by Dale Brown
They were very big on running, especially from armed pursuers, as he was doing now.
Turk slowed as he reached the crease of the hill, trying to catch his breath and listen. He needed to keep moving, but he didn’t want to fall into a trap.
It was morning, or so he thought—his watch had been taken from him upon arrival. Assuming it in fact was morning, he put the sun over his shoulder and faced what he reckoned was north. His objective lay in that direction.
As he turned, he thought he saw something flickering on the ground in the pass ahead.
A trap?
He couldn’t retreat; the two men chasing him were no more than five minutes behind. Going straight over the top of the hill and trying to ambush whoever was hiding probably wouldn’t work either; he’d been caught in a similar situation the day before, ambushed in his own ambush by a lookout.
Turk stooped and picked up a few small rocks. Then he slipped along the face of the slope, moving as quietly as possible. When he was within three feet of the point where the side of the hill fell off, he tossed two of the rocks down in the direction of the trail. Nothing happened for a moment. Then the barrel of an AK-47 poked around the side of the hill, eight feet below him.
He waited until a shoulder appeared, then launched himself.
The gun rapped out a three-shot burst. Turk’s ears exploded. His fist landed on the side of the man’s face and both of them went down, Turk on top. He punched hard with his right fist and felt the other man’s body collapse beneath him. Turk gave him another punch, then leapt for the rifle, which had fallen to the ground.
He had just reached the stock when something grabbed his leg. He flailed back with the gun, gashing the man he’d jumped hard on the forehead. Blood began to spurt. Turk got to his feet as the man collapsed, horrified yet satisfied as well.
“Hey!” Turk started to yell, his shout was cut off by a thick arm that grabbed him around the throat and began choking. He kicked, then remembered one of the techniques he’d been taught on day two. He grabbed at the elbow with both hands, pushed his chin down, then tried to hook his leg behind his enemy’s, turning toward the arm holding him. But his attacker anticipated that and managed to move around with him. Turk kept trying, shrugging and pulling his shoulders as the other man tightened his grip. Finally, the uneven ground became an ally—they fell together. Turk tried rolling away but the other man’s arm remained clamped to his neck.
“Knock it off! Knock it off!” yelled Danny Freah, appearing above them. Freah was the head of Whiplash’s special operations ground unit and ostensibly in charge of the training, though Turk had only seen him on the first day, and then for about thirty seconds. “Knock it the hell off! Now!”
Turk’s attacker gave him one last squeeze, then pushed him away. Turk coughed violently as he caught his breath. Meanwhile, two men in black fatigues ran out from behind the hill and began attending to the man Turk had bloodied. The man was sitting upright, his entire face a thick frown. As soon as the medics saw he was OK, they started teasing him.
“Pilot beat the shit out of you good, Jayboy,” said one.
“The geek owns your ass now,” said the other.
“Fuck yourself,” said Jayboy. He was in green and brown digi-camo, like the man who’d been choking Turk. “Both of you.”
“I’d say you gentlemen are doing a good job.” Danny put his hands on his hips. “An excellent job. A Delta Force job.”
Jayboy grumbled a curse under his breath. Turk offered his hand to the man who’d been choking him. The soldier frowned and brushed past, joining the knot of soldiers who’d been trailing him and were just now catching up.
“Hey, Grease, no hard feelings,” Turk yelled after him. “You taught me that release. I almost got it.”
Grease—Jeff Ransom—didn’t answer. That wasn’t uncharacteristic, and in some ways was even an improvement: the six-six Delta Force sergeant first class was generally openly antagonistic. But it peeved Turk—in his mind, he’d fought to a draw against big odds. That meant he had gotten the better of his trainers, finally, and the soldiers ought to admit it. They’d sure ranked on him when they had the advantage.
Jayboy—his real name was Staff Sergeant Jayson Boyd—knelt with his head back now, clotting the bleeding in his nose. Turk went over to him and apologized.
