THREE PROUD WOMEN by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

Le Bourget Airshow.

15:08 (Paris Time)

Thursday, June 14, 2001 ‘C’

Forward cabin of the Hiller SKYTRUCK

Aircraft exposition area, main tarmac of Le Bourget Airport Northeast suburbs of Paris, France

Ingrid was busy preparing the various data charts and scale models they were going to use during the coming airshow when an apparently excited Elliot Goulding came to her inside the forward cabin of the Hiller SKYTRUCK.

Ingrid! Ingrid! Good news! Jeff Hiller decided to send to us via a charter cargo flight a complete general cargo mission pod for our SKYTRUCK, dismounted for transport. The Douglas GOLIATH carrying the parts of our pod should arrive in about six hours, here in Le Bourget. I already managed to rent space in one of the hangars here, so we will be able to assemble our mission pod out of public sight...and out of any possible rain. A team of eight technicians is also flying in.’

‘’But that’s truly great news, Elliot!’ exclaimed Ingrid, genuinely happy to hear this. ‘’With a second mission pod available, we will be able to demonstrate the pod exchange procedure for our SKYTRUCK, a design feature which should interest a lot our potential customers. What kind of hangar did you rent?’

‘’It is a hangar compatible with large airliners but it was presently being used to shelter a number of small private planes and their maintenance services. With Jeff’s

82

authorization, I was able to offer the owner of the hangar a juicy rental fee he could not refuse.’

Goulding’s expression made Ingrid chuckle in amusement.

‘’The good old American dollar argument: it works nearly every time.’

‘’Only nearly every time, Ingrid?’

‘’That’s right! Nobody could buy me.’

‘’And if you were offered a big, sexy hunk?’ replied Goulding sneakily. Ingrid winced on hearing that.

‘’Uh, maybe that would tickle my fancy. Elliot, you are a devious man, truly.’

‘’Hey, why do you think that Jeff Hiller named me as his vice-president for sales?

Well, I will advise you the moment that our charter cargo flight will arrive.’’

‘’No need for that, Elliot: the Douglas GOLIATH is not the kind of beast that you can miss, unless you’re both blind and deaf.’

‘’I believe that you helped design it decades ago, right?’

‘’I did direct the development of its original military variant, the C2000, which was then used to carry to high altitude our first space orbiters, where they were dropped before igniting their rocket engines and climbing to orbit. The Air Force then saw its potential as a super-heavy cargo aircraft and developped a cargo variant of it with a huge cargo cabin able to carry outsized payloads, like aircraft replacement parts or intercontinental ballistic missiles. Even after some thirty years in service, the Douglas GOLIATH is still without rival when it comes to carrying oversized payloads over intercontinental ranges. Mind you, chartering the services of a GOLIATH must have cost Hiller a pretty penny.’

‘’It effectively didn’t come cheap, but Jeff Hiller decided that sending us a second mission pod for our SKYTRUCK should make our new plane that more attractive to prospective buyers.’

‘’And he was right about that, Elliot. Well, we are nearly finished here with our airshow preparations. Once we will be finished here, I will lead our team to that hangar, so that we could give a hand to our arriving technicians. Uh, did you reserve hotel rooms for them already?’

‘’That will be the next thing I will look for. However, with the amount of commercial and government representatives which have been arriving in Paris for the airshow, finding rooms for our technicians won’t be easy.’

83

‘’Then look at the lower class hotels nearby, like our own Izmir Hôtel. Those representatives tend to gravitate towards the more luxurious hotels around Paris.’

Those words made Elliot give Ingrid a false scandalized look.

‘’Are you insinuating that I rented cheap hotel rooms for us just to save money, Ingrid?’

‘’No! I am saying that you chose the nearest and most practical hotel for us, Elliot. Personally, I would be content with a water-logged slit trench: it would remind me of my good old times in Guadalcanal, in 1942.’

‘’Guadalcanal, in 1942!’ said Elliot, rolling his eyes. ‘’Ingrid, you may have the looks of a teenager, but you are truly ancient.’

‘’So? Beauty and youth, plus experience: what more could a guy ask for in a girl?’

‘’Did I also say that you are one perverted girl, Ingrid?’

‘’No, but thank you for the compliment.’

Chuckling while shaking his head, Goulding then walked away, leaving Ingrid free to finish her present work.

As predicted by Ingrid, the landing of the giant Douglas GOLIATH attracted a lot of attention around Le Bourget, even at that late evening hour. The giant cargo aircraft, featuring Ingrid’s patented diamond box wing design, measured a full 95 meters in length, with a fuselage body diameter of over eight meters. Its two pairs of wings, the forward one swept back and the aft one swept forward, had their tips linked by its two large vertical rudder surfaces, while no less than eight big turbofans engines propelled it.

Using the minivan her crew had rented on arrival, Ingrid went with her team to meet the giant cargo aircraft in front of the hangar which Goulding had just rented at the airport.

However, she then found out that a small team of French customs officers had beat her to the big aircraft and had already started to inspect its content. Fortunately, all the paperwork seemed to be in order and she was soon able to climb up to the cockpit of the GOLIATH, where she found the four-man flight crew in the process of shutting down their systems for the night. Ingrid smiled on recognizing the pilot of the cargo aircraft: the man had served under her in the Space Corps during the past decade.

‘’Hey, isn’t it the good Major Lombardi? How are you doing these days?’

‘’Doing just fine and... My God! You look even younger than the last time I saw you, some ten years ago. Another miracle happened to you, General?’

84

‘’Sort of! But I am a civilian now. You can simply call me ‘Ingrid’.’

‘’Ingrid it will be. So, you are now the chief test pilot for Hiller?’

‘’And chief designer as well, Marco.’

Lombardi nodded once his head at that.

‘’I see that flying and aircraft are still fully in your blood despite the years, Ingrid.

Uh, may I ask how old you are now?’

‘’Of course, Marco! I am now 76-years-young and I still am a man-eater.’

‘’That doesn’t surprise me, Ingrid: every man in the Space Corps fantasized about dating you one fine day. Unfortunately, the rules forbade such fraternization and they still do.’

‘’Yeah! But let’s switch to business. You had no problems getting our mission pod inside your big flying whale?’’

‘’In my GOLIATH? You’re joking, right? My plane could goble twice that kind of load. However, it was just a little bit too wide to fit in one piece, so Mister Hiller had it dismounted in its two main components. With the internal space thus saved, we were able to load aboard as well a crane truck able to help your team to reassemble your pod.

Let’s go down together to the cargo deck and I will show you.’

Using the spiral staircase connecting the flight deck with the cargo deck, they had to climb down the equivalent of two stories before stepping inside the giant cargo hold. Ingrid nodded in satisfaction at the sight of the two parts composing the mission pod for her SKYTRUCK and of the large crane mounted on a heavy ten-wheel truck.

The pod’s parts had been carefully surrounded with wooded support framing and were solidly chained down in place, like the mobile crane.

‘’Excellent! My flight crew and the technicians you brought in will now take out the crane and pod parts and carry them into the hangar in front of your plane. On his part, Mister Goulding, the VP for sales for Hiller, will take care of getting you to your hotel. You must be quite tired after such a long flight, Marco.’

‘’That we are, Ingrid. Well, I’ll see you again tomorrow morning: me and my crew are dying to see your famous Hiller SKYTRUCK.’

‘’Famous? But it still is only the first prototype for its model and Hiller kept quite discrete about it.’

85

‘’Discrete? That’s how you describe your heroic rescue of nearly a thousand people out of the sinking PRINCESS OF THE SEAS? Some of the people there filmed your aircraft while it was in action and those pictures are now all over the medias.’

‘’Oh! I must say that I didn’t have much free time to watch the televised news during the last days. The most I watched was President Bush’ national address the second day after that sinking.’

Lombardi’s expression grew sober at those words.

‘’I watched it too, Ingrid. Our country is now heading into yet another war, and it could be a long and nasty one.’

‘’You are right about that, Marco. Let’s just hope that our forces will be able to quash quickly those terrorist bastards.’

Ingrid next shook hands with the eight Hiller technicians who had flown in with the mission pod, all of whom Ingrid knew well, as they worked at her prototype workshop. With the giant clamshell aft cargo doors of the GOLIATH opening up, the work of unloading the parts of the mission pod, using the mobile crane, started in earnest. However it still took a few hours of cautious work before the precious parts were stored inside the hangar, along with the mobile crane. It was close to midnight before Ingrid and her people were able to return to their hotel for a well-deserved shower and a full night of sleep.

14:47 (Washington Time)

Sunday, June 17, 2001 ‘C’

The Oval Office, the White House

Washington, D.C.

George W. Bush was reading a report while sitting behind his presidential desk when his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was admitted into the Oval Office, closely followed by the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. From their somber looks, Bush could immediately guess that they were not bringing in good news.

‘’What do you have for me, gentlemen?’

‘’The response of the Taliban to our demand to deliver to us Osama Bin Laden, Mister President.’ replied Powell. ‘’Not only did they refuse to give us Bin Laden, they told our ambassador to Pakistan that they were going to defend and support Bin Laden

86

and his Al-Qaeda terrorist group. When Ambassador Renfrew warned the Taliban that we would then have to use force in Afghanistan, their response was basically to remind him about how many past empires tried to conquer Afghanistan in history. I am afraid that we will now have to mount a major military operation in order to get those Al-Qaeda bastards, Mister President.’

Bush tightened his jaws at those words, then looked at Donald Rumsfeld.

‘’How is our troop deployment towards Afghanistan going, Donald?’

‘’Its preliminary phase is already being executed, with a total of six Marine rifle battalions and four airborne battalions on the way via either air or sea, Mister President.

More heavily-equipped units will follow up soon but, right now, our air transportation assets are stretched to the limit, while it takes time to assemble and load ships. The big question that is left to answer is: where will those units stage from when time will come to strike Afghanistan? That country is landlocked and is surrounded by Iran, Pakistan and the old Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. Apart from Iran, those countries are not exactly very friendly with us and would probably refuse to let our troops stage from their territories.’

Bush nodded once, having expected that answer, then looked back at Colin Powell.

‘’Have you contacted the Iranians about getting permission to land our troops and planes in Iran, Colin?’

‘’Not yet, Mister President. That will be my next thing in the order of the day.’

‘’And what about Saudi Arabia, or Iraq?’

Powell’s expression soured up further on hearing that question.

‘’Mister President, from what we know right now, the Saudis can’t be depended on in this. While their government still claims to be our ally, many Saudis, including a number of government officials, either sympathize with Al-Qaeda or are even openly celebrating its attack against us. Don’t forget that the perpetrators of the attack on the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS were Saudis, while Osama Bin Laden himself is from an influential Saudi family. In the present case, we will have to consider Saudi Arabia as a quasi-hostile place, where our troops would be at high risk from terrorist attacks. As for Iraq, the present Iraqi regime is, let’s say, less than friendly towards us and is also a regional adversary of Iran. My State Department is going to contact and push all those governments to gain their cooperation but I am not very optimistic right now.’

‘’And where are my troops and planes supposed to go in the meantime, Colin?’’

asked Rumsfeld, a bit annoyed by Powell’s pessimism. ‘’Our Marines can stay on their

87

ships for the moment but, right now, the nearest places from Afghanistan where our planes can safely land and expect ground support are in Europe and Turkey.’

‘’Then, Europe and Turkey it will have to be for the moment, Donald. Securing diplomatically landing rights for our forces is neither easy nor quick. It will take at least a week before I can get firm commitments of support from at least a few of those countries.’

‘’At least a week...’ said Bush in a disillusioned tone. ‘’What about long-range airstrikes on Afghanistan? Can’t our strike aircraft reach Afghanistan from our bases in Europe and Turkey?’

‘’They can, Mister President,’ answered Rumsfeld, ‘’but I am still waiting for firm intelligence about where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the CIA and DIA7 are having very limited success in this. Without a precise target list, we would be limited to a program of general airstrikes against Afghanistan, something that will not help build sympathy for us around the region.’

‘’Well, screw their sympathy!’ replied Bush, getting both annoyed and irritated.

‘’They will be either with us or against us! I am not going to let those Al-Qaeda bastards scott-free just because our supposed allies in that region have grown timid. This is a good time to find out who are our real friends there.’

‘’Uh, understood, Mister President. I will tell my diplomats to get firm commitments from our allies as quickly as possible.’

‘’And I will continue moving troops, planes and ships towards that region, Mister President.’

‘’Good! Keep me posted on your progress as we go, gentlemen. Thank you for briefing me on this.’

‘’You’re welcome, Mister President.’ replied Powell before turning around and leaving the Oval Office with Rumsfeld.

7 DIA : Defense Intelligence Agency. The military intelligence arm of the American armed forces.

88

CHAPTER 11 – PLAYING SALESPERSON

09:03 (Paris Time)

Monday, June 18, 2001 ‘C’

V.I.P. lounge of the arrivals terminal

Le Bourget Airport, Paris, France

Alfred Lepage was surprised by the number of persons already present in the V.I.P. lounge of the arrivals terminal, waiting for the Le Bourget Airshow to officially open. In past shows, the various government and corporate representatives wanting to visit the airshow tended to arrive more gradually in the morning. Instead, the V.I.P.

lounge was already packed as Lepage showed up to declare the airshow officially opened. He however refrained from commenting on that and spoke up in order to be heard.

‘’LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I AM HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE 44TH

EDITION OF THE LE BOURGET AIRSHOW IS NOW OPENED. YOU ARE NOW FREE

TO GO DOWN TO THE TARMAC LEVEL AND START VIEWING THE VARIOUS

AIRCRAFT ON DISPLAY. PLEASE REFER TO THE SMALL MAP IN YOUR

INFORMATION BROCHURES IN ORDER TO DIRECT YOURSELVES TO THE

DISPLAYS WHICH INTEREST YOU.’

‘’IS THE HILLER DISPLAY OPENED AND MANNED?’ shouted back an Indian man, making Lepage understand why there were so many people already in at this early hour: to say that the new Hiller SKYTRUCK had made a lot of ink flow in the last few days would have been an euphemism, thanks to the media reports about its spectacular rescue mission off New York.

‘’YES, THE HILLER STAND IS READY AND WAITING FOR VISITORS. FOR

YOUR INFORMATION, HILLER HAS ADDED A NEW FEATURE TO ITS DISPLAY

YESTERDAY, A FEATURE THAT IS NOT LISTED IN YOUR INFORMATION

BROCHURES. A SECOND MISSION POD FOR THE HILLER SKYTRUCK WAS

RECEIVED BY AIR AND ASSEMBLED DURING THE WEEKEND. YOU WILL THUS

BE ABLE TO SEE BOTH THE GENERAL CARGO CARRYING VARIANT AND THE

SEARCH AND RESCUE VARIANTS OF THE SKYTRUCK’S MISSION POD. BUT I AM

89

CERTAIN THAT THE HILLER REPRESENTATIVES WILL BE MOST HAPPY TO TELL

YOU MORE ABOUT THOSE MISSION PODS. I WILL REMIND YOU THAT A STANDING BUFFET AND BAR WILL BE OPERATING FROM THIS LOUNGE DURING

THE OPENING HOURS, ALL WEEK. HAVE A NICE TIME AT OUR AIRSHOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.’

