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  “Green One, Green One, this is Bravo Three, how do you read me?”

  “Loud and clear now, Bravo Three,” Turabi responded. “We were knocked off the air for a minute. Did you make contact?”

  “Affirmative! Looks like eight heavy-tank platoons in a staggered W formation, coming in hard from the north-northwest. We are engaging.”

  “Bravo Three, acknowledged. Engage from your position. If you need to break contact, pull straight back to the south. Bravo Four and Airborne Three should be moving in any minute to back you up from the east, and Bravo Six should be moving in from the north. Don’t let them break out past you—keep them in front of you. Acknowledge.” No reply. “Bravo Three, acknowledge.”

  A skull-piercing shriek of pain and the roar of an explosion and fire suddenly broke the chatter over the command net. Oh, shit—the leader of Bravo Three or one of the other company commanders on the net had been hit, and his last dying action was to keep his fingers pressed onto the mike button so everyone on the net could hear his death scream. That was not good. “Airborne Three, this is Green One, what do you see?”

  “We are engaging enemy tanks on the northwest grid,” the helicopter flight commander reported. “Bravo Three looks like they took several direct hits. The Turkmen are coming with T-72s and maybe even T-80s—they’re shooting on the run.” The biggest tank Zarazi’s force had was a T-64, which had a 125-millimeter smoothbore cannon and autoloader like the T-72, but it did not have a sophisticated laser-aiming computer, so it had to stop to fire its gun; most of Zarazi’s tank force were much older T-55s and T-54s, whose 100-millimeter main guns probably wouldn’t even put a dent in a T-72’s 120-millimeter reactive armor.

  “Roger, Air Three. I can see one platoon of Bravo Four moving in fast from the north, but I can’t see the rest of Four, and there’s no sign of Six. I will . . . shit . . . oh, shit—” And then his radio cut off as well.

  “Airborne Three, come in.”

  “This is Airborne Three-Two,” a different voice said. One of the wingmen had taken over on the net. “Lead took a hit. Looks like the armor coming in from the north brought some SAMs with them. We are engaging. I see only four tanks from Bravo Four coming in to help Bravo Three. They’re going to get chewed to pieces here in about twenty minutes if they don’t get more help.”

  “Roger, Airborne Three. Did you hear that, Bravo Four? Get in there and help, right now!”

  “Green One, this is Bravo One, we have pushed off the enemy force on the highway—they are scattering. The highway is clear. Do you want us to head north to help Bravo Three? Over.”

  “Is Bravo Two still with you?”

  “They are engaging the Hinds off to the south, but I think the Hinds might be withdrawing to the southwest. We appear clear to the south. I haven’t heard from Bravo Two, but I think they lost only one or two units from the Hind attack.”

  “Roger that. Stand by. Break. Bravo Two, this is Green One, are you up on the net?”

  “Affirmative, Green One. It looks like the Hinds only had cannons and marking rockets and just a few missiles. They swept in, fired a few rounds, then headed away.”

  “Roger. Bravo Two, you take the highway and make best speed to the objective. Don’t stop to fight, just get to the control station and take it as soon as you can. Take as much air defense as you can. Keep an eye to the south—they might try another attack once the Hinds depart. Acknowledge.”

  “Roger, Green One. We’re on the move. Our air defense will have to catch up with us. They’ll cover our six.”

  “Roger that. Break. Bravo One, wheel north and attack the enemy’s right flank. Get a good positive ID before you shoot—elements of Bravo Four are moving in behind the enemy formation. You’ll be face-to-face.” He hoped.

  “Acknowledged. We’re on the move.”

  Turabi took a moment to plant the image of the battlefield in his mind. It was not looking good. “Airborne Three, what’s the status of Bravo Three?”

  There was a slight pause, then, “Sorry, Colonel.”

  Turabi swore loudly—an entire company of tanks, destroyed in less than fifteen minutes. Their entire northern flank was exposed now.

