Rogue Forces

CHAPTER EIGHT

The two eight-man teams of Turkish bordo bereliler, or Maroon Beret, special operations Rangers arrived on station at about three A.M. They had executed a picture-perfect HALO, or high-altitude low-opening parachute jump, into the area about five miles north of Tall Kayf. After landing and stowing their parachutes, they verified their position, checked personnel, weapons, and gear, and headed south. Once near the checkpoint about two miles from the XC-57 crash site, they split up into two-man recon teams and proceeded to their individual objective points.

It took less than thirty minutes for the Maroon Berets to determine that all of the intel passed to them from Captain Evren’s unit stationed outside Allied Air Base Nahla was true: the Iraqis had deployed four infantry platoons around the XC-57 crash site and were setting up sandbag machine gun nests to guard it. The rest of the brigade was nowhere to be seen. Evren had also reported that the Americans were still inside the base, training and conditioning but remaining very low profile as well.

The Iraqis were obviously expecting something to happen, the Ranger platoon leader thought, but they weren’t putting up more than a token defense. They obviously weren’t looking for a fight over the reconnaissance plane. The Rangers could stop their operation if the Iraqis had deployed any more forces in the area, but they hadn’t. The operation was still on.

The timetable was razor-thin, but everyone was executing it perfectly. Aviation elements of First and Second Divisions had sent squadrons of light infantry in low-flying UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook helicopters from six different directions, all converging in the area around Nahla, under the protection of AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships. The helicopters came in under a blanket of jamming across the entire electromagnetic spectrum that cut off all radar and communications other than bands they wished to use. At the same time ground forces were rushing in to reinforce them. In less than thirty minutes—the blink of an eye, even on a modern battlefield—the four Iraqi platoons surrounding the XC-57 crash site were surrounded themselves…and outnumbered.

The Iraqi defenders, using night-vision goggles, could see the red lines of Turkish laser designators crisscrossing the field ahead of them, and they hunkered down behind sandbag machine gun nests and the XC-57 wreckage. The assault could begin at any moment.

“Attention, Iraqi soldiers,” they heard in Arabic from a loudspeaker aboard a Turkish armored infantry vehicle, “this is Brigadier General Ozek, commander of this task force. You have been surrounded, and I am bringing in more reinforcements as I speak. I order you to—”

And at that moment one of the Chinook helicopters that had just touched down to off-load soldiers disappeared in a tremendous fireball, followed by a Cobra gunship that was hovering a few hundred yards away on patrol and a Black Hawk helicopter that had just lifted off. The entire horizon to the north and northeast of the XC-57 crash site suddenly seemed as if it was on fire.

“Carsi, Carsi, this is Kuvvet, we are taking heavy fire, direction unknown!” the Second Division task force commander radioed. “Say ETE. Over!” No response. The general looked over his left shoulder toward Highway Three, which his eastern battalion should have been racing up to flank the Iraqis…

…and through his night-vision goggles he saw an eerie glow on the horizon about three miles behind him—and the flickering of some very large objects burning and exploding. “Carsi, this is Kuvvet, say your pos!”

“Good strike, Boomer,” Patrick McLanahan said. The first AGM-177 Wolverine strike missile released a CBU-97 Sensor-Fuzed Weapon over the lead vehicles in the easternmost battalion driving southbound as part of the Nahla operation. Dropped from fifteen thousand feet, the CBU-97’s dispenser released ten submunitions, each of which deployed four skeets and laser and infrared seekers. As the submunitions fell toward the column of vehicles, they started to spin, and as they did they detected and classified all the vehicles below. At the proper altitude each skeet detonated over a vehicle, sending a molten blob of copper down onto its prey. The blob of superheated copper easily penetrated the usually thinner top armor of the Turkish vehicles, destroying every vehicle on the road for a quarter of a mile.

“Roger that, General,” Hunter Noble said. “The Wolverine is maneuvering for the western column for the second GBU-97 pass, and then it’ll attack the troops closest to Nahla with the eighty-seven.” The CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition was a mine-laying weapon that dispensed over two hundred bomblets over a three-thousand-square-foot rectangular area, effective against soldiers and light vehicles. “The second Wolverine is in a parking orbit to the south in case the Iraqis have trouble with the Mosul brigades.”

“Hopefully we won’t need it,” Patrick said. “Let me know if—”

“Problem, Patrick—I think we lost the first Wolverine,” Boomer interjected. “Lost contact. It might have been shot down if it was detected on radar when it made its attack.”

“Send in the second Wolverine on the western battalion,” Patrick ordered.

“Moving. But Jaffar’s guys might make contact before it arrives.”

The eastern column of Turkish infantry vehicles was initially stopped cold by the first Wolverine attack, but the survivors were soon on the move. As they raced forward to meet up with the center battalion, several Iraqi antitank teams in spider holes along the highway opened fire, destroying five Humvees and an M113 armored personnel carrier. But the Iraqis were soon coming under intense fire from other Turkish troops, and they were trapped in their spiderholes. A line of three Humvees had discovered three spider-holes and quickly destroyed the first one with forty-millimeter automatic grenade fire.

“Wa’if hena! Wa’if hena! Stop!” the Turks shouted in Arabic. They exited their Humvees, weapons raised. “Get out now, hands on your…!”

Suddenly they heard a loud CCRRACK! and one of the Humvees exploded in the blink of an eye. Before the explosion subsided they heard another CCRRACK! and the second Humvee detonated, followed by the third. The Turks flattened on their stomachs, searching for the enemy who had just blown up their vehicles…

…and a few moments later, they saw who it was: the ten-foot-tall American robot, carrying the impossibly large sniper rifle and a large backpack. “Time to run along,” the robot said in electronically synthesized Turkish. It leveled the big rifle and ordered, “Drop your weapons.” The Turks did as they were told, turned, and ran after their comrades. The Iraqis leaped out of their spider holes, scooped up the Turks’ weapons and their remaining antitank missiles, and went looking for more targets.

“Jaffar’s guys are doing pretty good on the eastern side,” Charlie Turlock said. “I think we have the rest of this battalion broken up, thanks to the Wolverine. How’s it going on the west, Whack?”

“Not so good,” Wayne Macomber said. He was “tank plinking” on every large armored vehicle that came within range, but the column of Turkish vehicles coming toward them seemed endless.

“Need some help?”

“General?”

“The second Wolverine is five minutes out,” Patrick said. “The first one went Tango-Uniform. But we still have two companies on the east that I want to get turned around first. We have to hope the Iraqis hold.”

“Colonel Jaffar?”

“I am sorry I left such a small force at the reconnaissance plane,” Jaffar radioed amid loud engine noises and a lot of out-of-breath gasping. “Some of our vehicles broke down as well.”

Patrick could see where Jaffar’s battalion was relative to the four platoons guarding the XC-57, and like the second Wolverine he was not going to make it before the Turks started their attack. “General, I’m closer,” Charlie Turlock radioed. “Whack and I together might be enough to at least slow the Turks down long enough.”

“No, you have the eastern flank, Charlie; we don’t want anyone stunting around from that direction,” Patrick said. “Martinez, I need you to sprint ahead of Jaffar’s guys and engage.”

“With pleasure, General,” replied Angel Martinez, piloting a CID unit accompanying Yusuf Jaffar’s battalion. Martinez was a jack-of-all-trades in Scion Aviation International: he had police training; he fixed and drove trucks and construction equipment; he could even cook. When they were looking for volunteers to go to Iraq, his was the first hand up. On the long flight over, Wayne and Charlie gave him ground school lessons on how to pilot a Cybernetic Infantry Device; when Wayne Macomber ordered him to mount up after they had arrived at Nahla and were going to take down the local security force, it was his first time actually piloting a CID.

Now this was only his second time—and he was going to face an entire Turkish army battalion.

“Listen up, Angel,” Charlie radioed. “The armor and the rail gun are great, but your main weapons aboard a CID are speed, mobility, and situational awareness. Your main weaknesses are massed platoon-or company-level weapons because they can drain your power quickly. You have to move to avoid heavy weapons being able to concentrate fire on you. Shoot, move, scan, move, shoot, move.”

“Charlie, you drilled me on that mantra so much I say it in my sleep,” Martinez said. He was racing ahead of Jaffar’s battalion with breathtaking speed, well over fifty miles an hour across the open field. “Target’s in sight.”

