Iron Wolf

ELEVEN

Dozens of huge, mobile Iskander-M and R-500 missile launchers, transporters, command vehicles, and maintenance trucks rumbled slowly along the rutted logging trails and narrow backcountry roads ninety kilometers east of the city of Kaliningrad, moving bumper-to-bumper under the direction of heavily armed Russian military policemen. As the convoys rolled through the dense pine forest, staff officers waved individual groups of vehicles off into clearings already covered by layers of camouflage netting. The Iskander brigade contained twelve forty-ton missile vehicles, each able to fire two missiles in rapid succession. One by one, the launcher units, each accompanied by other trucks carrying extra missiles and support and command vehicles, rolled into precisely calculated positions and halted.

More vehicles, launchers, and command trucks belonging to long-range S-300 and S-400 SAM battalions were already deployed in a wide ring around these new tactical ballistic missile and cruise missile sites. Close-in protection was provided by detachments of Tor-M1 30mm gun and short-range SAM units.

Another convoy of large armored trucks, this one even more heavily guarded by grim-faced Spetsnaz troops, followed the Iskander brigade. These trucks turned off onto a side road and drove deep into the heart of the newly created missile complex. There, in another camouflaged clearing, specialist crews waited to off-load their cargoes of tactical nuclear warheads into a new bunker dug deep into the Russian soil.

Gennadiy Gryzlov was keeping all of his options open. If his conventional forces failed to defeat the Poles, he would still possess the power to turn Poland into a ravaged, radioactive wasteland with a brutal, lightning-fast tactical ballistic and cruise missile strike.

Twenty Su-34 fighter bombers streaked low over the fields and forests of eastern Belarus, flying just high enough to clear trees and power lines. Three big KAB-1500L laser-guided bombs hung from the center-line and inner-wing hardpoints on each aircraft. Two of the fifteen-hundred-kilogram bombs were bunker-busters, designed to penetrate up to two meters of reinforced concrete and then explode with devastating power. The third KAB-1500L carried by each Su-34 was a highly lethal thermobaric bomb. It contained two small explosive charges and a large container of highly toxic and flammable fuel. Once the bomb was dropped, its first charge would detonate at a preset height, splitting the fuel container. As a mist of dispersed fuel drifted down, the weapon’s second charge would go off, igniting the fuel cloud in a massive explosion. The KAB-1500’s thermobaric warhead was designed to create a searing fireball with a radius of one hundred and fifty meters, while its powerful, lung-rupturing shock wave would kill anyone caught within five hundred meters of the blast.

In effect, the two squadrons of Su-34s were carrying enough precision-guided explosives to turn much of the historic city center of Warsaw into a sea of shattered, burned-out ruins. Two Kh-31 antiradiation missiles and a pair of long-range, radar-guided R-77E antiair missiles on the outer-wing pylons completed their armament load.

Strapped into the darkened cockpit of one of the lead fighter-bombers, Major Viktor Zelin firmly held the Su-34 on course as it bounced and juddered through turbulent pockets of warmer and colder air. He blinked away a droplet of sweat trickling down from under his helmet. Without the terrain-avoidance and terrain-following capabilities ordinarily provided by his aircraft’s Leninets B-004 phased-array radar, flying this low seemed like madness. But their orders were to go in without radar until they were almost right on top of their planned targets.

The brass said flying without active radars would help ensure surprise. Maybe so, he thought gloomily. Then again, the generals and politicians who’d ordered this stunt were sitting around knocking back vodka in cushy operations rooms back in Voronezh and Moscow. They weren’t the ones who would pay the price for any nasty surprises.

Abruptly, Zelin pulled back on the stick, climbing just high enough to clear the onion-domed top of a little village church that suddenly appeared right in front of them. “Eto piz`dets!” he grumbled. “This is fucked up! First, Voronezh wants us to go in practically blind. And then we’re not even carrying enough air-to-air missiles to scare off one Polish F-16, let alone tangle with their whole damned air force.”

Beside him, his navigation and weapons officer, Captain Nikolai Starikov, smiled tightly. The major was a superb pilot, but he was never really happy until he found something to bitch about. “Mixing it up with the Poles is what those Su-35s out ahead of us are for,” he said calmly. “And the boys on the Beriev have their eyes open. They’ll let us know if anyone’s heading our way.”

“They’d better,” Zelin said darkly.

Another twenty Su-35 fighters were flying about twenty kilometers ahead of them, ready to zoom farther ahead and bounce any Polish planes that tried to intercept the raid. Technically, Russia could have committed many more combat aircraft to this mission, but not without significantly reducing its ability to effectively command the attack force. The big, four-engine Beriev A-100 Airborne Early Warning and Control plane flying at medium altitude was a huge improvement on the old A-50 “Mainstay,” which had been limited to controlling just ten to twelve fighters or strike planes at a time. But there were still limits on how many planes the fifteen systems operators aboard the A-100 could handle.

In this case, the calculation was that the Poles would have trouble getting more than a handful of their best fighters off the ground before the Russian strike force was already on its way home — leaving Warsaw ablaze behind them. But even if they reacted faster than predicted, their F-16s and even older MiG-29s were no match for Russia’s Su-35s, at least not in a beyond-visual-range missile shootout.

“Beriev reports no airborne contacts yet,” Starikov said, listening intently to information radioed by the controllers aboard the AWACS plane. He glanced down at the digital map on his MFD. It used data from their inertial navigation and GPS receivers to show their current position. “Thirty minutes to beginning of attack run.”

“Search radar, L-band phased-array, Beriev-100 detected. Eleven o’clock. Seventy miles from Vedette Two and closing,” Brad McLanahan heard the XF-111’s SPEAR threat-warning system report. Although his XF-111 was still parked inside its camouflaged shelter at Powidz, it was receiving and evaluating information collected by some of Sky Masters’ newest toys — a series of experimental unmanned aircraft leased out to Scion for testing in real-world combat conditions.

This particular type of drone, designated by Hunter Noble’s aerospace engineering team as the RQ-20 Vedette, was about as simple, stealthy, and cheap as could be imagined. Designed around a single lightweight Pratt & Whitney 610F turbofan engine, the Vedette carried only the basic avionics and flight controls it needed for remote piloting and a small package of radar-warning receivers. Rather than using radar to detect other aircraft, Vedettes “heard” the signals emitted by their radars instead. Theoretically, a chain of data-linked Vedettes, all of them orbiting far forward of friendly bases, could use triangulation to get a pretty good read on bearings, ranges, speeds, and radar types — even against agile, frequency-hopping radars like the AESA system carried by that Beriev-100 AWACS aircraft.

Tonight, the Iron Wolf Squadron was putting this theory to the test.

