Air Battle Force

Five

For the thousandth time in just the past few days, Jalaluddin Turabi asked himself why he was there, why he chose to march with Zarazi’s army into the heart of this godforsaken country. Why in hell was he standing on this armored personnel carrier, protected only by several thousand acres of cotton — while what appeared to be the entire Turkmen army was marching toward them? Wakil Mohammad Zarazi’s campaign to capture the western half of Turkmenistan and turn it into a training ground for Muslim holy warriors did indeed seem to be blessed. Except now the blessings of Allah were going to be severely put to the test.

Up to that morning their campaign seemed to be not only blessed but plainly miraculous. They captured Gaurdak with barely a shot fired. After their victory at Kerki, the Turkmen soldiers at Gaurdak fairly rushed into their arms. Their army nearly doubled in size overnight. They had over six thousand fighters plus dozens of attack and scout helicopters, weapons of all kinds, from pistols to self-propelled artillery pieces, and vehicles ranging from motorcycles to main battle tanks.

Turabi was simply caught up in the emotion of their victories. When the army started marching westward along the Amu Darya River, he couldn’t help but come along. His original idea was to remain behind at Gaurdak, in charge of the “rear guard,” and then prepare to bug out at the first sign of a Turkmen army counterattack. However, they had captured the hearts and souls of not just the Turkmen army, but the people there as well — there was clearly no need for a rear guard. Zarazi’s army started moving westward, and Turabi could do nothing but march as well.

When Zarazi’s brigade was one day’s march away from Chärjew, the largest city on the Amu Darya River and a major nexus for oil and gas transshipments across Central Asia, an armored personnel carrier, its fifty-seven-millimeter cannon removed and a white flag flying in its place on the turret, came out onto the main highway to meet them. A young man wearing a leather jacket, a bump helmet over a pair of headphones, and knee-high tanker boots was standing in the APC’s cupola. Zarazi, Turabi, and Orazov — the Russian-speaking Turkmen traitor was now seemingly inseparable from Zarazi — rode out in their own APC, with the cannon installed, to meet him.

“I am Captain Rizov,” the young Russian officer said. Orazov translated the Russian for Zarazi. “I am aide-de-camp for the commander of the Turkmen Seventeenth Mechanized Infantry Brigade, Colonel Yuri Borokov.”

“Why couldn’t the colonel come out here himself?”

“Colonel Borokov does not negotiate with terrorists,” Rizov said. He was remarkably calm, Turabi noticed — the confidence and fearlessness of youth, no doubt. Rizov had probably never been in battle and thought he was invincible sitting in that little APC. “He is busy planning his operation to grind your little band of raiders into the sand. I offered to negotiate on behalf of the colonel and the people of Chärjew.”

“Then your colonel is a coward for sending a junior officer to do his dirty work for him,” Zarazi said. “You have shown great courage by coming out here alone and unarmed. I admire that. You do not deserve to die. You may withdraw; I guarantee your safety.”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir, but I don’t need your guarantees. What I need is your cooperation to avoid any violence,” Rizov said. “If you move your forces any farther west, Colonel Borokov will attack without warning. That is my guarantee.”

“I could use a young, courageous fighter like you in my force, Captain,” Zarazi said. “You could command one of my tank companies.”

“Then I’d be commanding a company of corpses,” Rizov said. “You cannot hope to win an assault against Turkmen regulars. The Seventeenth has a total fighting force of eight thousand soldiers in seven combat battalions—”

“My intelligence says the Seventeenth has a total of thirteen thousand soldiers in eleven combat and three support battalions, Captain,” Zarazi interrupted. “Elements of the Twenty-second Infantry Brigade from Mary joined up with you yesterday, along with three reserve battalions — old men and youngsters, hardly real fighting men, but still a fairly successful call-up of reserve forces for a country with virtually no army at all. In addition, the Fourth Attack Wing from Ashkhabad, with one squadron each of MiG-23 and Sukhoi-25 bombers, has reportedly been deployed to Mary and should be ready to begin close air-support operations by tomorrow. I am told you moved an artillery company to Khodzhayli, but even my most conservative intelligence estimates cannot tell me if the unit is ready to fight or even if the batteries are real or just fakes. I congratulate you for trying to disguise your numbers, but I am very well informed of Turkmen troop movements. Is there anything I’ve left out, Captain?”

Rizov fell silent for a moment. Zarazi had indeed left a few things out, but Rizov was amazed at what the Taliban fighter did know. “What is it you wish in Chärjew, sir?”

“If you join my army, Captain, you will learn everything,” Zarazi said. “Because of your courage, you may still withdraw with safety if you refuse to join me. But I warn you: If you do not join my army, you will be killed the next time we meet.”

“Sir, I did not come here to listen to threats,” Rizov said. “I agreed to come out here like this to learn what you want. We know that TransCal company officials are prepared to offer you large sums of money to keep their pipelines safe. I understand their concern. They make more money if the lines are undamaged and their product is flowing. Frankly, I believe that the Turkmen government thinks similarly. If you agree not to harm the lines and withdraw, the Turkmen government will see to it that you are paid, promptly and generously.”

“So your commander will pay me not to fight? What kind of soldier is he, Captain?”

“A practical one, sir,” Rizov said. “If it is money you are after in Turkmenistan, then we offer it to you. I am carrying a sizable amount with me right now. Withdraw your forces immediately, and by the time you reach the Afghan border, I will deliver it to you.”

“How much are you carrying?” Jalaluddin Turabi shouted.

“Quiet, you idiot, or I will have you shot,” Zarazi growled, speaking out of a corner of his mouth and not turning toward Turabi so as to not indicate that there was any discord in their ranks.

“We are here to gather funds for our tribe and for the Al Qaeda cells that we support,” Turabi said in a low voice. “If he is offering money, we should take it.”

“I said shut up, Colonel. Now,” Zarazi ordered.

“I am authorized to pay you one hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion if you agree not to move any farther west,” Rizov said. He still had his tanker’s helmet on, but Turabi could tell by his expression and by his tone of voice that he had indeed heard Zarazi’s angry comment and was pleased that they were arguing. “A helicopter from Ashkhabad will deliver another two hundred thousand dollars in gold to the town of Mukry, on the Afghan border south of Gaurdak. You may even have the helicopter to transport the gold out.”

“One hundred thousand dollars just to hold our position?” Turabi exclaimed to Zarazi. “Offer to do it for five hundred thousand, Wakil, and it’s a deal.”

“I said be quiet,” Zarazi snapped.

“We’ll take two hundred thousand now, and three hundred thousand when we reach Mukry!” Turabi shouted to the Russian. “All in gold bullion. If we see anyone but you, the deal is off and we will lay siege to Chärjew.”

“I warned you, Turabi…!”

“Done!” Rizov shouted back. “I have fifteen kilos of gold bullion on board right here. Stand by, and I will unload it.” Rizov motioned to someone inside the armored personnel carrier, and soon a young soldier carried what looked like a steel footlocker out of the APC and started walking toward Zarazi’s vehicle.

Orazov was visibly shaking in excitement. “General, let me go get the money,” he said. “When I bring it back, let’s kill that bastard and take his APC.” He leaped off the APC and headed for the steel case.

“Stay where you are, Orazov,” Turabi said. “Can’t you smell a trap?”

“A trap?”

“Do you really think the Turkmen carry fifteen kilos of gold around in military vehicles, you fucking idiot?” Turabi asked. “It’s a trap.”

The Turkmen soldier carried the steel case several meters in front of his APC, then laid it on the highway, undid the latch, opened it, and stood up. Turabi could see something sparkly inside. “There’s your down payment,” Rizov shouted, “and that is also the line over which you may not cross. The deal is off if you move past that box.” He gave an order, and the soldier started heading back to his APC.

“Thank you, Captain,” Turabi said. “Now, if your man there would be so kind as to dump the contents of the box on the pavement?”

“Excuse me, sir?” Rizov asked. He barked another order, and the soldier started running back to the APC.

