Iron Wolf

ONE

“Big Bird radar detected at twelve o’clock. Estimated range forty miles,” the XF-111 SuperVark’s computer said in a calm female voice. “Detection probability high.”

“Activate SPEAR,” Brad McLanahan ordered, tweaking his stick to the left. The bomber banked slightly, following the visual cues shown by its digital terrain-following system. Blinking lights on a towering factory smokestack flashed past the right side of the canopy and vanished in the darkness. The XF-111 juddered slightly, hitting turbulence created by warmer air rising from the ground just two hundred feet below.

“ALQ-293 SPEAR activated,” the computer told him.

Brad relaxed slightly. If the computer was doing its job right, his XF-111’s Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system was busy transmitting precisely tailored signals that would fool the enemy radar into believing his bomber was somewhere else in the sky over Russia. And that might make the very real difference between living awhile longer and “catastrophic mission failure”—that dry little phrase used by his Sky Masters tactics instructors to describe what happened when a missile hit turned an aircraft into a tumbling ball of flame and shredded metal.

Then he tightened up again. That radar detection was an indication that he was flying straight into the zone where Russia’s air defenses formed what was supposed to be an impenetrable barrier of overlapping radars and surface-to-air missile batteries. The 91N6E radar, code-named Big Bird by NATO, was the acquisition and battle management radar for Russia’s first-line S-400 Triumph SAM battalions. Equipped with eight launchers, each S-400 battalion could fire up a mix of up to thirty-two highly accurate, long-range surface-to-air missiles. That was more than enough to make a very bad day for any attacking aircraft.

“Search radar broke lock,” the computer reported.

Brad really hoped the XF-111’s defensive programs were running smoothly. He didn’t especially like having to rely entirely on the computer this way. Ordinarily, a separate weapons system officer would closely monitor its operations, but he was stuck flying this mission alone.

But this was one awesome bird to fly even without a weapons systems officer — it was so highly automated that it almost flew itself. Each crewmember had two large color multifunction computer monitors that could display a dazzling array of information, from engine and systems readouts, navigation, weapons status, and even a virtual depiction of the outside world that was so detailed and clear that it seemed like a color photograph. The center of the instrument panel had a large multifunction display that mostly showed engine, fuel, electrical, and other system readouts, although data could be displayed and swapped around to any other monitor in case of damage or malfunction.

The original F-111 “Aardvark” was very advanced in its time, but the SuperVark was a digital masterpiece, in line with the latest bizjets and spacecraft: flight controls were triple-redundant digital fly-by-wire; voice-command redundant computers controlled navigation, flight control, attack, defensive systems, and weapon release. The SuperVark had an AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array radar for air-to-air and air-to-ground attack, and the radar could even be used in a high-power, narrow-beam mode to attack and disrupt enemy aircraft and incoming missiles. It employed four infrared detectors to provide warning and track enemy aircraft and missiles, and the sensors interfaced with the ALQ-293 SPEAR defensive system and the flight control computers to track and evade attackers.

Controlled by its digital terrain-following radar and computers, the SuperVark pitched up slightly as it popped up over a wooded hill and then descended again — speeding low across the hilly, forested landscape at nearly six hundred knots. Glowing numbers counting down on his HUD showed that he was still more than one hundred miles from his primary target, the headquarters of Russia’s 4th Air-Space Defense Brigade in Dolgoprudny, a suburb just north of Moscow.

For a moment, Brad was tempted to pop up off the deck and launch his cruise missiles now. The two AGM-158 JASSMs (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles) slung in his XF-111’s internal weapons bay had a rated range of around two hundred nautical miles. Once he launched them, he could turn and get the hell out of Russian airspace. But he fought down that urge.

Technically, JASSMs were low-observable, semistealthy weapons designed to penetrate to defended enemy targets. But semistealthy didn’t mean invisible, especially not up against equipment like that Big Bird positioned up ahead. It was a powerful phased array radar, the land-based equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s SPY-1 Aegis. If he launched now, the flight path for his subsonic cruise missiles would take them straight over the Russian S-400 battalion, and the JASSMs would be detected and shot down in seconds.

No, Brad decided, feeling his heart rate accelerate, there was only one way this mission was going to work. He was going to have to blow a hole through the Russian air defenses before he launched the JASSMs.

Keeping his right hand on the stick, he keyed in a new target on the large color multifunction display set below his HUD. Another quick button press selected a different weapon, one of the two AGM-88 HARMs hanging from launch rails beneath his XF-111’s wings.

“Range to Big Bird radar,” he asked aloud.

“Fifteen miles,” the SuperVark’s voice-command system said.