  “Airborne Three is breaking contact to reload,” came the report. “We’ve got elements of Airborne Two moving in. I think I saw one more platoon of Bravo Four moving in, but no sign of the rest of them and no sign of Bravo Six.”

  “Bravo Six, what is your position? Can you see the enemy forces? They should be about ten kilometers in front of you.” No response. Damn it, Turabi swore, silently this time. They bugged out, probably back up the highway toward their reinforced ammo dump and supply depot at Ravnina. They were going to pay for that! “Bravo Four, have you made—”

  “SAM-12 Bravo Two . . . SAM-12 Bravo Two, southwest!”

  “Green One, Green One, many fast-movers, many fast-movers coming in from the southwest, going supersonic, very low altitude!” The Russians had waited until their Mi-24 Hinds moved out of the way and the left flank moved up, and then they swooped in with a force of fighter-bombers.

  “Pop smoke! Pop smoke!” He was about to order the driver to move positions, but he remembered that the drivers were dead, the engine and front of their command-post vehicle blasted apart. There was no longer any choice—they were sitting ducks here. He pounded on the Plexiglas board with a fist. “Evacuate the command cab! Get moving!” The techs behind the glass needed no encouragement. They had the board opened and were racing out of the cab as soon as the metal stairs were lowered into place. Turabi remembered to grab the backpack radio and map case just before he leaped out of the vehicle.

  The screening smoke was gagging and oily-tasting, so thick that at first Turabi didn’t know which way to run—but soon the explosions started again, and he ran straight ahead until an explosion tossed him off his feet as if the hard-baked desert floor were a carpet that had just been pulled out from under him. He felt white-hot pieces of flying metal rip into his uniform and bounce off his helmet, and the soles of his boots seemed hot enough to melt. The last explosion felt like being hit with a hundred-kilo bag of sand, and he could do nothing else but close his eyes and scream.

  Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he willed his legs to start working again and managed to crawl over to his command-post vehicle. It had taken an indirect hit that had turned the ten-ton vehicle over on its side and blown out all its tires. The drivers’ cab was indeed burned out by what appeared to be a rocket or small missile. The bomb crater was fairly deep and was no longer smoldering, so Turabi crawled down inside it. The height was perfect—all but the very top of his head was underground. He thought it a little strange to be headquartered in his enemy’s bomb crater, but there was no time to worry about that now. He set up the portable radio, extending the antenna as far over the crater rim as he could, and spread out his chart, holding it open with bomb fragments.

  The network was eerily quiet. This did not feel good at all. “Bravo One, Green One.”

  “Green One, this is Bravo One.” Again it was a different voice on the radio, much younger and panicky-sounding—the company commander and perhaps a platoon commander or two had probably been killed by now. “Are you all right, sir?”

  Suddenly the net was coming alive again—it was as if all the units were waiting for someone to take charge. He couldn’t blame his men too much. A month ago his most senior and battle-hardened commanders were little more than half-starved bandits driving Toyota pickups across the desert. They had to learn how to be tank commanders by watching, listening, following orders, and having the courage to take the fight right to the enemy. “The CP took a hit, and the crew scattered,” Turabi said, after he cleared the chatter off the command net again. “What’s your situation?”

  “We are engaging the Turkmen right flank,” the company commander reported. “The nafahm Bravo Four finally showed up in force and is engaging the enemy left. Air Two and Three are trying to keep the center from breaking through. No word
at all from Bravo Three or Bravo Six.”

  So they were still in the fight—good. It showed that competent warriors could still be effective even without a command post bugging them every five minutes. Turabi tried Bravo Six, the rear company, again—still no response. Haramzadeh! Bastards!

  “Incoming!” someone shouted. Turabi turned toward a hissing sound—just in time to see what looked like an immense dart or a small fighter jet drop out of the sky only a few hundred meters away. He knew he should be diving to the bottom of the crater, but the sight of such a large object moving so fast, hitting the earth so close to him was eerily fascinating. He didn’t know if it was a downed Russian jet or a cruise missile—but soon it didn’t matter. There was another powerful explosion, except this time it didn’t feel like anything. Darkness closed in around him as if an “off” switch had been thrown in his brain.