“I’m sorry I bashed you,” said Turk.
“Forget it,” grunted Jayboy.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m getting better, huh?”
“Fuck you, Pilot.”
“Turk, you’re with me,” shouted Danny. “Everyone else, knock off for the day. We’re done.”
Finally, thought Turk. Playtime is over. Now I get to fly.
Tired and sore but floating on a wave of triumph, Turk fell in behind Danny. He walked as fast as he could manage but quickly lost ground. His clothes were sopping with sweat and every muscle in his body ached.
He’d considered himself in good shape until this week. The Delta trainers had ragged him about that: “Come on, Pilot. You’re in good Air Force shape. Now it’s time to live with real standards.”
Pilot.
It was the first time Turk had ever heard that used as a slur.
When Danny reached the Humvee, he waved the driver out of the vehicle and got in behind the wheel. He backed the Humvee into a U-turn and waited for Turk.
“I see you’re getting the hang of things,” Danny said as Turk climbed in.
“I didn’t mean to bash him so hard.”
“Hell no, hard is good.” Danny smiled as he put the Humvee in gear and sped away. They skipped the turnoff for the cafeteria—a barn that had been very slightly modified—and headed toward the county highway that divided the property in half.
Maybe we’ll get lunch someplace nice, thought Turk. But when they reached the road, they went straight across, driving along a scrub trail.
“Pretty country,” he told Danny.
“Very nice.”
“So I guess you’re going to tell me what’s going on soon, right?”
“We’ll be there in a few.”
Minutes? Hours? Danny didn’t say. Turk knew better than to press the colonel any further, and contented himself with gazing out the window, looking for the rabid coyotes the Delta boys had warned him about. The parched scrubland became somewhat greener as they drove south along the trail, the hilly land husbanding runoff in underground aquifers. About halfway through the pass, the road narrowed and the sides of the hills sharpened. A week before, Turk would have looked at the etched sandstone and thought how pretty it looked; now he saw it as a perfect place to ambush someone.
The Humvee kicked up a good cloud of dust as they came through the pass. Danny turned to the right, leaving the trail and driving through a flat piece of land. Boulders were sprinkled amid the thigh-high grass; Danny veered left and right to avoid them, navigating to a dry creek bed. Here he turned right, following up it a hundred yards before finding a trail on his left; the trail led to a road, dirt but hard-packed and relatively smooth. Finding the going easier, he sped up.
A sharp curve took them to the head of a valley. A house spread out along the crest of the hill ahead rested like a giant with its arms saddling the rocky top. The sun, now almost directly overhead, glinted off the massive window at the center, the rays pushing aside the massive wooden beams that framed the facade and held the green steel roof and its solar panels in place. The exterior was all glass and logs, though the place could not be called a log cabin without a great deal of irony.
The road stopped about a third of the way up the hill. Danny turned right across a stretch of rough rock bed, bumping his way up a slight incline and around another bend until he came to a driveway of red gravel. This led him toward the house in a series of switchbacks, until at last the back of the structure app
eared. An immense portico shaded a cobblestone driveway that circled around the entrance.
Danny parked in the center and got out. Turk followed him into a wide hallway, where they were met by a man in black fatigues. Though imposingly large, the man had no visible weapons, not even a sidearm; he gave Danny an almost imperceptible nod as they moved through a small room and into a narrower hall, passing steps on either side and a pair of bathrooms before entering a large great room faced by the windows Turk had seen from the Humvee.
Four massive couches with attendant armchairs and tables failed to fill the room. The floor’s large flagstone tiles, irregularly shaped and each covering at least five square feet, were overlaid by hand-woven rugs. A pair of fireplaces, each large enough for a man to stand up in, flanked the sides of the room.
Ray Rubeo stood in front of the fireplace on the left, arms folded, staring at the tangle of unlit wood in the iron pit.
“Hey, Doc,” said Danny, walking toward him.
