Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  The interior was tight and cramped. The team members sat in heavy-gauge steel seats, not quite side by side and not in tandem, but slightly staggered so they had a bit more shoulder space. The only windows were the forward cockpit windows. There were two more seats behind Griffin, plus a small cargo area behind the rear seats for their weapons and gear. They all were quiet as they tightened shoulder and lap restraints and readied themselves for their mission. Hal flipped some switches and powered up the tiny ship’s internal power and instrumentation. “Control, Condor, power on, ready for systems check.”

  “Systems check in progress, Condor,” Kelvin Carter responded from Battle Mountain. Hal Briggs could manually operate and control Condor, but, like the QB-52 Megafortresses, it was designed to be controlled, monitored, and flown via satellite from Battle Mountain. A few moments later: “Condor, systems check is complete, aircraft is ready for flight. I’ve been informed that we’re sending updated intel info to you now. We might have to make a change in the landing zone. Stand by.”

  “Select the tactical area chart, sir,” Hal told Griffin.

  Inside his helmet Griffin glanced at the electronic display, which was a very wide field-of-view visor, similar to the view from a quality full-face motorcycle helmet. At the extreme upper left side of the display was a small yellow bar. When Griffin looked at it, a menu similar to a Windows or Macintosh computer popped up. He scanned down the menu until he came to the “Charts” selection, then glanced at the star icon to the left. Another menu popped up, displaying a set of charts. Griffin selected the proper one. The entire chart appeared to be floating in front of him. By glancing at navigation icons on his display, he was able to display changes to the chart from the last briefed information.

  “Looks like Russian troops have moved even farther east than we anticipated, sir,” Hal said after studying the symbology on the new chart. “I’d say they’ve completely taken Tedzhen. A few patrols have moved almost all the way to the Sakar Reservoir. Colonel?”

  “Our contact point is on the north side of the reservoir,” Griffin said. “Our landing zone is between them and the Russians’ new position. It’s close, but I don’t think it’s been compromised—yet.”

  “Top? What do you think?”

  “The data is over thirty minutes old, sir—they may have compromised your landing zone already,” Chris Wohl responded by the secure satellite link. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

  “I agree,” Hal said. “Colonel? Your thoughts?”

  “This is your show, Hal,” Griffin said. “But going in at night, in this contraption—I’d say we go for it. No way in hell they’d ever expect us.”

  “That’s the spirit, sir,” Hal said happily. “Control, recommendations?”

  “This is Intel, Condor,” the intelligence officer responded. “We have a few other alternate infiltration spots, but it’ll extend your ground-travel time past your reserve power limit.” The BERP electronic battle armor ran off very high-tech fuel cells that supplied an enormous amount of power but for relatively short periods of time, depending on usage. In a simple “sneak and peek” operation, their power might last hours—but if they had to fight their way out of a battle, the power could last only minutes.

  “The last two fuel cells are emergency-only, Control. We never plan to use them,” Briggs said. Each team member carried extra fuel cells—they were even more important than ammunition on this mission. “If we can’t do this mission without using the emergency fuel cells, we don’t go. We’ll do the approach to the planned landing zone, and if it’s hot, we’ll bug out.”

  “Sounds good to me, Condor,” David Luger said. “We’re good to go.”

  “Roger that,” Carter acknowledged. “Five minutes to release, Condor.”

  It was the longest five-minute wait in Trevor Griffin’s life. All the techniques he had learned over the years to calm himself—controlled breathing, consciously unclenching muscles, Transcendental Meditation—refused to work this time. But soon he wished he’d had to wait a little while longer. It seemed only a few seconds when Carter gave a one-minute warning.

  The bomb doors below them slid open. The rumbling sound reverberating in their helmets quadrupled in intensity, and the little craft shook violently in the disrupted airflow, as if it were a young stallion trying to break the wrangler’s grasp on the rope to free himself.