Actually, Lepage’s last sentence was formulated more by customary politeness than by necessity: in the crowd of over 300 persons now heading out to the tarmac, he could see a grand total of one woman. The World aerospace industry may represent the edge of advanced technology but it was still a most sexist one, with very few women represented in it.

At one of the display areas nearest to the arrivals terminal, a sales representative for the Sikorsky Helicopters Corporation smiled and rubbed his hands together on seeing a large crowd come in his general direction.

‘’Aah, it seems that our new H-75 heavy helicopter will attract plenty of attention today.’

Sikorsky’s chief test and demonstration pilot gave him a dubious look then but didn’t speak: he was already dreading what may follow. The chief pilot was proven right when, to the shock of the sales representative, the crowd of visitors simply walked past the Sikorsky stand, with only a few persons slowing down a bit to eye the H-75 before continuing on.

‘’But...but, where are they all going like that?’ asked the salesman, utterly dumbfounded. That attracted a resigned reply from his chief pilot.

‘’They are all going to check out the Hiller SKYTRUCK, Mister Forbes. After the kind of publicity generated by its rescue mission off New York, when it saved nearly a thousand people from the sinking PRINCESS OF THE SEAS, we should not be surprised to see Hiller steal the show here today.’

‘’But our H-75 is an excellent aircraft, with a lot of outstanding qualities.’

‘’It is, Mister Forbes...for a helicopter. However, the Hiller SKYTRUCK

represents something totally new on the aerospace market: an airliner-sized transport able to take off and land at the vertical anywhere in the World while carrying a payload of up to thirty tons at a cruising speed of over 400 miles per hour, and this over intercontinental ranges. In comparison, our H-75 can lift up to twelve tons, has a top speed of less than half that of the SKYTRUCK and has a range of only 700 miles at

90

best. I am afraid that we will have to be content with the crumbs Hiller will let us have today, Mister Forbes.’

‘’But...we heavily invested in the design and development of our H-75. We will need to make substantial sales if we want to recoup our expenses.’

‘’I know, Mister Forbes. I know!’ replied the chief pilot in a resigned tone while looking towards the Hiller SKYTRUCK prototype on display some fifty meters away. He then had a thought for himself as he looked at a young woman standing in front of the SKYTRUCK.

‘The legendary Ingrid Dows, God’s General and our top fighter ace of all times.

Why couldn’t she have come to work for us instead of for Hiller?’

Standing next to Ingrid, Elliot Goulding smiled in contentment as he watched the crowd of government and corporate representatives walking as a big pack towards their display area, which included the SKYTRUCK, with its search and rescue mission pod attached to it, the general cargo mission pod parked some twenty meters behind the prototype, an example of the latest model of the civilian transport variant of the PELICAN, which had arrived at Le Bourget days before the SKYTRUCK, and one example each of the Hiller AIRCAR and AIR BIKE. Two Hiller representatives posted in Europe were in attendance in order to help him by answering questions about those other models.

‘’This is going to be a most fruitful day I believe, Ingrid. That unexpected rescue mission of ours off New York seems to have worked miracles for us.’

‘’It indeed did, Elliot. But let’s not sell the bear’s skin before we have killed it. I will take care of the technical questions and I will let you answer the financial and commercial questions.’

‘’Sounds fine with me, Ingrid.’

Greeting first the incoming representatives to the Hiller display area, Goulding then distributed copies of the detailed information brochure on the SKYTRUCK and invited his visitors to examine the prototype under Ingrid’s guidance. Ingrid then led the pack of curious representatives in a slow walk around her SKYTRUCK while describing the prototype to them.

‘’Ladies and gentlemen, our Hiller SKYTRUCK represents in my opinion an unparalleled new capability in the domain of air transport: the ability to take off and land

91

anywhere in the World, including in places without a functioning airport or airstrip, while carrying a payload of up to thirty tons. While the SKYTRUCK is best suited to short and medium range transport flights to isolated and otherwise inacessible by air locations, it can also transport over transatlantic ranges a sizeable payload of cargo and deliver it to a precise destination point, be it the parking lot of a factory or an isolated scientific research base in the Antarctic. Furthermore, its patented mission pods system will give customers like you unprecedented flexibility of use, with one air cell able to be fitted with a choice of up to five different mission pods. Thus, a user who would own a SKYTRUCK

and would normally use it to transport general cargo could switch overnight to carrying a mixed cargo and passenger mission pod able to accommodate 140 passengers, along with up to seven tons of cargo in Unit Load Devices, to fill a sudden request for passenger transportation to an isolated location.’

Ingrid then looked directly at a representative from Air India who was standing in the front ranks, along with three other Indian men in suits.

‘’As an example, let’s say that Air India would like to open an air route to the high plateaus of the Kashmir or to the mountains of Nepal, places that are presently only accessible by helicopters and small, short-landing aircraft, in order to be able to deliver by air much heavier payloads than it presently can, along with sizeable numbers of passengers. Our SKYTRUCK, equipped with a general cargo pod, would be able to fly and land on a simple flat surface of fifty meters by fifty meters and deliver payloads like one or two standardized sea containers full of supplies and merchandises, on top of up to 58 passengers. If, let’s say, someone would want to organize a large mountain climbing expedition in the Himalayas, then you could change the general cargo pod for a mixed cargo and passenger pod and then carry to the same 2,500-square-meter landing surface up to 140 passengers, along with plenty of baggage and supplies. In another scenario, if Air India was asked to help establish some isolated base in the Kashmir, then our SKYTRUCK could be fitted with our shelter carrying pod. With that shelter pod, our SKYTRUCK would then be able to winch down onto even a tiny flat spot a customized, fully equipped shelter measuring up to fourteen meters in length, six meters in width and 3.5 meters in height, for a maximum weight on short haul routes of up to thirty tons. Alternatively, it could winch down at the vertical a standardized sea containers filled with supplies and weighing up to 27 tons, or two sea containers loaded with lighter supplies, like in the case of resupplying villages isolated by natural disaster.

And all this could be done with a single air cell, using different mission pods of

92

comparatively low costs. In the case of the Indian government, to make another example, our SKYTRUCK could be used with our customized coast guard mission pod or our search and rescue mission pod to both patrol the Indian coasts, conduct fisheries patrols and respond to emergencies from ships in difficulty. In the case of a major disaster like floods and mudslides, our aircraft could reach isolated pockets of citizens trapped in their homes and either evacuate them or land food and water supplies directly to them. The SKYTRUCK could even rescue mountain climbing teams in difficulty up some mountain slopes, picking them off directly from cliff faces with the help of our search and rescue pod’s telescopic aft rescue foot bridge.’

From the exchange of stunned looks and smiles among her visitors, Ingrid could see that her presentation was already making a marked effect on them. The Air India man then asked her a question.

‘’This all sounds nearly miraculous, Miss Dows. How is your SKYTRUCK able to accomplish all this?’

‘’By using the Hiller-patented lifting body design coupled with pivoting ducted propellers and with six Allison turboshaft engines, each rated at 8,079 shaft horsepower.

Those six engines are interconnected together and to the four ducted propellers via drive shafts and hydraulic gearboxes and clutches. Those clutches also enable the pilot to either use all six engines for vertical takeoff and landing phases and then disengage up to four of the six engines for cruising in level flight. That system allows the SKYTRUCK

to keep fuel consumption to the minimum and to manage its engine power according to the needs of its flight profile. As you must know, turboshaft and turbofan engines’

specific fuel consumption is best at close to maximum regime, while fuel consumption rates gets much higher at lower power regimes. It is thus much more economical in fuel to use only two, three or four engines kept at maximum continuous power than to use all six engines at reduced power. You will find in the brochures we distributed to you charts about fuel consumption rates at various phases of flight and engine usage options, plus other charts about the various payload and range performances of the SKYTRUCK.

This flexibility of operation, along with its economical fuel usage, makes our SKYTRUCK

a most economical aircraft to operate, even in very difficult environments. Added to its ability to operate and land anywhere in the World, this makes the Hiller SKYTRUCK

simply unbeatable in commercial terms, especially for customers who have to deserve isolated spots which are otherwise impossible to reach by air, like some tiny island in the Pacific or a mountain plateau in the Himalayas. Think of it as being like a helicopter with

93

a top speed of 750 kilometers per hour, a range of up to 12,000 kilometers with a cargo payload of twenty tons if using conventional takeoffs and landings, or a range of a thousand kilometers while carrying up to ten tons on vertical takeoffs and landings missions.’

‘’What if one or more engine fails in flight, especially during a vertical landing or takeoff?’ asked an American representative of Alaska Airlines. ‘’Would such loss of one or more engines destabilize your aircraft and make it crash, Miss Dows?’’

‘’A good and pertinent question, I must say. My answer is that, since all engines and ducted propellers are interconnected via drive shafts, the loss of one or more engines will not cause one of the ducted propellers to stop rotating. What will happen then is that the remaining power available will continue to be evenly distributed to all four ducted propellers. In that case, the pilot will switch from vertical operation to STOL8

operation, which demands less power. If he has enough speed and altitude margins left, the pilot could also switch to a conventional approach and landing.’

The next question to her came from the representative of an Australian charter airline.

‘’What about your system of mission pods, Miss Dows? Does it take a lot of manpower and time to disconnect your mission pod from your SKYTRUCK and to then exchange it for another type of mission pod? In the Australian Outback, we don’t have many sophisticated maintenance facilities at our disposal.’

Ingrid smiled at that question, amused: she knew quite well how basic aircraft maintenance facilities could be like in isolated corners of Australia.

‘’Frankly, changing a mission pod on our SKYTRUCK is no big deal, mister. A team of six reasonably qualified aircraft maintenance mechanics can do the job inside a standard aviation hangar, and this in less than three hours. The mission pods are fixed to the aircraft main frame via a total of 68 large bolts which are easily accessible from inside each pods. In turn, the shapes of the pod and of its fuselage cradle make it easy to align the pod with the aircraft fuselage. Once the bolts are disconnected from the fuselage, the pod then rises by some thirty centimeters on four retractable and telescopic self-propulsion legs before rolling away by itself from the aircraft. Once the previous pod has rolled out of the way, the new pod rolls in and, using a computerized laser alignment system, mates up with the aircraft, the same way you would line yourself up to mate with a woman in bed.’

8 STOL : Short TakeOff and Landing.

94

A concert of short laughs greeted her spicy comparision before she continued on.

‘’Once perfectly aligned with the fuselage, the legs of the pod then lower slowly to complete the fit between the two parts, allowing the mechanics to then tighten back those 68 large bolts. We intend to demonstrate this whole procedure to you this afternoon, after our incoming flight demonstration. You will then be invited to go inside and watch as our technicians do that procedure.’

‘’By God! Who thought about that pod system, Miss Dows?’

‘’I did! Apart from being the chief test pilot at Hiller, I am also its chief aircraft designer. By the way, this mission pod concept is already fully patented under my name, like the lifting body concept used by Hiller. I have been designing directly or managing the designing of aircraft and spacecraft of all types for over fifty years now. I don’t only live outside the proverbial box: I also redesigned that box, ladies and gentlemen. In that same vein, if any of our future customers wish us to produce a customized mission pod to fit their particular needs, then Hiller will be most happy to accommodate you.’

From the looks and nods she then got, Ingrid knew at once that her arguments had hit home.

18:10 (Paris Time)

Friday, June 22, 2001 ‘C’

Café du Nord restaurant, Izmir Hôtel

126 Avenue du 8 Mars, Le Blanc-Mesnil, Paris

Elliot Goulding looked positively radiant as he joined Ingrid and the other members of the Hiller delegation to Le Bourget Airshow in the dining room of the restaurant sitting under their hotel. He however took the time to sit down opposite Ingrid and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level, while the others bent sideways to listen on.

‘’The news are truly fantastic for us, guys: Hiller has already secured a total of 184 firm orders for basic SKYTRUCK airframes, plus a total of 406 orders for various types of mission pods, the majority of them being of the general cargo and mixed cargo/passenger variants. We also secured a number of orders in that total for search and rescue pods. We can also expect a lot more orders, either as firm orders or options, to follow as our aircraft proves its mettle around the World. Our SKYTRUCK is already a

95

commercial success. Jeff Hiller is jumping up and down with joy and promised me that he will start at once to enlarge our production plant in Port Angeles in order to meet the demands for our SKYTRUCK.’

‘’That is indeed fantastic news, Elliot.’ replied Ingrid, made most happy by this.

‘’However, let’s not forget that we still have to show our aircraft to the general public during this weekend. Now that we have customers to buy our SKYTRUCK, we can now wow future passengers for our customers by showing in public what our aircraft is capable of.’

Heads nodded around her at those words. Shirley Slade then looked at Ingrid, a question on her lips.

‘’Now that you have developped and proved the worth of the SKYTRUCK, on what will you concentrate your attention next, Ingrid?’

‘’At first, I expect to be kept busy by having to train the pilots and technicians sent by our customers for the SKYTRUCK, a task in which you and Libby will be able to help me. Then, once the production line for the SKYTRUCK will be fully operating, I intend to start a project for a jet variant of the SKYTRUCK, able to fly at high subsonic or transonic speeds while still able to take off and land vertically. However, I suspect that before this could happen we will be hit by new winds of war. I can already feel those winds gathering around us.’

96

CHAPTER 12 – THE WINDS OF WAR

11:25 (New York Time)

Monday, June 25, 2001 ‘C’

‘The International Fabrics Supplies Store’

Corner of 6th Avenue and 39th Street,

Garment District, Manhattan

New York City, U.S.A.

Nancy was thanking her luck for having found this particular boutique today as she roamed around the rows of tablets on which a bewildering variety of fabrics and sewing accessories were on display. Apart from offering lots of choices in fabrics, most of them imported from overseas, the boutique asked what Nancy found to be relatively reasonable prices for its products, at least by New York standards. While performing in public with her band, practicing music and singing and writing new songs and musical pieces kept her fairly busy, she had found a few years ago a new hobby which appealed to both her fertile imagination and to her visual appreciation of beauty: fashion dress-making. However, that hobby was just that, a hobby, and she had no plans to launch herself into the Haute Couture world as a fashion designer. The few designs she had put together up to now had been strictly for her personal use, with her outfits often ending being worn by herself or her band members during their public performances.

Today, she was shopping for something truly special, something with which she planned to make a dress which she could wear at the next music awards show in which she was hoping to be invited with her band as a performer. The American Music Awards and the Grammy Awards shows, to be held respectively in November and February, were particularly on her mind and she actually had some fairly good hopes of being invited to them. If that turned out to come true, then she firmly intended to make a splash on the red carpet by wearing something of her own design that would wow the crowds.

Taking her time to look at every roll of cloth from up close and often touching them to evaluate their softness, Nancy suddenly stopped in front of three particular rolls of fabrics which had just caught her eyes: the light from the overhead neon lamps had

97

made something glint on those rolls of fabric. Looking closer and reaching out to touch the first of three rolls, made of some kind of semi-transparent golden tissue, Nancy saw that the fabric was sprinkled with thousands of tiny golden flakes which reflected light as if they were tiny stars. The fabric was also very soft to the touch.

‘’Oh my! This is beautiful!’

