Rogue Forces

CHAPTER FIVE

“It’s total chaos and confusion up there in Ankara, Mr. Vice President,” Secretary of State Stacy Anne Barbeau said from her office in Washington via a secure satellite video teleconference link. Also attending was vice president Ken Phoenix, meeting with Iraqi leaders and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad; and Colonel Jack Wilhelm, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, at Nahla Allied Air Base near the northern city of Mosul. “The Turkish prime minister herself called our ambassador on the carpet for an ass chewing because of an apparent airspace violation by an American aircraft, but now he’s sitting waiting in the outer office under heavy guard because of some security ruckus.”

“What is the embassy saying, Stacy?” Phoenix asked. “Are they in contact with the ambassador?”

“Cellular service is currently down, but outages have been the norm for a few days since the rumors of a state of emergency, Mr. Vice President,” Barbeau said. “Government radio and TV have been describing numerous demonstrations both for and against Hirsiz’s government, but they’ve mostly been peaceful and the police are handling it. The military has been quiet. There was some kind of gunfire incident at the Pink Palace, but the Presidential Guard says the president is safe and will address the nation later today.”

“That’s pretty much what the embassy here in Baghdad has been telling me,” Phoenix said. “Baghdad is concerned about the confusing news but hasn’t bumped up readiness levels.”

“I need an explanation of what happened on the Iraq-Turkish border, Colonel Wilhelm,” Barbeau said. “The Turks claim they shot down an American unmanned spy plane over their territory, and they’re hopping mad.”

“I can assure everyone that all American aircraft, unmanned or otherwise, are accounted for, ma’am,” Wilhelm said, “and we’re not missing any aircraft.”

“Does that include your contractors, Colonel?” Barbeau asked pointedly.

“It does, ma’am.”

“Who operates reconnaissance aircraft operating along the border? Is it that Scion Aviation International outfit?”

“Yes, ma’am. They operate two large and pretty high-tech long-range recon planes, and they’re bringing in smaller unmanned aircraft to supplement their activities.”

“I want to talk with the rep right now.”

“He’s standing by, ma’am. General?”

“‘General’?”

“The guy from Scion is a retired Air Force general, ma’am.” Barbeau’s eyes blinked in confusion—obviously she didn’t have that information. “Most of our contractors are retired or former military.”

“Well, where is he? Isn’t he working there with you, Colonel?”

“He doesn’t usually operate out of the Command and Control Center,” Wilhelm explained, “but out on the flight line. He’s networked his aircraft in with the Triple-C and to our few remaining assets.”

“I have no idea what you just said, Colonel,” Barbeau complained, “and I hope the Scion guy can make some sense and give us some answers. Get him on the line now.”

Just then a new window popped open on the videoconference screen, and Patrick McLanahan, wearing a lightweight gray vest over a white collared shirt, nodded at the camera. “Patrick McLanahan, Scion Aviation International, secure.”

“McLanahan?” Stacy Barbeau exploded, partially rising out of her seat. “Patrick McLanahan is a defense contractor in Iraq?”

“Nice to see you, too, Miss Secretary of State,” Patrick said. “I assumed Secretary Turner had briefed you on Scion’s management.”

He suppressed a smile as he saw Barbeau struggling for control of her senses and voluntary muscles. The last time he had seen her was less than two years earlier when she was still the senior senator from Louisiana and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Patrick, who had surreptitiously returned from Armstrong Space Station, where he was under virtual house arrest, supervised loading Barbeau aboard an XR-A9 Black Stallion spaceplane to fly her from Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland—a flight that took less than two hours.

Of course, Barbeau remembered none of this, because Patrick had had Hunter “Boomer” Noble seduce and then sedate her in a luxury hotel-casino suite in Las Vegas to prepare for her brief flight into space.

Patrick’s armored Tin Men and Cybernetic Infantry Device commandos then spirited her to the presidential retreat at Camp David, subdued the Secret Service and U.S. Navy security forces, and set up a confrontation between her and President Joseph Gardner over the future of the men and women who made up the U.S. Space Defense Force, which the president was ready to sacrifice in order to make peace with Russia. In exchange for not revealing Gardner’s secret dealings with the Russians, the president had agreed to allow anyone under McLanahan’s command who didn’t want to serve under Gardner to honorably retire from military service…

…and Patrick ensured the president’s continued cooperation by taking the entire remaining force of six Tin Men and two Cybernetic Infantry Device combat systems with him, along with spare parts, weapon packs, and the plans to make more of them. The advanced armored infantry performance enhancement systems had already proven they could defeat the Russian and Iranian armies as well as the U.S. Navy SEALs, and infiltrate the most highly guarded presidential retreats in the world—Patrick knew he had a lot of backup just in case the president tried to relieve himself of his McLanahan issue.

“Is there a problem here, Miss Secretary?” Vice President Phoenix asked. “I know you’ve met General McLanahan before.”

“I assure you, we made all the proper notifications and filings—I did them myself through the Air Force Civil Augmentee Agency,” Patrick said. “There’s been no conflict of—”

“Can we please get on with this?” Stacy Anne Barbeau suddenly blurted perturbedly. Patrick smiled to himself: he knew that a seasoned political pro like Barbeau knew how to pull herself into the here and now, no matter how utterly shocked she became. “General, it’s nice to see you hale and hearty. I should have known that retirement would never mean a rocking chair on the porch to someone like you.”

“I think you know me too well, Miss Secretary.”

“And I also know that you are not shy about stepping right on, and sometimes sneaking a foot or two across, the boundaries in your eagerness to get a job done,” Barbeau went on directly. “We received complaints from the Turks about stealthy aircraft, perhaps unmanned, overflying Turkish airspace without permission. Pardon me for saying so, sir, but this has your fingerprints all over it. What exactly did you do?”

“Scion’s contract is to provide integrated surveillance, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, and data communications relay support services on the Iraq-Turkey border,” Patrick said. “Our primary platform for this function is the XC-57 multipurpose airlift aircraft, which is a turbofan-powered manned or unmanned aircraft that can be fitted with a variety of mission modules to change its function. We also employ smaller unmanned aircraft that—”

“Get to the bottom line, General,” Barbeau snapped. “Did you or did you not cross the Iraq-Turkey border?”

“No, ma’am, we did not—at least, not with any of our aircraft.”

“What in hell does that mean?”

“The Turks fired at a false target we inserted into their Patriot acquisition and tracking computers via their phased-array radar,” he said.

“I knew it! You did provoke the Turks into launching their missiles!”

“Part of our contracted reconnaissance mission is to analyze and categorize all threats in this area of responsibility,” Patrick explained. “After the attack on Second Regiment in Zakhu, I consider the Turkish army and border guards a threat.”

“I shouldn’t have to remind you, General, that Turkey is an important ally, in NATO and the entire region—they are not the enemy,” Barbeau said hotly. It was clear to everyone whom she believed the enemy really was. “Allies don’t spoof each other’s radars, cause them to waste two million dollars’ worth of missiles on chasing ghosts, or incite fear and mistrust in an area that is already undergoing a critical level of fear. I’m not going to let you disrupt our diplomatic efforts just so you can test out some new gadget or make your investors a little money.”

“Madam Secretary, the Turks moved their Patriot batteries farther west, opposing Iraq instead of just Iran,” Patrick said. “Did the Turks advise us of this?”

“I’m not here to answer your questions, General. You’re here to answer mine…!”

“Madam Secretary, we also know that the Turks have long-range artillery systems similar to the ones they used to attack Second Regiment in Zakhu,” Patrick went on. “I want to see what the Turks are planning. The shake-up in their military high command, and now the loss of communications from the embassy, tell me that something is going on, possibly something serious. I recommend we—”

“Pardon me, General, but I am also not here to take your recommendations,” Secretary of State Barbeau interjected. “You’re a contractor, not a member of the cabinet or the staff. Now you listen to me, General: I want all of your tracking data, radar pictures, and whatever other stuff you’ve gathered since your company signed the contract. I want—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t give it to you,” Patrick said.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said, Madam Secretary, that I can’t turn any of it over to you,” Patrick repeated. “The data belongs to U.S. Central Command—you’ll have to ask them for it.”

“Don’t play games with me, McLanahan. I’m going to have to explain what you did to Ankara. It looks like it’ll be another case of contractors overstepping their boundaries and operating too independently. Any costs incurred by the Turks for your actions will come out of your pocket, not the U.S. Treasury’s.”

