Iron Wolf

SEVEN

Fedir Kravchenko crouched down in cover, watching the opposite bank of the Dnieper through night-vision binoculars. A few kilometers to the south, the natural flow of the river was obstructed by the Kaniv Hydroelectric Power Plant’s massive dam — forming a huge reservoir that was almost two kilometers wide at this point.

To some extent, that made this stretch of the Dnieper more dangerous as a potential crossing point, since any boats would be out on the open water for that much longer. On the other hand, the Trakhtemyriv Reserve’s dense belt of woodland ran all the way to the water’s edge. The forest canopy made it easier for his partisans to conceal their motorized inflatable rafts and gear from Russian reconnaissance drones and aircraft while they were moving up to the shoreline. As an added plus, the eastern shore was also thickly wooded, offering shelter and ready camouflage for infiltrators right after they landed. The woods there were also cut by a number of small tracks and farm roads — offering his partisans the opportunity to move quickly inland to safe houses and hidden camps farther east.

Kravchenko knew that all military decisions involved calculated risk. You weighed the different options and took the ones that seemed to offer the greatest gain for the least chance of disaster. Making the right call was always a gamble.

Unfortunately, anytime you gambled, you could lose.

And this time, he had lost.

Pop-pop-pop.

Seen through the night-imaging binoculars, three green sparks soared skyward on the other side of the water. They flew high directly over the two motorized rafts speeding eastward across the reservoir. Even this far away, he could see the four men on each inflatable suddenly look up in horror.

“Hell.”

Kravchenko lowered the binoculars right before the flares burst into full light over the Dnieper. Sputtering evilly, they drifted slowly downwind — illuminating everything for hundreds of meters.

More flashes stuttered among the trees on the far bank of the Dnieper, casting eerie, dancing shadows that lit up a tangled mosaic of leaves and branches. Fountains of white spray erupted all around the fast-moving inflatables. The Ukrainian partisan leader bit down on another oath as the chatter of Russian heavy machine guns echoed across the water.

He had just sent eight men straight into an ambush.

Through the radio clipped to his body armor, Kravchenko could hear them screaming and pleading for help. “Covering fire! We need covering fire now!” one of them yelled. “We’re getting murdered out here!”

Slowly, clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw ached, the Ukrainian looked away. Those enemy machine guns were too far away, out of effective range of the assault rifles carried by the men deployed on this side of the river. Trying to hit the Russians would only give away his own positions, and offer the enemy a juicy target for their artillery and mortars.

No, he decided grimly, the partisans trapped on those rafts were as good as dead. Either the Russians would keep shooting until nothing moved, or they would send out boats of their own to take prisoners for interrogation. Then, once torture and truth drugs had squeezed every morsel of information out of their captives, the Russians would simply murder them.

There was only one thing he could do for his men now.

Kravchenko turned to Pavlo Lytvyn. “Execute code OMEGA.”

“Very well, Major,” the bigger man agreed, not trying to hide his own regret and anger. He carefully set a frequency on his own radio transmitter and clicked the send button. Then he switched to another frequency and hit the button a second time.

Charges rigged to the inflatables detonated. Two huge explosions rocked the surface of the Dnieper. When the smoke and spray drifted away, there was nothing identifiable left — only bits and pieces of debris left floating in the foaming water.

For a few moments more, Kravchenko stared blindly out across the wide river, aware only of the bitter taste of failure and defeat. Until he could figure out how to move more men and weapons to the east without suffering unacceptable losses, the Russians were out of his reach.

“CID Two, stand by for field resupply maneuver. Iron Wolf One-Five coming in hot. Two minutes out.”

“Two copies, Wolf One-Five. Ready to rock and rearm.”

Captain Nadia Rozek stood near the flight line at the 33rd Air Base, listening closely to the crisp, confident messages crackling through her radio earpiece. She was one of several Polish Special Forces officers newly assigned to the Iron Wolf Squadron. Most of her comrades would serve as translators where needed and as liaisons between the Scion-organized unit and Poland’s more conventional air and ground units.

She had other orders. First, she was slated to receive training on one of the squadron’s two Cybernetic Infantry Devices — the “Iron Wolves” that gave the unit its new name. Perhaps even more importantly, she was here to act as President Piotr Wilk’s personal “eyes and ears,” keeping him closely posted on the squadron’s plans and operations.

“You will not be a spy, Captain,” Wilk had told her with a smile. “But I want you there to help me cut through the regular chain of command if necessary. From what we have seen, if it goes into action, this Iron Wolf force will use tactics far outside the realm of conventional military experience and training. It’s vital that I receive firsthand reports from an officer who understands and can thoroughly evaluate how Martindale’s people do their fighting.”

Which meant she was something of a spy, after all, Nadia decided — though not a hostile or especially covert one. No one in the Iron Wolf Squadron would be surprised to find out that their new employer planned to keep a careful watch on his $500 million investment.

At least this new assignment had brought her back to her old stomping grounds. This air base, halfway between Poznan and Warsaw, was home to Poland’s 7th Special Operations Squadron. She’d spent a year here flying Mi-17 helicopters, practicing nap-of-the-earth flying and all the other dangerous maneuvers needed to insert Polish commandos behind enemy lines and retrieve them under fire. Its existing ties to Poland’s Special Forces made Powidz the logical place to base this new unit. The 33rd Air Base had a tight security perimeter and the local civilians were already used to hearing unusual aircraft coming and going at odd intervals.

Through her earpiece, Nadia heard another signal from the Iron Wolf Squadron aircraft that was supposed to be approaching the 33rd Air Base. “CID Two, this is Wolf One-Five. Field in sight. Thirty seconds. Out.”

“Standing by,” the CID pilot said laconically.

Puzzled, she turned around, scanning the horizon in all directions. Nothing was in sight. No airplane. No helicopter. And certainly no huge manned war robot. Were these Americans pulling a practical joke on her?

Abruptly, a large, twin-engine aircraft in mottled dark green, light green, and gray camouflage streaked into view, booming in from the south just over the treetops. As it crossed over the field, it banked into a steep, tight turn, decelerating dramatically, almost impossibly, fast.

Nadia’s eyes widened. The huge propellers on each wing were swiveling upward, turning into rotors. Of course, she thought, figuring it out. This mysterious aircraft was a tilt-rotor, designed to take off and land like a helicopter while cruising long distances at high speeds like a conventional turboprop. It looked very much like the V-22 Ospreys flown by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, but it was somewhat smaller and seemed more agile than the Ospreys she had seen before.

She realized this must be another of the experimental planes built by Sky Masters. The aerospace engineers working for that American firm seemed to have an almost limitless ability to push the boundaries of aircraft design.

Rotors spinning fast, the twin-engine aircraft descended toward the wide grass verge beside the runway and touched down. As soon as it settled, a rear ramp whined open and a small, four-wheel vehicle roared out and onto the grass. Swinging wide around the still-spinning rotors, it drove toward her at high speed. There were three crew — two in front and a top gunner manning a .50-caliber M2 machine gun in the back.

Nadia forced herself to stand absolutely still as the 4x4 sped right past her, racing by at more than sixty kilometers an hour. The gunner, wearing a helmet, body armor, and goggles, gave her a cheerful wave.

Suddenly the driver slammed on his brakes and spun the little vehicle into a tight, hard turn, coming to a dead stop in a spray of gravel and grass just a few meters away. The driver and the other man seated in front were already unbuckling their safety harnesses while the gunner stayed put — swinging his heavy machine gun around to cover the nearby woods.

Nadia caught a flicker of motion out the corner of her eye and then gasped as one of the tall Cybernetic Infantry Devices bounded past her and slid to a halt right beside the 4x4. Its arms were already in motion, shrugging off heavy weapons packs and sliding them onto the small vehicle’s cargo deck. As soon as the old packs were stowed, the CID retrieved new weapons and ammunition carriers. At the same time, the two crewmen who’d dismounted were busy popping open panels on the huge robot’s legs and torso, disconnecting depleted lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen fuel cells and then replacing them with fully charged batteries and fuel cells. Their coordinated speed and precision was astounding, reminding her of a top-notch Formula One pit crew.

In less than two minutes, they were finished.

“Rearm and recharge complete!” Nadia heard the CID pilot report.

Both vehicle crewmen slapped the torso panels closed and then hopped back aboard their 4x4. As soon as they’d buckled in, the driver sped off back down the runway toward the waiting tilt-rotor. Slowing, he drove straight up the aircraft’s rear ramp.

In seconds, the ramp closed and the aircraft lifted off, climbing just high enough to transition its rotors for level flight. Moments later, it streaked away just over the treetops and was gone.

“Iron Wolf One-Five outbound,” Nadia heard the tilt-rotor’s pilot report. “Field resupply complete. Mission time on ground: approximately five minutes.”

Beside her, the CID crouched down, extending one leg and both arms backward. A hatch popped open on its back and a broad-shouldered, blond-haired man wearing a black flight suit climbed out. The name tag over his left breast pocket read BRAD MCLANAHAN. He dropped lightly to the ground and walked over.

“So what did you think, Captain Rozek?” he asked, with a mischievous grin. “Impressive enough for you?”