“The Turks are concentrating on the platoons ahead of them,” Whack said, “but the minute you open fire they’ll—”

“Projectile away,” Martinez said. He dove to the ground in a prone position, selected a Turkish armored personnel carrier in his sights, and fired. The APC didn’t explode or even stop when the tungsten-steel alloy projectile hit, because the sausage-size slug passed right through it as if it never existed—but every man inside the vehicle was shredded to bits by shards of the APC’s thin steel fuselage flying uncontrollably inside the vehicle. “Damn, I must’ve missed,” Martinez said.

“No, but you gotta remember to go for the engine compartment, transmission, magazine, or the tracks, not just the crew compartment,” Whack said. “The projectiles will pass through the thin steel or aluminum easily. Every infantryman aboard may be dead, but the vehicle can still fight if the driver or commander made it.”

“Roger that, Whack,” Martinez said. As soon as he stood up, he started taking fire, including automatic forty-millimeter grenade rounds. He dashed sideways for a hundred yards, searching for the origin of those rounds. He soon found it—not one, but two APCs.

“Angel, keep moving!” Charlie shouted. “Those two APCs have you lined up!”

“Not for long,” Martinez shouted back. He took aim and fired directly through the front of one APC. It immediately shuddered to a stop, and soon a fire broke out in the engine compartment. But Martinez couldn’t enjoy the view, because two more APCs had zeroed in on him. He immediately loaded their locations in his target computer’s memory, aimed, and fired. But they moved quickly, and he was only able to get one before having to run because he was being bombarded by the other. “Guys, I have a feeling they anticipated finding us out here,” he said. “I’m getting clobbered.”

“Target on the run and shoot at as many as you can when you stop,” Whack said. “Don’t target while you’re stopped.”

“It looks like they’re gunning for us for sure,” Charlie said. She fired four ballistic rockets from her backpack, which had infrared and millimeter-wave radars that guided them to a group of four Turkish armored personnel carriers that had appeared out of nowhere from the east. “At least it gives Jaffar’s troops a chance to—”

“Helicopters inbound, bearing northwest, five miles!” Patrick shouted. “They look like gunships accompanied by a scout! Too low to spot them farther out!” Before Martinez could search for the newcomers, the Turkish Cobra gunship launched a Hellfire laser-guided missile.

“Evasive moves, Angel!” Whack shouted. Now that the scout helicopter, a U.S.-licensed but Turkish-built Kiowa, had to keep its laser on Martinez, it was an easy target for Macomber’s rail gun, and he blew the sensor ball atop the helicopter’s rotor mast apart seconds later…but not before the Hellfire missile hit Martinez on the left part of his chest.

“Angel’s down! Angel’s down!” Whack shouted. He tried to run over to him, but sustained fire from the battalion in front of Jaffar’s security platoons kept him pinned down. “I can’t get to him,” he said as he fired at more oncoming APCs, then reloaded his rail gun. “I’m not sure how much longer we can hold these guys off. I’m down to fifty percent power and ammo.”

“The Wolverine will be overhead in one minute,” Patrick said. “More helicopters inbound!”

“I’m going to try to get to Martinez,” Whack said.

“The Turks are too close, Wayne,” Patrick said.

“We might have to retreat, but I’m not leaving without Martinez.” Whack fired several more times, waited for the return fire to subside, then said, “Here I—”

At that moment several dozen flashes of lights erupted from the west, and moments after that Turkish armored vehicles started exploding like firecrackers. “Sorry I am late once again, gentlemen,” Yusuf Jaffar radioed, “but I am still not accustomed to your speed. I think you may get your comrade, Macomber.”

“On the way!” Whack fired the thrusters on the boots of his Tin Man armor, and in three jumps he was with Martinez. At that moment the earth in front of him began to sizzle and pop like water sprayed on a hot pan as the Wolverine began sowing bomblets and antipersonnel mines on the Turkish troops. The air was getting thick with smoke and the screams of trapped Turks. “You okay in there, Angel?” Whack knew from his biometric datalink that Martinez was alive, but most of the left side of the robot was shattered, and he couldn’t move or communicate. Whack picked up the robot. “Hold on, Martinez. This might hurt a bit on the landing.”

Just as he hit his thrusters, a Hellfire missile fired from the Turkish Cobra gunship exploded at the spot he had just left, and Whack and Martinez were swatted out of the sky like clay pigeons hit by birdshot.

The BERP armor protected Whack from the blast, but after he landed he found all of his helmet systems dark and silent. He had no choice but to take his helmet off. Illuminated by the nearby fires of burning vehicles, he could see Martinez lying about fifty yards away, and sprinted over to him. But just as he got within twenty yards, the ground erupted with heavy-caliber shells peppering the area around the robot. The Cobra gunship had moved into cannon range and was spraying twenty millimeter shells on him. Whack knew he was next. Without power, his BERP armor wouldn’t protect him.

He looked around for someplace to hide. The nearest Iraqi machine-gun nest surrounding the XC-57 was about a hundred yards away. He hated to leave Martinez, but there was no way he could carry him, so he started running. Hell, he thought grimly, maybe running made it a little harder for the Cobra pilot to kill him. He heard a machine gun open fire, and he tried doing a little dodging and weaving like he’d done as a football player at the Air Force Academy. Who knows how good those Turkish gunners are, he thought as he waited for the shells to rip into him. Maybe—

And then he heard a tremendous explosion, big enough and near enough to knock him off his feet. He turned and looked up just in time to see the Cobra gunship crash into the field just a couple dozen yards away. As the sound and feel of burning metal wafted over him, he got to his feet and ran. The heat and choking smoke made him crouch down as he ran, and he could hear and feel the missiles and ammo on the burning chopper cooking off behind him. Wouldn’t it be a bitch, he thought, to avoid getting turned into Swiss cheese by a Cobra gunship only to have the chopper’s unexpended ammo get him? Of course, that’s my luck, he thought, that’s the way I’m supposed to—

Suddenly it felt as if he had run headlong into a steel barricade. “Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Mr. Jackrabbit,” he heard the electronic voice of a CID unit say. It was Charlie, who had run over from her position to the east. “You’re clear. Take a minute. You lose your headgear?”

“I lost everything…the suit’s dead,” Whack said. “Go get Martinez.” Charlie waited a few moments, shielding Whack with her armor, until the explosions stopped on the downed Cobra, then ran off around the burning wreckage. She returned a few minutes later carrying the other CID unit. She then dragged Martinez with one hand and carried Macomber under her other arm back to the security post near the XC-57.

“Those other gunships are coming in,” Charlie said, picking up her rail gun and scanning the skies with the CID unit’s sensors. “Most are going after Jaffar’s brigade, but there’s a couple after us.” She paused for a moment, studying the electronic images of the battlefield. “I’ll draw them away,” she said, then bolted off to the east.

Whack peeked out over the sandbag bunker…and when he looked in the sky he saw the unmistakable flare of a missile motor igniting, and he jumped to his feet and ran away from the bunker as fast as he—

He was instantly thrown off his feet, blinded, deafened, half-broiled, and pelted with supersonic pieces of debris when the missile hit just a few yards behind him. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t knocked unconscious, so all he could do was lie on the ground in pain, with his entire head feeling like a charcoal briquette. But a few seconds later, he was scooped up off the ground. “Ch-Charlie…?”

“My rail gun’s DOA,” Charlie said as she ran. “I’m getting you out of—” She suddenly stopped, turned, and crouched down, shielding Whack from a thunderous burst of cannon fire from the Cobra. “I’m going to put you down and get that thing,” she said. “He doesn’t want you, he wants—” The Cobra pilot fired again. Whack could feel the heavy-caliber shells shoving him and Charlie as if they had their backs to a hurricane. “I…I’m losing power,” she said after the last fusillade ended. “That last blast got something…a battery, I think. I don’t think I can move.” The Cobra opened fire again…

At that moment they heard an explosion behind them, the cannon fire ceased, and they heard the sounds of another helicopter crash. Neither of them moved until they heard vehicles approaching. “Charlie?”

“I can move, but it’s real slow,” she said. “You okay?”

“I’m okay.” Whack painfully wriggled out from the CID unit’s mechanical arms and looked around for the Turks. “Stay put. We’ve got company.” The vehicles were almost on them. He had no weapons, nothing he could fight with. There was nothing he could—

“Raise your hands and don’t move,” he heard a voice say…an American voice. Whack did as he was told. He saw the vehicle was an Avenger mobile air defense unit. An Army sergeant came up to him, wearing night-vision goggles, which he raised. “You gotta be a couple of the Scion guys, because I ain’t seen nothin’ like you two before.”

