The Fourth War (32 page)

The president was told immediately when they found the B-2.

“Any information on the crew?” he demanded in a hopeful tone.

“Nothing, sir,” General Abram replied. “But I can't imagine any scenario where they would have let the pilots live.”

The president frowned. That probably was true. And now there was the aircraft to deal with, but he knew what to do.

U.S.S.
Eisenhower
Gulf of Oman

When the orders came, the enormous nuclear-powered aircraft carrier U.S.S.
Eisenhower
turned forty degrees to the north and put its nose into the wind, preparing for flight operations. The skies grew darker as the half moon approached the horizon. Jupiter shone in the west, clearly visible, with Mars up above her, a tiny red glow. The bow of the carrier slipped through the water, which was cluttered with floating debris from a week's worth of storms. The deck was still quiet, but quickly coming to life. Combat operations were scheduled for 0115 local time.

The carrier cut a silver bow of water before it as the deck flickered from the multicolored flashlights that were being waved in the air. Above the fantail, helicopter blades began to turn slowly. As the chopper's turbine cores reached a temperature that would sustain the fires within, the rotors turned more quickly, then began to beat the night air. The four-bladed CH-60 hovered over the fantail, then turned into the wind and took off to set up an orbit two miles off the starboard bow. An E-2C Hawkeye—the “eye in the sky”—rolled to the catapult and was attached to the powerful machine. Steam, hot and humid, wisped across the deck, creating a surrealistic backdrop against the glow of jet engines. The Hawkeye pilot stirred the control stick one final time, adjusted his helmet, cinched his oxygen mask tight against his face, held his brakes, trimmed the aircraft for takeoff, and glanced down the deck. Pushing up the throttles, he felt the aircraft shudder expectantly beneath his seat, ready to burst with a climax of power. He turned to the cat officer and held up five fingers, then one to confirm the gross weight, then lifted his hands clear of the controls and pushed his back against his seat. Seconds later he felt it, the mighty catapult piston, a surge of raw power, savage and direct. The catapult shot was unlike anything else one could feel in this life—fifty-one thousand pounds of fuel and steel, hurtled down the runway by an explosion of steam.

The airborne radar control aircraft, heavy with equipment, men, and fuel, slammed down the deck. It cleared the carrier and lumbered into the air. The pilot snapped into action—gear up, turn away from the carrier's course, flaps and slats into the wing, then turn while climbing to heading. The Hawkeye pushed through a thin cloud deck, then flew north and turned its radar on the southern coast of Iran. The low moon fell behind the wall of thin stratus and the gray aircraft disappeared in the increasing dark.

Two S-B3 tankers then rolled down the deck. They too turned north to follow the Hawkeye. As the slower aircraft climbed, the combat control center kept watch, searching and listening for any indication the Iranians knew they were there.

The skies remained friendly. So far, no response.

Finally, one after the other, four F-18 Hornets took to the air. The fighter-bombers joined up as a formation, then climbed to forty-one thousand feet. Under their centerline fix points, each Hornet carried two GBU-31s, two-thousand-pound, satellite-guided bombs. The flight leader set a course that would take the formation toward the border of Pakistan.

Twelve minutes later, the coastline of Iran slipped silently under the combat aircraft. The Hawkeye led the formation for the first two hundred miles or so, then, as the desolate mountains of central Pakistan began to come into view, the airborne warning radar aircraft did one final search, confirmed the intended flight path was clear, then fell back and turned for the waters of the Gulf of Oman.

“Trigger Flight's clear out to two-eighty miles,” the Hawkeye pilot said.

“Rog,” the F-18 flight lead replied.

“You got it, baby.”

“Roger that, Horse.”

The Hawkeye turned back for the ship. The S-B3 tankers stayed with the formation as they flew farther north and crossed the Afghanistan border. Fifty-five minutes after takeoff, north of the Rigestan Desert, the four FA-18 Hornets slid behind the Vikings and tanked up with gas, draining every available drop from the SB-3s' fuel tanks. After refueling, the Vikings hauled in their refueling baskets and climbed aggressively into the air. They were getting low on fuel themselves and needed to hit the deck. The Vikings headed back for the
Eisenhower,
where they would reload their tanks and take off again to meet the four fighters on their way back home.

