The Fourth War (17 page)

Reno Predator Security Compound
Islamabad, Pakistan

Before heading out on a mission, Peter had developed a habit of calling on his friends who flew the Predator, for he had learned not to trust a map in this part of the world. The topographical maps that the National Mapping Agency provided the military of this area were notoriously unreliable. Entire mountain ranges went unnoted, villages were misplaced, and roads were depicted that had never been built. Worse, the target area around Tirich Mir was extremely remote and inhospitable, and Peter wanted to know exactly what he was getting into before he found himself following his map off the side of a cliff or into a glacier field.

The door to the Predator commander's trailer opened, and Peter moved quickly inside. The major glanced up and smiled. “Hey, buddy,” he said as he stood up from his desk. “What brings you down here?”

“Business. Always business. I hope you got the word that I was going to drop by.”

“Oh yeah, I got it. But you'll have to wait in line. My guys are jumping through hoops. We don't have any Predator time to give you, I'm afraid.”

“Understand, Russ, but I've got my own hoops. I'm heading out on a road trip. Got a chopper waiting. So, I was hoping I could nudge myself to the front of the line. I only need a few minutes of one of your bird's time.”

The major shook his head. “Ain't going to happen. Something big is going on. I have never, and I mean
never,
seen anything like it before. All our birds are in the air, spread out from one end of this forsaken hole of a country to the other. I don't know what it is, but believe me, Peter, this isn't a good time. If you could come back in a few days—”

“Can't wait, Russ. And I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.”

“Peter, I'm sorry.”

Peter didn't answer, but reached in his pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to the major, who read it. “This isn't real,” Russ said, a quizzical look on his face.

Peter only nodded.

“So,
you
know what's going on up north? You're part of the operation?”

“Afraid so,” Peter said.

“But this is signed by—”

“Yeah. So,
now
will you let me borrow one of your birds?”

The major smiled and started walking. “Certainly,” he said.

Snowman 91
Over Northern Pakistan

The Predator loitered around the base of Tirich Mir. The challenge for the pilot was to fly the aircraft as low as he could, so that he could observe the roads and intersections, while staying clear of the peaks that jutted up on the north, east, and west. Sometimes the pilot flew less than a hundred feet from the cliffs, tensing up every time he banked away from the rocks. It was an extremely challenging mission in this unforgiving terrain, and the reconnaissance pilot was growing weary from the twelve-hour flight. His arms were growing heavy and his leg muscles were cramped. He was hungry and tired and needed to pee.

The door to the ground control station in the van opened, letting in a wave of dry heat. The afternoon sun slanted through the half-open door, brightening the darkened control room with a harsh glare. The pilot looked up from his remote control screen as his commander and the CIA man stepped into the van. The major pulled off his flight cap and laid it on top of the nearest work table. Peter followed the major and dropped to his knees between the flight station screens. The captain looked over. “'Sup Peter?” he asked.

“In a bit of a hurry,” Peter answered. “Another road trip.”

The captain sniffed noisily. The CIA agent needed a shave and shower. “Didn't know you were coming down,” he said, “or I would have drawn you a bath.”

Peter shook his head. “Don't need a bath until sometime next week.”

“Next week, huh? Now I know why you got a divorce.”

“
Au contraire,
my good friend. Had nothing to do with it. Isabel had her faults, but she always smelled good.”

“Good like your horse?”

“Not that good, I guess.”

The captain laughed, leaning sideways in his seat as he banked the Predator on her wing, an instinctive reaction to the shifting displays. Peter watched, then continued, “Like I said, I don't have much time. How much fuel you got on that bird?”

“Enough,” the captain answered. “What are you looking for?”

Peter nodded to the steep mountain range. “I'm heading up there tonight. Going to chopper in as far as we can, but will have to go the last ten or fifteen miles by foot. I'd like to scout out a trail. A few minutes of your Predator might save my team a lot of hard work.”

The captain shrugged. “Sure thing. Where do you want me to go?”

The CIA man pulled out a plastic-covered map and pointed with his finger. “We're going to move in from the west, up this trail here.” He tapped the map lightly and the drone pilot looked down.

“That's on the other side of the range?” the pilot said.

Peter confirmed by nodding his head.

“No problem, buddy,” the pilot said as he turned the drone west.

