Warriors (9781101621189) (7 page)

Dušic discussed how NATO and the Americans had imposed the Dayton Accords, which set up a tripartite Bosnian presidency: one Muslim, one Croat, one Serb. A mongrel state with a mongrel government. Hardly better than foreign occupation.

“So what is our mission?” Nikolas asked.

“You will light the spark,” DuÅ¡ic said. “Bear with me as I explain. At first, you may find your task disagreeable. But you will begin a chain of events that will rid us of the Turks forever.”

Dušic outlined his plan for a false-flag operation: a bombing that would appear the work of Muslim terrorists. The Serbian Orthodox Church's Holy Assembly of Bishops met twice a year. The next meeting would take place just weeks from now in Belgrade, at the Patriarchate. If a car bomb killed some of the bishops and destroyed the Patriarchate, the attack would ignite a new war in the Balkans. Correct an error of history. Complete the job these men had started as young soldiers.

Stefan would handle the bombing itself. The recruits would rake survivors with automatic-weapons fire while shouting
“Allah-hu akbar!”
Do not worry so much about accuracy, Dušic advised. The shouts carried more importance than the bullets.

The recruits stared at him. None spoke.

“You may love the church,” DuÅ¡ic said. “I understand. But you must understand that though God is eternal, religion is a human institution. A frail, finite construction of man's own making. And the symbols of that religion can serve our ultimate goals.”

The recruit named Yvgeny stood trembling. He advanced toward Dušic, shook his finger in Dušic's face.

“This is madness!” Yvgeny shouted. “I thought you wanted us to kill Turks. But you tell us to murder our own clergy?”

Dušic felt a flash of anger rise within him. Who did this impudent ruffian think he was? In the old days, no
razvodnik
would have dared speak to him this way.

“You mind your tongue,” DuÅ¡ic said. “You may take a few days to get your mind around your task. But from here on, there is no turning back. You are now under my command.”

“I take no commands from a psychopath,” Yvgeny said. “This meeting is over.”

Dušic gazed into the distance, stared at the trees. He had known this could happen—to enlist some poor fool unable to see the big picture. Someone whose sentimentality dulled his wits. And someone who, by his lack of vision, posed a security risk. But good officers planned for such contingencies. And so Dušic had.

“You are right,” DuÅ¡ic said.

“What?” Yvgeny asked.

“This meeting is over,” DuÅ¡ic said. “For you.”

Dušic drew his CZ 99 from under his coat. Leveled the handgun at Yvgeny's torso. Pulled the trigger.

The blast, the recoil, felt good in Dušic's hand. A hollow-point slug tore into Yvgeny's shoulder, spun him to his left and to the ground. Dušic's pistol skills had grown rusty; his bullet had failed to inflict a fatal wound. Yvgeny lay on his stomach, moaning. Blood pumped from the exit wound, flowed scarlet across the man's torn blazer, and darkened to burgundy when it dripped into the soil. Chips of bone floated in the blood, fragments of the shoulder blade.

Dušic held the sidearm pointed downward at his victim, inhaled the aroma of pistol smoke. Considered whether to administer a coup de grâce to the head. No, he thought, drag this out a little. Create the most vivid impression possible for the remaining
razvodnik
s.

Yvgeny turned over. Smaller entrance wound, Dušic noted, but still messy. The wounded recruit pleaded to his comrades.

“Do not let this man kill me!” he said. “Stop him.”

“None of you move,” DuÅ¡ic said, waving his sidearm. “Let this simpleton's fate serve as a lesson to you. I will tolerate no insubordination, no breaches of security.”

Yvgeny struggled to his knees, then scrambled to his feet and ran. Dušic fired again. The round hit the man in the arm. Yvgeny screamed and kept running.

“Damn my poor aim,” DuÅ¡ic said. And now the simpleton was getting out of pistol range. DuÅ¡ic turned to his friend. “Stefan,” he said, “if you please.”

Stefan shouldered his rifle. Aimed in the offhand position for just a moment. Fired.

Yvgeny's head flew apart in a spray of pink. The corpse dropped into the field. Like Stefan's best work of old, Dušic thought. The target utterly motionless now, dead before the shot's echo ever registered. The two other recruits gaped. Sweat beaded on Andrei's face, though the air felt cool. Nikolas inhaled and exhaled as if each breath required thought and effort. Message received, evidently.

