by Dale Brown
“Let’s see what they’re doing,” Patrick said. A few moments later an incredibly detailed overhead image of the spot came up on his monitor. It clearly showed the four-lane highway with aircraft distance marks, taxi lines, and touchdown zone designations—it looked like a typical military runway, only with cars and trucks running on it. On both the north and south sides of the highway/airstrip were wide paved areas with aircraft taxiways, large aircraft parking areas, and the remnants of bombed-out buildings. Many of the destroyed buildings had been razed and a number of tents of various sizes put in their place, some with the seal of the Red Crescent humanitarian relief organization on them. “Do those tents look like they have open sides to you, Master Sergeant?” Patrick asked.
Seeker peered closer at the image, then magnified it until it started to lose resolution. “Yes, sir,” she replied, unsure of why the general had asked—it was fairly plain to her. Per agreement between the United Nations, Buzhazi’s Persian occupying force, and the Iranian government-in-exile, large tents set up in certain combat areas servicing refugees or others traveling through the Iranian deserts had to have open sides during reconnaissance flyover time periods so all sides could see inside, or they could be designated as hostile emplacements and attacked.
“Looks like a big shadow on that side, that’s all,” Patrick said. “This photo was taken during nighttime, correct?” Lukas nodded. “The sides look open, but the shadows on the ground from the nearby floodlights are making it look…I don’t know, they just don’t look right to me, that’s all.” He zoomed in again on the former aircraft parking ramps. Both paved areas were dotted with dozens of bomb craters, from several yards to over a hundred feet wide, with huge chunks of concrete heaved up around the edges. “Still looks busted up to me. How old is this image?”
“Just two hours, sir. No way they could have repaired all those craters and brought in aircraft in two hours.”
“Let’s see the scans compared by the computer.” The image split first into two, then four, then sixteen shots of the same spot taken over a period of several days. The pictures appeared identical.
“Looks like a glitch—false alarm,” Seeker said. “I’ll reset the images and take a look at the comparison parameters for—”
“Wait a minute,” Patrick said. “What is the computer saying has changed?” A moment later, the computer had drawn rectangles around several of the craters. The craters were precisely the same—the only difference was that the rectangles were not exactly oriented the same in all the images. “I still don’t get what COMPSCAN is flagging.”
“Me neither, sir,” Seeker admitted. “Could be just a looking-angle computation error.”
“But we’re sun-synchronous on this part of the world, right?”
“Yes, sir. We’re precisely over Tehran at the same time—approximately two A.M. local—every day.”
“So the looking angle should be the same except for minor station or sensor attitude changes, which the computer should be correcting for,” Patrick said.
“Obviously something’s screwed up in the adjustment routine, sir,” Seeker said apologetically, anchoring herself at her terminal to begin work. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it straightened out. Sorry about that, sir. These things need recalibrating—obviously a bit more often that I thought. I should probably look at the station attitude gyro compensation readouts and fuel consumption figures to see if there’s a major shift taking place—we might have to make a gross alignment change, or just throw out all the old attitude adjustment figures and come up with new ones. Sorry, sir.”
“No problem, Master Sergeant,” Patrick said. “We’ll know to look for things like that more often from now on.” But he continued staring at the images and the computer’s comparison boxes. The boxes disappeared as Lukas erased the old comparison data, leaving very clear images of the bomb craters on the ramps and taxiways. He shook his head. “The space-based radar’s pictures are stunning, Seeker—it’s like I can measure the thickness of those concrete blocks heaved up by the bombs. Amazing. I can even see the colors of the different layers of concrete, and where the steel reinforcing mesh was applied. Cool.”
“The SBR is incredible, sir—it’s hard to believe it’s almost twenty-year-old technology.”
“You can clearly see where the concrete ends and the road base begins. It’s—” Patrick looked closely at the images, then put on a pair of reading glasses and peered closer. “Can you enlarge that image for me, Seeker?” he asked, pointing at a large crater on the south side of the highway.
