by Dale Brown
“This is not a game,” a cold electronic voice said abruptly. “This is a war. A real war. And it is high time we started fighting in earnest, not just pussyfooting around.”
Startled, Brad and the others turned toward the huge machine positioned at the far end of the table.
“Excuse me, General,” Martindale said carefully. “I’m not quite sure I follow you. What, exactly, are you proposing that we do?”
“Kill Igor Truznyev,” Patrick McLanahan said bluntly. “We should have done it sooner. He got a lot of good people killed last year for his own petty political ends. And right now he’s funneling computer hackers to Gryzlov to organize more cyberwar attacks against us. We should wipe him off the map. Now. Before it’s too late.”
Martindale’s face was impassive. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “I strongly disagree, General McLanahan,” he said quietly. “On tactical, strategic, and political grounds.”
“How so?”
“Tactically, it would be extremely difficult to eliminate Truznyev. Strategically, our surveillance operation against him is just now beginning to yield actionable intelligence,” Martindale explained. He leaned forward in his chair, tapping the table with one forefinger for emphasis. “And politically, the assassination of a former Russian president by Scion, Iron Wolf, or Polish forces would be an unmitigated disaster. It would hand Gennadiy Gryzlov and Stacy Anne Barbeau precisely the evidence they need to smear us as warmongering lunatics.”
“He’s right, General,” Whack Macomber said somberly. “Could we get some guys into Moscow to drop Truznyev? Sure. But making that kind of hit would be messy as hell. And the odds of getting our people out safely afterward?” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “As close to none as makes no damned difference.”
“I concur,” Nadia said firmly. She looked squarely at the CID. “I have studied the intelligence on this man with great care. Except in rare and completely unpredictable circumstances, like this clandestine meeting with Sergei Tarzarov, he surrounds himself with armed bodyguards, most of them FSB or Spetsnaz veterans. When he travels, he uses a wide variety of alternate routes, often employing decoy vehicles. To have any hope of success, an assassination attempt would require a sizable team equipped with heavy weapons. And any force large enough to complete the mission could never infiltrate undetected or escape successfully after the deed was done.”
“Then I will kill him myself,” the CID said tonelessly. “No weapon that Truznyev’s goons carry can stop me.”
Whoa there, big guy, Brad thought. What the hell had gotten into his father? “Dad, with all due respect, that’s nuts,” he said stubbornly. “Even if we could somehow slip a CID into Moscow on the sly, nailing Truznyev with one would be the same thing as taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times telling the whole world that we did it.”
“Who cares?” his father said flatly, still not bothering to use the voice synthesizer program that most closely matched his natural human tones. “It’s time to stop tap-dancing around Gennadiy Gryzlov and his thugs. Waiting like penned sheep while he makes his next move is an act of criminal stupidity.”
Abruptly, the CID containing Patrick McLanahan swung into motion, prowling around the conference table. Around and around, the huge fighting machine stalked, the very image of armored, eerily quiet lethality.
“Killing Truznyev, right under his nose, practically within spitting distance of the Kremlin, will send Gryzlov the only kind of message he understands,” the machine said forcefully.
“But, Dad, I—” Brad began, trying hard to think of some argument, any argument, that could break through whatever strange and murderous impulse held his father in an icy, implacable grip. He saw the anxious look in Nadia’s eyes and knew the same fears were mirrored in his own gaze.
Martindale held up a hand to stop him.
“Well, your suggestion is certainly worth considering more carefully, General,” the gray-haired head of Scion said hesitantly. “I suggest you work up a detailed plan for the operation. Once that’s done, we can bring President Wilk into the discussion and—”
Sirens went off suddenly outside the hangar, rising and falling in unearthly, earsplitting wails.
For a split second, Brad sat frozen, taken completely by surprise. Time itself seemed to slow down, with separate milliseconds ticking by one after the other. Whose bright idea was it to schedule a defense exercise now, smack-dab in the middle of a crucial strategy conference?
