Turabi swore under his breath, pulled out his map, and examined it in the subdued red beam of his flashlight. “All right. Let’s shift five kilometers to the south and do another grid search. We search for one more hour, then we pack up and head back to join up with the rest of the battalion.”
Turabi radioed for the MT-LB, which picked him up a few minutes later. Following his compass, he steered the driver south, then started to set up another grid-pattern search. It would take several minutes for the other members of his detail to move to the new position, so he decided he would need to get out there and start searching himself if he ever wanted to finish this grid and get back to Kerki by dawn. He fixed a bayonet onto his AK-47 assault rifle and started probing the sand with his red-lensed flashlight, looking for evidence of debris.
He soon realized how difficult this search really was. He knew he could step within centimeters of a critical piece of evidence and never see it, or he could step on a land mine and be legless in an instant. He knew he had to use every sense he possessed, and maybe even some kind of extrasensory perception, to accomplish this task. He waved the MT-LB away from him so he wouldn’t be distracted by its engine noise, diesel exhaust, and the occasional shouts of the men on board.
Finally it was relatively quiet. Turabi’s night vision improved, and soon he could start seeing objects on the ground that were not directly in the flashlight’s beam. He could still smell the armored personnel carrier’s exhaust smoke, and he picked up his radio to order the MT-LB farther away.
But he stopped, the radio a few centimeters from his lips, his finger on the push-to-talk switch. Yes, he could still smell engine exhaust — but he was upwind of the MT-LB now. He shouldn’t be able to smell it. It had to be something else. He used his nose like an automatic direction finder triangulating on a radio beacon, steering himself to the source of the smell.
Minutes later he saw it: a mass of metal, blackened and lumpish but definitely an aircraft engine. It was a cruise missile turbojet engine, not more than forty or fifty kilos, about the size of a bedroll. He’d found it! He swept the flashlight beam around excitedly. There were other pieces of debris nearby, too — including a large fuselage piece. It was here! He slung his AK-47 onto his shoulder, put the walkie-talkie up to his lips, and keyed the mike button. “Dahab Two, this is One. I found some wreckage of a small aircraft or cruise missile. I’m a half klick south of the new grid locus. Join on me and—”
At that instant he heard a faint fwoooosh! sound. He dropped to one knee, the flashlight replacing the radio in his left hand, held far out to his side, and his Tokarev TT-33 in his right hand. The muzzle of the Tokarev followed the flashlight beam turned in the direction of the sound. Nothing. No sounds of footsteps running on desert sand, no vehicle sounds. He quickly extinguished the flashlight and picked up the radio: “Dahab, Dahab, alert! Someone else is out here!”
Suddenly a brilliant curtain of stars obscured his vision, and he was unable to tell up from down. The harder he struggled to stay on his feet, the faster he found himself sprawled in the sand. He still felt as if he were upright, crouching low, but he felt the hard-baked sand in his face and knew he was on the ground. He was wide awake and still breathing, but he couldn’t make any of his limbs respond — and he heard voices. Voices, machinelike but definitely human. Voices in English!
“One down, all clear,” Colonel Hal Briggs reported. “He found the StealthHawk. He may have gotten off a report.” He quickly changed the scene in his electronic visor to the imaging infrared sensor aboard the number-one StealthHawk unmanned combat aerial vehicle that was orbiting overhead. “We’ve got company. That armored personnel carrier is headed this way. Give me control of Hawk One.”
“Roger that,” responded Daren Mace, back in the virtual command trailer at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. He pressed a button on his console and spoke, “Hawk One, transfer control to Tin Man One.”
“StealthHawk flight-control transfer to Tin Man One, stop transfer,” the computer responded. Seconds later: “StealthHawk flight-control transfer to Tin Man One complete, awaiting commands.”
“Hawk One, sitrep,” Briggs ordered.
The response took only moments: “Warning, unidentified moving armored vehicle, bearing zero-six-two degrees, range one point three miles, heading two-seven-three degrees, speed twenty-one knots, designate Tango One. Warning, unidentified stationary armored vehicle, bearing zero-one-four degrees, three point one miles, designate Tango Two. Tango Two now turning south, accelerating, speed now one-five knots. Warning, numerous infantry targets approaching at slow speed, range three miles, bearing zero-one-six.”
Briggs used his eye-pointing system to place a target cursor over the image of the nearest vehicle in the StealthHawk’s scan — the MT-LB — then pointed to the menu selection for voice commands and spoke, “Hawk One, attack this target.”
“Attack Tango One, stop attack,” the StealthHawk responded. Moments later it peeled away from its patrol orbit and swooped in on the target. The StealthHawk’s attack was flawless. It locked on to the target shape and fired a mini-Maverick missile at it, sending it down through the thin upper skin of the armored vehicle atop the hottest portion of the vehicle — the engine compartment. The engine exploded in a brilliant burst of fire. Three men were able to run clear before the entire vehicle was engulfed in flames.
“We got a kill!” Hal Briggs said. “Way to go! Man, I’m starting to like these gadgets you guys make, Doc.”
“We aim to please,” Jon Masters said from Battle Mountain.
“Hawk One, sitrep.”
“Tango One immobilized,” the drone reported. “Tango Two turning west bearing three-five-zero, two point eight miles. Unidentified numerous infantry targets still proceeding southbound bearing zero-one-six.”
“Looks like the second APC is going to stay away and check us out before he attacks,” Briggs surmised. “Hawk One, proceed to ten-mile cover patrol at one-five thousand feet.”
“Hawk One proceeding to ten-mile cover patrol, stop command.” The StealthHawk began a “wobbly circle” flight pattern around Briggs’s position, changing the center of the circular orbit by several hundred feet each time so it would not pinpoint Briggs’s location as it circled overhead.
Daren nodded happily. “The StealthHawk found all the targets and prosecuted a successful attack by voice command from the ground!” he crowed. “Excellent!”
“Okay, Sarge, you got the last target,” Briggs said.
“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Major Chris Wohl leveled his electromagnetic rail gun, centered the electronic gunsight on the second armored personnel carrier, and fired. A sausage-size tungsten-steel projectile shot from the muzzle at an incredible ten thousand feet per second. The projectile had no explosive warhead — it didn’t need one. At that velocity the projectile easily pierced the GSh-575 vehicle’s armor, went through one Taliban fighter inside as if he were as thin as a soap bubble, pierced the engine block, passed outside through a drive wheel, and buried itself two hundred feet into the sand before it finally stopped. The armored vehicle’s engine cracked, then blew apart like an overinflated balloon.
“Target neutralized,” Wohl reported matter-of-factly.
“Tango Two neutralized,” the StealthHawk reported moments later.