by Ted Halstead
Banning glanced at Robinson, and he nodded.
“Sir, I did the technical review of the video files. There is metadata embedded in them that shows exactly when and where they were recorded. That’s because the recording was made using a cell phone with GPS enabled. Normally the Taliban are much more careful about that. Based on the videos’ content, I think it’s likely they were recorded by one of the Mullah’s relatives. He probably didn’t trust anyone else to broadcast the right one,” Banning said.
Hernandez almost asked what “right one” meant, but instead realized that it would probably become clear once he watched the videos, and gestured for playback to resume.
This time Hernandez sat stock still until all three of the short speeches had finished.
“Great work on this, Carol,” Hernandez said. “It’s a big help in making sure we stop the planned attacks.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Carol said. She correctly understood she was no longer needed and left.
“Well,” Hernandez said slowly, “now we know we were right. Bagram and the Green Zone in Kabul are definitely the targets. And we also know the Taliban think they’re going to hit at least one of them.”
Robinson nodded. “I think there’s also a good chance that at least one of the weapons will be traveling under Mullah Abdul Zahed’s command. That’s why he decided he had to record these speeches in advance.”
“Well, none of these little speeches are ever going to be broadcast, because we’re going to make sure none of these attacks are successful. Have we increased drone coverage over Afghanistan, as we discussed earlier?” Hernandez asked.
“Yes, sir,” Robinson said. The fact that this topic would almost certainly come up was one of the main reasons that Chuck Soltis had decided the Air Force Chief of Staff needed to be at this briefing.
Robinson added, “We have deployed not only every unassigned drone but pulled more from less urgent missions in the region. The Ranger and Seal teams are being redeployed from the girl’s schools back to searching for the stolen weapons. This mission is our absolute top priority.”
Hernandez nodded. He had expected nothing less.
“Good, General. Let me know as soon as there’s progress to report,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez added to himself silently, and I hope I don’t hear about a successful attack on cable news first.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Forty-Five Kilometers South of the Town of Bagram, Afghanistan
Mullah Abdul Zahed shook his head with disappointment as he reviewed the American media reporting on the outcome of the attacks on the girl’s high schools. Such an expenditure of time, money, and Taliban lives for such a poor result. He had been hoping to land a blow on American special forces so heavy they’d never be able to recover in time to follow either advancing nuclear weapon.
Instead, just two soldiers killed, and a few others injured.
Well, at least two of those accursed girl’s high schools had been damaged or destroyed.
As his small truck and its two escorts bounced over the rough secondary road, though, Abdul shook his head again.
He was wrong and needed to ask God’s forgiveness in his next prayers, probably the last ones he would make before going to see Him in person.
Abdul was making steady, unimpeded progress towards Bagram Airfield. The Afghan Army troops he had paid in advance to let them pass had stayed bribed, with only the expected small additional top-up payments before they were allowed to proceed.
Did Abdul think this would have gone so smoothly if the American soldiers hadn’t been occupied at the schools?
Certainly not.
Abdul sat back in his seat, nodding. Yes. He needed to have more faith that he was indeed an instrument in God’s plan. He was close. So close to the goal he had spent more than two decades planning.
And it would all come true before the day was out.
Seventy Kilometers South of Kabul, Afghanistan
Mikhail Vasilyev looked at the code on his satellite phone that indicated another radiation signature location report by the Okhotnik drone, along with a poor quality picture. It showed a truck, which though not large, was a bit bigger than the one used as a decoy at Jalalabad.
A few minutes later, another beep from his satellite phone told Vasilyev that there was an updated location report on the same target. So, this vehicle was moving.
Each of the first two messages had provided coordinates from the GLONASS system. Another beep announced the arrival of a new image, this one displaying a dot indicating each location tracked, as well as a timestamp. This image allowed Vasilyev to see the direction the truck was traveling.
Straight to Kabul.
Vasilyev had two conflicting thoughts almost simultaneously. The first was satisfaction that such useful information could be delivered to him this quickly by Russian technology. Though his country had been the first to put a satellite into orbit, Chernobyl, the sinking of the nuclear submarines Komsomolets and Kursk and many other disasters had shaken his generation’s faith in Russian technical prowess.
That faith had not been reinforced by learning that their Mil-8 helicopter had been grounded by technical problems.
It was nice to see they could still do some things right.
Vasilyev’s second thought was that the vehicle, now only fifty kilometers south of Kabul, had to be stopped immediately.
Looking around the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk filled with Captain John Rogoff and his heavily armed men, Vasilyev thought to himself they had the tools necessary to do just that.
Vasilyev had been ordered to keep the Okhotnik drone’s radiation sensing capabilities secret unless “operational necessity” required sharing them with the Americans. For the static, unmoving vehicle that had turned out to be a decoy, Vasilyev had decided to do no more than pass on the coordinates.
Now, though, Rogoff and his pilot needed access to the continuously updated location track fed to Vasilyev on his satellite phone. Vasilyev didn’t hesitate, tapping Rogoff on the shoulder.
“Captain, our drone has located a vehicle with a radiation signature that makes it a likely transport for one of the stolen weapons,” Vasilyev said. He made sure he was speaking loudly enough that both Neda Rhahbar and Anatoly Grishkov could hear as well.
