The Trojan Horse

Chapter Twenty-Two

Al Udeid Air Base/Virginia

Qatar/USA, Day 40

The heat slapped at Sergeant Albert Cunningham’s face as he double-timed it towards the Special Operations Command Centre and the promise of air-conditioning inside the building. Four months in the Middle Eastern heat had hardened him to some degree, yet he still disliked the temperature, the insects and most of the people. Maybe that was a little unfair — hell, it was a little unfair — but most of the people he met in his line of work tended to be terrorists, smugglers or religious nuts. SOCOM still ran operations all over the region, with remote-controlled Predators and covert operation teams hunting down terrorists and disrupting their networks before they could form. Most of the governments in the Middle East turned a blind eye. After the big pullout from the region — after oil became little more expensive than water — the Princes and Emirs and Dictators of the Middle East were in for a nasty surprise from their own people. Their castles were literally built on sand.

He scowled as the noise of a heavy transport aircraft echoed overhead. American soldiers were being evacuated from the Middle East, travelling back home as fast as an overworked transport network could deliver them. Albert had been expecting to be recalled himself, even though his Force Recon unit was blacker than black; there seemed to be little need to keep a major American presence in the Middle East. Or at least that was what the government was saying publicly. Privately, Albert has his doubts. The terrorists who hated America for being better than them were unlikely to just allow the US to leave in peace. There had already been a series of nasty demonstrations that had almost turned violent.

The guard checked his identity carefully, scanning Albert’s eyes with a pocket retina scanner before allowing him to enter the command centre. Terrorists had proved themselves to be alarmingly capable of getting inside supposedly secure areas, even in relatively peaceful Qatar. The buddies Albert had lost in Afghanistan stood as mute testament to the skills of the Taliban fighters, who combined a single-minded devotion to their version of Islam with fighting skills that relied on wearing down the enemy and breaking his determination to carry on the fight. No one should be inside the fence without clearance and nobody, but nobody, was allowed into the centre without a careful security check. And no one who wasn’t American was ever allowed inside. The reliability of people in the Middle East couldn’t be predicted accurately.

And nor could the reliability of some Americans, he added mentally. The Vice President could have testified to that. No one knew for sure who was to blame for his death, but hundreds of terrorist groups were already claiming the credit. The grapevine claimed that the Teams would be sent after the loudest claimants, extracting revenge for the assassination before the pullout was completed. It was as good a theory as any other.

Inside, it was cooler. The handful of people within view worked at their terminals, muttering orders into their headsets as they struggled to coordinate the big pull-out. No one outside the military really appreciated how much material the United States had stockpiled in the region, including weapons and supplies that would change the balance of power in the wrong hands. Some of it would probably be turned over to America’s allies, but the rest of it would have to be transported back to the US, left in secure storage or destroyed. It wouldn’t be an easy task.

“Sergeant,” a voice said. Albert looked up to see Brigadier O’Neil, a former SF soldier who’d been injured while on operations and confined to working in the rear until he could pass his tests and go back into the field. The SF troops appreciated working with someone who knew what they could do — and also what they needed to get their jobs done. Even the more secretive units like Albert’s team needed to draw supplies from the rear. “If you’ll come with me…?”

Albert felt an uncomfortable sensation in his gut as he was led into a small room. A man he vaguely recognised from a briefing rose to his feet as Albert entered, holding out a hand for him to shake. Albert shook it firmly, guessing that the man spent most of his time behind a desk back home. The thought jogged his memory into high gear and it produced a name. Albert Demeter, the Director of the CIA. They shared the same first name.

O’Neil shut the door firmly behind him, cutting off all noise from the outside world. Even the omnipresent roar of aircraft was gone. Albert’s eyes widened as the CIA Director picked up what was evidently a counter-surveillance tool and turned it on, carefully sweeping the entire room. He even checked Albert’s hair and equipment belt. Nothing about it made sense, Albert decided, and it left him with a bad feeling. Why would the Director of the CIA carry out a sweep he’d normally have an underling do?

“I’ve been told that you and your team are the best Special Forces operatives in the world,” the Director said, without preamble. “Is that actually true?”

Albert’s eyes narrowed. No one joined the Special Forces without the underlying certainty that they were the best at what they did; the toughest and most capable soldiers in the world, the men who made terrorists scared of the dark. In his years in Force Recon, he’d crawled through bogs and climbed mountains to slip into terrorist training camps and kill them all, or call in air strikes from a bomber loitering so high overhead that the terrorist scum had no idea that they were there. He’d carried out missions in over a dozen countries, including several that it would have surprised the general public to know that American troops were operating there. And he’d come alarmingly close to losing his life on several occasions.

“Yes, sir,” he said, flatly.