Good enough, Brad thought. His HARMs, High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, could reach out and smack enemy radars at ranges of up to eighty nautical miles. He squeezed the “DTF DISENGAGE” paddle switch on his control stick with his right little finger, temporarily disengaging the digital terrain-following system, and pulled back slightly. His left hand pushed the throttles forward a bit, feeding more power to the XF-111’s brand-new turbofan engines. The big fighter-bomber climbed, roaring up past two thousand feet.

“Warning, Big Bird radar has a lock,” the computer reported in a maddeningly calm voice.

“Crap,” Brad muttered. But that was no real surprise. There were limits to what any defensive electronic countermeasures system could do, even one as sophisticated as the ALQ-293 SPEAR. Now that they had a solid lock on him, those Russian SAM launchers would start flushing their own missiles in seconds.

Heart pounding, he toggled the weapons button on his stick and squeezed his eyes shut to avoid being dazzled by the HARM’s rocket plume.

WHOOSH!

The antiradiation missile he’d selected streaked out from under the XF-111’s right wing. It curved slightly, already guiding on the Russian SAM radar’s emissions.

Brad released the paddle switch and watched the terrain-following system yank the SuperVark’s nose down, heading for the deck again in the hope that he could break that radar lock by getting down in the clutter. He banked hard right and then jinked back left. No point in making it easy for them, he thought.

A huge white flash lit the night sky directly ahead.

“Big Bird radar off-line,” the voice-command system said.

“Sweet,” Brad said, rolling back onto his preplotted attack course. He shoved the throttles forward, going to full military power. The XF-111 responded instantly, accelerating fast. With their primary battle management radar blown to hell, it would take the officers and men of that Russian S-400 battalion a minute or two to power up their replacement systems. Time to git while the getting’s good, he told himself.

“Command not understood,” the computer said.

Oops. Brad colored briefly, embarrassed. The SuperVark’s voice-command system was a high-tech marvel, but it had limitations where English-language idioms were concerned. “Disregard.”

“Disregard last command. Fifty miles to primary mission target.”

Brad glanced ahead out the XF-111’s canopy. A pale yellow and white glow on the far horizon marked the city lights of Moscow. Almost there, he thought. Once he got within forty miles of Dolgoprudny, he’d pop up again to launch the JASSMs and break away at high speed.

“EXODUS threat detected at four o’clock,” the voice-command system said sharply. “Range is one hundred and sixty feet.”

What the hell? Brad swung his head sharply, straining to look out the right rear quadrant of the XF-111’s canopy. There was nothing there, just the black of a clear Russian night sky speckled with cold bright stars. Reacting instinctively, he turned hard into the threat. But what was this EXODUS thing? Some new surface-to-air missile? A new-type Russian fighter? And how had whatever it was gotten so close that it was practically scratching the paint on his SuperVark?

“Query EXODUS,” he demanded. He kept the fighter-bomber in a tight turn while frantically scanning for some visual on this unidentified threat that would explain things.

“EXODUS confirmed,” the computer said. “Still at four o’clock. Range one hundred and sixty feet.”

Brad frowned. Somehow, this unknown object was holding a static position relative to his aircraft, even while he maneuvered wildly. How was that possible?

Suddenly all the cockpit displays went out, leaving him sitting in absolute darkness. The noise and rumble of the XF-111’s twin turbofan engines died. The night sky outside the cockpit went black. With a whine of hydraulics, the floor tilted back to level. After a split second, red emergency lighting flickered on, outlining a door at the rear of the compartment.

“Simulator power loss,” the computer reported. “Mission incomplete.”

Not cool, Brad said to himself through gritted teeth. Doing all the grunt work and manual labor expected of summer interns at Sky Masters and keeping up with required classes in aerospace engineering, business management, and air combat tactics left him scrambling just to eat, stay in shape, and occasionally sleep. And now, just when he’d committed a whole hour of his incredibly limited free time to this XF-111 mission simulation, the darned thing had gone dead less than halfway through. It was like getting all the interruptus without any of the coitus.

Sky Masters Aerospace operated some of the most advanced full flight simulators in the world, enabling the Nevada-based private company to train pilots to fly almost any kind of aircraft. Its programs and instructors could teach you to handle everything from lowly little turboprops to fifth-generation fighters like the F-22 Raptor. Sky Masters even trained astronauts to fly the incredible S-series advanced spaceplanes, which delivered passengers and cargo to Earth orbit from ordinary commercial runways. For Brad, the chance to grab occasional sim time was one of this unpaid internship’s biggest perks.

Still pissed, he unstrapped himself from his seat and stood up, stretching out the kinks in his shoulders and legs. His build was one of the few disadvantages he’d inherited as a McLanahan. Most of the time there was nothing wrong at all with being tall and powerfully built, but it kind of sucked when you had to squeeze yourself into a crowded cockpit for hours on end. Getting the chance to lob some ordnance into a computer-generated building full of virtual bad guys would have made up for the physical discomfort.

