by Dale Brown
The F-16s peeled away in fighting pairs, going vertical. Sunlight glinted off their clear bubble canopies as they climbed higher—soaring fifteen thousand feet in twenty seconds. Once at high altitude, all four fighters leveled off and started orbiting in slower, lazy circles.
Behind them came an aerial armada. Flanked by shark-nosed AH-64D Apache helicopter gunships, a cloud of dozens of UH-60 Black Hawk troop carriers and large CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters clattered low across the desert floor . . . heading straight toward the airport and Sky Masters. From his hiding place high on the slopes above them, Brad watched, transfixed by what he was seeing. This had to be the better part of a whole U.S. Army combat aviation brigade, he realized. It was an enormous show of force, especially at a time when the army, like all the other U.S. armed services, was already stretched thin.
Accelerating suddenly, the Apache gunships broke away from the main formation. They fanned out, swinging wide to take up station at various points several hundred feet above the Sky Masters complex. Bristling with Hellfire antitank missiles, Hydra 70 2.75-inch, fin-stabilized rockets, and 30mm M230 chain guns, they hovered threateningly in midair.
Once the gunships were in position, the slower Black Hawks swooped lower still—flaring in to land on the airport tarmac and in the wide-open spaces between hangars, office buildings, machine shops, labs, and warehouses. Squads of heavily armed infantry poured out of the grounded helicopters. They were accompanied by groups of journalists and camera crews wearing body armor and helmets over their civilian clothes.
Directed by their officers and NCOs, the soldiers deployed fast across the compound. Some units fanned out to surround key buildings. Others stormed inside with their weapons at the ready.
Grim-faced now, Brad reopened his radio link. “Wolf One to Two and Three. You know how we thought this situation was already pretty bad? Well, believe it or not, but I’m pretty sure things just got a heck of a lot worse.”
OFFICE OF JASON RICHTER, SKY MASTERS AEROSPACE, INC.
THAT SAME TIME
With his hands clasped firmly on the back of his head, Hunter Noble walked into the spacious corner office. At the sight of the two other top Sky Masters executives already inside, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, man,” he said over his shoulder to the soldier behind him. “This is so unfair. You cannot sling me in here with these hard-core lifers. I’m too damned pretty. They’ll carve me up.”
The middle-aged noncom only rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Doc. I’ll make sure I catch your comedy club act the next time I’m in town. Now get over with those people and keep your mouth shut until the colonel gets here.” He prodded Boomer ahead with the barrel of his M4 carbine.
“Tough crowd today.” Boomer sighed. He moved farther into the room to join the others.
Jason Richter, a retired U.S. Army colonel and now the company’s chief executive officer, sat in one of the chairs in front of his own desk. The tall, athletic man’s face was carefully blank, empty of all obvious emotion. Sky Masters’ president, Dr. Helen Kaddiri, sat next to him. She wore an expensive dark gray business suit. Her very long black hair was tied back in an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. Her dark eyes were watchful. They were being held at gunpoint by four stern-looking young soldiers wearing the ivy-leaf shoulder sleeve patch of the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colorado.
The troops stiffened to attention when a trim, efficient-looking lieutenant colonel strode into the office. The name tape on his uniform read strang. “At ease,” he snapped. He motioned for them to lower their weapons. “These people aren’t going to cause us any trouble.” He turned to Boomer and the others. “Are you?”
“We have no intention of violently resisting this illegal action, if that’s what you mean, Colonel,” Helen Kaddiri said carefully. Her lips were pursed. “But I fully expect our lawyers to file a series of vigorous legal challenges to this unwarranted trespass on our property. And to our arrests.”
The Army officer shook his head with a fractional smile. “You’re not under arrest, Dr. Kaddiri. At least not yet.” He shrugged his shoulders. “For the moment, the president, acting under the authority granted her by the Insurrection Act, is placing you and your entire staff in protective custody—pending further investigation. The same goes for your corporate facilities and other property.”
“On what grounds?” Richter asked bluntly.
“Suspicion of possible involvement in terrorist actions against the United States,” the other man replied.