Turabi reached over to the twenty-three-millimeter cannon beside him, cocked the action, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The steel box jumped and danced on the pavement — and then a gush of thick white gas began to stream out of the shattered steel box.

“Gas!” Orazov screamed. “They booby-trapped that case!”

“Get us out of here!” Zarazi shouted. As Turabi laid down machine-gun fire on the Turkmen APC, the driver threw the transmission into reverse, and they roared backward. The gas was spreading quickly, probably with some sort of aerosol propellant to disperse it faster.

The Turkmen soldier was hit in the leg by Turabi’s machine-gun fire, and he pitched forward, screaming in pain. Rizov’s APC was in full reverse by now, too. Soon the white gas reached the soldier — and within seconds he was flopping and writhing on the ground like a fish caught in a gill net. Just when Turabi thought he was going to break his neck with the force of his convulsions, he lay still. “Allah have mercy…!”

“I don’t think we’ll be facing any untrained Turkmen border guards or conscripts from here on out,” Wakil Zarazi said as they roared away from the area. “The Russians play to win.”

They soon found out that the artillery batteries set up at Khodzhayli Airport southeast of Chärjew were not fakes when the barrage started, just after midnight. The attack was initiated with strings of starburst illuminators over their positions, followed by rounds that appeared to miss them by very wide margins. “Good thing the Turkmen can’t shoot,” someone remarked.

“Have you never seen an artillery attack before?” Zarazi said. “The illuminators were dead-on. If they fired standard rounds, we’d have been chewed up pretty bad. The rounds that are falling short are not high explosives — they are seeding the area with mines.”

“Mines?”

“Antivehicle and antipersonnel mines,” Zarazi said. “They are surrounding our positions very well, even to our rear. If we panic and move without sweeping our escape paths, we’ll blow ourselves up. The shelling will start within a few minutes, and they’ll be very accurate, I assure you.”

“I hope Turabi is in position,” Aman Orazov muttered. He had volunteered for the mission that Turabi had been sent on. He was still in shock from being duped so easily by the Turkmen, and now he was smarting from not being chosen to lead this raid. “If he fails, we’re going to have a very, very long night.”

Turabi and his light-infantry platoons had departed immediately after the attempted Russian nerve-gas attack, driving light vehicles across the rocky sands toward Chärjew, spread out on either side of the highway.

They first investigated the small airfield at Chauder, but it had been recently abandoned — no doubt the Russians thought it would be the first to fall — and moved back to a more defensible position. Turabi ordered a second security company to move forward, search for mines and booby traps, and take the airfield.

Their first firefight was with a Turkmen security platoon at a power substation northeast of Sayat, and it was here that the Taliban fighters first learned what the Turkmen army was really made of. Although outnumbered three to one, the Turkmen held on to that tiny five-acre substation as if it were the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. The fighting lasted almost a half hour. Turabi lost five men and had three wounded, including himself — a ricocheting bullet, mostly spent, hit him on the cheek, causing him to momentarily lose vision in his left eye.

He could not afford to take any more losses like that tonight, Turabi thought ruefully. He left the remnants of one decimated platoon behind to tend to the wounded, called for replacements, slapped a fresh bandage on his cheek, and moved on.

They quickly approached the airfield at Khodzhayli, skirting the village of Sakar and then fanning out for their assault. Turabi stationed mortar squads east and west of the airport, then split up his platoons, forming a semicircle southwest of the airfield. The plan was to have his mortar platoons start walking in mortar rounds and then have his rifle and machine-gun platoons pick off any security teams and any other targets of opportunity. Turabi knew he was outnumbered, so his objective wasn’t to attack the artillery-battery security forces; all he had to do was prevent the security teams from closing in to the mortar teams until they could knock out or disrupt the fire batteries and then cover their escape.

Like most plans, Turabi’s didn’t survive first contact.

The eastern mortar platoon managed to set up just a few dozen meters from a Turkmen machine-gun squad that was either sleeping or just not paying attention, so as soon as the first mortar was launched, the platoon was under fire. Instantly, Turabi was laying in only half the number of rounds he thought necessary to take out the artillery site, and his team was under attack. His men started engaging the Turkmen security forces right away, and soon the mortar platoon was able to resume firing, but just thirty seconds into their operation the entire Turkmen army was converging on them. The Turkmen defenders were using troops in “spider holes” to spread their forces out more and keep them out of the line of fire — as soon as a soldier reported contact, a nearby machine-gun nest behind him opened fire over his head. As long as the soldier did not stick more than his head, shoulders, and rifle out of the hole, he was safe.

“Use your smoke! Use your smoke!” Turabi shouted on the radio. Their smoke grenades were very effective — the smoke hung close to the ground, obscuring the Turkmen’s sight. Finding the spider holes turned out to be relatively easy: The Turkmen had dug them in an almost perfect circle, so once one of Turabi’s men made contact, all they had to do was search left and right for another hole. But the machine-gun fire, although not accurate — the gunner could not see his target, although he knew they were out there — was devastating. One by one his men were going down, usually clipped in the upper thigh or near the waist by big twenty-three-millimeter shells. The screams of his own men, dying and maimed, started to engulf him. Surrounded by smoke, sand, stones, and dead comrades, Turabi felt disorganized, disoriented, and helpless — but he kept on moving forward.

He practically fell into a spider hole, plopping right down onto the headless body of a Turkmen soldier. He scrambled out of the blood and gore, keeping down below the rim of the hole while machine-gun fire zinged all around him. He reloaded and checked his ammo — just four magazines left, plus his sidearm with two extra mags. He had used up over half his ammo already, and they hadn’t hit one thing at the airport. Turabi had to assume, since he was frugal with his ammo, that his men were probably much lower. Once he used up another mag, he decided, they would pull back. This attack was going nowhere.

Then he saw it: a field telephone, a simple, old-style crank-and-talk box. The Turkmen soldiers didn’t even have radios out here! Turabi found the dead soldier’s headphones, rubbed the blood and brains out of the ear cups, and put them on.

He was desperate — he could think of only one thing to try. He cranked the phone and, summoning all his Russian-language skills, pressed the talk button and shouted, “Astanavleevat’sya! Eta vazmooteeteel’no!” he shouted, doing his best impersonation of a pissed-off Russian officer. “Who in hell are you shooting at?”

Someone responded, in even worse Russian than his.

“I cannot understand you!”

“Sir, there are intruders in the perimeter!” the Turkmen soldier said in terrible Russian.

“I hope to hell you haven’t attacked my security detail returning from patrol!” Turabi shouted, trying to run his words together to make it sound more authentic. “Now I want every one of you to get up out of those damned holes, without your weapon, and search for the wounded! I am sending trucks out to assist. If you come out of your holes with your weapons, you’re likely to be shot by my men — or your own! Now, get moving!”

“Da, tovarisch,” the soldier responded. He heard frantic calls in Turkmen broadcast on the phone. Turabi peeked out of his hole — and sure enough the Turkmen soldiers were standing up and searching the ground around them with big, boxlike flashlights. Hold your fire, damn it, Turabi silently ordered his men as he pulled his pistol out of his holster, hold your fire….

They did. And then as if by another silent command, shots rang out all around him all at once, and the Turkmen soldiers fell.

“Viper team, Alpha, report,” Turabi radioed.

“East One point secure, three down.”

“Center One point secure, four down.”

“West One point secure, three down.”

One by one, each of the platoons reported in. The east mortar platoon, the only one attacked as soon as it started launching rounds, suffered the worst casualties. Only two of the twelve members survived, and they had lost all their tubes and mortar rounds. Out of almost a hundred men who attacked the airport, they had lost thirty-one — but they had killed over a hundred Turkmen soldiers.

“What are we going to do now, Colonel?” Turabi’s second in command said. “More Turkmen security forces will be on their way any moment.”

“We’re not going to wait for them,” Turabi said. A few soldiers hung their heads — in exhaustion or shame, it was hard to tell. “We’re going to take those artillery batteries. Have everyone find a Turkmen uniform and weapon, and get ready to move.”

