Free Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 by Flight of the Old Dog (v1.1) Page B

there to the south. We are on the
northwest corner of Groom Lake .”
                 “ Lake ?” Curtis said, kicking up a cloud of
hard-packed sand and dust.
                 “Dry
lake,” Elliott explained. “Properly tested and reinforced. It makes a natural
and easily concealed three-mile-long runway.” Elliott scanned the horizon,
breathing in the fresh, clean, slightly chilling air. “Dreamland.”
                 They
walked for a while longer. Suddenly, two streaks of light could be seen several
miles in the distance, diving and turning over the nap of the rugged mountains.
A moment later, two ear-shattering sonic booms rolled across the desert floor
and echoed up and down the valley.
                 “What
the hell was that, ” Curtis asked.
                 “Red
Flag,” Elliott said with a smile. “Probably a couple FB-llls on a night
terrain-following sortie out there on range 74. Going max afterburners and
supersonic at two hundred feet.”
                 “But
that was so close,” Curtis said. “What about—”
                 “Relax,
relax,” Elliott said. “They were at least fifteen miles away. Besides, those
bomber pukes know better than to come any closer to Dreamland. The airspace
from ground level to eighty thousand feet is absolutely prohibited from
overflight—civilian, military, anybody. It’s an instant aircrew violation and a
security debriefing they’d not soon forget— I'd guarantee that.”
                 Finally,
after a few minutes of searching, Elliott spotted the low, dimly lit guardhouse
and steered Curtis and himself toward it. “I come out here once a week,”
Elliott said, “and I still have trouble finding the damn guard shack.”
                 “I
don’t think your sky-cops would let us wander around out here for too long,”
Curtis observed.
                 “True,”
Elliott said. “They’d send a German shepherd to fetch us back.”
                 A
few moments later, they arrived at a small concrete block building. The shack
had one large bullet-proof double-paned glass window in front, one door, and
numerous gunports around it on the other walls. A twelve- foot-tall fence
stretched on either side of the building, and the fence was topped with large,
silvery coils of sharp barbed wire. Three fully rigged Air Force security
guards emerged from the building and quickly and quietly surrounded Elliott and
Curtis. All three were armed with M-16 rifles, one with a mean-looking M-203
grenade launcher attached to the underside of his rifle barrel. A German
shepherd dog was led out and began sniffing around the two visitors. The dog
took one sniff of Wilbur Curtis and sat down directly in front of him, no more
than six inches from the tips of his shoes.
                 “Don’t
move, sir,” the dog handler said. “Is your identification in your breast
pocket?” Curtis nodded, once, very slowly. The guard removed Curtis’ wallet
while another guard quickly pat-searched him.
                 “Should
I raise my hands?” Curtis asked.
                 “He
means ‘don’t move,’ sir,” Elliott said, as his ID was examined. “Bambi there
weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds and could probably drag you up a
vertical ladder.”
                 “Bambi?”
Curtis felt his body stiffen as he looked at the dog.
                 “I
didn’t know you were carrying a weapon,” Elliott said to Curtis as the guard
pulled a nine-millimeter automatic from a shoulder holster.
                 Curtis
grunted, afraid to move his lips any further. The dog was led reluctantly to
Elliott for a quick search, and then taken away.
                 As
the two generals drank steaming cups of coffee just outside the guard shack
waiting for their ID verification, Curtis surveyed what little visible
landscape there