“Macomber, and that’s Turlock,” Whack said. “I’ve got another guy back there.” The sergeant whistled and waved, and a few moments later an open-back Humvee came up. Whack helped load Charlie up on the Humvee. As she was taken back to Nahla, he got another Humvee, went back and found Martinez, had some soldiers load him up, and took him back to base as well.

Martinez was unconscious and had several broken bones and some internal bleeding and was taken to the infirmary for emergency surgery; Charlie and Whack were checked out and were fine, with Whack suffering a number of cuts, burns, and bruises. She and Whack were taken to a guard post near the departure end of the runway, where two Humvees, a Stryker wheeled armored command post vehicle, and an Avenger unit were partially hidden by runway end light structures and the Instrument Landing System transmitter building. Standing outside the Stryker watching the battle through image-intensified binoculars were Patrick McLanahan, Hunter Noble, Jon Masters, Captain Kelvin Cotter, the air traffic management officer, and Vice President Kenneth Phoenix with his Secret Service detail.

“Glad you guys are all right,” Patrick said. He handed out water and energy bars. “That was close.”

“Why are you guys out here?” Macomber asked.

“The jamming has knocked out all our radars and most of our communications,” Cotter said. “The Triple-C is pretty much dark. I can get line-of-sight laser comms out here.”

“What’s the word, General?” Wayne asked. “How bad did we get hit?”

“The word is, it’s just about over,” Patrick said. Wayne lowered his head dejectedly…until Patrick added, “It’s almost over, and it looks like we won it.”

“No shit?”

“Between the CIDs, you, and the Wolverines, we pretty much stopped the Turks completely,” Patrick said. “The Turks weren’t expecting the Iraqis to fight so hard, and Jaffar’s guys went berserker on them. Then, when Wilhelm joined it, the Turks turned and headed north.”

“I had a feeling Wilhelm wasn’t going to just sit around while Jaffar went out there,” Whack said.

“It was four brigades against two, plus you guys and the cruise missiles, but that was enough for the Turks,” Vice President Phoenix said. “I have a feeling their hearts really weren’t in it. They came to Iraq to hunt down PKK, not fight Iraqis and Americans. Then they started fighting robots and armored soldiers firing Buzz Lightyear rail guns, and they split.”

“I hope so, sir,” Patrick said. “But I don’t trust Hirsiz one bit. He’s already been pushed over the brink by the PKK, and now we handed him a defeat. He’s likely to lash out. I don’t think it’s likely he’ll stop at bombing some suspected PKK-friendly businesses in Irbil.”

“Looks like Jaffar will be reinforcing his forward battalions and start taking his casualties back to base,” Cotter said, stepping out of the Stryker and scanning the area to the north of their position with binoculars. “Colonel Wilhelm and Major Weatherly will keep their battalions on the line in case…yaaah!” Cotter screamed as an impossibly bright flash of white light pierced the night sky, exactly where he was looking.

The first flash was followed by hundreds more, each one brighter than the last, and then the thunder of massive explosions and the roar of superheated air reached them. Clouds of fire rose hundreds of feet into the sky, and soon they could feel the heat wash over them like ocean waves rolling onto the beach.

“What in hell was that?” Phoenix cried. He and Jon Masters helped Cotter, who was flash-blinded, to the ground and poured water on his face.

“Smells like napalm, or thermobaric bombs,” Macomber said. He took Cotter’s binoculars, reset the optronic circuits so any more flashes wouldn’t blind him, too, and scanned the area. “Je…sus…”

“Who got hit, Wayne?” Patrick asked.

“Looks like Jaffar’s two forward battalions,” Whack said in a quiet voice. “God, that must be what hell looks like down there.” He scanned the area around the blast zone. “I don’t see our guys. I’ll try to get in contact with Wilhelm and—”

Just then there were two huge bright flashes, followed moments later by two massive explosions…this time, behind them, inside the base. The chest-crushing concussions threw everyone to the ground, and they crawled for any bit of safety they could find. Two massive fiery mushroom clouds rose into the sky. “Get under cover!” Patrick screamed over the hurricane-like chaos as clouds of smoke rolled over them. “Get under the Stryker!” The Secret Service agents pulled Phoenix into his Humvee, and everyone else crawled under the Stryker just as they were pelted by massive chunks of falling debris.

It took a long time for the deadly debris to stop falling, longer before anyone could breathe well enough through the choking clouds of dust and smoke, and longer still before anyone found the courage to get up and survey the area. There was a massive fire somewhere in the center of the base.

“That’s twice I’ve been too close to a bomb attack!” Jon Masters shouted. “Don’t tell me—Turkish bombers again, right?”

“That would be my guess,” Patrick said. “What got hit over there?”

One of the Stryker crewmembers got out of his vehicle, and when everyone else saw his eyes widen and his jaw drop, a chill of dread ran up their spines. “Holy shit,” he breathed, “I think they just nailed the Triple-C.”

“What do you mean, they retreated?” President Kurzat Hirsiz asked. “Why did they retreat? They outnumbered the Iraqis five to one!”

“I know that, Mr. President, I know,” Minister of Defense Hasan Cizek said. “But they weren’t just fighting Iraqis. The American army helped them.”

“God…so we were fighting Americans, too,” Hirsiz said. He shook his head. “It was bad enough we decided to draw the Iraqis into a fight; I never expected the Americans to respond, too.”

“As well as two of those American robots and one of those armored commandos…the Tin Man soldiers,” Cizek added. “They also had two cruise missiles that attacked with bomblets and antipersonnel mines.”

“What?” Hirsiz exploded. “How badly did we get hit?”

“Very badly, sir,” Cizek said. “Possibly twenty percent or more.”

“Twenty percent…in one battle?” a voice shouted. It was Prime Minister Ays¸e Akas. She had not been seen in public since the declaration of a state of emergency and the disbanding of the National Assembly, but had been meeting with lawmakers most of the time. “Mr. President, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I did not summon you here, Prime Minister,” Hirsiz said. “Besides, we did much worse to the Iraqis. What do you want? To turn in your resignation, I hope.”

“Kurzat, please, stop this insanity now before this turns into full-scale war with Iraq and the United States,” Akas pleaded. “End it. Declare victory and bring the troops home.”

“Not before the PKK is wiped out, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said.

“Then what are you doing attacking Tall Kayf?” Akas asked. “There are few PKK in that area.”

“There is a situation at that air base that needed to be resolved,” Hirsiz said.

“I know about the American spy plane—you still allow me to watch television, although you’ve taken away my telephone and passport and keep me under twenty-four/seven guard,” Akas said. “But why would you waste Turkish lives for a hunk of burned metal?” She looked at Cizek. “Or are the generals in charge now?”

“I am still in charge here, Prime Minister, you can be assured of this,” Hirsiz said.

“So you gave the order to bomb Irbil?”

“What is it you want, Prime Minister?” Hirsiz asked irritably, finding a cigarette.

“I think you should allow me to meet with Vice President Phoenix, in Irbil or Baghdad.”

“I told you, no,” Hirsiz said. “In a state of emergency the president must decide all actions, and I don’t have time to meet with Phoenix or anyone else until the crisis is resolved. Besides, Phoenix is still at Nahla, and it’s far too dangerous for him to travel.”

“I won’t go as an opponent of the war, but as the prime minister of Turkey, who, as you said, has little power in time of war, with the National Assembly disbanded and a council of war replacing the cabinet,” Akas said. She stopped and blinked in disbelief. “You said Phoenix is still at Nahla? He’s at Nahla Air Base? Isn’t that where the fighting is, where all those men perished?” She saw Hirsiz and Cizek exchange glances. “Is there something else? What?”

Hirsiz hesitated to tell her, then shrugged and nodded to Cizek. “It’s going to be in the news soon anyway.”

“We bombed Nahla Air Base,” Cizek said. Akas’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “We targeted the headquarters building of the Iraqi and American forces.”

“You what? Bombed their headquarters?” Akas shouted. “You are insane, both of you. Is Phoenix dead?”

“No, he was not in the building at the time,” Hirsiz said.

“Lucky for you!”

