Rogue Forces

by Dale Brown

  “Can I use the can first?”

  The second security guard looked like he was going to say no, but the first guard waved a hand. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said. Macomber rushed to the lavatory while the others filed out. The second officer continued his inspection in the rear of the cabin among the cargo containers.

  It was controlled bedlam outside the plane. The security officers were using forklifts to unload containers from the cargo holds underneath the plane, which K-9s sniffed around. The crew could see K-9s sitting before some of the containers; these were marked and brought to a separate area of an adjacent hangar. Another officer checked each passport with its owner, then had each person wait with the others nearby, under the watchful eye of an armed security officer.

  Kris Thompson came over a short time later and looked at the group of passengers. “Where’s Macomber?”

  “Still in the lavatory,” Charlie Turlock replied. “He’s not a strong flier.”

  Thompson looked over to the air stairs. “Chuck? What’s going on up there?”

  “A lot of grunting, groaning, and brown clouds,” the first security officer waiting for Macomber replied.

  “Hurry him up.” Thompson turned back to Charlie. “Can you help me with the manifest, miss?” he asked. “There are a few discrepancies I’m hoping you can clear up for me.”

  “Sure. I’m familiar with all the stuff on board.” She followed Thompson along to the various piles of containers.

  Up in the cabin, the first security officer said, “Let’s go, buddy.”

  “Almost done.” The officer heard sounds of flushing, then running water, and the lavatory door was unlocked. Even before the door was fully open, the unbearable odors within made the officer gasp for breath. “Jeez, buddy, what in hell were you eating on this—”

  Macomber hit him once on the left temple with his right fist, knocking him unconscious without another sound. He quickly dragged the officer forward, put him on the cockpit floor, closed the door, then went back to the cabin and stripped off the security tape around the first life raft container.

  Outside the plane, Thompson motioned to different piles of containers. “These are clear and match with the manifest,” he said to Charlie, “but these here don’t match.” He motioned to a large pile of containers across the taxiway in the hangar, now under armed guard. “The dogs alerted to either drugs or explosives in those, and they didn’t match the manifest either. The manifest doesn’t mention you bringing in explosives.”

  “Well, they’re certainly not drugs,” Charlie said. “There’s a perfectly good explanation for all these undocumented containers.”

  “Good.”

  Charlie motioned to the squarish containers. “These are CID battery packs,” she explained. “There are four pairs of battery packs in each case. Each pair attaches to recesses behind the thighs. Those other containers have battery packs, too, but they’re for Tin Man units. They’re worn in pairs on the belt.”

  “CID? Tin Man? What’s that?”

  “CID stands for Cybernetic Infantry Device,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “A CID is a piloted combat robot. Tin Man is a nickname for a commando who is enclosed in a suit of armor called BERP, or Ballistic Electronically Reactive Process. The suit has an exoskeleton that gives the commando increased strength, and the BERP material makes him invulnerable to…well, any infantry-and squad-level weapon and even some light artillery. The stuff over there is the mission packs for the CID units, some of which contain grenade and UAV launchers.” She smiled at the shocked expression on Thompson’s face. “Are you getting all this?”

  “Are…are you joking, miss?” Thompson stammered. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No joke,” Charlie said. “Watch. I’ll show you.” She turned to a large, irregularly shaped device about the size of a refrigerator and spoke, “CID One, activate.” Before Thompson’s disbelieving eyes, the device began to unfold piece by piece, until seconds later a ten-foot-tall robot stood before him. “That’s a CID.” She turned and motioned to the top of the air stairs. “And that is a Tin Man.” Thompson looked and saw a man dressed head to foot in a smooth dark gray outfit, wearing a bullet-shaped multifaceted eyeless helmet, a belt with two circular devices attached, thick knee-high boots, and gloves with thick gauntlets that extended to the elbows.

  “CID One, pilot up,” she said. The robot crouched down, extended a leg and both arms backward, and a hatch popped open on its back. “Have a nice day,” Charlie said, patting Thompson on the shoulder, then climbed up the extended leg and inside the robot. The hatch closed, and seconds later the robot came to life, moving just like a person with incredible smoothness and animation.

