Rogue Forces (6 page)

“It is not just the PKK we need to address, sir, but the security situation with the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline,” military chief of staff Guzlev added. “The Iraqi
peshmerga
are still not trained or equipped well enough to protect the pipeline on their side of the border. We invested billions of lira on that pipeline, and the Iraqis still can’t adequately protect their portion, and won’t allow any outside forces except the Americans to assist. We can earn three times the amount we receive in flowage fees if we can convince the oil producers in northern Iraq—including our own companies—to increase production, but they won’t do it because the pipeline is too vulnerable to attack.”

President Hirsiz stabbed out his cigarette in the ornate ashtray on his desk, then returned to his seat. He was quiet for a few long moments, lost in thought. It was rare that the national security staff was so divided, especially when it came to the PKK and their brutal insurgent attacks. The unexpected appearance of Besir Ozek in his office just hours after surviving the crash should have united their determination to stamp out the PKK once and for all.

But the national security staff—and he himself, Hirsiz had to
admit—were conflicted and divided, with the civilian military leadership desiring a peaceful, diplomatic solution as opposed to a call for direct action by the uniformed commanders. Opposing the Americans and world public opinion with a divided council was not a smart move.

Kurzat Hirsiz got to his feet again and stood straight, almost at attention. “General Ozek, thank you for coming here and addressing me and the national security staff,” he said formally. “We will discuss these options very carefully.”

“Sir…” Ozek lurched forward from shock, forgetting his injuries and wincing in pain as he struggled for balance. “Sir, respectfully, you must act swiftly and decisively. The PKK—no, the
world
—must know that this government takes these attacks seriously. Every moment we delay only shows that we are not committed to our internal security.”

“I agree, General,” Hirsiz said, “but we must act deliberately and carefully, and in close consultation with our international allies. I will instruct General Sahin to put together a plan for the Special Teams to hunt down and capture or kill the PKK operatives who might have planned and led this attack, and to aggressively investigate the possibility of spies in the Jandarma.

“I will further instruct Foreign Minister Hamarat to consult with his American, NATO, and European counterparts and inform them of this council’s outrage at this attack and a demand for cooperation and assistance in tracking down the perpetrators.” He inwardly winced at General Ozek’s incredulous expression, which only served to accentuate his weak, shaky stance. “We will act, General,” Hirsiz quickly added, “but we will do it wisely and as a member of the world community. This will further isolate and marginalize the PKK. If we act rashly, we will be seen as no better than the terrorists.”

“The…world…community?” Ozek murmured bitterly.

“What did you say, General?” Hirsiz snapped. “Do you have something you would like to tell me?”

The wounded Jandarma officer briefly yet openly scowled at the president of the Republic of Turkey, but quickly straightened him
self as best he could, assumed a stern but neutral expression, and said, “No,
sir
.”

“Then you are dismissed, General, with the national security council’s and the Turkish people’s sincere thanks and relief that you are alive following this treacherous and dastardly attack,” Hirsiz said, his acidic tone definitely not matching his words.

“Permission to accompany the general to transient quarters, sir,” armed-forces chief of staff Guzlev said.

Hirsiz looked at his military chief of staff questioningly, finding no answers. He glanced at Ozek, inwardly wincing again at his horrific wounds but finding himself wondering when the best time would be to dismiss the wild raging bull before him. The sooner the better, but not before he had taken every propaganda advantage of his incredible survival.

“We shall reconvene the national security staff in twenty minutes in the Council of Ministers’ conference center to map out a response, General Guzlev,” the president said warily. “Please be back by then. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” Guzlev said. He and Ozek stood at attention momentarily, then headed for the door, with Guzlev carefully holding Ozek’s less-wounded arm for support.

“What in the world possessed Ozek to come all the way to Ankara after barely surviving a plane crash?” Foreign Minister Hamarat asked incredulously. “My God, the pain must be
excruiating!
I was once in a minor fender bender and I hurt for
weeks
afterward! That man was pulled from the burning wreckage of a downed aircraft just a few hours ago!”

“He’s angry and he’s out for blood, Mustafa,” Prime Minister Akas said. She stepped over to Hirsiz, who still appeared to be standing at attention as if placed in a brace by Ozek. “Don’t pay attention to Guzlev and Ozek,” she added in a whisper. “They’re out for blood. We’ve spoken about an invasion many times before and dismissed it every time.”