Then a loudspeaker blared, “Incoming! Incoming! Take cover!”
WHAAMM!
An explosion somewhere outside rocked the hangar, rattling light fixtures and knocking over water glasses on the table. Dust hung in the air, eddying oddly as concussion from the blast rippled through the room.
Oh, shit, Brad realized. This was no drill.
His father’s CID blurred into high speed, smashing right through the conference room’s locked exit. Shattered pieces of door went flying.
Reacting almost as fast, Martindale dove under the table for cover.
Brad, Macomber, and Nadia kicked away their chairs and ran for the opening. Nadia already had her pistol, a 9mm Walther P99, out and ready. They darted through the hangar and out onto the airfield.
WHAAMM! WHAAMM! WHAAMM!
They hit the dirt as another wave of huge explosions slammed down across the base—blowing craters in the runway in blinding orange bursts. Debris fountained high into the air. Plumes of oily black smoke from burning buildings and wrecked vehicles curled across the Iron Wolf base.
“Goddamn it,” Whack snarled, scrambling back to his feet. “We’re being mortared! Some bastard out there has us zeroed in.”
OUTSIDE THE IRON WOLF COMPOUND
THAT SAME TIME
Patrick McLanahan sprinted southeast through the woods beyond the base. Coldly furious, he tore through obstacles in his path instead of detouring around them, leaving a trail of jagged pieces of perimeter fence and toppled, splintered trees.
L-band radar countermortar scan complete. Firing battery located, his computer reported. Imagery flashed into his consciousness. The CID’s sensors had traced the mortar rounds hammering the Iron Wolf compound back to their origin point—a large clearing near a farm road about three kilometers outside the airfield perimeter.
Warning. Adrenaline and noradrenaline levels spiking. Acetylcholine levels dangerously low. Serotonin falling. Immediate biochemical and neurotransmitter rebalance required. Initiating emergency medical protocols now.
With a low growl, Patrick overrode the CID’s health-monitoring systems, shutting down its unwanted attempts to tamper with his brain and body chemistry. Increasingly, there were moments when stray elements in the machine’s programming unnecessarily interfered with his fighting efficiency. Like now.
It was insane. Why should he slow his reaction time in combat? Unlike ordinary humans, he knew how to surf the rolling wave of his fury, using the emotion as a means of speeding up reflexes that were already lightning fast. It was another way to gain an edge over those too weak-willed and weak-minded to push these incredible war machines to their design limits.
Glowing trails slashed across on his vision display, highlighting new mortar rounds headed for the Iron Wolf base. For a split second, Patrick was tempted to drop into air-defense mode. His autocannon could sweep those rounds out of the sky before they did more damage.
Screw that, he thought savagely. Defense was a sucker’s game. When someone hit you, you killed them. It was that simple. And that effective.
Brighter patches of sunlight shone at the edge of his vision. He was closing fast on the enemy firing position.
Red lines suddenly zigzagged across the display. His sensors had spotted lengths of carefully camouflaged trip wire laced between trees along the edge of the woods. And each trip wire was tied into a powerful demolition charge.
That was clever, he decided. Those booby traps could have inflicted serious casualties on any conventional reaction force. His mou
th twisted into a cruel smile. It was just too damned bad for the enemy that they were up against a killing machine, not a platoon of vulnerable human infantry.
Still sprinting at top speed, Patrick leaped high, clearing the tangle of trip wires in one long bound. He thudded down heavily in a field beyond the tree line.
Five hundred meters downrange, he spotted several men wearing civilian clothing gathered around a large tube with a baseplate and bipod assembly. Weapon identified, the CID’s computer announced, transferring the data through his neural links faster than conscious thought.
He scowled. That was a Polish-made 98mm heavy mortar. Probably one of a pair that had gone missing last year, sold on the black market by a crooked Polish supply sergeant. Nice, he thought coldly. Nothing said the universe really was not a warm and cuddly place quite like getting the crap blown out of you with a weapon made by your own allies.
Crack!