Boomer snorted. “That’s crazy! Barbeau’s lost her freaking mind.”
“I am not here to debate the issue,” the lieutenant colonel said, without batting an eye. “Now, with respect, I need you all on your feet and moving outside.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got helicopters waiting to fly you and all of your people out of here.”
Gracefully, Helen Kaddiri rose from her chair, a movement echoed by Jason Richter. “Fly us to where, exactly?”
“A safe location.”
Richter shook his head. “You’re making a very big mistake, Colonel Strang.”
TEMPORARY DETENTION CAMP, MOUNTAIN HOME AIR BASE, NEAR MOUNTAIN HOME, IDAHO
A SHORT TIME LATER
Squinting against the sun, Hunter Noble jumped down out of the just-landed Black Hawk helicopter and strolled out from under its still-turning rotors. He straightened up and turned to take a look around. At least twenty UH-60 troop carriers sat on a wide concrete apron. Armed Air Force and Army security personnel surrounded clumps of frightened Sky Masters employees as they scrambled out of the helicopters—shepherding them toward a tent city being erected by sweating soldiers next to the base motor pool. Coils of razor wire surrounded the half-finished camp.
“What do you think, Boomer?” Jason Richter asked quietly. The Sky Masters CEO had come up beside him.
Boomer shook his head, staring at the flat, featureless landscape beyond the base perimeter. It stretched on for miles and miles and more damned miles. Far off, along the northern horizon, he could barely make out a few darker shapes that might be foothills of the Sawtooth Range, an offshoot of the Rocky Mountains.
“I think this sucks,” he said finally. He jerked a thumb toward the tents. “I bet there’s no cable. And no pool. Hell, I bet even the Wi-Fi is as slow as molasses.” He folded his arms stubbornly. “In fact, I’m so pissed off that I am seriously considering voting against our good pal Stacy Anne come November.”
Richter gave him a pained half smile. “That’s not quite what I meant, but I take your point.”
“Okay, more seriously, I’d say we’re being herded into an out-and-out prison camp. Not that I ever bought the good Colonel Strang’s line of bullshit about putting us in ‘protective custody.’”
“Yeah, that was a pretty glaring bit of fiction,” Richter agreed. “I suppose calling it that serves Barbeau’s legal purposes, but the ground truth is pretty clear. We’re in the bag—at least until the courts or Congress can spring us.” His eyes narrowed. “But I don’t think locking us up is all she’s got in mind.”
Puzzled, Boomer turned to stare at him. “Say again?”
Richter nodded toward a group of camouflaged shapes visible in the distance beyond the flight line. “Take a good, hard look over there and tell me what you see.”
Boomer did as he was asked. His own eyes widened in surprise. “Jesus, those are M1A1 Abrams tanks. And Bradley fighting vehicles.”
“And Paladin self-propelled howitzers,” Richter pointed out quietly.
“What the hell’s up with that?” Boomer wondered. He grimaced. “Except for you and maybe me, nobody else at Sky Masters is exactly he-man fighting material. The Army doesn’t need that kind of heavy-duty firepower to keep a bunch of engineers and scientists in line.”
“No, they don’t,” Richter agreed. His jaw tightened. “Which is why I’m reasonably sure we’re more than just prisoners or detainees.”
“Then what are we?”
&nb
sp; “We’re bait, Dr. Noble,” the other man said. “A nice, shiny lure dangling on a hook.”
Twenty-Seven
IRON WOLF FORCE, NORTH OF BATTLE MOUNTAIN
A SHORT TIME LATER
Brad watched the four F-16s break off their patrol orbit over Battle Mountain and fly back east. The fighters passed high over another wave of helicopters ferrying in more troops and equipment from the 4th Infantry Division. He frowned. There were already at least two full infantry battalions deployed around the Sky Masters facility and they were fortifying their perimeter—digging fighting positions and building sandbagged bunkers for machine guns, mortars, and Javelin antitank missile teams. This was no snatch-and-grab raid. This was a full-fledged military occupation.
JSTARS and AWACS radars are no longer active, his computer reported suddenly. Aircraft departing this area of operations.
