Plan of Attack

10

Patrick, you copy?”

Patrick simply sat back in his seat, suddenly unable to move or speak. His aircraft commander, Summer O’Dea, looked at her mission commander with a mixture of sorrow and apprehension. She had never seen the Air Battle Force commander frozen in shock like this before. “General? Target inbound, sir — looks like a helicopter gunship or surveillance aircraft.” Still no response. “Sir, answer me.”

“Roger,” Patrick said somberly. He was airborne in the EB-52 Megafortress again, orbiting over Yakutsk and scanning for any threats or armed response. He had already launched one AGM-177 “Wolverine” autonomous-attack cruise missile, which had scattered over fifty bomblets in the path of a column of trucks and armored personnel carriers to keep them from approaching the base; the helicopter was the first aerial responder that morning. He touched the icon on the supercockpit display. “Attack target,” he ordered, his voice little more than a ghostly echo. Neither of them noticed the computer’s response, an AIM-120 missile firing from the left wing’s weapon fairing, or the computer’s report that the target had been struck. “Dave…?”

“We launched the Pave Dasher from Shemya — it should be on station in about forty minutes,” Luger said. “The MC-130P should be airborne in about thirty minutes to refuel the Dasher.” They had received an MC-130P “Combat Shadow” aerial-refueling tanker from the Alaska Air National Guard at Kulis Air National Guard Base at Anchorage to refuel the turboprop and helicopter aircraft. “We’ll find them, Muck.”

It was difficult — no, almost impossible — to get his mind back in the game, but he knew he had to do it before his sorrow and shock spread to the others under his command. “Status of the MC-17s, Dave?”

“Safe, over the Sea of Okhotsk with the other two Vampires tagging along. ETE ninety minutes. Rebecca and Daren were flying cover for the transports when they got hit — looks like they used their own plane as a shield.”

“We’re going to need to divide up Rebecca’s targets with the other planes.”

“In the works, Muck,” Luger said. “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’re receiving fresh updates on the SS-24s’ and -25s’ locations. They’re dispersing more of them out of their garrisons, but they still have at least half of the -25s in garages, and we can hit them anytime. The SS-24s are all on the move. I wish I knew if they were decoys or not.”

“We can’t afford to ignore them,” Patrick said. He knew they would not be — Dave Luger was on top of it. But they wouldn’t be ready to strike for several more hours, and a whole lot of things could easily change by then.

Nikolai Stepashin came into the conference room almost at a dead run, a message form in his hand. The president was looking over reports from all over the world, shaking his head — none of it was good. “How in hell did the press get the news about the attack on Shemya so fast, and in so much detail?” Gryzlov asked when he heard Stepashin enter the room. “The Americans must have reporters embedded right on board their airborne military command post.” He looked up and noticed the panicked expression on the chief of the general staff’s face. “McLanahan…?” Gryzlov asked, jumping to his feet.

“Unknown as yet, sir,” Stepashin said. “It appears our air base at Petropavlovsk came under antiradar-missile attack again.”

“What losses on our side?”

“Two MiG-29s from Petropavlovsk.” Gryzlov grimaced in surprise and disappointment. The MiG-29s were among the world’s best fighters, but they were taking heavy losses tonight. “The airfield itself is temporarily shut down — some bomblets were scattered on the runways and taxiways.”

“Have we done anything to the enemy yet, Stepashin?”

“One fighter reported downing a large aircraft, type unknown, about sixty kilometers east of Petropavlovsk,” Stepashin responded. “No more attacks occurred after it was taken out, even though Petropavlovsk’s radar was down and there were no fighters on patrol for several minutes.”

“That’s good — that is very good,” Gryzlov said. “Whatever was hit must have been very costly to them. If McLanahan used unmanned attack aircraft to attack Petropavlovsk, perhaps the aircraft we downed was their control mothership; or, even better, perhaps it was a manned Megafortress or Vampire. Destroying one of those planes is akin to shooting down an entire flight of our best fighter-bombers. Americans have no stomach for protracted battle. If they can’t win in one night’s worth of bombing, or if they lose more than a few troops, they’ll go home.

“It hurt them, Nikolai, I know it did,” the Russian president remarked, wearing a rare smile. “McLanahan’s forces must be stretched to the limit. Every aircraft we shoot down means he has fewer and fewer resources to draw upon. If we can remove one of his tankers, he’ll have to think twice before flying his bombers out to the far east.”

He studied the wall chart of Siberia again. “He’s a little bit behind schedule,” Gryzlov said. “I would’ve expected attacks on Magadan or Vladivostok by now. I want ops-normal reports from every one of our Far East Military District bases every hour. Keep your men ready, General. In a very short time, McLanahan is going to attack. He knows now that he can be hurt. Let’s just see what he is made out of.”

Less than two hours after passing the Kamchatka Peninsula, sadly leaving their escort Vampire bomber behind, the two MC-17 cargo planes were safely inside hangars at Yakutsk, and the EB-52s and EB-1Cs were being loaded. The MC-17s brought in enough weaponry to completely load four EB-52s and two EB-1Cs, plus refuel the two deployed AL-52s. Patrick’s armada at Yakutsk already included two manned EB-1Cs loaded and on defensive patrol, along with two unmanned EB-1Cs dedicated to refueling and rearming StealthHawk unmanned attack aircraft. In addition, Patrick had two EB-52 Megafortresses and one AL-52 Dragon battleship on patrol, plus two KC-10 Extender aerial-refueling tankers, with one continuously airborne to support the patrol planes.

At the end of the day, Patrick and “Shade” O’Dea landed their EB-52 for rearming and refueling, and so Patrick could attend the mass briefing. He assembled the men and women together in the base-operations building’s conference room. The crews were beyond dog tired — they were zombies, guzzling hours-old coffee and trying to keep their drooping eyelids from closing completely. Patrick was stunned to realize how small his force was.

But he was even more surprised to see these hardworking professionals come to attention when he stepped into the room. Through the nearly seventy-two hours of almost continuous flying, mission planning, and preflighting, they still cared enough to practice military etiquette.

“As you were, ladies and gentlemen,” Patrick said. The crews, already on their feet in an effort to stay awake, shuffled to more relaxed positions, stifling yawns and draining coffee cups. “First of all, I have no news on General Furness and Colonel Mace. The Pave Dasher and an MC-130 are out looking for them. I have asked Colonel Cheshire to task one Megafortress crew to head out there to provide air cover for the rescue effort.

