by Dale Brown
“Now I’m not saying that Miss Vega is a dangerous spy out to destroy America. There is no question that she is a hero after her actions in hunting down and defeating the Consortium terrorist group that attacked America last year. In my opinion, she doesn’t deserve prison time. The question is, however: does she deserve to still have access to classified government programs and still be in charge of our nation’s border security? I don’t think so. And it begs the wider question: does her immigration and citizenship status have anything to do with TALON’s ineffectiveness in securing our borders? The Bottom Line wants to know, and we will find out, I promise you.”
PECOS EAST TRAINING RANGE,
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, NEW MEXICO
THAT SAME TIME
It was called a “30-30”—dropping a lightly armed and equipped commando from thirty feet in the air into the water, from a helicopter traveling thirty nautical miles per hour. The tactic allowed the fastest possible forward flight through hostile airspace without injuring the nonparachute-equipped landing soldiers.
But this “30-30” was different. First, the commandos weren’t dropping from a helicopter, but a different type of rotorcraft: a CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, the special operations version of the world’s first active military tilt-rotor transport. Able to take off and land similar to a helicopter but then fly at fixed-wing turboprop speeds, the V-22-series aircraft were the newest aircraft in the active U.S. military arsenal, pressed into service for utility, transport, cargo, and search and rescue as well as inserting special ops forces well behind enemy lines. All V-22 aircraft were equipped with forward-looking infrared scanners and inflight refueling probes; the special operations version was also equipped with a highly precise satellite navigation suite, terrain-avoidance radar and millimeter-wave obstacle detection radar, state-of-the-art electronic countermeasures systems, a twenty-millimeter Chain Gun in a chin turret steered by the pilot or copilot using head-mounted remote aiming displays, and long-range fuel tanks.
The second difference with this “30-30” was that it was not over water, but over the hard sun-baked high desert of east-central New Mexico. The third difference: the soldiers involved were not ordinary commandos, but Cybernetic Infantry Devices from Task Force TALON.
Using a steel handrail on the upper fuselage as a handhold, Major Jason Richter stepped aft along the CV-22’s cargo bay toward the open cargo ramp. “CID One is in position,” he radioed.
“You sure you want to do this, Major?” FBI Deputy Director Bruno Watts, the new commander of Task Force TALON, asked. He was secured in the front of the cargo bay of the CV-22, watching the exercise. “You won’t impress me at all if you break your fool neck.”
“Thirty seconds,” the copilot radioed back, and the red “READY” light came on in the cargo bay.
“I already told you a dozen times, Watts—I’m doing it.”
“You sure you feel up to it?”
“The doc cleared me…”
“You did one blood test and a bone marrow test, then went back to the base and started putting on a CID unit. You don’t look good, and you’re not acting very right in the head.”
“Get out of my face, Watts.”
Bruno Watts grasped Jason’s CID unit by the base of the helmet. “I’m telling you, Richter, you’re not ready to go back into the field yet. I’m grounding you as of right now.”
“Who’s going to run this drop test, Bruno—you?” Jason responded. “You haven’t even made it through one briefing on CID. So unless you want to climb inside this unit, get the hell out of my face.” He turned and faced the open cargo door again.
Watts scowled at the robot’s back, unaccustomed to subordinates he hardly knew calling him by his first name. But that appeared typical of Richter and others in this task force: they had been doing their own thing for so long that they had absolutely no regard for rank or common organizational structure. “The job of the commander is to command, Richter. You think you’re being a leader by skipping out of the hospital and doing this training mission, but all I see is a guy with a chip on his shoulder, out for some payback.”
“You sound like Kelsey…I mean, Director DeLaine,” Jason remarked. “Why do all of you FBI agents sound alike?”
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, Major?” Watts said.
“Ten seconds. Stand by.”
Jason turned around and gave a thumbs-up to the two other CID units standing behind him, piloted by Harry Dodd of the U.S. Army and Mike Tesch, formerly of the Drug Enforcement Agency. He then stepped back to the edge of the cargo ramp at the rear of the CV-22 and turned around so he was facing forward, still holding on to the overhead handrail. Tesch and Dodd waited closely in front of him. When he saw the red light in the cargo bay turn to green, he stepped back and off the ramp.