Looking at the two other rolls which had attracted her attention, she saw that they were basically of the same kind of fabric than the golden one, except for their colors: one was made of silvery fibers, while the other was made of pink fibers, with both fabrics glinting under the light like the golden one. Reading the stickers attached to the three rolls, Nancy saw that they were imports from Italy. She also saw that their price was quite steep. She then hesitated about buying them: while her band was doing good business and was already quite popular, she was no millionnaire. However, the utter beauty of those fabrics finally made her grab all three rolls, each of which were large enough to make at least one full-length dress. Going to the cashier near the entrance with the rolls of fabric in her arms, Nancy put down the rolls on the counter and smiled to the middle-aged saleswoman.

‘’Could I recuperate my haversack, which I left with you when I entered your shop? I will need it to stuff those rolls in it after paying for them.’

‘’Of course, miss! You did choose well, miss: those pieces of fabric are truly beautiful. We received them from Italy only a few days ago and in only a limited quantity. They are end-sales stocks from a firm which recently went out of business there. That’s one reason why we are selling them at such low prices.’

Nancy nearly chocked on that last sentence from the saleswoman: ninety dollars per square yard, a low price? She however did not comment on that out loud and paid for her purchases, then stuffed the rolls of cloth, now wrapped in paper, inside her large haversack, passing its carrying strap over her head and across her chest before walking out of the store. As she walked down 6th Avenue, she was already thinking about how she could use her new cloth to best effect. It was definitely best made for full-size gowns rather than for some short and sexy outfit. On the other hand, she already had a few ideas about how to produce a gown that would be both appropriate for formal occasions and be sexy as well.

Nancy was slowly going down 6th Avenue while browsing at the shops’ window fronts when she started hearing female cries for help. Her senses immediately on full

98

alert, she quickly located the origin of the cries: they came from half a block away, near the junction of 6th Avenue and 37th Street. She could also see some kind of small crowd congregating at that same point. Nancy broke into a near run while cutting her way through the pedestrian traffic, heading towards the calls for help from what sounded like a young woman or a girl. She started having a bad feeling when she heard a few people in the growing crowd seemingly encourage whatever was happening. In contrast, she couldn’t see or hear anyone protesting or doing something about it. That made her angry and she started pushing her way none too gently through the crowd of onlookers, ignoring the protests of those she had to push out of the way. When she arrived in the first ranks of the crowd, Nancy’s anger redoubled at what she could now see: two men, one in his twenties and another one slightly older, were beating up and kicking a small woman who was rolled in a ball on the sidewalk, trying to protect herself from the blows while screaming for help. Of the some thirty people now looking on that scene, nobody seemed to be ready to help the woman, while too many were cheering on the two thugs.

‘’STOP THIS, YOU BASTARDLY COWARDS!’

The two men stopped their beating for a moment while snapping their heads to look at her with a mix of contempt and animosity. The older man then spat angry words at her.

‘’MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, BITCH! THAT RAGHEAD IS ONLY GETTING

WHAT SHE DESERVES. HER KIND MURDERED OVER 3,500 AMERICANS.’

Now downright enraged, Nancy stepped forward and violently pushed back the older man, making him trip and fall on his back.

‘’I AM MAKING THIS MY BUSINESS, YOU RACIST ASSHOLE! SCRAM, BOTH

YOU AND YOUR FRIEND, BEFORE I TEACH YOU A LESSON IN CIVIC MANNERS.’

The reply she got then was an attempt by the younger man to punch her with a right hook to her face. Nancy easily stopped his fist before it could connect with her head, then squeezed it with all of her supernatural strength, making the bones in the hand crunch with an audible noise and making the man scream in pain. The older man, having gotten back on his feet, then also tried to hit her, with an attempted kick to her right knee. However, his left foot was apparently stopped by an invisible force and the man was then projected high into the air, also by some invisible force, to fall back screaming down on the concrete sidewalk from a height of five meters. That man’s head impacted hard on the concrete, knocking him unconscious. While still holding the shattered right hand of the younger attacker, Nancy then looked around her with a severe expression on her face.

99

‘’WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE YOU, TO SIMPLY WATCH TWO COWARDLY

RACISTS BEAT UP A YOUNG WOMAN? SHAME ON YOU!’

‘’SHE’S JUST A RAGHEAD MUSLIM AND SHE DESERVED THE BEATING!’

shouted back an obese mature woman. Extending her right arm, Nancy used her mental telekynetic powers to pull that woman towards her, with the woman ending with the front of her dress in Nancy’s grip and with Nancy drilling her eyes with an angry stare.

‘’Then, you are no better than those two thugs, miss.’ said Nancy before shouting out while looking around at the crowd surrounding her. ‘’IF YOU ARE NOT

READY TO HELP THIS WOMAN, THEN LEAVE, NOW!’

Both her tone of voice and her demonstration of supernatural powers and strength convinced the onlookers to obey her and disperse, with only a few onlookers standing somewhat farther, along the shop windows, staying to see what would happen next.

The dispersal of the crowd then allowed Nancy to see two New York policemen who were approaching at a run. Still holding the crushed hand of the younger attacker in her grip, Nancy approached the woman lying on the sidewalk and examined her quickly: she was now crying with pain and she had blood coming out of a nasty cut to her forehead.

She was also holding her left side, indicating that she possibly had suffered broken ribs.

The young woman, who could be in her mid twenties, was conservatively dressed with a long, loose gown and was wearing a hijab, or islamic shawl, over her head.

‘’Don’t move yet, miss: I will heal you. Don’t be afraid of me: I am a half-angel.’

Applying one hand to the woman’s body, Nancy then concentrated and started glowing in unison with the young Muslim. The two incoming policemen slowed down, then stopped as they watched that scene with disbelief. The younger policeman’s right hand started to go for his pistol but his senior partner stopped him from drawing out his weapon while watching Nancy and the Muslim woman glow.

‘’Don’t draw your gun, Lester: she’s the White Angel. Go check that man lying unconscious on the sidewalk while I take care of that other man.’

As his partner moved to check on the knocked out thug, the senior policeman slowly approached Nancy and the thug she was still holding by one fist, then waited until Nancy stopped glowing before asking her a question in a soft tone of voice.

‘’What happened here, miss?’

‘’I heard female cries for help and saw a crowd form up here, so I rushed in to see what was happening, Officer. Once close, I saw those two men beat up that young

100

woman while screaming racist rants, calling her a ‘raghead’. Nobody in the crowd around seemed ready to help that poor young woman, with some even encouraging those two thugs while they punched and kicked her, so I told those thugs to stop at once.

Their response was to attack me, which was when I used force to subdue them. I believe that you recognized who I am, Officer, correct?’

‘’Correct, Miss Dows. You may now release the hand of that man, so that I can cuff him. LESTER, CUFF THAT ASSHOLE TOO!’

‘’Alright, but he is seriously knocked out, Bill. We may need to call an ambulance for him.’

‘’Make it for both of those thugs, Officer: I crushed this one’s right hand to splinters after he tried to punch me in the face.’

The senior policeman gave her a respectful look before he took out a pair of steel handcuffs and put them on the younger thug’s wrists, making him shout out in pain.

‘’AAAH! My hand! It hurts like hell!’

‘’You will hurt even more if you don’t hold still, asshole. Now, lie face down on the sidewalk and don’t move.’

The younger thug obeyed him and laid down on his belly, leaving the senior cop free to go see the young Muslim woman, who was evidently shaken by her experience and who had stood up on her feet with Nancy’s help.

‘’Are you okay, miss? What happened exactly?’

The woman, who was quite pretty, answered him in a good but somewhat accented English.

‘’I...I was walking up Sixth Avenue, heading towards my family’s home, when those two men started following me while throwing insults at me. I tried to flee them by walking faster but they still followed me, then caught up with me after I had crossed the intersection. That was when they started punching me. I fell on the sidewalk and they then continued to punch and kick me, watched by that crowd. I asked for help but nobody did anything but watch, until this young woman intervened.’

The Muslim woman then looked at Nancy with reverence.

‘’You performed a miracle on me, miss. Who are you and how did you heal me?’

‘’My name is Nancy Dows, but many in New York call me ‘The White Angel’

because of the mass healings I performed in the recent past years. I actually am a half-angel, miss.’

The young woman knelt at once in front of her on hearing those words.

101

‘’May Allah be praised! You must have been sent by him.’

Nancy slowly shook her head at that, realizing how tricky her next words could sound for the woman.

‘’I am sorry, miss, but Allah had nothing to do with this...or with me. I represent a spiritual entity I call ‘The One’. However, The One doesn’t wish to be worshipped or prayed to: it simply wants Humanity to progress and to show compassion and tolerance.

It also didn’t create the Universe, or even this planet. It was formed along with the Universe. Personally, I do not believe in or support any organized religion, be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other religious faith.’

As her statement left the Muslim woman confused and hesitant, the senior policeman used that chance to speak to both her and Nancy.

‘’Ladies, I will have to ask you two to come to the police precinct, where I will ask you to fill a deposition about this incident. Miss, do you want to press charges of aggravated assault against those two men?’

The young Muslim woman, still quite scared by her experienced, looked at Nancy, who nodded her head once. The woman then looked back at the senior policeman.

‘’Yes, I will press charges, sir.’

‘’And I will gladly testify about those two thugs, Officer.’ added Nancy, making the cop nod his head with satisfaction.

‘’Excellent! Let me read their rights to these two assholes, then I will get a patrol car to pick you up and bring you to the Midtown South Precinct for your depositions.’

With the two policemen busy with the two thugs, Nancy was free to speak with the young Muslim woman and presented her right hand for a shake.

‘’As I said, my name is Nancy Dows. I reside in Washington but am on a shopping tour in Manhattan today.’

‘’And my name is Aisha Pasravi. My family owns a small restaurant near here.’

‘’You’re of Iranian descent?’ asked Nancy, using Farsi. Her question both surprised and pleased the young woman.

‘’You can speak Farsi? And how did you gess that I was of Iranian blood?’

‘’Your name is typically Iranian, Aisha. As for speaking Farsi, I was an Iranian man, a musician living in Isfahan two incarnations ago.’

‘’Two incarnations ago? You mean...’

‘’That I can remember my past incarnations, all of them, Aisha.’

102

‘’That’s incredible! You must tell me more about them.’

‘’Later, after we will have visited the police precinct and will have made and signed our depositions.’

‘’Then, we could do that at my family’s home, if you want. I would really love to present you to my parents.’

‘’I will be happy to do so, Aisha.’ replied Nancy while smiling to the young woman.

13:52 (New York Time)

The Pasravis’ apartment, above the ‘House of Safron’ restaurant West 35th Street, Garment District, Manhattan

The moment that Aisha Pasravi opened the door of her family’s apartment, a woman in her early fifties ran at once to her, coming from the kitchen, while nearly shouting in Farsi.

‘’AISHA! I WAS GETTING WORRIED FOR YOU! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?’

However, the mature woman suddenly braked to a halt on seeing Nancy, who was following behind Aisha.

‘’Aisha, who is that girl?’

In response, Aisha smiled to her mother while patting Nancy’s shoulder.

‘’Don’t worry, Mother: this is Nancy Dows, a friend. She saved me from a pair of racist thugs who attacked me on the street as I was coming back home. We just returned from the police station, where we filled depositions against my attackers. Is Father here?’

‘’No! He is presently working downstairs, in our restaurant.’ answered the mother before looking at Nancy and nodding in salute to her. ‘’Welcome to our home, miss, and thank you for having helped my daughter.’

‘’It was the least I could do, madam.’

‘’Well, we better go sit down in the lounge, so that you could tell me exactly what happened. Would you like some tea or coffee, Miss Dows?’

‘’A cup of tea will be fine, Madam Pasravi.’

‘’Then, I will go boil some water right away. Aisha, could you lead your friend to the lounge?’

‘’Of course, Mother!’

103

As her mother disappeared in the kitchen, Aisha led Nancy to a small lounge near the entrance and sat with her in one of the two sofas furnishing it. Looking around the lounge as she sat down, Nancy could see that, while the furnishing had a bit of an exotic touch to it, it was mostly of modest manufacture and was well used. It was evident that Aisha’s family was not rich, or even well-to-do. From what she had been able to see of the restaurant situated under the apartment, the House of Saffron was quite small and obviously cathered to the working class rather than to a rich clientele.

‘’So, were you born here in the United States, Aisha?’

‘’No! I was born in a small village in Northeast Iran and me and my parents emigrated to the United States some fifteen years ago. We have since gained our U.S.

citizenship. My younger brother Ali, who is sixteen, is presently attending school near here. He should return at around five. He also has American citizenship. By the way, my mother’s name is Amina, while my father’s name is Reza.’

Nancy nodded her head in acknowledgement, then stayed silent until Amina Pasravi came into the lounge, carrying a tea service tray, which she put down on a low table situated between the pairs of sofas. She then poured the first cup for Nancy before serving her daughter and herself, finally sitting in the sofa facing the two young women.

‘’So, what happened exactly, Aisha?’

Aisha, to whom Nancy had spoken to while they rode a taxi to here, then told her mother how she had been attacked by two racist men and was then saved by Nancy’s intervention. However, as Nancy had asked her to say, she painted over the supernatural details about Nancy’s intervention and simply said that she had alerted policemen to the attack while interposing herself. At the end of Aisha’s story, her mother nodded her head while smiling to Nancy.

‘’You are a brave and compassionate girl, Miss Dows. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having protected my daughter.’

‘’It was the least I could do, madam. I reside in Washington and was in Manhattan to do some shopping. Are such acts of racist hatred and violence common against Muslims in Manhattan?’

‘’Not as much as in some other parts of this country, miss. However, the instances of anti-Muslim violence have risen sharply since the terrorist attack by these Al-Qaeda bastards against the cruise liner which sank off New York two weeks ago.

What really riles me is the fact that Al-Qaeda is as much anti-Chiite as it is anti-Christian.

104

They consider us Chiites as blasphemers and heretics, according to the strict fundamentalist version of Islam preached by the Wahabites, the predominant sect in Saudi Arabia. Yet, we are too often put in the same basket with those intolerant haters by most American citizens.’

‘’I must recognize that the great majority of Americans understand or know little about Islam, or about any other religion but their own, being mostly Evangelical Christians or Catholics. American Jews also often suffer from their ignorance and prejudices.’

‘’And what faith do you adhere to, miss, if I may ask?’

‘’I do not adhere to any organized religion, madam. I simply follow a moral code which emphasizes compassion, generosity and tolerance. I would describe myself as a Humanist.’

Amina Pasravi again nodded her head at those words.

‘’A most respectable phylosophy, miss. You indeed lived by it today by helping my daughter. I must confess that, while most Iranians are religiously tolerant people, or at least were when we left Iran fifteen years ago, some more radical clerics are now pushing for a less tolerant attitude towards other beliefs. The Shah and his security forces have been able up to now to keep those radical clerics in check but I worry that those clerics may one day push Iran over towards intolerance and religious fanaticism.’

Nancy visibly sighed at those words.

‘’It would be a sad thing indeed if it happened. The Persian culture has a long and rich history. Now, war could happen at its doorstep, in Afghanistan, if I could believe the more recent news about the United States vowing to chase Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan.’

‘’I know! The Taliban, who presently rule Afghanistan, are even more fanatical and intolerant than those Saudi Wahabites. Unfortunately, they also have lots of weapons and know how to fight. It could be a very hard and bloody war, especially if American soldiers make the mistake of underestimating them.’

