“I have all those things.”
“You don’t show trust or leadership when you execute someone who surrenders to you, no matter what the reason,” Turabi said. “Hold them as prisoners, release them, ransom them, try to convert them — but don’t kill an unarmed man.”
“Colonel, that’s enough,” Zarazi said. “I am leader because God wills it. There is nothing more to be said. We will return to the regiment and plan our attack against Kerki. We strike tonight.”
Turabi could do nothing else but comply. Arguing wasn’t doing any good.
Whatever Zarazi’s style, Jalaluddin Turabi couldn’t argue with his effectiveness. It was easy to blame the lax border security on Turkmenistan’s eastern frontier, or the element of surprise, or Zarazi’s sheer audacity, for his initial successes, but the siege of Kerki was different. The base there had plenty of time to prepare; they had already lost a helicopter and its crew to enemy action. They must have believed that the loss of the helicopter was either an accident or a fluke, because the base at Kerki was completely unprepared for an attack.
Zarazi sent out probes to the air base as soon as it was dark; they returned three hours later. “The Turkmen are obviously preparing for an offensive,” the squad leader reported. “There are at least eight Mi-8 troop transport helicopters on the aircraft parking ramp, clearly being prepared for a mission. They have extra fuel tanks and target-marking rocket pods loaded.”
“That’s at least one hundred and ninety-two infantrymen, General,” Turabi said. He cautiously chose to address Zarazi by his purloined rank whenever anyone else was around — and most times when they were alone, too. “About half the size of our own force.”
“And these are not border guards or light infantry scouts — they are regular infantry, sir,” the squad leader went on. “We saw heliborne fast-patrol vehicles, heavy machine guns, mortars — they are coming in force and getting ready for a major engagement.”
“When do you think they’ll launch?”
“Possibly dawn or shortly thereafter,” the squad leader said. “Weather report talks of a small storm, possibly a sandstorm, tomorrow morning.”
“What about other aircraft?”
“We could not get near the other helicopters,” the squad leader went on. “But they are there, inside hangars and well guarded: four Mi-24 attack helicopters. We saw antitank missiles, bombs, machine guns — they are being very heavily armed.”
The Mi-24 was the old Soviet Union’s deadliest attack helicopter: fast, heavily armored, and extremely accurate. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Mi-24s were called krazhas—“undertakers”—by the Pashtuns, because they could both kill you and then create a hole big enough to bury you in. “If they launch those choppers, General,” Turabi said seriously, “we’re dead. It’s simple as that.”
The men looked at Zarazi with genuine fear in their eyes. Eastern Turkmenistan was flat and wide open — they had no chance against an Mi-24 attack helicopter out in the open. They had survived attacks in the past because, if they could escape into mountainous terrain where the chopper couldn’t chase them, the Mi-24 had to either land and dismount its infantry or go home. Out here, marching on Kerki, it would be suicide. Their twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft weapons were no match for the Mi-24’s longer-range missiles, rockets, and equally powerful machine guns.
“It appears we have only one option left to us — surrender,” Zarazi said. Turabi looked at him in horror, but then he could see that his old friend’s mind was racing ahead with a plan. “Colonel, disperse your men and unload the trucks. We have business to attend to in Kerki. But first there is something you need to do for me….”
Daren Mace was up at dawn and on his way back to the base from the little motel room he’d found near the truck stop. It was still early, but Daren decided to find the squadron building. He opened the little plastic case and found a device that rested behind an ear — a tiny wireless, hands-free earpiece. There were no instructions on how to use it. He wasn’t sure if it was working, so he said experimentally, “Duty Officer?”
“This is the duty officer, Colonel Mace,” a woman’s voice responded immediately. “Welcome to Battle Mountain Air Force Base.”
“Thank you,” he said. This entire reservation, Mace decided, must be buzzing with data flowing wirelessly in all directions — he’d never heard of a base so connected before. “How do I get to the Fifty-first Squadron building?”
“Proceed straight ahead, turn right at Powell Street, left on Ormack Street, and right again on Seaver Circle,” the voice, pleasant if somewhat toneless, responded. “You will find your designated parking spot.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”
Seaver Circle was the main road that paralleled the aircraft-parking ramp. What he’d thought from a distance along the road were aircraft hangars were actually aircraft alert shelters — huge structures big enough for a large aircraft to taxi through, open at both ends. There were eight KC-135R Stratotanker aerial-refueling tankers lined up inside their shelters. He was a little disappointed — the Fifty-first was apparently an air-refueling squadron. Although Daren had worked on several aircraft in his career, he mostly loved the strike aircraft, especially the fast-movers. Tankers were great and a vital part of the Air Force, but it would definitely be a change of pace for him. So where were the B-1 bombers McLanahan was working on?
The only sign of life he saw was a sweeping crew, using a large truck-mounted vacuum to suck up debris — called FOD, or foreign object damage, in the military — from the taxiways and runways. FOD caused more damage to military aircraft than enemy action did, he knew, so it was important they keep up with the FOD patrols, but that was the only activity he could see anywhere. Where in hell were the maintenance crews?
Outside the tall fence surrounding the flight line was a small building, and it was there that he found his parking spot. The door to the squat brick and concrete-block building was unguarded, but the door was securely locked. Mace found a metal box and opened it, expecting a telephone, but instead he found only what appeared to be a camera lens and a small glass panel roughly two inches square. He was about to close the door to the box and try another door — or call for the duty officer again — but then he remembered the device the Security Forces sergeant used and decided to touch the glass square with his thumb. Sure enough, as soon as he touched it, he heard the lock release, and he pulled the door open. He was inside a small room, an entrapment area, big enough for only one person and some gear. As soon as the outer door closed and locked behind him, he heard a faint humming sound that reminded him of an X-ray machine, which it probably was. When the humming stopped, the inner door opened.
The place looked like any other welcome area of a squadron headquarters building, neat and orderly, except this was even more so. In fact, it looked as if it had hardly been used. There were two trophy cases on either side of the welcome area, both empty. It had the new-paint and new-carpet smell of an office freshly finished or remodeled.
As he stepped inside, the same woman’s voice said in his earpiece, “Welcome, Colonel Mace. Please meet your party in your office. I will notify them that you have arrived.”