The Kremlin Strike

Eight

Beyond the looming spire of the Washington Monument, the sky had turned a dark gray. Towering masses of clouds were rolling in from the south, bringing rain and predicted high winds. In the fading light, even the green, tree-covered South Lawn looked gloomy.

With a thoughtful frown, U.S. president John Dalton Farrell turned away from the Oval Office windows. After nearly six months in office, he still missed the wide-open horizons of his native Texas — especially those of the vast plains and plateaus of West Texas, where he’d made his fortune as a wildcatter in the energy industry. In the east, he felt more confined, more hemmed in, especially in crowded, bustling Washington, D.C. People here moved and talked faster, but somehow their words carried less meaning… and their dreams were narrower. The capital’s political power brokers and federal bureaucrats had long ago mastered the art of drowning new and unconventional ideas in a morass of regulatory red tape and dreary, pompous, never-ending argument.

Then he shrugged. Quit your bitching, J.D., pull on your britches and your boots, and get back to work, he told himself firmly. He’d worked his butt off to beat Stacy Anne Barbeau and park himself behind the big Oval Office desk, hadn’t he? Nobody’d ever promised him the job was going to be easy.

Besides, the American people had elected him for good reasons of their own. For one thing, they were sick of watching buttoned-down Washington insiders cozy up to favored interest groups, corporations, and government unions. Too many folks were getting rich playing inside baseball in this town. His commission from the voters was to break up the incestuous triangle of big business, big labor, and big government.

Outside of domestic politics, Farrell knew he faced challenges that were just as demanding. For four long years, Barbeau and her foreign policy team had sat idle, watching from the sidelines while the Russians ran roughshod over U.S. allies and U.S. interests abroad. She’d claimed she was saving American lives by avoiding unnecessary battles over insignificant places and peoples. Well, that had sure as shit come back to bite her in the ass when the Russians, masquerading as terrorist mercenaries, blew the hell out of civilian and military targets inside the U.S. itself last year.

The American people were sick of having sand kicked in their faces by Gennadiy Gryzlov. No one who was sane wanted to risk all-out war, but it was high time Moscow learned the rules had changed. Further aggressive moves by the Russians were going to be challenged, not ignored.

Which was why the two men who were being ushered discreetly into his office were here.

Neither former U.S. president Kevin Martindale nor retired Air Force Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan was officially part of his administration. Both had made too many political enemies — inside the United States and overseas — for that to be practical. Besides, Farrell thought, naming either of them to an official intelligence agency or Defense Department slot would be a criminal waste of talent. In recent years, both men had proved they were far more effective when operating outside regular channels. Together with the Poles and the other courageous peoples of Eastern and Central Europe, their Iron Wolf Squadron and Scion weapons and intelligence specialists had held Gennadiy Gryzlov at bay — buying time for the United States to regain its senses.

Martindale’s stylish, open-necked suit, long gray hair, and neatly trimmed gray beard gave him something of the air of an aging hipster playboy. While his shrewd, observant gaze dispelled that false impression, it was an image he often cultivated as a form of public-relations camouflage.

Unlike the former president, Patrick McLanahan could not conceal his own extraordinary nature. Critically injured years ago during a combat mission against the People’s Republic of China, he was only alive now thanks to a remarkable piece of advanced medical hardware, the LEAF, or Life Enhancing Assistive Facility. Its motor-driven, carbon-fiber-and-metal exoskeleton, life-support backpack, and clear helmet kept him alive, despite wounds that were beyond the power of modern medicine to heal.

Farrell knew he owed both men his own life. Together with Brad McLanahan, who was Patrick’s son, Nadia Rozek, and Whack Macomber, they had smashed Gryzlov’s mercenary force when the Russians came storming onto his Texas Hill Country ranch to kill him. In a just world, their heroism and self-sacrifice would have earned a long period of rest and recovery. As it was, the country needed them too much for that to happen. With Russia still on the prowl probing for weaknesses, the high-tech weapons systems, intelligence assets, and combat experience Martindale, the McLanahans, and their people brought to the table were vital to the defense of the United States. It wasn’t really fair, the president thought grimly, but then again, nobody ever said life was fair.

Getting back to business, he shook hands with the two men and waved them into chairs across from his desk. “I’m real glad you could fly all the way out here on such short notice. I surely do appreciate it.”

“Invitations to the White House aren’t exactly easy to refuse,” Martindale told him wryly.

Farrell chuckled. “No, I suppose not.” He shrugged. “I figure y’all probably realize this isn’t a social call.”

“That’s too bad, Mr. President,” Patrick said with a crooked, self-deprecating grin of his own, plainly visible through the clear visor of his LEAF helmet. His exoskeleton whirred softly as he leaned back in his chair. “Think of the tabloid headlines you could trigger: ‘President Hosts Space Alien at State Dinner.’” His expression turned more serious. “But since this little get-together is about business, what can we do for you?”

“Well, for starters, I need your take on this big-ass new rocket the Russians fired off,” Farrell said bluntly. “The one that’s ruffled so many feathers in the Pentagon and the commercial space industry. To hear some of those folks squawk, this is the second coming of Sputnik.”