The main screen showed the image from the Predator's forward-viewing video camera, a thirty-degree field of view taken from the nose of the aircraft. A wall of rock and snow passed in front of the unmanned aircraft. The remote control pilot, a former F-16 jock, maneuvered the aircraft aggressively, banking it up on its left wing. As he pulled the drone around, he adjusted the power to compensate for the increase in drag. Peter watched as the drone rolled out heading west.

Peter glanced at the cockpit displays, taking in the general condition of the aircraft's systems. The manifold temperature was a little high, but that was probably a result of the pilot hotdogging around—the captain had a reputation for flying the drone like a cheap F-16. The fuel was down to one hundred twenty, but the flow was steady at fourteen pounds. All of the other systems were green. He noticed again that it took an uncomfortably long time for the pilot's inputs to move the drone's flight controls.

A little more than two hundred miles to the north, the unmanned Predator reconnaissance drone was buffeted in the winds that blew up the face of the mountain, rolling almost constantly in the choppy air. Under the nose, the sensors continually moved, pivoting on their gimbals as they looked around.

The Predator was a new and rising star on the air-power stage. A strange-looking airplane with a bulbous nose, pusher engine, straight wings, and downward-sloping V tail, it was essentially a powered glider, with a forty-nine-foot wingspan and a gross weight just over a ton. Mounted in the rounded nose of the drone was a four-hundred-fifty-pound sensory payload that consisted of two electro-optical video cameras, an infrared sensor, and a synthetic aperture radar capable of seeing through clouds. The telephoto lenses on the video cameras could read a license plate from twenty-five miles away. Incredibly, the reconnaissance aircraft could stay airborne for up to forty hours. At a cost of 3.2 million dollars it was a steal of a deal, for the information it relayed was often more current than what a billion-dollar satellite could provide. The only downside to the aircraft was it was excruciatingly slow. Powered by a tiny four-stroke snowmobile engine, the aircraft cruised at a mere eighty knots.

Most of the pilots who flew the Predator felt they had died and been banished to hell; flying from the back of a van, sitting at a remote control station instead of a cockpit in the air. But what they did was important, everyone of them knew, so morale remained high despite the lack of real stick time.

The pilot spent thirty minutes giving Peter a bird's-eye view of the world, each sweeping panorama the same: steep mountains and box canyons, snow and rock and very little else. Peter watched intently, taking notes in a small book and placing marks on his map.

Flying up a glacial canyon, the captain stole a quick glance toward Peter. “You really going up there tonight?” he asked.

Peter only nodded.

“You know that most men couldn't survive a single night in that kind of terrain.”

“Believe me, I know how hard it can be.”

The captain grunted and turned back to his displays. Knowing where Peter would sleep the night made being a frustrated F-16 pilot suddenly seem less important.

Peter took a final look at the screen, flipped his notebook closed, and began folding his map. “Thanks guys, that's it,” he said as he shoved the map inside his thigh pocket.

“Let me show you something else before you go,” the captain suggested. “There's all sorts of bad guys just over the ridge from where you are going to be. If I were taking the scout troop on a hike, I'd want to see the enemy positions up close if I could.”

Peter hesitated, then nodded and leaned toward the screen. “Show me,” he said.

Peter watched the Predator's screen as the captain flew over the ridge, where the ground fell away sharply until it met the tree line. Boulders as large as houses were piled in the canyon like children's blocks on the floor.

“There appears to be some kind of search going on,” the captain explained as he flew.

Peter almost laughed. If the captain only knew!

“I haven't seen so much activity in a very long time,” the pilot continued. “They are organizing into groups and sweeping through each of the canyons that lead up to Tirich Mir. And more troops are coming up the road every hour. They're everywhere, but disorganized. It's like watching ants run around.”

The agent watched a moment. There was nothing new here. He knew the enemy was out there, and he was anxious to go. “Thank you gentlemen,” he said as he pushed himself up.

“Hang on,” the captain replied. Something had caught his eye. Something moving above the road.

“Choppers?” the pilot asked.

Peter had seen it too, and he leaned toward the screen. “Looks like Pumas,” he said.

The pilot swore under his breath. “Pumas! No way!”

Peter stared, open-mouthed. Pumas. Here? It didn't make any sense! Pumas were sophisticated choppers, and very few nations flew them. He thought in confusion. “Get a closer visual,” he said.

The pilot flew toward the choppers, his camera trained straight ahead. The men watched as the choppers came to a hover, then set down in a narrow valley on the south side of the mountain. The Predator moved toward them, watching their rotor blades spin to a stop.