“That’ll be for a court to decide,” Patrick said. “In the meantime, the information we collect belongs to Central Command, or whoever they designate to receive it, such as Second Regiment. Only they can decide who gets it. Any other information or resources not covered by the contract with the government belong to Scion Aviation International, and I can’t release it to anyone without a contract or a court order.”

“You want to play hardball with me, mister, fine,” Barbeau snapped. “I’ll slap a lawsuit on you and your company so fast it’ll make your head spin. In the meantime, I’m going to recommend to Secretary Turner to cancel your contract so we can prove to the Turkish government that this won’t happen again.” Patrick said nothing. “Colonel Wilhelm, I’m going to recommend to the Pentagon that you resume security operations along the border area until we can get another contractor in to take over. Await further orders to that effect.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Barbeau made a swiping motion across her camera with the back of a hand, and her image disappeared. “Thanks, General,” Wilhelm said angrily. “I’m flat-footed here. It’ll take me weeks to get replacements sent in, equipment returned and unpacked, and patrols set up again.”

“We don’t have weeks, Colonel, we have days,” Patrick said. “Mr. Vice President, I’m sorry about the diplomatic row I’ve caused, but we learned a great deal. Turkey is gearing up for something. We have to be ready for it.”

“Like what? Your Iraq invasion theory?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s happened to make you think this invasion in imminent?”

“Plenty has happened, sir,” Patrick responded. “Scion’s own analysis shows that the Turks now have twenty-five thousand Jandarma paramilitary troops within three days’ march of Mosul and Irbil, and another three divisions—one hundred thousand regular infantry, armor, and artillery troops—within a week’s march.”

“Three divisions?”

“Yes, sir—that’s nearly as many troops as the United States had in Iraq at the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, except the Turks are concentrated in the north,” Patrick said. “Those ground forces are backed up by the largest and most advanced air force between Russia and Germany. Scion believes they’re poised to strike. The recent resignation of Turkey’s military leadership, and this very recent confusion and loss of contact with the embassy in Ankara, confirm my fears.”

There was a long pause on the line; Patrick saw the vice president lean back in his seat and rub his face and eyes—in confusion, fear, doubt, disbelief, or all four, he couldn’t tell. Then: “General, I didn’t know you that well when you worked in the White House,” Phoenix said. “Most of what I know is what I heard in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room, usually during someone’s angry tirade aimed at you. You have a reputation for two things: pissing a lot of people off…and making timely, correct analyses.

“I’m going to talk to the president and recommend that Secretary Barbeau and I make a visit to Turkey, to meet with President Hirsiz and Prime Minister Akas,” he went on. “Stacy can be in charge of making apologies. I’m going to ask President Hirsiz what’s going on, what he thinks his situation is politically and security-wise, and what the United States can do to help. The situation is obviously getting out of hand, and simply declaring the PKK a terrorist outfit is not enough. We should be doing more to help the Republic of Turkey.

“I am also going to recommend, General, that you be allowed to continue your surveillance operations on the Iraq-Turkey border,” Phoenix went on. “I don’t think he’ll buy it, but if Colonel Wilhelm says it’ll take weeks to get back into position, we don’t have much choice. Obviously, there will be no more of that netrusion stuff against the Turks without express permission from the Pentagon or the White House. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Colonel Wilhelm, Secretary Barbeau is not in your chain of command, and neither am I. You should follow your last set of orders. But I’d recommend being on the defensive and ready for anything, just in case the general’s theory comes true. I don’t know how much warning you’ll get. Sorry about the confusion, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

“That’s the way it goes most of the time, sir,” Wilhelm said. “Message understood.”

“I’ll be in touch. Thank you, gents.” The vice president nodded to someone off camera, and his worried, conflicted visage disappeared.

“Patrick McLanahan is in Iraq!” Secretary of State Stacy Anne Barbeau shrieked as she strode into the Oval Office. “I just spoke with him on the conference call with Phoenix and the Army. McLanahan is in charge of aerial reconnaissance in all of northern Iraq! How in hell could that guy surface in Iraq and we not know about it?”

“Relax, Stacy Anne, relax,” President Joseph Gardner said. He smiled as he loosened his tie and sat back in his seat. “You look even more beautiful when you’re angry.”

“What are you going to do about McLanahan, Joe? I thought he’d disappear, move out to some condo in Vegas, play with his kid, take up fly-fishing or something. Not only has he not vanished, but now he’s stirring up shit between Iraq and Turkey.”

“I know. I got the briefing from Conrad. That’s what the guy does, Stacy. Don’t worry about him. Sooner or later he’ll go too far, again, and then we can prosecute him. He doesn’t have his high-tech air force to fight for him anymore.”

“Did you hear what he told me? He refuses to turn over his mission data to the State Department! I want him thrown into prison, Joe!”

“I said, relax, Stacy,” Gardner said. “I’m not going to do anything that’ll bring McLanahan’s name back into the press. Everyone’s forgotten about him, and that’s the way I prefer it. We try to haul him into a federal court for putting up a few fake radar images to fool the Turks, and we’ll turn him into a media hero again. We’ll wait until he does something really bad, and then we’ll nail him.”

“That guy is bad news, Joe,” Barbeau said. “He humiliated both of us, shit on us and rubbed our noses in it. Now he’s gotten himself some kind of big government contract and is flying around northern Iraq.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “Does he still have those robot things, the ones he…?”

“Yes, as far as I know, he still has them,” the president said. “I haven’t forgotten about them. I have a task force in the FBI that scours police reports all over the world for sightings. Now that we know he’s working in Iraq, we’ll expand the search there. We’ll get them.”

“I don’t see how you can allow him to keep those things. They belong to the U.S. government, not to McLanahan.”

“You know damned well why, Stacy,” Gardner said irritably. “McLanahan has got enough dirt on both of us to end our careers in a hot second. The robots are a small price to pay for his silence. If the guy was tearing up cities or robbing banks with them, I’d make it a priority to find them, but the FBI task force hasn’t reported any sightings or received any tips about them. McLanahan’s being smart and keeping those things under wraps.”

“I can’t believe he has such a powerful weapon like those robots and suits of armor or whatever they are and hasn’t used them.”

“Like I said, he’s smart. But the first time he breaks those things out, my task force will pounce on him.”

“What’s taking them so long? The robots were ten feet tall and as strong as tanks! He used them to kill the Russian president in his private residence and then used them to break into Camp David!”

“There’s only a handful of them out there, and from what I’ve been briefed they fold up and are pretty easy to conceal,” the president said. “But the main reason I think they haven’t is because McLanahan has some powerful friends that are helping deflect investigators away.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know…yet,” Gardner said. “Someone with political clout, influential enough to attract investors to buy the high-tech gadgets like that recon plane, and savvy enough on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon to get the government contracts and skirt around the technology export laws.”

“I think you should pull his contracts and send him packing. The man is dangerous.”

“He’s not bothering us, he’s doing a job in Iraq which allows me to pull the troops out of there faster—and I don’t want to wake up one morning to find one of those robots standing over me in my bedroom,” Gardner said. “Forget about McLanahan. Eventually he’ll screw up, and then we can take him down…quietly.”

The eastern regional headquarters of the internal security forces of Turkey, the Jandarma, was near Van Airport, southeast of the city and not far from Lake Van. The main headquarters complex consisted of four three-story buildings forming a square with a large courtyard, cafeteria, and seating area in the center. Across the parking lot to the northeast was a single square four-story building that housed the detention center. Southeast of headquarters were the barracks, training academy, athletic fields, and shooting ranges.

The headquarters building was situated right on Ipek Golu Avenue, the main thoroughfare connecting the city to the airport. Since the headquarters experienced so many drive-by attacks—usually just some rocks or garbage thrown at the building, but occasionally a pistol shot or Molotov cocktail aimed at a window—the sides of the complex facing the avenue to the northwest, Sumerbank Street to the southwest, and Ayak Street to the northeast were shielded by a ten-foot-high reinforced concrete wall, decorated with paintings and mosaics along with some anti-Jandarma grafitti. All of the windows on that side were made of bulletproof glass.

No such protective walls existed on the southeast side; the sounds of gunfire on the weapon ranges day and night, the constant presence of police and Jandarma trainees, and the long open distance between there and the main buildings meant that the perimeter was just a twelve-foot-tall illuminated reinforced chain-link fence topped with razor wire, patrolled by cameras and roving patrols in pickup trucks. The neighborhood around the complex was light industrial; the nearest residential area was an apartment complex four blocks away, occupied mostly by Jandarma officers, staff, and academy instructors.