“Find shovels,” DuÅ¡ic ordered. “Bury him.”

IN THE BASE COMMANDER'S OFFICE
, Parson and Gold briefed Webster and the OSI agent on the interviews with the Afghan ground crew. As Parson recounted the discussions, he felt he'd fallen short. The interviews seemed to raise more questions than they answered. But, to Parson's surprise, Cunningham appeared pleased.

“So we want to keep a closer eye on those boys,” the OSI agent said.

“Sorry we can't tell you more,” Parson said.

“No,” Cunningham said, “you guys did good. You might have spooked them if you'd pushed any harder.”

Even though Parson had no experience in law enforcement, he understood that concept because he'd hunted all his life. And it occurred to him this was a little like stalking game. You didn't blindly tear through the woods after a deer; the prey would just disappear. Sometimes you had to wait and watch. And that's what Cunningham wanted to do.

“I'd like to think of a way to conduct a little surveillance on that hangar for a while,” Cunningham said.

Parson waited to hear the agent's plan, but Cunningham said nothing else. So he was open to suggestions, then.

“Anybody got any ideas?” Webster asked. Parson looked over at Gold. She usually did the creative thinking for him, but she seemed to draw a blank this time.

What they needed, Parson figured, was a deer stand. A way to sit still and observe without being observed. Or at least without being observed with suspicion. Parson turned a few thoughts over in his mind, ways to use the resources at hand. Would Webster and Cunningham just think he was crazy? Well, he'd heard of prosecutors and cops doing some pretty offbeat things to catch bad guys. Couldn't hurt to let them hear what he was thinking. Parson told them his idea.

“Sneaky,” Webster said.

“You should have joined OSI,” Cunningham said.

Gold just half smiled and shook her head.

First, they needed to borrow one of the KC-135s out there on the flight line, along with a crew. Webster called the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. He asked for the director of operations, a full-bird colonel like himself.

“I have an unusual request,” Webster said. After a few minutes of explaining, he added, “No, I'm not kidding.” Then he said, “Let me let you talk to OSI.”

The tone of the conversation seemed to change when Cunningham got on the phone, even though Parson could hear only half the discussion. “No, sir,” Cunningham said, “we don't need to actually damage the aircraft.” A few seconds later he added, “Thank you, sir.” Then he put Webster back on the line.

The base commander worked out the details with the air refueling control team command post. The tankers at Manas had missions scheduled for today. After the crews returned, they would need proper rest. Parson, Webster, Cunningham, and Gold could have a tanker and crew for one day only, first thing tomorrow.

Better than nothing, Parson figured. When one of the Stratotankers landed just after dusk, he and Gold met the crew at their aircraft. Parson introduced himself to the pilot, copilot, and boom operator. The KC-135 also carried a flying crew chief—a mechanic assigned to the aircraft, chief of the ground crew that maintained the jet. To Parson, the Air Force's fliers kept getting younger and younger; all these guys looked about twelve. He remembered the days when he was just like them: fresh out of training, bulletproof, and ready to save the world. All wore slick wings on their name tags. None had enough flying hours to earn the star and wreath that adorned the wings of more experienced aviators. But these kids seemed sharp enough. Their aircraft commander, Hodges, was a captain in his twenties. Hodges chuckled as Parson explained his plan.

“Sounds like an easy day for us,” Hodges said. The tanker pilot's flight suit bore the patch of the 171st Air Refueling Wing, Pennsylvania Air National Guard. On his left sleeve, over the pen pockets, he wore an unofficial emblem that read
NKAWTG
.
Parson knew that acronym:
Nobody Kicks Ass Without Tanker Gas.
True enough. He and Gold would not be here now if tankers hadn't come to their rescue once upon a time.

“Should be pretty simple,” Parson said. “Nothing you haven't done before.”

“Only in the sim,” Hodges said.

Parson laughed. “Believe me, my boy,” he said. “If you haven't rejected a takeoff yet, you will.”

“Just don't burn up my brakes,” the crew chief said.

“Don't worry, chief,” Hodges said.

“All you guys need to do is make it look good,” Parson said.

