The Fourth War (36 page)

Lyangar Airfield
Southern Tajikistan

Colonel Bradley sprinted to help the Rangers pushing on the MiG, pointing to the nearest soldier as he ran. “There's a mule—an auxiliary power unit, a big, green generator on wheels. Get it. I'll need it to start the jet.”

Four Rangers were already heaving against the fighter, grunting and straining against its landing gear. The MiG was a heavy monster made of 100 percent Russian iron and steel. Bradley moved to the aircraft and added his weight. Three more soldiers emerged from the darkness and moved to his side. Together they pushed the fighter across the dirty cement, moving it out of the hangar and a hundred feet down the taxiway.

“Okay!” Bradley shouted. “Some of you get the mule.”

Four soldiers went back to the hangar and pushed the huge electric generator to the side of the jet. Bradley ran to the hangar. Against the wall he saw a wooden locker with
GENERAL ATTA KAWY
stenciled across the front in Arabic. He ran to it and pulled on the door. It was locked. He took his handgun and shot the lock off the hasp, sending tiny pieces of metal spraying through the air. The locker door swung open and Bradley peered inside.

A Nomex flight suit hung in the locker—American, green, well-worn but clean. Nomex flight gloves. A helmet. Bradley stripped to his underwear and donned the flight suit, pulling it on over his boots. Then he grabbed the helmet and gloves and ran for the jet.

The Rangers had the mule running and the power cord connected to the MiG. Bradley climbed into the fighter using the narrow steps built into the fuselage directly under the canopy. He dropped into the cockpit and took a quick look around. The team leader climbed the steps to the cockpit and leaned toward him. “Just got word on the radio,” he yelled above the roar of the mule. “They found one of the B-2 warheads. They're loading it up. Will be here in five or six minutes.”

Bradley lifted his fist in a celebratory salute. “All right,” he shouted. “Now listen to me. This is very important. Back near the hangar door are some steel straps and bolts. Look around for a tool box; there's got to be one in there. When they bring the warhead, bolt it to one of the hard points under the fuselage. You have to be careful to center it or it will affect how this thing flies, and make sure it is secure, we don't want it coming off. But listen to me now. Pay attention to what I say. Before you strap on the warhead you've
got
to remove the nose cone. The nose cone is made of depleted uranium and is designed to protect the nuclear material inside. If you can't get that thing off, the nuclear pellets will be protected from the impact of the crash. You'll need a couple wrenches, but it isn't complicated, there's only six or eight bolts. If you can't loosen the bolts, then break them or find a torch, I don't care how you do it, but do whatever it takes to get that nose cone off.”

The soldier nodded grimly.

“Do you understand?” Bradley asked. “It is extremely important the nose cone is removed.”

“Understood!” the Ranger shouted. Bradley slapped his shoulder and he dropped to the cement.

Turning to the cockpit, Bradley donned his helmet and strapped himself in, running the old canvas harness over his shoulders and between his legs. He heard the mule engine run up to full rpm and nodded to the soldier at the mule controls. The power kicked on and his lights flickered once, then came on steady and bright.

He studied the cockpit. Everything was familiar. It was like riding a bike. The dials and gauges were old, the MiG-21 was a '70s bird, and the cockpit was laid out differently than an American jet, but the basics were so recognizable he felt comfortable. He scanned the cockpit, the cluster of engine gauges, the flight instruments, the radar and avionic displays. The gauge markings were in Russian, but he didn't need to read them to know what they were; any good pilot would have been able to figure them out. He touched the throttle, set the brakes, then heard shouts from outside and looked up to see a Pakistani truck pull up next to the jet. Five Rangers jumped out and raced to the back, where they pulled one of the warheads from the bed of the truck. The team leader ran up to the soldiers, a heavy tool chest in his hands. He shouted instructions, pointing to the nose cone, and the men went to work. The minutes passed slowly. Each second was an agony and Bradley shifted impatiently in his seat. Five minutes. Then seven. The men worked frantically. A soldier grabbed a heavy hammer and crashed it down again and again and the bolt finally gave, and the nose cone dropped and rolled across the cement. The soldiers stepped aside, showing Bradley the warhead wiring and aluminum core and he shook his hand to them, giving them an okay. Working together, four men carried the warhead and scrambled under the MiG. Bradley felt the jet rock as they cinched the bolts, then watched them scatter from under its wings. The team leader gave a thumbs-up. He was ready to go.