Nadia eyed him carefully. This American had a nice smile and some of the cocky swagger that marked many young pilots… including, she admitted to herself, a certain Nadia Rozek when she was fresh out of flight school. Well, there were ways to deal with that.

“Your resupply maneuver?” she asked. “Is that something your crews practice routinely?”

Brad nodded. “Yep. We can use that Sky Masters XV-40 Sparrowhawk tilt-rotor you saw or a specially modified Chinook helicopter, something along the lines of the MH-47G models used by the U.S. Army’s One Hundred and Sixtieth Special Aviation Regiment. Both of them can lift that fast little four-by-four resupply vehicle we use to haul ammo, weapons, batteries, and fuel cells. And by the way, that four-by-four is a version of the Interim Fast Attack Vehicle our Marine Force Recon guys use — a souped-up Mercedes-Benz Wolf 290GDT.”

“A Wolf four-by-four?” Nadia said, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah, really. I guess this new Iron Wolf name suits us for a lot of reasons.”

“So I gather,” she said coolly, really hoping this brash McLanahan character could restrain himself before he started pretending to howl at the moon or do something equally childish. “And you are one of those who will pilot these Iron Wolves in combat?” she asked, nodding toward the CID.

To her relief, he looked slightly abashed. “Me? No, probably not.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve driven CIDs a few times. But my real passion is flying, which is why I’m assigned to the squadron’s aviation team. We’ll be handling the unit’s drone aircraft and the remote-piloted XF-111 SuperVarks once they get here.”

“McLanahan! You are related to General McLanahan?” Nadia said, suddenly realizing why this young man’s name had seemed so familiar. Among her peers in Poland’s air force, the missions flown by Patrick McLanahan and the men and women under his command were legendary.

“He’s… I mean, he was… my father,” Brad said quietly.

“I am very sorry,” Nadia told him, fumbling slightly for the proper English phrases. “He was a great man. Please accept my condolences on your loss.”

She looked even more closely at the younger McLanahan. Now that her memory was working at full speed, it reminded her that this boyish-looking American had flown on the daredevil bombing mission in which his father was killed. And that, later, he had also gone on to fly in outer space as part of the ill-fated Starfire Project. She colored slightly, abruptly aware that she might have come across as just a bit patronizing to someone whose real-world experience easily exceeded hers by a factor of ten.

Fortunately, Nadia decided, seeing the equally embarrassed look on his face, he seemed unaware of that.

“Thanks, Captain Rozek,” Brad said, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “I really appreciate it.” He looked down at his shoes and then resolutely back up at her. “I hope you don’t think I was just showing off or anything earlier. President Martindale and Whack Macomber suggested I take this practice run to keep my CID piloting skills sharp. Just in case.”

On impulse, she smiled at him. “If we are going to be flying and fighting together, Mr. Brad McLanahan, I think you can call me Nadia.”

“Really? That’s great, Captain… I mean, Nadia,” Brad said, looking more cheerful again. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. “Then how about I get started familiarizing you with old Robo Lobo there?”

“Robo Lobo?” Nadia asked, confused again. Then she got it. “Oh, no! Not more of your American ‘wolf’ humor?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brad said jauntily. Then he relented, looking slightly contrite. “Sorry, Nadia. But it was just hanging out there, waiting to be said, and I couldn’t stop myself.”

Almost against her will, she laughed. “Never mind. I will forgive you.” She held up a single finger. “Once. But you will resist the temptation from now on, is that understood?”

“Or else?” he asked, intrigued.

“Exactly,” Nadia said, with great satisfaction. “Or else.”

The phone on President Gennadiy Gryzlov’s desk beeped suddenly, interrupting him at the worst possible moment. “Sukin syn! Son of a bitch,” he muttered, trying to ignore the sound. But it was no use. His concentration was broken. Still swearing under his breath, he fumbled for the phone. “Yes! What the hell is it? I said, no calls!”

“It’s Minister of State Security Kazyanov, Mr. President,” his private secretary said apologetically. “He is here in the outer office, asking to see you immediately. He says it is urgent.”

“It had damned well better be, Ulanov!” Gryzlov snapped. “I’m right in the middle of a serious foreign policy discussion, you know.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Gryzlov sighed. “Very well. Give me a couple of minutes.” He slammed the phone down and turned to the attractive, full-figured woman who was still bent across his desk. “Get your clothes back on, Daria. It seems I have other work to do.”

Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva looked back over her naked shoulder with a slightly provocative smile. “That is unfortunate, Mr. President.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed glumly. He zipped his fly and then moved around to sit behind his desk. When she had finished slipping back into her businesslike jacket, blouse, and skirt, he picked up the phone. “I’ll see Minister Kazyanov now.” He looked up at Titeneva. “There’s no point in your waiting for me. If poor little Viktor’s actually managed to nerve himself up to come over here in person, he must really believe he’s got something important.”

She simply nodded and went out by the side door.

Kazyanov hurried in moments later, a file folder clutched in his hands. As usual, the intelligence director looked nervous, with sweat already beading his high forehead.

“Well?” Gryzlov barked. “What’s so damned urgent?”

“Two of our top GRU agents have gone missing,” Kazyanov said quickly. “They failed to make a scheduled contact yesterday and we have been completely unable to get in touch with them since then.”

“So?” Gryzlov said dismissively. “Agents go quiet all the time — for any number of reasons, some good and some bad. For all you know, these spies of yours might just be lazing around a swimming pool somewhere, taking an unauthorized vacation. Or maybe they got spooked by something and are simply lying low for a bit.”

Kazyanov shook his head. “With respect, Mr. President, not these two men. Colonel Lermontov and Major Rodchenko are both extraordinarily reliable, competent, and experienced field operatives. They would not abandon an important mission so easily.”

“All right,” Gryzlov said, shrugging. “I’ll bite. Where were these missing paragons of espionage stationed?”

“Poland.”

The Russian president started paying attention. “Go on.”

“Their last message indicated that they were planning to penetrate a Polish military training area, at Drawsko Pomorskie in western Poland,” Kazyanov reported, sliding a map out of the folder and showing it to Gryzlov. “They’d picked up rumors of an important military exercise planned there — an unscheduled exercise.”

“Oh, really,” the president said, frowning. That was highly unusual. To avoid accidents and the risk of unintended escalation, it was common practice for both the NATO powers and for Russia to announce their important military drills, exercises, and war games in advance. “Was this a NATO maneuver of some sort?”

“No, sir,” Kazyanov said. “Before they disappeared, Lermontov and Rodchenko said the rumors they picked up indicated this secret exercise was supposed to be a strictly Polish affair.”

“But you don’t believe the rumors?” Gryzlov asked, hearing the uncertainty in other man’s voice.

“There are… incongruities,” Kazyanov admitted. “When we could not regain contact with our operatives, I asked my best analysts to examine our most recent Persona reconnaissance satellite images of the Drawsko Pomorskie region.” He handed the president a series of photos from his folder. “These enlarged images were taken during a pass over the area three days ago. As you can see, they show a significant number of pieces of military hardware scattered around the training area — vehicles, tanks, guns, and even fighter aircraft.”

Gryzlov flipped through the photos. His mouth tightened. “These are all old American tanks and planes. Look at this one, an F-4 Phantom! They’re not even in the Polish inventory! Hell, almost no one flies them anymore!”

“Yes, sir,” Kazyanov confirmed. “My analysts say that all of this equipment appears to be surplus. Which begins to explain what we picked up during a satellite pass twenty-four hours ago.” He slid another set of images across the desk.

The Russian president stared down them in silence. Each showed a collection of burned-out armored vehicles and wrecked aircraft. He looked up at his minister of state security. “Astounding.”

Kazyanov nodded. “It appears that every single piece of surplus military equipment was destroyed during this war game. Without exception.”

“Which Polish units did all this?” Gryzlov asked, still looking at the photos. “We may have to reassess their combat effectiveness.”

“That is one of the incongruities,” Kazyanov told him carefully. “We believe a Polish mechanized infantry battalion was assigned to secure the training area, but it does not seem to have been involved in the maneuvers themselves. In fact, we cannot find evidence that any unit of the Polish armed forces participated in this exercise.”

Gryzlov stared at him. “What?”

“Every piece of intelligence we can assemble — signals intercepts, agent reports, satellite photos, and the like — shows the rest of the Polish Army, including its Special Forces, posted at their ordinary duty stations,” Kazyanov said.

“My God, Viktor,” Gryzlov said, piecing it together as he stared at the pictures. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Sir?”

“You may just have uncovered the evidence we’ve been looking for!” Gryzlov said sharply, irritated by the other man’s inability to see what should be obvious to anyone with even a fraction of average intelligence. “Are you blind?”

“Mr. President, I’m afraid that I’m not following—”

“The terrorists, you idiot!” Gryzlov snapped excitedly. “The terrorists who’ve been attacking us! Who else could the Poles be training in such secrecy?”

Fedir Kravchenko studied the faded signs on the buildings they were driving past. This section of western Kiev was a mix of drab Soviet-era apartment blocks, run-down shops, and old warehouses. Cars parked along the streets were mostly older models, some so covered in rust and graffiti that it was clear that they’d been abandoned for years. At least there were enough trees along the sidewalks and streets to soften the harsher edges of this impoverished neighborhood.

