Price of Duty

by Dale Brown

  “That’s mighty generous of them,” Brad said with a quick, slashing grin. While he bet Gryzlov hadn’t intended this sudden round of SAM and radar drills as anything but a bit of saber rattling, it had certainly made their mission planning a little easier. When they crossed into enemy airspace about ten minutes after takeoff from Kemijärvi, Russia’s Aerospace Forces would be focused on testing their defenses around St. Petersburg—more than 350 nautical miles south. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “There are no signs yet of any higher alert level anywhere along our planned flight path or in the region around their Perun’s Aerie complex,” Nadia read. “Also, Colonel Kasperek’s covering force is completing its movement to the forward air base. His fighters will be fueled, armed, and on ready alert in sixty minutes.”

  Brad nodded. With luck, they would never need to call on Pawel Kasperek’s F-16s for help. First, because that would mean things had gone really wrong. The whole point of this mission was to hit the Russian cyberwar complex by surprise, blow it to hell, and then get out while Moscow was still trying to pick up its drawers. And second, because there probably wasn’t a lot the Polish fighter pilots could do except die gallantly if they were thrown into battle against Russia’s S-300 and S-400 SAMs, Su-27s, and other advanced combat aircraft.

  If it were up to him, he would have vetoed the idea of putting Kasperek’s squadron on standby. But both President Wilk and Kevin Martindale had insisted—labeling it a last-ditch contingency option.

  “Wolf Six-Two, you’re fully fueled and good to go,” the Finnish ramp manager said, less than twenty minutes after engine shutdown. “As the Scion maintenance team requested, the tower has cleared you for departure without further communication. No other flights are inbound or outbound. Good luck and Godspeed.”

  “Roger that, Kemijärvi Ground,” Brad acknowledged. “Thank you for your assistance.” Scion’s close working and financial relationship with the Finns meant they could take off again without risking the routine aircraft-to-control-tower transmissions that could be intercepted by Russian SIGINT posts just across the nearby border. He glanced at Nadia. “All set?” She nodded tightly. “Okay, let’s run through the takeoff checklists and get this beast airborne, pronto.” He opened the intercom channel to the troop compartment again. “Right, guys. This is it. Strap in tight. The ride’s likely to get a little bumpy.”

  ÄMARI AIR BASE, JUST SOUTH OF THE GULF OF FINLAND, NORTHERN ESTONIA

  THAT SAME TIME

  Colonel Pawel Kasperek watched the last of his squadron’s F-16C Vipers taxi into one of the camouflaged aircraft shelters built along the airfield’s northern side. He felt himself relax. Not much. Just a bit. Whatever happened, at least his fighters were in position.

  Ämari was an old Soviet-era air base, once home to a Russian naval aviation regiment flying Su-24s. Upgraded to NATO standards several years ago, the base was just a little over three hundred kilometers west of St. Petersburg—thirty minutes’ flight time at the F-16’s cruise speed. That put them practically on Russia’s doorstep, at least by combat standards. Best of all, as far as he could tell, they’d managed this emergency operational movement without the Russians picking up so much as a whiff that something odd was happening.

  His squadron’s F-16s had been taking off in pairs from Minsk Mazowiecke at varied intervals over the past several hours. In and of itself, that was nothing out of the ordinary: fighter patrols over Warsaw had become a regular sight ever since the Kalmar Airlines crash. What was different was that each pair of Vipers, instead of climbing to orbit the Polish capital, had flown north at extremely low altitude—flying out into the Baltic and then turning northeast to Estonia along several different, precleared air corridors. That had kept them off Russian radar and held radio transmissions to an absolute minimum.

  Bomb-handling trailers loaded with thousand-pound AGM-154A Joint Standoff Weapons, or JSOWs, and AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, were already in motion—heading for the aircraft shelters. The ground crews flown in earlier on Poland’s American-made C-130s were inside waiting to arm their planes with a mix of air-to-ground and air-to-air ordnance.

  Kasperek turned to his Estonian counterpart, Lieutenant Colonel Inar Tamm. “So now we wait, Colonel.”

  “Jah. Yes,” the other man said simply. Then he smiled thinly. “And perhaps we should pray too, eh?”