About thirty minutes before sunrise, General Zarazi himself strode into the communications center. Captain Aman Orazov put down a pair of headphones and met the general. “Well?” Zarazi asked.

“Still no contact with Colonel Turabi,” Orazov said. “Khamsa Company has not had contact with Turabi either since they took up positions at the power substation north of Chauder.”

“The last report was Turabi’s company making contact at Khodzhayli?”

“Yes, sir,” Orazov replied. “Several platoons encountered a dug-in company-size security force surrounding the airport. Looks like the colonel marched right into an ambush. Their forces were of equal size, but Turabi lost several men at the substation, so he was undermanned.” He paused, then said, “I should have led that force, sir. I know my country’s tactics. I could have gotten around a simple spider-hole security perimeter. And getting ambushed by a couple scout platoons at that substation — how could he let that happen? He couldn’t see a force that size in a small, enclosed area?”

“This was not Turabi’s shining moment,” Zarazi had to admit.

“The colonel is very good at smash-and-grab, small-unit guerrilla tactics against paramilitary forces, sir, but conducting a raid with a company-size force against army regulars is another matter,” Orazov said. “Turabi’s company may have been wiped out completely. We should consider the very great possibility that some of our men, perhaps even the colonel himself, will have been captured. If that is so, they will use unspeakable methods to extract information from them. We must assume that the Russians and Turkmen know our current position, manpower, and order of battle.”

Zarazi turned away and stared into a corner of the communications tent. “We… we must make preparations to shift forces… move forward, perhaps to Chauder….”

“We do need to shift positions, sir, but we should not go forward — we need to retreat,” Orazov said. “Those men at Chauder and at the substation are dead when the Turkmen begin their counterattack. We should pull back to Esenmengli—”

“Esenmengli? That’s… that’s seventy kilometers!”

“We have no choice, sir!” Orazov said. “Turabi has failed, and his failure has stalled our entire offensive. We can’t afford to waste time crossing the river to Imeni Kalinina. If we’re caught while we’re crossing, we’ll be slaughtered. The only stronghold on this side of the river we can retreat to is Esenmengli.”

Zarazi turned and straightened his shoulders. “Very well—Major,” he said. “Deploy security forces along the river to assist in the withdrawal of our remaining forces at Chauder. Then give the order to move quickly to Esenmengli.”

“Yes, sir,” Orazov said proudly. “Once we are secure, sir, I will be honored to lead the men in a new offensive. Just give the order, sir.”

“I am disappointed in Turabi,” Zarazi muttered. “He has proven himself a good fighter in the past, but it should have been obvious to me that his heart was not in this campaign. My friendship for him blinded me to the reality of the situation.”

“The deficiency was in Turabi, sir, not you,” Orazov said. “But the battle is not yet lost. We can still—”

At that moment they heard a loud boom! off in the distance, followed by several more in rapid succession.

“Artillery!” Orazov screamed. “The Turkmen artillery positions at Khodzhayli — they started up again! This can only be a prelude to a full-scale attack on our position! We need to get out of here!”

“Launch the attack helicopters! Commence attacking the artillery positions and any advancing armor immediately with everything we’ve got!” Zarazi shouted. “Notify all battalions to prepare to repel attack!” Just then he stopped and listened. He could hear the artillery pieces booming in the distance — but no rounds had fallen yet. “What is going on? Whose artillery is that?”

Orazov picked up the headphones again to listen to the reports coming in from their security patrols and scouts. His eyes widened in surprise a few moments later.

“What is it, Major?”

“The scout helicopters report the artillery units at Khodzhayli are… they are firing toward Chärjew!” Orazov exclaimed. “The scouts report heavy aircraft losses and heavy bombardment of armor-marshaling areas at Chärjew Airport. They report—” He paused, listening intently. “Sir, Turkmen infantry units are in full retreat! Entire companies… no, entire battalions! — are evacuating north into Farab and Imeni Stalina… some reportedly even crossing the border into Uzbekistan!”

He listened further, his eyes flickering in dejection. He removed the headphones and handed them to Zarazi. “It’s Colonel Turabi, sir. He is requesting that all available fighting forces be moved up immediately — to Khodzhayli. He is at the airport now and has it under his control. He expects to have the airport at Chärjew under his control by the time our forces reach Khodzhayli. City officials, TransCal executives, and Colonel Borokov, the Russian in charge of the garrison, have already been in contact with him, asking for terms.”

Zarazi rushed out of the communications tent to issue orders to his troops, leaving Orazov behind. The other men in the tent looked at the Turkmen turncoat, and he could see the accusations in their eyes: You are the coward here, Orazov, not Turabi. Jalaluddin Turabi had just proved he was worthy of respect and admiration. All they were showing Orazov now was contempt.

There was only one way to win General Wakil Zarazi’s trust back, Orazov decided — get rid of Jalaluddin Turabi.

“It is confirmed, sir,” Army General Nikolai Stepashin, commander of the Ministry of State Security of the Russian Federation and the Commonwealth of Independent States, reported as he strode into the president’s office. The president of the Russian Federation was on the speakerphone and scowled as the intelligence chief spoke. “The city of Chärjew is in the hands of the Taliban insurgents as we speak.”

“Finally you confirm what I have been telling you for days now, Mr. President!” cried the voice on the other end of the phone, belonging to the president of the Republic of Turkmenistan, Kurban Gurizev. “And I’m telling you now, they are marching on the city of Mary. They’ll be there in less than three days. I need help to crush these Taliban bastards, Mr. President, and I need it now!”

Russian Federation president Valentin Gennadievich Sen’kov made a disgusted snorting sound, aimed directly at his minister of foreign affairs, Ivan Ivanovich Filippov. “ ‘No threat’—is that what you told us, Ivan?” Sen’kov sneered. “Those Taliban are just a bunch of rabble-rousers? Scroungers? Desert rats? Isn’t that what you told us only two days ago?”

“Mr. President, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of State Security agreed with my assessment — that this Taliban incursion was nothing more than a small, isolated band chased out of Afghanistan by American and United Nations forces,” Filippov said. “They should have been crushed days ago by the Turkmen army—”

“The Turkmen army is joining them!” Sen’kov exploded. “Shit, I wish the Red Army had such good recruiting numbers! They’ve taken three Turkmen military bases — one of which was commanded by Russian officers—as easily as if they were getting a fifty-ruble blow job on Ostankino Prospekt. Their army almost exceeds the size of the entire Turkmen army! What in hell is going on out there?”

“The field commander, a man named Turabi, is apparently the key,” Stepashin said. “He’s young, fearless, and very popular with the locals. The leader of the Taliban group, a weirdo named Zarazi, is the idealistic firebrand — Turabi is the real brains behind their operation.”

“I don’t give a shit!” Gurizev said over the speakerphone. “Mr. President, these Taliban are threatening to turn this country into another Chechnya, another Afghanistan! Do you want the rest of the world to see a handful of half-starved Taliban greasers occupy another former Russian republic? We’ll be the laughingstock of the entire world!”

“Sir, it’s nothing to be concerned about,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Filippov said calmly, ignoring Gurizev. “These Taliban don’t want to take the country. All they want is money or stuff they can sell for money. As soon as they get a bankroll, something big enough that’ll buy them a clan leadership position back home, they’ll be gone.”

“Is that what you thought of Afghanistan, too, Minister Filippov?” Gurizev asked.

“Sir, there’s absolutely no comparison here,” Filippov said. “These insurgents are raiders, not invaders. It’ll be over in forty-eight hours, sir, I guarantee it. If they don’t burn themselves out by marching across the Kara Kum Desert, they’ll take some more protection money from the Americans and leave.”

“What do the Americans have to do with this?”

“In order to keep the oil flowing, the Americans have been willing to pay the Taliban to keep the pipelines open — and pay them handsomely,” Filippov said. “The Taliban don’t want territory — they want money, funds they can take back to their tribes to fund whatever criminal operation they’re involved in.”

