Spiders from the Shadows

TWENTY-THREE


Offutt Air Force Base, Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command, Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska


The UH-60 Black Hawk Army helicopter was large, black, lean, and low. Everything about it screamed serious combat aircraft. The two T700-GE-701 turboshaft engines, each rated at more than one thousand six hundred horsepower, and four composite titanium rotors could lift a fully equipped infantry squad and transport it at almost 200 mph. Its protective armor can withstand hits from 23 mm shells, and with its two door-mounted M134 six-barreled Gatling guns and M130 system designed to disperse chaff and infrared jamming, it could give as well as it could take.

Standing on the tarmac near the helicopter’s rear cabin, Sam could see that both door guns were mounted and manned, their metal ammo containers full and ready. He looked forward, nodded to the crew, then slid the combat gear off his back and dropped it on the metal floor. “Ready when you are, sir,” the pilot called from the left seat. The helicopter’s engines weren’t running yet, but it was cocked and ready, only waiting for his word. Sam nodded to the chief warrant officer and pulled his leather gloves on. Someone behind him called his name and he turned. Brucius was walking toward him. He hadn’t heard the staff cars pull up. His face and body grew tense and he stood ramrod straight. “Sir,” he saluted briskly.

“A word with you, Captain.”

“Sir.”

Brucius took Sam’s arm, leading him away from the helicopter. As they walked, Sam looked around. The Army helicopter was sitting on the hammerhead at the end of the runway at Offutt Air Force Base. The main runway stretched northwest for almost two miles. Lines of military aircraft, parked in rows of four, and a string of enormous hangars lined the runway, the largest of the hangars sitting midfield. Two black SUVs had pulled up beside the helicopter. Six civilian guards stood their posts. Behind them, another dozen military security police moved around. Halfway down the taxiway, two camouflaged Humvees with .50 caliber machine guns and automatic grenade launchers waited. Glancing up and down the runway, Sam knew there had to be snipers watching. One of them, he guessed, had a bead on him right now, keeping his crosshair on Sam’s heart while others kept watch over the long expanse of runway as well as the cavernous hangars and long, brown grass on the other side of the runway. It frightened him, seeing the impenetrable wall of security that surrounded Brucius now. These were more than just precautions. These were guys who expected a fight. Turning from the runway, he looked at Brucius. He wore a dark suit and, looking closely, Sam could see the narrow outline of a holstered pistol tucked at his left side.

The soldier in Sam smiled. If it came to an open b@oning the reachedattle, the men in Raven Rock were going to get a fight. Good for Brucius. He liked a man who wasn’t afraid to go down shooting.

Brucius kept his arm across Sam’s shoulder as they walked. When Brucius started to talk, he spoke with urgency. He didn’t have much time. “Do you understand your mission?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Brucius stopped and turned to him. “I’m not sure you do.”

Sam waited.

“No offense, Captain Brighton, but I’m just not sure you do. Not yet. Not completely. And I’ve thought about this, wondering how much I should tell you, wondering if it helps or hurts to put the pressure on, but I think it’s only fair for you to know. Hard to feel any more pressure than you already feel, I suppose, and I just think it’s important for a man to know what he’s up against before he walks into a fight.” A military aircraft suddenly flew overhead and they both glanced up as the F-22 fighter circled to land after providing combat air patrol. They didn’t speak for a moment as the gray fighter flew parallel to the runway, opposite the direction from which the pilot intended to land, then broke hard to the left, dropped its gear, descended while turning sharply, and lined up for the runway, its nose high now, its speed brake extending for half a second to slow it down, its dark canopy muting any light flashes from the sun. One of the Humvees turned to face it, its gunner keeping the fighter in sight.

The sound faded quickly as the pilot pulled his engines back to idle and Brucius turned to Lieutenant Brighton again. “I don’t think it’s excessively dramatic or even an overstatement to say that, in many ways, the future of our world depends on what you and your team do now,” he said.

Sam kept his mouth shut, the creases on his forehead furrowing deeper with concentration.

“Sometime soon, if your mother is successful—and we both pray she will be—I hope to be sworn in as president of the United States. Once that happens—if that happens—do you have any idea the pressure I will come under to retaliate against King Abdullah for the EMP attack? I’ve got a dozen generals and a couple of dozen civilian advisers who are begging me to do it now, take whatever resources I can muster and launch a counterattack. Of course I can’t do that for several reasons, the most important of them being that I am not the president. But if that time comes the pressure to retaliate will increase exponentially. And how can I blame them? It’s exactly what I want to do as well. More, it’s been the strategic doctrine of our country for more than eighty years that we would retaliate if we ever suffered from a nuclear hit. Same thing for the EMP attack, which, you can see, has proven much more deadly and difficult to survive than a simple nuclear strike. They got us, and now they almost have us. We know that King Abdullah funded, coordinated, and ordered both attacks. It’s going to be enormously difficult for me not to order retaliation once I become the president.”

