Price of Duty

SIXTEEN

Plump and balding, with a round, cherubic face, Yuri Akulov looked more like a baker than a spy. His amiable, harmless appearance had served him well during a long career with the KGB and later the FSB. Adversaries, whether foreign agents or rivals inside his own service, almost always underestimated his cunning, raw intelligence, and sheer ruthlessness. By the time they figured him out, it was usually too late. Foreign spies found themselves in prison, dead, or kicked out of Russia in disgrace. KGB and FSB colleagues who crossed him ended up in godforsaken backwater posts, guarding state secrets no one gave a shit about anymore.

Now Akulov used the same skills and deceptive appearance in his work as one of Igor Truznyev’s top “security consultants.” Asked by one of his girlfriends to describe the difference between being an FSB operative and working as a private consultant for the Zatmeniye Group, he’d cynically told her “about ten million more rubles a year. But if I kill anyone now, I have to be a bit more cautious.”

Working in the private intelligence sector was also more challenging, he allowed. If pressed, you couldn’t just whip out your state security ID and scare the hell out of potential sources or possible suspects like in the good old days. Instead, you had to rely on your wits, the ability to tell convincing lies, and, all too often, a willingness to mimic the patience of a saint.

Take this most recent assignment, for example. It was easy enough for Truznyev to order him to discreetly pierce the web of secrecy cast around Russia’s cyberwar operation. Carrying out those orders, without getting caught, had proved a lot harder. None of his contacts inside the FSB turned out to know much about Gryzlov’s plans or wanted to risk the president’s wrath.

What had emerged from a series of careful, oblique conversations was that senior FSB officers were incredibly envious of Major General Arkady Koshkin’s growing power and influence. That didn’t surprise Akulov. Even in his day, Koshkin had been derided, behind his back, as Moscow’s “Langleyite,” because of his worship of technology over tradecraft. To FSB veterans, that was the same mistake made so often by the American CIA.

But now Gennadiy Gryzlov had allowed Koshkin to create his own fiefdom, this mysterious Q Directorate. That was bad enough for his detractors. What was worse was that Russia’s president seemed to have given Koshkin and his computer geeks a blank check.

“He even bought a nuclear reactor, for God’s sake!” one of Akulov’s old comrades had groused. “I can’t get funding to recruit more agents in Washington, D.C., and that durak, that jackass, spends billions of rubles to buy a fucking reactor from Atomflot!” Then, aware that he’d probably said too much, the FSB officer had suddenly clammed up.

But at least the man’s momentary indiscretion had put Akulov on a new scent, one he’d followed from Moscow far into the frozen north — all the way to Murmansk, the headquarters of Atomflot, a state-owned company responsible for Russia’s fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. More cautious inquiries inside the company, along with a number of bribes, had finally led him to Atomflot senior nuclear supervisor Ivan Budanov.

Budanov, his sources told him in whispers, had been away for months earlier in the year, seconded to the Kremlin for some big secret project. Since then, he’d been lording his status as a man of mystery over his coworkers.

For a time, Akulov had thought he’d need a complicated cover story to explain why he wanted to talk to the nuclear engineer. Fortunately, it turned out that Budanov was both an egomaniac and a binge drinker. Just the hint that Akulov represented other Russian military and intelligence outfits who were interested in his “widely appreciated expertise” sufficed to lull the Atomflot engineer’s suspicions. Akulov’s offer to pay for a night on the town had sealed the deal.

What he hadn’t counted on was Budanov’s ability to drink massive quantities of vodka for hours on end, all while telling incredibly dull and pointless anecdotes involving every shipborne reactor project he’d ever worked on. And Akulov, hiding his boredom behind a mask of cheerful comradeship, had reeled from bar to bar with the engineer. It had been an agonizing experience. He’d smiled and nodded and laughed and pretended to match the other man drink for drink, in the hope Budanov would finally let something useful slip about Q Directorate’s secret nuclear power plant.

All to no avail.

Then, when the bars finally closed, Budanov had drunkenly insisted they go back to his dingy apartment to close out the night with a bottle of what he called “the good stuff.” It was a miracle the man was still alive, let alone in a responsible position, Akulov thought disgustedly. Still faking good cheer, he perched on a sagging sofa watching as the buffoon downed yet another shot.