It was only when he stepped out onto the narrow platform attached to the huge, full-motion simulator that the penny dropped. There, off at his four o’clock and about a hundred sixty feet away, was the exit door for the huge converted hangar Sky Masters used to house its simulators. It was at the same range and bearing as that weird threat warning he’d been given just before the simulator’s power failed.

EXODUS wasn’t NATO shorthand for a new Russian SAM or fighter plane, he suddenly remembered. It was one of a series of code words created by his father, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan, and by former U.S. President Kevin Martindale, now the owner of Scion, a private military and intelligence company. They had wanted a means to communicate quickly, securely, and secretly with Brad in an emergency. EXODUS was essentially shorthand for “make an excuse and get out of Dodge fast.”

Which meant there was trouble brewing somewhere.

His hands balled into fists. What the hell was going on now? he wondered.

For years, he had been caught up in events well beyond the pay grade of any trained military officer, let alone an ordinary college student barely into his twenties. In 2015, together with his father and other Sky Masters pilots under government contract, he’d flown an unauthorized retaliatory strike against the People’s Republic of China after Chinese bombers attacked the U.S. Air Force base on Guam. Almost everyone thought his father had been killed during that mission. The fact that Patrick McLanahan, though terribly wounded, had survived was known only by a tiny handful of people.

Then, last year, funded by a grant from Sky Masters, Brad and a team of fellow students from Cal Poly had worked hard to build and deploy an experimental orbital solar power plant called Starfire. It used a microwave laser to beam all the power they collected back to Earth. Despite their peaceful intentions, the Russians and Chinese claimed they were building space weapons and launched an attack on Starfire and Armstrong Station. With salvos of S-500 air-to-space missiles streaking toward them, Brad’s team had been forced to convert their laser into a real fighting weapon. And it had worked — helping defend Armstrong Space Station successfully right up to the moment when a Russian EMP blast knocked out their electronics.

That would have been way more than enough danger and excitement for anyone. Unfortunately, Brad had also found himself hunted by Russian assassins, narrowly escaping being murdered more times than he liked to think about. It seemed that Russia’s president, Gennadiy Gryzlov, had embarked on a personal vendetta against anyone bearing the McLanahan name. It was a vendetta that went back more than a decade, all the way back to the day when Gryzlov’s own father had been killed by American bombs — bombs dropped in a raid commanded by Patrick McLanahan.

Things had been quieter in the months since the tangled wreckage of Armstrong Station fell burning through the atmosphere. The press, quickly bored by old news, had stopped hounding him for interviews. The survivors of his Starfire team had drifted apart — drawn back to their own academic challenges and lives. Even Jodie Cavendish, the Australian exchange student with whom he’d fallen in love, or maybe just lust, and shared the secret that his father was alive, had gone back to Brisbane. Then, after the school year ended, the higher-ups at Sky Masters, impressed by his work and leadership skills, had offered him this summer internship. And even the Russians seemed to have stopped trying to kill him. Brad had been hoping that destroying the Starfire Project had satiated that nut case Gryzlov’s rage.

His father and Martindale weren’t so sure. Both men suspected Brad was still under close surveillance — certainly by the U.S. government and probably by Russia’s SVR, its Foreign Intelligence Service, and the PRC’s Ministry of State Security. If so, none of his phone calls or e-mails were secure. That was why they’d ginned up a number of code words and phrases for different situations and made him memorize them.

So now his father and Martindale were privately signaling him to bail out of his Sky Masters internship and head for the hills. Fair enough, Brad thought. The trick was going to be how to do that without tipping off the FBI and various Russian and Chinese intelligence agents that something weird was up. If he just waltzed into the personnel office and said he was quitting, he might as well send up a flare. Nobody who knew anything about him would believe he’d walk away from this gig with Sky Masters without a darned good reason.

Still thinking about that, he slid the last few feet down the ladder from the XF-111 simulator and dropped lightly onto the hangar floor. The massive Hexapod system’s huge hydraulic jacks towered above his head.

“Well, shit, look who’s been hogging the sim again, guys,” a voice jeered from behind him. “It’s Boy Bomber Jock McLanahan and his trusty sidekick, Ego Fricking Mania.”

Brad spun around.

Deke Carson and two other Sky Masters test pilots were about twenty feet away, loitering near the control consoles that ran the simulators. Carson, the biggest of the trio, leaned back against one of the consoles with his arms folded and an unpleasant sneer plastered across his face. His two friends, slightly smaller and lighter but wearing obnoxious smirks of their own, hovered at his elbows.

