“Get them briefed and ready, too,” Gardner said. “I don’t know what Ankara has in mind, or if they even have a mind, but if they want to take us on, I want everything ready to go.”
The phone beside White House chief of staff Walter Kordus blinked, and he picked it up. “Turkish prime minister Ays¸e Akas for you, sir.”
The president picked up the phone immediately. “Prime Minister Akas, this is President Gardner. What in hell is going on out there? Twelve hours ago you announced a cease-fire. Now you’ve attacked three American military bases! Are you out of your minds?”
“I’m afraid Minister of National Defense Cizek and General Abdullah Guzlev may be, Mr. President,” she said. “Last night they arrested President Hirsiz, engineered a military coup d’état, and took over the Presidential Palace. They were unhappy about the president’s decision to pull back to the border before the PKK and their supporters were eliminated.”
“So why attack American bases?”
“Retaliation for the defeat near Tall Kayf,” Akas said. “Two thousand Turks were killed or wounded in that battle. Cizek and the generals thought it was cowardly to retreat to the border after such a loss.”
“Are you still prime minister, Mrs. Akas?”
“No, I am not,” Akas said. “I was allowed use of my cellular telephone, which I am sure is being monitored, but I am not free to travel or go to my office. Under the state of emergency, the National Assembly has been dismissed. Cizek and the generals are in charge.”
“I want to speak with them immediately,” Gardner said. “If you can get Cizek a message, tell him that the United States is going to set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, and I warn them not to violate it or try to attack any of our planes, or we will consider it an act of war and retaliate immediately. We are readying all of our military resources and will respond with everything we have. Is that clear?”
“It is clear to me, Mr. President,” Akas said, “but I do not know if it will be seen by Cizek as anything more than a clear threat of imminent attack. Are you sure you wish me to deliver this message, sir?”
“I don’t have any intention of attacking Turkey unless they violate Iraqi airspace again,” Gardner said. “All of our other responses will be by other means. But if Turkey intends to fight, we’ll give them a fight.” And he hung up.
The two Humvees rushed to the scene of the CV-22 crash and immediately surrounded the area with security forces while Kris Thompson and a medic rushed to the tilt-rotor aircraft. Fortunately the Osprey’s fire suppression system had stopped a major fire, and Iraqi citizens put out the others. They found the vice president, the flight crew, and a Secret Service agent being treated by a local doctor, with another Secret Service agent covered by a rug. “Thank God you’re alive, sir,” Kris said.
“Thanks to these people,” Ken Phoenix said. “If they hadn’t helped, we probably would’ve all been killed in the fire. What’s happened?”
“The Turks bombed the base—again,” Kris said. “Pretty much destroyed it this time. A few casualties; we got just enough warning. The Turks are carrying out bombing raids all over northern Iraq.”
“So much for the cease-fire—if there ever was one,” Phoenix said.
“We’re setting up an evacuation center here in town,” Kris said. “The colonel plans to join up with friendly forces in Mosul. I’ll get you out of here and then we’ll figure out a way to get you to Baghdad.”
Ten minutes later, they met up with some of the survivors from Nahla, including Patrick McLanahan, Hunter Noble, Jon Masters, and a handful of contractors and soldiers, most of them injured. “Glad you made it, Mr. Vice President,” Patrick said.
“Where’s the colonel?”
“Supervising the evacuation,” Patrick said. “He’s going to send us down to Mosul and await a convoy out. Just about every building that was still standing after last night isn’t standing any longer.”
“Your plane, the XC-57?”
“They got all the hangars, even the one we were using as the morgue.”
Ken Phoenix motioned Patrick to walk with him, and they stepped away from the others. Phoenix reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic carrying case containing the Secure Digital card Patrick had given him. “What about this?” he asked. “Can we still do this?”
Patrick’s eyes widened. He thought quickly, and his head began to nod. “We won’t have the netrusion systems running,” he said, “and I’ll have to check the status of the Lancers in the UAE—”
“Find a phone and do it,” Phoenix said. “I’m going to talk with the president.”
“He said what?” Hasan Cizek shouted. “Is Gardner threatening war with Turkey?”
“What did you expect him to say, Hasan?” Turkish Prime Minister Ays¸e Akas asked. With them was former Turkish chief of the general staff General Abdullah Guzlev. “You killed a lot of Americans today, after Turkey declared a cease-fire! Did you expect him to say ‘I understand’ or ‘It’s no worry’?”
“What I did was retaliation for what he, his robots, and his Iraqi goons did to my troops!” Cizek cried. “They killed thousands!”
“Calm yourself, Hasan,” Akas said. “The president said he’s going to set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, and he doesn’t want you to cross it. If you try, he’ll consider it an act of war.”
“He’s threatening war with Turkey? Is he crazy, or just suffering from delusions of grandeur? He doesn’t have enough forces in this part of the world to take on Turkey!”
“Does he plan to use nuclear weapons against us?” Guzlev asked.
“Hasan, be quiet and think,” Akas said. “We’re talking about the United States of America. They may be less strong because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are still the most powerful military machine in the world. You may be able to get away with attacking two or three bases in Iraq, but you can’t withstand the full force of their military power. They can flatten this building a hundred different ways in the blink of an eye. You know this. Why are you denying it?”
“I’m not denying it, but I’m not backing away from my mission until it’s completed,” Cizek said. “The United States will have to use their vaunted military power to stop me.” He paused to think for a moment, then said to Guzlev: “The quickest way he can set up a no-fly zone in northern Iraq is with carrier-based aircraft flying out of the Persian Gulf.”
“Yes,” Guzlev said. “The Mediterranean and bases in Europe are too far.”
“How long?”
“Fighters, tankers, radar planes—it’ll take a few hours to get them briefed and ready to deploy, maybe longer, then at least an hour or two to fly to northern Iraq,” Guzlev said.
“That means we have only a few hours, maybe five or six, to act. Can we do it?”
“About half the force is just recovering at Diyarbakir and Malatya,” Guzlev said, checking his watch. “The other half is being armed. If there are no delays or accidents…yes, I think we can have them airborne again in five or six hours.”
“What do you intend to do?” Akas asked.
“I’m not going to violate the American no-fly zone; I’ll just be sure to have my tasks completed before they set it up,” Cizek said. To Guzlev: “I want every available plane loaded and launched to attack the final target sets in Irbil, Kirkuk, and Mosul. Every known or suspected PKK and peshmerga base, every known PKK supporter, and every Iraqi and American military base that might threaten Turkish occupation of Iraq gets destroyed as soon as possible.”