“Nu, vzdrognuli! Here we go again!” Budanov slurred. He raised his dirty glass to Akulov with a huge, lopsided grin. “And here’s to all the sweet girls I’ve screwed together over the years!”

It took Akulov a few moments to understand that the Atomflot engineer was now referring to the reactors he’d helped build as “girls.” Sighing inwardly, he raised his own glass to the other man with an equally shit-faced smile. Maybe I can just push him out the window, he thought bleakly. Budanov’s apartment was only on the second floor, so the fall probably wouldn’t kill him… but the drunken bastard would certainly freeze to death before anyone found him.

“To your sweet girls!” the ex-FSB agent agreed, deciding to try one last time before bailing out and returning to Moscow with his tail between his legs. “Especially the last one, eh? That must have been something to see.”

“Definitely,” Budanov said. He shook his head. “Now, there was a weird job, I can tell you. Assembling a reactor designed for a twenty-three-thousand-ton icebreaker way down deep inside a fucking mountain, imagine that!”

Akulov restrained the sudden impulse to hug the other man. Finally, he thought in relief. Carefully, he leaned over and poured more vodka into Budanov’s glass. “What mountain was that, Ivan?”

With a sly smile, the nuclear engineer shook his head. “I can’t tell you that,” he said thickly.

“It’s a secret, eh?” Akulov sat back, tapping his nose.

“You’ve got that right, Yuri,” Budanov agreed. Then he laughed. “But what I mean is, I really couldn’t tell you where that mountain is, even if I was allowed to.”

The Atomflot man shrugged. “See, those state security guys put my team on a sealed train with the reactor components, along with a shitload of armed guards. Then, three days later, once we got to some blacked-out station in the sticks, they hustled us into trucks and dropped the flaps. When they finally let us out a couple of hours later, we were parked in some big-assed tunnel deep underground.”

Akulov whistled softly. “Damn. Eto piz’dets. That’s fucked up.”

Budanov nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty crazy.” He shook his head. “Worse than the patrols I hear those nuclear-missile submarine sailors bitching about. We never saw a thing outside the caves where we assembled the KLT-40. Imagine spending sixteen weeks without a breath of fresh air or a glimpse of the sun. And not a goddamned drop to drink the whole time!”

Akulov shook his head in mock sympathy. Inwardly, he exulted.

At last, he had some of the clues Igor Truznyev wanted so badly. It would take a lot more digging, but at least now he knew where he could find the next link in the chain leading to Q Directorate’s hidden cyberwar complex.

Thirty nautical miles and four minutes after crossing the Atlantic coast of Western Sahara, the Iron Wolf stealth transport aircraft zoomed over a flat, almost featureless expanse of sand and rock called the Río de Oro. The Ranger’s batwinged shadow, elongated by the rays of the rising sun, rippled behind it across the desert floor.

“RDY-3 Pulse-Doppler radar detected at two o’clock. Estimated range is fifty miles and closing,” the XCV-62’s computer warned. “Detection probability low.”

Major Nadia Rozek frowned. She punched up a menu on her threat-warning display and scanned through it fast. Several years ago, the Royal Moroccan Air Force had upgraded its aging Dassault Mirage F1 fighters with new Thales RDY-3 radars, cockpit electronics, antimissile flare and chaff defenses, and weapons capabilities. The French aerospace and defense multinational claimed its RDY-3 systems were more capable than the AN/APG-type radars that originally equipped America’s F-16 Falcons and F-18 Hornets.

She glanced at Brad. “Should I activate SPEAR?” she asked.

Like many advanced Sky Masters aircraft, the Ranger carried the ALQ-293 Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system. When active, SPEAR transmitted precisely tailored signals designed to dupe enemy radars. By altering the timing of the pulses sent back to a hostile radar, it could trick a hostile set into believing the XCV-62 was somewhere else in the sky — anywhere but where it actually was.

Brad shook his head. “Let’s stay quiet for now. At least until we get some firmer indication that Mirage really has us on his scope.”

He fought down a yawn. They’d been in the air for more than eight hours since taking off last night from a tiny strip in Colombia. Even with all the automation built into the Ranger’s flight controls, that was a long stretch for any pilot. It was even longer when you added in the strain involved in making a difficult midocean aerial refueling rendezvous with a Sky Masters KC-10 Extender tanker.

“Okay-dohkay,” Nadia said, deliberately mangling the Americanism. That earned her a tired grin. But she kept her display set on the SPEAR system’s controls anyway, just in case.