“Here’s the situation as we know it: Despite promising the president of the United States that they would disarm, the Russians attempted to attack Eareckson Air Base with nuclear weapons and have now deployed their mobile ICBMs and appear to be ready to launch them. Our mission tonight is to find and destroy numerous Russian intercontinental-ballistic-missile sites — a total of six SS-18 launch-control centers and seventy-two silos, plus one hundred and eighty road-mobile SS-25 units. If we are successful, we’ll eliminate almost half of the Russians’ land-based intercontinental-ballistic-missile fleet, which, after the attack on the U.S., will bring us to rough parity and may avert another nuclear exchange.

“The Russians have a very sophisticated and dense antiaircraft network, and it is fully functional and on the highest state of alert. We have the advantage of stealth and precision firepower, but the Russians are fielding twenty fighters and at least fifty surface-to-air missiles for every one of our bombers. The National Command Authority made the decision not to use nuclear weapons of any kind, not even enhanced radiation, microyield, or electromagnetic-pulse weapons, for fear of precipitating an all-out nuclear exchange. This means we have to go after the ICBMs without any defensive laydowns whatsoever. It’s a lousy hand we’ve been dealt. Normally, I would have done whatever I felt necessary to get the job done, even if it meant using special weapons, but I feel we can do the job without them. If I’m wrong”—he paused, looking each man and woman in the room straight in the eye—“I’ll burn in hell along with Gryzlov and all the other nutcases who started this war.

“Here’s the lineup for tonight: Bobcat Two-three has the longest drive — two SS-18 launch-control centers at Aleysk with Wolverine thermium-nitrate penetrator cruise missiles, plus Wolverine cruise missiles dropping thermium-nitrate bomblets on all twenty-four of their silos. We’ve modified the Wolverine missiles with delayed-action fuzes so the missiles will penetrate at least a hundred feet underground before the warheads detonate, which gives us a good chance of taking out the underground launch-control centers. We don’t know if the bomblets will be strong enough to do any damage on the silo doors, but it’s the best we have. All we need to do is try to dislodge the doors from their tracks or jam them closed, and we’ve done our jobs. Bobcat Two-four will do the same on the SS-18 wing at Uzhur, which has four LCCs and forty-eight silos.

“Bobcat One-two and One-three will locate and attack the SS-25 units at Novosibirsk and Barnaul, with StealthHawks and Longhorns. Right now we’re targeting the garrison locations where a number of SS-25 launch units have been dispersed to. We’re hoping to tag as much as fifty percent of their road units in their garages. You also have locations of known field-dispersal and launch points that we’ve seen the Russians use in the past, so your job will be to keep an eye on those locations in case any units show up. Bobcat One-four will attack the SS-25 wings at Irkutsk. Bobcat Two-five will attack the SS-25 wing at Kansk, and Bobcat Two-six will attack the SS-25 wing at Drovyanaya.

“Colonel O’Dea and I, in Bobcat One-one, along with Bobcat Two-seven, have a special task,” Patrick went on. “Our job is to seek out and destroy four SS-24 rail-mobile ICBM squadrons that our intelligence tells us have been dispersed north of Krasnoyarsk on the national rail lines. Each SS-24 squadron carries three missiles, each of those with a ten-thousand-mile range — long enough to decimate every American city and military base on planet Earth. They were supposed to be taken out of service years ago, but they’re still out there, so we must assume that if they violated that provision of the START II Treaty, they violated more, and thus they still have their full complement of ten independently targetable warheads. Bobcats One-five and Two-eight will stay behind to guard Yakutsk until the MC-17s depart and to provide backup for all other sorties, and Bobcat One-eight will provide air cover for search-and-rescue forces out in the Bering Sea.

“The AL-52 Dragon aircraft, Bobcat Three-one and Three-two, will take up patrol orbits over two locations. They’ll be in a position to cover our ingress and egress on our strikes, and in case the Russians fire any missiles, they’ll be able to intercept them.

“After your assigned attacks, withhold any weapons you have left for follow-on attacks or any other pop-up targets you might encounter or that are datalinked to you,” Patrick said. “Follow your egress routings to the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean, and rendezvous with your assigned tankers. The planned recovery base is Battle Mountain, but we may be sending you directly to dispersal bases if Battle Mountain has come under attack. Questions or comments?” Patrick fielded a few, and then they received a weather briefing and current threat analysis.

Finally, when the last briefer finished, Patrick moved to the front of the room again. “Ladies and gentlemen, if we’re successful tonight, we can seriously degrade between one-third and one-half of Russia’s ICBM force,” he said. “We call this base ‘Camp Vengeance.’ Taking this base marks the beginning of the American counteroffensive against Russia. If we’re successful, we might even the score and avert any more nuclear exchanges. That’s not a certainty by any means, but at the very least it’ll be exactly what this base was named for: vengeance.”

Patrick paused for a moment, then said, “I want to let you all know, before we get airborne again, that it’s been a privilege to serve with you. You have all proved that you truly are the best of the best. You’ve gotten this far with skill, determination, professionalism, and audacity. Now we need to put every ounce of that skill to the test. I know you can do it. We will prevail, and with God’s help we’ll all be on our way home very soon. Good luck, good hunting. I’ll see you all airborne in about one hour.”

Anatoliy Gryzlov was on the phone to a member of the Duma when he looked up and saw something he very rarely saw — General Nikolai Stepashin chewing out some young officer, screaming at the top of his lungs at him — and then actually striking him in the face! Oh, shit, he thought, this looks very serious.

“Get a confirmation from the commanding general,” Stepashin was saying when Gryzlov approached him. “I need to know exactly what he saw, as soon as possible!”

“What is it, Nikolai?”

“Sir, a report came in early this morning that said an Ilyushin-78 tanker aircraft was damaged at Yakutsk.”

Gryzlov’s blood turned ice cold, and his eyes bugged out in shock. “This morning!?” he shouted.

“Sir, the message came in saying an aircraft was ‘damaged’—that’s all,” Stepashin said excitedly. “The lieutenant who took the report asked to speak with the commanding general at the base. He did not get to speak with him because the commander was at the crash scene, but then the lieutenant forgot to follow up, thinking it was just a minor accident. He finally followed up a short time ago and reported in his log that yefreytor radio operators at Yakutsk confirmed the accident but said that it was minor and that investigators and commanders were investigating, but gave no other details except to insist that it was not a result of hostile action. However, we also learned that the base has been closed off all day. Day-shift workers were turned away supposedly because of a hazardous chemical spill, believed to be weapons-related but unconfirmed. I ordered a security team from Magadan to fly out via the fastest way available to investigate and report back to me at once.”

“Did anyone speak with the commanding general?”

“The operator said he was at the crash site, sir. That is highly unusual and not standard procedure, but—”

“It is not just unusual, Stepashin—it is not the truth!” Gryzlov shouted. “I don’t know how, but McLanahan is there.”

