Apocalypse Dawn (2 page)

“Nothing appears out of the ordinary,” Captain Cal Remington replied.

“No, sir,” Goose said, surveying the way the Syrian soldiers took refuge from the sun under vehicles and tarps. “The grunts are all business as usual. But I do see a little more spit and polish than normal today.”

“‘Spit and polish’?”

Goose grinned. “Yes, sir, Captain. An enlisted man, sir, he never forgets the dog and pony show he has to put on for an officer. Always cleaning. Always drilling. Always looking busy. The more important the officers, the more spit and polish.”

“And you’d know that, would you, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. And if I recall, sir, there was a time before OCS when you knew that, too.” Their friendship reached through nearly sixteen years of hardships and dangerous assignments, including Remington’s choice to sign up for the army’s Officer Candidate School. That long bridge of friendship more than spanned the gulf between officer and non-com.

Remington was silent.

Knowing the captain was back at headquarters, availing himself of the computer systems tied into the geosynchronous spy satellites twenty-three thousand miles into space, Goose waited. He shifted the binoculars slowly. Maybe Remington hadn’t noticed the subtle change in the attitudes of the Syrian soldiers on the other side of the border.

The Syrian soldiers wore camouflage fatigues that looked a lot like the ones worn by the American and Turkish troops. The pattern was bigger, cleaner, and not as shaded. A civilian eye, Goose knew, probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the three sets of battle dress uniforms in this part of the world, but Goose had no problem. His life-as well as the lives of his squadmates-could depend on that skill. It wasn’t just a matter of finding and shooting the enemy. Like the old saying went, “Friendly fire isn’t.”

Syrian troop placement was heavy. Winning through intimidation, Remington called the effort, with his signature smirk of disapproval. Remington always said real warriors won wars by handing down a decisive victory that left no room for argument-not by saber rattling and trafficking in threats. Goose knew that for Remington, anything other than confrontation and aggressive action was NJ-no joy.

Goose didn’t feel that way. If intimidation kept everybody from shooting, he was all for it. Putting on a good show could save lives. Remington may have had his reasons to prefer action. An officer’s career advanced through victories, while an enlisted man simply wanted to do a good job and remain alive. Goose hoped the Syrians were willing to stick to intimidation for the foreseeable future.

The Syrian military boasted an assortment of Jeeps, Land Rovers, T-62 and T-72 main battle tanks, BMP-2 and BMP-3 armored infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. Farther back among the hills, Goose had seen self-propelled artillery and air defense units, as well as multiple rocket launchers. Satellite reconnaissance had confirmed all those weapons, as well as giving reliable estimates of troop numbers.

During the last week, the numbers had doubled. So the changes weren’t all just spit and polish. Goose was getting a bad feeling about the future.

The Turks and the U.N. forces had their own array of weapons. The border area was crawling with Humvees, M-1 Abrams main battle tanks, and Bradley M-2 and M-3 APCs. Artillery and air defense units were bolstered by MLRs and Apache helicopter gunships. If that wasn’t enough to handle the army arrayed against them, heavy-duty help was close by. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable, or MEU(SOC), was on standby, poised for action on their three-ship amphibious ready group, anchored by the USS Wasp. The ARG sat on a 180-day float out in the Mediterranean Sea, ready to lend air and Marine support to the land-based forces at a moment’s notice.

The Syrians knew that, and not just because of secret intelligence operations. The Wasp’s presence had been broadcast all over CNN and FOX News networks since the Rangers had moved incountry. The bad guys knew what they were up against-though not, Goose hoped, the specifics of all the goodies they had in their bag of tricks.

‘Maybe they are waiting on something,” Remington said.

Cal Remington wasn’t one to drop hints and not pay off on them. “You got something, Cap?” Goose said.

“I don’t know yet, Sergeant. But I may have a way to get something. I’ve got a maybe-mission for you, purely hide-and-seek with a chance at some action. If you’d rather bake in the sun and watch the Syrian army corps sleep, I can use one of the staff sergeants for this little exercise.”

Smiling despite the tension, Goose scanned the Syrian line again. Lots of snoring soldiers. Even with the changes in the front line, many Syrian troops were stretched out in the shadows under vehicles or under small tents. In this climate, a nap in the shade made a whole lot of sense. Goose felt it was a pity he and his men couldn’t join them.

“I’m interested in a maybe-mission, Cap. Especially if it gets me off this plateau and out of the sun. It’ll give me a chance to stretch my legs and clear my head.”

.Not worried about leaving the troops there, Sergeant? As I recall, you’re usually the last one to leave the field when we’re in a hot zone.”

“You’ve got sat-relays overlooking the play out here, sir,” Goose said. “You’ve got a clearer view of what’s shaping up than I do. I figure you must need me. I know you don’t like me being away from the front line any more than I do.”

“That I don’t, Sergeant.” Remington’s banter was light. “I may have eyes and ears in space, but I’ll take your gut over technology any day. Anyway, you’ll be back in place soon enough. I’m looking at a short hop that will give you the chance to show your stuff. Maybe if you get away from that standoff for a little while you’ll get a different read on it when you get back.”

“Yes, sir. ” Goose peered along the mountainous area and at the tarmac road that crossed the border. The Syrians and the Turks had checkpoints for vehicles as well as pedestrians. So far there had been nothing to see today. “Who do I need, and when do I go?”

“Take a squad. Yourself and ten. Two vehicles. And you’re leaving now.

Captain Cal Remington stood behind the four-man unit that handled the communications relays for his present operation. Nervous energy filled him, pushing him to act. Instead, he waited and watched the eight computer screens spread in front of his team. Waiting was not his forte and never had been.

