Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09

by Warrior Class (v1. 1)

  “It’s a major redeployment of troops, obviously in a defensive response to the explosion in Tirane, that can easily escalate into an invasion force.” Morgan narrowed his eyes to emphasize his last point: “And that’s not some newspaper’s assessment, sir. that's mine."

  “Thank you. Doug,” the President said, not seeming to notice Morgan’s emphatic response but with a touch of apology in his voice nonetheless. “Any more details about this air raid warning that was issued moments before the blast?”

  “No information about that, sir,” Morgan said. “The Albanian Ministry of Defense claims the Interior Ministry ordered them to blow the horn to try to disperse the protesters. There is no word from the Transportation Ministry on whether or not there was an unidentified aircraft over the capital. Russian or German radar stations claim they were not tracking any unidentified aircraft.”

  “So there could have been an unidentified aircraft—only no one is admitting that one got by them,” Secretary of Defense Robert Goff observed.

  “What other forces are mobilizing?” the President asked.

  “German forces in Albania; Russian forces in Serbia and Macedonia. Any troops on the move in Russia? In the Commonwealth states? Any Russian naval forces moving? Any Russian or German tactical air forces?”

  Morgan shook his head, glanced quickly at his briefing notes to double-check, then shook his head. “No, sir. Only tactical airlift and sealift units, and they look like routine support missions.”

  “I would think that an ‘occupation’ force would need a lot of support units set in motion fairly quickly for an occupation of an entire capital city to be successful,” the President observed. “And few successful occupation forces leap into action from a standing start. I don’t see an invasion happening yet.”

  “Not that we could do anything about it if it was happening!” Goff commented.

  “Perhaps not,” the President said, with only a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “I can’t believe we are going to sit here and do nothing!” Goff said. “Shouldn’t we be calling the German chancellor and the Russian president, warning them that their actions resemble an occupation force and that we object to such a move? Shouldn’t we be calling the Italians or the Bosnians or our NATO allies, reassuring them that we’re at least monitoring the situation and perhaps discussing some options?”

  “I’m sure they know that we are doing and thinking all those things,” the President said easily. “Besides, actions speak louder than words. Even watching and waiting is doing something.”

  “Not in my book, it isn’t,” Goff said under his breath.

  “What would you have me do. Robert?” the President snapped. “Tell me right now: what forces would you like to commit? We have two Marine Expeditionary Units nearby in the Med and in the Adriatic Sea, plus one aircraft carrier battle group in the Aegean Sea. We have two B-1B bomber squadrons on alert in Georgia and two B-2A stealth bomber squadrons ready to go with conventional bombs and cruise missiles in Missouri, plus one air expeditionary wing in South Carolina ready to deploy if needed. That’s about twenty-five thousand men and women, fourteen warships, and perhaps one hundred combat aircraft we can have over the Balkans in eight hours, and perhaps double that number in twelve hours. Do you have a target for me, Robert? What's the mission? What do you want to blow up now?”

  “I don't want to blow up anything, sir—I just want to make it clear to Sen'kov, Keisinger, Zhurbenko, and all those other nutcases that we don't like what they're doing and we are ready to act if they persist!” Goff replied. “In case they interpret our silence as disinterest or even as tacit acceptance or permission. I want it clearly and emphatically known that we will tolerate no offensive moves in Europe, no matter what the provocation.”

  “I think it’s you that needs to be told,” the President said. “Robert, I'm telling you now—don’t you interpret my so-called inaction as tacit permission or disinterest. But I am not going to respond to the threat of war with a threat of my own.” He went over and clasped Goff on the shoulder. “Robert, you seem to think there’s someone out there that needs to get slapped down. I’m here to tell you: there isn’t. Let it go.” He could tell that there was a lot that his friend still needed to say, so he took away the reassuring tone in his voice and said, “Go home, Robert,” and it was an order, not a suggestion.

  Goff took a step closer to the President and asked, “Is that what you told President Martindale during your little meeting with him? ‘Just go home'? Or did you tell him or help him do something else?”

