“At Manzariyeh?”

“Yes.”

“That would be fine.”

“We’ll make the arrangements.” The colonel snapped off the radio.

“Shahin One, are you still with us?” asked the ground team. It was headed by a lieutenant whose voice seemed to crack with every other word. Usually the Pasdaran units were led by older men; this one seemed to be the exception that proved the rule. “We have been ordered to proceed immediately.”

“We are here but cannot find you,” said Vahid. “You’re going to have to fire a flare.”

“The enemy may see us.”

“If the enemy is there, that is true,” said Vahid. “But then I and my wingmate will know where you are and will be able to help you.”

When he finally persuaded the lieutenant to fire the signal flare, it was Kayvan who spotted it—several kilometers east of even the reversed coordinates, and nowhere near the location the lieutenant had given him earlier.

“Idiot doesn’t know his east from his west,” complained Kayvan.

Though inclined to agree, Vahid said nothing. He corrected his course, then finally spotted the two trucks by the side of the road. They were about seven kilometers south of the former Manzariyeh air base, alternately known as Kushke Nosrat Airport. The field was off limits except to certain aircraft connected with the nuclear program.

“The vehicle up the hill,” said the lieutenant. “Do you see it?”

“We’re still too far,” said Vahid. “It should be in sight shortly.”

“Can you bomb it?”

“Are there enemy soldiers there?” asked Vahid.

“Unknown at this time.”

“Are our soldiers there?”

“I’m sure this vehicle must be the one stolen by the enemy,” said the lieutenant. “We need you to attack it.”

“Stand by. We have to locate it first.”

“Complete idiots,” grumbled Kayvan. “We’re probably blowing up the jackass’s father-in-law.”

26

Iran

TURK SAW THE FLARE JUST AS THE NANO-UAVS CAME under his control.

One more thing to worry about, except he couldn’t—he had to focus on the Hydras.

Site Two, the more likely bunker to hold the bomb, was first up. The entry point was an air exchanger unit shaped like an upside down U that sat on a concrete pad at one end of an agricultural field. The exchanger was housed in a large metal unit that sat next to an irrigation pump; the property over the bunker entrance had been turned into a working farm to help camouflage the facility.

Screens guarded the air scoop to keep birds and large insects out. The first UAV to arrive blew them both, extending its winglets like fingers to drag much of the screen with it. Two nano-UAVs flew right behind, swooping down, then taking a sharp right into a long air tunnel. They were moving at a hundred knots, considerably slower than the aircraft in the first attack but still beyond Turk’s ability to physically control them in the twisting tunnel.

He didn’t have to, at least not yet. The first aircraft blew a small hole in one of the filtration units; the second shot through, scouting the tunnel for the rest of the swarm. Turk glanced quickly at the performance stats. The computer recorded no problems. Then he clicked the main screen over to the swarm attacking Site One.

The plan was to enter through a straight pipe that had been identified as a utility exhaust at the southern end of the facility, one of several pipes clustered amid rusting machinery behind a shed attached to a cemetery. The facility had been built under the cemetery; the main entrance was through a large mausoleum set at the back of the property, with a secondary entrance in a storage shed near the road. Though deeper than Site Two, the facility was smaller and considered less likely to hold “the treasure,” as the briefers referred to the atomic bomb material.

The initial entry was easy, but the UAVs had to execute an extreme turn west, plunge again, and take another turn to get into the shaft that led to the bunker’s work area. Turk could not have flown the UAVs through the maneuvers except at extremely low speed, which would have robbed the planes of the momentum needed to strike the target. The computer handled them perfectly, and the lead Hydra blew itself up as it reached the interior exhaust turbine, making a perfect hole for the rest.

So far, so good. Turk switched his view back to Site Two. A trio of UAVs had entered the long utility chamber that ran to the main elevator shaft. The first UAV blasted a hole through it; the next group descended the shaft to the main level.

A warning flashed on the screen; the elevator had started up. The two UAVs reversed course, but it was too late for the leader; it was caught by the gondola as it rose and exploded.

The power to the elevator should have been shut by the earlier explosion; that would have sent the elevator automatically to the bottom.

It didn’t. The intelligence was incorrect, or at least lacking. What else was wrong?

The explosion had minimal effect on the elevator, which continued to rise up the long shaft. Turk had to intervene.

“UAV 6, strike Power Nodule Two,” he told the computer. The small craft, now traveling barely faster than the elevator, continued upward to a panel near the cable and gear mechanism. “Detonate,” said Turk as it arrived.

He switched over to the feed from the NASA spy plane for a sitrep visual. The explosion had worked: the elevator was moving downward at a good rate.

Turk clicked the master control and slowed the next group, adding ten seconds to their flight plan.

“How we doing?” asked Grease from the edge of the ravine.

“Getting there.” Turk lowered his head closer to the screen. He needed to concentrate.

“We got some trucks moving around down there. You hear those planes?”

“No,” Turk said. “I gotta focus.”

The unplanned destruction of the two UAVs meant he had to change the priorities slightly for the remaining eight in the swarm. One had carried an infrared sensor, another a highly sensitive gamma measuring tool.

According to the plan, the UAV with the infrared sensor would have led the way into a dark utility tunnel that emptied into the elevator shaft. After detecting a spot in the shaft where water pipes cut through a hole, the aircraft would enter the pipe chamber and fly about twenty feet, where it would blow a hole through a thin wall into a ceiling space above the main laboratory chamber. The UAV carrying the gamma detector would then check the entrances at the far end of the lab, selecting the one with the highest residual radiation; presumably the corridor containing the room with bomb material. The rest of the swarm would follow, using the positioning coordinates radioed by the lead UAVs for their maneuvers. The next two had optical sensors that would inspect the area with the material. The swarm’s distributed intelligence network would attempt to spot certain key images indicating as much. The rest of the drones would then destroy either the bomb or, if there was no bomb, the machinery or gear in the laboratory chamber, massing their explosions to cause a cave-in and further damage.

Turk faced a quandary. If he used the next two—UAVs 7 and 8, both equipped with optical sensors—in the slots where 5 and 6 were to have been, he’d be short an aircraft with visual sensors to make the final confirmation. That would mean taking a unit from the swarm meant to strike the other site, or possibly attacking blind.

He checked the location of the rest of the swarm. The nearest Hydra, UAV 9, was thirty seconds from entering the facility.

He slid it ahead in the next mission slot and directed the computer to reduce flight speed to the slowest possible. The computer warned that the command would reduce their flight energy to dangerous levels. Turk ignored it, zooming the image being projected from the NASA aircraft and focusing on the location of the two drones. He superimposed the schematic, looking for the weak spot.