  Kasperek nodded fervently. Ordinarily he wasn’t much for prayer, but there were moments when you wanted to make sure you covered every possible angle. This was definitely one of them.

  OVER NORTHERN KARELIA, RUSSIA

  A SHORT TIME LATER

  One hundred and twenty nautical miles and sixteen minutes after crossing the Russian frontier, the Iron Wolf stealth aircraft streaked low over a landscape of dense snow-cloaked forests and ice-covered lakes. Thousands of stars shimmered high overhead, only partially obscured by thin wisps of cloud.

  Brad McLanahan pulled his stick a bit to the right, banking onto a course that took the XCV-62 between two low tree-covered hills and then back out over a dully gleaming expanse of ice. Cameras set to cover the rear arc of their aircraft showed roiling vortices of loose snow swirling in their wake—ripped off the earth by the sheer speed of their low-altitude passage. He frowned. By rights, he ought to gain more altitude. If some eagle-eyed Russian fighter pilot were on the prowl in the skies above them, he might spot the glittering snow-crystal trail they were tearing across an otherwise darkened countryside. If that happened, they were screwed.

  Unfortunately, there were other, even more compelling reasons for him to keep this bird right down on the deck.

  “S-band search radar at eleven o’clock. Estimated range is one hundred fifty miles,” the Ranger’s computer reported. “Detection probability at this altitude nil.”

  “It’s a 96L6E ‘Cheese Board’ system,” Nadia said, checking the signal characteristics shown on her threat warning display. “Probably operating with the S-300 regiment deployed to cover the submarine construction and repair yards at Severodvinsk.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” Brad agreed absently. He was almost entirely focused on following the HUD cues provided by their navigation and digital terrain-following systems. He pulled back on the stick a tiny bit as they left the ice lake behind—climbing slightly to clear the tops of the trees by just a couple of hundred feet. To avoid losing airspeed in the climb, he inched the throttles forward, feeding just a scooch more power to the Ranger’s four turbofan engines.

  “New S-band search radar at two o’clock. Range is one hundred sixty-five miles,” the computer said suddenly.

  “It’s the same radar type,” Nadia told him.

  Brad nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on his HUD. “That’ll be the radar around Petrozavodsk, guarding the interceptor air base there.” He forced a tight grin. “This is what we call threading the needle.”

  Russia was an enormous country with around thirty-six thousand miles of land borders and coastline to guard. Even with a vast network of powerful air-surveillance radars, there was no practical way for Moscow to continuously monitor so large a perimeter. Instead, the Russians deployed their radars, SAM regiments, and fighter patrols to protect key sites like major cities, important military installations, and vital industries. In theory, that made it possible for a small, highly stealthy aircraft to duck and dodge and bob and weave its way through the porous web of radars.

  Plotting that kind of course was relatively easy against fixed radar sites. Unfortunately, the Russians also had a substantial force of highly mobile detection units, many of which could be up and running within minutes if ordered to activate. Sure, Scion and Polish intelligence analysts had done their best to plot a relatively safe route to Russia’s Perun’s Aerie cyberwar complex, but penetrating deep into Russian airspace without being detected was still a crapshoot.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW

  NINETY MINUTES LATER

  Russia
n president Gennadiy Gryzlov read through the most recent reports from Koshkin’s Q Directorate with a deep sense of pleasure. After several recent failures, his computer hackers were back on track. At last count, more than two-thirds of all the private telecommunications networks in Eastern and central Europe were down—causing havoc and hardship for tens of millions. He smiled to himself. For some reason, kicking enemies around always aroused him. Maybe he should summon Daria Titeneva for a celebratory romp around his office. His lush, full-bodied foreign minister might have deep misgivings about this cyberwar campaign, but he knew she also enjoyed being dominated. Yes, he thought lazily, bending Daria over his desk and having his way with her would end this day on a delightfully obscene note.

  His phone buzzed. Irritated at being interrupted, he snatched it up. “What is it, Ulanov?”

  “It’s Minister of State Security Kazyanov, Mr. President,” his secretary said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  Gryzlov rolled his eyes. Dull, boring, timid Viktor Kazyanov was just about the last person he wanted to talk to right now. Then again, the intelligence chief was usually so nervous about pissing him off that whatever news he wanted to pass on might actually be important. “Very well,” he snapped. “Put him through.”