The idea was to land on his feet, absorb the shock of the drop, and simply continue running, but like most plans his didn’t survive impact. He landed squarely on his feet in a running stance, but immediately face-planted forward and ended up cartwheeling across the desert for almost a hundred feet before crashing into a cactus. Mike Tesch’s landing wasn’t much better. His plan was to land on his butt, cushioning his impact with his arms, and let his momentum carry him up to his feet. But as soon as he hit he bounced several feet in the air, and he landed headfirst on the ground.
Harry Dodd’s landing was almost perfect, but only because he didn’t try to run right out of the landing. Instead, he performed a picture-perfect parachute landing fall, hitting the ground with the balls of his feet, twisting to the right, letting his left calf, thigh, lat muscles, and shoulder take the brunt of the impact in a smooth rolling action, then letting his legs flip up and over his body until they were pointing down along the flight path. When his feet reached the ground, he simply let his momentum lift his entire body up and off the ground, and he was instantly on his feet and running. By the time the dust and sand settled, he had run back and was checking on Tesch and Richter. “You okay, sir?” he asked Richter who had just picked himself up off the ground.
“Almost had it there until that stupid cactus got in my way,” Jason complained. “Where’d you learn to do that roll? It looks like you hardly got dusty.”
“Army Airborne school, Fort Benning, Georgia, sir,” Dodd said. “Looks like I’ll be teaching TALON how to do a correct PLF.”
“Buster, this is Stronghold, looks like everyone is still in the green,” Ariadna Vega radioed from TALON headquarters after checking CID unit’s satellite datalink status readouts. She was able to see each unit’s landing via optical target scoring cameras located throughout the Pecos East range and had to force her voice back to normal after laughing so hard at Richter’s and Tesch’s attempts. “Proceed to maneuver positions.”
Following computerized navigation prompts visible on their electronic visors, the three CID units split up and proceeded to preplanned locations, about a mile from a large plywood building erected on the Pecos East range. Once they were all in position, Jason launched a GUOS, or grenade-launched unmanned observation system, drone from his backpack launcher. The bowling-pin-sized device unfolded its wings and started a small turbojet engine seconds after launch, and the little drone whizzed away with a low, rasping noise and just a hint of smoke.
“Good downlink back here,” Ariadna reported as she watched the streamed digital images being broadcast via satellite from the tiny drones. “Report in if you’re bent.” The sensor on the GUOS drone was not a visual camera, but a millimeter-wave radar designed to detect metal, even tiny bits of it buried as far as twelve inches underground. On their electronic visors, metallic objects big enough to pose a threat to the CID units appeared as blinking blue dots against the combined visual and digital imagery.
“I’ve got a good downlink,” Jason said. The terrain up ahead was littered with blue dots—in this case, sensors and booby traps planted by the “defenders.” Judging by the pattern, the objects appeared to be put in place randomly, as if s
eeded by aircraft. “Numerous surface devices up ahead, guys.”
“I must be bent, One—Three’s got nothing,” Tesch radioed.
“Okay, Three, hang back as briefed and wait for the signal.”
“Roger.”
“One, this is Two, I can circumnavigate the cluster in front of me,” Harry Dodd reported after studying his visor display. “I need to move a little more in your direction. On the way. Cover me.”
Immediately when Dodd said that, the warning bells in Jason’s head went off. “Negative, Two, hold your pos…”
And at that exact moment, Jason’s threat warning system blared. The GUOS drone had picked up the presence of a large vehicle not previously detected from farther away. “Heads-up, guys, we’ve got company up ahead.”
The disguising job was a work of art, Jason had to admit. The Air Force special operations guys had flown in a Humvee loaded with TOW antitank missiles, covered it with a heat-absorbing blanket to shield it from infrared sensors, and then expertly camouflaged the whole area so from the air it appeared to be nothing more than a slight rise in the desert floor. If they had only used infrared sensors on this approach instead of the millimeter-wave radar scanners, they might have never detected the Humvee until it was too late.