Brad’s eyes narrowed. Mostly he got along pretty well with the fliers who worked for Sky Masters and with the other professional pilots who flocked here for advanced training. Carson and his cronies were the exception. They’d been riding him all summer.

Carson was the worst. Like many Air Force pilots, he’d been “involuntarily separated” from the service in the last round of budget cuts. Sky Masters was retraining him to fly big commercial jetliners, but he was still pissed off about losing his military career. And even the sight of Brad McLanahan was like waving a matador’s red cape in front of a bull. Knowing that a kid, and a civilian kid at that, had more flight time, even time in space, and real-world combat experience than he did struck the former Air Force captain as proof that politics and family clout counted for more than talent and training.

“Did you cut the power to my sim, Deke?” Brad snapped, moving toward the other men.

Carson raised an eyebrow. “Your sim, McLanahan?” He snorted. “Last time I looked, you were just a jumped-up broom jockey with a big mouth. Or did somebody in corporate promote you to CEO because you did such a good job cleaning toilets?”

His two friends snickered.

Encouraged, Carson unfolded his arms and stepped right up to Brad, crowding inside his comfort zone. “Look, Bradley McDumbshit. These guys and me…” He nodded at his cronies, “We’re paying the freight here, to the tune of ten thousand bucks apiece per goddamned month. And we’re getting sick of seeing you waltz around like you’re God’s Own Aviator. Hell, you’re not even a nugget. You’re just a little piece of crap with delusions of grandeur.”

“I’ve paid my dues,” Brad said tightly. “I’ve flown enough to—”

“Bull,” Carson interrupted. “The only reason anyone’s ever let you sit in a cockpit is because your dad, the late and totally unlamented General McLanahan, knew how to kiss political ass in Washington, D.C., and corporate ass here at Sky Masters.”

For a moment, Brad saw red. Then he breathed out slowly, forcing himself to regain self-control. He had nothing to gain from getting into a fight with a dick like Carson. Three years ago, losing his temper with an instructor had gotten him bounced out of the U.S. Air Force Academy in the middle of cadet basic training. Though he’d never said so, Brad knew that was the one time he’d genuinely disappointed his father.

“Nothing to say, McLanahan?” Carson asked loudly. His sneer grew deeper. “I guess that’s because you know it’s the truth.” He glanced at his friends, saw them grinning in encouragement, and swung back to Brad. “Hell, the only other thing you’ve got in common with your dad is the nasty habit of getting other people killed for your own goddamned glory! How many people were left sucking vacuum when you ditched from Armstrong Space Station and hightailed it for home? Four? Five? More?”

On the other hand, Brad thought coldly, he did need a good reason for leaving Sky Masters before his internship was up. Maybe this was his chance to create one. He looked hard at Carson. “I strongly suggest you shut up, Deke,” he said.

“Or what?” Carson asked, still sneering.

“Or I will kick your sorry Hangar Queen ass,” Brad told him. “And right in front of your little friends, too.”

For a second, he thought the other man would play it smart and back down. That would be… disappointing. But then he saw Carson’s nostrils flare and knew he’d jabbed the right nerve with that Hangar Queen crack. Maybe it wasn’t fair to rub Deke’s face in the fact that his beloved Air Force had treated him like a broken-down bird useful only for spare parts, but this wasn’t exactly a time to be fair.

Carson shoved his shoulder hard. “Screw you,” he snarled.

One, Brad thought. He just smiled.

Furious now, Carson started to shove him again.

Now.

Brad slid to the left, deflecting the other man’s arm up and away with a right fan block.

Off balance, Carson stumbled forward.

Moving swiftly and fluidly, Brad swung in behind him, sliding his left hand under and around the other man’s jaw to bring Carson’s throat into the crook of his elbow. At the same time, he brought his right hand over to grip the back of the former Air Force pilot’s head and pushed forward, exponentially increasing the force on his carotid arteries.

Within seconds, deprived of any blood flow to his brain, Carson sagged, unconscious. Brad dropped him to the hangar floor. The self-defense training he had received from Chris Wohl and his countersurveillance operatives of Scion, even though long discontinued, still stuck with him.

“Who’s next?” he asked, stepping over the other man’s limp body. He grinned. “I’ll be nice. You can both come at me at the same time.”

But Carson’s two cronies were already backing away. One of them had his cell phone out. “Sky Masters Security?” he stammered. “We’ve got a big problem in the Simulator Building. We need help, right now!”

The other looked at Brad with an odd mix of fear and curiosity in his eyes. “You know you’re totally fucked, McLanahan, don’t you?”

Brad shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess I probably am.”

Lieutenant General Mikhail Voronov, commander of Russia’s 20th Guards Army, leaned forward in the Kazan Ansat-U helicopter’s left-hand seat, studying the ground flashing below at 250 kilometers per hour. This part of western Ukraine was covered in tiny lakes, narrow rivers, and marshland. Patches of pine and oak forest alternated with small fields sown in rye, potatoes, and oats. There were relatively few roads, most of them running east toward Kiev and west toward the Polish frontier.