“I did not start shooting at Iraqis and Americans until they started shooting at Turks!” Hirsiz shouted. “I did not start this war! The PKK murders innocent men, women, and children, and no one says a word to us. Well, they will talk to us now, won’t they? They will scream and complain and threaten me! I don’t care! I am not going to stop until Iraq stops harboring the PKK and promises to help eradicate them. Maybe with a few dead Americans in Iraq by our hands, they will talk to us about destroying the PKK.”

Akas looked at Hirsiz as if studying an oil painting or an animal in the zoo, trying to find some hidden understanding or meaning in what she saw. All she could discern was hatred. He didn’t even look back at her. “How many Americans were killed in the base, Minister?”

“Twenty or twenty-five, I don’t remember; about a hundred injured,” Cizek replied.

“My God…”

“Ays¸e, maybe it is a good idea for you to meet with Phoenix and talk with Gardner,” Cizek said. Hirsiz turned, his eyes wide with surprise and his jaw set in anger. Cizek held up a hand. “Kurzat, I’m afraid the Americans will retaliate—maybe not militarily, not right away, but with every other means at their disposal. If we don’t start negotiating with them, they’re more likely to hit back. Call a cease-fire, have our forces hold in position, and let Ays¸e go to Baghdad. Meanwhile we’ll resupply our forces, bring back our wounded and dead, and start collecting intelligence on the whereabouts of the PKK and their supporters. We have to be sure we don’t lose support from our allies, but we don’t have to give up everything we’ve gained.”

Hirsiz’s expression was a mixture of rage and confusion, and his head snapped back at his two advisers as if it were out of control. “End? End now? Are we any closer to destroying the PKK than we were five thousand lives ago? If we don’t follow through with this, the five thousand soldiers who have lost their lives will have died for nothing.”

“I think we have shown the world our crisis, Kurzat,” Akas said. “You have also shown the world, and especially the PKK and their Kurdish supporters, that Turkey can and will lash out to protect its people and interests. But if you let the situation spin out of control, the world will simply think you’re insane. You don’t want that to happen.”

Hirsiz studied both of his advisers. Akas could see the president looking more and more alone by the second. He returned to his desk and sat down heavily, staring through the large picture window. The sun was just coming up, and it looked like it was going to be a cold, drizzly day, Akas thought, which certainly must make Hirsiz feel even more alone.

“All I tried to do was protect the Turkish people,” he said softly. “All I wanted to do was stop the murdering.”

“We will, Kurzat,” Akas said. “We’ll do it together—your cabinet, the military, the Americans, and the Iraqis. We’ll get everyone involved. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Hirsiz closed his eyes, then nodded. “Call an immediate cease-fire, Hasan,” he said. “We have the phased withdrawal plan already drawn up: execute phases one and two.”

The minister of national defense’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Phase two?” he asked. “But, sir, that pulls troops all the way back to the border. Are you sure you want to pull back that much? I recommend we—”

“Ays¸e, you may notify the foreign minister that we wish to meet with the Americans and Iraqis right away to negotiate international inspectors and peacekeepers to monitor the border,” Hirsiz went on. “You may also notify the speaker of the National Assembly that, pending a peaceful and successful withdrawal from Iraq, I will cancel the state of emergency and reseat the parliament.”

Ays¸e Akas walked over to Hirsiz and hugged him. “You’ve made the right choice, Kurzat,” she said. “I’ll get to work right away.” She gave Cizek a smile and hurried out of the president’s office.

Hirsiz stood by his desk and looked out the window for a long moment; then he turned and was surprised to see his minister of national defense still in his office. “Hasan?”

“What are you doing, Kurzat?” Cizek asked. “A cease-fire: fine.

That will give us time to rearm, reinforce, and regroup. But a pullback all the way to the border, before we’ve had a chance to set up a buffer zone and eradicate the PKK?”

“I’m tired, Hasan,” Hirsiz said wearily. “We’ve lost too many men…”

“The soldiers died defending their country, Mr. President!” Cizek said. “If you pull back before the operation is finished, they will have died for nothing! You said so yourself!”

“We will have other opportunities, Hasan. We have the world’s attention now. They’ll know we’re serious when it comes to dealing with the PKK. Now give the orders.”

Cizek appeared as if he was going to continue to argue, but instead gave a curt nod and walked out.

“I suppose it could’ve been a lot worse for us,” Colonel Jack Wilhelm said. He was once again standing in their makeshift morgue in the large aircraft hangar, overseeing the preparation of the remains of the soldiers killed in action the night before. “Twenty-one soldiers killed in the Triple-C, including my ops officer, plus another thirty-two in action against the Turks, along with over two hundred injured, two dozen critical.” He turned to Patrick McLanahan. “Sorry about Martinez, General. I heard he died a little while ago.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Your guys and your gadgets did great, General. You really came through.”

“Not for our client, unfortunately,” Patrick said. “The Iraqis lost over two hundred and fifty.”

“But Jaffar and his men fought like wildcats,” Wilhelm said. “I always thought the guy was all bluff and bluster. He turned out to be a good field commander and a hard charger.” His radio beeped, and he listened in his earpiece, responded, and signed off. “The Turkish prime minister has announced a cease-fire and said that Turkish troops are pulling back to the border,” he said. “It looks like it’s over. What in hell were the Turks thinking? Why did they start this?”

“Frustration, anger, vengeance: dozens of reasons,” Patrick said. “Turkey is one of those countries that just doesn’t get any respect. They’re not European, not Asian, not the Caucasus, not Middle Eastern; they’re Muslim but secular. They control major land and sea routes, have one of the largest economies and armies in the world, powerful enough to have a seat on the United Nations Security Council, but they still aren’t allowed into the European Union and they’re treated like the red-haired stepchild in NATO. I think I’d be frustrated, too.”

“They may deserve respect, but they also deserve to get their butts kicked,” Wilhelm said. “So, I assume your contract is over…or is it? Maybe the Iraqis need you more than ever now?”

“We’ll stay for now,” Patrick said. “I’ll recommend we monitor the Turkish cease-fire and pullback, and we’ll probably be around awhile longer until the Iraqis get their own surveillance force built up. They have a small fleet of Cessna Caravans that have been modified for ground surveillance and communications relay, and there’s talk of them leasing some UAVs.”

“So you may be out of a job soon?”

“I think so.” Patrick took a deep breath, one so deep that Wilhelm noticed. “This is a good job and a good bunch of guys and girls, but I’ve been away from home too long.”

“To tell you the truth, it felt good to get out of the Tank and lead a bunch of troops into battle again,” Wilhelm said. “I’ve been watching my guys do it on video screens and computer monitors for far too long.” He gave McLanahan a slight smile. “But it is a young man’s game, right, General?”

“I didn’t say that.” Patrick nodded to the tables of body bags once again lined up in the hangar. “But I’ve been around this too long.”

“You flyboys see war completely different from the soldiers on the ground,” Wilhelm said. “To you, combat is computers and satellites and UAVs.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I know you’ve done a lot and seen a lot, General, but this is different,” Wilhelm went on. “You manage systems and sensors and machines. We manage fighting men. I don’t see dead men and women here, General—I see soldiers that put on a uniform, picked up a rifle, followed me, and who fell in battle. I’m not sad for them. I’m sad for their families and loved ones, but I’m proud of them.”

The phone on the president’s desk rang. “Uh…Mr. President, Minister Cizek and General Guzlev to see you,” the president’s aide stammered.

President Kurzat Hirsiz looked at his watch, then at the calendar on his computer. “Did we have a meeting scheduled, Nazim?”

“No, sir. They…they say it’s urgent. Very urgent.”

Hirsiz sighed. “Very well. Tell my wife I’ll be a little late.” He started to straighten up the papers on his desk, prioritizing the next day’s activities, when he heard the door to his office open. “Come on in, gentlemen,” he said distractedly as he worked, “but can we make this quick? I promised my wife I’d—”

When he looked up, he saw Minister of National Defense Hasan Cizek and military chief of staff General Abdullah Guzlev standing in the middle of the office, waiting patiently for him—and both men were dressed in green camouflage battle-dress uniforms and glossy paratrooper boots, and both wore American-made M1911 .45-caliber sidearms in polished black leather holsters.

“What in hell is going on here?” Hirsiz asked incredulously. “Why are you in a military uniform, Hasan, and why are you carrying weapons in the Pink Palace?”

