Nerve Center Read Free Page A

Flighthawk project. Gleason smiled at him, pushing a strand of her long, brownish-blond hair back behind her ear. The computer screens bathed her face and neck an almost golden yellow; she looked like a nymph emerging from bed. A genius nymph—Dr. Gleason was among the world’s leading authorities on AI circuitry and intelligence chips—but a nymph nonetheless.
    Madrone stared at the curve of her two breasts in the slightly oversized black T-shirt she wore. Lowering his eyes to her hips, he watched them sway slightly while their owner went over some of the details of the encounter with Jeff. Madrone turned back to his station, pretending to sort through his papers, pretending not to be driven to sense-crushing distraction by an expert on gallium arsenic chips.
    “We’re seeing you tonight, right?”
    “Uh, yeah,” Madrone said, still distracted.
    “You okay, Kevin?” Zen asked.
    “I’m fine. Have to, uh, sort all this out, you know.”
    “Yeah. Listen, don’t worry about the holes in the simulation program. Jennifer will work them out. Nail’s bleeding,” Zen added, smiling. “Bad habit.”
    Madrone nodded sheepishly. Stockard gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled himself back a foot or so. The others had left the control area, but Zen still made a show of looking around, a car thief checking if the coast were clear. “Listen, I have to give you a heads-up on tonight. Bree’s playing matchmaker.” Zen rolled his eyes and shrugged apologetically. “You know how it goes.”
    Madrone suddenly had a vision of Jennifer Gleason sitting on the Stockards’ couch in a short, wispy skirt, breasts loose beneath a silk white polo shirt.
    “Abby Miller,” added Jeff.
    The vision evaporated.
    “I’m sorry, Zen. What’d you say?” asked Madrone.
    “Abby Miller. She’s a civilian. She works over at Nellis in the public affairs office. I think she used to be a reporter or worked for a magazine or something. I’m not exactly sure how Bree first met her. You know Rap—she knows just about everybody. Uh, nice personality.”
    Madrone folded his thumb beneath his other fingers, holding his fist close to his side. “If Breanna likes her, she’s okay,” he said.
    “That’s the spirit.” Zen gave him another sardonic grin, then began wheeling away. “Seven P.M. sharp. Bree’ll have dinner timed out to the half second. Bring the wine.”
    Madrone suddenly felt real fear. “Wine? What kind?”
    But Zen was halfway out the door and didn’t respond.
    Aboard Raven
9 January, 1415
    NOWHERE IS IT WRITTEN THAT POINTY-NOSE FIGHTER jocks are better than all other pilots. No military regulation declares that just because a man—or woman—regularly subjects himself to eight or nine negative g’s and hurtles his body through the air at several times the speed of sound is he—or she—better than those who proceed in a more considered fashion. Not one sheet in the mountains of official Air Force paperwork covering piloting and flying in general includes the words “Teen-jet jocks are superior to all others.”
    But every go-fast zippersuit who ever strapped a brain bucket on his head believes it is true. He—or she—did not get to fly the world’s most advanced warbirds by being merely good. Personal preferences and luck aside, front-line fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force are the best of the best. And most would have no problem telling you that.
    Lieutenant Colonel Bastian was, more than anything else, a front-line fighter jock. It did not matter that his last mission in combat had been more than five years ago during the Gulf War. Nor did it matter that that mission was actually in a bomber—the F-15E Strike Eagle, at the time one of the newest swords in the weapons trove. It did not even matter that his present post as a commander—a ground commander—was several hundred times more important than anything he had done during the war.
    What mattered was that he was a fighter pilot. Dog thought like a