“I tell you, Mr. President, the Taliban want to take the country, just like they took Afghanistan,” Gurizev said on the speakerphone. “If they were only doing it for the money, they’d have stopped in Kizyl-arvat. I tell you, they want to take the city of Mary, then march on Ashkhabad itself.”

“Stop whining, Gurizev,” Sen’kov said. “That will not be allowed to happen.” He looked warily at his military chief of staff. “What do you think, General?” he asked.

“I agree with President Gurizev, sir. We should move immediately to reinforce our military units in Mary,” General Anatoliy Gryzlov said. He did not have the same close personal relationship with Sen’kov that Zhurbenko had. Gryzlov was a career military officer and showed an open dislike for politics, especially Valentin Sen’kov’s cutthroat style of politics. “President Gurizev is right — we cannot afford to underestimate these Taliban. Any more forward movement by them toward the capital will be seen as weakness on our part. And if they even threaten Mary, let alone take the city, we might as well evacuate the entire country — it’ll be a worse disaster than Afghanistan.”

“You’re exaggerating, General.”

“Sir, let’s not take the chance,” Gryzlov said. “We can quietly move tactical air assets to our training base at Mary and not attract any attention from the Americans or anyone else.”

“Air assets? The same ‘air assets’ you used on Vedeno?”

“My operation was approved by the Defense Ministry and this office—”

“Your plan said nothing about firebombing an entire village with supersonic bombers!” Minister of Defense Bukayev said. “Shit, next time you’ll ask to use a rifle and drop a nuclear weapon instead!”

“If that’s what it takes!” General Gryzlov retorted. “Sir, this new threat in Turkmenistan is a direct threat to the Turkmen and an indirect but very real threat to Russia. We have a mutual security agreement with Turkmenistan, the first ever signed with a former republic. We need to honor that. We need to move forcefully and decisively, right now.”

“We are not going to firebomb some ragheads scratching across the desert.”

“What better time and place to do it, sir?” Gryzlov asked. “High visibility, low chance of collateral damage, a purely defensive move in support of a neighbor and ally — we’re even helping the Americans!”

“Don’t try your hand at politics here, General — you’re no good at it,” Sen’kov interrupted. “I suggest you send out probes to keep watch and maybe harass the Taliban as they move. Eventually they’ll get tired of being plinked off one by one and decide to leave.”

“I don’t want to get our forces bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a bunch of fucking desert reptiles, sir,” Gryzlov said. “We lost the advantage in Afghanistan not because we used airpower but because we didn’t use enough airpower. If we go in, we must go in not just with adequate force but with overwhelming force.”

“We don’t need an invasion force to take out a handful of ragheads in the open desert.”

“We can’t take the chance, sir,” Gryzlov emphasized. “Let’s move into Turkmenistan in force. Let’s not make the mistakes we did in Chechnya or Afghanistan. I can send three wings of heavy bombers over those rebels in twelve hours and wipe out their armor, artillery, and air defenses in one night. I can have thirty thousand troops on the ground in Turkmenistan in two weeks, which should be more than enough to destroy what’s left of the Taliban. In two months I can have another fifty thousand troops in place. We can protect every drop of oil we pump out of that place.”

“And have the entire world watching on CNN while we bomb the hell out of a bunch of desert ragheads?” Sen’kov retorted. “Out of the question. You can send in commando teams to keep an eye on those pigfuckers, but I don’t want to slaughter them unless I absolutely have to.”

“Sir, they’ve already killed Turkmeni and even Russian troops,” Gryzlov said. “We’re fully justified in sending in troops to destroy them. We should—”

“Denied!” Sen’kov said. “I want our troop movements kept quiet. I don’t want to be accused of starting another Chechen-style holocaust. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Sen’kov motioned at the door, and Gryzlov got the hell out of there quickly.

“Mr. President, you have a right to help defend Turkmenistan,” Kurban Gurizev said. “Russia helped build this country, and we still have a sizable Russian population here. You don’t need to tiptoe around the damned Americans and their pipelines. They are raping our country — the entire world knows it.”

“No one seemed to mind when Niyazov signed that oil project with the Americans and cut Russia out completely.”

“Most people don’t know the details of the TransCal deal,” Gurizev said. “At least Russia pays for Turkmen oil, instead of leaching off every barrel pumped by someone else. I may have been born in this country, Minister, but my loyalties are with Mother Russia — as long as you are there to back me up. Otherwise, I have no difficulty at all in accepting the American oil companies’ money.”

“Don’t try to play both sides here, Gurizev,” Sen’kov said. “We’ll back you against these Taliban, but we don’t want to hear about you making any special backroom deals with the Americans. Your future is in Russia. That’s what you wanted, and that’s what we agreed to, once the Russian oil companies can take over those new oil and gas fields discovered by the Americans. You just play this game exactly how we planned it and you’ll get your reward — a first-class ticket back to Russia, with the money you’ve embezzled from the Turkmen treasury safe in your pocket.”

Gurizev quickly decided to change the subject. He was dismayed to learn that the Russians knew about the frequent “enhanced-benefit receipts” he’d been drawing from the treasury. “The Americans have asked to meet with myself, the Russian ambassador, and even the Taliban leader,” Gurizev said. “I think it would be unwise not to allow them to visit — it might help defuse the situation here. What do you want me to tell them?”

“Tell them the situation is extremely dangerous and the government cannot guarantee their safety,” Sen’kov said. “If they still want to come, let them — but do everything you can to discourage it.”

“I should let the Americans meet with those Taliban?”

“Damn it, I hope to hell you’ve killed those Taliban insects long before the Americans arrive,” Sen’kov said angrily.

“I don’t know what to say to an American delegation—”

“Gurizev, you simply tell them you are serving your country,” Sen’kov said. “Just get your picture taken with whomever they send, then let your underlings handle it. Your job for now is to mobilize that army of yours and squash those Taliban insurgents—immediately.” He terminated the call with an angry stab on a button. “He had better get off his ass and do something, or we’ll have to replace him — sooner rather than later.”

“Sir, General Gryzlov seemed pretty adamant about sending in a powerful force to knock back those Taliban outside Mary,” Minister of Defense Bukayev said. “Maybe we should let him mobilize a good-size force. No one in the world would argue if we sent several air regiments to Mary. We still have a sizable training force in Turkmenistan.”

“The general needs to have his insubordinate ass kicked!” Sen’kov shouted. “I have become the hellmaster of Chechnya in the world press because of him! Now he thinks I’m going to approve of another similar operation in Turkmenistan? He’s crazy! If he can’t handle this operation with a few commando units, he shouldn’t be in charge of the Russian military.”

Jalaluddin Turabi had to admit that the swelling tide of victory was compelling, even addictive. Wakil Mohammad Zarazi’s little band of Taliban raiders had turned into a real army now, with over twelve thousand fighters and another two thousand support personnel spread out over much of eastern Turkmenistan. They left a garrison of a thousand troops and support personnel in Chärjew to guard that vital city against the Russian and Turkmen forces that had fled the country across the border into Uzbekistan, but it was doubtful if that was even necessary — their victory in Chärjew had been complete.

The people of Chärjew were solidly behind Zarazi for one simple reason: Zarazi had money, and lots of it. He had made a deal with the American officials of TransCal Petroleum to keep the pipelines and pumping stations safe and had been paid well. Zarazi wisely disbursed the money to the Turkmen officials of Chärjew in exchange for loyalty, and it had worked. Zarazi could safely leave the security of the pipelines to local police and militia, with only a token force of his loyal soldiers to oversee things and watch for any incursions from the north. Zarazi also gave quite a bit of money to the local population as well as to his soldiers. His flanks were secure.

It had been the perfect opportunity for Turabi to leave Zarazi and take command of the garrison at Chärjew. Except for his raid on Khodzhayli Airport, where almost a hundred Turkmen and Russians had been killed or wounded, Turabi had gone easy on the Turkmen army as he moved into Chärjew, and the Turkmen people seemed thankful for that. He could have easily, quietly watched Zarazi’s back as he moved his ever-growing army down the main highway toward their ultimate clash at Mary. Why did he not ask Zarazi if he could stay behind in Chärjew?