  Turabi awoke lying on the hard desert floor. At first he couldn’t open his eyes, and when he finally could, they stung from the billows of smoke wafting into his face. Someone was pouring water on top of his bare head. Every part of his body ached, and his face felt burned and raw. The smoke was gone, but his throat and lungs still felt coarse, and he could neither cough the congestion away nor take a deep enough breath to try harder.

  His hands touched something brittle, yet it gave easily to pressure. Turabi knew that the tank was to his right, so he felt to his left to go around it. There was more brittle material that way. He felt farther left—and found a human arm. His fingers moved on their own now. He soon felt a torso, and then a chest. The corpse was not wearing a uniform—it was wearing robes. It was one of his men, a Taliban. He soon realized that the first thing he’d felt was the head, blasted open and burned.

  Turabi quickly rolled to his other side, but moments later he encountered another body, this one even more heavily mangled and burned than the first. He realized with shock that he had been deliberately placed in the midst of a line of Taliban corpses.

  “Try to stay still, sir,” he heard a familiar voice say. He turned and saw his first sergeant and aide, Abdul Dendara, sitting nearby. His face was almost completely black from smoke and burns, and his clothing was in tatters.

  “What happened?” Turabi asked. “Have we been overrun?”

  “Overrun?” Dendara looked puzzled for a long moment, and then his eyes brightened. “You don’t know, sir?” he asked incredulously. “Of course not—you’ve been unconscious, maybe even in a coma, for most of the day. Your forces were victorious, sir!”

  “What?”

  “You had the Turkmen on the run. It’s a good thing your helicopters came in when they did, because you were no more than even most of the battle, but you deployed your forces brilliantly and had the upper hand. The Turkmen ran like scared mice, with the Russians leading the retreat. The city of Mary is yours, sir. Congratulations.”

  Six |

  BATTLE MOUNTAIN AIR RESERVE BASE

  BATTLE MANAGEMENT CENTER

  That same time

  Four of the sixteen large, full-color screens at the back of the Battle Management Center at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base filled with the image of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard Venti, speaking through the secure videoteleconference system in his office. Venti’s uniform blouse and tie were gone, and a large glass of something with ice sat on the desk; Patrick couldn’t see if it was just water or some after-hours beverage. Venti was absently juggling a fat Montblanc pen in his fingers, a habit he picked up from the endless mission briefings and debriefings he’d sat through during his Cold War fighter-pilot days pulling alert in Europe. “Go ahead, folks,” he said. “I see you fine now. Secretary Goff asked me to handle your request. He’s standing by on a secure line if we need him.”

  Patrick McLanahan sat forward at the command console. With him were David Luger, Rebecca Furness, Daren Mace, and John Long. “Sir, I’ve received a request from Deputy Secretary of State Hershel to provide security support for her upcoming trip to Bahrain and Turkmenistan.”

  “We’ve received the request as well,” Venti said. “I got approval from SECDEF. Any problems on your end?”

  “Just one, sir: I don’t think it’s enough,” Patrick McLanahan replied.

  “Explain.”

  “Sir, as part of the operational review of the situation in Turkmenistan, we launched a constellation of reconnaissance and eavesdropping satellites to monitor the situation there,” Patrick said. “We recently monitored a major battle between the Taliban insurgents and Turkmen regulars against the city of Mary, and we believe that the insurgents will have the city in their control within a matter of hours—and that means Russia will be directly threatened.”

  “I received your report from Air Force, Patrick,” Venti said, “but, as I said in my reply, I don’t see the hazard here other than what Deputy Secretary Hershel has already accepted. The Turkmen capital doesn’t appear to be in danger currently. This would be a good time to initiate a diplomatic mission. If the fighting starts to spread west, I’m sure State will order an evacuation.”