  But the worst part was when they dropped free of the Megafortress’s bomb bay and fell out into space. Griffin felt as if his stomach had flown up into his throat. Blood rushed to his head, causing his vision to “red out,” and he thought for sure he was going to lose his lunch. The Condor’s sudden deceleration caused his body to mash up against his shoulder harness, which dug mercilessly into his body, so hard he could feel it pinch even through the thick BERP body armor. The Condor’s nose pitched over, and for a very long, uncomfortable moment, he thought he was heading straight down, ready to slam into the earth facefirst.

  “Good separation, Condor,” Carter’s voice said. “How are you feeling, Colonel?” Undoubtedly the BERP rig had some sort of telemetry device that was sending body-function readouts back to Battle Mountain. “You can breathe anytime now, sir.” Griffin found he was holding his breath, and he let it out with a gush and found that the pressure on his chest had already greatly subsided.

  “I’m okay,” Griffin said, willing his breathing to quickly return to normal.

  “That first step is definitely an eye-opener,” Briggs exclaimed. Griffin silently cursed his desk-bound stomach and vowed to stay in better shape.

  If he made it through this mission in one piece.

  “MA flight controls responding normally,” Carter reported. “Coming up to best glide speed…now.” The Condor’s nose pitched up greatly, assuming a much more normal, albeit slightly unsettling, nose-down attitude. Underneath Condor’s skin were thousands of tiny computer-controlled hydraulic actuators that twisted and manipulated most of the outer fuselage—in effect, the entire body was a wing, with an almost infinitely controllable amount of lift or drag. The craft could glide as slowly as a feather one moment, sink as fast as a fifteen-thousand-pound rock the next moment, and then float like a cloud the next, all without deploying one aileron or flap. “Looking good, Condor. Sit back and relax, folks. We’re on glide path to target.”

  Mary, Republic of Turkmenistan

  That same time

  Although it was at the crossroads of travel and commerce in Central

  Asia, and had been for centuries, Mary was definitely a very lonely and desolate place now.

  Mary once was the second-largest city in Turkmenistan and the nexus of the railways, highways, and petroleum pipelines that transported Turkmenistan’s immense oil and natural-gas wealth to other parts of Central Asia and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. It was also now the easternmost stronghold of the Army of the Russian Federation, which was trying to wrest control of Turkmenistan away from its interim Muslim government and replace it with a pro-Russian government again. Most of the Muslim population had fled north toward Chärjew, ready to cross the border into Uzbekistan if necessary; a few hardier souls had decided to make the perilous journey across the burning sands of the Kara-Kum Desert toward Kerki, ready to escape to Uzbekistan or Afghanistan if the Russians dared pursue them this far.

  Mary was Podpolkovnik Artyom Vorobev’s first field command. He was in charge of the 117th Rifles, a motorized rifle regiment with about three thousand troops carried aboard a conglomeration of vehicles, everything from cargo trucks to BTR-60 armored personnel carriers and BRDM scouts. Vorobev, however, was lucky enough to have a battalion of T-72 light tanks augmenting his force, which he deployed right up front on the Ashkhabad-Mary highway. He also had almost a full air-defense battalion, including four ZSU-23 mobile antiaircraft artillery vehicles and three 9K35 Strela-10 mobile surface-to-air missile units, along with a command-post vehicle, radar vehicle, and reloads.

  He used to have an S-300 brigade
up front, but of course the damned Americans and their unmanned stealth bombers had taken care of that unit. The furor regarding his decision to deploy the S-300 air-defense brigade so far ahead of his regiment had thankfully quieted down in the wake of the United Nations’ decision to exclude all foreign military combat aircraft from Turkmenistan. He was still in command, and he was determined not to screw up again.

  The Strela-10 heat-seeking antiaircraft missile system was much more capable than the ancient ZSU-23 against high-performance aircraft, such as the American bomber that was shot down a few weeks earlier. But as commander of the point scout unit, Vorobev’s objective wasn’t to take on a massed air or ground assault but simply to make contact with any enemy forces out there, report their strength and position, disengage, and maintain contact until heavier reinforcements arrived. The main force was many kilometers away, but it was two full reinforced brigades spread out along the fifty kilometers between Mary and Tedzen, supported by several aviation, air-defense, engineer, and special-operations companies.

