The Moscow Offensive

by Dale Brown

  His tactical display showed four more KVMs following him toward the brightly lit F-35 assembly plant up ahead. The icon representing Major Zelin’s machine moved at right angles, closing in on the National Guard armory he’d been ordered to destroy. Flashes lit the sky to the south as the former Su-34 pilot started firing antitank missiles into buildings at close range.

  Baryshev broke past the shattered American roadblock’s jumble of burning vehicles and dead men and kept going. He bounded high in the air, clearing two fences topped with razor wire, and thudded down on a low berm in a spray of torn earth and grass. Still on the move, he slung his autocannon and rearmed with one of the three Israeli-made Spike antitank missiles he carried. Thanks to his neural interface, he was aware of everything going on in all directions. Behind him, the four other KVMs assigned to this part of the mission fanned out across the assembly-plant complex.

  As he crested the shallow berm, he saw a startled security guard come running around the corner of a nearby building. The heavyset American skidded to a halt when he saw the tall gray war robot lunging toward him out of the darkness. His mouth fell open in horror. Without pausing, Baryshev swatted him away in a grisly fog of splintered bone and blood.

  The Russian laughed aloud, seized suddenly by the feeling of being a god striding majestically through a sea of confusion and panic among mere mortals—dealing out death and destruction with every step. Through his radio links, he could hear Imrekov, Zelin, and the others echoing his jubilant shouts.

  ATGM targets selected, his computer reported calmly. New aim points appeared before Baryshev’s eyes. Without thinking, he fired at the closest. The small missile streaked low across the ground, slammed into the long aircraft assembly building, and punched through its thin steel wall. The missile’s high-explosive fragmentation warhead exploded deep inside. Flames boiled back out through the ragged hole it had torn. Through his robot’s hyperacute audio pickups, he could hear screams and shrieks echoing from inside the building.

  F-35 assembly station severely damaged, the KVM’s battle computer judged.

  More explosions erupted down the length of the huge structure as the rest of his force opened fire using their own shoulder-launched antitank missiles. The high-pitched yells of the American technicians and engineers trapped inside amid a hail of fire and shrapnel were continuous now, creating an uncanny, discordant symphony of agony and terror that he found electrifying.

  Baryshev dropped the smoking launch tube and yanked a fresh weapon from one of his weapons packs. Exultantly, he aimed and fired a second time. And then again, using his last missile.

  Discarding the launch tube, he drew his autocannon. Loading preselected mix of armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition, the computer said calmly. Sighting along the torn and smoking building, he squeezed the trigger and fired repeatedly—sending 30mm round after round ripping through the battered structure.

  WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.

  Razor-edged steel fragments whistled away through the night air. More flashes erupted inside the assembly plant, followed by billowing clouds of gray-and-black smoke. Hot spots bloomed in his thermal sensors, each showing a new fire ignited amid the heaps of debris strewn across a formerly pristine factory floor.

  Baryshev’s autocannon fell silent. All ammunition expended, his computer reported. Mission damage parameters achieved. Recommend immediate tactical withdrawal.

  For a split second, he felt the urge to press on, using his KVM’s powerful metal hands to tear open the F-35 assembly plant’s walls and continue his rampage. But then, reluctantly, he allowed reason to regain its grip over his mind. “Specter Lead to all Specter units,” he radioed. “It’s time to go. Withdraw to rally point Alpha. Repeat, head for rally point Alpha.”

  One by one, the other pilots acknowledged. Baryshev could hear the strain in their voices, as if they, too, were fighting the temptation to override his orders and continue their killing spree. But like the disciplined warriors they were, they obeyed.

  He took one last look at the shattered building. Flames crackled in dozens of places now, feeding on paint, splintered wood, and superheated carbon-fiber fragments. He grinned triumphantly. Between the evident damage to expensive, virtually irreplaceable machinery and the terrible losses they’d inflicted on the plant’s skilled workforce, it was clear that America’s F-35 stealth-fighter production line would be out of commission for many months.

