Rogue Forces

—the more alerts he could issue, the better.

Through his binoculars, the tower supervisor searched for the aircraft. He could see it on his tower radar display, but not yet visually. It was about six miles out, coming straight in but offset to the west, appearing to line up for the downwind leg for Runway 29—and he was ridiculously slow, as if configured for landing while still several minutes from touchdown. Did this guy have some sort of death wish? He relayed the aircraft position to security and crash responders so they could move to a better position…

…or get out of the way of the wreckage, in case the worst happened.

Finally, at three miles he saw it—or rather, saw part of it. It had a broad, bulbous fuselage, but he could not make out the wings or tail. It had no visible passenger windows and a weird paint color —sort of a medium bluish gray, but the shading seemed to change depending on background clouds and lighting levels. It was unusually hard to maintain a visual on it.

He checked the BRITE tower radar display, a repeater of Mosul Approach Control’s local radar, and sure enough the plane was flying only ninety-eight knots—about fifty knots slower than normal approach speed! Not only was the pilot making himself an easy target for snipers, but he was going to stall the plane and crash. In these winds, a sudden errant gust could flip that guy upside down fast.

“Scion One-Seven, Nahla Tower, are you experiencing difficulty?”

“Tower, One-Seven, negative,” the pilot replied.

“Copy. You are cleared to land. We are in FPCON Bravo. Acknowledge.”

“Scion One-Seven copies FPCON Bravo and cleared to land.”

Stupid, just plain stupid. The supervisor watched in amazement as the strange plane executed a standard left downwind pattern on the west side of the runway. It resembled an American stealth bomber, except its engines were atop the rear fuselage and it appeared much larger. He expected to see RPG or Stinger missiles flying through the sky any second. The aircraft rocked a few times in the gusty winds, but mostly maintained a very stable flight path despite its unbelievably slow flight speed—it was like watching a tiny Cessna in the pattern instead of a two-hundred-thousand-pound airplane.

Somehow, the plane managed to make it all the way around the rectangular traffic pattern without falling or being shot from the sky. The tower supervisor could not see any wing flaps deployed. It maintained that ridiculously slow airspeed all the way around the pattern until short final, when it slowed to precisely ninety knots, then dropped as lightly as a feather on the numbers. It easily turned off at the first taxiway; he had never seen a fixed-wing plane land in such a short distance.

“Tower, Scion One-Seven is clear of the active,” the pilot reported.

The supervisor had to shake himself from his shock. “Roger, One-Seven, stay on this frequency, report security vehicles in sight straight ahead, they will lead you to parking. Use caution for fire trucks and security vehicles on the taxiways. Welcome to Nahla.”

“Roger, Tower, One-Seven has the security vehicles in sight,” the pilot responded. Several armed Humvees with gunners in turrets manning .50 caliber machine guns or forty-millimeter rapid-fire grenade launchers had surrounded the aircraft, and a blue Suburban with flashing blue lights and a large yellow “Follow Me” sign pulled out ahead. “Have a nice day.”

The convoy escorted the plane to a large aircraft shelter north of the control tower. The Humvees deployed around the shelter as the Suburban pulled inside, and an aircraft marshaler brought the plane to a stop. A set of air stairs was towed out to the plane, but before it was put into position a hatch opened under the cockpit behind the nose gear, and personnel began climbing down a ladder.

At the same time, several men exited the Humvee and stood at the plane’s left wingtip, one of them visibly upset. “Man, they weren’t kidding—it’s hot out here!” Jon Masters exclaimed. He looked around at the aircraft shelter. “Hey, this hangar has air conditioning—let’s crank it up!”

“Let’s check in with the base commander first, Jon,” the second man out, Patrick McLanahan, suggested. He nodded to the Humvee below them. “I think that’s Colonel Jaffar and our contact right there.”

“Jaffar looks pissed. What did we do now?”

“Let’s go find out,” Patrick said. He stepped over to the Iraqi colonel, bowed slightly, and extended a hand. “Colonel Jaffar? I’m Patrick McLanahan.”