As the Vikings climbed away, the F-18s descended to terrain-following altitude, skimming the flat desert at only a few hundred feet. They crossed over the Helmand River and Zareh Sharan salt marsh, then turned thirty-five degrees east. The mountains of central Afghanistan began to clutter their scopes. They would soon have to climb. Kabul was exactly off their nose.

“Trigger, combat spread,” the flight leader commanded over the secure radio.

The fighters spread out across the night sky. Four abreast, they proceeded to target.

 

The four F-18s flew through a narrow box canyon on the south side of the Panjsh Mountain range. The lead pilot glanced outside, lifting his eyes to the top of the surrounding terrain. Up, up, and up, the sheer cliffs rose on both sides. He simply wasn't prepared for the size of the mountains or their incredibly high peaks. The tops loomed above him, above the reach of his terrain-following radar; the solid line depicting the mountains went straight up and off his scope. He glanced quickly upward, then back at his screen. No way his aircraft could maneuver up the sides of these mountains. But a narrow pass through the mountains was just off the nose.

“Trigger, say status?” he asked over his secure radio.

“Two. Three. Four,” was all he heard in reply, indicating everything was in the green.

“Trigger, target three fingers.”

Target 120 miles.

“Ready to pop on two fingers!”

Be ready to climb.

Moving his hands through his own cockpit, the lead Hornet pilot armed his two weapons, then began to feed the final target coordinates into his offensive target and acquisition computers. He synched up his system to the nearest seven global positioning satellites to cross-check his position against his internal laser ring gyroscopes. Less than two meters off track. Two meters! He smiled.

The formation leader then asked for confirmation over his satellite link radio. “Boss Man, this is Trigger. I've got a tally on the target. Confirm you want a lay down.”

“Trigger 18, you are cleared to lay down.”

“Confirm, lay down on Lyangar?”

“Cleared Lyangar,” the voice over the SATCOM replied.

“Let's make sure we don't have any friendlies,” the number-two Hornet called over the radio to the lead.

“Put the Spy on the target.”

“Roger that, boss.”

The second Hornet swept the airfield with his visual sensors. “Spy looks clear,” he then announced over the flight radio.

“Check my sparkles. Check my sparkles. Make sure we are looking good.”

The number-two aircraft pilot looked through his infrared display. He placed his infrared target designator at the edge of the runway and saw the sparkle of infrared light exactly over the target. He confirmed the coordinates, cross-checked his range and azimuth, then said, “Looks good to me, boss.”

“Okay, Triggers, I've updated the numbers,” the flight lead replied. “I'm sending this information to your systems. Accept it into your machines. We want this to be precise. This ain't horseshoes, boys.”

“Two has a good data feed.”

Three and Four replied in kind.

“Safire?” the leader asked.

“Negative surface-to-air activity.”

The flight leader hesitated a moment, then said, “Trigger's rolling in. Go gig'em Aggies. Let's put on a show!”

A single two-thousand-pound bomb would have been more than enough to destroy the target, but the targeters who planned the attack figured if one bomb was good, then four was much better, and if four was much better then how cool was eight?

Thus, in a demonstration of overkill to a ridiculous degree, sixteen thousand pounds of high explosives were sent down range to the target.

Each of the Hornets popped to release their two-thousand-pound bombs, tossing their weapons almost simultaneously from eight miles out and as they were climbing to twenty-nine thousand feet.

Because the Hornets attacked from standoff range, never flying over the target, there was no rumble of jet engines or flash of tail lights to give warning to the enemy soldiers on the ground who were guarding the bomber from the attack they thought might come but could do nothing about. From their sentry positions under the camouflage netting, there was no indication the bombs were even in the air. For the briefest moment there was a nearly silent whistle, a sense of compression, then eight shattering explosions split the night air. The bombs detonated one after the other, half a second apart, creating four uninterrupted seconds of fire, heat, light, smoke, and thunder that seemed to split the very rocks underneath the B-2.

The bombs were guided to the target by global positioning satellites in space, so that they hit fifteen feet apart and on a near perfect line. Starting at the left wingtip of the B-2, and walking across the top of the bomber, the bombs hit the aircraft with perfect precision. The ground rocked like an earthquake as the air exploded in flames, the detonations powerful enough to be detected on Richter sensors four hundred miles away.

When it was over there was nothing left, not so much as a thumbnail piece of B-2. The wreckage was scattered for miles and secondary fires burned bright.

