Iron Wolf

by Dale Brown

  “Inform Voronezh Control that we have the attack area in sight,” he told the navigation and weapons officer in the right-hand seat.

  “Sending now,” Captain Nikolai Starikov acknowledged. He transmitted the message using a series of short, three-figure Morse codes, and then checked the glowing multifunction map display in front of him. “We’re right up against the border,” he warned. “We’re going to stray across into Polish airspace.”

  “No shit,” Zelin grunted, continuing the turn and bleeding off more speed. Even with its superb maneuverability and flying just fast enough to stay in the air, the Su-34 had a turning radius measured in kilometers. There was no way his flight could orbit close enough to the OSCE post to keep it in sight and stay entirely on the Ukrainian side of the frontier.

  Suddenly a warning tone sounded in both men’s headsets.

  “Search radar spike,” Starikov said, studying his displays. “L-band. Single emitter. Computer evaluates it as a long-range Polish RAT 31DL radar. Strength is sufficient to detect us.”

  “No surprise now that we’re off the deck,” the major commented. He showed his teeth. “But I bet some fucking Pole just crapped his pants when we popped up onto his screen.” Then he shrugged against his harness. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  “Switching to GUARD channel,” Starikov reported. The international emergency channel was commonly used for communication between aircraft and ground stations belonging to different nations.

  “This is the Warsaw Operations Center calling the two aircraft now turning two hundred and twenty-five degrees over Starovoitove at one thousand meters, identify yourselves. Repeat. Identify yourselves,” a Polish-accented voice said in their earphones.

  “Nice of him to speak Russian,” Zelin snorted. He keyed his mike. “Warsaw Operations Center, this is Sentinel Flight Leader.”

  “Sentinel Leader, you are on course to violate our airspace!” the Polish air defense controller radioed. “Withdraw to the east immediately. Repeat. Turn east immediately!”

  The major glanced at his subordinate. “Find out what Voronezh wants us to do. Meanwhile, I’ll try to buy us some time.”

  Starikov nodded, already tapping out another series of short Morse codes that would alert their own commander to their situation and ask for new orders.

  “Warsaw Center, this is Sentinel Leader,” the Su-34 pilot said. “Regret unable to comply with your request. We are conducting an emergency antiterrorist operation.”

  “That is not a request, Sentinel Flight!” the Polish air defense controller snapped.

  Zelin and his comrade stiffened as another warbling tone, shriller this time, sounded in their headsets.

  “X-band tracking and fire control radar. Forward right quadrant,” Starikov said tightly. “Source is an SNR-125 and it has a lock!”

  “Damn it,” the major muttered. That was the radar used by S-125M Neva surface-to-air missile system, the type NATO code-named the SA-3B Goa. Though old, it was still a highly capable weapon, especially with the digital component upgrades the Poles had made. Plus, circling like this left them sitting ducks against a SAM attack. If he stayed, he was risking two billion-ruble fighter-bombers.

  He shook his head. It was a losing proposition. And no one in Moscow would thank him for triggering a shooting war with Poland without positive orders.

  Followed by his wingman in the second Su-34, Zelin banked harder and dove, turning back to the east. The radar warning faded away.

  “Voronezh approves a withdrawal to an ACP thirty kilometers east of the frontier,” the navigator told him, entering coordinates on one of the keypads at his station. “Cue up.”

  Faintly glowing bars appeared on Zelin’s HUD, above and to the right of his current course. He pulled back on the stick and turned, centering the bars on his display. These flight-director bars were a navigation cue that would lead them toward the ACP, the air control point, selected by the staff back at Voronezh’s Malshevo Air Base. Once there, the two Su-34s would fly a racetrack holding pattern designed to conserve their fuel.

  “And when we get there, Nikolai? Then what?” he asked angrily, still furious at having been forced to turn tail and run. “Do we just fly around and around while those bastard Poles practice their radar search techniques against us?”

