by Dale Brown
Zhdanov’s fingers drummed incessantly on the table while he considered other measures that would be necessary. The most obvious was to make sure they were ready to seize or destroy the stolen stealth bomber almost as soon as it was found. “I want every group of reconnaissance aircraft backed up by fighters, strike aircraft, and Spetsnaz commando teams,” he ordered. Heads around the table nodded.
“What are your instructions if we fail to find the PAK-DA inside our own territory?” Rogozin asked carefully.
“You will press the search into American and Canadian airspace,” Zhdanov replied.
“How far?”
Zhdanov barked, “As far as necessary, Yvgeny! We can’t afford to pussyfoot around anymore.”
“The Americans and the Canadians will protest any intrusion into their territory,” Rogozin pointed out.
Zhdanov shrugged his shoulders. “Let them bitch. I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
“They will also intercept our reconnaissance flights with fighter aircraft,” Rogozin warned. “And our scout planes would be helpless in such a situation. A rear turret with a pair of 23mm cannons is no match for Sidewinder heat-seeking and AMRAAM radar-guided missiles.”
The president bit at his lip in frustration. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t argue with Rogozin’s chief point. Russian pilots were courageous enough, but he could not expect them to commit suicide, particularly for no possible gain. Moodily, Zhdanov stared up at the map, hunting for some possible solution. And then the answer came to him in a quick flash of inspiration. He slapped his hand down hard on the table. “All right! If your reconnaissance pilots are afraid to tangle with the enemy’s interceptors, we’ll escort them with fighters of our own!”
Rogozin stared at him. “That would be . . . difficult.” He zoomed the display out so that it showed a view of northern Russia and North America, centered on the North Pole. A series of green lines appeared, originating at points just off Russia’s northern coast and stretching deep into Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. “Even if we stage out of our Arctic island bases, escorting Tu-142 and IL-38 reconnaissance aircraft deep enough into North American airspace would require round-trip flights of more than six thousand kilometers. Our Su-27s, Su-35s, MiG-31s, and MiG-35s don’t have anywhere near that kind of range.”
“The Americans could do it easily,” Zhdanov countered angrily.
“The American Air Force has almost five hundred air refueling tankers in its inventory,” Rogozin replied. “Ours has fewer than twenty operational IL-78 aircraft.”
Zhdanov’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Then I suggest you make full use of every last one of those operational tankers, General. And if you can’t or won’t do so, I’ll find some other officer who will.” He leaned forward. “Do you understand me?”
Slowly, Rogozin nodded.
“Good then,” Zhdanov said, pleased by the other man’s acquiescence. “That’s settled.”
“The fighter pilots assigned to escort our patrol flights will need firm rules of engagement,” Rogozin said carefully. “We don’t want any unfortunate accidents.”
“Certainly not,” Zhdanov agreed. He shrugged. “Let’s keep it simple: Your pilots are ordered to keep any NORAD combat aircraft a safe distance from our reconnaissance planes, so that the Tu-142s and IL-38s can complete their missions as directed. To do that, they’re authorized to use every peaceful means necessary, including aggressive maneuvering of their own. Maybe these American and Canadian hotshots won’t like a taste of their own medicine, eh? But your fighters are not to fire first under any circumstances, is that clear?” A thin, humorless smile crossed his face and then vanished. “After all, these shows of force are meant to let us to hunt down that bastard Petrov and our missing stealth bomber—not to set off some goddamned stupid air war over the polar ice cap!”
“Yes, sir,” Rogozin agreed wholeheartedly. “But that still leaves the problem of what to do if Petrov is hiding somewhere in American or Canadian territory.”
Zhdanov frowned. “How so?”
“Carrying out a Spetsnaz raid to recapture the bomber would be impossible,” Rogozin warned. “Our helicopters don’t have the necessary range.”
“So refuel them in the air,” Zhdanov snapped. “Just like your fighters.”
“Their range is even shorter,” Rogozin told him. “Which would force us to refuel them much closer to the North American coast. That would be extremely hazardous—and easily detectable by the North Warning System radars. The Americans and Canadians would have plenty of time to intercept our commando forces before they could reach their target.”
