Overall, Colonel George Taylor considered himself a very lucky man.
"Take the wheel, Flapper," Taylor told his copilot, Chief Warrant Officer Five Elvis "Flapper" Krebs. Since Zaire, Taylor had always chosen his personal crew from the oldest, toughest, and sourest men available. "I'm going back to the operations center."
"Got it," Krebs said in an offhanded southern voice that implied that Taylor's presence was superfluous. Like Taylor, Krebs had served long enough to remember the old days when the U.S. Army still held Cobra gunships in its inventory. The two men had grown up on the Apache, but they could remember the look of the Cobra's deadly panatela fuselage in flight. They had seen enormous changes in the technology of war, and the coming hours would either inaugurate yet another new stage, or mortally embarrass their nation.
"Send you up a cup of coffee, Chief?" Taylor offered as he finished unstrapping himself from his padded seat in the center of a display of electronic riches.
"Naw," Krebs said. "I'm about as wired as I need to be." The studied casualness of the man's tone always brought Taylor to the edge of laughter. Krebs was overdue for retirement—he had been extended to assist in the formation of the Army's first regiment of M-l00s, having served for years in the developmental process and as a test pilot. To Taylor, he was one of the last of a vanishing breed, the crusty, mean-mouthed, generous-spirited old warrants who made the Army fly. Their shared experiences laid down a bridge between Taylor and Krebs that few other men in the regiment would dare attempt to cross. Bad times that added up to a life well-spent.
As a young warrant, Krebs had seen his first combat in Panama, in December of eighty-nine. There was a story that he had overflown the barracks of a holdout Panamanian Defense Force unit, dropping homemade leaflets that read: "Merry Fucking Christmas." Not long afterward, the Army had sent him to Saudi Arabia during the great deployment of 1990. Old Flapper had been through it all.
Taylor squeezed his shoulders through the short passageway that led back into the command and control center. Where the standard M-l00s had a compartment for a light squad of dragoons equipped for dismounted fighting, the command-variant ships had been outfitted with a chamber crammed with the latest miniaturized communications and information-processing systems. The compartment was environmentally controlled and stabilized. Entering it, you were treated to a spectacle of colored lights from nine monitor screens of various sizes displaying everything from real-time images of the battlefield relayed from space reconnaissance systems to graphic depictions, in glowing colors, of the war in the electromagnetic spectrum. It always reminded Taylor of a magic cave where the invisible world became palpable. You could see the ferocious demons that hid in the air, invisible to the naked eye, or you could call up distant lands of wonder. Even the first-level secrets of life and death became available here, in the displays of enemy systems targeted, of friendly systems lost, of available ammunition and deadly energy sources. The commander, with his skeletal staff, could use radar imagery to erase darkness, clouds, or fog, allowing him a god's-eye view that penetrated the witch's sabbath of the battlefield. The commander could monitor the sectors in which his subordinates fought with greater ease than a civilian could watch television. Changes in angle, in levels of magnification, in enhanced color contrasts, and the visual evocation of waves of energy, it was all there lurking under a button or a switch. The voice of God had its source here too. Alternative-use laser systems allowed instantaneous encrypted communications with similarly equipped stations anywhere in the world, and huge volumes of data could be entered into or transmitted from the M-l00's standard on-board computers in the middle of combat.