Nancy felt somewhat depressed on hearing Amina Pasravi’s words. Unfortunately, underestimating the enemy, especially when that enemy was of a different ethnicity, had been a way too common trait of the American military and of American politicians throughout history. Nancy then wished that Ingrid would still be at the helm of the American forces, so that she could prevent such underestimation of the enemy.

105

09:34 (Washington Time)

Thursday, June 28, 2001 ‘C’

Situation Room, The White House

Washington, D.C.

George W. Bush took the time to sit down in his presidential chair before looking at the men and women assembled around the long conference table of the White House’s Situation Room.

‘’Please sit down, ladies and gentlemen, and let’s start this reunion of the National Security Council.’

The twelve men and one woman sat down and opened the files they had brought with them, ready to give their individual reports to the President. However, Bush was again the one to speak first.

‘’As you all know, I have publicly promised to the American people that we would wage war on this Al-Qaeda terrorist group and would punish it for the attack on the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS. Now, over two weeks after this tragedy, I believe that we have to act decisively...soon! I want to know where we are right now and when we could start striking those bastards. General Sherman, where are we in terms of military deployments and preparations?’

General of the Army Harold Sherman, who had succeeded Ingrid Dows at the head of all the American combat forces, answered Bush while making a World map with blue markings appear on the large wall display screens of the Situation Room.

‘’Mister President, we have a number of strike packages either on the way towards Afghanistan or already in place in friendly countries of the region. At sea, we have two nuclear carrier strike forces, the USS NEPTUNE Task Force and the USS

WILLIAM F. HALSEY Task Force, each carrying a regiment of marines. The NEPTUNE

Task Force, which includes three GUADALCANAL-Class amphibious landing ships, two MONTANA nuclear cruisers and five tankers and logistical support ships, is now in the Indian Ocean after rounding Africa and will be in position off the Iranian coast in three days. The HALSEY Task Force, which includes the HALSEY, the carrier INDEPENDENCE, four amphibious landing ships, three nuclear cruisers and six tankers and logistical support ships, departed from our West Coast, crossed the Pacific and is now about to enter the Indian Ocean after transiting the Strait of Malacca. It should join

106

the NEPTUNE Task Force on station off Iran in four days. Together, those two strike forces will be able to strike targets in Afghanistan with long-range missiles before launching an air assault with two full regiments of marines. In Europe, our Air Transport Command is still busy ferrying troops, vehicles, equipment and supplies of the 82nd Airborne Division and of the 101st Airborne Division from the United States to our bases in Germany and Italy, from which those two divisions will stage air assaults on Afghanistan in the initial attack phase against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Accompanying our airborne troops will be a number of Navy S.EA.L. teams and Green Berets Special Operation Groups tasked with precision assault landings against point targets, once we have enough detailed intelligence to permit such pinpoint attacks. In terms of pure airpower, two of our heavy bomber squadrons and six fighter-bomber squadrons have now moved to our bases in Europe and Turkey and are ready to strike Afghanistan and support our troops once they will have landed. With all these forces, we should be able to strike Al-Qaeda and the Taliban very hard and to destroy Al-Qaeda on the ground in a decisive manner within a week. However, my main worry right now is our limited amount of detailed intelligence on the locations of Al-Qaeda militants and command centers in Afghanistan. Without such detailed intelligence, our strike will go in nearly blind, forcing us into having to physically sweep and search vast areas, often in difficult mountaineous terrain, something that could cost us a lot of troops, Mister President.’

Bush nodded once, then looked at the director of the CIA, George Tenet.

‘’What kind of intelligence have you been able to obtain about Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, George?’

‘’A lot less than I would have wished for, Mister President. Unfortunately, our intelligence assets in place in Afghanistan are very limited and the sources available in the region are either unreliable or of dubious value. The one thing that I can say is that Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda command center is situated in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. The NSA9 has been able to locate its general location within Kandahar by intercepting a number of telephone calls between Bin Laden and his main lieutenants. As for the locations of the Taliban forces in Kandahar and around Afghanistan, the picture we have right now is quite foggy: the Taliban is mostly a light infantry and guerrila force with no large bases, heavy weapons or sophisticated electronic systems and is thus quite difficult to pinpoint on the ground. Unfortunately, I 9 NSA : National Security Agency. The American agency charged with the detection, interception and decyphering of electronic signals and communications from hostile sources.

107

do not expect to obtain much more intelligence than at present, due to our lack of Humint10 assets and of electronic signatures, Mister President.’

Bush clearly showed dissatisfaction at that answer but he also was able to understand the reasons for that lack of accurate intelligence. That was when his national security advisor and sole woman present in the Situation Room, Condoleezza Rice, spoke up.

‘’About this lack of intelligence and about our overall plan to attack Afghanistan, may I say something, Mister President?’

‘’Go ahead, Condoleezza.’

‘’Well, Mister President, after the attack on the PRINCESS OF THE SEAS, I went to consult the old Athena Files kept at the Pentagon, to see what they could possibly tell us about Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghanistan. What I read was frankly troubling.

First, understand that in the universe from which Nancy Laplante came from, which I will call ‘Timeline A’, Al-Qaeda had also attacked the United States, by hijacking a number of airliners and then crashing them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. That attack killed over 3,000 Americans in the year 2001 of Timeline ‘A’. The reaction of your counterpart there was to attack Afghanistan, with the goal of capturing or killing Bin Laden and of destroying Al-Qaeda. The United States of Timeline ‘A’ then invaded Afghanistan that same year, with many of our allies from NATO also sending troops to support us. As a Canadian reserve intelligence officer and war correspondent, Nancy Laplante went to serve in Afghanistan and reported from there many times, something that contributed to the large and detailed volume of information on the war in Afghanistan that I found in the Athena Files. That information is in my personal opinion still very relevant to our present situation, as many of its aspects are similar to what we see happening now. I analyzed that information in debt in the course of many days and was able to extract from it a number of lessons critical for our present situation, lessons which could possibly save us from a lot of grief.’

George Bush, like the other men around the table, bent forward to better listen to her, his interest aroused.

‘’Go on, Condoleezza.’

‘’Please don’t take umbrage to what I will say, Mister President, but your Timeline

‘A’ counterpart, along with his military and political advisors, committed a number of serious mistakes during what was then called ‘The War in Afghanistan’ and ‘The War on 10 Humint : Human Intelligence. Intelligence sources based on the use of clandestine agents, informers and observers in place in a targetted country.

108

Terror’. Nancy Laplante even wrote a number of lengthy articles on them as a war correspondent, highlighting the mistakes we made then. By 2012 ‘A’, the year when she was abducted and transported back in time to 1940 England against her will, the war in Afghanistan was still going on after eleven years and was proving to be a costly and frustrating conflict for us, while Al-Qaeda and the Taliban had managed to survive our attacks and were waging a bloody guerrila campaign against our troops. Here are the main lessons I drew from my analysis, points that I believe to be very relevant and important to us. First off, the big mistake your counterpart did was to stay in Afghanistan after forcing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to hide and wage a guerrila campaign against us.

We then tried to rebuild Afghanistan according to our own concepts of democracy and installed a government friendly to us in the place of the Taliban. After eleven years, that attempt to rebuild Afghanistan was basically failing, thanks to endemic corruption and incompetence on the part of the new Afghan administration and to our own failure to understand the psyche of the country and of its inhabitants.’

‘’And what is wrong in trying to bring democracy to another country, Condoleezza?’’ asked Karl Rove, Bush’ senior political advisor. Rice, who didn’t like Rove much, gave him a dubious look.

‘’What is wrong with that? The same that made our previous attempts at so-called ‘nation building’ in other countries costly and embarrassing failures. Fortunately, in our own timeline, we were lucky in having Ingrid Dows, Nancy Laplante’s adopted daughter, who served as presidential advisor to successive presidents for fifty years, from 1948 until 1998. In her capacity as presidential advisor and as a frontline general, Dows counseled our Presidents into avoiding many grave mistakes. Her most notable achievements in that aspect were, in historical order: turning Japan into our allie in 1948; the prevention of what was called in Timeline ‘A’ ‘The Vietnam War’, which the United States lost after ten years of fighting and over 50,000 of our soldiers killed; the stopping of the fighting between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1953; the defeat of Stalin’s attempt at conquering Europe in 1955; the prevention of a series of illegal clandestine actions in the 1960s by the then director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, who wanted to

‘reshape’ a number of countries in Latin America via political assassinations and fake revolutions; the prevention of another CIA harebrained scheme, in collaboration with the British, meant to destabilize the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mossadegh in order to gain control of the Iranian oil, a scheme that eventually blew in our face when hardline clerics led a revolution in Iran which transformed what was then an ally of us

109

into a long-term enemy; the prevention of an Arab-Israeli conflict in 1976 and, finally, her role in killing the Kremlin coup leaders who were threatening a nuclear war on us in 1989. I won’t mention here all the wars and conflict Ingrid Dows won on our behalf as our top fighting general and military commander. So, excuse me, Karl, if I have more confidence in her political judgment than in yours.’

Seeing that Rove was about to angrily fire back at Rice, George Bush pointed an index at him and spoke in a firm tone to him.

‘’She’s right, Karl, so clam up and listen to her. You may continue, Condoleezza.’

‘’Thank you, Mister President. As I said, our main mistake was to stay too long in Afghanistan for the wrong reasons. Another big mistake was to underestimate the capacity of the Taliban to wage a guerrila war against us, using such tactics as suicide attacks, roadside bombs and road ambushes. Also, we suffered a lot because of our inability or unwillingness to pressure Pakistan into stopping its harboring of both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which they were providing with safe havens along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. On all this, Nancy Laplante’s personal opinion is that we should have gone into Afghanistan strictly to destroy Al-Qaeda, then withdraw before the Taliban could organize a guerrila campaign against our troops. In her opinion, our attempts at rebuilding Afghanistan as a democratic society was doomed from the start due to its traditions and hard-held religious and social beliefs. To resume all this, Mister President, we should go in fast and hard, destroy Al-Qaeda and then get out. Nobody in history was able to ever take and hold on to Afghanistan in the past, which is why it is nicknamed ‘the graveyard of empires’, and we won’t succeed either despite all our military might, Mister President.’

There was a long silence as Bush digested Rice’s words. He then nodded his head once and looked at General Sherman.

‘’General, draw a plan for a lightning in-and-out campaign in Afghanistan, with the sole goal being the destruction of Al-Qaeda.’

Somehow, that brought an embarrassed look on Sherman’s face.

‘’Uh, such a plan already exists, Mister President: General Dows wrote it as part of her series of operational military contingency plans meant to face a variety of potential threats, like her Megiddo Four Plan, which saved us in 1996 from a treacherous Russian attempt to destroy us by firing nuclear-tipped missiles from submarines located next to our coastlines. That plan is actually called ‘Afghan Exorcism’.’

110

Bush was left stunned for a moment, then broke out into a short laughter before pointing an index at Sherman.

‘’Then, we will go with that ‘Afghan Exorcism’ plan. Don’t hesitate to consult in private with General Dows if any of its points proves unclear or in need of more working up.’

‘’Uh, yes, Mister President!’

111

CHAPTER 13 – THE INFERNO OF WAR

06:18 (GMT)

Thursday, July 5, 2001 ‘C’

Flag conference room, nuclear battlecarrier U.S.S. NEPTUNE

On station 800 kilometers south of the coast of Iran Indian Ocean

Vice Admiral Mack ‘Big Mac’ Benson nodded in satisfaction when the last two of his subaltern expeditionary task force unit commanders entered the flag conference room of his flagship.

‘’Welcome, Captain Rodman and Commander Wentworth. I am sorry to have called you to the NEPTUNE at such an early hour but I just got our operational orders from Washington, which arrived three hours earlier by aircraft, along with stocks of military maps and charts relevant to our mission.’

‘’We understand, sir.’ replied Michael Rodman, the captain of the supply ship USS PROVIDENCE. ‘’Sorry for the late arrival: I stopped on my way in to collect Commander Wentworth on the USS SAN JOSE. Her ship’s aircar was down due to a minor mechanical issue.’

112

Benson nodded again at those words. The Navy variant of the Hiller AIRCAR had proved to be a huge success in service and a most useful asset by greatly simplifying and speeding ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore liaison and personnel transport at sea.

Before, one had to either prepare and use an onboard helicopter or a motor boat when needing to visit another ship or go ashore. Now, you simply needed to roll an AIRCAR

out of its garage and fly off towards your destination, a bit like you would call in a taxi at home. The Hiller AIRCAR also had the big advantage over a helicopter of being much smaller in size and also being much simpler to maintain than a helicopter. As a result, nearly every U.S. Navy ship larger than a minesweeper carried at least one AIRCAR, often tucked in a corner of a ship’s helicopter hangar. The other big winner in this was of course the Hiller Aircraft Corporation, which had been and was still making a fortune by building and selling by the hundreds its various models of VTOL vehicles to the American military.

‘’I understand. Please, take place at the table and we will start this command meeting.’

Waiting until Rodman and Wentworth had taken seats around the conference table, Benson then spoke in a calm, deliberate tone while looking at his task force subalterns.

‘’Again, thank you for coming at such an early hour, ladies and gentlemen. As I stated before, a CMV-28 VTOL transport aircraft delivered three hours ago our detailed mission orders and operational plans, along with large stocks of field maps, photo-maps, naval charts and intelligence information booklets pertaining to our mission. Those stocks are presently being divided into packages which will then be delivered to your respective ships. You will also be provided at the end of this meeting with a smaller set of maps and charts, sets which will allow you to start your detailed tactical planning concerning our objectives in Afghanistan. Now, about our mission, as stated by Washington. It is called ‘AFGHAN EXORCISM’ and its goal is for the rapid and brutal hunting down and destruction of the Al-Qaeda elements sheltering in Afghanistan, including its commander and founder, Osama Bin Laden. Since the governing Taliban government refused to hand over those Islamist terrorists and has vowed to protect and support them against us, the Taliban will also get its well-deserved lumps from us.

However, and this is a primary premise of Operation AFGHAN EXORCISM, our forces will not linger inside Afghanistan for longer than needed to destroy Al-Qaeda and will leave as soon as the job is completed. This is to avoid becoming stuck into a long-term quagmire with no predictable end in sight. There will thus be no such thing as ‘nation-

113

building’ by us in Afghanistan. We will go in, knock the crap out of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda and then get out.’

‘’Gee, I was expecting a more encompassing mission from our present Republican government, sir.’ said Rear Admiral Stuart Reynolds, Benson’s task force deputy commander and captain of the battlecarrier USS WILLIAM F. HALSEY. Benson couldn’t help smirk at that remark.

‘’I too had expected a more extensive and longer mission but, in the letter from General of the Army Sherman that came with our orders, our combined arms commander stated that this plan was originally drafted as a contingency plan some two years ago by General Dows.’

‘’General Dows? She was able to predict the need for us to go fight in Afghanistan?’

‘’General Dows was able to predict many things apart from this, Stuart.

Remember how she had a whole defensive operational plan ready in detail when the Russians tried to nuke our country via a fleet of submarines stationned next to our coasts?’

‘’I sure do! That MEGIDDO FOUR plan was pure genius and saved our country from a nuclear hell.’