  Starikov ignored his commander’s ill-tempered outburst. He was too busy reading their new orders, freshly decoded by the Su-34’s computers, as they scrolled across his display. “No, sir,” he told Zelin. “We’re ordered to provide on-call air support for a Spetnaz quick reaction force. They’ve been tasked to hunt down and kill these terrorists, and their transport helicopters and Mi-24 attack helicopters are only ten minutes out. Vornezh is also vectoring two Su-35 fighters to the ACP to back us up. Further orders will come straight from the Kremlin.”

  Major Viktor Zelin took that in and then smiled broadly. “Otlichno! Excellent! Maybe somebody in the high command just grew a pair!”

  2ND SPETSNAZ BRIGADE

  QUICK REACTION FORCE,

  AT THE BUG RIVER

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER

  Spetsnaz Captain Kirill Aristov saw his lead scout’s silent hand signal and dropped prone. The rest of his command group did the same, taking cover among the bushes, moss-covered stumps, and saplings crowding the forest floor. Off on either flank, his other squads also halted and went to ground.

  Carefully cradling his AN-94 assault rifle in both arms, he wriggled quietly forward to the scout’s position behind a stunted pine tree. “Well, Chapayev?” he hissed. “What is it?”

  The scout, a grizzled long-term professional soldier with combat experience in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine, jabbed a thumb at a spot about a meter up the trunk of the pine tree. Something or someone had brushed up against one smaller branches, more a twig really, and almost snapped it off. The branch dangled loosely, hanging by a thin strip of bark.

  Aristov reached up and rubbed his fingers across the torn bark. The break was fresh, still smelling strongly of pine sap. The scout raised a single eyebrow. You see? he mouthed silently.

  The Spetsnaz officer nodded his understanding. The terrorists they were chasing were probably not far ahead.

  Cautiously, he peered around the tree trunk.

  They were very close to the river, within a dozen meters or so. The ground, still covered by trees and clumps of brush, sloped gently to the water’s edge. But everything was still, motionless except where a light breeze stirred the forest undergrowth. Then Aristov looked closer. At several places along the bank, flattened patches in the tall grass showed where heavy objects had been dragged along the ground.

  He laid his assault rifle down and took a pair of binoculars out of one of the pouches on his tactical vest. Raising the binoculars to his eyes, he swept them slowly from side to side—scanning the opposite bank of the river. Along this stretch, the Bug was only about thirty meters wide.

  Aristov could see more spots where the vegetation had been disturbed. And he just barely could make out something odd a little deeper among the woods, something dark-colored among the lighter green of the grass and bushes. He focused his binoculars on that spot.

  The shape of a black rubber inflatable boat jumped out at him, roughly camouflaged with tree branches, uprooted bushes, and swaths of torn grass.

  He swore under his breath. The terrorists had crossed into Polish territory.

  Still scowling, Aristov crawled back to the waiting command group. He motioned his radioman over and grabbed the handset. “Hunter Group One to Hunter Command Prime.”

  “Prime to Hunter One, go ahead.” Despite the hiss and crackle of static, that deep resonant voice was unmistakable. “Make your report!”

  The Spetsnaz captain swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that we have a serious problem, Mr. President.”

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW

  THAT SAME TIME

  President of the Russian Federation Gennadiy Gryzlov tightened his grip on the secure phone as he l
istened to Aristov’s reluctant confession of failure. The terrorists who had murdered Lieutenant General Voronov and his men had escaped—crossing into safe haven on Polish soil. When the Spetsnaz officer finished his report, Gryzlov said nothing for several moments.

  This uncharacteristically calm reaction made his national security staff extremely uneasy.

  In public, Russia’s forty-one-year-old president was confident, always unruffled, and charming. Those qualities, plus his youthful good looks and the vast wealth he’d earned from his family’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals companies, had brought him to power in a landslide election victory three years before. In private, however, Gryzlov was known for his fiery temper, towering rages, and utter disdain for anyone he believed had failed him.