“McLanahan?” Stepashin had to consciously keep from rolling his eyes and snorting in disgust in front of the president of the Russian Federation and the Commonwealth of Independent States. “Sir, Yakutsk is a support base in the middle of Siberia. They have aerial-refueling tankers and a long runway, and that is all. Why would McLanahan shoot down a tanker over Siberia?”

“The answer is obvious, Stepashin — McLanahan knows that our bombers cannot strike America without tanker support, and Yakutsk was central to the plan,” Gryzlov said. He shook his head, his mind frantically calculating and plotting. “I underestimated McLanahan again, Stepashin. I believed he would use his stealth bombers and high-tech weapons to destroy our bomber bases. Instead he attacked Yakutsk. He knows that without the tankers we cannot mount another attack on the American mainland.”

Stepashin appeared relieved. “If it is true, sir, it was a daring attack,” he said warily, “but he drove his planes a very long way for nothing. We can ascertain very quickly if Yakutsk has been destroyed or if he simply shot down a few tankers. But he bypassed several more viable targets just to attack a relatively unimportant support base. The air base at Petropavlovsk was attacked but is still operational; our sub bases at Rybachiy and Vladivostok, our naval base at Magadan, and our air bases at Kavaznya and Anadyr are still fully operational. It was a pinprick, an irritation, nothing more. Even if he managed to destroy a number of tankers, we can reconstitute those lost forces quickly.”

“They may be just pinpricks to you, General, but McLanahan’s attacks are targeted for a very specific purpose,” Gryzlov said. “He attacks radar sites and fighter airfields because that allows him to fly larger, less stealthy aircraft such as tankers and transports through our airspace. Besides, this is not like the army, where the loss of a few tanks or artillery pieces means little, General. Aerial-refueling tankers are force multipliers. A long-range bomber needs several of them to be effective. McLanahan knows that if he can destroy even a few tankers at just one key base, he degrades dozens, perhaps hundreds of bombers, fighters, reconnaissance, intelligence, and transport planes.” He paused, a thought still nagging at his head. “Get in contact immediately with the commanding general at Yakutsk, Nikolai. Something else is happening there, I know it.”

“I have a call in already, sir.” At that moment a phone rang, and Stepashin snatched it up. He listened for a moment.

And then Gryzlov saw the look of complete fear in Stepashin’s face, and he knew that McLanahan’s real plan was now finally going to reveal itself. “What happened, General?” Gryzlov growled.

“The security team I dispatched from Magadan Air Base overflew the tanker-crash site in a MiG-27, then overflew the base after receiving very confused and improper radio transmissions from the control tower at Yakutsk,” Stepashin said. “He reports seeing several American B-52 and B-1 bombers taxiing around on the field!”

“Taxiing at Yakutsk Air Base?” Gryzlov shouted. His stunned expression quickly turned into one of disbelief, then to amazement and grudging respect. “Of course — it makes sense now,” he said. “His last safe refueling for his bombers has to be at least two thousand kilometers away, back over the Aleutians. He would not risk taking a large, unstealthy tanker across Siberia with his stealthy bombers. And although his bombers can easily make it back out to Alaska with one refueling, having a landing base inside Russia greatly expands his…his…”

Gryzlov stopped in midsentence, his mouth agape, and then he walked over to the wall chart of Russia, studying the territory around Yakutsk, measuring off distances with his fingers used as a plotter. “My God…it’s brilliant,” he gasped. He paused, nodded, then said, “I want Yakutsk Air Base attacked at once,” Gryzlov said.

“Sir?”

“Attacked — destroyed if necessary,” Gryzlov said. “Every hangar, every meter of runway, every aircraft that doesn’t look like a Russian aircraft must be destroyed at once. Use nuclear weapons if you have to.”

“You cannot be serious, sir!” Stepashin exploded. “You are ordering the use of nuclear weapons on Russian soil?”

“Don’t you see, Stepashin?” Gryzlov asked. “McLanahan knows exactly what we based our entire attack strategy on — building a tanker base in Siberia allowed us to fly our bombers halfway around the world with impunity. Now McLanahan occupies that base! From Yakutsk he has an almost unlimited supply of jet fuel, from our own Siberian oil fields, and he is within unrefueled heavy-bomber range of every military base in Russia!” He pointed to the chart. “He has to be stopped before he can launch his attacks. I want you to order a cruise-missile barrage into that base immediately. Do whatever it takes, but you must stop him from launching his bombers from Yakutsk! Give the order—now!”

Patrick’s chest couldn’t help but swell with pride as he watched his little air armada taxi for takeoff. Five EB-1C Vampires and four EB-52 Megafortress flying battleships, plus one KC-10 Extender aerial-refueling tanker, all lined up and getting ready for launch.

This would be a very impressive display of American firepower anywhere in the United States — but to think that they were getting ready to launch from a Russian air base, getting ready to attack Russian missile sites, was even more incredible. This mission was possible only because he had professional, hard-charging troops willing to sacrifice to make his plan happen. These aviators were the hardest-working, most dedicated men and women he had ever served with. He couldn’t believe how privileged he was to be leading them.

“Got some updates being transmitted to you, sir,” Dave Luger radioed. “A few more SS-25s moved out of garrisoned positions in a real big hurry. We’re thinking that maybe the Russians are starting to disperse more units.”

“Think they’re on to us?”

“That would be my guess, Muck,” Luger said. “It may complicate targeting a bit more, but I think that the more they try to run and hide, they’ll make it easier for us to find what they’re hiding, because we already have several days’ worth of comparison imagery — we’ll see pretty quickly where they moved. We don’t see any missiles being erected. Wish we had a better fix on the SS-24s. We’re trying our best to pinpoint them, but no luck so far.”

“Keep trying, Dave,” Patrick responded. “We’ll just plan on hitting the known garrisons and presurveyed launch points and hope we get lucky. Send a message to the load crews and get an update on when they’ll be loaded up and ready to get out.”

“Just did that, Muck,” Dave responded. “By the time your guys start launching their first missiles, the MC-17s should be in the air.”

“I want them off the ground right away,” Patrick said. “Have them abandon all but the classified equipment — they can leave all the bomb jammers, test equipment, power carts, tools, and anything else that won’t reveal important info on our bombers. I want them airborne right behind us.”

“I’ll pass the word, sir,” Luger said.

Because they had the longest distance to fly, Bobcat Two-three and Two-four were the first in line to launch, followed by the first Dragon airborne-laser aircraft, Bobcat Three-one, which had to have repairs done on the ground; the other Dragon, Bobcat Three-two, was already airborne, flying cover over the base, along with one Megafortress and one Vampire. The KC-10 was next, to replace the other KC-10 already airborne to refuel the three planes guarding the base; once the second tanker was airborne, the first tanker would land, refuel, pick up the last of the crew chiefs and ground technicians, and fly out to a refueling track five hundred miles south of Yakutsk to await the returning bombers. Patrick was next, in Bobcat One-one, followed by the rest of the Megafortresses and finally the rest of the Vampires.