  “Now, sir”—the robot spoke in a man’s voice through a hidden speaker with a low electronically synthesized voice—“order your men not to interfere with me or the Tin Man. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re going to—”

  At that moment someone inside the plane yelled, “Freeze or I’ll send my dog!” The Tin Man turned inside the cargo compartment, and immediately shots could be heard. Thompson saw the Tin Man flinch, but he didn’t go down.

  “Oh, my, that wasn’t a good idea,” the woman inside the CID robot said. “Whack really hates getting shot at.”

  The Tin Man didn’t raise any weapon, but Thompson saw a bright flash of light briefly illuminate the cargo compartment of the plane. No more shots were heard. The Tin Man jumped from the plane to the tarmac as easily as stepping off a curb. He motioned to one of the men being guarded and jabbed a finger at the plane. “Terry, suit up. José, climb aboard.” He electronically searched his list of radio frequencies stored in onboard computer memory. “General? Whack here.”

  “Hi, Whack,” Patrick replied. “Welcome to Iraq.”

  “We dropped trou and the shit’s bound to hit the fan real soon. Do something to calm the grunts unless you want a fight on your hands.”

  “I’m on my way to the ramp. I’ll get Masters, Noble, and the rest of the Scion guys to help you. I’m sure we’ll meet Colonel Wilhelm out there shortly.”

  “No doubt. We’re sorting out the—”

  “Freeze!” the security officer guarding the passengers yelled, raising an MP5 submachine gun.

  “Excuse me one sec, General,” Macomber radioed. Again, the Tin Man did not move or even look at the officer, but Thompson saw a blue lightning bolt arc from the Tin Man’s right shoulder and hit the security officer square in the chest, immediately knocking him unconscious.

  The Tin Man stepped over to Thompson. The other security officers around them were all frozen in surprise; a few backed up and ran off to warn others. None of them even dared to reach for a weapon. The Tin Man grabbed Thompson by his jacket and lifted him off the ground, jamming his armored head right in Thompson’s face. “Did Charlie here tell you to tell your men we’re not going to hurt anyone here as long as you leave us alone?” Thompson was too stunned to reply. “I suggest you get your head out of your ass, get on the radio, and tell your men and the Army guys to stay in their barracks and leave us alone, or else we might hurt someone. And they better not have broken any of our stuff, the way they’re driving those forklifts.” He dropped Thompson and let him scurry clear.

  Macomber electronically scanned the radio frequencies detected by his sensors built into the CID unit and compared them with a list downloaded from the Scion Aviation International team at Nahla, selected one, then spoke: “Colonel Wilhelm, this is Wayne Macomber. Do you read me?”

  “Who is this?” Wilhelm replied a moment later.

  “Are you deaf or just stupid?” Macomber asked. “Just listen. My men and I are off-loading our equipment on the ramp and getting ready to fly. I don’t want to see any of your men anywhere in sight, or we’re going to tear you a new one. Do you copy me?”

  “What in hell did you say?” Wilhelm thundered. “Who is this? How did you get on this frequency?”

  “Colonel, this is Charlie Turlock,” Charlie
interjected on the same frequency. “Pardon Mr. Macomber’s language, but he’s had a long day. What he meant to say is we’re out here on the ramp beginning our new contract operations, and we’d appreciate it if your men wouldn’t come around here. Would that be okay?” There was no response. “Good going, Whack,” Charlie radioed. “Now he’s pissed, and he’s going to bring the entire regiment.”

  “Not if he’s smart,” Wayne said. But he knew that’s exactly what he’d do. “You and José, get backpacks on and stand by. Terry, let’s put the rail guns together and get ready to rumble.”

  Charlie hurried off to the hangar where the weapon backpacks had been segregated, followed shortly by the other CID unit, and they selected and attached large backpacklike units on each other’s back. The backpacks contained forty-millimeter grenade launchers, each with twin movable barrels that could fire rounds in almost any direction no matter which way they were turned and could fire a variety of munitions, including high explosive, antiarmor, and antipersonnel. Whack and another Tin Man located and assembled their weapons—massive electromagnetic rail runs, each of which electrically fired a thirty-millimeter depleted uranium shell thousands of feet per second faster than a bullet.