  So now the hastily assembled group of aides, cabinet ministers, generals, and intelligence chiefs waited nervously for their leader’s inevitable tirade.

  It did not come.

  “Very well, I understand,” Gryzlov said into the phone. He checked the nearest clock, an action slavishly imitated by his cabinet ministers and top aides. Just over an hour had passed since the terrorists butchered Voronov and the others. “Hold your force in position, Captain. I will call you back shortly with new instructions.”

  He hung up and stood tapping his fingers on the table, deep in thought. Then he turned to his minister of defense, Gregor Sokolov. “Show me a map of that sector, at the largest scale you have.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Sokolov said hurriedly. He was all too aware that Russia’s chief executive might soon be looking for a scapegoat. He motioned frantically to one of his staff officers, an elderly, gray-haired colonel from the Military Topographic Directorate. “Get it up on the big screen, Isayev! Now!”

  The colonel flipped open his laptop, quickly and efficiently sorted through a series of digitized maps, selected one, and then sent it wirelessly to the conference room’s enormous flat-screen display.

  Whistling tonelessly to himself, Gryzlov moved closer to the display, peering intently at the patterned landscape of woods, bogs, farmland, small villages, and roads it showed. With one finger, he traced the meandering line of the Bug River. He turned toward the colonel. “These depth markings for the river? They are accurate?”

  “To a degree, Mr. President,” the staff officer agreed. He hunched his narrow shoulders, thinking out loud. “The Bug’s depth varies significantly from season to season—depending on rainfall and runoff. But those figures are a reasonable approximation. In fact, given the dry summer so far, it is probable the river is even shallower than depicted.”

  “Ochen’ khorosho! Very good!” Gryzlov said drily, fighting down the urge to rip the other man apart for lecturing him as though he were a schoolboy. This cartographic colonel might be a dreary pedant, but at least he was competent.

  He swung away from the map and picked up the secure phone. “Hunter One? This is Hunter Command Prime. Listen carefully. You and your troops will ford the river and continue your pursuit. You will find those terrorists and destroy them! Understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. President!” Aristov’s taut voice came through the crackling background static. “It is possible that the terrorists had vehicles waiting for them on the other side of the river. If so, my men will not be able to catch them on foot.”

  “Then you will follow them by air, using your helicopters.”

  “And if the Poles interfere?” the young officer asked.

  “You will use whatever force is necessary to clear them from your path,” Gryzlov told him. “Including the use of the fighter and bomber aircraft already on scene. Clear?”

  “Very clear!” the Spetsnaz captain said crisply. “Your orders will be obeyed.”

  Gryzlov hung up and turned to look at the stunned faces of his national security advisers. A predatory smile flickered across his face and then vanished. “Do any of you doubt my decision?” he asked.

  “I do not doubt your right to make this decision,” Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva said slowly. “I only wonder if such haste to invade the territory of a member of the NATO alliance is wise. Poland will not turn a blind eye to the presence of our commandos.”

  Gryzlov’s cold-eyed gaze caught hers for a moment and then ran up and down her lush, full body. She reddened slightly. They were occasional lovers, but apparently his dark-haired foreign minister still had a mind of her own. “Our need to act quickly is precisely why the Poles cannot stop us!” he snapped.

  “You are claiming the right of hot pursuit,” Sergei Tarzarov, his chief of staff, realized. “The right to chase criminals and terrorists across international borders.”

  The Russian president nodded smugly. “Exactly. The Americans have used this doctrine to excuse their intrusions into Mexico, Pakistan, and dozens of other weaker countries around the world. Now we shall apply their own legalistic reasoning against one of their own allies.”