Jason and the two other CID units made short work of their target. They fired volleys of smoke canisters at it with their backpack launchers, simulating grenade attacks, then assaulted the plywood “headquarters building” from different directions. Within minutes, the operation was a success.
Not expecting to be called back so soon for an extraction, the CV-22 Osprey was still on the ground at Cannon Air Force Base refueling, so the CID units had a few minutes to wait. While they waited, the three TALON commandos recalled the GUOS drones back to their garrison area before their fuel ran out, and discussed their techniques on this practice operation. Ten minutes later the Osprey was back, and the CID units could practice their exfiltration technique—a recent modification to the old Fulton Recovery System used for decades by Air Force special operations teams to retrieve men and equipment on the ground without landing.
Dangling from the back of the CV-22’s open cargo bay were three “trapezes”—carbon composite rods about five feet long, suspended from composite cables, resembling circus high-wire trapezes. As the Osprey flew overhead, each CID unit raised his arms and, positioning himself perfectly, hooked his arms onto the trapeze bar as it passed overhead. As the first CID unit was pulled up, the second and third CIDs were retrieved in the same manner. Within minutes, all three CID units were reeled inside the Osprey’s cargo bay.
“That was a blast!” Harry Dodd exclaimed. “I thought that damned bar was going to slice my head off, but hooking your arms on it like you said worked perfectly!”
“It might work better if the bar snagged us on our chests instead of our arms and hands,” Jason surmised. “We just need to lower the bar down a couple feet. Make a note of that, will you, Ari?” No response. “Stronghold, this is One. How copy?” Still no response. “TALON, this is One. How copy?”
“Loud and clear, One,” Bruno Watts responded. He had dismounted from the CV-22 as it was being refueled on the ramp at Cannon Air Force Base and was now driving back to the task force’s headquarters east of the base. “Let me try to raise Stronghold. Break. Stronghold, this is TALON.”
“TALON, this is Delta,” U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Jennifer McCracken, TALON’s deputy commander for operations, responded. “I’m here at the mobile ops center. The place is empty. I was listening in on the exercise and came out here when I didn’t hear Charlie reply.”
“Find her, Delta,” Watts ordered. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“We’ll be there in ten,” Jason said.
Jennifer was waiting for them out on the short airstrip outside TALON’s headquarters buildings when the CV-22 touched down a short time later. “She took a CID unit, a grenade launcher backpack, two pilots, and the C-21, sir,” she said as soon as Jason stepped off the cargo ramp. The C-21, the military version of the Learjet 20 bizjet, was Task Force TALON’s rapid airlift aircraft. McCracken handed Richter a note. “Here’s the message she left with the crew chief.”
Jason read the note. “Jennifer, find out what airlift we have available the quickest for three CID units and get it out to Cannon. We’re taking these three CID units airborne. Load up weapon backpacks. Go.” She hurried off, her secure cell phone already in her hands. Jason had his own phone open seconds later. “Sergeant Major, I’ve got a situation…”
“I just heard it myself, Jason. Jesus, I’m sorry. No one here got any heads-up at all from him at all.”
“What in hell is going on, Sergeant Major? Heads-up from whom?”
“Bob O’Rourke,” Jefferson said. “Apparently the guy ‘outed’ Ariadna as an illegal alien on his radio show less than an hour ago.”
“He did what?” Jason exploded. “An illegal alien? That’s crazy! I’ve known her for years! She has a top-secret clearance, same as mine…”
“We don’t have any hard facts yet, Major, but O’Rourke says he has documentation, including a Mexican birth certificate and apparently falsified American birth records. We’re checking with Los Angeles County and the State Department to get her records from Mexico, but I need Ariadna secure before the press descends on her. I suggest you confine her to quarters before ICE or the FBI…”
“She grabbed a jet and a CID unit and headed to southern California,” Jason said.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jefferson exclaimed. “Where is she headed?”