  It didn’t take long for Wilhelm to arrive in a Humvee. He screeched to a halt just inside the parking ramp area far enough in to get a good look at the scene. As he studied the area in stunned disbelief, three soldiers with M-16s raced out of the Humvee, one hiding behind the Humvee and the other two fanning out and taking cover behind nearby buildings.

  “Warhammer, this is Alpha, those Scion guys are not in custody,” Wilhelm radioed from the Humvee. “They are off-loading their aircraft. Security is not in sight. They’ve deployed unidentified robot-looking units with weapons visible. Get First Battalion out here on the double. I want—”

  “Hold on, Colonel, hold on,” Macomber cut in on the command frequency. “We don’t want a fight with you. Calling out the troops and starting a gunfight will just get the Turks outside riled up.”

  “Warhammer switching to Delta.”

  But on the secondary channel, Macomber went on: “You can flip channels all day long, Colonel, but we’ll still find it. Listen, Colonel, we won’t bother you, so don’t bother us, okay?”

  “Sir, vehicle approaching, five o’clock!” one of the soldiers yelled. A Humvee was driving up to Macomber’s position.

  “Don’t shoot, Colonel, that’s probably McLanahan,” Macomber radioed.

  “Shut the hell up, whoever you are,” Wilhelm radioed, drawing a .45 caliber pistol from his holster.

  The newcomer came to a stop, and Patrick McLanahan stepped out, with his hands raised. “Easy, Colonel, we’re all on the same side here,” he said.

  “Like hell,” Wilhelm shouted. “Sergeant, take McLanahan into custody and put him in the Triple-C under guard.”

  “Look out!” one of the soldiers shouted. Wilhelm just caught a blur of motion out of the corner of an eye—and as if by magic, the gray-suited figure who had been near the hangar appeared out of the sky right beside the soldier closest to McLanahan. In an instant he snatched the M-16 rifle out of the soldier’s startled hands, bent it in half, and handed it back to him.

  “Now cut the shit, all of you,” Macomber shouted, “or I break the next M-16 over someone’s head.”

  The other armed soldiers raised their weapons and aimed them at Macomber, but Wilhelm raised his hands and shouted, “Weapons tight, weapons tight, put ’em down.” It wasn’t until then that he noticed that one of the large robots had appeared right beside him, covering the twenty or thirty yards between them with incredible speed and stealth. “Jeez…!” he breathed, startled.

  “Hi, Colonel,” Charlie said in her electronically synthesized voice. “Good call. Let’s have a chat, okay?”

  “McLanahan!” Wilhelm cried. “What in hell is going on here?”

  “Change in mission, Colonel,” Patrick replied.

  “What mission? Whose mission? Your mission is over. Your contract’s been canceled. You’re under my jurisdiction until someone takes your ass back to Washington.”

  “I’ve got a new contract, Colonel, and we’re going to get it set up and running right now.”

  “New contract? With whom?”

  “With me, Colonel,” a voice said, and to Wilhelm’s surprise, Iraqi colonel Yusuf Jaffar emerged from the back of Patrick’s Humvee, followed by Vice President Ken Phoenix and two Secret Service agents.

  “Jaffar…I mean, Colonel Jaffar…what is this about? What’s going on?”

  “General McLanahan’s company has been hired by the government of the Republic of Iraq to provide…shall we say, specialized services,” Jaffar said. “They shall be based here, at Nahla, under my supervision.”

  “But this is my base…!”

  “You are wrong, sir. This is an Iraqi air base, not an American one,” Jaffar said. “You are guests here, not landlords.”

  “McLanahan can’t work for you! He’s an American.”

  “Scion Aviation International has State Department approval to operate in three dozen countries worldwide, including Iraq,” Patrick said. “The original contract was a joint cooperation agreement with both U.S. Central Command and the Republic of Iraq—I just reported to you. Now I report to Colonel Jaffar.”