Brad checked the map displayed on his monitor. Vedette Two was currently circling low near a little town called Kuliki in central Belarus. That put the Russian AWACS plane about eighty nautical miles east of Minsk — way too far forward for it to be operating in a defensive role. Unless this was just a feint designed to test Polish air defense reaction times and measures, the Beriev and its crew must be providing early warning and control for an approaching Russian strike force.

Briefly, he pondered that possibility. Like all good chess players, the Russians could be subtle, if they felt the need. Then he dismissed it. Although the destruction of Konotop and Baranovichi must have come as a nasty shock, Gryzlov and his air commanders were probably still confident that their fighter and bomber regiments could steamroll right over Poland’s much smaller air force and its relatively weak SAM units. As far as they were concerned, he suspected, subtlety was something important only to the outnumbered and the outgunned.

No, Brad thought, the radar emissions from that Beriev-100 meant the Russians really were coming this time. He tapped a series of commands, linking the information from his system to the other remote-piloting consoles and to a whole series of Polish airfields and air defense command centers. Then he picked up a secure phone. “Iron Wolf Ops to Thirty-Second Air Base. I need to speak to Colonel Kasperek. Right away!”

“He is in his aircraft, sir. Out on the flight line. I will connect you,” the air-base operations officer said quickly. Transferring most of his F-16s from Poznan in western Poland to the more central 32nd Air Base at Łask had been one of President Wilk’s first responses to Russia’s ultimatum.

There was an incredibly short delay and then, “Kasperek here.”

Brad grinned to himself. Trust Paweł Kasperek to be on top of things. The Polish Air Force colonel must have been waiting for this call ever since their conference with President Wilk earlier in the day. “It’s on, Paweł,” he said. “We’ve got a Beriev-100 radiating east of Minsk and heading our way.”

“Any sign of other bandits?” Kasperek asked.

“Not yet,” Brad told him. “My bet is their strike aircraft are coming in behind the AWACS a little ways, flying right down in the dirt. They’ll have fighters out in front.” He tapped a few keys, indicating guesstimated positions and vectors for the as-yet-undetected Russian strike aircraft and their escorts. “And, as we expected, they’re all coming in dark.”

“I concur,” the Polish Air Force colonel said, obviously studying the map images sent to him via data link. “So, which air defense plan do you recommend?”

For a fleeting moment, Brad was struck by the wild incongruity of this situation. He hadn’t even finished college, and yet the highly trained and experienced squadron commander chosen to lead Poland’s best pilots and planes into combat wanted him to select a battle plan. Then again, weird as it might seem to an outsider, he probably knew the capabilities of Scion’s stable of unmanned aircraft better than anyone except Hunter Noble. In fact, he’d spent a good part of his interrupted internship at Sky Masters studying different ways to employ them in action.

Thinking fast, he called up the position of Coyote Four. The MQ-55 was currently on station over the region where Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus all came together. Given the Beriev’s present course and speed, the plotted intercept time was around twenty minutes. More quick calculations allowed him to discard several of the options crafted earlier by the Iron Wolf Squadron and Kasperek and his staff. None of their prepared plans was perfect, but, given the geometry and timing, one stood out as a close fit. “I recommend we go with CIOS Z MAŃKI CHARLIE, SUCKER PUNCH CHARLIE.”

“Very well,” the colonel said. “But the timing will be very tight.”

“True,” Brad agreed. “Still, it’s our best shot at them.”

“I concur,” Kasperek said again. Still holding the secure phone in one hand, he snapped an order in Polish over his radio mike. Within seconds, the sound of multiple jet engines spooling up echoed over the connection. “My alert fighters are taking off now.”

“Pomyślnych łowów! Good hunting!” Brad told him, using some of his acquired Polish. He hung up and hit another key, instantly connecting him to all the other Iron Wolf pilots on duty in the operations center. “This is McLanahan. This is not an exercise. Execute SUCKER PUNCH CHARLIE immediately.”

Responses from Mark Darrow, Bill Sievert, and Karen Tanabe rippled through his headset. They’d pretty obviously been waiting to go as soon as that first report from the chain of Vedettes flashed across their screens.

“Get your birds off the ground pronto and launch as soon as you’ve got good altitude,” Brad ordered. “Bill, you and George are the designated missile-target controllers for Coyotes Two and Three once SUCKER PUNCH goes active. I’m flying Coyote Four myself.”

“Copy that,” Sievert said. “Smooth and I are gonna have some fun tonight.”

Brad grinned. “Just don’t get cocky, old man.”

Sievert chuckled. “Yes, Mr. McLanahan, sir. We’ll be good.”

Minutes later, three remotely piloted XF-111s taxied out onto the runway at Powidz, swung into line one after the other, and roared off into the night sky on afterburner — climbing through five thousand feet in seconds. At ten thousand feet, the SuperVarks leveled off and turned east toward Warsaw.

In the right-hand seat of the XF-111 control cab he shared with Sievert, George “Smooth” Herres said, “Configure MALDs to Foxtrot One Six mode.” He knew that the weapons officers for Darrow and Tanabe were issuing the same commands at the same time to their own XF-111s.

“MALDs configured,” the SuperVark’s computer reported.

“Set navigation package Sierra Papa Charlie.”

“Navigation package Sierra Papa Charlie set,” the computer said.

“Countdown to MALD launch?” Herres inquired. Once a strike package was in place, SPEAR would interface with the attack computers and determine the best time to launch the autonomous MALD aircraft.

“Forty seconds,” SPEAR responded, followed by, “MALDs away.”

Four ADM-160B decoys dropped out from under their XF-111’s wings, joining the flock of eight more launched simultaneously by the other two Iron Wolf fighter-bombers. Each MALD’s small wings unfolded at launch. Propelled by ultralight turbojet engines, the twelve tiny decoys headed straight toward Warsaw at three hundred knots, followed closely by the SuperVark controlled by Sievert and Herres. Behind them, the other two XF-111s circled back toward Powidz.

At the same time, sixty-plus nautical miles southeast of the Iron Wolf Squadron, the last of twelve F-16s took off from Łask and sped onward, flying very low along a route that would take them well south of Warsaw and then back northeast toward a preplanned point north of Lublin. Ground crews and pilots began frantically prepping the remaining fighters.

Back at Powidz itself, two MQ-55 drones lifted off the runway and flew east-northeast at five hundred knots, on a course that would take them north of Warsaw. Coyotes Two and Three were on the hunt. And two hundred and sixty nautical miles east, deeper in Belarus and still guided by the data coming from the little RQ-20 Vedettes, Coyote Four arrowed onward — steadily closing the gap with the oncoming Russian Beriev-100.

It was all an incredibly intricate aerial ballet, with more than thirty Iron Wolf and Polish Air Force aircraft, drones, and decoys moving in groups and singly toward the positions laid out in SUCKER PUNCH CHARLIE.

