“Forgive me, Allah,” Turabi said, reciting the prayer of absolution, “but allow me to be the instrument of vengeance for the faithful.” He twisted the knife with his last remaining gram of strength, felt a fount of warm blood wash over his hand, then held the knife in Orazov’s chest until the flow of blood ceased.
“Nike, what in hell is going on over there?” Briggs radioed. He could peek into Wohl’s electronic visor via the satellite datalink built into the Tin Man battle armor and see what Wohl was seeing, and at the moment all he could see was Turabi lying on the bloody corpse. “Is that the target lying on that DB? What’s he doing?”
“He’s resolved that cultural dilemma I mentioned a moment ago, sir,” Wohl replied. He grabbed Turabi by his LBE harness again as if he were a rag doll, then took the knife away from him. “We’re on the move now, sir,” he added, just before he jet-jumped away.
“So the American aircraft disappeared off radar and has not been detected since?” Kurban Gurizev, the president of Turkmenistan, asked after reading the conclusions of the report from the air force general standing before him. Unlike most of the Turkmen around him, Gurizev was short, his eyes were blue, he had skin tanned from the harsh sun instead of being olive-complexioned. Although born in Turkmenistan and a resident there most of his life, he spoke in slow, choppy Turkmen, with a definite and clear Russian accent. “What in hell happened?”
“There was a great deal of electronic jamming and false-target propagation just prior to losing radar contact,” the general elaborated. “Both Ashkhabad Control and Baku Control were affected. We were not able to ascertain if the aircraft hit the Caspian Sea or if—”
“My God, we are all dead men… dead men!” Gurizev breathed. “The Americans are going to come in and crush us! Who in hell did this?”
“Sir, the Russians had numerous air patrols all around the country. It was obviously one of their fighters that brought the American down,” the general said. “All aircraft were warned repeatedly of the danger of flying into the area. The Americans ignored those warnings; the crew unexpectedly and illegally broke off normal air-to-ground communications and most likely began responding to false commands, and it made unusual and provocative maneuvers in violation of air-traffic-control orders. They were in the wrong.”
“And it was attacked by a Russian MiG-29 when it—”
“We do not know that for certain, sir,” the general said. “The facts as we know them, sir, were that a Russian fighter patrol was in the area but never made any move toward the American aircraft; that the American aircraft broke off contact with air-traffic control for no reason and began making violent, unexplainable maneuvers; and that contact was lost with the plane. That’s all we know.”
“The Americans are going to bury us,” Gurizev cried. “We might as well start digging our graves right away.”
The telephone in the office rang. An aide picked it up, listened, then hit the “hold” button. “Mr. President, it’s Thomas Thorn, the president of the United States. He wishes to speak with you.”
The short, beefy president of Turkmenistan pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket, dabbed his forehead and lips, took a nervous gulp of water, then picked up the telephone. “This is President Kurban Gurizev speaking,” he said in broken English. “To whom am I speaking, please?”
“This is President Thomas Thorn calling from the White House, Mr. President,” came the reply. “This is an emergency, sir. I must speak with you immediately.”
“I assure you, I have been notified of this unfortunate accident, and all of my country’s resources will be immediately mobilized to determine what has happened.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Thorn said. “But I can tell you precisely what happened.”
“You can?” Gurizev asked, perplexed.
“We already know that our diplomatic mission was attacked by a Russian MiG-29,” President Thorn said, as calmly as if he were talking about a nice glass of wine. “We know this because as we speak we have air-defense and reconnaissance aircraft flying over Turkmenistan, and one of our planes detected the attack on our diplomatic aircraft and destroyed the MiG-29.”
Gurizev didn’t understand everything Thorn said — but he did understand “MiG-29,” and his blood ran cold. My God, he thought, just minutes after the attack, and the Americans knew about the MiG…?
“President Gurizev, are you still there? Do you need another translation?”
“Yes… yes, I am here, Mr. Thorn… er, Mr. President,” Gurizev stammered. “Ah… we have no information whatsoever that there was any attack.”
“I see,” Thorn said. “Nonetheless, we have incontrovertible proof that such an attack took place, and we shall soon release this data to the world. You may want to ask your military advisers if the MiG ever made it back to its base. I can tell you, sir, it did not. It was destroyed.”
Gurizev jabbed a finger at another phone, and the air force general picked it up and called his headquarters. “This… this is most unusual, sir,” Gurizev said. “We… we shall of course immediately investigate your information.”
“Please do,” Thorn said. “We regret the loss of life, but it was necessary to save the lives of former president Martindale, Deputy Secretary of State Hershel, and the others on that plane.”
“How was the pilot killed, sir, if as you claim you have only reconnaissance and defensive aircraft over Turkmenistan?”
“I’d rather not reveal how at this time, Mr. President,” Thorn said. “But it was an American warplane that shot the MiG down — after we observed him attacking our diplomatic mission with heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. We have even identified the missiles — they were AA-11 ‘Archer’ missiles, what the Russians call the R-73M2, one of Russia’s most advanced weapons.”
Gurizev looked over at his air force chief of staff, and when he saw the man’s blank, confused expression, he had to carefully suppress a gasp. “Could you hold the line, please?”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
Gurizev placed the call on hold with a shaking hand. “Get that son of a bitch Russian military liaison officer over here now!” The air force officer issued the order, listened, then peered at the phone. “What in hell is it now?”
“The operator cannot contact the Russian defense liaison’s office. There is no answer.”
“What?” The Turkmen chief of the general staff grabbed the phone away from the air force commander. He barked orders into the phone, but soon he, too, was dumbfounded. “No response from the Russian liaison, and now the direct line to my office is completely out. What in blazes is going on?”
“Could this be true?” Gurizev thundered. “The Russian fighter was shot down—by an American combat aircraft?”
“The MiG should have already returned to Krasnovodsk,” the general said, checking his watch. “It would have run out of fuel long ago.”
“Could it have carried the weapons Thorn described?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Yop tvayu mat!” Gurizev swore loudly in Russian. He often forgot his adopted Turkmen language when he was nervous, excited, enraptured — or scared. “How in hell could the Americans know all this?”
“They must have sent stealth aircraft over our country to escort the American diplomatic aircraft,” the chief of staff said as he stood with the phone to his ear. “We must assume that the Americans have more such aircraft overhead right this very minute.”