“Yes, sir. Stand by.”
A moment later the crater filled the monitor. “Fantastic detail, all right.” But now something was niggling at him. “My son loves those ‘I Spy’ and ‘Where’s Waldo?’ books—maybe he’ll be an imagery analyst someday.”
“Or he’ll design the computers that will do it for us.”
Patrick chuckled, but he still felt uneasy. “What is wrong with this picture? Why did the computer ring the bell?”
“I’m still checking, sir.”
“I spent a short but insightful period of time as a detachment commander in the U.S. Air Force’s Air Intelligence Agency,” Patrick said, “and the one thing I learned about interpreting multispectral overhead imagery was not to let the mind fill in too many blanks.”
“Analysis 101, sir: Don’t see what isn’t there,” Seeker said.
“But never ignore what is there but isn’t right,” Patrick said, “and there is something not right about the position of those craters. They’re different…but how?” He looked at them again. “They look to me like they’re turned, and the computer said they moved, but—”
“That’s not possible for a crater.”
“No…unless they’re not craters,” Patrick said. He zoomed in again. “I might be seeing something that’s not there, but those craters look too perfect, too uniform. I think they’re decoys.”
“Decoy craters? I’ve never heard of such a thing, sir.”
“I’ve heard of every other kind of decoy—planes, armored vehicles, troops, buildings, even runways—so why not?” Patrick remarked. “That might explain why COMPSCAN flags them—if they’re moved and not placed in exactly the same spot, COMPSCAN flags it as a new target.”
“So you think they’ve rebuilt that base and are secretly using it, right under our noses?” Lukas asked, still unconvinced. “If that’s true, sir, then the space-based radar and our other sensors should have picked up other signs of activity—vehicles, tire tracks, storage piles, security personnel patrolling the area…”
“If you know exactly when a satellite is going to pass overhead, it’s relatively easy to fool it—just cover the gear with radar-absorbent camouflage, erase the tracks, or disguise them with other targets,” Patrick said. “All those tents, trucks, and buses out there could be housing an entire battalion and hundreds of tons of supplies. As long as they offload the planes, get the men and vehicles out of the area, and sweep up the area within the two-to-three-hour span between our overflights, they’re safe.”
“So all our gear is practically useless.”
“Against whoever is doing this, yes—and I’ll bet it’s not the Islamist clerics or even the remnants of the Revolutionary Guards Corps,” Patrick said. “There’s only one way to find out: we need eyes on the ground. Let’s get a report ready for STRATCOM and I’ll append my recommendations for action…but first I want to get Rascal working on a plan.” While Lukas began downloading sensor data and adding her observations—and reservations—about the activity at Soltanabad, Patrick selected the command channel on his encrypted satellite communications system. “Odin to Rascal.”
A moment later the image of a large, blond-haired, blue-eyed, powerful-looking man appeared on Patrick’s monitor: “Rascal here, sir,” replied Air Force Major Wayne Macomber rather testily. Macomber was the new commander of the Battle Force ground forces based at Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada, replacing Hal Briggs, who had been ki
lled while hunting down mobile medium-range ballistic missiles in Iran a year earlier. Macomber was only the second person ever to take charge of the Battle Force. He had big shoes to fill, and that, in Patrick’s mind, would never happen.
Macomber was not Patrick’s first choice to lead “Rascal” (which had been Hal’s call-sign and was now the new unclassified call-sign of the Battle Force). To put it mildly, Macomber had serious problems dealing with authority. But he had somehow managed to use that personality glitch to propel himself into more and more challenging situations in which he was ultimately able to adapt, overcome, and succeed.