So far everything looked good. Every plane but one taxied out on schedule; the straggler, Bobcat One-four, began taxiing once all the others departed, after being swarmed by a dozen maintenance techs. If there were any more maintenance glitches, no one was reporting them. Everything was being done on a strict timetable, so there were no required radio calls unless—

“Bobcat, Bobcat, this is Three-two, missiles inbound, missiles inbound!” the mission commander of the AL-52 Dragon shouted on the command channel. “We’re picking up numerous high-speed missiles coming in from three different directions, very high altitude. We count at least six flights so far. First missile impacts in three minutes!”

“All Bobcat forces, all Bobcat forces, launch without delay!” Patrick ordered. “Take ten-second spacing, fan out after liftoff. Move! Move!”

The first two EB-1C Vampire bombers were off within seconds — they had already lined up on the runway and were about to begin their takeoff roll. The AL-52 Dragon took much longer than expected, but soon it was rolling down the runway, with the KC-10 right behind it, almost obscured in the Dragon’s dark engine exhaust.

“Go, Summer, go!” Patrick shouted to his aircraft commander. “Get right behind the tanker! Go!” When Summer actually pulled the throttles back to make the turn onto the runway, Patrick shoved the throttles to full military power himself. The tight turn made the wheels slip and skid on the ungrooved pavement, and it felt as if O’Dea might not be able to hold it, but she finally got it lined up on the runway by the time the engines spooled up to full power.

“Dave, Yakutsk is under attack!” Patrick said over his subcutaneous transceiver. “Get the MC-17s airborne now!”

“General…” Luger hesitated, then went on. “Sir, there’s no way. They weren’t even halfway from loading up all the personnel — they haven’t even started engines. I directed them to get into shelters.”

“Damn it, Dave, no!”

“It’s the only chance they have, Patrick,” Luger said, the anguish painfully evident in his voice. “I…I had to make a decision. There are plenty of underground shelters there — it’s the only chance they have,” he repeated.

Patrick cursed into his oxygen visor, but there was nothing he could do except watch his supercockpit display as the battle began to unfold.

The incoming missiles were all visible, and now, as Patrick watched, the launch aircraft also became visible: The AL-52 Dragon already airborne over Yakutsk had locked on to one of them with the laser’s adaptive optics, so he could see an image of a group of two flights, each with four Tupolev-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers, flying at very high altitude from the south, firing supersonic missiles; another group of three flights of four Blackjacks coming in from the southwest, launching more missiles; and a group of two flights of six Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers coming in supersonic from the west-southwest.

There were several hypersonic cruise missiles inbound as well; Patrick couldn’t see on his display where they were launched from, but now it didn’t matter — they were going to hit in just a few seconds, unless the anti-ballistic-missile weapons on board his Dragons and Vampires could stop them.

Gryzlov was launching everything he had at Yakutsk, in the final showdown between American and Russian bombers.

The Dragon engaged the oncoming missiles from maximum range. At first it engaged the hypersonic cruise missiles heading toward Yakutsk itself, shooting down several of them right away, but then it directed its firepower toward other supersonic missiles being fired by the Backfires — because their target was not Yakutsk, but the AL-52 Dragon itself. The Vampire crew guarding Yakutsk launched four long-range AIM-154 Anaconda missiles, two at Russian cruise missiles and finally two at the Backfire bombers. The Megafortress bomber on guard launched a stream of AIM-120 Scorpion missiles.

But they weren’t fast enough to catch the mass of AS-17 Krypton missiles fired by the Backfire bombers. Three missiles simultaneously hit the Dragon, sending it crashing in flames to the Siberian tundra.

The two Vampires that had launched from Yakutsk engaged the Backfire bombers with Scorpion missiles, downing the remainder of the bombers from the first flight and two from the second flight. But the Megafortress bomber that was already airborne had quickly expended its supply of defensive missiles, and when it turned to escape the area, it was hit by two AS-17 missiles and exploded in a tremendous cloud of fire. The Vampires avenged it by downing the remaining four Backfire bombers from long range with Scorpion missiles.

The second Dragon aircraft turned south immediately after takeoff and began engaging the incoming bombers — but by then every Blackjack bomber had launched its missiles at Yakutsk: supersonic AS-16 “Kickback” missiles, one every ten seconds. Each Blackjack bomber pumped two dozen Mach-2 missiles into the sky.

“Missiles inbound, missiles inbound!” Patrick cried on the command channel. “Take off two at a time! Hurry!”

But time had run out. Three Megafortresses and two Vampires had launched, and two Vampires were turning onto the runway just seconds behind another, when the first AS-X-19 Koala missile exploded five thousand feet aboveground and less than a mile north of Yakutsk. Its small, one-kiloton nuclear warhead did not touch the ground, but it didn’t need to — the overpressure caused by the explosion created a ripple of force that radiated outward like an erupting volcano, sweeping over the air base in the blink of an eye.

Three more missiles also exploded over Yakutsk, but by then the devastation had already been done. Every building, structure, aircraft, and human being aboveground within two miles of each detonation was tossed hundreds of yards across the flat plains of Siberia like dust in a windstorm, crushed beneath several thousand pounds per square inch of pure nuclear horror, or swatted out of the sky and squashed into the ground like a clay pigeon hit by a shotgun blast.

This is President Thorn.”

“Greetings, Mr. President,” Anatoliy Gryzlov said, his voice light and cheerful. His interpreter quickly translated on the hot line. With him in the underground Ryazan’ Alternate Military Command Center was the chief of the general staff, Nikolai Stepashin, and other members of the general staff.

“Called to gloat, Gryzlov?”

“I called to express my admiration and respect for General McLanahan and all the brave men and women under his command,” Gryzlov said, lacing his tone with as much triumph as he could. He thought he could hear Thorn gritting his teeth in anger. “I must say, I tried my best to anticipate the general’s actions, and he stayed one step ahead of me the entire time. He very nearly succeeded in attacking my missile bases and mobile-missile units. Very impressive.”

“Attacking your what?”

“Did I not tell you, Thorn?” Gryzlov asked sarcastically. “We have sent rescuers in to Yakutsk. They may not stay on the ground for very long, they must wear many layers of protective clothing, and we will allow a man to go in only once, for no more than thirty minutes, but we have communicated with many American survivors.”

“Survivors? There are Americans still there, in Yakutsk?”