‘’It indeed did! I will ask all of you to keep this top secret and not mention it to your subalterns, but General Sherman said in his letter that, according to the old ATHENA Files kept at the Pentagon, the United States of the original timeline known to Nancy Laplante also suffered a devastating terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda this same year as us, which is why General Dows deemed necessary to write a contingency plan in case we also suffered an attack by Al-Qaeda. But I digress. Let’s now look at the main lines of our mission plan.’

Before continuing, Benson made a large map of Afghanistan and of the countries surrounding it appear on the projection screen of the conference room.

‘’The plan states that two factors will complicate our mission. First, Afghanistan is a land-locked country, some 300 miles from the nearest coast, which belongs to Pakistan. It is surrounded to the West by Iran; to the North by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and to the East and South by Pakistan. This thus means that direct landings from the sea is impossible. In terms of air access, only Iran can be described as a friendly country, with the other countries surrounding Afghanistan unlikely to allow us to overfly them on our way to attack Afghanistan. Our freshly arrived instructions do

114

state that Iran has secretly allowed us to overfly its territory but has asked us to be discrete about it, as their internal situation with their own religious zealots is a bit delicate at this time. We can thus reach Afghanistan by air via Iranian airspace, either from the Indian Ocean or from our bases in Turkey. This means an air assault mission, with only air resupply available to the forces we will use in Afghanistan.’

Lieutenant colonel Ken Morita, the commander of Marine Air Group 26, made a grimace on hearing that.

‘’That will severely tax our aircraft fleet and will also mean a huge aviation fuel bill for this operation, Admiral. I hope that we will keep the size of the invasion force to a manageable minimum.’

‘’And we will, Colonel. We will employ only light forces for this operation, with the sole exception being a few artillery units brought by air into Afghanistan once we will have secured a few local airfields.’

‘’And what is the second factor which is complicating our mission, Admiral?’

asked Colonel Paul Wilkinson, the commander of the Sixth Marine Regiment.

‘’The dispersed state of the enemy and our lack of detailed intelligence about where Al-Qaeda elements are located in Afghanistan. This will in turn mean that we will have to strike a number of widely dispersed locations in the country, and this with only minimal intelligence to work with. However, the Pentagon promised us that they will do everything to provide us with more solid intelligence on the enemy.’

‘’And what kind of opposition can we expect in Afghanistan, Admiral?’ asked Lieutenant Colonel Chris Walters, the commander of the First Battalion of the Sixth Marine Regiment, which was embarked on the NEPTUNE. His question brought a sober look on Benson’s face.

‘’I can already tell you that our mission will not be a simple walk in the park, Colonel Walters. The Taliban, which has vowed to protect and support Al-Qaeda, may not have an integrated air defense system like one we would expect from, say, the Russians, but they have plenty of light and medium anti-aircraft guns, supplemented by some man-portable air defense missiles. We can thus expect some dense heavy machine gun and cannon fire when our aircraft will approach to land our marines. Our airborne troopers who are now in Turkey can expect the same during their air assault.

Complicating our mission is the fact that both Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters don’t wear standard uniforms, instead using local civilian garbs, and can easily hide within the local population and melt back in it after attacking us. We can also expect a lot of ambushes

115

and hit and run tactics, plus possibly suicide attacks by enemy fighters wearing explosive vests. Enemy recognition will be a big problem for our troopers and we certainly don’t want to start firing indiscriminately around when coming under fire. Fire discipline will have to be enforced if we don’t want to antagonize the whole local population against us.’

Benson’s exposé left his subalterns rather somber as they realized how tricky this mission was going to be. Commander Kiwi Kawena, the task force intelligence officer, was the next to ask a question.

‘’Can we hope to find some reliable allies on the ground in Afghanistan, sir?’

‘’Yes! The Taliban may control most of the country but their extremely rigid interpretation of Islam and their harsh treatment of women and minorities did bring them quite a few local enemies, especially in the North of the country, close to the border with Tajikistan. The CIA is presently working to gain some local support for us in that region.’

‘’So, do we actually have an operational plan for this mission or will we have to improvise, Admiral?’ asked Wilkinson.

‘’The plan AFGHANISTAN EXORCISM does include a list of targets to strike and a coordinated overall operational plan. It will be up to us to decide how exactly our troops will take their objectives. The key here will be a precise coordination of all our forces, in order to deliver a sudden, massive blow from the air on the enemy, followed immediately by the landing at the vertical of our troops. Our job in the next few days will be to study the maps and reconnaissance air photos of our objectives and to plan coordinated airstrikes and troop landings in Afghanistan. D-Day for the start of the operation is in four days, so we need to get to work, ladies and gentlemen.’

19:49 (GMT)

Friday, July 6, 2001 ‘C’

Musculation room, Marines fitness center

Upper Deck, USS NEPTUNE

Second Lieutenant Mark Whitfield had real trouble not to stare at his platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Greta Visby,

116

while practicing in a sitting position with a pair of small dumbells. Greta Visby was on her back atop an exercise low bench, doing benchpresses with sixty kilos of weights.

Her efforts made her whole body tense up, showing her impressive muscles for a woman, including a proverbial sixpack and very strong legs. Yet, the young blonde’s body was also most sexy, with large hips and firm breasts of more than average size.

From his position opposite her station across the narrow alley, Whitfield had a direct view of her crotch and belly as she pumped up and down the heavy set of weights. As a result, Whitfield was developping a serious erection despite his efforts not to hoggle her.

In that, the young officer was not alone in the musculation room, as Greta was the sole woman exercising along with the fourteen men present. Afraid that Greta was going to notice his attention towards her, Whitfield decided to create a diversion by asking her a question that he had meant to ask her for some time.

‘’Excuse me, Sergeant, but could I ask you something about your past combat experience in Somalia?’

‘’Go ahead, sir.’ replied Greta while continuing her exercise.

‘’Well, I was told at an information meeting this morning that the Islamist extremists we fought against in Somalia were affiliated with this Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. I thus suppose that they may have similar tactics and fighting styles. What can you tell me about them?’

Putting back in place her weighed bar on its support hooks after completing her twelfth benchpress, Greta then sat up on her exercise bench to face her platoon commander.

‘’The Al Shabab militia is effectively an outshoot of Al-Qaeda and has the same extreme, intransigeant interpretation of Islam than Al-Qaeda and Saudi Wahabites.

They consider women as inferior beings who need to be controlled by men, consider other, more moderate sects of Islam, like the Chiites, as blasphemers and regard non-Muslims as infidels worthy only of death. You thus can’t argue with them, as they won’t listen to you. You also can’t trust their word, as they believe that a promise made to an infidel is worthless. In terms of fighting, they are fanatics, ready to die in what they consider a holy war against us non-Muslims and expecting as a reward to go to Paradise, where virgins are waiting to reward them. You may rightly laugh at such ridiculous beliefs but that makes them eager to fight and to even conduct suicide attacks against us. I was nearly killed in Somalia when a lone extremist driving a pickup truck blew as it raced towards my squad’s checkpoint. Thankfully, I was able to kill him while he was still some distance from me, making him release his grip on his dead-man switch

117

and triggering the explosion of his car bomb. The blast threw me back but, fortunately, I was not hit by shrapnels from the truck. When it comes to these Al-Qaeda bastards, I expect the same from them as from the Al Shabab. Thus, expect suicide bombers, either on foot and wearing an explosive vest, or in a vehicle loaded with explosives.

Expect also to have them hide in a crowd while wearing civilian clothes, in order to be able to get close to us before attacking. Roadside command-detonated bombs, antitank mines and road ambushes are also to be expected from them. They will rarely conduct what we consider a traditional infantry assault, since their fighters are poorly trained in standard military tactics, and will prefer guerilla-style ambushes and long-distance sniping. In Somalia, the Al Shabab used a lot of modified pickup trucks with heavy machine guns and even 23mm cannons or recoiless rifles mounted in the back. I fully expect the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban fighters to use such trucks, which we called

‘technicals’. Expect them as well to use machine guns, mostly of Russian manufacture, as well as light and medium mortars. In Somalia, the rifle of choice for them is the Russian Kalashnikov, while the RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launcher is another popular weapon. Those same weapons are also widely used in Afghanistan, according to the information booklets we received yesterday.’

By then, Whitfield had noticed that the other marines exercising in the room had stopped their exercises and were now listening to Greta with obvious interest, something that pleased the young officer: those marines were proving that they were taking this mission seriously and were eager to learn what they could about the enemy they were about to face. Greta also noticed that and continued on.

‘’To resume what I expect from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, we are going to face fighters who, while generally poorly educated, will fight with fanatical resolve and will be ready to die in a fight against what they consider infidels. Their word definitely can’t be trusted and you can expect the worse from them if you let yourself be captured. They will favor guerilla tactics, roadside ambushes and suicide attacks and will often merge with the civilian population before attacking. Many Americans think little of such Islamist extremists because they don’t have sophisticated weapon systems and don’t follow standard tactics but we would make a grave mistake by underestimating them as fighters. We may have dominance of the air but Afghanistan is their country and they know it well, while we don’t.’

‘’And how did the general population in Somalia behave with you and other marines, Sergeant?’

118

‘’Most Somalis only wished to be able to live in peace and prosper, like most people on this planet. Unfortunately, the Al Shabab militia and the local warlords had most of the weapons and controlled the population via strong-arm tactics and even terror, kidnapping, torturing and killing those who either opposed them or sympathized with us. Women and girls in particular were victims of their abuses and I expect the same situation with Afghan women and girls. I met plenty of Somalis who were decent, likeable people and we gained a lot by respecting them and protecting them against extremists and militiamen. Our main problem in Afghanistan will probably be to be able to distinguish between normal Afghan citizens and disguised Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.’

Whitfield nodded his head as Greta finished speaking: everything she had said made a lot of sense.

‘’Thank you for your advice, Sergeant: it was most useful to me.’

‘’You’re welcomed, sir. Do you know what is the particular mission or target our platoon will have in Afghanistan, sir?’

‘’Our regimental and battalion command staffs are still studying the information we have on Afghanistan, thus I can’t really answer your question right now. I should be able to answer you better in a day or two.’

Greta sighed on hearing that.

‘’Damn! The suspense is killing me. Well, we will take whatever they will give us, sir. As for our marines, they are both willing and ready for action. I think that I will go have a shower and then go back to my cabin. I intend to go to bed early tonight: we will all need to be well rested when the time will come to jump into combat. If there is something that war taught me, it is that you have to catch your sleep whenever you have a chance to, as you won’t know when your next sleep will be.’

‘’A good philosophy, Sergeant. I myself will go to bed early tonight. Have a good evening.’

‘’You too, sir!’ said Greta before getting up and starting to walk towards the female locker room of the fitness center. Whitfield watched her go, admiring at the same time her firm, well rounded butt, and wishing he could have a shower with her. However, he chased away that thought at once: such a thing would have been both highly inappropriate and contrary to military discipline. Still, he told himself that Greta Visby was certainly a very appetizing girl worthy of a serious look.

119

13:08 (GMT) / 17:38 (Afghanistan Time)

Saturday, July 7, 2001 ‘C’

Marine force command post, U.S.S. NEPTUNE

‘’Good news, men: the target list assignation has been finalized, so the suspense for us is now over.’

The words from Lieutenant colonel Chris Walters, commander of the First Marine Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, made the senior marine officers standing around the map table of the ship’s marine force command post either smile or nod in contentment.

Using a laser pointer, Walters then continued to speak while designating various areas and spots on the detailed map of Afghanistan fixed on top of the table.

‘’If we go first to the larger picture for this operation, which is by the way called

‘Afghan Exorcism’, the Pentagon has roughly divided Afghanistan into five main operational zones, each to be dealt with by a specific division or regiment. The 82nd Airborne Division will take care of the Kandahar area and of the Southeast of the country, which contains many of the most important objectives for us in Afghanistan, while the 101st Airborne Division will occupy Kabul and its surrounding area. By the way, for your info, Kabul is not the capital of the so-called ‘First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’, which was established by the Taliban in 1996 after they seized control after a long civil war. When they took control of the country, the Taliban decided to move the capital from Kabul to Kandahar, which is their spiritual birthplace and the center of their leadership. That is why the Southeast region is most important for us and drew much of our assets. On its part, the Tenth Light Infantry Division will take the northern part of the country, which has a mostly mountainous relief and which borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. As for the First Marine Regiment, it will take the Southwest and West regions of the country, which borders Iran. Finally, our regiment will take the Northeast part of Afghanistan, which includes the mountain ranges and passes shared with Pakistan. This may sound to you like a secondary job but it isn’t, far from it. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda gets much of their support and new recruits from Pakistan, where the Northwest part of the country is predominantly of Pashto ethnicity, and where many Al-Qaeda training camps and recruiting centers are situated.

Our main mission in the Northeast area will be to block the mountain passes linking Afghanistan with Pakistan and thus prevent any retreating enemy fighters from fleeing

120

across the border. Our job will as well be to prevent any Taliban or Al-Qaeda reinforcements and supplies from Pakistan from entering Afghanistan.’

‘’What about the Pakistanis themselves, sir?’ asked Major Roberto Santiago, the commander of the battalion’s weapons company. ‘’I read that they are actively helping and supporting the Taliban, even though they keep denying it. Could the Pakistani Army intervene and try to protect the Taliban?’

Walters gave Santiago a most sober look.

‘’Washington is fervently hoping that the Pakistanis won’t intervene militarily in this operation but the possibility still exists that they could do so. We suspect that, if they do try to help the Taliban, it will be in an underhanded way, using their military intelligence service, called the I.S.I., to provide support to the Taliban by giving them supplies, weapons and intelligence information on us. We will thus have to be ready to repeal them if it comes to that. Now, let’s cover the detailed operations plan for our battalion. Like for the other main units of our expeditionary force, we will strike in three waves. The first wave will consist of missiles and aircraft strikes on the most dangerous or important objectives, especially Taliban and Al-Qaeda known command centers, barracks and training camps. However, the main and regional airports will be spared from missile strikes, as we want to seize them intact. Then, minutes after the missile and air strikes, our first wave of troops will effect surprise vertical assault landings, in order to physically take control of our objectives. The third wave will consist in the ferrying by air of our heavier support units, equipment and supplies, using the second wave VTOL transport aircraft, plus heavier transport aircraft coming from Turkey and Europe. Here, I must again impress on you that this is meant to be a relatively short campaign centered on the destruction of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and the elimination of its Taliban ally. There are no plans for so-called ‘nation building’ or long-term occupation of Afghanistan. Now, for the part that you were most impatient to learn about: who goes where and does what.’

The officers around the map table bent forward to better see as Walters used his laser pointer to designate specific points around the Northeast region of Afghanistan, which bordered Pakistan.

‘’Our first wave of troops from our regiment will take the airports of Jalalabad and Khost, so that they could be used by our second wave of troops and equipment, and will assault the known locations of Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership centers, training camps and barracks. There will be also two Navy S.E.A.L. teams in support of our battalion.