The academy trained law enforcement officers from all over Turkey. Graduates were assigned to city or provincial police department assignments, or they stayed for further training to become Jandarma officers or took advanced classes in riot control, special weapons and tactics, bomb disposal, antiterrorist operations, intelligence, narcotics interdiction, and dozens of other specialties. The academy had a staff and faculty of one hundred and a resident student enrollment of about one thousand.

Along with gunfire from the weapon training ranges, another constant at the Jandarma complex in Van were protesters. The detention facility housed around five hundred prisoners, mostly suspected Kurdish insurgents, smugglers, and foreigners captured along the frontier regions. The facility was not a prison and was not designed for long-term incarceration, but at least one-fifth of the prisoners had been there for over a year, awaiting trial or deportation. Most of the protests were small—mothers or wives holding signs with the pictures of their loved ones, demanding justice—but some were larger, and a few had turned violent.

The demonstration that began that morning started out large and grew swiftly. A rumor had circulated that the Jandarma had captured Zilar Azzawi, the infamous Kurdish terrorist leader nicknamed the Hawk, and was torturing her for information.

The protesters closed off Ipek Golu Avenue and blocked all of the main entrances to the Jandarma facility. The Jandarma responded quickly and with force. The academy outfitted all of the students in riot gear and surrounded the two main buildings, concentrating forces on the detention center in case the mob tried to rush the building and free Azzawi and other prisoners. Traffic was diverted around the protest site down Sumerbank and Ayak streets to other thoroughfares to avoid completely closing traffic to Van Airport.

The chaotic situation and the diversion of students, faculty, staff, and most of the security forces to the main avenue where the protesters were, made it all too easy to breach the facility from the southeast.

A dump truck drove through the outer and inner chain link service entrance gates on Sumerbank Street with ease, then sped past the weapons range and across the athletic fields. The handful of security guards gave chase and opened fire with automatic weapons, but nothing could stop it. The truck drove straight into the academy barracks building…

…where three thousand pounds of high explosives packed into the dump section detonated, destroying the three-story student barracks and heavily damaging the main academic building nearby.

“Today I am saddened to announce that I am instituting a state of emergency in the Republic of Turkey,” President Kurzat Hirsiz said. He read his statement from the state communications facility in Çancaya emotionlessly, woodenly, not even looking up from his paper. “This morning’s dastardly PKK attack on the regional Jandarma headquarters in Van, which resulted in at least twenty deaths and scores injured, forces me to respond with urgency.

“Effective immediately, local and provincial law enforcement departments will be augmented by regular and reserve military personnel,” he went on, still not looking up from his prepared statement. “They are there to assist in security operations only. This will free local and provincial police to make arrests and investigate crime.

“I must report that several threats by the PKK have been received via radio messages, coded classified ads in newspapers, and postings on the Internet, urging followers and sympathizers all around the world to rise up and strike at the Republic of Turkey. Our analysts have concluded that the messages are meant to activate sleeper cells throughout the region to begin concentrated attacks on government facilities all around the country.

“After the incident at Van, I am forced to take these threats seriously and respond in force. Therefore I am ordering the temporary shutdown of all government offices in Turkey, the establishment of a strict dusk-to-dawn curfew in all cities and towns, and mandatory one hundred percent individual and vehicle searches by security personnel.

“The next actions that I have ordered require the assistance and cooperation of the public at large. Because of the danger of unknowingly spreading terrorist instructions, I am asking that all newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and all private media outlets voluntarily cease publication of any advertisements, articles, or notices submitted by anyone who is not a reporter or editor of the publication, or where the source of the information is not verified or personally known. My intention is to avoid completely shutting down the media. It is essential that the availability of coded messages to sleeper cells be cut off completely, and my government will be contacting all outlets to ensure they understand the importance of their swift and thorough cooperation.

“Finally, I am asking that all of the Internet providers in the Republic of Turkey and those who provide service to Turkey voluntarily install and update filters and redirectors to block access to known and suspected terrorist Web sites and servers. This should not result in a massive denial of Internet services in Turkey. E-mail, commerce, and access to regular sites and services should continue normally—only those servers that are known to host terrorist or anti-government sites will be shut down. We will closely monitor all the Internet providers available to the people of Turkey to be sure access to legitimate sites is not affected.”

Hirsiz took a nervous sip of water from an off-camera glass, his hand visibly trembling, his eyes never looking at the camera. “I sincerely apologize to the people of Turkey for being forced to take these actions,” he went on after a long, uncomfortable pause, “but I feel I have no choice, and I beg for your prayers, patience, and cooperation. My government will work tirelessly to stop the terrorists, restore security and order, and return our nation to normalcy. I ask the citizens of Turkey to be vigilant, helpful to government officials and law enforcement, and to be strong and brave. Our nation has been through this before, and we have always emerged stronger and wiser. We shall do so again. Thank you.”

Hirsiz threw his statement pages away as Prime Minister Ays¸e Akas came up to him. “That’s the hardest speech I’ve ever given,” Hirsiz said.

“I hoped you would change your mind, Kurzat,” she said. “It’s not too late, even now.”

“I have to do this, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said. “It’s far too late to change course now.”

“No, it’s not. Let me help you do it. Please.” An aide passed a note to Akas. “Perhaps this will help: the American embassy is requesting a high-level meeting in Irbil. The vice president, Phoenix, is in Baghdad and wants to attend, along with the secretary of state.”

“Impossible,” Hirsiz said. “We can’t stop this now.” He thought for a moment. “We can’t meet with them: the country is under a state of emergency. We can’t guarantee the safety of the president or of our ministers in Iraq.”

“But if you did attend, I’m sure they’ll offer substantial military, technical, and economic assistance if they meet with us—they rarely come empty-handed,” Akas said. “The American ambassador has already sent a message to the foreign ministry about compensation for the Patriot missile launches.”

“Compensation? For what? What did they say?”

“The ambassador, speaking on behalf of Secretary of State Barbeau, said an unarmed reconnaissance plane run by a private firm contracted to provide surveillance of the northern Iraq border area inadvertently emitted what they called ‘accidental electronic interference’ that caused us to fire those Patriot missiles. The ambassador was very apologetic and said he was authorized to offer substantial compensation or replacement of the missiles, and also offered assistance in providing information on any unknown vehicles or persons crossing the border into Turkey.” Hirsiz nodded. “This is a great opportunity, Kurzat. You can have the meeting, then cancel the state of emergency after the American vice president makes an agreement. You save face, and there’s no war.”

“Saved by the Americans again, eh, Ays¸e?” Hirsiz said emotionlessly. “You’re so sure they’ll want to help?” He motioned to an aide, who handed him a secure cellular telephone. “The timetable’s been moved up, General,” he said after speed-dialing a number. “Get your forces moving and the planes in the air, now!”

“Looks like the wheels are getting ready to come off the wagon up in Turkey, doesn’t it?” Kris Thompson said. He was sitting at the security director’s console in the Tank, watching news reports of the security crackdowns taking place in the Republic of Turkey on one of the big screens at the front of the Tank that was always tuned to an American all-news channel. The reports showed police and military forces clashing with protesters in the streets of Istanbul and Ankara. “Hirsiz is crazy. A state of emergency? Sounds like a military coup to me. I wonder if he’s still in charge.”

“Keep the chatter down, Thompson,” Jack Wilhelm said, sitting at his console nearby. “We can all see what’s going on. Put Sensor Eight up front and zoom ten-X.” He studied an image of three delivery trucks driving down a road, the cargo sections swaying noticeably in the turns. “They’re moving pretty fast, wouldn’t you say? Zoom fifteen-X, get a description, pass it along to the IA. Who do they have in the area, Major Jabburi?” The Turkish liaison officer spread out his charts and logbooks, then picked up his telephone. “C’mon, Major, we don’t have all damned day.”

“There is a border patrol unit heading in the opposite direction, about ten miles away, sir,” Major Hamid Jabburi, the Turkish army deputy liaison officer, responded, after a long delay. “They have been notified to investigate the vehicles. They requested we continue monitoring and advise if they turn.”

