86 DALE BROWN

I'd rather put this project on hold for eight months until they're ready than risk that machine and this project. You read me?"

" Yes, sir. Sorry . - . " Six guys, eight months ... More of a shock ... time was running out ...

Meet me in my office at two o'clock, both of you. The data tapes should be ready to review by then. General Elliott might be interested in what they show." @

Patrick McLanahan was waiting for an elevator up to his office when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned irritably. "Yeah?"

"Charming," Wendy Tork said. "Next time I'll do that with a pole."

He managed a grin and kissed her.

"Long day, Colonel?"

"You could say so."

"You had an early morning go, didn't you?"

The elevator arrived, and Wendy cut off the exchange, knowing that Patrick would not talk about his project in an unsecure elevator. She waited until they returned to Patrick's office and he closed the door. An electronic grid in the walls and floor, she knew, would activate when that door closed, which would offset wiretapping or any other electronic eavesdropping.

He dropped into his chair. "I've got two pilots butting heads.

"I like them both, but I can see both of them being very competitive.

"At least James comes right out and says it. He's an excellent pilot, and he's the only one right now who can fly DreamStar.

sits there utting on an innocent and contrite act, but he's as big a show-off as James. " He rubbed his eyes. "I can't afford to lose either one of them, but . . . "

'What will happen if you transfer either one of them?"

'I -can get someone to fly Cheetah-hell, I've got enough hours, I could probably fly the thing. If I ground James, the project gets set back six months, maybe more. I told him I have people training on DreamStar. Who can be sure when or if they'll be ready? I exaggerated some to take him down a bit. Brad Elliott will hit the roof. The security leaks-or what seem like security leaks-are already turning him sour."

' 'Are you saying you'll have to transfer or reassign if they don't get along?"

"I suppose. But Ken knows he's the only guy who can fly DAY OF THE CHEETAH 87

DrearnStar. That would be like giving him a veto in almost every other matter that comes up during this project from here on. I ended up grounding both of them, until I have a chance to talk to the general."

Wendy smiled. "Eight years ago you were just a captain, responsible only for a radar scope in the belly of a B-52 bomber.

Your big worry was your next emergency procedures test.

Now, you're a lieutenant colonel in charge of a hundred men and women and two of the hottest jets there are . . . We'll put it all on hold for a few hours. I'm here to take you to lunch. You probably don't have time to take the helicopter to Nellis, do you?

General Elliott has got to have some decent restaurants built out in this desert."

McLanahan grabbed his flight cap. "We've got time to take the Dolphin into Nellis if we hurry. I'm not expected back until-" The desk phone rang. He looked at it, then at Wendy.

"Let's go."

She smiled, shook her head. "You'd hate me in the morning.

He picked it up@ "McLanahan..... Hi, Sergeant Clinton . . .

The data tapes are ready now?..... Yeah, we had some maneuvers that may have overstressed the canards . . . how bad? All right, I'll be right down." He dropped the phone back on its cradle. "I knew it. My two hotshots may have bent DreamStar some. I've got to take a look and prepare a report before this afternoon's meeting. " He circled his desk, gave Wendy a hug and a kiss. "Rain check?"

"Anytime." Especially on flying days, she reminded herself, dates were always crap shoots. She watched as Patrick hurried off.

"Wendy?

She turned and found Captain Kenneth James standing behind her. His bright blue eyes sparkled, as usual. He was a head taller than Patrick, less broad-shouldered but still athletically built.

They looked at each other for a moment. Be honest, Wendy Tork, she told herself, Ken James is a charmer. Plus he has a magnetism, a sort of masculine grace, and he's not arrogant or cocky or condescending. He also had this way of making a woman feel special, as if he had been waiting all his life just to say hello to her.

She had met him eighteen months earlier when he first joined the High Tech Advanced Weapons Center at Dreamland. He 88 DALE BROWN

wasn't like many of the other jet jockeys in and around Nellis Air Force Base. Getting an assignment to HAWC was the top achievement for any young officer, and most new test pilots seemed not to be able to let you forget it. Not Ken James. He took the time not only to get to know senior officers but non-commissioned officers as well. He seemed just as interested in the engineering and technical parts of the job as the flying. He quickly established himself as the best pilot at HAWC . . . a scholar of flying and aerospace, not just a participant. Quite a package. And no wonder they had become good friends.

"If you're looking for the old man . ." he paused at the intentional slip, smiling winningly "I mean, the colonel, he just left."

"I know. "'

Maraklov understood, as everybody did, the special relationship between Wendy Tork and the colonel. Which, of course, was the chief reason for making her his friend. And it was not exactly hard duty. Tall, good figure, brunette with hints of gray, still foxy for a woman going on forty. But be careful, he reminded himself. And helped himself do that by remembering the research on her. A considerable dossier: Wendy Tork, Ph.D., electrical engineering. Chief of DOPY5, the cryptic office symbol of HAWCs Director of Penetration Aids, Project Y5-the Megafortress Plus, the super-bomber and strategic escort battleship. This woman had developed many of the twenty-first-century electronic jammers used on American military aircraft, including new jammers that could electronically defeat infrared- and laser-guided missiles. She had built a jammer the size of a toaster that could disrupt much of the known electromagnetic spectrum for thirty miles in every direction. Considered a sort of outsider in HAWC because of her former independent contractor status, she tended, except for the colonel, to keep to herself. Scuttlebutt said that started after the mysterious Old Dog mission that she and most of the brass at HAWC were involved with eight years before. It seemed to have affected her more than the others.

In any case, possibilities here, he had decided, for a special source of information. "How about lunch?" he said easily.

"Do you have time? Don't you have a meeting this afternoon? "

"I think they'd rather not have me at this particular meeting,"

he said, pretending embarrassment. "I'm sort of in the dogt

DAY OF THE CHEETAH 89

house. But it's my lucky day. I don't have to be back until late, and I have a pretty lady to share lunch with. If she'll give me a break.

For a moment she hesitated, then decided why not . they were, after all, friends.

If there was room on one of the shuttle helicopters that flew hourly to and from Dreamland, it was open for anyone at HAWC

to hop a ride for the twenty-minute flight back to the "main-land," as people from Dreamland called Nellis Air Force Base.

But Maraklov had a different plan. When he climbed aboard the Dolphin transport helicopter he went forward and spoke briefly with the crew. Then as the helicopter touched down on the broil-ing tarmac at Nellis, Ken touched Wendy's arm as she began to unbuckle her seat belt.

"We're not there yet," was all he said.

The helicopter lifted off once again and sped northwest. Ten minutes later it touched down on another military-looking airfield. As they left the chopper Wendy noticed the helicopter landing pad had been painted with a stylized Indian thunderbird symbol.

"What's this?

"One of the best-kept secrets in the Air Force," he told her.

'Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. This is where the Air Force Aerial Demonstration Team, the Thunderbirds, work and, practice even though the unit is based out at Nellis. You know, the Thunderbirds do a lot of demonstrations for the brass and foreign dignitaries here-not to mention that the Thunderbird pilots get the best of everything, being on the road so much-so Indian Springs is an oasis for them out in the middle of nowhere. The base is open to all military personnel, but that's not widely advertised. I knew the Thunderbirds were gone so I asked the Dolphin pilot to get us permission to land."

They walked past immaculately groomed desert landscaped yards and freshly painted buildings to a Spanish-style stucco building with red tile veranda and cane-ceiling fans. They were seated at a table on the veranda.

"I've been coming to this area for eight years," Wendy said, and I've been at HAWC for three years, and I never knew about this, or only vaguely if at all. Patrick and I are both so busy