by Dale Brown
Perched on the bow, Lieutenant Sergei Rozonov stared into the darkness as the inflatable boat rose and fell, cresting long Atlantic rollers. If his navigation calculations were even reasonably accurate, he should be able to see their target soon.
There! Something, a fleck of brighter green against the green-tinged sky produced by his night-vision goggles, flickered on the horizon almost dead ahead. The tiny shape vanished again as their boat slid back down into a trough between waves. But when it came back into view, the image was clearer, more distinct. He was seeing the sails of a large yacht running down toward them on a gentle breeze.
Rozonov looked back at the coxswain manning the tiller. Slowly, he flapped his hand twice.
The petty officer nodded and reduced his throttle sharply. Their speed dropped. So did the noise from their fifty-five-horsepower outboard motor and its pump-jet propulsor. Approaching from upwind like this should make it impossible for anyone aboard the yacht to hear them coming, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.
Rozonov swung around again. The ketch’s towering masts and slender hull were plainly visible now. They grew larger with astonishing speed as the two craft converged. Minutes passed with no sound other than the periodic slap of waves on their boat’s rubber hull and the low, throaty growl of its throttled-back engine.
The Spetsnaz lieutenant tensed. Any moment now. There was still no sign that they’d been spotted by anyone aboard the yacht. The two men on watch were either engrossed in keeping an eye on their rigging or, just as likely, dozing comfortably in the cockpit.
One hundred meters to go. Fifty meters. Now! Rozonov pumped his fist rapidly three times.
Behind him, the coxswain swung his tiller across. Their assault boat turned smoothly through a tight half circle, sliding in right alongside the big yacht. Quickly, one of the Russian commandos hooked on to its guardrail.
Moving fast, Rozonov slithered up onto the deck and crouched low. They were tied up close beside the main deckhouse. No lights were showing. He unslung his carbine. One by one, the rest of his men swarmed silently aboard.
Rapid hand signals sent two of them forward toward the bow. The other four followed him aft. The yacht’s carbon-fiber masts and enormous Dacron sails soared above them.
Gliding soundlessly around the corner of the deckhouse, Rozonov tucked the stock of the Groza-4 carbine securely against his shoulder. The main cockpit was just ahead. Through his night-vision goggles, he could see one crewman peering down at the navigation console and electronic sail controls next to the helm. Another sailor lounged on one of the L-shaped sofas fitted around the edges of the cockpit. He sipped appreciatively at a steaming cup of coffee.
Without hesitating, Rozonov opened fire. His silenced carbine stuttered.
Hit by multiple 9mm subsonic rounds at close range, the helmsman spun away in a gruesome cloud of blood and shattered bone. His coffee-drinking companion slumped back against the bullet-torn sofa, shot through the chest and stomach.
The Spetsnaz lieutenant dropped lightly into the cockpit and spun toward the nearest companionway. It was open.
Catlike, he drifted down a short set of stairs into the main deckhouse. His commandos followed close behind him. They fanned out across the large darkened room. A long teak dining table ran down the middle, with plush sofas and armchairs in the corners.
Rozonov took just a moment to compare what he saw with the deck plans he’d memorized earlier. Two more doors opened into the immaculately furnished room. One led forward into the yacht’s crew quarters. The other passage ran aft, toward the owner’s cabin and guest quarters.
He nodded to his men and then jerked a thumb at the forward passage. “Net zaklyuchennykh. No prisoners,” he mouthed.
They slipped silently through the door one by one and disappeared into darkness. Almost immediately, he heard wood splinter as they started kicking in doors. Silenced carbines cracked briefly, echoed by muffled groans and cries from dying sailors and servants.
Without waiting any longer, Rozonov charged aft.
He ran down a short hallway, broke through an oak-paneled door, and burst into a dimly lit and comfortably appointed stateroom. Bookcases lined the curving wall around a king-sized bed. There, an older man, big and gray-haired, sat bolt upright among the tangled blankets, blinking in surprise.
