Air Battle Force

by Dale Brown

  Thomas Thorn was a true “techie” who made great use of computers, e-mail, and wireless devices to gather, analyze, and disseminate information. His usual style was to gather daily briefs from the cabinet secretaries and the military via secure e-mail, fire back questions and requests, and then get follow-ups. The cabinet officials had access to the president at any time, but the administration was now greatly decentralized—the secretaries were expected to handle situations and make decisions on their own, with only general thematic guidance from the president himself. The president’s chief of staff was not nearly as powerful as past holders of that office—he was little more than an assistant, trying to manage the president’s busy schedule and his voracious appetite for information.

  Thomas Thorn treated the office of president of the United States as a sacred trust, putting his duties only a millimeter under his devotion to his family. He never took vacations, played no sports, had no hobbies, and only rarely used the Camp David retreat. Since the Jeffersonian Party was little more than a philosophy, a way of thinking devised, managed, and practiced only by Thomas Thorn himself, he had virtually no political apparatus behind him, so he rarely made campaign speeches and never went on fund-raising trips.

  The National Security Council members met every Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m., usually in the Oval Office for routine matters, in the Cabinet Room for larger briefings, or in the Situation Room for crisis-management meetings; today the meeting was in the Oval Office. The outer-office secretary admitted the cabinet members all at once, and Thorn greeted them with a smile as he made final notes on his wireless PDA. “Seats, everyone, please,” he said. “Welcome.” The NSC members took their usual places at the chairs and sofas in front of the president’s desk, and a butler brought in each person’s preferred beverage. Thorn usually paced the office while the meeting was under way—although he virtually carried his life in the personal digital assistant, he rarely referred to it during meetings.

  “You see Martindale’s press conference today?” Secretary of State Edward Kercheval asked no one in particular. “They did a ‘breaking news’ thing—I thought we’d dropped a nuke on China or something.”

  “Brutal,” Vice President Lester Busick said. “The guy’s a nut. He’ll be the laughingstock of Washington in no time.”

  “I didn’t think you were allowed to use Arlington National Cemetery for political events,” Darrow Horton, the attorney general, said. “Maybe I should check into that.”

  Robert Goff, the secretary of defense and the president’s de facto chief political adviser, nodded in agreement. “Good idea,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be too concerned about Martindale. When word about some of the things he’s been doing over the past couple years starts leaking, he’ll have no choice but to pull out. The American people won’t stand for an ex-president who uses his office to carry out secret mercenary missions.”

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” the president began as he put away his PDA. “I saw the item in this morning’s news on the fighting in Chechnya. What’s the latest?”

  “A bit more aggressive Russian response to what they view as escalating extremism in that region, sir,” Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan responded. He knew enough to get his coffee with three sugars fast, sit down, and be ready to go right away, because he was usually the first to be called on. “We’ve been watching that for many weeks now, since the shake-up in Moscow following the imprisonment of General Zhurbenko and the implication of President Sen’kov in dealing with Russian mobsters. Bottom line: Sen’kov is cracking down on any kind of dissent in the Russian Federation, using more strong-arm tactics to gain maximum advantage for Russia.”

  “Sen’kov has an election scheduled for 2005—it’s as if he’s already on the campaign trail,” Kercheval added.

  “I just wish he’d be a little less bloodthirsty about it,” the vice president added. “The press said twenty-seven killed. . . .”

  “We believe the number is much higher—and that’s just in the past week,” Morgan said. “The death toll could be as high as fifty. The Chechens have an equally high body count—perhaps as many as forty Russian soldiers killed, as many as a hundred wounded in attacks. We can expect the Russian military to continue to crack down.”

  “The question is where,” Busick said.

  “Wherever and whenever they can,” Morgan surmised. “They have a vast, fractured empire that I think they would dearly like to take back.”

  “I agree,” President Thorn said. He noticed the secretary of state make a quiet sigh and start examining his fingertips. “Comment, Edward?” Thorn asked.

