“That could be a bad thing: it shouldn’t be so easy to link the regiment’s network,” Patrick observed.
“Ours isn’t nearly as easy to hack as the regiment’s,” Jon said confidently. “It’ll take an army of Sandra Bullocks to crack our encryption.” He pointed to one blank window on his laptop monitor. “Division’s Global Hawk is the only player not hooked up yet.”
“I may have been responsible for that,” Patrick admitted. “I told Dave that we’d be ready to start surveillance tonight, and he probably passed that along to President Martindale, who probably passed it along to Corps headquarters. Division might have retasked the Global Hawk.”
“That’s not your fault—that’s Wilhelm’s,” Jon said. “If he let us fly, we’d be on it like stink on shit. Well, they have lots of eyes up there without it.”
Patrick nodded, but he still looked uneasy. “I’m concerned about the northern portion of those tunnels,” he said. “If any AQI escapes we should get an eye on them so we can steer the Turks over to nab them, or use a Reaper to pick ’em off.” He brought a window from Jon’s laptop over to his display, studied it for a moment, entered some commands into his keyboard, and spoke. “Miss Harrison?”
“Harrison. Who is this?”
“General McLanahan.”
He could see the unmanned aerial vehicle contractor look around herself in confusion. “Where are you, General?”
“Up in the observation deck.”
She looked up and saw him through the large slanted window-panes. “Oh, hello, sir. I didn’t know you were on this net.”
“Officially I’m not, but Kris said it was okay. I have a request.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You have Kelly Two-Two on station in the southern part of the op, and Kelly Two-Six ready to go as a backup. Could you move Two-Two up north to cover the northern tunnel entrance and move Two-Six to cover the south?”
“Why, sir?”
“The Global Hawk isn’t on station, so we don’t have any coverage in the north.”
“I’d have to fly the Reaper to within maximum missile range of the Turkish border, and that requires permission from Corps and probably from the State Department. We could download weapons from Two-Six and send it up.”
“This thing will most likely be over by then, Lieutenant.”
“True, sir.”
“If we can get some eyes up there, I’d feel a little more relieved,” Patrick said. “How about we send Two- Two right up to the distance limit until I coordinate with Corps?”
“I’ll have to deconflict Two-Six so it can launch,” Harrison said. “Stand by.” Patrick flipped over to the approach radar picture of Nahla Air Base and found it relatively free of traffic, undoubtedly because the airspace had been closed down as a result of the operation to the north. A moment later: “Airspace says we can launch when ready, sir. Let me get permission from the battle major.”
“It was my idea, Lieutenant, so I’d be happy to give him a call and explain what I had in mind.”
“You’re not supposed to be on this net, sir,” Harrison said, glancing up at Patrick and giggling. “Besides, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take credit for your idea.”
“I’ll take the blame if there’s any snafu, Lieutenant.”
“No problem, sir. Stand by.” She clicked off the connection, but Patrick was able to eavesdrop on her conversation with Major Bruno and the conversation between Bruno and Lieutenant Colonel Weatherly about the launch. They all agreed it was a good idea to move the Reaper as long as it didn’t violate any international agreements, and soon Kelly Two-Six was airborne and Two-Two was moving north to take up a patrol orbit near the Turkish border.
“Whoever’s idea it was to move the Reaper up north…hoo-ah,” Wilhelm said over the Tank network.
“Harrison’s idea, sir,” Weatherly said.
“I wasted a perfectly good ‘hoo-ah’ on a contractor?” Wilhelm said, feigning disgust at himself. “Oh, well, I know we gotta toss the mercs a bone every once in a while. Good heads-up, Harrison.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“Is that his way of giving out praise?” Jon asked. “What a sweet guy.”
The picture of the operation looked considerably better once the Reaper had taken up a patrol orbit near the Turkish border, although it was still too far south to completely fill in the picture. “It was a good idea, sir,” Harrison said to Patrick, “but the ROE restrictions still can’t give us a look at where the tunnel supposedly exits. I’ll check on the Global Hawk.”
“We’d have that entire area covered seven ways to Sunday with the Loser,” Jon said. “Wait’ll these guys see us in action.”
“I really wish you’d change that name, Jon.”
“I will—but first I want to rub the Air Force’s face in it for a while,” Jon said happily. “I can’t wait.”
“There they go, sir,” the gunner aboard Lieutenant Oakland’s Stryker said, studying the image of the tunnel entrance through his imaging infrared sights. Several bright flashes of light erupted on the screen, and seconds later the sounds of the explosion rippled over them. “Looks like the lead platoons are on the move.”
Oakland checked his watch. “Right on time, too. I’m impressed. We’d be hard-pressed to get an op this size going dead on time.” He flipped a switch on his monitor, checking the areas around each of his Strykers deployed around the area, then keyed his mike. “Weapons tight and stay sharp, guys,” he radioed to his platoon. “The IA is on the move.” Each section leader clicked an affirmative in response.
When all of them had checked in, Oakland sent an instant message to the Tank in Nahla, reporting friendly force movement. He briefly switched over to Maqbara Company’s command radio network and was met with an insane and completely incomprehensible cacophony of excited, shouted Arabic. He quickly switched it off. “Good radio discipline, guys,” he said under his breath.
“They’re going in, sir,” the Stryker gunner said. He and Oakland watched as a squad of eight Iraqi soldiers approached the building. Two soldiers used grenade launchers to blow the door open, showering themselves with wood and stone fragments because they had moved in far too close.
“Oh, c’mon, guys, where’s your entry team?” Oakland said aloud. “You should know that the guys who blew the door aren’t going to be able to do a smooth entry. One squad blows the door while another squad who’s shielded from the light and concussion do the entry. My seven-year-old knows this.” But soon he could see a sergeant reorganizing his entry team and getting the breaching team out of the way, so after a brief stutter step the operation appeared to be progressing.
Back at the Tank, Patrick and Jon were watching the action via feeds from the Strykers and unmanned aircraft…except Patrick was not looking at the raid on the suspected tunnel entrance, but farther north along the Iraq-Turkey border. The view from the MQ-9 Reaper’s imaging infrared scanner showed rolling hills punctuated by tall rocky crags and deep forested valleys.
“Sorry, sir, but you’re not going to get too much contrast or detail at this looking angle,” Margaret Harrison, the regiment’s Reaper liaison officer, said to him over the intercom. “Reapers are meant to look down at a fairly steep angle, not across to the horizon.”
“Copy,” Patrick responded. “Just a few more seconds.” He touched another key on his keyboard and spoke: “Mr. Bexar?”
“Bexar here,” the privately contracted intelligence officer replied.
“This is McLanahan.”
“How are you, General? Are you authorized to be on the net now?”
“Mr. Thompson said it was okay. I have a question.”
“I don’t personally know your security clearance, General,” Bexar said. “I assume you have a ‘top secret’ or else you couldn’t have sat in on the briefing, but until I verify, I’ll have to refrain from answering any questions that might compromise operational security.”
“Understood. You briefed that the Turks have five thousand troops in the area immediately adjacent to the
