32 Moving
Lia led the way to the transport area outside Beijing CA. Like the rest of the force that had not gone ahead, they were dressed in standard OSG combat fatigues. The area was bustling as the last loads went into the heavy lifters. The command team climbed into a transport lifter and headed for Turpan.
It was nearly midnight when they set down well outside the small city. A brisk wind blew sand and dust everywhere.
“Just like I remember,” Pru said. “I’ll bet it’s still nearly 30 degrees Celsius here. Where is your command post going to be, Lia?”
The captain gestured to her right. “Over there in that depression. They’ve got the field generators in place, and all we need to do is unload the lifters.”
“Why not just put the lifters in place and run the field over them?” Pru asked.
“That’s our ace in the hole, Pru,” Lia replied. “We’re keeping the profile low, because the field is going to look just like the surrounding country. Instead of a depression there, it will be mostly level. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to see.”
“That’s what Xing had up his sleeve, isn’t it?”
“Right!”
Pru and Maeve watched as the unloading continued and the heavy lifters disappeared into the sky. Finally, the generators were switched on, and the field built up, concealing the entire location. Pru looked on with interest.
“Maeve, this is new to me. Do we use this kind of thing often?”
“Not too often, Pru. We don’t often need to. But, it’s in the arsenal, and it can be very helpful. It’s just about the best camouflage possible, since the field picks up the appearance of the land it’s placed on. Keeping a low profile’s important around here where there aren’t many hills.”
Pru thought for a moment and went to find Sgt Major Xing. She brought him back to where she and Maeve had been talking “Xing, this field is pretty hard to see. Is there any other way to locate it, without actually walking into it? I mean, can you scan CIDs through it; does it pass com signals?”
“Well, Pru, you can’t scan anything inside and we use special ports to get com signals in and out. There are detectable radiations from the field, and it’s possible to detect one from outside, but you have to be looking for it. It’s not obvious to most detection methods.”
Pru thanked him and called Lia to join them. “Lia, I have an idea. We’ve had no luck locating the hostages because their CIDs are somehow masked. Could you run a scan around the area for a field just like this one? Isn’t it just possible, they’re using this type of field to hide the hostages?”
Lia looked disturbed, but nodded her head. “Yes, we can do that. I’ll get right on it.” She looked meaningfully at Xing, who trotted off, then turned to Pru. “Pru, the only people who have this technology are the OSG forces. What are you thinking?”
“Just a hunch, Lia, but if OSG has it, anyone can get it. There’s no such thing as a secret. Let’s give it a try – we certainly aren’t getting anywhere with other methods, and you’ve been doing everything you can think of.” Lia nodded again and walked away, deep in thought. Pru turned back to help Maeve, who was organizing their gear preparatory to hauling it into the shelter of the field.
“Maeve, tell me more about these camouflage fields.”
“What do you want to know, Pru? They work like a charm, as long as you don’t make a bump on the horizon that wasn’t there before.”
“Can you make them go away?”
“You could bomb one, I suppose, but that’s not what you mean; it would make mush out of everyone inside. A bomb would have to disable a generator to bring the field down. ‘Make it go away,’ you said. Well, the field generators are inside, so you can’t turn them off from outside, and the generators run on fuel cells that are also inside. You really can’t turn one off from outside.”
“How could an intruder get inside one of these?”
“Pretty hard. The field’s a lot like the ones they use for a Controlled Area. It’s opaque and impervious – even to most ordnance. Usually we set them to trigger an alarm if anyone touches or monkeys with it from outside. You’d really have to get through a portal in the field to get in, and those are always guarded.”
“How do you set up a portal?”
“A portal is a counter-field that negates the main field at some given point. Once the field is up, you go to where you want a portal and activate the portal generator.”
“Could you do that from the outside?”
Maeve’s face lit up. “You’re wondering how to break into one! And, you think there’s another one out here somewhere, don’t you?”
.oOo.
The field was in place by 0300 as promised, and all the force’s equipment and troops were under cover well before dawn. Pru and Maeve found a place behind a storage dump to throw down sleeping bags and stretch out. Sleep came instantly; Pru was simply exhausted, and the sergeant major had long ago learned the soldier’s rule: sleep, eat and pee at any opportunity.
Xing touched Pru on the shoulder only a couple of hours later, waking her instantly.
“What is it?” she asked, as she sat up. Maeve heard her and woke just as rapidly, instantly reaching for the stunner she had beside her. Pru wondered where that had come from.