“Of course—what else do we have to do around here except cater to the IA?” Wilhelm grumbled. “A monkey can do this job.” At that moment Patrick McLanahan walked up to the brigade commander. “Speak of the devil. I gotta admit, General, your pregnant stealth bomber is killer. We’re getting the same amount of looks all over the sector with a fourth of the airframes; we’re saving network bandwidth, fuel, and personnel; and the ramp and the airspace are less congested.”

“Thanks, Colonel. I’ll pass that along to Jon and his engineers.”

“You do that.” Wilhelm motioned to the television monitor. “So, have you spoken with the veep about the shit happening in Turkey?”

“He’s on his way to Irbil for a meeting with Iraqi, Kurdish, and maybe Turkish leaders,” Patrick said. “He said he’d get an update from us when he landed.”

“Still think Turkey will invade?”

“Yes. More than ever now. If Hirsiz doesn’t have support for war, the only legal way he can start one is by dissolving the National Assembly and ordering it himself.”

“I think that’s crazy, General,” Wilhelm said. “The Zakhu attack was a big screwup, that’s all. The military is in the field because the generals want to show who’s boss and to force the Kurds, Iraqis, and Americans to the bargaining table.”

“I hope you’re right, Colonel,” Patrick said. “But they’ve got a big force out there, and it’s getting bigger every hour.”

“It’s a show of force, that’s all,” Wilhelm insisted.

“We’ll see.”

“Let’s say they do invade. How far do you think they’ll go?”

“Hopefully they might just take Dahuk province and then stop,” Patrick said. “But with this force they’re rushing to the border, they might take Irbil International, besiege the city and half of Irbil province, and force the Kurdish government to flee. After that, they might march all the way to Kirkuk. They could say it’s to protect the KTC pipeline from Kurdish insurgents.”

“‘Besiege’—listen to you, General,” Wilhelm said, chuckling and shaking his head. “Have you ever been in a siege, General, or do you just bomb the crap out of places from beyond visual range?”

“Ever heard of a place called Jakutsk, Colonel?” Patrick asked.

Wilhelm’s jaw dropped, first in shock—at himself—and then in shame. “Oh…oh, shit, General, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He had certainly heard of Jakutsk, the third largest city in Russian Siberia…

…and the location of a large air base that was used as a forward tanker base to refuel Russian long-range bombers involved in the American holocaust—the nuclear attack on the United States that killed thirty thousand persons, injured almost a hundred thousand, and destroyed almost all of America’s long-range manned bombers and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, just six years earlier.

Patrick McLanahan had devised a plan to strike back at Russia’s land-based nuclear missiles by landing a Tin Man and Cybernetic Infantry Device commando team into Jakutsk, capturing the base, then using it to stage American bombers on precision air raids throughout Russia. The Russian president Anatoliy Gryzlov retaliated by attacking his own air base…with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Although Patrick’s defenses stopped most of the cruise missiles and allowed most of Patrick’s bomber and tanker force to escape, thousands of Russians and all but a handful of the American ground team members were incinerated.

“When did you acquire this habit of talking first and thinking second, Colonel?” Patrick asked. “Is it just being in Iraq, or have you been working on the technique for a long time now?”

“I said I’m sorry, General,” Wilhelm said irritably—again, aimed directly at himself. “I forget who I’m talking to. And I could blame it on being in this shithole for almost eighteen months—that could drive anyone to mouth off, or worse. This is my third tour in Iraq, and I never had a solid handle on the mission—ever. They change it every couple months anyway: we’re here to stay, we’re leaving, we’re staying, we’re leaving; we’re fighting foreigners, we’re fighting Sunnis, we’re fighting Shia, we’re fighting al-Qaeda; now we’re maybe fighting Turks.” He paused, looked at Patrick apologetically, then added, “But I won’t blame it on anything but being an asshole. Again, sir, I’m sorry. Forget I said it.”

“It’s forgotten, Colonel.” Patrick looked at the sector composite map, then at the news coverage of the rioting around Turkey. “And you made your point: if the Turks head to Irbil and Kirkuk, they won’t ‘besiege’ them—they’ll level them, and kill hundreds of thousands of people as they do.”

“Roger that, sir,” Wilhelm said. “The final solution to their Kurdish problem.” The intercom beeped, and Wilhelm touched his mike button: “Go…copy that…roger, I’ll tell him. Warhammer out. Listen up, ladies and gents. Division has notified us that the vice president will be on his way to Irbil in about an hour to meet with members of the Kurdistan Regional Government in the morning. He’ll transit our sector before being handed off to Irbil Approach, but Baghdad will be controlling and monitoring the flight and they’ll follow normal VIP and diplomatic flight procedures. General, I’ve been ordered to—”

“I can maintain a detailed watch over the vice president’s flight path for any signs of movement,” Patrick interjected. “Just pass the waypoints to me and I’ll set it up.”

“You can do that and maintain a watch on our sector?” Wilhelm asked.

“If I had two more Losers out here, Colonel, I could maintain a twenty-four/seven watch on all of Iraq, southeast Turkey, and northwest Persia, and still have a ground spare,” Patrick said. He touched his secure earset. “Boomer, you copy that last?”

“Already setting it up, sir,” Hunter Noble responded. “The Loser we have airborne right now can track his flight inside Irbil province, but I assume you want eyes on the veep all the way from Baghdad, yes?”

“A-firm.”

“Thought so. We’ll have Loser number two on station in…about forty minutes.”

“Fast as you can, Boomer. Move the first Loser south to monitor the vice president’s flight, then place the second one in the surveillance track up north when it gets airborne.”

“Roger that.”

“So we’ll be able to watch his flight from Baghdad all the way to Irbil?” Wilhelm asked.

“No—we’ll be able to track and identify every aircraft and every vehicle that moves in seven Iraqi provinces, from Ramadi to Karbala and everywhere in between, in real time,” Patrick said. “We’ll be able to track and identify every vehicle that approaches the vice president’s plane before departure; we’ll be able to watch his plane taxi out and monitor every other aircraft and vehicle in his vicinity. If there’s any suspicious activity prior to departure or his arrival in Irbil, we can warn him and his security detail.”

“With two aircraft?”

“We can almost do it with one, but for the kind of precision we want, it’s better to split the coverage and go for the highest resolution we can get,” Patrick said.

“Pretty cool,” Wilhelm said, shaking his head. “Wish you guys had been around months ago: I missed my youngest daughter’s high school graduation last year. That’s the second time I’ve missed something big like that.”

“I’ve got a son getting ready to go into middle school, and I can’t remember the last time I saw him in a school play or soccer game,” Patrick said. “I know how you feel.”

“Excuse me, Colonel,” the Turkish liaison officer, Major Jabburi, interjected on the intercom. “I have been notified that the Aviation Transport Group of the Turkish air force is sending a Gulfstream Five VIP transport aircraft from Ankara to Irbil to participate in joint talks between the United States, Iraq, and my country starting tomorrow. The aircraft is airborne and will be within our coverage range in approximately sixty minutes.”

“Very well,” Wilhelm said. “Captain Cotter, let me know when you get the flight plan.”

“Got it now, sir,” Cotter, the regiment’s air traffic management officer, responded moments later. “Origin verified. I’ll contact the Iraqi Foreign Minister and verify its itinerary.”

“Put it up on the big board first, then make the call.” A blue line arced across the main large-screen monitor, direct from Ankara to Irbil Northwest International Airport, about eighty miles to the east, flying just to the east of Allied Air Base Nahla. Although the flight’s course was curved, not straight, the six-hundred-mile “great circle” routing was the most direct flight path from one point to another. “Looks good,” Wilhelm said. “Major Jabburi, make sure the IA has the flight plan, too, and make sure Colonel Jaffar is aware.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Well, at least the parties are talking to each other. Maybe this whole thing will blow over after all.”

Things quieted down considerably for the next twenty minutes, until: “Guppy Two-Four is airborne,” Patrick reported. “He’ll be on station in fifteen minutes.”

“That was quick,” Wilhelm remarked. “You guys don’t mess around getting those things airborne, do you, General?”

“It’s unmanned and already loaded and fueled; we just type in flight and sensor plans and let it go,” Patrick said.

“No latrines to empty, box lunches to fix, parachutes to rig, right?”

“Exactly.”

Wilhelm just shook his head in amazement.

They watched the progress of the Turkish VIP plane as it made its way toward the Iraqi border. Nothing at all unusual about the flight: flying at thirty-one thousand feet, normal airspeed, normal transponder codes. When the flight was about twelve minutes from crossing the border, Wilhelm ordered, “Major Jabburi, verify again that Iraqi air defenses are aware of the inbound flight from Turkey and are weapons tight.”

