Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (207 page)

At that instant, Mallory saw an object fly out of the near hangar. At first he thought it was a cloud of smoke or perhaps an explosion of some kind…and then seconds later realized it was the Humvee that had been stationed inside blocking the hangar! Moments later the robot ran out of the hangar clutching a Security Forces officer in each hand, carrying him out as easily as someone might carry a beach towel. Directly behind him, the B-1 bomber careened out of the hangar and sped up the throat toward the main taxiway.

“What in hell is going on?”
Mallory shouted. “What happened? What are you…?” But the robot kept coming. It scooped up the Security Forces team leader with a bone-jarring tackle and ran him a hundred yards away in the blink of an eye, finally depositing the three stunned officers in a heap near the security fence surrounding the detachment area. The robot huddled over them as if shielding them from something. “What the hell are you doing? Get off me!”

“The bomber is transmitting its microwave weapon system,” the robot said. “I had to get the Humvee out of the hangar before it exploded, and then I evacuated you. At close range the MPW can be lethal, and I had to get away or else it could have disabled my electronics too.”

“What are you talking about?” Mallory struggled to get a better look. “The second bomber is moving too! They're taxiing for take
off!” He fumbled for his radio, realizing he'd dropped it when the robot tackled him. “Call security control!” he told the robot. “Alert the base commander! Get units on the taxiways and runways before those things can get into takeoff position!”

“Roger,” the robot responded. “I'll call it in, then see what I can do to stop them.” And the robot stood up and was gone, running away with amazing speed, the muzzle of the grenade launcher swiveling back and forth searching for targets. It cleared the twelve-foot fence surrounding the detachment area—he just noticed that the gate across the throat was wide open—and was out of sight within seconds.

“What the fuck are those things doing? Who's in control of those things—ten-year-olds?” Mallory ran back to the first hangar and found his radio. “Control, Detail One, the bombers are taxiing out. There are two CID units in pursuit. They said the bombers were transmitting some kind of microwave weapon.”

“Control, Knifepoint West, the bombers are crossing Taxiway Foxtrot on the way to Runway One-Niner,” another Security Force unit radioed. “I'm parking my vehicle in the middle of Taxiway Alpha at the intersection of Hotel taxiway. I'm going to dismount. Those fuckers are coming this way awfully damned fast!” Mallory and the other Security Forces officers ran up the throat to the main taxiway to see what was going on…

…and just as they reached Taxiway Alpha they saw a Humvee fly into the air to the north, and the B-1 bombers roar past it! “Knifepoint West, Knifepoint West, do you copy?” Mallory radioed as he watched the nearly five-thousand-pound Humvee hit and tumble across the ground like a child's toy. “What happened? Say status!”

“Those robots threw my Humvee off the taxiway!”
the officer radioed a few moments later. “They're not trying to
stop
them—they're
helping
them escape!”

“Those bastards!”
Mallory swore. “I knew something screwy was going on! Control, Detail One, those robots are engaging our security units!”

“Detail One, this is Panther,” the base commander cut in. “I do not care what you have to do, but stop those bombers from leaving the ground! Do you read me?
Stop those bombers!
Then place that entire Headbanger contingent under arrest! I want some butts, and I want them
now
!”

But as he listened, Mallory saw the first unmanned B-1 bomber leave the ground and streak across the night sky, trailing four long afterburner flames behind it, followed just a few short seconds later by the second. “Ho-lee
shit,
” he cried aloud as the twin afterburner booms rolled over him. “What in hell is going on?”

It took almost a minute for the noise to subside enough so he could talk on the radio: “Control, Panther, Detail One, the bombers have launched, repeat, they've
launched
. All available patrol and response units, report to the Alpha Seven special detachment area with restraints and transport. Control, notify the base hospital and all command units that a special security enforcement operation has commenced.” His ears were buzzing and his head felt as if it was going to explode from the tension and sheer disbelief over what had just happened. “Notify all responding units that there are two of those CID robot units that assisted the bombers to launch and are armed and dangerous. Do not approach the CID units, only report and observe. Do you copy?”