Camp Cowboy
CIA Paramilitary Base Camp/Operations
Northern Afghanistan

Peter Zembeic sat on a rough cushion on the cement floor, his back against the adobe wall of the ancient farm house, the only permanent structure inside Camp Cowboy. He wore black jeans and black boots and, as always, his Yankees baseball cap. A laptop sat to his side. Four feet away, his satellite antenna was pointed south, out of the open window. The five-foot-long antenna was thin and wiry, with X-shaped prongs extending evenly from the base out to the edge. On Peter's other side, down by his knee, was his breakfast, a wooden plate of dry bread, goat milk, cheese, and some frozen cherries one of his troops had found near the stream. He ate quickly, shoving in wads of food, while he talked to Thomas Washington on his satellite phone.

“We found the B-2,” Washington began the conversation.

“You what!?” Peter cried as he shot to his feet.

Washington explained hurriedly.

“Are you telling me Bradley might be alive!” Peter demanded in a disbelieving voice.

Washington was slow to answer. “Almost certainly not,” he replied.

“But you don't have proof they killed the crew.”

“We don't have proof of anything, Peter. We found the B-2 and destroyed it. And that's all we know.”

“So they might be still be alive?”

“They might be. We really don't know.”

The two men were silent. Both of them were thinking the same thing. “If we were to try and go in to get them, it would have to be a covert operation,” Washington said as he thought. “We don't have adequate forces to fight our way in.”

“Not unless you've got a secret unit somewhere up your sleeve.”

“You guys are our only option. The special ops units in Iraq are too far away; we'd have to ferry them south of Iran and then up through the Gulf. Afghanistan has some backups, but Camp Cowboy is the closest unit to Lyangar by far.”

Peter was silent.

“How long will it take you to get a team in place?” Washington asked.

Peter glanced at a folded map on the floor but didn't pick it up. He estimated the distance to Lyangar, the travel conditions and time it would take to ready his team, then answered. “A day. A little more. And that's
if
we use the Russian Hind to get us into the valley. We'll have to drop off near the pass, then hike in from there.”

“Too long,” Washington answered quickly. “If the crew's alive now, they'll be dead by then.”

“Fine. We'll use the transporter. Have Scottie beam us over, I guess.”

Washington's voice soured. “Really, Peter, it is too long.
If
the crew is alive, they won't be much longer.”

“Look sir, that's fine. But you have to be realistic. Consider the terrain. It isn't like the desert. There is only one way in and out of that place, a grueling and gut-wrenching climb through the rocks and snow of Vrang Pass. That's it. Vrang Pass is the only way into Lyangar. And the pass will be guarded, which means my team can only travel at night, unless we are willing to get them all killed.”

The DDO swore. “There's got to be something, anything we can do!”

“I'll tell you something right now,” Peter replied. “No friggin
way
I'm going to sit here. If there's any possibility, any possibility at all they're alive, then I'm going in!”

“Great, Peter. Go in and get the bodies, because I promise you, if you don't get there tonight that is all you will find.”

Peter paused. He had been thinking of something. It was a stupid idea, but the agency did lots of stupid things. And there wasn't time to be smart, they needed to act! “I want to try something,” he said to Washington.

“What?” Washington demanded.

Peter quickly explained. Washington listened impatiently as Peter went through his plan. “Absolutely not!” he shouted into the phone. “What's that going to buy me, Peter? Best case, another hostage. Worst case, another dead friend. Don't even request it. There is no way I would approve that. No way in this world!”

“But sir, think! If Shane is alive, if either of the crew is alive, how else are you going to locate them before it is too late? We assume they are dead, but we don't know for sure. And al Qaeda will certainly kill them, now that we have destroyed their trophy plane. Whatever their plans were before, there's no way they let them live now.”

Washington was silent for a very long time. Peter knew that meant he was thinking, and so he gave him space.

Outside he heard the sounds of his men gathering their gear. The light snow was melting and he heard the constant sloshing of boots. “Also,” he finally added, “and this is perhaps the more important thing I could say.”

Washington grunted. He was listening. Not enthusiastically, but at least he did not cut him off.

“There is the possibility that the warheads haven't been moved,” Peter went on. “I've told you before, but I'm going to say it again, if those warheads had been moved out of the valley, some of my people would have known. We would have had some kind of information. We've thrown around enough money and we have people out there. I think they might have sent out a bunch of decoys, nothing but empty trucks. They might not have moved the warheads at all, at least not yet.”