“Jabburi is off the net, sir,” Weatherly said.

“Find his ass and get him back here,” Wilhelm snapped, then Wilhelm clicked open his command-wide channel: “All Warhammer units, this is Alpha, inbound Turkish VIP aircraft ten minutes out, all air defense stations report weapons tight directly to me.”

Weatherly changed one of the monitors to a position-and-status map of all of the air defense units along the border area. The units consisted of Avenger mobile air defense vehicles, which were Humvees fitted with a steerable turret that contained two reloadable pods of four Stinger heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles and a .50 caliber heavy machine gun, along with electro-optical sensors and a datalink allowing the turret to be slaved to Second Regiment’s air defense radars. Accompanying the Avengers was a cargo-carrying Humvee with maintenance and security troops, spare parts and ammo, provisions, and two missile pod reloads.

“All Warhammer AD units reporting weapons tight, sir,” Weatherly said.

Wilhelm checked the monitor, which showed all of the Avenger units with steady red icons, indicating they were operational but not ready to attack. “Where’s your second Loser, General?” he asked.

“Three minutes from the patrol box.” Patrick flashed the XC-57’s icon on the tactical display so Wilhelm could see it amid all of the other markers. “Passing flight level three-five-zero climbing to four-one-zero, well clear of the inbound Turkish flight. We’ll start scanning the area shortly.”

“Show me the veep’s flight.”

Another icon began blinking, this one far to the south over Baghdad. “He’s just taken off, sir, about thirty minutes early,” Cotter reported. The flight data readouts showed a very rapid increase in altitude and a relatively slow ground speed, indicative of a max-performance climb-out from Baghdad International. “Looks like he’s on board the CV-22 tilt rotor, so he’ll be well behind the Turkish Gulfstream for the arrival,” he added. “ETE, forty-five minutes.”

“Roger.”

Things seemed to be going along routinely—which always worried Patrick McLanahan. He scanned all the monitors and readouts, looking for a clue as to why something might be amiss. So far, nothing. The second XC-57 reconnaissance plane reached its patrol box and began its standard oval patrol pattern. Everything looked…

Then he saw it, and mashed the intercom button: “The Turkish plane is slowing down,” he spoke.

“What? Say again, General?”

“The Gulfstream. It’s down to three hundred and fifty knots.”

“Is he getting ready for descent?”

“That far away from Irbil?” Patrick asked. “If he did a normal approach it might make sense, but what Turkish aircraft would fly into the heart of Kurdish territory on a normal approach? He’d do a max performance approach—he wouldn’t start a descent until thirty miles out, maybe less. He’s about a hundred out now. He’s drifting south of course, too. But his altitude is—”

“Bandits! Bandits!” That was Hunter Noble, monitoring the data from the second XC-57 aircraft. “Multiple high-speed aircraft inbound from Turkey, heading south at low altitude, fifty-seven miles, Mach one-point-one-five!” The tactical display showed multiple tracks of air targets streaming south from Turkey. “Also detecting multiple heavy vehicles on Highways A36 and—” His voice was suddenly cut off in a jarring blare of static…

…and so was the tactical display. The entire screen was suddenly awash with glittering colored pixels, garbage characters, and waves of interference. “Say again?” Wilhelm shouted. “Where are those vehicles? And what’s happened to my board?”

“Lost contact with the Loser,” Patrick said. He began to enter instructions into the keyboard. “Boomer…!”

“I’m switching now, boss, but the datalink is almost completely shut down, and I’m down to one-sixty-K uplink speed,” Boomer said.

“Will it switch over automatically?”

“If it detects a datalink dropout it will, but if the jamming has locked up the signal processors, it might not.”

“What in hell is going on, McLanahan?” Wilhelm shouted, shooting to his feet. “What happened to my picture?”

“We’re being jammed on all frequencies—UHF, VHF, LF, X, Ku-and Ka-band, and microwave,” Patrick said. “Extremely powerful, too. We’re trying to—” He stopped, then looked at the regimental commander. “The Turkish Gulfstream. It’s not a VIP aircraft—it’s gotta be a jamming aircraft.”

“What?”

“An electronic jammer—and he’s taken down the entire network,” Patrick said. “We let him fly right on top of us, and he’s powerful, so we can’t burn through the jamming. Frequency-hopping’s not helping—he’s burning through all frequencies.”

“Je-sus—we’re blind down here.” Wilhelm switched to the regiment’s command channel: “All Warhammer units, all Warhammer units, this is…!” But his voice was drowned out by an impossibly loud squeal coming from everyone’s headsets that couldn’t be turned down. Wilhelm threw his headset off before the sound burst his eardrums, and everyone else in the Tank was forced to do the same. “Damn, I can’t get through to the Avengers.”

Patrick activated his secure cellular phone. “Boomer…” But he quickly had to take the earpiece out of his ear because of the noise. “Stand by, Colonel,” Patrick said. “Noble will be shutting down the reconnaissance system.”

“Shutting it down? Why?”

“The jamming is powerful enough that the datalink between us and the XC-57s has completely crashed,” Patrick said. “The only way we can get it going again is to shut down.”

“What good will that do?”

“The fail-safe mode for all the Losers is to switch to secure laser communications mode, and as far as we know no one has the ability to jam our laser comms,” Patrick said. “Once we power back up, the system will immediately default to a clear and more secure link. The laser is line of sight, not satellite-relayed, so we’ll lose a lot of capability, but at least we’ll get the picture back…at least, we should.”

It only took less than ten minutes to reboot the system, but it was an agonizingly long wait. When the picture finally returned, they saw only a small slice of what they were accustomed to seeing—but it was horrific enough all the same: “I’ve got three clusters of aircraft inbound—one each heading in the direction of Mosul, Irbil, and the third I’m assuming is heading for Kirkuk,” Hunter Noble reported. “Many high-speed aircraft in the lead, followed by lots of slow movers.”

“It’s an air assault,” Patrick said. “SEAD aircraft to take out the radars and communications, followed by tactical bombers to take out the airfields and command posts, close air support to stand watch, and then paratroopers and cargo planes for a ground assault.”

“What about Nahla?” Weatherly asked.

“The westerly cluster is passing to the west of us—I’m guessing they’ll target Mosul instead of us.”

“Negative—assume we’re next,” Wilhelm said. “Weatherly, organize a team and have them get the word out for everyone to take shelter. Do it any way you can—bullhorns, car horns, or yell like crazy, but get the regiment into shelters. Radio the Avengers to—”

“Can’t, sir. The Scion recon plane is back on the air, but our comms are still being jammed.”

“Damn,” Wilhelm swore. “All right, let’s hope the Avengers find good spots to hide, because we can’t warn them. Get moving.” Weatherly hurried off. “McLanahan, what about the veep?”

“We have no way of contacting his aircraft while we’re being jammed,” Patrick said. “Hopefully, once he switches to our freq, he’ll hear the jamming and decide to turn back to Baghdad.”

“Is there any way you can knock down that Gulfstream or whatever it is up there?” Wilhelm asked.

Patrick thought for a moment, then headed for the exit. “I’m headed for the flight line,” he said, adding, “I’ll get your comms back.” Patrick hurried outside, hopped into one of the Humvees assigned to his team, and sped off.

He found the flight line in utter chaos. Soldiers were standing on Humvees shouting warnings; some had loudspeakers; others just beeped the horn. Half of the Scion Aviation International technicians were standing around, unsure of whether or not to leave.

“Get into shelters, now!” Patrick shouted after screeching to a halt outside the hangar, leaping out, and running for the command center. He found Jon Masters and Hunter Noble still at their consoles, trying without hope to counter the fierce jamming. “Are you guys nuts?” Patrick said as he started grabbing laptops. “Get the hell out of here!”

“They’re not going to bomb us, Muck,” Jon said. “We’re Americans, and this is an Iraqi air base, not a rebel stronghold. They’re going after—”

At that moment he was interrupted by triple sonic booms that rolled directly overhead. It felt as if the hangar was a giant balloon that had been shot full of air in the blink of an eye. Computer monitors, lamps, and shelving flew from desks and walls, bulbs shattered, walls cracked, and the air suddenly fogged over because every speck of dust in the entire place was blasted free by the overpressure. “Hol-ee jeez…!”

