Terror Descending

“Unfortunately, there’s more,” Price stated, pressing a button on the console. Silently sheets of paper slid out of slots set into the table in front of each person. “At the exact same time there were similar attacks on a civilian airport in China, as well as an American AFB just outside Nome, Alaska.”

“Any connection to the three locations?” Brognola asked tersely.

“None that we are aware of.”

“Damn.”

“Agreed.”

“So this is not just a grudge with France, but a worldwide strike on both civilian and military targets.”

Price nodded. “Yes.”

The single word sent chills down the backs of the Stony Man operatives. An attack this widespread meant a major organization, thousands of personnel and nearly unlimited funds.

“If a Chinese airport hadn’t been hit, I would have assumed they were behind it all,” McCarter said. “Any chance they hit their own territory as a diversion?”

“At the cost of billions in collateral damage?” Price queried. “No way, David. It’s not the Chinese. The Red Star wants these Airwolves even more than France does.”

“You know, I would have thought that hacking into the electronic system of a major airport, and doing it fast enough to ‘impersonate’ an arriving plane, would have been flat-out impossible,” Brognola said, thoughtfully twisting his wedding ring. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

“We all were,” Price admitted. “Nobody thought this could happen.”

“Which makes the big question, how was it done?” Lyons asked irritably.

“Something like this would require a top-notch team of samurai,” Kurtzman said, then saw the puzzled expressions, and quickly explained. “ Samurai is our term for an expert hacker, the very best in their field.”

Frowning, Kurtzman continued. “They’d also need a really good supercomputer. A Cray Mark IV might do, but I would have gone with an IBM Blue Gene or a Dell Thunderbird.”

Nobody made a comment on the bizarre observation. The best way to find a terrorist was to learn how to think like one. The tactic required a special kind of mental flexibility that many ordinary police officers simply could not accommodate. For an operative working for Stony Man, it was practically a requirement.

“All of which these wolves in sheep’s clothing obviously have,” Price said, rising from her chair to walk to the side table. The woman poured herself a mug of steaming coffee and took a sip. “Broadcasting the correct codes and ident signals, these people are, for all intents and purposes, invisible, innocently mixed in with all of the other planes until they attack.”

Lyons grimaced. “In a single day, the military has been thrown back to visually tracking incoming planes by using binoculars, and against a supersonic jetfighter no one would have a clue!”

“Even if somebody got a visual on the B-52,” Brognola said slowly. “They’d think it was just a 707, and without the flight log of the tower to check, how could anybody know the incoming flight was actually supposed to be something else!”

“Mathematics,” Kurtzman said suddenly.

Everybody turned to look at him. Hunched over, the man was feverishly working a handheld calculator.

“The math on these attacks doesn’t work out right,” Kurtzman repeated, looking up and placing the calculator on the table. “To hack into the tower, get the ident for a plane, and the flight path, then slip in just ahead of the plane, would require supercomputers.”

“You already told us that,” Brognola stated, then suddenly looked alert. “And there’s not a plane in the world large enough to carry one of those into battle. It can’t be done! A supercomputer is huge, but very delicate.”

“They also weighs tons, and require a lot of constant technical support,” Price added, setting her mug aside. “Just taking off from the ground would crash a supercomputer.”

Kurtzman nodded. “Most likely.”

“Which means the Airwolves must have a ground base somewhere,” McCarter added, grimly intent. “That might be mobile, on a ship maybe, but it gives us a target to find. Take out the computers, or even the comm sat—”

“And they’re visible again, flying in plain sight,” Price finished. “Bear, have your team start a global search. Find their satellite and backtrack it to their ground base.”

“On it,” Kurtzman stated, hitting a button on the intercom to issue some terse instructions to his team in the Annex’s Computer Room.

“You know, whatever we do, we’ll need a diversion to keep the enemy off balance and looking in the wrong direction,” Lyons said, clearly thinking out loud. “Bear, how many abandoned airports are there in North America?”

That caught the chief hacker off guard. “Let me check,” he replied, and worked his laptop for a moment. “Okay, according to the last FAA survey, there are 1643 abandoned airfields.”

“Damn. Are there any long enough to land a 707?”

In growing understanding, Kurtzman grinned and worked the keyboard again. “That would be 603, including the Nevada Salt Flats, where you could land Mt. Rushmore.”

“Hal,” Price said, “please contact the President immediately, and ask him to have the Air Force bomb those old airfields, then send in regular Army ground troops to check the ruins.”

“To make them think we’re desperate,” Brognola said with a grin.

“It’s worth a try,” she admitted.

Without a word, the man rose and went to a wall phone. “Give me a secure line to the White House,” he demanded. After a brief wait, he spoke in a subdued whisper for several minutes, then hung up the receiver.

“Done and done,” Brognola announced. “Now what?”

“What exactly did the Airwolves hit the airport with?” Lyons asked, staring hard at the pictures of destruction.

Setting aside her mug, Price checked a page on a clipboard. “Let’s see—air-to-ground missiles, rockets, cluster bombs, smart bombs and iron bombs.”

Looking up, Kurtzman started to ask what those were, then stopped as he suddenly remembered that with the creation of smart bombs, old-fashioned bombs that had no guidance systems or any electronics, had been renamed dumb bombs, then finally iron bombs. Politically correct weapons. The very idea made his butt hurt.

“Any chance the French gathered enough parts to figure out where the weapons came from?” Brognola asked. “The Sûreté has some of the best criminal forensic people in the business.”

“They do,” Price replied. “We made the missiles. Or rather they were U.S. Air Force issue. The rockets were British, the cluster bombs Russian and iron bombs from Italy.”

“Mixed ordnance,” Lyon said, rubbing his jaw. “Sounds like these bastards were using whatever they could get.”

“Or else that’s what they’re trying to make us think,” McCarter responded. “This might actually be China, or some new group trying keep hidden. Remember the Brigade, or Unity?”

Clearly, everybody in the room did, and their faces grew more stern, if that were possible.

“Okay, there is no way that we’re going to track them through the munitions,” Price stated. “Unless they’re idiots, they’ve been stockpiling for years.” Adding some sugar to her coffee, the woman stirred it slowly. “But we might be able to find them through the sales of the munitions.”

“Through the weapons dealers who illegally sold them the bombs,” Lyons said. “Armando in Ohio would be the man to check with first. He’s the dirtiest arms dealer in the U.S. We can put the squeeze on him. Maybe he’s heard something. These guys have a network. We can go in as buyers…no, as sellers, and see what we can dig up.”

“The best way to follow the money—” Brognola added sagely “—is to be the original source.”

“Damn straight.”

“Want some blacksuits for backup?” Price asked.