121

Those S.E.A.L. teams will be landed on top of the mountain passes of the Spin Ghar range, south of Jalalabad, in order to prevent any Taliban or Al-Qaeda fighters from fleeing into Pakistan, or, in reverse, from getting reinforcements and supplies from Pakistan. Now, about our own battalion’s sub-units. I and the battalion command team will land in Jalalabad Airport, where we will establish our command post next to our regimental command post. Major Santiago, your weapons company will be parceled out evenly between our three rifle companies prior to leaving the NEPTUNE, so that it could provide some heavy weapons support to them. However, I want most of your antitank platoon to go in support of Bravo Company, which will be tasked with taking the Afghan border post and surrounding area at the western entrance of the Khyber Pass. If the Pakistani Army or major Taliban reinforcements react to us and try to push through with armed columns, then your antitank teams will have the main task of stopping and pushing back those columns.’

‘’Understood, sir!’ replied at once Santiago. Walters then went on, looking in turn at the commanders of his Alpha and Charlie rifle companies.

‘’Major Hill, your Alpha Company will take position on the left flank of Bravo Company and will deploy to interdict any infiltration or enemy withdrawal through the mountains. Your border separation with Bravo Company will be the Kabul River, which flows on the northern side of the main road from Jalalabad. Captain Vernon, your Charlie Company will occupy the foothills on the right flank of Bravo Company and will prevent enemy infiltration through that area. After this briefing, you will get enough tactical maps and photo-maps marked with our unit boundaries and areas of responsibility to provide them to all your squads and platoons. Before I close this meeting by giving you the actual timings of the operation and your radio callsigns, I want to give you a word of caution. Our enemy may look uneducated, under-equipped and poorly trained to you but this is their country and they know it well. They are also religious fanatics and will be ready to launch suicide attacks against us, on top of waging a guerrila war on us. Don’t underestimate them and take them seriously. Don’t repeat the mistakes the British did during the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839.’

Walters felt satisfaction in seeing that all of his officers apparently took his advice on this subject seriously.

122

01:02 (Afghanistan Time)

Monday, July 9, 2001 ‘C’

Flight deck of the battlecarrier U.S.S. NEPTUNE

‘’COME ON, GUYS! STEP UP THE PACE AND GET ABOARD: BEAUTIFUL, SCENIC AFGHANISTAN IS WAITING FOR US.’

A concert of laughs from the marines of Third Rifle Platoon/Bravo Company greeted Greta’s joke, who was standing behind the tail of one of the 36 Hiller PELICAN ‘A’ lined up on the flight deck of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, ready to lift off. One young marine then replied to her joke with a question.

‘’HEY, SARGE, WILL WE BE ALLOWED TO BUY SOUVENIRS OVER

THERE?’

‘’YES, BUT THEY ONLY ACCEPT PAYMENT IN BULLETS AND GRENADES.’

‘’GREAT! I GOT LOTS OF THOSE ON ME.’

‘’THEN, TELL THEM TO KEEP THE CHANGE, RICHARDSON.’

More laughter ensued and the 43 marines of Third Rifle Platoon gingerly climbed inside the PELICAN via its rear cargo ramp, to then take the seats lining the sides of the cargo cabin, in which two Argo MUDMASTER all-terrain-vehicles loaded with supplies and ammunition were already sitting, solidly fixed to the floor by chains. Once all of her marines were aboard, Greta also climbed inside and took a seat near one of the ATVs after taking off her bulging backpack. She shouted out more instructions to her marines as she buckled her seat’s safety belt.

‘’REMEMBER: KEEP YOUR WEAPONS UNLOADED UNTIL I SAY

OTHERWISE. NO MAGAZINES ON YOUR RIFLES! CHECK YOUR WEAPONS

NOW!’

She watched attentively as her marines checked that their weapons were empty. Riding along with her platoon were six men from the battalion’s weapons company antitank platoon, armed with two of the new HGL-105 rocket launchers. The HGL-105 may have looked like many of the other antitank rocket launchers in service around the World but Greta knew that it had a few outstanding features of its own, having fired one of them once during a familiarization course on heavy weapons of the Marine Corps. For one, it used the same kind of long-recoil pneumatic buffer than the one in the 60mm grenade launcher attached to her .243 caliber M1986A2 assault rifle. That allowed the firing of a projectile without any of the backblast signature or rear danger zone typical of traditional

123

rocket launchers. It still left a rather hefty recoil to be absorbed by the shooter but, in Greta’s experience, that felt recoil was quite manageable. A second outstanding feature of the HGL-105 was the large size of its projectile, which had a caliber of 105mm and was much larger than that of most other portable rocket launchers. That large caliber in turn allowed the projectile to have a very powerful shaped-charge warhead, able to pierce the armor of about any existing tank. The third special feature of the HGL-105

was that it fired what was more than a simple rocket projectile, yet was not as complex and expensive as a guided anti-tank missile would be. Once fired out of its container/launch canister by a small initial charge, the HGL projectile flew out for about ten meters before its booster and sustainment rocket motor kicked in. That greatly reduced the amount of recoil needed to be soaked up by the gunner and also reduced greatly the firing signature of the weapon, while also allowing it to be fired from inside an enclosed space, like from inside a house or bunker. However, the main feature on launch was that, on pressing the trigger, a set of gyroscopes started to spin at high speed a fraction of a second before the firing of the initial launch charge. Those gyroscopes in turn registered the precise axis on which the weapon’s aiming scope was pointed at just before launch, then kept the projectile down that aiming axis after firing and while correcting for the effect of wind, using a set of cruciform canard surfaces near the nose of the projectile. That kind of simplified guidance package, while costing much less and being more reliable than a fully guided sensors package, allowed the gunner of the HGL-105 to simply aim directly at a fixed target and then fire. The projectile was then going to fly towards that aiming point with no need to correct for distance or windage, even up to its maximum range of 2,500 meters. When fired at a moving target, like a rolling tank, the gunner had to evaluate by how much deflection he needed to aim his launcher before firing, with an effective range against moving targets being around 1,000 meters. All this made for an easy to use, dependable and powerful weapon with effective ranges approaching those of a fully guided missile, and that at a much lower cost. On top of all that, the HGL-105 could fire a variety of projectiles apart from its antitank shaped charge warhead. That variety included a Fuel-Air-Explosive, or F.A.E., warhead of devastating effect against bunkers, caves and buildings, a ground flare illuminating projectile and a high-explosive/fragmentation round for general purpose use.

With two such weapons assigned to support her rifle platoon, Greta was quite confident that her marines were going to be able to face about any kind of threat once at their objective, the Afghan border post at the entrance of the Khyber Pass.

124

Up on the air control bridge of his carrier, Vice Admiral Mack Benson watched with apparent impassivity as the 36 PELICAN ‘A’ VTOL transports carrying his 1,200

onboard marines lifted off one by one at the vertical from the flight deck of his ship. In reality, he was very conscious of the dangers his marines were going to face in Afghanistan and fervently wished that as few of them as possible were going to become fresh casualties of war. However, he had already seen too much about war in his Navy career to believe that his pious wish would come true.

03:16 (Afghanistan Time)

Combat Information Center (C.I.C.) of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE

On station in the Sea of Oman

Looking one more time at the C.I.C.’s wall clock showing the time in Afghanistan, Vice Admiral Benson then looked at his flag operations officier and nodded his head once.

‘’Radio the fleet: pass the order to fire our bombardment missiles now.’

‘’Aye, Admiral!’

Navy Captain Grossman in turn gave an order to his fleet weapons officer, who then pressed a large button, sending a computerized command around the warships of the fleet. Ten seconds after pressing the button, the first of 56 Long-Range Bombardment Missiles erupted at the vertical from its Mark-2000 Vertical Launch System with a mighty roar and a long plume of rocket flames. The LRBM then leaned towards the Pakistani coast and Afghanistan, soon switching from its initial booster solid rocket motor to its air-breathing cruise ramjet engine, while deploying its folded short wings and continuing towards its designated target at Mach 3.2, guided by its inertial navigation system coupled to a GPS receiver. The 1,900 kilometers between the U.S.S. NEPTUNE and the LRBM’s target were covered in less than 33 minutes, at which time that LRBM

entered a terminal dive while still under ramjet power. The one-ton concrete-piercing warhead of that missile slammed at the near vertical into its target, the regional Taliban headquarters and barracks in Jalalabad, at a velocity of close to 1,600 meters per second. Easily piercing in succession the roof and two concrete floors of the building before digging itself down to the basement, the LRBM penetrated further into the ground by another thirty meters before its big warhear exploded. The rare Afghans living around

125

the headquarters building and who were not asleep then saw the whole building and its surrounding annexes blow up into the air in thousands of pieces, as if propelled upward by the eruption of a volcano. Nobody in that Taliban complex, which included the regional barrack for Taliban fighters, survived that monstrous blast, most of them killed instantly while still sleeping. Then, the whole area started to be deluged by pieces of concrete masonry and other debris, gravely damaging dozens of houses and commerces and killing or wounding over forty people. At nearly the same moment, three more LRBMs impacted in and around Jalalabad, destroying the house of the local Taliban leader and two training camps used either by Al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters, the two later targets falling victims to LRBMs equipped with F.A.E. warheads which killed with their blast overpressures nearly all the fighters present in those camps. Less than five minutes later, the shocked inhabitants of Jalalabad then started hearing a number of powerful-sounding propeller aircraft approach their city and airport.

In the PELICAN ‘A’ carrying her and her platoon, Greta physically felt the powerful blasts from the LRBM detonations, with her aircraft shaking momentarily from the shock waves. Seeing that the marines of her platoon reacted with some muted dismay to those blasts, she then shouted out loud at them to reassure them.

‘’DON’T WORRY GUYS: THESE WERE THE FIRST CANDIES WE SENT TO

THOSE TALIBAN AND AL-QAEDA BASTARDS. WE WILL SOON BE ABLE TO

DELIVER MORE GIFTS OF OUR OWN AT THE BORDER. OOYAH, MARINES!’

‘’OOYAH! ’ replied in unison the 49 men in the cargo section.

In the cockpit of her PELICAN ‘A’, the copilot suddenly pointed forward at a small building visible through his heads-up-display, which was switched to night vision mode.

‘’THERE’S THE AFGHAN BORDER POST! WE ARE NOW 600 YARDS FROM

IT.’

‘’I’m starting our descent now. Transitioning to vertical flight mode.’ said in turn the pilot. He then made the four ducted propellers of his aircraft pivot gradually to an horizontal position, making the PELICAN slow down while starting to come down from its previous altitude of 300 meters. The aircraft was about to land on its extended landing wheels when a pickup truck-mounted heavy machine gun positioned next to the border post hut opened fire at the PELICAN. The first burst missed it cleanly, but the second one grazed it, while the third one hit it squarely. Three heavy 12.7mm slugs penetrated

126

the front of the cockpit area and continued inside the aircraft. Thankfully, two of those slugs, fired from a level lower than the aircraft, soon flew out of the PELICAN through its top surface without hurting anyone and causing only minor damages. However, the third slug hit lower than the two other slugs and shattered a few of the flight instruments before hitting Second Lieutenant Mark Whitfield in the head and nearly decapitating him.

The front gunner of the PELICAN, who had been barely missed by that slug, gagged when he looked at what was left of Whitfield.

‘’JESUS! Lieutenant Whitfield is dead!’

While the pilot kept concentrating on completing his landing, the copilot had a quick look back at Whitfield, then looked angrily at the nearby border control hut.

‘’You’ll pay for that, you bastards! Here, have a ration of your own!’

Aiming quickly the two 35mm cannons of the PELICAN ‘A’, which had a limited capability to be aimed in azimuth and elevation, he then pressed the trigger of his aircraft’s main weapons, sending twelve high-explosive fragmentation shells towards the border control hut and the pickup truck parked next to it. The hut, made of dried mud bricks, basically disintegrated into dust and chunks of bricks, while the pickup truck exploded into a fireball, its fuel tank hit. The pilot then shouted into his headset’s microphone.

‘’MARINES, DEBUS11!’

In the cargo cabin, Greta, still unaware of the death of her platoon commander, unbuckled her safety belt while shouting at her marines.

‘’YOU HEARD THE MAN! OUT, OUT, OUT!’

Once up from her seat, Greta took five seconds to put on her backpack, then went to help the drivers of the two ATVs in undoing the chains holding the vehicles to the floor, while the first marines started running out by the rear cargo ramp or jumped out via the two side doors. Once the two ATVs were free of their chains, Greta followed her marines by jumping out via the left side door of the cabin. She landed on a dry, semi-hard ground and found herself in near darkness, while tracer bullets flew around, either fired by her marines or by a few enemy fighters who were still alive. Lowering in position the pair of night vision goggles fixed to her helmet, she looked around to quickly orient herself and check on her marines, then ran towards what was left of the border control hut, intent on directing the charge of her marines. At that time, she didn’t think about where Lieutenant Whitfield could be, confident that the young officer was directing 11 Debus : Military jargon for order for the passengers of a military vehicle or aircraft to get out at once.

127

another part of his platoon into action. The noise from the propellers of her PELICAN

then surged as the VTOL transport lifted off in a hurry once all the marines had gone out of it. One Taliban hiding behind one of the barrels full of dirt and rocks forming the border chicane tried to shoot at it, firing a burst from his AK-47 rifle but missing it by a wide margin, not having phosphorescent rifle sights visible in the dark. Greta, who was running in his general direction, then fired a burst from her own rifle, peppering the barrels protecting the Taliban and making him duck down behind them. Firing short bursts every few seconds while charging the chicane, Greta forced her enemy to keep his head down until she was less than forty meters from the barricade, then stopped abruptly and raised her rifle’s night vision scope to her eyes, ready to fire again. The Taliban, not hearing bullets ping against the barrels anymore, thought that this was his chance and popped up from behind the chicane and started levering his AK-47. Greta was only waiting for that precise moment and fired three rounds into the man, hitting him in the upper torso and head and killing him. The firing around her then died down quickly, as all the Taliban fighters present at the border post were now apparently dead.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down, Greta looked around her and saw only marines moving or running around. She then activated the microphone of the headset she wore under her helmet and which was connected to the small pocket radio tuned to her platoon’s frequency. Up to now, she had only heard on it the three squad leaders of her platoon speak in short sentences on it but had not heard once Lieutenant Whitfield on the radio.

‘’Bravo Blue Six, this is Bravo Blue Seven, over.’

Hearing no response, she repeated her call a few seconds later. However, the answer she got was not from the callsign she expected, as it came from the pilot of the PELICAN which had transported her platoon into Afghanistan.

‘’Bravo Blue Seven, this is Mike Alpha Two Six Three: Bravo Blue Six is dead.

He was hit by a heavy machine gun bullet during our landing. I am now bringing his body back to the carrier, over.’

Greta paused for a second, hit hard by the death of her platoon commander: Mark Whitfield had proved himself to be an intelligent, decent and caring officer during the short time he had been with the regiment. She however swiftly composed herself and replied to the PELICAN pilot on her radio.

‘’Understood, Mike Alpha Two Six Three. Advise Higher that I am now in local command, over.’

128

‘’Acknowledged! Mike Alpha Two Six Three, out!’

Greta then switched to a second radio tuned to the frequency of her company and used its handset to speak in it.

‘’Bravo Six, this is Bravo Blue Seven, over.’

This time she got a nearly immediate answer from Captain Kenneth Gomer, her previous platoon leader, who had been promoted a few months ago to the command of Bravo Company.

‘’Send, Bravo Blue Seven!’

