by Dale Brown
“Two hundred yards. Vertical separation one hundred feet,” Nadia said quietly, counting down the remaining distance from her own station. “Our airspeed is now five hundred knots. Ten knots closure.”
The Rustler shuddered slightly, buffeted by turbulence.
“One hundred yards. Vertical separation sixty feet.”
Brad eased back even more on the throttles.
“Five knots closure.” Nadia reported. She glanced across the cockpit. “Just how close are you planning to come?”
“Right . . . about . . . here,” Brad said, scissoring a little from side to side to slow down and match the big 747’s airspeed. Satisfied, he leveled out.
They were now hanging back only fifty to sixty feet behind and just slightly above the larger aircraft’s tail assembly. That might not qualify as tight formation flying by the standards of a military aerobatics team like the Air Force’s Thunderbirds or the Navy’s Blue Angels, but it felt awfully close considering the size of both aircraft . . . and the fact that the 747’s crew didn’t have any real way to keep track of his position. Intellectually, he knew this wasn’t much different from carrying out an air-to-air refueling, but tanking up from a Sky Masters KC-767 or KC-10 Extender was an operation that usually required only five to ten minutes . . . and there was always a boom operator ready to warn the tanker pilot if anything went wrong. To successfully pull off the stunt he had in mind, he’d need to stick like glue to the big Boeing-built jet for the next three and a half hours.
“You said you wanted to get close enough to count their rivets,” Nadia said accusingly. She made a pretense of peering through the canopy. “Well, I cannot yet make out any rivets on that 747.”
“That was mere poetic license, Mrs. Major Rozek-McLanahan,” Brad said, with a smile concealed by his oxygen mask. “Trust me, this is more than close enough.”
The truth was that the mammoth Traveler Air Freight 747-8 looming up ahead wasn’t carrying any Scion weapons, explosives, or other gear in its cargo holds. Not on this trip anyway. Instead, its sole mission was to smuggle them into Russian airspace.
Like most military and espionage stratagems, Brad’s plan was simple enough on paper—but very difficult to successfully pull off in practice. They were tucked up close enough to blend the Rustler’s minimal radar signature with that of the much larger cargo jet. If everything worked right, Russia’s probing air defense radars should see them only as a single, innocent commercial aircraft transiting the internationally recognized Polar Route 1 on its way to Mumbai in India.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world’s passenger and freight airlines were quick to recognize the enormous potential savings in time and fuel offered by routing aircraft over the Arctic and through previously off-limits Russian airspace. Within several years, a series of international agreements had opened specific, narrowly defined air corridors to declared civilian traffic.
Polar Route 1 was one of the busiest, with dozens of air transits every day. It opened north of Greenland and then ran almost due south across Russia—conveniently crossing high over Krasnoyarsk—before entering Chinese airspace on its way to India.
Mentally, Brad crossed his fingers. Either this gambit worked . . . or this would turn out to be one of the shortest and most futile rescue efforts in Scion’s covert operations history. He glanced toward Nadia. “Time to the edge of the Murmansk flight information region?”
She checked her nav display. “At this speed, five minutes.”
Brad buckled down to the job of keeping their aircraft slotted right behind the 747. Pockets of local turbulence affected the smaller, lighter XCV-70 more than they did the huge Boeing cargo jet. So it took constant adjustments to his flight controls to stay in formation.
Beside him, Nadia tuned to the radio frequency being used by the Traveler Air jet.
Not long afterward, they heard, “Traveler Five-Five Three, Edmonton Center,” through their headsets. “Monitor VHF one-two-six point nine. At DEVID, contact Murmansk Oceanic Center, eight-nine-five-zero primary, one-one-three-nine-zero secondary. Have a good day.”
The Canadians were handing off the 747-8 cargo flight to their Russian air traffic control counterparts. DEVID was a fixed navigation point where all aircraft crossing the Arctic region were required to contact Murmansk.
Nadia changed frequencies. Moments later, they heard the Traveler Air Freight pilot radio. “Murmansk Oceanic, Traveler Five-Five-Three, level four-zero-zero.”