“Good evening, Kurzat,” Cizek said. He motioned over his right shoulder, and several members of the Presidential Guard rushed in, with Hirsiz’s outer office secretary bound in plastic handcuffs. The guards grabbed Hirsiz and bound his wrists in plastic handcuffs as well.

“What in hell is this?” Hirsiz shouted. “What are you doing? I am the president of the Republic of Turkey!”

“You are no longer president of Turkey, Kurzat,” Cizek said. “I met with General Guzlev, the chiefs of staff, and the Ministry of the Interior, and we have decided that you are not competent to give orders anymore. You said so yourself, Kurzat: you’re tired. Well, your weariness is a danger to the brave men and women in the field who are risking their lives on the president’s word. We feel you cannot be trusted to give any more orders under a state of emergency. Prime Minister Akas, of course, is in no better shape. So we have decided to take over for you.”

“What? What are you saying? What in hell are you doing?”

“You know what’s happening here, Hirsiz,” Cizek said. “The only question is, what will you do? Will you play the befuddled and embattled president, or will you take responsibility for your failures and do the responsible thing?”

“What on earth are you talking about? You…you are going to stage a coup d’état?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Cizek said. “Under a state of emergency, you can appoint anyone to be commander in chief of the armed forces. You appoint me and get some well-deserved rest for a few years until you are well enough to resume your duties; I rescind the order for the stage two pullback, and we consolidate our gains in Iraq.”

“This is insanity! I will not comply! I will never relinquish my office! I am the president of Turkey! I was elected by the Grand National Assembly…!”

“You swore an oath to protect the people of Turkey, but instead you stand by and do nothing but moan and drool while thousands of soldiers are killed by the Iraqis and Americans,” Cizek shouted. “I will stand for it no longer. The only proper response is a military one, not a political one, and so the army must be free to end this crisis. You are afraid to unleash the army and the Jandarma: I am not. Which will it be, Mr. President? Take your orders from me, and you and your family will be allowed to stay in a very comfortable residence in Tarsus or maybe even Dipkarpaz, under very careful security and seclusion—”

“As your puppet?”

“As president of the republic, Hirsiz, taking sound and urgent advice from your military advisers to end the attacks against our country,” Cizek said. “If you do not agree to this, you will suffer a terrible heart attack, and we will remove you and your family from Ankara forever.”

“You cannot do this!” Hirsiz protested. “I have done nothing wrong! You have no authority…!”

“I swore an oath to protect this country, Hirsiz,” Cizek shouted, “and I will not sit idly by while you erase all the gains our brave soldiers have made for this country. You leave me absolutely no choice!”

Hirsiz hesitated again, and Guzlev pulled out his .45 and pointed it at the president. “I told you he wouldn’t do it, Hasan…!” he said.

Hirsiz’s eyes bulged, his arms and shoulders went limp, and his knees wobbled—it was as if all of the fluids in his body left him. “No, please,” he whimpered. “I don’t want to die. Tell me what to do.”

“Good call, Hirsiz,” Cizek threw some papers on the desk. “Sign these papers.” Hirsiz signed them without reading them or even raising his head except to find the signature line. “We will escort you to the national communications center, where you will personally address the people of the republic.” A sheaf of papers was placed in his hands. “Here is what you will say. It is important for you to address the people of Turkey as soon as possible.”

“When can I see my wife, my family…?”

“Business first, Hirsiz,” Cizek said. He nodded to an officer of the Presidential Guard. “Take him away.” Hirsiz mumbled something as he and his aide were led out of the office under heavy military guard.

Guzlev holstered his .45 with an exasperated shove. “Balls, I thought I was going to have to shoot the fucking bastard after all, Cizek,” he cursed. “He’s going to look like shit on television.”

“All the better,” Cizek said. “If he can’t or won’t do it, I’ll read it myself.” He stepped toward Guzlev. “Rescind that phase one and two withdrawal order and be prepared to march on Irbil. If one peshmerga fighter, Iraqi soldier, or American—especially those robots and Tin Man creations—pops his head out just a centimeter, I want a squadron of jets to blow them all straight to Hell.” He thought for a moment, then said, “No, I’m not going to wait for those robots and the Tin Men to come after us. I want Nahla Air Base shut down. They think they can kill a thousand Turks and just march away? I want the place leveled, do you understand me? Leveled!”

“With pleasure, Hasan…I mean, Mr. President,” Guzlev said. “With pleasure.”

Following the memorial service for the fallen soldiers from Second Regiment, Patrick McLanahan, Jack Wilhelm, Jon Masters, and chief of security Kris Thompson escorted Vice President Ken Phoenix to the flight line, where a newly arrived CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft was waiting to fly him to Bahrain.

The vice president shook hands with Wilhelm. “You did an outstanding job out there last night, Colonel,” Phoenix said. “I’m sorry for your losses.”

“Thank you, sir,” Wilhelm said. “I wish we hadn’t gotten sucker-punched like that, but I’m glad the Turks decided to call the cease-fire, pull back, and start negotiations. It’ll give us a chance to fly our boys home.”

“I’ll feel better when you’re all home, safe and secure,” Phoenix said. “Thank you for leading these men and women so well.”

“Thank you, sir,” Wilhelm said, saluting.

Phoenix returned the salute. “I’m not in your chain of command, Colonel,” Phoenix said. “I don’t rate a salute.”

“You stood with my troops, you took enemy fire, and you didn’t start crying, whining, ordering us around, or getting in the way,” Wilhelm said. “You earned it, sir. If I may say so, you looked very…presidential.”

“Why, thank you, Colonel,” Phoenix said. “Coming from you, that’s high praise. Lousy politics, but high praise.”

“Good thing I don’t do politics, sir,” Wilhelm said. “Have a good trip.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Phoenix turned to Patrick and shook his hand. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Patrick,” he said, “but I think you and your team did an extraordinary job out there last night.”

Thank you, sir,” Patrick said. “Unfortunately I still don’t think it’s over, but a cease-fire and a pullback is definitely good news.”

“I read your plan for action against Diyarbakir,” Phoenix said. “I don’t think there’s any chance the president will approve it, especially when he learns it comes from you. But I’ll talk to him about it.”

“We can put it into action in less than a day, and at the very least it would send a message that we’re serious.”

“That it does,” Phoenix agreed. “I’d also like to talk to you about this company of yours and your incredible weapon systems like the CID, the Tin Man, and those electromagnetic rail guns. I don’t know why we’re not fielding thousands of them.” He looked at Patrick with a puzzled expression, then added, “And I’d like to know why you have them, and not the U.S. Army.”

“I’ll explain everything, sir,” Patrick said.

“I doubt it,” Phoenix said with a wry smile, “but I still want to talk to you about them. Good-bye, General.”

“Have a safe trip, sir.” The vice president nodded, loaded aboard the CV-22, and the big twin rotors were turning moments later.

It was hard for Patrick to hear at first over the roar of the Osprey’s twin rotors in full vertical takeoff power, but he did, and he opened his radio. Wilhelm was doing the same at that very moment. “Go ahead, Boomer,” he said.

“Bandits!” Hunter Noble shouted. At that moment the air raid sirens sounded. “Two formations of ten bombers, supersonic, just crossed the Turkey-Iraq border, headed this way, five minutes out!”

“Get the Osprey out of here!” Patrick shouted. He waved at Jon Masters and Kris Thompson to follow him. “Get him the hell away from the base!”

Wilhelm was shouting into his radio as well: “Shelters, shelters, shelters!” he cried. “Everyone into air raid shelters, now!”

As they ran for open ground, they could still see the CV-22 as it took off and headed south. At first its flight path looked totally normal—standard climb-out, gradual acceleration, smooth transition from vertical to turboprop flight. But moments later the Osprey banked hard left and dove for the ground, and they could hear the engines whine in protest as the big transport changed from turboprop to helicopter mode. It dodged left and right and made a low approach to a group of buildings in Tall Kayf, hoping to hide in the radar ground clutter.

But it was too late—the Turkish missiles were already in the air. The Turkish F-15Es had already locked up the CV-22 over a hundred miles away and had launched two Turkish-modified AIM-54 missiles—ironically nicknamed “Phoenix”—at the Osprey. Formerly serving with the U.S. Navy to provide long-range defense of an aircraft carrier battle group, the AIM-54 had been the mainstay of the U.S. Navy’s carrier-based air wings, capable of destroying massive formations of Russian bombers before they could get within range to launch antiship cruise missiles. After it was retired in 2004, the U.S. military’s inventory of its longest-range, hardest-hitting air-to-air missiles was put up for auction, and the Turkish air force snapped them up.