Then there was a sudden white flash and the Predator pilot jumped in his seat. Every one of his sensors and flight displays went suddenly blank.

The pilot turned to his commander. “What happened?” he asked.

The three men stared at each other. The screens remained black. Without explanation, the U.S. Predator was gone.

Shin Bet Operations Center
Southern Tel Aviv

Petate waited in silence against the back wall of the tactical command center. Around him, his men worked in hushed voices. Acutely aware of his presence, they stayed out of his space, giving him wide berth, and avoided his eyes. Watching his troops, Petate could see the strain in their faces. He could also see doubt and fear.

If this worked, he was brilliant. If they failed, they were dead. Playing poker was one thing, but this was more like playing God.

At twenty-two minutes past the hour, Petate's deputy approached. The general watched the younger man moving toward him, desperately trying to read the look on his face, but the deputy remained stoic, giving nothing away. Walking up to Petate, he stared him right in the eye.

Petate swallowed hard.

The general leaned forward and whispered quietly in his ear. Petate listened, frowning, his heart racing as he nodded his head.

The fate of their nation had been placed in the balance, the future of the region suspended by a mere thread.

Reno Predator Security Compound
Islamabad, Pakistan

It took several minutes for Peter to get his satellite call patched through to Washington's desk.

“We lost a Predator,” he quickly explained.

Washington was silent. “What happened?” he finally said.

“Don't know, boss. The air force guys are looking at it now, but that's one of the obvious problems with drones, when something goes wrong, without a pilot in the cockpit, it's lots harder to figure out why it went down.”

Washington swore as he groaned.

“There's more,” Peter said. He wet his lips before he continued. “Just before we lost the signal from the Predator we saw some Pumas down there.”

“Pumas!?”

“Yeah, boss. It looked like they were predeploying to the mountain, finding a hiding place, then shutting down.”

“Pumas,” Washington muttered, his voice bitter and cold. “Pumas in the mountains! Who flies those birds?” The two men were quiet until Washington said, “Don't go up to Tirich Mir. Send one of your teams, but there's something else you've got to do.”

Kill 31
Over the North Atlantic

Col. Shane Bradley awoke with a start, sitting up quickly from where he had slouched in his ejection seat. He was momentarily confused, not knowing where he was, then settled back quietly as he regained his bearings. He checked the instruments in the cockpit as he straightened himself. The aircraft was cruising peacefully at sixty-one thousand feet and five hundred and twenty knots, five miles above the highest civilian air traffic and eight miles above the tops of the clouds that hung over the cold northern sea. From this altitude he could easily make out the curve of the earth, and the stars were so bright they seemed unnaturally near. Dawn would break soon, but the sky was still dark and the northern horizon no longer sparkled with St. Elmo's fire.

Inside the cockpit, the instrumentation lights had been lowered, casting his face in a pale green-and-silver glow. He glanced at his watch, mentally adjusting the time: 0525 over the North Atlantic, 0025 back in Missouri. He had slept for almost forty minutes and felt surprisingly refreshed.

The aircraft hummed smoothly along, three billion dollars flying peacefully through the sky. He felt the aircraft vibrate beneath him and considered the jet.

Born in controversy, and incredibly expensive, the B-2 had proven in the end to be a remarkable success. Essentially invisible, a huge payload, and intercontinental range; the only problem with the jet was congress had funded so few.

Through the use of radar absorbing material and a seamless body design, the B-2 bounced back no more radar energy than a sparrow, making it essentially invisible to radar outside of five miles. Its IR signature was also incredibly small. The use of wing-top exhaust ports, flow mixers to blend the exhaust with cold outside air, and heat-absorbing paint, allowed the B-2 to leave no infrared trail in its wake. The aircraft flew so high it was impossible to detect using audio sensors, and because it attacked at night, it was impossible to see. For those portions of the mission that required it to be flown during daylight, special paints on the underside of the wings scattered and reflected the sun. Light sensors even allowed the pilots to change altitude to match the sky illumination, making the aircraft nearly invisible.

And the avionics inside the cockpit were as advanced as the technology used in the stealth design. The aircraft incorporated an astro-inertial navigational system capable of tracking celestial bodies, even during daylight or through cloudy skies. Its APQ-181 radar incorporated low probability of intercept (LPI) technology which adjusted the radar to the least amount of energy needed to detect and track a target.

