Free Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 by Day of the Cheetah (v1.1) Page A

Just let me finish.”
                 “Hey,
hotshot, can’t you take a compliment? I know attaboys are rare around here, but
I think you can still recognize one.” James raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay. Thanks, Murph, but I’m not doing anything special here. I do this
stuff because it’s my job and because it really interests me, and because my
ass will be grass if I don’t learn this communications stuff by tomorrow morning.”
                 “Message
received. I’m outta here.” Murphy stood and headed for the door, then stopped.
“You’re an Academy grad, aren’t you?”
                 “Right.”
                 “Top
of your class, from what I heard.”
                 James
looked at Murphy. “Get to the point, Murph.”
                 “I
thought so, I just want to know why you chose B-is. You could have had your
pick of any hot jet in the inventory, but you picked B-is.”
                 “I
liked them. I always did. They’re big and sexy—just like your wife ...”
                 “Asshole.”
                 “.
. . and I still have a stick and afterburners and Mach-one speed like a
fighter. I hated it when Carter canceled them. I think they should build
another hundred of them. At least. Answer your question?”
                 Murphy
nodded. “But you seem a little, I don’t know, out of place.”
                 “Out
of place?” His stomach tightened as he looked closely at his radar nav.
                 “Yeah.
Like B-is are just a jumping-off place for you. I mean, you’re not advertising
it or anything, but somehow, old buddy, I get the feeling you’re on your way
somewhere. Care to tell?” Ken James forced himself to smile. This big Irishman
was hitting too close. “Just between you and me and the fencepost?”
                “Sure, man.”
                 “I
did get an assignment, I think. When I filled out my last dream sheet I was
sort of... well, daydreaming. Appropriate, huh? Anyway, I put down that I was
interested in the High Technology Advanced Weapons Center —”
                 “HAWC!
You got an assignment to Dreamland? I don’t believe it! Do they actually give assignments there?”
                 “I
didn’t think they did, either. Like I said, it was a long shot. And I don’t
have any assignment yet. But I did get a letter back from the deputy commander,
a Brigadier General Ormack. He sounded interested. It was sort of a
don’t-call-me-Tll-call- you letter, but at least I got an answer back.”
                 “I
don’t believe it,” Murphy said. “Dreamland. You realize that all of the world’s
hottest jets and weapons in the past thirty years went through there? Those
guys fly planes and test weapons out there that are years ahead of anything
that exists in the real world. And you're going to be assigned there—”
                 “I
said I don’t have an assignment, Murph. So keep this under your hat, okay?
Besides, how do you know so much about Dreamland?”
                 “I
don’t know much of anything, except that anybody who even accidentally
overflies Dreamland gets sent to our version of the old Gulag Archipelago.
Every now and then you hear about an ex- Los Angeles Center air-traffic controller telling stories
about Mach-six fighters or planes that fly vertically to fifty thousand feet
over Dreamland. It’s got to be the assignment of a lifetime.”
                 “Well,
like I said, keep all this under your hat,” James said. “Now take off. I want
to polish my briefing before we do our dry runs this afternoon.”
                 After
Murphy left, James got up from his seat, went to the door, locked it, put a
chair in front of it. He returned to the small pile of red-covered books and
manuals on the desk in the