He saluted smartly, then glanced to his right and saw Peter standing in the shadows of his wing. He gave a quick wave, but his friend turned away.

“Peter!” Bradley shouted.

Peter didn't look back, but lifted both hands in despair.

Bradley watched him, then looked down to his cockpit lights. He found the start button, then whirled his finger to the ground troops. He hit the start button and felt the aircraft vibrate as the engine wound up. He watched the rpm gauge move through 20 percent, guessed that was about right, and moved the throttle to the
RUN
position. The engine didn't fire and the rpm stabilized at 40 percent. “Come on, baby!” he pleaded, “Come on, baby, start!” The rpm wasn't climbing. The engine hadn't caught yet. Then he heard a violent
bang,
and the MiG lurched to the side as a huge flame shot from the back and his fire light flashed. Bradley checked the throttle at idle, jamming it against the stops. The engine shook, and then rumbled, then began a soft whine.

The Soviet fighter was an incredible beast, a huge and sturdy monster of unsophisticated power. Bradley savored the feel of the engine, then motioned to a soldier, putting two fingers inside his fist and pulled his hands apart. The sergeant nodded and moved forward to disconnect the electrical hose. Bradley moved his hands through the cockpit, checking his radios and his navigational aids. He adjusted the artificial horizon, ran the flaps, and checked the flight controls. He checked the speed brakes, searched for the gear handle, and found his takeoff lights.

Then he glanced at his leg where he normally strapped his charts and flight materials. He had none of that now. No maps, no flight plan, no communication cards, and for the first time he realized how incredibly difficult it would be. He was going to take off in a jet he had never flown before, navigate through the mountains, the most treacherous mountains on earth, and search out a convoy on the narrow road in the dark.

He swallowed, then reached up and brought the canopy down. Pushing up the power, the heavy fighter started to roll. He taxied south to the runway and threw the throttle forward and the Iron Maiden shot down the runway and lifted into the air.

 

Peter watched the MiG disappear and slowly bowed his head as the wind blew around him, cooling the back of his neck.

Then he turned to his sergeant. “Get me the satellite phone,” he said. “I've got to call Mother and tell them what's going on.”

Shin Bet Auxiliary Outpost
Twelve Miles South of Tel Aviv

The deputy commander of Shin Bet called on Petate's emergency line.

“We've got a problem!” he said as Petate picked up the phone.

“What is it?” Petate demanded, his voice gravelly and tired.

“We've been monitoring the U.S. communications at Lyangar. They sent in a special ops team—your boy Zembeic, it seems—and they've been able to recover one of the pilots as well as a jettisoned warhead from the B-2. And you're not going to bloody believe what they're attempting to do!”

Petate listened intently as he sat up in his bed. “You're kidding!” he muttered as the deputy explained. The Shin Bet commander began to get dressed hurriedly. “What is the probability they'll be able to penetrate the casings of the jettisoned warhead?” he asked.

“Pretty good, sir, from what my guys are telling me.”

“Pretty good!? Pretty good!? What
exactly
does that mean?”

“It means, sir, that if the Americans were able to separate the protective depleted uranium nose cone from the nuclear core of the warhead, and if the pilot hits the target, then we're about to have a nuclear event in northern Pakistan!”

Petate felt his heart sink as a rush of blood flushed his head. “How much time do we have?” he demanded in a panicked tone.

“Fifteen, twenty minutes. Maybe a few minutes more.”

Petate swore bitterly, then commanded, “Get Dr. Washington on the phone!”

 

After sucking up the gear and flaps, Bradley pulled the aircraft aggressively into the night sky, standing it on its tail as he accelerated to three hundred fifty knots. It was almost impressive. The old girl wanted to run. Then he saw his fuel flow, and jerked the power back. He had used almost a third of his fuel, just to take off and climb! As he moved higher in the sky, clearing the mountain peaks around him, he rolled the aircraft, testing the flight controls. The MiG was heavy but responsive. The cockpit was noisy, much noisier than any American jet, and the cabin was slow to pressurize, but other than that it was not much different than flying an F-15.