“The Director will brief you on your mission,” O’Neil said. “The mission requires an operative with unique qualifications. Failure is not an option, Sergeant. These orders come from the very highest levels. Once you know the mission, you will either carry it out as you see fit or you will be placed into lockdown until the mission is completed.”

Albert nodded. As insulting as it seemed, one lesson the United States had learned quickly was that it couldn’t really trust its allies in the Middle East. The only way to keep operations from being blown — or raiding empty buildings — was to have them kept highly confidential until the mission was over. There were so many American units, helicopters and aircraft moving through the Middle East and Afghanistan that it was easy to put together a mission without letting too many people in on the secret.

“I must say that I have protested the orders,” O’Neil added. “You have the authority to determine if you want others to accompany you or if you want to operate alone.” His eyes darkened. “But if you get caught, we will deny all knowledge of you. Understand this; there will be no reinforcements or support from anywhere else. You’ll be effectively on your own.”

“And expendable,” Albert said. The nasty feeling in his gut was mingling with growing excitement. It sounded like a mission that would test him — and his buddies, if he brought them along — to the limit. Or, alternatively, an invitation to suicide, like several other missions that had gone badly wrong over the years. “I will carry out the mission.”

“Good,” the Brigadier said. “I will withdraw now. Once you’re done, you will receive your instructions, but remember — nothing is to be written down or stored in a database, no matter how secure.”

He left, closing the door behind him. “Sergeant, this will not be easy,” the CIA Director said. “The Brigadier was not kidding when he said that you and your team would be on their own — and expendable, if you get caught. If you want to back out…”

“No, sir,” Albert said, firmly.

“Very well,” the CIA Director said. “It has been announced that Iran will receive a visit from one of the Snakes, someone who will negotiate with Iran for the introduction of Galactic technology into their society. The Iranians have been pushing for this visit for some time and the Snakes have finally decided to grant it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to assassinate one of the Snakes.”

Albert stared at him. “Sir?”

“You heard me,” the CIA Director said. “You have to get into Iran, assassinate the Snake and then get out again, all without being detected.”

The thought was exciting — and terrifying. Albert had scant respect for Iran’s security forces — they’d tangled with them before, on missions that were officially denied — but the Snakes might have all kinds of technology protecting their scaly behinds. He would have to travel into Iran on his own, sneaking through the desert and into Tehran, before finding a place to strike at the Snake. It would be the thrill of a lifetime, if he pulled it off. Failure would mean certain death.

“Sir,” he said, “with all due respect, what has been done to determine how the Snakes will react to the death of one of their people?”

“Nothing,” the CIA Director admitted. “We need data, Sergeant, and we need to get it in such a manner as to ensure that someone else gets the blame…”

Albert saw it all, neatly. Iran had been one of the countries threatening bloody retribution for losing its oil revenues. If he carried out the assassination, the Iranians would get the blame and the brunt of any alien retaliation. And it might distract the terrorists from going after American targets.

“I understand, sir,” he said. “I won’t let the country down.”

“I know you won’t,” the CIA Director said. “Under the circumstances, as your CO said, you have complete freedom to plan the operation as you see fit. Good luck.”

Albert was already considering it. It would be fairly easy to link up with smugglers and head east to Tehran. The Gulf was lousy with smugglers, despite the presence of the American Navy and — for that matter — Iran’s naval patrols. Iran’s forces were generally bought off with large bribes, a constant problem in the Middle East, allowing smugglers to ship contraband all over the region. The Teams had used it before to slip in and out of Iran.

“I’ll need one other person,” he said. “Sergeant Bainbridge. We both speak fluent Arabic and Farsi; we can pass for Arabs or Iranians if necessary.”

“You have complete freedom to decide how to carry out the mission,” the CIA Director reported. “Just remember, if everything goes south…”

“We’re rogues,” Albert agreed. “And you will never have seen us in your life.”

“They confirmed McGreevy as Vice President,” Toby said, grimly.

His father looked up from where he was poking the fire. Gillian sat at one end of the sofa, watching his antics with apparent amusement. Toby had only been able to slip out of Washington at very short notice and they hadn’t really had time to chat. His father had been eager to talk about his other plans, but Toby had refused to listen. The less he knew the better. With an apparent security breach opening up the path to taking down Air Force One, the FBI was gearing up to run checks on everyone who’d already been cleared. It might uncover the resistance’s growing network of cells.

“The bitch,” his father said. “The President should have appointed someone harmless, not someone who…”

He shook his head in disgust. “You want to bet that she planned the VP’s assassination herself?”

