by EndWar
Lex had gone over the plan and several variations of it with both his senior officers and with General Mitchell. He’d had to reassure the general the gas would not inadvertently harm Dr. Ragland. And then, of course, came the elephant-in-the-room question: What if flushing them out worked but they still couldn’t find Ragland? What if they somehow managed to keep her inside, despite the gas?
Lex hoped it didn’t come to that, but if it did, they were prepared to “go deep.” He took a seat beside the team, and they huddled beneath the tree, watching the snow pile up around them.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Osin was about to leave his station and head back to his quarters for the night when a call came in from Christopher Theron. Osin tapped a touchpad, enveloping his station in a soundproof cocoon used when receiving ultrasensitive communications.
“Colonel, it’s my understanding that you’ve been a loyal member of our group for many years now,” the man began, sans any introductions or happy talk.
“That’s right, sir.”
“And I’m able to call you right there inside the Guard Brigade headquarters with impunity.”
“I’m very good at what I do, sir.”
“Excellent. Then you’ll take care of a problem for me.”
“I’ve been well compensated to solve problems.”
“Good. President Kapalkin is on his way there to interrogate Colonel Antsyforov.”
“That’s correct, sir. His ETA is one hour, twenty-seven minutes from now.”
“Yes, that’s unfortunate. You see, that woman has information that could compromise our operations.”
“If they believe her.”
“Kapalkin is a shrewd man. He’ll investigate all possibilities, which could make things difficult for us. At any rate, the Americans have sent a rescue team to your location.”
“The Americans? They’ve come to rescue her?”
“No, they’re after someone else they believe is being held there. Make no mistake: An attack will come soon.”
“I see. Are you suggesting that the Snow Maiden is, shall we say, killed in the attack?”
“I’m saying go down there and kill the bitch.”
Osin grimaced. “Of course. But what’s our cover story? If they link her murder back to me—”
“That’s your issue. Not mine.”
Theron’s reply gave Osin pause.
Serious pause.
He’d worked hard for these people and appreciated how they’d helped him rise above his mechanical life. But now here was Theron revealing his true colors, revealing that perhaps Osin had been wrong about himself, that he was just a cog in the wheel, just a peon working for a group that had made him believe he wasn’t.
He tensed, his breath growing short, then finally answered, “Of course, I’ll take care of her. When would you like this done?”
“Immediately.”
“Okay. But what about the attack? Should I notify my people here?”
“Absolutely not. Perhaps the Americans will get lucky and take out the president himself.”
Osin swallowed over the enormity of what would happen—and how he might be caught in the middle of it. “Sir, once I terminate the Snow Maiden, I’d like your permission to evacuate.”
“Excellent idea. You’re too valuable to lose. Take care of her, then get out.”
Osin rose from his desk. “On my way, sir.”
As he strode toward the elevator, he balled his hands into fists, then placed a palm on his sidearm.
A life of obedience. Cog. Peon. Was this him?
TWENTY-NINE
Hawker 400XP Business Jet
En Route to Incirlik Air Base
Turkey
Halverson threw her head back on the seat as the jet reached cruise altitude. She glanced across the cabin at Voeckler, who lifted his glass of Aberfeldy 21 and toasted her. She beamed, lifting her own glass of spring water, having declined the single malt scotch. She’d save the drinking for when she finally reached California.
Two seats behind sat Aslan, mouth open, snoring away. It’d been a long day for the Chechen. He’d saved her life, but as he slept back there, a boy hiding behind all that hair and the beard, she wondered just how many people he’d killed before he’d found his conscience. He was still, and might always be, a terrorist. His father’s son. But he’d done right by her, and she would do everything within her power to see that he was treated fairly.
Their trip to the airport via the police had gone off without a hitch, much to Halverson’s amazement. Given the recent circumstances of her life, she would’ve bet against a routine car ride. They’d been summarily waved through each checkpoint, everyone paid off to keep his mouth shut, his memory erased.
Halverson had been laughing as she’d climbed aboard their waiting jet, more dumbstruck than anything else, flashes of memory striking like tumbling glass—the ejection, hanging from the train, the taunting Russians as they took potshots at her, the release and descent into the gorge, the smell of those caves . . .
She took another sip of water, and as she set it down, her satellite phone rang, the number unrecognizable. A woman’s voice: “Major Halverson? I have President Becerra for you.”
“You do? I mean, uh, okay, yeah.” Halverson lost her breath.
“Major Halverson?”
“Yes, I’m here, Mr. President.”
“And thank God for that. We’ve been holding our collective breath over here, praying for your rescue.”
“Thank you, sir. I feel pretty good about that myself.”
He chuckled under his breath.