“We have results from the scan you ordered. Captain Jiang would like to see you.”
The three walked the few yards to the command post, where Lia was looking at a small-scale map on the com screen. She looked up at Pru, her eyes a bit red with fatigue, her smile triumphant.
“You were right. We’ve found another camouflage field. It’s just on the other side of Turpan, about 10 klicks out. Here’s the outline. Good thing we didn’t pick that spot to set up.”
“Can we get someone to do a visual on it? Are there guards outside?”
“We’re not finding any CID scans outside, so there probably aren’t any guards. We could get a scout force to look around. I imagine they’re trying to stay out of sight, so it should be routine.”
Pru looked at the map and keyed for topographical lines. “They’ve chosen a depression, just as we did. As soon as it gets light…” she looked at the time readout on the screen, “that is, just about now, we should send an eye over there. Circle the area, look for any tracks in and out and look for IR signatures. Don’t send any people there yet, and make sure the eye is one that can’t be seen from the ground.”
“Well…, okay Pru, but there’s no one out there. I don’t see what the problem is,” Lia objected.
“Well, you see, I had a recent operation where people had their IDs removed. If this is where the hostages are, I want to have every advantage I can get.”
.oOo.
The eye report was received by 0600. There were some traces on the ground showing traffic entering the site, and the eye had noticed three infrared thermal targets that might be guards.
“We have to start talking with Elik at 0800,” Pru said over a field breakfast. “Maeve, would you start with him? I’m pretty sure you’re right that he’ll go back to where we started yesterday, but keep at him. Try not to let him renege on what’s been agreed. That will keep his attention. Refuse to renegotiate what we got yesterday, unless you can get a broader definition of what is an Uighur.”
“Or, I could start a whole new line,” Maeve replied. “How about I start in on what economic changes he wants?”
“Fine, whatever you like. See how many sheep he wants, or how he plans to disentangle Han and Uighur businesses.”
“Maybe I’ll ask him what he wants all those ewes for – a little shepherd’s humor.”
“Don’t give him an excuse to blow you away, you nasty-minded Mick,” Pru retorted. Maeve just laughed.
Pru turned to Lia. “Do you have a plan of operation at this point?”
Lia looked at her. “I know what doctrine says. We go in and surround the facility. We take ‘all necessary steps’ to enter the facility and rescue the hostages.” She looked up at the ‘ceiling’ of the shielded facility, sighed, then looked back at Pru. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s what you have in mind.”
“Here’s my thinking; give me your feedback. My ultimate approach is to open a portal in their field and stun everything inside, then enter and take over. Before we can do that, we need to know for certain how many guards there are, if any, and what their rotations are so we can take them out and not get caught.”
“What are you going to do with Elik?” Lia asked.
“Once we have the hostages secure, we can do anything we want with Elik. But, we have to take our time on this. We don’t know what communications he has with the hostage facility. If it were me, I’d have a periodic com link to use so I could send instructions or a ‘kill’ command.”
Xing suggested, “I can have a monitor on com frequencies to see what’s going on. They may be using burst communications we might otherwise miss.”
“Very good, Xing,” Lia said, and Pru nodded. Lia added, “And, be sure to monitor OSG frequencies as well as standard com frequencies.” She shook her head at Xing’s raised eyebrows. “Just a hunch. As Pru said, we need to get this right.”
Maeve asked, “Do we have anything more on the location of the Batuk com?”
Xing shook his head. “I’m sorry. Our team has determined that the spoofing of the location changes on an almost random schedule. We’ve checked about 20 different locations since we started, and we’ve almost given up, on the theory that we’re not going to find out – that is, that no location will be valid.”
“I’ll bet a pint of Guinness that he’s inside that facility, using some obscure frequency to get out and into the com system.”
“What’s Guinness?” Xing asked, continuing without waiting for an answer. “We’ll put a watch on all frequencies. Any kind of radiation, we’ll find it.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard, since once I’m talking to him, he’ll have to be on-line constantly.”
“Watch for frequency switching, Xing,” Lia said. “If you’re right, he’ll be all over the map.”
“In any case, assuming we use stun, we can take out the facility without knowing where Elik is,” Pru said. “Once we’ve neutralized it, it doesn’t matter what orders he gives. We’ll have what we want, which is live hostages.”
“All right, then,” Lia said positively, “let’s get on with it.”