It was a marvelous machine. The on-board and external integrated target-acquisition systems were so capable and versatile that, during training flights, playful crews used them to track small game on the prairie from a distance of dozens of kilometers. The miniaturized "brains" were so powerful and so crammed with both military and general knowledge that they could be ordered to fuse data from all available reconnaissance systems in order to search for any parameter of target—such as the pinpoint location of each blue 2015 Ford on the highways of North America in which two adult occupants were riding and the fuel tanks were less than half full. The microsecond sort capabilities were so powerful that none of the experts in the regiment had been able to enter a problem which could stump the system. You could charge the target-acquisition system to locate distant plantations of yellow roses—or every enemy combat vehicle with a bent right front fender. The system was so swift that human beings simply could not handle the target volume without extensive automated support, and the M-100 was designed to fight on full automatic, relying on its human masters for key decisions, for overall guidance, for setting or revising priorities, and for defining operational parameters. Every on-board system could be employed under manual control, if necessary, but such a reduction in the system's overall capabilities would only be accepted, according to the draft doctrine, in the most exceptional circumstances. Technically, this most potent air-land warfare machine ever built had the capability to carry on the fight indefinitely even after its human crew had perished. Taylor once overheard a young pilot joke that the M-100 made every pilot a general. What the pilot had meant was that the M-100 let every man who sat at its controls play God without getting his hands dirty.
Taylor was willing to admit that he himself could not fully imagine all the implications this untried system might have for the battlefield. But he was certain of one thing: despite the technological wonders under the modern warrior's hand, that hand would manage to grow very dirty indeed.
Merry Meredith had just finished praying when Taylor squeezed into the operations center. Neither the assistant S-3 captain nor the two NCOs who shared the crowded chamber with Meredith had realized that the intelligence officer was praying, since Meredith did not join his hands together or kneel or close his eyes. Meredith's prayers were simply moments of silence aimed in the general direction of God, along with a few unspoken pleas. Just let me get through this. Let me see Maureen again. Let me hold her. Let me get through this. Please. And that was it.
Meredith was not a religious man. But, following repeated experiences in Los Angeles and Mexico, he had come to accept this particular form of cowardice in himself. In times of peace, he would never have dreamed of wasting a Sunday morning in church. But, on the edge of battle, God invariably loomed large.
"What's up, Merry?" Taylor asked, holding on to an overhead brace with one hand. His shoulder holster stood away from his uniform, and the reddish light from the control banks and monitors made the colonel's scarred face appear to be on fire.
"We're looking good, sir," Meredith said. "The bad guys are still just sitting there, fat, dumb, and happy." He tapped at a button. "Look at this. It's the target array at Objective Ruby. If the M-l00s just work at fifty percent of capacity ..."
"Still no indication that the enemy have picked us up?" Taylor asked.
Meredith understood the wonder in Taylor's voice. It was hard to believe that the regiment had made it this far. From Kansas to the edge of hell. Their luck only needed to hold a little longer now.
"Not a sign, sir. No increase in comms. No enhanced air defense readiness. No interceptors up. No ground force dispersal. It's almost too good to be true."
Taylor wiped his hand across his jaw, his lips. "I'm concerned about Manny. The Japs must've picked us up coming out of the industrial park. He needs to get his ass out of there."
Meredith smiled. "Manny's a big boy. He'll be out of there on schedule. Anyway, there isn't even the slightest indication that the enemy has detected anything. We're in better shape than I could've hoped, sir."
As he spoke to reassure his mentor, Meredith recalled the unsettling exchange he had undergone just a few hours before. There had been a lull in the communications traffic on one of the top-secret multiuse feeds, and a friend of his back in Washington had taken advantage of it to call him to the receiver.
"What are you talking about?" Meredith asked, unsure whether his friend was simply telling him to take care of himself personally or trying to communicate something larger.
"Just keep your eyes open. There's something funny going on. The puzzle's still missing some pieces."
"What kind of pieces? Intel?"
"I don't know exactly. You know how it is. You just get wind of things. The big boys over here have a secret. We've got this new priority intelligence requirement. It came out of nowhere. And suddenly it's number one on the charts. Something about a Scrambler."
Meredith thought for a moment. "Doesn't mean shit to me. What's a Scrambler?"
"Maybe some kind of crypto stuff. I don't know. They don't know. That's the whole point. The boys two levels above me are jumping through their asses trying to figure it out."
"Nothing else?" Merry asked. "No context?" He did not much care for the appearance of sudden mysteries when the bullets were about to start flying.