“Seeing Moscow succeed at something most experts thought was outside its reach for at least another decade is naturally somewhat disconcerting,” Martindale answered, a bit stiffly now.

“Experts that included you?” Farrell guessed, with a fleeting, sidelong grin.

Reluctantly, Martindale nodded. The head of Scion prided himself on his often uncanny ability to identify threats and trends that other, lesser analysts and defense experts had missed. Finding himself roped in with the common herd was never a very welcome development. “But what worries me even more is that the Russians pulled off this space launch without any of us getting a whiff of what they were planning.”

“Our recon satellites snapped pictures of their new rocket out on the pad days before it took off,” Farrell commented. “So we did get some warning.”

“Months late,” Patrick countered. “More probably, years late.” He shook his head. “Moving this new heavy-lift Energia-5VR design from the drawing board to the launchpad must have required years of research and development, millions of man-hours, and tens of billions of dollars — involving aerospace engineering teams and factories all over the Russian Federation. With all that going on, we should have picked up solid intelligence about this program a long time ago. Instead, all we heard were a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors… none of which made it seem like the Russians were anywhere close to building a real working spacecraft.”

“Gennadiy Gryzlov is proving entirely too adept at hiding his intentions and capabilities from us,” Martindale agreed grimly. “And that is dangerous. Very dangerous.”

Privately, Farrell shared that assessment. He didn’t expect much yet from the CIA or the alphabet soup of other U.S. intelligence agencies. Under Stacy Anne Barbeau, the CIA and the rest had been thoroughly politicized. Analysts and agency heads who parroted the administration’s preferred slant on global events had been praised and promoted. Those who stubbornly insisted on seeing the world as it really was had been muzzled and shunted aside into dead-end assignments. Fixing the damage would take months, maybe even years. But learning that Martindale’s Scion intelligence-gathering teams — with their hard-earned reputation for competence — had also been caught off guard was seriously alarming.

Frowning, he looked over at Patrick. “NASA claims this new rocket is in roughly the same class as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Does that line up with what your own analysts at Sky Masters and Scion see?”

“Yes, sir,” the other man said. “In fact, we believe the Energia-5VR could be even more capable than the Falcon Heavy. Preliminary data suggest the Russian rocket may be able to put close to a hundred tons of payload into low Earth orbit, compared to around seventy tons for the Falcon.”

“A thirty percent payload advantage?” Farrell mused. “That’s a big deal.” He looked across his desk. “Sounds like SpaceX and our other commercial space companies could have some serious competition on their hands.”

Patrick disagreed. “The Energia’s boosters aren’t reusable. Gryzlov’s new space vehicle is damned big, but otherwise it’s a pretty conventional design — with significantly higher launch costs. He can’t hope to compete effectively in the commercial market… not unless Moscow is willing to dole out huge government subsidies for every launch.”

“Subsidies that friend Gennadiy won’t be able to afford for very long, even if he wanted to,” Martindale chimed in. “The fracking and oil exploration boom your market-based energy policies have unleashed is putting serious downward pressure on world oil prices. Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues, so Gryzlov must know he’s going to be facing tight budgetary constraints in the not-so-distant future.”

“And yet somehow he found the money to develop this new heavy-lift rocket of theirs, right under our noses,” Farrell pointed out.

Martindale shrugged. “In my experience, Russian leaders will gladly beggar their people to build weapons or gain a strategic advantage. But politically speaking, I don’t think even Gryzlov can risk doing the same thing just to benefit a bunch of rich Western businessmen who want to launch satellites and other cargo into space.”

Farrell nodded slowly, working through Martindale’s analysis in the light of his own experience. Gryzlov was popular with ordinary Russians because they believed he was a strong leader dedicated to national greatness. His people would make sacrifices for the sake of pride or patriotism. But if they started believing their sacrifices were only made to enrich others, especially foreigners, all bets were off. His jaw tightened. “Okay, if the Russians aren’t making a play for the commercial space launch business, then why in God’s name build a monster like this Energia rocket?”

“There are three possibilities,” Patrick offered. “First, this was just a one-off flight, a Potemkin village — like exercise to demonstrate Russia’s greatness.”

“That’s a lot of money to blow for a few television pictures and headlines,” Farrell said dubiously.

“Yes, sir,” Patrick agreed. “And I can’t see Gryzlov wasting resources that way.”

“So if this wasn’t a PR stunt—?” Farrell prompted.

“Developing a heavy-lift launch system could be a first step toward restarting Russia’s deep-space exploration program. With an added fourth stage, my best guess right now is that an Energia-5VR-class rocket could send a spacecraft with a mass of up to twenty tons into lunar orbit… or maybe even beyond.”

“Beyond lunar orbit?” Farrell said, surprised.

Patrick nodded. “Remember, those rumors we picked up earlier? The ones we couldn’t confirm? Well, a lot of them talked about something called Proyekt Marsa, the Mars Project.”

“Mars?” Farrell stared at him. “You think the Russians could be planning a manned mission to Mars?”

