War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel

by James Rollins

“The tanks . . . two headed to each village. ETA . . . be here four or five minutes.”

  “Any luck commandeering one?” Tucker yelled.

  “Still . . . working . . . Rex . . . not as familiar with these ground drones as his fellow winged brothers.”

  “Keep at it.”

  Frank tried to respond, but the transmission became too garbled.

  Tucker finally gave up. For now, it was up to Frank to protect the village. He turned to Nora. “Are you ready with Sandy’s code?”

  She patted her jacket pocket. “I’d better be.”

  Kane crouched next to Jane. She absently rubbed the shepherd’s head, her gaze gone again into that thousand-yard stare. He shifted next to her and took her hand. She flinched, but he gripped harder.

  She finally looked at him, her eyes focusing back. “I’m okay.”

  No, you’re not.

  All too often, he had heard that refrain—I’m okay—from his fellow soldiers. It was what one said, what was expected of you. The stigma of asking for help, especially among those in Special Forces, was deeply ingrained.

  Suck it up was as much a motto as semper fi.

  He pulled her closer. “I’m sorry, Jane. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you earlier. I know you’re harder on yourself than anyone.”

  Especially when it comes to protecting Nathan.

  She swallowed and nodded. There were no tears, but he suspected they would come with time. “I’ll be all right.”

  That he could believe.

  Happy to have made these meager amends with her, Tucker scooted up and peeked out from under the tarp. Cold winds stung his eyes, but he squinted against the burn. Ahead the carved landscape of the mines ended at a tumble of sheer cliffs, topped by green forests. This corner of the complex looked untouched by the strip-mining.

  Why?

  Tucker pulled out a set of binoculars.

  He scanned the area, trying to discern where across those escarpments the C3 hub might be hidden. Then he noted a shadow halfway up one cliff face, four stories above the ground.

  A structure perched there, its facade protruding from the rock’s sheer surface. At the top were two towers, separated by a rampart of waist-high crenellated battlements, several sections of which had crumbled away, giving them the appearance of a row of chipped teeth. Below the ramparts stretched a set of tall narrow windows, peaked at their tops. And under them stood massive oak doors, crisscrossed with iron braces.

  Tucker remembered Pravi saying something in Serbian when this spot was pointed to on the map.

  Manastir, da . . .

  He now understood: manastir meant monastery. While driving from the airport, Tucker had spotted other such churches, dating back centuries, nestled and hidden in valleys.

  No wonder this section of the mine had been spared.

  Besides the monastery’s historical value, the religious piety of the locals likely kept this old church preserved—not that it hadn’t been repurposed at the moment.

  Tucker spotted cables running along the switchback of narrow steps that led up to those iron-framed doors. At the foot of the cliff, camouflage netting obscured a barricaded compound, where there were generators humming and trucks parked. Swinging his gaze back to the top, he noted rows of parabolic dishes positioned along the ramparts, all aimed toward the south.

  This definitely must be the operation’s C3 hub.

  But how are we going to storm that castle?

  The original plan had been for the helicopter to swing low over the highland forests, pretending to be workers fleeing the battle at the border. Once near enough, the helicopter would dip low—hovering briefly enough for Tucker’s group to offload into the dense forest—then it would continue north again.

  Once safely on the ground, Tucker had hoped to sneak overland to the compound and reach the servers that controlled this operation, where Nora would hack Sandy’s lobotomy code into the transmission systems.

  Tucker suddenly had no faith in these plans—especially when he spotted something wing out of a ravine to the left and sweep into the sky.

  A Shrike.

  Lyon’s group must be using the nearby valleys and rifts to hide their fleet, readying for phase two of these plans, which was surely to finish the destruction and destroy the invading tanks and vehicles.

  But that was not this drone’s objective. It banked around and fired at the helicopter. Tucker craned up and watched rounds rip through the bulk of the aircraft. Smoke burst forth from its engine. The helicopter bobbled, whipping the bin wildly beneath it.

  Tucker got tossed to the floor.

  The Shrike streaked past, its work done.

