“So if you had operational limitations, why was there damage to the wing?” Fursenko hesitated, and Kazakov guessed the reason. “Obviously, because Stoica and Yegorov violated the restrictions, is that correct?”
“Their orders were to shoot down the patrol planes,” Fursenko argued. “They did a very good job—”
“They only got one bomber!”
“Which is very good, considering the odds they were up against,” Fursenko pointed out. “They faced four well-trained Turkish adversaries and managed to get two of them, maybe three.”
Kazakov looked up at the cockpit. Gennadi Yegorov was up there in the forward cockpit, making notes on a clipboard as the technicians tested electrical circuits, his head in a bandage. “What happened to Yegorov?”
“A slight concussion during some of their evasive maneuvers. The corpsman thinks he’ll be fine.”
“And Stoica?”
“Over there.” Fursenko looked apprehensive. Kazakov saw Stoica nursing a cup of coffee, one hand covering his eyes. “I think he has a touch of flu. When will you give us a list of new targets, sir?”
“Right away," Kazakov said. He stared angrily at Stoica and realized the bastard did not have the flu. “There will be two of them, both to be hit on the same night.”
“That is risky, sir,” Fursenko said. “A heavy weapons load will mean using external weapon pylons—”
“Why? You have the internal weapons bay. Two air-to-ground weapons, two targets.”
“That's risky, sir." Fursenko explained. “We typically plan on twice the number ot weapons than necessary to ensure success of the mission—two targets, four weapons, in case of a miss or a weapons malfunction.”
“So then use the external pylons.”
“If we put air-to-ground missiles on an external pylon, it means we cannot put air-to-air missiles on a pylon because of weight restrictions. The air-to-ground weapons are much heavier than air-to-air weapons, and they have a narrower carriage envelope.”
“So? Use the pylons and the weapons bay for offensive weapons, and the internal missiles for defense.”
“But we cannot use internal defensive missiles, sir,” Fursenko said. “The damage—”
“I thought you said you repaired the damage.”
“We have repaired the damage caused by launching missiles from the last mission, but we have not solved the underlying problem yet,” Fursenko said. “And there is certainly much more damage to the wing that we can’t see. I would caution against using any internal missiles at all except in an emergency, and to be extra safe I would advise not even to load missiles into the launchers.”
“I pay those men a lot of money to take certain risks, Doctor,” Kazakov said flatly. “Besides, if it might help bring them and the aircraft back in one piece, I want it used. The missiles go on, but they are not to be used except in absolute emergencies—no chasing after targets of opportunity. Issue the order.”
"But that leaves us with no defensive weapons to counter known threats.” Fursenko argued. “We will need the external pylons both for defensive and for offensive weapons.”
“Fursenko, you are beginning to talk in circles,” Kazakov said irritably. “First you say we cannot use internal missiles, and then you say we cannot do the mission unless we use internals. What are you really saying, Doctor? Are you saying we cannot fly the aircraft?”
“I... I guess that’s what I’m saying,” Fursenko said finally. “It cannot be safely used without extensive inspection and repair.”
Pavel Kazakov seemed to accept this bit of news. He nodded, then seemed to shrug his shoulders. “Then perhaps we will strike just one target,” he said. “Will that satisfy you, Doctor? You can use the internal weapons bay for offensive weapons, and the pylons for defensive weapons.”
“Our other problem came with using external pylons, because using them greatly increases our radar cross-section and destroys our stealthiness,” Fursenko explained. “If we only strike one target, we can still use the other two internal launchers for emergency use, and then use the internal bay for offensive weapons.”
Kazakov nodded again. “And what of Gennadi and Ion?” he asked. “Will they be all right?”
“Gennadi seems to be well. He has been under close supervision, and seems to be suffering no effects of his concussion.” Fursenko frowned at Stoica. “Ion .. . we’ll have to see how well he can recover. From the flu.”
Kazakov nodded. He looked at Yegorov, who was flipping switches and speaking on a headset to the technicians. “If we need to do a test flight, Gennadi can do it?”
“Of course. Gennadi is a trained pilot and is almost as familiar with the Tyenee as Ion. We would substitute myself or one of the other technicians in the weapons officer’s position for the test flight.”
“Excellent.” Kazakov strolled over toward Stoica. The pilot did not stand or even acknowledge Kazakov’s presence, just sat with his hand covering his eyes. “Ion? I hope you are feeling better. Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ve done everything I can think of, Pavel,” Stoica moaned. A faint whiff of fortified wine caught Kazakov’s nostrils. “I just need a little time so I can get my head together.”
”It’ll take more than time to get your head together. Ion,” Kazakov said. Stoica raised his head and looked at Kazakov through bloodshot eyes and was about to ask his boss what he meant when Kazakov pulled a SIG-Sauer P226 nine-millimeter pistol from a shoulder holster, held it to Stoica’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. Half the contents of Sloica's skull splattered out onto the table, and his limp, lifeless body collapsed on top of the mess of brains, blood, and bone. Kazakov fired three more rounds into Stoica's eyes and mouth until his head was nothing more than a lump of gore.
