Dale Brown's Dreamland.

Revolution.

Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice.

Dreamland: Duty Roster.

Major General "Earthmover" Terrill.

General Samson has been given a new portfolio by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-turn Dreamland into the country's top spec warfare command. He will do it-no matter how many eggheads he has to break in the process.

Lieutenant Colonel Tec.u.mseh "Dog" Bastian Dreamland's former commander finds himself in an uncomfortable position-under General Samson.

Major Jeffrey "Zen" Stockard.

A top fighter pilot until a crash at Dreamland left him a paraplegic, Zen is in charge of the Flighthawks-while still looking for a cure for his paralysis.

Captain Breanna "Rap" Stockard Zen's wife has seen him through his injury and rehabilitation. But can she balance her love for her husband with the demands of her career...and ambitions?

Major Mack "the Knife" Smith.

Mack Smith is the best pilot in the world-and he'll tell you so himself. But getting ahead may mean taking a desk job...as Samson's chief of staff.

Captain Danny Freah Danny commands Whiplash-the ground attack team that works with the cutting edge Dreamland aircraft and high-tech gear.

Jed Barclay.

The young deputy to the National Security Advisor is Dreamland's link to the President. Barely old enough to shave, the former science whiz kid now struggles to master the intricacies of world politics.

Mark Stoner.

A CIA officer who has worked with Dreamland before, Stoner has been sent to Romania on a special a.s.signment-and now finds himself in the middle of much more than he bargained for.

Prelude:.

Night Shivers.

Air Force High Technology Advanced.

Weapons Center (Dreamland).

22 January 1998.

0250 (all times local).

BLACK SMOKE ENVELOPED THE FRONT OF THE MEGAFORTRESS, shrouding the aircraft in darkness. Wind howled through the open escape hatches.

Lt. Colonel Tec.u.mseh "Dog" Bastian was alone on the flight deck. The rest of the crew had already ejected. Now it was too late for him to get out.

The plane's electronic controls had been fried by an electromagnetic pulse. Dog struggled to control it using the sluggish hydraulic backups. The smoke was so thick he couldn't even see the control panel immediately in front of him.

He pulled back on the stick, but the aircraft didn't respond. Instead, the right wing began tipping upward, threatening to throw the plane into a spin. Dog fought against it, struggling with the controls. Then suddenly the blackness cleared and he could see the aircraft carrier below.

It was on fire, but was going to still launch a plane.

The plane he had to stop.

He leaned on the stick, trying to muscle the nose of his aircraft toward his target. He was moving at over five hundred knots, and he was low, through a thousand feet, yet there was time to see each detail-the crew fueling the airplane, the sailors on the deck, the destroyer in the distance....

I'm going to crash, he thought. This is it.

COLONEL BASTIAN ROLLED OVER ONTO HIS BACK IN THE bed, half awake, half still in the dream. His legs felt as if they had immense weights on them, pinned to earth by his oppressive unconscious.

The dream had been a nightmare, but it was more memory than invention. Dog had barely survived a similar encounter with the Chinese navy a week before. He'd been moments away from crashing into a carrier's flight deck to prevent the launch of a plane with a nuclear bomb when the Chinese finally stood down. He'd been flying the Megafortress on hydraulics, just like in the dream, and nearly lost control before pulling up so close he could have grabbed the ship's arrestor cables if he'd had the gear.

But the dream wasn't a perfect recreation of the incident either. It was better in some ways-less scary, not more. The billowing black smoke hadn't gotten in his way. There'd been antiaircraft fire-a lot of it. He couldn't see any people on the flight deck. And time certainly hadn't slowed down.

No, if anything, time had moved considerably faster than normal. Things had crowded together as he pushed the plane toward what he was sure would be his last moment.

But there was one element of the dream that was far darker than reality. He hadn't felt the fear he felt now, sitting up on the bed. He hadn't been afraid at all-he'd been too focused to be afraid, too consumed by his duty.

