Rebecca cut in quickly, “Sir, I fully authorized General McLanahan’s use of wing resources for his—”
“I seriously doubt it, General Furness,” Thorn said. “I’ll look into that issue myself.” Thorn and McLanahan stared at each other for a few moments. Then Thorn asked, “So tell me, General — did it work?”
“No, sir,” Patrick replied, “it did not.”
David, Rebecca, Daren, and even John Long looked at McLanahan in surprise. “It didn’t work?” Thorn retorted. “Not at all? Any of it?”
“The tests proved what we already knew about the StealthHawk unmanned combat air vehicle system — it’s a mostly reliable and effective weapon system,” Patrick elaborated. “Unfortunately, the tests we performed regarding unmanned full-size bomber aircraft being used both as a mothership and as an attack platform were unsuccessful. Although we were able to launch and retrieve a StealthHawk UCAV remotely, we were unable to complete an aerial refueling, which was our main objective.”
Thorn looked at the surprised expressions of the officers before him — something wasn’t quite jibing. He gave them a few heartbeats to speak, perhaps come to McLanahan’s defense… but they did not.
“Too bad, General,” he said finally. He wasn’t about to prompt anyone for more information. If they didn’t want to be forthcoming for some reason — meaning, if they didn’t believe in the project enough to back the boss — he certainly wasn’t going to do it for them. “I hope all you’ve wasted is a little jet fuel.”
“I would like to see the full results of your flight tests,” Goff interjected.
“Secretary Goff gave you an assignment recently, General,” the president asked. “Got something for us?”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied. “My deputy, General Luger, has the information you requested.”
“Then let’s get started.” They all took seats, and Patrick motioned to David Luger.
“Good morning, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Miss Deputy Secretary,” Luger began. “Last week, on orders transmitted to the First Air Battle Force from the Joint Chiefs of Staff deputy commander for operations, I was directed by General McLanahan to perform an operational air-battle assessment of the eastern Turkmenistan region, concentrating specifically on recent military maneuvers by a group of insurgents identified by the CIA as the same Taliban fighters we interdicted in Operation Hilltop a couple weeks ago,” Luger said. “An air-battle assessment is a tasking whereby we identify and classify threats in a specific area using our own surveillance assets, combined with national and international sources, and then develop a plan of action to counter the threats. I looked at all threats posed by these insurgents but primarily focused on the threat to U.S. interests — national and civil as well as military — in Central Asia.
“In general, sir, we identify no credible threat to U.S. military interests in Central Asia and only minor military threats to U.S. interests in neighboring areas such as the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, or Black Sea regions. However, we have identified an imminent and serious threat to U.S. commercial interests in Turkmenistan that could have grave repercussions in the entire region and neighboring regions.”
“You mean those insurgents and the threat to TransCal’s pipelines,” Maureen Hershel interjected.
“Yes, ma’am,” Luger acknowledged. “In short, the TransCal pipelines — all of them — are effectively right now in the hands of the insurgents, and at this point they fully control them. They can shut them down, blow them up, hold them hostage, keep them running — whatever they want to do. The Turkmen army is virtually incapable of resisting them any longer.”
“It’s worse than we thought, then,” Goff said.
“The insurgents control fifty percent of all the pipelines in the entire country — nearly ninety-five percent of the lines not owned by Russian oil companies,” Luger said. “Duty Officer, slide number one.” Several of the screens in front of them came to life, showing a map of Turkmenistan, the border region with Uzbekistan highlighted. “Here is a map of all of TransCal’s pipelines — five billion dollars’ worth, a joint venture by TransCal and the Turkmen government, transporting crude oil and natural gas from Turkmenistan’s substantial known oil and gas fields to a few refineries, but mostly to users in twelve neighboring countries and to shipment points in Pakistan. Turkmenistan itself uses only about three percent of what it produces. Overall, the pipelines are modern, aboveground, well hardened against earthquake and storms, and mostly remotely monitored, with quarterly visual inspections.
“The biggest pipelines — both oil and gas lines — run right along the entire Turkmen-Uzbek border. As you can see, most of these lines are controlled by the insurgents, from the Tajikistan border to Chärjew. TransCal also has a pipeline system running from their wells in Uzbekistan south to the city of Mary, then south through Afghanistan to Pakistani ports on the Gulf of Oman; all the lines from Chärjew to Mary are under insurgent control, which means they control the lines south of there as well.
“The insurgents also control the TransCal pipelines running along the Kara Kum Canal, which runs east-west from the Iranian to the Uzbek borders. That canal is important in irrigation, flood control, and transportation in most of southern Turkmenistan. The insurgents can now cut off all petroleum deliveries running to the east and south, including oil and natural gas to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent — we estimate nearly two hundred thousand barrels of crude oil and fifty million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
“TransCal has responded to the insurgents by paying them what amounts to ‘protection’ money,” Luger went on. “We have located sizable numbers of Taliban forces, including Turkmen soldiers hired by the Taliban or by Turkmen defectors, at every pumping and control station east of the sixty-second-degree east longitude — over a hundred switches, pumping stations, check-valve stations, power stations, and control stations spread out across forty thousand square miles. We estimate that the numbers of Taliban troops are at least fifteen to eighteen thousand — over a third the size of the regular Turkmen army.”
“So you’re saying it’ll be real tough to kill these Taliban, is that what you’re telling me, General?” Thorn asked irritably.
“The problem isn’t with killing them — the problem is what they’ll do once they find out they’re under attack,” Dave Luger said. “Their forces are spread out over three hundred miles of pipeline. If Battalion A comes under attack, Battalion C a hundred miles away might have orders to blow up a pumping station or the pipeline itself.”
“I don’t need you to present me with problems, son. I need you to give me answers,” Thorn said.
“The answer, sir: concentrate our forces on the most vital points in each section of the pipelines,” Luger went on. “We’ve identified six of the most vital upstream points. We can verify our analysis with TransCal, but this is our best guess. Duty Officer, next slide.” Six red triangles appeared on the map of Turkmenistan. “The most critical one is in Chärjew. It controls pipelines running east-west along the Amu Darya River and north-south from Uzbekistan. If we can take control of these six points, but especially the main control center in Chärjew, the insurgents can blow up almost every foot of the rest of the pipelines, and there won’t be a major spill. The second most important control center is in Bayramaly, east of the city of Mary. This one controls oil flowing north-south to Pakistan through Afghanistan and also east-west.”