Jaffar was just a bit taller than Patrick, but he raised his chin, puffed out his chest, and flexed himself on his toes to make himself look taller and more important. When he was satisfied the newcomers took notice, he slowly raised his right hand to his right eyebrow in a salute. “General McLanahan. Welcome to Nahla Air Base,” he said in very good but heavily accented English. Patrick returned the salute, then reextended his hand. Jaffar slowly took it, smiled faintly, then tried to crush Patrick’s hand in his. When he realized it wouldn’t work, the smile disappeared.

“Colonel, may I present Dr. Jonathan Colin Masters. Dr. Masters, Colonel Yusuf Jaffar, Iraqi Air Forces, commander of Allied Air Base Nahla.” Jaffar nodded but did not shake hands with Jon. Patrick gave a slight exasperated shake of his head, then read the name tag of the young man standing beside and behind Jaffar. “Mr Thompson? I’m Patrick—”

“General Patrick McLanahan. I know who you are, sir—we all know who you are.” The tall, impossibly young-looking officer behind Jaffar stepped forward, grinning from ear to ear. “Nice to meet you, sir. Kris Thompson, president of Thompson International, security consultants.” He shook Patrick’s hand with both of his, pumping it excitedly and shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it…General Patrick McLanahan. I’m actually shaking hands with the Patrick McLanahan.”

“Thanks, Kris. This is Dr. Jon Masters. He’s—”

“Hiya, Doc,” Thompson said, not taking his eyes off or releasing the hand of Patrick McLanahan. “Welcome, sir. It’s a real honor and privilege to meet you and welcome you to Iraq. I will—”

“You will please stop your chattering, Thompson, and let us get to business,” Jaffar said impatiently. “Your reputation assuredly precedes you, General, but I must remind you that you are a civilian contractor and bound to obey my rules and regulations and those of the Republic of Iraq. I have been asked by your government to extend you all possible courtesies and assistance, and as a fellow officer, I am honor-bound to do so, but you must understand that Iraqi law—which is to say, in this place, my law—must be followed at all times. Is that clear, sir?”

“Yes, Colonel, it’s clear,” Patrick said.

“Then why did you disobey my regulations concerning arrivals and approaches to Nahla?”

“We thought it was necessary to assess the threat condition ourselves, Colonel,” Patrick replied. “Doing a max-performance arrival wouldn’t have told us anything. We decided to assume the risk and do a visual approach and pattern.”

“My staff and I assess the threat condition on this base every hour of every day, General,” Jaffar said angrily. “I issue orders that govern all personnel and operations at this base to ensure the safety and security of everyone. They are not to be disregarded for any reason. You cannot assume the risk at any time for any reason, sir: the responsibility is mine, at all times, and that is inviolate. Disregard my law again, and you shall be asked to perform your tasks at another base. Is that clear, sir?”

“Yes, Colonel, it’s clear.”

“Very well.” Jaffar put his hands behind his back, puffing out his chest again. “I think you are very fortunate you were not hit by enemy fire. My security forces and I swept the entire area in a ten kilometer radius outside the base for threats. I assure you, you were in little danger. But that does not mean you can—”

“Excuse me, but we did come under fire, Colonel,” Jon Masters cut in.

Jaffar’s eyes blazed at the interruption, then his mouth opened and closed in confusion, then turned rigid in indignation. “What did you say, young man?” he growled.

“We were hit by ground fire a total of one hundred and seventy-nine times while within ten miles of the base, Colonel,” Jon said. “And forty-one of the shots came from inside the base.”

“That is impossible! That is preposterous! How could you know this?”

“That’s our job here, Colonel: assess the threat condition at this and other allied air bases in northern Iraq,” Patrick said. “Our aircraft is instrumented and allows us to detect, track, identify, and pinpoint the origin of attacks. We can locate, identify, and track weapon fire down to nine-millimeter caliber.” He held out his hand, and Jon put a folder in it. “Here’s a map of the origin of all the shots we detected. As you can see, Colonel, one of the heaviest volleys of gunfire—a six-round burst of 12.7-millimeter cannon fire—came from this base.