Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
—AMELIA EARHART
ALLIED AIR BASE NAHLA, IRAQ
THE NEXT MORNING
“Movement at the front gate, sir!” the Turkish captain of the troops surrounding Nahla Air Base heard on his portable radio. “Combat vehicles lining up to exit!”
“Bombok!” the captain swore. “What’s going on?” He threw his coffee out the window and exited his armored personnel carrier. A Humvee flying an American flag and pulling a trailer was entering the entrapment area, with another Humvee-trailer combo outside waiting its turn. The weapon cupolas on each vehicle had machine guns and grenade launchers mounted, but they still had canvas covers on them, they were locked in road-march position, and the gunner’s stations were not manned.
“Where do they think they are going?” the Turkish infantry captain asked.
“Should we stop them?” his first sergeant asked.
“We have no orders to interfere with them unless they attack us,” the captain said. “Otherwise we observe and report only.”
The Turks watched as the first Humvee exited, then pulled out away from the front gate and stopped to wait for the second. The Turkish captain stepped over to the front passenger side of the lead vehicle. “Good morning, sir,” he said. He saw it was a civilian. He knew the Americans employed a lot of civilians to work at their military bases, but to see one out here was rather bizarre.
“Good morning…er, I mean, günaydin,” the man said in clumsy but understandable Turkish. “How’s it going?”
“Very well, sir,” the captain said in a low voice. The American just smiled and nodded. The Turk used the opportunity to peek inside the Humvee. There were two civilians in the rear seats and a lot of supplies under green tarps in the very back. One civilian passenger looked military, and he wore a strange outfit, like a scuba diver’s wet suit, covered by a jacket. He looked straight ahead and did not return the Turk’s gaze. The twenty-foot flatbed trailer was empty.
The American stuck out his right hand. “Jon Masters.”
The Turkish captain frowned, but took his hand and shook it. “Captain Evren.”
“Nice to met you,” Jon said. He looked around. “You guys doing okay out here? Anything we can get you?”
“No, efendim,” Evren said. He was waiting for some kind of explanation, but apparently this man was not interested in offering anything but chitchat. “May I ask where you are going, sir?”
“Just driving around.”
Evren looked at the gaggle of Humvees, then back at Jon with a stern expression. “At this hour, and with trailers?”
“Why not? I’ve been here in Iraq for a couple weeks and I haven’t seen anything of the countryside. Thought I’d better do it while the doin’ is good.”
Evren didn’t understand half of what the guy just said, and he was getting tired of his goofy smile. “May I ask please where you are going, sir, and what you intend to do with the trailers?” he repeated, much more forcefully.
“Just around.” Jon drew a circle with his finger. “Around. Around here.”
Evren was getting angry with the guy, but he had no authority to detain him. “Please be mindful of other military vehicles, sir,” he said. “Some of our larger vehicles have limited visibility for the driver. An encounter with a main battle tank would be unfortunate for you.”
The veiled threat didn’t seem to have any effect on the American. “I’ll tell the others,” he said idly. “Thanks for the tip. Bye-bye now.” And the convoy headed off.
“What should we do, sir?” the first sergeant asked.
“Have the checkpoints report their position to me as they pass,” Evren said, “then get someone to follow them.” The first sergeant hurried off.
The convoy of Humvees drove around to the north side of the base on public highways. They passed a Turkish army checkpoint at one intersection, where they were stopped so soldiers could look inside the vehicles, but not detained or searched. They continued north for a couple more miles, then exited the highway and drove farther north through a muddy open field. Ahead they saw stakes pounded in the ground with yellow “Caution” and “Keep Out” tape strung between them, and a few hundred yards beyond that was the wreckage of Scion Aviation International’s XC-57 Loser. The Turkish missiles apparently hadn’t hit the plane directly, but proximity fuses exploded the warheads near the pod-mounted engines atop the fuselage, shearing two of them off and sending the plane hurtling to the ground. It had landed on its left front side, crumpling most of the left wing and left side of the nose, and there had been a fire, but the rest of the plane sustained what might be called moderate damage; most of the right side of the plane was relatively intact.
There was a lone Russian IMR engineer vehicle parked at the tape border, with two Turkish soldiers on guard duty with it. The IMR had a crane mounted on the back and a blade in front resembling a bulldozer. The soldiers discarded cigarettes and coffee and got on portable radios as they saw the convoy approach. “Hayir, hayir!” one of them shouted, waving his hands. “Durun! Gidin!”
Jon Masters got out of the Humvee and trudged through the mud toward the soldiers. “Good morning! Günaydin!” he shouted. “How’s it going? Any of you guys speak English?”
“No come here! No stay!” the soldier shouted. “Tehlikeli! Dangerous here! Yasaktir! Prohibited!”
“No, it’s not dangerous at all,” Jon said. “You see, that’s my plane.” He patted his chest. “Mine. It belongs to me. I’m here to take a few parts back with me and check it out.”
The first soldier waved his arms in front of his face in a crossing motion while the second picked up his rifle, not pointing it but making it visible to all. “No entry,” the first said sternly. “Prohibited.”