Twelve minutes after launch, the flock of AGM-160 MALDs reached Warsaw. Acting on their programmed instructions, they went active, mimicking the radar signatures and flight profiles of F-16 fighters, and began orbiting the Polish capital. The XF-111 remotely piloted by Bill Sievert flew with them.

“Caution, L-band search radar detected, Beriev-100, eleven o’clock high, range two hundred miles,” the SPEAR threat-warning system reported.

“Think they see us, Smooth?” Sievert asked his partner.

“Oh, yeah, those guys on that Beriev should be picking up a bunch of targets on their screens right about now,” Herres replied. He relayed the information to another operations-center control cab, where Brad sat hunched over his screens, joystick, and keyboard, carefully flying Coyote Four northeast over Belarus on a course to intercept the incoming Russian AWACS plane. “We’re over Warsaw and wriggling, boss.”

“Copy that, Smooth,” Brad said. Based on data supplied by the Vedette radar-warning drones and now from the XF-111 circling over Warsaw, he estimated that his MQ-55 drone was within sixty nautical miles of the Beriev. He took a deep breath. It was time. “Light it up, guys!”

“Activate AN/APG-81 radar,” Herres told their XF-111.

“APG-81 active,” the computer said.

Herres’s display filled with air targets, mostly their decoy flock masquerading as Polish F-16s. But there was one big sucker out about two hundred nautical miles to the east. The computer identified it as the Beriev. The rest of the Russian strike force was still effectively invisible. Even as powerful at the APG-81 was, their radar wouldn’t be able to pick up Su-35s or Su-34s until they came within eighty to eighty-five nautical miles. “Designate Beriev-100 as target and relay data to Coyote Four,” he ordered.

“Target designated. Data relayed,” the XF-111’s computer replied.

“That Russian AWACS is all yours, Brad,” Herres said.

“Copy that,” Brad said, seeing the Coyote feeding the target data to six of the ten AIM-120C air-to-air missiles in its weapons bay. He heard the bay doors whine open and saw six “AMRAAM” indicators blink and then vanish on his display. “Attacking now.”

One by one, six advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles released, fell out of the bay, and ignited — accelerating to Mach 4 as they raced up into the night sky toward the distant Russian Beriev-100. For now, their own radar seekers were inactive, ready to energize only when the missiles reached close range.

The Coyote’s bay door whined shut again.

Seven thousand meters above the darkened Belarusian countryside, the converted four-engine IL-476 flew westward at three hundred and fifty knots. A large circular dome mounted on two struts above its fuselage contained the Vega Premier active electronically scanned radar. The dome rotated fast, once every five seconds, giving it high capability against fast-moving targets. Two sleek Su-27 fighters flew lazy circles around the much larger AWACS plane, ready to intervene against any enemy attack.

Staring intently at his radar display, the Beriev’s senior air controller, Colonel Vitaliy Samsonov, keyed his mike. “Groza and Okhotnik Flights, this is Strike Controller One. We detect thirteen bandits over Warsaw. Twelve are F-16s. One is a larger aircraft, as yet unidentified. None of them are radiating at this time.”

“Thunderstorm Lead copies,” the voice of the lead pilot for the Su-34 fighter-bombers replied.

“Hunter Lead copies,” the Su-35 fighter commander said. “Standing by to fly ahead and engage at your order.”

Samsonov nodded to himself. Now that they knew the Poles had a strong combat air patrol over Warsaw, it was almost time to unleash the fighters — sending them streaking out in front to knock those F-16s out of the sky before the bombers came within reach.

“Search radar detected!” one of his junior officers said suddenly. “It’s coming from that larger aircraft over Warsaw. Strong signal! I can’t identify it, Colonel, the frequencies are switching too fast! It has a lock on us, though!”

Frowning, Samsonov switched his display so that it repeated the information reaching the younger officer’s station. He studied it intently. What the hell was that radar? It had to be an AESA type, and the Poles weren’t supposed to have any radar systems like that in their inventory. Quickly, he ran the data through another program, looking for some match. He stared intently, watching while the Beriev’s computers sorted through some of the known signal characteristics associated with a host of different AESA-type airborne radars.

“Sir?” another systems operator said uncertainly. “I picked up a very small bogey in our front left quadrant. The range was around ninety kilometers. But it’s gone now. It was just there for a second or two.”

“Then look harder, Captain Yanayev!” Samsonov growled, still focused on his own computer. “And make sure it wasn’t just another damned systems glitch.” Fielded operationally for the first time a year ago, the Beriev-100 was still a new aircraft, operating with a new radar and new, incredibly complex software. Occasional bugs and blips were a fact of life.

As more signals from that unknown radar accumulated, the computer steadily narrowed down the possibilities — and then, quite suddenly, it offered an identification: Radar is an AN/APG-81. For a second, Samsonov stared at the glowing text in shock. That was the type of radar carried by the new American F-35 Lightning II. What the devil was an American stealth fighter, the newest in their arsenal, doing orbiting over Warsaw?

A stealth fighter! Abruptly, he remembered Captain Yanayev’s earlier report of a bogey that blipped onto the screen and disappeared. He spun around in his seat to look down the crowded compartment. “Yanayev! Find that—”

Alarms shrieked suddenly and the huge aircraft banked hard to the right, rolling over almost onto its side. Unsecured manuals, coffee cups, and clipboards flew wildly through the Beriev’s radar compartment, whacking into bulkheads, crewmen, computer screens, and lights.

“Missile attack!” Samsonov heard the pilot scream over the intercom. “We’re under missile—”

Three of the AIM-120Cs slashing up at them out of the darkness missed — jammed or decoyed away by the Beriev’s automated defenses. One slammed into the aircraft’s starboard wing and exploded. Another blew a massive hole in its fuselage. The third missile smashed into big plane’s tail and tore it away. Spinning out of control, the rapidly disintegrating Beriev-100 plummeted earthward, wreathed in flame.

Leading two squadrons of Su-35s spread in fighting pairs across a twenty-kilometer-wide front, Colonel Alexei Filippov listened in horror to the report from one of the two Su-27s that had been escorting their AWACS plane. “A shitload of missiles just came out of fucking nowhere, Hunter Lead,” the lead Su-27 pilot said tersely. “They blew the hell out of the Beriev. And now we’ve got nothing on our radars. Absolutely nothing.”

Forcing himself to speak more calmly than he felt, Filippov said, “Understood, Guard Dog Lead. Did you get a vector on those missiles?”

“We think they came from the southwest,” the other pilot said, not sounding calm at all. “But that’s only a guess. It was all so damned fast!”

“Head in that direction,” Filippov ordered. “See what you can pick up!” He scowled. Without guidance from the Beriev, the bomber strike force and its escorts were on their own. Which meant he was in effective command. Should he abort the raid? It was obvious that the Poles knew they were coming. Otherwise, there was no way they could have ambushed the AWACS so effectively.