  “Mr. President! Something is happening in Poland! We’ve just received a radio signal from—” Kazyanov started out, speaking so rapidly and so excitedly that he was almost tripping over his own words as they came spilling across the phone line.

  “For God’s sake, slow down, Viktor,” Gryzlov said. “You sound like a demented clown!”

  The other man stammered to a stop, took a deep breath, and then went on in a somewhat calmer tone. “Approximately four hours ago, our deep-cover GRU agents stationed near Powidz spotted intense activity at the Iron Wolf base. They report seeing an unidentified aircraft flying north at high speed. It has not yet returned.”

  “And this happened four hours ago?” Gryzlov said through gritted teeth. “So what the hell were your precious agents doing in the meantime? Washing their damned hair?”

  “They were unable to report sooner,” Kazyanov said simply. “Because our cyberwar operations have knocked out all the phone lines and Internet connections in their area.”

  “Oh,” Gryzlov said blankly. That was a complication he had not foreseen. He gripped the phone tighter. “This aircraft? What can you tell me about it?”

  Kazyanov gulped. “Not as much as I would like, sir,” he admitted. “The signal from our team describes it as all black, with a batwing configuration.”

  “So, some kind of stealth aircraft,” Gryzlov guessed.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” the other man agreed. “But from the rough estimate of its size, my analysts say it does not match anything in the known Polish or American inventory. It could be anything from a small strike bomber to a long-range covert reconnaissance drone.”

  “Very well, Viktor,” Gryzlov said. “Inform me at once if you learn anything more.” He hung up.

  For a moment, he sat with his fingers pressed hard against his temples, deep in thought. What were the Poles and their American mercenaries up to? If they were executing some kind of attack or prestrike reconnaissance with this mysterious new aircraft, why fly north, instead of heading east toward Russia? Then he shook his head in disgust at his own foolishness, remembering what he’d told Koshkin and the others just a couple of days ago. “Wilk and Martindale are not simpletons,” he muttered. Why should he expect them to do the obvious?

  Gryzlov swung toward his computer and pulled up a map of Poland, western Russia, and the neighboring countries. Assuming this new stealth aircraft had a cruising speed of somewhere between 700 and 950 kilometers per hour, where could it be now, four hours or so after taking off? Quickly, he began laying out possible flight paths on the digital map. After all, he thought, he’d originally trained as a bomber pilot. If he were tasked with planning a deep-penetration mission into Russia, what were the best options to evade radar detection? Then he reconsidered . . . Why cast his net so widely? While there were thousands of potential targets for an Iron Wolf retaliatory strike, only one was truly important in the present circumstances.

  Confidently, he erased all but one of the hypothetical flight plans he’d drawn and then ran through his calculations again—estimating where the enemy aircraft could be . . . right now.

  “Sukin syn! Son of a bitch,” Gryzlov snarled, staring at the map. He grabbed his phone again. “Ulanov! Connect me with Colonel Balakin at Perun’s Aerie!”

  When the cyberwar complex’s security chief came on the line, Gryzlov didn’t waste time with small talk. “Listen carefully, Balakin. You may have visitors inbound.”

  “Is this a bombing raid, sir? Or . . .” The colonel hesitated. “An attack by those machines? By those combat robots?”

  Gryzlov smiled unpleasantly. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Colonel.” He glanced back at the map on his computer screen. “But if I’m right, I have a hunch you’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I understand, Mr. President,” Balakin said, still obviously rattled. Then he rallied. “I will order the garrison to go on full alert and bring my outer warning station online.”

  NEAR KIPIYEVO, 250 KILOMETERS WEST-NORTHWEST OF PERUN’S AERIE, NORTHERN RUSSIA

  THAT SAME TIME

  Bundled up in his heavy winter parka, Captain Fyodor Golovkin sat drowsing by the heater in his operations van. Snores from the back told him that most of his troops were doing the same thing. No surprise there, he thought dully. This far north in winter, the nights lasted twenty hours. Between the near-perpetual darkness, the bitter cold, and the boredom of manning a radar unit continuously on standby, it was no wonder that he and his men spent most of their time practically hibernating.

