Free Armageddon by Jim DeFelice, Dale Brown

love to get behind the wheel of one of those,” she added, thumbing toward the Megafortress, which was just heading toward its parking spot in front of the hangar on the left.
    “It doesn’t have a wheel. It’s got a stick, like a real airplane,” said Mack. “They put it in when they upgraded it.”
    “Well kick ass then,” said McKenna.
    Mack started toward the hangar to change, and McKenna fell in alongside him.
    “So? Am I hired?” she asked.
    “Hired for what?”
    “For a pilot.”
    “What Russian planes did you fly?”
    “Anything and everything.”
    “MiG-29s?” asked Mack.
    “Do it in my sleep.”
    “How about Su-27s?”
    “One or two”
    “You fly them around here?”
    “Nah”
    “Out of Labuan?”
    “Are you kidding? The Malaysians don’t operate jets out of there”
    “Ever?”
    “About six months ago we tried to sell a pair of MiG-29s,” said McKenna. “We brought them to Kuching at the far south of Borneo from the peninsula to demonstrate some of the changes that extended their range. But no one was buying.”
    “What about the Indonesians? You fly Sukhois out here for them?”
    “For the Indonesians?” McKenna laughed. “Malaysia, Indonesia—their governments aren’t on Borneo,” said McKenna.
    “You have to sell where the money is.”
    “You haven’t flown Su-27s on Borneo at all?”
    She shook her head.
    “You hear of either country having them?”
    “You’d know better than me, Minister.”
    Mack stopped. “Yeah, cut the shit. They have them?”
    McKenna examined his face for a moment before answering. “Indonesia doesn’t have anything newer than Northrop F-5s. The Malaysian Royal Air Force has MiG-29s and F/A-18s over in West Malaysia, near the capital of Kuala Lumpur. Most of what my boss sold was used and it’s hard to buy used when you’ve been buying new. Her dealings with the Malaysians were mostly for ammunition and some avionics spare parts.”
    “I was jumped by two Su-27s this morning,” said Mack.
    “Get out of town.”
    Mack smiled sardonically. “They came up out of the south-west, from Malaysian territory, turned on their targeting gear to scare me, and took off.”
    “They scared you?”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “Gave them the finger and took their pictures,” he said. “I want to figure out who they are”
    “I’ll look at it for you if you want”
    Mack shrugged. It couldn’t hurt, though most likely it wouldn’t help, either.
    “They could have come out of Kuching,” admitted McKenna. “But it’s a good hike to get up here, over five hundred miles. And your spies would have told you they were there, wouldn’t they have?”
    “Who says I have spies there?”
    “You have spies everywhere,” said McKenna. “Dragonfly, huh? You would’ve been dead meat.”
    “What, from a couple of Sukhois? Give me a break,” said Mack.
    “Depends on the pilot,” said McKenna, her voice only a bit conciliatory. “If it were me, I’d’ve waxed your fanny.”
    “If you were in the Sukhoi?”
    “Either way”
    “If you fly half as good as you talk, McKenna,” said Mack, resuming his stride toward the hangar, “you got yourself a job.”
    Brunei
1600
    The time difference between the States and Brunei made it difficult for Breanna to get any information without invoking official channels, which she didn’t want to do. Finally she thought of Mark Stoner, a CIA agent who’d worked with Dreamland on some recent missions and who was back east in D.C. By the time she tried him, however, it was midnight there, and when she got his machine she left a message, asking him to call “when he got a chance.” Then she forgot about him until, to her great surprise, the hotel desk buzzed her room at 3 P.M. to tell her he was on the line.
    “Mark—what are you doing up at 2 A.M.?” she asked.
    “It’s 3 A.M. here,” said Stoner. “There’s a twelve-hour difference. No daylight savings. We’re a half-day behind you. You