  “You know the question, Mr. President: What would we do about it even if we knew what the Russians were going to do?” he asked. It was no secret or surprise to anyone that Edward Kercheval was not a big fan of the president and his policies. What was the big surprise was that Thorn kept Kercheval around—or that Kercheval deigned to be around. Brash, opinionated, and considered one of the most knowledgeable secretaries of state in the past fifty years, Kercheval knew his stuff. Many speculated that Thorn had him in his cabinet simply to keep Kercheval from having enough time to mount a campaign against him come election time. “You didn’t intervene in the Libya-Egypt conflict, and your role in the Russia-Balkan conflict was barely noticed. Chechnya seems way outside your attention zone, sir.”

  “You’re right—I wouldn’t intervene in Chechnya,” Thorn said. “I wouldn’t intervene in any conflict involving Russia’s trying to quell any sort of uprising or revolution within its federation.”

  “That’s certainly your prerogative, sir.” It was obvious from Kercheval’s tone of voice both that he expected the president to say as much and that he did not approve of that position. “However, sir, if you’re concerned that Russian aggression against its ethnic minorities might spill over to other countries, a course of action might be advisable.”

  “I know you don’t think I’m showing much of a leadership role in world affairs, Edward,” the president said. “But I think it doesn’t make much sense to attempt to support the Chechen rebels when we’ve been uncovering some of those very rebels hitting United Nations peacekeeping convoys in Central Asia. Those are exactly the kinds of cross-efforts that I wish to avoid if at all possible.” Thorn turned to Morgan and asked, “Speaking of Central Asia, Douglas, what’s the latest there? We still have a few surveillance and counterterrorist operations running there, don’t we?”

  “We currently don’t have any military or intelligence operations running in Central Asia, sir,” Director Morgan replied. “The last was Operation Hilltop, which was a recon-and-interdiction operation using unmanned combat aircraft to counter some Taliban raiders operating in northern Afghanistan.”

  “That was run by Air Force General McLanahan and General Rebecca Furness from her new unit at Battle Mountain, Nevada,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Richard Venti interjected. “His force successfully uncovered and attacked a force of approximately two hundred Taliban fighters that attacked the convoy. It was an operation conducted solely from the air, with assets operated by a single unit.”

  “So McLanahan finally decided to join the right team?” Busick asked. He glanced at the president, who did not react to the comment. Busick knew that the president had given McLanahan and many of his men their military rank and privileges back after a series of privately run and financed military missions. In the president’s eyes McLanahan was a leader—but in Busick’s eyes he was nothing but a loose cannon.

  “General McLanahan has built a unit comprised mostly of long-range aircraft and unmanned armed drones,” General Venti went on. “Cutting-edge stuff.”

  “I feel a ‘but’ coming, General Venti,” Busick said.

  “McLanahan’s mission was a success, but the Taliban fighters weren’t completely out of the fight,” CIA Director Morgan said. “Apparently it was survivors from that attack that raided a border-crossing base in Turkmenistan, killed the ba
se commander and a number of Turkmen soldiers, and captured weapons and vehicles.

  “After that those fighters moved north, first taking on a Turkmen army patrol and then raiding a helicopter cavalry unit near the town of Kerki. Almost two thousand Turkmen soldiers deserted their posts and joined with the Taliban. The raiders then moved east, capturing another military post at Gaurdak, where they obtained large quantities of weapons, including heavy armor, artillery, armored personnel carriers, and more light weapons, plus as many as three to five thousand more recruits and deserters. They have captured several oil-pumping stations, power plants, and water-control facilities, all of which are vital to that region. The force is now moving west along the river, consolidating their gains and creating very effective supply lines. Their route of march primarily follows the TransCal oil and gas pipelines along the river.”

  “That’s smart. Not only can they easily find supplies along the river, but they protect themselves from attack,” General Venti interjected. “Anyone attacking them risks blowing up the lines.”