After launch, the Phoenix missiles climbed to an altitude of eighty thousand feet at a speed of almost five times the speed of sound and then began a dive toward the target area, guided by the Turkish F-15E’s powerful radar. Within a few seconds of impact, the AIM-54 activated its own terminal guidance radar to close in for the kill. One missile malfunctioned and self-destructed, but the second missile hit the CV-22 Osprey’s right rotor disk as the aircraft was maneuvering to land in a parking lot. The right engine exploded, sending the aircraft into a violent left spin for a few seconds before crashing to the ground, then flipping upside down from the force of the explosion.

Back at Nahla, the scene was complete mayhem. With the Command and Control Center already destroyed, the main targets for the Turkish bombers were the flight line and barracks. Every hangar, including the XC-57 Loser’s storage hangar and the makeshift morgue containing the remains of the fallen American and Iraqi soldiers, was hit by at least one two-thousand-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions bomb, a satellite-guided upgrade to a conventional radar-delivered gravity bomb. The parking ramps and taxiways that had not been hit before by the Turks in their initial invasion were hit this time.

The soldiers at Nahla were on edge and ready for anything following their battle the night before, so when the air-raid siren went off, the men were out the barracks doors immediately and headed to shelters. A few soldiers stayed behind too long to collect weapons or personal items and were killed by the bombs, and a few other soldiers helping the wounded evacuate the building were caught in the open. Overall, casualties were light.

But the devastation was complete. Within minutes, most of Allied Air Base Nahla was destroyed.

President Gardner hurried into the Situation Room, a high-tech conference room in the West Wing used for high-level national security meetings, and he took his place. “Take seats,” he said. “Someone talk to me, right now. What happened?”

“Turkey declared martial law and executed a number of air strikes throughout northern Iraq,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. “The Turkish minister of defense, Cizek, says he was placed in charge of the military and ordered to launch a full-scale attack against the PKK and their supporters in Iraq and Turkey.” An electronic map of northern Iraq was displayed on the large wall-size computer monitor in the front of the room. “Twenty cities and towns were hit by fighter-bombers, including Kirkuk, Irbil, Dahuk, and Mosul. Three joint Iraqi-American military bases were struck in Irbil, Kirkuk, and near Mosul. Casualty reports are coming in now. The bases had just minutes of warning time.” He paused just long enough to draw the president’s attention to him fully, then added, “And the vice president’s aircraft is missing.”

“Missing?” the president shouted.

“The vice president took off for Baghdad just minutes before the attack took place,” Carlyle said. “The pilot was executing evasive maneuvers and looking for a place to make an emergency landing when they lost contact. The commander of Allied Air Base Nahla has organized a search and rescue team, but that base was hit hard and almost destroyed. It had already been hit last night by a Turkish air raid. An Air Force search and rescue team is being dispatched from Samarra but it’ll take a few hours to get there.”

“Good God,” the president breathed. “Get Hirsiz or Cizek or whoever’s really in charge in Ankara on the phone. I don’t want any more Turkish planes flying over Iraq—none! Where are the carriers? What can we get up there?”

“We have the Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor Bain responded. “It’ll be a stretch because of the distance involved, but we can start setting up air patrols over Iraq with E-2 Hawkeye radar planes doing C4I and pairs of F/A-18 Hornet fighters in patrol orbits.”

“Do it,” the president ordered. “Keep them over Iraq unless they are attacked.” Secretary of Defense Miller Turner picked up his phone to issue the orders.

“Turkey has a very large air force, with a lot of surplus American warplanes and weapons,” Carlyle pointed out. “Some of them, like the F-15 Eagles, can be a match for the Hornet.”

“If Turkey wants to get into a shooting war with the United States, I’m ready to play,” Gardner said angrily. “What about land attack assets? Tomahawks?”

“The conventional sea-launched cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf are out of range,” Bain said. “We would have to move the ships and subs in the Mediterranean closer to get within range of the eastern Turkish air bases.”

“Any ships or subs in the Black Sea?”

“No submarines, per treaty,” Bain aid. “We have a single Surface Action Group on patrol in the Black Sea, also per treaty, and they do have T-LAMs, but they’re also the most vulnerable ships out there right now. We would have to assume that if the Turks want to fight, they’d attack that group first.”

“What else do we have?”

“We have some tactical air based in various places in Europe—Greece, Romania, Italy, Germany, and the U.K., but those wouldn’t be quick-strike options,” Bain said. “Our only other option is conventionally armed B-2 Spirit stealth bombers launched from Diego Garcia. We have six surviving planes ready to go.”

“Get them armed and ready,” the president said. “That’s all we have? Six?”

“Afraid so, Mr. President,” Bain said. “We have two XR-A9 Black Stallion space planes that can launch precision-guided weapons, and they can be armed and hitting targets within hours, and we also have a few conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missiles that can hit targets in Turkey quickly.”

“Get them briefed and ready, too,” Gardner said. “I don’t know what Ankara has in mind, or if they even have a mind, but if they want to take us on, I want everything ready to go.”

The phone beside White House chief of staff Walter Kordus blinked, and he picked it up. “Turkish prime minister Ays¸e Akas for you, sir.”

The president picked up the phone immediately. “Prime Minister Akas, this is President Gardner. What in hell is going on out there? Twelve hours ago you announced a cease-fire. Now you’ve attacked three American military bases! Are you out of your minds?”

“I’m afraid Minister of National Defense Cizek and General Abdullah Guzlev may be, Mr. President,” she said. “Last night they arrested President Hirsiz, engineered a military coup d’état, and took over the Presidential Palace. They were unhappy about the president’s decision to pull back to the border before the PKK and their supporters were eliminated.”

“So why attack American bases?”

“Retaliation for the defeat near Tall Kayf,” Akas said. “Two thousand Turks were killed or wounded in that battle. Cizek and the generals thought it was cowardly to retreat to the border after such a loss.”

“Are you still prime minister, Mrs. Akas?”

“No, I am not,” Akas said. “I was allowed use of my cellular telephone, which I am sure is being monitored, but I am not free to travel or go to my office. Under the state of emergency, the National Assembly has been dismissed. Cizek and the generals are in charge.”

“I want to speak with them immediately,” Gardner said. “If you can get Cizek a message, tell him that the United States is going to set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, and I warn them not to violate it or try to attack any of our planes, or we will consider it an act of war and retaliate immediately. We are readying all of our military resources and will respond with everything we have. Is that clear?”

“It is clear to me, Mr. President,” Akas said, “but I do not know if it will be seen by Cizek as anything more than a clear threat of imminent attack. Are you sure you wish me to deliver this message, sir?”

“I don’t have any intention of attacking Turkey unless they violate Iraqi airspace again,” Gardner said. “All of our other responses will be by other means. But if Turkey intends to fight, we’ll give them a fight.” And he hung up.

The two Humvees rushed to the scene of the CV-22 crash and immediately surrounded the area with security forces while Kris Thompson and a medic rushed to the tilt-rotor aircraft. Fortunately the Osprey’s fire suppression system had stopped a major fire, and Iraqi citizens put out the others. They found the vice president, the flight crew, and a Secret Service agent being treated by a local doctor, with another Secret Service agent covered by a rug. “Thank God you’re alive, sir,” Kris said.

“Thanks to these people,” Ken Phoenix said. “If they hadn’t helped, we probably would’ve all been killed in the fire. What’s happened?”

“The Turks bombed the base—again,” Kris said. “Pretty much destroyed it this time. A few casualties; we got just enough warning. The Turks are carrying out bombing raids all over northern Iraq.”

“So much for the cease-fire—if there ever was one,” Phoenix said.

“We’re setting up an evacuation center here in town,” Kris said. “The colonel plans to join up with friendly forces in Mosul. I’ll get you out of here and then we’ll figure out a way to get you to Baghdad.”

Ten minutes later, they met up with some of the survivors from Nahla, including Patrick McLanahan, Hunter Noble, Jon Masters, and a handful of contractors and soldiers, most of them injured. “Glad you made it, Mr. Vice President,” Patrick said.

“Where’s the colonel?”