  The helicopter tipped and plummeted toward the ground.

  7:50 A.M. EDT

  Smith Island, Maryland

  Locked securely in his office, Pruitt Kellerman stood once again before his bank of wall monitors. A few screens showed news channels beginning to receive word of the skirmish along the Serbian border. Reports remained preliminary, full of speculation due to the remoteness of the mountainous region. But even at this early stage, he had false information being threaded through various media outlets, using an advanced encryption algorithm based on Alan Turing’s old papers.

  All due to the foresight of my grandfather.

  The remaining monitors ran with secure feeds from the operation center at Skaxis Mining. One screen showed the smoky image of a village on fire. Another revealed a bombed-out armory near the Montenegrin city of Bijelo Polje, courtesy of a late-morning airstrike by a Warhawk, which left nothing but a cratered ruin in its wake. More faked reports had already been seeded, which would show fabricated grainy footage of a caravan of Montenegrin tanks and military vehicles leaving that armory two days prior, headed for the Serbian border. Kellerman had needed some explanation for the source of military hardware that would be found demolished at the border.

  “Sir!” a voice shouted from the largest wall monitor.

  Pruitt stepped closer to this live feed from the Serbian command center.

  Rafael Lyon’s face filled the screen as he leaned close to the camera. Still, past his shoulders, various drone control stations bustled with technicians as the next stage of the operation was about to commence.

  “We’ve just received word that six leaders of the Serbian parliament were successfully assassinated in Belgrade. The news outlets are going nuts.”

  Pruitt frowned. “But didn’t we target eight politicians? Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “With the timetable moved up, we lost the opportunity on two.”

  Pruitt nodded. Weeks ago, he and Marco Davidovic had handpicked a mix of Christian and Muslim moderates, whose deaths would be blamed on the Balkan Islamic Front. And in another day, that same terrorist group would be shown to have ties to Montenegro’s National Security Agency, all to further implicate Serbia’s neighbor while inciting the radicals in Davidovic’s party.

  Just one more nail in the coffin.

  Pruitt doubted the CIA or the old KGB could have done any better.

  “We have everything locked down here,” Lyon continued. “Communications are jammed, and I’ve got the drones patrolling the skies and roads. No one’s leaving the area.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  “Yes, sir. And we’re right on schedule. On your word, we can commence with stage two.”

  “Very good. Proceed.”

  Despite the hiccups, everything was running like clockwork. Pruitt stepped back, clasping his hands behind his back, all too aware of the blood on them.

  But what’s a little spilled milk in the long run?

  35

  October 27, 12:51 P.M. CET

  Skaxis Mining Complex, Serbia

  “Brace yourselves!” Tucker hollered as the smoking helicopter plummeted toward the dense highland forest. The bin swung and bobbled. Residual gravel rattled across the metal floor, pelting the trapped group.

  Tucker jammed his legs against one metal wall and his shoul
ders against the other. He had a hold of Kane’s vest collar and another fist wrapped in the hood of Nora’s coat. At his feet on the other side, Jane pinned herself in the corner, with an arm wrapped around his leg.

  He caught Jane’s eye, glad he had started to make peace with her a moment ago, wishing he could hold her, kiss her one last time. But he knew her thoughts were elsewhere. Fear and loss shone from her every pore.

  Then the bottom of the container scraped across treetops.

  Tucker turned every muscle fiber to iron to hold the group in place. The bin dropped lower, ripping through branches and bouncing off trunks. With the steel tub acting as an anchor, the helicopter’s momentum slowed, and its bulk got thrown nose-first toward the forest. The bin continued to tear through the trees, dragged by the falling chopper.

  Then the container’s cable broke with a teeth-jarring twang.

  The helicopter flipped and crashed with a splintering of wood and a crumple of metal. The bin followed. It dropped heavily through the tree branches, struck the ground, rolled once, and finally came to rest on its side.

  Tucker crawled out, dizzy and dazed. Jane and Nora followed on hands and knees. They all looked shocked to be alive, except for Kane, who hopped free and shook it all off as if it had been nothing.

