Arctic Storm Rising

Twenty-Nine

For several seconds, a shocked silence pervaded the crowded operations center. One moment, they’d been observing five aircraft — two American and three Russian — on the radar feed relayed from the E-3 Sentry AWACS plane over Fairbanks. And the next, all five aircraft were gone, wiped off the display as quickly as if some unseen giant’s hand had swatted them out of the sky with one mighty stroke.

Colonel Leonard Huber, Third Wing’s commander, shook his head in disbelief and then turned to his assembled officers. “Can anyone tell me what the hell just happened up there?”

Helplessly, they all shrugged. “Whatever it was, it went down awfully fast,” one of them said at last. “The RC-135 ELINT plane picked up a few fragmentary transmissions from the two Russian Su-35s, but they’re encrypted and unreadable. We didn’t get anything from our own aircraft.”

Huber nodded gloomily. That was not a good sign. At least one of the F-22 pilots, McFadden or Parilla, should have been able to call out a warning, even if their mock dogfight with the Su-35s had suddenly turned hot for some weird reason. He sighed. “Well, one thing’s clear, anyway. A bunch of different aircraft, ours and theirs, just crashed in the middle of a god-awful wilderness.”

“And during a blizzard,” his operations officer pointed out quietly. “One of the worst in years.”

“Yeah, that, too,” Huber agreed tersely. A screen depicting the most recent meteorology reports for the Brooks Range showed the entire area socked in, with strong winds, near-zero visibility thanks to blowing snow, and subzero temperatures. “Mounting a combat search-and-rescue operation up there is going to be a bitch,” he said thoughtfully.

“Yes, sir.”

Huber’s eyes sought out his liaison with the Alaska Air National Guard. The ANG’s 176th Wing ran the ARCC, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, which managed all the various military and civil aviation resources needed for search-and-rescue operations. “Major King, what kind of CSAR assets can your people rustle up fast?”

The major looked up from the computer link she’d been intently studying. “Colonel, the ARCC says we can have a pararescue team and a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawks from the 210th Rescue Squadron ready for takeoff in ninety minutes.”

“But your helicopters can’t make it out that far unrefueled, can they?”

“No, sir,” King agreed. “The area where those planes went down is more than a hundred miles beyond our birds’ maximum range. Ordinarily, they’d tank on the way, but the blizzard is moving south fast across the whole state. Midair refueling would be far too hazardous in these conditions. So our helicopters will have to stage through Fairbanks and then Fort Yukon, stopping to refuel on the ground at both places.”

Huber nodded again. Those refueling stops would make slow going, further adding to the time it would take the pararescue team to reach any crash sites. On the other hand, recent forecasts predicted some minor improvement in the weather over the mountains later on today. So, assuming ANG’s Pave Hawk helicopters could somehow fight their way through the storm in the first place, those hoped-for lower winds and better visibility should significantly aid any recovery operations. “All right, Major,” he said to King. “Activate your search-and-rescue units and get them in the air as quickly as possible.”

One of the airmen manning their secure communications board turned toward him. “Sir? The Pentagon is on the line asking for you.”

Huber hid a grimace. Both NORAD headquarters and the Pentagon were receiving live feeds from the operations center here — which was normal, especially considering the extraordinarily high level of Russian air activity around Alaska’s perimeter. It had been a coin toss to guess which group of senior brass would be faster off the mark to horn in on this crisis situation. He took the phone. “Third Wing, Colonel Huber speaking.”

“Colonel?” a woman’s voice said in reply. “We’ve never met, but my name is Miranda Reynolds. I’m in charge of the CIA’s operations directorate.”

Huber felt his eyebrows go up. Of all the people he’d expected to be speaking to today, the chief of the CIA’s clandestine service definitely had not been on his list. “What can I do for you, Ms. Reynolds?” he asked cautiously, strongly suspecting that whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it much. And the more he listened, the more he knew just how right he’d been.

