by Dale Brown
On the top floor of a dingy apartment building a mile outside the Star City security perimeter, a short, whip-thin young man tweaked the stick on a small handheld controller. His eyes were fixed on the images scrolling across the screen of his laptop computer. “Good pictures coming in now, Sam,” he said in a lilting Welsh voice. “And I’ve no trouble with the Wren Bravo. None at all. The winds are just right and she’s responding beautifully.”
Samantha Kerr nodded. “Thanks, Davey.”
David Jones was one of the veteran Scion operatives assigned to Marcus Cartwright’s Moscow-based intelligence team. The ultralight Wren glider he controlled was a more advanced version of the Cicada, a miniature reconnaissance drone first developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Cicadas were designed for use in mass swarms after being dropped over targets by manned aircraft and larger drones. They were intended to gather intelligence on large-scale enemy troop movements using a range of lightweight, low-bandwidth sensors. In sharp contrast, the camera-equipped Wren Bravo, like its microphone-carrying cousin, the Wren Alpha, carried out much narrower and more focused missions—conducting photo reconnaissance and surveillance of individual human targets. Floating silently on the wind, riding thermals rising from the ground as it circled, it was almost impossible to detect.
Signals between Jones and the bird-sized Scion spy drone were being relayed through a portable dish antenna he’d set up on the apartment’s balcony. Anyone who noticed the dish would only assume the tenants, an elderly pensioner and his equally aged wife, had decided to sign up with one of Russia’s increasingly popular satellite television providers. Right now, though, the old couple was enjoying a rare vacation trip to the Black Sea—courtesy of the large sum of cash Sam had paid to rent their small, cramped flat.
Sam smiled to herself, remembering their delight and their hushed assurances that they would be “very discreet, very careful.” It was obvious they assumed she was a high-class prostitute who wanted to use their flat as a rendezvous for clients who worked inside Star City. She’d been very careful not to disabuse them of the notion. After all, it was the best kind of cover story, one dreamed up by the very people she wanted to deceive. Hadn’t someone once said the lies you told yourself were always more convincing than falsehoods told by others?
“There we go! I’ve got what you wanted, look now,” Jones said suddenly. He tapped a key on his laptop, freezing some of the pictures on its screen. “See here?”
Sam leaned forward, peering over his shoulder. The Wren had managed to capture good, clear images of at least two of the special Mars Project identity cards. Running those pictures through digital enhancement software should improve them to the point where Scion’s document forgery specialists could work their black magic. “Nicely done, Davey,” she said with delight. “Pull the Wren back now and set it down someplace near the highway. We’ll scoop it up on our way back to Moscow.”
With another small tug at the controller, Jones obeyed—breaking the tiny glider out of its orbit over the Tsiolkovskaya station and sending it sliding away downwind. Once the Wren ran out of airspeed and altitude, it would simply fall into the tall grass beside the road. There wasn’t much risk of discovery even if someone else stumbled across the little spy drone before they could retrieve it. Most people would assume they’d only found a child’s toy.
From across the tiny apartment, Marcus Cartwright caught Sam’s eye. “I still don’t see the point of this exercise,” the big man grumbled. “Even with perfectly forged Mars Project IDs, we won’t be able to break into Star City, or the Plesetsk and Vostochny launch sites. Our names and genuine biometric data aren’t on Gryzlov’s tightly controlled list of approved personnel . . . and we have no way to add them.”
Sam nodded. The special cybersecurity protocols created by the FSB’s Q Directorate to shield the Mars Project were too strong. Any attempt to hack through them would only set off alarms. “I agree,” she said evenly. “Which is why we’re not going to try cracking the perimeter security at any of those sites. Fortunately, we don’t need to.”
“Then what the hell is the point of going to all this trouble to forge some of those damned IDs?” Cartwright ground out through gritted teeth.
“Come now, Marcus,” she said with a smile. “You know my methods.”
“Sexual allure and carefully controlled violence?” he retorted.