“Just who the fuck are you?” the old man growled.
“No one you will ever know, Mr. Regan,” Rozonov replied. Then he squeezed the trigger, holding the assault carbine firmly on target as it bucked back against his shoulder.
Hit repeatedly, the billionaire sagged back against his torn, bloodstained pillows. White-faced, he struggled to breathe for a few seconds, shuddered once, and then died.
Rozonov turned away.
His senior sergeant met him in the corridor. “The yacht is secure, sir. Everyone aboard has been eliminated.”
“Excellent work, Yenin,” Rozonov said. “Make sure all the bodies are weighted down before you dump them into the sea. Moscow doesn’t want anyone finding bullet-riddled corpses drifting on the wind and waves.”
The sergeant shot him a twisted grin. “Well, that would sort of spoil the mystery of the thing, wouldn’t it, Lieutenant?”
An hour later, the Spetsnaz team clambered back onto their rigid inflatable boat and cast off. They motored off to a safe distance and turned to parallel the now-deserted yacht as it glided downwind.
Rozonov glanced down at his waterproof watch. “Ten seconds,” he murmured. “Five seconds. Four. Three. Two . . .”
WHUMMP. WHUMMP. WHUMMP.
The scuttling charges they’d placed in the bilge detonated one after another—ripping enormous holes in the yacht’s hull from stem to stern. Slowly at first and then faster, the vessel, with its sails still set, slid lower in the water. Within minutes, it vanished beneath the waves, plunging down and down into the lightless depths of the abyss.
Rozonov nodded in satisfaction. President Gryzlov would be pleased. Except for a few small bits and pieces of unidentifiable wreckage bobbing on the waves, nothing remained to explain the disappearance of Francis Xavier Regan.
One
The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.
—Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
IRON WOLF SQUADRON ASSAULT FORCE, MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION
SPRING 2020
Moscow was burning.
Fires glowed orange-red around the horizon in all directions. Each blaze showed where long-range standoff weapons launched by Polish and Iron Wolf fighter-bombers and drones had slammed home—obliterating Russian surface-to-air missile batteries, military airfields, air defense radars, and command posts.
Sun-bright flashes rippled across the night sky, lighting up a spaghetti-like tangle of wildly corkscrewing smoke trails left by missiles. Blinded by the loss of most of their radars and by waves of electronic jamming and decoys, the city’s surviving air defense units were shooting almost at random, hoping to score lucky hits. It was all they had left to fend off any airborne attackers slashing in to strike Moscow’s center of political and military power, the Kremlin.
But the Russians were too late. Their enemies were already on the ground, well inside their outer defenses.
Vozdvizhenka Street ran almost due west toward the tall red-brick walls and towers surrounding the Kremlin. On one side of the street, three- and four-story buildings housed a mix of cafés, restaurants, shops, and government offices. A wing of the huge Russian State Library ran along the other.
Now wreckage and rubble blocked most of the street. Oily pillars of black smoke curled lazily away from mangled police cars and BTR-82 armored personnel carriers. Bodies were strewn across the cratered pavement. Flames danced eerily inside darkened buildings blown open by high-explosive rounds.
Nothing seemed to be moving.
And then a twelve-foot-tall humanlike machine emerged from the billowing smo
ke—moving with terrible, almost predatory swiftness. Two arms carried weapons, a 25mm autocannon and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher. More equipment and weapons packs were attached to its long, broad-shouldered torso. A six-sided head studded with sensor panels swiveled intently from side to side, carefully scanning the surrounding streets and buildings.
It was a Cybernetic Infantry Device—a human-piloted combat robot. First developed by a U.S. Army research lab years before, every CID carried more firepower than a conventionally equipped infantry platoon. Protected by highly resistant composite armor, its powered exoskeleton was faster and stronger than any ten men combined. A special haptic interface translated its pilot’s smallest gestures into motion by the exoskeleton, allowing the robot to move with eerie precision and agility.
Very few Russians ever saw a CID up close and most who did died within seconds.