He spotted the bleached-out red, white, and blue tobacco kiosk he’d been told to look for and tapped Pavlo Lytvyn on the shoulder. “There, pull in and park. Then wait for me.”

Nodding unhappily, the big man obeyed. He found an empty spot just large enough for the ZAZ Forza subcompact he was driving.

“I don’t like this, Major,” Lytvyn growled, hunched over the steering wheel. “I don’t trust this prykhyl’nyk, this backer, of ours. If he’s really an ally, why hide himself from us — working only through faceless intermediaries?”

Kravchenko shrugged. “We’re operating outside the law, my friend. It’s no great surprise that our anonymous patron wants to keep us at arm’s length.” He sighed. “But we have no choice. We need this man’s cash and connections to buy weapons and equipment.”

He popped open the car door and climbed out onto the sidewalk.

“I still don’t like it,” Lytvyn said stubbornly, leaning over to talk through the little car’s rolled-down passenger window. “For all we know, this guy could be a boss in the Mafiya, nothing but a criminal. We might be waging our war with dirty money — drug money, even.”

“All money is dirty, Pavlo,” Kravchenko said. “As is war, if it comes to that. Besides, what choice do we have?” He hawked and spat. “Go hat in hand to the government again, begging for their help? The cowards in Kiev turned us down years ago and now they crawl before the Russians, pleading only to be left alone.”

He shook his head. “You might be right about our patron. He could be a criminal. But I think it’s more likely that he is one of the big oligarchs, the billionaires, who raised and equipped our volunteer battalions during the 2014 war. Why else would anyone but a patriot back our cause now?”

Lytvyn scowled. “Oligarch. Crime boss. What’s the real difference?”

Kravchenko grinned crookedly. “Weapons and explosives for us, instead of cocaine and heroin shipments for him.”

The big man looked unconvinced. “I say this meeting is too risky. Why do they forbid you to bring your own people? That’s new and it stinks. This could be a trap.”

Kravchenko looked into Lytvyn’s eyes. “Yes, that is possible. But if this is a trap, what can they really do to me?”

“They can kill you,” the other man snapped.

“Kill me?” Kravchenko repeated mildly. Then his maimed face contorted into a terrible, twisted smile that sent a cold shiver of fear down Lytvyn’s spine. “No, they can’t. Not really. After all, Pavlo, we both know that I truly died with the rest of our battalion three years ago, back on that cursed road between the trees.” He turned away. “Wait for me.”

“And if I’m right and this is a trap?” Lytvyn called after him.

“Then avenge me,” Kravchenko said over his shoulder, already heading toward the warehouse chosen for this clandestine rendezvous. It was set back from the street, down an alley littered with uncollected garbage and old crates. Boarded-up or broken windows looked down on the alley from both sides.

A sign in dirty, peeling white letters hung over a rusting metal roll-up door identified this as URVAD TSENTR POTACHANNYA 20—Government Supply Center 20. He scowled. This had probably once been one of the storehouses where the old Soviet-era bosses hoarded fresh food and luxury goods for the nomenklatura, the governing elite. Now it was nothing but a ruin.

He dialed a number on his cell phone. It was answered on the first ring. “I’m here,” he said flatly, and broke the connection.

The metal door squealed and rattled open, grinding upward.

It slid down behind Kravchenko as soon as he walked into the abandoned warehouse, banging down with a hollow echo on the cracked and pitted concrete floor. Lights came on, revealing a big black Mercedes sedan parked in the center of the empty building.

A man in jeans and a brown leather jacket moved in behind the Ukrainian. He must have been waiting in the shadows beside the door. “Your phone,” he said coldly. “You’ll get it back when we’re done here.”

Shrugging, Kravchenko handed him the cell phone and then held his arms out wide, waiting patiently while the sentry frisked him for weapons or hidden recording devices.

Satisfied that Kravchenko was clean, the other man stepped back and waved him toward the waiting car. “Go on.”

The rear passenger door of the Mercedes opened when he got within a few meters. A second man, this one wearing an elegant business suit and sunglasses, got out and stood facing Kravchenko. He was taller than the Ukrainian partisan leader, with gray, short-cropped hair and a square jaw. The business suit fit him perfectly, but he would probably have looked equally at home in a uniform.

“My employer is… unhappy, Major,” he said quietly.

“So am I,” Kravchenko retorted.

“You were given substantial resources to accomplish a specific objective — the liberation of the Russian-controlled areas of our motherland. To achieve this, you assured my employer that your actions would bring Moscow into direct collision with the United States, Poland, and the other NATO powers. Instead, the Russians now control half of our country, including most of our energy resources and heavy industry!”

“The West has proved more cowardly than I imagined,” Kravchenko admitted.

“Your lack of imagination has cost us dearly,” the man in sunglasses sneered.

“My plans were approved at every stage,” Kravchenko pointed out coldly. “Your boss saw nothing improbable in the supposition that our attacks would lure Russia’s leaders into repeated military action against Poland, action that would trigger direct NATO involvement in this region to our ultimate benefit. If my imagination failed, so did that of your employer.”

“It would be safer for you to avoid insulting him,” the other man said. His mouth tightened. “He is not a man inclined to forgive affronts — or failure.”

“I don’t give a damn about my personal safety,” Kravchenko said bluntly. “I only care about winning. And killing as many Russians as possible.” He stared hard at the man in sunglasses. “My question is: Can your boss say the same? Or is he ready to quit now that things have gotten tough? Is he just a summer soldier? A patriot only when the sun is shining?”

“My employer is equally interested in victory,” the other man replied. “He only questions your ability to achieve it.”

“Then your boss needs to learn more patience,” Kravchenko said flatly. He shook his head in disgust. “For God’s sake, we’ve lost a single battle, not the whole damned war! And even in losing, we’ve picked up a crucial insight into what makes this Russian leader, Gryzlov, tick.”

“Now you claim to see profit in defeat?” the other man asked skeptically.

“The Russians reacted exactly as we had hoped to Voronov’s murder, lunging headlong into Polish territory like a maddened bull,” Kravchenko pointed out. “Our mistake was in assuming that Gryzlov and his generals would react the same way to our next attack. But we were too subtle for them.”

“Subtle?!” The man in sunglasses seemed amused. “There are many words I would use to describe the slaughter you inflicted on that separatist base. Subtle would not have been among them.”

“Think about it,” Kravchenko persisted. “The key difference between our two attacks was their distance from the Polish border.”

The other man snorted. “Maybe so, but having successfully occupied our country up to the Dnieper, Moscow is not likely to send more soldiers and generals for you to shoot near the frontier. Not unless they were already invading the rest of Ukraine, which is not something we want!”

“True,” Kravchenko said. “But you miss my point. If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. If our Russian targets will not venture close to Poland, then…” He sketched out his new plan, which was far more ruthless than anything he had proposed before.

When he was finished, the man in sunglasses stood silent for several long moments, pondering what he had heard. At last, he nodded. “What you propose does have a certain brutal elegance, Major. It may even succeed. But you ask much of my employer — in time and in money and in other, less easily replaceable, resources.”

“Yes,” Kravchenko agreed. “I do.”

“Very well,” the other man said. “I will present your plan to him. I will even recommend that we proceed.”

“Thank you.”

“But you must understand something very important, Major,” the man in sunglasses warned. “My employer will not tolerate another failure. If your plan does not work, the consequences to you will be severe. Fatal, even.”

“If I fail, I would not wish to live anyway,” Kravchenko said simply.

Once the Ukrainian partisan leader was gone, the man in sunglasses slid back into the rear seat of the Mercedes. He took out his phone and began composing a short text message to his real employer, Igor Truznyev, in Moscow: MEETING WITH GULL ONE SUCCESSFUL. NEW SALES PROPOSAL WILL FOLLOW. WILL REQUIRE CLOSE COOPERATION WITH WARSAW OFFICE PROSPECTS GOOD.

Descending on its final approach, the lead Scion-owned XF-111 SuperVark flew low over the long, rolling North Atlantic waves. Wings swept forward, it crossed over the rugged, cliff-lined Irish coast and banked back south. It touched down on the black asphalt runway and braked, rolling past the wide white sandy expanse of Carrickfinn Beach — followed a few minutes later by its counterpart.

One after the other, the two fighter-bombers taxied toward a fuel pit not far from a small, blue-roofed terminal building. There were no other planes in sight. This quiet regional airport was used mostly by small turboprops making commuter hops to Dublin or Glasgow, or by oil-company helicopters servicing offshore installations out in the newly developed Corrib natural gas field.

For the Scion XF-111s, this was just a refueling stop — their second since departing the North American coast. Their first stop had been at Greenland, two and half hours ago. According to their export licenses, both refurbished planes were supposedly being sold to a private Polish corporation for use as “flight and technology demonstrators.” Accordingly, they could not be transferred with drop tanks or with active air refueling systems, which limited their range to about two thousand nautical miles.

