by Dale Brown
That seemed to change Charlie’s attitude. “Frankly, sir, I’d rather the CIDs stayed in storage than have anyone else messing with them,” she said. “I’ll listen to General Briggs…I can’t promise you anything else.”
“I’ll tell you right now up front, it’s not the kind of posting you can just walk away from in a year or two,” Patrick warned her. “It’s one of those lifelong commitments that go way beyond just getting a security clearance and special access. It’s intense. It’ll affect you and everyone you come in contact with for the rest of your life.”
Charlie smiled a tomboyish, mischievous grin at that last statement. “If that was meant to talk me out of it, sir, it failed,” she said. “I’ll make up my mind after I talk with General Briggs, but I think I’ll do just fine here.”
“Good,” Patrick said. “I’ll need your CIDs up and running as soon as possible.”
“Meaning…?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I haven’t even agreed to come here yet!”
“You’ll find that everything we do here at Dreamland needs to be done by tomorrow…or, better, later the same day, Captain,” Dave Luger said seriously. “But we have a lot of tools and gadgets of our own that help facilitate that.”
That seemed to pique Turlock’s interest even more. “Yes, sir,” was all she could say.
“We’re pretty informal around here, Charlie,” Patrick said. “The uniform of the day is always utility uniform; your work hours are your own; we keep mandatory formations, inspections, and functions to a bare minimum except for security purposes. Most of all, we encourage thinking outside the box, and we do everything we can to get you what you need or want. No request or idea is too outlandish—tell us what you want to do and we’ll move mountains to get it for you. Literally.”
Charlie looked at each of the men around her—from the scowling, impatient, pent-up energy of the Marine Corps master sergeant to the smiling, animated one-star general that brought him here, to the infamous three-star general leading this group—and liked what she saw. The Army was always so serious and regimented, and these guys were a definite departure from that. “Let me see the CID units, sir,” she said, “and I’ll tell you how soon I can get them ready for action.”
“Excellent,” Patrick said. He shook Charlie’s hand again. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll need volunteers to pilot the CIDs.”
“Count me out,” Chris Wohl growled.
“You’re too tall anyway, Master Sergeant,” Charlie said. Wohl nodded imperceptibly—that seemed to suit him just fine.
“I’ll be the first volunteer,” Hal said. “I’ve wanted to check one out ever since I saw ’em on TV. I think we’ll have plenty of volunteers for the other units. BERP is good, but I think CIDs are way cooler.”
“On your way, Captain,” Patrick said. “Hal, report back in one hour and let me know what we’re looking at. Let Dave know if you’re having any trouble detaching Charlie from the Guard.”
“You got it.”
Patrick could see Charlie shaking her head in amazement and excitement at the whirlwind of activity and the close personal camaraderie that existed in this place—he knew that she knew she was signing onto something truly extraordinary. “That’s the expression I like seeing in the newcomer’s faces around here,” he said to Dave Luger as she was led away.
“Sorry I didn’t brief you on her, Muck,” Dave said. “I should have known Hal wouldn’t have told you—he’d want to see your expression.” He noticed Patrick looking in the direction she and Hal had gone. “What do you think, Muck?”
“‘Think’? About what? About Turlock? She hasn’t done anything yet. Her record is impressive, and if that robot thing is half of what it’s cracked up to be…”
“No, I mean…”
“Mean what, Dave?” Patrick admonished his friend, perhaps a little more harshly than he wanted. He scowled first at Dave, then at himself when he realized he was still standing and still turned in the direction she had left. “We’ll need to get those robot things ready to go ASAP,” he said gruffly as he took his seat again. “From what Hal said, those robots take up a lot of room, even folded up, and they’re way too big to be worn while inside the Black Stallion’s passenger module. We’ll need spacesuits for whoever rides in the passenger modules that will be piloting the CIDs. We’ll need those right away.”
“No problem,” Dave said. “But we may not get clearance to go in to look for missiles for a few days.”