Miranda Reynolds hung up the secure phone and looked around the table at the others present — who included Jonas Murphy, Bill Taylor, and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Well, the colonel bought it,” she said with a shrug. “He certainly wasn’t thrilled by the idea, but he’s okayed including members of our specialist go team in the search-and-rescue mission force. He thinks we want them along so they can comb through the wreckage of those Russian fighters and their reconnaissance plane.”

“Those downed aircraft might be all your people find,” General Frank Neary told her.

“That’s certainly possible,” Reynolds agreed coolly. “On the other hand, that Russian reconnaissance probe was pushed a lot harder than any of the others we’ve seen so far, wasn’t it?”

Neary and the others nodded somberly. Not only had the presence of Su-35s so far from the Russian mainland come as a very unwelcome surprise, but so had the willingness of those fighter pilots to mix it up so aggressively with the American aircraft sent to intercept them — aggression that had clearly led to disaster for both sides.

“My strong suspicion is that level of determination is itself evidence that Moscow knows something we don’t about the area their Tu-142 was searching,” Reynolds continued. “The Russians must have solid intelligence indicating their missing stealth bomber is hidden somewhere in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”

From her position at the far end of the table, the Pentagon’s operations staff chief, Rear Admiral Kristin Chao, nodded. “I see your point. ANWR checks off all the boxes as a good place for this Colonel Petrov to conceal the PAK-DA prototype he stole.”

“Which is why I want our go team on the scene, ready to move in fast if it turns out I’m right,” Reynolds said firmly. “As bad as it was to suddenly lose all those aircraft, it may just have given us the chance we needed to beat Moscow to the prize.”

Neary stared coldly at her. “Maybe so, Ms. Reynolds. Assuming, of course, that we don’t find ourselves in a shooting war with the Russians over what just happened out there. In which case, there won’t be much of a prize left for your experts to pick over.”

Piotr Zhdanov listened to Lieutenant General Rogozin’s grim report in stony silence. Although controllers at air bases along the Arctic coast and eastern Siberia were still trying to raise Colonel Zinchuk’s Tu-142 and its two Su-35 fighter escorts by radio, there seemed little doubt that all three aircraft had crashed — and within just a few minutes of the colonel transmitting a coded phrase suggesting his crew might have found the PAK-DA stealth bomber’s hiding place.

“This tells all we need to know,” the Russian president said when Rogozin finished. “That sighting report was genuine. And now the Americans have the same information.”

Rogozin looked puzzled. “Sir?”

Zhdanov stubbed his cigarette out in irritation. “Come now, Yvgeny. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Why else would the Americans order their fighters to shoot down our planes?”

“Except that we are not yet certain of exactly what happened to our aircraft,” the general reminded him carefully.

Zhdanov raised an eyebrow. “The pilots you assigned to this mission had strict orders not to fire first, correct?”

“Of course, Mr. President,” Rogozin said.

“And were they reliable, disciplined officers?” the president asked pointedly.

Too late, Rogozin saw the trap into which he’d just walked. “Yes, sir,” he agreed reluctantly, obviously knowing there was only one acceptable answer. “Aggressive, of course, as the best fighter pilots must be. But Major Kuryokhin and Captain Troitsky were both loyal, trustworthy men.”

Zhdanov nodded in vindication. “There you are, then. The Americans had to have started this mess by firing on our planes. It’s the only logical conclusion. Washington wants to make sure it seizes Petrov and the PAK-DA bomber first.”

On his side of the conference table, Aleksandr Ivashin nodded vigorously. Ordinarily dour and undemonstrative, the head of the GRU suddenly appeared unusually animated. “I may be able to confirm your hypothesis, Mr. President.”

“How?”

“We’ve just received an emergency signal from one of our two-man, deep-cover Spetsnaz teams,” the spymaster said. Given enough time during any major crisis, it was Russian practice to deploy small covert commando units into rival nations — tiny groups of highly trained operatives who were expected to provide intelligence in the runup to open hostilities, and to conduct sabotage missions and targeted assassinations once war broke out. “These agents are stationed outside the large American military base near Anchorage, the one they call Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. They’ve reported signs that the Americans are readying helicopters for immediate deployment to northern Alaska. And they believe this force includes elements of the CIA black ops team recently flown to the base.”