‘’Bravo Six, from Bravo Blue Seven: Bravo Blue Six is dead, killed during our landing. I am now in local command, over.’

There was a two-second delay before Gomer replied to that.

‘’Bravo Blue Seven, I acknowledge. Do you have control of your objective, over?’

‘’Affirmative, Bravo Six! I will soon send you a full situation report once I will have checked on my men, over.’

‘’Understood, Bravo Blue Seven. Hold firm in place and do not let anyone through except unarmed civilians. Bravo Six out!’

Switching back to her small platoon radio, Greta went to crouch behind the protection of the border road chicane, in case an enemy sniper would be around, and spoke in her headset’s microphone.

‘’All Bravo Blue callsigns, this is Bravo Blue Seven. Report your situation, over.’

As per standard procedures, the squad leaders answered her in numerical order, with the commander of the First Squad, Sergeant Ken Nakamura, replying first.

‘’Bravo Blue one: all clear, no casualties. We are holding the right flank, over.’

‘’From Bravo Blue Two: no casualties. We are holding the barricade, over.’

‘’From Bravo Blue Three. All good! Left flank clear, over.’

Satisfied, Greta then spoke again in her radio.

‘’To all Bravo Blue callsigns, from Bravo Blue Seven: Bravo Blue Six is dead. I am now in charge. Bravo Blue Black Element, join me near the border control hut, over.’

The platoon guide, Sergeant Terence Green, answered her at once.

‘’On our way, Bravo Blue Seven.’

129

Satisfied, Greta got up on her feet but kept crouching low behind the barrels of the chicane while walking towards the ruined border control hut. While passing by him, Greta patted the shoulder of Sergeant Joshua Stern, the leader of the Second Squad.

‘’Nobody but unarmed civilians will go through the border until further notice, Joshua. Make sure that you have at least one HGL-105 team in direct support of your squad.’

‘’Got it, Greta!’ replied Stern, a good friend of Greta and an NCO she had full confidence in. Satisfied, Greta continued towards the destroyed border control hut, arriving there as the two ATVs assigned to her platoon arrived there as well, carrying Sergeant Green, the platoon messenger, Corporal Kim Lee, and the Navy Corpsman attached to the platoon, Petty Officer Second Class Janet Reno, also known as ‘Big Mama’, a big, robust black woman with gentle manners that belied her tough looks.

Kneeling down behind the ruined hut, Greta took the time to put down her backpack on the ground before looking at her small platoon command element.

‘’Lieutenant Whitfield was killed during our landing and I thus took over command of the platoon. No other casualties were signaled to me within our platoon and I got orders to hold this border crossing until further notice. We will unload the ammunition and water from our two ATVs here, behind the back wall of this hut, so that our ATVs could be available on call to take care of eventual wounded men and to bring up ammunition. Contrary to the rest of the battalion, no second wave is expected here at the border post. Janet, use Corporal Lee to help you pitch up a first aid tent behind that big rock over to our left, thirty yards away. Terence, go around with some small arms ammunition and have our men refill their magazines, then take four men from our First Squad and go establish a security post 300yards to our rear, in case that some Taliban fleeing from Jalalabad shows up. We don’t know what could hit us next or from which direction.’

‘’Got it, Greta!’ replied her platoon guide before walking to his ATV, imitated by Janet Reno and Kim Lee. Greta was soon alone behind the ruined hut, free to analyze the situation of her platoon. While the task of our platoon was simple enough, her sub-unit was probably the one facing the biggest threat, as the reaction of the Pakistanis to the capture of this border post was still uncertain. Since the situation was now quiet, she used the next few minutes to reload the now nearly empty magazine inserted in her rifle, then went around to see what kind of weapons and supplies the dead Taliban had left behind. She actually found the bodies of six Taliban fighters, one burned to a crisp

130

inside the destroyed pickup truck. While the heavy machine gun mounted in the truck was charred, with its ammunition having cooked off in the fire that had consumed it, she was able to retrieve four intact AK-47 rifles, plus one Soviet-manufactured PKM 7.62mm medium machine gun. That last find brought a smile to her lips: the PKM was a good, reliable weapon with respectable firepower and she found four ammunition boxes for it next to the weapon. She also happened to be familiar with its use and care, having encountered and reused many such captured weapons in Somalia. As she searched the ruins of the border control hut, she also found one RPG-7 portable rocket launcher, another weapons she was familiar with, along with three reload rockets in their carrying backpack. Bringing the captured weapons and ammunition behind the hut occupied her next half hour, by which time the Sun was about to rise over the horizon. Looking east towards the Pakistani border post, some 300 meters away down the road, she saw that the Pakistani border guards there understandably appeared nervous and showed themselves as little as possible while observing her and her marines with binoculars.

Them watching her was fine with Greta, as long as they didn’t do anything stupid. If they did, then it would become THEIR problem. The distant noise of an intense firefight coming from the direction of Jalalabad then made her turn her head in that direction.

Apparently, despite the punishing rain of bombardment missiles targetting their known command posts and barracks, the Taliban had still plenty of fight left into them, something that didn’t really surprise Greta: her experience with religious fanatics in Somalia had shown her that, while unsophisticated, such fighters didn’t give up easily.

However, the commanders of those fighters had generally proven to be much less eager as fighters themselves, often thinking of themselves as ‘too important’ for their organizations to willingly enter combat. She thus deduced that her border crossing could well see some Taliban or Al-Qaeda commanders show up soon, intent on finding safety in Pakistan. If that happened, she was going to be happy to greet them in the right fashion.

05:24 (Afghanistan Time)

Afghan side of the border, west of the Khyber Pass After touring the positions dug by her marines during the last couple of hours and seeing that they had done as well as possible in this mostly rocky ground, Greta looked

131

at the Pakistani border post, 300 meters away to the East, and took a decision before going to the leader of her platoon’s Second Squad, Sergeant Joshua Stern.

‘’Josh, I’m going to pay a short liaison visit to those Pakistani border guards, so that I could reassure them and avoid any accidental misunderstanding.’

‘’Are you sure, Greta?’ asked Joshua, concern on his face. ‘’What if they simply shoot you?’

‘’Then, you will be free to blow the shit out of their border post. Just put your squad on full alert, in case those Pakistanis get to suffer a case of terminal stupidity.’

On those words, Greta slung her rifle from her left shoulder and walked through the border chicane, heading towards the Pakistani border post. The Sun had been up for about half a hour now, so the Pakistani guards were able to see her clearly. Keeping her rifle slung, Greta calmly walked down the poorly maintained asphalt road, watched by eight uniformed Pakistani Border Corps soldiers crouched behind their own chicane and sand-bagged positions. Behind them, a line of waiting civilian trucks and other assorted vehicles had already started to form up, apparently waiting to cross the border and enter Afghanistan. Part of the last instructions she had received from Lieutenant Whitfield before he was killed in the PELICAN was the directive that the civilian vehicle traffic could proceed through the border in both directions, as long as every vehicle and person was searched for weapons before being let through. Thankfully, the Pakistanis didn’t panic and held their fire, even though they still were pointing their weapons at her.

Greta finally stopped a mere four paces short of the first chicane, made of old barrels full of gravel, and spoke out in a firm voice.

‘’Does any of you speak English?’

Nearly at once, one of the Pakistani soldiers got up from behind the second line of barrels forming the chicane and replied to her in a heavily accented English.

‘’I do! I am in command of this border post. What do you want, woman?’

Greta bit her tongue in order not to remark on the way the Pakistani had addressed her and answered him in a polite but firm tone.

‘’I wish to discuss our mutual situation here and to clarify a few things between us. Would you mind stepping forward a bit, so that we don’t have to shout to each other?’

Finding her request to be a reasonable one, the Pakistani walked from behind his line of barrels and past the first chicane, stopping two paces in front of her, his own rifle also

132

slung from one shoulder. Seeing that the man whore the shoulder epaulettes of a junior officer, Greta came to attention and saluted him.

‘’Staff Sergeant Greta Visby, of the United States Marine Corps. May I have your name, sir?’

Impressed by the politeness shown by her, the man returned her salute and answered her in his accented English.

‘’First Lieutenant Ismael Khan, of the Border Corps. Where is your officer?’

‘’I am in command of my unit, Lieutenant.’ replied Greta, not wanting to tell the Pakistani more than he strictly needed to know. Her answer unsettled a bit the Pakistani, no doubt because he was not accustomed to see a woman in charge of anything but a household. However, he quickly regained his composure and asked her another question.

‘’What is happening inside Afghanistan and why are American soldiers here, Sergeant Visby?’

‘’What is happening is that the United States has decided to respond to an act of terror committed by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, an act that cost the lives of over 3,500

American civilians. Since the Taliban government refused to deliver to us the Al-Qaeda leaders sheltering in Afghanistan and vowed to protect and support them, the United States’ government was left with no choice but to come and get those terrorists and their supporters right here, in Afghanistan. However, I can assure you that the United States has no hostile intentions towards Pakistan. We will not attack you as long as you don’t attack us.’

The lieutenant, who was maybe 25-years-old, about the same age as Greta, nodded his head once.

‘’Good! Do you Americans plan to stay in Afghanistan and take over the country?’

Mentally hoping that nobody in Washington would do such a stupid thing, Greta shook her head in response.

‘’We will stay in Afghanistan only long enough to ensure that all the members of Al-Qaeda hiding in it will be found and either captured or killed, along with any Taliban who would defend them. Once that is done, we will leave. Can you pass my words to your superiors?’

‘’I will do so, Sergeant. As you can see, a number of trucks and cars are waiting to cross over to Afghanistan. Will you let them go through? We conduct a lot of

133

commerce and exchange of goods between our two countries. Also, a lot of Pakistani citizens have family members or friends in Afghanistan.’

‘’We are ready to allow them through, but only after searching them for weapons and ammunition. You may advise them that the situation inside Afghanistan is presently difficult, with fighting still going on between us and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. If they choose to go through, then we can’t guarantee their safety.’

‘’We understand. We have been listening to the noise of fighting coming from Jalalabad for a few hours already. Will you allow Afghan traffic to also cross the border?’

‘’Yes, but again after we search it for weapons and ammunition. You may allow the first vehicle through once I am back on the other side of the border, Lieutenant.’

‘’Thank you, Sergeant. You are most reasonable.’

Greta then saluted again the Pakistani, who saluted back before she pivoted on her heels and started walking back to the ruined Afghan border post. Joshu Stern let out an audible sigh of relief once she was back behind the Afghan border chicane.

‘’Damn! You scared me about you, Greta.’

‘’Man of little faith.’ she replied with a smile. ‘’You should know by now that I can bullshit with the best of them. Now, I have arrived at an understanding with the Pakistani post commander, a Lieutenant Ismael Khan, to allow through civilian vehicles and pedestrians after they are searched for weapons and ammunition. I will direct the searches with two of your men while I will let you be on standby to react to any hostile move.’

‘’But, that could expose you to possible suicide-bombers, Greta?’

‘’So quickly after the start of our invasion? I don’t think so. Besides, I will not ask anything from our men that I am not ready to do myself. I need to show goodwill to these Pakistanis in order to keep the situation here under control.’

‘’As you wish, Greta.’ replied Joshua in a resigned tone. ‘’You may take Vinetti and Rodriguez to assist you to search vehicles.’

‘’Excellent! We will do the searches in front of the border chicane. That way, you will be able to react quickly and effectively in the case of any treachery.’

Letting Joshua call up to him the two marines designated to assist her and giving them a short set of instructions, Greta then looked at the Pakistani border post and waved one arm high, signaling to the Pakistani guards that they could let through the

134

first of the vehicles lined up behind their chicane. That first vehicle turned out to be an old, grossly overloaded British-made truck that had seen better days. It apparently carried bags of grains of some sort and had two men sitting in its front cab. Greta let the truck advance to some ten meters of the border chicane, then motioned it to stop and walked to the driver’s window. The driver, a bearded man in his forties, rolled down his window and presented his passport and a document to her before speaking in a fair English. That made Greta thank the fact that Pakistan was an ex-member of the British Empire and that English was probably taught as a second language in Pakistani schools.

‘’Here are my papers, miss. I have a load of first quality Basmati rice headed for Kabul.’

‘’I like Basmati rice!’ replied Greta, smiling to the man. ‘’I will have to ask you and your passenger to step out, so that you could be searched for weapons. If we find nothing, then you will be free to continue on to Kabul. Be advised that you may encounter some fighting between here and Kabul.’

‘’What about custom duties? The Taliban border guards always asked us to pay duties on our way in.’

Greta replied to his with a big grin.

‘’You are in luck today, mister: you won’t have to pay duties today. We relieved the Taliban border guards of their duties and we are not into briberies.’

The driver had a quick glance at the six dead bodies lying under blankets near the ruined border control hut, then dismounted from his cab, imitated by his passenger.

Greta let one of her two marines search the driver, then the cab, while her other marine searched the passenger, a young man who turned out to be the eldest son of the driver.

With no weapons found on them, Greta made her marines search quickly the back of the truck, where they saw only bulging bags of rice. The driver was then allowed to get back into his truck with his son after Greta gave him his papers back.

‘’Have a nice trip and be careful about any fighting you may encounter, mister.’

‘’Thank you! May Allah be with you, miss.’ replied the driver before restarting his truck and drive it around the chicane.

The next vehicle to go through was an old Ford pickup truck loaded with fresh produces. Greta found a man, a woman and two young children sitting in the front of the truck. Unfortunately, none of them spoke English but Greta compensated for that by using sign language with them to make them step out. Letting her two marines search

135

the driver and his preteen son, she searched herself the woman and her young toddler girl, whom she found to be quite cute. Greta gently kissed the child on her forehead before handing her back to her mother and waving goodbye to the family, who was too happy to continue on their journey.

The search of the next six vehicles to come from the Pakistani side went without a hitch, with Greta finding no weapons in them. However, that changed when she saw in the distance a small convoy of pickup trucks coming from inside Pakistan and jumping the queue of waiting civilian vehicles. A quick look at them with her binoculars made her shout out an alarm.

‘’ARMED TECHNICALS!12 STAND TO, MARINES!’

Waving urgently to the driver of the truck she had been inspecting to go through without delay, Greta then ran back behind the line of protective barrels and unslung her rifle while shouting orders.

‘’SLOW AIMED FIRE ONLY AT MY COMMAND. TARGET THE DRIVERS AND

GUNNERS IN PRIORITY. WE DON’T WANT TO SPRAY BULLETS AROUND THOSE

WAITING CIVILIAN VEHICLES.’

Joshua Stern helped her in that by designating to each man of his squad a specific target among the six incoming vehicles. Greta could now see that the trucks flew large black flags bearing Arabic words on them. From her pre-departure briefings, she recognized those flags as being Taliban flags. Five of the trucks carried heavy machine guns, each manned by men wearing black turbans, while the sixth truck mounted a short-barreled multiple rocket launcher. This was some serious firepower coming at her.

‘’INCOMING TALIBAN TECHNICALS! WAIT FOR MY ORDER TO OPEN

FIRE!’

To the credit of the Pakistani border guards, their lieutenant jumped in front of the incoming pickup truck as they were some fifty meters from his border post and waived at them to turn around. However, the Taliban fighters ignored him and simply drove past him. Seeing that, Greta shouted more orders to her marines.