“I want to go in tomorrow, as soon as we’ve installed the thermal blanketing in the modules.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I thought you just told the captain that we always want things done tomorrow!” Patrick said with a smile. “Well, you were absolutely right.”
“Where do you want to take the Black Stallions, Muck?”
“I want a ground force to go into Turkmenistan, rescue this princess, turn her over to her followers, then travel into Iran with her and stand by to move against the Iranian missile sites.”
“Why waste time with this princess, Muck?” Dave asked, his head shaking in confusion. “If our mission is to find and neutralize the Iranian missiles, let’s send the entire ground force out there.”
“I can’t explain it any further, Dave, but I think that princess…”
“If she’s who Turabi says she is!”
“…is an important key to whatever happens in Iran—even as much as Buzhazi. If we can track her, I want to try to rescue her. If we lose contact for whatever reason, we’ll send the entire force after the Iranian missiles.”
“I think it’s pretty damned risky to send a squad after this unknown person, Muck,” Dave said seriously. “I’d be very surprised if the President authorizes it.”
“Until we find those Iranian missiles and plan a way to neutralize them,” Patrick said, “I think the only way we’ll get any Battle Force ground units into the region is through Turkmenistan. Once Jalaluddin gives us a location, we swoop in, snatch the girl, and get out.”
“To tell you the truth, Muck, I don’t trust your friend Turabi,” Dave said. “He may be a swashbuckling hero to the Turkmenis, but to me he’s just an opportunistic Taliban fighter who does whatever he needs to do to survive. I find it a little suspicious when a guy who has ambushed and disrupted the Russians as much as he has in the past few years is still surviving in that country, literally surrounded shoulder-to-shoulder by Russians and Iranians.”
“He’s our best contact inside the country, Dave,” Patrick said. “We have pretty good eyes over Turkmenistan now, so if he comes through we can be on the lookout for trouble when we move in. Besides, he owes us for saving his neck—twice.”
The concern on Dave Luger’s face bothered him, but Patrick held firm. “I need Hal to draw up a plan to infiltrate into Turkmenistan with a Black Stallion and a combined CID and Tin Man squad,” he said, “assault wherever Jalaluddin manages to transfer this Qagev princess to, spring her, take her to wherever she was going to contact her underground network, set her on the path, and follow her in to Iran.”
“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions here, Muck,” Dave said, trying one more time to dissuade his old friend from this plan. “My recommendation would be to go to the National Security Council and the President with a plan to assault the most likely locations of Iran’s medium- and long-range missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction. The list will be refined as we move in. Once we nail down the locations, we attack with everything we’ve got—orbital weapons, ground forces, and air-launched weapons from the Megafortresses. We punch Iran’s missile threat off the board in one night. The Revolutionary Guards now need to deal with threats on multiple fronts—Buzhazi’s insurgency, us, and possible action from the regular army. We’ll have them back on their heels.”
Patrick thought for a moment. “Dave, yours is a good plan,” Patrick said, “but my gut still tells me that this princess is impo
rtant. I don’t know how I know, but I think she’s the key to a non-Islamist future for Iran. But I’ll pitch your plan as well. Either way, we’ll get our forces moving in the right direction. I think they’ll buy my plan only because it doesn’t immediately put the Battle Force on the ground in Iran.”
“But you have to trust Turabi.”
Patrick hesitated again, but shook his head. “I know, but I think the reward is worth the risk,” he said. “Help Hal and Chris draw up both plans and have them ready for me as soon as possible.”
“Roger that,” Dave said. “What about Buzhazi? Are we done trying to help him?”