The two bombers were just bright dots in the night sky, and soon those telltales winked out as the afterburners were cut off. This was unbelievable, Mallory told himself over and over again, simply
unbelievable
. Those Saber guys had to be nuts or on drugs, he thought, wiping sweat from his forehead. The robot guys had to be crazy…or maybe the robots had been hijacked by terrorists? Maybe they weren't Air Force after all, but fucking Muslim terrorists, or maybe Kurdish terrorists, or maybe…?

And then he realized he wasn't
thinking
all this, but
screaming
it at the top of his lungs! His skin felt as if it was going to burst into flames, and his head felt ready to explode! What in God's name was happening? He turned…

…and then he saw the shape of one of the robots, about thirty
yards away, slowly heading toward him. He raised his radio to his suddenly sweat-stained lips: “Control, Detail One, one of the CID units is heading toward me, and I am engaging,” he said, wiping yet another rivulet of sweat away from his eyes. “Request backup, Alpha Seven and Taxiway Alpha, get backup out here
now
.” He unholstered his sidearm, but he couldn't summon enough strength to lift it. The burning sensation increased, completely disrupting his vision and creating an intense headache, the pain finally forcing him to his knees. “Control…Control, how do you copy?”

“I'm sorry, Sergeant Mallory, but no one is here to take your call right now,” he heard a strange voice say. “But don't worry. You and your friends will wake up in a nice cozy cell, and you won't have a care in the world.” The robot advanced toward him menacingly, the muzzle of the grenade launcher aimed right between his eyes…but then, just before his vision completely shut down in a cloud of stars, he saw the robot wave “bye-bye” to him with his huge armored but incredibly lifelike fingers. “Nightie-night, Sergeant Mallory,” he heard over the radio lying somewhere on the ground, and then everything went blank.

 

“Odin, Headbanger, Genesis, this is Saber, we have control of the base,” Lieutenant Daniels reported a few minutes later. “Those new microwave emitters built into the CID units worked great out to thirty yards or so.” The nonlethal microwave emitters broadcasted an intense feeling of heat, pain, disorientation, and eventually unconsciousness but did no actual injury to a human target. “The bombers are away and we're securing the perimeter. The base commander is pretty sore at us but he opened up his hidden liquor cabinet so he's not quite as verbal as before.”

“Roger that,” Patrick McLanahan responded from Armstrong Space Station. “Thank you, Saber.”

“Our pleasure, sir,” Daniels responded. “Maybe we can all share a cell in Leavenworth together.”

“Or Supermax, if we're not so lucky,” Rebecca added.

“We received a coded locator beacon and status data dump from the Black Stallion's passenger module,” Luger said. “It's intact, its parachute and impact attenuation bags have deployed, and it's coming down in eastern Iran, about a hundred and twenty miles northwest of Herat, Afghanistan.”

“Thank God.”

“No indications if anyone inside made it yet, but the module is intact and still pressurized. We've got an Army Special Forces team in Herat gearing up for a rescue mission.”

“The bombers will be in maximum SkySTREAK launch position in sixty minutes, and overhead in ninety—if they're not jumped by Russian fighters again,” Rebecca Furness said. “We'll be on the lookout for them this time.”

“That's probably the same amount of time it'll take the Special Forces team to chopper in—if they get permission to launch,” Luger added.

“I'll speak to the commander myself,” Patrick said. “I don't have much pull with the Army, but I'll see what I can do.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute—are you boys forgetting something?” Rebecca Furness interjected. “We just
took over
a Turkish-NATO military base by force and ignored direct orders from the commander-in-chief. You guys are acting as if that's no big deal. They are going to come after us,
all
of us—even the general, even though he's up on a space station—and they are going to haul us off to prison. What do you propose we do about this?”

“I propose we rescue our crewmembers on the ground in Iran, then hunt down any parts of that anti-spacecraft laser the Russians fired at us, General Furness,” Patrick said immediately. “Anything else is background noise at this point.”