“Well, okay, maybe not those methods,” Sam said with a low, throaty chuckle. Taking pity on him, she explained her thinking. They needed a work-around. If they couldn’t get into Star City themselves, they needed the next best thing—the chance to interrogate someone with direct, personal knowledge of the cosmonaut training program.
“Think about it,” she said. “Moscow’s apparently working up an elite cadre of military cosmonauts, right? Well, how many candidates usually make it all the way through that type of rigorous training?”
“Ten percent?” Cartwright said slowly. “Maybe twenty percent? Tops.”
“Exactly,” Sam said in satisfaction. “So there’s bound to be a much larger number of guys who made it through some part of the training course before washing out. We just zero in on the right cosmonaut wannabe and ask him a few pointed questions—backed up by the appropriate credentials. We don’t need Mars Project ID cards that can actually spoof Gryzlov’s multiple layers of security. We just need fakes that’ll convince someone who’s seen them up close and personal before.”
Cartwright frowned. “There are around five hundred thousand men and women serving in Russia’s aerospace forces,” he said dryly. “Not counting those who’ve recently left the service. How do we find the right needle in a haystack that big?”
“Only a handful of those five hundred thousand people have the necessary qualifications to make it as a cosmonaut,” Sam pointed out. “So that haystack of yours is really more like a handful of straw.” She smiled sweetly. “Besides, Russia’s Ministry of Defense personnel files aren’t nearly as tightly guarded as the rest of Gryzlov’s top secret programs, are they?”
“No, they’re not,” Cartwright agreed slowly. The Russians devoted a lot of cybersecurity effort to securing databases with information on weapons systems performance, procurement, and deployment. They spent far less energy safeguarding more mundane service and pay records. Exploiting this blind spot had paid dividends for Scion in the past. He looked at her. “So once we find the man you’re looking for, then what?”
“Ah, Marcus,” Sam said with a knowing grin. “That’s when the real fun starts.”
Secure Conference Room, Vostochny Cosmodrome, Eastern Russia
A Short Time Later
The large conference room adjoining Vostochny’s control center was on lockdown. Stern-faced members of Gennadiy Gryzlov’s plainclothes security detail stood on guard outside. For the duration of this top secret briefing on the Mars Project’s launch status, no one would be allowed in or out.
Inside the room, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov occupied the chair next to Gryzlov. Vostochny’s launch director, Yuri Klementiyev, sat across the table from them. No one else was present in person. Two secure video links connected them with the launch directors at Plesetsk and the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan. A third monitor showed Colonel Vadim Strelkov listening in from Star City’s cosmonaut training center. Strelkov would command the Mars One station once it was in orbit and operational.
“Our preparations here at Vostochny are proceeding on schedule,” Klementiyev said confidently. He touched a control, bringing up live feeds from cameras around the cosmodrome. One television picture showed a massive Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket already in place on Pad 3, secure within the ring of retractable gantries. Another feed focused on a second, still-horizontal Energia space launch vehicle as it rolled slowly out of the main assembly building aboard a powerful freight train. “Barring unforeseen technical problems, both rockets will be fueled and ready for launch within forty-eight hours.”
Leonov
nodded in satisfaction. Forty-eight hours was well inside their planned window. Given the number of problems that could crop up before any scheduled lift-off—ranging from glitches with the spacecraft itself to unexpected bad weather—it was always best to have plenty of time in hand.
The news from Plesetsk, located more than eight hundred kilometers north of Moscow, was equally good. Once mainly used to test new ICBM designs, the sprawling cosmodrome’s space launch facilities had been upgraded and expanded in recent years. Four rockets—two more big heavy-lift Energia-5VRs and two smaller medium-lift Angara-A5s—were either in position, ready for launch, or moving out to the pads.
