Strike Force

Less than an hour later, Dave Luger read over the report. “It’s not a code-name as far as we can tell, Muck,” he said. “We can’t detect any attempts to use code-words in any of the transmissions Raydon pulled down — the Iranians and Turkmenis are both chatting away in the clear. We think they’re talking about a real princess they may have captured. What do you suspect up there, Kai? What are you seeing out there in Ashkhabad?”

“Nothing specific,” Raydon replied. “But we can track and triangulate the transmissions, coded and uncoded, and we traced activity to a big bazaar outside Ashkhabad.”

“The Tolkuchka bazaar. I’ve been there,” Patrick said. “One of the biggest in Central Asia.”

“We can’t pick out faces or anything like that, but we did get ultra-wideband synthetic aperture pictures of a confrontation between some Turkmeni military units and the source of some of the uncoded transmissions — namely, a car in which radio transmissions were being sent and received in Farsi.”

“Not unusual. The border area is pretty heavily traveled, and the Iranians have a significant presence there.”

Patrick was indeed very familiar with the country. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, some fleeing Taliban forces crossed the border into Turkmenistan. The insurgent force had grown as it moved westward into a fighting force big enough to threaten the pro-Russian Turkmeni government, and the Russians moved in to crush the rebellion. Patrick McLanahan’s fledgling Air Battle Force was ordered into Turkmenistan to covertly monitor the situation, and a low-scale but fierce shooting conflict erupted between American and Russian air and ground forces to prevent a slaughter in that oil-rich but underdeveloped country.

Patrick had been severely reprimanded for his actions against the Russians, but his Air Battle Force ground teams did succeed in rescuing the ex-Taliban fighter turned Turkmeni armed forces commander Jalaluddin Turabi from the Russians. Turabi returned to his adopted country and later became president of Turkmenistan. Although protected by the United Nations and slowly transforming into an Islamic republic similar to Turkey, most of the educated, elites, petroleum industries, urban areas, and government were heavily Russian or Russian-sympathetic, and Turabi was under constant pressure to return Turkmenistan to the Russian sphere of influence.

“Well, maybe so,” Raydon replied, “but it looks like the military guys and the ones in the Iranian vehicle were confronting a group of three persons sitting near a horse pen or corral.”

“Three persons, you say?” Dave Luger asked.

“You got something on that?”

“The State Department put out a bulletin a few days ago that said that a group of three political refugees under their protection had fled the country by stealing a jet and flying it to Canada, presumably heading toward Iran,” Dave said. “They were accompanied by two guards apparently assigned to assist, but there were three in protective custody. Can you send me some of those images?”

Raydon already had his finger poised on the button. “Done,” he said. “The timing works out correct if they traveled from Canada to Central Asia by air.” There was no response. “Genesis, how do you copy Armstrong?”

“Sorry, Kai, I was reading here,” Patrick said, paging through more of the dispatches presented in his search. “There’s another report uploaded from the Minnesota Civil Air Patrol to the Air Force and copied to Air National Guard headquarters and the U.S. Department of State. Seems that a unit commander reports that one of his cadets was taken by an Air National Guard unit, claiming that he was supporting a State Department mission to recover the cadet who is purported to be a female descendant of Iranian royalty…”

“In other words, a ‘princess,’” Raydon interjected.

“The Air National Guard crew had two persons that the unit commander recognized as the cadet’s parents but apparently were in reality the cadet’s bodyguards, along with two more individuals who were security forces accompanying the bodyguards.”

“No shit!” Raydon exclaimed. “You don’t suppose…?”

“It’s quite a stretch from here on out, Kai,” Patrick said. “The State Department can give us more information.”

“Now that you mention them, it’s way above my pay grade,” Raydon said. “I’ll leave it up to you from here on out, sir. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“One question: can you track the three subjects?”

“Sure — for now,” Raydon replied. “Armstrong is tied into several other surveillance satellites, and we can pull information from them. Now if they transfer them to another car or if they stay off the air I’ll probably lose them, but they’re not practicing any COMSEC or OPSEC at all. I think I can track them no sweat.”

“Great, Kai. Keep me posted.”

“Roger that. Armstrong clear.”