“Maybe this is the right time, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz whispered back. “Guzlev, Cizek, Ozek, and even Sahin are for it.”

“You’re not
seriously
considering it, are you, Mr. President?” Akas whispered back with an incredulous hiss. “The United States would never agree. We’d be pariahs in the world’s eyes…”

“I’m beginning to not care what the world thinks of us, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said. “How many more funerals do we have to attend before the world lets us do something about the rebel Kurds out there?”

A
LLIED
A
IR
B
ASE
N
AHLA
, T
ALL
K
AYF, NEAR
M
OSUL
, I
RAQ

T
WO DAYS LATER

“Nahla Tower, Scion One-Seven, nine miles out, requesting visual approach to runway two-niner.”

“Scion One-Seven, Nahla Tower, you are number one, cleared to land,” the supervising Iraqi army controller responded in very good but heavily accented English. “Recommend Nahla enhanced arrival procedure three, the base is at Force Protection Condition Bravo, cleared for enhanced arrival procedure three, acknowledge.”

“Negative, Nahla, Scion One-Seven wants clearance for the visual to two-niner.”

The supervisor was unaccustomed to anyone not following his instructions to the letter, and he stabbed at his mike button and shot back: “Scion One-Seven, Nahla Tower, a visual approach is not authorized in FPCON Bravo conditions.” FPCON, or Force Protection Condition (formerly called “Threat Condition” or THREATCON), Bravo was the third highest level, indicating that actionable intelligence had been received that an attack was possible. “You
will
execute procedure three. Do you understand? Acknowledge.”

A phone rang in the background, and the deputy tower controller picked it up. A moment later he handed the receiver to the supervisor: “Sir? The deputy base commander for you.”

The supervisor, further annoyed by being interrupted while he was working an inbound flight, snatched the receiver away from his deputy. “Captain Saad. I’ve got an arriving flight, sir, can I call you back?”

“Captain, let that inbound flight do the visual pattern,” he heard the familiar voice of the American colonel say. The deputy base commander was obviously listening in on the tower frequency awaiting this flight. “It’s his funeral.”

“Yes, Colonel.” Why an American special mission aircraft would risk getting shot at by not performing the high-performance arrival procedure was unclear, but orders were orders. He gave his deputy the receiver, sighed, and touched the mike button again: “Scion One-Seven, Nahla Tower, you are cleared for the visual approach and overhead pattern to runway two-niner, winds two-seven zero at twenty-five knots gusting to forty, RVR four thousand, FPCON Bravo in effect, cleared to land.”

“Scion One-Seven, cleared for the visual and overhead to two-niner, cleared to land.”

The supervisor picked up the crash phone: “Station One, this is the tower,” he said in Arabic. “I have a flight on final approach to land, and I’ve cleared him for a visual approach and pattern.”

“Say again?” the dispatcher at the airport fire station queried. “But we’re at FPCON Bravo.”

“The American colonel’s orders. I wanted to put you guys on notice.”

“Thanks for the call. The captain will probably move us out to our ‘hot spots’ on taxiway Delta.”

“You’re cleared to preposition on Delta.” The supervisor hung up the phone. He then made a similar call to base security and to the hospital. If there was going to be an attack—and this was the perfect opportunity for one—the more alerts he could issue, the better.

Through his binoculars, the tower supervisor searched for the aircraft. He could see it on his tower radar display, but not yet visually. It was about six miles out, coming straight in but offset to the west, appearing to line up for the downwind leg for Runway 29—and he was ridiculously
slow
, as if configured for landing while still several minutes from touchdown. Did this guy have some sort of death wish? He relayed the aircraft position to security and crash responders so they could move to a better position…

…or get out of the way of the wreckage, in case the worst happened.

Finally, at three miles he saw it—or rather, saw
part
of it. It had a broad, bulbous fuselage, but he could not make out the wings or tail.
It had no visible passenger windows and a weird paint color—sort of a medium bluish gray, but the shading seemed to change depending on background clouds and lighting levels. It was unusually hard to maintain a visual on it.

He checked the BRITE tower radar display, a repeater of Mosul Approach Control’s local radar, and sure enough the plane was flying only ninety-eight knots—about fifty knots
slower
than normal approach speed! Not only was the pilot making himself an easy target for snipers, but he was going to stall the plane and crash. In these winds, a sudden errant gust could flip that guy upside down fast.

“Scion One-Seven, Nahla Tower, are you experiencing difficulty?”

“Tower, One-Seven, negative,” the pilot replied.

