Act of War

by Dale Brown

  Case in point: just five kilometers east of the Sphinx, near the town of Tirsa, was another sprawling complex of buildings, tunnels, and soaring structures rising out of the desert that, many thought, easily eclipsed even the majesty of the Pyramids: Kingman Tirsa, Africa’s largest petroleum refinery complex. The refinery was so close, and the complex so large, that at night the flames from the refinery’s numerous cracking towers were bright enough to fully illuminate the Great Pyramids when the floodlights were turned off.

  While all of Egypt’s existing refineries and petroleum handling facilities were meant to handle product coming out of the Gulf of Suez and the Nile Delta in the Mediterranean Sea, and had already begun to see a decline in both volume and efficiency, Kingman Tirsa’s entire reason for being was to handle product coming out of Egypt’s newly explored Western Desert, five hundred kilometers to the west. The Western Desert explorations had already resulted in proven oil and natural gas reserves that exceeded all of Egypt’s previously known reserves combined.

  Over four square kilometers in size, with thousands of kilometers of pipe controlled by a vast network of computers, the Kingman Tirsa refinery, twice as large as the Mostorod refinery northeast of Cairo, was designed to someday process three hundred thousand barrels of crude oil per day, over half of Egypt’s total production, and produce a diverse range of petroleum products with modern efficiency. Vast underground pipelines under construction tied Kingman Tirsa to transshipment ports in the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea, and pipeline routes were being tied in to oil fields in Sudan, Libya, and Chad.

  As Egypt’s largest refinery, Kingman Tirsa was vitally important to the Egyptian government, so much so that an entire brigade of the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior’s Central Security Force, fully 20 percent of Egypt’s entire paramilitary homeland defense force, was assigned to guard the facility. The Kingman Brigade, as it was called, headquartered in Tirsa, had responsibility to patrol not only the refinery complex itself but its network of pipelines and pumping stations stretching all the way to the Western Desert and its ports along the Nile River and along the Gulf of Suez, as well as provide security for the dozens of residential subdivisions built for the refinery that housed the workers.

  As with all of TransGlobal Energy’s facilities around the world, Harold Kingman employed his own handpicked administrative, security, and engineering staff within the main part of the complex, which left the rest of the security forces far outside, around the periphery. While the Kingman Brigade paramilitary forces were only just a bit above standard Central Security Force quality in training and weapons, the security forces in the main headquarters and control building had the best of everything…

  …which is why Boroshev and his Egyptian counterparts decided to recruit an additional one hundred and ninety men from four companies within the Kingman Brigade to turn on their comrades, leave their barracks and desert their posts, eliminate any opposition and any officers that dared try to get in their way, and take the headquarters building. Boroshev led a platoon of snipers and commandos and eliminated the outer Central Security Force guards that chose not to surrender or join the infiltrators, then cut the communications and power lines tied into the city’s power grid. The security headquarters was quickly overwhelmed after a brief firefight with TransGlobal security forces, but the small cadre of loyal guards were no match for the sheer numbers of infiltrators, most of whom were wearing friendly forces uniforms. Within an hour, the headquarters building was safely in their hands.

  Under cover of darkness, Boroshev brought several large delivery trucks filled with explosives into the Kingman Tirsa refinery complex. Squads of riggers began wiring explosives throughout the complex, starting with the entrances and roads responders might use. Most of the explosives were set right in the headquarters building itself. They didn’t even bother to unload the explosives from the trucks—they simply drove the heavily laden trucks right up to vulnerable spots in the building and set the detonators. Crates of explosives were hand-trucked into the building to be set in the complex’s massive computer facility, which controlled all of the valves, pumps, switches, and flow meters controlling 3 million liters of crude oil flowing through TransGlobal’s pipelines daily. Captured refinery workers were sent to the entrances all around the sprawling facility and made to kneel facing outward as a deterrent to any military forces that might try to storm the refinery.