"Listen, Merry. I got to go. I'm not supposed to be using this feed. You take care. Out."
And the voice was gone.
Now Meredith looked across the magic firelight of the electronics to where Taylor stood. He wondered if he should bother the old man with something so nebulous. Impulsively, he decided against sharing the scrap of information. It was insufficient to really mean anything to the old man. And Taylor certainly did not need any unnecessary worries at this point. Meredith mentally cataloged the scrambler business with his file of other unresolved intelligence concerns.
But he felt uneasy. Taylor was staring at him, and the old man's eyes always gave Meredith the uncanny feeling that Taylor could see right into him. He had felt that way ever since the night in Los Angeles when he had almost given up. Now Taylor's gaze made him feel uncomfortable, somehow inadequate.
Meredith tapped a button on his console, moving onto safer ground. A nearby monitor filled with multicolored lines: a hallucinatory spiderweb.
"'Have a look at this, sir," he said to Taylor. "That's their command communications infrastructure in our area of operations. Just wait until the aero-jammers from the Tenth Cav hit them. They won't even be able to call out for a pizza."
Taylor smiled, showing a flash of teeth in his devil's face. To a stranger, the scarred mask would have appeared menacing, but Meredith could tell that Taylor was in good spirits. Confident. Ready. Meredith had never known any rational man to be as calm on the verge of contact as Taylor. The cold man turned briefly to the pair of NCOs who staffed the support consoles, exchanging mandatory pleasantries and bullshitting about the bad coffee, bolstering them so they would not think too much of death. Then he turned to Captain Parker, the assistant S-3, who was standing in for Heifetz while the S-3 rode herd on the First Squadron. Captain Parker was fairly new to the regiment, and very new to Taylor.
"How do we look on the ops side?" Taylor asked.
The captain stood up formally. "On time and on-line, sir."
"Sit down, sit down," Taylor said, slightly embarrassed by the display. "First Squadron ready to cross its line of departure?"
No sooner had Taylor spoken than the regimental command net came to life:
"This is Whisky five-five. Sweetheart. I say again: Sweetheart. Over."
That was it. First Squadron was in Indian country.
The United States was at war.
Taylor slipped on a headset. "This is Sierra five-five. Lima Charlie your transmission, Whisky. Over."
"This is Whisky. Red-one, in route to Emerald. 'Garry Owen.' Over."
The ordeal had begun. Meredith knew that they all shared the same worries: would the deception gear work? Would they make it all the way to the first series of objectives without being detected? Without the need to fight an unwanted engagement?
Surprise was everything.
"This is Sierra," Taylor said. "Turning on the noise. Good luck. Out." He turned to Meredith. "Tell the Tenth Cav to turn on the jamming."
Meredith punched his way down a row of buttons, then began to speak into his headset in a measured voice. A part of him was still listening to Taylor, however, watching the old man from the comers of his eyes. Whenever Taylor was physically present, Meredith felt invincible. The old man had the magic, the nameless something that you could never learn from leadership manuals alone.
The command net came to life again.
"This is Bravo five-five. Sweetheart now. Over."
The old man smiled his we-got-these-suckers smile. "This is Sierra five-five—"
"Hotel nine Lima seven-four," Meredith said into his headset, calling the commander of the Tenth Cavalry's electronic skirmish line. "This is Charlie six Sierra two-zero—"
"Roger last transmission," Taylor told his mike.
"—Waterfall. I say again, Waterfall," Meredith enunciated clearly, calmly, wanting to shout. "Acknowledge, over."
A third net came to life, answered by one of the NCOs. "—White one to Diamond—"
"—Roger, Sierra. Waterfall now."
"This is Tango five-five. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.
Over."
"Roger, Tango. Break. Bravo, report—"
Meredith felt both ferociously excited and wonderfully relaxed. Listening to the babble of the multiple sets, watching the monitors flash and the counters running numerics, he was at home. In the brilliant chaos of a tactical headquarters at war.