In the lead XF-111’s left seat, Mark Darrow pulled off his flying helmet and rubbed at his eyes. “Tell the stewardess to bring me a coffee, will you, Jack?” the Englishman asked. “Black, no sugar.”

Jack Hollenbeck, the American assigned as his copilot and systems operator for this flight, grinned. He rattled their empty thermos apologetically. “Sorry, boss. We’re fresh out. Want me to head on over to the terminal and pick you up a shot of Irish whiskey, though?”

“Christ, no!” Darrow said. “Not unless you want to see if this big beast really can be remote-piloted from Powidz. One good dram of Bushmills and I’ll be out like a light.”

“I reckon I’ll pass on that for now,” Hollenbeck said, pushing his Texas drawl up just a notch. “If God had really meant man to fly from a console, he’d have given him a built-in video monitor and a high-speed data link instead of eyes.”

Chuckling, Darrow glanced out the canopy, eyeing the little terminal building. He sat up straighter. “Look over there, Jack. We’ve got company.”

Hollenbeck leaned forward to get a better look. Two men in hats and overcoats stood outside the Donegal Airport terminal. Both were busy taking pictures of the parked XF-111s.

“Plane spotters?” he wondered. “Lots of folks like to collect photos of big bad old warbirds.”

“This early in the morning?” Darrow shook his head. “Not bloody likely.” He chewed his lower lip. “Warm up the sensors and let’s get a few pictures of our own, eh? Run what we get through that image-matching software the technical boys at Scion boast about all the time.”

“Gotcha.” Hollenbeck busied himself with the SuperVark’s sensor systems for few minutes, humming to himself while he snapped a series of close-ups of the two men still watching them from outside the airport terminal. Then he sent them via satellite link to Scion’s powerful and highly capable computers back in the United States.

Almost to his surprise, the software was able to identify both men.

“Oh, man,” he murmured.

“What?” Darrow asked.

“That fat guy on the left is listed as an assistant commercial attaché at the U.S. embassy in London,” Hollenbeck said.

“Which means he’s CIA,” Darrow said, disgusted.

“Yep.”

“And the skinny fellow on the right?”

“Oleg Azarov, supposedly a perfume salesman for Novaya Zarya, in Moscow.” Hollenbeck shook his head. “But the computer says he’s really a captain in the GRU.” He reached for his keyboard again. “I’d better call this in and let Mr. Martindale know we’ve been tagged.”

Sergei Tarzarov studied the satellite photos intently, moving slowly from one to another with care and precision. He made sure his face revealed nothing more than casual interest. The years he had spent as Gennadiy Gryzlov’s chief of staff had taught him the dangers of inadvertently triggering the younger man’s turbulent emotions. Opposition might send Russia’s president into a towering rage, but too-hasty agreement with some of his irrational leaps of intuition were equally likely to send Gryzlov into fits of soaring overconfidence. The psychological improvements he had covertly described to former president Igor Truznyev were real — but they were thinly rooted. No, Tarzarov decided, the wild man still lurked inside Gryzlov. And it was his unenviable job to help keep that beast of unreason chained by logic, evidence, and Russia’s true national interests.

He looked up. “These photographs are, indeed, suggestive, Mr. President.” He tapped his chin reflectively. “They definitely prove that the Poles are developing some new military capability in secret. Unfortunately, that is all they will prove to others in the international community.”

“You disagree that this is evidence that the Poles are training terrorists?” Gryzlov asked. His voice was dangerously calm.

“The Poles may very well be arming those who have attacked us,” Tarzarov countered. “But from the purely technical standpoint of persuading other powers — the Americans, the other Europeans, the Chinese — these images by themselves are insufficient. If they were taken before we were attacked, that would be a very different matter. As it is, the Poles could easily pass this secret military exercise off as a response to our retaliatory strike against them after General Voronov’s assassination.”

“You suggest that we ignore this evidence, Sergei? That we shred these photos and go skipping merrily on our way like idiot children?” Gryzlov said, even more icily than before.

“On the contrary,” Tarzarov said patiently. “We should use this information, but as effectively as possible.” He shuffled the satellite photos together and slid them back across the desk to the president. “Foreign Minister Titeneva will meet with the American secretary of state in Geneva soon, yes?”

Gryzlov nodded. His eyes narrowed. “You think Daria should confront the Americans with this information — and what it could mean?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Tarzarov agreed. “If the Americans know what the Poles are up to, they may tell us themselves, in order to calm our darker suspicions. And if Warsaw has kept whatever was going on at Drawsko Pomorskie secret from the Americans—”

“We sow distrust between the Poles and their strongest ally!” Gryzlov realized. Glowing with enthusiasm, he smiled broadly at the older man. “Well done, Sergei! That is a chess move worthy of a true grandmaster. Without support from Washington, Poland would stand virtually naked.”

Air Force General Timothy Spelling, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood up from behind his desk and came over to greet his visitor, CIA director Thomas Torrey. “Nice to see you, Tom.”

He led the other man over to a small round conference table with a view of the Potomac and invited him to sit down.

“I’m guessing this isn’t exactly a social call?” Spelling asked. It was rare for Torrey to come all the way over to the Pentagon in person. Coordination between the higher echelons of the CIA and the Defense Department was usually handled by secure e-mail or a conference call.

“You guess correctly,” Torrey acknowledged. He flipped open his laptop and turned it on. “It’s about the President’s Daily Brief for tomorrow. I need your help in evaluating some new intel and figuring out how to present it to President Barbeau.”

Spelling raised an eyebrow. The whole U.S. intelligence community — the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the NSA, and the FBI, plus a host of others — helped coordinate the process of preparing the PDB, which fused intelligence from a variety of sources, but the CIA was solely responsible for the final product. And the Agency jealously guarded its prerogatives, especially in these days of constrained budgets. Having Torrey ask for his input at this stage of the process was a little bit like hearing the pope consulting a Buddhist monk about a tricky theological question.

“Here’s what’s got me flummoxed.” The CIA director tapped through to a file and opened a series of digital images. He spun the laptop toward Spelling.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs took a close look. “F-111s? Two of them?” He glanced at Torrey. “Where were these pictures taken? And when?”

“In Ireland, a couple of days ago.”

“Who took them?” Spelling asked. “If you don’t mind telling me, of course.” Like all good intelligence officers, the CIA’s chief had a natural reluctance to reveal too much about sources and methods.

“One of my junior people based in London,” Torrey said. “The station chief there got a tip that Sky Masters wanted to do some hush-hush refueling at a little airport in Donegal and decided to take a closer look.”

Spelling leaned back in his chair, his eyes hooded. “Sky Masters, huh? Well, that makes sense. We retired our last F-111s almost twenty years ago. These two must be some of the old Boneyard aircraft Sky Masters refurbished on spec a couple of years ago. As the planned second stage of that interim XB-1 Excalibur bomber program Patrick McLanahan sold to President Phoenix and Vice President Page before the Chinese hit Guam.”

“Which was one of the very first DoD programs canceled by President Barbeau,” the CIA director remembered.

“Yeah.” There was no emotion in Spelling’s voice, but that was a matter of long training and practice. The easiest way to shake off senators and representatives trying to make names for themselves during congressional hearings by savaging the military was to sound as dull and dry as possible. “Helen Kaddiri and her people kept after us to allow them to sell the remaining aircraft overseas. But the Defense Security Cooperation Agency put so many restrictions on any proposed uses that I thought the company had given up. It looks like I was wrong.”

“So it seems,” Torrey agreed.

“Did your guys pick up any word on where those two refurbished F-111s were headed?” Spelling asked.

“Poland.”

“Color me not surprised,” Spelling said. He nodded. “I knew Piotr Wilk back before he got into politics. He’s always been air-minded, and one of the weapons systems Poland lacks is a dedicated long-range strike bomber.”

“Will those planes make a difference?” Torrey asked seriously.

“Against the Russians? Just two of them?” Spelling said. He shook his head decisively. “Not a chance in hell. McLanahan talked a lot about how much more effective the F-111s could be with all the modifications and upgrades his people were adding. But no two old warbirds like that, no matter how souped-up they might be, could tip the strategic balance in Poland’s favor.”

“What if the Poles got their hands on more of them?” the CIA director asked.

“Do you have any evidence of that?”

Torrey shook his head. “Nope. It’s just a hunch so far.”

“Well, my guess is that your hunch is pretty good,” Spelling said seriously. “President Wilk isn’t an idiot. He has to know that he’d need a hell of a lot more of those planes to make any difference at all.”

“And if he got them?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shook his head again. “It still wouldn’t matter. You can’t just buy an effective bomber force off the shelf. Without trained and experienced crews to fly them and top-notch technicians to maintain them, the best planes in the world are just expensive toys. Even if the Poles could somehow afford to buy thirty or forty of those old birds from Sky Masters, it would take them years to train up a decent force.”

“Then why are they doing this?” Torrey asked.

Spelling looked grim. “Wilk and his people must be completely desperate, Tom. Hell, if I were in their shoes, I would be. They counted on our support if the Russians got frisky, and now they’re finding out that they’re pretty much on their own.”

“Which raises the question of whether or not this information should be in the President’s Daily Brief,” Torrey said slowly.