  “Maybe it’s time to lend our support to the Republic of Turkmenistan to help wipe out these Taliban fighters,” Vice President Busick suggested. “After all, we’re partly to blame for what this group of fighters is doing.”

  “I don’t think we can rely on any cooperation from Turkmenistan,” Secretary of State Kercheval said. “I’ve received complaints from several nations—Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, even Afghanistan—claiming illegal overflight by American warplanes. All of those nations are demanding an explanation.”

  Busick turned to Robert Goff. “We were assured this mission was going to be completely stealthy and foolproof, Robert. What went wrong?”

  “According to his report,” Defense Secretary Goff responded, “McLanahan lost control of one of his unmanned combat aircraft for unexplained reasons. He could regain control of it only by flying in close proximity to it—unfortunately, that happened to be several miles inside Turkmenistan. He was fired upon by Turkmen air defenses and sustained some damage to his aircraft but managed to bring it back to Diego Garcia. Minor injuries, minor damage.”

  “So why is Iran squawking?”

  “In order to catch up to his drone, he had to overfly eastern Iran,” Goff replied. “He was briefly highlighted by Iranian and Pakistani air defenses but was not discovered or attacked.”

  “Good God,” Busick moaned. “All that for a lousy drone?”

  “That drone was a multimillion-dollar unmanned attack vehicle representing the absolute state-of-the-art in sensors, secure satellite communications, and weapons,” General Venti said. “General McLanahan felt that it might crash-land intact when it ran out of fuel, so he took the chance and tried to retrieve it.”

  “ ‘Tried’?”

  “The drone was shot down by Turkmen air defenses,” Venti said. “Apparently it was not completely destroyed.”

  “McLanahan wants to insert a special-ops team to retrieve any surviving critical components, and blow up the rest,” Goff added. “I authorized the mission. It’ll get under way in the next few days.”

  “Keep me advised, Robert,” the president said.

  “This is insane,” Secretary of State Kercheval said angrily. “None of this was approved by us at all. Something needs to be done about this McLanahan. What do you intend to do with him, Robert?”

  “I intend to give him a commendation, Edward,” Goff said. Kercheval’s eyes bugged out in disbelief, so Goff hurried on. “That crew risked their lives to retrieve an important piece of military hardware and keep it from falling into the wrong hands. They sustained battle damage but still managed to bring their crippled aircraft back with no casualties. The citation to accompany the award writes itself.”

  “You will not reward that maniac with a medal for violating international law!” Kercheval retorted.

  The president raised both hands. “Enough, enough,” he said. “The decision to give out commendations will be made at a later time. As far as the incident involving unapproved overflight of certain nations—I intend to admit everything.”

  “My God, Mr. President,” Kercheval said. “You . . . you can’t do that . . . !”

  “I can and I will,” Thorn said. “I will say that in an effort to prevent Taliban raiders from attacking and destroying United Nations peacekeeping units in northern Afghanistan, the United States launched unmanned aerial patrol-and-attack aircraft from the Arabian Sea. When one of the drones sustained damage, to avoid endangering innocent lives on the ground and to avoid losing a valuable piece of military hardware, the on-scene commander elected to violate sovereign airspace in order to retrieve the drone. He flew his unarmed control aircraft across Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan in an effort to retrieve it.” He turned to Goff. “The control aircraft was unarmed, wasn’t it, Robert?”

  “Yes, sir. Defensive electronic transmitters only.”

  “No lasers, subatomic weapons, plasma bombs, any of that other cosmic stuff McLanahan plays with on a regular basis?”

  “I believe it uses lasers to blind incoming antiaircraft missiles,” Venti said, “but no offensive weapons of any kind.”

  “What kind of aircraft was it?” Kercheval asked.

  “A modified B-1 Lancer bomber called a Vampire.”