Keeping his face impassive, Leonov listened carefully to the final site status report, this one from Baikonur’s Russian launch chief, Alexei Gregorjev. If it weren’t for Gryzlov’s sudden decision to drastically accelerate their timetable, he would have entirely avoided using the old space complex they were now leasing from Kazakhstan. In his judgment, the need to hide their real purposes and plans from Kazakhstan’s independent government represented a grave threat to the Mars Project’s secrecy. Kazakhstan’s leaders were too interested in developing closer economic ties with both the People’s Republic of China and the United States to be wholly reliable allies. If Kazakhs grew suspicious and started investigating Russia’s recent activity at Baikonur, they could cause serious trouble. But as it was, Leonov had no real choice. To meet the president’s ambitious schedule, he needed both Baikonur’s LC-1 launchpad and the two-stage, crew-rated Soyuz-5 rocket assembled in its production facility.
“The Soyuz-5 is ready for launch,” Gregorjev told them. “All indications show that the Federation orbiter is also fully flight-ready.”
“Is your cover story still holding?” Leonov asked.
Gregorjev nodded. “Yes, sir. As far as the Kazakhs and the international journalists here are aware, this spacecraft is only an unmanned test version.” He hesitated a moment. “Then again, why should they think otherwise?”
Leonov nodded back grimly. The Federation orbiter was Russia’s next-generation manned spacecraft, similar in shape and size to NASA’s Orion and SpaceX’s Dragon. In normal circumstances, no one would ever contemplate sending a crew into orbit using a wholly untested spacecraft design. During their Apollo moon landing program, the Americans had flown no fewer than eight flights with unmanned command modules—checking and rechecking the hardware and electronics to make sure everything worked as planned. Even during the opening, highly competitive days of the space race, Russia itself had conducted seven test launches of the first Vostok capsule designs without human cosmonauts on board. From a safety standpoint, what Gryzlov demanded—firing six men into space aboard a vehicle that had so far been proven reliable only in computer simulations—was sheer madness.
But when he’d pointed out the serious risks involved, Gryzlov had dismissed his concerns with a casual shrug. “Apollo and Vostok were peacetime space programs, Mikhail. You and I are embarked on a military operation, where risk and reward go hand in hand, do they not?” His gaze had turned cold. “Show me a commander unwilling to take chances and I will show you a coward.”
Now Gryzlov leaned forward, taking a direct part in the video conference for the first time. “How do the most recent weather forecasts look?” he demanded, addressing himself to the three directors at Vostochny, Plesetsk, and Baikonur. “Is there the slightest chance of a serious delay in any of our launches?”
One by one, they assured him the current forecasts were good, with only the minor possibility of a mild storm front pushing through Plesetsk before their scheduled launch date. Leonov, listening closely to these seemingly enthusiastic reports, nevertheless caught the faint undercurrent of anxiety emanating from his subordinates. Like him, they understood the grave dangers involved in flying so much new equipment without adequate tests. But like him, they also understood that they no longer had an alternative.
By now, the Americans, alerted by pictures taken by their spy satellites, would know that something very strange was going on at Russia’s space complexes. Moving seven rockets simultaneously toward launch readiness represented an unprecedented level of activity. Very soon, Moscow could expect a flood of pointed, suspicious queries from Washington.
No, Leonov thought, there was no going back. Russia was committed. And win or lose, they stood on the brink of a new age.
However, it still came as something of a shock when he heard Gryzlov issue the final necessary and irrevocable order to the military cosmonauts on standby at Star City. “Colonel Strelkov,” he said flatly. “You will proceed immediately to Baikonur with your first Mars One crew and prepare for launch.”
Thirteen
The White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C.
The Next Day
President John Dalton Farrell let the satellite imagery displayed on the Situation Room’s large wall screen speak for itself. Hours ago, the pictures collected during routine passes over Plesetsk, Vostochny, and Baikonur had sent shock waves rippling through the federal government’s intelligence, defense, and space agencies—first among the analysts who interpreted them and then upward through level upon level of management. Now, finally, those shock waves had reached Washington’s top decision-making echelon, the president and his national security team.
He looked down the crowded table toward his secretary of state, Andrew Taliaferro. Shorter than Farrell by a head, the former congressman from North Carolina already had a good working knowledge of foreign affairs when he’d been tapped to run Foggy Bottom. Almost as important in the president’s eyes was Taliaferro’s reputation as a top-notch amateur poker player. The way Farrell saw it, anyone that skilled at reading other people under pressure ought to have a distinct advantage in diplomatic negotiations. “Well, Andy? Did you hear back from Moscow yet?”