“Supervising the evacuation,” Patrick said. “He’s going to send us down to Mosul and await a convoy out. Just about every building that was still standing after last night isn’t standing any longer.”

“Your plane, the XC-57?”

“They got all the hangars, even the one we were using as the morgue.”

Ken Phoenix motioned Patrick to walk with him, and they stepped away from the others. Phoenix reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic carrying case containing the Secure Digital card Patrick had given him. “What about this?” he asked. “Can we still do this?”

Patrick’s eyes widened. He thought quickly, and his head began to nod. “We won’t have the netrusion systems running,” he said, “and I’ll have to check the status of the Lancers in the UAE—”

“Find a phone and do it,” Phoenix said. “I’m going to talk with the president.”

“He said what?” Hasan Cizek shouted. “Is Gardner threatening war with Turkey?”

“What did you expect him to say, Hasan?” Turkish Prime Minister Ays¸e Akas asked. With them was former Turkish chief of the general staff General Abdullah Guzlev. “You killed a lot of Americans today, after Turkey declared a cease-fire! Did you expect him to say ‘I understand’ or ‘It’s no worry’?”

“What I did was retaliation for what he, his robots, and his Iraqi goons did to my troops!” Cizek cried. “They killed thousands!”

“Calm yourself, Hasan,” Akas said. “The president said he’s going to set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, and he doesn’t want you to cross it. If you try, he’ll consider it an act of war.”

“He’s threatening war with Turkey? Is he crazy, or just suffering from delusions of grandeur? He doesn’t have enough forces in this part of the world to take on Turkey!”

“Does he plan to use nuclear weapons against us?” Guzlev asked.

“Hasan, be quiet and think,” Akas said. “We’re talking about the United States of America. They may be less strong because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are still the most powerful military machine in the world. You may be able to get away with attacking two or three bases in Iraq, but you can’t withstand the full force of their military power. They can flatten this building a hundred different ways in the blink of an eye. You know this. Why are you denying it?”

“I’m not denying it, but I’m not backing away from my mission until it’s completed,” Cizek said. “The United States will have to use their vaunted military power to stop me.” He paused to think for a moment, then said to Guzlev: “The quickest way he can set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq is with carrier-based aircraft flying out of the Persian Gulf.”

“Yes,” Guzlev said. “The Mediterranean and bases in Europe are too far.”

“How long?”

“Fighters, tankers, radar planes—it’ll take a few hours to get them briefed and ready to deploy, maybe longer, then at least an hour or two to fly to northern Iraq,” Guzlev said.

“That means we have only a few hours, maybe five or six, to act. Can we do it?”

“About half the force is just recovering at Diyarbakir and Malatya,” Guzlev said, checking his watch. “The other half is being armed. If there are no delays or accidents…yes, I think we can have them airborne again in five or six hours.”

“What do you intend to do?” Akas asked.

“I’m not going to violate the American no-fly zone; I’ll just be sure to have my tasks completed before they set it up,” Cizek said. To Guzlev: “I want every available plane loaded and launched to attack the final target sets in Irbil, Kirkuk, and Mosul. Every known or suspected PKK and peshmerga base, every known PKK supporter, and every Iraqi and American military base that might threaten Turkish occupation of Iraq gets destroyed as soon as possible.”

“Stand by for release,” the mission commander said. He was aboard a Sky Masters Inc. Boeing DC-10 carrier aircraft, high above the Pacific Ocean. “Let’s make this a good one, and I’ll buy the first round.”

The aircraft, initially built by McDonnell Douglas Aircraft before that company was purchased by Boeing, was highly modified for many purposes, including aerial refueling and instrument tests, but its major modification gave it the ability to launch satellite boosters into space. The booster, called ALARM or Air Launched Alert Response Missile, resembled a large cruise missile. It had three solid rocket motors and folding wings to give it lift while in the atmosphere. ALARM, in effect, used the DC-10 as its first stage engine.

The ALARM boosters carried four satellites internally. The satellites, called NIRTSats, or Need It Right This Second Satellites, were washing-machine-size multipurpose reconnaissance satellites designed to stay in orbit for less than a month; they carried very little maneuvering fuel and were meant to stay in one set orbit, with only a few minor orbit changes or realignments allowed. These satellites were being placed into orbit to serve field commanders in Afghanistan.

“Pretty friggin’ amazing,” the mission commander, a U.S. Air Force major from the Thirtieth Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, said. “Less than twelve hours ago I got the call to launch this constellation. Now, we’re about to do it. Normally it takes the Air Force a week to do something like this.”

“That’s why you should just call on us from now on,” the aircraft commander, a civilian working for Sky Masters Inc., said proudly.

“Yeah, but you guys are too expensive.”

“You want the job done fast and right, you gotta pay for the best,” the pilot said. “Besides, it’s not your money, it’s the Air Force’s.”

“Well, however you guys do it and however much we’re paying you, it’s worth it,” the mission commander said.

“We aim to please,” the pilot said. He flipped a page on his multifunction display when he received a blinking message annunciation, read the incoming satellite message, cleared it back to the main navigation page, switched his intercom to “private,” and spoke.

“What was that?” the mission commander asked.

“Nothing, just a fast request to the release crews,” the pilot said. The Air Force major didn’t notice him, but the flight engineer sitting behind him was suddenly pulling out charts and typing on his mission planning computer. “How much longer to release?” the pilot asked.

“Sixty seconds…now,” the mission commander said. He checked his own multifunction display, where he had the mission data displayed. They were flying to a precise location and a particular heading that would put the ALARM booster on the perfect trajectory for a successful insertion. Because the NIRTSats carried so little fuel, the closer they could shoot the booster into the perfect orbit, the better.

“Stand by, flight crew,” the pilot said. “Report checklists complete to the MC.”

“Flight deck configured and ready to go, MC,” the flight engineer said.

“Cabin deck ready, MC,” the civilian in charge of the cabin reported after getting a thumbs-up from his Air Force counterpart observing the release. The cabin of the modified DC-10 was split into pressurized and unpressurized compartments. In the pressurized compartment was a second ALARM booster, suspended on loading cables; the compartment could hold two ALARMs, plus one in the unpressurized compartment.

The first ALARM booster was already loaded into the unpressurized launch compartment, where it would be ejected into the slipstream underneath the DC-10. After release, its first solid rocket motor would fire, and it would fly under, then ahead of the DC-10, then start a sharp climb. Its second and third stage motors would fire in turn until the booster had accelerated to orbital speed and was at the proper altitude in space—in this case, eighty-eight miles above Earth—and then it would begin releasing the NIRTSats.

“Stand by,” the MC said. “Five…four…three…two…one…drop.” He waited for the brief pitch-down caused by the ALARM booster dropping free of the DC-10 before the fuel and trim systems could rebalance the plane. That was always the trickiest part of these releases; if the aircraft didn’t rebalance itself and the plane started rapid pitch motions, and if the ALARM booster was caught up in the disrupted slipstream, it could fly off course or out of control. That was a rare occurrence, but…

Then the MC realized he didn’t feel the pitch movement. He looked at his multifunction display…and saw that the ALARM booster hadn’t released! “Hey, what happened?” He checked his indicators…and saw that the pilot’s launch override was engaged. “Hey, you stopped the launch! You overrode the release! What’s going on?”

“We got orders,” the pilot said. “We’re going to get refueled, and then we’re going to change to a different launch axis.”

“Orders? Different launch? You can’t do this! This is an Air Force mission! Who told you to do this?”

“The boss.”

“What boss? Who? Masters? He can’t change this mission! I’m going to advise my command post.”

“You can tell them what we did after we launch this booster.”

“This booster, this mission belongs to the U.S. Air Force! I’m not going to let you hijack an Air Force missile.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Major,” the pilot said kindly…just as the flight engineer reached up behind the MC, stuck a stun gun on the Air Force officer’s neck, and pressed the switch, instantly knocking him unconscious.

“How long will he stay out, Jim?” the pilot asked.

“Couple hours, I think.”

“Long enough,” the pilot said. He clicked the intercom: “Okay, John, send him up.” A few moments later the Air Force technician assigned to monitor the launch entered the flight deck, and he, too, was stunned unconscious by the flight engineer. “Okay, while the NIRTSats are reprogrammed by the front office in Vegas by satellite, I need a potty break before we rendezvous with the tanker. Double-check the new launch plan. Good job, everyone. Thanks for thinking on your feet. We’ll all deserve a raise after this…if we’re not in prison, that is.”