“Copy. You are cleared to land. We are in FPCON Bravo. Acknowledge.”

“Scion One-Seven copies FPCON Bravo and cleared to land.”

Stupid, just plain stupid. The supervisor watched in amazement as the strange plane executed a standard left downwind pattern on the west side of the runway. It resembled an American stealth bomber, except its engines were
atop
the rear fuselage and it appeared much larger. He expected to see RPG or Stinger missiles flying through the sky any second. The aircraft rocked a few times in the gusty winds, but mostly maintained a very stable flight path despite its unbelievably slow flight speed—it was like watching a tiny Cessna in the pattern instead of a two-hundred-thousand-pound airplane.

Somehow, the plane managed to make it all the way around the rectangular traffic pattern without falling or being shot from the sky. The tower supervisor could not see any wing flaps deployed. It maintained that ridiculously slow airspeed all the way around the pattern until short final, when it slowed to precisely
ninety knots
, then dropped as lightly as a feather on the numbers. It easily turned off at the first taxiway; he had never seen a fixed-wing plane land in such a short distance.

“Tower, Scion One-Seven is clear of the active,” the pilot reported.

The supervisor had to shake himself from his shock. “Roger, One-Seven, stay on this frequency, report security vehicles in sight straight ahead, they will lead you to parking. Use caution for fire trucks and security vehicles on the taxiways. Welcome to Nahla.”

“Roger, Tower, One-Seven has the security vehicles in sight,” the pilot responded. Several armed Humvees with gunners in turrets manning .50 caliber machine guns or forty-millimeter rapid-fire grenade launchers had surrounded the aircraft, and a blue Suburban with flashing blue lights and a large yellow “Follow Me” sign pulled out ahead. “Have a nice day.”

The convoy escorted the plane to a large aircraft shelter north of the control tower. The Humvees deployed around the shelter as the Suburban pulled inside, and an aircraft marshaler brought the plane to a stop. A set of air stairs was towed out to the plane, but before it was put into position a hatch opened under the cockpit behind the nose gear, and personnel began climbing down a ladder.

At the same time, several men exited the Humvee and stood at the plane’s left wingtip, one of them visibly upset. “Man, they weren’t kidding—it’s
hot
out here!” Jon Masters exclaimed. He looked around at the aircraft shelter. “Hey, this hangar has air conditioning—let’s crank it up!”

“Let’s check in with the base commander first, Jon,” the second man out, Patrick McLanahan, suggested. He nodded to the Humvee below them. “I think that’s Colonel Jaffar and our contact right there.”

“Jaffar looks pissed. What did we do now?”

“Let’s go find out,” Patrick said. He stepped over to the Iraqi colonel, bowed slightly, and extended a hand. “Colonel Jaffar? I’m Patrick McLanahan.”

Jaffar was just a bit taller than Patrick, but he raised his chin, puffed out his chest, and flexed himself on his toes to make himself look taller and more important. When he was satisfied the newcomers took notice, he slowly raised his right hand to his right eyebrow in a salute. “General McLanahan. Welcome to Nahla Air Base,” he said in very good but heavily accented English. Patrick returned the
salute, then reextended his hand. Jaffar slowly took it, smiled faintly, then tried to crush Patrick’s hand in his. When he realized it wouldn’t work, the smile disappeared.

“Colonel, may I present Dr. Jonathan Colin Masters. Dr. Masters, Colonel Yusuf Jaffar, Iraqi Air Forces, commander of Allied Air Base Nahla.” Jaffar nodded but did not shake hands with Jon. Patrick gave a slight exasperated shake of his head, then read the name tag of the young man standing beside and behind Jaffar. “Mr Thompson? I’m Patrick—”

“General Patrick McLanahan. I know who you are, sir—we
all
know who you are.” The tall, impossibly young-looking officer behind Jaffar stepped forward, grinning from ear to ear. “Nice to meet you, sir. Kris Thompson, president of Thompson International, security consultants.” He shook Patrick’s hand with both of his, pumping it excitedly and shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it…General Patrick McLanahan. I’m actually shaking hands with
the
Patrick McLanahan.”