No, the colonel thought coldly. Turning and running now would be cowardice. Even without the Beriev, his Su-35s still had a significant edge over those enemy F-16s. They had better radars and carried more long-range missiles. And Moscow would not thank him for handing the Poles another propaganda victory. He switched back to the frequency for his own fighters. “Hunter Flights, this is Hunter Lead. Activate your radars and go to full military power! We’ll climb to five thousand meters so we can get a better look at what’s in the sky ahead of us. Then we’ll go kill some Poles!”

“Warning, warning, multiple X-band target search radars, Su-35s, twelve o’clock high, range one hundred fifty miles and closing, seven hundred knots,” the XF-111’s computer reported to its control cab at Powidz.

“Looks like we’ve got their attention, Smooth,” Sievert muttered. He kept the SuperVark in a slight bank to the right, still circling over the Polish capital city at five thousand feet.

Herres nodded. “Oh, yeah. That we do.” He studied his displays. “We should get a good solid paint on them in about five minutes.”

Sievert winked at him. “Hell, that seems like an awful long time to wait. Maybe we should mosey out to go meet those Rooskies in a toe-to-toe missile confrontation.”

“Now, guys,” they both heard Brad say through their headsets, “let’s stick to the plan, okay?”

“Only joking, Mr. McLanahan, sir,” Sievert said, chuckling. “Just passing the time!”

Beside him, Herres rolled his eyes. He clicked off his mike long enough to say, “Bet the kid’s never even seen Dr. Strangelove.”

“Ah, the young people these days,” Sievert agreed with a grin. “Missing out on all the real classics. It’s a crying shame, Smooth. A crying shame.”

Two small green dots blinked repeatedly on their map displays. Fifty nautical miles to the northeast, Coyotes Two and Three had reached their preset position and were orbiting low over the little Polish village of Grodzisk Duźy. The two northernmost flank units for SUCKER PUNCH CHARLIE, each loaded with ten AMRAAMs, were on station. A couple of minutes later, more green dots appeared roughly seventy nautical miles southeast of Warsaw. The southern flank — Colonel Kasperek’s twelve F-16s — was also in place, loitering silently not far north of Lublin.

Colonel Alexei Filippov glared at the multifunction display showing his Su-35’s evaluation of the radar data it was picking up. This was crazy, he thought. Based on size and radar type, his computer was claiming that the target was the new American F-35 stealth fighter-bomber. But obviously the thing wasn’t as stealthy as they claimed, since he was picking it up at maximum range. Could it be another aircraft with an F-35 radar on board? What the hell were they facing?

“Hunter Two,” he radioed his wingman. “Do you see what I see? A big fat target with an APG-81 radar?”

“Da, Colonel,” his wingman replied. “And I show a signal strength high enough so that it must have a lock on us.”

“Probably,” Filippov agreed. “Fortunately, we’re well out of their range.” Then, still shaking his head in disbelief, he spoke to the rest of his aircraft. “Hunter Flights, this is Hunter Lead. I will take that big bastard at maximum range. The rest of you stand by to engage those Polish F-16s as soon as you get a good lock-on.” Acknowledgments flooded through his earphones.

Filippov designated the strangers as the target for his first salvo of four R-77E radar-guided missiles. His thumb hovered over the missile switch on his stick, but he held off. They were still about fifty kilometers outside the reach of his weapons. Firing now would just waste missiles to no effect.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

My God, he thought, horrified. They were under attack — by missiles streaking in from the northwest. But how? There were no radars active in that quadrant, and no reports of any enemy aircraft at all.

Instinctively, Filippov yanked his stick hard left, breaking away from the attack in a high-G turn. Straining against nine times the force of gravity, he thumbed another switch, activating the Su-35’s defensive systems. Bundles of chaff and sunburst flares streamed out behind the violently maneuvering Russian fighter, corkscrewing across the sky. At the same time, his wingtip ECM pods poured energy into an array of radar frequencies, trying to jam the seeker heads on any missiles that might be homing in on his aircraft.

Something flashed past his canopy and vanished in the night. Not far away, an explosion lit the sky. A cloud of debris, smoke, and fire marked the end of a warhead-shattered Su-35.

Swearing under his breath, Filippov rolled inverted and dove, hoping to lose any remaining enemy missiles in the ground clutter. A cacophony of desperate voices poured into his ears as other pilots radioed frantic warnings or sought orders. Grimly, the Russian colonel rolled out of his dive at one thousand meters and tried to make some sense out of the information flooding through his data link. He had to regain control over his squadrons.

Second by second, a clearer picture emerged. Six of his twenty fighters were gone — blown to pieces by a salvo of missiles his computer said were American-made AIM-120s. Two pilots had successfully ejected. They were now drifting downwind into Poland and captivity. But the other four were undoubtedly dead. And the rest of his Su-35s were scattered across a wide swath of sky, the inevitable result of each pilot’s individual maneuvers to evade attack.

Filippov thought fast. The stealth aircraft that had surprised them had to be somewhere north of Warsaw. Very well, he would swing his fighters away from them fast, fly south of the Polish capital, and then turn back hard to come in straight over the city. Whoever was out there hiding would have to engage the Su-35s head-on, or abandon Warsaw’s civilians to the massed strike Su-34 strike force coming in several minutes behind him.

He set a rally point on his digital map display and then sent it to the other pilots via data link. “Form up here,” he ordered. “And then we get back into the fight!”

Circling just two hundred meters above the ground, Colonel Paweł Kasperek kept one eye on the plot relayed from Sievert’s Iron Wolf XF-111 over Warsaw. Those Russian fighters were turning south. They were coming right at him. He shrugged. Part of him had hoped the Russian commander would be foolish enough to chase after the undetected Iron Wolf drones that had just savaged his formation. That would have allowed Kasperek’s F-16s to hit them from behind.

Instead, things were going to get harder. The Russian Irbis-E radars were better than the AN/APG-68 sets equipping his fighters. With all other things being equal, those Su-35s would lock on to his F-16s sooner and fire first.

Kasperek smiled coldly. Fortunately, thanks to the radar data being relayed by their comrades in the Iron Wolf Squadron, all things were not quite equal. He clicked his mike. “Talon Lead to all Talon Flights. Stand by to engage.” Quickly, he keyed in separate targets for each of his twelve F-16s. Confirmations rippled across his display as their computers accepted the designations.

He rolled out of his turn and headed north at full power while climbing toward two thousand meters — a move echoed by the rest of the Polish fighters. Glowing visual cues on his HUD gave him a running estimate of the range to the oncoming Russian Su-35s. The two groups of aircraft were closing on each other at incredible combined speed, more than 2,600 kilometers per hour. This, the colonel thought tightly, was going to require almost perfect timing.