“You can’t prohibit me from examining my own plane,” Jon said. “I have permission from the Iraqi government. You guys aren’t even Iraqi. What right do you have to stop me?”
“No entry,” the first soldier said. “Go away. Go back.” He pulled out his portable radio and began speaking while the second soldier raised his rifle to port arms in an obvious threatening gesture. When the first soldier finished radioing his report, he waved his hands as if trying to shoo away a youngster, shouting, “Go now. Siktir git! Go!”
“I’m not leaving without looking at my plane…what you guys did to my plane,” Jon said. He quickly walked past both soldiers, then walked backward toward the plane. The soldiers followed him, shouting orders in Turkish, confused and getting angrier by the second. Jon held up his hands and walked backward quicker. “I won’t be long, you guys, but I’m going to look at my plane. Leave me alone!” Jon started to run toward the plane.
“Dur! Stop!” The second shoulder raised his rifle into firing position but not aiming it at Jon, obviously to fire a warning shot. “Stop or I will—”
Suddenly the rifle was snatched out of his hands in the blink of an eye. The soldier turned…and saw a person wearing a head-to-toe suit of dark gray, an eyeless helmet right out of a science-fiction comic book, a framework of thin flexible tubules all across its skin, and thick gauntlets and boots. “Aman allahim…!”
“Don’t be rude,” the figure said in electronically synthesized Turkish. “No weapons”—he reached out with incredible quickness and snatched the portable transceiver away from the second soldier—“and no radios. I’ll give them back only if you show me you can behave.” The Turks backed away, then started to run when they realized they weren’t going to be captured.
“C’mon, guys, let’s go,” Jon said, trotting toward the stricken XC-57. “See, I told you it wouldn’t so bad.”
“Rascal One, this is Genesis,” Patrick McLanahan radioed to Wayne Macomber. “You’ve got a couple vehicles headed your way, about ten minutes out.” Patrick had launched a small unmanned attack aircraft called an AGM-177 Wolverine, which had been brought in via the 767 freighter. It resembled a cross between a cruise missile and a surfboard. It was normally air-launched, but had the ability to be fired from a truck-mounted catapult. The Wolverine carried infrared and millimeter-wave imaging and targeting sensors so it could autonomously locate, attack, and reattack targets programmed for it. It had three internal weapons bays for attacks on different types of targets, and it could also attack a fourth target by flying into it kamikaze style. “Radar has a helicopter about ten minutes to the east,” he added. “We don’t know if it’s headed this way or just on patrol, but it’s close.”
“Copy, Genesis,” Macomber replied. He waved at the Humvees to move in. “C’mon, we’ve got company, get in there and help the egghead,” he ordered. “I want to be out of here ASAP.” The Humvees rolled in, and technicians began unloading power tools to start opening the plane up.
“I’ll be here all day at least, probably for the next two days,” Jon Masters radioed.
“Masters, I’m not here to cart the entire aircraft back to the base,” Macomber radioed back. “Grab any classified stuff and only the most essential black boxes that are intact, and let’s get out of here. We’re out in the open with three hundred Turkish soldiers coming for us and another fifty thousand in the area.” That reminder seemed to make everyone work a little quicker.
“That helicopter is definitely coming your way,” Patrick radioed. “About seven minutes out. The ground forces have increased in size—looks like six vehicles now, four troop carriers and two armored vehicles. How’s the plane look?”
“Masters says it doesn’t look that bad,” Whack said. “I think he’d say that if it was nothing but a smoking hole in the ground.”
“You’re right about that. Okay, they’re setting up roadblocks north and south on the highway, and all six vehicles are headed your way.”
“Copy.”
“No fighting unless it’s absolutely necessary, Rascal. We’re all still friends, remember.”
“I know. I’ve been extremely cordial and nice so far.”
“They should be in sight on the highway now.”
Wayne turned and saw the trucks unloading a total of about twenty troops with rifles, the armored vehicles on guard flanking the trucks and off-loading their own dismounts, and the same Captain Evren Jon spoke with at the front gate, scanning them with binoculars. “In sight. I see infantry weapons only so far. Rascal, this is One, we’ve got lookylous, stand by.” A few minutes later, Whack saw several soldiers and Captain Evren board their armored personnel carriers and slowly drive toward them. “Here they come.”
Evren’s APC stopped about thirty yards in front of Whack, and five soldiers dismounted, fanned out about six yards apart from one another, and lay prone on the ground with rifles raised. Whack noticed that the gunner’s cupola atop the APC was manned and the barrel of the 12.5-millimeter machine gun aimed right at him; there was also a Russian-made AT-3 “Sagger” antitank missile mounted on its launch rail, aimed at one of the Humvees. The second APC moved away, heading around Whack toward the XC-57.
“You!” Evren shouted in English. “Raise your hands and turn around!”
“Hayir,” Whack replied in Turkish via his electronic translator. “No. Leave us alone.”
“You are not permitted access to the plane.”
“We have permission from the Iraqi government and the plane’s owner,” Whack said. “This is a legal salvage operation. Leave us alone.”
“I repeat, raise your hands and turn around, or we will open fire.”