“I’m hoping that was a warning. Don’t try to launch any aircraft, or the next pass will be a bomb run,” Patrick said. Under the desk with one of the laptops displaying the laser radar image from the XC-57, he studied it for a few moments, then said, “Jon, I want that Turkish plane knocked out.”

“With what? Spitballs? We don’t have any antiair weapons.”

“The Loser does. Slingshot.”

“Slingshot?” Jon’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then understanding, followed by calculation, and finally by agreement. “We gotta get close, maybe within three miles.”

“And if the Turks catch the Loser, they’ll shoot it down for sure…and then they’ll come after us.”

“I’m hoping they don’t want to tangle with us—they’re after Kurdish rebels,” Patrick said. “If they wanted to bomb us, they’d have done it by now.” He didn’t sound too convincing, even to himself; but after another moment’s reconsideration, he nodded. “Do it.”

Jon cracked his knuckles and began to issue instructions, changing the XC-57’s programmed flight path to take it inside the Turkish aircraft’s loiter area, then having it steer itself to fly behind and below it, using its laser radars for precise station keeping. “I don’t see any escorts,” Boomer said, studying the ultradetailed laser radar image of the area around the Turkish aircraft as the XC-57 closed in. “It’s a single-ship. Pretty confident, aren’t they?”

“What kind of aircraft is it?” Patrick asked.

“Can’t see it yet—it’s smaller than a Gulfstream, though.”

“Smaller?” That feeling of impending doom was back, crawling up and down Patrick’s spine. “It packs a lot of power for an aircraft smaller than a Gulfstream.”

“Inside ten miles,” Jon said. “I’ll hit it at five miles. Still trying to make out the engine nacelles.” The XC-57 closed the distance quickly.

“I don’t see any nacelles—it’s not a passenger aircraft,” Patrick said. As it got closer he could make out more detail: a small twin-engine bizjet, but with three pods underneath each wing and a pod under the belly. “Definitely not civilian,” he said. “Lock onto anything you can, Jon, and fire as soon as you’re…”

Before he could finish, suddenly the Turkish aircraft turned hard left and started a fast climb—and its turn rate was not that of a large passenger-size aircraft like a Gulfstream. At this close range, with its full profile showing on the laser radar image, its identity was unmistakable: “Oh, crap, it’s an F-4 Phantom fighter!” Boomer shouted. “An F-4 with jamming capability? No wonder they didn’t bring escorts—he can probably escort himself.”

“Hit it, Jon,” Patrick shouted, “and get the Loser out of there! The Phantom’s bound to have defensive armament!”

“Hit it, Boomer!” Jon said, typing commands furiously to recall the XC-57.

“Slingshot active!” Boomer said. “Full power. Range six miles…it won’t be enough.”

“Don’t worry—he’ll be closing that distance real quick,” Patrick said ominously. “Start a fast descent, Jon—maybe the F-4 won’t want to go low. Put him on the deck.”

“Going down!” Jon Masters said. Using the XC-57’s mission-adaptive wing technology, which allowed almost every surface of the aircraft to be made into a lift or drag device, the XC-57 descended at over ten thousand feet per minute, its composite construction the only thing keeping it from ripping itself apart.

“Comms are back,” a technician reported. “All jamming and interference down.”

“He’s slowing down,” Boomer said. “Three miles…he should be feelin’ the heat right about—” And at that instant the laser radar image showed two missiles leave each wing of the Turkish F-4E. “Sidewinders!” he shouted. But seconds into their flight, the Sidewinder missiles exploded. “Slingshot got ’em both,” Boomer said. “The laser is redirecting on the Phantom. He’s still slowing down even though he’s in a descent.”

“I think we hit something vital,” Jon said. The magnified laser radar image clearly showed smoke trailing from the fighter’s right engine. “He’s got to break it off. He’s down to five thousand feet aboveground—fighter guys don’t like flying near the mud.”

“Two miles and still closing,” Boomer said. “C’mon, aptal, game’s over.”

“Aptal?”

“Turkish for ‘idiot,’” Boomer said. “I figured if we’re going to be facing off against the Turks, I’d better learn some Turkish.”

“Leave it to you to learn the bad words first,” Jon said. He turned back to the chase unfolding on his laptop. “C’mon, buddy, it’s over, it’s—” Just then, numerous warning messages appeared on Jon’s laptop. “Crap, number one and two engines shutting down…hydraulics and electrical system in emergency! What happened?”

“He closed in to gun range,” Patrick said. In daylight, with clear skies…the XC-57 was a goner, and everyone knew it.

“C’mon, baby,” Jon urged his creation, “you’ll be okay, just keep going…”

And as they watched, they saw a puff of smoke from the forward part of the Turkish F-4 Phantom, the canopy peeled away, and the rear ejection seat flew skyward. They waited for the front seat to go…but as they watched, the altitude numbers continued to decrease, finally reading zero seconds later. “Got him,” Boomer said quietly, with no trace of joy or triumph—watching any aviator die, even an adversary, was never a cause for celebration. “He must’ve been really hurting, with Slingshot in his face at full power, but he wasn’t going to let the Loser get away.”

“Can you bring her back, Jon?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t know,” Jon said. “The lower laser radar array’s not retracting—that’s a lot of drag, and we’re down to one engine. We’re losing gas, too. Just thirty miles to go—it’ll be close.”

There were a lot of crossed fingers, but the XC-57 did make it back. “Good job, Jon,” Patrick said from his Humvee, parked near the approach end of the runway, as he peered at the aircraft through binoculars. He and Jon watched as the Loser set up for a straight-in approach. The crippled bird was trailing a long, dark line of smoke, but its flight path was fairly steady. “Didn’t think she would make it.”

“Neither did I,” Jon admitted. “This landing is not going to be pretty. Make sure everyone is clear—I don’t know what kind of braking or directional control we have left, and it could…”

“Scion, this is Three!” Boomer shouted on the command channel radio. “Incoming aircraft from the south, extreme low altitude!” Patrick swung around and searched the sky…

…and at that instant Jon yelled, “Holy shit!” Two massive clouds of fire erupted on the front of the XC-57. The plane seemed to simply hang in midair for several moments; then another explosion, and the plane nosed over and dove straight into the ground. There was not enough fuel in the tanks to start a large blaze.

Jon Masters’s eyes were practically bugging out of their sockets in confusion. “What happened to my—”

“Get down, Jon!” Patrick shouted, pulling him down to the ground. Two American-made F-15E Eagle fighter-bombers streaked overhead at low altitude, heading north toward Turkey.

Jon tried to struggle to his feet. “Did those bastards shoot down my—”

“I said, get down!” Patrick screamed. An instant later, a string of eight massive explosions rippled directly down the center of the runway, the closest just a few hundred yards away. Both men felt as if their Humvee had rolled over on top of them. They were showered with debris and smoke, and they screamed and pressed their hands to their ears as the tremendous concussions shoved the air out of their lungs. Pieces of concrete zinged past them like bullets, then began to rain down on them. “Get inside the Humvee, Jon! Hurry!” Both men scrambled inside just as bigger and bigger pieces of concrete peppered them from above. They could do nothing else but crawl as far as they could on the floor and hope the roof held. Windows shattered, and the big Humvee rocked on its wheels before they, too, exploded.

Several minutes later, Jon was still writhing on the floor of the Humvee, covering his ears and swearing loudly. Patrick could see a small trickle of blood oozing from between the fingers covering Jon’s left ear. Patrick got on his portable radio to ask for help, but he couldn’t hear a thing and could only hope his message got out. He crawled up onto the roof of the Humvee to inspect the damage.

Pretty good bombing, he thought. He saw eight blast marks, probably thousand-pounders, each no more than five yards from the runway centerline. Fortunately they hadn’t used runway-cratering penetrating bombs, just general-purpose high-explosive ones, and the damage wasn’t too bad—the detonations made holes but didn’t heave large pieces of the steel reinforcement up to the surface. This was relatively easy to repair.

“Muck?” Jon was struggling out of the Humvee. “What happened?” He was shouting because his head was ringing so badly he couldn’t hear himself speak.

“A little payback,” Patrick said. He climbed down from the Humvee and helped Jon to sit down while he inspected his head for any other injuries. “Looks like you burst an eardrum, and you got some pretty good cuts.”

“What in hell did they hit us with?”