  If Goff expected the President to be surprised that he knew about the private meeting, he didn't show it. “That’s exactly what I told him, Robert—whatever he wants to do, whatever ideas he has. forget about them,” the President replied. “He is not the president any longer. He does not run U.S. foreign or military policy—I do. He’s a private citizen now, subject to all laws, with no special protections or considerations because of his previous position.”

  “Then why did you keep the meeting secret from me?”

  “Because it was between him and me,” Thorn said. “It was one president talking with another. If I couldn’t convince him to stay out of it, without the rest of my Cabinet behind me, it was my failure.” Goff looked skeptical. The President gave his friend a slight, knowing smile, then said, “Maybe the same reason you didn't tell me you met with him.” Goff’s mouth dropped open in complete surprise, then bobbed up and down like a freshly caught trout. “How did I know? You told me—not in words, but in your eyes, your mannerisms. I know you, Robert, just like you know me. The problem is, you know me so well you think you can reason with me, change my mind. You can’t. I know you so well, I know Martindale approached you— and I know you turned him down.”

  Goff couldn’t hide his amazement, but he couldn't help toying with Thom anyway—he was so infuriatingly confident, Goff actually wanted to try to get his friend mad at him any way he could, just to get a rise out of him. “You’re sure of that? You're sure I turned him down, Thomas?”

  “Fairly sure,” the President said. “What Martindale wants to do is bold and exciting and challenging and risky, and it’s what you want to do. Problem is, it’s also illegal, and you know it, and you will not break the law. That's why you’re trying so hard to convince me to do something—because if I don’t do it, Martindale might, and if he does, he will probably fail, and then the United States looks even more like an inept failure. Whatever’s going to happen, Robert, will happen. I'm not going to add to the confusion and fear. We let it play out. So go home, my friend. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Both Morgan and Goff exited the study, leaving the President alone with his thoughts—and his secret fears.

  Over the Black Sea

  That same time

  The attack on the German embassy in Tirane went off with surprising precision and flawless execution—even Pyotr Fursenko, who had enormous trust in his constructs, was as pleased as he was surprised. It went off so well and so quickly that he had little time to prepare for the second part of their dangerous mission.

  Gennadi Yegorov was the quiet, unexcitable captain of their pickup strike team. Even with the constant threat of Pavel Kazakov and his demonic anger hovering around them, Yegorov took his time, refamiliarizing himself with the forward cockpit and explaining several key pieces of information to Fursenko—he was mindful of the fact that although Fursenko had designed and built the plane, he had never flown in it or any other aircraft before. Yegorov got Kazakov to agree to an extra day to prepare, and it was time well spent. By the time they were ready to launch. Fursenko felt confident he could play the role of Yegorov’s assistant and flip the right switches at the proper time.

  If not. and their mission ended in failure, he felt very confident he could punch them both out of the aircraft.

  It was without a doubt the biggest warload the Metyor-179 had ever earned: a pylon with one R-60 air-to-air missile and one Kh 73 laser-gui
ded one-thousand-kilogram bomb under each w ing, two Kh-73 bombs in the internal weapons bay, and four R-60 missiles in the internal wing launchers for emergency use only. The R 60s on the wing pylons were a last- minute suggestion from Yegorov. His logic was simple: the Tyenee was most vulnerable with the two big bombs on those pylons, so why not carry some extra insurance? When the external bombs were expended or if they got jumped before the target area, they could use the two extra missiles to fight their way out. jettison the bombs and pylons, and use their stealthiness to get away. It turns out they were not needed, but Yegorov proved he was definitely in charge of this mission and this aircraft

  The navigation system was as tight and as accurate as could be during the short flight from Codlea to Tirane. The radar warning receiver bleeped during most of the flight, especially near the Macedonian and Albanian capitals, but no fighters or antiaircraft weapon systems ever appeared to challenge them. Yegorov had made Fursenko some drawings of what the German embassy might look like in the targeting display, in case he had to refine the aim, but the targeting box was right on the correct building all the way, so Fursenko didn’t have to touch a thing except to be sure the weapon arming and release switches were in the proper setting for the bomb run, which of course he could do with his eyes closed—after all, he'd designed and positioned each and every one of them, and he knew to the smallest detail exactly what had to happen to get a successful weapon release.