“Possibly,” Patrick said, with a slight shrug. “When we beat them to the moon in 1969, the Soviets took a serious propaganda hit. Gryzlov might be hoping to do the same thing to us. If the Russians send cosmonauts all the way to Mars while we’re still dicking around in low Earth orbit—”

“The U.S. would look like it couldn’t organize a pissing contest in a goddamned brewery,” Farrell finished with a grimace. Then he shook his head. “But even so, a Mars landing would still be just a PR exercise. And a hellaciously expensive one at that.”

“Not if it marked the beginning of a more permanent program of exploration and colonization,” Patrick said quietly. “One way or another, whoever controls outer space is going to end up controlling the earth.” He spread his hands. “But you’re right about the expense, sir. And I don’t see how Russia could hope to fund the kind of massive effort that would be necessary — not with its current resources.”

Martindale leaned forward. “Which brings us to the third possible interpretation of this so-called Mars Project, Mr. President. One that’s frankly much more probable, given Gennadiy Gryzlov’s track record.”

“Y’all think this could be a secret military space program,” Farrell realized.

Martindale nodded. “Mars is the god of war, after all.”

“With what objective?”

“We don’t know yet,” Patrick admitted reluctantly. “Further study of the Energia launch and, most likely, the unusual deployment of the rocket’s third stage before it deorbited and burned up over the Pacific Ocean earlier today could yield some answers. But right now we’re still working the problem.”

“Seems like the bright boys and girls who put together my daily intelligence briefings missed a few things,” Farrell muttered, jotting down a reminder to himself to light a small fire under his national security staff about that. He looked up again. “Okay, shoot. What was so odd about the behavior of the Energia’s third stage?”

“First, that third-stage burn put it into a circular orbit tilted, or inclined, at roughly fifty-one point six degrees,” Patrick told him. “That’s virtually the same orbit used by the old International Space Station and by our own Armstrong Station before the Russians destroyed it. With one big difference.”

“Which is?”

“The Energia’s third stage climbed to four hundred miles above the surface before going into orbit,” Patrick explained. “That’s approximately one hundred and fifty miles higher than the normal operating altitude for either the ISS or Armstrong.” Armstrong Space Station was America’s military space station that was attacked and brought down by Russian spaceplanes a few years earlier.

“Got it.” Farrell nodded. “So then what?”

“Based on observations from our ground-based telescopes and from satellites, the stage — which must have been basically just a big empty fuel tank by then — spent the next several orbits using thrusters to carry out a set of complex maneuvers… a wide range of different pitches, yaws, and rolls… and all of them in rapid succession.” Patrick frowned while he worked through the probabilities. “I’m confident that what we witnessed were tests of the flight control software and maneuvering thrusters needed for computer-controlled orbital rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft.”

Martindale tossed in his own two cents. “That would be my bet, too. The Russians relied pretty heavily on automated systems to fly their old Soyuz and Progress capsules to the International Space Station. The odds are they’re planning to do the same thing with a new generation of spacecraft.”

Farrell looked from one man to the other with a puzzled frown of his own. “Okay, I must be missing something here, because none of this sounds off-kilter to me. What’s so all-fired strange about the Russians testing out their spacecraft maneuvering systems?”

“Nothing in and of itself. It’s the orbital altitude for those tests that bothers me,” Patrick explained. “Reaching a four-hundred-mile-high orbit requires a longer engine burn and consumes significantly more fuel. And every pound of fuel a rocket burns is a pound less of useful payload it can take into space. Why develop a powerful new space launch system like the Energia and then essentially end up devoting a sizable fraction of its payload capacity to extra fuel?”

“It sure sounds mighty inefficient,” Farrell said.

Patrick nodded. “It is inefficient. Which means the Russians have some compelling reason for practicing routine spacecraft maneuvers that far above the surface.” His exoskeleton whirred softly as he shrugged his shoulders again, in frustration this time. “But I just can’t put my finger on it. At least not yet.”

“This could be a defensive move,” Martindale reasoned out slowly. “Four hundred miles is beyond the effective range of our mobile Standard SM-3 antiballistic and antisatellite missiles, right? And while our ground-based missile defense interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Fort Drum in New York can boost that high, they’re optimized to engage targets coming in at suborbital speeds and on very different trajectories. Maybe Gryzlov wants to be sure we can’t easily shoot down whatever spacecraft he’s planning to send up.”

“Maybe so,” Patrick agreed. His mouth twisted in anger. “But by the same token, that orbit is also safe from Russia’s own S-500 SAMs and those MiG-31-lofted Wasp missiles he used to knock Armstrong Station out of the sky five years ago.” He exhaled sharply. “Considering what we owe him, that son of a bitch is probably right to be running scared.”

“What about the spaceplanes Sky Masters is reactivating on my orders?” Farrell asked suddenly. “Could the Russians see them as a threat? What’s their effective operational ceiling?”

Patrick stared at him for a long moment. Through the clear LEAF helmet, his face showed first stunned realization and then chagrin. “I think you just scored a bull’s-eye, Mr. President,” he said slowly. “Four hundred miles up is right on the outer edge of the orbits we can maneuver into with our S-planes… at least in their current configuration.” Looking even more concerned now, he shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s an accident. Whatever Gryzlov has planned, he’s making sure we can’t interfere.”