The range marker slid down to one hundred and sixty kilometers. Shrill tones pulsed in his headset. The Russian radars had detected them. “Talon Lead, to Talon Flights. Activate your radars,” Kasperek ordered, pressing a switch to light up his own set. Although they couldn’t yet “see” the Su-35s, going in totally blind would only make the Russians more suspicious.

One hundred thirty kilometers. Their own radars still hadn’t locked on to the Su-35s. But that didn’t matter. Not with the data supplied by the XF-111 over Warsaw. And they would be in range of the Russian R-77 missiles in less than thirty seconds. Close enough, the Polish colonel decided. “Talon Flights, shoot! And then execute tactical withdrawal!”

Kasperek toggled the weapons release on his stick. “Fox Three!” he snapped, a call echoed almost simultaneously by the other eleven F-16 pilots. Twenty-four AMRAAMs, two from each Polish fighter, streaked north toward the fast-closing Russian Su-35 formation. And as soon as their missiles were away, the Polish pilots broke hard left, pulling high g’s as they went to full afterburner, and turned away from the Russians.

“They’re running!” one of the Russian fighter pilots shouted. “The Poles are running away!”

Colonel Filippov scowled at the images on his radar display. The F-16s were definitely turning away and accelerating. They were pulling away outside his missile range, just seconds before it would have been too late. And there was no way his fighters were going to be able to catch them — not without burning fuel they could not safely expend, not this far from their home base.

He shook his head in disbelief. This was a rat’s nest. How could the Poles already have so many of their best fighters in the air and waiting for them? First that group of twelve still holding over Warsaw? And now this squadron coming in from the south? Twenty-four F-16s was half the total in their whole damned air force! And where the hell were the Poles getting stealth fighters and weapons from? According to the briefings he’d been given, the Americans were supposed to be sitting this conflict out. Was that a lie?

But if the Americans were in the war, why had that second group of Polish F-16s suddenly turned tail and fled — especially before their radars could possibly have spotted his Su-35s? They must have been warned by that strange large aircraft orbiting around Warsaw, Filippov suddenly realized. After all, its high-powered APG-81 radar was still locked on to them. A secure data link could feed everything that system picked up to any allied aircraft within range.

He went cold. Oh, shit. Those F-16s had known exactly what they were doing. They weren’t just running away. They’d already fired at him! “All Hunter Flights! Break left now! Break!” he shouted. “We’re under missile attack!”

Without waiting for acknowledgments, Filippov threw his Su-35 into another high-G rolling turn. All across the sky, other Russian fighters — galvanized by their leader’s roared orders — were doing the same thing. Decoy flares lit the darkness while chaff blossoms and jammers flooded radar frequencies with false images and static.

Their commander’s abrupt order was almost in time. Almost.

Twenty-four AIM-120C missiles tore into the tangle of turning Russian jets. Most of the AMRAAMs were lured off target by chaff, blinded by jamming, or found themselves out of energy and unable to turn with their desperately maneuvering targets. But enough streaked through all the clutter and noise and exploded to send five more Su-35s tumbling out of the sky in spiraling plumes of smoke, fragments, and fire.

The nine survivors dove for the deck and raced east as fast as they could fly, heading home to Russia and safe haven.

Colonel Alexei Filippov was not among them.

Still more than a hundred kilometers from this scene of aerial slaughter, the twenty Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers were also ordered to abort their strike and return to base. Without fighter escort and left blind by the loss of the Beriev-100, pressing on into the heart of an alerted Polish air defense network would have been madness — especially one that appeared to be bristling with American stealth fighters and advanced weapons.

Gennadiy Gryzlov listened intently while his defense staff and commanders summarized their findings. They were still analyzing the fragmentary recordings of radar imagery and other data obtained during the aborted raid on Warsaw, but certain conclusions seemed obvious. Painfully so.

“The Poles have obtained an arsenal of highly advanced stealth aircraft and weapons,” Colonel General Valentin Maksimov said bleakly. “And it was this new technology which enabled them to successfully ambush our strike force.”

“Now that we know this, can we go back again — to hit Warsaw with a more powerful attack?” Defense Minister Sokolov asked. His face was pale. The assumption that Russia would have absolute air superiority over Poland had been a key factor in all their war planning. “If we massed even more aircraft, with two or three Berievs along for support and control, surely we could overwhelm the Poles, even with their new stealth capability?”

“Not at a price we could afford,” Maksimov said, sounding exhausted. “This failed raid cost us a third of our most advanced operational fighters from the western air division assigned to the Ukraine and Poland operation, without inflicting a single loss on the enemy. And we do not yet know what other improvements the Poles may have made to their ground-based air defenses. Without better intelligence, throwing more planes into Polish-controlled airspace would risk too much, for too little possible gain.”

“But—” Sokolov started to protest.

Abruptly, Gryzlov’s patience snapped. “Shut up, Gregor! And that goes for the rest of you, too!” He glared around the table. “Stop dancing around the real issue,” he snarled. He tapped a key, bringing up some of the last data received from Filippov’s Su-35 before the colonel was shot down. “Look at that! An American-made aircraft using the same kind of radar used on their new F-35 stealth fighters! Do you think the Poles simply went shopping at some arms bazaar to buy aircraft like that?”

Grimly, Russia’s air-force commander shook his head. “No, Mr. President.”

“Of course not!” Gryzlov said. He scowled across the table at Sokolov and Kazyanov. The two men wilted. Gryzlov looked away in disgust, his mind racing. A moment later: “Wait. The American planes that were detected over the western Mediterranean…”

“Our naval vessels did detect an X-band radar several minutes after first contact,” Sokolov said. “Now we know what the Americans were secretly flying across the Atlantic a couple of nights ago, don’t we?” He stabbed a finger at the screen. “Those bastard F-111 hybrids! And God alone only knows what else!”

Russia’s president turned his furious gaze toward Ivan Ulanov, his private secretary. The younger man swallowed convulsively. “Get that bitch Barbeau on the hot line,” Gryzlov demanded. “She owes me the truth now! I will not tolerate any more lies!”

“No more bullshit, people,” Stacy Anne Barbeau said icily. “No more ‘we don’t have a goddamned clue’ disguised as ‘our analysis is not yet complete, Madam President’ crap. You hear me?”

Slowly, heads nodded around the crowded Situation Room. Although it was well past midnight, she had summoned the entire National Security Council and members of their staffs to this emergency meeting. Like her vice president and secretaries of defense and energy, most of them were loyal nonentities, political hacks selected to make her look good and to stay out of the way while she and her White House staff ran the government. Now, though, she wanted them present as a buffer against those — like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the CIA director — whose independent thinking she found galling and potentially dangerous.