The computers in the cinderblock building that had been revamped into a command HQ five klicks behind the border made the chill air-conditioning necessary. Gasoline-powered generators supplied the juice to run both the computers and the air-conditioning. Thick bundles of cables snaked across the chipped stone floor. An assortment of bullet holes scarred the walls, offering mute testimony to how many times flrefights had taken place in this building. The building had once been part of a small village, a place where farmers and artisans had met to swap goods and talk, but it was mostly rubble now. Only three of the small cinderblock buildings remained intact.

The satellite feeds came in beautifully, panning down over the TurkishSyrian border. The signals actually came from two different satellites, but Cray computers relayed those signals into the systems so they could be handled independently at each of the four workstations manned by Remington’s tech support unit.

OCS hadn’t revealed all the secret machinations of its cybernetic systems, and Remington was amazed at the computer surveillance program’s abilities. Still, he knew how to use the intel the programs provided. Even though the information they gave him would have been a commander’s dream just a few years ago, he needed more. Three shifts of four operators kept twenty-four-hour surveillance on the border over different overlapping fields.

After three days of close scrutiny, Remington was of the opinion that there wasn’t much they hadn’t seen, photographed, cataloged, and archived along C Company’s section of border country. The tech teams had accumulated gigabytes of information and pumped it out to army databases in Diyarbakir, where the general command incountry was situated, to the ARG headed by the USS Wasp out in the Med, and to the Pentagon. None of the information gathered so far offered any indication of what was behind the increased terrorist attacks within Turkey. Something was up. Watching just wasn’t enough; Remington wanted-needed-to know what the enemy was thinking.

“Captain Remington, sir.”

Turning, Remington studied the man in civilian clothes who stood between two Ranger escorts. The man was tall, over six feet, but Remington stood two inches taller. The Ranger captain was also broader through the shoulders than the new guy, and at thirty-eight, probably a handful of years younger.

“Sir,” the corporal said, throwing a sharp salute while standing at attention, “this is Central Intelligence Agency Section Chief Alexander Cody.”

The CIA agent didn’t look happy about the announcement. He seemed to be fit, and his mouth looked habitually stem. He had short-cropped dark hair going gray at the temples. His light-colored slacks, white dress shirt, and tie showed a layer of dust, as did the tan jacket slung over one arm. Beneath a painful looking wind-and sunbum, his skin was pale. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes.

“Come in, Agent Cody,” Remington said. “Corporal, Private, you’re dismissed.”

The corporal saluted again, spun smartly, and departed with the private in tow.

“Not exactly the kind of introduction I usually get in my line of work.” Cody crossed the room and held out his hand. “Or one that I would want.”

Remington shook the offered hand. Cody had a firm grip and a callused palm. “In the regular army, we stand on formality, Agent Cody. Except for sometimes on the front lines, where a salute is considered to be a sniper magnet by our more experienced troops.”

“I can understand their caution. I start to feel exposed when I get the full treatment. You can call me Alex,” Cody offered.

“Fine. You can address me as Captain, or Captain Remington.”

If Cody took any insult, he didn’t show it. “Very well, Captain. You’ve been briefed on our situation?”

“Only that you’ve had an agent go missing, and that we’re supposed to help you get him back. If possible.”

Cody reached into his shirt pocket and produced a miniature CD in a plastic case. “I’ve got an image of the agent here.’

Remington took the disc and handed it to Lewis, one of the young techs. “Get this up for me.”

.Yes, sir.” Lewis took the disc, pushed it home into a CD-ROM reader, and tapped the keyboard.

Instantly, the monitor on the left scrolled. Thumbnails of images spread out in a simple information tree. All of the images were of a young, dark-complexioned man who looked Middle Eastern. He might have been Turkish, Kurdish, or Syrian; in fact, he could have been from any of a dozen countries in the area. He looked all of twenty years old.

“He’s one of ours?” Remington asked.

“Yeah.” Cody gazed at the young man’s photo. “An American, Captain. Not a recruit or paid informer.”

“What kind of assignment has he been on?”

Cody hesitated. “You don’t have clearance.”

Remington mastered the wave of anger that flooded through him. “I just detailed a squad of men to handle the intercept your agency asked for, Cody. If my men are going to be in danger, then you’d better clear me.”

Cody pursed his lips and removed his sunglasses. “Icarus is a covert operative we’ve managed to get into one of the PKK cell groups.”

The PKK, Remington knew from his own briefings regarding the border patrol assignment, was the Kurdistan Worker’s Party. Organized in 1974 by Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK planned to establish an independent Kurdish state from land within Turkey, Iraq, or Iran. Over the years, the organization had turned to terrorism aimed at destabilizing the Turkish government. Often the PKK terrorists killed as many Kurds as they did Turks.

“Infiltrating a single terrorist cell doesn’t seem like a good investment of manpower,” Remington stated. “The cells are kept small and independent, with relatively no interaction among other cells or the parent organization. The intelligence you’d get would be infinitesimal at best.”

“Icarus penetrated the cell assigned to assassinate Chaim Rosenzweig,” Cody said. “Thanks to Icarus, the members of that team were … dissuaded from that action.”

“How dissuaded?”

“Five of the eight men assigned to the assassination are dead,” Cody said. “The other three escaped our sweeps. They have apparently taken Icarus with them.”

Remington nodded. He hadn’t heard about an assassination team being intercepted, but he wasn’t surprised that Rosenzweig was a target. The Israeli botanist whose synthetic fertilizer had turned his country into a veritable Eden almost overnight was reviled by most of the Arab nations, although Israel’s neighbors had made their peace with Israel. In the end they’d had no choice, but peace at the end of a gun barrel was still peace.

Rosenzweig had been given the Nobel prize in chemistry for his efforts, and he’d been handed a death sentence by terrorist organizations scattered around the Middle East, who now faced a concerted Israeli effort to put them out of business.