Thermals

by Evan Currie

  “Very good, Major. We’re coming in.”

  “We’ll be waiting.”

  *****

  “The Australians are denying our flight permission to cross over into their Air Space, Ma’am.”

  Natalie Cyr grimaced, shaking her head as she spoke into the secured phone line. “Alright, I’m on my way up.”

  “What do I do about the teams?”

  “Nothing. Get them in the air on schedule.” She ordered flatly. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  She slammed the receiver down, taking a few seconds to grab up one of the anachronistic folders full of actual paper files from her desk, along with her own personal portable computer, and then pushed her way out of her office with her shoulder to the door as she balanced the load in her hand.

  In the hall she had to dodge other analysts as they scuttled around the high traffic hallways of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Headquarters in Langley Virginia, nimbly dodging analysts assigned to desks from around the world who had been called in when the security threat for the entire planet had been raised to red in response to the developing situation in Australia.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that one large scale terrorist event was used to trigger a cavalcade of similar actions.

  She shoved her way into the DCI’s office without knocking, mostly because she couldn’t with her arms full, and caught him as he was hanging up the phone.

  “Carl…”

  “Way ahead of you, Natalie,” He held up his hand, “I’ve been on the line with the Foreign Affairs people and the Aussies aren’t budging. They’re claiming that it’s their internal security, and their responsibility to handle it.”

  “Damn it, Sir, we can’t take chances with this one…”

  “I’m aware of that,” He told her, “But they’ve got a point here. The event is happening on their sovereign territory, and I can understand them not wanting to start inviting a foreign military force in on it. Even if we are allies.”

  She grimaced, but she understood the Australian’s point of view. To be sure, if the event were occurring in Texas, the odds of the American government allowing a Soviet, or even British, air attack unit to enter and deal with the situation was almost exactly zero. So she just nodded as she dumped the files on the DCI’s desk and slumped into one of his visitor’s chairs.

  “I still have the team scrambling.” She said after a moment, while he looked at her with some amusement.

  “Good,” He told her with a wry smile, “In the meantime…what’s all this?”

  “The hard copy results of Agent Gunnar’s database check of the locals against Interpol and our databases.” She told him grimly, “It’s not good.”

  He looked at the thick sheaf of papers and grimaced, “I can see that. You’d better send the Digital copies over to the Aussies, though…”

  “Just did.” She said with a tired smile, “right before I got the call.”

  He nodded, “Alright then…”

  “I also directed a full copy to Agent Gunnar via the Consulate Portable Comp.” She told him before hesitating, “and finally…I unlocked the consulate computer for him.”

  Carl Severson’s eyes widened and his lips pursed in a low whistle, “Damn. You’re not into the half measures, are you Natalie?”

  “Didn’t seem like the time,” She admitted tiredly.

  “No…probably not, but…damn…”

  The two Intelligence Agents nodded in tired agreement to the statement as both of them considered the events evolving half a world away and wondered if even full measures were going to be enough.

  *****

  “Alright, that’s it.” Malcolm said wearily, “We’re to hold on and wait for reinforcements.”

  Anselm Gunnar grimaced, but nodded. Realistically it was their only solution of the moment. They had sketched out a containment plan to use the fire sprinklers in the tower, and had also worked out a two pronged hostage rescue plan that had the potential to at least get some of the several thousand hostages clear of the facility, but the fact was they were entirely too underpowered and undermanned to open serious operations.

  The one thing that they could do, and Anselm wanted to do, was try to infiltrate a team to capture or, if necessary, kill Abdallah Amir. Cutting the head off the serpent might not end the threat, but it would at least throw some confusion into the body and buy them some time, perhaps.

  The problem was that any preemptive move at this point would alert the terrorists and place them on a higher alert. An alert that could kill a lot of the incoming soldiers if Abdallah and his men had purchased Surface to Air Missiles as part of their terrorist grab bag.

  “Colonel Pierson will be coming with a contingent of regular army in five Black Hawks within the hour.” Malcolm informed them, “With Chinooks to deliver light armor and command vehicles, we should have a striking force setup here in an hour and a half.”

  “Once they come in, we can’t hesitate,” Anselm said, speaking from the experience of too many dead faces lost to bombings throughout Europe. “He’ll deploy the virus fast then, if he hasn’t already.”

  The men nodded grimly.

  “We know.” Malcolm said quietly. “They’re also bringing full biohazard gear for us and the strike team.”

  Gwen looked around, “What about the people in there?”

  No one really wanted to answer her.

  *****

  “Be careful with that you damned fool!”

  The man winced as Amir snapped, holding the metal canister carefully in both hands as he set it on the rolling tray. “Yes, Amir.”

  “Those canisters are more valuable than you!” Amir growled, his normal calm beginning to fray around the edges as the stress and tensions continued to ratchet upward without hint of release.

  “Yes Amir.”