“‘Background noise'? Do you call the Turkish and U.S. governments—possibly our own military—coming after us just ‘background noise'? We'll be lucky if they just send in an infantry battalion to drag us out of here. Do you intend on continuing to dis
regard orders and take down anyone who gets in your way, General? Are we going to war against our own people now?”

“Rebecca, I'm not ordering you to do anything—I'm asking,” Patrick said. “We have crewmembers down in Iran, the Russians blasting away with a laser, and the President doing nothing about any of it except telling
us
to stand down. Now if you don't want to help, just say so, recall the Vampires, and call the Pentagon.”

“And tell them what, Patrick—that you
forced
me to launch those planes? You're two hundred miles up on the space station, probably on the other side of the planet. I'm already committed, General. I'm screwed. My career is over.”

“Rebecca, you did what you did because we have friends and fellow warriors on the ground in Iran, and we wanted to save and protect them if possible,” Patrick said. “You did it because you had the forces standing by and ready to respond. If we'd followed orders, the survivors would be captured, tortured, then killed—you know it, and I know it. You acted. That's more than I can say for the Pentagon and our commander-in-chief. If we're going to lose our freedom, I'd rather it be because we tried to make sure our fellow airmen kept theirs.”

Rebecca fell silent for a long moment, then shook her head ruefully. “I hate it when you're right, General,” she said. “Maybe I can tell them that you threatened to blast me with Skybolt if I didn't do as you ordered.”

“Maybe they'll laugh so hard they'll forget what we did.”

“We need a plan, General,” Rebecca said. “The Turks are going to send a force to retake Batman Air Base, and if they don't there's an entire U.S. airborne division in Germany that could be dropping on our heads within half a day. We've only got three CID units and four Tin Men at Batman, plus the security and maintenance troops. And we all know that Battle Mountain and probably Elliott will be next.”

“We should move the Air Battle Force units to Dreamland,” Patrick said. “We can hold that base a lot easier than Battle Mountain.”

“Do you hear what you're saying, Patrick?” Rebecca asked incredulously. “You're conspiring to organize and direct U.S. military forces against the orders of the commander-in-chief, illegally marshal them under your own command without any authority, and directly oppose and engage with American military forces. That's sedition! That's
treason
! You won't go to prison, Patrick—you could be
executed
!”

“Thanks for the legal primer, Rebecca,” Patrick said. “I'm hoping it won't come to this. After the survivors are rescued and the Russian anti-spacecraft laser is destroyed or at least discovered, all of this will be over. I understand if you don't want to do as I suggest, Rebecca. But if you want to take the Air Battle Force and assist, you can't stay at Battle Mountain. They could be rolling up outside to take you down as we speak.”

Everyone on the secure video teleconference could see the tortured expression on Rebecca Furness's face. Out of all of them, she probably had the most to lose in this, and it was obvious she didn't want this. But just a moment later, she nodded. “All right. In for a dime, in for a dollar—in for twenty to life. Maybe the court-martial will take pity on me because I'm a woman. I'll get the planes moving right away, Dave. Make room for me.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Dave Luger responded from Elliott Air Force Base. Then: “What about the personnel and equipment at Batman Air Base, Muck? The Turks and our own guys could be waiting for them to return…if Turkey doesn't try to shoot them down when they cross back into Turkish airspace.”

“I've got an idea for them, Dave,” Patrick said. “It's going to be risky, but it's our only chance…”

 

P
RIVATE RESIDENCE OF
L
EONID
Z
EVITIN
, B
OLTINO
, R
USSIA

T
HAT SAME TIME

“Calm yourself, Excellency,” Leonid Zevitin said. He was in his private study with Foreign Minister Alexandra Hedrov, making phone calls and sending secure e-mails to military and diplomatic units around the world alerting them to the events unfolding over Iran. The phone call from Iranian supreme leader Hassan Mohtaz happened much later than expected, but that was undoubtedly because it was probably very hazardous for anyone to wake the guy up with bad news.