A poor countryside, Voronov thought. But a useful place to keep a choke hold on the Ukrainians.

“We are five minutes out, sir,” the pilot told him. “Captains Covaci and Yurevich report they are ready for your inspection.”

“Very good,” Voronov said.

Stefan Covaci, a Romanian military police officer, and Vitalyi Yurevich, a member of Belarus’s border guards, jointly commanded one of the OSCE arms control posts sited at every border crossing into Ukraine. Since Romania was friendly to Ukraine and Belarus favored Russia, the dual command arrangement kept each national contingent reasonably honest and efficient.

In theory, under the cease-fire agreement between Ukraine’s government and the separatists allied with Moscow, these stations were supposed to stem the flow of weapons and military technology that might trigger a new conflict. In practice, their work helped keep the Ukrainians militarily weak and under Moscow’s thumb. Weapons sought by Kiev were deemed contraband, while Russian arms shipments to Donetsk, Luhansk, and other rebel-held cities easily evaded the OSCE’s inspectors.

The Russian general smiled, remembering the carefully crafted English-language quip his president had used at a recent meeting: “So the West thinks OSCE stands for the ‘Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,’ eh?” Russian Federation President Gennadiy Gryzlov had said with a wolfish grin. “How very high-minded of them. Fortunately for us, we know that it really stands for the ‘Organization to Secure Our Conquests and Empire.’ ”

It was the kind of darkly ironic gibe Voronov greatly enjoyed.

Since the tank, motor-rifle, and artillery brigades of his 20th Guards Army were based closest to Ukraine’s eastern border, Voronov acted as Moscow’s de facto satrap for the rebel-controlled regions. He made sure that the Kremlin’s carefully expressed “wishes” were obeyed to the letter. If necessary, separatists who balked were discreetly eliminated by special hit teams under his orders — as were other Ukrainians still living in those areas who were too stupid to understand who now ruled them.

As the senior Russian commander in this region, he also made a habit of periodically inspecting the OSCE’s arms control posts. These inspection tours added up to long, dreary hours spent flying from place to place, refueling when necessary, but his visits kept the monitors on their toes. And that was useful. Arms and ammunition they confiscated were arms and ammunition his own troops would not have to face when the day finally came to finish the job and reconquer all of Ukraine.

For now, President Gryzlov seemed content with the status quo, but the general suspected that would soon change. The NATO powers, led by the United States, were increasingly weak. Just last year the Americans had effectively stood aside while Russia first destroyed an S-19 spaceplane with their vice president aboard, and then blew their prized Armstrong orbital military station into a million pieces. And if anything, their new president, a woman of all things, seemed even less likely to get in Moscow’s way.

Voronov’s sly grin slipped.

Poland was the one real remaining obstacle. It, too, had a new president, Piotr Wilk. But this Pole, a former air force commander, seemed made of sterner stuff than the American, Stacy Anne Barbeau. His sympathies plainly lay with Ukraine’s democratic regime. And he was already proposing a program of significantly increased defense spending to boost Poland’s military capabilities. If left too long to his own devices, Wilk seemed likely to make trouble for Moscow.

Which gave Voronov all the more reason to keep a close eye on this particular arms control post. Sited at the busiest border crossing between Poland and Ukraine, it was just the place the Poles might use for clandestine shipments to Kiev.

“The Starovoitove arms control station is in sight,” the helicopter pilot reported. He reduced collective and pulled back on his cyclic joystick to begin slowing the Ansat. He keyed his mike. “Opekun flight, clear us into the landing zone. Acknowledge.”

Another voice crackled through their headphones. “Understood, Lead. Guardian flight complying. Out.”

Two narrow-bodied Ansat-2RC light helicopter gunships flashed past and descended, spiraling into orbit ahead at low altitude. The pilot and gunner aboard each helicopter were using their nose-mounted infrared sensors to scan for potential threats. If anyone was concealed in the surrounding forests, their heat signature would stand out against the cooler vegetation.

Voronov looked through the windscreen. They were coming up on the Bug River, a shallow, meandering waterway that marked the border between Poland and Ukraine. Two bridges spanned the river, one for the Lublin-Kiev railroad and the other for the E373 highway. Sunlight glinted off slanted glass and metal roofs, pinpointing the twin checkpoints where the Poles and Ukrainians conducted their own hunt for illegal immigrants, cigarettes, drugs, and other contraband.

Long lines of semitrailer trucks and cars were backed up on the highway in both directions, waiting for clearance across the frontier. More vehicles filled the large lots adjacent to each customs and border inspection plaza or were parked nose to tail along the various connector roads.