  The terrorists didn’t have to wire the entire complex, so within another hour the headquarters building was completely mined and set to blow. Squads of demolition experts fanned out through the complex to set more mines and explosives in key refinery locations to maximize the destruction and reconstruction costs: the pipelines, valves, and manifolds from the sixteen main lines from the Western Desert oil fields were mined, as were the massive oil, refined products, and natural-gas storage containers.

  Two hours from start to finish, with very little opposition inside the facility and no response from outside, and the job was finished. “All platoons reporting in, sir,” Boroshev’s second in command reported. “All demolitions set, the firing panel is in the green, full connectivity and continuity verified. Backups ready as well.”

  “Looks to me like Kingman wasn’t ready to defend his largest refinery after all,” Boroshev commented. He had the fleeting thought that this job was too easy, but the fact was that it was done—all they had to do was leave. “Order all platoons to evacuate,” he ordered. “Report to briefed rally points, and make sure the head count is accurate.”

  “What about the hostages, sir?”

  “Last man out, turn out their lights,” Boroshev said. “We don’t want any clever engineers trying to undo all our hard work.” Boroshev took one last look around the main facility control center—this room had almost two hundred kilos of high explosives set in it alone, with another one hundred kilos down below in the computer spaces. “My young guest comes with me.” Boroshev strode quickly out of the headquarters building and headed over to his vehicle…

  …when suddenly he saw a bright flash of light just ahead toward the main plant entrance, followed moments later by a loud explosion. “What the hell was that?” Boroshev shouted.

  “Patrols can’t see anything yet,” his lieutenant reported. “Apparently one of the platoons heading out the front got hit.”

  Boroshev nodded and unslung his Kalashnikov assault rifle. Fun and games were over, he thought. Whoever was out there—undoubtedly the American antiterrorist task force called TALON, according to the data received from the Director—their plan was simple and now obvious: wait until everyone was inside the plant and the explosives set, then trap them inside. That was probably why it was so easy to recruit the extra men from inside the plant, and why opposition was so light: they were all in on the trap.

  “Contact, sir,” the lieutenant reported. “Just one small vehicle outside each entrance to the plant. Not an armored vehicle. Looks like a single dismount and single gunner on board.”

  Boroshev looked perplexed for a moment, but shook it off. “Continue the evacuation,” he ordered. “Have the outer perimeter units move in and take them from the rear.”

  Boroshev or his men couldn’t see them, but high overhead three small Grenade-Launched Unmanned Observation System (GUOS) aircraft orbited the Kingman Tirsa complex at one thousand meters, keeping a careful watch on everything happening below. Their imaging-infrared sensors captured the movement of any object larger than a dog and uplinked the images via satellite to controllers back in the United States and back down to users right at the scene itself.

  “TALON Rats, be advised, you’ve got vehicles approaching,” Ariadna Vega reported from a control station flown into Cairo Almaza Airport about twenty-five kilometers away. “TALON Three, there’s four vehicles heading toward you, about three kilometers at your six o’clock.”

  “Got ’em,” Sergeant Major Jefferson responded from the southernmost “Rat Patrol” dune buggy. He wore a monocular datalink display o
n his Kevlar helmet over his left eye that displayed electronic data and downlinked sensor images to him. The gunner swung his Bushmaster automatic grenade launcher south. Jefferson grabbed his M-16 rifle and got out. “Be careful what you’re shooting at, boys,” he said, and ran across the limestone plateau to the east.

  “They look like Egyptian Central Security Force vehicles, but I see no transponder—definitely hostile,” Ari reported. Per Task Force TALON’s engagement agreement with the Egyptian government, any friendly vehicles brought into the area would carry a small transmitter that could be remotely activated and instructed to send a coded, invisible radio signal. If it didn’t have such a beacon, it would be considered a bad guy.

  Jefferson ran about two hundred meters east, checked his position on his electronic map through his monocular display, then moved two hundred meters south. He found the deepest depression in the hard-baked earth he could, lay down, and rechecked the sensor data. Sure enough, one of the oncoming vehicles looked like it had veered east, not quite leaving the formation but definitely moving toward him. He immediately withdrew a gray-silver blanket from a hip pouch and threw it over himself.

