by Dale Brown
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 wi
th 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.
