Price of Duty

THIRTY-SEVEN

Russian president Gennadiy Gryzlov listened to Colonel Balakin’s recitation of his woes with growing impatience. Intellectually, he could understand the shock the other man felt in seeing more than three-quarters of his troops killed in a battle against just two combat robots. But it was a waste of time. War ate men and machines. That was its nature. What mattered was victory.

Finally, he snapped. “Look, I don’t give a crap about your casualties, Balakin. We’ll send their loved ones a medal and the usual bullshit letter of condolence, okay? Now, did you stop those Iron Wolf mercenaries who attacked Perun’s Aerie or not?”

“Yes, Mr. President, we destroyed both machines,” Balakin replied stiffly. “And we have a prisoner — one of the robot pilots.”

A huge smile spread across Gryzlov’s face. “Molodets! Well done, Colonel! You should have reported that first.” He spun round in his chair, crooking a finger at Sergei Tarzarov. The older man had just come into his office.

Tarzarov came forward and stood impassively in front of his desk, apparently waiting for instructions.

“Can the mercenary pilot you’ve captured be moved?” Gryzlov asked Balakin over their secure connection.

“Yes, sir,” the other man answered. “It seems this man, an American named Macomber, was only lightly wounded when Zykov’s tanks knocked out his machine. He suffered more injuries when my soldiers took him captive, but nothing too serious.” From the sound of his voice, Balakin regretted that.

“See that your prisoner stays intact, Colonel!” Gryzlov snapped. “I don’t want any slipups. I don’t care how pissed off your troops are, you keep them under control! If the American dies, I’ll have your entire command liquidated… including you. Is that clear?”

“Ya ponimayu. I understand,” Balakin said, frightened now.

Gryzlov relaxed slightly, satisfied that he’d put the other man on notice. He knew how soldiers thought. It would have been all too easy for some junior officer or noncom, enraged by the death of so many comrades, to put a bullet in this Iron Wolf pilot and claim he’d been “shot while trying to escape.” He swiveled back to his computer. “Good, Colonel. You’ve done well so far. Don’t foul up now, eh?”

“No, Mr. President,” Balakin said.

“Then listen carefully,” Gryzlov continued. “I want your prisoner at the aiport in Pechora within three hours. I’m sending an aircraft to bring him back to Moscow. Keep him safe until then. Out.”

When he hung up, he looked across the desk at Tarzarov. “I’m putting this matter in your hands, Sergei. Head for Vnukovo immediately. Take a detachment of troops from the Kremlin Regiment with you. Use my personal Sukhoi Superjet 100.” He grinned cruelly. “We might as well make sure our ‘guest’ is comfortable on his last flight, eh? But you can skip the in-flight caviar and vodka service.”

Expressionlessly, Tarzarov nodded. “Very well.” He looked back at Gryzlov. “But before I go, I should tell you that Colonel General Maksimov phoned me while you were talking to Balakin.”

Gryzlov laughed. “So the old man’s too upset to call me directly now?” His gaze sharpened. “Why? Did his precious stealth fighters muff the job of nailing that Iron Wolf transport aircraft?”

Tarzarov shook his head. “On the contrary, Colonel Baryshev and his wingman report downing an unidentified stealth aircraft in the mountains northeast of Perun’s Aerie.”

“Unidentified?” Gryzlov pounced on the qualifier.

Tarzarov shrugged. “Apparently the debris came down in very difficult terrain. Maksimov says it will take some hours before he can get a search-and-rescue helicopter to the scene to fully confirm the kill.”

“How confident are they that this was the Iron Wolf aircraft?” Gryzlov pressed.

“Maksimov told me his pilots have completed several low-level sweeps of the surrounding mountains and river valleys,” Tarzarov replied as confidently as he could, “without making any further contacts.”

Gryzlov nodded slowly. In the circumstances, the obvious answer was probably right. There was no realistic way a subsonic stealth transport should have been able to survive for long when actively hunted by two of Russia’s most advanced combat fighters. Still, there was no point in taking chances. “Contact Maksimov on your way to Vnukovo,” he said. “Tell him I want fighter and Beriev-100 air-surveillance patrols up along our borders with Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, and Finland — covering every gap in our ground radar coverage. If, by some miracle, that Iron Wolf aircraft slipped past his Su-50s, I want it detected and destroyed before it escapes our airspace.”