“By now you’ve seen the transcript of my hotline conversation with President Gryzlov,” Barbeau went on. She frowned. “A crisis we hoped would stay confined to Poland has now escalated into something one hell of a lot worse. The Russians are accusing us of providing covert military support to Warsaw. They’re demanding our immediate withdrawal. And if we don’t, that lunatic Gryzlov is perfectly capable of declaring war on us.”

“But we’re not helping the Poles,” Secretary of State Grayson protested. “How can we withdraw support we’re not giving?”

“Thank you so much for identifying the nature of the problem, Karen,” Barbeau said acidly. “That’s really a great help.” There were moments when she wondered how the other woman had ever graduated from her Montana cow college, let alone won a senatorial election. This was one of those moments. She turned her irritated gaze away from the embarrassed secretary of state to Thomas Torrey and the other assembled intelligence chiefs. “Which brings me to you, gentlemen. I need solid information about what’s really going on in Poland. And I need it now!”

“Fortunately, the intelligence picture we’ve been compiling is starting to come into clearer focus, Madam President,” Admiral Caldwell said. The director of the National Security Agency brought up a set of charts on the Situation Room’s large monitor. “This is where the trail begins.”

Barbeau stared at what looked like a sea of numbers, large numbers, and three- and four-letter abbreviations. Colored arrows linked circled sets of numbers and letters. In a weird way, she thought, those charts resembled some crazed artist’s rendition of the financial pages of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Puzzled, she raised an eyebrow. “Go on, Admiral.”

“Once we realized the Poles were buying refurbished F-111s from Sky Masters, my analysts started digging through the data we routinely and covertly collect from European and American financial computer networks,” the NSA director told her.

“You were tracking the money,” Barbeau realized. “The funds the Poles used to buy those planes and any other military hardware they’ve suddenly acquired.”

“Yes, Madam President,” Caldwell agreed. He shrugged. “But we found something more… interesting.” He highlighted certain sections of the charts. “These show substantial investments made using Polish-government Special Economic Incentive Funds — investments in a wide range of smaller Polish industries and corporations.”

“So?”

“What’s interesting is that the shares purchased by the Polish government were then immediately transferred,” Caldwell said.

“To Sky Masters?”

“No, ma’am,” the admiral said. “These transfers were made to a variety of different companies and corporations, most of them headquartered in Europe, South America, and Asia.”

“So it’s a dead end,” Barbeau said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

“No, Madam President,” Thomas Torrey said quietly. The director of the CIA looked her squarely in the eye. “When the NSA shared its findings, my analysts saw another pattern. We’re fairly sure that at least several of those corporations serve as fronts, as shell companies, for a private American defense contractor called Scion.”

“Kevin Martindale!” Barbeau spat out. “That sneaky rat bastard owns Scion.”

“Our information does suggest that former President Martindale is significantly involved in the company,” Torrey agreed, somewhat cautiously. “Which brings me to the next piece of the picture. And, in this case, it really is a picture, or rather, a series of them.”

Impatiently, Barbeau waved him on. Inside, she was thinking fast. Martindale was a slick financial operator — and a dangerous political opponent. What exactly was his game in Poland? Why was he buying up shares in their industries? Especially now, with the Russians raising all hell in Eastern Europe?

“We didn’t have any satellites in position to see that first Polish attack, the one on the Russian air base at Konotop,” the CIA director said. “But we were able to capture a set of thermal images from the raid on Baranovichi.” He brought up a short video clip on the big monitor, showing close-ups of the action as Russian aircraft, armored vehicles, and hangars went up in flames.

Barbeau stared at the screen. Some… blurry thing… moved with astonishing speed across that Russian base — firing weapons with incredible precision. But her eyes couldn’t focus on it. It was just an eerie jumble of random shapes.

“At first, our National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency specialists out at Fort Belvoir couldn’t make heads or tails out of these images,” Torrey said. “All we could pick up were occasional ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ thermal traces without any coherent shape. But then one of them had the idea of trying to connect up all the separate traces from different images — to see what they might look like if they were all somehow attached to each other. And this is what she came up with—”

The satellite pictures vanished, replaced by a drawing of a large, man-shaped machine, a robot equipped with a bewildering variety of weaponry.

Stacy Anne Barbeau stared at the screen in horror. Her skin crawled. “My God,” she muttered. “It’s one of those goddamned CIDs, one of those killing machines McLanahan used to—” With an effort, she stopped herself from saying anything more. Her past encounters with the Cybernetic Infantry Devices and Patrick McLanahan were decidedly not something she wanted in the public record.

“Yes, Madam President,” Torrey agreed. “That’s our assessment, too. The Poles are using combat robots originally developed for the U.S. Army.”

“It’s not just the Poles,” Barbeau realized suddenly. “That son of a bitch Martindale is fighting a private war with the Russians.” Her jaw tightened. “And now he’s going to suck us in with him…” She whirled toward Luke Cohen. “I need to talk to Piotr Wilk, now, before it’s too late!”

Piotr Wilk listened to the American president’s tirade in mounting disbelief. How could the American people have elected someone so self-absorbed and seemingly unconcerned with their nation’s historic role as leader of the free world? Gripping the phone tighter, he tried to keep an equally tight rein on his own rising fury.

“This war you’ve started has got to stop, Wilk!” Stacy Anne Barbeau said in exasperation. “I don’t care what line of bullshit Martindale and his paid killers sold you. Thanks to the element of surprise, they may have won a couple of meaningless skirmishes, but that’s over now. The Russians aren’t screwing around anymore. The more you hurt them now, the worse this is going to get. And not just for Poland. For Europe and the whole world!”

“So you propose that I simply surrender my country to Moscow now, instead of making more trouble for you by defending our freedoms?” Wilk asked sarcastically.

“Christ, no!” Barbeau snapped. “This isn’t a goddamned game. What I’m asking you to do is to stand your military forces down. Stop taking offensive action against the Russians while I see if we can negotiate a way out of this mess. But one thing’s for sure, you’ve got to get rid of Martindale’s hired Scion thugs and their killing machines. Gryzlov will never make peace with you until they’re gone.”

Enough, Wilk thought. He shook his head. “I will try to be very clear, Madam President, so that there is no room for any further misunderstanding. Even if your speculations about this company’s involvement in this war were accurate, I absolutely refuse to surrender Poland’s sovereign right of national defense. Not to the Russians. And not to any other foreign power, including the United States. When you wish to speak to me as an ally, as the leader of a nation ready to honor the solemn commitments it has made in the past, I will be here. For now, good-bye.”

Then, without waiting for her reply, he cut the connection. He looked across his desk at Kevin Martindale. “It seems that Scion’s service to my country is no longer a secret.”

The American nodded. “It was only a matter of time before the folks in our intelligence community figured it out. At least we bought enough time to catch Gryzlov and his commanders with their pants down. And that’s what really counts.”