  The terrorist leader waved the cowering man out, letting him push the tray along with its lethal cargo out of the room while he oversaw the next one being set up. The gas containing the virus had to be released within the crowded parts of the tower to have maximum effect because there was no real central air within the entire facility, and if it was wasted in the wrong place then the Tower would whisk the virus up and into the thermal plume where it would be dispersed uselessly in the atmosphere.

  Certainly, a few people across the world might come down with the illness, but there simply wasn’t a high enough concentration in the canisters themselves to achieve a truly worthwhile effect. The beauty of the tower delivery system was that it could pump the virus in a constant stream, for as long as the human factories continued to survive and pump the little nasties out.

  Simply removing each canister from storage was a complicated task because each one had to be checked for potency in case the seal had failed since he’d placed them there and exposed the virus to the open air. Once in the air, the carbon nanotubes used to slow the virus down would automatically begin to break down as they’d been designed, leaving the virus to starve to death in the absence of suitable hosts.

  So far they’d been luck, Amir supposed, and only lost two of the canisters. Handling the things was slow, even afterwards however, due to the superstitious fear that his men held for the deadly payload in each.

  He had already developed and administered an appropriate vaccine for the disease, of course, however the fear of the disease still remained, and rightly so. Even if the disease didn’t kill them, the radiated carbon nanotubes would if they breathed them in. So time was of the essence, but things moved frustratingly slowly even so.

  “Amir!”

  The terrorist grimaced, clenching his fists as he pulled them away from one of the canisters before turning around.

  “What!?”

  The messenger fell back a step from the glare, but met Amir’s gaze with a pasty expression.

  “The spotters on the tower, Amir, they’ve seen movement on the horizon.”

  Abdallah Amir nodded grimly.

  �
��So they’re coming.” He said finally, “Very well. You! Take over here!”

  “Y…yes Amir…” Another man said shakily.

  “And you,” He pointed to the messenger, “Help them.”

  The man looked stricken, but nodded. “Y…yes Amir.”

  Then Abdallah Amir strode out of the converted freezer room and headed for the makeshift Combat Command and Control Center they had wired into the subterranean facility below them.

  He walked into the room a few minutes later, noting immediately that the men had finished setting up the rough command post, linking the computers into the wall screens that adorned the room. Overall it looked like something out of the Hollywood movies he’d stopped watching when he left the United States, sleek and sophisticated, though he knew that the equipment he could control from this room was neither.

  That was fine, though. Sophistication was one way to solve a problem, perhaps even the ideal way, but it wasn’t the only way. Sometimes hard and direct was the best way, and he could do hard and direct with the equipment he’d purchased from the Chinese.

  The Radar equipment they had mounted about three hundred meters up the tower, along the braces used for maintenance, was based off the second generation Chinese equivalent to the American Navy’s Aegis system. While it wasn’t quite up to par with even the last generation American equipment, it would suffice to do the job Amir had for it, and he nodded in approval as he observed the system checks that read out clear.

  “Where are they?” He asked, stopping at a desk setup in the center of the room, eyes on the screens though they were all still showing no contacts.

  “Seventy miles out, Amir. Less than half an hour at their maximum speed.” The technician in charge said, coming to stand beside him, “We are following them through spotters on the observation lookout.”

  He nodded, “The Radar?”

  “Still powered down, but prepared for use.”

  “Excellent.”

  With the radar powered down and all motion being observed and measure with passive rangefinders from the top of the tower, there was no way the approaching aircraft could possibly know what they were flying into. The element of surprise would only be his once, of course, but he would make it count.

  “Are the anti-aircraft guns in position?” He asked softly, as though someone might hear him.

  “Oh, yes Amir.” The technician smiled, “They are on the map as red points in the city.”

  Abdallah Amir looked over at the map, noting the red dots listed at the various strategic points through the city and his smile quirked slightly as he remembered something from his childhood. “Why are the points red?”

  The technician shrugged, “It is a Chinese System, Amir. Red is their national color.”

  “Ah.” He smiled slightly, understanding the cultural difference. He wondered if the average Chinese designer knew, or would even care, if they knew that the red color was reserved for the ‘bad guys’ in the American lexicon? For himself, it rather suited his mood, so he didn’t really care much what the American’s thought. If he was the bad guy, he’d strive to be the best ‘bad guy’ he could be.

  “With your permission, Amir,” The technician said softly, rousing him from his thoughts, “I will hold out fire until they are within two kilometers.”

  He nodded, “Agreed.”

  Amir shifted slightly, his lips twitching as he watched the screens for a few more minutes. “How long?”

  “Almost half an hour, Amir.” The technician said again, his voice very calm.

  Amir nodded, shaking his arms slightly. He wasn’t used to this, the waiting. A half hour, it seemed like each second passing was twice that. Was this what the Americans felt, waiting for his attacks in Afganistan? He didn’t like it, Amir decided. He preferred to be the one on the offensive, striking at will on his schedule. Being bound to someone else’s felt…wrong.

  A few more moments passed, and he found himself looking at the clock.

  “How far are they now?”

  Damn it!

  “About sixty five kilometers, Amir.”