  Laughing again, Baryshev turned and sprinted away into the darkness.

  By the time the Americans could organize any kind of effective pursuit or search, he and his robots would be safely hidden again . . . concealed in the Dallas FXR Trucking warehouse right under their noses. And then, once the heat died down, Aristov and his men could ferry them on to their next assigned objective.

  Twenty-Five

  STRATEGIC COMMAND BUNKER, WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE

  A FEW HOURS LATER

  National Security Adviser Edward Rauch tugged at his tie, loosening it while he clicked through to the next image in his situation update. His forehead and palms felt damp. Despite a climate-control system that continuously recirculated air scrubbed of all possible radioactive, chemical, or biological contaminants, the atmosphere in the lower-level briefing room tasted stale and felt unpleasantly warm. And while it might only be his imagination, he could swear that he could smell the stomach-churning traces of lubricating oils and acrid cleaning solvents wafting sporadically out of the bunker’s air vents.

  Or, it might just be that I hate being the bearer of never-ending bad tidings, he thought gloomily, seeing the look of barely suppressed fury on President Stacy Anne Barbeau’s face. Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, she seemed on the verge of snarling, “Off with his head!” For the thousandth time since joining her administration, he wondered what had possessed him to yield so easily to ambition. It was one thing to write learned papers about the ins and outs of high-level statecraft and national security policy. It was quite another to learn, from harsh personal experience, that serving in the White House—at least under this president—meant stumbling through a maze of narrow political calculations and even more narrow-minded bureaucratic rivalries.

  “Jesus,” Barbeau said softly, staring up at the picture he’d selected.

  Taken only hours after the terrorist attack, it showed the interior of U.S. Air Force Plant 4. Scorched and melted heaps of wreckage were only barely recognizable as the remains of F-35 Lightning II fuselages, tail assemblies, and wings. The vast assembly floor was a jumble of mangled machinery, equipment hoists, ladders, and work platforms. Tarp-covered bodies were strewn in every direction.

  With obvious difficulty, she turned her gaze away from the image of so much death and destruction. “Is this as bad as it looks?”

  Rauch nodded. “Every single one of the sixteen F-35s that were being assembled is a total write-off. Even more wing and fuselage components that were waiting their turn on the line were destroyed. Of the aircraft assembly stations themselves, our best estimate is that more than half will have to be rebuilt from scratch. The rest suffered so much damage that it will take weeks, maybe months, before we can get them back into operation.”

  “Wonderful,” Barbeau muttered. Her jaw tightened. “How long will the Fort Worth plant be out of commission?”

  “At least four months.” Rauch sighed. “But that’s the contractor’s optimistic assessment. My personal bet is that it’ll require a lot more time to get that fighter assembly line up and running again. And ramping back up to full production will take even longer—at least another twelve to eighteen months.”

  Barbeau frowned. “Why so long? If it’s a question of money to buy and build more machinery and tools, we should be able to slide an emergency appropriation through Congress toot-sweet.”

  “It’s not just a question of replacing damaged or destroyed equipment,” Admiral Firestone explained. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked haggard. Like Rauch, he’d been up all night
trying to piece together more details about the attack. “In some ways, the horrible losses we took among the plant’s workforce are our biggest problem. The F-35 is an incredibly complex aircraft. Key components are manufactured by contractors in nine separate countries. Assembling each of these fifth-generation warplanes requires tens of thousands of hours of work by highly trained and skilled technicians.”

  Rauch nodded, grateful for the other man’s intercession. The president had an unfortunate habit of focusing her anger narrowly, trying to fix the blame for everything that went wrong on a single person or cause. Anything that spread her irritation more widely was welcome. “From the numbers I’ve seen, well over a thousand people inside that plant were killed or very badly wounded. That represents close to half of those who were on shift. Training that many replacement workers is going to require a tremendous investment of money and time.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And that’s not counting the skilled people we’re likely to lose going forward.”

  “Lose how?” Barbeau demanded.