Wilk looked at the other man quizzically. “Do you not fear your president’s anger?”

“I may not think much of Stacy Anne Barbeau as a national security strategist,” Martindale said with a wry smile. “But I would never bet against her skills as a political survivor. If we win, she won’t waste any time before figuring out some way to take credit for the victory. We’ll both be her dearest friends and allies — at least while the TV cameras are on.”

“And if we lose?”

Martindale shrugged. “Then what President Barbeau says or does will be the least of our worries.”

For the second time that night, Stacy Anne Barbeau found herself staring at the stern, handsome features of her Russian counterpart on a secure hotline video call. This time, though, she shared his unmistakable anger. How dare that idiot Piotr Wilk dismiss her so cavalierly? Did he really believe that his pissant country could stand up to Moscow’s armed might? Or had Martindale actually conned the Polish leader into believing that hiring his mercenary soldiers and pilots could drag the United States in on Poland’s side — against her expressed will and America’s own best interests?

Martindale, she thought viciously, had all the worst attributes of a megalomaniac and no saving virtues at all. At least Patrick McLanahan, his partner in so many dumb-ass geopolitical and military stunts, had finally had the grace to get himself killed taking one risk too many. Kevin Martindale, on the other hand, seemed to specialize more in leading others to death and then waltzing off unscathed himself. Well, not this time, she decided. One way or another, she would make sure that aging prick got what he so amply deserved.

With an effort she composed herself. “Thank you for agreeing to speak to me, Mr. President,” she said, with just the faintest hint of sweetness in her voice. Before making this connection to Moscow, she’d discreetly undone the top couple of buttons of her otherwise businesslike blouse. There were rumors that Gennadiy Gryzlov had a thing for buxom older women — his own foreign minister, for one. Well, maybe she could play on that fixation just a little. It wouldn’t be the first time that she’d used her attributes to gain an advantage, however fleeting, after all.

Gryzlov smiled thinly. His ice-cold, pale blue eyes never left hers. “Your message promised me answers, Madam President. Answers as to why the United States has secretly allied itself with Wilk’s terrorist regime. Since I am a peace-loving man, I have agreed to do you the courtesy of trying to explain this act of insanity. And, perhaps, you can explain to me how you propose to atone for so large a mistake in judgment.”

“That’s just it, Mr. President,” Barbeau said quickly. “You’re misinformed. My government is not, absolutely not, supporting the Poles. Those advanced aircraft and the other high-tech military hardware your forces have encountered are definitely not part of our arsenal. They belong to a private mercenary gang, one masquerading as a defense contractor!”

The Russian arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Mercenaries? With so much power in their hands? In this day and age? Do you take me for a complete fool?”

“Not at all,” she assured him. Hurriedly, she laid out the evidence the CIA and the NSA had compiled linking Scion and Martindale to the Poles and to Piotr Wilk’s personal fortune.

When she finished, Gryzlov only snorted. “You seriously wish me to believe that a so-called private military corporation — a corporation registered in America and owned by a former American president — is acting without your knowledge or consent?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Mr. President,” Barbeau said. “It’s the truth.”

“The truth is of no consequence whatsoever. Not now. Not after so many brave Russians have been murdered!” Gryzlov snapped. He shrugged, not even bothering to conceal his contempt. “Whether or not your absurd claim is accurate, Madam President, does not matter. I tell you this plainly: I hold you and your country directly responsible for this crisis. So you will begin cooperating with me to end these attacks on my nation’s armed forces, or I will be forced to assume that a state of war exists between the United States and Russia.”

By the time she finished talking to Gennadiy Gryzlov, Barbeau was pale and shaking. Damn the man, she thought furiously. How dare he threaten her like that? Unfortunately, that coldhearted Russian son of a bitch was right about the likely reactions of other world leaders. No other country would believe that a private American defense contractor could start a shooting war without at least a nod and wink from her administration. Years ago, the last time Scion’s military contractors had screwed up — during that mess between Turkey and Iraq — it had taken months of careful diplomacy, and a lot of discreet payoffs, to sweep the real facts under the carpet.

But this was an even bigger mess.

The NATO alliance was hanging together by a thin thread as it was. Only the belief that Poland had miscalculated and deserved some punishment by the Russians was keeping Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, and others in line. If the Germans or the Brits and the rest started thinking she’d been secretly backing Wilk with equipment and military expertise all along, America’s influence in Europe would melt away like a snowman dropped in the Sahara.

Well, not on her watch, she thought grimly.

Reaching into her desk, Stacy Anne Barbeau pulled out a piece of stationery, embossed with her official seal. She uncapped a fountain pen, rapidly scrawled a brief note, and signed it with a flourish. Then she picked up her phone. “Luke? Get in here. Now.”

Luke Cohen appeared in her doorway within moments. The tall lanky New Yorker was hurriedly straightening his tie. “Madam President?”

“Listen up, Luke. When I’m finished briefing you here, you’re going straight out to Andrews. An Air Force executive jet will be waiting for you. You’re flying down to Tampa, to McDill Air Force Base. Understand?”

“Not exactly,” he admitted.

“Then shut up and pay attention,” Barbeau snapped. She took a breath, closed her eyes to regain control, reopened them, and then favored him with a sly, apologetic smile. “Sorry, Luke, honey. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat like that. Things are just a bit fraught at the moment.”

She handed him the note she’d just written. “First, you’re going to take that written directive, in person, to General Stevens, the head of the Special Operations Command.”

Cohen looked down at it. His eyes widened a bit as he read it out loud: “By my order and for the good of the United States, the forces under your command will undertake a vital mission. The parameters of this operation will be orally relayed to you by the bearer, my White House chief of staff. To assure absolute security, you will discuss this mission only with the commanders directly involved. You will ensure that no relevant documents or orders are entrusted to any computer system in your command. And at no time will you discuss any of the proposed details of this mission with anyone other than myself, or with my personally designated representatives.” He looked up. “Good God, this is—”

“Your job, Luke,” Barbeau told him bluntly. She put a warm hand on his narrow shoulder. “You wanted to play in the big leagues, tiger. Well, here you are.”

Swallowing hard, he nodded. “Yeah. I see that.” He looked closely at her. “So what exactly am I ordering SOCOM to do — in your name, I mean?”

Without mincing words, she told him. When she finished, her chief of staff was the one who was pale and shaking.

The newest and tallest office tower to grace Kiev’s urban skyline soared thirty-five stories into the air — a shimmering monument in shining steel and blue-tinted glass to optimism, or folly, depending on one’s view of Ukraine’s long-term prospects. Thanks to recent events, most of the office suites were still vacant. But a few near the top of the building, those offering the best views of the city and its surroundings, were occupied.

