The Fourth War (29 page)

The gunners sat ready, their .50-caliber machine guns swinging from side to side in their hands. The moon slipped away, dropping behind the low hills. It was dark, very dark, the darkest part of the night, but night vision goggles turned the night into day.

The commander of the operation sat near the forward bulkhead. His soldiers eyed him anxiously, looked for unspoken clues as to whether they should be scared. The commander faced his men. “Bring it on!” he cried.

The tilt-rotor aircraft began to slow down, their massive turbine engines rotating upward on the tips of the wings. The Rangers stood, triple file, and faced the open door. The roar of the engines was tremendous, and though they had earplugs, most of the men still held their ears.

The weapons storage facility came into view, a two-hundred-meter square wall of cement with semi-buried bunkers inside.

“Two miles,” the copilot said. “Five hundred feet.”

The Ospreys approached at a shallow angle, the pilot fighting the controls, keeping the heavy aircraft in a steady descent. A spray of enemy gunfire emitted from the north and the door gunners immediately returned fire. The pilot swore and dropped the nose as a small light lurched toward them from an RPG round. The Osprey's Gatling guns fired—six thousand rounds per minute—their tracers lighting the sky. The four Ospreys touched down and the Rangers belched out.

The firefight was over in minutes. Fifteen Syrian solders dead. Four Americans wounded.

The Rangers spent thirty minutes searching for the warheads. But none were there to be found.

So they loaded their troops and lifted into the night once again. The next search area was on the other side of Damascus, a little more than a hundred miles away.

Chitral Valley
12 Kilometers North of Lyangar

The leader of al Qaeda stood on a small outcropping of rock and looked north toward Communism Peak, the highest mountain in the Pamir Range. He stared at the square mountain, looking on the south face. The top of the quadrangle mountain thrust upward at eighty degrees, reaching skyward to almost 25,000 feet. A bare wall of rock faced the Great Leader, and the snowline was down to nearly six thousand feet, yet edelweiss and wormwood still covered the base of the mountain, the color of life spreading right up to the ice. From where he stood, the mountain loomed impossibly large, an enormous block of granite pushed upward to create a vast series of valleys and canyons where the feet of great men had trod.

Alexander the Great had given the mountain a name. Parapamisus he called it—
mountain over which no eagle could fly.
And Alexander was not the only great leader to stand at the base of the mount. Tartar hordes once stopped there, and Gengis Khan and Tamerlane. Marco Polo had also traveled these valleys as he detoured to avoid bandits on the Silken Road.

The leader looked west to the top of Tirich Mir, then east, following the Pamir range, the fist-like peaks that pivoted off the Karakorum, Kunlum, and Himalayan mountains. The leader then lowered his eyes, staring up the valley in which he stood. He could see a distant tower of mortar and rock, one of the watchtowers built by the old Russian army. The valley was quiet. Few men lived here now. Kirghiz nomads, black-skinned men who herded two-humped camels and long-haired yaks, were the predominant tribe that had taken over the valley. The people of Kafir Kalash camped away in the distance to the north, up the small river, beyond where his eye could see. None of the local tribes concerned the Great Leader. They had seen militants and criminals come and go through the years.

The al Qaeda commander smiled appreciatively. This was the perfect location. Ten thousand canyons, rocky, vertical, impossible to search, difficult to drive, with trees in the valleys to cover their movements from either space or the sky, a local population that was hostile to authority, certainly hostile to the United States, and willing to let him come and go as he pleased. Yes, it was an ideal location, even better than their original plan. It had all come together, despite the close call.

As the father of al Qaeda thought of the warheads, a shiver of excitement ran up his spine. Twenty-four warheads! Twenty-four million infidels would die! Die by technology produced by their own hand! He felt nearly godlike; powerful, destined, and unstoppable. He bowed his head, feeling the energy running cold in his veins.

Turning, he walked across the compound toward an ancient farmhouse of baked clay and cement that had been built against the side of the mountain, the back wall butting up against an outcropping of rock. The building was surrounded by huge oak and sycamore trees, ancient, gnarled, with low, sweeping branches and hanging limbs. Pock-marked with bullet holes and shrapnel, one side of the structure had been completely torn down from a long-ago battle with Russian soldiers.

Inside the building, against the rock wall, was a large steel door, the entrance to a huge underground complex of caverns and caves that had been fortified by the Russian army and used during the war, then abandoned and forgotten after they had quickly withdrawn. The commander of al Qaeda walked through the building toward the cavern door. His soldiers, large men with huge shoulders and bloodthirsty eyes, guarded the entrance to the cave.