“Apparently the general wisely decided to get the ones into shelters that could not make it off the ground in time,” Gryzlov said. “We count one hundred and four Americans, men and women, in our underground shelters, safe and sound. The officer in charge is Air Force Colonel Harold Briggs. He has given us only his name, rank, and date of birth.”

“I want those men and women released immediately, Gryzlov,” Thorn said.

“Don’t be stupid, Thorn,” Gryzlov said. “I would not release them even if I could. They are prisoners of war and will be treated as such. But we have not learned a safe way to get them out without exposing ourselves to radiation. They are quite safe where they are, and we believe they have enough food and water to last until the radiation levels subside. They have sealed themselves inside a prison, and there is where they shall stay until we can put take them out and place them in custody.” “You are obligated to keep them safe, provide them with medical attention, food, and water, let them communicate with the International Red Cross, and abide by all the other provisions of the Geneva Conventions,” President Thorn said. “I don’t care under what conditions they are imprisoned — conditions you are responsible for creating!”

“And I warn you, Thorn, if those men and women harm any of my soldiers, all of them will be shot dead!” Gryzlov shouted. “I am not in the mood for listening to your whining and bleating. Your troops are responsible for imprisoning several hundred of my soldiers based at Yakutsk — all of whom perished in the attack. Undoubtedly in your troops’ rush to protect themselves, they conveniently forgot to release their captives. I know you have Tin Man commandos among the survivors. They had better think twice before harming any Russian soldiers.”

“Gryzlov, let’s leave the negotiations for our foreign-affairs officers—”

“Quite so, Thorn,” Gryzlov said. “As I was saying, however, we have interrogated other survivors, ones that were unfortunate enough not to make it to the shelters in time. They sustained very serious injuries, I’m afraid—”

“Thanks to you, you son of a bitch!”

“—despite our best efforts to help them, and they told me before they died many details of McLanahan’s attack plan: about our missile silos at Aleysk and Uzhur, our mobile-missile units, even stories about going out and hunting Russian heavy mobile missiles with multiple warheads. Your General McLanahan is certainly an imaginative fellow.”

“If he said you still have illegal weapons in the field, Gryzlov, I’m sure it’s true,” Thorn said.

“We must put an end to this, Thorn,” Gryzlov said. “My analysts suggest that many of McLanahan’s bombers escaped from Yakutsk. Since they have not attacked any of their planned targets yet, and it is just a few hours until daybreak, I think perhaps my analysts are wrong. But if you could verify the whereabouts of all of McLanahan’s forces, I’m sure my commanders will see to it that our nuclear forces and air-defense units stand down, which will obviously relieve the stress on them and will undoubtedly help prevent an accidental launch of—”

“More threats, Gryzlov?” Thomas Thorn asked. “You threaten me with more nuclear attacks unless I give you the exact location and number of our bomber forces? You can go to hell, Gryzlov!”

“If you remain uncooperative, Thorn, I must give my strategic commanders full authority to respond to any threat against the Russian Federation with every weapon at their disposal,” Gryzlov said. “You do not seem to realize how serious this is, Thorn! McLanahan landed an entire bomber wing on a Russian airfield! He killed dozens of troops, captured and imprisoned nearly a thousand men and women, stole millions of rubles’ worth of fuel and weapons, and was responsible for the deaths of all his captives by keeping them in a battle zone — in essence attempting to use them as human shields! — instead of evacuating them to a safer area, as required by the Geneva Conventions. You must do more, much more to assure the Russian people, the Duma, myself, and the chiefs of the general staff that you want peace, not war.”

“I don’t have to give you anything, Gryzlov,” President Thorn said.

“Where is McLanahan?” Gryzlov asked angrily. “Have you had any contact with him?”

“Go to hell.”

“Don’t be stupid, Thorn. Tell me if he is on his way back to the United States. Do something smart for a change, Thorn! At least tell me if you have had contact with him.”

“I promise you, Gryzlov, the United States will be on guard against any other sneak attacks by Russia, and we will deal with them. The next call I get from you had better be an unconditional stand-down of all your military forces.” And Thorn terminated the call.

Gryzlov hung up the receiver and sat back in his seat, a smile spreading across his face. “What a fool,” he muttered. “If the American people are even a tenth as soft as he is, this war will be over very shortly.”

“Sir,” Stepashin said, his voice and visage tense and irritable, “you must address the general staff, the Duma, and the press regarding your actions in Yakutsk.”

“That can wait, Stepashin.”

“There are reports of hundreds of casualties coming in from the city of Yakutsk,” Stepashin said. “The nuclear bursts have damaged or destroyed billions of rubles in oil-distribution and pumping facilities. All communications in and out of the city and the civil airfield have been disrupted by the electromagnetic-pulse effects.”

“Stepashin, I did what I had to do,” Gryzlov said dismissively. “The Americans landed a dozen long-range bombers and over a hundred troops in Yakutsk and were in the process of launching attacks against us. What was I supposed to do — ask Thorn or McLanahan to sit tight on our homeland while we negotiate a cease-fire?”

Stepashin fell silent for a few moments, glancing over at his general-staff officers and receiving concerned, angry glances in return. There was no doubt that the Americans’ staging air raids from Yakutsk was a serious development — but Gryzlov’s using nuclear weapons on Russian soil, killing hundreds or perhaps even thousands of his own people and troops, did not sit well with them at all. Finally he said, “Why did you tell Thorn that we had interrogated American survivors? We have not sent in any troops or medical personnel yet to Yakutsk to see how bad the radiation levels are.”

“Thorn doesn’t know that,” Gryzlov said. “I wanted to hear his reaction when I mentioned the ballistic-missile bases — and he all but confirmed that those were indeed McLanahan’s intended targets.”

“Aren’t we obligated to search for survivors and help anyone that might really be in the shelters?” Stepashin asked.

“And risk the health of our own men by exposing them to radioactivity? Don’t be crazy, General,” Gryzlov said. “Have everyone stay away from Yakutsk and have combat engineers test the air and soil every day or so for radioactivity levels. If any Americans are there, they deserve to die — and if there are any Russian survivors, we will simply tell the world they were executed by the Americans.”

Stepashin looked down at the floor to hide his expression of disgust at the idea that they were simply going to abandon any Russians who might still be alive at Yakutsk.

“Now,” Gryzlov went on, “what more can we expect from the United States in the wake of this episode?”

“Thomas Thorn did not have much of a stomach to fight before — I see no reason to expect he’d be more willing to do so now,” Stepashin replied. “McLanahan was his Doberman pinscher — with him out of the picture, I think he will wait, size up his forces, and then open negotiations or decide how to respond. But he does not have the conventional forces available anymore to hold any strategic targets in Russia at risk. He can certainly hurt us with his sea-launched ballistic missiles, but I do not think he will respond with nuclear weapons, even in an extremely limited manner.”