“We’ll re-evaluate once he surfaces or makes contact with us,” Patrick said, “but Buzhazi has to sink or swim on his own. He should be enlisting the help of the regular army if they have any hope for stopping the Pasdaran—otherwise a hundred squads of Tin Men or CIDs won’t do much good against a hundred thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”
Dave sat down at his console in the command center and began to outline his thoughts for the mission into Turkmenistan. They were very familiar with the military situation in Turkmenistan. Most of the country’s small police and self-defense forces were used for just one thing: maintaining a strong government presence in the capital city of Ashkhabad to control the spread and growth of radical Islamist groups. The Russian military and private security firms handled security for their own oil executives, refineries, storage facilities, and pipelines—and they did so with such utter brutality that attacks were rare. Border security was almost nonexistent—in fact, the country generally encouraged foreign workers to come to work in the arid, barren country, documented or not.
About an hour later, Hal Briggs rejoined them in the battle staff area. “I think Turlock’s in,” he told Patrick and Dave. “We impressed the hell out of her with having all her CID gear in a lab ready for her. She even activated one of the robots and had me get inside.”
“What’s it like?” Patrick asked.
“Awesome!” Hal exclaimed. “The thing unfolds itself in less than thirty seconds and it stands about nine feet tall, like an Erector Set–looking robot with skin. It sort of crouches down, and you climb up the legs and slide inside, and you’re wrapped in this snug scratchy Neoprene-like stuff. The back closes up and you feel like you’re going to suffocate for a few seconds…and then you feel like you’re standing naked in the middle of the room. You have absolutely no sensation that you’re inside a machine. The hydraulics actuate a hundred times faster than the Tin Man exoskeleton, and they’re far stronger.”
“Downsides?”
“Other than the size, not much,” Hal said. “Turlock says the CIDs are equivalent in speed and firepower to a Humvee missile or machine gun squad, and I’d agree. It’s not a sneak-and-peek system like the Tin Men—it’s definitely a break-the-door-down-and-kick-ass system. It’s not that heavy, but it’s bulky. The things suck a lot of power, and I’d say bringing spare power cells for any missions longer than an hour or so is a must. Good thing is, those things can carry a lot of stuff on a mission—a spare backpack and a spare power cell are easy, along with the mission backpack it wears. It definitely has a very high coolness factor.”
“Are they ready to go?”
“Two of them appear to be. One looks like it’s damaged; not sure about the fourth. Turlock says we definitely have two CIDs, two twenty-millimeter machine gun backpacks, two forty-millimeter missile backpacks, one ‘Goose’ mini-UAV launcher backpack—another very cool gadget that launches these bowling-pin–sized UAVs out that sends pictures back to the CIDs—and five spare power cells. I think we’re good to go.”
“Good, because we’re planning a mission to Turkmenistan for tomorrow night,” Dave said.
“Turkmenistan? Jala Turabi? Is he in trouble? Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“The general wants to rescue an Iranian princess before she’s sent back to Iran, probably to be executed.”
“A princess? Is she cute?”
“She’s fifteen years old, you letch.”
“Still cool. Doesn’t give us much time to train in the CIDs, though.”
“Do you need more time?”
“I could sure use it,” Hal admitted. “I recommend we send Chris and three Tin Men to Turkmenistan in the Black Stallion—that way I can spend more time in the CIDs. It won’t take long to get up to speed on them, but one day is not enough time. I’ll be studying the manual on the electronic visor graphics and controls all night as it is.”
“All right—I’ll pitch that to General Sparks and see how they like it,” Patrick said. “Get it ready to go ASAP.”
BANQUET HALL, IMAM ALI MILITARY
ACADEMY, TEHRAN, IRAN
THE NEXT EVENING
“I am privileged to speak to you tonight on the eve of your commissioning ceremony,” Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces General Hoseyn Yassini said. He was standing before an audience of three hundred senior classmen of the Imam Ali Military Academy, after hosting their pre-commissioning dinner. Although he was still a virtual prisoner in his residence at the Academy, he was permitted to carry out ceremonial and VIP functions, and he did so with enthusiasm. As always, if the students knew he was there under house arrest, as they certainly must have by now, they showed no signs of any displeasure. “This is one of my many official tasks that I am pleased and genuinely happy to perform.
