“We dropped trou and the shit’s bound to hit the fan real soon. Do something to calm the grunts unless you want a fight on your hands.”
“I’m on my way to the ramp. I’ll get Masters, Noble, and the rest of the Scion guys to help you. I’m sure we’ll meet Colonel Wilhelm out there shortly.”
“No doubt. We’re sorting out the—”
“Freeze!” the security officer guarding the passengers yelled, raising an MP5 submachine gun.
“Excuse me one sec, General,” Macomber radioed. Again, the Tin Man did not move or even look at the officer, but Thompson saw a blue lightning bolt arc from the Tin Man’s right shoulder and hit the security officer square in the chest, immediately knocking him unconscious.
The Tin Man stepped over to Thompson. The other security officers around them were all frozen in surprise; a few backed up and ran off to warn others. None of them even dared to reach for a weapon. The Tin Man grabbed Thompson by his jacket and lifted him off the ground, jamming his armored head right in Thompson’s face. “Did Charlie here tell you to tell your men we’re not going to hurt anyone here as long as you leave us alone?” Thompson was too stunned to reply. “I suggest you get your head out of your ass, get on the radio, and tell your men and the Army guys to stay in their barracks and leave us alone, or else we might hurt someone. And they better not have broken any of our stuff, the way they’re driving those forklifts.” He dropped Thompson and let him scurry clear.
Macomber electronically scanned the radio frequencies detected by his sensors built into the CID unit and compared them with a list downloaded from the Scion Aviation International team at Nahla, selected one, then spoke: “Colonel Wilhelm, this is Wayne Macomber. Do you read me?”
“Who is this?” Wilhelm replied a moment later.
“Are you deaf or just stupid?” Macomber asked. “Just listen. My men and I are off-loading our equipment on the ramp and getting ready to fly. I don’t want to see any of your men anywhere in sight, or we’re going to tear you a new one. Do you copy me?”
“What in hell did you say?” Wilhelm thundered. “Who is this? How did you get on this frequency?”
“Colonel, this is Charlie Turlock,” Charlie interjected on the same frequency. “Pardon Mr. Macomber’s language, but he’s had a long day. What he meant to say is we’re out here on the ramp beginning our new contract operations, and we’d appreciate it if your men wouldn’t come around here. Would that be okay?” There was no response. “Good going, Whack,” Charlie radioed. “Now he’s pissed, and he’s going to bring the entire regiment.”
“Not if he’s smart,” Wayne said. But he knew that’s exactly what he’d do. “You and José, get backpacks on and stand by. Terry, let’s put the rail guns together and get ready to rumble.”
Charlie hurried off to the hangar where the weapon backpacks had been segregated, followed shortly by the other CID unit, and they selected and attached large backpacklike units on each other’s back. The backpacks contained forty-millimeter grenade launchers, each with twin movable barrels that could fire rounds in almost any direction no matter which way they were turned and could fire a variety of munitions, including high explosive, antiarmor, and antipersonnel. Whack and another Tin Man located and assembled their weapons—massive electromagnetic rail runs, each of which electrically fired a thirty-millimeter depleted uranium shell thousands of feet per second faster than a bullet.
It didn’t take long for Wilhelm to arrive in a Humvee. He screeched to a halt just inside the parking ramp area far enough in to get a good look at the scene. As he studied the area in stunned disbelief, three soldiers with M-16s raced out of the Humvee, one hiding behind the Humvee and the other two fanning out and taking cover behind nearby buildings.
“Warhammer, this is Alpha, those Scion guys are not in custody,” Wilhelm radioed from the Humvee. “They are off-loading their aircraft. Security is not in sight. They’ve deployed unidentified robot-looking units with weapons visible. Get First Battalion out here on the double. I want—”
“Hold on, Colonel, hold on,” Macomber cut in on the command frequency. “We don’t want a fight with you. Calling out the troops and starting a gunfight will just get the Turks outside riled up.”
“Warhammer switching to Delta.”
But on the secondary channel, Macomber went on: “You can flip channels all day long, Colonel, but we’ll still find it. Listen, Colonel, we won’t bother you, so don’t bother us, okay?”
“Sir, vehicle approaching, five o’clock!” one of the soldiers yelled. A Humvee was driving up to Macomber’s position.
“Don’t shoot, Colonel, that’s probably McLanahan,” Macomber radioed.
“Shut the hell up, whoever you are,” Wilhelm radioed, drawing a .45 caliber pistol from his holster.
The newcomer came to a stop, and Patrick McLanahan stepped out, with his hands raised. “Easy, Colonel, we’re all on the same side here,” he said.
“Like hell,” Wilhelm shouted. “Sergeant, take McLanahan into custody and put him in the Triple-C under guard.”
“Look out!” one of the soldiers shouted. Wilhelm just caught a blur of motion out of the corner of an eye—and as if by magic, the gray-suited figure who had been near the hangar appeared out of the sky right beside the soldier closest to McLanahan. In an instant he snatched the M-16 rifle out of the soldier’s startled hands, bent it in half, and handed it back to him.
“Now cut the shit, all of you,” Macomber shouted, “or I break the next M-16 over someone’s head.”
The other armed soldiers raised their weapons and aimed them at Macomber, but Wilhelm raised his hands and shouted, “Weapons tight, weapons tight, put ’em down.” It wasn’t until then that he noticed that one of the large robots had appeared right beside him, covering the twenty or thirty yards between them with incredible speed and stealth. “Jeez…!” he breathed, startled.
“Hi, Colonel,” Charlie said in her electronically synthesized voice. “Good call. Let’s have a chat, okay?”
“McLanahan!” Wilhelm cried. “What in hell is going on here?”
“Change in mission, Colonel,” Patrick replied.
“What mission? Whose mission? Your mission is over. Your contract’s been canceled. You’re under my jurisdiction until someone takes your ass back to Washington.”
“I’ve got a new contract, Colonel, and we’re going to get it set up and running right now.”
“New contract? With whom?”
“With me, Colonel,” a voice said, and to Wilhelm’s surprise, Iraqi colonel Yusuf Jaffar emerged from the back of Patrick’s Humvee, followed by Vice President Ken Phoenix and two Secret Service agents.
“Jaffar…I mean, Colonel Jaffar…what is this about? What’s going on?”
“General McLanahan’s company has been hired by the government of the Republic of Iraq to provide…shall we say, specialized services,” Jaffar said. “They shall be based here, at Nahla, under my supervision.”
“But this is my base…!”
“You are wrong, sir. This is an Iraqi air base, not an American one,” Jaffar said. “You are guests here, not landlords.”
“McLanahan can’t work for you! He’s an American.”
“Scion Aviation International has State Department approval to operate in three dozen countries worldwide, including Iraq,” Patrick said. “The original contract was a joint cooperation agreement with both U.S. Central Command and the Republic of Iraq—I just reported to you. Now I report to Colonel Jaffar.”