“Do we know the status on the Georgian mission?” the president asked. It was seven o’clock in Washington and about time for him to retire. Especially since he was planning on being up early. “And do we have Predators up?”
“We’ve got four on standby, Mr. President,” the National Security Advisor replied. “Two will take off at midnight and two more just before dawn. All four are CIA UCAVs with Hellfire missiles. Just in case they can be useful. We do not have a status on the teams at this time. We caught a glimpse of what was probably one of them on a satellite pass last night. But the next pass we’d lost them. There has been no special movement noted in the Chechen camps on the last two passes.”
“B-2 is on the way,” the Secretary of Defense added. “Flying light. Two special munitions.”
“Two?” the president asked, curiously.
“There is always a possibility that one will be a dud,” the SecDef pointed out. “Probably not, but… ”
“I don’t want to use even one,” the president said.
“Naturally,” the SecDef agreed. “But you will if you must.”
“If I must,” the president replied with a sigh. “Early morning, gentlemen. I want you all to get some sleep tonight.”
“And are you going to take your own advice?” the SecDef asked.
“As well as I can.”
“Whatcha got, Lydia?” Nielson asked.
The girl had asked to meet him in the command room and had arrived with a couple of documents and a flash stick. She stuck that in the room’s computer and brought up a mapping program that flashed the data on the wall.
Nielson was looking at intercepts. People had been transmitting and each of the transmissions was triangulated. There were probably more than were on the screen, the girls were constantly getting intercepts, but he was looking at quite a few already.
“I’m not sure what I have,” Lydia admitted. “It might be butterflies in my stomach from the baby. But we have been picking up a large number of slowly moving intercepts. They break down into two types, medium range radios and satellite phones. We, of course, don’t get all the satellite phones, especially at this range, but we are picking up most of the radio transmissions, we think.”
She keyed a command and most of the intercepts disappeared. Then, apparently in a time loop, they began reappearing. They seemed to march east to west across the map, staying mostly close to roads through the mountains between Russia and Azerbaijan that were effectively owned by the Chechens.
“What we don’t have is internals item one,” Lydia continued. “The transmissions are brief, frequency skipping and encrypted. That, in and of itself, is a data item. Whoever is transmitting has good communication security. There are seven satellite phones. There are about nine radios. They only transmit once to twice per day. They are color coded as you can see. We filtered for any that were fixed. Sat Phone 28, though, appears to communicate with Sat Phone 19, one of the ones pegged as Chechen Command, about once per day.”
Nielson fiddled with the controls for a moment then shrugged.
“Could you do something for me?” he asked. “Zoom in one one of the radios. Then follow it as it moves. Stop at each of the transmissions. I’ll need to see the previous transmission at each point. I’d like to see approximate road distance between each of the transmissions.”
He pulled out a pad of paper and watched as the girl expertly massaged the data out of the computer. Given that he’d been using computers for a few years and she had only been introduced to them about six months ago he should have been better than Lydia but there was no question who had the better tech knowledge. So he just watched. At each point he made a note and nodded for her to go on.
He looked at the pad when she was done then shook his head.
“Do it again,” he said. “Zoom in close on the terrain on each.”
After the third he nodded.
“Stop,” he said, pointing at the screen. “River crossing. The previous one was a road junction. The one before that a pass.”
“And that means?” Lydia asked.
“Phase points,” Nielson replied. “It’s a unit calling in as it passes each phase point in what looks very like a route march on foot. They are moving west, how far we can’t know. But the Pansiki is the obvious destination. The sat phone communicating to headquarters is going to be the commander of the overall unit. Probably he checks in each day to give overall progress reports. But it’s what we don’t know that is important.”
“Which is?” Lydia asked.
“How big the total unit is and where, exactly, they are going. Send a priority request through to Pierson for a satellite pass on anything they have. And send this package on to Colonel Chechnik along with my analysis. See if the Russians have anything. Good job. And, no, it wasn’t the pregnancy hormones; I’ve got the same butterflies.”
Chechnik looked at the communique and swore. That was confirmation, not that he really needed it; Dussam had never been wrong.
He still knew the answer, but he typed up a short report and sent it to the priority attention of the President.
Then he sent a reply to the Keldara: The Russian Intelligence Service had no knowledge of a Chechen movement through that region.
In other words, time to lie.
“You made good time,” Mike muttered, stripping off the arctic parka and wiping his face.
Yosif, Sawn and Mike were huddled under a poncho “hooch”, a temporary shelter made by stringing the poncho up to the rodedendrons, having a command huddle. Sawn was mostly out of the climbing gear while Mike was still working on his.
“Thank you, Kildar,” Yosif replied, grinning slightly. “But I think we had the easier route, yes? Nonetheless, Jitka broke a leg dropping in a small crevasse. I left him and Jonal behind, as ordered. They should be fine; plenty to eat and fuel and well hidden. We found a cave near the head of the ravine. Our excess gear is cached there. Perhaps we can retrieve it sometime.”
“Not until the Georgians or the Russians or somebody combs the Chechens out of these hills,” Mike said.
“We spotted two of their patrols since we left the mountains,” Sawn noted. All three of them had their voices pitched low, but not whispering. A whisper would carry further. However, one reason Mike had picked the spot was that the stream would tend to cover the inevitable sound of everyone getting out of the damned arctic gear and into something marginally more comfortable. It would also conceal the sound of quiet conversation.
He debated whether to strip out of the long johns, it was still cold as hell, and decided to leave them on. They were going to be here til dark and might as well be marginally comfortable.
“Get Sawn a guide to the cave,” Mike continued. “Sawn, cache your gear and then get your guys bedded down. This might be the last rest they get for a while.”
“Will do, Kildar,” Sawn said, shrugging into his combat fleece.
“No sign of Padrek?” Mike asked.
“Not… ” Yosif replied as a light bird call sounded through the trees. “Not until just now… ”
Adams watched as the point team entered the rendezvous point, a rodedendron choked pile of boulders. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone on their way down the mountains. In fact, they hadn’t seen sign of anyone in days. It was like the Keldara were the only people in the universe at the moment. Which was just the way he liked it.
The point came back in view for a moment and waved, indicating the area was unoccupied. Which was good in one way and bad in another. It was nearly noon, the sun well up, and he had hoped the other teams had beaten them in.