Vasilyev then handed Rogoff his satellite phone, showing the last two reported positions.
“The vehicle appears to be a truck, and it is headed straight for Kabul. It is fortunate we decided to travel to Kabul ourselves. I believe its last reported coordinates are about twenty kilometers from us,” Vasilyev said.
Rogoff looked at the screen and nodded. Then he leaned forward and keyed a microphone in his helmet that from the conversation that followed connected him to the pilot. Shortly after that, their Black Hawk as well as the other two banked slightly right and then increased speed.
Leaning now towards Vasilyev, Rogoff said, “Of course we guessed that drone of yours was the source of your intel, but every tech guy I talked to at Bagram insisted you couldn’t have instruments more sensitive than ours. Glad to see they were wrong.”
Vasilyev nodded, impressed. Not a word of reproach for holding back the source of their information. Instead, a compliment for Russian technology. If this was the sort of officer who rose to command an elite unit in the American armed forces, then this would be a bad day for their common enemy.
The next thought was inevitable. Let’s hope we can avoid going back to the Cold War days when men like this would be my enemy.
Vasilyev looked ahead, where what Rogoff called “the DAP” flew in the lead. The American military’s love of acronyms had been mentioned several times in Vasilyev’s briefings. “DAP” stood for “Direct Air Penetrator.” It had sincerely puzzled Vasilyev when he saw it on the ground at Bagram Airfield because while its airframe was identical to the one he was in now, the DAP was a gunship.
Armed with two fixed M134 miniguns, four AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missile
s, a single M230 30mm chain gun, and an M299 launcher holding two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, the DAP carried enough firepower to quickly destroy whatever escort force the stolen nuclear weapon might have.
What puzzled Vasilyev was why the Americans had gone to the trouble of creating the DAP version at all when they already had far more capable combat helicopters such as the Apache. When he had asked Rogoff at Bagram Airfield, at first, Vasilyev thought he wouldn’t answer.
Finally, Rogoff shrugged and gave him two answers that made a surprising amount of sense. The first was that American special operations forces had their dedicated air squadrons, and limiting helicopter types simplified planning and maintenance.
The second was more of a surprise. Rogoff had already told Vasilyev that the DAP had no room for passengers because it was full of ammo. He said to Vasilyev now that under truly urgent circumstances, like the loss of one or more Black Hawks during a mission, the ammo could be jettisoned and the DAP used for troop transport.
Rogoff had also said he was glad that he’d never had to do it.
The DAP…Vasilyev asked for his satellite phone back and then pressed the necessary keys to bring up the drone’s image of a truck.
“I know this isn’t the best quality image, but I think it shows a truck. If I had to guess a color, I’d say white. The drone is programmed to focus solely on the source of radiation, so any escorts aren’t on camera. Please ask your men, especially the crew of the DAP, not to use any heavy weapons on the truck in this image,” Vasilyev said.
“Understood,” Rogoff said. “I get that setting off the nuke would be a bad day all around.” He then keyed his helmet microphone and began giving orders.
Vasilyev saw that several of Rogoff’s men within earshot grinned and nodded at Rogoff’s “bad day” comment. He noted that neither Grishkov nor Neda had been amused.
Neda…Vasilyev had been surprised by the depth of his feelings when he had seen Neda lying unconscious in a hospital bed. He should have been concerned first and foremost with the impact of her death or serious injury on the mission. Though he had studied Neda’s drawings and instructions diligently, and he knew Grishkov had too, he also knew neither of them was likely to defuse one of the jury-rigged nuclear weapons successfully. There were just too many ways to go wrong.
But when he saw Neda in the hospital, he wasn’t thinking about any of that. All Vasilyev could think about was how unfair it would be for such a beautiful, intelligent, talented woman to die at the hands of the Taliban.
A small part of Vasilyev’s thoughts were about how much he wished he could spend time with Neda, get to know her…But he pushed those thoughts down almost savagely as selfish.
Now Vasilyev wasn’t sure what he would do after this mission. Ask Neda out? Since joining the FSB, he’d been so busy that he’d only gone on a few casual dates that had led nowhere. Would dating Neda end the same way? Would it be better to keep their relationship professional, and keep Neda as no more than a friend?
Vasilyev rejected the last option almost as soon as it came to him as dishonest.
He smiled to himself wryly. Maybe he should wait until they both survived this mission to wrestle with these questions.
Rogoff helped make the point by gesturing out the windshield and saying, “Target vehicles should be in view shortly.”
He was right. Seconds later, a large white dot was visible, as well as two smaller black dots. All three rapidly got larger.
Then several things happened simultaneously. A harsh, pulsing buzz filled the helicopter’s cockpit, and they banked sharply left, while rapidly losing altitude.
Vasilyev could then hear the pilot report to his base that they were under missile attack.
Next came a hard impact and explosion, and the helicopter began spinning. At the same time, it filled with smoke, a combination that made Vasilyev nauseous.