“I am not concerned about Thorn, but I am worried about McLanahan and what remains of his forces — and with any other Patrick Shane McLanahans out there,” Gryzlov said. He thought for a moment, then said, “And there is still the question of the targets we failed to destroy, especially Cheyenne Mountain, Barksdale, Battle Mountain — and Sacramento, California.

“In case McLanahan surfaces again, Stepashin, he will be naming his own poison,” Gryzlov said. “Just in case one of McLanahan’s bombers does attack any of our ballistic-missile sites, I want Battle Mountain and Sacramento destroyed. Be sure one warhead hits Beale Air Force Base, just so everyone understands that it was the real target — but I want McLanahan’s home town destroyed in punishment. Hopefully, Thorn has the brains to recall him, if he is still alive, but in case he feels like acting the hero again, he and his family will suffer for it.”

At that moment the conference room’s phone rang. Nikolai Stepashin picked it up. Gryzlov was busy tamping down the tobacco on a cigarette and didn’t notice Stepashin’s confused, worried expression until he said in a loud voice, “I authorized no such thing! Get an identification on that aircraft immediately!”

Gryzlov threw the unlit cigarette to the floor. “What is it, General?”

“A large transport plane is circling Yakutsk Air Base,” Stepashin said. “It made a low approach and appeared to try to land but pulled up at the last moment.”

“Is it a combat-engineering team, checking radiation levels?”

“They use helicopters, not large transport planes, sir,” Stepashin said. “Whoever it is, he is not authorized to go anywhere near that base.”

Gryzlov’s shoulders drooped, and he felt his face drain of life. Once again, right when he felt like celebrating, something else had begun to happen….

Not enough room — you’ll have to move that debris,” said the load-master of the MC-17 special-operations transport plane. He pointed out the open rear cargo doors. “That fuel truck and whatever that pile of stuff is there has got to go.”

“Got it,” said Air Force Technical Sergeant James “JD” Daniels, his voice electronically amplified by the communications suite built into his Tin Man battle armor. He and his partner, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Johnny “Hulk” Morris, stood at the edge of the cargo ramp, one hand on a handhold, the other gripping their electromagnetic rail guns. Both men were stunned to see the carnage below them — buildings flattened, trucks and aircraft tossed around like toys in a young child’s room, and large craters of eerie gray gravel, like cremated remains. There was absolutely nothing left standing aboveground for miles. Daniels nodded to Morris. “Radiation levels are moderate, Hulk — not as bad as we thought.”

“You’re shitting me, right, Sarge?” Morris asked. The MC-17 started a steep right bank over the base, lining up on the downwind side for another pass. “This place got hit by four or five nukes, and you’re saying it’s not as bad as we thought?”

“I’m picking up less than twenty rads per hour,” Brigadier General David Luger radioed from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. “That’s good for about six hours — and safe endurance will be much longer in the Tin Man armor. Should be more than enough time.”

“The young sergeant is a little skittish because he hasn’t had any kids yet, and he’s afraid his family jewels might get zapped, sir.”

“You’re just jealous because no woman would have you, Sarge.”

“Save it for when you’re back home, boys,” Luger said. “Get ready.”

It took a few minutes, but soon the MC-17 was making another low approach over the devastated runway. The big transport swooped in, descending to just over forty feet above the runway. As soon as the plane leveled off, at the approach end of the runway, Daniels stepped off the edge of the cargo ramp, holding the rail gun in his hands at port arms.

Morris had practiced these jumps back at Battle Mountain a few times, but he was relatively new to the unit and didn’t quite fully trust all this high-tech gear. He had made many parachute jumps of all kinds in his Marine Corps career — free-fall, static-line, HALO — and he’d even jumped from moving helicopters without a parachute before in thirty-thirty jumps — thirty feet above water, traveling thirty knots. But he had never jumped from a moving transport plane going three hundred knots—onto solid ground.

But now was not the time to question the wisdom of doing it. He briefly wondered which job was stupider — jumping off a cargo plane like this or riding in that crazy Condor insertion aircraft, like the commander and the sergeant major did: a plastic turd with wings, dropped from inside a B-52 flying at thirty-six thousand feet, then riding in it for over three hours right over the bad guys’ heads! Now, that was crazy. He gripped his rail gun tighter, took a last deep breath, and stepped off the cargo ramp just seconds after Daniels.

As they fell to Earth, gyros and accelerometers in their electronic battle-armor suits told them which way they needed to lean into the fall and at the same time measured their speed and the distance to the ground and adjusted the thrusters on their boots to compensate for being pushed by the jet blast from the MC-17. As they neared the ground, their boot thrusters fired at full power, slowing their fall — but even so, Daniels hit the ground hard and clattered to the concrete in a heap.

“You okay, Sarge?” Morris radioed.

“Affirmative,” Daniels responded. He was unhurt, but the rail gun’s data and power cable had broken. He cursed to himself and set the rifle near a distance-remaining sign on the edge of the runway so he could find it again. “Broke my damned rail gun, though. Let’s move, Hulk.”

The two Tin Man commandos in microhydraulically powered exoskeletons, working together, had the runway completely cleared of debris in minutes, including a partially crushed fuel truck. By the time they finished and stepped clear of the runway, the MC-17 had come around once again, smoothly touched down, and quickly powered to a stop using thrust reversers.

Daniels, Morris, and the others on board the MC-17 worked fast. After the transport plane lowered its cargo ramp, they unloaded what it carried: two forty-six-foot-long self-contained nuclear-biological-chemical — (NBC) — weapon-decontamination trailers, pulled by diesel tugs; two rubber water bladders on flatbed trailers, each holding three thousand gallons of fresh water and pulled alongside the decontamination trailers; and twenty NBC technicians.

Led by Daniels and Morris, the group headed toward the central west side of the runway. Beside where the west cluster of aircraft hangars used to be located were two low structures, less than four feet aboveground and, amazingly, still intact — they were each little more than a roof composed of eighteen inches of solid reinforced concrete, with a single steel door facing the aircraft parking ramp. One decontamination trailer backed up to each steel door, and the Tin Man commandos attached protective plastic tunnels to each shelter entrance and to the trailer entry door.

“Knock knock, Sergeant Major,” Daniels radioed.

“Door’s coming open,” Marine Corps Sergeant Major Chris Wohl responded. A few moments later, the steel doors swung open, and six individuals ran out of the underground shelters and directly into each door marked ENTER on both decontamination trailers. After the first group entered the trailers, Chris Wohl and Colonel Hal Briggs both emerged from the shelters, wearing Tin Man battle armor.