  “Ray?” Ariadna asked.

  “I’m good,” Jefferson responded. That call made him feel very good—that meant that the Goose drone’s infrared sensors had lost him. The blanket he draped over himself was a cover designed to absorb and trap heat from his body so enemy soldiers with infrared scopes couldn’t detect him, and its dark color would screen him somewhat from anyone using night-vision optics as well.

  “Second vehicle heading your way, Ray,” Ari warned him.

  The first vehicle must’ve lost him and he called on a second to help locate him, Jefferson surmised—the first one was still the main threat. Jefferson loaded an M433 high-explosive dual-purpose grenade into his M203 grenade launcher mounted under his M-16 rifle. With his left eye displaying sensor data to the oncoming vehicle, he waited until the vehicle was about a hundred meters away, fired, and immediately rolled to his left several meters before leaping to his feet and running south. The grenade round armed after flying a few meters and landed squarely on the front armored windscreen of the armored personnel carrier. Although most of the grenade’s energy was deflected up and away, the explosion was enough to blow in the bulletproof windows and blind the crew members inside.

  As soon as Jefferson rolled he lost the cover of his infrared-absorbing blanket, and the machine gunner on the second APC opened fire at the spot where he saw the grenade launcher’s muzzle flash. Still on the run, Jefferson loaded the first grenade round he could grab from his bandolier. The machine gun bursts thudded the ground with heavy raps, but they hadn’t caught up with him yet. He waited for the gunner to pause, threw himself down to the hard-baked earth, took quick aim, and fired. The grenade exploded several meters in front of the second APC—clean miss, but the distraction factor was enormous. Jefferson immediately dodged west, reloading again as he ran.

  It took several seconds for the machine gunner on the APC to spot him, but once he did the carrier raced after him, less than one hundred meters behind. Jefferson realized he was running out of breath and time—one dismount had little chance against an armored personnel carrier, no matter how good a shot he was with an M203. The machine gunner opened fire, and the rounds were now whizzing all around him, close enough to feel the air pressure. Bits of limestone were kicking up in his face after hitting the ground right in front of him. No more running—this was it.

  He dropped to the earth again, lined up on the approaching APC, aimed carefully, and fired. The APC dodged left when the driver saw the muzzle flash, and the round exploded just a few meters away from the right rear tire. The APC looked like it was going to flip over, but it didn’t. It skidded to a stop, unable to move—but it wasn’t out of the fight yet. The gunner straightened himself in his cupola, reloaded, drew a bead on Ray Jefferson, and fired from about sixty meters away. At this range, it would only be a matter of seconds before…

  Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion right on the machine gunner himself. When the fire and smoke cleared, Jefferson saw that the entire cupola had been blown off the APC. An armored door opened up and a couple of soldiers stumbled out of the smoking interior, dropping to the ground and crawling away from the thick oily smoke billowing from inside. A few rounds cooked off inside as the heat intensified. That APC was definitely out of business.

  “You okay, Ray?” Jefferson heard Jason Richter call on his radio. He looked at his datalink display and saw a green icon moving about forty kilometers an hour from the south toward the refinery.

  “Roger that, sir,” Jefferson said, getting to his feet and checking his equipment. “Thanks for the assist.”

  “I’m going to cover Rat Six, Ray,” Jason said.

  “I’ll catch up, sir. Don’t worry about me.” Jefferson found a cigar in a pouch on his body armor and lit up as he headed toward the refinery. He was in no hurry now—the CID units of Task Force TALON were on the job. They could fight for a while without him.

  The other six “Rat Patrol” dune buggies were doing the exact same thing to every one of the approaching hijacked Central Security Force vehicles: one buggy looked like easy pickings, so the APCs were just driving right up to them ready for the ambush, while a CID unit or dismounted TALON commando sneaked up behind it and attacked. With the Goose drones overhead, it was simple for the CID units—piloted by Jason Richter, Carl Bolton, and the third by none other than Captain Frank Falcone, who volunteered to take Doug Moore’s place in a new CID unit just delivered to the task force—to sneak up on them from a blind side in the darkness and nail them.