  Vorobev’s command vehicle was located near the rear of his regiment, about ten kilometers southwest of the main airport at Mary and four kilometers behind the lead scout formation to the east. He was proud of this force, and he told his battalion and company commanders that every day. Vorobev had been deployed all over the Russian Federation in various units throughout his eighteen-year-long army career, but mostly as a staff officer, never as a field commander. He had worked hard and used his contacts to go to the best schools and training centers so he could fill out his résumé with plenty of academic experience, but despite top marks and glowing endorsements from many high-ranking generals and even a few vice marshals in Moscow, he had always lacked the one thing he needed to compete for flag rank: actual experience commanding a combat unit in the field.

  When he got his orders to go to Turkmenistan, he thought his career was over—an assignment to Central Asia was worse than one to Siberia. But it turned out that one of his many patrons did him a favor: He would be taking command of a full regiment, which looked good on any subcolonel’s record, but his first command was in a relatively quiet and safe location—Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan. Nothing ever happened there.

  That is, until about two months after he took command of his unit. Then, as his grandfather always used to say, “On idyot pyerdyachim parom,” or “He was going to the top propelled by fart steam.” The Taliban had invaded Turkmenistan, one of the other Russian army regiments in his division assigned to defend the city of Mary had been crushed, and now he was suddenly thrust to the forefront with strict orders from Moscow not to underestimate the Taliban-led forces and let the same happen to him. Vorobev’s regiment was now expected to blunt any advances by any hostile forces, whether they be Turkmenis, Taliban—or American B-1 bombers. Mary was the “line of death” here in the wastelands of Turkmenistan. If he held fast, Vorobev would get his long-awaited promotion, perhaps back to a staff job as polkovnik or maybe even a general major. If he failed, the best he could hope for was an honorable retirement with his podpolkovnik stars still on his shoulders.

  If he survived.

  It was nearing 9:00 P.M., which was patrol shift-change time for most of the regiment. Because so many of his men would be out and about at this hour, Vorobev made it a habit to stop by at least one security-sector company to watch the changeover before heading to his tent to start reviewing reports, making notes, and issuing orders to his battalion commanders. His driver was waiting for him as he put on his helmet and pulled the chin strap tight. One of his young lieutenants, a mortar-company commander named Novikov, and a battalion commander named Kuzmin were accompanying him on this evening inspection. These ninety-minute-long tours gave his junior officers a chance to have a look at the rest of the regiment, ask questions, and get some face time with the boss.

  It was a rather pleasant night so far, but Vorobev knew that the weather in southern Turkmenistan in late spring was unpredictable and sometimes harsh. “Let’s go, serzhant,” he said. He returned the salutes from his two junior officers, then shook hands. He chatted with them idly as they headed to the first security checkpoint, about twenty minutes away.

  Looks like we came a long way for nothing,” Hal Briggs said. The inside of the little Condor was eerily quiet, with just the faintest whisper of airflow audible through their helmets. But it wasn’t the ride that was bothering everyone.

  It was the landing area. It appeared as if several Russian patrols were moving directly toward the landing site itself.

  “We’ve been working with Turabi and these Turkmen guerrillas ever since the peacekeeping force was established,” Griffin went on. “They risked their lives to pass on valuable intelligence information to us.”

  “Well, it appears the Russians are about to nab them,” Briggs said, studying the latest satellite-imagery download. “One Russian patrol looks like they’ve got them right now, and two others seem to be on their way.”

  “The landing site is compromised,” the intel officer back at Battle Mountain radioed. “I recommend you abort. From your altitude you can make it back to Bukhara with plenty of fuel left.”

  “Colonel Griffin? Speak to me. I’m considering getting the heck out of here.”