Engines throttled way back, the Iron Wolf XCV-62 Ranger came in low and slow, almost skimming the earth as it flew south. The lights of Pechora and a couple of small adjoining towns twinkled to the southeast and to the west. Brighter lights were visible almost dead ahead, marking the location of Pechora Airport’s nearly six-thousand-foot-long runway.

Brad McLanahan kept his eyes fixed on his HUD. He was pretty sure that the patch of waste ground he’d picked out earlier as a landing site was clear of major obstacles, but there was no way they could risk a radar sweep — even a short, single pulse — to check. One good thing was that there was a lot less snow hiding the ground this far out from the mountains.

“Gear coming down,” he said, tapping in the commands that would set the Ranger’s systems for a very short, rough-field landing. Wing-control surfaces opened wider, providing even more lift to counteract the extra drag from their landing gear. They dropped lower.

A thin belt of forest hid the lights of the airport. Brad was counting on those trees and darkness to screen their approach from any prying eyes. With all the Ranger’s stealth features, the civilian approach radar at Pechora couldn’t pick them up. There wasn’t much he could do about noise, though the XCV-62 was pretty quiet.

Still, all of Gryzlov’s closely guarded, top-secret activities around this area should have taught Pechora’s civilians the value of ignoring the sounds of mysterious aircraft flying overhead. There was an old bomber and AWACS aircraft base, Pechora Kamenka, about sixteen miles west, but it had been decommissioned and its runways and facilities were in serious disrepair. So any cargo flights bringing personnel or equipment to the Perun’s Aerie base had to be flown into the civilian airport. As an added precaution, though, Nadia was monitoring emergency channels, ready to warn him if she picked up any signs that the local authorities were sounding the alarm.

The bright green line marking his desired touchdown point appeared to slide toward them even faster as they descended. Brad’s left hand hovered over the throttles. One hundred yards. Fifty yards. Now, he thought decisively. He pulled the throttles almost all the way back in one, smooth motion.

Robbed of the last bit of airspeed keeping her aloft, the Ranger dropped out of the sky and onto the empty field. The aircraft shook and rattled, jarred roughly from side to side, as they bounded across a rough surface of frozen earth, dead grass, and isolated patches of snow and ice. Every bump hurled Brad and Nadia against their straps and then slammed them back hard into their seats. Finally, they slewed to a stop with just a few yards to spare before they would have slammed head-on into the woods lining the southern rim of the clearing.

Sweating now, Brad swung the XCV-62 back through a half circle so that they could take off fast when the time came. And then, working together with practiced efficiency, he and Nadia quickly shut down the Ranger’s engines and avionics. The frozen stillness of a winter night settled once more across the clearing.

Slowly, he breathed out. His hands were shaking slightly as they dropped back into his lap. “Jesus,” he murmured. He glanced across at Nadia. Though her face still carried its usual determined look, she was paler now. “Sorry about that,” he said softly. “That landing was a little hairier than I thought it would be.”

She forced a crooked smile. “Yes, but I am sure you will get better with practice.”

Shakily, he echoed her wry expression. “Sure hope so.”

The intercom from the troop compartment buzzed. “Are you going to drop the ramp, Brad?” Ian Schofield asked. “Because my lads and I can’t do much from in here.”

“Hang on a second, Ian,” Brad answered. He unstrapped himself. Nadia did the same. “We’re coming back to you for a quick command conference.”

Bulky in their winter camouflage and body armor, Schofield and his four commandos formed a half circle around Brad and Nadia. Their weapons and gear were securely stowed along the fuselage. The five Iron Wolf troopers were poker-faced.

“By now, you’ve probably figured that we’re not back in Poland,” Brad said quietly.

“Yeah, I thought that last little hop seemed fucking short,” Sergeant Andrew Davis growled. The big man was Schofield’s senior NCO and his second in command on this mission.

“Is there a reason you’ve disregarded Major Macomber’s last orders?” Schofield asked carefully. “Because I rather thought he was clear that we were to abort the mission and get out of Russia fast.”

“Yes, he was.” Brad nodded. He bared his teeth in a tight grin. “But as the mission pilot and air commander, I have two very good reasons for altering Whack’s orders.”

Schofield’s stony expression softened a bit. “All right, I’m listening.”

“Right now the Russian air defenses are bound to be on high alert,” Brad explained. “Even if they still believe that decoy they blew to hell was us, they won’t take any chances on being wrong. Which means they’ll have fighters aloft and patrolling every egress route. Every search radar will be energized. And every SAM unit will be ready to shoot. So bolting for the border straightaway would only end up being a fast trip to nowhere.”