Two reasons: fear and curiosity. Yes, he was afraid of Wakil Zarazi. When his old friend and leader told him to do something, he did it. Zarazi did have some sort of powerful effect on Turabi. It was more than clan loyalty: Turabi was genuinely afraid of Zarazi’s going drunk, or even crazy, with the power he was accumulating. He hated to think what Zarazi would do if he sensed any weakness or betrayal in any of his senior officers.

Turabi was also very much afraid of Aman Orazov, their Russian-Turkmen turncoat who had maneuvered himself in as Zarazi’s confidant and adviser, almost on a par with Jalaluddin Turabi himself. Since the successful occupation of Chärjew, when everyone else seemed to treat Turabi like some kind of battlefield genius, Orazov had been standoffish, perfunctory, and even hostile toward Turabi. Was it because Turabi took on Turkmen regular-army soldiers and defeated them — or was it because he was far more popular with the Turkmen, even ones he’d defeated in battle, than Orazov ever was?

Whatever he thought or whatever the hell was going on, one thing was certain: Wakil Zarazi was marching on Mary, the largest and most important city in eastern Turkmenistan — and their destiny.

Zarazi’s army of about ten thousand soldiers had reached the outskirts of the Turkmen city of Bayramaly, about thirty kilometers east of Mary. This area was part of the expansive Merv oasis, one of the largest oases in Central Asia and an important stopover on the ancient Silk Road that ran between Istanbul, Turkey, and Shanghai, China. The city itself was in the center of the oasis, fed by a number of natural and man-made irrigation ditches that connected the Kara Kum Canal, a large irrigation project completed by the Soviets, and the Murgab River that flowed south.

Turabi had never seen anything like it: cotton everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Thousands upon thousands of acres of white plants dotted the landscape on either side of the highway ahead of them, which made it look as if an immense, fluffy white blanket had been laid across the harsh desert. “My God — they can hide an entire corps in those fields,” Turabi said, studying the terrain with field glasses. “It looks like tough maneuvering in that stuff besides. We’re too accustomed to maneuvering in the desert.”

“God will show us the way to victory,” Zarazi said woodenly.

Turabi looked at his former friend and tribal leader with an exasperated expression. Then, sensing he was being watched, he turned — and saw Aman Orazov staring at him. That rat bastard was constantly hovering around when he was with Zarazi, watching — and surely reporting — Turabi’s every word, action, or expression to Zarazi.

“Do you not believe that it is God’s will we should be victorious, Colonel?” Orazov asked suspiciously.

Turabi ignored him. “Even so… I’ve deployed the Fifth and Ninth Motorized Rifles and the Second Air Mobile to reconnoiter those cotton fields north and south. I asked for a report on soil conditions and any problems they encounter driving through that stuff. The last thing we want is for a ton of unpicked cotton jamming up our tracks.”

“Very well, Jala,” Zarazi said. “All good precautions.”

Turabi looked at Zarazi with faint surprise. “Thank you, sir,” he said. He hesitated before speaking his mind, then said, “You know, Wakil, that’s the first time in weeks you’ve called me by my first name. It felt good. Just like in our youth.”

“Our youth,” Zarazi said with a chuckle. “It seems like centuries since we played in the corrals and fields of our youth.”

“It seems like centuries since we crossed the border into this godforsaken country,” Turabi said.

Zarazi looked at Turabi with a serious expression. Turabi thought he was going to get chewed out again for using God’s name disrespectfully — but instead Zarazi said, “I know what you mean, Jalaluddin.”

Well, this was certainly a change in attitude, Turabi thought. “It’s a shitty business, Wakil. We’re far from home, far from our wives and children.”

“I feel my life is changing here, Jalaluddin,” Zarazi said. “I… I don’t know what it means. I have felt the hand of God on my shoulder before — but I don’t feel it now. I don’t think He has abandoned me, but… but I don’t hear His voice right now. We stand here, on the threshold of the enemy, and I can’t hear Him. I don’t know if this is a test of my faith or if He thinks we can do this task using our own poor mortal brains.”

“It’s called precombat jitters, Wakil,” Turabi said. This was amazing, a relief, wonderful—for the first time in many days, Zarazi wasn’t talking like some kind of religious zealot. He sounded like a regular guy, like any other military commander ready to step onto the field of battle and face the enemy. It was a welcome and heartening change. “We’ve done everything we need to do. We’ve deployed our scouts, deployed troops to our rear to guard against flanking maneuvers and protect our best escape route, and set up reserve forces. We’ve got pretty decent intelligence, and we’re still getting good recruits coming forward to join our army, even though we’re closing in on Mary. We’ve done everything we need to do.”

“Will it be enough?”

“That’s something I can’t answer, Wakil,” Turabi said. He paused for a moment, then said, “Wakil… my friend… listen to me. Why don’t we pull back to Chärjew? If you feel there’s something we missed in our planning, let’s fall back, regroup, get some fresh intelligence reports, build our forces a bit more, and plan it again.”

“You mean… you mean retreat?”

“Wakil, running away in a disorganized fashion is a retreat. Pulling back in an orderly fashion with three full companies as our rear guard is not,” Turabi said. “Chärjew is ours, Wakil — that’s undisputed. We have our hands on the taps of fifty thousand barrels of oil and five million cubic meters of natural gas per day there. We have the twelfth-largest company in America paying us thousands of dollars a day to ‘guard’ their pipelines. We’re in control in Chärjew, Wakil. Out here we’re not in control of anything, not even what’s sticking to our tank treads. The apprehension you feel is a soldier’s sixth sense. It tells you when danger is nearby. Listen to it.”

Wakil looked at Turabi — then, to Turabi’s joy, looked behind him, back to the northeast, toward Chärjew. It was such a slight movement, such a casual thing, but to Turabi it spoke volumes.

They had marched almost two hundred kilometers from Chärjew in less than a week across the barren, burning Kara Kum Desert to get here, fighting off attacks to their flanks by Turkmen guerrillas, chasing away scouts, burying their dead, taking captives and executing spies, and planning their final assault — and not once in all those days had Wakil Mohammad Zarazi ever looked backward. He hadn’t looked backward once since getting jumped by American bombers in northern Afghanistan, since he’d first heard the word of God and set out on this quest.

“We can set up the rear guard in Ravnina. We found good water supplies there, the terrain is a bit higher, and we’re far enough away from the canal so we don’t have to set up security posts there,” Turabi said quickly, excitedly. He had been working out the details in his head for days — but for an escape, not for a withdrawal. This was better than he could ever have hoped. “We leave Second Battalion and Second Air Mobile there, and we pull back — a little at a time, so the Turkmen don’t realize what’s happening. The two units deploy along the Halach oil fields east and west — we know we can hide a battalion-size force among all those wells. In three days we can be back in Chärjew, and we fortify the ten-kilometer perimeter I set up after leaving Chauder. As we pull back, we pull the rear guards in. They’ll pull back to a safe, secure perimeter and be relieved. Once they’re rested and rearmed, we push the perimeter out to twenty kilometers. Now we control everything east of the sixty-third meridian. Solid as a rock.”

Zarazi was silent for a long moment. Turabi looked at Orazov and saw nothing but hatred and loathing in his eyes. Keep quiet, you asshole, Turabi said silently. Keep quiet or I’ll kill you….

“We do not need to pull back, General,” Orazov said. “Mary Airport is less than thirty kilometers right in front of us. We haven’t seen more than a few helicopter probes come our way since we moved into position. We can take Mary, sir, just as easily as we took Chärjew.”

“We didn’t take Chärjew, Orazov—I took it,” Turabi snapped. “And there was nothing easy about it. I lost a lot of good men, one out of every five of my force. But Chärjew will be nothing compared to the battle that awaits us in Mary. The Russians will be waiting with their close-air-support fighters and—”

“What fighters? We haven’t seen one fighter since leaving Chärjew.”

“They are there, Orazov, we know it.”

“They were there at Chärjew, too — many of them. But not one lifted off to oppose us.”