“For two years now you have been immersed in the important tasks of training and disciplining your minds and bodies for the challenges that lay ahead. You may indeed believe that your reward for two years of Hell in his place is a lifetime of Hell on the battlefield. Well, my soon-to-be fellow officers, that is not just a cute saying—it’s the truth. But as your chief of staff, I want to be the first to thank you for your courage and dedication to such a life. I thank you, and your country thanks you. I encourage you to use the knowledge and skills you have learned here to broaden your minds to the world and the challenges that lay ahead. Do not shrink from these challenges, but embrace them.”
Yassini raised a large ornate golden flask, with a winged lion’s head and shoulders in front and a funnel-shaped cup in back. “Allow me the honor of toasting the republic’s newest officers in the ancient traditions. This is the rhyton, a batu flask dating back to the Achemenid Empire of five hundred B.C., used by the kings of ancient Persia to toast to victory before sending his generals off to battle. Whenever the rhyton was used, the generals of Persia were never defeated in battle.” He raised the gleaming gold flask. “Gentlemen, to our republic’s future military leaders, the prayers and thanks of a grateful and proud nation. May you continue to grow in knowledge, courage, and strength.”
He took a sip from the cup, then passed it to the cadet commander, who immediately passed it to his deputy commander without drinking. The deputy touched the rim to his lips but did not drink. He passed it to the cadet operations officer, who also touched it to his lips, then passed it to the commander of the honor battalion. Most of the cadets did not drink from the cup; a few did, and received warning glares and stern expressions from the others.
“And now, my soon-to-be fellow officers, the table and the evening are yours—I have spoken far too much already,” Yassini said. “Enjoy yourselves tonight, but be ready for the parade at dawn. Congratulations again. Allah akbar. Cadet Commander, take charge of your corps.” The cadet commander called the cadets to attention, and Yassini left the dais.
The cadet corps deputy commander escorted Yassini out of the hall and waited until his car was brought around, but Yassini waved the car away, preferring to walk back to his quarters. As he turned and headed off, several men alighted from the car and quickly caught up to the chief of staff. “Well, well, General, that was quite a surprise,” Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Brigadier-General Ali Zolqadr said as he strode beside Yassini. “Is this a new tradition you’re starting tonight? Where did you get the rhyton?”
“I requested it from the Museum of Ancient C
ultures. Don’t worry—the museum will see to it that it’s returned safely tonight.”
“I’m not worried about the flask, General, but the spirit in which it was used tonight,” Zolqadr said. “Toasting the cadet corps with alcohol? Such things are strictly forbidden by the Prophet, blessed be his name, and the Faqih has expressly prohibited alcohol of any kind and for any purpose on all official government or religious property.”
“Toasting success and courage with the rhyton is a Persian tradition dating back over two thousand years, Zolqadr,” Yassini said. “The only time it hasn’t been used is in the past thirty years, since the revolution. I’m not starting anything new, Zolqadr, just restoring a long-employed honor. The cadets will never forget this night, believe me, even the ones who did not drink.”
“I was relieved to see that most refused to drink, unlike yourself,” Zolqadr said. “They know that alcohol is a corrupting and unholy vice that stains and perverses body, mind, and soul. Pity you fail to recognize that same truth.”
“It’s not a truth, Zolqadr—it’s a belief,” Yassini said.
“No, General, it’s the law, based on teachings and commands handed down to us from God through the Prophet and codified by the Faqih,” Zolqadr said. “That should be simple enough for you to understand.”
Yassini knew he was never going to win any argument with a zealot—no, make that a fanatic—like Zolqadr, even if his beliefs were based solely on his thirst for power and not true personal faith. “You didn’t come here to lecture me, General. What do you want?”
“No, General, I did not. I’m here to place you under arrest for crimes against the Islamic Republic and for conspiracy to aid the enemies of the republic.”
Yassini stopped, and only then noticed the three armed soldiers walking behind him. “You can’t arrest me, Zolqadr,” Yassini said. “I report only to the minister of defense or the Supreme National Security Deputate, not to the Pasdaran.”