I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers

by M. L. Buchman

  SOAR worked because they ruled the night using methods and training no other nation had yet duplicated. Even the other divisions of the U.S. military hadn’t managed SOAR’s proficiency in the dark. Some day another nation would, and SOAR would have to rethink itself as they had for the thirty years since their founding.

  Peter’s lack of any military experience prior to becoming Commander-in-Chief worried her at times. He meant well, but he didn’t always listen.

  “I’ll trust your judgment on that one, Em.”

  Maybe he did listen. Finally.

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We now know where. Let’s work on what and when.”

  Chapter 44

  Kee looked up as Archie set his tray down on the table. He looked hammered. Moving slowly as he climbed over the bench. He didn’t even take his food off his tray.

  “How is it that you look as perky and stunning as always?” Even his voice sounded tired. And still he complimented her. The man was so sweet.

  Kee felt wide awake and completely frustrated.

  First, she couldn’t get over the fact that she’d talked to the President. The Commander-in-Chief himself. That stupid old line of, “You’ve come a long way baby,” kept rattling through her head. She didn’t even know where it came from, something her mother used to say as she shot up, but absolutely true. Six years ago, she’d been a grunt in Army basic training. And she’d just spent hours talking to the President of the United States. Pinching herself hadn’t made it go away.

  She’d done her best to stay in the background. Archie had really stepped to the fore, often way ahead of the best analysts the Pentagon could throw at the problem. She felt so proud of him she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. And Emily Beale. Kee would never look at the woman the same again. She’d been so at ease with the President. So smooth and cool and unflappable. Everything a woman should be. Kee wanted to be like that some day.

  Second, they’d spent hours more studying K2 and Evans’s history. Something wasn’t making sense. A career officer clearing out all of his belongings and going rogue over a hostile border under his own orders pointed to a disaster in the making.

  Was the truck a bomb? But most of the bed had been empty rather than packed with an explosive of any sort. No one could pin down what, where, or when Evans’s plan would go. Pin down? They couldn’t even come up with a distant whiff of it.

  And they’d lost another half a day on their deadline.

  They’d discussed infiltrating a squad of Delta Force operators. But to do what? No one knew. And putting a squad that far into unfriendly territory needed more than a guess.

  Evans was rushing to a foreign desert air base with reasonable security, stuck out far away from everything. But he wasn’t a pilot. Couldn’t fly a plane, that anyone knew about. It made her head hurt even thinking about it. Why would he go there?

  “I’m stunning because I’m five years younger and much fitter than you are.” The latter was a lie, she could attest to that intimately. Archie was immensely fit in so many nice ways.

  No rise from him at all. He really must be tired. He could always find a leer for her. They’d been working this for over thirty hours, but she felt wide awake. Awake as if… As if something were out of place and self-preservation was keeping her on her toes until she found the problem. But she didn’t have a clue where to look.

  Big John slid in looking as tired as Archie. They’d left Dilya asleep on the conference table with a blanket spread over her. Since there was no way to keep the girl away, they’d let her hang out in the background. Other than a brief introduction to the President as the artist of sketch number two, she’d stayed out of range of the web camera.

  The President had been genuinely decent and thanked Dilya. The highest and the lowest meeting each other across ten thousand miles. Kee hadn’t been able to speak when his face showed on the screen. But once they were looking at Evans’s background and K2, she managed not to think about speaking directly to the Commander-in-Chief and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  The highest and the lowest…

  “Professor, hey, Archie, wake up.” He’d almost nodded forward into his soup. She kicked his knee under the table and he jolted upright. John had rested his elbow on the table and his head on his fist, he appeared to be asleep sitting up.

  “I may have an idea.” She ignored Archie’s groan, but he blinked hard and focused on her.

  “Evans was stationed out of K2 for four years, so he knows the base well.”

  “Right.”

  “He always played the edge before that, hopping around from one war to the next. Then bang, he hits Karshi-Khanabad and sticks.”

  “Okay.” Archie was actually watching her now.

  “I was thinking about the lowest and the highest. Dilya speaking to the President. For God sakes, me speaking to the Commander-in-Chief. How’s that for bizarre. But never mind. For four years Colonel Evans had some reason to stay put, probably the woman in the photo. Whatever it was, he had to make some interesting contacts in the Uzbekistan military while he was stationed there.”

  Archie blinked at her like an owl. Once. Twice. Then it hit him and he was wide awake, too.

  “The high and the low. The number-two dog, the one he made ride in the truck.”

  “Mr. Two Dog’s the high one. High inside Uzbekistan.”

  “And either Evans has something on him…”

  “Or the other way around.”

  “Do you want the scary version?” Kee wished she hadn’t thought of it.

  “Just what I need, a scary version.” He shrugged. “I have no clue. Hit me.”

  “Remember the photo, the two dogs with the two women. Maybe they’re in it together?”

  For a long second they stared at each other frozen across the table.

  Archie spoke first. “And I thought you just had a great body.”

  She couldn’t stop her smile.

  “You’re awesome, Kee. I love you.”