If Dog's girlfriend, Jennifer Gleason, had been here with him, he would probably have rolled next to her and fallen back to sleep, relaxed by her warmth. But she was on the other side of the country, at a hospital in New York, recovering from an operation on her kneecap. There was nothing to keep him in bed now, not warmth, not habit-Dog got up, flexing his shoulders against the stiffness of the night. The shadows of the room played tricks on his eyes, and he thought for a second that Jennifer was here after all. He saw the curve of her hip, the swell of her breast as she stood on the threshold. But the shadows gave way to solid objects: her robe hanging over his on the hanger behind the door.

Dog pulled on his pants, then two sweatshirts, grabbed his boots and stepped outside in his socks.

The cold desert air smacked his face as he leaned up against the wall of the house to put on his boots. It was good to feel cold-he'd been in the tropics and the Middle East so long he forgot what fifty degrees felt like, let alone 34 degrees.

Had it been a little later, Dog might have gone for a run. But it was too early for that, and besides, he wanted to walk, not run. Something about walking helped make his brain work.

He took short, easy steps up the path. By habit, he turned right, heading for the Taj Mahal-the unofficial name of Dreamland's command building-most of which was underground. After two steps he stopped, realizing he didn't want to go in that direction.

Dog no longer had an office at the Taj. In fact, he had no office at all, anywhere. A week ago he'd been commander of Dreamland, responsible not just for the base and its people, but for its many missions and, ultimately, its myriad programs. Now he was just a lieutenant colonel looking for a job, replaced as commander by a highly connected major general, Terrill Samson. The general had been a.s.signed to bring Dreamland back into the fold of the regular military, and wanted no part of Tec.u.mseh "Dog" Bastian, a man the bra.s.s thought of as a cowboy, at best. So he was now a knight without portfolio-not quite as bad as a man without a country, but close.

The cold air nipped at him. Dog pulled the hood on his sweatshirt over his head and tightened the strings to choke off the chill as he headed in the direction of the old boneyard-the graveyard of experiments past, where old aircraft came to sit out their remaining days, oxidizing in the sun. The first he saw was his favorite-an F-105 Thunderchief, which had most likely flown in Vietnam, surviving untold trials before safely returning its pilot home.

He'd never flown a Thud, but his first squadron commander had, and he'd spent long hours listening as Pappy talked about riding the Thunderchief up and down the Ho Chi Ming trail, "bombing the bejesus out of the commie rice eaters, and getting nothing but SA-2s up our tail pipes for thanks."

Dog stopped and smiled, thinking of Pappy. The funny thing was, he couldn't remember his real name.

Maybe even funnier-they called him Pappy because to the young bucks in the squadron, their leader was a grizzled old coot, one step from the retirement home.

Truth was, Pappy couldn't have been a day past forty. That didn't seem so very old to him anymore.

Amused by the turn his thoughts had taken, Dog laughed at himself, then continued walking.

I.

Medal of Honor.

White House.

22 January 1998.

0800.

JED BARCLAY HESITATED OUTSIDE THE DOOR, GLANCING down at his suit jacket and tie to make sure everything was in order. It was one of the personal "tricks" the speech therapist had given him: Rea.s.sure yourself before a meeting that you look fantastic, hon, then you can proceed with confidence.

Her precise, motherly voice rang in his ears as he took a slow, deep breath. The nearby Secret Service agent was probably choking back a laugh, he thought, not daring to glance in his direction.

"Jed, come on," said Jerrod Hale, the President's chief of staff, spotting him through the doorway. "They've already started."

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry."

Jed started inside with his head down, then heard the therapist's advice again: Head up, stride with purpose! You belong where you're going.

Even if it's the Oval office, she might have added-and undoubtedly would have if she'd known that his job as a deputy to the National Security Advisor often brought him here. He hadn't told her what his job was, and it appeared that the anonymous benefactor who arranged for his speech lessons hadn't told her.

Jed's boss, National Security Advisor Philip Freeman, nodded at him as he slipped into the room. President Kevin Martindale gave him a nod as well, but then turned his attention back to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral George Balboa, who was summing up the results of the U.S.'s successful intervention in the Indian-Pakistani War.