The Air Force general didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Come again?”

“How do you suppose Madam President Barbeau will react to the news that Poland is trying to build up a long-range bomber wing?” Torrey asked.

“Not well,” Spelling said slowly, thinking it over. He grimaced. “If she doesn’t understand what it takes to stand up a useful bomber force, it’ll be another excuse for her to figure the Poles don’t need our help after all.”

“And if President Barbeau does understand how useless those planes are by themselves? Without the crews and infrastructure?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked even more worried. “Then she’ll be pissed because she’ll think Warsaw is provoking the Russians for no good reason.”

“You see my problem,” Torrey said.

“Yeah, I do.” Spelling studied the pictures of the two F-111s refueling again. “Do the Russians know the Poles are buying these planes?”

The CIA director nodded. “My guy says there was a GRU-type dogging his heels the whole time — taking his own set of pictures.”

“Then you have to include this intelligence in the PDB,” Spelling said firmly, still frowning. “You can bet Gryzlov will blow his top when he finds a private American company is selling upgraded F-111s to Warsaw. If he goes screaming to Barbeau and you didn’t tell her about this, your head will be on the chopping block before she even gets off the hotline phone.”

“I suspect there are plenty of staffers in the White House who’ve already picked out an ax and looked up my collar size,” Torrey said drily.

“Maybe so,” Spelling agreed. He shrugged his shoulders. “And I bet that I’m on the same hit list. Still, why make it easier for the bastards? Every day you’re on the job at Langley is one more day you can use to try to tapping a little more sense into Barbeau and her crowd of sycophants.”

The CIA director snorted. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to go tilting at windmills much longer. Don Quixote came to a sad end, you know.” He closed his laptop. “No, you’re right. I can’t keep this data out of the Brief.” He shook his head wearily. “But God help the Poles when Stacy Anne Barbeau finds out what they’re doing. Because nobody else will.”

Brad McLanahan opened the door into the large building and stepped aside, allowing Nadia Rozek to go in first. “Welcome to the Rock,” he intoned dramatically. “The Remote Operations Control Center — the nerve center for the Iron Wolf Squadron’s aviation component.”

She walked inside and stopped, fascinated and slightly daunted all at the same time.

Less than a week ago, this part of Powidz Air Base had been just an empty clearing in the woods behind the control tower. Then Scion’s site engineering team swept in, rapidly assembling sections of this modular building as they were ferried in by Sky Masters cargo planes. In little more than twenty-four hours, they had the basic shell up, slotting together sections of prefabricated exterior wall, flooring, and finally, a roof. Once that was done, other teams went to work on the interior — rapidly installing piping and electrical wiring, putting in partitions, and then rigging and connecting fiber-optic cables and computers. More flights brought in generators to provide clean, reliable power for all the electronics crammed into this new building. A maze of satellite dishes and antennas now crowded its flat roof.

Nadia swung around in a complete circle, transfixed. It was almost as though some sorcerer had waved his wand, summoning an army of magical creatures to build an entire palace overnight. Everywhere she looked, she had the impression of clean, cool, perfectly lit modernity — without any of the clutter or jumble of equipment she would have expected in any ordinary military structure erected so quickly. Wide corridors led to separate sections of the building, all carefully laid out with an eye to efficiency and ease of movement. Muted pastels quickly and easily identified the different functions assigned to each part of the building.

“Let me give you the fifty-cent tour,” Brad said with a grin.

She followed him through the building, more and more impressed by Scion’s organizational and logistical skills. The new Iron Wolf Squadron already had a ready room, with comfortable chairs for the aircraft crews and a large built-in video display for mission planning and briefing. A small canteen offered a selection of drinks and packaged meals for anyone on duty at odd hours. A maintenance office included stocks of computer and electronic components, along with workbenches and tools for on-site repairs.

Most impressive of all, though, were the dozen or so remote-piloting stations. Set in separate, soundproofed bays, each resembled an aircraft cockpit — complete with seats for the pilot and systems operators, screens to show real-time images transmitted from the drones and other remotely piloted aircraft, joysticks, throttle controls, systems readouts, and multifunction displays.

“We can’t give our pilots the sense of motion they’d get in an actual XF-111, say, or in a full-up simulator,” Brad explained. “But we’ve compensated some for that by making sure that the control layouts in each remote station track the real cockpits as closely as possible.”

“So each piloting station can only control a single specific type of drone or plane?” Nadia asked.

Brad shook his head. “Nope. Everything’s basically modular and plug-and-play. Working all-out, we can reconfigure any station to control a new aircraft or drone in about thirty to forty-five minutes. In a pinch, we can just do a software swap-out so that you could fly an MQ-55 Coyote from a station configured like an XF-111 cockpit, but it’s easier and safer and more efficient to remotely fly an aircraft if all the controls and readouts are right where a crew expects them to be.”

“This is incredible,” Nadia said, still drinking it all in.

“The equipment sure is,” Brad agreed. A quick frown flitted across his face and then vanished, almost before she noticed it.

“And when will you put this operations center to its first test?” she asked, wondering what was bothering the young American.

He checked his watch. “In about an hour. We’re going to be running the squadron’s first simulated deep-penetration raid against a hypothetical Russian target.”

“Flying those first XF-111s you have received?” Nadia asked.

“For real?” Brad shook his head. “Not this time. This will be strictly a computer simulation.” He looked at her. “Want to ride along — virtually, anyway? I’ll be controlling and monitoring the raid from a workstation that should give you a really good bird’s-eye view of the whole mission as it unfolds.”

Nadia nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.” She gestured at the nearest remote-control cockpit. “I will look forward to seeing your fellow pilots show what they can do, even if it is only against make-believe Russians. I’m sure it will be most impressive.”

Again, Brad got that odd, worried look in his eyes. Then he forced a smile, a crooked one this time. “Impressive? Well, maybe. We can hope so, anyway.” His smile turned a little more genuine. “But one thing’s for sure, I expect this mission to be educational as hell.”

An hour later, Brad walked straight to the front of the ready room and took his place at the lectern. One quick glance at the laptop on the lectern showed that the text and visuals for his full mission brief were keyed in and ready to be projected on the big wall display. Somehow, though, he had the not-so-funny feeling that he wasn’t going to need much of it.

The other XF-111 pilots, along with their assigned weapons systems officers, lounged carelessly in their seats. A couple of them sat up straighter, at least trying to seem interested in what he was going to say. But most seemed to have decided to go for an air of casual detachment, shading on outright boredom. They all wore a mix of civilian clothing — jeans, khaki slacks, polo and button-down shirts, and even a few leather flight jackets with their old squadron patches still displayed.

For about the thousandth time, Brad wondered if his father really knew what he was doing in pitching him straight into the middle of this bunch. The other Iron Wolf aviators might respect what they’d heard about his experience in the air and in Earth orbit, but there was no hiding the fact that he was at least ten years younger and several hundred flight hours short compared to the rest of them. From his time as a teenage cadet in the Civil Air Patrol, he knew enough about squadron dynamics to realize he was still the FNG, the fucking new guy, here.

Nadia Rozek knocked on the open door of the ready room. She wore camouflage battle dress with her dark green Special Forces beret clipped to her shoulder. “May I come in?” she asked. “I hope I am not too late?”

“Not at all,” Brad told her, inwardly regretting not having suggested that she go straight to the simulator control station. What was likely to be embarrassing was only going to be worse when it happened in front of her. He glanced around the room. “I think most of you have already met Captain Nadia Rozek, one of the squadron’s Polish liaison officers, right?”

Heads nodded and most of the pilots murmured greetings as she made her way to a chair near the front. She drew a number of closer looks, even from some of the other women. Suddenly Brad realized it wasn’t exactly Nadia’s slender, wiry figure they were admiring — delightful though it was. No, it was her uniform that caught their attention and even their envy.

Interesting. He filed that thought away for further consideration later.

Right now, though, he’d better start the briefing before the other members of the squadron got even more bored or more restless than they were already pretending to be.

“The target for today’s exercise has been carefully selected,” Brad said. He hit the enter key to bring up his first graphic.

That drew a laugh.

He glanced at the display and grinned. It was the picture of a bottle of Talisker Single Malt Scotch. “Oh, geez, sorry about that. I must have picked up Mark’s Christmas wish list by accident.”

Darrow grinned back. The ex-RAF officer’s ability to consume large quantities of hard liquor without apparent ill effect was already the stuff of which nightmares were made for those who’d agreed to go bar-hopping with him.

“Now, here’s your real simulated target,” Brad said. He brought up a satellite image, showing two large runway complexes joined together. “Lipetsk Air Base, roughly fifty nautical miles north of Voronezh. This is the Russian equivalent of Nellis Air Force Base, back in the States. Lipetsk is home to more fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons than any other single airfield complex in Russia. It’s also the headquarters of the Fourth Center of Combat Application and Conversion of Frontline Aviation — Russia’s Top Gun air combat school. We have several fixed targets at the base, primarily their command center, fuel depot, and radar complex.”

There were murmurs from the Iron Wolf pilots.