“No,” Toby said. The President didn’t understand his former Secretary of State, not really. He knew that McGreevy was ambitious — it was why he’d tried to co-opt her into his administration in the first place — but he’d underestimated just how far she was prepared to go to gain power. Now she had become Vice President, she was only one step away from the Presidency. The Secret Service had quietly strengthened the ring of steel around the President, but Toby wasn’t sanguine about the risks. God alone knew what the aliens could do to assassinate the President. “I think we have to count her as an outright collaborator.”

“So we deal with her,” his father said. “Can’t you get a kill-team somewhere near her?”

“I doubt it,” Toby said. The Secret Service would be hardly likely to accept him vouching for anyone, particularly a group of old soldiers carrying weapons. “I think we have to assume the worst.”

He stared down at the fire. “The DHS is already in her pocket,” he said. “I think the Director is one of her people, which gives her a great deal of authority; more, I think, than the President recognises. They’re already gearing up for dealing with mass civil unrest — after the riots in Washington, they have ample justification to prepare for further trouble. I think the next step will be to clamp down on our freedoms down here.”

“Not until they’ve finished disbanding the army,” his father said. The Colonel spat into the fire, causing it to splutter back at the watching humans. “I cannot believe that so many military men so tamely complied with the government’s orders.”

“They swore to uphold the civilian government,” Toby pointed out. “Do you think they should turn their guns on Congress just because they find their orders unpalatable?”

The Colonel snorted, but said nothing else. “Besides,” Toby added, “there is a disquieting set of developments in military matters. A number of army officers attended a seminar on one of the alien bases. Apparently, it was to discuss the Galactic Federation’s military role…”

“And I thought they were pacifists,” the Colonel said. “Now they admit to having a military…”

“And they have since been confirmed as officers who will be retained by our much-reduced military,” Toby continued, ignoring his father’s interruption with the ease of long practice. “All of them have been willing to talk endlessly about how wonderful the Federation is and how we should be grateful for the chance to grow into a mature race — under the benevolent protection of the Snakes, of course.”

He waited to see if his father would draw the correct conclusion. “They’re being brainwashed,” the Colonel snarled. “God damn it — doesn’t anyone even realise that they’re being turned into alien serfs?”

Toby shook his head. “That’s not the only thing they have in common,” he added. “They’re almost all unmarried, which suggests that there won’t be anyone close enough to them to notice any alarming difference. In fact, most of them have few friends or allies…”

“But they can still give orders and be obeyed,” the Colonel said. “Unless they give an illegal order, who is going to question them?”

“The noose is tightening,” Toby agreed. “I’ve started something that might give the aliens a shock, but I think we need to work faster when it comes to collecting and storing war material. Now we can ensure that General Thomas isn’t being watched by the aliens, we can start using him to contact a number of officers. If we’re careful, we might be able to start stockpiling war material without the aliens catching on.”

The Colonel looked up at him. “And if one of those officers has been brainwashed?”

“We’re dead,” Toby said, simply. The whole issue was turning into a frightening nightmare, one without a parallel in human history. Anyone could be brainwashed into supporting the aliens, turning men and women with unimpeachable records into traitors who would betray their country — and escape suspicion until they carried out their work. The security vetting system had been badly broken in the past, but this was much worse. Who could they trust?

The aliens could watch anywhere, listen in to all communications… the slightest mistake might betray the resistance to their enemies. And then the cells would be wiped out, one by one. And then… perhaps the aliens would reveal their true nature? And perhaps then it would be too late.

“They’re not all-powerful,” Gillian said, sharply. “They can do things we can’t, sure. They have a more advanced technological base than ours. But we’re not as far behind them as we thought. Their bugs aren’t too different from those on the drawing board, their transmitters are not too far ahead of our own microburst transmitters… they’re not gods.”

“They don’t need to be gods,” Toby said, sourly. “They have seventeen starships hanging over our heads. Why are they fucking around with us when they could just bombard us into submission and take the surrender of whoever is left when the rubble stops falling?”

“Maybe they can’t,” the Colonel said. “Or maybe they’re so advanced that they regard us with almost-total contempt. They may not consider us capable of matching them, or of seeing through their deceptions. I’ve seen that sort of arrogance before; the people who have it think that no one is as smart as them, or that anything they do is automatically smarter than anything anyone else can do. I wonder if they expect us to be able to understand their toys, or if they’re giving us tech confident that we lack the knowledge to understand it, let alone improve on the design.”

“Maybe,” Toby said. He thought, briefly, of all the gifts the Galactic Federation had given humanity. A food producer was helping to feed the homeless in Manhattan. A water purifier was helping to produce water in Africa. And fusion power was starting to allow fission plants to be shut down, at least until they could decide what to do with them. And if the aliens had come in peace, how much could the human race have learned from them? “I hope you’re right.”

“So do I, boy,” the Colonel said. “So do I.”