Rubeo turned slowly, apparently lost in thought. The scientist headed a private company, Applied Intelligence, one of the Office of Special Technology’s prime contractors. It was responsible for the AI that guided the Hydras, but that was far from its only contribution to either the command or its Whiplash subcomponent. Rubeo had personally worked on a number of projects Turk had been involved in, including the Tigershark II and the Sabre unmanned attack plane. He was an austere man, peculiar in the way geniuses often are. He was also, as far as Turk knew, rich beyond his needs. But the scientist seemed deeply unhappy, constantly frowning, and acerbic even when generous levity would have been more appropriate.
Rubeo stared at both of them for another few seconds before finally offering a greeting.
“Colonel.” He nodded. “Captain. Have you eaten?”
“I haven’t,” said Turk. “I’m famished.”
“We have a tight schedule,” said Danny. “Things have been pushed up.”
“Yes,” said Rubeo, in his usual withering tone. He was the only man Turk had ever met who could make yes sound like a curse word. “You can eat while I talk,” Rubeo offered. His tone was nearly magnanimous, certainly in contrast to what had come before. “Let’s see what Wendy can make for you, and then we’ll go downstairs.”
RAY RUBEO HAD ASKED IF THEY WANTED FOOD AS A way to delay the briefing, if only for a few moments, but now as he watched Turk Mako eating the turkey sandwich he couldn’t help but feel worse, as if he were watching a condemned man’s final meal.
At least in that case the man would have deserved his fate.
“How much have you figured out on your own, Captain?” asked Rubeo, walking to the side of the basement conference center, a secure area dug deep below the main floor of the house. The building belonged to one of Rubeo’s companies, as did the range where Turk and the Delta team had been practicing. Occasionally used by Special Technology to test out equipment, the property was mainly leased to Delta and SOCCOM, the U.S. Special Operations Command, for various training and practice exercises. It had once been three separate ranches; Rubeo bought them all and merged them to make a property large enough to keep the curious far at bay.
“I’ve been too busy to make guesses,” said Turk. “They’ve been running me nuts. But if we’re talking Iran, I assume we’re going to strike their nuclear facilities.”
“One facility,” said Rubeo. “Just one.”
“This one is special,” said Danny. “It’s hard to get to, and it’s their newest facility. We need to move quickly, while we still have a chance. Even more quickly than we anticipated a week ago.”
“OK, sure,” answered Turk.
Rubeo rubbed his earlobe. There was a small gold-post earring there, its tiny surface smooth from his habit of touching it whenever he encountered a difficult moment, large or small. He waved his hand in front of a small glass panel on the side wall. The lighting dimmed and the wall at the front of the room turned light blue, a presentation screen appearing as lasers in the floor and ceiling created a visual computer screen that took up most of the space. “This should answer most of your questions. It will show the target and the general theory. Please wait until it has finished to ask questions.”
“OK.” Turk took another bite of his sandwich.
Rubeo folded his arms as the video presentation began. There was no sound; he supplied the running narrative.
“The target is accessible through a set of air shafts, utility conduits, and hallways. The main obstacles are at the mouth and a pair of air exchange mechanisms about fifty meters into the facility. Once you navigate past those, the rest becomes easy.”
The screen showed a louvered metal air scoop about three feet high by eight feet wide. The next image showed a mesh screen behind the louvers; this was followed by a schematic.
“We haven’t actually seen the face of these,” added Rubeo, hitting pause by pointing at the lower left corner of the screen. An infrared camera read his gestures. “Due to some technical problems with detecting fine mesh. That means it’s possible there will be no screen. But we are planning for a screen.”
He lowered his finger and the video continued.
“The first thing you’ll do is blow a hole through the screen,” said Rubeo. “There are no electronics in the area of the intakes, and we assume therefore that there are no detection devices, and the explosion will go unheard. In any event, it’s doubtful that there are any measures they can take to stop the attack.”
“I’m hitting it with missiles?” Turk asked.