“Jesus, kid, getting a little ambitious, aren’t you?” Bill Sievert asked. Sievert was a hard-nosed former F-15E Strike Eagle driver and high up on the list of those Brad mentally cataloged as “not especially in awe of General McLanahan’s fair-haired boy.” “Hell, why don’t you pick something more doable, like say… some supersecret Russkie missile complex buried a bazillion meters deep in reinforced concrete way out in the back of East Bumfuckistan.”

That drew more laughs.

Brad waited them out and then shook his head. “Sorry, Bill. But if the balloon really goes up, Poland’s national command authority picks the targets — whether we like them or not. That’s part of the process we’re simulating today.”

“Swell,” Sievert growled. He sat back, glowering, in his chair.

“There’s no denying this is a tough target,” Brad went on, starting a mental countdown. Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. “But, given the right mix of weapon load-outs and specific mission assignments, I think our XF-111 force can take Lipetsk’s command and control and fighters out of action, at a reasonable cost in downed and damaged aircraft.”

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.

He tapped through to another graphic. This one showed line drawings of nine XF-111s in top-down plan view. The nine aircraft were assigned to three flights labeled IRON HOWL, IRON CLAW, and IRON FANG — and the aircraft in each flight were shown carrying a mix of different weapons. The three SuperVarks in HOWL flight mostly carried special decoys and drones designed to blind and confuse enemy radars and knock out radio and cell-phone communication. The three XF-111s in the CLAW flight were heavily loaded with antiradiation missiles and AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missiles. And the final three, flying in FANG flight, were shown equipped largely with AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff guided missiles.

“As large as the payload capacity is on the SuperVark, it can never carry enough weapons to do the job,” Brad said. “So we’ll form three strike packages of three aircraft, each with defensive, antiradar, and attack load-outs. You go in on different tracks, but form up just before you go tactical and make your attack runs together.”

Ten. Nine. Eight.

“This is a bunch of crap, McLanahan,” Sievert exploded. “Three aircraft going in together? What if the guy with the bombs goes down? What are the other two going to do? What if the guy carrying the MALDs goes down? The rest of the package can’t do shit.”

“Why didn’t you ask us to help you plan this, Brad?” Mark Darrow asked. “We could have given you some good advice and saved you a lot of work.”

“This is just a training mission,” Brad said. “I want to see how well you guys can fly the SuperVarks and run the systems. My plan was to switch crews in each aircraft to give everyone an opportunity to employ each weapon and practice the tactics. Later we can—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sievert exploded. “Cut the cutesy Boy Scout and Civil Air Patrol crap! You train like you’ll fight, McLanahan, ever hear of that idea? Each plane should carry its own mix of attack and defensive weapons. And what do you need AMRAAMS for? We’re going up against MiG-29s, Sukhoi-35s, and maybe even the Su-50. What do you expect us to do — dogfight with them? If we’re jumped, we go low, go fast, and hopefully SPEAR does its thing.”

“The SuperVark has an air-to-air capability — we should use it,” Brad said. “A beyond-visual-range shot could be the thing to get close enough to the target to—”

“Now you’re a fighter expert as well as an attack expert, eh?” Sievert said. “McLanahan, as far as I’m concerned, your job is to get us the stuff we need — you let us do the planning and we’ll kick some ass. We’ll go after Lipetsk Air Base, but spare us all the overelaborate plans, okay? Every crew in this room knows what it takes to go in and hit a heavily defended target. You say the ‘simulated’ Poles want us to hit this ‘simulated’ Russian field and its hardened aircraft shelters? Fine. All you gotta do is give us the weapons and intel we ask you for, point us in the right direction, and then get the hell out of the way! We’ll take it from there.”

Brad fought very hard to keep his face from showing any anger. This was what he’d expected to happen, after all — and this was probably the right time and the right place and the right way. He ran his eyes across the rest of the Iron Wolf crews. “Anybody else agree with Bill?”

A majority of the pilots and weapons officers in the room nodded, though not quite as large a majority as he had privately expected and feared. To his surprise, Mark Darrow was not among them. Instead, the former RAF pilot simply looked thoughtful.

“Okay,” Brad said simply, shrugging. “Let’s see how it goes. You can all pick your own ordnance loads and flight plans.”

“You’re not going to fuck around with the sims, are you?” Sievert asked suspiciously. “Just to screw us over?”

“Nope,” Brad said virtuously, fighting against the temptation to make the three-fingered Boy Scout sign. “The computer’s already loaded with everything we know about likely Russian defenses and reaction times. And Captain Rozek will stay with me throughout the mission. She can make sure there’s no cheating. Does that satisfy you, Bill?” Sievert did not reply but stayed quiet and glared at him.

“Right, then,” Brad said. “Crews, man your virtual planes. You’ve got thirty minutes to pick your armaments loads and input your own terrain-following flight plans. After that, you’re on your own.” He grinned evilly. “And the best of luck to you all!”

Now Darrow looked even more thoughtful.

After the pilots had filed out, Nadia came up. She seemed worried. “I had not expected these people to be so… niezdyscyplinowani. So undisciplined. Are you sure this is a good idea, Brad?”

“I sure hope so, Nadia,” Brad answered. He smiled thinly again, remembering what he’d read about the Russian defenses in and around Lipetsk. “Some people learn the easy way. But I guess most of us really only learn the hard way. And unfortunately for them, it looks like the Iron Wolf Squadron is full of hard-learning folks.”

Enlightenment dawned on her face. “Ah, that is what you meant you when said this simulation would be educational.”

“The guy is a total waste of my time,” Bill Sievert grumbled. He was in the pilot’s seat in one of the XF-111 control cabs. The systems inside the cab had been reset from remote-control mode to simulation mode in order to run their individual attack plans. Beside him was his weapons officer, George “Smooth” Herres, an ex-B-1B Lancer offensive systems officer from Kentucky, several years older than Sievert but still pretty sharp in everyone’s estimation. “I wonder how the little punk got the job? Who’s he trying to impress with that screwed-up complicated mess he called an ingress and attack plan?”

“Rookie mistake,” Herres said. “He might be a good stick — at least, that’s the dope I get from the others — but he doesn’t know dick about planning.”

“ ‘Kiss’ it: ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid,’ ” Sievert said. “Who doesn’t know about that? Well, we’ll show his punk ass how the pros do it.”

The plan he and Herres had devised was indeed simple: emulating a civil business jet, they would cruise single-ship at high altitude through Poland at 360 knots, cross into Ukrainian airspace near Lviv, and follow the commercial airways to Kiev, under radar contact and with an international flight plan filed to Kharkiv Airport on Ukraine’s eastern border. Once on an instrument approach to Kharkiv, they would simply keep on descending to two hundred feet with the XF-111’s digital terrain-following system, push the airspeed up, and begin the attack run. They planned to fly south and east of Lipetsk then attack from the southeast. It was less than two hundred miles from Kharkiv to Lipetsk, so the run would take just twenty-two minutes at 540 knots. The egress would be much shorter, since they would dodge south around Belgorod and come back into Ukraine near the town of Markivka. Once safely out of Russia and away from the Russian-occupied provinces of Luhansk and Donestsk, they could climb back up to cruise altitude, pick up a flight plan, and head home.

The catch: the airspace within five hundred miles around Moscow had always been one of the most heavily defended in the world, and with the conflict in Ukraine it was doubly so along the border. Russian air traffic control procedures required all flights in Ukraine to check in with Belgorod Approach Control when within fifty miles of the border or risk being engaged by fighters or surface-to-air missile batteries, and Russian controllers would assign a transponder code and carefully monitor the flight — any violation of their directives or deviation from the flight plan would trigger an air defense alert. The terrain would not help the inevitable pursuit — except for moraine ridges, it was flat, rolling, and featureless all the way to the Ural Mountains.

The answer: extreme low altitude, fast attack speed — supersonic if necessary — and the incredible ALQ-293 SPEAR, or Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system. More than just a jammer and threat-warning system, SPEAR was a “netrusion” device: it could insert malicious code into certain digital radars to create false targets, feed erroneous flight and tracking data into targeting computers, and even cause computers to shut themselves down or reboot. Both crewmembers had seen the videos and attended the briefings on SPEAR and agreed it was worth ten times more than all the jamming pods and antiradiation missiles back at base.

Their stores load-out was simple as well: an auxiliary fuel tank in the bomb bay, giving them an additional five hundred gallons of fuel; two AGM-154D JSOWs, or Joint Standoff Weapons, one on each inboard pylon; and two clusters of two ADM-160 MALD-Js, or Miniature Air-Launched Decoys, also one on each wing. The JSOWs were a stealthy glide weapon with GPS and inertial navigation with imaging infrared terminal guidance, carrying a breaching warhead designed to penetrate buildings. They were older weapons, produced in the 1990s, and Herres would have preferred to carry the longer-range and more powerful AGM-158 JASSM, or Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, but Poland currently had a very limited number of JASSMs for their own F-16 attack planes, so even for this simulated mission they chose not to use them, assuming they would not be available to the Iron Wolf Squadron. The MALDs were small cruise missiles with jammers and decoy features that could make the tiny missiles appear to be as large as a B-52 Stratofortress bomber to an enemy radar.