A .50-caliber round slammed into the CID’s torso at 860 meters per second. Its enormous impact knocked him backward a step and shattered several of the robot’s camouflage tiles. The bullet itself tumbled away, deflected by his composite armor. His jaw tightened. Damn it, that was enough.
It was time to do some killing, Patrick thought wrathfully.
A targeting cursor appeared on his display, highlighting a spot deep in a clump of trees off to the flank of the enemy mortar crew. Two-man sniper team. Range five hundred and twenty meters, the computer warned.
Reacting instantly, Patrick unlimbered his 25mm autocannon. He charged straight ahead, swiveling to fire on the move. A quick burst ripped the sniper and his spotter to pieces.
One of the bearded men serving the mortar looked up and saw him coming. His eyes widened in dismay. Yelling a warning, he fumbled for the assault rifle slung across his back. His startled comrades did the same, scrabbling frantically for the small arms they’d laid aside while feeding HE rounds into the mortar tube.
They were too late.
Patrick tore into them like a tiger pouncing on a flock of panicked goats. In a blur of purposeful, brutal motion, his robotic hands smashed skulls, shattered rib cages, and ripped screaming men limb from limb. Blood and broken bits of bone sprayed across the clearing and spattered across his armor.
At the end, one man tried to run.
“Not so fast,” Patrick said coolly. He caught the fleeing man in a remorseless, implacable grip and casually spun him around. “You win the toss. You get to live.”
His gray-bearded prisoner stared up at him in terror. “‘Adhhab ‘iilaa aljahim, shaytan! Go to hell, demon!” One hand scrabbled for a pull-cord detonator dangling from his coat pocket.
“You first,” Patrick retorted. Without hesitating, he hurled the other man high into the air and crouched down, covering the sensor arrays on the CID’s six-sided head with his arms.
WHUUMP.
The suicide vest exploded.
As the pall of smoke and grisly debris drifted away downwind, Patrick stood back up. A few more camouflage plates had taken a beating from the shrapnel packed into the vest, but his CID was otherwise virtually unscathed.
From start to finish, less than three minutes had passed from the moment the first mortar round hit the air base.
GRU SURVEILLANCE UNIT
THAT SAME TIME
Inside a nondescript panel van parked along a dirt road several kilometers away, three men sat transfixed with horror, watching the gruesome images streaming in from long-range video cameras they’d sited to cover the Chechen attack.
“Presvataya Bogoroditsa. Holy Mother of God,” Captain Artem Mikheyev said shakily. “Unbelievable.”
“Those poor fucking sods never had a chance,” Usenko agreed. The major shook his head in dismay. “Not against that creature. Not against so much speed, firepower, and armor.”
Konstantin Rusanov swallowed hard. “That machine’s sensors must be incredible,” he said. “Did you see how easily it avoided the trip wires the Chechens set? My God, the robot spotted them as easily as if they’d been wrapped in neon-red tape!”
Usenko pulled his gaze away from the monitors. “Pack your gear,” he ordered. “The sooner we’re well away from this place, the safer I will feel.”
“Yes, sir,” both of his subordinates said in unison.
“I hope our masters in Moscow find the information gained from this massacre of use,” the major said sourly. He grimaced. “God knows I have no love for mindless brutes like those Chechen thugs, but even they deserved a better end.”
EIGHT
NEAR POWIDZ, POLAND
SOME HOURS LATER
Powerful floodlights run off portable generators turned night into day for the teams of Polish military police investigators still combing the clearing. They were looking for clues that would help identify those involved in the mortar attack. Numbered yellow markers scattered across the field tagged pieces of evidence left in situ. More floodlights glowed in the distance, showing where another team was hard at work inside a large semitrailer truck they’d found abandoned along a nearby farm road.
Brad McLanahan stood in the darkness just outside the lit area, watching the investigators do their work. He avoided looking too closely at the row of black plastic body bags lined up for transport to the nearest morgue. He’d seen the battered and broken remains of the men his father had killed before they’d been discreetly tagged, photographed, and bundled away. He’d also seen the dried bloodstains spattered across the CID’s torso and limbs.
