The plan was for all three infiltrators to go in simultaneously, take infrared or night-vision digital images with their equipment, uplink it all to reconnaissance satellites back to their headquarters, and get out without anyone knowing they were there. If the Libyans discovered they had been infiltrated, they might pack everything up and turn the base into an unassuming training base.
But Chris Wohl was by far the most experienced and well-trained commando among them-and he ran on his own timetable, which was several steps ahead of everyone else, constantly thinking and planning and reacting, leading the way. Patrick should have known that Chris Wohl would want to make first contact.
The God's-eye overhead images that Patrick was studying were being transmitted via satellite from stealth unmanned combat aircraft called FlightHawks. Two FlightHawks had been launched from a Sky Masters Inc. DC-10 launch aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea while on a normal, routine flight from Bahrain to Madrid. The FlightHawks were autonomous UCAVs, or unmanned combat air vehicles; although a ground controller could fly them, they were designed to fly a preprogrammed flight plan and automatically react to threats or new target instructions. One FlightHawk carried a LADAR, or laser radar, that took images as crystal-clear as a high-resolution digital photograph, then beamed those images down to Wendy on the Catherine as well as the men on the ground in Libya.
The FlightHawk's ground monitors and controllers were Patrick's wife and electronics wizard, Wendy Tork McLanahan, as well as Patrick's longtime partner and friend, engineering expert David Luger, based aboard a converted salvage ship a hundred miles off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea. The team's infiltration and exfiltration aircraft, a CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft, could take off, land, refuel, and be serviced on the cargo ship in hiding. The ship, a Lithuanian-flagged and fully registered and functioning rescue and salvage vessel named S.S. Catherine the Great, had a contingent of fifty highly trained commandos and enough firepower on board to start a small war.
The commandos on this mission also had another hightech weapon in their arsenaclass="underline" their improved "Tin Man" electronic battle armor. Also developed by Sky Masters Inc., the armor used a special electroreactive technology that caused ordinary-looking and — feeling fabric instantly to harden to several times the strength of steel when sharply struck. The suit also contained self-contained breathing apparatus, temperature control, communications, long-range visual and aural detection and tracking sensors, mobility enhancers-compressed-air jump jets in the boots-and self-protection weapons. The self-defense weapon was an electrical discharge device that disabled the enemy with a bolt of high-voltage energy; it operated automatically, tied to the suit's sensors, and was able to fire instantly in any direction out to thirty feet from electrodes on both shoulders if an enemy was detected.
The newest feature of their battle armor: a microhydraulically controlled fibersteel exoskeleton that gave the wearer the strength and power of a multimillion-dollar robot. The exoskeleton ran along the back, shoulders, arms, legs, and neck, and amplified the wearer's muscular strength a hundred times; yet the exoskeleton and its control systems weighed only a few pounds and used very little power.
The armor could save its wearers from most small- and medium-sized infantry attacks and even some light armored attacks, but every attack drained precious power from the suit quickly, and they were several hundred miles from help. The Tin Man technology was designed to save its wearer from attack long enough to escape a defensive, patrol, or security engagement, not to press an assault against a superior fighting force. The longer Wohl stayed in the area after the alarm was sounded, the more danger he was in.
Through his electronic visor, Patrick could see that Wohl had stopped just outside an area that had previously been identified in satellite photos as a garbage dump, known by its map coordinate Bravo Two. The area was unguarded and unsecured, and military and civilian personnel passed by it constantly without being stopped or challenged by anyone-there was no reason to suspect it was anything else but a garbage dump. Patrick had dismissed it in their search. "Nike, what are you doing at Bravo Two?"
"I want to check this place out," Wohl replied. "I'm secure."
"Nike, let's stick with the recon plan, shall we?"
"I'll be back on schedule in no time."
"Stalkers, looks like there's some activity on this side of the base-your guy might have missed a bed check or something," ex-Air Force security officer and commando Hal Briggs reported. The commandos on this mission were spread out around the sprawling, isolated desert base in strategic support locations, and moving from one spot to another without attracting any attention took time. "They're doing a search around the perimeter. Might as well let Nike poke around a bit more-he's safe there for now."
"If the alarm's been sounded, we need to bug out of here," Patrick said. "Your best exit point now is Alpha One, Nike. Get moving." To Briggs, he added, "Taurus, can you cover him?"
"Dammit, Castor, we traveled too far to turn around the moment someone has a bad dream," Wohl radioed. "I'm secure, and I think I found something interesting, so I'm staying put for sixty lousy seconds longer. The FlightHawks will have to RTB in less than fifteen minutes anyway-they might not complete a full reconnoiter, and there won't be time to recover, refuel, and relaunch them before daybreak. I'm staying. If you don't like it, come in here and try to drag me back. Nike out."
McLanahan cursed again-it seemed as if he was doing that a lot lately-:and wished for one of his long-range bombers loaded with smart bombs to be flying overhead right about now. Twice retired from the United States Air Force-the last time involuntarily-Patrick had been a one-star general, the deputy commander of one of the world's most secret weapons development and testing facilities, the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center (HAWC), Elliott Air Force Base, Groom Lake, Nevada. The weapons from that facility had many times been used in real-world conflicts, from Russia to China to America and everywhere in between, and Patrick had been a part of the action originating there for over a decade. Patrick had seen and experienced the best-and worst-of both human suffering and technological amazement.
But they would probably not see action within a decade,
if ever, because few politicians and bureaucrats-including, in Patrick's estimation, the current administration of U.S. President Thomas Nathaniel Thorn-had the guts to use them. Just one of HAWC's Megafortress bombers could destroy several dozen armored vehicles and keep an entire battalion of troops at bay, without being detected on radar and without exposing itself to undue risk; if they were given the order, one Megafortress could destroy the entire base without so much as rustling an innocent civilian's tent flap, if there were any here. They had already proven the value of a small commando team paired up with one stealth bomber in the skies over Russia, right near Moscow itself.
But since then, Thorn had all but shut down HAWC and had sent most of America's fleet of bombers to the Boneyard, along with about a third of the active-duty military and other deep cuts in tactical weapons and units. McLanahan and the other commandos here at Samah were not here under government sanction. It was dirty, difficult, and dangerous work.