“Thanks for turning out, sir,” Daren said. “Been a while since you’ve done any running?”
“I’ve been allowed to skate.”
“I see.”
“I saw the rundown on your familiarization ride today with Lieutenant Grey. Very good shooting,” Patrick said.
“Thank you, sir. With precision-guided weapons and the systems you have on board your B-1s here, a person’s got to have a pretty good excuse to miss.”
“Youth. New systems. Not intuitive enough. I’ve heard lots of excuses,” Patrick said. “It takes a skilled operator to simply walk into a Vampire, manage the aircraft, manage the systems, and release good weapons. You’re a good stick, too. You watered your wingman’s eyes with your formation flying.”
“Thanks.”
McLanahan pulled Mace away from the others circling the beer. “You’re doing an outstanding job getting the virtual-cockpit stuff ready on the Vampires, too,” Patrick went on when they were by themselves. “It’s coming together great.”
“I think we’ll be done well before your deadline, sir.”
“Unfortunately, we’re going to be taking a break for a few days. We have a special mission — and I want you to fly it.”
“You got it, sir. Where are we going?”
McLanahan looked around to see if anyone was in earshot, then: “Turkmenistan.”
Daren didn’t look surprised. “I had a feeling things were heating up out there,” he said. “When do we brief?”
“We’ll brief the mission itself in the plane after we’re airborne,” Patrick said. “Crew rest for you starts as soon as you finish that beer. Show time in the Lair is oh-two-hundred, wheels-up at oh-three-hundred.”
Daren drained his beer. “Cool,” he said simply. “I’ll be there. Who’s my aircraft commander?”
“You worked well with Lieutenant Grey this morning,” Patrick said, “but we need someone with a little more experience.”
“Don’t tell me — I know.”
Patrick glanced at Rebecca heading for her Yukon in the parking lot, then back at Daren. “You two going to be okay?”
“Yes, sir. If not, we’ll have lots of time en route to discuss things.”
“That’s for sure. See you in the Lair.”
“May I make a suggestion, sir?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s turn this mission into an operational test flight,” Daren said. “Let’s use everything we’ve put together. It can work, I know it.”
Patrick thought about it for a moment — but only for a moment. “Good idea,” he said. “We’ll still have a live crew on board, but we’ll run it as if they’re not on board. We’ll have to let everyone in the One-eleventh in on it….”
“It’ll work, sir,” Daren said. “It’ll be great.”
Patrick fell silent again, then said, “Fine. But I’ll fly as mission commander.”
“Sir…”
“No argument. This mission and this system are completely off the books. No one flies experimental aircraft until I fly it first. I might even bar Rebecca from flying it, but she’d argue so loud and long that I know there’d be no point.”
“Sir, the original idea behind this whole plan was to make it so you wouldn’t have to fly missions like this.”
“That’s not why I set up this program!”
“I didn’t mean it like a selfish act, sir — I know you wouldn’t start something like this just for yourself,” Daren said. “But the original motivating factor behind all of this was creating a weapon system that didn’t rely on human factors to complete the mission. You have too much invested in this program — emotionally as well as careerwise — to be completely effective.”
“That’s enough, Colonel,” Patrick snapped. “I’m the MC on this mission, and that’s it. You will be the virtual mission commander; we’ll put Colonel Long and Lieutenant Grey in as the virtual aircraft commanders. I’m sure Dr. Jon Masters will want to be present as well; Captain Weathers will be on call as the weapons officer.”
“Not going to let me be the hero, eh, sir?”
“You so sure we’ll end up with a hero once this is over, Colonel?” Patrick asked.
“Damn straight, sir.”
Patrick clasped Daren on the shoulder. “Your confidence is infectious, Mace. All right, let’s do it.”
Three
It’s true, sir — they’re gone,” the platoon lieutenant reported. “The trucks and armored vehicles are all abandoned. We saw some stragglers camped out a few kilometers away, carrying wounded, but they ran off as we approached. They did not appear to be carrying weapons, so we let them go.”
The commander of Kerki Army Air Base glanced at his lead helicopter pilot. “What did you see?” he asked.
“The same, sir,” the pilot reported. “About a dozen light armored vehicles, four small tanks, two large main battle tanks, two dozen supply trucks, the two towed antiaircraft weapons — all scattered across the road and abandoned. Some appeared to be torched.”
“We did see evidence of scouts or infiltrators on the base, sir,” the captain in charge of base security added. “Perhaps they got a look at our preparations for a counterattack and fled.”
“Did you see any of their pickups?”
“We found a few nearby, broken down and abandoned, but all the rest of them are gone,” the scout platoon leader reported. “They are faster and more maintainable than armored vehicles — better getaway vehicles.”
“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant,” the commander said irritably. “But I don’t believe for one moment that they’ve fled just because their scouts saw us getting some helicopters ready to fly. That Afghan terrorist who calls himself General Zarazi is a berserker, but he is crafty and unconventional. He had several hundred men less than twenty kilometers from here — they have to be nearby. I want search teams sent out after them immediately.”
“Then we shall postpone the assault, sir?”
“Of course. If their vehicles are abandoned, why bother attacking them?” What he did not say was that it was too expensive and too hard on the machines to fly them; he had to save the equipment, fuel, and ammunition for more direct threats. “Redeploy your men and search the area surrounding the base — they have to be moving in on us. If you find any, squeeze them until they talk. Make an example of a few of them.” The officers nodded enthusiastically and hurried off.
The call came just a few minutes later: “Colonel, we’ve captured several terrorists — including the leader, Zarazi!” The base commander hurried out to meet with his men. Sure enough, they had several scraggly-looking men kneeling on the dirt floor, hands cuffed behind their backs. All of them appeared to have been beaten. “Good work, Captain,” the commander said. “Did you get anything out of them?”
“We haven’t started questioning them yet, sir,” the security chief replied. “They came in like that, dragging themselves to the front gate. Looks like they were beaten pretty badly by their own men.”
“So much for honor among thieves,” the commander sneered. “Which one is Zarazi?” The captain pointed him out. “How do you know this?”
“We overheard one of the others addressing him as ‘General.’ He is clothed a bit better than the others, and he is the only one with a holster for a sidearm. We took fingerprints — we expect an answer back from Interior Ministry headquarters on his identity soon.”
“Let me know the minute it comes in.” The commander stepped over to Zarazi. “You are General Zarazi?” he asked in Russian. No response. The base commander reared back and smashed his fist into the back of his captive’s head, and Zarazi pitched forward, his face crunching into the dirt. “Now is not the time to act brave, scum. Either you talk, or you die.” Zarazi struggled back to his knees but said nothing.