He turned back toward Fursenko, still holding the smoking pistol clenched in his fist, and wiped blobs of blood and bits of brain matter across his face until he wore a macabre death mask. “No more excuses from any of you!” he screamed. “No more excuses! When I say I want a job done, you will do it! When I say I want a target destroyed, all the targets, you had better destroy them, or don’t bother returning to my base! I don’t care about safety, or malfunctions, or caution lights, or excuses, or danger. You do a job or you will die. Is that clear?
“Fursenko. I want that aircraft airborne with as many weapons as you need to do the job. and I want it airborne tonight, or I will slaughter each and every one of you! And you will destroy both targets I give you, both of them, or don't bother coming back—in fact, don't even bother living anymore! Do I make myself clear? Now, get busy, all of you!”
The White House Oval Office
That same time
The three Air Force general officers entered the Oval Office and stood quietly and unobtrusively along the wall, not daring to say a word or even make any sudden moves. They all expected the same thing: a major-league ass-chewing, thanks to Patrick McLanahan and his high-tech toys.
The President finished reading the report that Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan had given him moments earlier. After the President read the report, he gave it to Vice President Les Busick, then stared off into space, thinking. Busick glanced at the report, then passed it along to Secretary of State Kercheval. Robert Goff had already briefed both men; Kercheval seemed even more upset than the President. After a few moments, President Thom shook his head in exasperation, then glanced at Secretary of Defense Goff. “Take a seat, gentlemen," he said.
After several long, silent, awkward moments, the President stood, crossed in front of his desk, then sat dow n on its edge. The seething anger on his face was painfully obvious to all Thom stared at each of the generals in turn, then asked slowly and measurably, “General Venti, how do I stop McLanahan?”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thought for a moment, then replied, “We believe McLanahan’s raid started off from a small Ukrainian base near Nikolayev. Special Operations Command is ready to dispatch several teams into the area to h
unt them down. Meanwhile, we retask reconnaissance satellites to scan every possible base for their presence.”
“If we get lucky, we'll find them in a couple days—if they haven’t packed up and moved to a different location,” Morgan interjected.
“If they modified other Ukrainian helicopters to act as aerial refueling tankers,” Air Force Chief of Staff General Victor Hayes pointed out, “that could double the size of the area we’d need to search. It’d be a needle in a haystack.”
“Not necessarily,” Morgan said. “If we knew what their next move was, we might be able to set up a picket and nab them.”
“And if we got a little more cooperation from the Ukrainians or the Turks, we’d find them easier, too,” Kercheval added. “But this Black Sea Alliance is refusing to give us any information, although we’re certain they’ve been tracking and perhaps even assisting McLanahan in his raids.”
“They stole a damned supertanker loaded with a million barrels of oil in the middle of the Black Sea,” Vice President Busick retorted. “Who would’ve guessed they’d try something like that? Are we supposed to set up surveillance on every tanker in the area? What are they up to? What do they hope to accomplish?”
"McLanahan told me exactly what he hopes to accomplish, sir,” General Hayes said.
"Draw the Russians out into the open,” the President said. "Attack Kazakov’s center—his oil empire—and force him to retaliate.”
"Exactly, sir.”
"Oil tankers first, then oil terminals next?”
‘They’re fairly easy targets for the weapons McLanahan has at his disposal, sir,” Lieutenant-General Terrill Samson added.
"We can set up round-the-clock AWACS patrols and nab him as soon as he appears,” Hayes said. "We interdict every nonconrelatcd flight in the area. A few fighters and tankers on patrol should take care of it. We can set that up immediately.”
"Find him,” the President ordered bitterly. "I don’t care if you have to send every fighter in the force to do it. Find him. No more sneak attacks.” The President glanced again at Goff, then at Terrill Samson, "General, you can help me get in contact with McLanahan.”
"Sir?”
"That subcutaneous transceiver system you use at Dreamland.” the President said, pointing to his left shoulder with a jabbing motion. "That works almost anywhere in the world, doesn’t it?”
"Yes, sir. But I’ve attempted to contact General McLanahan and other members of his team several times. No response.”
"He thinks you betrayed him.”
Samson looked frozen for a moment, then shrugged. "I don’t know what he—” He stopped when he saw Thom’s knowing glance, then nodded. "Yes, he does, sir.”
"He thinks I betrayed him. too,” the President said. "He thinks I'm selling the United States down the river.”
"Sir, it shouldn’t matter what McLanahan thinks,” Samson said emphatically. "He’s a soldier. He was ... I mean, he is supposed to follow orders.”
"You know where he is, don’t you. General?”
Samson swallowed hard. "Sir?”
“McLanahan may not be answering you, but those implants allow you to track and monitor anyone wearing them,” the President said. “You said so yourself. You know exactly where he is, but you haven’t told General Venti or Secretary Goff. Why?”
“What in hell is this, Samson?” Joint Chiefs Chairman Venti exclaimed. “You’ve been keeping this information from us the whole time?”
“No one ever ordered me to locate McLanahan, sir,” Samson said.
“You're busted. General,” Venti thundered. “That kind of insubordinate bullshit just landed you in hock.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Denied/” Venti shouted.