"So we now have peace between India and Pakistan. Total peace. For the moment." Balboa puffed out his words, punctuating his sentences with hard stops and short breaths as if they were darts. "The Navy has the situation under control. Entirely. Our two carriers are more than a match for the combatants. Medals are in order. My opinion."

"Oh, I think the Dreamland people deserve a little credit," said Arthur Chastain dryly. Chastain was the Secretary of Defense, and lately had been making little secret of his disdain for Balboa. Dreamland had, in fact, done most of the work, and had the casualties to prove it.

"Some credit. Some," admitted Balboa. "Terrill Samson is going to turn that place around."

"Samson is a good man," said Chastain. "But Dreamland doesn't need to be turned around. I admit Bastian is operating over his pay grade, but he's done a h.e.l.l of a job."

Balboa made a face before continuing. His words came even faster, and in shorter bits. "I can envision a day where Dreamland works with Marines, SEALs, the whole nine yards."

"I think medals are a very good idea," said President Martindale. "An excellent idea." He rose from the desk. "And why hasn't Bastian been promoted?" he asked Chastain. "He deserves it."

"Ordinarily, sir, length of service is the most important criteria. Lieutenant Colonel Bastian-"

"The h.e.l.l with that. He should be a general."

Balboa cut in. "Mr. President, with due respect. To go from lieutenant colonel to general, at a time when we're not at war-"

"Thanks to him," noted the President.

"Bypa.s.sing the normal process and making a lieutenant colonel a general, I don't think it's a good idea, sir," said Chastain. "I like Bastian. I admire him. He's got a great future. But making him a general-"

"Roosevelt did it," said Martindale brightly.

"That was during the world war. And I don't believe that anyone went from lieutenant colonel to general without at least a few months as colonel," said Chastain. "Congress was also involved. They pa.s.sed special legislation."

"There are promotion boards and processes," added Balboa. "If we disregard them, the entire service is harmed. We can't put one man above the entire military. It's not worth it, Mr. President."

Promotions were governed not only by tradition and service regulations, but by law. To become a full colonel, an officer usually had to spend twenty-two years in the military-and by law had to spend a minimum of three years in grade. Bastian failed on both counts. The law did allow what was unofficially called a "below the zone" promotion: One year before regular eligibility, a candidate might be elevated to the promotion list. But Chastain explained that Bastian had received a below the zone promotion to lieutenant colonel, and was therefore not eligible even for that consideration.

The criteria for promotion to flag officer rank-a general-was even more complicated. Congress limited the number of generals in the service. The Air Force was presently allotted 139 brigadier or one star generals; those ranks were not only full, but there was a long waiting list. In effect, a promotion was generally a replacement of a retiring general. No matter how capable he was, moving Lieutenant Colonel Bastian up to flag rank would provoke bad feelings-and require the approval of the Senate. The process would surely involve hearings, and given the recent criticism from some members of the Senate and congress that Dreamland was being used as the President's private army, that was something best avoided.

"Yes, all right, I'm sorry, gentlemen. Of course," said the President. "We have to think about the entire military. But Bastian's promotion should be expedited. There has to be a way to get him to full colonel. He deserves it."

"That can be looked into," said Balboa.

"And the Congressional Medal of Honor, for what he did," said Martindale. "Clearly he earned that."

That was no exaggeration. Colonel Bastian had risked his life to stop a world war. His aircraft was under heavy fire and had been damaged by Chinese missiles, he'd outgunned several interceptors and at least one destroyer, he had his crew bail out, and then single-handedly dove his plane on that Chinese carrier, ready to sacrifice his life so the plane couldn't take off. He'd been seconds away from death when the Chinese stood down.

"If it weren't for Bastian," agreed Freeman, "we would be at war with the Chinese by now."

"I agree," said Chastain. "Frankly, that sort of honor is long overdue. All of the Dreamland people who were on that mission. The two pilots who were on that island..."