The two icons representing the E-3 Sentry and E-8C JSTARS were heading north-northeast, in the same direction taken by the Black Hawks and Chinook helicopters packed full of Sky Masters scientists and engineers, he realized. Which meant they were probably bound for Mountain Home Air Force Base, too. The southern Idaho base was the only military installation the helicopters could have had the fuel to reach.
What Barbeau thought she was accomplishing with this sudden show of force was a puzzle for later, Brad decided. Right now, the JSTARS departure gave him the freedom to head back to the Ranger without the risk of being detected. “Wolf One to Wolf Two and Three,” he radioed. “Returning to base.”
“Two copies,” he heard Nadia say. “I will pass the word to Captain Schofield.”
“Thanks, Two,” Brad said. “And look, we need to talk to Poland as soon as I get back, with full audio and visuals . . . if we can swing it.”
“Three here,” Whack Macomber said gruffly over the same circuit. “We’ve already reported the situation to Martindale and Wilk. What more do you want? Besides, a direct audio and video connection via satellite is gonna suck up a shitload of bandwidth . . . which means the chances of detection go up exponentially.”
Patiently, Brad replied. “Understood, Whack. But I think it’s worth the risk now that President Barbeau just tipped the chessboard over. We’re going to have to rethink our whole strategy. Text-messaging back and forth isn’t going to cut it.”
Over the radio link, Macomber grunted. “I suppose not, Wolf One. I’ll pass your request on to our high-and-mighty lords and masters. Three out.”
A private communication from Nadia on a separate channel caught Brad’s eye. “Fear not. I will make sure the grumpy colonel is persuasive. Kocham cię. I love you.”
Thirty minutes later, safely concealed under their camouflage netting, he opened his CID’s hatch and climbed down out of the robot.
Nadia and Macomber were waiting at the foot of the XCV-62’s ladder. “We’re all set,” the colonel said tersely. “Warsaw and Powidz are standing by. And I’ve patched the signal through to the troop compartment so that Schofield and his guys can listen in. Hope you knights of the air and metal don’t mind, but I figured our poor, unfortunate ground pounders deserve to know how fucked we are in real time.”
Brad hid a smile. In his heart, Whack remained the quintessential foot soldier. Though he was a superb CID pilot, the big, powerfully built man retained the attitudes he’d developed over years of service in the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. Machines were either transport, fire support, or trouble for the real fighters—the tough men and women who closed with and destroyed the enemy up close and personal . . . without anything more than bullet-resistant body armor to protect them. To this day, Macomber never really felt comfortable inside one of the robots. “When those fricking computers get done meshing with my nervous system,” he’d sometimes growl, “who’s really in charge? Me? Or the damn machine?”
Instead, Brad contented himself with politely gesturing Nadia and Macomber up the ladder ahead of him.
With three people crammed inside, it was hard to move around inside the Ranger’s small cockpit without banging into each other or some of the instruments. Brad settled into his pilot’s seat, carefully ignoring the way Nadia’s face flushed a little when she remembered the last time they’d been here together. Bright-eyed now, she clambered back into the right-hand copilot’s position while the colonel squeezed himself awkwardly into the narrow space behind their seats.
Brad tapped his MFD, bringing it live. Nadia did the same with hers. A menu appeared on their screens: SECURE SATELLITE COM LINK READY.
“Initiate satellite link,” he ordered quietly.
“Link open,” the Ranger’s computer said in a calm female voice.
Instantly, three familiar faces looked back at them from the big displays. Martindale and Piotr Wilk were in the Polish president’s private office in Warsaw. Patrick McLanahan, recognizable through his LEAF’s clear visor, was at the squadron HQ in Powidz. Because their signals were being simultaneously encrypted and then bounced through several different communications satellites, the images were grainy and slightly distorted. There was also a slight, but noticeable lag between video and audio, which added a herky-jerky quality to the conversation.
“Go ahead, Wolf Force,” Wilk said with a nod. “What is your situation?”
“Not great,” Brad admitted. “Barbeau is still flying troops in to Battle Mountain. Plus, I saw a number of civilians arriving in the most recent helicopter lift.”