  Tucker rolled to a hip and stared back at the path of destruction through the branches and trees. The thick forest had saved them, bleeding away the energy of the crash, turning the impact from bone shattering to body bruising. But they were not out of danger.

  He stood with a groan, retrieved his pack, and stared toward the smoking ruins of the helicopter. Pravi and the pilot . . . ? He took a step in that direction when the chopper’s engine exploded, throwing him back and rolling a fireball into the sky.

  Tucker turned to find Nora clutching a fist at her throat, her eyes terrified. Jane looked lost. He gathered everyone together and dropped to a knee before Kane. He pointed south into the forest, away from the wreckage.

  “CLOSE SCOUT,” he ordered. “GO.”

  Kane took off, swiftly gliding away.

  Tucker stood and got the two women moving after the shepherd. “We can’t stay here in case a patrol is sent to check on the Shrike’s handiwork.”

  As they hurried, he tugged out his satellite phone and pulled up Kane’s video feed. He kept an eye on the dog, while watching where he stepped. Though many handlers had difficulty with this, considering it like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, Tucker had no problem. He felt one with Kane, sharing the shepherd’s eyes while using his own.

  Jane kept to Tucker’s heels. “What . . . what’s the plan?”

  “I’m pretty sure we crashed a half mile or so north of the C3 hub, in the plateau above the monastery.”

  “What monastery?” Nora asked.

  He forgot that neither woman had spied the fortified encampment like he had. He explained what he saw. “If we can reach the cliffs above that old church,” he finished, “we might be able to rappel down to the roof.”

  “That’s if we truly crashed where you hoped we did,” Jane warned, staring at the thick forest. “All I see are trees and more trees.”

  Tucker, though, had another set of eyes. On the screen, he watched Kane slip through undergrowth, wet branches sliding past the camera lens. He kept watch on that screen and almost missed it.

  “STOP,” Tucker ordered—speaking to both Kane and the two women.

  Kane froze and lay down.

  Something’s not right.

  A few yards ahead of the shepherd, the tree trunks stood out more starkly. At first Tucker had thought it was a trick of lighting. Then he realized those trees were too straight and were stripped of their dark bark.

  Posts . . .

  He turned to Jane. “Someone erected a cluster of wooden stanchions in the next section of forest.”

  “What for?”

  “Let’s see.” Tucker radioed Kane. “SLOW ADVANCE.”

  The shepherd crept forward one paw at a time. Again Tucker felt that blurring of senses as he continued to give orders to his partner.

  “PAN UP . . . TURN LEFT . . .”

  Slowly Tucker understood what Kane had stumbled upon, what the shepherd was showing him.

  “There’s camouflage netting strung about twenty feet off the ground, supported by wooden posts and pine trees.” He glanced to Jane and Nora. “I saw the same at the foot of the cliffs.”

  “Then you were right,” Jane admitted. “We must be almost right on top of them.”

  Tucker grinned. “Only one way to find out.”

  He set off again, keeping Kane still on point. Eventually Tucker and the women crept under that netting. They found evidence of a staging ground under there: open crates, pry bars, and a scatter of sagging tents. The place appeared to be abandoned.

  “This must be where they airlifted in supplies to help set up their command center at the church,” Jane whispered.

  Kane reached the far side of the camouflaged area and stopped at the edge of a drop-off, staying hidden in some low bushes. Tucker and the others joined him. He had the women hold back, while he crawled on his belly next to Kane. He rubbed the dog’s flank.

  “Good boy.”

  He peered beyond the edge. Two stories down, the crenellated battlements of the rampart stretched between the two towers of the church. The facade of the monastery was flush against the cliffs, suggesting the main bulk of the church was likely built into the mountainside, carved out centuries ago with painstaking effort and devotion.

  The same could not be said for the new caretakers.

  Rows of parabolic antennas had been bolted to the old stone. Wrist-thick cables twisted and snaked across the rampart and vanished down a hole crudely drilled through its surface. A diesel generator chugged loudly in one corner.