  But Fursenko did not have his eyes closed—and he saw everything, including the thousands of persons filling the streets near the German embassy. One one-thousand-kilo bomb was certainly enough to destroy the small embassy building. The second weapon was targeted on the very same point, but actually impacted several meters short—right into the crowded street in the midst of the protesters. When the first bomb hit the German embassy, and as the impossibly bright cloud of fire blossomed across the screen, Fursenko thought he could see the people as individuals, could see the shock wave hit them first, knocking down their signs, blowing tons of debris toward them in the blink of an eye, and w hisking their heads back just milliseconds before the wall of heat and concrete washed over them. Then the laser targeting system automatically flipped to a wide bomb damage assessment shot of the target area, so Fursenko could not see any more details except for the second bomb falling short and adding its fury to the first.

  But he knew there was going to be death down there. They had only targeted buildings, sure—but Kazakov must’ve known that those protesters were going to be there. He could’ve waited a few hours until the streets were clear, but he didn’t. He could’ve targeted another building, or picked some other target to make his point and cause a distraction, but he hadn’t. He’d deliberately chosen this target because of the number of people that would be in the path of that blast.

  It was true: Pavel Kazakov was a murderous monster. He would order the deaths of thousands just to cover his tracks as easily and as casually as he’d order Cornish game hen from a restaurant menu.

  “How are you doing back there, Doctor?” Gennadi Yegorov asked.

  “All right,” Fursenko asked. “And call me Pyotr, please.”

  “I will. And call me Gennadi.”

  They fell silent for a few moments; then: “I was thinking ...”

  “Yes, Pyotr?”

  “I was thinking about how coldly Comrade Kazakov can kill a person,” Fursenko said. “Human life means absolutely nothing to him.”

  “It certainly adds a new dynamic to our business, doesn't it?” Yegorov said with casual, dark humor. “Just too many ways to die.”

  Fursenko dropped his mask, afraid he might hyperventilate. He looked at Yegorov's eyes in the rearview mirror, then raised his oxygen mask and spoke into its microphone: “He will not let us live if we return. You know that, don't you?”

  “Ion was falling apart. Pyotr,” Yegorov said. “He couldn't handle the task. He was getting bored and making mistakes.”

  “But Kazakov shot him four times in the head, as easily as ... as cutting open a melon for breakfast,” Fursenko pointed out.

  “Pyotr, forget about Stoica. He was a drunk and an idiot.”

  “As soon as he's done with us, he'll discard us, the Metyor-179, and everyone working out there in Codlea. He'll kill us all, just as easily as he killed Stoica and those soldiers in Bulgaria.”

  “Pyotr, you agreed to work for the man,” Yegorov pointed out. “You did it voluntarily, same as I. We both knew who he was and what he wanted long before we agreed to work for him. After we shot down that unarmed AWACS plane, we took his money. After we killed those people in Kukes, we took his money. After he killed those soldiers in Bulgaria, we took his money. We're heartless butchers, just like he is. What do you want to do now? Fly away? Try to run and hide?”

  “How about we save ourselves?”

  “Then you had better find a way to make sure he’s dead,” Yegorov said. “Because if he's alive and you cross him, he'll find you and devise some ugly, horrible way to kill you. He did Stoica a favor by killing him quickly.”

  “Should we ask the West for protection?”

  “The West would want us to testify as witnesses against Kazakov, and then our lives would be worthless,” Yegorov said. “We're co-conspirators with him now, Pyotr, can't you understand that? We’re his hired killers. Just because you’re a scientist and not a pilot or gunman doesn't absolve you from guilt. If we testify against Kazakov, we'd be put in prison ourselves, and then we'd be targets for his worldwide network of assassins. If we're put into a witness protection program, our lives would be at the mercy of some government bureaucrat— no guarantee we’d be safe from Pavel Kazakov No. We have a job to do, you and I. Let's do it."

  “Are you crazy, or just blind?" Fursenko asked incredulously. “Can't you see what’s happening? Kazakov is a killer. Once he's done with us. we're dead. He'll have his billions, and we'll be dead."