  “But I believe that the situation has become much worse, sir, even in the past two days,” Patrick said. “Flying a diplomatic mission into Turkmenistan right now might be an important thing to do to try to get control of this Taliban uprising and the possible repercussions should Russia counterattack, but it still places Deputy Secretary Hershel and President Martindale in grave danger.”

  “It’s part of the job,” Venti said. “If she or the president thought they’d be in real danger, I suppose they would send some other representative. The State Department deals with these kinds of dangers every day.” It was obvious in his voice that he wanted to wrap up this discussion—or maybe he didn’t really believe what he was saying himself. “Thanks for your concern, Patrick. I’ll forward your report to State. Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  Venti stopped and looked at Patrick for a rather long moment. “Just for my edification, General: In case the situation did get worse between now and when Deputy Secretary Hershel’s plane flies over Turkmenistan, what else would you have in mind?” He turned and typed something on his computer terminal, then read a page or two. “I have your entire unit mission plan right here in front of me, which I received from General Luger. Is this what you’re talking about?”

  “Sir, the Air Battle Force ground team has been mobilized. I would simply implement the rest of the total force,” Patrick explained. “The Air Battle Force travels and fights as a team, not as individuals. I agreed to provide security support for Deputy Secretary Hershel because I’m anxious to prove what our ground team can do, but the idea is to deploy as a team, even if the other elements are never utilized.”

  “So you’re suggesting . . . ?”

  “I should be authorized to deploy the rest of the Air Battle Force,” Patrick said. “One Air Battle team, deployed and ready for action in-theater, with the rest of the Air Battle Force deployed to Diego Garcia or on fast alert here to back up the first team if necessary.”

  Patrick could see General Venti wearily rubbing his temples, then leaning back in his seat. “I’ll need to read over your unit mission plan again, Patrick, before I upchannel this.”

  “Sir, Hershel is already on her way to Bahrain for updates and consultations. She goes on to Turkmenistan in under forty-eight hours,” Patrick said. “That gives us less than one day before we need to deploy—”

  “I know, Patrick, I know,” Venti said irritably. “But there just hasn’t been time to study all this. We were concerned about funding further development of your unit, not about actually deploying it in so short a time.”

  “Sir . . .”

  “Patrick, relax,” Venti interrupted. “I’ll call the staff together and we’ll get this on the secretary’s desk right away, along with your report and your recommendations. But we can’t accomplish everything instantly. If need be, we can recommend that Hershel’s mission be postponed. But in a
ll likelihood everything will proceed normally. She and Martindale will meet with the Turkmen government and the ambassadors from the different nations involved, then get the hell out of there. The Turkmen and Russians aren’t crazy—they wouldn’t dare threaten a U.S. diplomatic mission.”

  “Yes, sir” was all Patrick could say.

  Venti shook his head. “You did good work here, Patrick. Very heads-up—the kind of information I need from my field commanders. But the civilian side, especially the diplomatic side, is a whole other world. Sometimes everything we do is simply not enough. Our job is to give them the data and our recommended course of action. They make the decisions.”

  “Yes, sir,” Patrick responded neutrally.

  Patrick’s tone of voice rang an alarm in Richard Venti’s head, and his attention immediately snapped back to the video screen. “General, I advise you to think carefully before you plan your next moves,” he said. Furness and Long could feel the weight of his stare even through the secure videoconference link. “I know you want to help, and you’re doing so right now. But remember your recent history. I like the planning you and your staff do, and I encourage you to continue. But every time you decide to embark on some unauthorized activity, someone ends up getting hurt—usually yourself.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Make sure that you do, General. Anything else for me?”

  “No, sir. Thank you for your time.”

  “Thanks for your reports. I’ll be in touch.”

  The connection terminated. Patrick immediately called up the aircraft status board and a chart detailing the current locations of all the Air Battle Force’s and 111th Wing’s airborne aircraft. He ignored the alarmed shuffling Colonel Long was doing behind him. “General Luger.”