The leader passed through the door and walked down a narrow set of stairs that descended sharply until they ended on a rocky platform where small torches provided the light. From there a narrow path descended, dropping further into the mountain. He continued downward. The air was cold and wet and he heard dripping sounds. The tunnel narrowed and the top of the passageway dropped until he had to stoop as he walked. There came a fork in the pathway and the Great Leader turned right. Two hundred paces later he entered the main cavern.

Imad Mohammad was waiting, along with some of the men, standing beside the neatly stacked crates; the nuclear warheads, the great weapons of war. Behind Imad, Angra stood in the shadows, quiet, always watching, his dark eyes smoldering and alive.

Imad turned as his commander approached. “
Sayid,
we rejoice!” he said as he bowed. “What was once lost is recovered, what was once astray, now is found! What had slipped through our fingers is again in our grasp! And the enemy is scattered, searching everywhere for what we have! Indeed, the Great God has smiled upon us today.”

The Great Leader nodded dismissively. God had little to do with it, he was certain of that. Hard work and luck were what had brought him success. His men always spoke of God, but he no longer believed, and he didn't do what he did out of love for God or anything else. He did what he did because he hated the United States. He hated their freedoms and arrogance and imbecile way of life. And he hated their influence, especially in his part of the world, their preaching of doctrines he despised to the core.

The only purpose he had in religion was when he used it to motivate his men. God? Yes, perhaps? Perhaps he smiled above. But a smiling God meant nothing, not a dribble of spit. Now, burned and charcoaled Americans! That was something he could smile about.

The Great Leader nodded arrogantly, his thin lips spreading confidently over his gums. His long face and full beard were but shadows in the dim light, but his eyes seemed to glow from the fire within. “Yes,” he answered simply. “They have taken the bait. We sent out a rat and the cat gave it chase. And now the Americans are searching desperately, running here and there, screaming like spoiled children, demanding this, demanding that.
“You help us!”
they are screaming, their snotty noses running red.
“We need you! We need you! Where are our friends!”
And all of it for nothing! The warheads are
here!
The irony is delicious! It almost makes me laugh! From India to the Mediterranean, the imbeciles hunt, and yet here are the warheads, but a few miles from where the search began!”

The lieutenant smiled. It was brilliant, yes, brilliant. The decoys had worked. And now the escaped prisoner was hiding inside the prison walls.

The Great One stared at the dark crates. “Thirty-six hours,” he pondered. “That is all that we need. Thirty-six hours we will stay here, then we'll move the warheads north.”

His lieutenant's face looked worried. “
Sayid,
if I may, couldn't we stay where we are? We are safe here, protected. Might this be a good place to hide?”

The Great One turned and scoffed. “Safe!?” he scoffed. “We are
never
safe, Imad. They will eventually find us, whether we hide here or there. They will eventually find us, and you know that is true.

“No, the warheads must be dispersed. That is the only way we can ensure that they won't all be found and destroyed. Once they are scattered, the enemy might find one or two, but they will not find them all. And once the war-heads are dispersed, then we can plan our attacks carefully. Meanwhile, the Americans must wait, all the time holding their breath, knowing their destruction is imminent but not knowing when or where.”

“And let me remind you, my brothers, my fellow sons, even if only a few of our teams are successful, we can claim a great work! An incredible victory! A million infidels dead! Our brotherhood would grow stronger. We would rule the world! We don't have to detonate every warhead to claim victory! Two, five, or ten, is enough!”

The room was quiet as death. The Great Leader lifted his solemn eyes. Five hundred years of occupation. Five hundred years of repression and death. It was time to go forward. The great day was here.

He nodded to Imad. “Give me the target list,” he said.

Imad reached into his pocket and pulled out a single piece of paper with the names of twenty-four cities written in Arabic:

 

London New York City Washington, D.C. Houston

Chicago Los Angeles Baghdad Liverpool Seattle

Beer Sheva Tel Aviv Haifa Dhahran Riyadh

Incerlik, Turkey Kuwait City Manama San Antonio Camp Doha

Boston Miami St. Louis New Orleans San Francisco

 

American cities. U.S. military stations overseas. The three largest cities in Israel where the Jewish pigs lived. And a few other targets of their enemies throughout the Middle East.

The attacks would come from all sides, across the border with Mexico where thousands of illegals crossed every day, across the Canadian border, porous as any on earth. Three thousand cargo ships unloaded at U.S. ports
every day.
Four hundred seventy-six airports. Ten thousand flights in and out.