A cool wind blew across the open runway and Brucius sucked in the air.

“The only problem with the doctrine of retaliation is if you happen to be one of the fifty million innocent Arabs who are going to die. They didn’t choose their king. They certainly don’t control him. They have no more say in their national leadership or foreign policy than the poor old goatherds did over the most powerful caliphs a thousand years ago. It just seems, I don’t know, a little bit ineffective to order the death of fifty million@edgap innocent civilians. And a conventional attack is not an option, not right now, not with virtually all of our military forces required here at home—not to mention the lack of blood and treasure to fund such a massive land attack. But we have to do something. We can’t walk away from this fight, our tail between our legs.

“And let’s say I did order retaliation. Let’s consider the implications for future relationships between the Middle East and the West. It would take a dozen generations to get beyond this. In fact, I don’t think we ever would. I think that hundreds of years from now, such an action would still define our two worlds. I believe such a retaliatory strike would create a death match between our cultures, leading to both of our downfalls.

“But we know something about King Abdullah and his intentions that is proving incredibly valuable. We know where he’s going. We know when he’ll be there. Fool of fools, outside his own nation he’s going to be vulnerable. So desperate is he to kill his nephew, he takes an enormous risk.

“We have this one chance. If you can get him, if you can locate and extricate King Abdullah, then we can punish him. Justice will be served. We could stop the final world war. I know that sounds like something out of a poorly written movie, but it really is the case: Find him. We will try him and hang him. Don’t, and we’ll have to retaliate.”

Sam felt his stomach muscles tighten, and he was already feeling sick. His mouth was so dry he didn’t know if he could talk. “I understand, sir,” he answered simply. “We’ll do the best we can.”

“Remember this, it is important: As long as the boy is alive, Abdullah has no legitimate claim upon the kingdom. Protect the boy and he will be king. But let Abdullah kill him and it’s over. We have no chance for a legitimate or friendly government in Saudi Arabia. Worse, let Abdullah slip away and we lose the only chance we have of averting Armageddon.”

Sam stared ahead and swallowed.

Brucius eyed him carefully. “You have a good team?” he asked.

“The best, sir.”

He watched the young soldier. “I hope so. We need the best right now.”

Sam waited, expecting to be dismissed.

“A couple of other things you might want to consider,” Brucius told him as the cold air blew his suit jacket, pressing it tight against his waist, exposing the outline of his pistol. “We have to demonstrate to the rest of the world that, despite some of their great hopes and deep-seated desires, the United States hasn’t been rendered completely helpless. We have to demonstrate that we’re not neutered, that we have the will to fight. We’re not going to turn in on ourselves and abrogate our responsibilities to the world. We have to show that we are capable of and, much more importantly, still willing to mount a military operation in order to protect ourselves, that we are not a broken nation, that we can get up from our knees. Do you understand that, Captain Brighton? I know I’m asking you to think much larger; I’m asking you to think on a much more strategic level. This is political. This is perception. But many times, most times in geopolitical situations, perception is far more important than the reality. And that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

Sam nodded. The band of black-suited personal bodyguards drew nearer, hating the fact their charge was exposing himself like this, out in the open, unmoving, not under@edgap any cover. Might as well stand in the middle of the runway with a bull’s-eye on his coat. They moved closer, gathering in a loose circle, all of them facing out. Brucius looked at them, then turned back. “One more thing,” he said, biting his lower lip, “and this is perhaps the most important thing that I can tell you. If I’m sworn in as president, once we start to rebuild and re-secure our nation, do you think King Abdullah is going to stand by? Do you think he came this far to watch us build again? He knows that once we set our minds to it, once we dedicate the people and the resources, we’ll be back in the fight. It won’t even take us very long, once his allies in the government have been destroyed. That being the case, do you really think he’ll let us? Or will he attack again?”

Sam’s eyes opened wider. He had thought that it was over, that the worst of it had passed. It had never once occurred to him that the battle would continue or that King Abdullah might attack again.

Brucius watched his face and read his mind. “He’s prepared. He has other weapons. Biological agents. The most dreaded diseases. If he uses them, it’ll make the plagues of Egypt look like a weekend cold. He’s got at least another twenty nuclear warheads, we know that. He’s got—” Brucius stopped. No sense going on.

The two men stood in silence for a long moment. The cold wind cut through Sam’s military jacket, sending a shiver up his spine.