  He wasn’t saying the words right after sex. They were sitting there in the chow tent. And he said he loved her. She wanted to deny it, cast it away, pretend he was joking. She wanted to hold it close, cherish it, cradle it in her deepest memory forever. Mostly it scared her to death.

  Maybe she’d imagined it.

  John’s head slipped off his fist. He shook himself for a moment, then aimed a wobbly thumbs-up across the table.

  “Way to go, Arch.” Then he laid his head down on his arm and fell solidly asleep this time.

  She hadn’t imagined it.

  ***

  “Sirs. Wake up. We have to call Washington,” Kee called into Beale and Henderson’s tent. “Wake up!”

  After a brief crash, Major Mark “The Viper” Henderson shoved aside the flap of the curtain wearing only underwear. Briefs, not boxers.

  Kee did her best not to look down. Every bit of lean that Archie had going for him, the Major embodied in the category of seriously built.

  “What in the hell? I’ve been asleep for…” He looked at his wrist but no watch wrapped there.

  “Fourteen minutes.” The sour voice of Emily Beale sounded over his shoulder, then she shoved him aside. She wore a light nightie that hid almost nothing and made her legs look even longer than usual.

  Kee checked and Archie’s eyes were bugging out. She punched his shoulder.

  He glanced at her then blushed furiously.

  “Sorry to wake you, sirs. But we have to call Washington.”

  “And why would that be?” Beale leaned against her husband who held onto the tent pole to remain upright.

  “We have a lead on the identity of dog number two. And it’s bad.”

  Archie found his voice. “We’re betting he’s a pilot.”

  ***

  “It checks out. Once they narrowed the field of search, the match wasn’t hard.” General Rogers pointed at the profile on the Sit Room wall. “There just weren’t that many high-ranking milita
ry at Karshi-Khanabad during those years. Only five aren’t accounted for, four now. We thought they were all dead.”

  Peter rubbed his eyes trying to focus on them. Being President should mean they let him get enough sleep. That wasn’t happening as much as he’d like. Maybe if he issued an Executive Order commanding himself to get more sleep…

  Daniel, for once rumpled in his suit and tie askew, pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “The second person in the truck, our Dog Two, is General Hamad Arlov,” the General continued. “Commander of their Red Hammer fighter-bomber squadron. One hell of a pilot. The Sukhoi SU-24 was his plane, flew the first one the Uzbekistanis ever received. Never flew anything else that we know of. It barely cracks Mach 1, which is good news for us. And it is a two man fighter-bomber, making it a likely choice for the two men. The first catch, Arlov flies it like a magician. The second catch, we still don’t know why they’re doing this.”

  Daniel leaned in toward the file picture, where it displayed next to the little girl’s sketch and the four-person photograph. No question. Absolutely the same man.

  “What’s his issue?”

  Peter didn’t care. Wait. Yes. He did. Colonel Evans’s motives had proved a dead end. If they found General Arlov’s gripe, maybe they could line it up with Evans’s history and figure out what was about to happen. Because there was no question about it, something was about to happen.

  “Okay. So, tell me.”

  “This is the last shot we have of him. It’s a BBC News photo of the day our last airplane left K2. There he is in the distant foreground.” Rogers drew a circle with a light pen.

  “You sure that’s him?” One of the voices from Emily’s end of the wire.

  “Our analysts are sure, I’m going to trust them.”

  “And this is the last time he was seen?” It was that other woman, Kee Smith.

  Cute, too. Damned cute. Peter shook his head trying to focus his exhausted mind on the problem at hand. Of course, the last time he’d been attracted to a large-chested woman he’d ended up married to Katherine. He shuddered at the memory. Focus.

  “Last time we have him on any image or sighting.”

  Or sighting. So, they had a man on the ground at K2. He glanced at the General, who shook his head.

  “We kept an agent on the ground there until 2008. It was one of the most boring assignments we’ve ever given. We moved our agent elsewhere two years ago.”

  Figured. You couldn’t cover every inch of the whole planet, especially not a sleepy desert air base.

  Peter put his head down on the table for a moment and tried to concentrate.

  “Okay.” He looked at the screen. Everyone had their motives. In any negotiation, you just had to unravel who wanted what and why. And the motive was always in the past. People made the mistake of thinking it had to do with the future, but it didn’t. A robber didn’t rob a bank because he wanted to be rich. He did it because he was sick of being poor.

  “First, we have a colonel who liked life at K2 and probably wasn’t too happy at being forced to leave for reasons unknown. Second, we have an Uzbekistani general who liked life at K2 and would be very unhappy at losing all his status and perks of being a commander at an air base busy with American military. Third, we have two men and two women. The two women died, if that’s what those dates are, the day after the Americans left the K2 air base.”

  “And he lost far more than his perks.” Daniel indicated a side screen. “It looks as if he went from K2 to five years in prison. Well, he’s out now. Hard to believe they released him. Maybe he escaped. Maybe Colonel Evans helped him escape.”

  “So, they married the sisters, who were executed the day after our troops, including Evans, departed. Our guy was thrown out of the country and their guy was thrown into prison. Could someone please tell me who they aren’t mad at?”