She went on: “And if I can say, the man who helped save me, Aslan, he defected from the Forgotten Army. He’s seeking asylum in the U.S. Whatever you can do to help, I’d deeply appreciate it. I’d be dead already if it weren’t for him. Please, sir . . .”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Now, Major, I’ve been following your tests with the Wraith program. Outstanding job.”
“I appreciate that, sir. I’m ready to get back to work. Something went wrong with that radar system, and you can be damned sure we’ll figure out what it was. Once we get the Wraith fully operational, I promise you, she’ll change the scope of the entire war.”
“I know that. But after what you’ve just been through, I’d say a little R & R is the best medicine.”
“You know me, sir. I’ll lose my mind if I don’t keep working.”
“I understand. But unfortunately we’ve had to put the project on hold.”
“Because of my crash? Or a budget cut? Not another budget cut? Really?”
“While you were testing the radar, Dr. Ragland was taken by Spetsnaz forces.”
“Oh my God, are you kidding me? How? She was in Palmdale.”
“The intelligence people are still looking for answers. Good news is we caught a break through our operatives in Moscow. They’re holding her at Fort Levski, and we have a Marine Raider team down there. Soon as the weather clears, they plan to get her out.”
Halverson’s thoughts leapt forward. “Fort Levski. That’s in Bulgaria. I’m an hour away. Sir, who’s backing up that team? Sixth Fleet? Request permission to join their QRF. You know I can fly anything they got—rotor, fixed-wing, you name it. All I need is a plane and a target, sir. I can tell this pilot to divert course right now.”
“Major, you haven’t even been debriefed.”
“Sir, with all due respect, debrief me right now! Let me go out there. She’s my friend. We worked on this project together. It was our baby. And if I can help, I need to do that. I need to be there.”
“I know how you feel. I’ve lost too many friends over the years, but after what you’ve been through—”
“Sir, I need to go.”
S
ilence on the other end. Then, suddenly: “You know, if you weren’t such a fine pilot, I’d turn you down in a heartbeat. But this is a very complicated mission, and, well, I bet they could use you.”
Halverson shifted forward in her seat. “Yes, they could, sir. Thank you.”
“I didn’t say yes. And I don’t want to force you on the mission commander.”
“General Mitchell?”
“That’s right.”
“He knows my work. He’ll be glad to have me. Please, sir, I’m literally begging you. Make this happen.”
He hesitated a moment more, then sighed and said, “All right, I’ll talk to Mitchell, but you’ll probably have to submit to a quick preflight physical.”
“No problem. You won’t regret this.”
“Get with your pilot. Figure out where you’re going to put down and update us. I’ll get a plane out to you.”
“Outstanding, sir.”
“Just come back in one piece.”
“Just a walk in the park.”
“You fighter jocks have been saying that for a hundred years, but get serious now. You’re going to Fort Levski. Spetsnaz headquarters.”
“Perfect. We’ll embarrass the Russians even more when we get in there and get her out.”
“I like your attitude, Major.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This country needs more war heroes. This country could use a war hero like you in politics.”
She laughed. “That’s the best joke I’ve heard all year.”
“Mark my words, Stephanie. Why do you think I’ve taken such an interest in you?”
She sobered. “You’re serious?”
“You’ve served your country as a warrior, but you can do even more.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Look, I never thought I’d be a politician, but here I am. Just get back home, and we’ll talk all about it . . .”
She shook her head in shock. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
THIRTY
Spetsnaz Headquarters
Fort Levski
Bulgaria
Lex shifted a little closer to the pine tree and swatted snow off his tablet computer’s screen. “Intel coming out of Moscow still confirms that Ragland is here. All we need is the order to go.”
“What happens if we miss the window?” asked Vlad.
“We won’t,” said Lex.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Vlad forged on. “There wasn’t any mention of that in the briefing or the docs.”
“I deliberately left that out.”
“You did?”
“That’s right,” Lex confessed. “We’re doing this no matter what.”
All three men looked at him.
He hardened his tone. “Does anyone have a problem with that?”
“No backup, no problem,” said Slava.
A window suddenly appeared in Lex’s head-up display, with a beeping tone from the comm operator. He accepted the call. “Deep Raider Actual, you are clear to move out.”
“Roger that,” Lex said. “Gentlemen, this is it. On your feet. Let’s rock!”
With his heart already hammering, Lex fell in behind the others, sprinting through the forest and back to the ventilation shafts. There, they set down the gas and donned their masks, and then, after checking that each man’s gear was good to go, they popped open the Kolokol-7 and dropped four canisters down each shaft, the hissing and whirring of the fans drawing in the chemicals confirming to Lex that in just a few minutes, the entire complex would be filled with the powerful opioid.
Lex exchanged a hand signal with Slava: They were set at both shafts.
They wove their way across the pine needles and broken carpet of snow, returning to the cliff, and once out of the contamination zone, with the wind blowing away from them, they peeled off their masks. While Borya and Vlad assembled their Spetsnaz VSS Vintorez medium-range sniper rifles, Lex brought his satellite phone to his ear.