“Hold on, General.” the President interrupted. “Go ahead. General Samson.”
Samson paused, but only for a moment He gave the President a firm look. “Sir. I don’t like what McLanahan’s doing— but only because he’s doing my job.”
“Your job?”
“My job is to track down wack-jobs like Kazakov and his stealth fighter-bomber and knock it out of the sky, not try to knock down one of our own.” Samson said. “Sir. you’re not prepared or not willing to get involved in this matter, that’s fine. You’re the President and my commander-in-chief, and your decision is the final word. But when honest fighting men like Patrick McLanahan do decide to act, they shouldn’t be persecuted by their own government.”
Samson looked at Venti, then General Hayes, the others in the Oval Office, and then President Thom. “If you order me to find McLanahan and bring him in, sir. I’ll do it. I’ll use every means at my disposal to do it.”
“Fine. I’ll give you a direct order, General Samson,” the President said. He paused for a moment, then said: “General, I want you to install one of those subcutaneous transceivers in me. Today. Right now.”
"Sir?"
“You heard me. Make the call, get one out here immediately.”
“But... but what about McLanahan?” Busick retorted. “How is that going to stop him?”
“I’m going to talk with him. I want to hear his voice,” Thom said. “If he's turning into some kind of high-tech terrorist or supervigilante. I need to find out for myself. If I determine he or the ones that fly with him are unstable. I'll send every last jet and every last infantryman out to nail his ass.”
Tirane, Republic of Albania
Two nights later
For the second night in a row, the crowds had gathered in front of the four-story office building across from the German embassy in the Albanian capital of Tirane, the headquarters of the United Nations Protection Force, composed mostly of Russian and German troops, assigned to patrol the southern Albania-Macedonia border. Since the stories had broken in the world media about the deal between Pavel Kazakov and members of the Russian government, massive protests had broken out all over the Balkans, but none larger or louder than in Tirane. The German government, considered Russian collaborators, became equal targets for the protesters.
Tonight’s protests were the worst. Albanian troops were called in early, which only angered the protesters even more. Albanian labor unions, upset because Kazakov had not used union labor to build his pipeline, led the protests, and the army and police were not anxious to confront the unions. The crowd was unruly, surging back and forth between the United Nations headquarters and the German embassy. Shouting quickly turned to pushing, and the police and army had trouble controlling the massive crowds. Pushing turned to fighting, fighting turned to rock and bottle throwing, and rocks and bottles turned into Molotov cocktails.
Virtually unheard and unnoticed in all the confusion and grow ing panic in the streets was the wail of an extraordinarily loud siren, but not a police or fire siren—it was an air raid warning siren. Moments later, the lights on all Albanian government buildings automatically started to extinguish—another automatic response to an attack warning dating back to the German blitzkriegs of World War II. The sudden darkness, combined with the lights of emergency vehicles and fires on the streets, sent some protesters into flights of sheer panic.
The police had just started to deploy riot-control vehicles with water and tear gas cannons when hell broke loose. There w as an impossibly bright flash of light, a huge ball of fire, and a deafening explosion that engulfed an entire city block, centered precisely on the German embassy. When the smoke and fire cleared, the Germany embassy was nothing more than a smoking hole and a pile of rubble. Everyone within a block of the embassy—protesters, police, army, embassy workers, and curious onlookers—were either dead or dying, and fires had broken out for several blocks around the blast.
The President’s study, The White House, Washington, D.C,
A short time later
“The devastation is enormous, sir,” Director of Central Intelligence Douglas Morgan reported, reading from the initial reports on the incident. “The entire Germany embassy is gone—nothing but a pile of
concrete. Police and news media estimated a crowd of perhaps five thousand was outside the embassy involved in the protest, with another five to ten thousand police, news media, and onlookers within the blast radius. The joint United Nations-NATO headquarters across the street was severely damaged—casualty estimates there could top three hundred dead or injured.”
President Thomas Thom sat quietly in his study next to the Oval Office. He was dressed in a casual shirt and slacks and wearing only a pair of sandals, having been awakened shortly after going to bed with news of the terrible blast in Tirane. His bank of television monitors w ere tuned to various world news channels, but he had the sound muted on all of them and was listening to his Cabinet officials feeding him reports as they came in, staring not at the televisions but at a spot on the wall, staring intently as if he could see for himself the horror unfolding thousands of miles away.
“Sir, the situation is getting worse by the minute,” Morgan said urgently. “The German government has ordered troops bivouacked in three Albanian port cities to move eastward toward the capital—the number of troops deploying into the capital Tirane is estimated so far to top three thousand. An estimated five thousand Russian troops are moving from outlying camps in Serbia and Macedonia into the cities and are setting up so-called security checkpoints—it looks like an occupation.”
“They're overreacting.” Thom said in a low voice. Secretary of Defense Robert Goff looked at the President with a surprised look on his face, as if Thom had just grown donkey’s ears. Was that a trace of hesitation, maybe even doubt. in Thom’s voice? “I need facts, Doug, not speculation or newspaper hyperbole. If it’s an invasion force, tell me so. If it’s a redeployment of troops in response to a major terrorist incident, tell me that.”
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