  “We can expect a pretty big fraction of the workforce to walk away,” Rauch pointed out delicately. “Yes, these are good-paying jobs and the people there are deeply patriotic, but all the money and patriotism in the world aren’t enough to compensate for the risk of being killed or maimed in another attack by these terrorists and their war robots and missiles.”

  “Then we guarantee their damn safety!” Barbeau snapped. “Tell the commander down at Fort Hood that I want heavy armor from the First Cavalry Division deployed north. And have him rustle up some of the air defense units he’s got in the garrison there, too.”

  With obvious reluctance, Admiral Firestone shook his head. “Ringing what’s left of that aircraft plant with troops and tanks might reassure the surviving workers, Madam President. But it won’t solve our bigger problem. We can’t possibly station Army units around every defense industry facility and military base that might be a target for these terrorists.” He spread his hands apologetically. “We just don’t have enough troops or equipment. We’d have to reintroduce the draft and radically increase the size of the armed forces even to come close.”

  “I am getting awfully tired of you people telling me what cannot be done,” Barbeau said. There was a dangerous edge to her voice. “I think it’s high time I started hearing some solutions to this mess . . . instead of more pathetic hand-wringing.”

  Rauch winced. There was no doubt about it: she was sharpening up her ax. Hastily, he said, “There are two other F-35 assembly plants. One in Italy, at Cameri, northeast of Turin. The Italians are turning out F-35As and the short-takeoff/vertical-landing F-35B version for themselves and for the Dutch. And the Japanese have a plant at Nagoya to assemble their own fighters. As a stopgap measure, we could ask for the delivery of some of the production from those two factories to our own Air Force squadrons.”

  “No,” Barbeau said flatly. She scowled. “It’s bad enough that so many of my shortsighted predecessors farmed out so much of the production work for F-35 components to foreign companies. But I’ll be damned if I let the American people see me going begging, hat in hand, to the Europeans or the Japanese for a few spare fighters . . . fighters that we designed in the first place!”

  For “people” read “voters,” Rauch thought wearily. Somehow, the realization that the president would prefer to see the Air Force go without its own chosen top-of-the-line multirole fighter longer than necessary rather than risk her standing in the polls didn’t come as much of a shock as it should have.

  “What I want from you gentlemen is a plan to track down and destroy these terrorists before they hit us again,” Barbeau said acidly. “So far, everything I’ve heard here today is the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the goddamn Titanic.”

  In for a penny, in for a date with the headsman, Rauch decided. A few months ago he would have seen the prospect of being fired—especially for telling the truth—as the worst thing that could happen to him. Now that possibility was beginning to look considerably more appealing. “Unfortunately, we’re no closer to being able to formulate a plan to do so than we were yesterday, Madam President,” he said, not bothering to sugarcoat his assessment. “None of the police roadblocks thrown up around the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex have stopped any plausible suspects so far. Nor were any unidentified aircraft picked up on radar either before or after the attack. Without a better idea of just who we’re fighting and how they’re evading our efforts to find them, we are inherently limited to purely reactive and defensive measures.”

  To his surprise, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs nodded in agreement. “Dr. Rauch is quite correct. While these enemy war machines, the CIDs, are obviously dangerous opponents, I’m confident that our conventional forces—our armor, artillery, and airpower—could whip them in a stand-up fight. But to do that, we have to pin this enemy force down in a fixed location . . . or at least intercept them on the way to or from a target.”

  “The very fact that these damned machines keep appearing and disappearing so quickly and easily is a key piece of the evidence pointing straight at that bastard Martindale . . . or at least his Scion mercenaries,” Barbeau said through clenched teeth. “Thanks to those money-grubbing cretins at Sky Masters, they’re the ones with advanced stealth aircraft, remember?”

  Rauch saw no point in replying to that. Even if the president’s fixation on Scion was justified—and it was, at least as long as you only focused on known technological capabilities without considering rational motives—it didn’t get them any closer to figuring out a way to find their elusive enemies.