The two knocked fists with Daniels and Morris in greeting. “Good to see you guys,” Hal Briggs said. “What’s the situation?”

“No opposition, aircraft is code one, all personnel good to go, sir,” Daniels responded.

“What are the radiation levels?”

“We’re reading about forty rads per hour here. That’s good for about four hours’ exposure time. It’s a bit higher out on the parking ramp, but the isolation chamber inside the MC-17 and in the cockpit is about ten to fifteen rads. The max we detected inside our suits has been five rads per hour.”

“We gotta hand it to the Russkies — they know how to build bomb shelters,” Hal said. “We picked up just five rads during the attack and less than two rads per hour since then. Pretty damned good.”

“How many made it inside, sir?”

It was obvious, even concealed by his battle armor, that Briggs was sorrowful. “We have fifty-one in our shelter and forty-two in the other,” Hal said. “We were shoulder to shoulder in there. We managed to grab about thirty Russians and take them in with us.”

“My God,” Daniels breathed. He knew that the Air Battle Force had flown about a hundred fifty personnel into Yakutsk with them on the MC-17s, plus several more on the Megafortresses. That meant that about ninety American technicians had died in the attack, plus the aircrew members who were caught on the ground when the nukes hit.

The decontamination trailers had four separate stations, each of which could accommodate six people at once. Each person removed excess contaminated equipment in the first room, which was ventilated with filtered air to remove any radioactive fallout. Next each person scrubbed and showered in warm water and detergent in the second compartment, with clothes still on. In the third compartment, clothing was stripped off under water-and-detergent showers and discarded; and in the fourth compartment, each person again showered and scrubbed in warm water and detergent, then dried with warm-air blowers that exhausted to the outside. The person then dressed in clean clothes, underwent a quick medical scan to be sure as many radioactive particles as possible were removed, then were transported back to the MC-17. A positive-pressure plastic tunnel led from the decontamination trailer to a shielded waiting area set up in the forward part of the cargo compartment, with a positive-pressure filtered-air ventilation system activated to keep radioactive particles out.

“Twenty minutes to do six people per trailer, about thirty-six people per hour — we should be done in less than three hours,” Hal Briggs radioed. “I’m not sure how we’ll decontaminate the Tin Man battle armor — we might end up leaving it behind and blowing it in place.”

“Decontaminate the armor if you can,” Dave Luger said, “but don’t waste time with it. If you can’t safely decontaminate it or keep it separate from the personnel, go ahead and blow the gear, and then get the hell out. We’ll be leaving the decontamination trailers behind, unfortunately.”

“Any activity around the base?” Briggs asked.

“Lots of it, but even the aircraft are staying at least ten miles away,” Luger said. “They know you’re there, but it looks like they’re leaving you alone — at least for now.”

That’s correct, sir,” General Nikolai Stepashin said. “Our reconnaissance aircraft observers believe that the aircraft is an American C-17 ‘Globemaster’ transport plane. It was carrying what they believe to be decontamination vehicles. They are attaching the vehicles to the base’s bomb shelters, waiting there a period of time, then driving over to the transport. It is apparent that the Americans are decontaminating their personnel and are preparing to airlift the survivors out of Yakutsk.”

“This is unbelievable!” President Anatoliy Gryzlov shouted. “I cannot believe the sheer audacity of these Americans! They have flown another military aircraft right past our air defenses and landed at a Russian air base again, completely disregarding the sovereignty of our airspace!”

Stepashin had to bite a lip to keep from grimacing — after what they had done to the United States of America, they had no cause to criticize anyone else’s breach of air sovereignty!

“Do they think they own that airfield now? Do they expect us to just look the other way while they load up their transport and fly away again? We should hit that transport immediately with another air strike — blow the Americans to hell, where they belong!”

“Sir, I strongly suggest we let that transport load up and leave Yakutsk unharmed,” Stepashin said measuredly, not risking angering the already frantic-looking president but trying to be firm at the same time. “They undoubtedly have Russians in those shelters with them — they could be helping our soldiers. It is a humanitarian airlift, not an offensive strike. We should not interfere with it, especially since we did nothing similar ourselves to help survivors at Yakutsk.”

“Are you saying I am a coward, Stepashin?” Gryzlov shouted. “You will be silent, Stepashin, or you will be dismissed! I will not tolerate insubordination in my own command center!”

“With all due respect, sir, I was making a recommendation,” Stepashin said, his rising anger barely restrained. “We should not attack an unarmed humanitarian rescue mission.”

“I do not care if they flew in a children’s choir carrying daisies and magic pixie dust, General — I want that plane destroyed!” Gryzlov shouted. Stepashin noted the large, dark bags under his eyes, the drooping shoulders, the shaking hands, and the pale complexion — the man probably hadn’t had any sleep for the past two days and was subsisting mostly on cigarettes and coffee. “See to it immediately! I want—”

At that moment the conference room’s telephone rang again. Gryzlov jumped, then stared at it as if it were a gigantic hairy spider. He’s losing it, Stepashin thought as he picked up the phone. “Stepashin…Yes, I copy. Alert all air-defense sectors. Keep all other air-defense radar systems in standby, and use optronic sensors to locate it. Repeat, do not use radar — they will only be destroyed as well.”

“What the hell happened, General?” Gryzlov gasped.

“Air-defense alert issued by Novgorod air-defense region,” Stepashin said. “Small, subsonic aircraft detected east-northeast of the capital. Intermittent and very weak return, too small to be a stealth aircraft. Possibly an unmanned aircraft or reconnaissance drone.”

“My God…he’s here,” Gryzlov murmured, eyes bulging in fear. “McLanahan’s here! He’s decided not to attack our Siberian bases but is going to attack Moscow itself!”

“McLanahan is not the only threat out there, sir,” Stepashin said. “Our air defenses are much more capable around Moscow than anywhere else in the world. Perhaps this is just—”

“Order an attack, Stepashin,” Gryzlov said. “I want a full retaliatory strike launched on the United States.”

“Sir?” Stepashin retorted. “You want to order a nuclear attack on the United States? You cannot do this!”

“They are attacking my capital — I will retaliate with everything I’ve got and make them pay for their actions!” Gryzlov shouted. He stepped quickly over to the Strategic Forces officer carrying the special briefcase and snatched it out of his hands — he had to drag the officer to the conference table, because the briefcase was still handcuffed to him. Gryzlov unlocked the briefcase, withdrew a circular slide-rule-like decoder device from under his shirt, dialed in the current Greenwich Mean Time, wrote down a series of numbers, then selected a card from arowofred cards in the briefcase. He punched the series of numbers into a keypad in the bottom of the briefcase, then inserted the card in a slot and pressed a green button. He then turned to Stepashin and said, “Enter the authentication instructions, General.”