  It was no surprise that thin, plain-looking Tarzarov was ahead of the others, Gryzlov thought. The shrewd old man had been a power inside the Kremlin for decades, first as an intelligence officer, then as minister of the interior, and now as his top aide. Rumor said that Tarzarov knew where all the bodies were buried in Russian politics. Other rumors, darker ones, said that was true because he’d buried most of them personally.

  “We may have such a right in law,” Tarzarov cautioned. “But this situation could easily escalate.”

  “Perhaps,” Gryzlov agreed. He shrugged. “If so, we have sufficient force in hand to prevail in any localized conflict. And by the time larger Polish forces can intervene, our quick reaction force will be long gone.”

  He turned back to Titeneva. “Contact the Poles. Tell them what we’re doing. Make it clear that we are not asking for their permission, and that we expect their full cooperation in this matter.”

  “No matter how it turns out, Warsaw will protest vigorously,” the foreign minister told him. Her dark eyes were troubled. “They will undoubtedly contact NATO and the European Union as well.”

  Gryzlov showed his teeth. “Oh, I hope the Poles do,” he said. “I would enjoy watching their new president squirm and wriggle while he whines about us going after terrorists operating from Polish soil!”

  WEST BANK OF THE BUG RIVER

  THAT SAME TIME

  Captain Kiril Aristov waded the last few meters of the river with his assault rifle and equipment vest held high over his head. With water dripping from his soaked fatigues and boots, he came sloshing up onto the opposite bank and dropped to one knee. The rest of his commandos were close behind. Moving rapidly, they fanned out, forming a defensive perimeter around the crossing site.

  He unzipped the waterproof case containing his tablet computer and pulled up the map file Moscow had transmitted moments before they crossed the Bug. At first glance, this part of the west side of the Bug River seemed much like the Ukrainian side of the border, but that was deceptive. Beyond a narrow belt of pine trees and scraggly oaks, the countryside opened up into a mix of ponds, shallow streams, and flat meadows and pastureland.

  The lieutenants and senior sergeants who commanded his four ten-man teams formed a circle around him, watching closely while he sketched out their orders.

  “Berezin, Dobrynin, and Larionov, take your men and scout west,” Aristov said, tracing a line with his stylus. “My command group will follow you. Look for signs of foot or vehicle traffic. Stay sharp. The terrorists who hit Voronov and our guys might not be too far ahead. So get moving!”

  They nodded once and darted off, already waving their commandos into action. Soldiers bent low under the weight of their gear and weapons slipped off through the trees.

  Aristov turned to his remaining team leader. “Milekhin, split your section in two. Deploy them at the north and south edge of these woods. You’re my reserve and flank guard, clear?”

  “Da, Captain!” the lieutenant said. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep everyone off your back.”

  Once the last of his troops
were in motion, the Spetsnaz captain looked for Chapayev. The veteran scout was squatting silently a few meters away, methodically checking over his rifle and equipment.

  He glanced up with a quick flash of tobacco-stained teeth. “And my orders, Captain?”

  “Take a good hard look at those rubber boats and the ground around them,” Aristov said. “See if you can pick up anything that might let us identify these terrorists. But watch out for booby traps. These bastards seem to know what they’re doing.”

  The scout nodded once and vanished among the trees and bushes.

  Surrounded by his command group, Aristov headed west, advancing deeper into Poland.

  “To szalone, Panie Poruczniku!” Polish Border Guard sergeant Konrad Malek shouted into his cell phone. “This is crazy, Lieutenant! I’ve got eight men with me and we’re mostly trained to arrest smugglers and illegals. How in hell am I supposed to stop what looks like a full-scale invasion by fucking Russian commandos?”

  “No one’s asking you to stop them, Konrad,” his commander said calmly, still safely ensconced back in his cozy office at the Dorohusk Border Control Point. “We only want you to slow them down while the bigwigs in Warsaw get through to the Kremlin.”

  “And how the devil do I slow them down?” Malek growled. “Write them a ticket for trespassing?”

  “See if you can contact their leader and—”

  “Sergeant!”