Washington growled impatiently. They had been through this before. “They've been dispersed, Peter. We are almost certain of that.”

Peter shook his head, a knot of doubt in his gut. “I don't think so,” he answered. “And if the weapons are still in the mountain, this is the only one way we find out. Put the aircrew aside for now. Put our friendship with Colonel Bradley out of the equation and consider only this; if I am successful, I would be inside the compound and as close to the principals as we'll ever get. It's worth the risk we would be taking, if for no more reason than that.”

“You mean the risk
you
would be taking.”

Peter paused, then answered, “Yes, in this case I mean me.”

“So you want me to approve a mission in which you will likely be killed?”

“No sir, I don't. If I thought that was the likely outcome, I wouldn't volunteer. But think of this, Dr. Washington, if we don't find those warheads, a million people will die. It's risky, no doubt, but so is the alternative. And what is one more life if I fail?”

Washington sighed wearily. “No,” he finally answered. “I can't lose you, Peter.”

“So you won't approve the operation?”

Washington paused, then answered quietly. “You know that
I
can't.”

Peter caught the subtle answer. “No, sir, I guess that
you
couldn't. Something like this, one would have to do without permission, one would have to do this on his own.”

Washington remained silent.

And Peter knew he had won.

Eshkashem Road
Forty Kilometers West of Lyangar
Northern Afghanistan

Six hours later and almost a hundred miles away, the wind began to blow down the canyon, moving the tops of the barren trees and whistling through the rock formations on the sides of the steep, rocky walls. In the bottom of the canyon, along the narrow gorge, the road was deeply rutted, frozen in places, muddy in others, with evergreens and dead cottonwoods lining both sides.

The Afghani four-wheel drive made its way slowly along the road. More than once the small truck slipped into the frozen ruts and spun to a stop. The driver would jam the truck into reverse, rev the engine, and spin the tires crazily as he backed up to take another run up the road. A single guard rode shotgun in the front seat, a customized and well-oiled BMG AR-15 sitting carefully across his lap. The guards, security agents for al Qaeda, were on patrol, securing the outermost perimeter of the security ring. Between them and their masters, there were at least thirty additional patrols. The Great One was somewhere beyond Lyangar, buried in the mountains on the other side of the pass.

The four-wheel-drive truck came around a sharp corner where brush and low branches obscured the view. Suddenly, from their right, a shadow emerged and staggered toward them. One guard lifted his rifle as he grunted in alarm. The driver jammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to a sudden stop, where it slipped on the ice, sliding downhill. The driver cursed and drew his pistol, ready to slam the truck into reverse.

A man stumbled toward them, then fell in the mud, directly in front of the vehicle. Both guards shouted in surprise and jumped from the truck, their weapons drawn and ready.

Peter Zembeic looked up with dark eyes. Dried blood caked both his nostrils and mouth. His beard was matted with more blood and sweat and his entire neck and face were horribly bruised. Blood had soaked through his coat and frozen on his lapel. The American moaned and rolled over, trying to push himself to his knees, then moaned once again and fell unconscious at the guards' feet.

The two Afghanis stared at each other. An American agent! They had heard rumors, heard of sightings, but nothing had prepared them for this.

The driver lifted his pistol. “Should I shoot him?” he asked.

The other guard grunted and moved forward, his rifle at his shoulder, his bare fingers pressed against the trigger, a hair-breath, an ounce of pressure from firing his gun. The American didn't move. The guard took another careful step forward and kicked the stranger in the side. Peter moaned, but didn't move and the guard kicked again.

The second guard moved forward and bent to his knee. He pulled the coat open, looking for gunshot wounds, then placed a hand to the American's throat, feeling for a pulse. “Whoever did this,” he grunted, “he nearly beat him to death.”

The other guard sneered. “He must have run out of money. This is what the mercenaries do when the devils run out of cash!”

The two of them snickered as the crouching guard stood.

“What do we do?” the junior man said. Both of them thought in silence, too stupid to realize the piece of intelligence gold that lay at their feet.

The senior guard finally snorted, “Get him in the truck. We'll take him to Angra.”

The other man laughed. “Angra. Yes, Angra. He'll know what to do.”