  Luke Cohen couldn’t stay quiet any longer. In a cracked and urgent voice, the White House chief of staff broke into the discussion. “For God’s sake, this is all just spinning our wheels here. We have to do something. And fast. Or we’re screwed.”

  Barbeau whipped around on him. “Oh, by all means, do feel free to give us the benefit of your wisdom, Luke,” she said with venom dripping from every word. “I’m sure Dr. Rauch, the admiral, and I have all missed some perfectly obvious course of action.”

  Helplessly, the lanky New Yorker shrugged. “I’m not saying that, Madam President. But we both know you pay me mostly to keep tabs on politics, right?”

  “Go on,” Barbeau said coldly. Her mantra had always been: Policy followed politics. If you were operating from a position of political strength, you could eventually shove through any piece of policy, whether good or bad. But if you were seen as politically damaged, you were finished . . . because Washington was a town that revered popularity and despised weakness.

  “Look, what happened at Barksdale was terrible. But from a political point of view, seeing the bad guys walk all over us again down in Fort Worth is going to be a lot worse,” Cohen said rapidly. “We got a little bump in our numbers at first. But the polls are already starting to skew fast in Farrell’s direction—even with the press playing it pretty much our way.”

  “And why is that?” Barbeau demanded.

  Cohen swallowed hard. “I put in a call to our campaign people before this meeting,” he said. “They’ve been running focus groups with swing voters, the folks who’ve been hard for either campaign to lock down so far. But the longer this situation drags on, the more they see you as weak and even afraid . . . hiding out here while the bad guys whack our troops and factories at will.”

  Despite himself, Rauch felt a new surge of respect—both for Cohen for daring to tell his boss something so unpalatable . . . and for the focus-group swing voters who seemed to have figured her out.

  Obviously pushed to the brink and beyond, Barbeau slammed a hand down on the table. “Enough!” She fought to regain her composure for a moment and then went on in a quieter voice: “You want action, Luke? You want a big show for the low-information bozos who’re buying Farrell’s BS? Well, so be it.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “In fact, this is something I should have done a long, long time ago.”

  Icily, she turned to
ward Firestone. “Admiral, my understanding is that the Insurrection Act of 1807, as amended in 2006, gives me the authority to deploy the armed forces for the purpose of maintaining law and order on U.S. soil.”

  Warily, he nodded. “That’s correct, Madam President. At least, in certain limited conditions. For example, you can use regular troops or the National Guard to restore order and enforce the law in cases where a terrorist attack makes it impossible for the local authorities to handle the situation.”

  “Very well,” Barbeau continued coolly. “As your commander in chief, I now declare those conditions met.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Firestone agreed slowly. “That is your prerogative.” He seemed to sit up straighter in his chair. “May I ask what you intend?”

  Listening while she outlined her plan, Rauch felt his eyes widening in disbelief.

  IRON WOLF FORCE, IN THE MOUNTAINS NORTH OF BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA

  LATER THAT DAY

  Stripped down to shorts and a T-shirt, Brad McLanahan lounged in the pilot’s seat of the XCV-62 Ranger. Even with the shade provided by the camouflage netting draped across the aircraft, the cockpit was uncomfortably hot, though more bake oven than steam room, because the air was so dry. Since they couldn’t afford to run down the fuel cells in their auxiliary power unit, cooling the aircraft’s interior spaces was out of the question. They were operating on minimal power, drawing just enough juice to run the Ranger’s secure satellite communications system and some of its computers.

  He finished reading the message from his father, typed in a short acknowledgment, and hit the send button on his MFD. It beeped once, confirming that his reply had been uploaded and transmitted to Poland.

  Besides trying to figure out how Gryzlov’s mercenaries were hiding their movements, the older McLanahan had been riding herd on a group of Scion weapons analysts and cybernetics experts. They were tasked with preparing quick-and-dirty intelligence assessments of Russia’s new combat robots. Knowing how important any information—even of the sketchiest and most speculative kind—was to the Iron Wolf CID team lying in wait outside Sky Masters, his father had been sending them updates on a regular basis.