Inside the robot’s cockpit, Brad McLanahan concentrated intently, allowing data gathered by a wide array of passive and active sensors to pour into his mind through a neural link with the CID’s sophisticated computer systems. Red targeting indicators blinked into existence across his displays. Each identified an enemy infantry squad or heavy-weapons team frantically deploying along his axis of advance. They were taking up concealed positions inside buildings, planning to ambush him with machine-gun fire and RPGs as he charged past.
Sorry guys, he thought, you can’t run and you can’t hide. Not from me. The direct link with his sensors, coupled with advanced computer analysis, gave him astonishing situational awareness. It was like being gifted with a god’s-eye view of the world.
With difficulty, Brad fought down a sudden sense of wild, inhuman glee. Piloting one of these Iron Wolf Squadron combat robots was an incredible thrill ride. You couldn’t help feeling an almost godlike rush of power, perception, and speed. But that way lay madness . . . and death.
CIDs were tough . . . but they weren’t invincible. Some of his friends had found that out the hard way.
C’mon, McLanahan, get your head back in the game, Brad growled to himself. The Russian soldiers scurrying across his path to the Kremlin were off balance, shocked by this sudden attack and their horrendous losses. They were ready to break. But going in half-cocked was just a way to get killed.
“Wolf One to Wolf Six and Wolf Two,” he said aloud, opening a secure channel to the other Iron Wolf Squadron war machines committed to this operation. “I’m roughly four hundred meters from the ramp to the Troitskaya Tower gate. Standing by.”
“Six copies,” the laconic voice of Colonel Wayne “Whack” Macomber answered through his headphones. “I’ve got the right flank.”
“Two copies, Wolf One. I am in position to guard your left flank,” a clear, crisp female voice said a heartbeat later. “Submit we stop pissing around and finish this before the Russians fully wake up. Even they will not run around like idiots forever.”
Brad couldn’t help smiling. In combat, Major Nadia Rozek was tough, fearless, and intensely focused. Off duty and out of uniform, she was astonishingly passionate. But no matter where she was, the beautiful, dark-haired Polish special forces officer was a force of nature. When she made up her mind to do something, you either sided with her or you got the hell out of her way. There were no other choices.
“You heard the major, McLanahan,” Macomber murmured.
“Loud and clear, Whack,” Brad agreed. Mentally, he commanded his CID’s battle computer to assign priorities to every Russian defensive position its sensors had identified—ranking them by the danger they represented. In seconds, its software finished work that would have taken a human staff officer minutes. His targeting indicators changed color and shape to match those priorities.
He took a deep breath, getting centered. “Attacking now!”
Without waiting for a response, Brad sprinted up the street—speeding up with every long-legged stride. Dodging around a wrecked personnel carrier, he opened fire on the move. Rounds from his autocannon hammered an upper-floor window ahead, killing a lurking Russian RPG team. Shards of shattered stone and broken glass spilled onto the pavement.
Another icon blinked insistently at the edge of his vision, highlighting a darkened doorway. 12.7mm heavy-machine-gun team, the CID reported. Threat level high.
No shit, Brad thought. Rounds from that Russian MG might not penetrate his armor, but they could definitely damage or destroy his sensors and other equipment. Instantly, he swiveled the robot’s torso and fired a 40mm high-explosive grenade into the opening. It went off with a dazzling flash.
The threat icon disappeared.
Still shooting on the run, he dashed across Mokhovaya Street, hurtled over a row of stubby metal pillars designed to block traffic, and landed in a wide stone-paved plaza. The Kutafya Tower rose ahead. This barbican was the Kremlin’s main public entrance. Past its wrought-iron gates, a gently inclined ramp sloped up to the tall, spired Troitskaya Tower. To the right, treetops rose above a guardrail at the plaza’s edge. That was the Alexandrovsky Garden, a narrow tree-lined stretch of walkways, flower gardens, and lawns occupying what had once been a moat around the old fortress.