The OSCE had erected three plain, prefabricated buildings just beyond the Ukrainian border crossing. One was a headquarters and communications center. Another provided living quarters for the twenty Romanian and Belarusian arms inspectors. The third building, larger than the others and the only one surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped fence, served both as a storage area for any confiscated weapons and an armory. There were no other defenses.

Voronov’s thick lips pursed in disgust. This was his second inspection of the Starovoitove Station in the past twelve months and nothing had changed. The Romanian military police captain and his Belarusian counterpart refused to consider fortifying their post, insisting that maintaining good relations with the locals required a more open approach. Good relations with the Poles and the Ukrainians? Kakaya yerunda, the general thought. What bullshit!

Then he shrugged. Their carelessness about their own safety wasn’t his problem.

“Lead, this is Opekun One,” the senior gunship pilot radioed. “You are clear to land.”

The driver of a huge MZKT Volant truck parked along the road watched the Russian utility helicopter fly low overhead and flare in for a landing next to the OSCE headquarters. His refrigerated semitrailer carried the logo of a Donetsk-based frozen foods company.

He leaned forward and spoke softly into an intercom rigged between the cab and its trailer. “Our fat friend is arriving.”

“And the two whores keeping him company?”

“Still circling, but I think they’ll follow him in soon,” the driver said, peering through his windshield to watch the two shark-nosed Ansat gunships orbiting over the border checkpoint.

“Very good,” the voice from the trailer said. “Keep me informed.”

Less than two hundred meters away, the helicopter carrying Voronov settled smoothly onto the landing pad. Its twin turboshaft engines spun down and stopped. Four soldiers in light blue berets, bulky body armor, and pixelated camouflage uniforms jumped out, bending low to clear the slowing rotors. Each carried a compact 9mm Bizon submachine gun. They fanned out across the pad, staying between the helicopter and the group of unarmed Romanian and Belarusian arms control monitors already lined up to greet their distinguished visitor.

Those were Voronov’s Spetsnaz bodyguards, the truck driver realized. The Russian lieutenant general was a cautious man. Then he snorted softly. But perhaps not cautious enough.

Two Russian junior officers, clearly military aides, followed the bodyguards. They snapped to attention as Voronov himself clambered out of the helicopter cockpit and dropped heavily onto the tarmac. Straightening up, the general marched forward to exchange salutes with the two young officers assigned to command the OSCE station. Decked out in his full dress uniform, complete with peaked cap, jangling medals, and highly polished black boots, the burly, thickset Russian looked more like an overstuffed toy soldier than a cold-blooded killer.

If so, his looks were deceiving, the truck driver decided grimly. Both directly and indirectly, the commander of the 20th Guards Army was responsible for thousands of deaths.

One after another, the two Russian helicopter gunships settled onto the far end of the pad and cut their engines.

Trailed by his Spetsnaz bodyguards, Voronov and his hosts moved off toward the headquarters building. Behind them, the other Romanian and Belarusian arms control monitors dispersed, with some heading for their posts at the Ukrainian customs plaza and others to their off-duty living quarters. Voronov’s pilot climbed out of the Ansat-U’s cockpit and stretched, easing shoulders cramped during the long flight.

The truck driver clicked the intercom again. “The whores are in bed. It’s time.” Then Pavlo Lytvyn popped open the cab door and dropped lightly onto the grass verge running along the road. He carried an AKS-74U carbine wrapped in a lightweight windbreaker.

Inside the semitrailer, Fedir Kravchenko stood up. He turned to the others crowding its otherwise empty interior. A quick, warped grin flitted across his scarred face. “Right. Keep it nice and easy, boys. You’re just getting some fresh air, remember? Stretching your legs during a short break from a long drive, eh?”

His men nodded. Most wore the set, grim expressions of those who had already killed enemies in battle and seen friends and comrades die. A few of the youngest, those without combat experience, looked pale but determined.

He unlatched one of the heavy back doors and stood aside. “Then off you go. Remember the plan. Follow your orders. And good luck!”

They filed out past him, ambling along the road toward OSCE post in scattered ones and twos. A few had leather jackets thrown over their shoulders to hide slung submachine guns — a mix of Israeli-designed UZIs, older Czech-made Skorpions, and newer Polish PM-84s. Others carried duffel bags carefully unzipped to allow quick access to the assault rifles and other weapons stashed inside.

Kravchenko was the last one out. Appreciatively, he slapped the thick insulation that had hidden them from the thermal sensors carried by the Russian helicopters. Voronov’s flying guard dogs had gotten lazy, he thought. They’d switched on their high-tech IR gear and switched off their brains.