“F-15E Strike Eagles dropping high-explosive GPs—more war surplus stuff purchased from the good ’ol U.S. of A.,” Patrick said. Even though it was one of the world’s premier fighter-bombers, capable of both bombing and air superiority roles on the same mission, the F-15E couldn’t land on an aircraft carrier, and so they had been mothballed or sold as surplus to American-allied countries. “They tagged the runway pretty good, but it’s repairable. Doesn’t look like they hit the Triple-C, the hangars, or any other buildings.”

“What’s Turkish for ‘damned pricks’?” Jon Masters asked, slamming a hand against the Humvee in sheer anger. “I think I’ll borrow Boomer’s phrase book and learn me some choice Turkish swear words.”

A few minutes later Hunter Noble drove up in a Humvee ambulance. “Are you guys okay?” he asked as the paramedics attended to Patrick and Jon. “I thought you were goners.”

“Good thing those crews were good,” Patrick said. “A quarter second longer and a quarter-degree heading error and we would’ve been right under that last one.”

“I don’t think it’s over,” Boomer said. “We’re tracking several slow movers throughout the area; the closest one is twenty miles to the east, heading this way.”

“Let’s get back to the hangar and see what we have left,” Patrick said morosely. “We’ll have to get an update on the third Loser and what mission modules we can use.” They all piled into their Humvees and sped off to the flight line.

By the time they stopped at the infirmary to drop off Jon and then reached the hangar, the ringing in Patrick’s ears had subsided enough so he could function fairly normally. With the jamming stopped, they were again in full reconnaissance and communications relay mode with the first XC-57, which had moved back up to a new patrol orbit southeast of Allied Air Base Nahla, within laser radar range of the three major northern Iraqi cities of Mosul, Irbil, and Kirkuk that were under attack.

Patrick ran a visibly shaking hand across his face as he studied the reconnaissance display. The adrenaline rushing through his veins was starting to subside, leaving him weary and jittery. “Are you okay, sir?” Hunter Noble asked.

“I’m a little worried about Jon. He looked pretty bad.”

“You look pretty beat up, too, sir.”

“I’ll be okay.” He smiled at the concerned expression on Boomer’s face. “I forgot what it’s like to be under a bombardment like that. It really rattles you.”

“Maybe you ought to get some rest.”

“I’ll be okay, Boomer,” Patrick repeated. He nodded at the young pilot and astronaut. “Thanks for being so concerned.”

“I know about your heart thing, sir,” Boomer said. “The only thing worse than reentry from space might be almost being clobbered by a string of thousand-pound bombs. Maybe you shouldn’t push your luck.”

“Let’s get the vice president down safely and get a clear picture of what’s going on, and then I’ll go take a little nap.” This didn’t ease Boomer’s concern one bit, and it showed on his face, but Patrick ignored it. “Any jets bothering the Loser?”

No use arguing with the guy, Boomer thought—he was going to work until he dropped, plain and simple. “Nope,” he replied. “Every fighter within fifty miles has lit it up, but nobody has attacked. They’re not bothering our UAVs either.”

“They know most of the planes flying up here are unarmed reconnaissance planes, and they’re not going to waste ammo,” Patrick guessed. “Pretty damned disciplined. They know there’s very little resistance to what they’re doing right now.”

“Lots of slow movers coming in, and several columns of vehicles headed our way,” Boomer said. They were intently watching several dozen slower-moving planes, mostly buzzing near Kirkuk and Irbil. One plane, however, was heading westbound directly for Nahla. “Any modes and codes on that one?” Patrick asked.

“Nope,” Boomer replied. “He’s very low and fast. No communications yet. The laser radar image shows it as a C-130-size twin turboprop, but he changes speed every now and then, slower than a tactical airlift plane should go. He might be having mechanical problems.”

“Do we have contact with the Avengers?”

“I think they’re all talking to Colonel Wilhelm in the Tank again.”

Patrick opened the command channel: “Scion One to Warhammer.”

“Good to see you’re still with us, Scion,” Wilhelm said from his command console in the Tank. “You’re still yelling into the mic. Get your bell rung out there?”

“Advise you get your Avengers to ensure positive visual ID before engaging, Warhammer.”

“The Turks just bombed the crap out of my runway, Scion, and they’ve got vehicles heading this way. We’ve received reports of three separate columns of armored vehicles. I’m not going to let them just traipse onto this base without taking a few down first.”

“That inbound to the east might not be a Turk.”

“Then who do you think it is?”

“Not on an open channel, Warhammer.”

Wilhelm fell silent for a few moments; then: “Roger, Scion.” He didn’t know who or what McLanahan was thinking of, but the guy was on a roll; better help him keep his streak alive. “Break. All Warhammer units, this is Alpha, be advised, we have no aircraft authorized to approach the base, and we couldn’t land them here if there were, but I want positive visual IDs of all inbound aircraft. Repeat, I want positive EO or direct visual ID. IR and no modes, and codes are not, repeat, not good enough.” He paused for a moment, re-thinking his next order, then continued: “If you don’t have positive ID, report direction, speed, altitude, and type, but let it go. If you are unclear, sing out, but keep weapons tight unless you have positive ID it’s a bandit. Warhammer out.”

It did not take long for the first report to come in: “Warhammer, this is Piney One-Two,” the easternmost Avenger unit called. “I have visual contact on single-ship bogey, one-five-zero degrees bullseye, heading west, one hundred and eighty knots, altitude base minus one-eight, negative modes and codes.” The “base” altitude was two thousand feet, meaning that the aircraft was two hundred feet aboveground. “Looks like a Victor Two-Two.”

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Wilhelm muttered to himself. How the hell many drinks and dinners am I going to have to owe McLanahan after this is all over…? “Roger, One-Two. Continue patrol, weapons tight. All Warhammer units, this is Alpha, inbound aircraft approaching, weapons tight until it touches down, then back to FPCON Delta. Weatherly, take charge here. I’m headed out to the flight line. Thompson, get your guys out there to recover this inbound, and I want security as tight as a gnat’s bunghole. Air traffic, let this guy in, and make sure there are no tails. Thompson, park him in Alpha security.” He threw off his headset and sprinted for the door.

He found McLanahan and Kris Thompson at the secure aircraft parking area, a section of the aircraft apron surrounded by exhaust blast fences in front of the large hangar. Thompson had deployed his security forces along the south taxiway and the ramp leading from the taxiway to the apron. Wilhelm’s eyes narrowed as he saw McLanahan. The retired general’s head and the backs of his hands were covered in wounds from flying debris. “You should be in the infirmary, General,” he said.

McLanahan was wiping his face, head, and hands with a large white moistened towel, which was already dirty from his ministrations. “That can wait,” he said.

“How long? Until you pass out?”

“I dropped Jon off at the medic and had them take a look at me.”

Bullshit, Wilhelm thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He shook his head ruefully, not wanting to argue with the guy, then nodded off to the east. “Why is he coming here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not too smart, if you ask me.” Wilhelm pulled out his radio. “Two, this is Alpha. Where’s that closest column of vehicles?”

“Twenty klicks north, still approaching.”

“Roger. Continue to monitor, let me know when they’re within ten klicks.” Not yet in shoulder-fired missile range, but the inbound aircraft was in deadly danger if it was spotted by Turkish warplanes.

A few minutes later they heard the distinctive heavy high-speed whupwhupwhup of a large rotorcraft. A CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft zoomed in low and fast over the base, made a tight left turn while transitioning to vertical flight, then hover-taxied along the line of security vehicles up the ramp to the apron and touched down. It was directed inside the secure parking area, where it shut down.

Thompson’s security forces redeployed all around the entire aircraft parking area while Wilhelm, McLanahan, and Thompson approached the Osprey. The rear cargo ramp opened up, and three U.S. Secret Service agents, wearing body armor and carrying submachine guns, stepped out, followed by Vice President Kenneth Phoenix.

The vice president wore a Kevlar helmet, goggles, gloves, and body armor. Wilhelm approached him but did not salute him—he was already highlighted enough. Phoenix started to pull off his protective gear, but Wilhelm waved for him to stop. “Keep that stuff on for now just in case, sir,” he shouted over the roar of the twin rotors overhead. He escorted the vice president to a waiting up-armored Humvee, and they all piled in and sped off toward the upstairs conference room in the Tank.

Once they were safely inside and secured, the Secret Service agents helped Phoenix remove his protective gear. “What happened?” Phoenix asked. He looked at Wilhelm’s grim face, then at McLanahan’s. “Don’t tell me, let me guess: Turkey.”