“Armored vehicles approaching,” he heard Nadia Rozek report coolly. “T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks. I am engaging.”
CCRRACK! CCRRACK! CCRRACK!
The sky on Brad’s left lit up as she opened fire with her electromagnetic rail gun, flaring bright white with every shot. Propelled at Mach 5, small superdense metal projectiles punched into the enemy tanks and tore right through their armor. One by one, wrecked T-90s and T-72s slewed across the road and shuddered to a stop, spewing smoke and flame.
“Targets destroyed,” Nadia said. “My camouflage worked perfectly. The Russians never saw me.”
Brad nodded in satisfaction. In a brutal, close-quarters urban fight like this, every edge counted. When stationary or moving slowly, the advanced camouflage systems carried by their Sky Masters Aerospace–built Mod IV CIDs rendered them almost invisible to enemy IR sensors and even to the naked eye.
Hundreds of small, hexagonal thermal adaptive tiles overlaid each robot’s armored “skin”—tiles that could change temperature with extraordinary rapidity. Computers could adjust them to mimic the heat signatures of trees, buildings, and other vehicles. In turn, paper-thin electrochromatic plates covered these thermal tiles. Tiny voltage changes could alter the mix of colors displayed by each plate, giving the CID a chameleon-like ability to blend in with its environment. But both camouflage systems lost effectiveness and drained too much power if they were used when moving at high speed.
Like he was now.
Brad charged ahead, shooting up a glass-walled building used for security screening. The Russian soldiers who’d been firing back at him from inside were hurled backward, either blown apart by 25mm autocannon rounds or cut to ribbons by flying glass.
Flashes winked at him from open arches below the Troitskaya Tower’s spire. Rifle bullets thwacked into his CID’s torso, shattering a couple of its thermal tiles. He spun away and ducked into cover behind the ruins of the security building.
“Drone imagery and scans downlinked,” Macomber radioed. “Looks like the bastards are reacting as expected.”
Brad saw new data relayed through his neural interface appear on his displays. Their Iron Wolf assault team had half a dozen small and very stealthy drones orbiting high over the Kremlin—acting as their eyes and ears beyond the reach of their CIDs’ sensors.
At a glance, he could see that the colonel was right. Most of the Kremlin’s elite guard infantry platoons and armored vehicles were deploying to protect the walled compound’s gates. Anyone trying to breach those entrances would be met by a hail of antitank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and 125mm tank cannon fire. Not even the composite armor on their CIDs would hold up against that kind of firepower.
Which was exactly why Brad had never planned to conduct a real attack on the gates.
With a wolfish grin, he darted away from the Kutafya
Tower, swung over the iron railing, and dropped lightly into the tree-lined expanse of the Alexandrovsky Garden. The Russians had bought his feint. Now it was time to show them why they should have been thinking vertically instead.
Brad sprinted south, paralleling the Kremlin wall rising beyond the trees. An antitank missile streaked after him, impacted against the trunk of a lime tree, and blew up. He dodged away and kept running.
Preset targeting icons appeared on the massive redbrick wall. “Engaging Spider-Man protocol,” he said wryly. He raised his autocannon, quickly checking to make sure he had armor-piercing rounds loaded. Then he skidded to a stop and opened fire.
WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.
Broken bits of pulverized brick exploded away from the wall. Ragged craters appeared at precisely calculated intervals, rising from near the bottom all the way to the top. Since the Kremlin’s ancient defense barrier ranged between eleven and twenty-one feet thick, none of the rounds penetrated all the way through.
But that’s not the point, now, is it? Brad thought with a silent laugh. Swiftly, he slid the autocannon and grenade launcher back into his weapons pack, flexed the fingers of the CID’s hands, and then started climbing the wall—pulling himself up fast using the craters he’d just blown in the brickwork as handholds.
He reached the battlements and scrambled onto a wide walkway used by guards to patrol the wall. There, he met a disheveled-looking soldier hurrying toward the distant Troitskaya Tower. The Russian was frantically trying to squirm into a bulky set of body armor.