“RDY-3 now at twelve-o’clock. Range is fifty-five miles and opening,” the XCV-62’s computer reported. “Detection probability nil.”

Nadia breathed out. “The Mirage is turning away.”

“That guy is probably just up flying a racetrack pattern patrol along the cease-fire line,” Brad said. “He’s not out hunting for us.”

She nodded. After the Spanish left in 1975, Morocco had moved in to take control over this territory. That had set off a brutal, sixteen-year-long war waged between the Moroccan government and the independence-minded Polisario Front. A cease-fire finally negotiated nearly thirty years ago — well before she was born — was still holding, but neither side took anything for granted.

Something struck her. “I thought Mr. Martindale received permission for us to use Morocco’s airspace?” she said. “Was I merely paranoid to worry about being spotted?”

“Nope,” Brad said firmly. “Sure, Martindale got a thumbs-up from the king. They’ve been personal friends since he was president. But I doubt the word percolated very far down the Moroccan chain of command. With Stacy Anne Barbeau gunning for Scion and all its works, plausible deniability is the name of the game.”

Nadia snorted. “Ah, the old ‘ta rozmowa nie miala miejsca,’ ‘this conversation never happened’ routine.”

Brad laughed. “Exactly. It wouldn’t make sense for the king to risk antagonizing Washington by openly siding with us.”

“So we do want to avoid detection?” Nadia said.

“Definitely.” Brad yawned again. He peered out through the windscreen, studying the wasteland stretching ahead of them. “Which is why we need to set down soon. This bird is plenty stealthy against radar. But Boomer was right. In broad daylight, we’re no more invisible than any other aircraft.”

“Yes,” Nadia agreed. She checked her navigation display. “I confirm that we are roughly two minutes out from Point Bravo.”

That matched the indicators appearing on Brad’s HUD. Point Bravo was their next stop. It was another makeshift airstrip and refueling station set up by a Scion advance team — this time out in the middle of the Western Sahara, some of the least habitable and least inhabited territory on earth.

“Let’s make sure they’re awake and ready for us,” Brad ordered.

Nadia opened a com window and typed in a short query, which the Ranger’s computer automatically encrypted, compressed, and then transmitted via satellite uplink. “Signal sent.”

Seconds later, her MFD pinged. “Point Bravo confirms they are operational,” she reported. “Winds are eight knots, from the north. No haze or blowing sand reported.”

When they were ten nautical miles out, Brad saw a series of bright green beacons blinking on the desert floor — marking the location of the improvised Scion airstrip. “Configuring for landing,” he announced, tapping in a quick command on one of his two displays. He started throttling back.

Control surfaces on the trailing edge of the Ranger’s wing whirred open, providing more lift as their airspeed decreased. More hydraulics whined below their feet. The airlifter’s nose gear and its twin wing-mounted bogies were all coming down.

“Gear down and locked,” Brad reported, seeing the indicator on his HUD turn solid green.

“One nautical mile out,” Nadia said, keeping her eyes fixed on the navigation display.

The airstrip, which was really just a roughly level patch of ground that had been quickly cleared of brush and loose rocks, loomed ahead, growing ever larger through the windscreen. Off to one side, Brad could make out five or six parked vehicles, including a fuel tanker, and several camouflage-draped tents.

“DTF disengaged,” he said, turning off the XCV-62’s digital terrain-following system. He chopped the throttles almost all the way back. “Landing… now.”

The Ranger dropped out of the sky and touched down with a modest jolt. Trailing plumes of dust and blown sand, it bounced and bucked as it rolled down the strip, slowing fast as Brad reversed thrust; brakes were useless on this surface. They came to a complete stop just over a thousand feet from their touchdown point.

Fighting off a sudden wave of fatigue, Brad and Nadia methodically ran through their various checklists, verifying that all of the Ranger’s systems were shut down. Outside the cockpit windows, they could see a truck racing in their direction, carrying camouflage netting that would be draped over the XCV-62 to conceal them from aerial observation during the day. Satisfied at last, Brad unbuckled his safety harness and stretched. Beside him, Nadia did the same.

“Now we grab a bite to eat and get some shut-eye,” he said. “And then, when it’s dark, we’ll head for Romania and the Scrapheap.”

“And from there to home,” Nadia said quietly. “To Poland.”