Zhdanov clenched his teeth in frustration. Try as he might, he couldn’t deny that the other man was probably right. If the traitorous colonel had really flown the PAK-DA prototype into the northern wastes of the United States or Canada, his only option would be to order its complete destruction by bombing or a missile strike. At best, that would be a hollow victory.
He noticed Golitsyn’s aide whispering to the admiral again. “You have something to contribute, Nikolai?”
Golitsyn bobbed his head. “Yes, Mr. President.” His aide leaned forward to enter a few commands on the keyboard in front of his superior.
A new image appeared, inset on the digital map showing northern Russia, the Arctic Ocean, Alaska, and northern Canada. It showed a large humpbacked nuclear submarine berthed beside a pier.
“This is Podmoskovye, one of our Delfin-class SSBNs, which the Americans called Delta IVs,” Golitsyn explained. “Several years ago, we stripped out her ballistic missile tubes and converted her instead to carry commandos and unmanned minisubmarines.”
“If you’re suggesting using this submarine to carry a Spetsnaz team to the North American coast, that still leaves our men faced with a rather long walk,” Zhdanov said wryly, holding his temper in check with difficulty. He’d long known the admiral wasn’t that bright. But he’d hoped Golitsyn’s younger, more educated subordinates would make up for their commander’s shortcomings.
“No, sir, that’s not my plan,” the admiral assured him earnestly. His aide typed frantically, and now the photograph disappeared, replaced by a schematic showing all of Podmoskovye’s compartments. Besides her twin 180-megawatt nuclear reactors, the most noticeable was a very large compartment immediately aft of her sail. A label on the diagram indicated that was a hangar where the submarine’s autonomous, unmanned minisubs were usually housed, enabling them to be launched secretly while below the surface. “What we can do is leave Podmoskovye’s smaller submersible vehicles behind and use this space instead to store collapsible bladders of helicopter aviation fuel. Then a high-speed run under the polar ice cap would bring the submarine to a point not far off the enemy coast, somewhere in the Beaufort Sea. Once there, she could break through the ice sheet and establish an improvised refueling point. In case it proves necessary to send in a Spetsnaz raiding party.”
Zhdanov considered the plan and asked, “How long would it take your submarine to reach its destination?”
Once again, Golitsyn held a short, hushed consultation with his aide. “A minimum of four days.”
Four days? That might as well be an eternity in the present circumstances, Zhdanov thought wearily. Then again, what other options did he have? He nodded. “Very well, Admiral. Issue the necessary orders to the Northern Fleet and Podmoskovye’s captain.”
At last, he turned his attention to two men seated just beyond Golitsyn. One, Sergei Veselovsky, headed the Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. The other, Aleksandr Ivashin, led the nation’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Each man looked more like a boring, middle-aged civil servant than a spymaster responsible for orchestrating the espionage and covert operations aimed at Russia’s rivals around the globe. That was good cover, Zhdanov supposed. As it was, he made it a habit to keep a very close eye on the pair of them. Overly ambitious intelligence chiefs and secret policemen were always a potential threat to any Russian ruler. “Veselovsky! Ivashin!”
he barked. “Listen up!” Caught off guard, they stiffened.
Tired as he was, Zhdanov hid a pleased smile. It was a useful practice to crack the whip every now and again, if only to remind these men of who was in charge. “You’re going to immediately activate all of your intelligence assets inside the United States and the People’s Republic of China—including every single one of the deep-cover agents we’ve planted over the past three decades. If either Washington or Beijing pick up any clues to the PAK-DA bomber’s whereabouts, I’d better damned well find out exactly what they’ve learned just as soon as they’ve learned it!”
Twenty-One
Emergency Conference Room, National Military Command Center, under the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
A Short Time Later
Under the ECR’s bright overhead lighting, it was impossible to tell that it was still pitch-dark outside, with more than an hour remaining before the sun rose. But in a concession to the early morning hour, coffee carafes and china cups were set out along the large central conference table.