He was kicked out of public middle school in Spokane, Washington, because of “behavioral incompatibilities” and was sent off to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell in hopes of having round-the-clock military discipline straighten him out. Sure enough—after a difficult first year—it worked. He graduated near the top of his class both academically and athletically and won a nomination to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Although he was a nationally ranked linebacker for the Falcons football team, where he earned his nickname “Whack,” he was kicked off the squad in his senior year for aggressive play and “personality conflicts” with several coaches and teammates. He used the extra time—and probationary period—to improve his grades and again graduated with honors with a bachelor of science degree in physics and a pilot training slot. Once again he dominated in his undergraduate pilot training class, graduating top of his class, and won one of only six F-15E Strike Eagle pilot slots awarded straight out of flight school—almost unheard of for a first lieutenant at the time.
But again, he couldn’t keep his drive and determination in check. An F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter is a completely different bird with an offensive systems operator, big radar, conformal long-range fuel tanks, and ten thousand pounds of ordnance on board, and for some reason Wayne Macomber couldn’t figure out that airframes bend in unnatural directions when an F-15E Strike Eagle pilot loaded up with bombs tries to dogfight with another fighter. It didn’t matter that he was almost always the winner—he was racking up victories at the expense of bending expensive airframes, and was eventually…ultimately…asked to leave.
But he was not orphaned for long. One organization in the Air Force welcomed and even encouraged aggressive action, out-of-the-box thinking, and virulent leadership: Air Force Special Operations. To his dismay, however, the unit that wanted rude and crude “Whack” the most was the Tenth Combat Weather Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Florida: because of his physics education, the Air Force quickly made him a combat weather parachutist. He got to wear the coveted green beret and parachutist wings of an Air Force commando, but it still grated on him to be known as a “weatherman.”
Although he and his squadron mates always took a lot of ribbing from other commando units for being “combat weather-guessers” or “groundhogs,” Macomber soon learned to like the specialty not only because he happened to like the science of meteorology but also because he got to parachute out of perfectly good planes and helicopters, carry lots of guns and explosives, learn how to set up airfields and observation posts behind enemy lines, and how to kill the enemy at close quarters. Whack performed more than a hundred and twenty combat jumps in the next eight years and rose quickly through the ranks, eventually taking command of the squadron.
When Brigadier General Hal Briggs was planning the assault and occupation of Yakutsk Air Base in Siberia in Patrick McLanahan’s retaliatory operation against Russia following the American Holocaust, he turned to the one nationally recognized expert in the field to assist in mission planning for operations behind enemy lines: Wayne Macomber. At first Whack didn’t like taking orders from a kid eight years younger than he, especially one who outranked him, but he quickly recognized Briggs’ skill, intelligence, and guts, and they made a good team. The operation was a complete success. Macomber won a Silver Star for saving dozens of personnel, Russians as well as Americans, by getting them into fallout shelters before Russian president Gryzlov’s bombers attacked Yakutsk with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
“I’m sending you the most recent shots of a highway airbase in northeastern Iran, Wayne,” Patrick said. “I think it’s being secretly repaired, and I’m going to ask permission for you to go in, recon it, and render it unusable again—permanently.”
“A ground op? About time,” Macomber responded gruffly. “Almost all I’ve been doing since you brought me here is sweating—either out doing PT or tryin’ to squeeze into one of those damned Tin Man union suits.”
“And complaining.”
“The sergeant major been yakkin’ about me again?” Marine Corps Sergeant Major Chris Wohl was the noncommissioned officer in charge of Rascal, the Air Battle Force ground team, and one of the most senior members of the unit. Although Macomber was commander of Rascal, everyone fully knew and understood that Chris Wohl was in charge—including Macomber, a fact which really rankled him. “I wish that sumbitch would retire like I thought he would do so I can pick my own first shirt. He’s ready to be put out to pasture.”
“I’m the commander of the Air Battle Force, Wayne, and even I wouldn’t dare say that to the sergeant major’s face,” Patrick said, only half jokingly.