The entire valley grew eerily quiet, just the whispers of the falling snow and the branches rustling slightly in the wind. It seemed as though the birds and other animals had gone silent, anticipating what would happen. The phone beeped, and the comm operator connected him directly to General Mitchell. “Sir, canisters are away.”
“Excellent work, Captain. Stand by. I’m ordering the kinetic strike now.”
Lex flicked his gaze up into the dark, snow-filled sky, and while he couldn’t see them, he imagined the twelve rods of tungsten blasting off from their space-based orbital platform via their rocket motors. They’d plunge toward the atmosphere until gravity accelerated them to thirty-six thousand feet per second as they headed for a collision course with the Earth’s crust—or more precisely Fort Levski. Each rod packed all the destructive effects of an Earth-penetrating nuclear weapon.
One rod would wreak havoc.
Twelve would devastate the entire valley . . .
Lex wouldn’t have to imagine that part. He and his men had a front-row seat.
A Klaxon blared from somewhere below, followed by more alarms from the base—an air raid warning that began to drone loudly across the mountainside. The base’s Voronezh-class radar was capable of monitoring more than five hundred targets at a single time at distances extending to 3,725 miles. Lex knew that Fort Levski’s radar operators were, at the moment, shitting their boxers.
At the same time, pilots scrambled to their MiG-29s. Troops rushed out of the barracks toward their APCs, while more crews charged toward a convoy of Cockroaches now rolling out of three hangars, the hulking infantry fighting vehicles equipped with fifty-seven-millimeter autocannons linked to state-of-the-art fire control computers that made the guns deadly accurate against low-flying airborne threats. Lex counted twelve in those lines. The artillery pieces were left unmanned, but all three batteries of the old S-300 anti-aircraft missiles were coming online, rocket tubes tilting up off their TELs or transporter erector launchers and rising into the sky.
Borya crouched down beside Lex, staring at the intel Mitchell was sending them: a radar image of the incoming rods glowing on Lex’s tablet. The picture shifted to a computer animation showing the rods burning through the atmosphere and bearing down on their location.
“Twenty seconds,” said Borya.
“Everybody fall back from the ledge, mask up, and brace for impact!” Lex cried.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Osin ordered the guards aside and rushed into the Snow Maiden’s cell.
Still bound in her shackles, she bolted to her feet, looking much more animated than their first meeting. She was dressed now in standard orange prisoner utilities with numbers stenciled on the sleeves and breast but still wearing her knee-high boots.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, staring at the gas mask covering his face, the second one in his left hand.
“We need to evacuate now,” he said, tugging the gas mask over her face. “The base is under attack. Airborne contaminants. Come with me.”
As he shoved her forward, the two guards turned and blocked their exit, they, too, having donned their gas masks.
“Sir, you can’t move the prisoner without authorization. I’m sorry, sir.”
Osin shot the young man in the neck with his suppressed pistol. He shot the second guard point-blank in the head before that young man could reach for his sidearm.
No turning back now . . .
“What the hell? Are you saving me?” the Snow Maiden asked, her voice muffled by the mask.
“We’re getting out of here together,” he told her.
But saving her wasn’t exactly his plan.
On his way down to the interrogation level, Osin had reflected on Theron’s order, on how the man had no regard for what happened to him. Yes, Osin was valuable, but it had taken Theron too much time to recognize
that. The man’s inability to fully think through his decisions deeply troubled Osin. Was this the kind of leader the Bilderberg Group could fully trust?
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Osin had decided that killing the Snow Maiden was not the answer. Rescuing her and using her to blackmail Theron seemed much more audacious and interesting. Yes, the time had come for bold and creative thinking on his part. Twenty years as a peon and spy would finally come to an end. He’d never get a chance like this again. Not in his lifetime. And Theron wasn’t the only bidder. He could even turn over the Snow Maiden to the Americans or the Forgotten Army for a price. Keeping her alive put him in control. He had the power. He could even negotiate a deal with her, a little payback for the rescue.
Fuck you, Theron.
He shoved her past the dead guards and into the hallway, toward the duty desk a dozen meters away, just as the two junior officers who’d been manning their stations came charging into the hallway, shouting, “Halt!”
One clutched his throat and fell before Osin needed to shoot him, a victim of the gas now pouring in from the ventilation grills lining the ceiling. The second drew his weapon—
But Osin dropped him with a two-round burst, chest and right cheek.
“I can’t run!” shouted the Snow Maiden. “Get me out of these chains!”
“Only the legs,” Osin corrected, then shoved her forward, the chains clanging as they reached the end of the hall, where Osin rifled through the duty desk. In a drawer below the terminal he found several sets of keys, one of which should belong to her shackles. The other set was locked in the command-and-control center.