  “Evans and Arlov will be most mad at the people who threw them out, then murdered their wives.” Betty’s boy again. Smart.

  He looked at the General, who was staring at the screen. Then ever so quietly, the upright and proper soldier, the Commander of the Joint Chiefs, former commander of the U.S. Special Forces hung his head. Then he spoke very quietly.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Chapter 45

  “Russia and China pressured Uzbekistan to push the Americans out of K2.”

  Archie listened to General Rogers’s voice. The small speakers on either side of the laptop took some careful listening when people didn’t speak clearly. Despite a lack of sleep, the others were no less attentive. Only Dilyana slept on, her head pillowed on Kee’s jacket, curled up on the other end of the table and holding the orange cat he’d given her. She’d named it Sebiya, little girl.

  “So these two nutcases are going to K2 to steal a jet and attack Russia and China on their lonesome.” Kee was close to the mark.

  Almost right. Almost.

  Archie looked at her. He could see that she chewed on it as hard as he did. It felt as if their minds were rolling forward in tandem. How could two men, even working together in complete agreement, expect to damage—

  Archie whistled in surprise. Loudly enough to stop all conversation.

  “Sorry. I just… Sorry.” He looked around, everyone was facing him. Even the President’s face stared out at him.

  “Russia and China didn’t do it.”

  “I just said that they did, young man.” The General sounded peeved.

  “But they didn’t, sir. They had someone else do it for them.”

  There was a pregnant pause and Kee got there first.

  “The SCO.”

  “Right.” He wouldn’t have remembered, but he’d overheard his mother and Kee talking about them at lunch on the boat, a couple lifetimes ago. “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the largest military alliance on the planet. Uzbekistan let us into K2 before they became the sixth member of the SCO.”

  “And it took them a few years, but they drove us out. Shortly before Russia and China did those massive cooperative military exercises and Russia began flying her long-range bombers again.”

  Archie felt sick and sat down in a handy chair. Russia, China, and four of the ’Stans. A third of the world’s people and over half its land mass. Toss in the observer nations like India and Pakistan and it was half the world’s people. The biggest and one of the newest major political organizations on the planet.

  What were these two guys up to? He still couldn’t get there.

  A hand rested on his shoulder. He knew without looking, by the gentle strength, it was Kee.

  “How, Archie? How do you attack something like the SCO? They’re half the world.”

  “No. It’s like the UN, but instead of a hundred and seventy-odd members, you have six. You can kill six.”

  He leaned his cheek on her hand and closed his eyes to picture it. A single jet. A single bomb. And you kill all the heads of state. Hard to get to. Not impossible, but you could. If you could get them all in one place.

  Why go to all the trouble of going to K2? Just carry in a briefcase with a bioweapon or a small bomb. It wouldn’t be that hard.

  The only thing at K2 was old Russian jets. Russian jets inside the Uzbekistan security perimeter. Bingo!

  “General.” His voice was sharp enough that he saw Dilya startle awake and instantly moderated his tone. “When and where is the next meeting of the SCO’s leaders?”

  He chewed on his lower lip waiting for the answer. When it came, he didn’t like it one bit.

  “In two days in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. That’s it, the date in the book. They’re going to bomb that meeting.”

  “No, General.” He really needed to stop correcting the planet’s highest-ranking soldier if he wanted to have a military career. Major Beale gave him a wide-eyed look asking if he were insane. Absolutely.

  “Not quite, sir. What they are going to do is bomb the SCO meeting in a Russian jet that will be traced to an Uzbekistani air base.”

  Again the
silence stretched. But it was no longer puzzled silence, now the tension crackled around the room as the truth sank in.

  Finally the President spoke. “China will assume Russia did it. Russia will assume the Uzbekistanis were acting on China’s orders. They’re going to start a war between Russia and China.”

  ***

  “I’ve got to call the SCO. Warn them.”

  “Wait, Mr. President.” Archie could feel Kee trembling under his hand. He could empathize. World War III could come out of this.

  He had to speak up. “You can’t.”

  “Why not!” Not much of a question in his tone.

  “What will you tell them? A renegade American colonel has slipped into Uzbekistan, with the aid of United States of America Special Forces SOAR, to steal a jet and kill all your presidents and chairmen? We’d be lucky if they didn’t all turn around and attack us. Even if they didn’t, it would be a political disaster that the U.S. would not recover from for years.”

  “Damn it.” The President’s voice came out as low growl. Then his labored breathing sounded clearly over the microphone. “Damn it! You’re right. Learned a lot from your mother.”

  Archie rocked back on his heels. If his hand hadn’t still been on Kee’s shoulder, he’d have stumbled backwards.

  Was that possible? He still felt as if he’d never spoken with his mother in all of growing up, certainly not about matters such as this. Or had he? He had to grant that he’d always been a better strategist than Emily Beale. And that had bothered him. Now the President had told him why and it made impossible sense. Later. Think about it later.

  Kee patted his hand without turning. She’d know. She’d know how that knowledge slammed into him.

  “So, what do we do?” The President didn’t sound happy.

  “We do it ourselves, sir.”

  That was his Kee.

  “And if you fail?” the President growled back at her.