Jonas Murphy took a cautious sip from a steaming cup and then set it back down. Miranda Reynolds, seated next to him, raised an eyebrow. “Any good?” she asked.
“It seems to contain caffeine,” the director of national intelligence said thoughtfully, after a moment’s consideration. “Apart from that, I refuse to testify on the grounds that it might insult our hosts.”
From his position at the head of the table, Bill Taylor chuckled. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Jonas.” Then the secretary of defense nodded to Reynolds. “Glad you could join us this morning, Ms. Reynolds. I understand we have you to thank for the extraordinary video we’ve all seen?”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” the CIA’s chief of clandestine operations said. The short recording he referred to was from a Russian Air Force pilot, Colonel Alexei Petrov. In it, he claimed to have successfully stolen Moscow’s much-touted stealth bomber prototype. The video had been emailed to her through the same covert server used by the shadowy Russian contact she’d met in Prague. She’d immediately relayed it to Murphy, who, in turn, had passed it straight on to the defense secretary and the Joint Chiefs. Before she’d even had time to finish dressing, she’d received a secure call summoning her to this early morning conference.
“So what’s your assessment of this message?” Taylor asked, not beating around the bush. “Is it genuine?”
Reynolds pursed her lips. “The man speaking does appear to be the real Alexei Petrov,” she said. “His facial features are a perfect match with other verified photos in our databases.” The CIA, like other intelligence agencies, amassed huge amounts of information on foreign government officials, military officers, business leaders, and the like—most of it from publicly available sources, including newspaper and magazine articles, television news broadcasts, and even internet sites. “And we can confirm that he’s regarded as one of Russia’s top test pilots, especially for multi-engine aircraft. Given that, it would be logical to expect him to head up their stealth bomber flight test program.”
“But is there anything in the guy’s record to suggest that he’d pull a stunt like this?” General Frank Neary asked suspiciously. The Air Force chief looked plainly skeptical. “I mean, Jesus, actually flying away with the most expensive and advanced experimental aircraft in the whole Russian inventory? That’s not exactly like walking into an embassy somewhere and asking for political asylum!”
“No, sir,” Reynolds admitted. “From what we know, Colonel Petrov was a highly decorated, highly regarded officer, one of apparently unquestioned loyalty.” She smiled slightly. “Then again, if there were any obvious reasons for Moscow to believe he might defect, Petrov would be in a Russian military prison or dead, and not sending us demand notes from a stolen high-tech aircraft.”
Murphy leaned forward. “Plus, he’s looking at a potential cut of several billion dollars,” he pointed out. “That’s a darned strong possible motivation, right there.”
The other men and women around the table nodded in agreement. In his recorded message, the Russian pilot had made it clear that this was an auction, with the PAK-DA bomber going to the highest bidder.
“Then you think this is the real deal?” Taylor pressed. “That one of Russia’s top test pilots is actually trying to sell us his country’s most valuable aircraft? A stealth bomber that he’s already got safely parked in some secret hiding place?”
Miranda Reynolds shot a quick sideways glance in Murphy’s direction. The DNI shrugged slightly, as if to say that it was her call. Her mouth tightened. If she walked all the way out on a limb here, what were the odds that he wouldn’t just saw it off behind her the moment anything went wrong? Along with selective leaking, blame shifting was almost a professional sport for senior government officials and politicians alike . . . and Jonas Murphy, she reminded herself, was a man who wore both hats. It was effectively a coin toss, she decided. Then again, her fingerprints were already all over this bizarre situation. She wasn’t going to be able to duck the responsibility, no matter how things went down. So she raised her chin and looked straight at the secretary of defense. “Yes, sir, I do. Crazy as they sound, Petrov’s claims fit the facts we see.”
Taylor’s eyes gleamed approvingly behind his thick, black-framed glasses. “Okay then. We’ll proceed, for now, on the assumption that this Russian colonel has possession of an experimental stealth bomber that we’d sure like to have . . . and that Moscow desperately wants back.” He turned to Neary. “If we want to find Petrov first, General, where should we be looking?”
