Rogue Forces

Weatherly changed one of the monitors to a position-and-status map of all of the air defense units along the border area. The units consisted of Avenger mobile air defense vehicles, which were Humvees fitted with a steerable turret that contained two reloadable pods of four Stinger heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles and a .50 caliber heavy machine gun, along with electro-optical sensors and a datalink allowing the turret to be slaved to Second Regiment’s air defense radars. Accompanying the Avengers was a cargo-carrying Humvee with maintenance and security troops, spare parts and ammo, provisions, and two missile pod reloads.

“All Warhammer AD units reporting weapons tight, sir,” Weatherly said.

Wilhelm checked the monitor, which showed all of the Avenger units with steady red icons, indicating they were operational but not ready to attack. “Where’s your second Loser, General?” he asked.

“Three minutes from the patrol box.” Patrick flashed the XC-57’s icon on the tactical display so Wilhelm could see it amid all of the other markers. “Passing flight level three-five-zero climbing to four-one-zero, well clear of the inbound Turkish flight. We’ll start scanning the area shortly.”

“Show me the veep’s flight.”

Another icon began blinking, this one far to the south over Baghdad. “He’s just taken off, sir, about thirty minutes early,” Cotter reported. The flight data readouts showed a very rapid increase in altitude and a relatively slow ground speed, indicative of a max-performance climb-out from Baghdad International. “Looks like he’s on board the CV-22 tilt rotor, so he’ll be well behind the Turkish Gulfstream for the arrival,” he added. “ETE, forty-five minutes.”

“Roger.”

Things seemed to be going along routinely—which always worried Patrick McLanahan. He scanned all the monitors and readouts, looking for a clue as to why something might be amiss. So far, nothing. The second XC-57 reconnaissance plane reached its patrol box and began its standard oval patrol pattern. Everything looked…

Then he saw it, and mashed the intercom button: “The Turkish plane is slowing down,” he spoke.

“What? Say again, General?”

“The Gulfstream. It’s down to three hundred and fifty knots.”

“Is he getting ready for descent?”

“That far away from Irbil?” Patrick asked. “If he did a normal approach it might make sense, but what Turkish aircraft would fly into the heart of Kurdish territory on a normal approach? He’d do a max performance approach—he wouldn’t start a descent until thirty miles out, maybe less. He’s about a hundred out now. He’s drifting south of course, too. But his altitude is—”

“Bandits! Bandits!” That was Hunter Noble, monitoring the data from the second XC-57 aircraft. “Multiple high-speed aircraft inbound from Turkey, heading south at low altitude, fifty-seven miles, Mach one-point-one-five!” The tactical display showed multiple tracks of air targets streaming south from Turkey. “Also detecting multiple heavy vehicles on Highways A36 and—” His voice was suddenly cut off in a jarring blare of static…

…and so was the tactical display. The entire screen was suddenly awash with glittering colored pixels, garbage characters, and waves of interference. “Say again?” Wilhelm shouted. “Where are those vehicles? And what’s happened to my board?”

“Lost contact with the Loser,” Patrick said. He began to enter instructions into the keyboard. “Boomer…!”

“I’m switching now, boss, but the datalink is almost completely shut down, and I’m down to one-sixty-K uplink speed,” Boomer said.

“Will it switch over automatically?”

“If it detects a datalink dropout it will, but if the jamming has locked up the signal processors, it might not.”

“What in hell is going on, McLanahan?” Wilhelm shouted, shooting to his feet. “What happened to my picture?”

“We’re being jammed on all frequencies—UHF, VHF, LF, X, Ku-and Ka-band, and microwave,” Patrick said. “Extremely powerful, too. We’re trying to—” He stopped, then looked at the regimental commander. “The Turkish Gulfstream. It’s not a VIP aircraft—it’s gotta be a jamming aircraft.”

“What?”

“An electronic jammer—and he’s taken down the entire network,” Patrick said. “We let him fly right on top of us, and he’s powerful, so we can’t burn through the jamming. Frequency-hopping’s not helping—he’s burning through all frequencies.”

“Je-sus—we’re blind down here.” Wilhelm switched to the regiment’s command channel: “All Warhammer units, all Warhammer units, this is…!” But his voice was drowned out by an impossibly loud squeal coming from everyone’s headsets that couldn’t be turned down. Wilhelm threw his headset off before the sound burst his eardrums, and everyone else in the Tank was forced to do the same. “Damn, I can’t get through to the Avengers.”