The Fourth War (7 page)

The burly sergeant ran toward the lead chopper where he nodded to an empty canvas seat in the rear of the MH-60, helped Peter strap in, then dropped a modified Uzi in his lap. “You know how to use this?” he yelled above the noise of the chopper.

Peter cleared the chamber, flipped the safe, and nodded his head. The sergeant pushed a headset toward Peter and he pulled it over his ears.

“I have a message from Colonel Bradley,” the young soldier said over the intercom system. “I'm supposed to remind you that you're an observer, not an infantryman. You are stay low, keep your head on, and not jump into the fight. So keep aside, Mr. Zembeic, or you'll get in our way.”

Peter nodded, leaned his head back and immediately closed his eyes. It was a long flight to Sukru, and he was tired to the bone.

 

Leaving their base camp in far western India, a camp that didn't exist just a few months before, the U.S. military choppers lifted off a little after midnight. Flying through the night, and refueling twice in the air, the choppers made their way west, across the enormous Thar Desert. Approaching Pakistan's Indus River plain, the formation turned sharply south. The combat troops, deployed in five twelve-men teams, were being carried by a combination of MH-53 and MH-60 special operations helicopters. With their long-range fuel tanks, terrain-following avionics, active defensive systems, and fifty-caliber machine guns, the choppers were capable of taking care of themselves. But the hope was the operation would take place without a shot being fired, at least until the soldiers had been placed on the ground.

The contingency operation had been in the making for almost three years, and the teams were as confident as they could be. The pilots had flown the route in the simulator and in the real world, flown it in daylight and darkness and with various combat loads. The delta teams had been through the most rigorous training they had ever experienced, with time spent in the California deserts, the plains of India's Jaipur Province, and southeast Pakistan. In preparation for the mission (which was under the direction of the CIA) and with the full support of the Pakistani government, a replica of the Pakistani weapon storage compound had been erected in a remote corner of Fort Erwin, California. With information provided by the Pakistani generals and the architects who had designed the facility, the replica of the Pakistani compound was identical in every detail. For six months, the delta soldiers used the replica to practice their mission. After months of training, they were confident and ready to go.

Then they deployed and waited for the orders they hoped would never come.

In planning the mission, it was always understood that it was time, not the Pakistanis, that was the worst enemy, so when they finally got the execution call, it took fewer than three hours to gather the crews and get the choppers in the air.

Sukkur Military Facility
Sind Province (Eastern Pakistan)

It was almost dawn when the formation approached the Pakistani weapon storage facility. The sky was turning pink over the muddy brown Indus, as the morning twilight illuminated the sandy buttes that surrounded the compound. The six choppers, four HH-60s and two enormous MH-53s, turned to approach the compound directly from the east. If they couldn't come under the cloak of darkness, something they would clearly have preferred to do, they would at least take advantage of the rising sun in order to cloak their approach. The chopper pilots flew low, only a few feet off the ground. Skimming the desert, a brown rolling sea, they kicked up plumes of fine dust as they passed overhead.

The concrete and barbwire compound came into view in the dim morning light. Beyond it, in the distance, seven miles to the east, the gritty town of Sukkur cluttered the horizon, a series of black smokestacks and tin-roofed buildings situated along the brown Indus River. The weapons facility was situated behind a twelve-foot-high concrete wall. Atop the wall, a four-foot razor wire fence extended outward at a forty-five degree angle. Guard towers were positioned at the four corners of the compound, looking out on a mine field that extended in every direction. A single road approached the compound, weaving through a series of cement barricades. Inside the main wall was a double line of electrified fence, with motion detectors, laser sensors, and a series of fortified bunkers to provide the guards a firing position in every direction.

It was a fortress. A sparrow couldn't land in the compound without being detected, electrocuted, detonated, or shot.