“They were flown into Chärjew to scare us away, but the pilots left as soon as they got out of their planes,” Turabi said. “Those planes were worthless anyway — a bunch of old Sukhoi-17 bombers, over thirty years old and not very well maintained. They were never a threat to us.”

“They were a very great threat when we first planned the assault on Chärjew.”

“Our intelligence said the Turkmen had asked the Russians to bring up their Sukhoi-24s and MiG-27s—the ones based at Mary,” Turabi argued. “They brought up the relics instead. That means the first-line fighters and bombers are probably still in Mary. And we still don’t know exactly what the Americans are doing in Turkmenistan.”

“Ah, yes, your ghostly Americans,” Orazov said derisively. “You say you saw only two men, but they destroyed two armored vehicles, killed a half dozen men — but did nothing to you but question you.”

“Shut up, damn you,” Turabi snapped. “The Americans were there to retrieve their crashed aircraft or cruise missile or spy plane — whatever it was that got shot down.”

“So you say,” Orazov said dryly. “Or did you really lead your men into a minefield, as the helicopter-patrol officers surmised…?”

“Go to hell, Orazov.”

“In any case we haven’t seen any evidence of American soldiers in Turkmenistan — if they ever existed in the first place,” Orazov said to Zarazi. “They probably came in just to retrieve their cruise missile. There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Nothing to be concerned about? We are facing five to ten thousand Turkmen and Russian soldiers to the west, and we might have these American supersoldiers to the east — or at the very least over our heads with their spy planes and satellites.” Turabi turned to Zarazi. “I’ll take my scout company into Mary and find out exactly what’s happening, Wakil. But if you are considering a pullback to a more defensible position, sir, I recommend we proceed immediately. We need to shift the vanguard to defensive positions and move the main force forty kilometers north along the highway to get across the Kara Kum Canal. That’s a hard day’s march.”

“What is it with you, Colonel?” Orazov asked. “Why are you so bent on retreating all of a sudden?”

“Because any fool can see we are overextended in this position, with a large entrenched force up ahead of us,” Turabi retorted. “We barely have enough supplies to last us three days while we’re on the march. If we go into battle, we’ll use up all our supplies in less than a day.”

“Are you calling the general a fool, Turabi?”

“I am no expert in maneuver warfare,” Turabi went on, ignoring Orazov’s remark, “but I do know that hundreds of successful campaigns have been lost when an army marches beyond its secure supply lines. We are well beyond that point now, Wakil. It now takes more than a day to bring in enough fuel for our helicopters, armor, and vehicles. One interruption in our supply lines and we’ll have no choice but to retreat — and that’s when the chaos and confusion start.”

For the first time since the battle of Chauder, Zarazi looked confused and… yes, a little frightened. The change was amazing, Turabi thought. He didn’t know for sure, but perhaps this was the beginning of the long march home.

“General, we must attack, and do it now,” Orazov insisted. “Let’s not wait any longer. We should move with all possible speed to within artillery range of Mary Airport and begin the assault.”

“That would be suicide!” Turabi retorted. “Wakil, we have incomplete intelligence, our air defenses are not in place, and, as I’ve told you repeatedly, our supply lines are stretched to the limit—”

“Address him as ‘General’ or ‘sir,’ Colonel,” Orazov said angrily.

“Shut up, you bastard!” Turabi exploded. “You don’t know what you’re—”

At that moment a siren began to wail throughout the headquarters company — the air-raid siren. Turabi’s blood turned cold. It was too late. He thought for certain they had one more day. They were at the extreme edge of effective combat range of the Mi-24 attack helicopters based at Mary. Turabi believed that the Russians would wait until they attempted their assault on their objective, the oil-control facility at Bayramaly. That would give the big Hind-D attack helicopters several more weapons to carry into the attack, several more minutes over the target area. But surprise was everything in battle — and the Russians had just achieved it.

“Gunships! Helicopter gunships to the south!” one of the command-post lieutenants shouted. “Sir, spotters have detected two formations of three, about fifteen kilometers out.”

“Not even a full squadron. It might be a feint,” Turabi said. He motioned for the radio handset and shouted, “This is Colonel Turabi. Clear this net! I said clear this net immediately!” He waited a few moments for the excited chatter to die down. Then: “Echo Company, Echo Company, alert your scouts and make sure they’re ready to deal with the main body. If it’s coming, they’ll be rushing in from the north.

“Break. All antiaircraft crews, all antiaircraft crews, listen up. Do not panic when you see the damned Hinds. If you keep your cool, you’ll have a good chance. Dismount your man-portable missile crews, disperse and hide in every crack and crevice you can find, and go to remotes on your gun units. The Hinds like big targets out in the open — don’t give them one. Relax and get hits. Vanguard units, don’t break out of formation until you see the enemy break first, and don’t start radioing artillery-grid coordinates until you see their attack formation take shape. I want our artillery to drop ordnance on where they are, not where they were.” He threw the headset into Orazov’s face. “You wanted a fight, Orazov, you got one now.” Turabi ran off to the command truck, not waiting to see if Zarazi or Orazov followed.

They did not.

Turabi sat in the commander’s seat, in front of a large Plexiglas board with a grid showing the location of all their units. Behind the transparent board were communications technicians receiving reports from scouts and brigade commanders; another technician quickly drew and erased the symbols on the board, writing backward so Turabi on the other side could see them properly, as the battle progressed. On either side of the commander’s seats were the deputy’s seat and seats for communications officers and other advisers and specialists. Turabi could speak with anyone in his team, from a rifle-platoon leader to a battalion commander, by flicking a switch.

It was happening exactly as he’d envisioned it: a classic Soviet-style envelopment attack. Two flights of helicopter gunships were sweeping in from the south; a small formation of light tanks, just a dozen spotted so far, were heading up the highway toward them. But these were just the diversions — the main-objective force had still not been spotted. “Echo Three, this is Green One,” Turabi radioed to one of the scout platoons that was the farthest north and west, “what do you see? They should be right in front of you.”

“Negative contact, Green One,” the leader of the three-tank scout platoon reported.

Either the platoon was not where it was plotted on the board, Turabi thought, or the Turkmen forces were coming in from even farther north than he’d anticipated. “Echo, this is Green One, move one of your platoons straight north, straight north, right to that H-1 access road. They have to be coming in from farther north — your scouts are too close in and too far west.”

“Echo acknowledges,” the scout-company commander radioed back.

Turabi studied the board for a few moments, counting scout units, then flipped the channel selector: “Airborne Two, this is Green One, I don’t see any of your units up. What’s the problem?”

“Green One, we lost the diesel-powered pump for the refueling bladders,” the helicopter-company commander radioed back. The helicopters were refueled from giant twenty-thousand-deciliter collapsible rubber bladders, resembling tire inner tubes, using high-volume, diesel-powered pumps. They could have all the fuel they needed available — but if the pumps went out, getting the fuel into the aircraft’s fuel tanks was long, hard work. “Our first chopper should be airborne in five to ten minutes.”

“Two, if you ever again fail to report a malfunction like that in a timely manner, I’ll have your eyeballs for breakfast!” Turabi shouted. “Break. Airborne Three, how fast can you get a cover aircraft over to grid three-zero-Charlie?”

“Green One, stand by,” the commander of another helicopter company reported. After a short but utterly nerve-racking wait: “Green One, I’ll send a unit in right now, ETE three minutes. He can be on station for about five minutes before he bingos.”

“Very well, Airborne Three. Break. Airborne Two, get your aircraft in the air as soon as you can, or—”

A tremendous explosion outside shook the command-post vehicle so hard that Turabi almost flew out of his seat. “What was that?” he shouted, struggling back to his seat.

“A bomb!” someone else shouted. “At least a two-hundred-kilo gravity bomb! It hit the radar truck!”