The engraved sign outside Qin Heng’s private thirty-fourth-floor office identified him as regional managing director for the Kiev branch of China’s Shenzen Merchants Bank. That made him responsible for overseeing the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese investments in Ukrainian corporations and government securities. Russia’s effective annexation of eastern Ukraine had thrown Kiev’s markets into a panic — a financial crisis made worse by the march of Moscow’s armies toward Poland. If any excuse were really needed, this ongoing monetary meltdown explained Qin’s well-known proclivity for working well past midnight.

In truth, most of his late-night work focused on the needs of his chief career — as a senior intelligence agent for China’s Ministry of State Security. While Russia’s military operations were costing the Merchants Bank and its shareholders millions in lost profits and declining values, they were providing Qin’s primary employer with a wealth of information on Russian military technology and tactics. And, given the surprising events of the past two days, its unexpected weaknesses. Who could have imagined Poland’s commando and air forces would prove so daring and so capable?

All things considered, the wiry, middle-aged Shenzen native suspected, his masters in Beijing probably thought the trade-off a bargain. China had no immediate need to confront Moscow militarily or politically. For now, they shared a general interest in further weakening the United States and the West as a whole. But the day was bound to come, in five years or ten or twenty, when it would be necessary to establish which nation — Russia or the People’s Republic of China — was the real dominant world power.

Qin opened one of the encrypted files on his laptop and began sorting through a series of digital photos recently supplied by one of his paid Ukrainian informants. Taken at Konotop before Russian reinforcements arrived to secure the ruined base, they showed close-ups of wrecked aircraft and armored cars. Further enhancement and analysis should give the ministry significant clues to the types of new weapons used by the Poles. He attached them into the middle of his most recent report and began typing a quick summary.

Suddenly his office door burst open — smashed off its hinges by a battering ram. Armed men in Militsiya uniforms poured in through the doorway. “Hands on your head! Get your hands on your head! Now!” they screamed.

Qin barely had time to close and seal the file before the policemen were on top of him. Roughly, they dragged him away from his desk and slammed him back against the nearest wall. “What is this!” he demanded. “How dare you invade my—”

“Shut the fuck up, Slant-Eye!” one of them growled, shoving the muzzle of his submachine gun up under his chin. “No talking.”

“At ease, Yuri,” a smooth, cultured voice said. “There is no need for such violence.”

Gritting his teeth against the pain from strained muscles in his back and shoulders, Qin looked up. A tall, square-jawed man with short gray hair looked down at him. The other man wore a police uniform with the three stars of a colonel on his shoulder boards. He also wore the insignia of Ukraine’s State Security Service on his sleeve.

“I apologize for this intrusion, Major Qin,” the Ukrainian said softly. “But I have my orders.”

Qin felt cold. This Ukrainian counterintelligence officer knew his service rank. Which meant his cover was irretrievably blown.

Another man, this one in jeans and a brown leather jacket, leaned over Qin’s laptop. After a moment’s study, he spun the computer around and plugged a small thumb drive into one of its USB ports. The thumb drive clicked and whirred quietly for a moment and then a tiny light turned green. He took the drive out. Satisfied, he turned toward the State Security colonel. “We’re set. No problems.”

Qin looked at them in disbelief. “You cannot simply steal information from my computer like that! Not without a warrant from one of your courts.”

“Steal?” the colonel said, pretending to be shocked. He shook his head. “My dear Major, we aren’t stealing anything.” He nodded toward the man in the brown leather jacket. “My colleague there has only added a few files to your machine. Nothing of significance to you personally. Merely a few payment vouchers for unusual services and equipment acquired here and in Warsaw. Anyone reading them will believe the Ukrainian terrorists who’ve been attacking the Russians were trained and funded by your country.”

“What?” Qin stammered. “But my country is not doing any such thing!”

“True,” the other man agreed easily. “But my client in Moscow wants Chinese fingerprints on this affair. Your fingerprints, my dear Major Qin.”

Qin felt sick. “How can a Ukrainian intelligence officer have a client in Russia?”

The colonel smiled. “I’m afraid that you are operating under a misapprehension.” He brushed a hand down the fabric of his uniform jacket. “This is not real. And I am not employed by the Ukrainian government.”

His eyes went cold. He nodded toward the men gripping Qin’s arms. “Dispose of him.”

Qin was still screaming when they threw him out the window of his office.

General Timothy Spelling looked across his desk at his top aide, U.S. Marine Corps Brigadier General Rowland Hall. “The Russians have moved tactical ballistic missile units up to their border? How solid is this intel, Row?”

“It’s pretty solid, sir,” Hall told him. “We’ve got clear satellite pictures of some Iskander-type launchers on the move into the woods east of Kaliningrad.”

“How many?”

“That’s harder to pin down,” the Marine officer admitted. “But we figure at least one brigade. And probably more.” He frowned. “The Russians have done a really good job of hiding their launchers in among the trees. My personal bet is that we’re looking at at least a dozen launchers spread out over four or five hundred square miles, plus reloads. One thing is certain: they’ve put in a serious shitload of work shielding that whole area with layered air defenses. Right now, outside of Moscow proper, I don’t think there’s a more heavily defended locality in all of Russia. But that’s not all the bad news, I’m afraid.” He shook his head in disbelief. “The NSA say it’s picked up clear indications that the Russians have moved tactical nuclear warheads from their Zhukovka storage site into the same area.”

“Good God,” Spelling muttered. “Gryzlov is fucking nuts.”

“Should I put out an alert to NATO headquarters?” his aide asked.

Spelling sighed. “No.”

“Sir?”

“President Barbeau has ordered us to cease all military and intelligence liaison with the Poles during this crisis,” Spelling said. “And since Poland is still officially part of NATO, any data we send to Brussels would get passed straight on to Warsaw — in direct violation of the president’s explicit orders. So we have to restrict this news to our own chain of command. Is that clear?”

“Jesus Christ,” Hall muttered. “President Barbeau is fucking—” With an effort, the Marine general closed his mouth before he slid into expressing open contempt for the command in chief.

“What you are going to do, Row, is put out an immediate and highly detailed alert to all potentially threatened U.S. commands in Europe and the Middle East,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. “Include the location, estimated numbers, and defenses of those missile units, along with the possibility that the Russians may plan to arm them with tactical nukes.”

“Yes, sir.” Hall hesitated. “But the NSA still doesn’t know how Scion or the Poles or whoever hacked into our computer systems. They could be reading our databases and our mail.”

“General Hall,” Spelling said patiently, with the faintest possible hint of a smile on his otherwise stern face, “you’re not seriously proposing that I withhold vital intelligence information from our own forces… just because there’s an off chance that some other unauthorized group might pick up the same warning, are you?”

This time the Marine brigadier general got it. He grinned and snapped a quick salute. “Understood, sir. I’ll send that alert out, pronto.”