“Northridge, Thousand Oaks…southern California, somewhere,” Jason said. “Her dad’s a college professor; her mother works with him, I think. I’ll have to check the records.” He paused for a moment, then interjected, “If Zakharov is still alive and still in southern California, he may try to kidnap the parents to get to Ariadna. I’m on my way…”
“I’ll get the Los Angeles FBI office over there right away and bring in her parents. They may need to bring their Hostage Rescue Team. Send me whatever docs you have on her and her family.”
“What do you mean, docs on ‘her?’” Jason asked. “Why do you need docs on Ari? You have everything you need on her.”
“Apparently not.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Sergeant Major!” Jason exploded. “Don’t even think about making Ari a target just because of what that flakeoid O’Rourke has to say!”
“Sir, the White House has already called for an investigation,” Jefferson said. “The FBI and Army Criminal Investigation Command have already been directed to bring Ari in and do a complete background…”
“She is not going to be arrested, Sergeant Major—I guarantee that!” Jason cried. “I’ll bust the head of any federal agent who tries to lay a hand on her! She’s a hero, for God’s sake! She’s been injured and almost killed in the line of duty!”
“Jason, the best place for her is with the FBI. Director DeLaine knows her—I’m sure she’ll handle her case personally.”
“No way! She’s not a criminal! Tell the FBI to back off, Sergeant Major!”
“I’m not going to do that, sir,” Jefferson said. “If she broke the law, she has to come in. The longer she stays out, the more she’ll be suspected of being a spy. She’ll have to—”
“A spy?” Jason retorted. “Are you insane? No way in hell is she going to go down as a spy! I’ll kill anyone who tries to charge her with that, I swear to God…!”
“Major Richter, shut up, sir, now,” Ray Jefferson said. “Listen to me, sir: Dr. Vega will get all the protection and legal help we can offer her…but not if you or she tries something crazy. Get her back on base and keep her there.”
“Sergeant Major, under my authority as deputy commander of this unit—”
“You’ve been relieved as deputy commander of TALON, Major. Director Watts is in charge—”
“—I am directing elements of Task Force TALON to immediately deploy to southern
California to set up surveillance on Dr. Vega’s family, who I believe will be the target of an assassination or kidnapping attempt by the Consortium,” Jason said. “I am requesting that you notify the FBI and Justice Department of my orders and have them contact me through my headquarters so we can coordinate our efforts, but you can advise them that I am fully prepared to take whatever steps I feel necessary to accomplish my mission. Unless I receive valid countermanding orders, my unit is in target pursuit mode. TALON out.”
Jason saw a truck pull up to the CV-22 Osprey, and crews started loading Cybernetic Infantry Unit backpacks and weapon canisters aboard the tilt-rotor aircraft. At the same time an Air Force Suburban roared up the taxiway and screeched to a halt in front of him, and Bruno Watts jumped out. “I just got a call from the National Security Adviser, ordering me to keep you on the ground!” he shouted over the roar of the Osprey’s massive turboshaft engines. “What is going on? Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I’ll submit my ops plan in the air,” Jason shouted back.
“Like hell you will, Major!” Watts snapped. “This equipment is not your personal property! I am in command of this unit! Until I get clearance from Washington, I’m ordering you…”
“Excuse me, sir,” Jennifer McCracken said, stepping up to Watts. “I’d like a word with you.”
“Not now, Lieutenant.” Then, with surprising speed, Watts grabbed Jason’s left wrist with his left hand and lifted his sleeve with his other hand, revealing the remote control wrist keypad for the CID units. “And don’t even think of trying to summon one of your robots to grab me, Major,” he growled. “Sergeant Major Jefferson warned me about you. He said you’re not above doing anything to get your…”
With equally surprising speed, Jennifer McCracken swatted away Watts’s grasp on Jason, twisted his arm upward and backward, rotated her hips, and flipped Watts back over her right leg and down onto the tarmac. With one leg on his left arm and his other arm twisted behind him in a come-along hold, Watts was immediately immobilized. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Watts shouted. “Let me up, McCracken, now!”