  Abdallah nodded, despising himself for asking the stupid question. Where was his vaunted patience now? He’d laid plans for over a decade, telling his men to be patient, enjoy the wait, the savor of anticipation, and now here he was fidgeting like an amateurish fool.

  He closed his hands over the edge of the desk and made himself hold still as he waited for the reports from the spotters above him.

  *****

  “Satellite imagery coming up, Ma’am.”

  Natalie Cyr nodded, just watching as the NRO bird twisted into position over the city, picking up the spire of the tower first as it was tasked into position, expending some of the most expensive fuel in history to move the tactical bird over a position that no one had ever really considered it would have to look.

  The desert surrounding the city and tower were calm, almost glowing with a reddish tint to the dust of the outback as the sun began it’s descent from the noon hour apex. The local weather looked to be calm and peaceful, as though nature was hoping to dissuade the events unfolding by example.

  There was little chance of that, Natalie knew, and even as she though that she could see the blue triangular icons that denoted the Australian Army Black Hawk Helos as they made their approach. They were within ten kilometers now, and closing fast on a speedy approach to off load their troops and cargo in a hurry, before popping back up to provide close air support and medical services, if needed.

  Behind them were the slower CH-47F Chinook heavy lifters, carrying more troops as well as light armor for the operation.

  The city seemed incredibly quiet on the screen, the look down camera on the satellite showing no one in the streets, and that suddenly struck her as odd.

  Could the terrorist have moved that many people into the power facility already?

  It didn’t seem possible.

  “Do we have thermal yet?” She asked softly, frowning.

  “Yes Ma’am. Overlay on your screen.”

  She turned to her smaller screen and watched as the thermal overlay came up, showing heat sources throughout the city. Obviously they weren’t all in the power facility yet, but they did seem to be staying off the streets. Most probably, the word had started to go out. It was a small place, as cities went, and probably fairly close knit as well.

  They knew something was wrong.

  Maybe.

  Natalie was still pondering that when everything went to hell.

  *****

  “Now.”

  The order was simple, yet its effect was utterly incredible.

  With that one command, the huge phased array and IBIS type Radar arrays began sucking juice from the power facility, actually blacking out the cities that depending on the facility for their power use. They took that power, and they sent it out into the sky.

  Signals bounced back almost instantly, being sent right down to the computers in the very room that Abdallah now stood, and targets were identified and prioritized automatically by the Chinese threat identification software that had come with the system. There was nothing for his people to do as the Type 105 guns swung into action automatically, requesting the clearance to fire from the central computer.

  Clearance was granted.

  *****

  “Here they come…”

  Major Ian Malcolm nodded as he put the imagers to his eyes and watched the Army Black Hawks bank into a tight circle as they came around the tower facility, wide enough to avoid the green house skirt and the unpredictable thermals that came off the glass.

  The Sikorsky AH-60 Black Hawk was one of the longest lived airframes in the Australian military, having been in service for just over forty years. The platform had been ordered by the United States military in the mid-seventies to replace the then legendary Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as the ‘Huey’, and had gone on to rack up a service legend at least as distinguished as its lofty predecessor.

  The he
licopters were rugged and tough, and were still among the very best utility helicopters in service, being used across the board by Search and Rescue, Military, and private organizations for the past forty decades. Even the US military, known to be finicky about staying on the cutting edge of anything that flies, wasn’t expected to complete their phase out of the Black Hawk for another three years.

  To a soldier like Ian Malcolm, one of them cutting through the sky was the sound of the home bells ringing.

  “Alright, get downstairs and tell the others to pack up,” He told Sergeant Franks, “We’ll hump it over to the LZ as soon as they touch down and…”

  He was cut off by a roar of flame and sound as the lead Black Hawk went down.

  *****

  “What the hell was that!?”

  Colonel Pierson didn’t answer the shocked scream from beside him, he was too busy hanging on. When the lead helicopter went up, then down, his pilot threw the big chopper they were in into tight evasive maneuvers as he started cursing.

  “What the hell is going on, Soldier!?” Pierson yelled over the noise, leaning forward toward the pilot and co-pilot seats.

  “We’re being targeted, Colonel!” The pilot yelled over his shoulder as he fired all the big chopper’s counter measures. “Lots of radar!!”

  “What!? That’s not possible! From where!?”

  “Can’t tell you that, Colonel! Don’t have time to check!”

  Pierson cursed, though not loud enough to be heard over the roar of the chopper rotors, and grabbed one of the command screens and pulled the pivoting arm over his lap. The pilot may be too busy to check, but there was damned little else he could do in the meanwhile.

  “I’m going to try to put her down, Colonel! Get on the ground, or in between some of those buildings!”

  “Do it, Son!”

  The chopper bucked as she dove for the deck, two others close in on her tail, and the pilot unloaded the last of their chaff and flares in the maneuver. He wasn’t sure it was going to fool the radar they had locked on to them, because the last time he’d seen something putting out as much power as his instruments were reporting was when they’d done exercises against a US Carrier group and he’d been painted by an Aegis Cruiser.