  “Oh, God,” Kercheval muttered. “The same aircraft we lost in Russia?” He closed his eyes in horror when Goff nodded in the affirmative, then turned to Thorn and said, “Surely you can’t admit that—”

  “Yes, I will,” Thorn said evenly. “I’ll prepare a statement for the ambassadors or foreign ministries that want an explanation, and we’ll prepare talking points for the staff when the press starts to ask about the incident—but only after McLanahan’s retrieval mission is completed.” Kercheval shook his head in confusion but decided there was nothing he could say to change the president’s mind. “Let’s move on.” Thorn again turned to his director of Central Intelligence. “Douglas, you wrote in a message this past week about some factors that might warrant increased involvement in Central Asia, especially Turkmenistan. Give us a rundown.”

  “Yes, sir,” Morgan responded, withdrawing a thin briefing file from an attaché case. “Turkmenistan can potentially be a big powder keg. Turkmenistan is very much like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya were shortly after the discovery of oil—Turkmenistan’s true wealth and strategic importance are only now beginning to be realized, and it could potentially become a battleground because of its location in the crossroads of several different religious, political, and ethnic factions. Turkmenistan’s mineral wealth is probably on a par with that of any Persian Gulf nation, and it could possibly be the richest oil-producing nation on earth in a few years.”

  “Say again, Douglas?” Vice President Busick interjected. “More oil than Saudi? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “That’s the consensus from our analysts,” Morgan confirmed. “It is believed that Turkmenistan’s oil and gas wealth equals Saudi Arabia’s, but Saudi’s currently producing wells will be depleted in less than ten years—Turkmenistan’s haven’t even begun to be exploited. They could be producing petro products fifty years after Saudi Arabia runs out of oil. At least four-fifths of that nation’s oil and gas reserves are unexplored, let alone untapped.”

  “The Russians must realize what they lost when the Soviet Union broke apart and Turkmenistan became independent.”

  “I’d agree,” Morgan said. “The Russians still have a few fighter bases in Turkmenistan, and the Turkmen still use Russian officers on contract for their own military. But living and working in Turkmenistan was considered a hardship tour for the Russians—never more than ten percent of the population was Russian, and we know that the climate in Turkmenistan is so inhospitable that even the Russians had a hard time extracting oil and natural gas from there—and the Russians have developed oil fields in nasty places like Siberia.”

  “But oil has a funny way of bringing out the worst in governments,
” the president mused. “Go on, Douglas.”

  “From 1985 to 2002, Saparmurad Niyazov was in charge of the country, initially as the Soviet first secretary and then as its president,” Morgan went on. “He played all sides and swung with the winds more than a weather vane in a tornado. He was a staunch Russian supporter when the Russians controlled the government; when the Soviet Union broke apart and nationalist forces started to gain in strength, Niyazov became a nationalist—replacing Russian with Turkmen as the official language, setting up Muslim religious schools, and so on. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan and threatened to take over some fundamentalist provinces in the east, Niyazov brought some pro-Taliban mullahs into his government. He ruled with an iron fist. Every member of the Turkmen parliament had to be approved by the president; the president appointed his own censors and editors in every media outlet in the country—the list goes on and on. It was Niyazov who inked the big TransCal oil deal, the first large-scale production deal in Turkmenistan and potentially one of the wealthiest oil deals in history.

  “Niyazov finally retired in 2001 and held elections, but there was only one candidate: Kurban Gurizev, the leader of their parliament and deputy chairman of the Democratic Party, what used to be the Communist Party. Like Niyazov, he ruled with absolute authority. He continued to outlaw opposition parties, had to approve all candidates for public office, and created a virtual police state. He is strongly antiforeigner, anti-Muslim, and staunchly pro-Russian.”

  “The military must hate Gurizev,” Goff observed.

  “The Turkmen military is practically nonexistent,” Morgan said. “Maybe forty thousand troops in all, including paramilitary and reserves; four-fifths conscripts, lots of ex-Soviet equipment in very poor condition. Most of the officer corps is Russian—the officers who wanted to stay simply kept their posts and are being paid by the Turkmen government. Naturally, they have the best equipment.”