An antiradar missile or TV-guided missile, Turabi thought. Too big for a small, helicopter-fired missile, Turabi knew — it had to be from a fixed-wing aircraft. And if it was TV-guided, it could just as easily have hit the command-post truck — that would have been a juicier target. No one had reported any low-level bombers inbound, so it had to be a cruise missile, launched from high altitude, or a long-range guided missile. “Switch to the number-two radar van and recalibrate,” Turabi directed, “then order them to go to intermittent operation.” It took several moments, but finally he could see the radars up front in the command vehicle come back to life. They were still in the fight, but down to their last radar array.

“Should we retreat, sir?” the operations officer asked nervously, shouting his question out at the top of his lungs even though Turabi was only a couple meters away. “I think we should get out of here now!”

“No one is retreating, Captain — not yet,” Turabi said quickly. No, he thought, they should have retreated days ago — it was way too late now. “Calm yourself. Go get a report on that impact area. Have someone check for chemical or biological weapons. Pressurize the command cab.” Turabi had to swallow hard as the pressure quickly built up in the command-post truck. If those last weapons dropped nearby had chemical or biological weapons aboard, the positive pressure inside the cab would help keep toxic chemicals from seeping inside. On the commandwide net, Turabi radioed, “All units, I think that was an antiradar-missile attack. Check for biochem weapons and report. Bravo Three, Bravo Three, wheel north to H-1 and engage targets.”

“No targets spotted yet, Green One.”

“They’ll be there!” Turabi insisted. “Bravo Four, back up Bravo Three to the north. Bravo Six, move forward and take Five’s position on the tail, and do it right now,” Turabi ordered. “Prepare to move to the west to engage the enemy’s left flank if they come in from the north. Acknowledge.”

Another long pause, more confusion on the network. Turabi thought the reserve unit had bugged out already. But finally: “Acknowledged, Green One, Bravo Six is on the move.”

“Very well. Move up as fast as you can. Break. Bravo Five, take Bravo Two’s position on the left flank and move forward fast. Airborne One, take the point. Airborne Two, get your birds fueled and move north to cover Bravo Three and Four, and you’d better have them all up in ten minutes or I’m going to rip your head off and shit down your throat! Airborne Three, don’t engage those Hinds — go around them and see if you can get them to follow you. They have to be low on fuel. Get Chärjew to start moving fuel down here on the double!”

He thought for another moment. There was no supply line behind them anymore, Turabi knew. They would either make it to Bayramaly and their objective, the petroleum-control station outside the city, or they would get smashed out here. If they ran out of fuel, they weren’t going to get any more from Chärjew in time. The reserve force, Battalion Six, had to move up to join the fighting. If they didn’t advance, they were going to turn and run back to Chärjew on first contact.

“Bravo One and Bravo Two, move out and engage the point vehicles. Blast them the hell off the highway, and don’t dance with them — those Hinds will be after you before too long. I want both One and Two at the objective point in one hour, or we’re going to get chewed to pieces. Let’s get moving, or we’ll die out here in the desert.”

He held on as the command vehicle lurched forward, wheeled sharply left up and down over the edge of the highway, and drove several dozen meters away into the cotton fields. Moments later another explosion shook the area — and, yes, it had landed two hundred meters northeast on the highway, exactly where they’d be if they’d pulled back and stayed on the highway. Crap, this was getting hairy now. Turabi could practically feel a TV- or laser-guided bomb on its way for the command-post vehicle right now.

“Fast-movers!” the senior watch officer shouted. “Sukhoi-24s, at least two inbound!”

“Inbound PGM attack!” Turabi radioed. “Radars to standby! All units pop smoke.” Not only could the tanks and heavier armored personnel carriers obscure themselves with smoke from their exhaust stacks, but they could also fire volleys of smoke grenades several dozen meters away to make it appear as if there were more vehicles than there really were. He didn’t know if it would fool sophisticated sensors, but it was the only countermeasure his forces had.

“SAM-12 Bravo One,” the ops officer reported. One of the air-defense units in the lead battalion was launching surface-to-air missiles, their mobile 2K12 “Cub” missiles. “Another SAM-12 Bravo One… SAM-12, three missiles away, Bravo One.” That was a typical Cub engagement, Turabi knew, but he had ordered the operators to launch only one missile at a time to try to save missiles. Each battalion had only six systems — nine missiles total — to counter all the high-powered fighter-bombers at Mary. “Got one!” the ops officer crowed. “SAM-33 Bravo One engaging.” The SAM-33, or 9K33 Osa, or “Wasp,” was a short-range, low-altitude capable antiaircraft-missile system — that meant that the aircraft had blown past the longer-range Cub missile system and had to be engaged by the shorter-range, close-in Wasp. “Triple-A-Six-Mike Bravo One engaging radar.” Now the self-propelled antiaircraft guns were responding. The enemy aircraft were coming in fast.

“How many aircraft, damn it?” Turabi shouted. “Where are they?”

“Got another one!” the comm officer crowed. “Sukhoi-24s, coming in low! They—”

They heard it almost simultaneously: the hiss of a high-speed jet passing very close by, like a fast-approaching swarm of angry bees racing across the desert, followed by two sonic booms that rattled everything not welded in place, followed by a string of large explosions. One or two bombs landed close enough to make the command-post vehicle jump a meter or two off the ground, and Turabi wasn’t sure which direction was up — they could have been blasted on their side or blasted to hell, for all he knew. The lights went out inside the cab, and there was nothing but a loud squeal in his headphones. An electrical fire started someplace — the cab started filling with acidy fumes.

“Power!” Turabi shouted. “Get the power on!” Someone tried to push past him in the darkness — one of the techs who sat behind the Plexiglas board, panicking and rushing toward the exit. Turabi shoved him back through the hinged board. “Get back to your station!” he shouted. “Get some battery lights on and get the generator restarted! Do it now!”

“They’re dead!” the tech shouted. When the inside battery lights finally snapped on, Turabi could see the whites of the man’s eyes, huge with fear. Turabi saw that the tech had opened up the slit between the command-post cab and the driver’s cab, and a thick curl of smoke was drifting in. That’s where the acrid electrical smell was coming from. “The front of the truck… God help us, they’re all dead!”

The armor plating between the cabs had probably saved them from the same fate met by the drivers. “Close that shutter and get the power back on!” Turabi shouted. The fact that he stayed in the command-post vehicle seemed to boost the spirits of his men, and after a few moments they started working together once again. Soon the generator power was back on and the radios came back to life, and even the frightened techs behind the Plexiglas were updating the tactical-grid display with their grease pencils, writing backward with extraordinary speed and clarity.

“Green One, Green One, this is Bravo Three, how do you read me?”

“Loud and clear now, Bravo Three,” Turabi responded. “We were knocked off the air for a minute. Did you make contact?”

“Affirmative! Looks like eight heavy-tank platoons in a staggered W formation, coming in hard from the north-northwest. We are engaging.”

“Bravo Three, acknowledged. Engage from your position. If you need to break contact, pull straight back to the south. Bravo Four and Airborne Three should be moving in any minute to back you up from the east, and Bravo Six should be moving in from the north. Don’t let them break out past you — keep them in front of you. Acknowledge.” No reply. “Bravo Three, acknowledge.”

A skull-piercing shriek of pain and the roar of an explosion and fire suddenly broke the chatter over the command net. Oh, shit — the leader of Bravo Three or one of the other company commanders on the net had been hit, and his last dying action was to keep his fingers pressed onto the mike button so everyone on the net could hear his death scream. That was not good. “Airborne Three, this is Green One, what do you see?”

“We are engaging enemy tanks on the northwest grid,” the helicopter flight commander reported. “Bravo Three looks like they took several direct hits. The Turkmen are coming with T-72s and maybe even T-80s — they’re shooting on the run.” The biggest tank Zarazi’s force had was a T-64, which had a 125-millimeter smoothbore cannon and autoloader like the T-72, but it did not have a sophisticated laser-aiming computer, so it had to stop to fire its gun; most of Zarazi’s tank force were much older T-55s and T-54s, whose 100-millimeter main guns probably wouldn’t even put a dent in a T-72’s 120-millimeter reactive armor.