Pavlo Lytvyn joined him and together they strolled along the edge of the highway, bitching amicably and loudly about the lousy roads and the extortionate price of petrol.

Fifty meters from the front entrance to the OSCE headquarters building, Kravchenko knelt down, pretending to tie a shoelace. He risked a glance ahead. The Russian general’s bodyguards were bunched around the door, joking and smoking cigarettes.

Sloppy, the Ukrainian thought coldly. With their boss safely tucked away inside that building, those supposedly elite commandos were acting as though they were off duty until it was time to escort the general back to his helicopter. He looked up at Lytvyn. “Everything set?”

The bigger man nodded, his eyes roving along the highway and around the OSCE compound. Their strike force was in position — carefully dispersed around the perimeter of their target. Some were prone in a drainage ditch that paralleled the road. Others crouched behind trees or had concealed themselves among the vehicles parked next to the compound’s buildings, white official SUVs assigned to the joint Romanian and Belarusian arms control team.

“Rozkryty peklo,” Kravchenko said stonily. “Unleash hell.”

Still down on one knee, Kravchenko reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a metal egg shape. It was a Russian-made RGN offensive fragmentation grenade. Without hesitating, he pulled the pin, making sure to keep a tight grip on the arming lever. Then he stood up and started walking steadily toward Voronov’s bodyguards, holding the grenade low at his side.

Lyvtyn walked beside him, now grousing loudly about the crummy food at their last rest stop. “So I told that stupid cow of a waitress if I wanted to die of food poisoning, I’d eat my wife’s cooking. I wouldn’t pay fifty hryvnias for your slop!”

Kravchenko forced a laugh.

Forty-five meters.

His right hand ached from the strain of holding the grenade lever closed. A droplet of sweat stung his one good eye. Impatiently, he blinked it away.

They were forty meters away.

One of the Spetsnaz soldiers, turning away from his friends to light another cigarette, finally noticed them. Startled, he stared at the two Ukrainians for a long moment and then hurriedly nudged his closest comrade.

“Stoi! Hold it!” this one shouted, unslinging his submachine gun.

Thirty-five meters. Close enough.

Still moving, Kravchenko hurled the grenade toward the bunched-up Russian bodyguards. As it flew through the air, the arming lever popped off in a hissing shower of sparks and smoke.

Kravchenko and Lytvyn threw themselves flat.

The grenade hit the pavement right in the middle of the Russians and went off in a blinding flash. Ninety-seven grams of RDX explosive hurled jagged shards of aluminum outward at more than two thousand meters per second. All four soldiers were knocked down. Fragments that hit their body armor failed to penetrate the titanium and hard carbide boron ceramic chest- and backplates. Fragments that hit arms, legs, faces, or skulls punched through in a gruesome spray of blood and bits of shattered bone.

Before the echoes of the blast faded, the two Ukrainians were up and running toward the headquarters building. Lytvyn tossed his windbreaker aside and opened fire with his AKS carbine on the move, hammering the fallen Spetsnaz troops with short bursts. Hunks of bullet-shattered concrete danced and skittered away. Kravchenko drew a Makarov pistol from his shoulder holster and thumbed the safety off.

Off to their right, a rifle cracked — dropping the pilot of Voronov’s helicopter with a single shot.

Across the pad, twin turboshaft engines whined shrilly as the crews of both Ansat gunships went for emergency starts. Slowly at first and then faster, their rotors started turning.

Two of Kravchenko’s men broke cover and dashed to the edge of the tarmac. They carried RPG-22 antitank rocket launchers. Both men stopped, braced, and fired almost simultaneously. Finned, rocket-propelled grenades streaked across the pad and slammed into the gunships.

The Ansat-2RCs blew up, torn apart by the RPG warheads and the detonation of their own fuel and ammunition. Twisted pieces of rotor and fuselage spiraled outward. Clouds of oily black smoke lit by fire boiled away from the heaps of blazing wreckage.

Pavlo Lytvyn charged into the OSCE headquarters building without slowing down. Kravchenko followed him.

Two ashen-faced Russian officers spun away from the windows looking out across the helicopter landing pad. They frantically clawed for the pistols holstered at their sides.

Lytvyn shot them at point-blank range and moved on down the central corridor.

The wide hallway ended in a door marked BIROU DE COMANDă and KAMANDA OFIS—“Command Office” in Romanian and Belarusian.

The big man kicked the door open and slid inside, moving sideways to cover the three stunned men — the two young officers who commanded this OSCE post and Lieutenant General Mikhail Voronov — grouped behind a large conference table covered with official documents and maps. He settled the stock of the AKS firmly against his shoulder. “Stay very still, gentlemen. And, please, keep your hands where I can see them.”