The flight commander, the lead pilot, studied the storage facility as the choppers approached. At first look the compound appeared to be deserted; there was no movement, no indication of activity at all. The only sign of life was a thin spout of steam that escaped from the electric-generator building. Drawing closer, the pilot could see the compound was indeed empty. Then he saw the dead soldiers. He studied the scene, then swallowed hard. “Sir, it ain't good,” he said over the intercom system.

Four feet behind him was the mission commander, a special forces colonel with a thick neck and brown hair. The colonel swore softly, slamming his fist against his knee. Peter Zembeic sat behind the colonel. He too shook his head. The army special forces colonel glanced at the CIA man, then turned away.

“Continue,” he instructed, looking forward again,

The lead pilot pressed his radio switch. “Animals, take the towers,” he commanded. Almost instantly the four MH-60s fired Hellfire missiles at the guard towers that watched over the compound, the missiles impacting their targets in a burst of white heat, sending dust, smoke, and debris scattering through the air. Nothing moved in the compound, as broken pieces of brick and wood scattered across the dusty ground. The smoke blew away in the morning wind and the four guard towers were gone. The lead pilot braced, expecting to begin receiving return fire, hoping and praying his expectations would be fulfilled. But nothing happened, and the sickness rose a notch in his gut.

“Thirty seconds!” the copilot announced to the formation over the secure radio. Already he was slowing, pulling his chopper's nose into the air. Behind him the five other choppers began to slow, too. They were spread in a V formation, with the heavier MH-53s off on each side. The young army colonel, the mission commander, moved forward to look out the cockpit window. He glanced at the burning guard towers, then scanned the compound below. But for the dead bodies, it was empty. He cursed once again, but this time to himself.

Turning, the colonel pushed his helmet microphone to his lips and gave his final instructions to his men, all of whom, like he, were dressed in black uniforms. “Be careful, guys,” he said, “it might not be the way it looks. There could be hostiles or friendlies, or a mixture of both. Either way, we don't care. Get in, get the target, and let's get out of town.”

The choppers lined up to set down together inside the perimeter fence. Beside the open cabin doors, gunners stood ready to fire the .50-caliber weapons mounted on the combat helicopter's floors. Dust began to blow as the choppers slowed down.

The pilot studied the LZ, looking for a place to land that wouldn't crush a dead body. Still no enemy fire. “Gun One, anything?” he asked over his intercom.

“Negative, sir.”

The pilot knew it was over, there was no doubt in his mind. Though it had only been a few hours, they were already too late.

The lead MH-60 set down amid a whirlwind of brown dust. The Delta team was out the door even before the chopper put all of its weight on its wheels. Peter remained in the chopper a few seconds, then followed the lead team. Behind, the other choppers set down in unison. In seconds, sixty soldiers were inside the perimeter wall, the teams spreading out, moving rapidly.

Two teams moved south, toward the headquarters compound, two others took up positions on opposite sides of the outer walls, covering the field of fire for the other teams. Blue One, the commander, the colonel in his black uniform, moved with his men toward the main underground bunker. Four black Honda ATVs screamed out of the back of the MH-53s, each of them pulling a small green trailer with reinforced steel walls and fat, airless tires. The four-wheeled machines were driven toward a barricade along the north wall. As the soldiers scattered through the compound, the combat helicopters lifted into the sky once again to set up a defensive ring and provide air cover. As the choppers lifted, the sky turned brown with dust, which settled very quickly as the sound of the choppers faded away.

Then it was eerily still. No movement. No soldiers. No sound anywhere.

The commander passed a fallen soldier and reached down to put his hand at the dead man's neck. The skin was soft, but not cold, the flesh still tender to his touch. It had not been long. He checked his wrist dosimeter, which was still in the green. No indication of radioactive contamination in the air.

“Snooper?” he asked into his neck microphone.

“Initial readings negative,” came the reply. “No chemical or biological HAZMAT detected.”

The net radio broke over the commander's earpiece. It was the lead chopper, orbiting now to the south. “Blue One, we've got a little problem,” he said tensely.

“What's up, pilot?” Blue One replied.

“We've got hostiles approaching! A convoy of military vehicles coming in from the west.”