  “But you’re under arrest, McLanahan,” Wilhelm argued. “You’re still in my custody.”

  “As long as the general is in my country and on my base, he is subject to my laws, not yours,” Jaffar said. “You may deal with him as you wish when he leaves, but now he is mine.”

  Wilhelm opened his mouth, then closed it, and opened it again in blank confusion. “This is insane,” he said finally. “What do you think you’re going to do, McLanahan?”

  “Baghdad wants help inducing the Turks to leave Iraq,” Patrick said. “They think the Turks will start tearing up the country trying to eradicate the PKK, and then create a buffer zone along the border to make it harder for the PKK to come back.”

  “All that’s going to accomplish is angering the Turks and widening the conflict,” Wilhelm said. “You’re crazy if you think President Gardner’s going to let you do this.”

  “President Gardner is not my president, and he is not Iraq,” Jaffar said. “President Rashid does this thing because the Americans will not help us.”

  “Help you? Help you do what, Colonel?” Wilhelm asked, almost pleading. “You want us to go to war with Turkey? You know how these Turkish incursions work, Colonel. They come in, they attack some isolated camps and hideouts, and they go home. They drove a little deeper this time. So what? They’re not interested in taking any land.”

  “And General McLanahan will be here to make sure it does not happen,” Jaffar said. “America will not interfere with this.”

  “You’re going to replace my regiment with McLanahan and his robot planes and robot…whatever these things are?” Wilhelm asked. “His little company up against at least four Turkish infantry divisions?”

  “It is said that Americans have little faith—they believe only what is in front of their noses,” Jaffar said. “I have seen it is true for you, Colonel Wilhelm. But I look at General McLanahan’s amazing aircraft and weapons, and all I see are possibilities. Perhaps as you say the Turks will not take our land or slaughter any innocent Iraqis, and we will not need the general’s weapons. But this is the largest force ever to enter Iraq, and I fear they will not stop at breaking apart a few camps.”

  Jaffar stepped over to Wilhem and stood right in front of him. “You are a fine soldier and commander, Colonel,” he said, “and your unit is brave and has sacrificed much for my people and my country. But your president is abandoning Iraq.”

  “That’s not true, Colonel,” Wilhelm said.

  “I am told by Vice President Phoenix that he was ordered to go to Baghdad and speak with my government about the Turkish invasion,” Jaffar said, “including establishing a security buffer zone in Iraq. Gardner not only con
dones this invasion, but he is willing to give up Iraqi land to placate the Turks. That is not acceptable. I look at you and your forces here on my base, and I see only hardship for my people.”

  He stepped over to Patrick and looked at the Tin Man and CID unit there on the ramp. “But I look at General McLanahan and his weapons, and I see hope. He is willing to fight. It may be for money, but at least he is willing to lead his men into battle in Iraq.”

  The expression on Wilhelm’s face was changing from anger to surprise to outright confusion. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” he said. “I have an entire brigade here…and I’m supposed to do nothing, in the middle of a Turkish invasion? I’m supposed to sit back and watch while you fly missions and send out these…these Tinker Toys? Baghdad is going to fight the Turks? Five years ago you didn’t have an organized army! Two years ago your unit didn’t even exist.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel, but I don’t think you’re helping yourself here,” Vice President Phoenix said. He walked over to the Army colonel. “Let’s go to your command center, let me inform Washington about what’s going on, and ask for guidance.”

  “You’re not buying into this nonsense, are you, sir?”

  “I don’t see we have much choice right now, Colonel,” Phoenix said. He put a hand on Wilhelm’s shoulders and led him back to his Humvee. “Kind of like watching your daughter go off to college, isn’t it? They’re ready for their new life, but you’re not ready to see them off.”

  “So, General McLanahan,” Yusuf Jaffar said after Wilhelm and his men departed, “as you Americans say, the ball is now in your court. You know Baghdad’s desires. What will you do now?”

  “I think it’s time to test the Turks’ real intentions,” Patrick said. “Everyone has been very cooperative so far, and that’s good, but they’re still in your country with a lot of troops and aircraft. Let’s see what they do when you start insisting.”