  An alarm buzzer jolted him more fully awake. “Sir! It’s Colonel Balakin,” said his senior sergeant, hurriedly scanning the message scrolling across his computer screen. They were linked to the Perun’s Aerie complex by a direct fiber-optic cable. “We’re ordered to activate the radar and begin scanning!”

  For a moment, Golovkin couldn’t take it in. “What? Now?”

  “Yes, sir,” his sergeant said, with far more patience than he would have shown to anyone of lower rank. “The colonel has set Warning Condition Red.”

  Golovkin’s mouth fell open in surprise. If this was a drill, it must have been ordered by the highest command authority. And if it wasn’t a drill . . .

  Wide-awake now, he scrambled out of his chair. “Get up! Up, you lazy bastards!” he roared, his voice echoing through the crowded van. “We’re on alert! Get the fucking camouflage netting off the antenna truck! Go!”

  His crew hurried to obey, bolting outside into the frigid night air. Before turning to follow them, the captain swung back to his sergeant. “Power up the system, Proshkin! As soon as we’ve got the antenna erected, I want this radar fully operational. Understand?”

  The sergeant nodded. He turned back to his station and began rapidly flipping a succession of switches. With a low hum, automated signals processing units, satellite navigation systems, and digital map displays started warming up.

  Golovkin paused only to pull on his fur-lined gloves and then went outside into the darkness. He gasped as the raw, subzero cold hit him with sledgehammer force. But his men were hard at work, tugging and straining to pull snow-covered layers of antiradar and antithermal camouflage away from their radar antenna truck. With a creaking groan, the huge crane-mounted antenna itself rose slowly but steadily, scattering shattered chips and pieces of ice in all directions.

  The captain stood watching it climb into the air. With luck, they would be online and radiating in less than six minutes.

  OVER NORTHEN RUSSIA

  A FEW MINUTES LATER

  Brad McLanahan peered through his HUD. The Ranger’s advanced forward-looking night-vision camera systems turned the night into a green-tinged version of daylight. They were closing on the foothills of the Urals, a series of
barren, boulder-strewn heights cut by twisting, tree-lined ravines.

  “We are thirteen minutes out from the LZ,” Nadia reported. Her eyes were fixed on the computer-generated map shown on one of her displays.

  Brad nodded. They were a little over one hundred nautical miles from their planned landing zone—a two-thousand-foot-long clearing in the forest about ten miles from Mount Manaraga and Russia’s buried Perun’s Aerie cyberwar complex. For a second, his vision blurred. Crap, he thought. Not now. He blinked rapidly a few times. His vision cleared up. He frowned, glad his expression was hidden beneath his oxygen mask. Even with the aid of the XCV-62’s digital terrain-following system, this prolonged nap-of-the-earth flight was testing his endurance.

  “New VHF search radar detected at ten o’clock,” the Ranger’s computer announced suddenly. “Strong agile active frequency signal. Range estimated at thirty-three miles. Detection probability moderate.”

  Damn it, Brad thought. Where the hell did that come from? Nothing in their mission planning intelligence had identified a radar site anywhere near here.

  “The radar is evaluated as a KB/Agat Vostok E-type,” Nadia said. Her voice was tight. “Shall I activate SPEAR?”

  “Negative,” Brad said quickly. “If we use SPEAR, the Russians will know for sure we’re coming. So let’s see if I can shake this radar loose before it firms us up.” Since it used longer wavelengths, VHF radar was extremely effective against stealth aircraft. The Vostok E system was a mobile, modern replacement for the old Soviet-era P-18 Spoon Rest units. But it was usually paired with faster L- and S/X-band fire-control radars as part of a SAM battery. What was this one doing out on its own?

  “DTF disengaged,” he said, turning off the Ranger’s terrain-following system. He pushed the stick forward a bit, dropping the aircraft’s nose. They descended from two hundred feet down to just a little over a hundred—almost brushing the treetops that flashed past and below them in a rippling blur. His teeth locked together. While flying this low at 450 knots, even a momentary loss of concentration would be fatal.