Rogue Forces

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Wilhelm muttered to himself. How the hell many drinks and dinners am I going to have to owe McLanahan after this is all over…? “Roger, One-Two. Continue patrol, weapons tight. All Warhammer units, this is Alpha, inbound aircraft approaching, weapons tight until it touches down, then back to FPCON Delta. Weatherly, take charge here. I’m headed out to the flight line. Thompson, get your guys out there to recover this inbound, and I want security as tight as a gnat’s bunghole. Air traffic, let this guy in, and make sure there are no tails. Thompson, park him in Alpha security.” He threw off his headset and sprinted for the door.

He found McLanahan and Kris Thompson at the secure aircraft parking area, a section of the aircraft apron surrounded by exhaust blast fences in front of the large hangar. Thompson had deployed his security forces along the south taxiway and the ramp leading from the taxiway to the apron. Wilhelm’s eyes narrowed as he saw McLanahan. The retired general’s head and the backs of his hands were covered in wounds from flying debris. “You should be in the infirmary, General,” he said.

McLanahan was wiping his face, head, and hands with a large white moistened towel, which was already dirty from his ministrations. “That can wait,” he said.

“How long? Until you pass out?”

“I dropped Jon off at the medic and had them take a look at me.”

Bullshit, Wilhelm thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He shook his head ruefully, not wanting to argue with the guy, then nodded off to the east. “Why is he coming here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not too smart, if you ask me.” Wilhelm pulled out his radio. “Two, this is Alpha. Where’s that closest column of vehicles?”

“Twenty klicks north, still approaching.”

“Roger. Continue to monitor, let me know when they’re within ten klicks.” Not yet in shoulder-fired missile range, but the inbound aircraft was in deadly danger if it was spotted by Turkish warplanes.

A few minutes later they heard the distinctive heavy high-speed whupwhupwhup of a large rotorcraft. A CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft zoomed in low and fast over the base, made a tight left turn while transitioning to vertical flight, then hover-taxied along the line of security vehicles up the ramp to the apron and touched down. It was directed inside the secure parking area, where it shut down.

Thompson’s security forces redeployed all around the entire aircraft parking area while Wilhelm, McLanahan, and Thompson approached the Osprey. The rear cargo ramp opened up, and three U.S. Secret Service agents, wearing body armor and carrying submachine guns, stepped out, followed by Vice President Kenneth Phoenix.

The vice president wore a Kevlar helmet, goggles, gloves, and body armor. Wilhelm approached him but did not salute him—he was already highlighted enough. Phoenix started to pull off his protective gear, but Wilhelm waved for him to stop. “Keep that stuff on for now just in case, sir,” he shouted over the roar of the twin rotors overhead. He escorted the vice president to a waiting up-armored Humvee, and they all piled in and sped off toward the upstairs conference room in the Tank.

Once they were safely inside and secured, the Secret Service agents helped Phoenix remove his protective gear. “What happened?” Phoenix asked. He looked at Wilhelm’s grim face, then at McLanahan’s. “Don’t tell me, let me guess: Turkey.”

“We detected the air assault, but they sent in a jamming aircraft that took out our eyes and ears,” Wilhelm said. “Damn good coordination; they were obviously poised to strike and just waited for the right opportunity.”

“Which was me, wanting to meet with everyone in Irbil,” Phoenix said. “Didn’t think I’d be their cover for their invasion.”

“If not you, sir, it would’ve been someone else—or they might have staged something, like I believe they staged that attack in Van,” Patrick said.

“You think that was staged?” Kris Thompson asked. “Why? It was classic PKK.”

“It was classic PKK—too classic,” Patrick said. “What got me was the timing. Why a daytime attack, in the morning no less, with the entire staff and security detail awake and alerted? Why not a nighttime attack? They would’ve had better chances of success and higher casualty counts.”

“I thought they were pretty successful.”

“I believe it was staged so few students would be in the barracks,” Patrick said. “They made sure the actual casualty count was low, and just inflated the figure for the media—enough for the president to declare a state of emergency.”

“If there is a president of Turkey,” Phoenix said. “The word from our ambassador in Ankara said that the president was ‘conferring with his political and military advisers.’ The foreign ministry won’t say any more, and the president’s call to the prime minister and president of Turkey haven’t been returned. He looked like a robot on television; he could have been under duress, even drugged.”