They knew that Sky Masters had a bunch of other very cool air-launched weapons as well back home that the SuperVark could employ, but they couldn’t play with those either.

Sievert and Herres followed the computerized air traffic controller’s instructions as they cruised across Poland, entered Ukrainian airspace, and proceeded to Kiev. The flight was quiet and uneventful… until about a hundred miles east of Kiev when they heard, “Dynamics One-One-Seven Alpha, contact Belgorod Approach on frequency three-two-zero-point-seven-two.”

“What?” Herres remarked. “We’re still a hundred fifty miles from Kharkiv. What gives?”

“Probably a bunch of nonsense from McLanahan,” Sievert said. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll play his game — then shove it back in his face.” On the radio: “Kiev Approach, Dynamics One-Seven Alpha, verify you want us to switch to Belgorod Approach now?”

“Affirmative, One-Seven Alpha,” the computerized controller’s voice replied. “You are clear to leave my frequency. Have a nice night.”

“One-Seven Alpha, roger.” Sievert shook his head in exasperation as he switched to the new frequency. “Belgorod Approach, this is Dynamics One-One-Seven Alpha, level at flight level two-niner zero, direct Kharkiv. We will be requesting the ILS approach to runway one-two, full stop.”

“Dynamics One-One-Seven Alpha, this is Belgorod Approach, understand you are at flight level two-niner zero direct Kharkiv,” the new computerized controller’s voice responded. “Please say type aircraft.”

“It’s on our flight plan,” Herres said. “I assumed the Russians would have a copy of it. Maybe they don’t.”

“Part of McLanahan’s ploy to distract us,” Sievert said. On the radio: “Dynamics One-Seven Alpha is a Gulfstream Four slant Lima.” The Gulfstream Four was very similar to the XF-111A in cruise performance and would look very similar to air traffic controllers on radar… until the combat started, and then the SuperVark was in a world all its own. The slant-Lina suffix meant that the aircraft had the latest GPS-guided Reduced Vertical Separation equipment, which meant it could send air traffic controllers enough data to keep it separated from other traffic, independent of ground-based radar.

“Understand,” the computer said. “Say souls and remaining fuel on board.”

More distractions. Sievert checked around the cockpit to see if McLanahan had put in any malfunctions that he needed to catch… but everything looked fine. He didn’t trust the little prick one bit, but so far McLanahan wasn’t pulling any funnies. “Two souls on board,” Sievert responded, “and three hours’ fuel on board.”

“Understand,” the computer responded. “Fly heading one-five-zero for sixty seconds, then proceed direct Kharkiv.”

“Heading one-five-zero for sixty seconds, then direct Kharkiv, Dynamics One-Seven Alpha, wilco,” Sievert acknowledged. That was a typical air traffic command, although unusual for flights in complete radar contact and with full transponder codes and flight plans in the system. On intercom he said, “That bastard is just fucking screwing with us. He just wants to—”

“Caution, unidentified L-band search radar detected,” the SPEAR threat-warning system announced.

“Identify!” Herres ordered.

“Negative identification,” SPEAR replied. “Possible agile active frequency signal. Stand by.”

“What the fuck is going on, Smooth?” Sievert thundered. “What is that?”

“L-band active frequency signal is probably a Russian AWACS,” Herres said. “The Russkies have an AESA AWACS up over eastern Ukraine.” The Russian AWACS, or Airborne Warning and Control System, was an AESA, or active electronically scanned array radar, that sent pulses of radar energy through a mass of emitters that changed L-band frequencies several times a second — SPEAR sensors could detect the emitter, but because the frequency changed several times a second it was impossible to get a range, bearing, or even a positive identification of the emitter. “They don’t have us locked up, but we can’t lock them up either.”

“This is bullshit,” Sievert exclaimed hotly. “The Russians can’t detect us this far inside Ukraine. The simulation is bogus. This is—”

“Warning, warning, X-band target search radar, MiG-29, two o’clock high, forty-three miles, six hundred knots,” the computer announced. “Possible flight of two.”

“Countermeasures active,” Herres ordered.

“Countermeasures are active,” the computer responded. “MiG-29 flight of two now thirty-eight miles and closing… warning, MiG-29s not detected.”

“Not detected?” Sievert exclaimed. “Launch a MALD!”

“MALD away,” the computer responded.

“Engage DTF, two hundred hard ride!”

“Warning, DTF overridden.”

“Overridden? Why?”

“It gives the MALD time to get away,” Herres said. “Should only be a few seconds.”

Sure enough, seconds later: “DTF engaged, two hundred feet hard ride,” the computer announced. The SuperVark started a steep twelve-thousand-feet-per-minute descent. The DTF, or Digital Terrain Following system, used a digital global terrain and obstacle database coupled with the flight control system to fly as low to the earth as possible, without having to use terrain-following radar that was imprecise and could give away their position. Sievert pulled the wings back to their full seventy-two-degree wing sweep to pick up speed in the rapid descent.

“What happened with that MiG?” Sievert thundered. “Why did SPEAR lose the contact? What the hell…?”

“IRSTS attack,” Herres said. “If the Russian radar plane has a lock on us, they can shoot with just a target bearing from their infrared tracker.”

“Shit,” Sievert swore. “Can SPEAR shut down that AWACS?”

“No indication yet,” Herres said. “All countermeasures are—”

“Warning, warning, missile launch detection,” the computer suddenly announced in the same maddeningly relaxed, matter-of-fact tone.

“Shit!” Sievert swore. He threw the XF-111 into a hard right turn at ninety degrees of bank, and SPEAR automatically responded by ejecting chaff and flares from the left side, opposite of the break.

“Search radar, L-band phased array, Russian Beriev-100, ten o’clock, seventy-five miles,” the threat computer reported.

“Engage Beriev-100,” Herres commanded. But he saw that SPEAR had already sent spoofing signals to the Russian radar plane, not jamming the radar signal but electronically moving the return in a different direction while making the Russian fighter believe he was still locked on to his target. “SPEAR is active. SPEAR is…” And at that instant they saw a bright flash of light off to the left of the nose. “Good miss,” he said.

“Warning, warning, X-band search radar, MiG-29, nine o’clock high, forty-seven miles, not locked on,” the threat-warning computer announced.

“Passing ten thousand feet,” Herres said. He checked a digital chart on his left multifunction display. On the left side of that display in stunning detail was a digitally produced drawing of the terrain ahead, with “signposts” pointing out towns, airports, and high obstructions. “Terrain is about seven hundred feet.” The right multifunction display on Herres’s side had a status readout of their weapons and a depiction of the threats around them and how SPEAR was reacting to them. The Russian fighter was well above them and continuing to cruise westbound, quickly passing behind them. “SPEAR is not engaging the MiG. It’s moving off to our seven o’clock.”

Sievert pulled the throttles back as the SuperVark began to decrease its rapid descent. “I think we’ll be okay on fuel even with the early descent,” he said. “Better double-check, though, and find out what kind of reserves we’ll—”

“Warning, warning, India-band search radar, S-300 missile system, twelve o’clock, eighty miles, not locked on,” the threat-warning computer said. “Warning, warning, Lima-band search radar, Beriev-100, nine o’clock, forty-two miles… warning, warning, Lima-band radar in narrow-beam mode, locked on… warning, warning, India-band search radar in narrow-beam mode…!”

“Pushing it up to six hundred knots,” Sievert said. “Go target direct.”

“We’re target direct,” Herres said. “Slightly higher terrain left, big city off to the right. Give me weapons.”

“Weapons permission Sievert,” he said.

“Weapons permission Sievert, acknowledged,” the computer responded.

“You got weapons.”

“Weapons permission Herres.”

“Weapons permission Herres acknowledged. Warning, weapons are ready.”

“We’re going in hot,” Sievert said. “Let’s get the—”

“Warning, warning, infrared threat, three o’clock,” the computer said. “Warning, warning, India-Julia band target tracking radar, nine o’clock, thirty miles… warning, India-Julia band missile guidance radar… warning, warning, second infrared target, three o’clock… warning, third infrared target detected, nine o’clock…!”

“MALDs! MALDs!” Herres shouted. “They got us between two SAMs!”

“MALDs deployed.”

“Coming left,” Sievert said. He threw the SuperVark into a tight left turn. The terrain was higher in this direction, but not by very much. SPEAR punched out decoy chaff and flares out of the right-side ejectors.

“Warning, warning!” the threat computer said in the same monotone, even, unhurried female voice, as if nothing at all were happening anywhere in the world. “Warning, warning…!” The warnings were almost continuous now. As he thrust his aircraft into another tight right turn, Sievert wished he could meet the woman who recorded that voice…

… so he could punch her right in the damned mouth.

Four hours later, the last disheveled XF-111 crews dragged themselves back to the ready room, joining others who’d been sitting slumped wearily in their chairs for a lot longer. This time there was no banter, no laid-back swapping of worn-out jokes and good-natured teasing. There was just silence, a heavy, embarrassed silence.