The Russian-accented voice of a new controller replied immediately. “Traveler Five-Five-Three, this is Murmansk, roger. Maintain flight level four-zero-zero.”
For now, the Rustler’s threat-warning computer stayed silent. They were still well beyond the range of the air route surveillance radars posted to monitor Russia’s northern regions.
They flew on, crossing high above the polar region. Below them, the ice cap was now a continuous sheet of white glare.
Forty-five minutes and 370 nautical miles after crossing through the DEVID intersection, the threat computer issued its first alert. “Caution, S-band phased-array radar detected at twelve o’clock. Range approximately two hundred miles,” a calm female voice reported. “Evaluated as Russian Sopka-2 Arctic Air Surveillance Radar. Detection probability high.”
“Here we go,” Brad murmured. That radar was sited on a small island at Sredny Ostrov, originally an ice airfield built as a staging base for Soviet Tu-95 Bear bombers tasked with attacking the United States if the Cold War had ever turned hot. It was located just off the much larger Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. Along with the new radar and at least one surface-to-air-missile battery, current intelligence indicated the Russians had upgraded Sredny’s runway, enabling it to handle all-weather fighters like the MiG-31.
“Standing by on SPEAR,” Nadia said. The instant it appeared that their ruse had failed, she planned to bring the system online and either seize control over that enemy radar . . . or blind it. With luck, she might be able to buy them enough time to reverse course, drop to low altitude, and scoot for friendly airspace at high speed.
Then they heard the same Russian controller’s bored-sounding voice crackle through their headsets. “Traveler Five-Five-Three, this is Murmansk. Radar contact. Proceed DIRIP to KUTET. Monitor VHF one-three-three point four. At NOTIS, contact Krasnoyarsk Control, six-six-seven-two primary, eight-eight-two-two secondary.”
“I’ll be damned,” Brad said in wonder. “This crazy-ass stunt is actually working. Those guys really don’t know we’re up here.”
Over Central Siberia
A Couple of Hours Later
One of the icons on Nadia’s navigation display turned red. “We are approaching the breakaway point. Thirty seconds out.”
“Copy that,” Brad said, nodding. Rapidly, he blinked away a stinging droplet of sweat. Although not quite as mentally taxing and physically exhausting as prolonged nap-of-the-earth flight, the effort required to keep their aircraft so close to the mammoth 747 for so long had been a serious strain. “Any status change on that Nebo-M radar?”
Nadia checked another of her displays, this one set to monitor hostile radars and other potential threats. Several minutes before, they’d picked up the emissions of a mobile VHF-band Russian air surveillance and tracking radar operating a couple of hundred miles to the west. She suspected it was assigned to an S-300 SAM regiment guarding the vital West Siberian oilfields. “No change,” she reported. “The Nebo-M radar is still active.”
“Too bad,” Brad said. He shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to roll the dice.”
This far out, that enemy radar shouldn’t have any real chance to detect them—even when they broke away from the sheltering embrace of the Traveler Air Freight cargo jet. But there was always the possibility of some eagle-eyed Russian spotting something odd on his screen and raising an alarm. The Rustler’s stealth design and radar-absorbent coating significantly reduced its radar cross section in some wavelengths and from certain aspects, es
pecially from the front. But they couldn’t render the Scion aircraft completely invisible.
“Ten seconds,” Nadia said.
Brad breathed out. His hands settled firmly on the controls.
The nav icon on Nadia’s MFD flashed green. “Execute breakaway!” she snapped.
Instantly, Brad throttled back to minimum power and rolled right, going almost inverted as he dove away from the bigger jet. As a last precaution, he’d turned west to keep his nose pointed toward that distant Russian air surveillance radar. He hoped that would keep XCV-70’s radar cross section as small as possible during the critical few seconds before they fell below the Nebo-M’s horizon.
Negative G’s tugged him forward against his seat straps. The roar from the Rustler’s engines faded away—replaced by the shrill shriek of the wind as it plummeted almost vertically toward the ground. The altitude indicator on his HUD decreased precipitously.