Fedir Kravchenko entered the room. He heard the shocked, indrawn breaths when they saw the mutilated left side of his face. Kiev’s best plastic surgeons had done their utmost to repair the damage, but there hadn’t been much left for them to work with.

He moved behind Voronov and the others, deftly relieving them of their sidearms. He tossed the pistols across the room and stepped back a pace.

“What do you want from us?” one of the two OSCE officers asked stiffly, keeping his eyes locked on the unwavering muzzle of Lytvyn’s carbine.

“From you? Nothing,” Kravchenko said. He shrugged. “We are not your enemies. Once we’re done here, you will be released safe and sound. Why, with a bit of luck, none of your men have even had their hair mussed.”

“Then I suppose you want me as your hostage,” Voronov growled.

With a faint smile, Kravchenko raised his Makarov and shot the Russian in the back of the head. “Wrong, General,” he said quietly. “Dead men are useless as hostages.”

Two minutes later, he led his strike team at a steady lope northwest across the tarmac. Skirting the burning Russian helicopters, they entered the forest, heading toward the Bug River several hundred meters away.

“You know those arms inspectors are going to start screaming for help over their cell phones any second now,” Pavlo Lytvyn said.

“Yes, I know.” Kravchenko nodded. He glanced at his subordinate with another quick, humorless grin. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”

“Thanks, guys!” Brad said cheerfully to the stone-faced corporate security guards who had just ushered him into the office. “I probably would have gotten lost without you.”

The tall, lanky man sitting on the other side of the desk frowned. “Put him in a chair and get out,” he told the guards. “I’ll handle this.”

Once the security personnel were gone, Brad looked across the desk with a wry grin. “Hey, Boomer! Long time no see.”

Hunter “Boomer” Noble shook his head in disgust. “Christ, Brad. I thought you had a handle on that dumb-ass McLanahan temper of yours. And then you pull a stunt like this?” He leaned forward. “Do you have any idea of the kind of money Sky Masters is going to have to lay out to keep this son of a bitch Carson from filing criminal assault charges against you?”

“A lot?” Brad guessed.

“Yes, a lot,” Boomer said. “As in free tuition for his courses and probably at least a six-figure, tax-free settlement.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Ouch,” Boomer agreed. He sighed. “Look, I went to bat for you with Richter and Kaddiri for this internship. They admired your dad, but they didn’t always see eye to eye with him. And they are not going to be real happy to hear that his son shares his less appealing qualities.”

Brad nodded. As chief executive officer and chairman of the board respectively, Jason Richter and Helen Kaddiri ran Sky Masters as a tight-knit team. They didn’t exactly manage business matters with a nakedly iron hand, but there was definitely a touch of something hard and inflexible inside the velvet glove. According to the corporate rumor mill, they were also a heck of a lot more than mere business associates, but nobody had any hard evidence of a romantic affair.

“Sorry, Boomer,” he said, trying to put a little sincere contriteness into his voice. In truth, he was genuinely sorry. Despite the long hours and lack of pay, this internship at Sky Masters had been a dream come true. In two months, he had picked up more about the subjects he really loved — flying, aerospace technology, and tactics — than he could ever have learned in four years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs or at Cal Poly — San Luis Obispo, where he was a student of aerospace engineering.

“I bet you really are,” Boomer said. He shook his head again. “But you still couldn’t stop yourself from going apeshit crazy on that asshole.”

“I was provoked,” Brad pointed out.

“Maybe by the letter of the law,” Boomer agreed. “Too bad that’s not the way the corporate world works, even here at Sky Masters.”

“Which means what exactly?” Brad prompted.

“Which means you’re out,” Boomer told him. “Canned. Axed. Terminated with prejudice. Pick your own favorite phrase.” He sighed again. “Look, Brad, ordinarily I don’t do shit for someone I’m firing, especially not some jackass intern. But I respected your dad a hell of a lot… so I’m giving you a onetime severance package.” He tossed a manila folder across the desk. “There. Don’t waste it.”

Brad flipped open the folder and found himself staring at his passport, a plane ticket to Mexico, and several thousand dollars in cash. Caught by surprise, he looked up at Boomer.

“Go spend some time hanging out on the beach with the señoritas and get your head screwed on straight, before you restart school,” the other man said. “Just don’t plan on blowing the next forty years playing around in the sand, okay?”

This time Brad caught the twinkle in Boomer’s eye. Forty years in the desert. EXODUS. Right. Now he knew who had relayed his father’s signal through the simulator program. He grinned back across the desk. “I’ll be a good boy, Dr. Noble,” he said. “I promise I won’t cause any more trouble.”

“See that you don’t,” Hunter Noble said with a wry smile. He cocked his head to one side. “But I hope you won’t mind if I don’t hold my breath on that promise of yours. Because I sure don’t hear any ice freezing over down in hell.”