‘’REMEMBER: AVOID FIRING AT THE PAKISTANIS. AIMED SEMI-AUTOMATIC FIRE ONLY WHEN I WILL SAY SO.’

12 Technicals : Popular term among American soldiers to designate vehicles, typically pickup trucks, modified by the addition of a heavy machine gun, light cannon or other heavy weapon mounted in the back of the vehicle.

136

Her marines, now nervous but still determined, obeyed her and held their fire for the moment. Greta then saw the pickup armed with a multiple rocket launcher veer off the road and roll for about twenty meters before stopping short of the border, with the men aboard the truck jumping out while the other trucks of the convoy started driving around the Pakistani chicane. She understood at once what the Taliban were planning to do and shouted out again.

‘’HGL-105 GUNNER, ENGAGE AT ONCE THIS PICKUP TRUCK WITH MRL13

STOPPED AT ONE O’CLOCK FROM OUR POSITION. MARINES, OPEN FIRE ON

THE INCOMING TECHNICALS WHO WILL CROSS THE BORDER.’

The first rifle shots from her marines rang less than two seconds later, with a muffled

‘BANG’ followed by the roar of a rocket motor from the HGL-105 missile one second later. The Taliban who were now in the process of pointing their 104mm MRL never had a chance to finish pointing it before the 105mm warhead of the HGL-105 hit the windshield of their truck and exploded, turning their vehicle into a flaming heap of twisted metal and killing all five Taliban fighters around it. As for the five other Taliban pickup trucks, they were systematically targetted by marines with well-aimed rifle fire as they were speeding past the Pakistani border chicane. In turn, their acceleration mostly ruined the aim of the machine gunners standing precariously in the back of the trucks, making their own fire erratic. However, that still meant that lots of 12.7mm and 14.5mm heavy slugs flew around, with many of them impacting against the barrels of the chicane.

On her part, Greta carefully aimed her own rifle and shot in succession two of the gunners standing in the back of the incoming trucks, then aimed at the surviving Taliban fighters who then hurriedly jumped out of their out-of-control vehicles before they could crash into the roadside irrigation ditches, their drivers killed by bullets to their heads or upper torso. After a mere minute of firing, Greta and her marines ceased fire, all their targets now down. Greta let out a sigh of relief after that, in order to calm herself down and slow down her heartbeat.

‘’Hell! I understand now what the British called ‘The Mad Minute’14 in World War One. CEASE FIRE, MARINES!’

13 MRL : Multiple Rocket Launcher.

14 The Mad Minute : Expression describing mass rapid rifle fire by British soldiers working up the bolts of their .303 Lee-Enfield rifles during trench battles in World War One. Trained British soldiers could then fire an average of one shot every two seconds, resulting in mass rifle fire which appeared like machine gun fire to the Germans.

137

Using the optical combat scope on her rifle, Greta then slowly scanned the scene in front of the Pakistani border post, examining carefully the Taliban lying around to make sure that they were all dead. She did see two of the Taliban move slightly, being obviously wounded. She urgently shouted to her marines when she saw that Lieutenant Khan and four of his men were walking around their chicane in order to go check out the wounded Taliban.

‘’WEAPONS TIGHT15! WEAPONS TIGHT! DON’T SHOOT AT THE PAKISTANI BORDER GUARDS!’

Fervently hoping that her marines would obey her and thus avoid an unfortunate misunderstanding with possible tragic consequences, Greta watched with her binoculars as Khan and his soldiers approached the Taliban lying around on and close to the road and checked them out. While she was a bit surprised to then see Khan shoot dead the two wounded Taliban, she was satisfied to see that: the Pakistani officer had good reasons to want to punish the Taliban for their foolish acts, which had endangered both his men and the Pakistani civilians waiting behind his barricade. Her marines apparently agreed with her, pushing yells of approval on seeing the execution of the wounded Taliban. That in itself brought relief to Greta: it now seemed that her marines and the Pakistani border guards were playing from the same page of music when it concerned the Taliban. Feeling more relaxed now, Greta started a quick tour of her platoon’s positions, checking on her marines and making sure that they both reloaded their magazines and also drank from their water bottles, in order to prevent dehydration.

Lieutenant Khan earned further appreciation from Greta by showing initiative, using one of the waiting heavy civilian trucks to push the wrecked Taliban vehicles off the road, then letting that truck roll towards the Afghan border post, where Greta obliged it by waving it through without inspection. That was the signal for the civilian traffic to resume through the border.

The first civilian vehicles to arrive at the border post from the Afghan side did so about one hour later, in the form of a long line of often old and battered cars or pickup trucks, nearly all of them packed with people of all ages and with piled up personal possessions. Greta understood at once what they represented.

15 Weapons Tight : Military order to hold fire until contrary notice. ‘Weapons Free’ meant you were free to fire at will.

138

‘’The first Afghan refugees from this war.’ she said to herself while watching the first car approach. ‘’Innocents are always the first to suffer in a war.’

Looking at Joshua Stern, she pointed the incoming vehicles to him.

‘’We will have to split our attention in both directions. Use one of your two fire teams to check the incoming Afghan traffic while using your other fire team to search the Pakistani traffic. However, be extra careful when checking vehicles coming from the Afghan side and pull aside any suspicious ones: we may start to see fleeing Al-Qaeda or Taliban members and I expect them to try to hide their true identity. I will stand watch against vehicles which will try to rush through.’

She tapped her rifle-mounted 60mm grenade launcher as she spoke her last words, making Joshua grin.

‘’You want to have a replay of your ‘Calamity Jane’ moment in Somalia, Greta?’

Greta smiled back at that allusion to the time when she had stopped an armored car carrying a Somali warlord by firing a 60mm grenade into its windshield while standing in the middle of a local street.

‘’Why not? I have to cultivate my image as a badass girl, no? Make the cars from the Afghan side stop some distance from the chicane, so that we could react in time to any surprise move.’

‘’Got it!’ replied Joshua while giving a thumb’s up signal.

On top of assigning one of his two fire teams of four marines to check the traffic from the Afghan side, Joshua decided to stay with that team and personally direct it: Greta was right about the possibility of Al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders trying to flee to Pakistan and catching or killing those leaders was after all one of the main goals of this military operation in Afghanistan. Standing a few paces off the road, he scrutinized with the help of his binoculars the incoming vehicles as they were still over fifty meters away, in order to be able to warn in advance his men if he noticed something suspicious.

Some forty minutes later, he suddenly saw what was definitely looking suspect to him: contrasting with the collection of old, battered and dirty cars and trucks which had been heading towards the border crossing, a big Mercedes-Benz sedan with tinted windows was rolling towards the border post, following some twenty meters behind an old pickup truck in which Joshua could see a whole Afghan family. An alarm bell went up in his head as he examined from a distance the big car, which contained four persons. He thus shouted out to Corporal Eddy Mastriano, the leader of his first fire team.

139

‘’HEADS UP, MARINES! I SEE A BIG BLACK MERCEDES-BENZ SEDAN

APPROACHING. IT LOOKS SUSPECT AS HELL TO ME. BE READY FOR

ANYTHING.’

Mastriano reacted at once by starting to walk along the side of the road to approach the said Mercedez-Benz sedan. Apparently, whoever was in that car got spooked by this, as the sedan’s powerful engine suddenly roared to full power, while its driver veered to the right and accelerated, starting to jump the queue of waiting vehicles. Both Joshua and Mastriano reacted to that by raising their rifles and firing a burst of automatic fire at the Mercedes. To Joshua’s consternation, his bullets hit the windshield of the car but only created a few stars in it rather than shatter the glass.

‘’FUCK! IT’S AN ARMORED CAR! SHOOT THE TIRES, QUICK!’

Corporal Mastriano didn’t have time to do that before he had to hurriedly jump out of the way in order not to be run over by the big car. Joshua himself had to jump out of the way while firing his rifle but his move threw off his aim and he didn’t succeed in hitting the tyres of the black Mercedes, which sped by him while rushing towards the border chicane. Joshua didn’t shoot again at it, as his fire would endanger the Afghan civilians packing the vehicles by which the Mercedes was now rolling by, possibly as a deliberate tactic to prevent the Marines from firing at it. Greta, alerted by Joshua’s shouts and then by the firing, had only a second to evaluate the situation and react to it. Taking three quick steps away from the road and putting one knee down on the ground, she aimed her rifle at the front side of the Mercedes and fired her 60mm grenade launcher, which was loaded with a dual-purpose explosive fragmentation and shaped charge warhead.

With her marines now over thirty meters from the Mercedes and with her point of aim on one side of the armored sedan likely to prevent her grenade from hurting civilian bystanders, her projectile hit the front right-side door of the Mercedes and exploded. As she had hoped, the armor of the car soaked up the blast and fragments from the explosion, with the car’s body shielding the civilian vehicles behind its left side, while the shaped charge plasma dart easily penetrated the armor of the Mercedes. That dart of super-hot gas and the overpressure from the blast instantly killed all the occupants of the sedan. With nobody left to drive it, the Mercedes started slowing down while veering to the right, out of control. Greta had to jump out of the way to avoid the barreling car but immediately started to run behind it, wanting to catch it as soon as it would stop. A large rock some twenty meters to one side of the border chicane finally did the job, brutally stopping the car in a loud noise of crunching metal. Cautiously approaching the

140

Mercedes with her rifle up and pointed at it, Greta saw no movement inside, with the four occupants slumped towards the front. Her dilemma was now how to open one of the doors of the sedan, as they were probably locked from the inside. Trying one of the door handles confirmed her fear about that but she still had one way to get in the car. Bracing herself solidly and pointing the muzzle of her rifle from a distance of less than thirty centimeters from the top front corner of the rear left window of the Mercedes, Greta fired at the window in full automatic mode while holding firmly her rifle, so that her bullets would keep striking the same small area of the window. She knew that armored car windows could resist the impacts from a few rifle bullets but that concentrated, prolonged firing would eventually shatter the plexiglas. Emptying one of the two joined magazines inserted in her rifle heavily damaged the corner of the window but did not fully shatter it, so she quickly switched magazines and fired another 25 .243 caliber bullets in it. This time, her firing managed to create a hole in the window large enough for her to insert her left fist and forearm inside.

‘’Joshua, cover me while I unlock that door, just in case somebody is still alive inside.’

‘’Go ahead, Greta: I have you covered.’

Reaching for the door lock button and pulling it up, Greta then pulled the door open while getting out of Joshua’s aim. A cloud of acrid smoke rose out from inside the car before they could see that the four occupants inside were dead, blood coming from their ears, a typical effect from a high pressure blast wave. All four men were bearded and wore turbans and traditional Afghan men’s robes. Greta also saw at least two Kalashnikov automatic rifles, one of them a shortened AKSU-74 sub-machine gun variant.

‘’Bingo! Those assholes were definitely not innocent bystanders. I will now search them to see if they have any papers on them, so that we could identify them.’

She started with the older-looking man, the one armed with the AKSU-74, a favorite weapon of Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders. Not finding anything directly on the dead man, she then took out of the car a briefcase lying beside the man and, putting it flat on top of the roof, opened it. What she found inside that briefcase was a collection of documents in Arabic, which she couldn’t read, a large amount of cash money in Afghan and Pakistani currencies and a Pakistani passport. Opening the passport, Greta saw that it pictured the man she had just searched. Since, as per usual international conventions, the passport bore information in English on top of Urdu, she was able to finally put a name on her victim.

141

‘’Ayman al-Zawahiri, born in Egypt. That name tells me something but our intelligence guys will definitely need to examine this and the papers in the briefcase.

Joshua, continue to search the other occupants while I call this in. However, keep your fire team’s attention on checking out the cars from inside Afghanistan.’

As Joshua gave a few quick orders to his marines and then went to open the other doors of the Mercedes, Greta took a couple of steps back and put fresh twin magazines on her rifle before activating her company-level radio.

‘’Bravo Six, this is Blue Bravo Seven, over.’

She got an answer after a two-second wait.

‘’From Bravo Six, send, over!’

‘’From Blue Bravo Seven: we just stopped an armored Mercedez sedan which tried to rush through the border post. I have four dead men inside and will need somebody from Golf Two16 to come and examine the documents I found inside the car, over.’

‘’Good work, Blue Bravo Seven. Can you identify the occupants, over?’

‘’Right now, I have one Pakistani passport in the name of an ‘Ayman al-Zawahiri’.

We are still searching the car for more papers, over.’

When Captain Kenneth Gomer spoke again, it was with clear excitement in his voice.

‘’Did you say ‘Ayman al-Zawahiri, over?’

‘’Affirmative, Bravo Six.’

‘’You may have caught a big fish today, Blue Bravo Seven. Preserve everything from inside that car and wait for someone from higher to come to your location to examine your catch, over.’

‘’Understood, Bravo Six, out!’

Hooking back the handset of her company-level radio, Greta looked again at the older dead man in the Mercedes, frankly intrigued by the words from her company commander.

‘’So, you are a big fish, hey? I wonder who you are really, you asshole. Well, have a nice time in Hell while we wait for the intelligence guys.’

To Greta’s surprise, it took less than forty minutes before a militarized variant of the Hiller AIRCAR landed near her border post, with three persons then stepping out of it 16 Golf Two, or G2 : radio callsign for the military intelligence officer of a unit.

142

and walking towards her and the wrecked Mercedes. She quickly recognized one of the three marines coming to her as being Major Roger Snider, the intelligence officer for the Sixt Marine Regiment.

‘’Wow! This looks like I truly hit the jackpot today.’ she said to herself before coming to attention. She however did not salute Snider, since they were on an active battlefield. Instead, she shook hands with the big redheaded man.

‘’You came here real quick, sir.’

‘’I needed to, Sergeant Visby. Do you know who Ayman al-Zawahiri is?’

‘’Uh, the name rang a bell but I don’t really know why, sir. I suppose that he is an enemy big cheese, sir?’

‘’You suppose correctly, Sergeant. Could I see the papers you captured? I brought a linguist with me to translate them.’

‘’Just follow me, sir.’ said Greta before walking to the Mercedes, on top of which still rested the captured briefcase. She then presented to Snider the passport found in the briefcase.

‘’Here is the Pakistani passport I found inside that briefcase, sir. That briefcase was next to the older occupant of the car, who sat in the rear left seat.’

‘’Thank you, Sergeant!’

Snider opened the passport presented to him and eyed the picture and name inside.

When he looked back at Greta, it was with glee in his eyes.

‘’Who stopped that car, Sergeant?’

‘’Me, sir: I hit it with a 60mm grenade.’

‘’Then, I can tell you that you killed the number two commander of Al-Qaeda, Sergeant. While you may become rightly proud about that, I would counsel you not to bragg about it around you, especially in Afghanistan: that would paint you as a specific target for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.’

Blood rushed to Greta’s brain on hearing that but she quickly managed to regain her composure.

‘’Understood, sir!’

‘’Good! I will now go through the content of that briefcase with my linguist. You may resume your border post duties, Sergeant.’

Greta nearly felt giddy as she walked away from the wrecked Mercedes, leaving Snider and his two assistant free to check it out.

‘’The number two of Al-Qaida... Wow! This certainly makes my day!’

143

CHAPTER 14 – A RISKY CONTRACT

14:39 (West Coast Time)

Tuesday, July 17, 2001 ‘C’