“I am an American, I’m not armed, and I have permission from the Iraqi government. You’re a Turkish soldier. I don’t take orders from you.”
Now Evren seemed to be confused. He pulled out his portable transceiver and spoke into it. “He’s obviously reached the limit of his rules of engagement,” Whack said over the command network. “Here’s where it’ll start getting interesting. Keep an eye on the second APC; it’s flanking me and heading your way.”
“Got it in sight, One,” came the reply from Charlie Turlock.
“The helicopter is about five minutes out, Rascal,” Patrick said.
“Copy. Let’s hope it’s just the TV news.” Whack thought for a moment. “I’m starting to get nervous about that machine gun and Sagger missile on this APC, guys,” he said. “Everyone, find some cover away from the Humvees.” Through his translator, he said, “Point your weapons away right now!”
“You will surrender immediately or we will open fire!” Evren shouted in return.
“I’m warning you, point your weapons away and leave us alone, or I’m going to rough you up,” Whack said. “I don’t care about this NATO ally shit—lower your weapons and go away or you’re all going to wake up in the hospital.”
Through the sensitive microphones built into the Tin Man suit, Whack heard Evren say the word ates. A three-round burst of rifle fire rang out, and all three rounds hit Macomber’s left thigh. “God bless it,” Macomber snarled. “The guy shot me in the damned leg.”
“He was only trying to wound you,” Charlie said. “Take it easy, Whack.”
Evren was obviously startled to see the figure still standing, even though he’d clearly seen all rounds hit. “One more warning, bub,” Whack shouted in Turkish. “If you don’t drop your weapons, I’m going to play a little tune on your skull with my fists.”
He heard Evren say, “Ohn ekee, bebe, sicak!” which meant, “The twelve and the baby, go hot,” and Whack radioed, “Take cover, knock out the APCs, now!” just as the gunner on the 12.5-millimeter machine gun opened fire.
With a blast of supercompressed air, Whack launched himself through the air and landed atop the armored vehicle. The gunner tried to follow him as he sailed at him, nearly knocking himself out of the cupola. After Whack landed, he bent the barrel of the machine gun until the weapon exploded from the pressure of unexpelled gases. But he wasn’t quick enough to stop the AT-3. The wire-guided missile flew off its launch rail and hit one of the Humvees, sending it flying through the air on a cloud of fire. “Everyone okay?” he radioed.
“Everyone was clear,” Jon Masters said. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Can I bust some heads now, General?” Macomber asked.
“I don’t want anyone hurt, Rascal, unless they go for Jon and the techs,” Patrick said. “Take their weapons only.”
“When are we going to knock off the ‘Kumbaya’ routine around here, sir?” Macomber asked half aloud. “Rascal Two, can you take out the twelve-point-five and the Sagger without hurting—” But at that moment there was a small explosion on top of the second APC, and the gunner jumped out of the cupola, beating sparks and small flames off his uniform. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Charlie said.
Whack was taking sustained rifle fire from the Turks as he jumped off the APC and walked over to Evren; they didn’t stop firing until Whack grasped Evren by his jacket and lifted him off the ground. “I asked you nicely to leave us alone,” Whack said. “Now I’m going to be not so nice, arkadas.” As easily as tossing a tennis ball, Whack threw Evren a hundred yards through the air, almost all the way back to the highway. He then raced over and did the same to the other Turkish soldiers around him who hadn’t run away. “Is that okay, Genesis?”
“Thank you for showing restraint, Rascal,” Patrick replied.
Macomber jumped over to the other APC, but the Turkish troops had already run off…because they got a look at Charlie Turlock, aboard a Cybernetic Infantry Device guarding the other side of the crash site. She carried her own electromagnetic rail gun and wore a forty-millimeter rocket launcher backpack containing eight vertically launched rockets with high-explosive, antipersonnel bomblet, and smoke warheads, plus a reload backpack in the Humvee. “Everything okay, Two?”
“I’m clear,” Charlie replied. She pointed to the east. “That helicopter is in sight. Looks like a standard-issue Huey. I see a door gunner but no other weapons.”
“If he points that gun anywhere near our guys, take it out.”
“I got him zeroed in already. Looks like a cameraman in the door with him. Smile—you’re on Candid Camera.”
“Just great. Masters…?”
“I don’t even have all the access doors open yet, Wayne,” Jon said. “I’ll need at least an hour just to find out what’s what. It shouldn’t take long to pull the major components and LRUs—maybe three hours, tops. But I’d like at least eight hours to—”
“I don’t know if you have eight minutes, let along eight hours, but get moving and we’ll hold them off as long as we can,” Whack said.
“Maybe if you’d help us, we’d be done quicker,” Jon suggested.
Whack sighed inside his armor. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said. “Charlie, you got security. I’m going to be a mechanic for a while.”
“Roger. That helicopter is starting to orbit us. Looks like they’re taking pictures. The door gunner’s not tracking anything on the ground.”
“If it looks like he’s going to engage, nail him.”
“With pleasure.”
“We’re engineers, not mechanics,” Jon corrected him. “But you’ll be the demolition guy.”
“Well, that sounds more like it,” Whack said.