But they would probably not see action within a decade, if ever, because few politicians and bureaucrats—including, in Patrick’s estimation, the current administration of U.S. President Thomas Nathaniel Thom—had the guts to use them. Just one of HAWC’s Megafortress bombers could destroy several dozen armored vehicles and keep an entire battalion of troops at bay, without being detected on radar and without exposing itself to undue risk; if they were given the order, one Megafortress could destroy the entire base without so much as rustling an innocent civilian’s tent flap, if there were any here. They had already proven the value of a small commando team paired up with one stealth bomber in the skies over Russia, right near Moscow itself.

But since then, Thom had all but shut down HAWC and had sent most of America’s fleet of bombers to the Bone- yard, along with about a third of the active-duty military and other deep cuts in tactical weapons and units. McLanahan and the other commandos here at Samah were not here under government sanction. It was dirty, difficult, and dangerous work.

No wonder Patrick found little to smile about these days.

“Don’t give me that ‘Nike out’ crap,” McLanahan radioed back. “This is supposed to be a soft probe, not a search-and-destroy—that’s why we have the FlightHawks overhead. I want you out now.”

“Then I guess I’ll just ignore this SS-12 battery I just found.”

“What?”

“Pretty damned clever, hiding it in a garbage dump,” Wohl said. He moved closer to the area. There was a short ramp on the west end of the pit, ostensibly to make it easier for the dump truck drivers to enter the pit. But on closer inspection, he saw that the garbage was piled not on the ground inside the pit but atop a retractable net. “Normal overhead imagery shows a garbage dump. It’s unguarded like a garbage dump—and the organic waste gives off enough heat to block infrared and radar imagery.” Wohl examined underneath the net with his infrared sensors. “And there it is, boys—the aft end of a MAZ-543 transporter-erector-launcher and an SS-12 Scaleboard rocket, still in its marching sheath. I’ll bet there are at least three more TELs in this pit, and if I check the other garbage pits, I’ll find more. Not to mention the TELs hidden in some of the service buildings.”

“The damned Libyans have SS-12s,” Briggs breathed. “Holy shit.” The SS-12 tactical ballistic missile, NATO code name “Scaleboard,” was the upgraded version of the ubiquitous mobile “Scud” surface-to-surface missile, in service with almost a dozen nations around the world. The SS-12 was larger, had three times the range of a Scud, was more accurate—and it carried a one-point-three-megaton nuclear warhead. As far as anyone knew, this was the first known instance of an SS-12 missile based outside of Russia. “Can you see the warhead, Nike? Is it a nuke?”

“Stand by, Taurus. I’ll check.”