“Those are probably intelligence and technical experts,” his father said. “My guess is DARPA, the CIA, and a whole alphabet soup of federal agencies are starting to dig around in Sky Masters’ databases. This is the chance they’ve been waiting for to ferret out a lot of the company’s closely held secrets—especially those concerning the construction of Cybernetic Infantry Devices.”
“Which they won’t find,” Brad pointed out. “From what Boomer told me, all of the CID-related components and data are safely hidden away somewhere off-site.”
Martindale frowned. “Unfortunately, that only ends up making Sky Masters appear even more guilty. It will look as though the company anticipated this forceful U.S. government reaction and took preemptive measures to hide its involvement in the recent attacks.”
“Swell,” Whack muttered. “So our guys do the right thing and it ends up feeding Barbeau’s paranoid fantasies.”
“That’s about the size of it, Colonel,” the Scion chief said. His mouth twisted into a frown. “Although now that the Russians have their own war robots, it might have been better if Richter and his people had simply left their CID files and materials in place for the U.S. authorities to find.”
Brad saw his father stir. “Not in a million years,” Patrick McLanahan said flatly. “The federal government has a shitty record of keeping really valuable secrets. Anything the CIA, DARPA, and the rest scooped up would end up in Gryzlov’s hands sooner or later. And right now, our rail guns and camouflage gear may be the only edge Brad and the other CID pilots have over the Russians.”
Piotr Wilk shrugged. “The point is moot, anyway. Short of extracting the location of those secrets from its Sky Masters prisoners, your government will not be able to lay its hands on this technology. At the moment, our first priority must be to decide our next course of action.” He looked straight into the screen. “Captain McLanahan, can you fly your aircraft out of there without being detected?”
“Negative, Mr. President. At least not yet,” Brad said without hesitation. “The JSTARS and AWACS planes are gone, but there’s still way too much U.S. military air and vehicle traffic in this area. Even if we could dodge radar detection, the Ranger’s not invisible. Some pilot or ground observer would be bound to spot us using the good old-fashioned Mark I eyeball. And then we’d be toast. Between the F-15E Strike Eagles based at Mountain Home and the Aggressor Squadron F-16s flying out of Nellis, we wouldn’t make it a hundred miles before being either shot down or forced to land.”
He glanced outside the cockpit windows. Even
seen through their camo net, the daytime sky was still blindingly bright. “That all changes once the sun goes down. As soon as it gets seriously dark, we should be able to make a break for it . . . but not a moment sooner.”
“Which leaves open the question of precisely where you should go, once it is safe to fly,” Wilk said slowly.
Martindale sighed. “That’s an easily answered question, Piotr. We have to pull Brad’s team out of the U.S. and get them back to Poland. At this point, it’s the only sensible option we’ve got left.” He looked tired. “Risking an Iron Wolf unit to protect Sky Masters and its secrets from Gryzlov’s mercenaries was a reasonable gamble. But now Barbeau has preempted that mission. Staying longer in the States, even if I manage to scratch up a new covert base out in the boonies somewhere, only increases the odds of someone spotting our CIDs or the Ranger stealth aircraft . . . either of which would confirm all of Stacy Anne’s darker suspicions about our involvement in this mess.”
Brad opened his mouth to object, but Nadia beat him to it.
“On the contrary, Mr. Martindale, we are not simply going to run home like frightened children,” the Polish Special Forces officer said with unconcealed disgust. She eyed Martindale’s static-distorted image with cold contempt. “The situation here remains the same. Without the combat power represented by our Iron Wolf machines, your country is effectively defenseless against Gryzlov’s forces.”
“The major’s right,” Macomber said. “There’s no way those Russians are going to let themselves get sucked into a stand-up fight where our Army and Air Force can use tanks and precision-guided missiles against their robots. They’re not that dumb.”
“Ambushes happen, Colonel,” Martindale retorted. “You, of all people, ought to know that.”
Brad held his breath, waiting for Whack to explode in fury. Hitting him like that with a reminder of the disaster that killed Charlie Turlock was a very low blow.