  “Doctor, to my knowledge, no one in Kazakov’s employ has ever been killed without good reason—they were killed either for disloyalty or incompetence,” Yegorov said. “Kazakov is generous and loyal to those who are loyal to him. I told you before, Ion was unstable, unreliable, and taking unnecessary risks. He was a danger to Kazakov's organization, and he had to he eliminated. Ion was my friend and longtime colleague, but under the circumstances, I agree with Comrade Kazakov—he had to be eliminated. And if there was any other way Ion could have been retired without blabbing his drunken mouth off to the world about what we'd done, I'd be angry about how he died. But he brought it on himself.

  “I will not let that happen to us," Yegorov said, impaling Fursenko with a stem gaze through the rearview mirror. “We are going to accomplish this mission successfully, and then return home, and get ready to fly and fight again. If we did any less, we'd deserve to die ourselves.”

  There was simply no arguing with Gennadi Yegorov. Fursenko was stunned. This intelligent, soft-spoken pilot and engineer had turned into some kind of mindless killing machine. Was it the money? The power? The thrill of the hunt and the kill? Whatever it was, Yegorov was not going to be deterred.

  There was no more time to think about it, because the last target complex was coming up. Yegorov had Fursenko configure the release switches and pre-arm the last two remaining Kh-73 laser-guided bombs several minutes before the bomb- run initial point. His trigger was hot. Once IP inbound, Fursenko extended the imaging infrared scanner and laser designator and began searching for the last set of targets.

  It was easy to find—because the Metyorgaz oil tanker Ustinov was one of the world's largest vessels. Surrounded by Turkish military vessels and a second tanker, to which the last five hundred thousand barrels of oil left in its holds w as being transferred, the cluster of ships made a very inviting target.

  “There’s the Ustinov,” Yegorov said, as he looked carefully into his targeting monitor. “The navigation system is dead on. just like over Tirane. Remember, we release on the Ustinov first. We'll probably lose
it in the fireball, but we have to keep aiming as long as we can. If we miss the Ustinov we’ll drop the second Kh-73 on it. If we hit the first time, we’ll shift aim to either the Turkish tanker or that big Turkish frigate nearby.” He actually laughed. "This’ll teach the Turks to take something that doesn’t belong to them! Get ready, Doctor.”

  The bomb run was short and quick. There were enemy air craft nearby, but they were patrolling farther north and east, probably to protect against any attack aircraft coming from Russia. The Turkish frigate was scanning the skies with its air search radar, but with the external pylons jettisoned long ago, the Mt-179 was too stealthy to be picked up by it. By the time it flew close enough to be detected, the bombs would already be in the air One bomb would certainly be enough to send the Ustinov to the bottom, and the explosion would probably destroy the Turkish tanker and severely damage any nearby vessels, too—the second bomb would ensure complete and total devastation. Half the oil from the Ustinov was already offloaded, but spilling half a million barrels of crude oil into the Black Sea would certainly qualify as the world’s biggest oil spill, more than double the size of the enormous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. Alaska.

  The white computer targeting square was dead on the tanker. Yegorov had Fursenko move the pipper slightly so it centered on the very center of the middle hold, the structurally weakest point on the upper deck and also one of the empty holds. The bomb detonating inside an empty hold would ignite the petroleum vapors and quadruple the size of the blast, which would certainly rip the tanker into pieces and create the enormous spill they wanted. Yegorov had already had Fursenko set up the secondary target pipper on the Turkish frigate, although he wouldn't switch targeting away from the Ustinov until they were sure it was holed.

  Switches configured, final release checks accomplished. Fursenko opened the inwardly-opening bomb doors, and the first Kh-73 bomb dropped into space. “Bomb doors closed! Laser on!'’ Yegorov commanded. Fursenko activated the laser designator and received a good steering signal from the weapon. “Data good, laser off.” They only needed to turn the laser on for a few seconds after release to give the bomb its initial course, then for ten seconds before impact to give it its terminal steering. The pipper stayed locked on target. Everything was going perfectly, just like Tirane. Everything was—