There were mountains all around him, some reaching as high as twenty-five thousand feet. A band of clouds hid the stars and it was completely black; blacker than anything he had seen before, no ground lights, no stars, nothing but a black hole. He felt a surge of panic and jerked the stick back, climbing to twenty-six thousand feet, then looked at his fuel and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Flying to the east, he headed down the Chitral Valley, searching for anything with which he could orient himself. He remembered his charts, which had shown a road heading east, then a split in the mountain range that had to be dead ahead. At the east end of the valley, the main road turned south, heading toward Baroghil. Another road, much less traveled, turned north to the Pamir Pass. He pulled back the throttle as he searched for the road. The clouds cleared, the stars broke through, and the moon gave him light. Off the nose, he saw the pass rising up in the night and he adjusted his heading to line up on the road. The mountains crowded the road, rising steeply on both sides and he could barely make it out, winding snakelike below, a ribbon of black that cut through the snow-covered pass. He would follow the road, then turn north as it wound its way through the pass. Remembering the charts, he pictured the flight in his head. The road would skirt the boundary with Afghanistan, then turn back to the west and through the mountains that led to Khorugh, seventy or eighty miles off his nose.

 

The truck convoy was covered with mud and brown slush. It had snowed over the pass and the road had proven to be extremely treacherous, with slippery turns and dangerous climbs along almost sheer canyon walls. The snowcapped peaks reached above the vehicles, stretching up to almost up to twenty-five thousand feet, but as the convoy crested the pass and began to descend, the weather had broken to reveal the stars.

The Great One rode in the first truck, watching the road pass silently. The plan was moving forward and it filled him with peace.

As the trucks descended down the mountain, the Great One glanced at his watch. “How much farther?” he asked.

The driver answered, “Forty miles,
Sayid.
”

The Great One sat back. He was almost home, his journey nearly over, his life's work complete.

He closed his eyes slowly.

Soon he would sleep.

The convoy drove almost due west until reaching a point where a narrow gorge ran alongside the road. The Vir River, cold and swift, ran through the bottom of the gorge. The convoy came around a final bend and the road descended gradually, following a path to where the foothills rolled onto plains. Far in the distance, the lights of Khorugh shined through the dark night.

 

Thomas Washington hung up on General Petate, then picked up the satellite phone. It took him almost three minutes to finally getting through to Peter.

As he listened to Washington, the agent didn't believe what he heard. “You want me to what!” he demanded through the satellite phone.

“Get on the radio. Get a hold of Bradley in that MiG!”

“And what am I supposed to tell him!”

“Tell him to abort! Tell him he must turn around!”

“You want him to abort?”

“Yes! Yes! There can't be a nuclear impact! He must turn around!”

 

Bradley turned north, and then west as he followed the road, hardly daring to take his eyes off the light ribbon that snaked through the darkness below, knowing there was no way he would find the convoy if he lost site of the road.

The terrain fell away suddenly and foothills began to roll beneath him. He noticed another cut in the earth, a shadow that paralleled the road. That had to be the Vir River. Yes, there it was, the glimmer of water reflected in the moonlight. He pulled back his power and began to descend, leveling out just a few hundred feet above the terrain. Ahead, the lights of the Khorugh suddenly came into view.

Seeing the city lights, his heart slammed in his chest as the reality hit him like a hammer on the head.

He had to be close.

Which meant his time was near.

Then he saw the headlights. They were right off his nose.

The convoy was tight, only ten or twelve feet separating each truck. Their headlights shone in the night, almost directly ahead. Even in the moonlight, Bradley could count the vehicles as he flew overhead. Seven—no, nine. They were all there. He racked the aircraft around and shoved his throttle to the stop. The afterburners lit and he felt the aircraft accelerate, pushing him back in his seat. The wind over the cockpit began to scream and the aircraft began to buffet as she approached the speed of sound. It would require enormous energy to activate the trigger mechanisms on his war-head. And speed was energy, so he pushed up the gas.