“I told you, General, that as long as Wohl is around, it’ll be his unit and his baggage I’ll have to drag around,” Whack said. “All he does is mope around after Briggs.” Patrick couldn’t remotely picture Wohl moping for a second, but he didn’t say so. “Guys die in special ops, even in tin can suits like that robot thing he was in—he better get used to that. Retire his ass, or at least reassign him, so I can spin up this unit my way.”
“Wayne, you’re in charge, so be in charge,” Patrick said, not liking the way this conversation was going. “You and Chris can make a great team if you learn to work together, but you’re still the man in charge whether you use him or not. I expect you to get your team ready to fly and fight, soonest. If it’s not set up the way you want it in time for the next op, put Wohl in charge until—”
“I lead the unit, General, not the no-cock,” Macomber retorted, using his own personal term “no-cock” instead of the Air Force acronym NCOIC, or “noncommissioned officer in charge.”
“Then lead it, Wayne. Do whatever you need to do to accomplish the mission. Chris Wohl, the Cybernetic Infantry Devices, and the Tin Man armor can all be part of the problem or part of the solution—it’s up to you. The men are pros, but they need a leader. They know Chris and will follow him into hell—you have to prove you can lead them along with the NCOIC.”
“I’ll whip them into line, General, don’t worry about that,” Macomber said.
“And if you haven’t done it already, I’d suggest you not use that term ‘no-cock’ in front of Wohl, or you two might be standing before me bloody and broken. Fair warning.”
Macomber’s expression gave absolutely no indication that he understood or agreed with McLanahan’s warning. That was unfortunate: Chris Wohl didn’t tolerate most officers below flag rank and was not afraid to risk his career and freedom to straighten out an officer who didn’t show the proper respect to a veteran noncommissioned officer. If the situation wasn’t resolved properly, Patrick knew, those two were heading for a confrontation. “It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to train in that Tin Man getup.”
“The ‘getup,’ as you call it, allows us to go into hot spots no other special ops team would ever consider,” Patrick said.
“Excuse me, General, but I can’t recall any hot spot I ever considered not going into,” Macomber said testily, “and I didn’t wear the long undies.”
“How many men would you need to go in and take out an airfield, Major?”
“We don’t ‘take out’ airfields, sir—we reconnoiter or disrupt enemy air ops, or we build our own airfields. We call in air strikes if we want it—”
“The Battle Force takes them out, Major,” Patrick interjected. “Remembe
r Yakutsk?”
“We didn’t destroy that airfield, sir, we occupied it. And we brought in a hundred guys to help us do it.”
“The Battle Force was prepared to destroy that base, Major—if we couldn’t use it, the Russians weren’t going to, either.”
“Destroy an airfield?” The skepticism in Macomber’s voice was obvious, and Patrick could feel the heat rise up under the collar of his black flight suit. He didn’t want to waste time arguing with a subordinate, but Macomber had to be made aware of what was expected of him, not just busted because he was a junior officer. “How can a handful of lightly armed men destroy an airfield?”
“That’s what you’re here to learn, Wayne,” Patrick said. “I told you when we first talked about taking over the command that I needed you to think outside the box, and around there it means not just learning to use the gadgets that you have at your disposal but embracing and expanding the technology and developing new ways to use it. Now I need you up to speed quick, because I’ve got an airfield in Iran I might want destroyed…tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? How can that happen, General? I just learned about the target location just now—if we hustled, we might make it off the base by tomorrow, and that’s with no intel and no rehearsals on how to assault the target! You can’t run a successful infiltration on a military base with no intel and no practice runs! I’ll need at least a week just to—”
“You’re not hearing what I’m telling you, Major: you have to start thinking differently around here,” Patrick insisted. “We locate targets and attack them, period—little or no rehearsal, no strategic intel, first-cut organic intel received while en route, no joint support packages, and small but mobile and high-tech ground units with minimal but devastating air support. I told you all this when I first briefed you on Rascal, Wayne…”
“I assumed you got your intel and tasking from higher headquarters, sir,” Macomber argued. “You mean you launch on an operation without gathering strategic intel from—?”