“I had the Air Staff work the problem, using our best guesses as to the PAK-DA bomber’s fuel load and flight characteristics,” Neary told him. “Their analysis strongly indicates Petrov must have landed somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere—anywhere from Russia itself to Alaska, northern Canada, or possibly Greenland. Maybe even somewhere out on the polar ice cap itself.”
“That’s a hell of a big patch to search,” Taylor commented wryly.
“Yes, sir,” the Air Force chief of staff agreed. “Several million square miles of ice, tundra, mountains, and forests for a start.”
Reynolds frowned. “Hold on, wouldn’t Petrov need a runway to land on—one long enough to handle a very large aircraft? Doesn’t that significantly limit the places we need to look? Even if he picked an abandoned airstrip or some remote, out-of-the-way airport—”
Neary shook his head. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. The Russians put a lot of emphasis on designing their combat aircraft to fly out of rough, improvised airfields. Given some luck and skill, all this guy would need to set down safely was a long enough stretch of compacted snow or ice.” He shrugged. “We fly C-130s onto a similar snowfield down at McMurdo Station in the Antarctic. Now, I sure wouldn’t try that myself with a heavy bomber, but I’m not a test pilot . . . or a Russian.”
“Can we task our satellites to do the job?” Taylor asked. “We’ve got a number of radar and photo-imaging platforms in orbit right now.”
Murphy answered this one. As DNI, both the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency fell under his authority. “We’d have to get very lucky,” he warned. “Satellite surveillance works best against fixed installations or other targets whose coordinates are at least generally known. Expecting our analysts to zero in on a single, heavily camouflaged aircraft out in the middle of all that territory would be like expecting them to win the lottery by buying one ticket.”
“So, a fifty-fifty shot, then,” Taylor said with a quirky grin.
Murphy matched him with a sardonic smile of his own. “I wouldn’t know, Bill. You’re the Pentagon’s resident Silicon Valley math nerd. By training, I’m just a simple country lawyer.”
“Coordinated searches by a large number of reconnaissance aircraft and drones equipped with air-to-ground radar would be a better bet,” Neary said. “At least inside our own airspace.”
Reynolds felt a frown cross
her face. “Can we keep that kind of effort quiet?” she asked.
“From the media?” The Air Force chief of staff shook his head. “Probably not, ma’am. Any reasonably sized effort covering that much territory would involve dozens of aircraft and hundreds of aircrew. Word would be bound to leak out, no matter how big a classified label we slapped on the operation.”
Reynolds shook her head in dismay. “Which means we could end up with nothing for all our pains. Nothing, that is, except a massive ecological and political disaster and a lot of egg on all our faces.”
Taylor, Murphy, and the others nodded slowly, seeing her point. In his video, the Russian pilot had warned that any American attempt to seize the PAK-DA prototype without payment would result in its immediate destruction, along with devastating radiological consequences, thanks to the multiple 250-kiloton thermonuclear warheads stored in its weapons bays.
“That’s another thing,” the defense secretary said. “Is Petrov’s story about having a payload of nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard that bomber even remotely plausible?”
“If this was an American experimental aircraft, I’d say there was no way in hell,” Neary told him forcefully. “But the Russians play by very different rules, especially when it comes to nukes. Hell, back during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it turns out they deployed tactical nuclear weapons that some Cuban or Soviet general could have used against our troops if we ever invaded the island—even without an explicit okay from the Kremlin. So this guy’s claim that they were trying to compress their flight test program by loading armed missiles as part of a war game isn’t that far-fetched.”
Taylor sighed. “Which makes Ms. Reynolds right. In the circumstances, a large-scale air search effort would be too risky. We wouldn’t gain anything by provoking Colonel Petrov to destroy his aircraft, especially if it does carry nuclear weapons.”
From the far end of the table, Rear Admiral Kristin Chao spoke up. “We do have one possible indication of the Russian stealth bomber’s whereabouts,” the head of the Pentagon’s operations directorate reminded them. “Our North Warning System radar station at Barter Island picked up an unidentified contact last night. At least for a few seconds, anyway. This bogey might have been the PAK-DA bomber entering our airspace.”