The Canadian nodded slowly. “I see your point.” He frowned. “But once the Russians get a better look at the remains of that MALD, they’ll know we’re still on the loose.”

“Yep,” Brad said. He shrugged. “Which could also work in our favor. Even if Gryzlov figures out his pilots were duped, the more time that passes, the more likely he’ll believe we already made it out.”

“And the more likely the Russians will be to lower their alert level,” Nadia finished for him.

“But we can’t stay on the ground here forever,” Schofield pointed out. “Once the sun comes up, we’re likely to become something of a curiosity. I imagine even the local yokels might wonder a bit at seeing a stealth aircraft parked in one of their fields.”

“Which is why it’s a darned good thing this is the winter,” Brad agreed. He checked his watch. “Right now it’s a little after zero-one-hundred hours, local time. Dawn isn’t until zero-nine-hundred hours. Depending on our flight path, we need roughly three hours of darkness left when we take off — to minimize the chances of visual detection. So, barring something unexpected, like a Russian fighter sweep that comes too close or some fitness nut who decides to go hiking after midnight, we should be able to hang out here safely for a while.”

Schofield nodded again. His eyes narrowed. “You said you had two reasons for changing the major’s orders. I’ve heard one. What’s the second?”

“Whack’s not dead. The Russians took him prisoner after he bailed out of his CID,” Brad said flatly, dropping his bombshell. The Canadian and his men had been outside, guarding the Ranger, when Nadia intercepted the enemy transmissions reporting the news.

Davis and the other commandos swore quietly, but vehemently. Like Brad, they knew what that meant for Macomber. A clean death in combat would have been a far better fate than prolonged torture and eventual execution.

Schofield, however, kept his eyes on Brad and Nadia. “Are you seriously proposing that we try to rescue him?” he asked, in disbelief. “With five soldiers and one unarmed transport aircraft?”

“I’m suggesting that we keep our options open,” Brad countered. “Look, it’s pretty clear we walked into an ambush custom-designed to capture or destroy the CIDs and their pilots, right?”

“Yes,” the Canadian agreed bleakly.

“So that means Whack is Gryzlov’s big prize,” Brad argued. “Which is why I think it’s probable that they’ll fly him straight out of here for interrogation.” He shrugged. “Once he’s in Moscow, there’s nothing we can do. But if we see an opening here—”

“The Russians will be cocky, savoring their triumph,” Nadia added persuasively. Her eyes were angry, full of barely contained shame. “They believe we are either dead or running for our lives like whipped dogs. A sudden attempt to retrieve Major Macomber is the very last thing they will expect.”

“Surprise or not, what you’re proposing is one hell of a reach, Major Rozek,” Sergeant Davis said. He jerked his chin at the Iron Wolf commandos around him. “My guys and I are good. Real good. But we’re not fricking supermen.”

Looking pained, Schofield coughed quietly.

Davis grinned. “Well, except for the captain over there. But you’ll notice he left his cape at home.”

“No one here is invincible,” Brad acknowledged. “Major Rozek and I do have a rough plan we think might work, but this enterprise is not something I’d make an order.” He smiled wryly, looking around the half circle of tough, veteran combat soldiers. “Even if I thought I could make that kind of order stick.”

“So you’re asking for volunteers?” Schofield said softly.

“I am.” Brad nodded.

Davis shook his head. “Man, Captain, you really should have a sword like Colonel Travis. That way you could scrape a line across the deck here and dare us to step across it.”

Brad laughed. “That’d be pretty dramatic, Sergeant. But this isn’t the Alamo, where some could stay and some could go. So either everybody’s in on this… or no one’s in. There’s no margin for error.”

“Are you planning to consult with President Wilk or Mr. Martindale about this plan of yours?” Schofield asked. “Using a secure link?”

“We could,” Brad said. He shrugged. “But I’m not going to. They’d only order us out.”

“Which might be the wisest course,” Schofield said.

“Probably,” Brad agreed. He looked stubborn. “But they’re not here. And we are. The way I figure it, that makes this our call.”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” Schofield said. He sighed. “Very well, Captain McLanahan, let’s hear your plan. And then my lads and I will make our decision.”

Several minutes later, the rear ramp of the Ranger whined down. Carrying their weapons and other gear, the five members of the Iron Wolf commando team moved out into the open and then disappeared into the woods — scouting southward to find concealed positions overlooking the runway at Pechora.