  “We can’t let those Turkmen forces get captured if we want any chance of keeping Turkmenistan out of Russian hands, Hal.”

  Hal paused. Then, “Top? Comments?”

  Chris Wohl had encountered Jalaluddin Turabi before on two occasions—the last time, Turabi’s former Taliban fighters helped the Battle Force commandos escape a Russian attack in Turkmenistan. “It’s hard to tell, sir,” Wohl responded, “but I don’t see much more than a squad out there near the landing zone, and maybe a platoon within ten miles. You can take those guys easily. All you have to do is make sure you’re in the air before more troops show up.”

  Briggs thought about it for a few moments. “Roger that. Control, Condor is proceeding as planned.”

  “Are you sure, Hal?” Dave Luger asked. “It’s looking pretty hairy.”

  “Not as hairy as it is for Turabi,” Hal said. “Put us down, sir.”

  There was a pause, this time from Battle Mountain—Carter was obviously inquiring as to the wisdom of this decision. But soon he said, “Here we go, Condor. Everyone, prelanding checklists. Hold on tight.”

  They were just a few miles from the planned landing zone, still gliding to the southwest at seventeen thousand feet. Just as Griffin thought there was no way they could make that landing zone from this altitude, the nose came up and his body was shoved forward on his shoulder straps as the Condor decelerated. His stomach again churned up into his throat as they careened earthward. Then, through the sudden wind-blast noise and intense buffeting, he thought he heard and felt the landing gear pop out, and moments later they hit the ground.

  The noise level suddenly increased a hundredfold as the mission-adaptive fuselage went into maximum-drag configuration, and Griffin’s body dug into the shoulder harnesses again for what seemed like five minutes but was only a few seconds. The moment the pressure released, Hal Briggs had his restraints off and his door unlatched, and Griffin had to hurry to keep up with him. As they briefed, Griffin kept watch using the battle armor’s sensors while Hal pushed the Condor off the highway and spread a camouflaged antiradiation net over it—it would be easily discovered in daytime, but at night it looked like a pile of sand, and the net would keep it from being spotted by infrared sensors.

  Griffin had his weapon ready—a big, heavy rifle that no commando would ever carry but was the perfect weapon for the Tin Men and their powered exoskeletons. The rifle was an electromagnetic rail gun that propelled a large titanium sabot projectile several thousand feet per second with amazing accuracy. Coupled with the battle armor’s sensors and steered with the exoskeleton, the weapon was devastating to any war machine, from a tank to a bomber, out to a range of over three miles.

  “You okay, sir?” Hal asked.

  �
��Yes. All clear,” Griffin said.

  “Then let’s go find your boy, Colonel,” Briggs said. He checked his electronic charts, stepped in the proper direction, then fired the thrusters in his boots—and, in a whoosh! of compressed air, he was gone.

  Here we go, Griffin said silently. He pointed himself in the right direction, braced himself, and gave the electronic command—what he called during training “clicking the ruby slippers together.” He felt the push of the thrusters, but for all he knew he was still standing upright—there was no sense of flying or falling at all. The battle armor’s stabilization system made the jump so smooth that he had to check his sensors to be sure that he was moving at all. But moments later he felt the thrusters fire again to slow his fall, and he knew enough to bend his knees slightly in order to help take the landing impact.

  Hal was about five yards away. “Good jump, sir. Follow me.” And he was gone again.

  Very cool, Griffin thought as he waited for the thrusters to recharge before he made his next jump. Very, very cool…

  The security patrol had a group of three men on their knees in the sand, hands atop their heads, when the second patrol team, driving a wheeled BTR armored personnel carrier, arrived. An officer got out of the BTR and approached the group. “What do you have here tonight, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “They were out here in shallow spider holes, sir,” the sergeant replied. “They seemed to be taking a lot of notes. And look at this.” The officer looked at the object in his flashlight. “It’s a pair of high-powered binoculars, sir. But there’s something else….”