Zhdanov stared at him. “They’re sure of this?”

Ivashin nodded. “Their report indicates a high level of confidence in this assessment.”

“Can you contact this Spetsnaz team directly?” the president demanded. “Without wasting time going through cutouts or your other usual security procedures?”

A trace of worry appeared on the GRU director’s face. “Yes, but doing so would significantly increase the risk of American intelligence detecting their presence.”

“I don’t give a shit about the risks,” Zhdanov said coldly. “We’ve gone far beyond the point where individual lives matter.” He lit another cigarette and then stabbed it at Ivashin. “Your team is to take immediate, preemptive action against those American helicopters. I don’t care how they do it, but they are to stop this CIA operation before it gets off the ground. Is that clear?”

Ivashin’s mouth opened in surprise.

“I will not listen to any objections,” Zhdanov warned him. He glared around the table at his senior advisers and military commanders. “We have one overriding objective right now: the Americans must not be allowed to get their hands on our stealth bomber and its weapons payload. While I still want to avoid open war if at all possible, no one here can deny that this situation has already escalated dangerously, thanks to the Americans’ own warlike actions against our reconnaissance aircraft!”

Slowly, they nodded.

Now Zhdanov’s mouth compressed into a tight, thin line — as though he were being forced to swallow something extraordinarily unpleasant. “One thing more. We’re going to have to agree to meet the traitor Petrov’s demands, while still assembling air units and commando forces to retake or destroy the stolen bomber if the opportunity arises.” He saw their astonishment and scowled. “Don’t act so surprised! What other choice do we have? Now that we know the aircraft is already on American soil, it’s essential that we get it safely back to Russia… even if it means temporarily yielding to blackmail.”

In a deserted subterranean corridor outside the ECR, Jonas Murphy signaled Miranda Reynolds over. “I just heard from the president directly,” he said quietly, without any preamble.

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“The aggressive actions of those Russian aircraft searching for their stealth bomber have convinced him, and his whole White House team, that this Colonel Petrov’s offer is not a scam or one of Moscow’s disinformation operations,” Murphy told her.

Reynolds nodded. It seemed a little late to draw that fairly obvious conclusion, she thought wryly, though she supposed almost every politician had an ingrained instinct to play it safe — especially with so many influential voices in the Pentagon urging caution.

Murphy sighed. “And all of the State Department’s efforts to persuade the Russians to step back from the brink of open hostilities have been rebuffed so far. So have the president’s own personal attempts to reach out to Zhdanov.”

“Is this heading where I think it is?” Reynolds asked, keeping her voice even lower.

The DNI nodded again. “The president’s decided to meet the financial demands made by this would-be defector and his backers.” He shrugged. “In the circumstances, he’s willing to take the chance that we might be dealing with some very unsavory characters.”

“If it means avoiding war, funneling money to criminals might not seem so bad,” Reynolds agreed.

“Exactly,” Murphy said. “Anyway, as far as the president is concerned, the sooner that stealth bomber is firmly in our hands, the better. Once that happens, Zhdanov will have to come to terms and negotiate for its return.” He smiled tightly. “Which we will gladly do… once our technical experts have finished studying its avionics and other systems.”

She eyed him closely. “So you want me to…” she said slowly, drawing it out. Like his boss, Murphy was a politician first. In the past, CIA officers had gotten into a lot of trouble for acting on the basis of winks and nods from occupants of the Oval Office and their subordinates — only to have the ground cut out from under their feet when things went sour.

“Signal our agreement by encrypted email through that secret server of yours,” he confirmed, with a crooked grin of his own that told her he knew exactly what she was doing. “Treasury officials are already transferring the necessary funds, three billion dollars, to your agency’s ‘black accounts.’ Now we just need you to let Petrov’s backers know that they’ve won.”