Rubeo halted the show and glanced at Danny.
“The nano-UAVs,” said Danny.
“That’s why you’re here,” said Rubeo. “Why did they say you were chosen?”
“The Hydras are still being tested.”
“They’re the only weapon that can destroy the bunker,” said Rubeo. “Because of the configuration. You’re going to fly them right into the deepest part of the facility and blow it up.”
TURK LEFT THE REST OF HIS SANDWICH ON THE PLATE as Rubeo continued. The mission he was outlining was radical in the extreme. A small group of nano-UAVs would enter through air shafts hidden in a cave. After breaking through an air exchanger and flying down a series of conduits, they would enter the work space and find a room with the targeted equipment. When they ignited, they would set off a large explosion, weakening and hopefully destroying the entire structure.
There was an incredible amount of intelligence behind the presentation Rubeo was moving briskly through. The amount of detail on the air shafts was stunning—dimensions, material, even details on soldering flaws. Turk could see that the operation must have been in planning for months.
Even so, the intelligence had not been perfect. Danny made it clear they were pushing up the timetable.
“What am I flying these from?” Turk asked. “The Tigershark?”
“No,” said Rubeo. “That’s too risky. You’ll get a helicopter in Iran.”
“A helicopter? I can’t fly one. I mean, I can learn—”
“You’re not going to fly it,” said Danny. “We have a team in place to help you.”
“It’s regrettable,” interrupted Rubeo, “but the UAVs have a very limited control range, as you know. In a few months, we will have that solved. But for now . . .”
He shook his head.
“I have to fly them into the facility?” asked Turk.
“You are not actually flying them, Captain. Your only function is to guide them if there is trouble. You are the override.” Rubeo’s lips curled in a smirk. “Their roles and routes will be preplanned, but if there is a problem, or a contingency we haven’t planned for, we will need you there. You have done this before.”
“I’ve done more than that.”
“You’ll have to get within five miles of both sites,” said Danny, interrupting. “A Delta team is already in-country to h
elp assist you. They’ve been scouting the sites.”
“Five miles is the absolute limit of your range,” said Rubeo. He looked over at Danny. “Closer would be better. May I continue?”
Danny nodded. Neither he nor Turk interrupted again.
RUBEO SPOKE MOSTLY ABOUT THE CONTROL UNIT AND how the modified UAVs differed from the ones Turk had worked with. The technical aspects were far from Danny’s domain, and he felt like a bystander. And in fact he was, removed from even the actual attack itself.
The plan was the latest of a long campaign to thwart Iran’s dogged efforts at building a nuke. It was the most recent variation in a line of contingencies aimed at taking down the hidden installation. It was better protected than any of the others involved in the Iranian program, deeper and more cleverly constructed. The team inside Iran hadn’t been sent to plot the nano-UAV strike; they were actually in place to assess the effects of a nuclear strike if the President ordered it to proceed. This attack was a recent brainstorm; it had been proposed by Rubeo after he was asked to consult on the analysis of some of the Iranian equipment detected at the site.
Because of that, the ground operation remained a Delta Force show. That meant there would be no Whiplash people at all on the mission. Danny had no doubt about Delta’s professionalism or capabilities; while by design Delta avoided publicity, its handpicked members represented the elite of the world’s military. He himself had worked with Delta on several occasions, with very good results.
However, he had also witnessed some culture clashes when different units worked together. In this case, the fact that the ground unit would be working closely with an Air Force officer they didn’t know could potentially be a problem. Turk would have to quickly earn the team’s respect. Danny wondered if that was doable.
It wasn’t that Danny didn’t think the pilot was a good warrior; on the contrary, he’d already proved himself in battle. But those battles had been in the air, where Turk was a real star. The ground was something different. Even Danny, who as an Air Force officer was constantly dealing with pilots, had trouble dealing with some of their egos. If the head didn’t match the hat, so to speak, there was bound to be trouble.