Then everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Forty Kilometers South of Kabul, Afghanistan
Ibrahim Munawar had been pleased with their progress since crossing the border into Afghanistan. Ironically, though he had always considered himself Afghan and was now in charge of a weapon that could free Afghanistan from the American invaders, it was the first time he had been there.
Yes, both his parents might have been Pakistani. But his mother had drilled into him as long as he could remember the need to free Afghanistan, and to keep their plans from his father. She celebrated his outstanding work in high school as another step on the road to victory. When he had graduated from university at the top of his class, she had thrown a party in his honor.
Ibrahim would always cherish the day he had been assigned to duty as a technician in Pakistan’s nuclear program. It was the first time he could remember receiving a hug from his mother.
Ibrahim had been impressed with Afghanistan’s natural beauty, especially in the mountains. Of course, the circumstances had something to do with his feelings about the landscapes they were passing. No matter how this journey ended, Ibrahim had no illusions about surviving it.
Though that reality would have depressed many others, Ibrahim felt more exultant the further they traveled. Mullah Abdul Zahed had carefully mapped out a route using secondary roads that had so far seen them progress towards Kabul without incident.
Abdul had taken another precaution that had eased Ibrahim’s path, though he had told him nothing about it. Secondary roads or not, ordinarily by now, they would have encountered at least two roadblocks. Abdul had arranged payments to local Afghan officers to make sure that while Ibrahim and his cargo traveled on these roads, the roadblocks were placed elsewhere.
Of course, these officers had no idea what sort of weapon they had allowed to move towards Kabul. They believed they were allowing a shipment of American dollars to reach Kabul, to then be used to pay for drugs. It was a plausible story since much of the Afghan economy depended on opium exports. As the Russian agents had discovered at the border, since many considered electronic banking payments too risky, large quantities of cash were often required.
Though an occasional Afghan officer over the years had tried to steal such cash shipments for themselves, the retribution eventually visited on both the officers and their families had made such thefts rare. As Abdul had expected, the payments worked.
“Helicopters!” one of the Taliban fighters called out.
At first, Ibrahim hoped they might have nothing to do with them, and would continue flying past. As the helicopters continued straight towards them, that hope faded rapidly.
Men had already piled out of both of the black vans that had joined them shortly after they crossed the border. They had two anti-aircraft missiles, which they were readying to fire.
Abdul had told him that these were SA-24 Igla missiles. The extent of Ibrahim’s curiosity extended to asking what “Igla” meant. Abdul had explained that it meant “needle” in Russian and then looked at him, expecting more questions.
When none came, Abdul had been annoyed, saying that the missiles had been quite expensive and were their only hope if attacked from the air. Ibrahim had then done his best to pay attention, but now that their lives really did depend on the missiles could only remember three facts about them.
Their warheads carried about four hundred grams of explosives. Ibrahim only remembered this because as a nuclear technician, he thought in terms of kilotons, and found a quantity less than a single kilogram somewhere between quaint and amusing.
They traveled at nearly twice the speed of sound, which again Ibrahim found less than impressive. The Nasr missile he had worked on reached Mach 6.
The Russians were replacing the Igla with a more capable model. Abdul had explained this was why some SA-24s had come on the market. Ibrahim had been smart enough not to say aloud that he wasn’t excited to be getting obsolete Russian castoffs to defend their most important weapon.
At this point, though, one non-technical detail seemed more important than any of th
ose facts. They had two Iglas.
Ibrahim could now see there were three helicopters.
In spite of this, Ibrahim was still reluctant to begin the triggering sequence for the weapon for several reasons. The first and most important was that there were no people or structures anywhere in sight. All of the effort that had gone into bringing the nuclear weapon this far would have been for nothing.
Next, it was at least possible that one missile might damage or destroy two helicopters. Ibrahim might not know much about anti-aircraft weapons, but he knew that when they exploded, they produced a cloud of shrapnel that could travel a considerable distance.
Ibrahim was also honest enough to admit to himself that the chances of this happening were small.
Looking at the men getting ready to fire the missiles, though, gave Ibrahim some real hope. Big, strong, capable, and heavily armed, Ibrahim thought to himself ruefully that they were everything he was not. If the Americans landed their helicopters, Ibrahim thought they’d have a fight on their hands.
One “woosh” and a trail of smoke was quickly followed by another. Each missile went straight as an arrow towards one of the approaching helicopters, which immediately scattered.
One missile scored a hit, and all the men around Ibrahim cheered. After a moment, Ibrahim realized he was too. The stricken helicopter was smoking and spinning and then hit the ground. Hard. But, disappointingly, there was no fire or explosion as there always was in the movies.
The other two helicopters were still moving around frantically, and apparently successfully. Ibrahim couldn’t see what had happened to the other missile, but it hadn’t hit one of the helicopters.
Then two small dots that quickly grew bigger leaped from one of the helicopters and moved straight towards them. Ibrahim realized it had to be answering missiles and dove for the ground.
Just in time. Both black vans disappeared in a roar of fire and smoke, and many men whose reflexes weren’t as good as Ibrahim’s were no longer there.
Through the pounding in his head, Ibrahim wondered dully why only two missiles had been fired. Why not a third one to destroy the truck with the weapon?