“Makeup?” the colonel demanded.

“APCs in the lead. Tanks. T-72s. Four—check that, six covered vehicles. Maybe more. I lose the tail end of the convoy in the dust.”

“ETA?”

“Not long, sir. Five, maybe seven minutes.”

The colonel turned toward the river, then looked at his watch and started a mental countdown. “Okay, people, let's move!”

Waldorf-Astoria Towers
New York City

The president sat alone in the ambassador's office. He made no pretense of work as he leaned back in his soft leather chair, staring at the sculptured ceiling over his head. He was surrounded by gold—deep golden drapes, light gold wallpaper, and gold-and-white carpet at his feet—and the office seemed to radiate from the city lights that shone through the bay windows looking out on Manhattan.

He glanced at his watch and shifted nervously. If the team was on schedule, they would have reached Sukkur by now. They would be searching through the compound. They would know very soon.

The president's gut tightened as he stared at the secure telephone on his desk. The SECDEF had sworn he would call him the second he heard anything. So the president waited, sitting at his desk while he listened to the small mantel clock tick away, counting the seconds, then the minutes that the team was in Sukkur.

CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia

Thomas Washington paced back and forth in the operations center, surrounded by communications specialist and satellite technicians, then turned to the large screen before him, near the front of the room.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Still nothing, sir,” the technician replied.

“Check the system,” Washington demanded. “We should have heard something by now.”

The technician shook his head. “The communications system is fine, Dr. Washington. It does a self-check every ten seconds. There is nothing wrong. They've only been inside the compound for six minutes. Give them a little time, sir.”

Washington stared at the technician and frowned. His instincts were screaming. He slowly shook his head.

Typhoon 57
Over the Atlantic Ocean

Colonel Shane Bradley sat near the back of the C-21. It was a small aircraft with only one seat on each side of the narrow isle, but, because it was VIP-configured, the seats were wider than most. The aircraft flew northeast and, crossing the English Channel, a young airman in a tight air-force-blue skirt brought Bradley a sandwich and Diet Coke.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?” she asked him.

“No, thanks, Airman Ripley.”

Reading his body language, she left the colonel alone. It was painfully clear he did not want to chat.

Bradley took a bite of the sandwich then turned and stared out the small oval window at his right side. The C-21 was flying higher than most airliners could climb, and Bradley could tell from the high whine of the engines that the pilots were pushing the aircraft. He knew they had their instructions. Get him to D.C. as quick as they could.

He watched the cold channel pass beneath him, the surf along the beach shining in the moonlight, then the southern coastline of England curving gently to the north, the lights of the small towns along the coast twinkling in the clean air. Approaching the Northern Atlantic, the weather clouded over to form a smooth carpet that stretched in the moonlight as far as he could see. Bradley reached up and pulled his window shade down.

Beeping the airman, she came back to his seat. “Get me a satellite feed and a monitor,” he said. “I'd like to watch the news.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” she said as she turned.

The airman returned with a portable flat screen LCD and plugged it into the communications outlet beside Bradley's seat. “BBC is channel 341,” she said. “FOX is 213, CNN 243.”

“Thanks,” Bradley offered as he slipped the headset on.

CNN was running a commercial and he never trusted the BBC, so he settled on FOX, which was broadcasting live from Islamabad.

“It appears to be chaos,” a blonde reporter was saying as Bradley tuned in. “The Pakistani constitution makes it clear that Prime Minister Natelez is the next in line of succession, but our sources are telling us that General Ali Khan Sanghar, commanding general of the armed forces, is claiming this is a national crisis and that he is in power. He has declared martial law and dispersed military units around Islamabad. And though all of the radio and television stations have been taken off the air, we have reports—and these are still unconfirmed—that the army is taking advantage of this opportunity. Soldiers are moving through the Shiva neighborhoods on the south and eastern outskirts of Islamabad and taking into custody suspected members of the Popular People's Rebellion, the leading antigovernment party.