He understood the crew chief's concern. Back when Parson had first begun flying the C-5 Galaxy, he lined up for takeoff one day at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. Loaded heavily with fuel and with armored vehicles bound for Iraq, the Galaxy needed a lot of runway to take off and a lot of runway to stop. When the tower cleared him for takeoff, Parson advanced the throttles until the N1 tapes met the power-setting marker, and the turbines screamed. At first the big jet hardly moved. Then the tons of thrust began to take effect, and the aircraft rolled at walking speed. The C-5 accelerated, and the airspeed indicators came alive. As the jet neared refusal speed, Parson felt the wings start to pick up some of the weight. Almost ready to fly.

That's when a goose—a great big black-and-white
What the fuck are you doing this far south?
Canada goose—flapped across the runway. And right through the compressor blades of the number two engine. Parson felt the thump, heard the bang.

“Reject,” the flight engineer called. “Flameout on two.”

Parson ripped the throttles back to idle. “Spoilers,” he called.

The copilot yanked the spoiler handle, and Parson pulled the outboard throttles into reverse thrust, stood on the brakes. The jet shuddered as the antiskid system cycled the brake pressure to help prevent blowing tires.

Parson got the Galaxy stopped before the end of the runway, and he'd managed to avoid taking a heavy plane into the air with a dead engine. But safety came at a cost. Objects in motion want to stay in motion, especially objects that big. When the brake rotors met the stators, all that speed, power, and weight got translated into friction. And heat.

“Reach Six-Two-Four,” the tower called, “your wheel wells are smoking.”

“Roll the trucks,” the copilot said.

By the time Parson taxied off the runway, flames billowed from the brakes and tires. He shut down the aircraft, and he and his crew evacuated. Standing on the taxiway near the yellow hold-short lines, Parson watched the fire department hose down the wheel wells. The investigation that followed found no fault with Parson's procedures, but the incident reminded him how quickly an aircraft could get into trouble.

•   •   •

PARSON, GOLD, AND CUNNINGHAM
met the KC-135 crew just as sunrise pinked the eastern horizon over Manas. The morning glow lit the scattered cumulus, giving the clouds the appearance of burning islands drifting overhead. When the blue Air Force van stopped in front of the Stratotanker, the crew chief emerged first. A generator cart sat beside the aircraft, its electrical cord still plugged into a receptacle near the 135's nose. The crew chief pressed a start button on the generator, and the diesel engine belched black smoke, clattered to life. After the generator accelerated and settled into a steady hum, the crew chief flipped a toggle switch, and a green contactor light came on. Good ground power available for the airplane.

Parson enjoyed watching these guys conduct the familiar ritual of waking up a cold jet. He'd performed the same tasks thousands of times, but not lately. Command responsibilities, most recently his assignment as a safety officer, had kept him out of the cockpit more than he preferred. He'd always known that would happen. If a pilot stayed in the Air Force long enough, there came a time to put away childish flying and focus on management. Part of him wanted to gather these young men around him and say,
Enjoy this time. Watch one another's back, serve your country well, and savor this part of your lives. It will pass far too quickly.

Instead, he simply watched them unlock the crew entry door, extend the ladder, and climb aboard their aircraft. Parson followed them inside, and Gold and Cunningham came up behind him. Cunningham wore ABUs today, the standard Air Force camo, with the stripes of a tech sergeant.

The cockpit looked a little unfamiliar. Parson had never flown a Boeing product, and the panels were laid out differently from the Lockheed birds he knew so well. This aircraft dated from the Kennedy administration, old enough that all the crew stations had built-in ashtrays. Parson tried to stay out of the crew's way as they examined maintenance forms, powered up electrical systems, and ran through their preflight checklists. When they finished the preflight inspection, they let Parson take the cockpit jump seat. Gold and Cunningham sat in the back. Parson plugged in his headset just as the copilot made a radio call for a flight clearance.

“Cleared to destination as filed,” the Kyrgyz controller said. “Climb and maintain ten thousand feet. Expect flight level two-niner-zero ten minutes after departure.”

On the interphone, Hodges said, “Something tells me we ain't gonna make it.”

The copilot smiled, took a sip of coffee from a foam cup.

“You guys
are
making it look good,” Parson said. “Where are we going?”

“Istanbul,” Hodges said.