“Where’s the new tasking?” the launch deck technician asked.

“Turkey,” the pilot said. “Looks like the shit is hitting the fan out there.”

“Radar contact! Radar contact!” the tactical control officer, or TAO, of the area Turkish Patriot surface-to-air missile regiment shouted. “Multiple inbound contacts, medium altitude, medium subsonic, heading straight for us. It’s going to enter Syrian airspace in three minutes.”

The tactical director, or TD, studied the Patriot radar display. “Medium speed, not maneuvering, medium altitude—probably reconnaissance drones,” he said. “How many?”

“Eight. They’re heading right for our radar sites.”

“I don’t want to waste missiles on drones,” he said, “but we’re supposed to seal this sector.” He thought for a moment, then said, “If they change altitude, engage. Otherwise we’ll try to get them with antiaircraft artillery.”

“What if they dive onto our radar sites, sir?” the TAO asked.

“I don’t know of any cruise missiles that start at a vulnerable altitude, then dive onto their targets,” the tactical director said. “Attack missiles will fly very low or very high. This one is right in the envelope for antiaircraft artillery. Heck, even the lousy Syrian gunners might have a chance to nail them. Watch them for now. If they start to accelerate or descend, we’ll—”

“Sir, Sector Four reports multiple inbound bogeys as well!” the communications officer shouted. That sector was the one adjacent to them in the east. “Another eight bogeys, medium altitude, medium subsonic, also headed for our radar sites!”

“Sixteen reconnaissance drones, all flying into Turkey at the exact same time…and from where?” the tactical director said aloud. “Turkey attacked all of the American bases this morning. There is no way they could launch so many drones so soon. They have to be air-launched.”

“Or they could be false targets, like the last time we launched,” the TAO said.

Sixteen targets…that meant thirty-two Patriots, since Patriot always launched two missiles at every target to ensure a kill. Thirty-two Patriots represented every launcher in the regiment. If they launched every missile at drones or false targets, it would represent a massive waste of missiles, and would leave them vulnerable until they were reloaded, which would take about thirty minutes.

The tactical director picked up the phone and passed all the information to the Sector Air Defense Coordinator in Diyarbakir. “Shoot them down,” the sector coordinator said. “They’re on an attack profile. Check your systems for any sign of spoofing.”

“Acknowledged,” the tactical director said. “TAO, prepare for—”

“Sir, they are starting to orbit,” the TAO shouted. “They’re right along the border, some in Syria. It looks like they’re orbiting.”

“Reconnaissance drones,” the TD said, relieved. “Continue to monitor. What about Sector Four’s bogeys?”

“Starting to orbit as well, sir,” the TAO said.

“Very well.” The TD needed a cigarette, but he knew that would not be possible until these things were out of his area. “Keep an eye on those things and…”

“Bandits!” the TAO shouted suddenly. “Four targets inbound, high subsonic, extreme low altitude, range forty miles!”

“Engage!” the TAO said immediately. “Batteries released! All batteries…!”

“The drones are leaving their orbits, accelerating, and descending!”

Damn, the tactical director thought, they just went from on alert to under attack in the blink of an eye. “Prioritize the high-speed bandits,” he said.

“But the drones are closing in!” the TAO said. “Patriot is prioritizing the drones!”

“I’m not going to waste missiles on drones,” the TD said. “The fast movers are the real threat. Change priorities and engage!”

But that decision obviously wasn’t going to stand, because it was soon obvious that the drones were going straight for the Patriot phased-array radars. “Should I switch priorities, sir—”

“Do it! Do it!” the TD said.

The TAO furiously typed commands into his targeting computer, ordering Patriot to engage the closer, slower targets. “Patriot engaging!” he reported. “The fast movers are accelerating to supersonic…sir. Sector Four reports the drones have left their orbits, descending, accelerating, and are heading into our sector!”

“Can they engage?” But he already knew the answer: one Patriot radar couldn’t sweep into another’s because of interference, which created false targets that the engagement computer might launch against. Only one radar could handle an engagement. Their battery would have to take on all twenty-two targets…

…which meant they would run out of missiles by the time the fast movers arrived! “Reprogram the engagement computer to fire only one missile!” the tactical director ordered.

“But there’s not enough time!” the tactical action officer said. “I’d have to terminate this engagement and…”

“Don’t argue, just do it!” The TAO had never typed as fast as he did then. He managed to reprogram the engagement computer and reengage the batteries…

…but he couldn’t do it fast enough, and one radar was hit by the cruise missiles. The missiles, which were AGM-158A JASSMs, or Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles, were turbojet-powered air-launched cruise missiles with thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads and a range of over two hundred miles.

Now one radar had to handle the entire engagement. Patriot radars didn’t sweep like conventional mechanically scanning radars, and didn’t have to be steered, but they had a specific section of sky that was assigned to them to avoid interference problems. The remaining radar, located at Batman Air Base sixty miles east of Diyarbakir, had been assigned to look south, into Iraq, and not westerly toward Diyarbakir. On their current heading—actually tracking through Syria—they were on the extreme edge of the radar’s airspace.

“Order the Batman radar to turn west-southwest to cover that flight path,” the tactical director ordered. The TAO relayed the order. The AN/MPQ-53 radar array was normally trailer-mounted, and although it was fairly easy to move to cover a new section of sky, it was generally never done, especially when under attack. The Batman emplacement was different, however: even though Patriot is designed to be mobile, the Batman site was set up semipermanently, which meant its radar array could be easily moved as necessary.

“Radar reset, good track on the fast movers,” the TAO reported a few minutes later. “Patriot engaging—”

But at that moment, all radar indications went out. “What happened?” the tactical director shouted.

“The Batman radar is off the air,” the TAO reported. “Hit by a cruise missile.” A few moments later: “Ground observers reporting two fast-moving low-altitude jets flew overhead from the east.” Now it was obvious what had happened: turning the radar to look farther to the west had reduced coverage to the east. Two jets had simply slipped in through the gap in radar coverage between Batman and Van and attacked the radar.

Diyarbakir was now wide open.

“Fracture flight, this is One-Niner, your tail is clear,” Lieutenant Colonel Gia “Boxer” Cazzotto radioed to the rest of her little squadron of B-1B Lancer bombers. “Let’s go get them, what do you say?”

“Fracture One-Nine, this is Genesis,” Patrick McLanahan radioed via their secure transceiver. “Are you getting the latest downloads?”

“Buckeye?”

“Roger, I got ’em,” the offensive systems officer, or OSO, replied. “The images are great—even better than the radar.” He was looking at ultra-high-resolution radar images of Diyarbakir Air Base in Turkey, taken by NIRTSat reconnaissance satellites only moments earlier. The images downloaded from the satellites could be manipulated by the B-1’s AN/APQ-164 bombing system as if the bomber’s own radar had taken the shot. They were over forty miles to the target, well outside low-altitude radar range, but the OSO could see and compute target coordinates well before flying over the target.

The OSO got busy grabbing target coordinates and loading them into their eight remaining JASSM attack missiles, and once all the missiles had targets loaded, they coordinated launches by time and azimuth and let them fly. This time the turbojet-powered cruise missiles flew low, avoiding known obstacles using inertial navigation with Global Positioning System updates. The six B-1 bombers each released eight JASSMs, filling the sky with forty-eight of the stealthy cruise missiles.

There was no time to pick and choose different warheads for the missiles, so they all sported the same one-thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads, but some were fuzed to explode on impact, while others were set to explode in the air after reaching their target coordinates. The air-burst missiles were sent over aircraft parking areas, where the massive explosions destroyed anything and anyone for two hundred yards in all directions, while the impact missiles were targeted against buildings, weapon storage areas, fuel depots, and hangars. The OSOs could refine the missile’s target using their real-time imaging infrared datalink, which gave the crews a picture of the target and allowed them to steer the missile precisely on target.

“Genesis, this is Fracture, clean sweep,” Cazzotto radioed. “All weapons expended. How’d we do?”

“We’ll get the next NIRTSat downloads in about an hour,” Patrick replied, “but judging by the images I got from the JASSMs, you did outstanding. All Patriot radars are down; I show you clear to climb and RTB. Good show.”

“See you…well, sometime, Genesis,” Gia said.

“Looking forward to it, Fracture,” Patrick said. And he really meant it.