91st Radio Technical Regiment, Near the Eastern Edge of the West Siberian Oil Basin
That Same Time
Junior Sergeant Anatoly Yanayev frowned. Had he really seen what he’d just seen? He swiveled in his seat. “Captain Dyomin?” he said.
Frowning, his commander poked his head back into the operations van. He’d been enjoying a smoke outside in the early afternoon sunshine. “What is it, Sergeant?”
Yanayev indicated his console. “I think I’ve detected an unidentified air contact.” He shrugged. “Well, at least for a second or two . . .” He let his voice trail off uncertainly.
With a sigh, Dyomin pitched his cigarette away and climbed back into the van. “Show me the recording,” he demanded.
“I was tracking a big American air cargo jet transiting south about three hundred kilometers east of here,” the young enlisted man explained. “As practice, you see.”
Patiently, Dyomin nodded, deciding not to point out that Yanayev was only following the orders he personally had issued at the beginning of this training session. Tracking the passenger jets and air freighters using Polar Route 1 to cross Russian airspace wasn’t exactly a challenging test of their equipment, even at such a long range, but at least it was a task he’d hoped might be within Yanayev’s capabilities. The junior sergeant wasn’t exactly one of the regiment’s shining stars.
“Well, suddenly I saw this . . . er . . . second blip for a couple of seconds. It sort of looked like something maybe falling off that American 747.” He pushed a couple of buttons beside his console’s seventeen-inch LCD display, replaying the short sequence it had automatically recorded.
Dyomin sighed even harder, as he watched the tiny transitory radar blip flicker into existence slightly below the larger cargo jet and then vanish. “What you just saw, Junior Sergeant Yanayev,” he said heavily, “was a perfect example of a minor systems glitch.”
“But—”
“Unless you think FedEx is now dropping bombs on the Motherland?” Dyomin growled with biting sarcasm.
“No, sir,” Yanayev admitted, chastened.
“Then wipe that useless recording,” the captain ordered. “And get back to work.” Shaking his head in disgust, he turned away, fumbling in his shirt pocket for another cigarette.
Scion Seven-Zero, Low over Central Siberia
That Same Time
What had been a mostly featureless patchwork of green and brown earth cut by the winding blue trace of the Yenisei River grew sharper and sharper as the Rustler plunged downward at ever-increasing speed. Suddenly, an indistinct blur of green flashed into the needle-edged tops of pine trees stabbing upward.
Grinning wildly, Brad slammed his throttles forward. He leveled off only a few hundred feet above the treetops and banked hard left. Curving south, the Scion stealth aircraft streaked low across the forest canopy at nearly five hundred knots. “Engage DTF, two hundred, hard ride!” he ordered.
“DTF engaged,” the Rustler’s computer acknowledged.
He relaxed a bit. With their aircraft’s digital terrain-following system engaged, they were reasonably safe flying this low, even at high speed. Using detailed maps stored in its computers and quick bursts from its radar altimeter, the DTF system enabled feats of low-altitude, long-distance flying beyond the ability of any unaided human pilot.
Beside him, Nadia leaned forward against her straps. Quickly, she toggled a sequence of virtual “keys” on her open navigation display, cueing up the precise coordinates of their preselected landing zone—a 1,600-foot-long clearing in the middle of the woods northwest of Lesosibirsk. They were currently a little over 150 nautical miles away, less than twenty minutes flying time. She selected it and tapped another icon. “LZ coordinates laid in.”
The steering cue on Brad’s head-up display shifted slightly as his computer accepted the updated information. He tweaked his stick left. The Rustler banked a touch, altering its heading by a fraction of a degree. “We’d better give Sam and her people the good news that we’re getting close.”
“I am on it,” Nadia said. She opened a com window. Her fingers blurred across the display, entering a short message. As soon as she finished, their computer took over. It compressed and encrypted her signal into a millisecond-long burst and then transmitted it via satellite uplink. “Message sent.”