“Thanks, Kris. This is Dr. Jon Masters. He’s—”

“Hiya, Doc,” Thompson said, not taking his eyes off or releasing the hand of Patrick McLanahan. “Welcome, sir. It’s a real honor and privilege to meet you and welcome you to Iraq. I will—”

“You will please stop your chattering, Thompson, and let us get to business,” Jaffar said impatiently. “Your reputation assuredly precedes you, General, but I must remind you that you are a civilian contractor and bound to obey my rules and regulations and those of the Republic of Iraq. I have been asked by your government to extend you all possible courtesies and assistance, and as a fellow officer, I am honor-bound to do so, but you must understand that Iraqi law—which is to say, in this place,
my
law—must be followed at all times. Is that clear, sir?”

“Yes, Colonel, it’s clear,” Patrick said.

“Then why did you disobey my regulations concerning arrivals and approaches to Nahla?”

“We thought it was necessary to assess the threat condition ourselves, Colonel,” Patrick replied. “Doing a max-performance arrival
wouldn’t have told us anything. We decided to assume the risk and do a visual approach and pattern.”

“My staff and I assess the threat condition on this base every hour of every day, General,” Jaffar said angrily. “I issue orders that govern all personnel and operations at this base to ensure the safety and security of everyone. They are not to be disregarded for any reason. You cannot assume the risk at any time for any reason, sir: the responsibility is
mine
, at all times, and that is inviolate. Disregard my law again, and you shall be asked to perform your tasks at another base. Is that clear, sir?”

“Yes, Colonel, it’s clear.”

“Very well.” Jaffar put his hands behind his back, puffing out his chest again. “I think you are very fortunate you were not hit by enemy fire. My security forces and I swept the entire area in a ten kilometer radius outside the base for threats. I assure you, you were in little danger. But that does not mean you can—”

“Excuse me, but we
did
come under fire, Colonel,” Jon Masters cut in.

Jaffar’s eyes blazed at the interruption, then his mouth opened and closed in confusion, then turned rigid in indignation. “What did you say, young man?” he growled.

“We were hit by ground fire a total of one hundred and seventy-nine times while within ten miles of the base, Colonel,” Jon said. “And forty-one of the shots came from
inside
the base.”

“That is impossible! That is
preposterous
! How could you know this?”

“That’s our job here, Colonel: assess the threat condition at this and other allied air bases in northern Iraq,” Patrick said. “Our aircraft is instrumented and allows us to detect, track, identify, and pinpoint the origin of attacks. We can locate, identify, and track weapon fire down to nine-millimeter caliber.” He held out his hand, and Jon put a folder in it. “Here’s a map of the origin of all the shots we detected. As you can see, Colonel, one of the heaviest volleys of gunfire—a six-round burst of 12.7-millimeter cannon fire—came from
this base
. From the security-forces training range, to be exact.”
He took a step toward Jaffar, his blue eyes boring into the Iraqi’s. “Tell me, Colonel: Who’s out on that range right now? What caliber of antiaircraft weapons do you have here at Nahla?” Jaffar’s mouth bobbled again in confusion. “Whoever did this, I expect them to be placed under arrest and charged with deliberately firing upon allied aircraft.”

“I…I will look into it…personally, sir,” Jaffar said, sweat popping out on his forehead. He made a slight bow, backing away. “I will look into this immediately, sir.” He almost ran headlong into Thompson in his haste to get away.

“What a butthead,” Jon said. “I hope we don’t have to put up with his shit every day out here.”

“He’s actually one of the
more
competent commanders in northern Iraq, Doc,” Thompson said. “He expects a lot of ass kissing and genuflecting. But he’s not the one that gets things done—he just cracks heads whenever one of his underlings doesn’t do the job. So, is that true about you detecting and tracking attacks against your aircraft?”

“Absolutely,” Jon replied. “And we can do a lot more, too.”

“We’ll give you details once we get your security clearance, Kris,” Patrick said. “It’ll water your eyes, believe me.”

“Cool,” Thompson said. “The colonel may act like a preening peacock, but when he finds the jokers who shot at you, he’ll bring the hammer down on them for sure.”

“Unfortunately it wasn’t just some bozos out on the range—we detected several other locations both inside the base and just outside the perimeter,” Jon said. “The colonel may be the best around, but it’s not good enough. He’s got sappers inside the wire.”

“As I texted you when you told me you were coming, sir,” Thompson said, “I believe the FPCON here should be Delta—active and ongoing terrorist contact. It makes Jaffar look bad to Baghdad to be any higher than Bravo. But my guys and the Army security forces are behaving as if it’s Delta. So if you’ll follow me, sir, I’ll show you to your quarters and offices and show you around the base a bit.”