“Are you absolutely sure, Mr. President?” the chief of the general staff asked. He took the card but held it up to the president, using it to focus Gryzlov’s attention. The president couldn’t seem to keep his eyes steady on any target for more than a second or two, and it appeared as if he was having trouble keeping his eyelids open. “This will certainly start a world war, Mr. President. Millions of lives could be lost in the next hour if you proceed.”

“Our lives will be lost and millions of our people’s lives will be held hostage if we do not do this,” Gryzlov said. “Give the authentication code, General.”

Stepashin sighed. He looked around the room, hoping to find someone who might be sympathetic or help him try to talk Gryzlov out of this, but there was no one. He withdrew his own decoder from inside his tunic, glanced at the clock, dialed in the time, inserted the red card in the slot, and entered the resultant code and his own personal passcode into the briefcase device. Moments later a strip of paper printed out of the briefcase. Stepashin tore it out, read it over to be sure it had printed correctly, then nodded.

“Do it, General,” Gryzlov said through clenched teeth. “Let us get this war over with. I want McLanahan to pay, not with his own life but with the lives of his fellow Americans.”

Stepashin walked over to the telephone on the conference table, picked up the receiver, dialed some numbers, and waited. After a short wait, he spoke. “This is Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation General Nikolai Stepashin. I am with President Gryzlov in the Alternate Military Command Center at Oksky Reserve, Lybedskaya Street, Ryazan’. I am prepared to authenticate.” He waited another few moments, dialed in the date and time again on his decoder, and said, “I authenticate iyul’ pyatnadtsat’. Authenticate noyabr’ shyest’.” He waited again, checked his decoder, then said, “That authentication is correct. I have a priority emergency-action message from the commander in chief. Advise when ready to copy.” He waited once more, then read the characters from the printout twice. “Go ahead with your readback.” Again he was silent for several long moments as he checked off each character. “The readback was correct,” he said finally. “You may hand over the phone to your deputy, who will reread the message back to me…. Yes, I hear you clearly, Captain. Go ahead with the readback.”

The second authentication readback seemed to be taking longer than the first one. Gryzlov had been through many exercises simulating this procedure — he had in fact devised most of these very same procedures himself, when he was chief of the general staff — but for some reason this seemed to be taking longer than usual.

Gryzlov lit up a cigarette and was halfway through it when all of a sudden he saw two officers running toward the conference room, with two armed security men behind them. Stepashin turned toward them, the phone still to his ear, then held up a hand, silently ordering the men not to enter. The officers hesitated, conversed between themselves for a moment, then decided to enter anyway.

“What is the meaning of this!” Gryzlov shouted. “Get out of here! Go back to your posts!”

“Sir!” the senior officer said, snapping to attention momentarily. “I am Captain Federov, the communications-section commander of this facility.”

“Get out of here, Captain,” Stepashin said. “We are busy here. That is an order!”

“Sir…” He saw the phone in Stepashin’s hand, his eyes bulging in surprise, then turned to Gryzlov and said excitedly, “Mr. President, we have detected an unauthorized overseas call being placed from this room!”

“A…what?” Gryzlov shouted.

“Someone…” The captain turned to Stepashin, swallowed, and said, “Sir, the chief of the general staff is making an unauthorized telephone call — to the United States of America.”

Gryzlov turned to Stepashin, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “The United States? I thought he was talking to the communications center! He is relaying an emergency-action message—”

“He called the United States, sir — specifically, the general exchange at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in Nevada.” Gryzlov looked as if he were going to pass out in shock. “He has been connected to the Battle Management Center and is speaking with the facility commander, Brigadier General David Luger. They have been connected for the past several—”

“No!” Gryzlov shouted. Ignoring the phone and the open connection, he threw himself at Stepashin, grasping him by the throat and wrestling him to the floor. Stepashin put the phone under his body and held on to Gryzlov’s wrists, not allowing the president to choke him but keeping his body atop his so the security guards couldn’t grab the phone. Ultimately, he heard the phone clatter to the floor, so he assumed that Federov had pulled its cord from the wall.

“Pizda tyebya rodila!” Gryzlov was shouting. “You fucking traitor!” Stepashin barely noticed the muzzle of the semiautomatic pistol pushed up under his left cheek before he heard a loud bang, felt a brief sting in his left eye, and then felt nothing at all.

It seemed like a long time later when Gryzlov finally got up from on top of Stepashin’s nearly headless corpse. “Mandavoshka,” he swore. “Shit-ass bastard. You turned out to be a coward after all.” The echo of the gunshot and the stench of gunpowder and blood still hung in the air.

Just then the sound of an air-raid siren started wailing throughout the facility — but it could not drown out the sound of explosions overhead that slowly but relentlessly drove closer and closer, until the lights flickered and went out, the ceiling of the underground facility caved in, and there was nothing but waves of fire, shock, smoke, and flying debris all around him…and then nothingness.

I’ve got secondaries already, One-one,” radioed the mission commander aboard Bobcat Two-four, the second EB-1C Vampire bomber on the attack run. “Two-three opened something up right under those coordinates we received. I think we found it.”

“Roger,” Patrick McLanahan responded. “Launch all of your Wolverines on those coordinates. I’ll withhold mine in case we get any more tips from the Russian chief of the general staff.” Patrick’s EB-52 Megafortress was thirty minutes behind the two Vampire bombers. The two Vampires had sped on ahead of the lone surviving Megafortress bomber, launching antiradar weapons at Novgorod to plow a way through Russia’s air defenses. Although Patrick had targeted the Ryazan’ alternate military command center as soon as he escaped the devastation at Yakutsk seven hours earlier, he didn’t really know exactly where to launch his weapons.

Until the call came from Ryazan’ itself, from a man calling himself General Stepashin, the chief of the general staff, reading off the exact geographic coordinates of the underground facility and even describing its location so it could be found by reading a street map! The first Vampire bomber launched two Wolverine cruise missiles with penetrating thermium-nitrate warheads on the coordinates, still not prepared to believe that the information was factual — but when the secondary explosions revealed the underground complex below, they knew they had the right spot.

“It looks like a volcano down there, sir. We hit either that command center or some huge underground weapons-storage area, or both,” the mission commander said. “What next, boss?”

Patrick plotted a course that would take them through southwest Russia, the shortest path to the Kazakhstan border — near Engels Air Base, it so happened, the base Patrick’s bombers had attacked the year before, the attack that apparently drove Anatoliy Gryzlov crazy enough to first engineer a coup in Russia and then wage nuclear war with the United States. Patrick then deconflicted the course with all available intelligence data, then beamed the flight plan to the two Vampires.

“Next we get the hell out of here,” Patrick said. “Let’s go home.”