"Colonel Taylor, sir?" Meredith said in the first communications lull. "Got a second to look at this?
Taylor bent down toward the visual display. Countless red and yellow points of light had been superimposed on a map of Soviet Central Asia.
"Tenth Cav's already kicking ass," Meredith said. "The red dots indicate communications centers the heavy jammers have already leeched and physically destroyed. If those stations want to talk, they're going to have to wait until morning and send smoke signals." Meredith made a gesture toward the screen. "The yellow dots are the well-shielded comms nodes or those at our range margins. We can't actually destroy those, but they won't be able to communicate as long as Tenth Cav stays in the air."
"Good," Taylor said coldly. "Good. Let those bastards feel what it's like to be on the receiving end."
In a manner for which he could not account, Meredith suddenly saw the display through Taylor's eyes. And he knew that the old man was looking beyond the Iranian or Arab or rebel soldiers who suddenly found themselves powerless to share their knowledge with one another, looking behind them to the Japanese. Out there. Somewhere.
Taylor glanced at a screen mounted on the upper rack. It displayed the progress of the regiment's individual squadrons. Coursing down their axes of advance toward their initial objectives. Holding their fire. Moving with good discipline. A smaller symbol trailing Second Squadron showed the position of the command M-100 in which they were working and its two escort ships, which also functioned as the commander's hip pocket reserve.
The command net spoke again, demanding Taylor's attention. "This is Whisky five-five. Over."
"Sierra five-five. Go."
"This is Whisky. You wouldn't believe the target arrays I'm passing up. The buggers must all be asleep. You sure you don't want us to take them out?"
"Negative," Taylor said. "Negative. Stick to the plan, Whisky. Save your bullets for the big one. Over."
"It breaks my heart."
"Weapons tight until Ruby," Taylor said. "Out." Meredith understood this too: the difficulty of passing by your enemy without doing him harm. Especially now. With everyone aching to open up. To make the first kill.
To see if the megabuck wonders in which they were flying actually worked.
Noburu awoke unexpectedly. His bedding had clotted with sweat. He sensed that turbulent, unusual dreams had done this to him, but as his eyes opened, the delicate narratives of sleep fled from
his consciousness, and he could not recall a single detail of the night visions that had broken his accustomed pattern of rest. Yet, even as he could not remember the substance of his dreams, he recognized with absolute clarity what was really worrying him. Although he sensed that his dreams had been of things far away, of lost things, he grasped that the swelling tumor of reality underlying all of this was the matter of the unusual activity in the industrial park outside of Omsk. He still had no idea what was going on there, but all of his soldier's instincts were excited. As if, in sleep, the shadow warrior within him had come to point the way. Noburu believed in the richness of the spirit as surely as he believed in superfast computers. And he knew that his spirit warrior would not let him return to sleep until this matter of the mystery site had been addressed.
Noburu waved his hand at the bedside light and a cool glow surrounded him. He reached for the internal staff phone and keyed it with his fingerprints.
"Sir, " a sharp, almost barking voice responded from the below-ground operations center.
"Who is the ranking officer present?"
"Sir. Colonel Takahara. Sir."
"I will speak with him."
A moment later, Takahara's voice came over the speaker with a syllable of report only a little less violent than the voice of the junior watch officer.
Noburu felt himself shying from the purpose of the call, as though it were somehow too personal a matter to discuss.
"Quiet night?" he began.
"Sir," Takahara responded. "According to the last reports we received, the Iranian and rebel breakthrough at Kokchetav is meeting only negligible resistance. No change to the situation in the Kuban. We're having more difficulty than usual reaching our forward stations in northern Kazakhstan—but I've already sent a runner to wake the chief of communications. I expect to have the problem corrected shortly."
"How long have the communications been down?" Noburu asked, annoyed.
"Half an hour, sir."
Half an hour. Not unprecedented. But Noburu was unusually on edge. Hungover with dreams.
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