Brad waited for the last of Iron Wolf pilots and weapons officers to get settled before taking his place at the front. He stood there for a few moments longer, eyeing them closely. Very few of them seemed able to meet his cool, ironic gaze. Most seemed content to study the floor or the ceiling or their folded hands. They were certainly a far cry from the cocky, arrogant bunch who’d sauntered out to take a whack at a computer-simulated Lipetsk Air Base.

“Well, that was… interesting,” Brad said, carefully choosing the most neutral word he could think of. Total freaking disaster was probably the most accurate description, but, hey, why pile on any harder than he already planned to? “Before I run through the full after-action brief, I’ll just summarize the results. Unless anyone has any objections?”

No one spoke up.

“Okay, here it is,” Brad said. “It’s short. But it sure as hell isn’t very sweet. Total number of XF-111 SuperVarks departing Powidz: nine. Number of XF-111s shot down over Russian territory: six. And a seventh plane crash-landed in Belarus as a total write-off. Number of XF-111s returning safely to Poland: two. Just two. And both of them landed with significant battle damage.” He let those horrifying statistics hang sourly in the air for a bit before going on. “Getting more than a billion dollars’ worth of advanced aircraft shot to shit is bad enough. What makes it even worse is the total number of bombs on target at Lipetsk. Which was precisely none. As in zero. Nada. Nil.”

As he expected, that drew return fire from Bill Sievert. The former F-15E Strike Eagle pilot had been one of those shot down on the way to the target.

“Sure we got clobbered!” Sievert snarled. “Crap, anybody would have gotten the snot beat out of them. Between the SAM belt on the way in, a bunch of fucking MiGs fighters already in the air looking for us — over Ukraine, for Christ’s sake! — and an even bigger shitload of SAMs ringing that freaking airfield, we never stood a chance. The damned target was completely impossible. Just like I said right from the get-go!”

“Wrong,” Brad replied, no longer bothering to hide the disgust he felt. These men and women were supposed to be highly capable and aggressive aviators, not a bunch of whiny, argumentative, undisciplined brats. “Was Lipetsk a tough nut to crack? Absolutely. Would we have lost some XF-111s going after Lipetsk no matter what we did? Possibly. Was the mission target impossible? Absolutely not. What made it impossible was the half-assed, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-goddamned-pants way you all went after it!”

“Maybe you’d better explain that somewhat more thoroughly, Brad,” Mark Darrow said, sitting up straighter. There might have been just the barest hint of a smile hovering on the Englishman’s face. “For those of us like me who are a bit slow, I mean.”

“Glad to,” Brad agreed. He brought up some of the data captured by the simulation program during their mission. The first image showed a schematic of the ordnance loads each XF-111 crew had selected. “Anybody see the problem?”

Slowly, hesitantly, several of the Iron Wolf pilots and weapons officers nodded. “We screwed up our load-outs,” murmured one of them, Karen Tanabe. Before joining Scion, she’d been a B-52 pilot for the U.S. Air Force.

“That’s right,” Brad went on. “I let a couple of you load JASSMs, and the ones that did got them off, but we can’t count on Poland letting us have any. The rest loaded up on JSOWs and MALDs. A couple loaded AIM-120s and took out some MiGs, and they made it out of Russia, but no one took a shot at the Beriev-100. No one brought antiradar missiles… no one. You had Belgorod’s radar in your face almost all the way after passing Kiev but no one could take it out. You eventually had to fly close enough to Belgorod so it could get a tight lock on you, and that together with the Beriev-100 and the S-300 was enough to get good missile guidance on you. And why did you all make that mistake? Because everybody focused on grabbing the big prize — dropping bombs on Lipetsk — and nobody wanted second place.”

Still scowling, he brought up his next exhibit, this one an animated illustration of the flight paths selected by each crew. It showed a set of nine blue-colored lines arrowing out from Powidz and then curving through different arcs to enter Russian territory at multiple points and widely separated times.

Brad let them look at the damning sequence in silence while it played through once. Then he set the animation on autoplay, looping through over and over while he spoke. “The most charitable thing I can say about your total failure to coordinate your flight plans is that the spaghetti mess you see on the screen might have confused the Russian air defense controllers. Maybe. If they were already drunk. Of course, as it turned out, all you did was give their early-warning radars the maximum bite at the detection apple, along with exposing your aircraft to fire from multiple SAM battalions.”

He sighed. “Look, I will try to get this across one more time slowly. The XF-111 SuperVark is not a stealth bomber. All the improvements Sky Masters worked in do reduce its radar cross section significantly, and the ALQ-293 SPEAR gives it a remarkable ability to jam and spoof a wide range of enemy radars. But the hard reality is that single XF-111s cannot successfully carry out long-range penetration missions — not against a swarm of advanced Russian radars, S-300 and S-400 SAMs, and advanced fighter interceptors. If you guys try to fly a mission all on your own, like the Lone Ranger, you’re just going to wind up as dead as George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn. Which is exactly what happened today.”

This time Brad noticed others besides Mark Darrow looking thoughtful. Maybe he was getting through to them — though it still felt a little weird lecturing the rest of the Iron Wolf crews. Then again, it was pretty clear that all the flight-line and simulator hours he’d put in at Sky Masters, along the special tactics classes he’d taken, did give him an edge over them… at least as far as knowing how XF-111 missions should be put together and flown.

“We have got to learn to fight and fly as a coordinated strike force,” he said. “No more of this stupid ‘I’m Batman!’ crap.”

“But I am Batman,” Jack Hollenbeck whispered sotto voce to Darrow, pretending to be offended. That broke everybody up, including Brad.

When the laughter died down, he went on in a slightly more relaxed tone. “Look, this squadron needs to develop tactics and mission plans that will let us tear right through Russian air defenses and then rip out the throat of any target we’re assigned. The only way we’re going to do that is if we fly as a team, not a bunch of lone wolves.” Again, for several long moments, there was only silence.

At last, Bill Sievert, of all the Iron Wolf pilots the one Brad would least have expected to side with him, said, “Okay, McLanahan. I get it. We screwed the pooch big-time. But do you really think your mission plan, the one we bailed out on this morning, was a step in the right direction?”

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Brad said levelly. “We can run the mission again, this time according to my plan. And if I’ve screwed up somehow, there’s more than enough brainpower and flying experience in this room to take the scenario apart and figure out a new approach.”

Sievert climbed to his feet and looked around at his fellow pilots. “The kid’s right. We need to try that frigging Lipetsk raid again.”

“I can set up the sim for another run-through tomorrow,” Brad told them. “But don’t expect all the defenses to play out the same way. The computer throws in different random elements every time. We get ‘intel’ from the computer as if we’re getting it from real recon sources, but like the real world it may be up-to-date and accurate, or it may be bogus.”

Now it was Darrow’s turn to speak. “We should get started on this today, Brad. Not tomorrow,” the Englishman said seriously, looking around the room. “Those bloody fools in Moscow could push this situation over the edge at any moment. Tomorrow may be too late.” There were more murmurs of agreement from the assembled Iron Wolf crews.

Brad nodded slowly, taking it all in. “Okay. Go grab something to eat. While you’re doing that I’ll reconfigure the sim. And this time I’ll fly it with you. Captain Rozek can act as my copilot and weapons officer. That’ll give her a better look at what these planes can do, and it’ll give us ten aircraft on the raid. We’ll meet back here at 1530 for a full briefing.”

One by one, the pilots and weapons officers levered themselves out of their seats, heading for the canteen next door. And once again, Brad noticed their eyes resting enviously, almost longingly, on Captain Nadia Rozek’s neat, trim uniform. Ah, he thought, piecing it together at last. Morale and unit cohesion were made up of more than just common purpose and professional respect. What was it that Napoleon had said when handing out medals? Something like, “It is with such baubles that men are led.” Napoleon might have been a cynical son of a bitch, but there was an elemental truth there. One worth considering.

He’d learned a lot about these men and women over the past couple of weeks — listening to their stories over meals or while working together to get the ROCC stations up and running. None of these Americans, Canadians, or Brits had quit their respective militaries because they were misfits. If anything, they’d left because their air forces were changing for the worse — cutting flying hours that would keep pilots alive in combat, skimping on maintenance, and scrapping good planes without acquiring better ones. These pilots weren’t careerists. They were dedicated professionals who couldn’t stand watching the squadrons they loved fade away into pale shadows of what they had once been. Maybe the Iron Wolf pilots were hungrier for a renewed sense of shared purpose than he had first thought.

After the room emptied out and they were alone, Nadia rushed over to him and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. “That was fantastyczny, Brad! Fantastic!”

He blushed. “Really?” He hemmed and hawed a little and then rushed on. “I was kind of afraid that I was coming across like a know-it-all prick.”

“Oh, you were,” she said, laughing softly. “But I think you were just the kind of ‘know-it-all prick’ they needed to hear.”

“Gee, thanks,” Brad said wryly.

“It was nothing,” Nadia told him, still laughing.

“Now that you’ve popped my little bubble of pride,” he said, “I sure could use some more help.”

“You may ask anything of me,” Nadia said, quickly sobering up. “I am at your service.”

With a tremendous effort, Brad forced down the immediate impulse to ask her out to dinner, focusing instead on what he needed — instead of what he wanted. “I need the telephone number of a good, superfast military tailor.”