Getting the warheads into the country would not be difficult.

The Great One put down the target list and looked at his men, then pulled out a small map. “We will move the war-heads tomorrow night,” he said while pointing to a small city to the north, just across the border in Tajikistan. “We will send them out in a convoy of three trucks that will move together north, through Pamir pass, then west to the Tajikistan city of Khorugh. From there we will disperse them, assigning one warhead each to our twenty-four teams. Each team will then scatter through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. A few will go north, working their way through southern Russia. Once the teams are dispersed, we will pick up the original plan and attack each of the targets. Preparations have been years in the making. I am confident of success.

The cavern was silent, each man breathing deeply the cool underground air.

“Thirty-six hours,” the Great One repeated. “That is all we need. Give me thirty-six hours and we will move the war-heads forever beyond their reach. Then we will destroy our enemy. We are
that
close!”

The lieutenant pulled his short beard as he stared at the map. “Yes,
Sayid,
it will work,” he announced. “I feel a calm in my soul.”

The Great One smiled in agreement as he folded the map.

Angra stepped quickly from the shadows as the group of men started to break up. “And the American pilots?” he asked, his voice lusty and low.

The Great One turned toward him and hunched his shoulders. “Learn what you can from them,” he instructed. “Then do what you will. But don't kill either pilot until I am there. I want to look into their eyes and see the life leave them as they pass through the veil.”

The White House
Washington, D.C.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. President.” General Abram stood at the president's personal office door. His secret service escort stood behind him and the president nodded the agent away. “Come in, General, sit down,” the president said, and Abram walked stiffly into the small room.

“Alright,” the president asked him, “what have you found out about my Stealth?”

Abram hesitated. “Sir, I wish I had something for you, but we simply don't know.”

“That's not what I want to hear.”

“I know, Mr. President.”

“What are the possibilities? Where could our aircraft be?”

The chairman pressed his lips. “Syria, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan. Pakistan. The Eastern Med. Somewhere short of that target is our most educated guess.”

“That's a pretty big chunk of Southwestern Asia, General.”

“Yes, sir, it is. But uncertainty such as this is inherent with long-range bomber operations, especially the B-2. They have such long legs, flying missions that take them from one side of the globe to the other. And being undetectable by radar, there is no means of knowing its position or where they might have gone down.”

“Is it possible the aircraft was shot down?”

“Possible, but unlikely. There are no weapons in the area that are capable of tracking the Stealth, but still we can't rule it out. We call them golden BBs—random missiles and shells that by sheer luck hit a target—and yes, it's possible a blind missile or lucky Triple-A shell could have brought the aircraft down.”

The president's eyes fixed on the window, staring through the bulletproof glass. The Mylar coating, dark and reflective, painted a murkier picture than what was real outside, throwing back much of the illumination from the city lights. The president shook his head. “And the chance of survivors?” he asked sadly.

The chairman thought. If there were any possibility, any possibility whatsoever that the pilots were alive, he would grasp at that straw. But he had to be honest with the president and honest with himself. He took a deep breath. “Mr. President, I am advised by my staff, and I share their opinion, that it is extremely unlikely the aircrew is alive. Ejection seats have emergency beacons our satellites can detect from space, which are automatically activated in an ejection sequence. If either pilot had ejected, we would have know instantly. Additionally, Mr. President, the pilots have personal emergency radios with beacons that are monitored by satellite, as well as having the range and capability to contact our forces in the area. Given this equipment, if the crew were down and alive, we would certainly know. The chance we will find survivors is very close to zero I'm afraid.”

“Alright then,” the president answered, “let's assume, despite the evidence, the crew is alive. Where do we start to look?”

The general sucked on his teeth. “We don't think the aircraft went down over Syria or Iran,” he answered. “For one thing, we have enough space-based sensors keeping an eye on these states that we would get some indication if the aircraft went down—smoke, fire, something would show. Additionally, if any one of these nations had our pilots, they would be wagging them under our nose, probably through their buddies at CNN. Which leaves us northern Afghanistan and Pakistan, the eastern Med, and Lebanon and Iraq.”

The president considered. “To search that area would take days,” he said.

“Yes sir, it would.”

“And it is almost certain the crew is dead anyway.”

The general couldn't help but pause before he answered, “Almost certainly, sir.”

The president sat back and frowned. “I'm sorry, General. I really am,” he said. “But the crew is gone, you know that. It's a knife in my heart, just like it is in yours, but we have to be realistic and accept the truth.”