Bradley was extremely proud of the aircraft, for it was without question the most sophisticated machine ever to take to the sky. He looked around the glass cockpit, then reached up and stroked the instrument display. “You're beautiful, baby,” he told her. “I'm trusting you tonight.”

He felt a touch on his shoulder and looked over to see Tia holding an unopened container of bottled water for him. He took it and thanked her.

During cruise flight neither pilot was wearing a helmet, just a small headpiece with a tiny microphone that extended to the front of their mouths. Bradley pushed the microphone under his chin and took a long drink. “Cheers, sir,” Tia said above the low roar of the aircraft's powerful engines.

“Tia, you don't always have to call me ‘sir,'” he said after taking a drink.

“It's okay, sir. It's more comfortable for me.”

Bradley shrugged then swallowed another mouthful of water.

Tia looked over. “We haven't had the predicted tailwinds crossing the pond,” she said. “We've got a forty-knot head-wind, not the ninety-knot tailwind the forecast predicted. So, even though we pushed up our speed, we're still falling behind. And pushing up our power has greatly increased our fuel flow.”

Bradley had also been watching the fuel and time projections. “When we hit the tanker we'll ask for more fuel,” he answered.

“My greater concern is the time. Every minute, every second is crucial now.”

Bradley nodded as he wondered for the thousandth time what was going on down “on earth.” But he didn't reply to her comment, for there was nothing to say. They could control many things, but they couldn't control the headwinds. “Station check,” he said, glancing down at the flight plan he had strapped to his thigh.

Tia went through her cockpit checks quickly. “A little more than one-hundred-sixty-thousand pounds of fuel. Last contact with Snowbird was a bit more than an hour ago. The SATCOM is down at this latitude, but we'll pick up the satellite communication link again when we get north of the Azores. I talked with Colonel Kier over the HF while you were asleep. He is coordinating the updates with the tankers out of Aviano.”

“Any additional Intel?”

Tia shook her head no.

“How's number two?”

“So far, so good.” The communications plan required there be no radio conversations between flight lead and the number two aircraft. No news was good news and, unless there was an emergency, the two aircraft wouldn't talk.

Tia sat back and stared out at the night. She glanced at her console clock. More than eight hours to kill. “Your dad was General Westmoreland's deputy?” she asked in an attempt to pass time.

“Yeah,” Bradley answered, “for most of the war.”

“What's he doing now?”

That was an interesting question. Bradley paused, then answered, “The general is dead.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

“It's okay. He passed away quite a few years ago.”

“You called him ‘the general.'”

“I didn't notice.”

“You were not very close.”

“Is that a comment or question?”

“A comment, I guess. Or am I reading too much?”

“No, you are right,” Bradley answered. “He was ‘the general' to me. He was a wonderful man, perfectly loyal to my mom.”

“Did your father push you into volunteering to work with the UN peacekeepers?” Tia asked.

“It was something I wanted to do.”

“You put off flight school to walk the streets of Ramallah?”

“It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Tia looked away as she sipped at her water. “Is that why you work with the CIA?” she asked.

Bradley lifted an eyebrow. “That is not a good question,” he said.

“I'm sorry, sir, but I mean, let's face it, you come from a—how would you describe it—an unconventional background. Peacekeeping on the West Bank. Fluent in Arabic.”

“Mundane staff work. Writing papers. Reading reports. Nothing interesting, I promise you.”

Tia eyed him quickly. She wasn't a fool.

“And your family?” Bradley asked, anxious to talk about something else.

Tia stared at the moon. “My dad was a pilot with the Cambodian air force. I've wanted to fly since before I could walk. My only disappointment is that the Communists are not our enemy any longer, for I've always had dreams of bombing them. But hey, we accept life's little disappointments, don't we.”

Bradley had to laugh.

The air-traffic-control radio crackled quietly as a Delta 747 reported its position over the ocean. Bradley compared its location against the B-2. The airliner was almost three hundred miles to the north, following the well-used jet route from London to JFK. There was no radar coverage over the middle of the ocean, and the only contact with ground controllers was through the position reports the pilots called over the high frequency radio. After the Delta pilot completed his report, it grew quiet again.

Tia looked over to Bradley and pointed to the center display. “This weak tailwind is killing us. We're still losing time.”

Bradley grunted anxiously, then looked straight ahead out of the cockpit. The target was out there, a little more than four thousand miles away.