“I spoke to Foreign Minister Titeneva an hour ago, Mr. President,” Taliaferro said. He snorted. “While she denied any personal knowledge of specific space program plans, the foreign minister assured me that the Russian Federation remains committed to the peaceful exploitation of outer space.”
“Basically, just the usual diplomatic boilerplate.”
Taliaferro nodded. “But Titeneva also sounded somewhat nervous to me. More than I would have expected, considering the way she’s backed all of Gryzlov’s aggressive moves from the moment he took office.”
Farrell raised an eyebrow. That was interesting . . . and worrying, too. As Russia’s chief diplomat, Daria Titeneva was famous for her uncompromising willingness to defend her leader’s actions—no matter how far they strayed outside diplomatic norms and the rule of international law. Her slashing verbal attacks on the United States, Poland, and other Western allies both in public forums like the UN Security Council and in private talks were equally notorious. So what did it mean if one of Gryzlov’s closest political allies—a woman even rumored to be his mistress—was so obviously on edge about whatever he was doing?
Frowning, Farrell glanced at his White House science adviser, Dr. Lawrence Dawson. “Any luck with Roscosmos, Lawrence?” Roscosmos was the government megacorporation in charge of Russia’s civilian space program.
“I reached out to Director Polikarpov,” the tall, rail-thin astrophysicist said dryly. “He was not very helpful. When I asked him why they were prepping so many space vehicles at one time, he claimed it was nothing more than random chance—the result of their new Energia program ramping up to the next phase of flight testing earlier than expected at the same time as other, older rockets were scheduled to carry replacement communications satellites into orbit.” He shook his head in disgust. “In my former academic life, I flunked many undergraduates who came to me with far more plausible excuses.”
Farrell shared his science adviser’s assessment. Polikarpov’s explanation had the distinctive odor of “the dog ate my homework” about it. He looked around the table and focused on the pragmatic, gray-haired woman he’d named to head the CIA. Unlike the incom
petent but telegenic nonentity Stacy Anne Barbeau had foisted on Langley, Elizabeth Hildebrand was a talented, hardworking intelligence service professional with decades of experience in both analysis and operations. “Anything to add here, Liz?”
Hildebrand shrugged. “Not as much as I would like, Mr. President,” she admitted. “Our HUMINT networks inside Russia are virtually nonexistent at the moment. Until we can recruit new sources, which could take years, my analysts are largely dependent on what they can glean from satellites and signals intelligence—or even from trying to read between the lines in public news sources.”
Farrell nodded sympathetically. Even under competent leadership, HUMINT, or “human intelligence”—the art of recruiting and running agents—had never been the strongest suit of America’s different intelligence agencies. That was part of the reason he’d reached out to Kevin Martindale and Scion for help right after taking the oath of office. Nevertheless, he judged it would be useful to hear the CIA’s views. After all, even a blind squirrel could find a nut once in a while. “Taking that as a given,” he pressed her gently, “how do your people see this?”
“Their general view is that the Russians may be feeling pressured by the recent successes of our American private space enterprises—and also by your determination to bring the Sky Masters spaceplanes back into active service. The consensus is that Moscow is planning a space ‘spectacular’ of its own to capture the imagination of the world and the interest of potential commercial customers.”
“A spectacular,” Farrell repeated flatly. He nodded his chin at the satellite pictures still frozen on the Situation Room’s big screen. “Like firing off those seven rockets from three different launch complexes?”
“Quite possibly,” the CIA director agreed. “According to stories circulating in the trade press and on some of the more reliable space news blogs, the Russians hope to radically compress their historically slow development and test cycle for new space hardware—especially those Energia heavy-lift rockets and their advanced Federation crew capsule. Launching so many rockets in such a short time would also demonstrate their ability to outbuild and outfly NASA or any other potential Western competitor.” She shrugged. “Those reports do seem to match up with what our satellites are seeing.”