  Tucker studied the dishes, all of which pointed toward the border. He hoped the attention of those inside was focused in the same direction.

  He scooted back and rejoined Jane and Nora. He described what he saw while opening his backpack. Knowing the team had been headed into the Dinaric Alps, he had packed ropes and climbing gear.

  “I’ll head down first with Kane, then you and Nora follow.”

  He got nods all around.

  Tucker quickly tied one end of the rope to a tree trunk, then back-stepped to the cliff, laying down the line. At the edge, he slipped into a rappelling harness and hooked Kane’s vest to carabineers at Tucker’s backside. Slung behind him, Kane would hang there while Tucker rappelled below. After double-checking everything, he leaned his butt over the edge and descended in short hops. Kane dangled behind him, remaining calm, an old hand at rope work.

  Moments later, their six legs landed atop the rampart.

  Tucker crouched, freed Kane, and pulled out his SIG Sauer. He covered the two women as they made their descent, but so far no alarm had been raised.

  Then a distant boom made them all crouch even lower. Tucker crab walked between two of the antenna dishes and stared beyond the parapets toward the distant valley. A column of fresh smoke rose from where Kamena Gora lay hidden in the lower forests.

  Jane followed him, staring past his shoulder. “The tanks . . .”

  More booms echoed, accompanied by flashes from massive guns, raising new flags of smoke. Then to either side of the monastery, a familiar hum arose. Wedge-shaped Warhawks and smaller Shrikes shot out of the neighboring valleys. They swept wide, climbing high, then dove toward the cluster of hamlets.

  “It’s the beginning of the end,” Jane whispered.

  1:14 P.M.

  As the bombardment commenced, Tucker crouched by one of the parabolic dishes, examining the thick cable that ran to it. It ended at a padlocked juncture box. He tested the cable. It was warm and vibrated with power.

  Probably fry my ass if I tried yanking it loose, but it might be worth it.

  “Don’t,” Nora warned, pulling him back. “I know what you’re contemplating. You think i
f you take out these dishes, you can stop any orders from being transmitted to those drones.”

  Tucker twisted to her. “What’s wrong with that plan?”

  “Tangent’s drones aren’t just remote-control cars and airplanes. They have brains, the AI cores designed by Sandy. And while they may not be as highly tuned as our new and improved Rex, they still have rudimentary intelligence. The attack orders have already been transmitted. If you knock out these dishes, those orders will still stand. The drones will continue, perhaps improvising and revising on their own, but surely proceeding with their bombing run.”

  Tucker remembered how Rex had operated under his own volition to gain the final triangulation to this command center.

  Jane offered another reason to leave the dishes alone. “We’ll also need these antennas intact if we hope to transmit the lobotomy codes out to those drones.”

  Tucker realized the women were right.

  “But first I need to get down to the servers,” Nora reminded him.

  He glanced over to where Kane sniffed at a door into one of the towers. The dog’s body was taut, tail straight, ears low. He knew Kane’s behavior enough to know the shepherd had found a scent trail, one he recognized.

  There could only be one person who Kane would remember by smell.

  Rafael Lyon.

  Ever thorough, that bastard would surely have spent some time up here, inspecting every final detail. A deep-seated anger burned inside Tucker. He could still hear the blast of the mortar shell that had struck the village square earlier. He pictured the boy’s body, shredded by shrapnel, crumpling like a broken doll onto the cobbles. Lyon and his boss were already responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, and more would die this day.

  It had to stop.

  “C’mon,” Tucker said, heading toward Kane. “Let’s find those servers.”

  The tower door was steel, clearly new, but it was unlocked. Either Lyon trusted no one had access to this back entrance, or maybe technicians simply needed to come and go to adjust the dishes.

  Tucker didn’t care.

  He edged the door open and discovered a set of worn stone steps spiraling down the center of the tower. A string of bare bulbs lit the way, but they were spaced far enough apart to leave shadowy gaps between. Tucker signaled Kane by lowering a palm before his nose, then pointing a finger toward the steps.