The Fourth War Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing more.”
    â€œHow did we miss this?” he muttered in disgust and fear. “How could we not have seen it coming somehow?”
    The colonel only nodded as Peter stared at the floor. “Can you say Apocalypse?” he muttered.
    He looked up at Bradley, but the colonel was already on the phone. “I need a secure line to D.C.,” he told the Israeli communications officer on the other end of the line. He paused as he listened, then gave a 212 area code. While he waited for the secure communications link to go through, as he waited for the Israeli and U.S. satellites to authenticate to each other, he motioned to Peter, waving desperately with his hand. “Get someone from tactics down here. Captain Stein, he’s the best. I think he’s upstairs, get him in here now. Tell him I want an overfeed to our Killbird. We’ll need access through NRO, but I’ll work that from here.”
    Peter didn’t move until Bradley pushed him away with a brush of his hand. “ Go! I want to see this. We’ll have to monitor from here!”
    Peter turned and moved quickly, heading for the back door.
    Bradley gripped the phone tightly, his knuckles turning white. Fifteen seconds later the CIA director of operations picked up the phone. The colonel began to explain, his voice tight and quick. The director listened carefully from the other side of the world. The two men began to plot, mapping out a reaction plan.
    But it was already too late. The wheels had started turning, though they didn’t know why or where. If they had known even a few days, even a few hours before, they might have been able to act.
    But all they could do now was watch. It was beyond their control.

3
    As United States Air Force Col. Shane “Clipper” Bradley spoke on the phone, three thousand miles to the east, a brilliant and hateful plan was put into place.
    Rawalpindi Air Force Base
Islamabad, Pakistan
    The sun had just set, an orange circle on the smoky horizon, and the sky was cloudless yet brown from the dust that was blown up by the wind. A storm was brewing in the north, over the Himalayan range, but here, on the plain, on the dry river basin, it hadn’t rained in four months and the air was gritty and arid. The days were growing short as winter came on, and with the smoke hanging low like a dense, ugly fog, darkness came quickly to the mountains of Northern Pakistan. As the sun set, the sky turned from pink to deep purple, and finally to black.
    The two F-16s sat on the end of the runway, their engines at idle, their canopies down. The runway loomed before them, a long ribbon of black outlined by the blue runway lights. The cement strip crested in a long, gentle slope, then fell away a little over a mile ahead. The airport was quiet. All the other Pakistani fighters, few that there were, had been bedded down in their cement bunkers on the south end of the field, and the choppers had already taken off for the night. The radios were silent except for an occasional hiss of light static.
    The F-16s sat in an echelon position, the number-two aircraft twenty feet behind the leader and off to the side. A small star and crescent moon, the traditional symbols of Islam, were painted on each tailfin in green and white. The fighters were the new D models, recent deliveries from the United States, just one of the payoffs for Pakistan’s help in the war. With upgraded avionics, APG-68 radar, and the more powerful Pratt and Whitney 200 power plants, the fighters were the best aircraft in the Pakistani air force. Their engines screamed together in an ear-piercing whine as the intakes sucked in and compressed the dry, gritty air. Occasional vortexes of swirling dust and dead leaves formed several feet in front of the engines, for the runways were unswept and in general disrepair. In contrast to their stark surroundings, the fighters looked wonderfully new, with fresh paint, virgin tires, and spotless