  Within minutes, the battle around the periphery of the refinery was over. Gennadyi Boroshev didn’t have to wait for the sentry reports to come in—he could hear the fear, confusion, and cries of surrender on the radio as the hijacked General Security Force vehicles were taken down one by one. He also didn’t need a report from his lieutenant that the turncoat GSF fighters still inside the refinery complex were starting to get nervous: their job was to simply desert their posts and let the terrorists inside, not get trapped inside the place after hundreds of kilos of high explosives were set right behind them. But soon he got the report anyway: “Sir, the lousy bl’ats are running!” he said.

  “Let them run—those zalupas are just as likely to turn on us if we didn’t let them go,” Boroshev said. “The Egyptians will certainly be waiting to arrest them—or gun them down—as they run out. We need a distraction.” He pulled out an arming panel from a satchel on his shoulder, turned a key to power up the panel, twisted a selector knob, opened two red-covered switches, held one switch up with his left hand, then flicked the other one up with his right. Nothing happened. He twisted the knob again and activated the switches—still nothing.

  “I thought you said connectivity was good!” he screamed at the lieutenant. “Did you even bother to check it?” The lieutenant’s eyes filled with fear and he remained silent. That wouldn’t be too surprising—if you weren’t trained in demolitions, it would be damned tough for anyone to turn that key knowing it was set to blow several hundred kilos of high explosives just a few steps away. But this was not the time to find out it didn’t work. “Damn you! The radio signal’s not getting out. The Americans might be jamming us.” To the lieutenant, he said, “Go to the detonators in the computer room and set them to go off in ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes?” the lieutenant exclaimed. “That’s not enough time for me to get out!”

  “It’s all the time you’ll have,” Boroshev said. “Order all the men to slip out with the hostages and CSF guards when the explosives go off. They’ll never be able to capture all of us, and while they’re trying, this place will start going up in flames. At least we’ll take out the most important location in this place. I trust you’ll run faster than you ever have before after setting those detonators. Go!” Reluctantly, the lieutenant dashed back into the headquarters building.

/>   “More people coming out,” Ariadna reported, studying the GUOS images. “The GSF officers and Egyptian military are picking them up.”

  “Good,” Kelsey DeLaine said. She was seated beside Vega in the temporary command center they had set up at Almaza airport. She pointed to one of the screens. “But this is interesting: one man running into the headquarters building, while everyone else is running out.” She hit the Transmit button on her control panel: “Carl, I need you to check something out for me.”

  “Wait, Kelsey—we’ll get some TALON units to look in there,” Ari said. “The CID units aren’t really designed to operate indoors without a lot of training. He’ll feel like a bull in a china shop in there.”

  “There’s not enough time, and all of the ‘Rat Patrol’ guys are on the perimeter,” Kelsey replied. “Carl is out there doing nothing right now. I’ll send him in.” Ari was worried, but she fell silent.

  A few minutes later, Carl Bolton piloting the third CID unit carefully made his way down a set of stairs from the main floor at the rear of the headquarters building to the second subfloor. That short trip down those stairs was one of the most frustrating he’d ever had inside a CID unit. Being inside the Cybernetic Infantry Device didn’t feel one bit like being inside a three-meter-tall robot; the haptic interfaces kept arms, legs, fingers, and other body parts moving normally in relation to one ` But nothing prepared Bolton for taking the big robot through normal man-sized spaces. He was constantly bumping into furniture and walls, hitting his head on the ceiling when he wasn’t crouched over enough, and even tripped down the last flight of stairs on his way down. Plus, all the training he had ever done in the CID unit—one day actually piloting the device, plus lengthy and usually boring lectures—had been outdoors. The smallest building he had ever been inside while piloting the CID was an aircraft hangar.