“Always wanted to see Istanbul,” Parson said.

“Engine start checklist,” Hodges called.

The copilot put his coffee in a cup holder and picked up his checklist binder. Parson listened to the challenge-and-response rhythm of the checklist procedures, watched Hodges place switches on the panel in front of him to the
GROUND START
position. One by one, the pilot moved start levers on the center control stand, and four CFM56 turbofans roared to life. A tailwind pushed exhaust fumes in front of the intakes, and the odor remained in the bleed air that flowed through the air-conditioning system. The smell of a day's work beginning.

The boom operator locked down the crew entrance door, and the Stratotanker lumbered off Juliet Ramp and down Taxiway Alpha. Near the end of the runway, the copilot called for takeoff clearance.

“Clear for takeoff, Runway Zero-Eight,” the controller answered.

Hodges steered onto the runway, advanced the throttles. The CFMs spooled up from a whine to a howl, and the aircraft began to accelerate. Parson peered around the copilot's shoulder to watch the airspeed indicator. As the instrument scrolled past eighty knots, the copilot said, “Reject.”

With one smooth motion, Hodges pulled the power back to idle. Then he took hold of the speed brake lever beside the throttles. Hodges deployed the speed brakes to sixty degrees, and Parson felt himself pushed against his shoulder straps as the jet slowed down.

“Oh, my goodness,” Parson said. “You boys got an emergency. Ain't that awful?”

“I'm terrified,” Hodges said.

“Me, too,” the copilot said. “Don't spill my coffee.” Then the copilot pressed his transmit switch and said, “Sunoco Two-Eight aborting takeoff.”

The tower controller gave the tanker crew a few seconds to stop their jet. When the aircraft turned off the runway, the controller said, “Sunoco Two-Eight, state the nature of your emergency.”

“Ah, we have a hydraulic leak,” the copilot transmitted.

“Lying sack of shit,” Parson said on interphone.

“You should hear him on the satphone to his girlfriends,” Hodges said.

“Do you require assistance?” the tower asked.

“Let's have the trucks stand by for us on the taxiway,” the copilot transmitted.

Parson smiled, pressed his interphone switch, and said, “And the Academy Award goes to the crew of Sunoco Two-Eight.”

“I'd like to thank my agent,” the copilot said.

“And I told myself I wasn't gonna cry,” Hodges said. Then the pilot turned serious, twisted in his seat to face Parson. “All right, sir,” he said, “where do you want us to stop?”

Parson unbuckled and rose to look out the flight deck windows. “Shut it down close to that aerial port hangar, but don't block access,” he said. “Make sure your tail clears the taxiway intersection. I want those guys in there to conduct business as usual.”

Two crash trucks rolled out of the fire department garage. The vehicles drove more slowly than when they'd responded to the C-27 accident; this time they appeared only as a precaution. The trucks stopped near the Stratotanker's nose. Parson considered his next moves; the trickiest part of his charade would happen now.

“Tell ground control you're doing an emergency egress,” Parson said. “When you get outside, tell the fire chief you had a hydraulic leak on the takeoff roll, but you didn't overheat the brakes.” It helped that the trucks had come out, but now Parson wanted them to go away.

Hodges made the radio call as Parson ordered, and the crew shut down the engines. When Hodges reached for the battery switch, Parson said, “Hold on.” Then, while he still had electrical power, Parson asked, “Crew chief, are you on headset?”

“Yes, sir,” came the answer from the back.

“Cool,” Parson said. “When you get out there, as soon as nobody's looking, I want you to dump hydraulic fluid all over one of the landing gear struts.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“See you outside.”

Hodges flipped the switch, and the jet went dark. After the pilot, copilot, and boom operator climbed down the ladder, Parson followed them, headset around his neck, cord dangling at his waist. He looked up to see Gold and Cunningham coming behind him. The crew chief picked up two quarts of hydraulic fluid and a tool bag.

Once on the ground, the crew chief opened his tool bag and took out a sharp-pointed can opener, the kind mechanics called a church key. With the church key, the crew chief punched holes in the fluid cans, looked around. Hodges was talking to the firefighters, gesturing with his arms. The firefighters stood around their vehicles, the tops of their silver suits unzipped. One spoke into a handheld radio, and they remounted the trucks and drove back to the fire station.