Despite his warm uniform jacket, he shivered.
Nadia Rozek took his arm in hers. She nestled her head gently against his shoulder. Brad sighed. Her touch helped ease a little of the tension and fear he felt building up inside.
Martindale and Macomber finished talking to the grim-faced Polish officer heading up the investigation and came over.
“Captain Sojka says his best guess is that these men were from Chechnya or somewhere else in the Caucasus,” Martindale told them. “Probably Islamist radicals. Apparently, they were all wired with explosive vests, but only one had time to set his off.”
“Islamic radicals?” Nadia said. Her eyes flashed angrily. “Perhaps so. But I am sure they were doing Moscow’s bidding this time, not that of Allah. The Russians have often used some of the Chechen factions for their dirty work.”
“That seems probable,” Martindale agreed. His face was troubled. “But I am still somewhat surprised that Gryzlov would authorize direct action against us like this.”
Macomber snorted. “Why?”
“After their success in wrecking that Romanian reactor, I would have expected the next Russian move to be something subtler and more potent.” Martindale shook his head. “A short mortar barrage on one Iron Wolf base? What could Gryzlov really hope to achieve with this kind of pinprick attack?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got three dead troopers and a bunch more wounded who might see things a little differently,” Macomber muttered.
Brad nodded. “Whack’s right, sir. Short or not, that attack still did a heck of a lot of damage.”
One of the mortar rounds had exploded right in the middle of a joint Polish–Iron Wolf recon team heading out on an exercise. Other hits had destroyed several aircraft on the flight line. Between President Barbeau’s moves to restrict arms sales to Poland and the difficulty involved in evading her sanctions, finding replacements for those men and machines would be costly and time-consuming.
“Gryzlov is the kind of thug who never saw a weapon he wouldn’t use,” Macomber went on. “Sure, he may be planning to launch more of that cyberwar shit, but that’s not going to stop him from hitting us anywhere and in any way he can.” He frowned. “Plus, we made it fricking easy for him. Once the bad guys ‘made’ Powidz as our base last year, we should have upped stakes and deployed somewhere else.”
That was true, Brad realized. They’d gotten lazy, too attached to the facilities and central strategic position the Polish air base offered. By continuing to oper
ate out of a fixed and identified location, they’d made it possible for the Russians to plan and execute this terrorist strike.
“I take your point, Major,” Martindale said quietly. “Perhaps you’d better start scouting out a new base for the squadron.”
“It’s not going to be easy to find something now,” Macomber warned. “Gryzlov’s already got his reconnaissance satellites making routine passes over every military facility in the AFN.”
Nadia spoke up. “I suspect the Russians also have eyes on us here.” She shrugged. “Our Military Counterintelligence Service does superb work, but it is a difficult task to root out any deep-cover agents.”
“What about shifting all of our operations to the Scrapheap?” Martindale suggested. “We’re still flying under the radar there, aren’t we?”
“Maybe,” Brad said skeptically. “But I wouldn’t count on it. Besides, while Siliştea Gumeşti’s a good spot for ferrying in new aircraft and equipment and doing some training, it’s badly sited for anything else.”
The others nodded. Any units stationed in southern Romania would be too far away to effectively help defend Warsaw or the Baltic states—the most likely targets for any conventional Russian air or ground assault.
“Maybe we could find something closer to the border,” Martindale said. He pursed his lips. “There are a number of decommissioned Polish military airfields out there. If we ran the same kind of cover op we used at the Scrapheap, we might be able to—”
“Excuse me,” Brad said, interrupting. He took a deep breath. Putting off what he had to say wasn’t going to make it any more palatable. “But I’m afraid we may have another problem, a bigger and more immediate problem.”
They all turned toward him, looking puzzled.
“My dad,” he said. Swallowing hard, he waved a hand at the row of body bags. “He could have captured some of those guys. Or at least tried to.”