Nineteen
Northwest of Lesosibirsk
A Few Minutes Later
Captain Oleg Panov peered forward through the Mi-8MTV-5 helicopter’s windshield, looking for his next allotted target. He was flying low, practically skimming across the treetops at just one hundred kilometers per hour. In the left-hand seat, his copilot was eyes down, updating their mission plan on the center console computer. Since refueling at Krasnoyarsk’s airport earlier in the day, they’d been sweeping these forests from the air—systematically overflying supposedly deserted hunting cabins and logging huts, looking for any signs of life. More than a dozen other Mi-8 helicopter troop carriers and Ka-52 gunships were engaged in this same task. So to avoid wasting time and fuel, it was important to check off each building they’d cleared and report the results to the Spetsnaz brigade staff back at headquarters.
Not more than a kilometer ahead and just off to his left, Panov caught the faint glint off a metal roof nestled among the trees. He swung the helicopter toward it. “Stand by on the sensors, Leonid,” he ordered.
Obediently, his copilot looked up from their computer. “Standing by,” he confirmed. “I am receiving good data from both pods.”
The Mi-8MTV-5’s upgraded cockpit had five modern multifunction displays set across its instrument panel—enabling its crew to rapidly and easily switch between different system readouts. Currently, the two leftmost displays were set to show imagery gathered by the sensor pods attached to their helicopter’s pylons—one equipped with a forward-looking infrared camera and the other containing a ground surveillance radar.
Panov took them in right over the log cabin he’d spotted, coming in so low that his tricycle landing gear almost knocked over a thin metal stovepipe chimney rising above the roof. He only had time to see that it was two stories high and maybe big enough for a couple of separate rooms on each floor. A black plastic tarp covered what was probably a large woodpile. It fluttered wildly, hammered by their rotor wash.
Then they were past, clattering on across the top of the forest.
“Contact! Contact!” his copilot shouted. “I show heat emissions in that cabin. Human-sized. Multiple sources.” He tapped a button, rewinding the thermal scanner images to show the moment of their pass. Green glowing shapes appeared briefly against the cooler background of the cabin’s interior. Then he punched another control. “And look what our radar picked up at the same time!”
Panov whistled. Instead of a woodpile, that black tarp had been concealing a vehicle, some sort of van by its shape and size. Which meant that they’d found the American spies for sure. He keyed his radio mike. “Kingfisher Three to Kingfisher Base. Positive contact at Location Bravo Eight. Repeat, contact at Bravo Eight.”
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��Base to Kingfisher,” the Spetsnaz brigade commander’s excited voice sounded in his earphones. “I’m vectoring in additional helicopters and action teams. Deploy your troops to secure the perimeter. Remember, we want these foreigners alive, if at all possible.”
“Understood, Base,” Panov said. He pulled the helicopter into a tight turn back around. He’d spotted an opening in the woods not far from the hunting cabin. Though comparatively small, it looked big enough to set down in. He switched to intercom. “Did you hear all of that, Captain Kuznetsky?”
From the aft passenger compartment, Spetsnaz Captain Vladimir Kuznetsky replied, “Loud and clear, Pilot.” His clipped tones conveyed a clear impression of predatory eagerness. “My boys are ready.”
“Right then,” Panov said. “Stand by. We’re going in now.” Kuznetsky had two nine-man Spetsnaz teams under his direct command. Most of them were hardened veterans of combat in Ukraine, Chechnya, and Poland. Once they were on the ground, they shouldn’t have any trouble keeping a handful of enemy agents from escaping into the surrounding woods.
At one of the second-floor windows of the cabin, Sam Kerr lowered a pair of compact binoculars. “Hell,” she said coolly. “That tears it.”
Beside her, Marcus Cartwright nodded. “They must know we’re here.” He looked up at the Russian helicopter as it circled back toward them. “They’re headed for that clearing you found last night.”
“Looks like it,” Sam agreed. When they’d first arrived at this deserted building, she’d made a thorough reconnaissance of their immediate surroundings. It was standard Scion covert ops procedure to scout out possible enemy approaches to any safe house. That break in the trees—big enough for a helicopter, she’d judged—had been number one on her list, aside from the dirt road they’d driven in on.
She glanced at the big man. “Help Davey get that tarp off our van, Marcus.” She pulled out her smartphone. “I’ll handle this end.” Cartwright nodded again and clattered down the stairs.