“We detected the air assault, but they sent in a jamming aircraft that took out our eyes and ears,” Wilhelm said. “Damn good coordination; they were obviously poised to strike and just waited for the right opportunity.”

“Which was me, wanting to meet with everyone in Irbil,” Phoenix said. “Didn’t think I’d be their cover for their invasion.”

“If not you, sir, it would’ve been someone else—or they might have staged something, like I believe they staged that attack in Van,” Patrick said.

“You think that was staged?” Kris Thompson asked. “Why? It was classic PKK.”

“It was classic PKK—too classic,” Patrick said. “What got me was the timing. Why a daytime attack, in the morning no less, with the entire staff and security detail awake and alerted? Why not a nighttime attack? They would’ve had better chances of success and higher casualty counts.”

“I thought they were pretty successful.”

“I believe it was staged so few students would be in the barracks,” Patrick said. “They made sure the actual casualty count was low, and just inflated the figure for the media—enough for the president to declare a state of emergency.”

“If there is a president of Turkey,” Phoenix said. “The word from our ambassador in Ankara said that the president was ‘conferring with his political and military advisers.’ The foreign ministry won’t say any more, and the president’s call to the prime minister and president of Turkey haven’t been returned. He looked like a robot on television; he could have been under duress, even drugged.”

“Sir, before we waste any more time trying to figure out what the Turks are going to do next, our first priority is to get you out of here and back to Baghdad—preferably back to the States,” Wilhelm said. “Your Secret Service detail may have better options, but I recommend—”

“I’m not ready to leave yet, Colonel,” Phoenix said.

“Excuse me, sir?” Wilhelm asked incredulously. “We’re in the middle of a shooting war, sir. They just bombed this base! I can’t guarantee your safety—I don’t believe anyone can right now.”

“Colonel, I came here to meet with the Iraqis, Turks, Kurds, and Americans to try to resolve the PKK situation,” Phoenix said, “and I’m not leaving unless I’m ordered to do so by my boss.” Wilhelm was about to say something, but Phoenix stopped him with an up-raised hand. “Enough, Colonel. I need access to a telephone or radio to contact Washington, and I’ll need—”

At that moment a buzzer sounded, and Wilhelm leaped for the phone. “Go.”

“Multiple high-altitude aircraft approaching from the north, sir,” Mark Weatherly reported. “Lower speed, perhaps turboprops. We suspect they’re transports, possibly inserting paratroopers. The Iraqi army is reporting more comm jamming, too. We haven’t picked it up yet.”

“Continue to monitor and advise,” Wilhelm said. He thought for a moment, then added, “Advise all Warhammer units, weapons tight, self-defense only, and recall the Avengers back into the base.”

“Sir? Say again—”

“We’re not at war with the damned Turks, Weatherly,” Wilhelm interrupted. “Our intel says we’re already outnumbered by at least ten to one, so they can just roll right over us if they get pissed off enough. I’ll make it plain to them that they can buzz Iraq all they like, but they’re not going to take this base. Recall the Avengers and all other Warhammer units that are outside the wire. Once they’re back inside the fence, we go on full defensive posture, ready to repel all attackers. Got that?”

“Roger, sir.”

“Advise Jaffar and tell him that I want to meet with him and his company commanders about what to do if the Turks invade,” Wilhelm said. “They might feel like fighting, but we’re not here to get in the middle of a shooting war.” He looked at the vice president. “Still want to stay here, sir? It could get hairy.”

“Like I said, Colonel, I’m on a diplomatic mission,” Phoenix said. “Maybe when the Turks figure out I’m here, they’ll be less likely to start shooting. I might even be able to start cease-fire talks from here.”

“I’d feel better if you were at least down in Baghdad, sir,” Wilhelm said, “but you sound good and positive, and I could sure use some positive vibrations around here right now.”

The phone buzzed again, and Wilhelm picked it up.

“Weatherly here, sir. We got a problem: I phoned Jaffar’s office—he’s not here. No one in the IA senior staff is answering the phone.”

“Ask Mawloud or Jabburi where they went.”

“They’re not here either, sir. I tried Jabburi’s radio: no answer. He’s been away from the Tank since before the attacks started.”

Wilhelm looked out the windows of the conference room down to the main floor of the Tank; sure enough, the Turkish liaison officer’s console was vacant. “Find some hajii in charge and tell him to get up here on the double, Weatherly.” He hung up the phone. “Thompson?”

“Checking, Colonel.” Kris Thompson was already on his portable radio. “Security control says a convoy of troop buses and trucks left the base about an hour ago, Colonel,” he said a moment later. “Had men and equipment, proper authorizations signed by Jaffar.”

“No one thought to notify me of this?”

“The gate guards said it looked routine, and they had proper orders.”

“Have any of your guys seen any Iraqi soldiers anywhere?” Wilhelm thundered.

“Checking, Colonel.” But everyone could tell by watching Thompson’s incredulous expression what the answer was: “Colonel, the IA headquarters is vacant.”

“Vacant?”

“Just a couple soldiers busy breaking up hard drives and memory chips out of computers,” Thompson said. “Looks like they’ve bugged out. Want me to stop those guys and question them?”

Wilhelm ran a hand across his face, then shook his head. “Negative,” he said wearily. “It’s their base and their stuff. Take pictures and statements, then leave them be.” He practically threw the receiver back on its hook. “Un-friggin’-believable,” he muttered. “An entire Iraqi army brigade just up and walks out?”

“And right before an attack,” Thompson added. “Could they have gotten wind of it?”

“Doesn’t matter—they’re gone,” Wilhelm said. “But I can tell you one thing: they’re not getting back on this base unless I know about it first, that’s for damn sure. Tell your guys that.”

“Will do, Colonel.”

Wilhelm turned again to the vice president. “Sir, you need any more reasons to head on back to Baghdad?”

At that instant an alarm buzzer sounded. Wilhelm picked up the phone and turned toward the displays in the front of the Tank. “What is it now, Weatherly?”

“That nearest column of Turkish armored vehicles inbound from the north are ten klicks out,” Weatherly said. “They’ve spotted Piney Two-Three and are holding position.”

Wilhelm ran as fast as he could downstairs to his console, with the others following. The video feed from the Avenger antiaircraft unit showed a dark green armored vehicle, flying a large red flag with a white crescent. Its machine guns were raised. The XC-57’s laser radar image showed the other vehicles in line behind it. “Two-Three, this is Alpha, weapons tight, road-march position.”

“Copy, Warhammer, we’re in road march already,” the Avenger vehicle commander replied, verifying that his weapons were safe and the barrels of his Stinger missiles and twenty-millimeter Gatling gun were aimed skyward, not at the Turks.

“Can you back up or turn around?”

“Affirm to both.”

“Very slowly, back up, turn around, and then head back to the base at normal speed,” Wilhelm ordered. “Keep your barrels aimed away from them. I don’t think they’re going to bother you.”

“Hope you’re right, Alpha. Two-Three copies all, on the move.”

It was a tense few minutes. Since the camera on board the Avenger only aimed forward they lost the video feed, so they couldn’t see if the Turkish APC crews were readying any antitank weapons. But the XC-57 image showed the Turkish vehicles holding position as the Avenger turned around, and then following it from a distance of about a hundred yards as it headed back to the base.

“Here they come,” Wilhelm said, removing his headset and throwing it on the desk in front of him. “Mr. Vice President, at the risk of stating the obvious, you’ll be our guest for the near future, courtesy of the Republic of Turkey.”

“Well handled, Colonel,” Ken Phoenix said. “The Turks know they can blast us up, but they’re holding back. If we struck back, they’d have attacked for sure.”

“We’re allies, right?” Wilhelm said sarcastically. “Somehow I almost forgot that. Besides, it’s an easy call not to hit back if you have almost nothing to hit back with.” He turned to Kris Thompson. “Thompson, cancel the repel-forces order, but shut down the base, get everyone up, and man the gates and perimeter. I want a strong presence, but minimal visible weapons. No one fires unless fired upon. Weatherly, monitor the other inbound Avengers, let them know we have visitors, weapons tight and raised. I think the Turks will let them through.”

In less than an hour, every major entrance to Allied Air Base Nahla had a team of two Turkish armored vehicles parked outside. They presented a very nonhostile appearance, with weapons raised and infantry crews remaining near their vehicles with rifles shouldered…but they weren’t allowing anyone to come near. The base was definitely closed down.