.

The screen flashed, put up a map, then zoomed back. The Whiplash locating system showed his position and that of Turk Mako’s. Turk was sixty-seven miles away, across chalky, uneven hills, and several valleys that passed for fertile in this arid land.

Still roughly where he had been earlier.

This will be easy, Stoner thought.

The edge of a radar coverage area was to his right, barely a mile away. The arc extended forward—Stoner maneuvered left to avoid it.

The computer advised him to lower his speed. He pushed his elbows out, increasing the resistance. He had to begin bleeding off speed now if he was to survive the landing without broken bones. He dipped his left arm gently, banking in the direction of an open valley, then dipped in the opposite direction, lining up toward the town. But there was another radar, and then suddenly the display began flashing—he was being picked up by an aircraft, extremely close, flying in the shadows of the mountains.

Stoner pressed his head down, moving a little faster.

“Visual,” he told the computer.

The hills popped into view.

“Eight times magnification,” he told the computer. Stoner wanted to see details of the terrain he was flying over. “Locate aircraft.”

“Aircraft ten miles south,” said the helmet, calculating from the RWR; it was too far for the infrared viewer to pick it up.

“General course?”

“South by southwest.”

Not something to worry about, he decided, moving his arms out farther to slow his descent.

The suit flapped slightly at his shoulder where it was fitted beneath his backpack, but otherwise it was a snug, tight fit. He felt good, in control through 20,000 feet, though still moving a little faster than he should.

Stoner tilted to his left and pushed his legs out, intending to begin a wide spiral to slow his momentum before dropping into the target area. With every second, he got closer to becoming an ordinary flying human.

He turned through the circuit a second time, his altitude passing through 15,000 feet above ground level. The radar warning detector began to bleep urgently. Red blossoms appeared on his screen.

Tracers.

He stared at them. They were red—Russian-made ammunition, slightly different than the orange typically used by Americans and NATO. They looked like fountains, sputtering and then dying.

They thought he was a plane. A line of red appeared in front of him, a slash in the sky revealing blood.

Now great bursts of red pummeled the thin blue around him. Angry fingers groped toward his body.

He was being fired at. And the bullets were coming from the direction he needed to go through to reach his target.

3

Manzariyeh Air Base, Iran

“Y
OU IDIOTS!
I
AM AN
I
RANIAN PLANE!
I
NEED TO LAND!
Stop your idiotic shooting.”

Parsa Vahid screamed into the radio as the antiaircraft batteries continued to fire, seemingly in every conceivable direction. A radar installation near Qom had reported an unexplained contact—very likely Vahid or his wingman—and sounded an alarm that caused every gunner in the western half of the country to see if his weapon worked. At least no one was firing missiles.

Yet.

An ominous fist of black and red reached for his aircraft.

“Controller! I need these guns to stop!” Vahid radioed to the Pasdaran controller at the former Manzariyeh air base.

“We are attempting, Captain. Please stand by.”

Vahid couldn’t stand by: he had only a few pounds of fuel left in his tanks. He lined up with the airfield and held on, just ducking under a fresh wave of flak as his wheels touched the ground.

“The gunfire is being extinguished,” said the controller as the plane rolled out.

Too late now, thought Vahid. Let them fire all they want.

He had cut it close—too close. The MiG’s engines sputtered and shut down. Vahid coasted to the apron and onto one of the access ramps. Aiming for the hangar area near the headquarters building, he ran out of momentum just shy of the parking area near the civilian terminal building.

Kayvan, who’d landed some minutes before, ran toward his plane. Vahid got out, tossing his helmet back into the aircraft in disgust.

“We need fuel,” he told the wingman, jumping down. “Where are the fuel trucks?”

“A visitor is on the way.” Kayvan pointed to an SUV driving up from one of the dirt access roads. Two military vehicles were following it at a distance.

“It’s the general,” added Kayvan. “I think we’re in trouble for landing here.”

It took a moment for Vahid to realize the general Kayvan was talking about was the head of the air force, General Shirazi. He had no idea why Shirazi was here rather than in Tehran or Omidiyeh, but he suspected whatever accident of fate had brought him was going to turn out to be a poor one for himself.

“Do we have facilities inside?” he asked Kayvan.

“The Pasdaran haven’t even sent anyone to greet us,” said the lieutenant.

“Great.” He stripped off his survival gear, disgusted, awaiting his fate.

The general’s vehicle came to a stop a few meters from him. The rear window rolled down.

“Captain Vahid,” General Shirazi called from inside. “You’ll ride with me.”

Vahid walked over to the SUV and got in the other side. Kayvan stayed behind.

“What happened?” asked the general. They remained parked.

“I was asked to strike a vehicle that the Pasdaran said had been stolen,” said Vahid. “There were two vehicles, excuse me. One was on a hillside. The other was moving. We destroyed both of them.”

“They admitted the trucks were stolen?”

“They said—”

“Why would they do that? Only to shift suspicion,” said Shirazi, adding his own explanation. “It makes them look bad, so whatever they are hiding is worse. Ten times worse. A traitor. Several traitors.”

The general’s tone made it clear that the subject was not one for debate. He asked Vahid to recount everything that had happened on the sortie, starting with his takeoff. Vahid did so, including even the most mundane details, even his debate over his fuel reserves. The general began humming to himself. Vahid wondered if he was aware of it, but thought it best not to ask. He had never seen or heard of this eccentricity, but stress often brought out odd quirks.

“Enemy troops infiltrated the area,” said the general finally. “That is the only explanation that can be given. Bombers would have been detected and shot down.”

“General, I thought there had been—you said the other day that there had been an accident.”

Shirazi gazed at Vahid as if he were the dumbest student in a class of idiots.

“The official explanation,” said the general finally.

“Yes, General.”

“Do not contradict me.”

“No, General. I personally do not know what happened. My role was to follow orders.”

“Exactly.”

Shirazi was clearly contemplating something; surely it had something to do with how to use the incident to improve his position with the government. But it was not of immediate importance to Vahid—what he had to do was keep his head down.

“Your wingman,” said the general, “can he be trusted?”

“Uh, absolutely.”

Probably not, thought Vahid, but certainly that was not what he should answer.

What would One Eye say to this? The old flight instructor would warn him away from politics—warn him away from all of it.

But if he didn’t toe the general’s line, what would happen to him?

“I am glad to hear that the man is a worthy officer under your command,” said the general. “You will do well as a squadron leader.”

Even though Vahid knew he was being flattered, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride and some anticipation.

“Not today, but soon,” added the general, deflating him a little. “In the meantime, write up what you have told me in a report. It is to come directly to me.”

“Yes, General.”

Shirazi turned his gaze to the window. “A nice air base, don’t you think?”

“Yes, General.”

“We should have it back. Many people feel that way. Getting it back in its rightful place . . .”

Shirazi trailed off, but Vahid could easily guess what he was thinking: the man who restored Manzariyeh to the air force’s portfolio would not only win unlimited honor from his fellow service members, but would be seen as someone of great power, able to deal with and perhaps even best the Pasdaran.

“I am glad you landed here. An accident perhaps,” added the general, “but a fortunate one. We will do everything we can to continue your operations here—it is very necessary.”

“Yes, General.”

“You may go,” said Shirazi. “We will have trucks and maintainers sent. But remember this—Colonel Khorasani, the man you have dealt with?”

“Yes?”

“Be very careful with him,” warned Shirazi. “If he asks to speak to you, tell him you must speak to me first. Route things through my office. In the meantime, do your report and return to the air as quickly as possible. We need all aircraft to protect Iran.”

“Yes, General.”

“Off with you now. I will send maintainers to you shortly.”