“Roger, Air Three. I can see one platoon of Bravo Four moving in fast from the north, but I can’t see the rest of Four, and there’s no sign of Six. I will… shit… oh, shit—” And then his radio cut off as well.

“Airborne Three, come in.”

“This is Airborne Three-Two,” a different voice said. One of the wingmen had taken over on the net. “Lead took a hit. Looks like the armor coming in from the north brought some SAMs with them. We are engaging. I see only four tanks from Bravo Four coming in to help Bravo Three. They’re going to get chewed to pieces here in about twenty minutes if they don’t get more help.”

“Roger, Airborne Three. Did you hear that, Bravo Four? Get in there and help, right now!”

“Green One, this is Bravo One, we have pushed off the enemy force on the highway — they are scattering. The highway is clear. Do you want us to head north to help Bravo Three? Over.”

“Is Bravo Two still with you?”

“They are engaging the Hinds off to the south, but I think the Hinds might be withdrawing to the southwest. We appear clear to the south. I haven’t heard from Bravo Two, but I think they lost only one or two units from the Hind attack.”

“Roger that. Stand by. Break. Bravo Two, this is Green One, are you up on the net?”

“Affirmative, Green One. It looks like the Hinds only had cannons and marking rockets and just a few missiles. They swept in, fired a few rounds, then headed away.”

“Roger. Bravo Two, you take the highway and make best speed to the objective. Don’t stop to fight, just get to the control station and take it as soon as you can. Take as much air defense as you can. Keep an eye to the south — they might try another attack once the Hinds depart. Acknowledge.”

“Roger, Green One. We’re on the move. Our air defense will have to catch up with us. They’ll cover our six.”

“Roger that. Break. Bravo One, wheel north and attack the enemy’s right flank. Get a good positive ID before you shoot — elements of Bravo Four are moving in behind the enemy formation. You’ll be face-to-face.” He hoped.

“Acknowledged. We’re on the move.”

Turabi took a moment to plant the image of the battlefield in his mind. It was not looking good. “Airborne Three, what’s the status of Bravo Three?”

There was a slight pause, then, “Sorry, Colonel.”

Turabi swore loudly — an entire company of tanks, destroyed in less than fifteen minutes. Their entire northern flank was exposed now.

“Airborne Three is breaking contact to reload,” came the report. “We’ve got elements of Airborne Two moving in. I think I saw one more platoon of Bravo Four moving in, but no sign of the rest of them and no sign of Bravo Six.”

“Bravo Six, what is your position? Can you see the enemy forces? They should be about ten kilometers in front of you.” No response. Damn it, Turabi swore, silently this time. They bugged out, probably back up the highway toward their reinforced ammo dump and supply depot at Ravnina. They were going to pay for that! “Bravo Four, have you made—”

“SAM-12 Bravo Two… SAM-12 Bravo Two, southwest!”

“Green One, Green One, many fast-movers, many fast-movers coming in from the southwest, going supersonic, very low altitude!” The Russians had waited until their Mi-24 Hinds moved out of the way and the left flank moved up, and then they swooped in with a force of fighter-bombers.

“Pop smoke! Pop smoke!” He was about to order the driver to move positions, but he remembered that the drivers were dead, the engine and front of their command-post vehicle blasted apart. There was no longer any choice — they were sitting ducks here. He pounded on the Plexiglas board with a fist. “Evacuate the command cab! Get moving!” The techs behind the glass needed no encouragement. They had the board opened and were racing out of the cab as soon as the metal stairs were lowered into place. Turabi remembered to grab the backpack radio and map case just before he leaped out of the vehicle.

The screening smoke was gagging and oily-tasting, so thick that at first Turabi didn’t know which way to run — but soon the explosions started again, and he ran straight ahead until an explosion tossed him off his feet as if the hard-baked desert floor were a carpet that had just been pulled out from under him. He felt white-hot pieces of flying metal rip into his uniform and bounce off his helmet, and the soles of his boots seemed hot enough to melt. The last explosion felt like being hit with a hundred-kilo bag of sand, and he could do nothing else but close his eyes and scream.

Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he willed his legs to start working again and managed to crawl over to his command-post vehicle. It had taken an indirect hit that had turned the ten-ton vehicle over on its side and blown out all its tires. The drivers’ cab was indeed burned out by what appeared to be a rocket or small missile. The bomb crater was fairly deep and was no longer smoldering, so Turabi crawled down inside it. The height was perfect — all but the very top of his head was underground. He thought it a little strange to be headquartered in his enemy’s bomb crater, but there was no time to worry about that now. He set up the portable radio, extending the antenna as far over the crater rim as he could, and spread out his chart, holding it open with bomb fragments.

The network was eerily quiet. This did not feel good at all. “Bravo One, Green One.”

“Green One, this is Bravo One.” Again it was a different voice on the radio, much younger and panicky-sounding — the company commander and perhaps a platoon commander or two had probably been killed by now. “Are you all right, sir?”

Suddenly the net was coming alive again — it was as if all the units were waiting for someone to take charge. He couldn’t blame his men too much. A month ago his most senior and battle-hardened commanders were little more than half-starved bandits driving Toyota pickups across the desert. They had to learn how to be tank commanders by watching, listening, following orders, and having the courage to take the fight right to the enemy. “The CP took a hit, and the crew scattered,” Turabi said, after he cleared the chatter off the command net again. “What’s your situation?”

“We are engaging the Turkmen right flank,” the company commander reported. “The nafahm Bravo Four finally showed up in force and is engaging the enemy left. Air Two and Three are trying to keep the center from breaking through. No word at all from Bravo Three or Bravo Six.”

So they were still in the fight — good. It showed that competent warriors could still be effective even without a command post bugging them every five minutes. Turabi tried Bravo Six, the rear company, again — still no response. Haramzadeh! Bastards!

“Incoming!” someone shouted. Turabi turned toward a hissing sound — just in time to see what looked like an immense dart or a small fighter jet drop out of the sky only a few hundred meters away. He knew he should be diving to the bottom of the crater, but the sight of such a large object moving so fast, hitting the earth so close to him was eerily fascinating. He didn’t know if it was a downed Russian jet or a cruise missile — but soon it didn’t matter. There was another powerful explosion, except this time it didn’t feel like anything. Darkness closed in around him as if an “off” switch had been thrown in his brain.

Turabi awoke lying on the hard desert floor. At first he couldn’t open his eyes, and when he finally could, they stung from the billows of smoke wafting into his face. Someone was pouring water on top of his bare head. Every part of his body ached, and his face felt burned and raw. The smoke was gone, but his throat and lungs still felt coarse, and he could neither cough the congestion away nor take a deep enough breath to try harder.

His hands touched something brittle, yet it gave easily to pressure. Turabi knew that the tank was to his right, so he felt to his left to go around it. There was more brittle material that way. He felt farther left — and found a human arm. His fingers moved on their own now. He soon felt a torso, and then a chest. The corpse was not wearing a uniform — it was wearing robes. It was one of his men, a Taliban. He soon realized that the first thing he’d felt was the head, blasted open and burned.

Turabi quickly rolled to his other side, but moments later he encountered another body, this one even more heavily mangled and burned than the first. He realized with shock that he had been deliberately placed in the midst of a line of Taliban corpses.

“Try to stay still, sir,” he heard a familiar voice say. He turned and saw his first sergeant and aide, Abdul Dendara, sitting nearby. His face was almost completely black from smoke and burns, and his clothing was in tatters.

“What happened?” Turabi asked. “Have we been overrun?”

“Overrun?” Dendara looked puzzled for a long moment, and then his eyes brightened. “You don’t know, sir?” he asked incredulously. “Of course not — you’ve been unconscious, maybe even in a coma, for most of the day. Your forces were victorious, sir!”

“What?”

“You had the Turkmen on the run. It’s a good thing your helicopters came in when they did, because you were no more than even most of the battle, but you deployed your forces brilliantly and had the upper hand. The Turkmen ran like scared mice, with the Russians leading the retreat. The city of Mary is yours, sir. Congratulations.”